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What is the benefit of taking unit champions? I have been playing around with my WoC and VC armies. I keep running into the same realization. I spend points on a unit champion to fill out the command and only gain an extra attack. The only exceptions that I see are VC Grave Guard where the champion has LD 8 vice a 6 and VC Cairn wraiths where adding a banshee loses 2 attacks and -2 st w/o great weapon. So why should I waste points on a full command group when a standard and musician are worth their points and the champion just adds (or takes away in the banshee's case) attacks?

Well, I like the extra attack, but really the only reason I would spend 10 more points on a champion would be if I had a character in that unit, and I didn't want my expensive character to get munched in a challenge against say a Bloodthirster, so I feed him my champion so he doesn't rape the rest of my unit or my lord/bsb/wizard.

I use champions to challenge enemy units so enemy characters won't kill off my rank and file troops and thus reduce my ranks.

Without a champion you could lose a lot of troops to a tooled up lord. Also the overkill rule helps to reduce the potential CR.

As long as there are Vampires with bonus attacks for each wound they cause and lords on dragons and similar stuff a champion is still useful.

For several armies, there's pretty much only three reasons:

1) Point Filler. Speaks for itself.
2) Challenge Taker. This guy takes a challenge / declares one to save a Hero from either being smacked in combat (See: Scar Vet was lined up to pummel your Mage into the dirt), to tie up an enemy death-machine (See: Grimgor / Dragon-mounted characters), or to keep your own death-machine (See: Grimgor once again) from getting tied up.
3) Significant stat improvement. For many units, you only get +1 BS or +1 A. Some armies, however, get better buffs. For example, an Orc Boyz unit's champion pays three (vanilla) boyz's cost with their Champion... but he gains +1 WS, +1S, AND +1 A. Or, in many cases: either +1 to hit or -1 to be hit, +1 to rolls to wound, -1 to enemy armor saves, and the additional attack as well.

For most armies, Champions mostly do #1 or #2. Predominantly, it's #2 as it's very rare for you to have that few models left over that you can't fit someone else in.

Duke makes a good point. If you challenge out a bloodthirster or other big nasty type, you can essentially buy yourself an extra round of being steadfast.

This is even better against things with a split profile- where you might even win combat. If a dragon rider charges and I challenge with an ironbreaker champ, the first swings are from the rider. If everything goes perfectly (say misses once, fails to wound once, I make an armor or ward, one gets through), the champ is only barely killed by the rider, the dragon loses his attacks because there's nothing to fight, and then the character loses the combat (+1 charging, +1 wound vs. +3 ranks, +1 banner).

Obviously that's the ideal, but the real point here is that you can blunt the charge of a big sucker by sacrificing a champion.

RZ

All very good points. Thank you all for your replies and time. I appreciate the advice and I can see the usefulness of only one attack along with the challenge taker/maker ability. I always forgot about that tidbit even in the middle of fighting.

Its also good for wound allocation if a character is in a unit. I'd rather a unit champion get hit by shooting/magic with randomized hits than a character die.

All very good points made so far. Some I didn't even think of.

But, for WoC, I would think Champions would also have the added benefit of possibly getting rolls on the Eyes of the Gods chart, which could boost him up to character stats in a few wins. Not sure if it'll work most of the time, but when it does, he'll make up his points from that alone.

WoC unit champions, while able to challenge, cannot roll on the eye of the gods table. The army book makes that clear.

Well, in 40k...

I don't use them either. They're a point sink, IMO. In most cases...

tuathal1 wrote:WoC unit champions, while able to challenge, cannot roll on the eye of the gods table. The army book makes that clear.

Unless a warshrine is on the table... right?

Pg. 58 of the army book states the full "Giver of Glory" rule. The shrine can only target one unit during the shooting phase. It can continue targeting that unit or target another and the previous unit loses it effects.

tuathal1 wrote:Pg. 58 of the army book states the full "Giver of Glory" rule. The shrine can only target one unit during the shooting phase. It can continue targeting that unit or target another and the previous unit loses it effects.

when the shrine is on the table all champions have the eye of the gods special rule

Good points above, but the champion really was of value the previous editions of WHFB, when only the front rank could attack, and thus the extra attack was truly beneficial, as dead models don't strike back..

In 8th ed it is a different case...most definitely the value/use of the champion is already stated by the different posters, but is it worth the amount of points in the army books now? I think not...maybe we shall see a different point cost for champions now in the up and coming 8th ed army books, as for me even a musician is worth at least equal, if not more, than a unit champion...

freddieyu1 wrote:Good points above, but the champion really was of value the previous editions of WHFB, when only the front rank could attack, and thus the extra attack was truly beneficial, as dead models don't strike back..

In 8th ed it is a different case...most definitely the value/use of the champion is already stated by the different posters, but is it worth the amount of points in the army books now? I think not...maybe we shall see a different point cost for champions now in the up and coming 8th ed army books, as for me even a musician is worth at least equal, if not more, than a unit champion...

I get what you hear. Though I guess it varies unit by unit. Army by army. I mean half-horns for ungor raiders are pretty pointless with their statlines and tiny unit size. I'm sure theres similar out there.

Red_Zeke wrote:Duke makes a good point. If you challenge out a bloodthirster or other big nasty type, you can essentially buy yourself an extra round of being steadfast.

This is even better against things with a split profile- where you might even win combat. If a dragon rider charges and I challenge with an ironbreaker champ, the first swings are from the rider. If everything goes perfectly (say misses once, fails to wound once, I make an armor or ward, one gets through), the champ is only barely killed by the rider, the dragon loses his attacks because there's nothing to fight, and then the character loses the combat (+1 charging, +1 wound vs. +3 ranks, +1 banner).

Obviously that's the ideal, but the real point here is that you can blunt the charge of a big sucker by sacrificing a champion.

RZ

Wouldn't the dragon still get to attack, for the wounds it causes (even though the champion is already dead) to count towards overkill? I thought this was the case with things like stomp / thunderstomp in a challenge as well- they still happen to count towards overkill, even if the model is already killed with regular attacks.