NuhJuhKuh wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 1:42 pm
A follow-up question if you don’t mind - can you do *two anvils, e.g. 16 PG and 20/24 Spears? Is it better to widen the frontage with two smaller units, or to concentrate the staying power in one larger one?
What's the definition of "an anvil" exactly and what's the role in your army?
This might affect the answer.
To my mind an anvil needs to be able to:
1) Go toe-to-toe solo against low to mid quality infantry and usually win (bonus if also again elite infantry)
2) Reliably hold for long periods and/or win (usually on static res) against solo charges from small heavy units (e.g. elite cavalry, monsters, chariots)
3) Hold against multiple charges for at least a turn until a hammer arrives, including flank charges
The PG alone with battle banner, no characters is able to do 1-3, including being fine solo against most heavy infantry. Large, multi attack high Initiative elite cavalry units (e.g. Chaos Chosen Knights) may be the exception on 2 as the charge may break them. They they survive it they're probably OK.
The Sea Guard with Razor standard are easily 1. On 2, they can likely hold against a monster for at least a turn (with a challenge), but are much more vulnerable to impact hits from chariots, and elite cavalry may break them, although lucky Stand & Shoot can often save the day particularly against smaller units. Naval Discipline also allows you to maximise static-res on the turn they're first charged, if that's what you need. They are not 3. But if you add Walk Between Worlds, suddenly they are easily all 3 unless an opponent has a lot of magical attacks - immune to most impact hits (all? i can't think of a magical impact hit OTOH but it must exist), enough attacks to probably do some wounds so likely to at worst FBIGO even if disrupted.
Spearmen I would say are barely 1, and worse than SG on 2 (about 1/2 the attacks on the charge turn counting S&S and harder to manage appropriate ranks for static res). They are probably not even 3 with Shieldwall because you'd still have to FBIGO to switch it to give ground. You could use Banner of Iron Resolve + Shieldwall to give them a 1-shot chance at 3. I'm not including WBW for the spearman because in general it is a bad place for a High Archmage.
So the core units can kind of do the role, but not as well as PG.
All in all my point is this...
You can easily get 1.5 anvil units (by my definition) with a block of PG and Spearmen or SG in support. The only way to get two true anvils is to have two large units of PG, and only one can have the Battle Banner (I guess War Banner on the other), but those points are almost certainly better spent on hammers to support them.
As mentioned above, I like to run a Phoenix Guard and Sea Guard unit. My SG do end up playing an anvil role a lot, because they are the host for my Archmage and WBW as mentioned pushes them to full anvil unless facing magical attacks. But they have other roles as well: their shots can clear a lot of lighter flankers or even just smaller heavy units (e.g. 5 knights), as well as threaten large (shots are low strength, but all wounds are on a 6 so -2 Armour Save and all of the unit can shoot including on Stand & Shoot), provide security for the Archmage to be close enough for Buff spells... and often given a supporting charge for the PG if it is necessary as they're usually a bit behind even with WBW. In short it's ok that it's not the best anvil because it also is doing other things. I don't think Spearmen would have a similar range of backup roles and in many ways make a worse anvil against a lot of different types of unit.
. With a few exceptions, cavalry usually outperformed expensive infantry. Maneuvrability helps win games because you can dictate the pace of the game, and getting the charge means you decide who gets to fight on your terms. Add to that that cavalry generally hits hard, and they almost always outperform elite infantry.