How I roll by edition.
Ok, restarting 6th soon, from time to time so I will have to recap the rules.
For 8th I normally go full command on almost everything as units are larger, even archers.
For 9th Age (and we stuck with v1.1 because it was Warhammer fixed rather than post-Warhammer) I very rarely dont have full command.
Optical value
If the unit is ranked up and has more than one rank then it usually gets a full command whether it needs it or not. simply because it looks better, and i could argue that the soldiers themselves would want a banner and leader if not a musician.
these are purely fluff considerations, but being honest with myself this is how I normally work my list.
I could take full command and then counts as basic troops with no command, but I think that unfair. Its a 30pt tax (for most of 8th and 9th) all round which i just suck up.
Believe me, it can hurt. A block of twenty night goblins, a la Skull Pass, costs 60pts, upgrading the command group costs another 30pts. Skull Pass gobbos come with the command miniatures and i like them. I do get value from the upgrades too, but not 50% of the units worth. It's a fluff tax and I pay up.
Times when I don't add full command can be formulated thus:
Skirmish or light screening troops, particularly skirmish infantry, they might get a musician for gameplay reasons, and or a champion, but rarely a standard. If somehow a skirmish/screening unit gets particularly large and doesnt fall into one of the categories then it will get a full command.
Light cavalry normally also omit the standard, however if I have excess miniatures I model a standard because I can.
Erratic troops, those too random, edgy or uncoordinated to have a command structure, have no command units at all. Examples are Slayers and Flagellants.
Worthless and faceless horde troops. like ghouls, gnoblars, skavenslaves (when I finally get around to do Skaven) and zombies. Goblins I don't add to that category, gobbos have self worth and full equipment and consider themselves proper infantry so they get a command group.
I go by the above rules for my own fluff reasons. Even when it might pay to do otherwise. there is no good in game reason to add a Dark Rider standard bearer, but the model looks too good to pass up, Conversely there is good reason to give flagellants a champion, but I never do.
Next is the 'not enough lances' problem. Take the blood knights set for example, I dont have it, too expensive, but I thought about what I would do if i modelled some.
Notice how the above lance armed cavalry unit has only two lances in it. In such cases I consider dropping a command model to set things right. In the above case I might drop the musician in the list to have a third lancer, then give the champion a lance and have that lance, and only that lance fly a pennant. An alternative is to model the standard bearer with both musical instrument and banner and keep track of which command models remain. In other cases I try to add a sixth member to a heavy cavalry unit and make sure the musician has the musical instrument in the shield hand, either that or take a minimum unit of seven.
In my armies my heavy cavalry are all six figures minimum for precisely theses reasons.
Demigryph lance pose a different problem.
The unit helpfully mounts the horn on the shield for a fully functioning musician, but still has only one lance on the rank and every miniature present is part of the command. I run my demis as a block of six in two ranks, editing down to a unit of four if I have to be somewhat more competitive. Again the champion gets a lance, which means all the other pennants are clipped and filed away. I get five lances and a banner and it looks better.
This is a lot of cost for a more 'fashionable' army, but to me it's worth while. At the end of the day my armies are a collection, not a win button, I want things to look good. So might knights always have two or more ranks with full command, unless they dont rank up e.g. chaos knights, cold one knights, and thry gey a single rank of six or seven models based on how the command group can be organised.
Please also note that an unoptimised army doesn't make me deaf to optimisation. My six demis as listed above can be whittled down to a cost cutting block of four with a musician only, and my block of twelve dark riders with full command (and rank bonus!) can be replaced by two units of five with champions for min-max harassment.
Oh and those demigryph combi horn/shields, the one from my second box of demigryphs was a prize conversion piece for a unit of Inner Circle knights.
Tactical considerations.
Ok, back to business. There are times when and when not to add command group figures. I can and do follow these instructions where advantageous within limits. I still for instance pay a 30pt command tax for empire infantry and goblins even when trying to keep them cheap.
When to make sure you have a champion.
- Anytime you have a character in the unit, be it a wizard or your general take a champion for challenge shield, whether for or against. If a character might join the unit but doesn't start there take a champion. This does mean my characters never join zombie blocks because of my own worthless faceless troops geas, but you do as you will.
- Undead units deployed adjacent to each other both get champions. Again in my case I make sure both units are skeletons, but you can work tis with ghouls and zeds if you like. Because the champion is the first model returned by Nehek you can permalock an enemy character by engaging him or his unit with two blocks of cheap undead. One champion challenges in one turn, the other the next, before you need a third Nehek brings both back. This can reduce *ANY* lone character to being only able to destroy a skeleton champion plus overkill each turn. As will be mentioned below you further mitigate losses with standard bearers.
When to make sure you don't have a champion.
- Surgical strike units should not have champions. Good example being a 'wolf dart'. If you send a pack of warhounds/dire wolves/wolf riders into a character make sure there is no champion. You want all your dogs to nibble on the wizard, not for the accompanying champion to challenge down and restrict your output. Now same unit can also serve a chaff function and use the champion to survive one turn longer in combat, but this is situational.
- Small high end units should not have champions. Got only one box of demigryphs, dont model a champion. Each model has a high damage output and thus a lot can be wasted on overkill killing a champion on a unit trying to tarpit your heavies. For larger units of same i disobey my own rule (though I shouldn't really), however even I will not apply this to units of two or three models. Vargheists and Dragon Ogres are good examples here and I have both in units of three, all the same no command.
Now in the case of dragon ogres the base cost of the model means the +10pts for +1A is worth it on a
raw trade, but I prefer kills to overkill, and also for thematic reason, units with a very small number of models are in my mind have enough variety with all being rank and file.
When to take standards.
- Any unit with a functional rank bonus should have a standard. I include archers in this.
- Bretonnians get standards. I give all my Bretonnians standards, all the knights for optical reasons, you might wish not to for Pegasus knights and smaller units and I would fairly advise against it, but I do. However the tactical advice kicks in with peasants. Brets have a special rule by which peasant banners are worthless and generate no victory points, you still lose the peasant holding it if the unit runs, but that is a worthwhile price for +1 combat res as no peasant unit too expensive to lose this way. While peasants are fairly cowardly the peasants duty rule, the ease by which steadfast can be managed plus the availability of Virtue of Humility means peasants should never be far away from a respectable leader making the +1 bonus too useful to pass up.
My Bret peasant break a lot of my command rules, I give full command to even the light cavalry and skirmish archer units, it looks great and it doesn't hurt me in game.
When not to take standards.
- Any high points count per model unit. Demigryphs are as high as I would go, and normally I dont actually field my demi-gryph standard bearer. You can lose a very important ans expensive model just by losing the combat. Undead are an exception, Blood Knights are very expensive but never run so the bonus from the standard is critical to absorb crumble. Top end monsterous cavalry like Juggernauts and were I honest to myself Pegasus knights should never have standards.
- Any chaff unit that isn't a Bretonnian peasant. Chaff are all about not giving away
VP, banners hurt this. <Looks guiltily at my night goblins with full command. Ahem. >
When to take musicians.
- Any chaff unit that might survive annihilation. The tiebreaker effect of musicians doesnt come into it too often, because ranked up troops habitually take full command and any chaff hanging onto the same combat can take advantage of the same musician. So musicians outside of rank and file are for those chaff units which will be fighting alone, take one for the team but not get annihilated.
Minimum units of wolf riders don't survive combat, and if they do and they run they are not coming back. Pistoliers are sufficiently better that the musician is worthwhile. Larger units of wolf riders however should take a musician.
When not to take musicians.
There are lots of times not to bother, undead for instance often do not benefit, if the tiebreaker is needed the one point of crumble doesnt matter much, and being undead they are restricted as to special actions and maneuvers that musicians are useful for. Still musicians are a common add on, for a large combat block the extra 10pts is easy enough to swallow. However where points are tight and you are just short of deploying something nice it is a common practice to shave off musicians from combat blocks to make up the points. Don't go overboard on this and make sure what you want is actually worth it.
Conclusion
As a general rule of thumb it is not unwise to pencil in a command group for every major unit and then downgrade individual models of any type to make points at the end of a list. I do this all the time, when collecting virtually everything that can has a full command, whether it makes it to tabletop is another matter entirely.
Yes my commentary is contradictory, because I am working cross purposes here by being mindful of both fluff and meta simultaneously. We each have to find our own balance and the above might help with pointers to this. however keep in mind that we are all hobbyists and collectors, were we not we would stick to computer games or hex based strategy. Aesthetics are a big part of the hobby and rule of cool applies in full, thankfully the awesome unit of light cavalry with full command and two ranks need only look that awesome on the shelf, and can be broken down onto two minimum bare units for function on the tabletop as you will it.