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Hi all,

FYI before I begin: I tend to run Wulfik with my marauders. Usually play against empire. When the unit does not turn up to take out cannons they are usually posistioned to slow down horde block of spearman that is usually beefed up with characters (general and priest normally...wulfik's challenge is very handy here).

So my questions is concerning which option. I am torn between running my marauders (Flails, MOK, maybe with light armor) as horde unit 10 x 4 full command to get killiest benefit from them and hope the death toll and full command will mean a combat win, but of course this will get expensive

or take a block of 30-40 running 5x 6+ to get steadfast and drop full command to save points to use more as a meat shield and use the points else where.

Thoughts or suggestions?

When you say run them as meat shields, are they still going to have flails and MoK or are you going to give them shields? If you do choose to simply keep the flails and MoK then you don't need to worry about what formation you're going to have them in. You can fast reform as you go.

Adding armor onto the unit is a little overkill I think. You're adding an extra 40pts which in the end will do very little for you. Since they're such a large unit you can afford to lose a few on the march without the extra pts cost.

I feel that flails aren't very good for such a large unit of Marauders. Flails are better on small shock units. You run in, do some damage and expect to die. If you get the charge off then your damage out put is going to do alright, but if combat goes into another round you'll lose that str bonus, combat is going to get drawn out and if you're fighting something with a good armor save you're going to lose eventually.

Great Weapons are better for a large horde of Marauders. You may be striking last, but the s5 attacks are going to work in your favour, ie when you hit its going to be like getting hit by a truck. If combat goes for more then one round you'll still be able to wound and get past armor saves. You're going to have 10 ablative wounds before your fighting ability starts to decline too.

Thank you so much for the reply, it was very helpful. If I were to use them simply as meat shields or road blocks then I would plan to drop flails and MOK and replace with MOT, hand and sheild. I did not thin about making use of the reform option.

Here's my theory and good and lazy.
Run 50. Go great weapon and 5 wide/10 deep. Don't take khorne.

10 S5 attacks i pretty good, you're steadfast, and you can reform into a horde very easily, since the movement tray is the right size.

In practice, it works really well on the table. You can suddenly block of lanes of advance for your opponent (after the hell cannon charges through them).

-Matt

Should I drop full command on such cheap units if they are steadfast?

Always have the musician and standard bearer. The standard gives +1 combat res and in the case of a draw the musician can cause you to win by 1 if your opponents unit doesn't have one. The unit champion is up for debate though. I usually only put a champion in a unit if I am going to have a character in the unit as well. There are some instances where you don't want your character stuck in a challenge and so you can throw the unit champ to the wolves.

Oh, I'm pretty sure that you must have a musician in your unit if you want to do a swift reform.

I have been told, and have decided it was good advice, that putting a champ in the GW/Flail lads is a mistake (unless you add characters) as when you charge a unit with a character you will have to challenge, which will protect the enemy character from the avalanche of Str5 attacks he would take otherwise, limiting him to 2-3.