Warriors, whats so bad?

you misunderstand. I am saying deploy them 5 wide sacrificing your rank bonus in doing so to reduce the foot print. nothing in the rules says you must run a unit at least 5 wide only that you must be 5 wide to get a rank bonus. the only thing rank bonus does for our skeletons is combat res.

it is. clearly this use is situational and depends on proper deployment/ manuevering. things like buildings and other impassible terrain would help greatly. if they get to the flank of this unit it's probobly dead. hopefully you've held back something to make the enemy suffer for killing this 200 pt unit.

This is something I posted about a while ago but nobody seemed to embrace it. I think however you are missing a key part of the puzzle here that makes the big picture work:

The lower level of losses is the biggie to making skellies work as intended IMHO. The lower number of losses incurred by utilizing fewer ranks means that the rather mediocre healing we get from our lore attribute actually makes a huge difference to our ability to tarpit. Even a single augment will turn that net loss of 6-8 skellies into a loss of just 3 or 4 dudes. Also bear in mind that since all our augments will also make the skellies a little better to start with you can reasonably expect the overall losses to drop to almost zero after healing.

This is a prime example of how people are often misled by mathammer. According to the math our skellies should be better in horde formations to crank out the maximum number of attacks, but all this does is give superior opponents a huge advantage and reduces the benefit of our healing to meaningless levels. Because you take so many fewer hits with a narrow frontage our magic heals a much higher proportion of the losses back and means we can actually use skellies in the attrition role they were designed for.

2 things: As already mentioned your skellies will have a huge flank so you really need to give that some thought when reforming.

The other thing is that you will not normally be able to get the same kind of knockout punch you sometimes get when you get off lots of (usually light) spells on the unit because you wont be able to bring all of your attacks to bear. I wouldn't worry about this though as attrition will usually win the day for you and you'll have bags of time to get your own flanking units in on the action.

GREAT observation, Dbunibe!
people will call cheese, mindyou. why not field a congaline right away?
But they would be wrong. indeed, shrinking our footprint beyond 5 wide is the only way in which e can take 'advantage' of not needing to be steadfast anyway.
even a unit of 30 would last 3 rounds easily against warriors !!!
heck, it seems this unit could even take a knight of the realm charge (and no combine charges due to the ultrathin skellieprint.

will you call it the skellie-lance?

I am curious as if anyone had a chance to test this out yet. You can probably go as cheap as 15x skeletons. (60 pts) 3x5. Not a big foot print, even maybe go to 18 or 21. I got a rough idea of what I would do with these in my own army. With the smaller foot path you can stick these guys inside the main battle lines towards the middle. That is where normally the scary stuff ends up going to anyways. Can always send these little tar pits out ahead of the rest of the army, if you are playing defensive. Let them hold up a scary unit so you have a extra turn to maneuver to a more favorable position. Now you don't really need to augment these guys to much. Once in combat even a single augment will get them a extra round of combat or so. Given the average amount of wounds taking 8.

Well, it's at it's most effective against chaos warriors, which tend not to have a full rank bonus and rely on casualties. You are bringing an extra +2/3 down on your head by giving up the rank bonus, but much of the time this'll help.

I'm still not really convinced the unit's going to be useful - I guess if you put a defensive prince in there he might absorb attacks (and then die ).

You also can't pack as many skeletons into the unit, though I guess you could get enough.

I should also gently correct the mathhammer - I believe 3 skeletons have 60mm, so 4 chaos warriors can get in contact (50mm and 5 on either side). Gives you 12 attacks, 8 hits, 5-6 wounds and still a high attrition rate.

It's an interesting thought though. Probably, like with most TK units, you really need a clear idea for what it's doing for the army.

The thin unit can be improved by buying it a champion, which will effectively screen the rank an file from some of the enemy collumns.

As My friend tends to bring 4-deep biggun hordes, I'll try to calculate with that:

4 orcies (let's mak them savage) are in base contact with the thin skellie unit. the campion screens 1 of them. that means:
- 5 attacks on the champion amounting to 1 wound maximum
- 15 attacks on the ranks and file, resulting in an average 7 kills, or a pessimistic 10
- 4 static res
assume no kills back, and you're looking at 8-11 casualties and an additional 12-15 crumbleties... that still doesn't look good actually. between 20 and 26 skellies bite the dust in a round?

I'm interested in the results against a plaguemonk horde with a popped banner too:
5 in contact, 1 champion-screened
- 5 attacks on the champion = 4 hits = 1 wound
- 20 attacks on the rank and file = 18 hits = 9 wounds past saves
hmm, nope, still 24 lost in a round, doesn't go well.

greatsword elves, 2 deep?
- champion = 1 wound
- 12 attacks = 11 hits = 8 wounds past the saves
hmmz, 20 die in 1 round it seems.

going 3 wide doesn't save you enough vs anything if you are only removing 1 enemy model from combat. my bad math on number of enemies in contact skewed the results too much. apart from running them 2 wide, wich will defenetly bring forth the calls of cheese, this doesn't seem a viable tactic.

A shame really. I had hoped for a second that we had a use for them.

Hey all I'm back! Rwar!

I got bored of the new 40k rules and was hit by an inspiration bug while playing Rome:Total war gotta love the Egyptians >.<

Anyway I digress, I had a proof read through most of these posts and came to a conclusion.

Skeleton warriors.
They are neither awesome, and neither rubbish. it completely depends on how you use them and what you use them for.
I read a post on a previous page saying their warriors have never lost a fight to anyone. I have to say this was met by a raised eyebrow and and a girly high pitched voice of "REALLY?" from myself.

I've never had success with my warriors without putting at least 3 characters in (King, Tech, Hiero) and then they number at least 60 in a hoard.
To which then they become eye wateringly expensive and a valuable unit which needs protecting.

The most success I've had with my Warriors (without being too competitive with conga lines) was a unit of 40 (5x8) with no command.
160 points of pure bone mass.

My tactics with this unit? Was purely a meat shield. A holding unit of you will. The only expeexpectations his unit is to hold up a nice combat elite monster or unit that are worth far more points than the skelly warriors. While the rest of my army focuses on other units to take out of action and either a- after killing that unit they turn round and deal with that nasty unit the skellys are holding up. And getting some more VP.

.... In an ideal world anyway. We all know plans arnt 100%, so 9 times out of 10 I just don't bother with them. >.<

Thanks for reading!

What if it's less about their combat effectiveness, and more about where we put them on the field?

One of the things that you can pretty much count on, is that most armies these days will have a couple of very easy to predict, standard practices.

1) They'll have a BSB that is centrally located.
2) They'll have all of their fast moving stuff on the flanks. The center will be slow.
3) It will be a very small portion (if any) of the army that will be outside of the 24 inchbubble of protection from the BSB.
4)Your opponent will make poor battlefield decisions in order to prevent from bringing his army outside of that bubble.
5) Very few armies will want to rely on using a board edge to protect a flank because the BSB and general mechanic becomes wasted if the bubble is off the table.
6)This artificial safe zone is a crutch for people who need it, and a joke to Khemri players.

So let's sum everything up.

Most battle-lines have naturalized into a predictable, set formation because people want to take advantage of the rules in a maximized fashion. In fact, I'll bet most armies have been set out, and carefully measured to as to preserve the sanctity of the 24 inch bubble. I'll also bet that the exact formation has been drawn on a piece of paper more than once.

If skeletons fare well against fast stuff, and if skeletons REALLY shine when they are in the flank of something, why are we not putting our skeletons on the flanks, with the intent of getting to the horizontal middle of the board, about 3/4ths of the way up?

An army that focuses on having skeletons on the far flank will also strategize that bringing down the BSB is the primary mission of your army.

I don't mean to poke holes in what you said but there are a few things wrong with that.

First off, I've never met anyway who deploys their army is a set fashion. If they did I'd love them when I'd play them a secon time round.

(the bubble is 12" - or did you mean 24" end to end?)

Because Skellies are slow and can't march, putting them on the flanks is not a great idea.
- you can't march so getting up to 3/4 of the board would be slow and near end game.
- you would be out of range from the short ranged spell of desert wind. Where as the BEST hierophant is in the centre of your line.
- Skellies still arnt that great when flanking an enemy, your still bleed combat res.

The only good thing I can see from putting them on the flank would be holding up a fast heavy hitting unit like knights.

I agree with Ragnar, alot of people will set thier beffy unit in the center. Thus allowing areas to both sides to benefit. There may be some play, but I think being in the middle 1/3 of the field is usual (from what I have seen).

You can use this to you advantage by forcing open thier slightly of-center units to face outwards if you units are spread out and slanted in. I like to then have a giant unit of skeles to soak that unit with the general and BSB for several turns while I deal with the other items.

Jay

oke, ill join in. i think skellies have a job in this army. indeed looking at the kind of stuff ragnar posted. Keep them on your flank. charging 4+2D6 can be decent. and a unit (without thunderstomp) will have difficulties handling a 25 unit of skellies in 2 rounds of combat. (except them being REALLY elite, in which case it gets more than a real threat so you need to pay attention to it anayway)

best to get some other thing to back the skeletons up though. just in case they fail their charge against a fast cav missle wielding unit,

I thinks skeletons are kind of like a niche unit. but do good on flanks. LOTS of wounds with a 6+ parry. For only 100 points they do an amazing job at holding rankless units up without thunderstomp...

how to use them? learn to use them if you wish. dont use to learn them if you dont wish. I have not seen a single armybook ever where you coulde use all the units they actually stated (being a really good leveled armybook) theres always the odd one out (or odd 3 out;))

my .005 cents

I have no problem killing things with my skellies.

I killed a flying Doombull here.
I killed 18 Daemonettes + a Herald + a SoulGrinder there .
I killed 25 Maraudeurs GW/Tzeentch + a lvl 4 of Tzeentch + a BSB Hero of Tzeentch + a hero of Tzeentch on a disk (no report for that).

People just need to get their facts straight about a Warhammer game, we'll discuss after that.

I've just skimmed but here's how i use my skeletons,

I run 50 with armor and a prince.

They either, get dey ass beat by being fed to a monster CC unit, and buy me 2 turns.

They stalemate with a comparable infantry unit, or stall a monster.

Or you get some buffs on them and they suddenly have good upside, and can beat most comparable core units.

granted, you cant always get magic off on them, but when you do, they aint too shabby. its this upside that gets you utility. I can usually make most people freak and dispell KB and ward save on them, allowing some other unit to be dessicated. The options can be rough.

An opponent came up with an interesting idea about skeleton warriors recently. If an opponent crumbles a unit in combat then they can only reform and can't overrun, I know its expensive but its worth keeping in mind if designing any speedbumps.

I'd personally just rather win the combat with something worthwhile.

48 skel's with armor and command with a prince great weapon armor of destiny and a bsb great weapon with 2 up armor and 2 up ward vs flaming. I love the unit and just played a game today where it ate 1200 points of warriors and marauders. I have a level 4 of nehek behind in a bunker and i have a lvl 2 in the skele unit that i try to give skullstorm "gets it 90% of the time". With dessicate, smite, killing blow, and skullstorm the opponent knows he can't beat me everywhere and the smart ones save it for skullstorm and dessicate and take their chances with my weaponskill 5. 6(+2 with smite) strength 6 attacks helps a ton and your bsb will accept any flaming challenge otherwise recycle a champion. What I dont want to see my skeletons up against is Ironguts, bloodletters (prince and bsb go poof), or beast banner gor herd (unless I can deal with them in magic dmg)the like. In my army they make their points back or i get massacred and Im ok with that. I dont have the models yet but I cant wait for some more skeles to fill that 2x30 man blocks of tarpits that can gain bubble buffs.

Grey area. It's very vague in the english rulebook, and explicitely ruled out in the french rule book (you can overrun if the ennemy dies in the combat result, which is where we crumble).

So yeah, play it as you think it should, but be aware that won't work everywhere

my standard go to unit of skeleton warriors is 35 skeletons with standard and musician to help with combat res. put a naked prince in there for 100 points for weapon skill five. will he die? maybe. but he is a toughness 5 hero with 3 wounds. it wont be easy. throw in some spells and you have a whole unit of regrowable guys that are just as good as any hero. this unit works for me every time. it will hold against all but the hardest hitting units. the only example of a hard hitting unit ive run into is freakin tree kin. those are just...well thats a topic for another discussion. as i look at the lists most people are posting with the small units of archers and 5 horsemen with 3 chariots or whatever. i cant help but think its a joke. ive done those list. yeah, you can pick off a few guys with the 5's to hit and 4's or 5's to wound. but as soon as turn 3 (turn two against anything movement 5 or higher) hits your screwed. worried about crumbling? a unit of 3 or 4 chariots is gonna crumble ALOT faster than 4-5 ranks of skeletons. im not saying tk chariots dont have potential but they are more of a target than anything else. as for "wasting points" on heroes and huge units, think about this... 3 chariots with full command is the same point cost of my unit mentioned earlier. and both require that prince to make them solid. so from where im sitting your 55 points farther in the hole with chariots than warriors. bows are fun. but they are also 2 more points per model for no armour or parry save, plus tk cant stand and shoot. (and you think warriors are gonna crumble to death!)