7th Ed. are musicians and champs really needed?

[EZR-Aeron]

with say 18 saurus (6x3) you get 24 attacks from 2 ranks of spears (6x2x2) so are champoins needed? In TG they kinda are.

also with musicians, because all lizzards are cold blooded its unlikely theyll need to flee so with Ld8 is it vital you think? for TG i dont ever see them there (fair enough too). plus with 24 attacks maximum its unlikely theyll tie in CR anyways.

thoughts?

 

[Serpentsire]

I take the musician for the tie breaker rule. I know it doesn't happen often, but when it means your unit auto breaking from out numbered fear causers, or forcing a daemon player to roll instability, you will be glad you have one. The champ is always nice to have another attack, but maybe not super necessary.

 

[strewart]

Refer to the musician thread here:
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/are-musicians-really-needed.1616/

As for champs, the one extra attack is almost never worth it. The real use of champions is to protect characters, take a challenge for them to keep them alive if needed. So to that extent, if you have a character in the unit take a champ.

The other use for them is to again issue challenges if there is an enemy character that will kill a lot, take it with the champ and lose 1 model instead of 4 or so. Kinda up to you whether you think that is worth it.

And of course some champs can take 25 points of magic items, which provides a nice advantage sometimes.

 

[Barotok]

Keep in mind that you'll only get all of those attacks if you are charged. An opponent that dosen't wound at all on the charge either has flubbed his roll or has grossly underestimated the strength of his unit. Don't count on having that many attacks (ever).

I am also struggling to understand why you would go six wide, aside from just maximizing the number of attacks.

As far as a musician and champion are concerned, I'll offer these thoughts.

From my calculations the points spent on a champion are rarely worth the extra attack gained by it. Unit Champions only seem to become usefull as protection for characters (as stewart mentioned), in which case they're worth those points.

I prefer to put musicians into my units, where applicable, due to the reduced points cost when compared to UCs and the fact that I've seen both the tiebreaker rule, and rally benefits of a musician save a key unit from running off the board (yes, despite the odds, I do fail rally/leadership tests, just not as much as the other guys). Worth the points, unless you're creating a 'throw away' unit.

 

[strewart]

Keep in mind that you'll only get all of those attacks if you are charged. An opponent that dosen't wound at all on the charge either has flubbed his roll or has grossly underestimated the strength of his unit. Don't count on having that many attacks (ever).

I am also struggling to understand why you would go six wide, aside from just maximizing the number of attacks.

In subsequent round of combat (when your opponent hasn't charged) against very slow or great weapon armed opponents, you will get all the attacks. This is pretty critical, particularly against GW, because the less of them fight back the less of yours die.

But yes in general you will not get the full compliment of attacks. Consider a unit of knights hitting your 5x4 saurus though. If they charge in and kill 4 models (maybe a bit conservative? For the sake of this arguement the actual averages don't matter) you have the champion to fight back for 3 s4 attacks. Now if you had spears, you have an impressive 13 attacks still to strike back, all at s4. This is more than most core units ever get, and it is after 4 deaths.

Maximizing the number of attacks is exactly why you would go 6 wide. Remember on 25mm bases, going corner to corner, you can just get your whole unit in contact with an opponent's 5 wide 20mm unit, your outside two models will just have the corners touching. This does leave no room for something like a steg to come in from the front though, and it gives your opponent plenty of room for chariots etc. to fit in.

Generally, in most units that you really only want combat res for, 5 across is all you need. When you have a unit that hits hard (and I think multiple s4 attacks is hard) then it is often better to stretch to 6 wide, and occasionally from 20mm bases even 7 wide (HE swordmasters) to really maximize attacks. Also note that with 6 wide, the opponent needs to kill more of your models to get rid of one of your ranks.

 

[Barotok]

Preservation of SCR is critical and adding the extra models makes perfect sense for that. I'm not sure if I would charge a unit of spear-sarus if given the choice with GWs and would most likely try and use other tools to destroy that unit. This does open up more possibilities for the LM player and charge deterance can be a major barganing chip in unit placement, which we all know, that this game is largely positional.

In short, I don't see a unit with GW charging a spear-sarus unit given the potential amout of strikebacks like you mentioned. Because your opponent is less likely to attempt a frontal charge with that unit, you will have more strategic options available to you.

Thanks for the insight.

*Edit*
Staying on subject thought, keeping the standard and musician in the unit adds to your SCR, which is important for infantry blocks.

 

[strewart]

Hmm yeah you are right, charging spear saurus with great weapons probably isn't the best option. But really, they are the hard hitting infantry of many armies and our spear saurus might be chewing through everything else they have, it might be a neccesity and other factors around them could play a role too, maybe they are setting up a multiple charge (which you can possibly break)? You never know what units could be forced on to what opponents. Also your spears could charge the GW unit, as discussed it is advantageous for the spears so why not try?

 

[Barotok]

I big block of Sarus equiped with spears would definitely be vulernable to a flank charge. The example the comes to mind is Chaos Chosen charging the flank while the anvil like Chaos Warriors HW+SH (2+ sav) charge the front. Watch your spear wielding cold blooded friends melt off the table. A big unit of spear wielders, despite its damag/round potential is also going to have a pretty high SCR which getting the GW unit in the flank gives the opportunity for extra casualties and the removal of any rank bonus.

Perhaps chosen is a bad example of a flank charge considering that I would never take a flank charge by infantry unless there was no other option.

We were discussing these types of units at our last game session and like you mentioned at the end of your post, spear sarus are nearly as dangerous on the charge as when they take one. Provided the GW unit sticks for a round or two, the spike of initial casualties will be followed by a doubled attack count in the following round. In conclusion, taking a charge from GW's seems advantageous to the spear sarus, despite high casualties in the first round. Charging the GW unit (provided you can pull a good one off) spells almost certain doom for them and you could experience a crushing victory if you roll well in the first round eliminating strike back possibilities. If for what ever reason, the GWs hang around, you'll be pounding 20+ attacks into them before they have a chance to respond in the opponents turn. So charging that unit sounds like a great idea.

 

[Caneghem]

I big block of Sarus equiped with spears would definitely be vulernable to a flank charge. The example the comes to mind is Chaos Chosen charging the flank while the anvil like Chaos Warriors HW+SH (2+ sav) charge the front. Watch your spear wielding cold blooded friends melt off the table. A big unit of spear wielders, despite its damag/round potential is also going to have a pretty high SCR which getting the GW unit in the flank gives the opportunity for extra casualties and the removal of any rank bonus.

Perhaps chosen is a bad example of a flank charge considering that I would never take a flank charge by infantry unless there was no other option.

We were discussing these types of units at our last game session and like you mentioned at the end of your post, spear sarus are nearly as dangerous on the charge as when they take one. Provided the GW unit sticks for a round or two, the spike of initial casualties will be followed by a doubled attack count in the following round. In conclusion, taking a charge from GW's seems advantageous to the spear sarus, despite high casualties in the first round. Charging the GW unit (provided you can pull a good one off) spells almost certain doom for them and you could experience a crushing victory if you roll well in the first round eliminating strike back possibilities. If for what ever reason, the GWs hang around, you'll be pounding 20+ attacks into them before they have a chance to respond in the opponents turn. So charging that unit sounds like a great idea.

A good rule of thumb is to always charge GW models if at all possible, as they usually aren't carrying a shield. So you get "only" 10 str 4 attacks... that should remove a couple of their counter-attacks. Really though, great weapon wielders are only effective when they can charge in and kill a unit in the first round. Otherwise their plain useless, and you should really only ever take shields.