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I've been assembling my clanrats and I've been wondering what would be the best weapons for them. I plan on giving them all shields either way. Do people usually find spears or hand weapons to be the most effective?

Hand weapons do to have the advantage of being cheaper. I also have to wonder how many rounds combat clanrats usually last with their weaker stats.

On the other hand, if they get charged, spears to allow a second rank to fight. They do cost more, but the cost is still tiny.

So, what do most people find to be the most effective weapon to put in their furry, angry, little hand?

Spears are for huge units.

Are Clanrats huge units? Then go with spears. A big unit has a lot of attacks, and you don't want to waste them.

Clanrats are for rank bonus.

Ws 3 + St 3 + Lt armour infantry- give shield and HW for a 4+AS.

Cheaper, and (in almost all cases) more effective.

The caveat to that is will you be camping or attacking.

If you want to take the charge- spears.
If you will be charging HW/Sh

The clanrat units I've been running are in 25 rat blocks. They're 5x5 so the front is five wide. Do people tend to use a larger front? I worry with having so many unit of rats/slaves/etc. of getting overcrowded. How wide are most people's clanrats and what weapons do they give them?

I'd say that clanrats are a unit where you have the minimum frontage to avoid being engaged by larger numbers of better troops. Though of course 5 wide is still wide enough to be engaged by six cavalry width units.

Unless you are taking a screaming bell.

50 unbreakable clanrats, 5 wide on each side and sweep the enemy forward.

I agree that plague monks with the furnace will work better but if you want the ball, I think clanrats are best pushing it (stormvermin get pretty expensive).

I'm going with Spears for my Clanrats. Remember you don't have to use them in combat. They can be dropped to the ground and your rats can cower behind the hand weapon and shield bonus instead. Ordinarily there is a points sacrifice for this versatility, but at 1/2 point per model, this is kind of negligible.

While a half point is almost nothing it adds up.

There only situation where spears are better is when facing str 6 opponents with low numbers of attacks.

In all other situations you will want the 4+ AS in combat to preserve your rank bonus and negate as many rat-deaths as possible. Rats are for hanging tight until you break the enemy through flank charges. Even with spears they will kill dam near nobody.

Cypher is exactly right. I just participated in a charity 1000pt tourney with nothing but a ton of rats and some plague monks, and I went 5-0 just by taking the charge on my shield bearers, or luring the enemy in with slaves, and hitting the enemy with a front and side hit...I was winning combats by 3-4 just through static res....the only game that took more than 3 turns to win was against a daemon army of Nurgle...that was like hitting a brick wall...two units of 15 PB with heralds...nasty banner of posion doubling CR and so forth was really, really bad. I was able to scrape a win with a lucky kill on the herald to stop the regen...

side note...most histerical moment of the tournament was a clanrat Clawleader killing Skulltaker in a challenge..two hits (!!) two wounds...two failed armor/ward saves...I had withered him and his unit previously bear in mind, but damn that was awesome.