Hello fellow Generals. I was musing over the idea of crafting a full vanguarding army, and wanted to start a discussion about it. How would you do it? Units? Characters? I thought this would be better here to spark discussion rather than on the Barracks.

I’ll start with my thoughts so far, thinking about a 2500 pts army.

With Strollaz at 35 points, most banners supporting up to 50 pts on runes and the no repetition allowed, I thought I would start with Rangers, since they are crucial to allow vanguarding, but also means good infantry blocks that don’t need Strollaz at all.

So, first in are 2 blocks of Rangers, 20 dwarfs each, with full command. They add up to 620 pts, so 24,8%. This are 2 fully functional, scouting infantry blocks, that you can even deploy behind lines if you the enemy has no scouting/vanguard himself. I know rangers are not the most loved option these days (with Organ Gun and Irondrakes around), and we could simply field 2x5 dwarf units to push enemy vanguarders, but you limit the overall number of block moving forward, as we will now see.

Ok, time to think on the Strollaz banners setup. And here we find a first bump. We find we can field 3 units of non-Hammerers by using these combinations:

Strollaz
Strollaz + Sanctuary
Strollaz + other on BSB

Of course you might think about using Ungrim and Slayers with runic banner… let’s leave that out for it’s own thread.
Now to fill the core, and of course, no surprise here: we are going to look into longbeards. To reach the 25% minimum (because we will want points for vanguarding hammerers and Gyros on the special section), you can either go one big unit, or 2 MMU units, or longbeards with a warrior/thunderer/quarreler with the BSB.

The single Longbeard unit will need to be over 40 dwarf big, something I considered excessive under all circumstances. The 2 Longbeard MMU units with shields, even with 20 dwarfs each, comes up to 650 pts… A third option would be replacing one of those Longbeards with Warriors and shields, planning to place the BSB here. This 3rd option will let you have 30 Warriors with shields plus 20 Longbeards with shields with the single Strollaz rune on their banner. This option comes at exactly 625pts.

For purposes of this thread, I will assume this last setup, as it brings 2 “defensive/anvil” like units that go well with the 3 “hammer” units we are planning (Hammerers + 2 GW wielding Ranger units).

Ok, at this point we have spent 1245 pts, just over 50% of the army, and have 4 decent scouting/vanguarding blocks, 2 hammer-like and 2 anvil-like. I say we are in the good track.

Let’s look at the last compulsory elements for a valid army: characters.

Naturally, we want a General (obligatory) and a BSB (for strollaz on warriors), so basic options are:

BSB Thane: Greatweapon with Battlestandard with Strollaz + Grungni (I know we won’t expect to receive much shooting in a vanguarding army, but we are really after the ward save for the BSB itself). He costs 165 pts.
Runesmith General with Shield, Stone, Spellbreakerx2 at 113 pts.

Alternatively: Runesmith General with Greatweapon, Spellbreaker X2, Warding at 131 pts.

For this thread purpose, let’s assume we go with the last one.

So, we are spending at least 295 pts in Characters, with very limited magic defense. But with a vanguarding army it sorts of comes as expected, trying to hit his wizards on melee on turn 1 or 2 max.

We finally come to our beloved Special section. We have spent close to 1540 pts. That means we have 960 pts left.

I assume that with a Vanguarding army, vanguarding Gyros are a no brainer. To make this work, we will include 3 gyros, 2 with vanguarding, and leave the non-vanguard one to watch for our backs (ambushers, warmachine hunters, etc). The 3 gyros (2 vanguarding) cost 280 pts.

Coming to a close now: we spent 1820 pts so far, only have 680 pts left.

Now we need to make some hard choices. Do we want cannon? Will we want miners? Ironbreakers? I’m assuming no one will want to leave hammerers at home, but not invest in a 680 pt, 40+ dwarf unit.

If we decide to forgo warmachines completely, we can get:

Hammerers/Ironbreakers X 16 with Strollaz and Ancestors for 309 pts
Hammerers/Ironbreakers X 20 with Strollaz and Sanctuary for 360 pts

So, not too small blocks for this elite troops me thinks. I guess most people would prefer 2 Hammerers unit for this size. But 20 Ironbreakers are not a bad option. You still have like 11 pts for some small tweaks.

Other path, and the one that I think is best, is to use the available points in special to get one nice block of hammerers and a cannon. With 3 gyros we got big template shooting covered, and I will not repeat here all the amazing things we know about cannons. Yes, it will be left behind, that’s where the non vanguarding gyro will help to keep it alive to get his magik done. With this option, we can field:

Dwarf Cannon, Forging, Burning at 150 pts.

Hammerers/Ironbreakers X 32 with Strollaz and Sanctuary for 528 pts

This allows us to bring to the table the two “heavy hitting” units to dish out some pain.

And that’s it! A fully functional, (almost) fully vanguarding army!

Yet, I think this list is extremely light on magic defense, even for a vanguarding unit. So I would suggest for a final modification: reduce the number of Hammerers, and get a second Runesmith that brings another spellbreaker, plus another AP effect for an unit. With no Valaya, I think this is minimum magic defense at this games point.

Final draft of the Vanguarding army is (still 9 pts left to spend!)

BSB Thane: Shield, MR Grungni, Strollaz, Ancestors (to help with Warriors with shields staying power): 184 pts.
Runesmith General: Greatweapon, Spellbreaking, Stone, Wardingx2: 131 pts.
Runesmith: Shield, Spellbreaking X2, Stone: 113 pts.
Total Characters: 428 pts, 17,12%

Warriors X30, Full Command, Shields: 300 pts.
Longbeards X20, Full Command, Shields: 325 pts.
Core troops: 625 pts, 25%

Hammerers X22, Full Command, Strollaz, Sanctuary: 388 pts.
Cannon, Forging, Burning: 150 pts.
Gyrocopter, Vanguarding: 100 pts.
Gyrocopter, Vanguarding: 100 pts.
Gyrocopter, 80 pts.
Special troops: 818 pts. 32,72%

Rangers X20, Full Command: 310 pts.
Rangers X20, Full Command: 310 pts.
Rare Troops 620 pts. 24,8%

That’s it folks… 5 battle ready scouting/vanguarding blocks, 3 gyros and a cannon. What do you think? I know you could craft a very different list using Ungrim with strollaz slayers, but that is for another thread.

How do you like the list? What would you change? Would you take an Organ Gun instead of second Runesmith? Get the points from somewhere else? Irondrakes with strollaz+sanctuary, giving Courage to Hammerers and running just 2x5 naked rangers?

Thanks for your input, either on list tweaking, deployment and tactics tips, advice against certain enemies, etc.

Cheers!

Dorack