Units of 5

[Dreadlegions]

Hi guys,

I'm a Warriors of Chaos player getting back into the game after a few years out, and one of the things that strikes me about the book is the ability to field small units of 5.

High Elves also have this with swordmasters, and I've read some wonderful tactics here, so thought I'd think outside the box a bit?

Do you ever use such small units, even when part of an MSU list?

Or do you always aim to go for 6 or 7?

How do you take advantage of such small units, and how do you mitigate damage?

[Mist]

Units of 5 are taken for character assassination, same as units of 10 white lions (due to our rules we get to fight in 3 ranks and with white lions being suborn they are good for this). The only other reason I can think of for having a unit of 5 (foot troops) is lack of points. This unit is going to die to the counter attacks so why spend to many points on it.
For a unit of Reavers, they will do the same job in 5 or 10 but 5 is cheaper.

[Rabidnid]

Units of 5 are taken for character assassination, same as units of 10 white lions (due to our rules we get to fight in 3 ranks and with white lions being suborn they are good for this). The only other reason I can think of for having a unit of 5 (foot troops) is lack of points. This unit is going to die to the counter attacks so why spend to many points on it.
For a unit of Reavers, they will do the same job in 5 or 10 but 5 is cheaper.

If they are a combat unit then larger than 5 is normal, but things like sisters, shadow warriors and cavalry can make do in units of 5 due to their role or protection. I still tend to run silver helms in units of 6-8 with a champ to generate enough attacks to be effective.

[Prince of Spires]

If you like MSU list and tactics then you might want to check out some battle reports by Swordmaster of Hoeth. He runs MSU lists and has made extensive battle reports about them. There is also an article in the tactics article subforum about MSU tactics.

In general I think it depends on what role you want the units to play. Throwaway units that are only there to stall and annoy your opponent are usually taken as small as possible. You mainly see this with reavers (in units of 5), but archers (unit of 10) and shadow warriors (also 5) are sometimes taken with this in mind as well. A unit of 5 SM can function like this as well. 10 s5 WS6 attacks is not something you can completely ignore and they are cheap enough not to be a big loss when you lose them.

However, from what I can tell and from battle reports, if you want to use them as effective combat units they need to be a bit bigger. They lose bodies on the way into combat and suffer from return attacks. So most MSU armies run them in units of 10 - 14 (7 wide for maximum attacks).

The advantage is board control, movement control, deployment advantages and combined charges. You have plenty of units, each not worth very much on its own. You can set up charges, plan combined charges, that sort of thing.

As for mitigating damage, you don't. The idea is that each unit in itself is not worth a lot and so not a big waste. Also, since all models in a unit need to die before they give up points, shooting is often not effective to completely remove a unit. Either a model will be left, or you apply too much shooting for the size of the unit. And you have plenty of units, so losing one is not a big loss for the overall battleplan.

Rod