Questions about Warfare in the Old World

Hail again Legion Brothers!

On the condition that I play WHFB my friend gave me a Beastmen army. You can bet I was down for that! Reading the fluff, I have really taken a liking to this army and find it amusing that I end up playing armies that are all about axe-to-face. Now I need to know a few things about warfare in the Old World and was wondering if I could get some help.

Specifically, what does adding an additional Hand Weapons or Shields specifically do to a unit/model? Speaking of weapons…what about Great Weapons?

I am also curious about Champions, Standard Bearers, and Musicians. Looking through, Champs seem to have better stats than their counterparts and that’s about it (akin to a CSM Champ or SM Sgt and etc). What exactly do musicians contribute? As for standard bearers, what benefits do they bring to the unit? The magical standards make sense as it lets me bring magic-granted abilities up to a certain amount of points.

Another thing I am wondering about is formations. Is there anything I should be concerned about when ranking up my Man-Bear-Pigs? I was thinking about having my troops 5 abreast (in the front) and stack up from there. Is it good to build huge formations? Smaller ones? What should I be concerned about?

Finally, I need to build a Hero to lead my army (only going to play 1000pts). Most of what I am wondering about deals with the Hand Weapons, Great Weapons, and Shield but I’ll know about that thanks to my earlier question. The last thing is about Light Armor and Heavy Armor and what it does.

Anything you can tell me helps! I have more than enough for a 1000pt army…although I have to see about the legitimacy of a Ghorgon conversion my friend gave me. I think it’s base is small for the kind of unit it is.

Additional hand weapons gives you an extra attack in close combat
Shields gives you a +1 to your armour save and gives you the parry special rule (same like a 6+ invurnable)
Great Weapons gives you +2Str for more damage but lets you strike last
Champion gives you an extra attack and gives you the option to challenge (1vs1 against a character or other champion)
Standard bearers gives you a +1 to combat res to see who wins but is worth 25 points when the opponent captures it
Musician gives you a +1 to combat resolution if its a draw, otherwise is needed for a quick reform.
For formations putting them 5 abreast gives you more mobility and 10 abreast lets you add an extra rank that can attack (is 3 ranks that can attack)
the bigger the unit (more ranks) the less likely they will flee and more likely the enemy will (unit with most ranks in combat is stuborn)
Light armour gives you a 6+ armour and heavy armour a 5+ armour, these can be combined with a shield so H. armour and shield will give you a 4+
Armour saves in fantasy are affected by the strength used on them, Str 4 gives a -1, Str 5 a -2 and so on.
Hope this can help a bit, don't have my rulebook with me and have to leave to work so hope i won't get late

Beastmen is a really cool army. I just love it but sadly I don´t have one (just some models, been thinking to change that). Also GW did a bad work wit hthere armybook (specially the rare choses that are way to expensive in points compared with newer books) But I still love them and I hope you bring many victories to the true children of chaos!

Petatje said this quite well, adding a shield improves your armour, additional Hand Weapons increases your attacks. Great Weapons are like Power Fists, it doesn't double your strength, but does increase it, but you will strike last, and forfeit the added armour from a shield. I've got my Grave Guard armed with Great Weapons, personally.

Champions have slightly better stats, and can be involved in challenges. Some characters excel in killing enemy characters in a duel, in which case, you can use your Champions in place of a much more valuable character in the unit. Musicians aren't the most useful Command models going, but they do have a purpose, either adding to combat resolution or something, I can't fully remember right now. Standard Bearers are very good, they add +1 to combat resolution, which in Fantasy, is everything. The key to winning combats is having a higher Combat Resolution than your opponent, at the very least, the Standard Bearer prevents your opponent from getting the advantage if they took it. Magic Banners, it depends, I wouldn't use them everywhere, one or two on specific units. Just because a unit can take a Magic Standard, doesn't mean they should.

I go for 5 wide, and build up ranks. But, in the current edition, some think having bigger units, with wider fronts, are better. Fewer units, 10 wide, with three or four ranks are the better option, apparently.

Light Armour gives you a 6+ armour save, Heavy Armour gives you a 5+ and Full Plate Armour gives you 4+. Empire Knights, for example, have full plate armour, shield, and a barded warhorse (which also increases armour), have a 1+ armour save, of course rolls of a '1' always fail, so it's effectively 2+, but as said before, Strength can reduce your armour save, so it all works out.

A good basic gor unit for me has a full command (champion, muscician and standard bearer) with extra hand weapon and is 5x5 or 5x6 in size. The light armour gives to little in protection and the shield is also not so good as many enemies has S4 or more and that will just take your armour away. If you want armour, go with beastigors instead. Gors are all about dishing out lot of attacks with a good S4.

Also depends on what unit is ranks of 5 good or ranks of 10
if you want a unit that keps the enemy busy long enough go with ranks of 5 wide and 5-6 deep (so you have more ranks than the opponent and get stubborn)
If you want to demolish your enemies units go with 10 wide and get more attacks
Also your bigger beasts (Minotaurs or ogres for example) only need 3 wide for a rank or 6 wide for the extra attack (in their case 3 extra attacks)
Also taking spears can prove usefull since they give an extra rank to attack (providing you didn't charge that turn with them)

Thanks for all the feedback everyone! So far, this is what I have (my friend said there may be more but not 100% certain)/ plan to build.


Core
Ungors (x10)
Halfhorn
Musician
Standard Bearer
Spears (x10)

Ungor Raiders (x10)
Halfhorn
Musician

Gors (x35)
Foe-render
Musician
Standard Bearer
Shield/Hand Weapon (x35)

Special
Bestigors (x20)

Rare
Ghorgon

Total 974

So far everything is unassembled but the bestigors, 15 gors (that includes a Musician, Champ, and standard) and the ghorgon (a minotaur conversion on a smaller base than it should be). I also have one minotaur but its only a musician and lacks friends to rank up with.

For the 20 Ungors, I am split on what I should really build with them. I plan on build 10 for a regular herd and 10 for the raiders. If I want to rock a a larger unit of one or the other, my group would mind that.

The rest of the Gors will probably be build half holding shields the other with hand weapons. When we play a game i can just tell my opponent which one they actually have. The other idea was to model them all with hand weapons and somehow fit shields onto their backs.

With what I have, I am thinking of dropping one of the ungor units to free up points for a lord. I am still in the state of wondering what to give him exactly though. Again, unsure about armor, weapons, and if I should give him some spell. I'll have to have a flip through of the army book when I actually concentrate haha.

As for the Bestigors...I am also uncertain about give them a magic standard. From what I gather, with their heavy weapons, they will be hitting last in combat and there is nothing I can give them to boost that.

Not knowing much about Beastmen, I can't really comment on the list as such. But for the Bestigors, if there's a cheapish Magic Standard that'll help them survive, possibly take that? Seeing as they're going last... Also remember there are Common Magic Items in the rulebook

Yeah, bestigors have one point more of Strength than their gor brethren and they have despoiler ability (which I do not recognize and will be looking up soon).

They can have up to 50pts with their magical standard but I didn't really notice any spells that helped out with defense or survivability. Those man-bear-pigs are going to have to rely on their heavy armor and favorable dice rolls (which I do not often get when playing GW games...).

Also, my friend explained to me a bit about how a base is legal if a model can fit on it (*This is the simplififed version of what he had told me), so the ghorgon I have is good to go.

just a word on bestigors hush!
great weapons make you strike at init 1
and your heavy armour only gives you a 5+ save
so against st4 you get a 6+ st 5 no save
the way around this is to send them big monstor hunting which shouldn't have enough attacks to wipe them out! (not including thunderstomp)
or you increase the number of them in the unit to allow for casualties you'll take b4 you strike then hit back very hard! (which should be fairly often as you have hatred w/ a chance of frenzy aswell and st6!!)
flaming banner is cheap and allows them to not fear regenerating monsters ( trolls of any kind, hell pit abomination - to name a few)

hope this helps mate

Thanks Thanatos! Yeah, I was looking at their initiative and realized it didn't matter because of the great weapons (and they have no other weapons options if I remember correctly).

Also, thanks for the suggestions about making them monster hunters. Gives them a nice role to specifically kill large threats. The other idea I had with bestigors was possibly a coup de grace type force. Whenever my Gors or Ungors get into conflict these guys will come in support and hopefully be the killing blow. However, I am not sure how that works and they will more than most likely still strike last.

I like the idea, but for that to work, you need a unit that can tie up the enemy long enough to get the Bestigors into position. The Gors might be able to pull that off, they are a fairly solid unit, and you've got the numbers. But the Ungors won't cut it. They'll die in a turn or two. They are unarmoured, weak and with only 10 in a unit, they won't last long in a combat. For now I'd say combine the two units into a unit of 20 for now. That way, they might last a bit longer, just long enough so that the Bestigors, or even the Ghorgon, can get a Flank or Rear Charge.

Yeah, I think I am going to rock a massive Gor herd with Bestigors backing them up. I am still going to build up the Ungors with 10 men (if they can be called that) units of each variant just for variation. However, I've been thinking about using a large unit with spears. I am not too sure how efficient the raiders will be with crossbows...but with beastmen ambush...it could be fun for kicks.

Also,I believe my Wargor (little hero) will be with the Gors too.

I still have more building to do for this army...but I need to get my painting entry for the comp done and an obliterator conv. finished up before that.

Yeah, if there's two things I've learnt about this edition of Fantasy, is that big blocks of troops are best, and Wizards are nasty.

Hence why when I get around to sorting my army again, the two units of 20 Skeletons are being fused into one horde of 40, and it being Vampire Counts, all my characters are Wizards.

I may invest in a Shaman then. I haven't really looked into them in favor of running a proper axe-wielding maniac...man, seriously, every game/army I play has a maniac with an axe leading them...

That's unhealthy!

A horde of 40 skeletons too huh? sounds interesting! I liked building and painting (2 of them) the skeletons. After reading the Silver Princess story in the previous army book I wanted a Skeleton army led by a female vampire and necromancer.

Oh, What are unit fillers? I've seen quite a few project logs with unit fillers, sometimes a little piece of terrain or something more akin to a diorama. Is that just for fun?