Topic: Tactics for "sub-optimal" units

[emcdunna]

I want to talk about so called "sub optimal" units and what we can do to use them to achieve a purpose.

I am gonna lend my experience with these choices and give my opinions.

First, Luminark of Hysh:
 People usually want the hurricanum over the luminark because of the bubble +1 to hit, and thats a valid opinion, but when you get to playing games of at least 2500 pts you should consider taking both.
The luminark i find is very helpful for giving you that extra dispel dice (speaks for itself),
the ward save is nothing to snicker at (do you realize how many 6+ saves you can make? I am very lucky with these. You can easily give 100 infantrymen a 6+ ward for the whole game which on average saves you 16 deaths.
Also, the bound spell..... oh i love it. Who doesnt love a flaming bolt thrower? Plus you can visualize the LAZER BEAM just straight up frying people. Rerolling failed rolls to wound vs undead is good so dont forget to use it when it comes up.

Greatswords:
People generally find them too expensive, but against an army that struggles vs a LARGE number of guys with good armor, these guys can be tanks. I play them vs undead because almost nothing they use breaks armor besides things that ignore it completely. Greatswords will take nearly 1/2 as much damage from ghouls, skellies, zombies, dogs... and so on.
Also, Stubborn cannot be understated. Stubborn is unbelievable. Nuff said. Greatswords almost always die to the last man.
The greatsword is a beautiful weapon, again vs undead WS4 will often be enough to always be hitting thier guys on 3's, with both wagons behind this unit that means you always hit on 2's and you got a nice ward save to make your guys reasonably survivable (DO NOT EVER DISRESPECT A 6++ WARD)

Huntsmen:
In my last game my huntsmen blocked my opponent from vanguarding two units of dogs at me (who could have charged my artillery very early in the game). That alone was worth the points.
Do i wish that they were BS4 with longbows and had an option for ambush or an option for flaming attacks? YES, they dont get this but they should.
However, huntsmen are a very fluffy unit, but they can still pick off units with those bowshots. I have heard of them killing the last wound off a daemon prince.
Chaffing, flanking, warmachine hunting, vanguard stopping, oh and they get to shoot. Try these guys, very useful albeit not very killy. Essentially everything you want a unit to be able to do BUT kill stuff.

Swordsmen:
Many armies have low ws, or have WS3. When this comes to play it can really help to have WS4. Parrying is nice and can save you often. I like these guys as my detachments as they can hold out for a while, stay stubborn (the parent unit either has crown of command or is greatswords), and can cut people down too especially if you get a buff off on these guys.
These guys would totally be MVP if they werent so expensive. But then again, just ask yourself how much the measly cost matters to you. They probably are worth 6 pts but they cost 7. So a unit of 50 will waste 50 pts.

Spearmen:
All of our buffs are nice, mostly our infantry actually does stuff because of the magic buffing them and NOT because of their equipment. Stack hatred, prayers, wagons, augment spells.... and what you get is a defensive unit with decent armor, decently cheap, and you'll get to have 25% more attacks than halberdiers. When you use shadow magic (either lower toughness or grant mindrazor) then the halberds wouldnt matter anyway, and theres only a few ways to grant extra attacks besides spears.
So try these guys out too before you give up and just use halberdiers.

Witch hunter:
I will be blunt, only take him for the magic resistance on a big infantry block to protect against enemy magic, especially curse of years or other whole unit hitting spells.
He could technically take out a really weak wizard (who he accuses) but most wizards are tough nowadays.


anyways i will be posting more later but please read and comment!

[TastyBagel]

Glad to see you taking some of these! From my experience:

Greatswords - I love the fluff and models (I have 40+). I've been running two units of either 10 or 15 with a musician (for the swift reform) in my MSU lists, so they can get them where I need them to be. They can take more damage than I originally thought - against Elf shooting in particular it has been fun to see them shrug off a few rounds of shooting while taking no wounds. I've been using them as flankers if the opportunity presents itself, but mostly as Stubborn speedbumps. Love these guys.

Huntsmen - I've used a unit of 10 every game for the last two months. Newer players hate to have stuff show up unexpectedly in their deployment zone, and generally, they've been fun to use to mess with my opponent's heads. Their scouting ability is unique in our army, so I try to include them. However, aside from rear-charging a Skellie bunker, I'm not sure if they've killed anything in the last two months.

Swordsmen - I've been trying out units of 10 as redirectors and anti-chaff. They've been good so far. I can see them as good detachments possibly, but have never been a real fan of those rules aside from a massive griffon formation.

Spearmen - We discussed this in another thread. You've got good points. I can see some good potential for them. I hope your list with them works out!

Witch Hunter - I haven't used one recently. The MR is great for the cost. Honestly, back when I ran mine, he'd just deploy near his quarry and be more psychological than anything. Far more often, he ended up marching out and being a late-game redirector to stall a big enemy block, or try and provide me with a juicy flank charge.

Adding to your lists:

Flagellants - I found an unopened box for cheap, and picked it up. Ran a unit of 10 for a few games. I tried to save them for a later deployment to get a favorable match up. I want to use them since they're Frenzied and Unbreakable (unique abilities for Empire troops!) but they are expensive and fragile. I won't use a unit of 10 again (even when I got ideal flank charges, they never did quite enough damage to be threatening, and never lasted as long as I wanted) I have plans to get another box soon, and up the unit to 12-14 bodies for more testing. I think the extra bodies will help out the issues I ran into, but still be small/cheap enough to serve as a cost-effective glass-cannon. Having a model with multiple attacks and Unbreakable is unheard of for Empire... so it seems a shame not to use them, even if they are rather expensive.

Pistoliers - They take some getting used to, but I really like them. I run two units of 5 currently. Very versatile units - they can vanguard up for early baiting/threatening of war machines, or around to reform your lines post deployment. The 12" range is rough, but I'm surprised I don't see more folks running these guys.

Outriders - I ran these for a bit, but they are incredibly hard to use well so I dropped them in favor of their more reckless alternatives. I'm thinking of adding them after a local tourney wraps up in November. Normally, I moved them up as a vanguard move and prayed for the first turn. That rarely worked out for me. I'm thinking of adding barding, and deploying them further back. They can spend the first turn or two getting into position, then the remainder of the game unloading on anything in their arc. We'll see. This is a hard unit to use well, but I think they have potential.

[Jomppexx]

I'll add my two cents in here too.

Greatswords - These guys can be amazing in a horde IF they are supported by magic and a hurricanum. They are extremely expensive, which is their downfall. I once had a unit of 36 FC vs some 30 dark elf corsairs with 2x hand weapons, the elves killed maybe 4 if memory serves and the greatswords killed all of them. Greatswords were buffed with glittering scales for a 2+ armour save (jesus christ) and enchanted blades for AP and +1 To hit rolls, they were hitting ELVES on 2+, hatred wounding on 2+ no armour saves. Stubborn is amazing as well, I've never had these men run away from combat.

Outriders - Again, once you learn to use them well, they will tear up anything you point at them, if you want shooters don't bother with handgunners, bring outriders or a helblaster. On turn 1 I've had a unit of 5 vanguard up, shoot at a unit of sisters of slaugter and kill 12 of them, panicking them off the table. More feats of the magnificent turn one are them blasting a high elf lion chariot to smithereens. They are exceptional troops in the Empire with a suprising BS of 4, also come standard with an armour save of 5+. Learn to use these guys and they'll kill anything you want them to, if you want to snipe something bring a champion and shoot single shots with your unit, with BS5 he will likely hit on 2+ or 3+.

[emcdunna]

Outriders: One tactic for these guys is to put them behind your infantry, you see, with truesight you can simply shoot directly over the heads of infantry from horseback, so you get protection from charges but can still shoot. It also lets you crunch more shots into a smaller firing line. Barding on these guys is tough, if your opponent is a shooty heavy army, take it. otherwise dont.

Flagellants: I have thought a lot about them and i have decided that they cant really work at high points games. Youd need 50 of them in a horde with every buff known to man standing behind them. Problem is that they arent core. So you also gotta spend core somewhere. In small games a tiny unit might work

Greatswords: With enchanted blades and glitering robe..... oh dear god. Speaks for itself. They will churn out 25 wounds on literally anything. Send that combo into an elite unit and watch it die in one round.


Some new ones...

Handgunners: I know people claim our shooting sucks or is too expensive, but here this: I have taken 10-15 handgunners in my last few games and found them admirable. They bunker my wizard, who needs a bunker anyways (most people use archers) so a few extra points for much better shots than archers can be worth it. Also, haveing some pinch shooting can REALLY help, against certain units even 10 handgunners openning fire can utterly criple them, especially chariots and fast cav. Try them. If they dont get charged early in the game by a flying character, you will be happy with what they do.

Crossbows: All the things I said for handgunners can be said about these guys. Most armies actually have little armor, so if you want a more all rounder choice, crossbows have range to really do damage, especially in the first round of shooting (that you would automatically be out of range with hangunners).

Pistoliers: I love these guys, give them an outrider with repeater pistol for about 50% more damage from shooting, and even if you take a few casualties you can still run up and shoot stuff. These guys can really save you with a suicide charge at the right time.

Militia: Admitedly they are really expensive, but there is one thing they can be exploited for: detachment duty. I want to get the courage to try this: 10 or 20 militia, 10 wide, standing exactly 1" in front of a halberdier horde. They have the hatred from the warrior priest in there, and possibly other buffs for basically a single round of a decent number of attacks just wacking the enemy and also buffering your horde to enemy fire or enemy charges. Even if one guy is left alive he will be steadfast so you will just stand there tarpitting them up.


Mortar: For this, its very situational. S2 totally sucks. The best thing to use a mortar against is elves. Their models are all t3 but expensive and often dont have armor (or that much armor) so you can take out 2-3 elves each turn which is worth a ton of points over the entire game.
Vs literally anything but elves, you face guys with better toughness (will never be wounded) or cheaper guys (damage wont be worth the points)

[TastyBagel]

Crossbows and Handgunners - I love them. Running just two units of 10 Crossbows currently, though I've tried an additional 10-man gunner unit as well. Fantastic. I was always confused why people took Halberds without question simply "because they have S4!" and turned their noses at our shooting. Our shooting is expensive, and limited (can only really rank up in two rows), but they wound a heck of a lot more than my High Elf buddy's archers do! I try to deploy them mid-to-late in the deployment game, to make sure they have targets. Almost always deployed together on a flank. they spend most of the game ignored and firing at anything them darn well please. Takes a little forethought to use as you can't move + shoot, but these guys are great in my lists.

Militia - I like your idea of detachment duty. I've been using units of 10-15 as flankers and chaff. A well-timed Wyssans can be great with them in this role. For those players that run the Horde, I think you idea could be great.

[emcdunna]

Yeah flanking with militia would be good if your opponent is reasonably weak. Thing is most people think that S3 attacks are useless, so even though militia send a bunch of them out, it doesnt work as well as some other things could.

I am thinking of using detachments of 10, either in front of my horde or flanking (you can decide when you deploy which way you wanna go).

Anyone want to talk about knights of the white wolf?

[TastyBagel]

Yeah Militia flanking doesn't really work against something like Ogres or Warriors of Chaos, as they negatively impact the combat resolution by taking so many wounds... But a mass of (unskilled, S3) attacks against stuff like Zombies can be nice. Basically, I treat them as worse, cheaper Flagellants. Pick a target, throw the Militia at them, and hope they take a few models with them as they die.

[emcdunna]

I still want to try hordes of units like 30 militia that are 10 wide who retain stubborn/Steadfast because of a parent unit of 60 with either crown of command or just tons of ranks.

Also, you can easily put detachments in front of a parent unit to shield them.

[Zygmund]

The nice thing in this thread is that you guys don't just mathammer and think about frontal hack&slash, but actually suggest tactics for these units.

My favourite is the Huntsmen scouting on the opponent's deployment zone. I've myself had problems against similar units (LM, DE), and know that against half of opponents, they cause much more mental trouble than they're actually worth of. In a way, I consider Pistoliers a more capable (and more expensive) version of the same: being where they annoy the enemy most.

Another thing is the notion that many armies will (be forced to) deploy some units with S3/T3, so that the seemingly eternal wail that all our opponents are T4 just simply doesn't hold. I especially like the notion that Elves, as costly models, are prone to lose points-wise when poundered with S2/S3 attacks by cheaper models.

A funny thing is the force of good if lucky experiences. The stuff the fun of playing WHFB is made of!

I'm surprised our HC Concerned Gamers^(R) haven't come to bash this thread already, considering the "damage" we are doing to the idea of a competitive list by taking the "sub-par" units which "do not fill a role". 

-Z

[TastyBagel]

Got another game in.. a few more thoughts:

Huntsmen - I really want to like them. Scouting is darn fun and I grin like an idiot every time I go to deploy them. I've been running them for the last two months (I play about once a week). I don't know if it's bad match-ups or what, but they simply aren't doing anything interesting. Even against an inexperienced HE player, he opted to ignore them shooting into his flank because they simply worth threatening/putting wounds through. More experienced players have been simply ignoring them without even pondering a course of action. They simply aren't threatening.

If I was light on deployment drops (Griffon formation or some-such), I could see adding them, so they could try and march block from the rear, or deploy forward to redirect... but as it stands, I'm dropping them from my next list.

Militia - surprisingly fun. A 10-man speedbump put a few wounds through on an Ogre unit (I think they were just Bulls.. I don't recall). No buffs for either side, but the extra attacks were able to put a few wounds through on the unit. I wasn't expecting them to do anything, so I was pleasantly surprised. (And the redirect got them away from the action for the rest of the game, which was nice.) The extra attacks have some potential... though I obviously wish they were cheaper.

[emcdunna]

The key with militia is that they are REALLY not worth the points in a unit any bigger than 20. My new idea with them is to use detachments of 10, just a good unit to wack an enemy one time, maybe chaff em up and redirect stuff, or if your opponent ignores them then you get to use them to flank people.

I kind of agree about the huntsmen. besides shooting off things like dire wolves or chaos warhounds, they are really crud. But all of our shooting is. Honestly our huntsmen should be elite, like heres my idea:

huntsmen get longbows, 2 hand weapons, BS4, can ambush or scout, they start at 11 pts each.
 They can take poison attacks for +5 pts per model or flaming attacks for +2 pts per model (imagine the models with torches and bows with flaming arrows ready to fire at monsters and stuff).
Then also they should be able to take a unit champ with "bear traps" for 25 pts, the bear traps mean that if any unit charges huntsmen and the huntsmen flee (even if the unit catches them) the unit takes dangerous terrain tests.



I mean they are S3 T3 infantry and a special choice so why not make them at least minorly badass?

[TastyBagel]

I mean they are S3 T3 infantry and a special choice so why not make them at least minorly badass?

Snarky, short answer? They are humans. They're not supposed to be badass. But I wholeheartedly agree that it would be nice to give them something. You have some nifty alternatives. Heck, I'd be happy with simply BS4.. though they are supposedly "masters of the wilderness and skilled trackers......adept at luring their quarry into lethal ambushes." Just giving them Wulfhart's "Monster Hunter" rule (despite more hits being lackluster, with the high Toughness of most monsters) of or something would be cool. In short, yeah, I agree it'd be nice to give them something, even something minor, to differentiate them from your typical human.

Back to Militia.. yeah. I've messed around with units of 15 and units of 10. While I like the potential of have models stick around to deny enemy rank bonuses via the 15-stone unit... the reality is that the Militia probably won't survive to do so. And if you use them as a redirector instead of a flanker (a far more likely scenario), they are going to be wiped out/broken basically no matter what, so you're wasting points by adding those 5 extra guys.

I've liked my 10-strong Militia unit. They're cheap, good chaff, and pretty good "anti-chaff" due to the higher-than-usual number of attacks, even if they are weak ones.

[emcdunna]

That's the fault in the designers logic! Humans don't suck! Not all of them! I'm not saying we should get ASF, but look, right now the only way anything in our army does anything useful is if it has several things synergieses with some sort of buffing unit or sometimes more than one.$

Our shooters, huntsmen, mortar, pistoliers..... they don't synergize with anything, not a single Dang thing in our book can buff these guys to a usable level.

These units either need to be made useful on their own or we need to get units that can buff them and make them better. So take ur pick, my ideas are the former, markus wolfheart is the horrible attempt at the latter

[wardancer]

mate, this is a thread about tactics for sub-optimal units, not a whinging thread about how designers messed up empire and wishlisting about units, please stick to the subject 

[emcdunna]

I was the one who started the thread so i can yammer about whatever :p

[valmir]

Synergy doesn't necessarily mean "buff". Synergy can also be "right place at right time, in context of the rest of the field".

None of those units you listed are necessarily "bad", as such. Just highly situational. So the challenge then becomes to use the units in the book that are capable of actually dictating flow of battle (IC Knights, Demigryphs, Stanks, perhaps even cannons) to provide as many of those situations as possible. If such a situation cannot be engineered, then not engaging also needs to remain a viable option.

It is certainly a problem, though, that an army predicated on the strength of combined arms (i.e., precisely that sort of multiplicative quality of synergy) is basically out-combined-arms-ed by most other armies. I suspect that the Empire, if you play it the way the fluff (and even the rules) suggest they are meant to be played, are actually a surprisingly finesse army. Focus on the movement phase: avoidance, and the minute vying for advantageous situations may not "feel" like the way massive battalions of men are supposed to fight, but it seems to me that this is actually how the army might really need to function. As with all "sub-optimal" lists/units.

[emcdunna]

Yeah it really doesnt feel right, you are correct in that.

I just dont get why empire units cost so dang much. Our infantry and cavalry ARE NOT elves!! so how come we cost as much as them? Literally 1-2 pts behind elves in cost, where we have NONE of the finesse awesomeness that is ASF and high WS, M, Init, and LD.

It really doesnt make much sense. The only reason empire is even playable is because we have a rediculous number of units that are EXTREMELY useful. The wagons, the priests, the wizards, the artillery.... these are the things that make our guys stand up to monsters and such.

I just wish that armies that tried to win based only on the strength of humans, tactics, things like detachments and possible baiting with our fast cav and scouts could actually WIN. But you cant, not unless you have stacked up a massive number of awesome buffs on our guys.


anyway, it just seems like units like huntsmen, pistoliers, our BS shooters.... all of them are very difficult to use to any effect other than extremely expensive chaff. I mean pistoliers can be replaced by a sabretusk in most situations. Thats just sad IMO.

Detachments is a great idea and it gives empire its own personal flair, but we need tactical formations for other stuff too, to make it actually fun.

That, or our units need to be reduced in price by about 25% (and to make up for it, simply limiting the number of buff pieces you can take).

[TastyBagel]

I was trying so hard not to trip the designer debate trap..

I would agree that movement can be huge. I've been messing about with Empire MSU lately. It's unforgiving, but more fun than my old Empire lists. Much more movement, repositioning and biding of time than a typical Empire list. The biggest thing I've learned is not to deploy forward. Sit back, and wait for an opening..

On shooting, my Crossbows and Pistoliers generally do good work. The number of shots is usually enough to slip a few wounds through. Will they murder Chaos Knights? Hordes? No. But they can devastate chaff and support units. Then they can even redirect if they're in front of your lines. Pistoliers can be a hassle to deal with, but can be great at slowing down the opponent via baiting charges and contributing to subsequent failed charges. They can find themselves isolated, bit should be doing far more than just redirecting most games.

[emcdunna]

I dont think that our shooters and scouts are COMPLETELY useless, its just they are too situational. Huntsmen can be very good vs an opponent who has warmachines or one with cheap chaff or fast cav that you can target. Crossbows and handguns can pick off elite troops and threaten guys who have no protection in close combat. I think the issue is that there are very few actual targets for them to hunt.

it seems like more and more of the units out there are getting defensive buffs, ward saves being handed out like candy to elves, like witch elves and savage orcs have no armor but their ward saves are BETTER than armor, and it just seems like the one thing thats getting universally worse and worse is shooting.

Units like sisters of avelorn or darkshards are good, dwarf thunderers are fighty enough to fight in combat too so they are good. But units like our shooting are just extremely expensive and cant do the kind of damage that the elites can do and cant get enough volume of fire as things like goblin shortbowmen or skeleton archers.

[valmir]

I thought this was a thread about tactics for sub-optimal units, not just yet another iteration of the oft-repeated "our stuff is so suxxors and overcosted!"

Yes, a lot of the stuff is suxxors and overcosted. Is it unusable? No. In non-competitive environments, there are any number of solid builds with Empire. Many of which are - to use Tastybagel's word - "unforgiving". Just because your army punishes you for your own missteps doesn't mean it's a bad army. There are ways to make it work. It is just necessary to learn the army better.

[TastyBagel]

Relax folks. Minor tangents, not the End Times here!

I agree with your points. I think our shooters got the nerf bat since we were doing gunline so well in the interim between 7th and 8th.

Again, my experience with them has generally been positive. We're forced into running only two ranks. We don't have good BS. When my crossbows work, is when I have 2+ units working in concert nearby. You can leapfrog (move 1; shoot 1) focus fire, or simply give your opponent two targets instead of one and make them work twice as hard for those points.

[wardancer]

i play MSU empire. I use two units of 10 crossbows , sitting slightly back and protecting my line from anything that comes to close and generally not doing too bad of a job out of it. Sure, they won't massacre enemy units (although it happen once or twice) but they are very useful.

Luminark- I use it together with hurricanum and in my msu army it works really well. Extra dice, this amazing bound spell laser plus don't forget- it is a chariot if it needs be, so couple of times it charged to support fight of other units and did well with impact hits.

Greatswords- might be overcosted, but my unit of 15 does well and it's stubborn, so quite reliable.

[emcdunna]

How does MSU empire work? Are you playing at 1000 pts?

[TastyBagel]

The most succinct way I can describe general MSU, is:
-You take only the characters you really need (to save points)
-you run lots of smaller units over big blocks
-Ideally, nothing is game-breaking should you lose it.

The idea is that just about everything can be expended for the sake of trying to win the game - no deathstars, etc. Since the units are smaller, they don't give up as many points if you need to use them as chaff. The goal would be to combo-charge important combats, so you get more models fighting and therefore more attacks (ie, two units of say, 20 Halberdiers combo charge something. If they both hit the front.. meh. But if you get one into the flank or rear, you not only get better combat res, but also another rank of models into the fight).

Basically, you maneuver, stall for time as needed, and then try and combo charge the enemy big blocks to defeat them.

My local club plays 2k almost exclusively. My latest list is in the Parade Ground. I'm not entirely happy with it, but it's been fun. It's more infantry-based currently. I'm going to update it shortly for an upcoming tournament.

Wardancer is probably more successful with this than I am. This site has some good msu posts by him and Mortim. Wardancer's brother (Swordmaster) plays some snazzy High Elf MSU lists. ASF helps a lot with MSU, but as Wardancer shows... Empire can do it too.

Below is a thread for the High Elf army. Battle 123 is between Wardancer's MSU Empire and Swordmaster's MSU High Elves.
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=94823

[wardancer]

Thanks for explaining TastyBagel   Yeah, love my MSU and some "sub-optimal" units do quite well in my list.