Characters in skirmishers

[Dragon.Prince63]

Can characters join units that are skirmishers? Because i was thinking, Shadow Warriors with Alith Anar with a noble with a longbow and Sacred incense at long range would be an 8+ to hit on BS 3 i think...

[Prince_Asuryan]

Characters can be deployed with a skirmisher unit, but cannot be deployed via the scout rule (i.e. in Shadow Warrior scouts), unless they themselves have the scout rule.

In your example, Alith Anar may be deployed with Shadow Warriors both as a Skirmisher and as a Scout, whilst a character with the Sacred Incense may be deployed as a skirmisher, but not as a scout unless they have the magic item 'Shadow Armour' which grants them the scout rule.

[SpellArcher]

Can be worth doing but can be vulnerable to magic missiles.

[Musashi]

It goes under tactics to surprise your opponents with.

[saintjon]

My opponents usually seem surprised when I run my shadow warriors 10" towards their precious mages/machines and crap rather than just cower in the woods with them. I'm going to see how many people can be surprised by throwing a character in there with a sword of might in a doubles tournament in january.

[Lord Anathir]

why not a great weapon

[WarpPhoenix]

Only benefit I can see to taking a sword of might is so that you can take a shield, but that will only ever give you +1 so you might as well go with great weapon and amulet of light to boost the unit full of magical attacks

[Morgen]

You could take a shield with a great weapon.

[Alathenar]

Shields are mostly useless with a GW as its no good in CC and only if you run the char by himself is it worthwhile. Even though its only 2/3 points.

[SpellArcher]

How might that unit match up againt Wraiths? Shadow Warriors are only S3 but against T3 and with Hatred they might do something.

I'm getting an idea here. How about Shadow Armour? Plus you don't have to deploy with the SW's you could stick him in an infantry block if you liked.

[geoguswrek]

it will fare ok, not as well as, say DP with the same amulet though. And the DP are more likely to be able to charge.

[SpellArcher]

I'd fancy it against a unit of five Wraiths.

The SW's are going to give out a 10" exclusion zone all around, there's no chance of the Wraiths slipping past them. They can scout, they can ignore difficult terrain (hello Wraiths in woods). VC's have no shooting to worry about. Bats will bounce off, a lone vamp might just be a problem.

It's not foolproof but it's an idea.

[Stormie]

No shooting to worry about? Banshees are their shooting to worry about, and if you're charging Wraiths, you gotta be confident of taking the stand and shoot. And also passing terror...

5 Shadow Warriors, Champion and Shadow Armour/ Amulet of Light Noble (Now there's a contradiction!) with great weapon. Noble should do 2 wounds, others achieve maybe 3. If this is against 4 Wraiths + Banshee that leaves one or two back who might kill a couple. Depends if you can stop them being re-raised in the next turn when you don't have hatred. Nice idea though- if our hero slots weren't so valuable I'd love to try it out.

[SpellArcher]

Yes, the Banshee is a problem. Many people don't take them though. Terror is a point, I'll take the 5-in-6 but it's not foolproof.

What turns me on to the idea is you don't have to go with it. The SW's are useful solo and the the Noble buffs any infantry unit you care to put him in. Plus he deploys last which is always useful.

Do you regularly use all your slots Stormie?

[geoguswrek]

spellarcher: i almost never see wraiths without a banshee mate.

[SpellArcher]

Well I do, I guess it depends where you play.

[saintjon]

You know, the GW may just be the way to go, I hadn't thought of the amulet. However, for wraith fighting purposes the sword of might noble can be given the gem of courage to pass terror if you're worried about that. My thinking was that most skirmisher fighting is done against lower strength opponents so maybe the 4+ save would be worth it. I also forgot that you don't get to go to 3+ while using a magic weapon lol.

[Stormie]

Yes, the Banshee is a problem. Many people don't take them though. Terror is a point, I'll take the 5-in-6 but it's not foolproof.

The last time I saw someone use Wraiths without a Banshee I had them killed on turn 1. Without the ranged threat they are a lot easier to deal with confidently. Not just terror remember, it takes at least one turn to set this charge up, and the VC player is very likely to thank you for giving him something to scream at turn 1. So it's suffer some wounds from the scream (or maybe not), then pass terror, then pass fear to charge and then take another scream from the stand and shoot. That's if you're playing against a reasonably decent Vampire Counts opponent- even one who underestimats the scouts and Noble, and doesn't consider the Shadow Warriors to be a threat.

What turns me on to the idea is you don't have to go with it. The SW's are useful solo and the the Noble buffs any infantry unit you care to put him in. Plus he deploys last which is always useful.

Do you regularly use all your slots Stormie?

Usually yes, but then that's because there's often a Dragon (Mage) in there. If I don't use all my slots it's because I need more troops, so if I have a spare slot, then it's because I couldn't afford a fourth character to begin with... like I say it's a nice idea, but then so is Alith Anar, but I rarely field him either.

[geoguswrek]

The main thing that turns me off of this noble is that hes gotta be on foot, with next to no save.

[SpellArcher]

I think the problem against Wraiths saintjon is that you need the SW's pitching in too, the Noble will not kill enough on his own. Some armies just don't have the magic attacks to deal with them and then a unit without a Banshee is murderous.

I'm not so sure about the double test. The wraiths probably have to expose themselves to pitch up within 6" of the SW's and then things like magic bows and direct attack magic come into play. Situational I guess. The Dragon Horn might help too.

I'm with you on the characters. At 2000pts I'm convinced three is the way to go, else you seriously lack troops. I'm considering this Noble at 2250 but as geo indicates, he's still a bit specialised and overall I don't think I can justify him. Amulet on a unit and hope I guess.

[saintjon]

well really in the teamup I'm looking to run this unit in they're either going to be overlooked or detract a lot of attention away from the stuff that we actually need to win. I'm not trying to tell you guys this is a cost-effective way to spend points I am saying it's going to be a crapload of fun when it works!