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Relatively new to fantasy here, but i can't understand why you wouldn't want anything other than ranks of 5 or 10. At five, you can get more ranks, and at ten you get more attacks. Anywhere from 6-9 seems like it just loses you rank bonus. I constantly hear people say chaos warriors (the army i'm doing) are best ran in units of 6x3. Why not 5x4? the extra for two extra models you get a full 3 ranks instead of just two. And if you want 2 extra ranks, why not just take 15 models instead of 18?

In the chaos warrior example above, the reason is because chaos warriors are really expensive, which makes ranking them up pretty damn hard, if they go 6 wide, they will still have all guys in the front rank be able to attack a unit that is 5 wide with 20mm. In short they aren't getting the ranks, so it makes the most efficient use of the models.

Also, because they are solid in boxes of like 12 I think

Because if you have a unit that is strong offensively, going 6 wide vs 5 wide will often gain you more combat rez via the extra 4-6 attacks than the extra rank will.

We had a good discussion about this before: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/625909.page

 Krellnus wrote:

Also, because they are solid in boxes of like 12 I think

This is why.

Because Chaos warrior units are almost always fielded in multiples of 6, if they were to go only 5 wide they would have an incomplete rank hanging off the back. They also lose nothing if they turn that incomplete rank into another file but they gain at least 3 more attacks.

Outside of this, you can gain more offensive output by going 6 wide. Although this is usually only the case if your unit is already offensively strong. If you're only pushing str 3 attacks, you're obviously using a chaff unit and those are meant to just be a stubborn stick in the mud. Trying to actually kill stuff is both pointless and counterproductive.

ancraig wrote:
Relatively new to fantasy here, but i can't understand why you wouldn't want anything other than ranks of 5 or 10. At five, you can get more ranks, and at ten you get more attacks. Anywhere from 6-9 seems like it just loses you rank bonus. I constantly hear people say chaos warriors (the army i'm doing) are best ran in units of 6x3. Why not 5x4? the extra for two extra models you get a full 3 ranks instead of just two. And if you want 2 extra ranks, why not just take 15 models instead of 18?

6 Wide gives you 3-4 additional attacks at S5 (halberds) or S6 (great weapons).
With WS5, more often than not, the extra guys swinging is better than just having a point of rank bonus.

Keeping in mind that you only need a corner touching an enemy model for your model to attack, sometimes having the extra two models on your frontage is worth the (possible) loss of ranks.

You have 30 Empire Greatswords attacking my unit of 40 Skaven Clan Rats. My Clan Rats are 5 wide, 8 deep. You have your models 5 wide, 6 deep.

Your back 3 ranks are accomplishing nothing at this point. They don't add to CR (which is limited to +3), and you don't have enough to break my Steadfast anyway. At that point, if you went 7 wide, you are getting 14 models fighting to my 10, instead of 10 to my 10.


For models with multiple attacks (like Chaos Warriors), you want as many front line models fighting as possible, because supporting models don't get their full complement of attacks, just the 1 for supporting.

Another reason to go stupidly wide is to protect characters.
If your opponent is 5 wide, you can go 8 wide and put the character in the corner. At most, he'll get 1 model in base to base (corner to corner) with a supporting attack.
Here's some crappy art to show you.
(E is enemy, X is rank and file, C is charcater)

_EEEEE
_EEEEE
CXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
If you went 5 wide, he could line up off center (with everything still touching an enemy) but with 3 models touching the character.
EEEEE
EEEEE
_CXXXX
_XXXXX
_XXXXX

Sure, you're starting the fight with another rank (which you might have had anyway), but no your opponent can drop 3 models worth of attacks, and 3 support attacks onto that character.

If the unit is stubborn (white lions) you could character bunker like this: (S standard, M musician, C Champ, W Wizard)
SMC
WXX
XXX
XXX

Only 3 wide forces the wizard into the 2nd rank, where he cannot be hit at all from the front. It's a fairly cheap bunker to keep a wizard alive from light threats, while still throwing out 9 S6 attacks at init 5.
By placing the wizard to the side of the unit, you're only touching 5 models should you miscast and hit all models in base to base (and not touching the champ at all).


Often, how units line up on the enemy makes more of an impact on the game then the facing that you charge.

There are two basic reason to play around with your frontage:

1) Denying attacks

2) Getting more attacks


I'll give you two examples from my VC.

I run my Black Knights 3-wide. This means that I do not get rank bonuses and do not break steadfast. So why would I do it? Easy: attack denial, and make-way shenanigans.

The front rank of my bus is the command. This means that the two vampire lords in the bus are pushed to the second rank. Thus when I charge in I can make-way with them to wherever they wish. Since one is wearing the OTS and the other the Nightshroud there are considerable benefits in retaining flexibility for where those base-contact debuffs go.

It also means that the front rank of the bus becomes two T5 WS7 vampires and a champion. Any wounds allocated against the champion in excess of those that kill him will be wasted, provided that they occur at the same I step. That's a significant way to reduce attacks incoming on the unit.



The other relevant unit is my grave guard, which I run 7-wide. I used to run them in a horde, but found that this made them too vulnerable to a large number of units hitting them in the front. Given that they're ASL and have low WS and defense this was a huge weakness for the unit. 7-wide I found to be the right balance between attack and offense, as I got 14 attacks along the front against most anything, which was more likely to last to the second round of combat where a horde would be down to 1-2 ranks anyways and thus not generating any additional attacks (despite having more bodies who couldn't fight).

By putting a WK with the NS in this unit I also further mitigated incoming damage, which was less impactful when the unit was bigger and thus had more stuff fighting in it.

More complex reasons from frontage.
Zombies gain 2D6+wizard level with each casting of invocation.
In a vampire list that focuses on summoning, I've had the back of the unit grow faster than the front can walk forward; often having additional models lost due to lack of space/table edge. Having a unit go 10 wide initial gives me twice the room to summon without having to march right at the enemy turn 1.

Meat Shield: When faced off against a gun line, my orcs and goblins will select a unit of Zulu goblins to test the enemy fire. The selected unit of goblins will deploy 40 wide across my whole front, giving all the rest of my army hard cover, for the cheap cost of 140 points. The enemy is either shooting at 3 point goblins, or firing at -2 to hit.

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
More complex reasons from frontage.
Zombies gain 2D6+wizard level with each casting of invocation.
In a vampire list that focuses on summoning, I've had the back of the unit grow faster than the front can walk forward; often having additional models lost due to lack of space/table edge. Having a unit go 10 wide initial gives me twice the room to summon without having to march right at the enemy turn 1.

Meat Shield: When faced off against a gun line, my orcs and goblins will select a unit of Zulu goblins to test the enemy fire. The selected unit of goblins will deploy 40 wide across my whole front, giving all the rest of my army hard cover, for the cheap cost of 140 points. The enemy is either shooting at 3 point goblins, or firing at -2 to hit.

Fun trick: swift-reform zombies into a congaline, facing backwards. Hit the unit with an invocation or two. Watch the line groooooooooow.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

 HawaiiMatt wrote:
More complex reasons from frontage.
Zombies gain 2D6+wizard level with each casting of invocation.
In a vampire list that focuses on summoning, I've had the back of the unit grow faster than the front can walk forward; often having additional models lost due to lack of space/table edge. Having a unit go 10 wide initial gives me twice the room to summon without having to march right at the enemy turn 1.

Meat Shield: When faced off against a gun line, my orcs and goblins will select a unit of Zulu goblins to test the enemy fire. The selected unit of goblins will deploy 40 wide across my whole front, giving all the rest of my army hard cover, for the cheap cost of 140 points. The enemy is either shooting at 3 point goblins, or firing at -2 to hit.

Fun trick: swift-reform zombies into a congaline, facing backwards. Hit the unit with an invocation or two. Watch the line groooooooooow.

You are very evil.