You get 2 votes so pick your favourite missile detatchment, and your favourite combat detactchment.

My thoughts:

Missile. I'm inclined to go against crossbows and handguns, because to fire you cant move. In defensive armies it's no problem, but I can see myself moving up my forces, so dont want to be restricted by my detatchment. Archers can move and fire, and can also screen the parent unit from enemy fire, with an additional -1 to hit for skirmishing.

Combat wise, I'm looking at swordsmen now. Free company and halberdiers are both great, but the problem I see is that sometimes using them to flank could actually make things worse. For instance flanking saurus you're going to lose 3 or 4 guys, enough to cancel out the bonus they're giving for flanking and negating ranks. Also having no armour means they're vulnerable to shooting, and people will try to shoot detatchments because they're so great.

Spearmen are obviously pointless, as they're getting no bonus for spears as they'll be charging (hopefully) so I think swordsmen are the best. They come with a 4+ save in combat, and 5+ vs shooting, so will b much more resiliant against hits coming in.

Lets face it, a detatchment isn't there to kill stuff, it's there to get combat res, so providing a load of soft targets to guys who wouldnt have been able to fight doesnt really do it for me. Using swordsmen means you get a 4+ save, so will lose less models, and be able to keep the combat res high.


Theres my thoughts, but I'd like to hear yours. Go for it.

Definatley halbardiers for combat unit's as in my old army they were the key in allowing my spearmen to break enemy unit's because of that strength 4 charge.

Shooting has to be crossbows because they have more range than handguns and are just a better unit than archers.

Heh. I've seen this topic or a variant thereof done to death over at Warhammer Empire, so I know the answer. :) The most effective melee detachment is Free Company. Why? It's cheap, and you get double the attacks of any other detachment, allowing you to take a few models off the enemy regiment.

Swordsmen are great if you're paranoid about losing models, sure, and halberdiers are useful if you need the additional strength to take the bad guys down, but FC are cheap, which makes them far more useful.

You should always take detachments of at least 8 men anyway, so that they're actually useful even after losing a few men.

The most effective missile unit is debatable, as it depends on what you use them for. Most would suggest hangunners for a stationary unit, or archers for screening value.

Personally, I have mostly crossbowmen as those are the miniatures I happen to own. One regiment has bows, another has handgunners. *shrug* All seem to be about equally effective, depending on how you use them.

Regarding combat detachments, personally I use something that's not the parent unit. My spearmen battalion includes a swordsman detachment, my swordsman battalion has a halberdier detachment. I only use Free Company on my militia regiment, as I feel that they belong with militia- I have a very regimented Averland army.

Others, of course, can use whatever they like. :)

Can militia units even take detatchments? anyway...


I suppose my choice is a bit bias. I'm planning on doing a middenheim list, so I dont get free company for detatchements. So for me really its between swordsmen and halberds.


I just think detatchments will always be the target of shooting as they're so great, so giving them a decent save will help them survive.

My militia spearmen regiment? Yes. Regular militia regiments (FC, Xbows, bows)? No.

Wow. Thanks for that insightful post. My militia spearmen are conversions, obviously.

I like to have Halberdiers as my combat unit and then Handgunners as my shooting unit.

I went with halberdiers for the combat choice and archers for the missile weapon choice. Halberdiers because they have S4 and it can help against more armoured units and archers because they can move and shoot as well as having decent range, not that the others don't, but they are all move or shoot.

I voted for halbs as i just got a small detachment of them and they did exremely well for there first game and managed to kill a whooping 8 gouls and 4 dire wolfs :D and Also for use handguners as the shooting unit.

Oh yea this is my first post so hi and this forum is brillant :)

cheers

MrM

I like Free Company detachments fo rcombat for the reasons Benedictus gave - Plenty of attacks for little cost.

For missiles I like Crossbowmen because they have a good punch with the S4 and because they are getting charged, they can't have moved to negate their shooting.