Lets say my lone cowboy is in CC with a small unit of goblins. If the goblin unit was 5 wide, and there are 5 goblins in the unit left at the end of the combat phase, do the goblins get +1 for having 1 more rank than me? What if it was 4 goblins, or 8 goblins? The answer to me seems like it should be only at 10+ goblins do you consider getting the +1 rank bonus for CR, however the rules dictator at our local shop seems to think otherwise.
They do count as a rank. But you only get rank bonus for ranks after the first so no +1 Also: A unit can get rank bonus for an incomplete rank of at least 5 models. 10-wide unit of 15 models gets +1 for example. If the cowboy wins the Gobbos will be steadfast since they have more ranks (1) than he does (0)
Ranks are as detailed by Dyvim Tyvar. The references are: 1) ranks toward rank bonus - pg. 52 Calculate combat results under the sub-heading Extra Ranks; and 2) steadfast - pg 54/55. This addresses the issue of 5 gobbos forming a "rank", which they do. The key here is to read the example in italics since it is easy to confuse this with part 1 above. The description of 12 bloodletters indicates two complete ranks and a third rank of 2 daemons.