| Slaves with spears and shields, an absolute waste of points, OR IS IT?; For 1 extra point per model, does it make a difference? Have your say today! | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 30th May 2012 - 02:30 AM (2,757 Views) | |
| Royos | 30th May 2012 - 02:30 AM Post #1 |
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Slaves with spears and shields, an absolute waste of points, OR IS IT? What the hell am I thinking? Someone stomp some sense into me. I just looked at my 30 base Slave unit and thought, why not give them shields and spears. IT ONLY COST AN EXTRA 1 POINT EACH. That’s 30 points… Is 30 points really that much? Plus, the minis themselves (the ones I’m using) already have shields attached, and I need to get rid of some spears so its convenient. I thought maybe, 5 ranks of 6. With spears and shields. Then I started thinking… Maybe my slaves are led by a Spartacus type of slave rat personality. Maybe my slaves aren’t the usual rabble, maybe they are the freak’n awesome slaves that are fighting for their freedom. Maybe these slaves possess a uniform? and bit of cunning, can form up in ranks and create a spear wall? Such slaves might be worth equipping with a crappy wooden shield (carved from wooden deck planks off a Dark Elf pirate wreck?) Such slaves might even be worth feeding… I know what your thinking, your thinking, “its absurd! you should go and stand in front of the mirror and whip yourself for such a dumb idea”. Or do you? What DO you think? Opinions please. I have 30 Slaves and I wana organise them soon. Need the feedback. I’m not a tourney player, just friendly and don’t play much anyway, AND I’m going for a 1500 point force. Cheers, Royos. |
| Royhammer (Army Diary) | |
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| Deleted User | 30th May 2012 - 03:28 AM Post #2 |
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Deleted User
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It's horrible but if yor just a friendly gamer, who cares. I don't hate the the idea of shields though. For 30 points you could get a rat dart, which is better than the spears. |
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| FatherSquee | 30th May 2012 - 04:20 AM Post #3 |
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Holder of Clan Pestilens "Most Sexiest" Award
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You're crazay!!! Crayzay!!!! I kid, really could make it work. The only real downside to slaves is their low WS so they can catch people off guard, for most of the time though that would be a real waste of points. In any given combat you'll only be able to take advantage of one or the other; you can't use both. So right off the bat you're wasting 15 points on a unit that's meant to die, in 1500 points you'll want to make every half point count. Plus with Skaven 30 points goes a looooooooong way. In that same unit you can use those points to get an extra 15 slaves, and in 8th number superiority is Everything. Especially when your base LD is 2. Not to mention all the other cool stuff like Dispel Scrolls, Doomrockets and Spears/Shields for Clanrats that you can get with that sort of cash. If you want to do a Sparticus theme (which is kind of an un-written favorite for a lot of Skaven players) then don't just throw 30 points at it and call it a day, go balls deep with this idea and make it 300 points! Get more Slaves then Clanrats or Stormvermin, have Slaves working your Plague Catapult, make your warlord an ex-slave holding the head of the Warlord who oppressed him. Essentially I'm saying make it so that spending 30 points for both Spears and Shields on a slave unit actually makes sense with your army, then you can have a lot of fun with it! |
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| Nurglitch IX | 30th May 2012 - 06:31 AM Post #4 |
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Avatar by count zero
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I think that per Cannon, when Skabbacus led his slave revolt, his fellow slaves turned on him for promises of pardon. The council ate them all anyways. As to the value in game, I personally find it negligible. There's a reason we don't quote points but use slaves as a unit of value, they're not good for much besides money. For 15 slaves you can have your shields and spears, but rarely will you save/inflict, 15 wounds worth of difference with them, so from a pure value assessment, you'd have been better of without them. Now the exact truth value of that statement will vary with your skill level, play style, and local meta. A face first charger who's playing against a lot of elite ogre armies is going to see a much different return than someone who plays sneeky against IoB High Elves, but the value stands. Personally I like mixing about 15-30% of my slaves with shields, the same amount with spears, but only 1 or 2 with both. Gives a better rag-tag feel to the unit. And since the majority is still HW only, that's the rules they use. |
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| hannanibal | 30th May 2012 - 07:31 AM Post #5 |
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The bread that satisfies all hunger... the peanut that reverses time...
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If you buy them the shields alone for half a point and lay off the spears they will gain an unmodfiable parry save of 6+. Just a thought... |
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Chaos Army Diary Skaven Army Diary My Flickr page
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| Royos | 30th May 2012 - 08:21 AM Post #6 |
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Yea, ideally Id just have shields and hand weapons but I was just wondering if someone could convince me otherwise. I have 80 minis, all clanrats, 40 have spears and 40 have hand weapons. I wanted to save the hand weapons for the clan rats and so then i thought well maybe the slaves can have spears, and seemings the mini already has shields, why not spears and shields...? but anyway, maybe ill be cutting the spears in half and giving the slaves pointed stick hand weapons... I mean, does that actually look good? because I havnt seen that used that much yet. Also, i like the parry save that shield + hand weapon provides. what about clanrats with spears? |
| Royhammer (Army Diary) | |
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| Grey Seer Kwokka | 30th May 2012 - 09:34 AM Post #7 |
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I'm a rat, I'm a rat, I'm a clever-clever rat!
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Spears on Clanrats are only helpful in a handful of circumstances; I like the idea of a Bell regiment with them or there's been talk of Bless with Filth having good synergy here. You could buy a rat dart for those 30 points though (in the case of Skavenslaves), which will be infinitely more useful than a select few wounds extra in close combat, if any. |
| IT'S INSANE!: The army diary for Clan Kwokka (sub-sect of Clan Volkn), currently led by Krushklaw the Mad, the evincar of evisceration. | |
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| hannanibal | 30th May 2012 - 10:08 AM Post #8 |
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The bread that satisfies all hunger... the peanut that reverses time...
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Yeah, I use spears on my clannies and wish I never. they are pretty crap if I'm honest. I'd much rather they had the parry save. Plus with hand weapons shield is cheaper too! I made some spears into clubs and some into swords with only a tiny bit of conversion work. Just cut down the shaft for a club or glue a spear blade near the hand for a sword. |
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Chaos Army Diary Skaven Army Diary My Flickr page
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| Deleted User | 30th May 2012 - 01:41 PM Post #9 |
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Deleted User
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I kinda like this but everytime I want to try it, I never have the extra points |
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| Nurglitch IX | 31st May 2012 - 07:12 PM Post #10 |
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Avatar by count zero
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That actually looks pretty good, since "I got a stick!" is totally a slave kinda weapon. For gits and shiggles place a small piece of Green Stuff on the end of a 'stick' paint it rock colored, and you've got a slaven Club. |
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| Warlock Matik | 31st May 2012 - 11:30 PM Post #11 |
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(Z–>)90º – (E–N²W)90ºt = 1
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*Casts Skitterleap* Shifted from the Painting section to General Skaven
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| Grey Seer Kwokka | 1st June 2012 - 12:14 AM Post #12 |
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I'm a rat, I'm a rat, I'm a clever-clever rat!
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I've actually been going on the same angle with this. Most people will take Clanrats and divide them between armoured / non-armoured. I'm going one step further and taking my Clanrats as only armoured models, with spikes on said armour and using only bladed weapons, whereas the Slaves get stuck with all the clubs and flails and flimsier stuff. Whether this translates to a noticeable difference once painted is still yet to be seen, but I am keen so far. |
| IT'S INSANE!: The army diary for Clan Kwokka (sub-sect of Clan Volkn), currently led by Krushklaw the Mad, the evincar of evisceration. | |
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| Prime | 1st June 2012 - 12:31 AM Post #13 |
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Clanrat
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I want to start off by saying I am new to both fantasy and Skaven. Also I am casual, just for fun player. Now with that out of the way I will tell you about my slaves. I have been assembling my slaves and have tested them out in a couple of games with good results. I am running a unit of 79 slaves with shields and spears. I gave them spears so when charged they get four ranks of attacks for 40 of them. But if they charge they use the hw/shields for the parry saves. I only run them this way in 2k or bigger games, otherwise they are hw/shield only (the unit is modeled so it can go either way legally). |
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| Ratmaster Rex | 1st June 2012 - 01:46 AM Post #14 |
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I see lead people
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IIRC if you have a 6-wide unit of spear weilding slaves already in combat as a tarpit, the nice surprise of using death frenzy on them dished out 36? attacks that round. Combine with Bless with filth and you'll auto wound on every 6 rolled... even rolling badly you're bound to kill their front rank. |
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| Nurglitch IX | 1st June 2012 - 02:41 AM Post #15 |
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Avatar by count zero
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And you've been cheating. If you have a spear you *MUST* use a spear. You are not allowed to use HW/shield. Sucks. Stupid. May be different in 7th. But that's the breaks. |
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