Hello guys i was thinking of taking skelies with spears. I'm going to field 40 of them on a 5x8 wide formation , just to try out their capabilities. What do ou think? 5X3 attacks when charged , almost alwas they'll have their rank bonus, i think they can hold most units for a couple of turns.What do u think?Will they be usefull?

Hi, as skellies are not especially killy, in a 5wide formation getting 5 more WS2 attacks may not do much. Sword and board seem better, imo, for such a bus because of the parry save.

Don't waste your time or models with this one. They're still crumby s3 infantry.

If you go spear, you go horde 12 wide 5 deep with a prince and a tect in there. an opposing horde will catch 48 ws5 hatred str5 attacks. make no mistake, this is on par with the output of a skaven plaguemonks horde (the usual plaguefurnace unit has 42 attacks on ws3 str3, once per game hartred and reroll failed wounds), one of the scarier units in the game.

if you cast smiting and your necrotect is called ramotheb, make that 72 attacks...

60 spear skellies with the prince and tect cost you only 460 points. The aforementioned plaguemonk unit (1 furnace, ~35 monks) costs you about 500 points, so not bad that you can expect similar results. Be adviced though, you only have T3 as6+.
Note that if you bought TG instead, you'd still have only 23 TG with halberds...

Dare to dream, I say!

oh ok guys very intresting advices , i never thought that skelies could match up with the skaven in terms of horde! I'm going to try them then in my next game.Tnx everyone for the help!

72 attacks? How?

10 attacks first rank
10 attacks second rank
10 attacks spears
10 attacks hord

Ramothep hatred and fury
10 attacks more


Total: 50 attacks

The +1 attack dont aply in support attacks

Am i Wrong?

12 wide, means 31 attacks from the skeletons in the first rank (since there's two characters there as well) from frenzy and smiting, then 12x3 in supporting attacks means 67 attacks, if we were to assume we had two more skeletons in the first rank it would become 73, but instead we'd get 77 attacks if we included the characters. So it's actually not wrong at all, just a bit simplified (and assuming we don't have a champion, which I normally wouldn't take, but in this setup I probably would.)

Though it will lose a lot against anything that isn't a horde as well, and unless you give them Neru's Protection they'll fall in droves against the things that are usually fielded in horde formation.

all true; yet, that one time you do 72 attacks at ws5 and hatred; You can then inform that your opponent's unit will get about 64 str3 hits :P

It's just too funny.

Going for many S3 attacks is just not a good plan.

In two recent games I've smited a unit of 30 bowmen, getting 60 shots, and done a total of 5 wounds. That's 120 shots for 5 wounds.

Yeah, that's bowmen, but the central fail is the same: Who cares about all those S3 hits? The only stuff that does only has a few wounds to begin with, and even then it's iffy.

The difference in this scenario is that Bowmen don't hit on 3+ with re-roll on the first turn.

And yeah, Archers are a bit unreliable at times, still they can be used to shoot redirectors/scouts/skirmishers or to put the odd wound on monsters/warmachines. I see them worth fielding, even if I usually just bring 19 as part of my HLP bunker at the moment.

skeleton archers rule guys! They can destroy any skirmisher(pretty expensive units) in just one shot! I really love this guys , vs almost any army they can destroy a unit or two , if you choose the right target. Also s3 attacks pretty much suck , but hey cost 4 or 5 points , so who cares you still have your knight , t.g. and all the other stuff to destroy hight toughness or armour guys!The only problem I have is that I sometimes play etc , so I can't really ield more than 40 guys in one unit...

I want to restate the crucial difference between bowshots and our hypothetical ws5 hatred spearmen. You have to have seen this comment comming. 60 bowshots = 20 hits; no wonder it doesn't wipe out units.

what can you kill with 64 str3 hits?
-21 heavily armored elfs
-21 plaguemonks
-10 warriors
-2.5 mournfangs

it's just too funny :D

These numbers may be true under the assumption that all 12 spearmen are in base contact, of course. If something with less frontage hits this, a lot of potential attacks will go lost. Ive never yet deployed 12 wide, at 10 wide more often than not I will not be able to make full contact. Or even get the space needed to make good use of a horde (I play with terrain, lots of it, or (at my store) on too small boards). Deploying 12 wide seems to me like a mathematical exercise rather than a realistic deployment.

12 wide with spearmen is no wider than 10 wide with orcs. Spearmen are defensive anyway, they're a juicy target for your opponent who thinks he can take them. He'll come to you.

Of course I realise that there's less wide units as well. but frankly, you should be so lucky to catch a monster in a unit of 50 skellies. It will never have enough attacks to chew through them in a short time.

and immagine a unit of, idunno, slaves 5wide connecting with your spear unit. with ramotheb, spears and in horde you'll still get 7x5=35 attacks, of which 31 will hit, so that's 15 slaves a round. realize that within two rounds they won't even be steadfast and break.

It is interesting (and cheap) enough to try it out some day at the very least

I just want to point out 2 differences between the skeleton unit and the aforementioned Plague Monk unit:

1. Skeletons have T3, this means that they can't take as much punishment.
2. Skeletons crumble. Even if a Plaguemonk unit is outclassed, they will usually hang in there since they are unbreakable as long as the furnace is in play. Destroy the furnace, and they will still often hold out a bit because they are steadfast.

I'd also like to say a savvy opponents who is not playing a Horde may throw two smaller units to attack the skeleton horde. Most opponents have more/better attacks, armour, and/or toughness then skeletons do.

1: In fact, if you buy light armor for a spearman, it's about as durable:
str3 hit causes 0.33 wounds on monk, 0.33 wounds on spearman
str4 hit causes 0.5 wounds on monk, 0.55 wounds on spearman
only strength5 gives a significant difference: 0.66 wounds vs 0.83
higher strengths means both will receive 0.83 wounds from a hit.
Count with that the higher weaponskill of princeled spearmen, and I'm not that impressed by the monks defense.

2: of course monks don't crumble, so that makes them very much more scary still.

flanking the unit would be nasty too.

Obviously I get the difference between a unit of bowmen and a unit of heavily characters laden beefed up super skeletons with spears.

I'm just saying that at the end of the day, a bunch of S3 attacks doesn't mean a whole lot.

This is especially true when you consider that in order to make the S3 spearmen even passably functional, you have to invest a crap load of points in characters - characters that any opponent with even a modicum of grey matter will realize should be killed out of the unit before the skeletons even get to swing.

Plus, you actually have to somehow, through prayer, miracles, or cheating (joke!) get those spearmen into contact with the enemy. At least the weak-ass bowmen can toss their weak-ass S3 shots at something that has little say in the matter.

Any knights with 1+ or 2+ save is going to be a pain.

Also I agree with sleboda. When is this unit going to get into combat? ;)

our army is expensive to redirect with, and can't march. the only redeeming factor is that chariots, knights and the necrosphinx have swiftstride, wich let's us decide on SOME of the combat matchups; but overall, the enemy is going to decide when things get into combat anyway. you might as well give him something to think about.

a unit of spears only make sense when/if you cast -D3S/-D3T and if you have a necrotect&prince inside and its 55-60 spearmen in horde waiting for a charge. So if you ask me thats too much Ifs... and it only works against light armour troops :angry:

Incantation of Cursed Blades.... problem solved....

I agree with Chandlergriz.

One casting of Cursed Blades and now the unit makes every unit that is a Cav unit or lower stop and think about charging it.

If you face another horde a 12 wide horde unit with a champ and just a TP in it will have have a base 48 WS 5 spear attacks before any magical upgrades.

12 for 1st rank
12 for 2nd rank
12 for Horde
12 for Spears

That's 32 hits vs WS 4 or less.

IF you have the Cursed Blades going....
When rolling to wound you should get 5 killing blow hits and roughly another 12 to 14 wounds vs Toughness 3. Vs Toughness 4 you will still get the 5 KB and only 8 to 10 wounds.

Any other buffs (-1 to Toughness, Smiting, ect) is just adding gas to the fire.