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8th Ed. cold ones setup

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pendrell

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hi I have 2 questions regarding cold ones:

- Is HW strictly better than spears? I have a unit of CO to assemble but I am not sure how to equip it... Spears look cooler IMO but they might be too overcosted, opinions?

- Are CO viable as a small 5 models unit? I see that people either make an invincible unit with 10-15 of them + 2 or 3 characters or they are not played at all. I wonder whether a 5 model FC unit is worth it or there are simply better options.

thank you for the advice!
 
Well this iss the first edition that spears have been optional,
mind you don't get any pary bonus with calvery, so you are
just giving up the +1 ST on the charge for cheepers troops.

There are a lot of different ways to run cold ones:

you could run them as a chep flank unit with no spears, (5 cold ones)
and maybe just the standard and musician.

or you could go go for more of a agressive unit (5-7 cold ones)
with spears, full command and a scarver or old blood.
this may need the aid of another unit of some sort for a combined charge.

or make a realy nasy unit with full command (10-12 cold ones)
and a couple of scarvets / oldbloods & posibly a BSB, and just charge the front of units.
 
The spears are definitely too expensive, but it's a price you probably have to pay. They are a much better combat unit with them.

The only time I'd not take the spears is if I were taking a 5-man unit to harass and delay the enemy's flankers.
 
There are better ways to spend your points than on a 5 man unit of Cold Ones.

When I run several cowboys and expect to come up against cannons, I'll run a unit of 7 with a musician and standard just to get a couple look out sir rolls in the first turn.
 
Thank you for the answers. If you were to run the big unit (10-12 cold ones) with scar vets and old blod with BSB, would you take spears?
 
Probaly; since I allready hav a lot of points invested in the unit, whats a couple more. :D
 
n810 said:
Probaly; since I allready hav a lot of points invested in the unit, whats a couple more. :D
Click to expand...

I agree with n810 justification /\, especially since even with spears they are cheaper than they used to be (before they had PF)
 
I always take the spears. Makes them so much better on the charge.
 
pendrell said:
Thank you for the answers. If you were to run the big unit (10-12 cold ones) with scar vets and old blod with BSB, would you take spears?
Click to expand...

No. I'd rely on the characters to do the heavy lifting and for the bus to just be a transportation. That's just me though.

If you have 2 scar vets and 1 OB you're dishing out 15 attacks (Predatory Fighter included) at WS5-6 and S7. The issue now is that if the bus is 5 wide and you've put 3 characters in it you wouldn't gain much from the spears since second rank doesn't have 2 attacks.

Now just for the kicks of it I went on and did some math.

say you decided to spend 200pts on this unit. You can either have full command + spears OR you can have a musician, champion AND an additional Cold One Rider. He'll be up in front making the unit 6 wide so maximize attacks.
They'll be up against WS4 (or higher) T3 with heavy armour. So your regular elven elite model I suppose.
We're also assuming no wounds on us so full attacks.

The spear unit will not suprisingly do more wounds if we exclusively look on the riders (S5 vs T3, no armour save left vs S4 vs T4 and AS6+).
However, when we count the mounts the extra attacks actually wins out.

The things is though that's it's all rather trivial because the difference is so low it doesn't really matter anyway.

But assuming that we might also meet T4 opponents with a heavy armour and WS of 4+ the math is a bit more different. The spears "win" by having a 63% chance of doing a single wound more.

Obviously the unit without spears lack a banner so if you care you can include that in the total CR.

Sooo... I suppose what I'm saying here that it doesn't matter a whole lot in most of the circumstances in this specific scenario. Obviously though if you want to go cheap vs expensive - say a 160pts unit (5 CORs + musician) vs 200pts (5 CORs + full command) the math is obviously much different there.

On a personal note I've stopped using these small COR units a long time ago. With "only" a +2 armour save and pretty much always striking last we'll easily lose 1-2 models before we strike. There's not much fun in that tbh.
You pretty much have to rely on magic for these guys to work (without a character that is) and even then we're looking at 6-7 wounds which isn't super impressive. At that price you might consider a regular stegadon who will have S5 even after the first round of combat - against infantry units that is.
 
The major problem with CO's is that you'll be gone before you do anything. If you want to use them a cold one bus with 2-3 characters in it is the best option! Make it 3-5 wide and have at least 7 cold ones so you can make 2-3 ranks. This ensures you to have enough attacks to make it work!

However I think this unit is too expensive, because they only have one wound and a 2+ armoursave. Warmachines often have many modifiers or ignore armoursaves sometimes so it is a unit I would not recommend
 
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