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So, we've had a little while for 8th Edition to bed in now, so I feel it's time to discuss the relative merits of the Horde mechanic.

What I want is not just your experience to date, but you predictions etc for the next year or so of Fantasy gaming.

Now I play several armies, but my current baby are my Ogres, which I play at 3,000. Thus far, the Bull Horde has worked pretty well for me. Now an obvious downside to this particular unit is it's high points cost. Once I've stuck in the Tyrant and the Slaughtermaster, it weighs in around 1,200. Whilst a daunting prospect for pretty much all armies, if I lose this unit I pretty much lose the game. Out of my 12 games to date, this has only happened twice, the rest of the time it's sheer size and hitting power has seen it dish out more than it gets!

So a quick overview there of the Monstrous Horde. Time to hit a little more depth. This particular unit (16 Bulls, 2 Characters) can soon soup itself up using Gut Magic, and is swift enough to always make combat before enemy shooting knackers it completely. And in combat, it usually dishes out a pretty comprehensive thrashing of the enemy, with the '3 wounds to reduce attacks' paying real dividends, even if my armour is something of a let down. Now the few times it's been slapped around like a Redheaded Stepchild do give me pause for thought. Suitably augmented units attacking in cohesion are a constant headache. For instance, they once got flanked by Witch Elves, which then had Okkams Mindrazor cast on them. It was like a Lawnmower over a Gopher. Not pretty, but fun all the same! Having said that though, for all the 'ganging up' sees it off quickly, not only does this typically require a more than points match of enemy units, but is surprisingly hard to achieve, as my opponent needs to catch me napping thanks to the speed of the unit (remember, I can make combat 3rd round pretty much guaranteed, 2nd if I'm lucky!) but also, any unit sent out to slow me down generally gets well and truly minced in the first round of combat, letting me pursue or overrun my way out of trouble. Naturally, this means that even with my ridiculous number of decent strength attacks, Unbreakable units are my achilles heel, let alone when I come up against more than one of them (sodding Empire!)

Thusly, I can see myself fielding the Horde for some time to come (especially as I have now assembled a second horde, this time of Ironguts) as right now the benefits outweight it's drawbacks. My opponents might start to challenge it with better builds before long, but I remain confident it can punch it's weight, and often above!

As you can see, I remain favourable of Monstrous Hordes, but that's it for my personal experience. Now over to you guys!

I find the horde formation to be pretty interesting, but it really depends on the composition of the unit itself.

I have seen hordes of Witch Elves doing really well, especially when supported by a Cauldron to give them a ward save or bonus attacks.

I've also seen a very effective horde of Grave Guard. The unit has the Banner of the Barrows for the +1 to hit, and is accompanied by a BSB with the regeneration banner. The sheer size of the horde ensures that the number regen roles you make during the course of the game really pays for the cost of the banner; the combination of size + banner + invocations gives it a lot of survivability. Also, if you give them great weapons and support with a bunkered Vamp Lord with Helm of Commandment, you end up with a unit that hits most everything on 2+ and wounds most everything on 2+.

It's expensive, and far from uncounterable, but it's an absolute lawnmower when it gets into close combat.

The horde is here to stay. 8th ed places an emphasis on mass destruction & the horde is the best way for non-elite units to inflict casualties.

There was a lot of discussion about steadfast units, but I've yet to see anyone field units 6-8 ranks deep to maintain steadfast.

The nastiest horde I've come across is the Empire flagellant. 30 attacks at S5 with re-rolls to hit and wound. This unit can easily generate 20 killing wounds in a single turn.

Horde is certaintly here to stay.

it isn't mandatory to have one. i play Ogres too and do very well with lots of 3x2 units.


however it is mandatory to have an answer to Hordes. Monsterous Infantry won't appear in horde as often as, say slaves and Spearmen, but are devestating.


one, and prehaps the best, answer to normal hordes is anything that uses a Template or Blast. for my ogres thats a Scraplauncher or 3. other armies will want Hellcannons, Mortars, Troll vomit...

the other answer is of course another horde, but then it becomes a war of attrition.


some Hordes i would watch out for would be

Gouls or Vampire count skeletons. both can be increased in number and so will stick around.

Marauders with GWs or flails and the MoK. Nuff said

Slaves simply because you could see 2, 3 or, emperor forbid, 4 Hordes of these guys on the field at once.

Ogre Bulls. 20 bulls with Ironfists is 800 points, but with a couple of GM buffs and with it needing to lose 8 wounds before it loses attacks it is nasty. T6 Bulls(surprisingly easy to pull off) will shrug off most ranged attacks shy of cannons and the fact that cannons need to KILL a model to pass through it now means that Cannon only have a 1/3 chance of taking a wound off(2/3 if a Great Cannon)
and on the charge this unit sends out 72 attacks(12 of which will autohit)

At 'Ard Boyz I saw a lot of horde deathstars. There was also an O&G player with several horde formation (two of squig herders which were very killy but fragile, and one of black orcs). Two separate WoC had large blocks of chosen, although one didn't even run his in horde formation (they were something like 7 or 8 wide) and was still really, really scary! Also two daemon players with horded bloodletters.

It's interesting because in competitive settings it looks like everyone was taking at least one big, scary horde formation to be either a deathstar for points, or just a super-unit that could take on anyone else's unit.

Definitely a change from 7th where a deathstar was more fragile. Even moreso than "horde", the "step up" rule does wonders for deathstars now!

RanTheCid wrote:The horde is here to stay. 8th ed places an emphasis on mass destruction & the horde is the best way for non-elite units to inflict casualties.

There was a lot of discussion about steadfast units, but I've yet to see anyone field units 6-8 ranks deep to maintain steadfast.

The nastiest horde I've come across is the Empire flagellant. 30 attacks at S5 with re-rolls to hit and wound. This unit can easily generate 20 killing wounds in a single turn.

I typically run a unit of 50 skaven slaves and a unit of 50 clanrats in ranks of 5x10 in my 2k list. For skaven you benefit from 'strength in numbers' as well as 'steadfast'. I can't think of a single unit other then Rat Ogres to horde up other then MAYBE storm vermin but I don't like huge expensive units. Other then monsterous infantry its pretty risky to take units big and expensive enough to make the horde formation worth it. All the template weapons and magic will be directed at you. But yes for monstrous infantry its pretty cool. If I played Ogres I would use a 5x10 units of Gnobblers kept close to the general and BSB then flank with the Deathstar unit.

I have found that running a unit of 40-50 is better 5 wide to deny my opponent the steadfast rule.

Around where I play, most hordes are 4-5 ranks deep (and I have yet to see one which was more than 5), so I figure that if I run my troops 6-7 ranks deep I could steal their steadfast. It's also easy to charge a horde unit with two regular units (or 3 lances with my Bretonnians).

The horde is also very hard to maneuver. For the first few weeks of 8th almost everyone was taking hordes in there armies, but now they are not as common.

So while I find the horde to be a cool rule, I just don't see it being that effective.

The thing to remember is that you don't choose horde at deployment and leave it like that. You can switch into and out of horde as needed.

yup especially if you are an elite unit using a horde rule. its all situational. against a cannon army you want to stay shallow as long as possible. same for maneuverability. if you are fighting an inferior unit then go horde, if its another toughie head to head then stay deep ranked

I see horde as a tool to be used against certain armies.

I play Skaven, hording up against stuff with equal Toughness is great, because my higher initiative value and spears means I get 36-40 attacks at least first round of combat. It is deadly.

BUT, against stuff like undead? bad idea. I would like to last long enough for my hammers (in this case, rat ogres and 2 doomwheels) to hit them from the sides.

Depends on what one does with them.

Mr Mystery wrote: any unit sent out to slow me down generally gets well and truly minced in the first round of combat, letting me pursue or overrun my way out of trouble.

Do you never face big steadfast blocks? For example, even though they can kill like 20 a turn, I've been able to hold these guys for long stretches of time just feeding them mobs of Skavenslaves.

Also, do your opponents never screw up your overruns by throwing out bait units wheeled so you pursue outwards and expose your flank?


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Brother-Thunder wrote:I play Skaven, hording up against stuff with equal Toughness is great, because my higher initiative value and spears means I get 36-40 attacks at least first round of combat. It is deadly.

Your opponents must be really obliging you by charging spearhordes in wide formation. You really should be able to get no more than 28 rats attacking against a regular 5-wide unit.

By the time I'm finished slapping the enemy around, Steadfast has simply never come up.

And I am a little baffled at peoples insistence on small frontage for steadfast. I'll burn through your ranks very quickly if you are 5 or 6 wide, especially with my Ogres, whereas each turn, you need to drop 4 Ogres to strip a rank off me? Sure, I can see the wisdom in say, a single bulwark unit deployed good and deep, an anvil for my hammer, but every unit? That's a lot of points which could be doing something not doing anything?

But further to the topic at hand, are there units out there you feel don't really benefit from the Horde Rule? Certain Heavy Infantry perhaps? Maybe you feel Heavy Cavalry do well from it, whilst Monstrous Cav remain prohibitively expensive?

Terminus wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote: any unit sent out to slow me down generally gets well and truly minced in the first round of combat, letting me pursue or overrun my way out of trouble.

Do you never face big steadfast blocks? For example, even though they can kill like 20 a turn, I've been able to hold these guys for long stretches of time just feeding them mobs of Skavenslaves.

Also, do your opponents never screw up your overruns by throwing out bait units wheeled so you pursue outwards and expose your flank?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother-Thunder wrote:I play Skaven, hording up against stuff with equal Toughness is great, because my higher initiative value and spears means I get 36-40 attacks at least first round of combat. It is deadly.

Your opponents must be really obliging you by charging spearhordes in wide formation. You really should be able to get no more than 28 rats attacking against a regular 5-wide unit.

most players in my store play like they worship khorne. Even then, I get those 4 ranks after I charge. Just going off what I have experienced.

Terminus wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote: any unit sent out to slow me down generally gets well and truly minced in the first round of combat, letting me pursue or overrun my way out of trouble.

Do you never face big steadfast blocks? For example, even though they can kill like 20 a turn, I've been able to hold these guys for long stretches of time just feeding them mobs of Skavenslaves.

Also, do your opponents never screw up your overruns by throwing out bait units wheeled so you pursue outwards and expose your flank?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother-Thunder wrote:I play Skaven, hording up against stuff with equal Toughness is great, because my higher initiative value and spears means I get 36-40 attacks at least first round of combat. It is deadly.

Your opponents must be really obliging you by charging spearhordes in wide formation. You really should be able to get no more than 28 rats attacking against a regular 5-wide unit.

Well, not every enemy opponent has something as cheap has huge blocks of skaven slaves to hold up a strong horde unit. It's one of the strengths of the Skaven army book. If your opponent is Dwarves, Dark Elves, or some other armies, they're not going to have that great of an option to field a cheap, highly ranked unit to bog down an elite horde unit for an extended period of time. The GG unit I mentioned above should, against a five wide opponent, kill about 30 typical enemy models in one game turn (21 attacks per turn, hitting on 2+, wounding on 2+, with a -3 armor save). This means that the unit engaged with this horde needs to get help ASAP; but that merely brings more of the GG into the fight, too.

I took a 10x5 horde of Arrer boyz to Ardboyz prelims and semis, and really like how it handled each time. The Horde rule has a special affection for units that can both shoot and fight moderately well. The wide frontage allows plenty of shots off, and the Horde ability allows lots of attacks when the unit is charged (or charges). Obviously this favors bow armed units to make use of Volley Fire so you're not wasting ranks 3+.

Mr Mystery wrote:By the time I'm finished slapping the enemy around, Steadfast has simply never come up.

And I am a little baffled at peoples insistence on small frontage for steadfast. I'll burn through your ranks very quickly if you are 5 or 6 wide, especially with my Ogres, whereas each turn, you need to drop 4 Ogres to strip a rank off me? Sure, I can see the wisdom in say, a single bulwark unit deployed good and deep, an anvil for my hammer, but every unit? That's a lot of points which could be doing something not doing anything?

But further to the topic at hand, are there units out there you feel don't really benefit from the Horde Rule? Certain Heavy Infantry perhaps? Maybe you feel Heavy Cavalry do well from it, whilst Monstrous Cav remain prohibitively expensive?

Ogres are pretty damn tough, so reducing the number of attacks they can dish out against you actually works out better than trying to outkill them (unless you're swordmasters or something).

Anyway, I do hope you're not including me among the number insisting on small frontage. I like Horde units quite a bit, whether they are Giant Rats, plague monks with furnace, or Queek/Stubborn Warlord-stormvermin. My ambition is to throw together a horde of Rat Ogres with Sqweel. Sure they kind of suck, but if I roll regeneration, watch out! Even my slaves start out in horde formation to screen my army and get in the way, but after they engage I reform into 5-wide. A few S3 attacks won't make a difference if I'm taking more casualties, plus the narrower frontage suddenly opens up the enemy unit to more charges.

And you never did mention how you handle people throwing units wheeled so if you pursue/overrun, you go off to the side of the board and expose your flank.

most players in my store play like they worship khorne. Even then, I get those 4 ranks after I charge. Just going off what I have experienced.

How are you getting 4 ranks on the charge? Are we talking giant rats here?

Terminus wrote:

Mr Mystery wrote:By the time I'm finished slapping the enemy around, Steadfast has simply never come up.

And I am a little baffled at peoples insistence on small frontage for steadfast. I'll burn through your ranks very quickly if you are 5 or 6 wide, especially with my Ogres, whereas each turn, you need to drop 4 Ogres to strip a rank off me? Sure, I can see the wisdom in say, a single bulwark unit deployed good and deep, an anvil for my hammer, but every unit? That's a lot of points which could be doing something not doing anything?

But further to the topic at hand, are there units out there you feel don't really benefit from the Horde Rule? Certain Heavy Infantry perhaps? Maybe you feel Heavy Cavalry do well from it, whilst Monstrous Cav remain prohibitively expensive?

Ogres are pretty damn tough, so reducing the number of attacks they can dish out against you actually works out better than trying to outkill them (unless you're swordmasters or something).

Anyway, I do hope you're not including me among the number insisting on small frontage. I like Horde units quite a bit, whether they are Giant Rats, plague monks with furnace, or Queek/Stubborn Warlord-stormvermin. My ambition is to throw together a horde of Rat Ogres with Sqweel. Sure they kind of suck, but if I roll regeneration, watch out! Even my slaves start out in horde formation to screen my army and get in the way, but after they engage I reform into 5-wide. A few S3 attacks won't make a difference if I'm taking more casualties, plus the narrower frontage suddenly opens up the enemy unit to more charges.

And you never did mention how you handle people throwing units wheeled so if you pursue/overrun, you go off to the side of the board and expose your flank.

most players in my store play like they worship khorne. Even then, I get those 4 ranks after I charge. Just going off what I have experienced.

How are you getting 4 ranks on the charge? Are we talking giant rats here?

not ON the charge, After the charge, should I charge at all. Sorry if I was not more clear

Mr Mystery wrote:By the time I'm finished slapping the enemy around, Steadfast has simply never come up.

And I am a little baffled at peoples insistence on small frontage for steadfast. I'll burn through your ranks very quickly if you are 5 or 6 wide, especially with my Ogres, whereas each turn, you need to drop 4 Ogres to strip a rank off me? Sure, I can see the wisdom in say, a single bulwark unit deployed good and deep, an anvil for my hammer, but every unit? That's a lot of points which could be doing something not doing anything?

But further to the topic at hand, are there units out there you feel don't really benefit from the Horde Rule? Certain Heavy Infantry perhaps? Maybe you feel Heavy Cavalry do well from it, whilst Monstrous Cav remain prohibitively expensive?

My Clanrats and slaves are for tarpitting, my HPA and Censer Bearers are for tearing up flanks...so ya all the cheapies (2-3 units) in the center of my deployment will be 5 wide and 10 deep. All I need is to hold ya up for one turn till the HPA's take over your flanks and sit there till they either kill every last one of ya or you flee and get run down by the 3d6" pursue. And you'll be hard pressed to hit my own flank without serious threat from a HPA.

How do I avoid threatened flanks?

3 Bull Rhinox

But it generally doesn't come up, the whole redirecting thing. I play extremely aggressively with my Ogres, and my opponents rarely have time to set up such jiggery pokery!

and therin lies the advantage of Ogres.


we are vulnerable to being surrounded, but because of our speed and frontal hitting power(when properly applied, IE avoiding threats we can't face head on) we can blow through enemy lines at the weak spots and then start rampaging in the back field and begin flanking his own blocks.

flankers are either never given time to set up or are left behind on our side of the board.



besides, ogres have 2 units very good at getting rid of flankers. Leadbeltchers and Trappers(although they are better at warmachine hunting)

I see hordes settling in for the long haul, some units do it better (either because of cost (slaves) or because of increased effectiveness (greatswords)). Of course, all these hordes makes it hard for me to run anything other then lore of life... I hate relying on dwellers, but dammit, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Plus killing 50+ clan rats with 1 spell is alot of fun.

obviously there are some units that are better at it then most, generally the cheaper the better. If each model is 12+ points then the cost will become ridiculous rather quickly. There is also the chance that you lose that massive point sink. So far my record for the most point gained from a single unit was when festus with a unit of muraders ran down a 40 man surous unit complete with characters, 17246 points

Well, i have contemplated running my bloodletters of Khorne in a horde formation in order to get those extra killing blow attacks in, but i'm not sure if it would work as i have not been able to try it yet... i think it would end up being a situational thing... would depend on what you were doing as to if it would be effective...

I've ran Maruader hordes, both as MoT with Shields and MoK with GW, both is blocks of 50 in horde formation of 10x5. Ive had more sucess with the Tzeentch ones. I'd like to try GW/MoK again, but I need to know HOW to use MoK with GW Marauders. It seems like a big handicap if you go last even with S 5, I keep thinking I will loose so many ranks I will loose that 3rd Horde rank. Maybe I'm not suppose to worry about something that is less than half the cost of a Chaos Warrior.

Horde can give the exact same unit more attacks at the expense of less steadfast. However, more attacks means you win combat, which means you dont need steadfast. Thus if point costs were balanced and units roughly equal, a horde would always be superior to the front, and very marginally weaker on the sides. I say marginally because another benefit of hordes is a wider front and a much, much more narrow flank, which makes flank charges more difficult to pull off.

I think the only thing keeping hordes in check is the uber spells of win. For example, a single 'purple sun of you lose the F@#$ing game' can kill half or more of the ogre death star with 1 casting. Dwellers cuts them by a 3rd for each casting. And if uber gate of chaos goes off, well you just pick the whole damn unit up!

Also, cheaper units with the right buff (witchelves + s10 mindrazor was mentioned!) are far killier than the non-buffed points would allow. What is that, 200 points for a sorc lord, and 300 points for some witch elves, and they can carve your 1600 point unit like so many turkeys on thanksgiving!

Also, Hashulaman, try Nurgle! The -1 to be hit and more WS means you are more likely to kill more of the opponent and lose less models to shooting and swings back.

DevianID wrote:Horde can give the exact same unit more attacks at the expense of less steadfast. However, more attacks means you win combat, which means you dont need steadfast. Thus if point costs were balanced and units roughly equal, a horde would always be superior to the front, and very marginally weaker on the sides. I say marginally because another benefit of hordes is a wider front and a much, much more narrow flank, which makes flank charges more difficult to pull off.

Not really, because there's units that will lose combats whether they're in horde or not simply because they can't inflict enough casualties to match those inflicted by the other army. Skaven slaves, for instance, will lose combat against WoC, and are better off reducing the casualties per turn and keeping steadfast by keeping the frontage narrow and the ranks deep.

Yeah i agree against chaos warriors my empire are in a nice 5x8 formation for a couple rounds of steadfast and pray for a flanking unit of knights to save the day.

Sebster is quite correct. I posted this in another thread, but you have to remember that the +3 combat res counts for a wound each. So for instance, if you have two blocks of marauders swatting at each other with sword and shield and light armor:

50% chance to hit, 50% chance to wound, 33% chance to save, 16% chance to ward save. So you need 14 attacks to, on average, equal one rank of CR bonus. Now that's just an average, so with good rolling you can beat that, but still, if you are giving up one rank of CR you need to be getting 14 attacks out of it on average. Something to think about.

Wait, screwed up the math. Should be seven attacks, not 14. (too tired to math right now ) So yea, every rank you give up needs to net the marauders 7 attacks on average.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So to further do it, a 5x6 block of 30 lads = 10 attacks
+ 4 ranks. 10x3 block = 30 attacks assuming full frontage contact + 2 ranks. If these two block were up against each other the 5x6 would get 10 attacks + 21 attacks worth of CR (due to 3 extra ranks) for a total of 31 average attack results. The other block would get 21 attacks (7 in btb, so only 7 from each rank can attack) with zero CR bonus.



However, you have to bear in mind that the CR only matters AFTER attacks have happened, so if you can whittle down ranks you are still good to go! In the first case of 5x6 vs 10x3 the 5x6 does ~1-2 wounds while the 10x3 does about ~3. The ranks are now 5x5 (27 men) vs 10x3 (28 men) and combat is tied or the 5x6 block won by 1.
Next round, 10 attacks do 1-2 wounds, 20 do 3-4. Now it is 5x4 (22) vs 10x2 (24) and still tied. (Possibly 10x3 still with 25 men.)
Next Round 10 attacks 1-2 wounds, 18 do 2-3. Now it is 5x3 (19) vs 10x2 (22?) still tied.
Next (where the hell are the flankers?!) 10 attacks 1-2 wounds, 16 attacks 2-3. 5x3 (16) vs 10x2 (21-22). Still tied.
Next 10 attacks 1-2 wounds. 14 attacks ~2-3 wounds. 5x2 (14) probably vs 10x2 (20). Probably all down hill for the 5x6 block from here on out.

Now, this assumes decently average dice and that I didn't screw up some math (even though I do assuming >1 = 2 for simplicity). Eventually the Horde wins. However, if the horde fluffs a round of attacks they will lose by a good margin and not be steadfast taking a -1 to -3 penalty most likely. On the other hand if they roll really well they can win by a decent margin, but their target will be steadfast. The block is less likely to have a big win streak (though they are only off on wounds by 1-2 on average, so they don't need super hot dice) but is VERY consistent in terms of sticking around. Even if they fluff their attacks hard they are only dropping 1-2 combat res, and will likely still be steadfast.

Another thing to consider is that this probably would be a very different story with say Perma-Frenzied Marauders. The extra attacks would not benefit the horde as much, going to 28 from 21 while the block goes from 10 to 15. That is (assuming the previous stat line) ~4 wounds vs 2+ at first, but rapidly diminishing for the horde while the block would retain consistency. In other words the horde gains fairly little (+33%) while the block gets +50%.

I occasionally run a unit of 50 halberdiers in horde formation with a warrior priest. The advantage to this is I can take a fully ranked 5x5 swordsman unit for removing steadfast and counter-charge purposes, and my unit of 20 hand gunners gets one addition shot at least every game. The unit is primarily used for taking a charge from a depleted Chaos warrior unit or Bret Knight lance, the kinds of things I never really want to charge even with my knights. So far it has done an admirable job at holding combat, reforming and becoming a threat for the next round.