Skeletons With Spears Worth It?

[RobTheWise]

grave guard are good but you need core. and ghouls have no chance of a save or full command. i personally like ghouls but without a regen save of some sort they fall as well. but that is the purpose of core. to die while you get you hammer units into the fray

Well of course you need core, but none of that 500+ points spent on additional things to make skeles remotely usefull are core are they?

I'm tempted to give Ghouls a go. They seem pretty pricey, but they are of a similar cost to Gor with two hand weapons, which are a more than competent unit with the correct support.

 

[Chaos_Born]

A horde of ghouls works well if you play at 2500 pts, anything lower and I'd stay away from them all together

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Ghouls and direwolves arr our best core.

 

[rothgar13]

I agree, though I'd toss some Zeds in there to mess with people.

 

[Friendly Dead]

Skeletons with spears are worth it if you meet ALL the following prerequisites;

*ahem*

- You take 40+ of them.
- You run them with Screaming banner.
- The unit must contain a Vampire with Aura of Dark Majesty and Fear Incarnate powers.
- The unit must cause terror (contains a banshee / wraith or a second Vampire with Supernatural horror, or any character with the Terror Mask of EEE!).
- There is a Mortis engine nearby.
- The unit has been buffed by some kind of spell to make them better in combat.
- You are crazy. Because you just wasted power dice and spent over 500 points on trying to make Skeletons competent, when you could have gotten ~35 Grave Guard with Great Weapons and Banner of the Barrows instead for the same price or less.

Well skip the Mortis Engine and the Terror isnt actually needed unless you play against Ogres or few specific units such as Phoenix Guards.

Throwing a Banshee in however is good synergy due to the aura, so thats all fine.

The vampire and skellys alone cost about the same as the Ghoul horde and in my experience the combination is vastly more powerful and durable. Admittedly its less core points used, but at least its core points spend on a unit that matters. The ghoul horde is widely regarded as easy points in my gaming group and I cant say I blame them.

You may say that the above skelly unit would be more durable with sword'n board. Well parry is negated by a lot of stuff and is CC only. 10 extra attacks that will often hit on 3+ and will often have reroll to hit or wound? Yes, plz

True most of the time sword and board is slightly better, but the above configuration has reliably chewed through High elf spearmen, Queek Stormvermin and more besides. Something ghouls could never ever do...and here those extra 10 buffed attackswould often account for critical kills.

Sooo... less black and white eh people?

 

[vmoore]

garh this thread has made it harder for me to choose what i want to build my skeles with.
I have 40 skeletons downstairs all assembled but their right arm.
I was thinking spears for sure, then read how swords are more durable and win statistically. I know it all comes down to how you want to use them and I guess I want my skeles doing some damage. I am using zombies as tar pits and hence I want my skeles to do some damage and hold their own would spears be useful for this? I also wanted to put in a fear bombing vampire with them. I wont have ghouls in my army (doesn't fit with my fluff) and Friendly Dead's suggestion is very tempting.
But what would be best if I wanted an all round unit of skeles to fit with a core of zombies?

 

[Vengeance Crusader]

The problem you'll find (and as I have found as I hate ghouls myself), is that Zombies and Skeletons are both tarpit units, so with spears or hand weapons- your skellies should not expected to kill much :grave:

If you want killing units, you need to look to our rare/special units

 

[vmoore]

yeah that's what i thought.
Then is the only benefit of skeles over zombies (being a tarpit unit) that they have 5+ armor save and potentially 6+ parry? and hence i should make the mot of them being slightly tankier and give them swords?

 

[Vengeance Crusader]

I would say yes to the swords and shields- I have 2 units of skeletons, a unit of 40 with spears, and a unit of 40 with swords, and both have performed reasonably well in my games.

The risk with spears, is that it gets tempting to put your skeletons in a 'maximise hits formation' (10x4) as at first glance you think 'oh that means I get 40 attacks- AWESOME!', then you get in combat with another horde, that hit before you, with just as many attacks- and then in a lbik of an eye you are down to only 20 attacks... not good :grave:

 

[datalink7]

yeah that's what i thought.
Then is the only benefit of skeles over zombies (being a tarpit unit) that they have 5+ armor save and potentially 6+ parry? and hence i should make the mot of them being slightly tankier and give them swords?

Well, there are a few more advantages. They can have a champion, and they can have a magic banner. They don't ASL. They have better WS, which makes a difference if opponent fails a fear test.

 

[Chaos_Born]

Guys, if you want to discuss zombies vs skeletons, that thread is here

Remember this thread is for skeletons with spears vs skeletons without, not whether or not skeletons should be taken at all

 

[Vengeance Crusader]

Coming back to topic...

To be honest, I'd stick with the parry to be on the safe side :grave:

Now if Grave guard could have spears...

 

[Ben E. Violent]

I've been wanting to try spear Skellies 7 across and 5 Ranks deep.

 

[rothgar13]

Now if Grave guard could have spears...

They would never be taken. Why would you ever want to swing at a mere S4 with Grave Guard?

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Now if Crypt Horrors could have spears...

Fixxed that for you

 

[rothgar13]

Much better.

 

[Vengeance Crusader]

Now if Crypt Horrors could have spears...

Fixxed that for you

Holy mother of...

 

[jonnoc]

Since the emergence of horde formation and losing that +1 armor save from hw/s way back when and replacing it with parry save I converted my skeletons to spears and never looked back. I've been using 2 blocks of 40 in horde formation and they've been worth the points every battle.

I use my skeletons not just as a tarpit but for support and for me if I wanted a tarpit I would go with zombies rather than hw/s skellies but since there is already a thread on that I wont go into it.

My gaming group is a big fan of great weapons and a horde formation of spears in my opinion is better to face them than a 5 wide unit however deep with hw/s. that extra give or take 20 attacks can make or break a combat. In one of my battles I was able to flank a kroxigor unit killing 2 after his saves just because of the number of attacks. If my unit wasnt in horde formation and with hw/s im certain that not only would i not be able to kill those 2 kroxigors, there would have been some skelly deaths as well.

Granted I had a combat against savage orcs wherein i lost 11 skellies in the first round of combat due to wounds alone. however if i had parry save, i would have saved what more or less 2 skeletons? would that really matter? I would still lose 9 and probably would have gotten a bigger loss since i lost the extra attacks spears give.

sidenote: vanhel's rerolls with spear skellies are sick.

People who believe that you save 1 wound out of 6 because of parry save is falling into the gambler's fallacy. You are NOT guaranteed of saving 1 wound out of 6 wounds you get.

IMO its really a matter of preference/playstyle and for me 10-20 attacks>+6 save for a core unit that is really supposed to die and get ressed by IoN.

 

[The Sun King]

People who believe that you save 1 wound out of 6 because of parry save is falling into the gambler's fallacy. You are NOT guaranteed of saving 1 wound out of 6 wounds you get.

That is simply not true. Gambler's fallacy is the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process, future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely.

 

[crafty0ne]

That is simply not true. Gambler's fallacy is the belief that if deviations from expected behaviour are observed in repeated independent trials of some random process, future deviations in the opposite direction are then more likely.

Been to Vegas a few times, ehh?

On topic: I'm not to enamored with the parry save. There are too many situations where you don't get it(impact hits, thunderstomps, etc...), and its still only a one in six chance. My main bunch of skellies that I have run in horde and 5x, all have sword and board, and it's been my experience that the parry save really isn't all that useful. If my skellies are losing, there usually losing big, and making one or two parry saves out of 10 wounds, isn't gonna do much for me. Would having the extra attacks from ranked spearmen make a diffrence? Well I'm not sure yet, but guess what the batch of skelletons I'm currently working on are all armed with?

 

[The Sun King]

Haha, no never been to Vegas, never even been in a casino, but math interests me... maybe that's the reason why I keep away from gambling

Regarding spear or not I don't see the percentage in contemplating whether or not Skels should have spears, since they have lousy offensive capabilites and I would rather pay the double for a ghoul(who CAN actually fight).

 

[Seneschal]

jonnoc, I'm curious as to what units you've beaten using a horde of spear skellies.

With the new errata, they are now, clearly, a viable choice once mindrazor gets thrown on them. Time to shelve the GG and bunker up some caster vamps?

 

[rothgar13]

That implies you can get and cast Mindrazor reliably, which is a tall order if you can't field a L4 with Shadow, and VC can't at most points totals.

 

[Seneschal]

As Johnny has already demonstrated a few times with his new list, it can be done very reliably. Most games in 8th are played at the 2.5K level so there's no difficulty there.

 

[Yorga]

That implies you can get and cast Mindrazor reliably, which is a tall order if you can't field a L4 with Shadow, and VC can't at most points totals.

With two level 2s rolling the chance of getting it are really high. You roll the first level two and if he doesn't get it outright or roll doubles then you don't take the signature spell. Then you roll the next level two and re-roll any numbers that come up as the spells the first one received. I'm not a mathematician but I know the odds are high that you'll get Mindrazor somewhere in there.