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I like to run a gun line empire list and need some help figuring out my best choices for an anvil unit to use with it.

Any ideas?

Steamtank

1 wide flaggies with champ

Steadfast infantry. Empire has them on the cheap. You can afford a couple of large infantry blocks and still have a large and balanced army of everything else. Empire state troops cost next to nothing.

Greatswords make a nice anvil unit with the ability to dish out tons of damage in return (especially with a Warrior Priest)

For pure tarpitting purposes, nothing matches the Steam tank. T10, 10 Wounds, 1+ save and unbreakable will hold units up the whole game.

Swordsmen deployed in a narrow bus formation are your classic anvil unit. They're cheap and have that 6+ ward, so they should be able to maintain greater ranks than far superior, and far more costly enemy units for several turns. WS means some enemy attack units will only hitt on a 4+, and that's awesome when it happens.

The other option is halberdiers. Stats wise these guys are geared entirely for offence, having T3 and no armour, basically their point of difference to other Empire troops is in the Str 4 their halberd gives them. But they're 5 points, so you can take a massive unit and barely even notice the missing points. Seriously, for what some people pay for a combat character you can put 40 halberdiers into the field. They're an excellent unit because you can then shift between a narrow, deep formation to maintain steadfast and stay in the fight as long as possible, or you can shift to horde formation to overpower another unit with massed attacks.

These are your two core combat units, with swordsmen as pure anvil and halberdiers as a slightly less optimal anvil that can switch to hammer with a formation change. Everything else is either not worth taking at all (spearmen) or a specialist unit used for supporter actions.

1 Wide flaggies with champ. They are core and they are a nightmare

Johnny-Crass wrote:1 Wide flaggies with champ. They are core and they are a nightmare

Viable, very much so, however you will be your local gaming store's TFG, and get no games.

Never undterstood the concept of TFG and giving him no games

Flaggies aren't core.... only when you have a warrior priest can 'a' unit be taken as core. Oh and the champ for flaggies is the Prophet of doom.

Or a Arch Lector..... And I do not know a Empire player worth his salt that does not leave the house without a Archy or priest

Johnny-Crass wrote:Never undterstood the concept of TFG and giving him no games

We see eye to eye on a lot of stuff Johnny. But the congo line thing be it a Flaggy or a Slayer is broken. In no circumstance in old war would a single file unit hold up a unit that is multiple times wider, the other unit would just close the flanks on them a la Pacman eating a Ghost. I know this game is not "real" but it is something that does not make sense. That you can spend 100pts or so and hold up my 700pt bestigor unit with a Beastlord who just have to sit there and take it. Is it legal? Yeah. In a tourney anything goes, but if I show up at GW for a friendly game and my opponent pulls that, next week I would show up and play someone else.

But if you are running an empire gunline with the max amount of war machines you probably don't care about being TFG.

Good point. I just hate being softballed games. Because of that I love playing TFG, it is a challenge and when I come to new stores I seek him out.

But yeah it is not something I would play in a one off pickup game. But people should still know the tactic because if you are looking at me across a table from you in a tournament you better know how to deal with it.

I've seen stubborn Halberdier hordes do rather well as an anvil. They aren't durable in any fashion other than "lots of wounds", but when you're throwing up to 30S4 attacks in combat it tends to turn to "Who has more wounds to spare?" Main list I see at my GW for such a gunline is about 2-3 Halberdier bricks with attached Swordsmen (for the purpose of then charging flanks, negating ranks, and overall being +5 to Combat Resolution the turn they come in).

Of course, this is less a "Pure Gunline", and more "Lots of war-machines with bricks". If you're buying large numbers of handgunners / crossbowmen, you either need to play a larger game for this to be feasible or drop something from some part of the list.

Trouble is Minsc a lot of armies can match you, more or less, in price and capability.

Basic orcs cost only 7pts with choppa and shield, and they also horde up nicely.

Halberdier hordes are a line unit not an anvil per se. A true anvil needs to be able to hold, no matter what and your halberdiers are too wide to have the depth they will need.

Swordsmen, or spearmen if one must, in a deep formation are key.

So then... I have 50 swordsmen, should i use them in a 5x6 formation maybe with the griffon standard for the extra rank bonus, or should i use them in a horde for the attacks. Opinions seem to be mixed.

The total is what matters not the number of ranks, expand or contract your frontage as needed. You only need to have more ranks than the other guy, so see what you are facing and reform if you dont have enough ranks.
50 is a good number for an anvil unit, only skaven and goblins will be able to easily keep up with that many.

Orlanth wrote:Halberdier hordes are a line unit not an anvil per se. A true anvil needs to be able to hold, no matter what and your halberdiers are too wide to have the depth they will need.

Swordsmen, or spearmen if one must, in a deep formation are key.

Spearmen and halberdiers are the same in defence. Same WS, same toughness, same armour save (unless you're silly enough to buy shields). They only differ on offensive output, and in every instance other than unarmoured T3 opponents the halberds do better.

So all that really matters in making each unit into an anvil is deploying in deep formation, and both are equally capable of that.

I agree that swordsmen are better as a pure anvil, with their higher WS and parry save, but halberdiers are great as a unit that can reform between the two roles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

VonHeiss wrote:So then... I have 50 swordsmen, should i use them in a 5x6 formation maybe with the griffon standard for the extra rank bonus, or should i use them in a horde for the attacks. Opinions seem to be mixed.

If you want to deal damage, you want halberdiers. You really, really don't want to be relying on the Str 3 attacks of swordsmen to kill the enemy. Basically I'd take this unit and stick it in front of the enemy's biggest, scariest unit, and rely on it to survive in 5*10 formation for long enough for you to score points elsewhere.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:The total is what matters not the number of ranks, expand or contract your frontage as needed. You only need to have more ranks than the other guy, so see what you are facing and reform if you dont have enough ranks.

Except you can't reform to take guys out of base to base, so it becomes very easy to get units stuck in wide formations that become sub-optimal as the fight grinds out.

sebster wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Halberdier hordes are a line unit not an anvil per se. A true anvil needs to be able to hold, no matter what and your halberdiers are too wide to have the depth they will need.

Swordsmen, or spearmen if one must, in a deep formation are key.

Spearmen and halberdiers are the same in defence. Same WS, same toughness, same armour save (unless you're silly enough to buy shields). They only differ on offensive output, and in every instance other than unarmoured T3 opponents the halberds do better.

Spears took a hit in 8th, you still get one rank extra in combat but 3 ranks vs 2 is less of an advantage than 2 ranks vs 1. This is also why halberds are far more popular than they used to be, the extra rank is the kicker. Spearmen are mentioned because they were a default boxset infantry unit and thus some players have a lot of them, I for one do. If spearmen are taken then shields are a must as the shield doesn't get in the way of its fighting ability. A 5+ save has potential against basic troops.

sebster wrote:

Orlanth wrote:The total is what matters not the number of ranks, expand or contract your frontage as needed. You only need to have more ranks than the other guy, so see what you are facing and reform if you dont have enough ranks.

Except you can't reform to take guys out of base to base, so it becomes very easy to get units stuck in wide formations that become sub-optimal as the fight grinds out.

Changing ranks is a choice you have to make before combat, on turn 1 if necessary. Empire normally have the enemy coming to them and state troops dont march fast up the field anyway. So there is plenty of time to reform your troops into the formation ratio you need.

Orlanth wrote:Spears took a hit in 8th, you still get one rank extra in combat but 3 ranks vs 2 is less of an advantage than 2 ranks vs 1. This is also why halberds are far more popular than they used to be, the extra rank is the kicker.

I know, I've posted the very same argument on this forum plenty of times myself. I even gave a table showing the dominance of halberds in 8th ed rules one time.

Spearmen are mentioned because they were a default boxset infantry unit and thus some players have a lot of them, I for one do.

Most players also have loads of spare halberds from all the state troop boxsets they've bought, so conversion shouldn't be too hard. Not that it really matters that much, halberdiers are better but it isn't by so much that spearmen shouldn't ever be taken, certainly in friendly matches the difference doesn't matter much.

If spearmen are taken then shields are a must as the shield doesn't get in the way of its fighting ability. A 5+ save has potential against basic troops.

Except that at a point per model, there's simply no way the shield justifies the cost. Might as well take swordsmen, and get extra WS, extra IN and a parry save, while still getting the same basic save and only losing one rank of attacks.

This why I argue that in any new Empire book shields ought to be given to state troops for free. They'll do little for halberdiers, but they'd make spearmen something competitive players might start to consider.

Changing ranks is a choice you have to make before combat, on turn 1 if necessary. Empire normally have the enemy coming to them and state troops dont march fast up the field anyway. So there is plenty of time to reform your troops into the formation ratio you need.

You're missing my point. The optimum formation changes as a game goes on, especially when you cut it as fine as you suggested above "You only need to have more ranks than the other guy, so see what you are facing and reform if you dont have enough ranks". A bus unit might be facing an enemy with only three ranks, and be tempted to reform to a wide formation as it only needs four ranks to defeat them, however once combat is met it's likely the Empire will lose troops much faster than the higher quality enemy unit. At which point it can't be certain of always maintaining more ranks, and may not be able to withdraw troops into a deeper formation as you can't reform to pull troops out of base to base.

So my point is that a player should reform to only have as many ranks as he needs, but needs to be aware it's much easier to increase his frontage than it is to reduce it, which means playing it safe and generally giving yourself a few more ranks than you strictly need.

sebster wrote:
Most players also have loads of spare halberds from all the state troop boxsets they've bought, so conversion shouldn't be too hard. Not that it really matters that much, halberdiers are better but it isn't by so much that spearmen shouldn't ever be taken, certainly in friendly matches the difference doesn't matter much.

Spearmen shouldnt be used like halberdiers. Halbderdiers are the offensive troops, Swordsmen are the defensive, spearmen are in between and inferior to both, however with shields rthey do the same job as swordsmen do, more or less. The differences are minor enough that deep rank spearmen are worthwhile and usable, if not optimum. So they need not gather dust.

sebster wrote:
Except that at a point per model, there's simply no way the shield justifies the cost. Might as well take swordsmen, and get extra WS, extra IN and a parry save, while still getting the same basic save and only losing one rank of attacks.

If someone got their Empire army via lots of 6th edition boxsets as I did you will have plenty of mortars/cannon and handgunners, no problems there, and also plenty of spearmen.

http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/rick/Warhammer6ed/WH6_logo.jpg

sebster wrote:
You're missing my point. The optimum formation changes as a game goes on, especially when you cut it as fine as you suggested above "You only need to have more ranks than the other guy, so see what you are facing and reform if you dont have enough ranks". A bus unit might be facing an enemy with only three ranks, and be tempted to reform to a wide formation as it only needs four ranks to defeat them, however once combat is met it's likely the Empire will lose troops much faster than the higher quality enemy unit. At which point it can't be certain of always maintaining more ranks, and may not be able to withdraw troops into a deeper formation as you can't reform to pull troops out of base to base.

That is why you choose once before battle.

Orlanth wrote:Spearmen shouldnt be used like halberdiers. Halbderdiers are the offensive troops, Swordsmen are the defensive, spearmen are in between and inferior to both, however with shields rthey do the same job as swordsmen do, more or less. The differences are minor enough that deep rank spearmen are worthwhile and usable, if not optimum. So they need not gather dust.

The shield is a bad option. It is giving you, at best, a 16% increase in survival for a 16% price increase. That's a terrible bargain in anyone's language. You are always better off buying 16% more spearmen than buying shields.

And spearmen don't compare to swordsmen, with whom they have little in common. Instead, spearmen compare with halberdiers, as they're identical in everything except damage output (where you're comparing spears getting 50% more attacks, against halberds getting Str 4). The issue is that the advantage is all on the side of the halberdiers. Which makes spearmen what they are, sub-optimal halberdiers.

If someone got their Empire army via lots of 6th edition boxsets as I did you will have plenty of mortars/cannon and handgunners, no problems there, and also plenty of spearmen.

http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/rick/Warhammer6ed/WH6_logo.jpg

Fair enough. I skipped right past 6th ed.

That is why you choose once before battle.

That's just ignoring a potential source of game winning advantage. The idea that someone would get their anvil unit into combat, realise the advantage was their's and that they could, not redeploy into a wider formation to maximise enemy casualties is just bizarre.

Does taking the Griffon Standard in a large block of swordsman make it better to take a horde in all cases..? For example, say i'm running a 10x5 horde of my swordsmen. With the Griffon Standard they get a rank bonus of +7 before losing any ranks. Does this plus the increased number of attacks make it better in most cases than say a 5x10 unit with +9 rank bonus to start off?

Oh and thanks for all the advice, it's been really helpful to me as a relatively inexperienced player.

VonHeiss wrote:Does taking the Griffon Standard in a large block of swordsman make it better to take a horde in all cases..? For example, say i'm running a 10x5 horde of my swordsmen. With the Griffon Standard they get a rank bonus of +7 before losing any ranks. Does this plus the increased number of attacks make it better in most cases than say a 5x10 unit with +9 rank bonus to start off?

Rank bonus stops at +3.

Running swordsmen in a horde is almost never a good idea.

Griffon Standard doubles your rank bonus bic, but since you have to take it on a BSB it is never worth it

Johnny-Crass wrote:Griffon Standard doubles your rank bonus bic, but since you have to take it on a BSB it is never worth it

Yes, but a 10-deep unit of swordsmen would never get a +9 rank bonus.

Also, IIRC you can take a magic standard on state troops if you take a General of the Empire.

Up to 50 points and Griffon is 55....

And I thought he said +7 not +9... Ooops

Johnny-Crass wrote:Up to 50 points and Griffon is 55....

Good point. Not worth sacrificing your BSB.

Johnny-Crass wrote:And I thought he said +7 not +9... Ooops

Griffon in a horde would be +7 (+6 rank +1 BSB, +8 with a normal standard), but there's no way to get +9 rank bonus in a bus.

I think he read the rule as "you get +1 for every rank, griffon doubles this up to +3" - so a 5-deep horde would get +4 (ranks) +3 (Griffon) while a 10-deep bus would get +9 (ranks). This is incorrect.

Oops. Thanks for the correction, i think I'll have to read over the rulebook again.

sebster wrote:

Orlanth wrote:
That is why you choose once before battle.

That's just ignoring a potential source of game winning advantage. The idea that someone would get their anvil unit into combat, realise the advantage was their's and that they could, not redeploy into a wider formation to maximise enemy casualties is just bizarre.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot contract ranks in combat, but you can predict how many ranks you will need depending on how many turns there are remaining and what you are facing to ensure (within reason) you still have one more rank than the other guy on turn six. Subject to the dice gods of course. everything erlse like flanking attacks is your problem.
a large unit gives you flexibility, but it should not be squandered in thinking, 'this is a tarpit so lets always deploy in minimal frontage'. You will want to go wider than that if you can afford, you may win, or be able to hold up a second small unit.

In any event rank width should not be set as an all or nothing five ranks or ten as a doctrine, that is too contricting, look see whats coming and adjust accordingly, careful preparation might buy you an edge.

Orlanth wrote:You cannot have it both ways. You cannot contract ranks in combat, but you can predict how many ranks you will need depending on how many turns there are remaining and what you are facing to ensure (within reason) you still have one more rank than the other guy on turn six. Subject to the dice gods of course. everything erlse like flanking attacks is your problem.
a large unit gives you flexibility, but it should not be squandered in thinking, 'this is a tarpit so lets always deploy in minimal frontage'. You will want to go wider than that if you can afford, you may win, or be able to hold up a second small unit.

In any event rank width should not be set as an all or nothing five ranks or ten as a doctrine, that is too contricting, look see whats coming and adjust accordingly, careful preparation might buy you an edge.

What are you talking about? I said you can shift a unit between a more offensive, wide frontage and a more defensive, narrower frontage, but you have to be careful as you can't reform guys out of base to base.

You've posted some stuff that kind of talks about picking once and staying with that, regardless. Sort of. In your answer above you seem to kind of acknowledge that you can adjust on the fly, without actually conceding that there are situations where it is just plain common sense to adjust to increase or reduce your frontage.