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7th Ed. Best rank/file composition for Saurus (spears) units?

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Orangecoke

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Hey folks,

I'm just starting to read the rules but if I remember correctly, I think a rank needs 5 troops in it to count towards a rank bonus, right?

If so, the quantity of Saurus you get in a box feels a bit awkward (16).

I see people run groups of 20 from time to time. But that means buying 3 boxes right?

I was contemplating 7 x 3 - mostly because I read that's good for spear Saurus.

But to maximize use of 2 boxes of these guys, is two 5 x 3 (15) units with a couple of spare Saurus maybe the way to go?
 
The box has 20 Saurus Warriors in it. At least, mine did. Did they change it to 16 for 7th edition?
 
My sixth edition box only has 16 in it as well. Maybe there are 2 different boxes?
 
I've never known saurus to come in any size other than 16. Were do they come in 20? I would like that.

As to rank and file saurus, I would think (have yet to play a game with the new rules) that a 6x3 unit would work wonders. 24 attacks with spears, 25 w/champion and to knock out a rank they have to kill 2 saurus, which is a little difficult.
 
Those sound like good sizes, it's just a pain to end up needing more boxes and lots of unused Saurus.
 
The unused saurus can be converted into characters, and used for general modeling fun or to bolster your ranks when you get another box.
 
It is because in 6th ed, you only needed 4 across for a rank. So a lot of them come with 16 models, while now you need 20 for a full ranked unit, but they haven't changed the box sizes, which sucks.

Keep them in reserve for larger battles, use them as spare parts, conversions there are lots of things you can do with them.

I am thinking with the way Saurus are so effective, it might be good to go for smaller units and more of them. 6x2, or 5x3, maybe 6x3. Will have to try out a few lists and see how it goes. I definitely think that Temple Guard without a Slann could be a great supporting small unit.
 
what would good units be for flank changes to support a unit of saurus spears? I have a 6x3, sometimes 6x4 unit and spears and they seem to get crushed by daemons pretty bad...a unit to come in on the flank would make all the difference in the world for the battles I have done..

I was thinking of a couple of units of skink jav+shield units to flank with. Can't really use krox in them I don't think because they can't turn I don't think. I seem to be missing something important though, everyone talks about how great the spears are and they just get massacred for me.

[edit] my army is still being built out, only at 1250 pts right now and that was with everything I own on the table...750 games are hit or miss depending if they are daemons or if they have ugly gunlines
 
Daemons are a very powerful army, you can't base the usefulness of something purely on experience against daemons....

10-12 slinks in 2 ranks would make a nice flanking unit. They would lose a rank easily, but you should be getting the ranks from your big units at the front anyway, they will keep above US5 for a while because one would think there would be better targets for enemy fire.

The problem with using t2 units as flankers though is that any combat unit will be able to slaughter so many of them even with just the 4 models at the flank they will get fighting that the skinks will actually lose you combat res rather than gain. You have to think about what they might provide vs what they might lose before throwing them in. They will give you +1 for a flank charge, +3 for ranks (you negate the enemy bonus) and probably +1 for outnumber. This means the enemy needs to kill 4-5 for the addition of the skinks to be worthless, and any more will hurt your cause. You basic s3t3 infantry probably won't kill that many, but you shouldn't really need flankers in that case anyway. Anything like chaos warriors, HE swordmasters (or even WL or PG) or most things that have s4 or higher will probably kill too many skinks for it to be worth it.

I am thinking maybe a good use for Temple Guard would be 10 models to hit the flanks. They are mighty tough, won't die easily, and will hit very very hard. The downside is they will cost a lot more points than the skinks, but still not really too much more than a decent fast/medium cavalry unit of flankers will cost. A cheaper alternative for basically the same pay-off would be 10 Saurus warriors.
 
The batallion box comes with 24 of them. Thats about the size I like my regiments anyway since it allows you to take a couple of casualties and still keep your rank bonus.
 
I'm currently considering going with 25 man blocks, for two reasons, I seem to end up using the Saurus as tar pi t units against things like chaos knights and more, and all too often in later battles it just comes down to losing ranks. It also helps outnumber. The main thing is I tend to use hammer and anvil tactics, and all too often I don't use skink screens to ensure that a stegadon is around on the turn my saurus see combat, so because of poor playing I tend to just have to eat charges with the saurus, further, I dislike having to use the widen front maneuver when I haven't seen combat, so if your formation is square, or at least more then 4 ranks deep, you can still get rank bonuses if you turn to the side.
 
I think the cost of the saurus will discourage me from ever using them as a true "anvil" unit. I may try a skink-block if I'm finding I really miss having static combat res. in the form of ranks.

I suppose if you really must use them as an anvil you'd want to go for just hand weapons and make them 5 wide. I'd suggest 22-23 at that point, to force the enemy to kill a good number of troops before diminishing the rank bonus.

With spears, in ranks 6-wide, I think these guys are going to be a force to be reckoned with. 7 is needlessly wide, as the frontage you will usually face is going to be 100mm (5x20mm) or smaller. This works out to 4 saurus front-to-front with two corner-wise for a rank of 6. Trying to also go for rank bonus with these guys I think misses the point of having multi-attack spearmen. It's a hard-hitting unit instead of an anvil. It just bothers me to have multi-attack models filling out rear ranks.

I plan on running 16 of them at 2250, so that a mounted character tucked into them makes 6x3. If the character needs to rush out, Losing the rank bonus won't really bother me, these guys are made for killing. Saurus are cheaper and better in the new book, but I still don't favor large blocks of them.
 
I think there's a difference in metagame here, from my perspective I don't really consider Saurus "hard hitting units" I face a lot of Warriors of Chaos, Vampire Counts, Demons, and Bretonions, so these guys don't really do a whole lot for me with their spear thrusts, when I saw the new ancient Steg though I was happy, something that actually kills Knights... Frankly, the one time I ended up getting use out of their spears was against Empire, who are all universally squishy.
 
Flankers for me are 5-7 man squads of CO riders and I am going to have to start using steggies.
 
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