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At the moment i field a unit of swordsmen like this 7x6 -7 ranks , 6 wide. with a warrior priest , but what do people think is a good way of fielding them , alterntively i feild haldberdiers 10x4 with a priest. but in general shoudl you go for horde or ranks?


'claw

I like blocks of 50 for the lazy tray solution.
You can go 5 wide and 10 deep, and reform to be 10 wide and 5 deep.
Formations really depend on who you're fighting. If you think you can win combat (vs goblins, skaven, skinks ext...), more attacks is better.
For my next army (whatever it is) I'll be building extra movement trays to swap out formations with.
With 20mm bases, you'll sometimes want to go 14 wide (maximizes attacks against a 25mm horde).

It's one of the downsides of 8th edition, you really should be reforming your units before the game, and often during the game. With 30-50 man blocks common, it's a pain in the ass.

-Matt

you want to be deep enough to strip steadfast, but wide enough to do damage.

units of 30 or 50 are nice round numbers.



if you go in Horde formation you will want to be at least 4 ranks deep(5 for spears) to benifit from the additional rank attacking.

i, astetically, don't like the visual of units that are super deep and really skinny. they can be difficult to wheel because they might be bumping stuff too.

The horde is more for killing stuff, the bus is more for tarpitting. Halberdiers are S4, Swordsmen have WS4 and parry. Ergo the former are better suited to the horde formation, the latter for a holding action.

The question of what would be an ideal size is one I've asked myself as well. YOu want enough guys to be able to shrug off casualties but too big and it becomes unwieldy. Also, if you can make one more medium-sized unit, that has obvious advantages, too.

I tend to go for 25 to 40 in 5 to 10 wide formations. Hope this helps!

It usually depends on which unit you decide to fiield, each with there own pros and cons. However I found a way to rn them which has proven very effective for me in past games.

Halberds: Probably one of the most underestimated uits out there, I currently run a horde of 50x /a warior priest as well as my BSB to all them to get hatred in CC as well as allowing them to stick around. Also, since I field a Empire general, I use his ancient hierloom rule to give my Halberds the Razor Standard, meaning I usually have 30x S4 attacks that are -2 to armor, and if you add that with hatred, makes it a very nasty unit in CC.

Spearmen: Not the greatest choice according to most people, however my spearmen have done very well in the since that they are meant to do one thing, which is to hold up the enemy for as long as possible. I currently run 2x units of 30x in a 5x6 formation, meaning they can hold up an enemy for quite a bit of time, which gives me a good chance to flank them with each spearmens detchment of 15x Swordsmen, but have also surprised many units by how much damage they can potential cause with 16x attacks, not to mention 10x attacks from the swordsmen.

Swordsmen: A effective unit due to the fact that they are WS4 and I4, they can stay around for awhile thanks to a decent sace and a 6+ parrry save, its no wonder that these guys are the most liked out of all of the empire infantry units. When nnot fielding my spears, I tend to also run 2x units of these guys in units of 30x in a 5x6 formation, making them quite an effective tarpit unit, and added with each units detachment of 15x Halberds, can cause quite a headache for other opponents.

For most games I like 30, usually in a 6x5 formation, I would go with 40 or 50 but I simply lack the models atm,

I run swordsmen 5x6 and a 50-man halberd horde 10x5, with a priest in the halberds carrying a stubborn crown. Each of these units takes almost anything 2 turns to get through, meaning you have time to maneuver your hammers for the flank charge or whatever.