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Size of Slave units?
Topic Started: 11th January 2011 - 08:51 PM (1,087 Views)
Rakashani
Warlord
I am seeing a lot of people running and recommending 40-man Slave units.

For those who are running these larger units, I am curious. Do you charge with them or let them get charged? How long do they survive for you (1 turn? 2-3?)? What are you doing with your Slaves (screening? flanking?)?
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SkavenDan
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I have run slaves in all mannor of big sizes I describe it as the speed bump method. block your enemy of with slaves charge if you want to.

I often take units 80+ strong in horde formation with spears and charge.

So primary they are screening units then suicide charging units. After all they are slaves.
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reddogfish77
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not a bad use of 200 points... lol...
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chieftainskritchskritch
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The Freshmaker

Im currently finding them to be highly useful as minumun sized 20-man units. However, these guys arent for tarpitting, they're for running around in front of my CC units, blocking LOS and/or providing that tasty -2 to Hit hard cover modifier. If anyone charges then I just flee.

As a side note, I tend to find small slave units get ignored for the most part of the game. Use this to your advantage! I love the look on an opponent's face when he realises that the slave unit he didnt care about all game is just about to flank charge his unit bogged down in combat with my Rat Ogres. :lol:
You kids these days have it so easy, what with your Plague Furnaces and your Hellpit Abominations and your Bonebreaker Warlords. Back in MY day, all we had was Slaves and Clanrats!...and auto-hit Ratling Guns...and skirmishing Jezzails...and 2D6 Warp Lightning...and Lead From The Back...wait, what was my arguement again?
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Rakashani
Warlord
I tend to play them the way chieftainskritchskritch does which is why I wanted to post the thread. I want to learn how people are using them when they are larger so I can consider the possible change to my lists....
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skavenmatt
Stormvermin
I use a block of 100 slaves with shields in most my armies. they've destroyed an O&G flank by themselves before. took out 30 arrer boys and 2 units of night goblins which more than made up their points. The big units are just there to bog stuff down and threaten units if they aren't delt with. I also find if you stick an assassin with the armor of silvered steel in there with them, the enemy will direct as many attacks as they can to try and kill the assassin and let the huge ass unit whittle him down even more. I've also started taking champions in my slave tarpits, as charging a huge character with the unit and only loosing one slave (do to challenging with the champion) is really quite fun, and cuts casualties drastically.
Of course smaller units of slaves are still useful, they're more maneuverable and get more charges off for more +1 combat modifiers in there. I tend to run 1 unit of 100 and 2 or 3 units of 50. add in 30 strong clanrat units with warpfire throwers and a hellpit for good measure and bingo, a hard battle for most opponents. Skaven can field more wounds than most armies can effectively deal with just with our cannon fodder; I try and guess at about what the enemy is going to be fielding and then bring more than that many slaves (usually the 200ish mentioned), that frees up just enough points for the right blend of characters, special choices, rare choices, and clanrats/stormvermin for banners and weapon teams.
One thing you can do if you want to support these large numbers of slaves, is casting wither on everything you possibly can, that turns their 2 pts str 3 hits into killers, especially against elf or human opponents. Warlocks are great support for them as well. Whats the best part? if you loose your 250 point 100 rat horde of slaves, they blow up and damage everything around them before you remove em, and you've still got pleanty of troops to deal with whatever you've weakened for 3-4 turns with the tarpit.
Anyway, thats some things I use them for, don't forget they also screen your important troops from missile fire.
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Plague Priest Phebrickid
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chieftainskritchskritch
Jan 12 2011, 08:58 AM
Im currently finding them to be highly useful as minumun sized 20-man units. However, these guys arent for tarpitting, they're for running around in front of my CC units, blocking LOS and/or providing that tasty -2 to Hit hard cover modifier. If anyone charges then I just flee.


If you were to react with a flee! reaction would the charging unit take the D3+R hits? or will they only take them if within the D6'' before moving?
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Warlock Matik
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Plague Preist Phebrickid
Jan 13 2011, 06:26 PM
chieftainskritchskritch
Jan 12 2011, 08:58 AM
Im currently finding them to be highly useful as minumun sized 20-man units. However, these guys arent for tarpitting, they're for running around in front of my CC units, blocking LOS and/or providing that tasty -2 to Hit hard cover modifier. If anyone charges then I just flee.


If you were to react with a flee! reaction would the charging unit take the D3+R hits? or will they only take them if within the D6'' before moving?

The slaves wouldn't explode in this case, they flee as normal. They only explode if they break from a combat that they've been involved in, fleeing means there's no combat (unless they're caught ;) )
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Snic Filthclaw
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The Gentlerat
Haven't done this myself yet but an idea just came to mind.

5 units of slaves would make up the front line. The centre one a tar pit unit (5x10 or something) with his only purpose to charge the opponent's strongest unit in reach. To left and right of that unit a naked minimum sized unit, just for line of sight and hard cover. Last but not least, a unit of 40 (10 x 4) of slaves with spears on the sides, mainly for line of sight and hard cover but also for intercepting units that will try to get into your more important unit's flank and for taking the opportunity if a flank opens up :)

Thoughts?

(Still haven't managed to play a game yet so if this is rubbish, please be gentle xD )
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Rakashani
Warlord
I'd have to check to be sure but I believe that Slaves care about Slaves so you want to be careful about one unit causing cascading panic checks down the line until you are in range of your General and get that Ld bumped up from 5 to 10.

The other issue which can be managed by careful movement is to make sure that your enemy does not just charge your Slaves (since they are closer) and use them to catapult (via overrun) into your more valuable units.
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SkavenDan
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Doomwheel Fanatic
The theory is sound the reality is this.

A slaves panic slaves so buy an warlock for each unit they come in handy when push comes to shove.

B 50 in horde formation just isn't enough your average heavy hitter I have found will kill 9-19 slaves a combat once your down to 31 they will almost certainly have more ranks than you and the hole thing just went wrong. This is not such a big problem though as 60-70 do hold against anything for at least 1 turn.

C shields on slaves are an OR option if you take them your doing it for the parry and you can't parry with spears so it is shield or spear in my opinion.

D can it work? Yes I do this kind of now part from it is 3 units of 80-100. Draw back is deployment is rubbish often not till the first turn is over that a "proper" battle line is drawn up.
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Rakashani
Warlord
Keep in mind also that if you put Engineers in the units while the Ld bumps up to 8 you lose all the other fun stuff. It's no longer just slaves so you can't shoot into combat with it and if it breaks it causes panic in everything.
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C57Black
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Warlord
I too take an 80 strong unit of slaves, more grist to feed to the mill!

The smallest I'll ever run slaves is 40 otherwise people just go through them too darn fast or steadfast is lost too quickly.
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SkavenDan
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Rakashani
Jan 14 2011, 02:55 AM
Keep in mind also that if you put Engineers in the units while the Ld bumps up to 8 you lose all the other fun stuff. It's no longer just slaves so you can't shoot into combat with it and if it breaks it causes panic in everything.

Show me a page that says because a warlock joins the unit the units status changes from slaves?
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Seiyru
Stormvermin
well the warlock doesnt have "life is cheap" as a rule so therefore cant be "shot at"
id imagine its right - noone cares about the slaves running away, but a warlock engineer running
sounds reasonable
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