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I watched a small Fantasy game last night involving Empire. I was in triged by the idea of Detatchments. A lot of people, it seems, don't use them, as they feel the detachment is at risk of being charged. Is this a general feeling?? Does anyone feel more positivly about detachments? I, for one, quite like the idea

well, the whole point is that you main (melee) parent unit holds his ground when charged, the melee detachment instantly counter-charges in the flank, and the ranged detachment fires. ranged detachments flee if charged and you risk getting hit by a big unit in the flank if you attack the melee detachment. mix and match as prefered.

it's great. people should use it more often, even the White Dwarf people neglect it for some reason.

I have seen them used to great success halberds with hand gunner detachment and or something else is always good times.

If I had my own empire army I would be taking full advantage of that rule. I don't get why Empire players wouldn't use such a useful mechanic.

since hand gunners suck in cc i think
I dont know but they will have to wait a bit.
I think I have to do another evil army before I start forces of order.

Lexx wrote:I don't get why Empire players wouldn't use such a useful mechanic.

Mainly because it's not as useful as it used to be. Flank-charges are, in general, less useful than they were in the previous edition. You're better off with a single large unit than smaller units flank-charging. It gives you +2 (?) combat res, but lets more of the enemy strike back.

The risk of using small detachments is that the enemy will charge them and wipe them out in one turn. Under the old charge rules it wasn't hard to keep your detachments protected. You usually kept them about 3" behind your main horde and countercharged. Now with random charge distances, it's a lot harder to keep your enemy away from your detachments.

Handgunners are probably the best unit to use as a detachment in this edition, shooting into a charging enemy with S4 handguns is very helpful, especially with a melee-based core (swordsmen or halberdiers).

Use of combat detachments means you are putting half strength units into the middle of your lines. As biccat said, under the new edition and it's random charge lengths, reasonably competent opponents will simply charge the detachments, at which point you either flee with them, or watch them get butchered while the parent detachment stands there doing nothing.

The adjustment that needs to be made is for the detachment to stand much further back than they did under 7th. Instead of standing a few inches back, they stand 6 or more inches back, enough to make a significant difference to your opponent's chances of getting a charge off against them.

Then you have the issue of how much this achieves. In 7th ed denying the rank bonus and getting a flank bonus would often swing combat resolution your way, meaning you were much more likely to win combat, and thereby force the enemy to flee they were likely to run away. Now we're seeing much higher scores from total kills, and on top of that units are much less likely to run away when they do lose combat, thanks to steadfast. Finally, you're often better off taking those two or three ranks of troops in the detachment and putting them into your main unit - because now those extra troops can be really helpful in denying the enemy steadfast (or more likely maintaining it for your own unit).

It's not completely useless, I still use it to score and extra round of shooting with my crossbowmen, but it certainly isn't as useful as it was.