Wardancer Throwing Spears

[Beithir Seun]

Triggered a discussion about this on discord, so thought it was worth bringing it up here as well to see what opinions everyone has.

So, the question - is it ever worth taking throwing spears instead of additional hand weapons on Wardancers?

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My own take is that we should be aiming to get every Wardancer model in the fighting rank, and that having models in a second rank is inefficient/ineffective, so the unit size should be small enough that there is no need for supporting attacks (which would only be of benefit when charging, not in subsequent combat rounds or if you're unlucky enough to get charged!)

What are everyone's thoughts? Is there ever a situation where not taking additional hand weapons on some models is advantageous or better?

[godswearhats]

Pretty sure the Wardancer profile might as well be 17 points and come with Extra Hand Weapon stapled on. There's no situation where having that extra rank of fighters would be better. I think you don't ever want to have big ranked units of Wardancers. Static combat res is not something this unit cares about - take as much killy as you can! The only downside to the Wardancers is S3.

[Beithir Seun]

I'm fairly convinced the only reason it's an option is purely down to the fact that there are various Wardancer models equipped with spears, rather than any actual gameplay reason!

[godswearhats]

If that were so, I'd be able to get a Great Weapon too

[MortenLarsen]

Additional hand weapon all the way. I was very excited to see an option for throwing spears, until I read the rules and they aren't actually a missile weapon at all...
Also with no +1S In first round of CC, great weapons would have been a sweet option!

[hardkorek]

I think if I would decide to go rank and file wardancer unit I would consider the spears. They could work as rank and file but will be costly, especially with wardancer hero. Probably not cost effective way to use them but need to playtest such unit anyway. Since they have open order, cmd group and there is no restriction in having to choose different dances every turn they can make great anvil unit with 4+ wardsave and -1 to hit spell.

[Anaya]

With the Motley Crew rule, I take it you can equip half your unit with extra hand weapons and the other half with spears?

[Yuri]

With the Motley Crew rule, I take it you can equip half your unit with extra hand weapons and the other half with spears?

It depends. For example lets take something basic, a unit of 10 wardancers. Now how you gonna deploy them, in 5 wardancers per rank formation, or 7 in front rank and 3 in second to maximize the number of attacks? In any case, either 5 or 3 of them have no use of extra attack from two hand weapons, therefore you can save some points and lower the cost of the unit.

[Anaya]

As I understand it you can have, say, five in the fighting rank with two hand weapons, then five more in the next rank with throwing spears.

[Boskie43]

I think if I would decide to go rank and file wardancer unit I would consider the spears. They could work as rank and file but will be costly, especially with wardancer hero. Probably not cost effective way to use them but need to playtest such unit anyway. Since they have open order, cmd group and there is no restriction in having to choose different dances every turn they can make great anvil unit with 4+ wardsave and -1 to hit spell.

They'll get shot to pieces and a costly amount of points.

But then that means they aren't touching your wild riders or anything else on the way in either

I actually never even considered running them as open order with how powerful skirmishers are... but it's definitely an interesting idea for sure.