Well there is point costs. WoC feeds on points like nobodys business. A block of 15 warriors alone is over 200 points, and we haven't added any weapons, command group or mark or a magic banner. It begins to get pricey. Also, look at your example for the Ogre Kingdoms. Their initiative is crap to begin with. So is their armor. Dishing out 16 attacks @ S5 I5 is amazing. So halberds walks over great weapons immediately. Now lets look at shields. It adds +1 to the armor save. With warriors, we are now @ at 3+ armor save. That comes with cavalry only with the exception of dwarf elite. Then with the MoT, we now have a parry of a 5+, the equivelant of any demonic creature out there save a few. What matters in close combat now is being able to cancel out as much armor as possible, and be able to take the blows back. We haven't even looked at how slow we move as an army, and that we can get shot up pretty easily, so shields automatically provide us a great protection. We cannot use festus anymore as a way to survive. Reason is fire. It is found somewhere amongst every army in the entire game, is obtainable in every army by if anything a cheap 10 point banner. Lastly, were I5. We compete with ELVES sometimes BEAT them in the game of speed. Especially for high elf core. We now just stopped them from getting re-rolls to hit us. Why would we want to strike last EVER???

 

. Why would we want to strike last EVER???

Because in this gun heavy game of 8th your most likely going to have 2-3 extra ranks laying around anyways so going last really doesn't matter. Also I may be wrong here, but I was under the impression that you could always take the shield regardless of load out, and that the rules about special weapons just meant that once you reach CC you automatically have to use the halberd or GW.

I just don't see the point in caring about Int these days as even my warrior units never dip below 25man strong. Although your point has made me reconsider halberds on my chosen as they are to pricy to afford in the 20+ man bricks that make GWs usable.

On a side note my test games with GW's saw by 25 man unit of warriors beat down two units of HW shield warriors in a single game.

Maybe I am just biased because of my areas meta but around here with so many ogres and Woc floating around no one seems to give a shit about how many str4 attacks you have.

 

Halberds are a better bet on Warriors. You keep your Int value, but get that extra point of Strength.

 

I sometimes run a unit of 18 warriors (in 6x3) with GWs and banner of rage and I would say its a mixed bag. As long front rank is able to attack back then you're all good. The loss of initiative is a bit lame, but remember you are WS5 and have a 4+ AS. You unit should be able to take a bit of punishment and then give it back massively.

Plus, it's a scary unit so people will target them above all else because if the front 2 ranks of my unit makes it in they will be on the receiving end of 25 S6 attacks.

If you follow internet lore all you should run is MoT warriors with HW and shield and MoK warriors with Halberd and Shield. This makes for a f&$%ing dull WoC army.

 

If you follow internet lore you don't play WoC at all, because, just like in 7th, they suck balls.

I think I'd go for Halberds as striking before a bunch of things (usually in armies that can shoot/magic you to death before crossing the table, but still) is a great boost to have, even just psychologically.

 

Halberds strike before many enemies and can stop you getting hit back so hard.

Great weapons means you wound easier and remove more armour saves.


All told I think halberds are probably better since they occasionally save you from a huge amount of damage, while great weapons increase your killy slightly... on a unit that normally has killy in abundance anyway.

 

In this edition Init is a game winner with the amount of attacks an average horde can dish out it makes sense to hit them first especially when your core troops (warriors) are so expensive.
It's unlikely that you'll cause enough casualties in 1 round of combat to lower the incomming but the faster you can remove steadfast the quicker you can destroy the unit and move onto something else.
+1 st is normally enough to take out some of the harder threats such as elites and ogres and monsters can be dealt with by dedicated units.

 

Initiative can be huge. For example, a horde of witch elves can blow up a horde of bloodletters simply because they have hatred, higher initiative, frenzy and poison. Even though the bloodletters have S5 when they hit, the witch elves hit first with some many hits and enough wounds that they can limit the numbe rof attacks back.

High elves thrive on ASF plus high I allowing re-rolls to wound.

In WoC, I would never sacrifice I for greater S with warriors. If I want greater S, I go with halberds because going from S4 to S5 is always useful but going from S5 to S6 often does not pay off as much (no benefit against S3 troops and no armour save reduction benefit against troops with only 6+ or 5+ AS).

On the other hand, chaos marauders are so cheap that paying extra for shield and armour does not pay off compared with just getting more bodies. On the other hand, the benefits of going from S3 to S5 justify the use of great weapons as long as you run a very large 40 to 60 model unit. The weakness of this is that low initiative troops and monsters can really wreak havoc on the marauders before they get to hit back. For example, I've run one or two hydras into a chaos marauder horde with great weapons. Because the horde strikes last, I get my breath weapon (S = number ofv wounds) at full S5 killing the most chaos marauder, get 6 S3 attacks with hatred and 7 S5 attacks with hatred and get a thunderstomp D6 S5. By the time I am done, the marauders in horde formation are cut down to below max attacks and by turn two, I have the unit set up to kill it.

Basically, the rule is going to GW's pays off with cheaper units with S3 (especially with no halberd option) and for highly resilient units/models and models that have lower I such that they would often strike last anyway. Notable examples where GW's generally make sense are dwarf warriors, grave guard, chaos marauders, tomb guard, and paying more points for ironguts as compared with ordinary ogres.

 

God damn it GW release marauder GW bits so I don't have to convert 40+ great weapons for a chaff unit.

 

I wouldn't really call a unit of 40+ marauders w/ great weapons a "chaff" unit. They are one of the best hammers in the game. So they die quickly, sure, but they amount of punishment they can take and dish out is crazy good. They are not going to be running from casualties due to Frenzy if you give them MoK and most likely you'll be pumping out somewhere around 20 WS4 S5 attacks if you take a large enough block.

 

Could be worse, you could be a Lizardmen player, with Saurus running at a lightening fast 1 Initiative. You play Lizardmen against any magic strong side and all they need is Pit of Shades and your entire block of Saurus Warriors are dead.

I mean, even Dwaves are faster than Saurus. Then you have the Temple Guard who were perfectly fine when they were Scaly Skin +3, so their Light Armour took them to +2... Now they have +4 and have to use Halberds... They are supposed to be Guard units, not attacking ones. They are just expensive Saurus.

But, once again, it's 8th Edition now, so GW will be changing things for armies now. I say wait till WoC 8th before being too upset.

 

Blocks I've faced are always hoards... pumping out 30-40 attacks depending on MoK. Luckily I have only really played them with my wood elves, and marauders are such excellent pincushions, especially when compared to warriors/chosen.