| 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 (2,761 Views) | ||
| Prime | 1st June 2012 - 03:33 AM Post #16 | |
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Clanrat
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Well, I think cheating is a bit harsh way to put it. I just took it as the way it was since thats how the group I have been playing with play it. I have not been playing very long so the rules are still new to me. But I looked at the rules and yup on page 88-89 thats what it says. Don't bother me though, this means I will be freeing up quite a bit of points to spend in other places. I will be bringing this up at the next league gtg, they must be stuck in 7th on that.
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| Rageaholic | 1st June 2012 - 06:03 AM Post #17 | |
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Doomwheel Driver
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Shields on slaves is fine, they rarely do much but they can save one or two points of combat res occasionally. You don't care when it's just the slaves in combat, but more than once I've brought in my hammer unit but the slaves have been butchered to the point that I lose combat. I've been giving it some thought and I think spear armed slaves could actually be viable too. A horde of 100 with bless with filth and death frenzy might even wipe out a small enemy unit before they die. I just can't come up with any justification to give them both. A 6+ armour save is basically worthless, any combat troops worth the name will negate it. So your paying for the parry. Which you lose with spears. |
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| scratchydoom | 1st June 2012 - 07:36 AM Post #18 | |
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Seer
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Shields usefulness have been debated again and again, my opinion is they are useful, and can save you some pain, however if you fight enemies that deal more ranged damage or field large units its best to use the points to get more bodies. |
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| Rambage | 1st June 2012 - 12:59 PM Post #19 | |
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Clanrat
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for 30 points you can give those slaves 15 more buddies, you could get a rat ratd, you could get 2 engeneer to redirect charges, 6 clanrats with shield, the doomrocket, a dispel scroll, there is an endless list of thing you get with 30 points. Also, should you ever run 90+ slaves (and it actually happens) you can get a cannon by dropping those spears |
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| Mathusala0 | 1st June 2012 - 02:52 PM Post #20 | |
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The Evil Underlord
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which you've now wasted almost all your magic to achieve rather than just plaguing a unit and knocking off 25 instead of 6. there are more efficient ways to utilize those spells, and most of the time they are not on slaves. the basis of my argument against spears comes from a matter of points and the fact that you don't "gain" anything. if you take spears on their own, fantastic, worth every penny... except you will never take spears on their own, because armor matters a ton. when you buy a shield on a unit, you buy a 6+/6+ save. really well spent points. when you add a spear to that, you LOSE a 6+ save and GAIN an extra attack, therefor it's not well spent points as you've only swapped benefits rather than gaining new ones. so basically, spears are over-costed. and GW has made this realization. which is why in vampires skelies can simply pick between spears or hand weapons (to use not to swap midgame mind you) |
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| SkavenDan | 1st June 2012 - 05:43 PM Post #21 | |
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Doomwheel Fanatic
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Yeah accurate side one point. If you go magic heavy and are certain to get Death Frenzy then using it on slaves with shields negates the parry which is annoying so if you should have a shieldless unit very good candidate for Death Frenzy. |
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| Olorin the Ancient | 1st June 2012 - 07:57 PM Post #22 | |
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You can definitely throw in some models with spears and shields--we all have those Island of Blood figures, after all, and equipment may legally be up to 49% non-WYSIWYG--but I wouldn't actually recommend equipping a unit of Skavenslaves with spears, though shields are okay. I'm very strict, and I won't allow my lists to go even 0.5 points over the limit, but I also won't ever leave more than 1.5 points unused. If I have 2 points, I'll throw in an extra Skavenslave. Never waste points. |
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| TrueLancer | 2nd June 2012 - 08:34 AM Post #23 | |
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Grey Seer
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Re: cheating The obvious intent of the rule was to make people prefer weapon upgrades, magic weapons, and to get rid of the tricky situations where people won't declare their weapon choice at the beginning of combat when that option is there. i.e. You have higher initiative and hit me first, you only get one wound, I make my armor save and retaliate with 15 attacks utilizing my extra rank of spears... but I WOULD HAVE taken the superior +6 Parry Save had you done 6 wounds and just used my hand weapon/shields otherwise. Also, not have people make intentionally ridiculous weapon choices to lose combat or other dumb tricks, i.e. "My guys with hand weapon, spear, shield, and extra hand weapon are gonna choose... the hand weapon. Just one. And these three guys declare their attack on this normal non-champion model, and these two other guys declare an attack on the musician. Yeah, looks like I'm gonna lose!" Streamlining. Unfortunate consequence is that the writer/editor didn't do their homework and built an unintended although patently obvious misinterpretation into the rules right there. The rule is you have to 'choose the best,' although it's obviously a misprint or forgetting to check on terminology rather than an intended consequence of the rules. Why give a Stormvermin a hand weapon and a halberd base if they MUST choose the halberd? Why give them a shield as an expensive 1/7th increase of their score if they can't even use the shield the way it's intended to be used? It seems like your OPPONENT is cheating to say you can't use things you spent precious army points on. Heck, if somebody says I'm choosing to use my best weapon, which is a shield, I wouldn't be too angry at that. It goes in the hands. On topic: it seems shields and spears on slaves is a waste. Maybe a super-cheap Rattacus hero who automatically gives a unit of slaves he leads free upgrades, maybe Stubborn or something else, would be a neat little addition to the rules. Edited by TrueLancer, 2nd June 2012 - 08:37 AM.
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| Nurglitch IX | 2nd June 2012 - 03:30 PM Post #24 | |
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Avatar by count zero
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Cheating may have been a poor word choice, because apparently it's more connotation loaded that I realized. But the fact remains the rules say "If you have a special weapon, you must use it instead of a hand weapon" It also says "carry a spare weapon of some kind... in case his main weapon is destroyed." I don't know of any "remove special weapon" spells at the moment, but it's conceivable there was one. As for why you'd get a shield on a Storm Vermin, it still gives you a +1 Armor save vs. ranged attacks. I wouldn't call that worth it, and certainly not worth 1+ Armor save vs. all attacks, and 6+ Ward in CC. No one (at least yet) has said, "wow, that's just how I would have done it!" but regardless of how we think it should work, that's how the rules go, and it's important to remember that if you're not using a house rule that these are the rules your opponent will be expecting you to play by. |
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| Mathusala0 | 2nd June 2012 - 03:34 PM Post #25 | |
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The Evil Underlord
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If it's a misprint then no one has made any effort to point it out to them SV can take shields because our book came out in seventh edition, back when you COULD choose between the 2 options. so that said, I'm 100% certain that gw did not misprint that section. its not exactly a 1 word screw up, it's a whole paragraph of dedication. |
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| Rageaholic | 2nd June 2012 - 04:04 PM Post #26 | |
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Doomwheel Driver
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I'm not convinced its a misprint either. I seem to remember the rulebook covers it in a fair bit of detail. I always assumed SV could have shields because it ups your save vs shooting from 5+ to 4+. I probably wouldn't take it, but its arguably worth it. I'd certainly argue that the option is welcome. I think Math is probably right about them having HW as being from an earlier edition, empire halbadiers in the new book aren't listed as having a hand weapon. They do have shields as an option though. |
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| TrueLancer | 2nd June 2012 - 04:30 PM Post #27 | |
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Grey Seer
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Heh. You know, the usual. ---- What I'm saying is it's an unintended consequence of streamlining things. Technically, you're supposed to choose your weapon load-out which cannot change between rounds of combat. The consequence of that is people suspiciously forgetting or choosing the best outcome based on what you rolled. Unfortunately, the dumb result is not leaving the option open for people to choose better loadouts. There are so many weird things that can happen when people have multiple weapons, additional hand weapons, shields, magical weapons, special rules that give them multiple weapons, special non-magical weapons that count as two weapons or are 'included in the Attacks profile already', and so on. Or "additional hand weapon" trumping a normal hand-weapon because it's the most upgraded form of a weapon. I think this is really a case of just plain terrible writing and deciding not to proofread their work. GW has a nasty habit of not hiring editors. When I first read the Skaven book, I instantly noticed pages and pages of text that would need to be hard-errata'd on my first read-through. If GW turned in some of their books and online FAQ/Errata work in to their 10th grade literature class, they'd get a D-/D+. At best. Terrible. |
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| Warlock Matik | 2nd June 2012 - 04:31 PM Post #28 | |
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(Z–>)90º – (E–N²W)90ºt = 1
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All models are assumed to have a hand weapon as standard either way. I really don't think it's a misprint; as mentioned above there's still a point in being able to take shields. It's just one of those changes between editions. |
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| Mathusala0 | 2nd June 2012 - 04:42 PM Post #29 | |
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The Evil Underlord
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What I'm saying is it's an unintended consequence of streamlining things. Technically, you're supposed to choose your weapon load-out which cannot change between rounds of combat. The consequence of that is people suspiciously forgetting or choosing the best outcome based on what you rolled. Unfortunately, the dumb result is not leaving the option open for people to choose better loadouts. or perhaps this was their intention, you'll note black orcs may still choose what weapons they use, in fact it is VERY spicific about that. Again, I don't think gw "misprinted" "miss-wrote" "did not intend" "eFed up" "unintended" or what have you, that section. you'll note ALL the eighth edition books don't have options that make no sense.
you cannot even begin to compare the skaven book to the BRB, Jeremy Votock is a TERRIBLE writer who has NO BLOODY CLUE what he was doing. He was a madman with a crayon who made Matt Ward jealous. 9 page faq for 50 pages of rules. as compared to an 8 page faq for 500+ pages of rules. pretty big difference. Edited by Mathusala0, 2nd June 2012 - 04:43 PM.
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| Royos | 5th June 2012 - 12:38 AM Post #30 | |
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Cool. Thanks for the replies regarding the slaves vs spears and shields line. Ok, ive looked over the replies and Ive decided to go with 2 slave units of 30 models, both units equiped with shields and hand weapons, I decided against the spears. I stuck with the shields though because my minis already have them and I want to stay wysiwyg. So, i decided to give the spears to my clanrats instead. Im going to form up a unit of 25 clan rats and give them spears. Just to mix it up a bit. I like the look of the spears. So now my force is shaping up to be. 20 plague monks. a rat dart with master moulder. 60 slaves. and 25 clan rats. |
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I will be bringing this up at the next league gtg, they must be stuck in 7th on that.











