Making the Most of Greatswords

[ChaosReigns]

Hey guys,

Has anyone had success building their army around a brick of Greatswords? I have twenty of the 6th edition metals that have never made it onto the table in TOW so far. My suspicion is that, like all elite melee infantry, it will be necessary to functionally build the army around the unit to ensure they have enough support to do their job.

I definitely could just run them as Teutogen Guard, but I want to at least hear other people's thoughts before I default to that.

[xnet445]

I've had some success running them as Footknights in my Bretonnian Exiles (Empire Proxy) lists but none in regular GA rosters. If I tool them up enough to survive Big Bads they get ignored while the BB goes around and slaughters the rest of my army. If I keep them reasonable they seem to die to stiff breezes.

[Mathi Alfblut]

If you only play cutthroat competitive games it may be difficult. But I would write of elite infantry so quickly. I have tried HE Phoenix guards and they rock! And my list are not built around them.
I one game they turned a major defeat into damned nearrun thing and with a diceroll going another way might have won me the game. In another game the fear-factor the generated helped protect the flank of the rest of the army and secured a victory.

The drawback I see with greatswords is that they strike last. But with character, say the General or the BSB Helsingborg out it could partially be mitigated.

Infantry get a very bad rep but much comes from the need to min-max for competitive gaming. For more casual or narrative games I think it is not as bad as many say it is.

[Clymer]

I don’t think you’ll win many tournaments with them, but I’ve had some fun games with them and they’ve done well enough. I’ve run a unit of 16, in two ranks of 8 with no support and they’ve done great. But you’re right, you need a lot of support to make an infantry army work, and the high cost kind of prevents it at 2000 points.

But, if you want to run them anyway, here’s some ideas:
- run ‘em cheapish, just 16 in two tanks of 8
- run them drilled. 16 will make a good, 3-wide marching column that can expand to 8-wide when they charge.
- Don’t forget that FBIGO gives you a free reform that lets you change your formation at the end, so use it to get your max attacks in.
- Warrior Priests are obvious support units for them
- use movement spells to get up in their face fast: Steed of Shadows and Arcane Urgency are great. If you get charged, you can just stubborn them and hold up a bunch. See also: Drilled plus steed of shadows gives you 36” of movement in a turn, letting you get them around pretty fast.
- Then there’s travel mystical pathways spell that lets you pick them up and put them down anywhere within 12”, so you can set up flank charges pretty well.
- Stubborn transfers to your detachments, which helps with the biggest problem either detachments: that your opponent would rather charge your detachments than the parent unit. No problem; a detachment of 10-12 should survive most things with a model or two intact, so they can FBIGO and then in your turn the Greatswords can flank charge.
- of course, don’t forget your melee spells. Dark magic works at a distance so your wizard can stay safe, and hatred and frenzy are amazing on Greatswords. Those special rules will also transfer to your detachments.

I guess the only other tip is load up your core with knights as they are complimentary to Greatswords. So is a Griffon general, because they project power while your GS maneuver around (slowly) to get where they need to be. Steam Tanks are also great if you’re not going for a movement spell strategy because they move the same and the stank can anchor a flank on its own.

[sedobren]

I saw a list some time ago that used to run a couple of units of just 5 with the champion upgrade for a little over 60 pts. It was then when people were mulling over wether multiple small units were the future, i think you can have some success untile the novelty wears out snd the enemy realizes they are not that great of a (little) threat.

I used to run then either in 18 or 12 models, sometimes with drilled, usually accompanied by a wizard. The provided a decent escort for him but in melee are not that great i have to say, i actually sometimes had them fight with their hand weapon, as they had a hard time charging and since i could buff them with the wizard's demonology i would still attack at I with S 4 ap-1. Haven't played them since the faq thought, as they clarified how deilled works they got better for sure.

Nowadays I'd just proxy them for teutogen guards by another name anyway. I mean those have an actual decent profile, basically better than them with all of their rules and better weapons for a measly 2 pts more.

[Clymer]

Yeah, that’s the rub: if you’d pay 1 point more to get drilled, would you pay just one more point to get all the other Teutogen Guard rules? The answer is probably yes.

There’s only a couple reasons to take GS over TG:
- They can fight with detachments. This is of dubious value, unless…
- You run larger units and confer stubborn onto your detachments (which is still an iffy proposition)
- you can take magic items on the unit champ
- and last, but certainly not least, GS don’t come with the same army restrictions. TG are only available in Knightly Order armies, or if you take a priest of Ulric. Neither is very optimal. The priest isn’t awful, but then you’re committing to infantry which is kind of poor across the board anyway.

[Footpatrol2]

I've been toying with the idea of this. You could deathstar the GS unit. Give it all the tricks with at least 40 models maybe more. You then have 20 man options on detachments which are stubborn. 

Bsb + warbanner + griffon standard+ std +co = 8 static res. Put battle wizard w/oaken shield in it so you have 4+As 5+ ward. Dragons can't solo charge the unit.

[Qrab]

A smart opponent would just avoid that slow moving points sink and use the dragon to kill the rest of the army.

[Skyros]

Greatswords are not in a great place, for a couple reasons.

1) All slow infantry struggles in a fast paced kill points game dominated by swiftstride cavalry and flying monsters.
2) Greatswords, like almost all empire infantry, are over priced when compared to other infantry

It's a shame because they are fantastic models. I've got a unit of the old metal ones (fantastic sculpts except for the counts champion, who looks like a callow beardless youth. Faugh!) and the newer plastic 'goldsword' ones.

They are overpaying for the detachment rule (which is not impressive) and stubborn (which imo is also not impressive on any unit that is meant to win combat by killing things, which units armed with great weapons certainly are). Both rules are pale shadows of their former selves.

Teutogen guard are a much better similar pointed unit in the empire.

I *have* tried making a block of tomb guard work as a death star for my TK army. They are very similar to greatswords in points and stats. They are great fun in casual games but of course totally pointless in competitive games. What happens is the entire rest of your army gets butchered while they slowly slog across the battlefield, then they get charged from three directions at once and massacred on the final turn of the game and any characters in it get singled out via attacks and killed for points.

If you're playing a more casual game with mates and you're both taking battle lines of infantry (which is the absolute best way to play TOW) then they'll do fine.

Incidentally, tomb guard are I think a lot better than greatswords for a couple reasons. Necrotect gives them hatred and plus one attack, which is massive. Also they have mini-killing blow, which is fantastic into other elite infantry. Also they can be raised from the dead, AND given the incredibly powerful casket of souls buff - minus 1 to hit and 6 up ward save for every unit within 18". Empire needs a big buff bubble like this for their infantry line to be viable. But as it is, if I want an army where a resolute battle line of infantry hold the enemy in place while powerful flanking forces destroy my pinned opponents....I play tomb kings, not empire. This seems backwards to me.