9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

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Izch
Slave on the Altar
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 9:10 am

9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

Post by Izch »

Hey again guys
What do you reckon is the best horde to go for; 28 executioners or equally many black guards?

Thinking executioners cos of hatred, lower cost with the new version. but most players seems to go for black guards. sure 2A+bodyguard is great, but shouldn´t executioners win almost any combat res on pure wounds caused?
help is much appriciated :)
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Marchosias
Assassin
Posts: 594
Joined: Fri Apr 26, 2013 7:53 am

Re: 9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

Post by Marchosias »

This is a very complicated question.

- Execs are very good against armour and high toughness (S6). TG are decent against armour (S4 AP) but bad against T6 (wounding on 6s).
- TG are very good against numerous enemies (2A each). Execs are not bad but being 1A, they might have trouble carving through big ratmen hordes and the like. S6 is often overkill in those cases.
- TG are better against extreme toughness (sphinx with T8) because they wound on 6s as everyone but have at least more attacks.
- Execs are very good in the first round of combat (hatred) but their damage goes down considerably after that (1A each). TG are more stable in this regard.
- TG are I6 while execs only I5. This is very important when fighting, say, swordmasters. I am lazy to math it out but I would assume that swordmasters kill executioners horribly while the fight against TG is roughly even.
- The best buffs for Execs are bonus attacks - light magic, altar. The best buffs for TG are bonus to strength - black magic or wild magic signature. Both are easily accessible but the magic support can be put right inside the unit.
- Execs cannot be combined well with Yema characters and altar of Yema. TG can be combined with anything.

So all in all, I think the choice is not clear. :) It depends on what the horde is supposed to do and what will you leave to other units. If you go TG, you will need something to deal with high toughness. If you go execs, some anti-horde tools might be handy.

The current popularity of TG might be partly caused by them having been very weak in WHFB. Everyone knows how to play execs but TG are a new challenge. :)
Izch
Slave on the Altar
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 9:10 am

Re: 9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

Post by Izch »

thank you for the really good info. as far as buffs from the altar goes i always go for 5+ ward save. regardless.
like you say, can easily buff up strength on TG with the "beast within" spell.
this will obviously be my main combat block. the other units i have worth mentioning is 8x cold one knights and 25x spearmen.

after your reply im leaning towards TG (which i wasn´t before)
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Marchosias
Assassin
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Re: 9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

Post by Marchosias »

Or you can try both! :)
One more option would be to try a big horde of execs together with some small units of tower guard. While execs in back ranks bring as much to the fight as the front rank, the TG back rank only has half the damage output of the front rank (because you can only do one supporting attack per model) and because of that, the additional TG models are not as cost-effective. A unit of 10 TG is quite cheap for the damage it can inflict.
nevaenuffbass
Warrior
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Re: 9th Age: Executioners or Black guards?

Post by nevaenuffbass »

Tower guard with the Banner of Blood helps against higher T enemies (re-rolls 1s & 2s to wound), but probably still won't do better than executioners against T6+.

I have the same conundrum. I am building a list with blades of nabh in it already, which deal with hordes well, which is the forte of tower guard. They fill my core so I need them. Then choosing which special choice(s) is hard.

Anyone done the math-hammer?
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