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Screaming Bell Deployment Width
Topic Started: 15th December 2010 - 04:09 AM (1,727 Views)
Scarecrow
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Egggggggssssssss!!!!!!!
Paricidas
Dec 17 2010, 04:27 AM
If a unit of 18 axewielding khorne warriors charges you from the front, it is unimportant if your bell runs horde formation or not, as it will not survive that combat.

With the bell it doesn't matter if you win or lose combat, the unit is unbreakable. The reason to deploy in horde formation is to maximize the amount of attacks you get since the unit doesn't have to rely on ranks for LD. So you end up with 22 STR 3 attacks (counting Seer, 23 if you take F/C) and 3 STR 5 Attacks. You double the amount of attacks you get when fiedlding the unit 7 wide + bell and impact hits if you charge, which is what you should be doing with a horde formation.

IMO paying nearly 500 pts to protect a BSB seems a bit extreme. BSBs are important but don't think their that important. And if you're going to offer your flank might as well drop the Bell and add another 60 rats (field a block of 100. Which will still be cheaper than a Bell) and you'll still never run and the BSB will still be protected. Either way it's an expensive tar pit/bodyguard.

The Bell is an offensive weapon and should be used as such. Field an unbreakable horde, maximize your attacks and charge it into something. And, of course, have a supporting unit standing by to charge the flank of the target unit.
TRADE
I'm looking for Dark Eldar to convert into DE. Also looking for bretonnia lances and halberds. If anyone has any they would be interested in trading PM me and we can work something out.


"And, most vivid of all, there was the dramatic epic of the rats––the scampering army of obscene vermin which had burst forth from the castle three months after the tragedy that doomed it to desertion––the lean, filthy, ravenous army which had swept all before it and devoured fowl, cats, dogs, hogs, sheep and even two hapless human beings before its fury was spent. Around that unforgettable rodent army a whole separate cycle of myths revolves, for it scattered among the village homes and brought curses and horrors in its train."

– The Rats In The Walls, H.P. Lovecraft
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Paricidas
Doomwheel Driver
Scarecrow
Dec 18 2010, 08:09 PM
With the bell it doesn't matter if you win or lose combat, the unit is unbreakable.

My post was actually not about winning combats, but about surviving them...

The main problem is that without the bell you are not unbreakable. And if you get a frontcharge by 18 str6 models with multiple attacks, you will be without the bell and without your grey seer very very fast.

I am of the opinion that you should horde up with a bell NOT because you get more attacks but because to protect the seer from close combat for a longer time than you could do it with a unit of 5*x.

Ceterum censeo Altdorfem esse delendam
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Rakashani
Warlord
The part I don't get is why you guys think that Clanrats swinging more is a good thing. For every model that you swing with, your opponent (if he has any sense) is going to be swinging back with a model of his own who is at least as good as you are if not better.

And even Khornate warriors are not S6 without specific blessings from the Eye of the Gods which is why your Bell is more likely to survive. 4 Warriors (the most he can get in) with 4 behind them using additional handweapons is 16 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 6s or 3s. It's likely to hurt your Seer quickly but the Bell should stick around for quite a while keeping you unbreakable. Even with Halberds and blessing #4 (strength) you're only expecting 12 attacks which yield 4 wounds, half of which you save with your ward. That's not bad.

This is ignoring characters since the discussion is about rank&file arrangement. Even if you threw in a really heavily armored character your opponent would never have to throw attacks at him outside a challenge so he would not help you avoid casualties at all...

I still don't get why Paricidas thinks that a wider unit helps him survive better but he's right that your focus should be survival, not assault barring *really* small units that you can mow down with the impact hits.
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Paricidas
Doomwheel Driver
Rakashani
Dec 20 2010, 06:18 PM
I still don't get why Paricidas thinks that a wider unit helps him survive better but he's right that your focus should be survival, not assault barring *really* small units that you can mow down with the impact hits.


You have a bell unit with for example 35 clanrats (too small but for an example its enough). Its 7 wide +3 of the bell and 5 models deep. As far as I know of bells, they are normaly not charged into CC because of their meager impact hits, but they will be in the middle of your army to give the maximum LD bubble of the grey prophet. It is shielded on all sides by units of Slaves or whatever...

Now one of the shields starts to crumble, lets asume its a slave unit in front of the bell. Sooner or later the enemy will crush down the poor slaves and will end in BTB contact with the bell. Now you reform with your bell and make a 90 degree turn and the guys that are just about to slaughter your slaves will hit your bell unit in the flank.

This has 2 advanatges. First of all the bell unit is just 5 deep, so a flank charge can only get in BTB-contact with a maximum of 7 enemy models. But as you are charged in the flank, noone can get into conatct with your bell or your grey seer. As all of your clanrats can step up, the enemy has to kill the unit down to the last model before he gets into CC with the seer.

As has been mentioned before, I am not a big fan of this tactic as it is completly unfluffy to intentionally present your flank to the enemy just because the "unbreakable"-rules give you some strange advanatges, but it is doable and completly within the bonds of the BRB rules.

As a fact, with the helm that makes a charakter model and the unit it is in stubborn, you can pull off many such tricks. A player in the club I sometimes play is famous for its Teclis bunker (large units of phoenix guards with stubborn item, running around only with 3 models in the front so teclis can hide in the second rank).
Ceterum censeo Altdorfem esse delendam
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Innerwolf
Chieftain
a.wagg
Dec 18 2010, 06:30 PM
But this is exactly what a bating maneuver is, and you're complaining about honourable-ness? You're playing... skaven.

In a (real world) baiting maneuver you would expose your flank then withdraw from the charging enemy or throw a counterassault before they make contact with your vulnerable, exposed unit. In the Bell proposed case, you would offer your flank and let them hit, because it is better. A unit which would be completely vulnerable and hopeless in real life is more survivable?

It's not about honour, but about tactical common sense.
If the Seer was allowed to climb at the Bell at any time you wouldn't need to pull that nonsense to keep him alive. A 230+ naked wizard with such a huge frontage is a flawed concept and should have been ruled differently.
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Rakashani
Warlord
Paricidas
Dec 20 2010, 02:21 PM
Now one of the shields starts to crumble, lets asume its a slave unit in front of the bell. Sooner or later the enemy will crush down the poor slaves and will end in BTB contact with the bell. Now you reform with your bell and make a 90 degree turn and the guys that are just about to slaughter your slaves will hit your bell unit in the flank.

Ok, I get it now. You're making the same argument to provide as little frontage as possible. You're just using the flank of the unit instead of the front in order to further protect the bell.

I've got a separate question about that but since you brought it up here, how do you play with a bell which is 5 models deep once the unit itself has less than 5 models? Does the enemy strike "across the gap" into the bell?
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Player not found
Clanrat
Actually, at that point the bell unit would be far less than 5 models deep.

Imagine a non-bell unit, say a 5x5 unit of clanrats gets flank charged. It loses 10 models to casualties. It will remain 5-wide, but will be only 3 deep now. Same goes with the bell unit. The unit won't suddenly be narrower just because you take casualties on the flank, you'll be removing models from the back rank, making the unit's "flank-frontage" narrower each time 10 models die. By the time you have only 10 models remaining, you'll have only 1 clanrat in B2B contact, severely limiting the enemy's damage potential.

Of course, as said by some, while legit according to the rules, it might seem powergamey to your opponent...
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reddogfish77
Grey Seer
might seem powergamy???? lol...

i still want to try the preist and censor on furnace ....

when you think about it you would on average lose 3 monks... and you are unbreakable... against T3 you will average 2.5 wounds... T4 prob 2 wounds... the reason this is good is usaully T4 models will have decent armour so doing an extra 2 wounds per round will really help out.

is especailly good against elves with characters... lol

suicide... sure... but your talking about a bunch of crazed monks pushing a time bomb into combat... seems pretty normal to me... lol.
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Big AL
Chieftain
reddogfish77
Dec 17 2010, 03:57 AM
i think best combo would be wide enough to fit a warlord on bonebreaker next to bell and narrow enough that BSB in unit can hide with banner of underempire. lol....

How many points do you play? I play usually with a max of 2500pts so the bell + seer takes up 500+ points depending on my kit. at 2500pts you only get 625pts in lords.
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Big AL
Chieftain
Player not found
Dec 21 2010, 06:32 PM
Actually, at that point the bell unit would be far less than 5 models deep.

Imagine a non-bell unit, say a 5x5 unit of clanrats gets flank charged. It loses 10 models to casualties. It will remain 5-wide, but will be only 3 deep now. Same goes with the bell unit. The unit won't suddenly be narrower just because you take casualties on the flank, you'll be removing models from the back rank, making the unit's "flank-frontage" narrower each time 10 models die. By the time you have only 10 models remaining, you'll have only 1 clanrat in B2B contact, severely limiting the enemy's damage potential.

Of course, as said by some, while legit according to the rules, it might seem powergamey to your opponent...

Until you factor in incomplete ranks and models swinging. The less clanrats you have, the more attacks that are going to the Bell/seer. Pg 49
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tbone
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Grey Seer
I figured this would be the place to ask about an idea I had about Screaming Bell deployment width. Here are my thoughts:

Now I think we can all agree that we should do our best to protect the seer, which means getting the least amount of enemy models in contact with the bell. Because the rules for combat force us to maximize models in base-to-base contact, if we ran the bell with six or seven clanrats on each side of bell(total of 15 or 17 wide), when the enemy charges with a normally ranked unit, they would only be able to get one file in base-to-base with the bell. Right?

Viable?

Thoughts?
Tbone's Nasty Rats
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Olorin the Ancient
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Quote:
 
Now I think we can all agree that we should do our best to protect the seer, which means getting the least amount of enemy models in contact with the bell. Because the rules for combat force us to maximize models in base-to-base contact, if we ran the bell with six or seven clanrats on each side of bell(total of 15 or 17 wide), when the enemy charges with a normally ranked unit, they would only be able to get one file in base-to-base with the bell. Right?

You don't get to decide where on your front line the enemy charges you. In my opinion, if they can charge directly into your Bell with it dead center, then they're allowed to. They're still maximizing the number of their models that are in base-to-base contact with you. As I see it, all you'd be doing would be giving up your rank bonus.
- Olorin the Ancient
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tbone
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Grey Seer
If an enemy unit with 5 files charges, and would like to be front and center of the bell, only 5 of my models are in BtB contact, while if you are in front of clanrats mostly, then 7 models total would be in BtB contact. Seem legit. Right?
Tbone's Nasty Rats
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Skreetz the Fabricator
Skyre warlock/converter
pg. 20 of the rule book in the bold part it says "As many models as possible from the two units must be brought into base contact."

The enemy still needs enough movement to get over there though so this only works if your enemy can move far enough.
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