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Hey guys

I'm just building up an Orc army for WFB at the moment. I've been away from the game since previous edition. Upon reading the rule book for 8th, there is an obvious boost towards massively blocks of infantry - namely the 'horde' bonus, of having units 10 models wide, and also having massed ranks. Looking at other peoples army lists, I see a lot of 40 strong units of infantry.

Now, I can understand the logic of GW creating this rule, and thereby encouraging people to buy more boxsets of infantry, but just how essential are they? One of the aspects I previously loved of Fantasy was the manoeuvring of units around each other, of multiple combats, and of trying to get flank attacks. Along with the soul-destroying prospect of modelling and painting such a large unit, I don't particular relish the idea of using a shovel to shunt such a massive brick of a unit across the board, and the tactical flexibility of a breezeblock.

I guess if I did try the 40 horde option, it would be simply orcs with hand weapons. But, are the largely hordes tremendously popular, and am I likely to be trying to ice-skate up a hill by choosing not to take such a route?

I realise I've probably missed the boat with this kind of discussion, this far into 8th editions release, but any people's thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

Horde isn't as necessary as Steadfast. If you're going to take a lot of infantry, usually you want them to not break. Hordes can be a bit cumbersome on the battlefield.

At least with big blocks of infantry you can use some larger based dioramas in the middle to cut down on the number of models you need

SilverMK2 wrote:At least with big blocks of infantry you can use some larger based dioramas in the middle to cut down on the number of models you need

Nah it's fun painting a couple of hundred skaven slaves

On topic MSU of 20 to 25 is still viable for some units eg: marauders with flails, if the opponent attacks them its a smaller unit wiped out, if not, they flank charge the regiment that ignored them in favour of another target and lays down the hurt . High Elves Swordmasters are also pretty good in MSU from some peoples accounts, so your milage may vary with either amount/formation.

its not that the horde/block is important to have, its that its important to have a way of dealing with it.

If you can't handle a horde/bus then you need to rethink your list. Taking one is optional, dealing with it is mandatory.

Great comment by Grey Templar! Agree 100%

And remember that "dealing" with a huge block doesn't always mean fighting it- it might just mean redirecting/avoiding it.

Yeah, Gray Templar said exactly what I came in here to say.

I guess my only other point was to say that while I can't guess GW's real intent with the rule (and as has already been pointed out its Steadfast, not Horde that really matters), I can say that there's a perfectly non-cynical reason for it's existance - it gives non-elite troops a viable place in the game. It used to be that the only thing going for crappier troops was their static combat bonus, and it simply wasn't that hard for more elite units to either take a matching resolution bonus, or to kill so many enemy troops that it just didn't matter.

Exactly,


My really lame troops may never win combat, but they will never run because of steadfast and I am killing enough of your elites that I will actually completly wipe you out after 5 rounds so i just need to stick around and grind.

As the others have said above the steadfast is what counts.

I have seen savage orcs run in units of 10 with a big stabba and they did alright.

As woc I have done fine without big hordes, same goes for my ogres.
Hordes are nice tho helps me break big blocks faster.

Thanks a lot for the replies guys, I'll take this on board while I'm constructing the army.

A unit of 40 Savages with a Great Shaman with the Head is nearly unbeatable. If you loved the tactical flexibility of blocks of units carefully manuvering, then stop playing Fantasy until 9th ed, because that is not what this game is about anymore. Hurling horriffic amounts of damage down range and ignoring the movement phase is all that 8th is about. Doing high numbers of wounds or being steadfast until the end of the game and denying points, this is what the game is about now.

I disagree.

its like that if you are playing too small of games, but above 2500 the tactical nature and vitality of the movement phase gets amped up.

8th edition is meant for larger games(2500+)

Even at smaller values, I think it's still one of those high Risk/Reward things. It's one of the best, I'll admit, since they pack so many attacks in/model and they're not exactly fragile, but...Purple Sun? Also: Skavenslaves. That's how I dealt with them. Death Frenzy + Bless with Filth took care of the Shaman, too.

Sure. Purple Sun. If you can get it. Then get it off.

And getting games of higher than 2500 pts is difficult, as the local tournament organizer refuses to go higher than 2500 pts and rarely goes that high, despite the common and vociferous requests of the community. For whatever reason, people who run tourneys in Kansas seem to think that "There are alot of really amazing tactical choices that are available at the 1250pt level."

Well, that's unfortunate. Still, it's possible to deal with it. I faced 30 of said guys in a 1000pt game. It was ugly, to say the least, but I set up castle-style and fed them some Slaves and Giant Rats and basically killed everything else and won the game.

...but I'm guessing you're talking about Dwarfs. Are you? They've gotten better in 8th, but their limited selection really hurts them. If WS4/5 S5/6 attacks don't get the job done, along with a S4/5 template and a Flaming cannonball, you're basically screwed. They've got little in the way of tricks, to say the least.
You should check out my Proposed Rules thread about re-writing the Dwarf army book.

End statement: Hordes can be cool, but I rarely see them, unless their Bloodletters, Orcs, or my own Skavenslaves, once they're suitably buffed. Oh, and Halberdiers, of course.

I am building my next horde right now. 40 arrer boyz. I tested it and it works fine and is more 'versatile' than 'unwieldy'.

I play tomb kings and I'm fairly certain that I will be ground into a fine white powder if I don't use hordes. However, for more resilient armies such as orcs, WoC, and Dwarfs(Dwarves?) I guess the horde option is a nice optional feature (albeit tedious to paint), unlike the necessity it is for TK, Skaven and VC.

However, if you field 40 orc boyz with choppas and shields, that'll make for a whole lot of WAAAGH!!!

Only thing im scared of painting is my horde of State Troops.

Skaven, I could see myself buying an air brush, doing a primer of black, then a coat of scorched brown, then bestial brown, then dunkin the suckas in devlan mud. Do eyes, fine details, bam, slave rat.

Can't see myself doing anything like that with State Troops :(

I take a block of 40 men at arms, just to try to negate steadfast.

Crazyterran wrote:Only thing im scared of painting is my horde of State Troops.

Skaven, I could see myself buying an air brush, doing a primer of black, then a coat of scorched brown, then bestial brown, then dunkin the suckas in devlan mud. Do eyes, fine details, bam, slave rat.

Can't see myself doing anything like that with State Troops :(

I did something like this with my state troops. All 80 of em

Orlanth wrote:I am building my next horde right now. 40 arrer boyz. I tested it and it works fine and is more 'versatile' than 'unwieldy'.

I guess there is no reason that it would be more unwieldy in terms of the rules. But, after playing WFB for many years, I just look at that giant block and think 'whoa!' But it's not so much that it looks 'wrong', more that I find it hard to get motivated to paint even a smaller unit. A unit of 40 will leave me slack-jawed and drooling!

In terms of points I think I will probably go for 2000, I think that is the standard size of games where I play.

Pacific wrote:

Orlanth wrote:I am building my next horde right now. 40 arrer boyz. I tested it and it works fine and is more 'versatile' than 'unwieldy'.

I guess there is no reason that it would be more unwieldy in terms of the rules. But, after playing WFB for many years, I just look at that giant block and think 'whoa!' But it's not so much that it looks 'wrong', more that I find it hard to get motivated to paint even a smaller unit. A unit of 40 will leave me slack-jawed and drooling!

In terms of points I think I will probably go for 2000, I think that is the standard size of games where I play.

You must be saying 'whoa' a lot now. 40 isnt anything special anymore, and I am building five units of similar size, of which the arrer boys is only just the largest. Though admittedly this is to have enough orcs to add characters to to make armies up to 4000pts I will be including as many of those orcs as possible as I like the theme..

You know, not all games have to be in Tournaments. If you want to play bigger games, and a lot of the people in the community want to play bigger games, play bigger games with them- without the Tournament. Or organize your own. Or play Storm of Magic games (I believe that's the Fantasy version of Apocalypse?)

I will say that if you are going to play bigger games, like above 3k, you will want to change the magic rules slightly as they don't scale well.

Have Winds of Magic be 3D6 instead, dispell dice equal to the highest roll plus lowest roll. Max dice in pool is 18.


Storm of Magic is ok, but I wouldn't call it the Fantesy Appoc. Its just different.


I would call Fantesy Appoc to be allow the Storm of Magic scrolls of binding and all the cool monsters, but leave out the annoying fulcrum bits and OTT magic.

....Hordes don't get people to buy more from GW... Why would it? If people don' get hordes they put their infantry in multiple smaller groups, or buy expensive monsterish like creatures... I don't get it?

LordHamshire wrote:....Hordes don't get people to buy more from GW... Why would it? If people don' get hordes they put their infantry in multiple smaller groups, or buy expensive monsterish like creatures... I don't get it?

Basically you begin with the assumption that whatever GW is doing it is doing to cynically sell more models. Therefore if they change the rules to advantage troops it is sell make people buy lots of regular troops. Whereas if they make the rules favour big monsters, it is to make people buy big monsters.

Basically it's a theory that proves itself no matter what happens.

The reason people take blocks of 40+ is for fighting in hordes. Hordes allows you to fight in 3 ranks, so you want to maximize your attacks once you get into combat (30).

Taking 40 allows for casualties while maximizing the advantage of fighting in horde formation.

With the armies I run, taking that many models doesn't make sense because I want steadfast (and a +3 rank bonus) more than I want to fight in a horde.

If my Night Goblins or Empire State Troops fought in horde formation it would simply up your combat res and reduce mine.

if it weren't for steadfast... Well, the rate that these low power models can die at I'm not sure I would have used even a single slave in my army running at a leadership of 2 basic. Its the unmodified check that makes me even want to field them. The same goes for clanrats even hell I would hate to think back to the times when Skaven didn't have a steadfast just keeping units on the table would of been a nightmare and choosing to make a collection from them would have been a little harder to come to terms with!

My 2000pt army runs 150 slaves, best point for point trash model going now thanks to steadfast and the need for bus's and hordes. If it weren't for that bonus they would likely never see the light of day.

I think the idea was to give more importance to the lower troops and at the same time elevate the elites to more of an elite standard as opposed to "must msu or copy paste x elite unit x number of times to win" (which is actually something I see alot in WH40K)

sebster wrote:

LordHamshire wrote:....Hordes don't get people to buy more from GW... Why would it? If people don' get hordes they put their infantry in multiple smaller groups, or buy expensive monsterish like creatures... I don't get it?

Basically you begin with the assumption that whatever GW is doing it is doing to cynically sell more models. Therefore if they change the rules to advantage troops it is sell make people buy lots of regular troops. Whereas if they make the rules favour big monsters, it is to make people buy big monsters.

Basically it's a theory that proves itself no matter what happens.

That there is a benefit that comes from it (as you mentioned, standard troops now have more of a role in the game) doesn't change the reason it was probably changed in the first place.

TBH you can name any one of a dozen or more examples: from Apocalypse, the nerfing of the Carnifex in the previous codex Nid codex, to bonuses to large units of troops in 8th edition WFB, massive pt. value battle reports in WD, I think the intention should be obvious. I don't think it's cynical at all, just an acknowledgement of GW's objectives. Rick Priestly said in that interview when he left GW that the sales department had begun to dictate what rules get changed and why, although I think that comment was hardly a revelation to most people because the evidence for it has been laid out for all to see.

Pacific wrote:That there is a benefit that comes from it (as you mentioned, standard troops now have more of a role in the game) doesn't change the reason it was probably changed in the first place.

TBH you can name any one of a dozen or more examples: from Apocalypse, the nerfing of the Carnifex in the previous codex Nid codex, to bonuses to large units of troops in 8th edition WFB, massive pt. value battle reports in WD, I think the intention should be obvious. I don't think it's cynical at all, just an acknowledgement of GW's objectives. Rick Priestly said in that interview when he left GW that the sales department had begun to dictate what rules get changed and why, although I think that comment was hardly a revelation to most people because the evidence for it has been laid out for all to see.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pretending GW isn't trying to sell models. I just think it's a mistake to see that motive in every little thing the company does.