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I have built 20 spearmen, and they're pretty difficult to fit all together in a block. But I can work around that. I have 20 State Troopers left to build, and I'm not sure if I should build them (as a GW guy down at my FLGS suggested) as 20 more spearmen and put all 40 into a Horde formation for four ranks of attacks. While this sounds good, I'm wondering if the unit would be vulnerable to flank charges and in reality wouldn't get all forty attacks off, considering most other units are run in less-than-ten-guys files.

I was thinking about simply putting the 20 Spearmen into ranks of 5 of four maybe and building Swordsmen or Halberdiers. What do you guys suggest, as I'm quite lost and don't know the combat viability of anything!


Cheers!

25-30, they are going to die in droves so plan on losing some. I would add a Detachment of 10 Handgunners or Crossbowmen. If you also want a detachment of Free Company then run the Spearmen at 30 and run a Detachment of 15 Free Company.

IMHO...

Spearmen in a horde sounds better on paper than it performs on the real world tabletop. Between enemy formations being narrower than yours and the losses you'll take before you get to attack (you are aware of the empire special rule "nearly always strikes last"?), you won't get the glorious number of attacks that you imagine you will.

Personally, I don't think spears are the best unit to horde up... I'd rather attack with three ranks of halberds than four ranks of spears. Better yet, horde formation or not, the armor save, initiative, and weapons skill of swordsmen make them well worth the 20% points premium.

So should I go for another 10 Spearmen, then make a squad of 10 Swordsmen that I can buff up with another box of Empire State troopers?

In my opinion: Swordsmen > Halbediers > Spearmen

If you need something to help with armor, take the General of the Empire and give a unit the AP banner.

I think I'm going to make 20 Swordsmen then, and try the two squads out and see what I prefer. I'm trying to make all these judgements on a game I haven't played before!

Thanks for the help, everyone.

EDIT: Should it be 20 Swordsmen in a unit, or 2 squads of 10?

Infantry units that aren't particularly killy exist to de-steadfast your opponent and to provide some static resolution. It has to be said though that static resolution as a concept isn't as important as it was before because all units cause more kills than before and outnumbering no longer grants a point of CR. Therefore the Empire State Troops should come in units no smaller than 35 but probably no more than 50. The unit being larger than 30 doesn't mean it intends to go to horde formation in all scenarios. Often it will rank up deep to negate your opponent the stubborn break tests and/or just combat-reform to horde formation after the first rounds of close combat if it would be advantageous to do so. Even when it does find opponents that it should start in horde formation against, it should have 10+ ablative wounds against high initiative swingers to make sure it gets the full 30 attacks back.

In hoard formation each casualty will cost you an attack. Add in the fact that your attacks are terrible and it isnt worth it.

Therion hit it. Empire state troops of any variety should be fielded 30-40 strong ranking deep. They are there to hold up/deny steadfast to enemy units.

Its "horde".

Making hard and fast rules about what formations units should be in is counter-productive. Not only can you reform in many instances during the course of a battle, but you can gain plenty of information about how the battle will be fought prior to deployment.

If your opponent shares his army list with you, and it contains entirely MSU units with one or two ranks max, then there isn't really a disadvantage to being wide and thin. You'll still be steadfast for plenty of time, and you'll get more attacks in to your opponent during that time.

I think 20 strong units of models that cost less than 10 points is too small. It won't be steadfast for long enough, it won't ever win anything, so its unlikely to be useful except against the smallest of enemy units. It is a functional spear unit however, with a second formation option. It can be 7x3 to be more aggressive.

that doesn't mean that you have to jump right to 40 either. 25 is the sweet spot I think for spearmen. 25 has a third reforming option, extending its usefulness. It can be 5x5 for that nearly guaranteed maximum static combat resolution, you can run a 'fake horde' by being 8x3 but now you can hedge your bets by being 6x4 as well.

For example, if it is clear that the only thing that will ever attack your spears would be a unit of skirmishers or fast cavalry, then you know that your unit is guaranteed steadfast until it is lowered to its last 4 models. Skirmishers are counted as having zero ranks, so 5 models of your own would be considered one rank and therefore qualify you for stubborn. Likewise as long as you eventually kill one cavalry model, a formerly 5 man unit will have zero ranks.

Spears and horde don't really mix that well, because you have to jump from 25 to 40 to unlock horde functionality.

When you get to the 40 man unit, you have started to move away from flexibility again. To me, 40 kinda says, "I'm looking to horde up, unless you give me a really good reason to turtle up to 5x8." It still does have some flexibility, but I think the price point starts to drift a little to the fat side there. I think its a usable size for 5 point or cheaper models. (I prefer shields on my spears, because halberds have better value for the flat 5 points, and can use the horde bonus at 30 models.)

So although it wasn't an option, I am going to vote for 25. Don't get it in your head that they have a 'default' formation. You are buying 25 so that you have three different units at your disposal. Pure tar pit (5x5), cautious light infantry killer (6x4) and skirmisher killer (8x3). Always know the math, so that you aren't caught being too conservative or too aggressive.

So I would build 5 more spearmen and then build a combat detachment of either 15 halberdiers or 15 swordsmen. Halberdiers will add more active combat resolution to a fight, but will more quickly be reduced to a size where they can't disrupt enemy units. Swordsmen will kill probably nothing, but will be noticeably more difficult to reduce to 9, and therefore are better at disruption. Disruption is only useful sometimes, wounds are useful all the time. And the halberdiers save you 15 points. It is a really close call in my opinion, and worthy of its own discussion thread.

Hope that was helpful.

Shep wrote:Its "horde"...

Shep, that was a brilliant post, thanks! It helped a lot, but I've invested in my swordsmen now (Fantasy models are so fun to build!) So I'll have my swordsmen as a wee detachment just to irritate the enemy. I'll be playing mostly fun games amongst friends, so it's not life or death!

Swordsmen will serve you just fine as a detachment... so you are all good... should your life ever be on the line

I was just wondering, should I bother with a full command for my detachment of Swordsmen?

detachments can't take command

I would never horde any infantry of any type, except maybe chaos warriors, muahahaha...but only for the laughs really.

on an unrelated topic, EvilEggCracker, your .gif signature kills my ADD.

infamousxiii wrote:I would never horde any infantry of any type, except maybe chaos warriors, muahahaha...but only for the laughs really.

on an unrelated topic, EvilEggCracker, your .gif signature kills my ADD.

Yeah, I love the adblock plus add-on for Firefox. I never have to see that sig again!

As for the original topic.

Spearmen are for having rank bonus and surviving, not killing stuff. The point of them is to have the least spearmen die as possible while still holding the enemy in place and negating his ranks. If it's twice as wide, that's twice as many people you might be losing each turn from a wide enemy.

I'd use Hordes for super killy troopers that do so much damage that their static combat resolution isn't as important. For Dark Elves, that might be something like a Witch Elf, Executioner, etc. For Empire, I think they might just use Detachment flank charges or whatever, not horde.