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So I've been looking over The Empire recently, which I never have before and have been introduced to the detachment system. Upon initial inspection, I feel that playing one unit as melee and then another as ranged is primarily how I should want to play this, how do you guys feel?

I'm also troubled as to which way round I want to have the Parent and Attachment. I've been more inclined to play 24 Halberdiers with Full Command with an Attachment of 12 Handgunners. Does this appear a wise idea or should it be the other way around?

I normaly run 30/40 halberdiers and then a detatchment of gunners so they can stand and shoot.

The detachment has to be half the size of the parents unit so the other way round doesnt really work unless you want a 25man unit of gunners with 12 halberdiers.

My mistake i was told wrong checked myself =).

These days I feel BS based shooting does not hack it as much unlike in previous editions..hence I tend to go all melee with detachments, and save the points from missile troops for another war machine....




Automatically Appended Next Post:

bennyboy6189 wrote:I normaly run 30/40 halberdiers and then a detatchment of gunners so they can stand and shoot which now adds to combat resolution, it works really well.

The detachment has to be half the size of the parents unit so the other way round doesnt really work unless you want a 25man unit of gunners with 12 halberdiers.

Where does it say that support fire kills add to combat resolution? It never did and I can't find the reference for it...if you could tell us where this is mentioned then that would be a serious point to take missile detachments again..

Thanks!!!

I couldn't find any reference to support fire adding to combat resolution.

I prefer to have Halberdiers or Swordsman as detachments due to the extra strength and initiative respectively.

Free company are good too.

burning_phoneix wrote:I couldn't find any reference to support fire adding to combat resolution.

I prefer to have Halberdiers or Swordsman as detachments due to the extra strength and initiative respectively.

Free company are good too.

Halberds are faster than swords?

kenshin620 wrote:

burning_phoneix wrote:I couldn't find any reference to support fire adding to combat resolution.

I prefer to have Halberdiers or Swordsman as detachments due to the extra strength and initiative respectively.

Free company are good too.

Halberds are faster than swords?

No. Halberds have Init 3 while swordsman have init 4.

Halberds give +1 strength.

burning_phoneix wrote:

kenshin620 wrote:

burning_phoneix wrote:I couldn't find any reference to support fire adding to combat resolution.

I prefer to have Halberdiers or Swordsman as detachments due to the extra strength and initiative respectively.

Free company are good too.

Halberds are faster than swords?

No. Halberds have Init 3 while swordsman have init 4.

Halberds give +1 strength.

DOH

Once again I fail at reading

I thought you said Halberds OVER Swords. then I read initiative

I need to stop staying up so late

Gavrock wrote:So I've been looking over The Empire recently, which I never have before and have been introduced to the detachment system. Upon initial inspection, I feel that playing one unit as melee and then another as ranged is primarily how I should want to play this, how do you guys feel?

I'm also troubled as to which way round I want to have the Parent and Attachment. I've been more inclined to play 24 Halberdiers with Full Command with an Attachment of 12 Handgunners. Does this appear a wise idea or should it be the other way around?

It really depends on how you want to play your parent unit. If you plan on being agressive with it, then it's more benficial to run HtH detatchements. This will let you (with a big enough detatchment) cause disruption and deny rank bonus to combat resolution with the detatchment, plus it'll give you more attacks. A ranged detachment really only shines when it can supporting fire, which it can't do if you are charging with your parents unit. I wouldn't run a ranged unit as a parent if you're going to play it aggresivly. In my army, I run a 40 or 50 man block of halberdiers, with a detachment of 15 swordsmen, which I usually play rather agressivly with. This lets me have my steadfast (and horde!) along with the supporting charge detachment of swordsmen, who disrupt the enemy rank bonus (10 attacks at WS 4 never hurt either). It's been working out well for me.

If you're running the parent unit more defensively, use a ranged detachment (assuming you're only using one). This will allow the detatchment to stand and shoot (where ranged detatchments really shine) the unit assualting its parent unit. I'm pretty sure those wounds don't count towards combat resolution directly, but you are causing casulties before combat and possibly a panic check. I'd suggest if you are playing mroe defensively with your parent unit, you run one detachment of hangunners (higher strength and shoots are AP) and one detatchment of a HtH unit. This will let you get the supporting fire and counter charge with the detachments, which should help deny a lot of combat resolution to your opponent. You could use either ranged or HtH as a parent here, it's more just up to preference at that point (I prefer ranged here though, I like lots of stand and shoot).

So back to your original question, yes, 24 halberdiers with a 12 man detachment of handgunners will work well if you're playing them defensively. I would strongly suggest making the halberdiers larger though, it'll make them harder to kill.

I am running ~40 Halberdiers with ~15 Swordsmen right now. The former hit hard and are good either wide or deep, depending on if you need hits or stubborn. The latter survive a long while, with a 5+/6+. I think adding Handgunners works if you play defensively with your Core choices, which I do not. I prefer to be mobile, so I stray from them. Nevertheless, they are a solid choice if you plan on being a bit more static.