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Author Topic: The truth about Halberdiers  (Read 21990 times)

Offline Athiuen

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #25 on: July 04, 2011, 02:04:16 PM »
Halberdiers

On the Charge/Was Charged
# of Attacks:11
To Hit:4's
To Wound:3's (because of the +1 S from the Halberdier)
Armor Sv:6+ (S4 modifies the Sv by -1)
Average Unsaved Wounds: 3.06

Halberdier don't get to use their shield in Close Combat as the Halberd is 2 handed.  I'm not sure if you had that in there.  It depends on whether you meant that their save is 6+ with or without modification. 
It does mean that halberdiers have the lowest survivability of the group.

What I find weird in the Empire list, a sentiment voiced here already, is that there are no medium infantry.  Does no-one wear heavy armor in the Empire?  I agree that Spearmen should be changed for Pikemen.

Pikemen could fight in 4 ranks, have no shield but have heavy armor and be 5 or 6 points.  This would make them an equal choice alongside halberdiers and swordsmen.
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Offline csjarrat

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #26 on: July 04, 2011, 02:49:52 PM »
that would be a great option, but sadly, our new army book hasnt even hit the rumour circuit yet, meaning late next year would be the earliest we'd be getting one.

there are hints that heavy armour may be viable for the empire, as the new forgeworld stuff features handgunners in heavy armour which is nice
Compared to the state troops they are a gentle handjob on a friday evening - jaggedjimmyj in ref to knights

Offline Athiuen

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #27 on: July 04, 2011, 10:37:19 PM »
Yeh I have unit of 13 ironsides.  They're nice and their rules aren't too bad.
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Offline Heavygear

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #28 on: July 29, 2011, 12:31:18 AM »
I have played Dogs of War since Fifth Edition. GW has had two incarnations of Pikemen that I am aware of.

Paraphrasing from my Fifth Edition Dogs of War army book.

Four ranks of pikeman may fight if the unit stands still. If the unit charges only two ranks may fight.

Pikes outreach other hand to hand weapons so to represent this pikes strike first in the inital round of first combat regardless of who charged or initiative value. Only troops who strike first due to magic go before pikes. If the opponent is armed with pikes whoever charged get first strike.

Cavalry are reluctant to charge pikes. To represent this Pikes gain +1 attacks in the inital round of close combat, and mounts have -1 attack in the inital round.

Later on around 2004 Alessio rewrote the dogs of war list for Chronicles. Pikes switched to this

 Pikes: Fight in four ranks; requires two hands (see page 89 of
the Warhammer rulebook).
Always strikes first in the initial round of close combat, even
striking before enemies that have charged. Note that enemies
who are entitled to strike first because of a special ability or
magic, will still strike before pike-armed models.
Models armed with pikes receive a +1 Strength bonus in the
Close Combat phase of the turn they are charged by cavalry units,
chariots or monsters. Note that this bonus only applies to attacks
directed against the above charging units, not against other units.
All these special rules cannot be used against enemy units
fighting the pikemen’s flank or rear.

So basically from + 1 attack and minus one attack from cavalry to +1 str on the turn they are charged by anything bigger than infantry sized.

Overall not really all that over powering as they only get a bonus vs. specific opponents and only during the first turn of combat in which they were charged.
This force you to play very defensively with toughness three weapon skill three infantry. No not remotely overpowered.

And they were priced at between 10 and 12 points each.

I would say giving spearmen an option for heavy armor and an upgrade to pikes which grants them always strikes first and +1 strength vs. anything bigger than infantry when charged would go along way to improving their usefulness.   

Offline Athiuen

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #29 on: July 29, 2011, 02:29:09 PM »
The problem with that is that no-one is going to want to pay extra to upgrade troops, as we see now with our shield/no-shield debate.
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Offline Heavygear

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #30 on: July 30, 2011, 02:25:58 AM »
Yeah beacuase shield does nothing for you. No parry. Everyone seems to agree it's cheaper just to take another rank to soak damage. I'm not saying you double the cost of the spearmen. Anyone who has played DoW knows they were overly expensive for a WS 3 STR 3 model but, Always Strike First does do something for you. You don't even have to pay the 100 points for a warrior priest who dies from stiff breeze to get you rerolls on misses which is what we do now. I would characterize that as an upgrade for a troop unit.

Offline sebster

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #31 on: August 01, 2011, 03:43:54 AM »
This is why I think spearmen and halberdiers should just be given shields, and remain at five points.

Offline Noble Korhedron

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #32 on: August 01, 2011, 11:54:14 AM »
This is why I think spearmen and halberdiers should just be given shields, and remain at five points.
But what about all the rules-lawyer players who'll complain?! You'd have to change the spear special rules from requiring two hands to something else - and halberds already require two hands - what could we do there.....?

Offline sebster

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #33 on: August 02, 2011, 03:25:32 AM »
But what about all the rules-lawyer players who'll complain?! You'd have to change the spear special rules from requiring two hands to something else - and halberds already require two hands - what could we do there.....?

Spears are one-handed, and can be used with shields in the current rules.  Halberds would only use their shields to protect against missile fire.

So the idea is that you'd be giving halberds a very small bonus, and giving spears a much better bonus.  Suddenly spears aren't so much worse than halberds.

Offline Heavygear

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #34 on: August 02, 2011, 04:42:43 AM »
Sebster do you mean give them a shield or give them a parry save. They can all ready get shields. Spearmen can use a sheld but do not get a parry because a spear is not a hand weapon it is a special weapon.

Again the shield really does nothing appreciable for you, so why bother. You can

a. Improve state troop stats which will likely cause a points increase.

b. Give them some special rule

c. Give them an upgrade to equipment - armor or weapon

d. Change how priests, which are essentially a unit upgrade, work in the list.

Just for arguments sake. Lets say at 30 models I could spend 100 points on a warrior priest to let my spearmen reroll misses with hatred or I could pay 7 points to upgrade my spearmen to a pikemen and get "Always Strikes First" which allows me to both strike first and reroll misses and Fights in 4 ranks. Add an additional point for a total of 8 to give them heavy armor (this is really just like giving them a shield now, not really all that worth it).

Would you pay for the upgrade if it were only 2 points? Or would you still rather just take them naked with no priest and no upgrades.

The point I was trying to make is if the upgrade gives you a real adavantage, wouldn't you pay for it? If you could get the same effect as having a priest in the unit without wasting points from the heroes allowance wouldn't it be better.
   

Offline sebster

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #35 on: August 02, 2011, 06:04:12 AM »
Sebster do you mean give them a shield or give them a parry save. They can all ready get shields. Spearmen can use a sheld but do not get a parry because a spear is not a hand weapon it is a special weapon.

Again the shield really does nothing appreciable for you, so why bother.

They get an option to get a shield, at the cost of 1 point per model, with the effect being the same as not giving them the option for a shield at all, because they're simply not worth one point per model.  My suggestion is to give them a shield automatically, and not change their price.

That is, for five points you get a dude with a halberd, light armour and a shield, or a dude with a spear, light armour and a shield.

Quote
The point I was trying to make is if the upgrade gives you a real adavantage, wouldn't you pay for it?

You might be willing to pay for it, but the cost per model most people are willing to pay is some fraction that's too silly to bother with.  In this case, giving shields to troops would probably have a par cost of 1/4 of a point, or maybe even lower, and even less with halberdiers.

You might point out that if it's something that a player wouldn't bother paying any more than a fraction of a point for, it isn't much of a fix.  Well that's right, it isn't a big fix.  They don't need a big fix, because they're not that broken.

There is another issue, though, looking at what equipment a professional core of troops were likely to go into combat with.  That equipment plainly includes a shield, and it is a flaw of the current Empire book that it encourages almost every Empire army to take to the field without them.  This is exactly the same thing as the silly situation in 40K where no Space Marines ever entered the field with grenades, because they were so useless in the modern rules no-one would pay one point per model for them.  The answer was to simply give them grenades, and not charge for them.

Offline RavenLord166

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #36 on: August 26, 2011, 05:06:22 PM »
     Well Halberdiers have always been my favourite state troop. So my response may be a little bias. Know in my army's I usually have at least 1 unit of twenty, or in bigger games three units of twenty maybe two if I have a horde of them( only used this 3 times but it works smashingly, especially when a warrior priest is present).

     One unit however stands above the rest, the unit of twenty with shields yes shields. Now we all know that they cant use them in combat so I just use it against shooting. Or in the case I loose men to the point where there are only five standing. That makes them even more resilient with the parry save. Dont believe me? my halberdier champion held off a horde of iron breakers with Thorgrim in it. So it works

     I like using them, they probably hate me for the amount of horror Ive thrown them against but they get the job done.
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Offline Delthos

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #37 on: August 26, 2011, 06:05:13 PM »
Sorry, you can't switch to hand weapon and shield. In 8th edition you have to always use your special weapon, which is your halberd.
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Offline RavenLord166

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #38 on: August 26, 2011, 07:42:32 PM »
Really? thank you for the update. Wonder where I missed that.
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Offline Delthos

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #39 on: August 26, 2011, 08:21:36 PM »
Page 89, first column, Close Combat Weapons subsection of Special Weapons.
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Offline ushabti1

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #40 on: September 24, 2011, 09:57:59 AM »
My friends and I are experimenting with halberds.
What we have so far is that they count as spears and give +1 strength only to the front rank and models that are fighting through the step up or horde formation rules.

So what you can potentially come up with is a horde of 40-50 halberdeers having 3 ranks fighting at strength 4 and the forth rank fighting a strength 3. It makes your opponent want to do this  :eusa_wall:

But we raised the cost of all halberd wielding troops by 3pts.

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #41 on: September 29, 2011, 10:57:23 AM »
This is why I think spearmen and halberdiers should just be given shields, and remain at five points.

I couldnt agree more, I think people are completely overcomplicating the situation and trying to create wholesale new weopons and units when the only problem is the slight overcosting due only to a change in game edition and therefore game mechanics.

We are currently paying (as i see it) 3 points for the basic statline (4 for the swordsmen) then;
# 1 point for light armour
# 1 point for spear/halberd
# +1 point for sheilds

If we consider the still relatively recent return of 1/2 point upgrades (post 7th ed empire army book) we can see that in 8th ed spears are clearly valued at ~1/2 a point as are sheilds which provide no parry save. This makes spearmen 5 points with basic light armour, spear and sheild. In my eyes this solves all the problems, from a balance perspective i think they are right and it also removes the idea that a trained regiment would enter battle with a spear and no sheild.

On the small note of free company they are currently paying 2 points for thier additional hand weopons which are now surely only worth a single point due to horde and step-up. I havent though through the ramifications of making them 4 points, as it may well mean people just begin spammng massive hordes of them, but it seems on first look about right to me.

Offline Empireguard

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #42 on: October 26, 2011, 10:49:45 PM »
I think our state troops are fine now we are in 8th

Swordsmen are the best anvil unit (as they always have been).
Spearmen are the best damage unit when not in horde formation (do the math)
Halberdiers are the best damage unit in horde formation.

The missile troops probably need to get some free light armour.

I think 8th ed basically fixed most of our issues, when we get a new codex I don’t see any big changes happening. Tougher flaggies would be nice, more theme (So one unit counting as core for each associated lord, General = Great swords, AL = flaggies, grand master = innercircle knights …etc), I4 greatswords, some new monster unit and making the steam tank roll an artillery/2 = steam points for the turn (stop the whole 3 wounds and it sits there thing).
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Offline pippin_nl

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #43 on: November 20, 2011, 11:09:03 AM »
Some of the options mentioned would mean that people would need to convert hordes of core; adding shields, heavy armour or light armour as the default option. Spearman and free company could also be made viable by a 1 point reduction maybe combined with -1 WS and -1 I. Heavy armour or full plate seems a nice option for infantry, but should make them special or maybe one unit may be upgraded with a general of the empire.

Offline TheBelgianGuy

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #44 on: December 17, 2011, 02:14:51 PM »
You can't reduce human WS and I.

A stat of 3 is average, ie. Human. Swordsmen have I4 because they're better fighters than the average human.

If you make spearman or free company -1 WS and -1 I, you're basically saying empire soldiers are less able fighters than the average human.

Offline Noble Korhedron

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #45 on: December 17, 2011, 06:55:04 PM »
You can't reduce human WS and I.

A stat of 3 is average, ie. Human. Swordsmen have I4 because they're better fighters than the average human.

If you make spearman or free company -1 WS and -1 I, you're basically saying empire soldiers are less able fighters than the average human.
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Offline Bismark

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #46 on: December 21, 2011, 11:46:39 AM »
Free company, by my rekoning, are an equivalent to Bretonnian men at arms. If they are a militia equivalent, which by all standings, were not usually as well trained or disciplined as regular soldiers (historically speaking), then I don't see why Free Company should not be M4 WS2 BS3 S3 T3 I3 W1 A1 LD6 and coming in at around 4pts per model.

A special rule could be that if they are used as a detachment, the Free Company unit may use the parent units LD (therefore making them LD7). Also, I would like to see some more weapons options for Free Company, such as the unit counts as being armed with Halberds, or with additional close combat weapons, which must be chosen for the unit when the army list is created. This also creates some more variation in the Empire list.

As for Pikemen, I believe these would be a handy addition to the Empire list and a replacement to the utterly obsolete spearmen. Pikes, without being too overpowered, could possibly have the following rules. Stat wise, M4 WS3 BS3 S3 T3 W1 I3 A1 LD7, light armour = 6pts per model. 

Phalanx - Fight in four ranks if charged, and two ranks when charging. ASF in the first round of combat. These rules, of course, only take place to combats in the front arc of the unit and are negated if the unit is Disrupted.
Cause Fear - In cavalry and chariots. This is a good representation of the horses shying away from the charge when faced with a wall of spikey pikes. If the test is failed, they become WS1, therefore greatly hindering their combat ability.
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Offline HoS

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #47 on: February 27, 2012, 06:55:19 PM »
we are fighting another Empire unit, or an Empire equivalent. (unless you get charged by some death star and they wipe you out before you get a chance to strike back, in that case it won't matter anyways)[/qoute]
First two reasons this doesn't work.

Now since this is an example of killyness, I wont worry about our unit of Empire State Troopers being hit back, we all know how that can go. [/qoute]
And the rest of the reasons that you don't take them. Spearmen can use shields, swordsmen can use parry rule, halberds get S4 OR shields, not both.

Basically in your introduction you eliminated all the reasons not to take halberds. So yes, in that little vacuum, halberds rock. Against Empire.

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Offline Betulas

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Re: The truth about Halberdiers
« Reply #48 on: April 20, 2012, 02:01:17 PM »
Just to throw my two pence in...

I agree that Halberdiers are well worth it in this new 8th edition.

Yesterday I played my first game with the new book and fielded two units of 40x Halberdiers each with full command (coming to 270 points each). Although this was a one off game and not (I feel) a great measurment in its singularity; the Halberdiers were excellent. My opponent was playing with orges and I managed to massacre him, wiping him out without loosing any VPs.

Now while this could be put down to luck (I was rolling very well it seemed) there are some important things to bear in mind. Firstly that I feel that Halberdeir units (especially bigger units, 40 or 50 strong) need some support. The manner of support I chose to give them was two fold.

Firstly, I fielded an Ach Lector on War Altar and spamed 'Hammer of Sigmar' and 'Shield of Faith' prayers every magic phase; this worked well combinded with the 'Righteous Fury' bubble. Secondly I had a Level 4 Light Mage, focusing on 'Speed of Light' and 'Birona's Time Warp', the former particuarly coming into play.

In conclusion I agree that Halberdiers are excellent, however I feel that they need considerabe support in order to flourish.

My thought going forward (especially when I player larger 2,500 games) is to include a small detachment to each of these units; maybe 10x spearmen each. I hope to enter the tournament scene with this army and feel that I am currently lacking any 're-directing' units. I hope that these cheap spearmen units can achieve this - any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
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