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Doing that requires prep, though. You have to make sure you have enough space between units. If you have enough units in close support, you may not have enough room for one of them to double in frontage.

Bear with me as I am still coming to grips with this tactic. Why would the swordmasters stay in a single rank? Would I really expect my swordmasters to kill enough dwarfs that their static combat resolution plus 18 attacks back to win the combat? Why wouldn't I just go to a single model and negate the number of attacks coming my way? I guess 9 attacks back still might hurt the swordmasters, but I would think they would at least last another turn. I think the big change is the possible reforming of the units and all the models getting to attack back. Those seem to be huge game changers to me. Granted I still only have one practice turn under my belt for 8th, so no experience here.

Placing units in single file is a huge mistake. You will lose heavily and break and run for no gains without stubborn.

cypher wrote:Placing units in single file is a huge mistake. You will lose heavily and break and run for no gains without stubborn.

Sorry more questions.
1) Why would they be stubborn? I understand the Dwarfs having steadfast with more ranks (4ranks 10wide). I am assuming the swordmasters are 1rank at 6 wide for my example.
2) I haven't done any mathhammer, but I would think the dwarfs' 24 attacks back would cause enough wounds to wipe out the swordmasters. Maybe not I was assuming (again) about 1/3 casualties.
3) If they were in a line that would only give the dwarfs 9 attacks or 3 dead elves. The swordmasters still lose but at least they get a chance to roll.
I can understand if your unit of swordmasters is 3x6, but if they are only one rank and might lose everyone in one round, then why not. Anyway, can someone clear this up for me a little more?
Thanks.

boogeyman wrote:1) Why would they be stubborn? I understand the Dwarfs having steadfast with more ranks (4ranks 10wide). I am assuming the swordmasters are 1rank at 6 wide for my example.

You need more 'complete' ranks than the opponent to be stubborn. High elves would have zero.

boogeyman wrote:2) I haven't done any mathhammer, but I would think the dwarfs' 24 attacks back would cause enough wounds to wipe out the swordmasters. Maybe not I was assuming (again) about 1/3 casualties.

24 swings, 12 hits, 6 wounds, 4 unsaved. 10 swordmasters fighting six wide would get 16 swings, 14.42 hits, 9.49 wounds, which is 6.33 dead dwarves. They win the combat handily, even removing one rank. But the dwarves would still have three complete ranks whereas the high elves would have none. This dooms the high elves to being tar pitted and ground to nothing.

boogeyman wrote:3) If they were in a line that would only give the dwarfs 9 attacks or 3 dead elves. The swordmasters still lose but at least they get a chance to roll.

The high elves would lose badly. They'd have 3 attacks with re-rolls hitting three times, wounding 2 times, killing between 1-2 dwarves after their armor save and parry save. The dwarves would get three ranks of three for 9 attacks, 4.5 hits, 2.25 wounds killing between 1-2 high elves. The high elves would not have any ranks, the dwarves would have 3 still, the high elves would lose by 2, and would be likely to break and flee, coughing up 25 vp for the banner and having a 50/50 chance of being caught and run down.


Actually the worst differential the high elves generate in this situation would be 5 wide. Attacking 15 times, hitting 13.35 times, wounding 8.9 times and killing 6 dwarves. They would take 21 attacks back, 10.5 hit, 5.25 wound 3.5 die. Thats a 2.5 differential. If the high elf swordmasters eschew the rank entirely and go 10 wide they get the best wound differential. They get 20 attacks, 17.8 hits, 11.8 wounds for 8 dead dwarves. The dwarves would then attack 30 times, 15 hits, 7.5 wounds for 5 dead swordmasters. Swordmasters who aren't going to have more ranks than a unit they are fighting should expand their frontage to the maximum width, because they lose attacks if models fight from the second rank.

Its all moot. 8th edition has fixed what was broken. A 150 point high elf swordmaster unit can't break a 360 point dwarf warrior unit without tremendous luck. And to me, that sounds just about right. If you want to spend 300 on those swordmasters, then you are right back to busting through those dwarves... seems like the points justify the survivability nowadays.

Thanks. I was way off on my assumptions. I also agree with your points justify the survivability.

You need more 'complete' ranks than the opponent to be stubborn. High elves would have zero.

Actually this is not quite correct. The first rank counts in the context of this discussion, so a unit with 5 models counts as having one "rank" (note: not "rank bonus" because it doesn't apply to combat res.

On the main issue, I don't think it's a total waste of ink. However, I agree with what most posters have said: units cheap enough to take in a horde are usually not good enough to take advantage of the horde rules. A couple of exceptions have been mentioned (marauders, fex). I'll add a few more: empire greatswords. 40 of them cost 400 points, which is a substantial investment, but they are always stubborn (so they don't mind missing out on the steadfast rule), and hit at s5 ws4. not only that, a priest can be added to give them hatred, meaning that 75% of those attacks will hit even at equal or higher WS. 22 s5 hits (or 14 s5 hits on a standard 5-wide infantry unit) is something nobody can laugh at, not even (for example) blood knights.

It's a situational rule, like all good rules. Basically needs great weapons, halberds, or (in a pinch) flails to get the most out of it.

I think one point that's being ignored here is that by passing a leadership test (which you can re-roll if your BSB is nearby), you can reform if you have a musician. If you took a horde and you're really concerned about not being steadfast, just pass one and reform into a 6-wide block rather than 10 wide. You should still have more ranks than almost anything.

I'm tempted to do 40-50 man units of marauders or chaos warriors for my WoC army. I'm not sure how effective they'll be in competitive play, but man oh man there will be such brutal warfare going on every time I get them into combat. Add a mark of khorne and even if I lose the combat, at least I'll go down swinging... a lot...

I put 40, 25mm bases together to see how big the unit would look and it's pretty large. Surprisingly not that much larger than the same block of 20mm bases. With forests no longer slowing units down most of the time, these giant blocks won't be as hard to maneuver as they would in 7th. I am kind of worried about things like buildings that could get me stuck though...

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I challenge someone to do a horde unit of 50 dwarf slayers.... acctualy I have 100 of the buggers from my slayer cult army. 1 unit, 25 wide, 4 ranks.... JOY!

I wish we could.

Dwarf Slayers are 5-30 max.

last night i used a 40 strong unit of gors with hand weapon/shield + a wargor with scaly skin/heavy armor/shield and the +1 str banner +2 level 2 shamans with the lore of beasts. cast the signature spell on them twice, and they were charged by 25 black orcs with a goblin hero + gorbag and 9 boarboyz. passed my primal fury test.

result:

-i lost 3 gors to gorbag (t6 and parry ftw).
-my wargor challenged and killed the goblin hero and took a wound from some bauble when i killed him but saved it. only 2 wounds though, no overkill.
-my gors killed all the boarboyz.
-my gors killed 8 black orcs.
-black orcs killed 3 gors.

the black orcs broke and ran and gorbag rerolled into snake eyes to stay (and was promptly killed in the next turn).

if you can get someone to charge you with multiple units into a buffed unit, you can bring the heat, but i think canny opponents will charge your big unwieldly units with smaller elite units and deny you lots of attacks.

personally i love the bigass gor unit as long as it has the appropriate buffs goin on :p

I think unbreakable units as a horde will be tough nuts to crack, as will large skeleton units with spears from VC and Tks (zombies are just too woeful).

Tomb Kings are bound at 40 max. Which really doesn't take advantage of the horde rule as much as I'd like.

I've heard there's no cap on ranks beyond 3. Can someone confirm? If not 8 ranks of 5 is >>>>>> than 4 ranks of 10.... always.

There is a cap to ranks. However, if you have more ranks than the enemy when you lose a combat, you have stubborn. That's... entirely worthless for Undead.

7 more ws 2 str 3 attacks are only worth a tiny bit more more.

This change to fear should bring the average cost of a skeleton down by 2 or 3 points per model.

Seriously. They are goblins with a slower movement who never run away.

I'm thinking it is useful for certain units. Skink cohorts with Kroxigor get better, because a large unit will have stubborn, so you gain no advantage mauling the skinks, and they can stand and shoot with 24 poisoned javelin shots before your charge.

Ragnar4 wrote:Seriously. They are goblins with a slower movement who never run away.

It's the 'never run away' part that you are paying so much more for. That and lack of animosity...

Vulcan wrote:

Ragnar4 wrote:Seriously. They are goblins with a slower movement who never run away.

It's the 'never run away' part that you are paying so much more for. That and lack of animosity...

Disagree, in 7th and 6th.. the inflated points costs were justified by the autobreak from fear mechanic. The rest was just gravy.

I'll bet never run away is only worth 1 to 1.5 Points per model

Meanhile I'll bet that autobreak from fear was 3-4 PPM.

A local VC player has had a good bit of luck with a kind of expensive horde.

He runs a horde of, I think, 30 Grave Guard complete with a base Vampire, and a Wight King BSB, and the regeneration banner. With judicious use of Vanhel's and Summon Undead Horde, the unit throws out some hurt and is really hard to get rid of.

I've watched him play a half dozen games with it, and it's only been killed once (a seriously nasty combo of spells from a WoC player casting a spell that reduces toughness followed by another spell that requires toughness tests or die). But, even in that game, it wasn't until the last turn or two before the GG unit died, and they had killed at least four other units during the game.

The original post exaggerates some things which distort the issue completely.

There isn't a penalty for "losing" attacks as a horde because a few models on the side can't attack.

A horde automatically gives you more attacks in that round of combat than you could ever get with any other formation.

If a horde charges a 5-wide unit, 21 of the models in the horde get to strike, and 10 of the models in the non-horde get to strike. It's outrageous anyone would say "well, sure the horde just got twice as many attacks... BUT HE DIDN'T GET THREE TIMES AS MANY!"

For a hammer-and-anvil tactic to work, it Requires combat-winning power able to be delivered on the next turn.

The horde gets twice as many attacks as the anvil does, therefore massive combat res. bonus and anvil taking massive casualties (less rank bonus, gets outnumbered, etc.) A weak flank attack would probably just be draw-ish.

And if the horde person can move another unit up next to his fighting horde, then flank attack is impossible and the horde wins.

10x3 or 5x6 is the same # of models. A non-horde unit did not save any points there.

If he skims it to 5x4 to pay for a tiny flanking unit, then he's no longer stubborn because those 21 attacks will probably knock him down to 2-3 ranks instead of 4. Thus not having more than the horde.

Three set-ups
1) Horde. ACR from kills. They can actually do damage to things, they're just not automatically stubborn. Not expensive.
2) Deep. SCR only. They don't really do damage, but they likely won't run away on the first turn. Not expensive.
3) Deep Horde. ACR from kills and SCR from # of guys. Expensive.

None of those 3 options is automatically superior.

A deep unit will probably automatically lose to a wide-unit 1v1 because the horde doesn't lose combat because the kills.

A wide-only unit charged by some combat deathstar of super knights or something breaks and runs away easier.

A deep-and-wide unit costs as much as two other units, so it's at risk of being charged in the sides or rear.

I'm think Stormvermin will work quite well as a horde (though currently don't have enough of them, so haven't fielded it yet). 21 WS4 S4 attacks isn't bad for a 320pt unit (i.e. 40 stormvermin with shields to give them a bit of survivability) IMO. Works even better if you make them Queek's bodyguard, but then the same unit will cost 480 pts.