GG - GWs Vs HW & Shields

[Alark]

Ive just got my 30 GG in the mail. Now before i put together £75 quids worth of models, what do i give them?

From alot of posts i have read people prefer GWs. Why is this? Against T3 your wounding on a 3 instead of a 2. Give them GWs, yeah your always wounding on twos but is it kind of a waste of killing blow? And they cost more points. Not to mention with shields you get 1plus armour and parry.

So what do people think? Is survivability better than raw killing power?

 

[Aeviaan]

I always roll with GW, purely because GG are the hammer unit needed so badly in the army book. Str4 is fine against T3, but that's far from every enemy. WoC will laugh at your HW/S, and so GW really helps bring them down. It also reduces the variance from KB, meaning you just need to wound and any icing is on the cake.

Would you rather wound on 4's and have the enemy save on 2's, except for maybe 1, MAYBE 2 KB, or would you rather wound on 2's and have the enemy save on 4's except for maybe 1, maybe 2 KB.

That's over twice the casualties of the first. Heavy Cavalry fear them. And honestly, if your GG are killing Core, it's either because you need to break through their line their really fast (which GW are better for doing) or because you were out-deployed.

 

[Sesshouru]

Also, vampire counts adds the benefit of ressurecting your unit. As long as you don't run out of Graveguard in a fight, you just keep raising them.

 

[Alark]

What does WoC stand for?

And ok, point taken haha. Going to build them with GWs.

Cheers

 

[Dogmar]

WoC = Warriors of Chaos.

And yes, for the reasons mentioned I usually go for GG with the Great Weapon option. The only time I would consider HW&Shield would be a scenario where I have enough points to spend on other hammers, say a biiiiiig unit of Knights and/or Vargheists. But that would be only in games of very large scale.

 

[eggsPR]

GW for GG, always. 2's to wound is just so nice. And now with the Corpse Cart granting them to hit on Initiative makes them even better, esp against the all-too-prevalent Ogres!

Against T3 enemies, throw your ghouls at em and use the GG towards the bigger stuff.

 

[Tim]

I usually take HW/S I like how they don't die so much and sometimes get to swing first. If I need more to pierce through armor I take a bsb with the -1 to save banner.
On occasions I know I need more strength I will take GW instead, or in larger games will have 2 units.
This is my preference, most will go for GW.

 

[eggsPR]

Also not to spam posts or anything but with the Mortis Engines floating around in lists nowadays, GG can have a 6+ almost parry-like regen save.

Sure the enemy may have a flaming banner, but usually what I run my GW GG into are units with much more scary banners than that.

 

[rothgar13]

Great Weapons, always and forever. If you need to hold something down, you have... well, the whole darned Core section. We need hammer units, and Great Weapon Grave Guard make for one heck of a hammer. Add in the fact that we can resurrect casualties and give them bonuses and re-rolls to hit so that those nasty attacks hit their mark, and there's not much of a reason to NOT take Great Weapons.

 

[Shadowfax]

One more vote for GWs here. Too many things sneer at the HW/S option (high toughness, high armour, or monstrous stuff immune to KB). Having high strength and the -3 AS modifier keeps them versatile against a larger variety of enemies. Also, it's not like you lose the KB for bringing great weapons... you do the same amount of KBs, but you'll add even more regular wounds to the outcome (which is good and necessary, since you don't want your expensive GG unit crumbling).

 

[GhoulKing505]

If they were an extra 2 points per model it would be a different story but as they are only 1 point extra there is little reason to take hw/s. As much as I argued for hw/s I just see the GW as so much better. The unit can stand alone if they have GW. They have a harder time doing that if they are hw/s.

I have considered assembling 20 of each. This way I could use either. If I wanted to run a smaller unit I'd have the models and if I wanted to run a large horde I could just use the others to fill in. Just a thought.

 

[Noobafrass]

Would anybody change their minds here if the enemy was high elves?

3 Toughness across the board is already 2s to hit
GW with Always Strikes Last means no way to remove rerolls without a supporting unit
All those shooting attacks, the extra armor comes in handy, and the parry save too against their multiple hits

Since I haven't much experience at all, I'd be interested to see what people have to say about this

 

[Slaan]

Would anybody change their minds here if the enemy was high elves?

3 Toughness across the board is already 2s to hit
GW with Always Strikes Last means no way to remove rerolls without a supporting unit
All those shooting attacks, the extra armor comes in handy, and the parry save too against their multiple hits

Since I haven't much experience at all, I'd be interested to see what people have to say about this

I think people specifically mean a tourney-like setting where you don't know your opponent. If you have X number of opponents which could be just about anything, you have to rig your army to face multiple threats, not just one condition. As VC have more anvils then hammers, a good hammer will balance the army more. Yes, you might waste some vs. elves, but you'll be golden against things like ogres or WoC, esp with a corpse cart nearby.

If you tailor your army to beat only 1 army (say playing your friend's elves) then yes, you'll be better vs. elves, but likely he'll be better vs. VC. At a tourney, you'll be stronger vs. some armies and weaker vs. others, but that goes for your opponents too.

 

[Berkinator]

3 Toughness across the board is already 2s to hit

what? we hit on 4s, they hit us on 3s and its 3+ to wound. GG arent str 5.

 

[rothgar13]

The first thing to bear in mind is that you're going to swing last against High Elves regardless, so the disadvantage of the Great Weapon is gone. Secondly, you have S4 base, not S5 - you wound them on 3's.

 

[Kaptain Von]

Would anybody change their minds here if the enemy was high elves?

3 Toughness across the board is already 2s to hit
GW with Always Strikes Last means no way to remove rerolls without a supporting unit
All those shooting attacks, the extra armor comes in handy, and the parry save too against their multiple hits

Since I haven't much experience at all, I'd be interested to see what people have to say about this

"List tailoring is for scenario play", that's what I have to say.

 

[sphere830]

I'm working with GW GG and have found a "killer" support unit in Bat Swarms. "Cloud of Horror" is fantastic these days with units in base contact receiving ASL, regardless of initiative. This is a great combo, but does take some finesse. I do however find once folks know what they do, they turn into shooting magnets; thereby working double duty.

 

[Wojmir Von Carstein]

In the 8th edition (unfortunately IMO), if an infantry unit has the option of great weapons, then they should ALWAYS take it. This is because the drawback for a large ranked unit striking last is minimal. For example, If you take a unit of 28 grave guard 7 wide, then you need to be taken below 10 to lose significant power. At this point you have just lost 18 grave guard so it probably means you were in a bad spot anyway. The same 30 unit (not 28 because they are a bit cheaper) of grave guard with hand weapon and shield would find itself probably closer to being wiped out since they would be losing combat by a lot more even thought they would save a few wounds. I have never seen a competitive dwarf list, for example, field warriors with hand weapon and shield, it just doesn't make sense.

As for our grave guard, since our initative is average (3), against a lot of armies we strike last anyway, so why not just add +2 strength for 1 point? We do lose our shield but we make up for that (and more) with causing more wounds. Not only that, but now monsters and monstrous infantry now need to fear us. They will kill a lot of us and we will kill a lot of them. With hand weapon and shields they still kill a lot of us and we can barely manage do inflict a few wounds.

I am personally very disapointed because it kind of takes the fun out of having to choose between an inferior and superior choice. For balance reasons, I think that great weapons should cost 2 or 3 points. Then it WOULD be a real choice, as one choice would be better but significantly more expensive, now it is a no brainer. I am glad that in our new book they made skeletons get free spears because in 7th ed it made no sense to pay an extra point for something that would usually be inferior.

Lest anyone think I am power gamer, I always run a grave guard unit with hand weapon and shield and a skeleton unit with spears just because I like the way they look. It just annoys me that my H&S grave guard lose to my opponents dwarf warriors with great weapons, when I could easily make my grave guard win by just adding great weapons....

 

[Tawg]

Now, I know that GW is the option of choice, but I'm curious about something.

With magic support to re-roll wounds, is going with the HW&Shield a bad idea to effectively try and get more KB chances? It might be a bit jinxy, and perhaps the -3 armor from their GW +Str would solve most of the armor woes, but it seems like a kinda cool idea/strategy.

I'm very sad about that too, since I want to have both, if only for availability of choice in different games/scenarios. But they cost so much :ghost:

I definitely will be building mine with GW though, I need a hard hitting hammer hard.. :skull: (I need to remind myself that, or else I might put shield on them :zombie: )

 

[Bune]

Ive just got my 30 GG in the mail. Now before i put together £75 quids worth of models, what do i give them?

From alot of posts i have read people prefer GWs. Why is this? Against T3 your wounding on a 3 instead of a 2. Give them GWs, yeah your always wounding on twos but is it kind of a waste of killing blow? And they cost more points. Not to mention with shields you get 1plus armour and parry.

So what do people think? Is survivability better than raw killing power?

i always take GW since you have survivability in raising the dead ones. combined with the fact that GG have few attacks they need to make every attack count. combined with vanhels and banner of barrows 30 of the guys are a no brainer. they've saved my ass at a couple of tournaments.

they are also your main hammer so they need to kill stuff.