Curious, I wanted to start a series of threads, analyzing some of our units: Thunderers vs Quarrelers; warmachines confrontation; hammerers vs Ironbreakers and so on.
Being a diligent young dwarf, I noticed that there was already a thread on the subject of Thunderers vs Quarrelers, and so i think it's nice to expand it one of with my own analysis, instead of opening a new thread.
Thunderers and Quarrelers are mainly a shooting force, so, for now, I won't keep in account their melee prowess.
Both the units are made to shine in high numbers. 20 is the magical number, that gives double shooting to quarrelers and +1 to hit to thunderers.
For the sake of discussions, I won't consider the Veteran, for average results of shooting.
RANGE.
Quarrelers got a 20" range
Thunderers got a 16" range
having a move of 4", it seems that quarrelers gain one additional turn of shooting.
This, however, is true only when you are attacking a defensive position... when it's someone else that attacks you, these 4" are less decisive, especially when we face fast armies (cavalries with move 12", Flying dudes with 14", anything related to destruction that can count on additional moves during their hero phase, all those units that can run AND charge...)
All in all, i tend to say that the additional range of quarrelers is indeed nice, but also situational.
CHANCES TO WOUND
Quarrelers got a 4+/4+, no rend
Thunderers got a 4+/3+, rend -1
10 quarrelers, on average, will force 2-3 saves, no rend
10 thunderers, on average, will force 3-4 saves, -1 rend.
for small units (<20), thunderers are better shooters than quarrelers.
Let's see if we increase the numbers
30 models.
30 quarrelers gains double shooting and, on average, will force 15 saves, no rend
30 thunderers will gain +1 to hit, so 3+/3+; on average, they will force 12-13 saves, -1 rend.
As you can see, when you play high numbers, quarrelers will force more saves than thunderers, but without rend. So it really depends on the enemy you're facing.
Units with good or passable saves? rend matters, so thunderers are better than quarrelers.
Units with rend immunity (spirit hosts), no saves (plague monks) or saves 6+: Quarrelers are better than thunderers.
In my opinion, 20 is a bad number for a unit of quarrelers. They shine with double salve, and at 20, the enemy keeds to kill just one quarreler, to send them into the pit of "no double shooting", which hurts them a lot. I would advice against a decision to field 20 quarrelers: the risk is truly high.
ADDITIONAL OPTIONS
Quarrelers can rely on Bugman.
This is, indeed, a huge boost that you can give to a quarrelers unit and to your whole army: we are slow, so the ability to pop a unit wherever you need, is very valuable. And quarrelers can also act as weak character killer (grey mages and similar), shooting when they appear... a thing that other units (miners) cannot do.
Thunderers don't have any specific boost.
Grimm Burloksson can increase the range of quarrelers OR thunderers, so they are on par.
Runelord is useful to both of them.
CLOSE COMBAT
Ranger's axes are better than gun-butts, so there's no doubt here: quarrelers are better than thunderers in melee... but it's not their job to fight hand-to-hand, if you must do it, you're already in a bad shape.
CONCLUSIONS
Both units have their own merit. All in all, with small numbers (<20), thunderers are basically better than quarrelers.
At high numbers, which one is better depends on circumstances, SO, if you know what kind of enemy you are going to face, you can pick what's better for you.
If you don't know.... probably it would be better to have a unit of quarrelers and one of thunderers, picking the targets they are better equipped to deal with.
If you can afford just one unit... eh, once I was a fan of quarrelers, now i'm more fond of thunderers.
Additional thoughts?
Edited by Killer Angel, 25 June 2017 - 01:14 PM.