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I played a game today against a mate playing dwarves, he brought a unit of 30 slayers with 10 unit champs making up the front rank who strike at a higher initiative than the rest.

If he strikes with his guys at ini 4 (or 3 or whatever they were) and then I strike back at the same time and have to target unit champs and kill some, do the men that step forward to take their place get all their attacks since they are in the front rank when it comes around to their turn in ini order (and for that matter do the men behind them get supporting attacks) ?

I would say yes. It may seem a bit OP, but to get them into front rank, he's losing those expensive Giant Slayers.

No, the model that steps forward to replace the champion doesn't fight.

At the start of each inititive step you determine who is going to fight and who they will be targeting.

Then you resolve the attacks.

Then step up happens.

The point was they are at different initiatives, so they will be attacking at a later step.

Ok, if the models that are stepping up have a lower inititive then the phase in which the models they are replacing were killed at then they will get to attack.

Do slayers have a special rule where they can take unlimited unit champs?

Cool, thanks for clearing that up.

Rizzo wrote:Do slayers have a special rule where they can take unlimited unit champs?

Yes

Unlimited champions opens an interesting mechanic.

Since Champions have to be targeted seperatly, you would have to put attacks on specific models in base to base. Only the front rank could be killed essentially.

It seems like a lot of points in unit champs just to get a mildly useful extra couple of attacks.


In other news, stuff like this just makes me think how messy the whole initiative sequence is. Given that now with step up everyone gets to attack unless units have been really reduced, it doesn't even matter that much, compared to how fiddly it is.

Also it makes no sense - how is a human, with one attack, somehow faster than a lizardman, even though that lizardman is attacking twice for every human attack?

Honestly I think they'd be better off just dropping the whole concept. Just have everyone fight at once. For certain creatures and weapons that need to have some kind of extra speed or slowness recognised you could have ASF and ASL, but everyone else just fights at the same time.

This isn't an unusual case. It's just normal stepup. If they were rank and file and you killed 10, they would be removed (admittedly from the back) and 10 more would step up and attack.

The "limitation" of the stepup unit has to have lower init than the front and that init phase hasn't been passed can't happen, as they would have attacked via supporting ahead of the slower front line already.

E.G., if it was init 7 units fighting 10 init 2 Slayers(!) and backed by init 3 super slayers in the next row. The super slayers are going to either be killed by the init 7 enemies or get to attack before the front row of init 2 ones (though if they have multiple attacks they may lose out there).

Though I can't imagine a whole lot of times you'll have higher init 2nd+ ranks in a unit. But it is an interesting case when adding a character. It's conceivable you could have a low init hero fronting a higher init unit. But he would not only have to die, but die at a lower (not equal!) init than the rank and file. If I had a dollar for every time that happened, I'd probably be able to afford a hamburger.

Its a similar case (just reversed) to a brettonian lance formation, with a (free) champion, and 2+ heroes/lords. the front rank of three is made up of the champion, and the two heroes, who all have to be attacked seperately. assuming the lance went into an enemy made up of a single initiative (the normal case) only the champion, or heroes can be attacked, and since wounds dont carry over, only they can be killed.

Let's say that a single lance has 3 heroes in the front, champ is in second rank. Can the enemy unit even opt to attack against the unit or must they attack against the characters, whose WS is surely higher than the rest of their lance unit.

An interesting, albeit expensive, idea.

Nope, since you can only attack what you are in contact with you can only attack the heroes.

Aerethan wrote:Let's say that a single lance has 3 heroes in the front, champ is in second rank. Can the enemy unit even opt to attack against the unit or must they attack against the characters, whose WS is surely higher than the rest of their lance unit.

An interesting, albeit expensive, idea.

It isn't just about having to attack guys with higher WS, it's about having to direct your attacks against characters loaded up with magical armour. 2+ AS is hard to get through, but you will get some attacks through. But being able to only target those 3 characters with 1+ saves, one of them re-rollable, and excellent ward saves is much harder.

It's actually a pretty solid build.