Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So basically I've gotten my empire army off of ebay about six months ago and frankly got bored with it. Now with the new rulebook and shiny new models it has reignited by passion for the empire. When I got the army it included flagellants and I really like the models. They look cool with their huge flails and crazy faces and so I thought they were a great models to paint. In terms of playing I wasn't too sure since I never played them and now with the new edition they seems to have gotten even a little worse with the point increase.

Since I have them I do want to use them, so long as they are still useful. If the general consensus though is that they are a bad unit then I wont include them. It would just be nice to use them since I have them and since they look cool. If people feel like they still have a place in an army them what are your suggestions on size and frontage? Since they have no armor and martyr themselves you need a lot, but I don't want to put too many points into it. What do you guys think?

They are an average unit compared to their old incarnation, which was just all freakin powerful, so they've been nerfed, but however they aren't all that bad.

Stuff them with a battle priest for his 5++ save, along with hatred, and to would rerolls, and they will do ALOT of damage in a short amount of time, of course as flagellents, depending on your luck you may get rerolls to hit/wounding anyways. Which is nice when your enemy is determined to stop your bound spells.

I'd run them either in a horde position (40 strong) or a defensive formation (6x5 formation)

Don't listin to the Internet, Flagellents are still a unit that will delete your enemy(they just don't have as good survivability as they used to)

Basically, use them as a Torpedo. Shoot them at something you want mauled/killed and don't expect them to survive.

ok cool, I was planning to run them with a warrior priest anyway so that should help survivability. Glad they're still useful, I hate it when characterful models or units are ignored because of bad rules. I have about 30 right now so I'll trying playing with a 6x5 of them soon. Thanks!

As an Unbreakable unit, the Warrior Priest can't join them.

Also, since you get nothing from ranks and everything from having more attacks, you should almost always go Horde (10 wide)

wow, good catch Clarence. Didn't notice that before so I had to read the rule book, but year. Unbreakable units can only be joined by unbreakable characters.

I guess there are two solutions to this then. If there is some wargear that grants unbreakable I can use that (although I checked and it looks like there isnt) or I can have a arch-lector on a war altar and we can just give them the 5++ blessing while being a few inches away.

They are better now imho. No limit, they are special, they are ws3, they still reroll and if you kill 4 or more their toughness goes up

yeah the no limit thing certainly makes them better. I'm just still surprised about forgetting about how flagellants cant have most characters attached to them. I know other players have forgotten that. I mean, if you look at some of the pictures in the new empire army book (specifically the big army picture on the "colours of the empire" section) shows a group of flagellants joined by a warrior priest. Seems like GW even forgot at some point, haha.

In the end, I guess the martyr effect is much better, since having 3+ only giving +1 to combat resolution is really not that great, but +1 T is awesome.

Flagellants are kind of whacky, and really highlight how limited the internet mantra of 'hammer and anvil' can be.

I mean, you will not find a pricier T3, no armour save unit in the game, but they're also unbreakable, and will hang around in a fight despiting taking horrible losses. So does that make them an anvil?

And with frenzy and flails they throw out a load of Str 5 hits, but only for one turn. Hopefully they will have done enough damage in one turn that they might then win a war of attrition... but does that make them a hammer?

Really, the best thing about these guys is that unlike the rest of the Empire army, they don't need the support of warrior priests and captains to be decent in a fight. Instead you can leave them out on a flank by themselves, where you know if they come up against some small flanking unit their flails can mash it to pieces fairly quickly, and if they come up against some big scary monster they'll survive to the very last man, protecting your core units from a flanking charge.

I think they're probably at least two points more than they ought to be, but that doesn't make them bad, it just means you need to have a real need for them in your army in order for them to be worth the points. For instance, if you want to run a refused flank and really need to bunker down your exposed centre, these guys might be worth the premium you pay.

I ran 30 in horde formation and They killed 21 saurus warriors in one turn so yea they're worth it