Black guard...lead by character or not?

[Kristo]

Hey everyone,

I haven't used BG yet and I think I may include them in my next tournament army. BG are quite good fighters in comparison with other infantry...still being stubborn is not enough fron time to time and yet despite their skills they die preety easy to normal elves. Hence I came to the Idea:

Supose we have a 15 BG unit with Std and Ch...what would make them better in your opinion?
a) Noble: Cold One, Crimson Death, Heavy armour, Sea dragon cloak
Giving the unit not only immunity to fear but this fellow's got 3 attacks at 6 weapon skill, 6 strength and 7 initiative hence providing them with some more protection from stronger opponents."Supidity will be a troublemaker though"However even if that happens the noble will be there to settle some wounds and ballance the situation.

b) The dread banner making the unit fearcausing ruins any chance on the BG to autobreak.

[R4v3n]

take a BSB and have the best of both worlds.

[Archangel]

R4V3N, speaks before i can, yeah take a battle standed bearer. gives a slight combat boost. little bit defenceless cos' of little armour. if you take the cold one noble only he will count as fear causing so your not gonna break anyone with that but the battle standerd with it makes the unit fear causing and breaking anything it out numbers

[Lord tareq]

Making the unit stupid is a bad idea, you don't want a 350+ points unit to become stupid at the wrong time.
A better option imo would be a noble on foot with the terror-causing mask, heavy armor, sdc, shield and halberd. That way you still have 3 S5 attacks to boost the unit, when something nasty comes to kill him you can use HW-shield for a 2+ armor save, and you'd save 75 points on that banner. To top it all of you have terror to mess up an enemies battleplan. The banner is ofc not bad either, although at least in my games I've never autobroken anything with my 15-elf strong BG unit.

[Kristo]

Elven BsB are preety weak ...everytime my Highelf opponent and some tomes woodelves field them they are the first heroes I tend to kill and almost always in 1st round of combat.

That's the reason why I didn't include one in the poll. The standard bearer can't be killed so Dread banner in his hands is going to remain...therefore the only problem is the units sourvival in hth from strong opponents...that's why I included the CO noble. In order to further his protection I may swap to a simple halberd(S5) and give him either CoBi or Black Amulet"The close combat phase bothers me most"

I'm not sure on fearcausing though as in the book sais if the fearcausing hero is in btb with the enemy they must test.

[Kristo]

Making the unit stupid is a bad idea, you don't want a 350+ points unit to become stupid at the wrong time.
A better option imo would be a noble on foot with the terror-causing mask, heavy armor, sdc, shield and halberd. That way you still have 3 S5 attacks to boost the unit, when something nasty comes to kill him you can use HW-shield for a 2+ armor save, and you'd save 75 points on that banner. To top it all of you have terror to mess up an enemies battleplan. The banner is ofc not bad either, although at least in my games I've never autobroken anything with my 15-elf strong BG unit.

The purpose of banner for me is not to cause autobreak but to resist from autobreaks

EDIT:Sry for Duble post...I was in the middle of typing the first one before answering.

[Lord sacra]

No I think that you should just take standard. BGs can hold their own, and if you fightin' High Elves (which is what I do) then with Eternal Hatred they are pretty much impermiable. I use them to hold important places in my battle line. Plus stupitidy might be a problem.

[Dyvim tvar]

Unless you know for a fact that you are going to be fighting some big blocks of fear-causing enemy units, I wouldn't do either one. Just use the Black Guard by themselves without a magic standard. The Dread Banner is nice, but it makes an already expensive unit really horribly expensive.

[Lord adrianus]

I would just taje them in a unit of 12 or 15. Take a bsb and put it near them(not necesarely in). Use them if you really need to hold a charge. This way you can perform multiple charges on your opponent the next turn. A rerollable ld9 stubborn test will almost never fail(or you must have really bad luck). Otherwise just take exes or witches(depends on your enemy). I hope you can use this mail.

Grtz.
Adrianus

p.s. Srry for my English I'm dutch

[Cenyu]

Oh, a question which arises:

Does a Noble on Cold One or with a Deathmask confer immunity to auto-breaking from fear to the unit he joins?

[Lord tareq]

Oh, a question which arises:

Does a Noble on Cold One or with a Deathmask confer immunity to auto-breaking from fear to the unit he joins?

Yes it does, as stated in the rulebook a unit joined by a fear (or terror) causing character is sufficiently bolstered by its presence to be immune to fear or terror themselves. Page 78 of the rulebook.

[Darklord of naggaroth]

I'd go with neither, they're fine by themself.
When I think about it though, I love a good foot noble with crimson death, and in a unit of haliberds as well, hard to resist. leave the cold one though, and dont have any banners, can't stand druchii banners-sorry guys.

[Kristo]

Thanks to all of you guys for replying.
@Dyvim Tvar: I'll be fighting against undead In nearly 7 months now I 've been using dragons with great success...now I thought I could change tactics a little bit.

My armylist would be as follows:

Malus darkblade
Noble:Co,CD,SDC,Ha
Sorc:2xDS

5 DR:rxb
5 DR:rxb
20 Warriors FCM
COC:sp
COC:sp
6 COK:War banner
5 Harpies
15 BG:std,Ch
2xRBT
2000 pts exactly...

Almost all f the army is consisted of fearcausers...but almos all are stupid

Still the option of simply BG is on table though. Or Maybe change to 14 wiches, Hag+ manbane...that list would give me enough points to buy a 10 rxb warriors unit plus 2 more harpies and musos on DR.Assuming I drop the Noble as well.

[Tich]

dreadbanner is good. making them cause fear means that if they break anenemy unit and have a higher unit strength they will auti flee.

[Murmandamus]

I use a BSB on cold one with heart stone of darkness. In my opinion it is cheaper than dread banner and gives you reoll of break test. See i use 18 BG with war banner 6 in row and it is still cheaper than 15 with dread banner. Of coure more expensive if you add bsb but he counts as hero and other point choice.Drawback is stupicdy t i just then minimalize stupid troops in army.

[Kristo]

I use a BSB on cold one with heart stone of darkness. In my opinion it is cheaper than dread banner and gives you reoll of break test. See i use 18 BG with war banner 6 in row and it is still cheaper than 15 with dread banner. Of coure more expensive if you add bsb but he counts as hero and other point choice.Drawback is stupicdy t i just then minimalize stupid troops in army.

That'd be nice unfortunately we do not play SOC list and Items

[Joey_boy]

The BG wants the banner of murder more then anything else. The dreadbanner is never worth it unless you know you'll be playing against undead. But the BoM will always be usefull, add in a BSB noble in a chariot and you have one awsome combat force that can handle most things!

/Johan R

[Rasputinii]

Just to chime in on the issue of Dread Banner and not autobreaking. Your unit of 18 BG may not autobreak a unit. But with a flank from a charot after holding the enemy for a turn often does. Remember, elves are about combo charges. In our army fear is best delivered by multiple charges not by mega big units. Just something to keep in mind.