WFB: To Horde or Not to Horde

Hey everyone, this is Adam from TheDiceAbide.com! Sorry about the hiatus, but I’m back and ready for action! I’ve noticed quite often people tend to want to horde up their troops, even when it really doesn’t have much to offer. Similarly, I’ve seen people take troops that are beautiful in hordes and run them as busses. Today, I’m going to go over when and why you should (or shouldn’t) horde up your infantry.

The most logical reason to horde is that you want more attacks! This reason alone though, tends to have you wasting points or survivability to get just a few more low strength attacks. The first thing to consider is how effective is each individual attack in the unit?

If they’re Clanrats, Elf Spearmen, or pretty much anything S3, you really have to ask yourself, are those S3 attacks really going to be worth losing steadfast, or giving the enemy some more attacks? Frequently, the answer is no. If the infantry has some rule, like Killing Blow, Poisoned Attacks, or have a good strength (S4+), then it might be worth reconsidering.

Another great rule to look for in your units is Stubborn.  If your unit is stubborn already, then you’re not going to have to worry about having ranks to keep Steadfast.  Units like White Lions and Great Swords, which have a high strength as well as Stubborn are fantastic units to go into horde formation.  Similarly, if you can take a character with the Crown of Command and stick him into a unit, then you might want to consider hording them up!

Lastly, there are actually still situations where you might horde that fall outside of what I mentioned, this often includes times where your opponent is so big that you wont deny it steadfast anyhow, so you may as well squeeze out a few extra attacks.

As I mentioned above, if you’re running a unit of troops that is sporting S3 attacks and don’t have anything else to offer, you are probably in a good position to consider adopting the bus formation (5x?).  But why would you deny yourself attacks?

First of all, the obvious is to gain Steadfast, but I won’t go into that, it should be pretty self explanatory. Another perfectly valid reason is to reduce the number of attacks that you’ll be receiving.  Imagine your block of 50 Empire Swordsmen are about to go toe-to-toe with 40 Saurus Warriors with Spears… Yeah, that’s an ugly thought.  If you’re in a horde formation, you’ll get a lovely 40 attacks, with a not-so-devastating S3, and your enemy is going to have 50 attacks at a soul-crushing S4.  Now, lets exercise the option of getting killed less, and you reform 5-wide before the Saurus crash into your lines.  You’re only going to get 10 attacks, and your enemy is going to get 30.  Sure you’re going to do significantly less damage, but you’ve also reduced the number of Empire casualties by 40% before anyone has even laid a blow.  Now you’re primed to be Steadfast and hopefully countercharge with a unit of Demigryphs or a Steam Tank into the flank.

One more thing to consider about choosing to not horde is the advantage it gives you in maneuverability.  1″ of wheeling on a 5″ wide unit, gives you about 11.45° of rotation, while on a 10″ wide unit, you’re only rotating 5.72°.  Over the coarse of a 8″ march, that is 91.67° vs 45.83°.  Basically that means that a unit half as wide will rotate twice as quickly.

Often times in a game, you will actually gain a tactical advantage out of changing your formation to or from a horde, but this is a huge pain in the butt to do with our little toys.  I have two easy solutions for you, both using your regular movement trays!  First, I often make my trays 10 wide and 5 deep.  This allows me to turn the tray sideways and be ready to go between horde and bus.  Another great method is to make all of your trays 5-wide, then use two together for a horde, and when it’s time to go bus, you just pick up one and put it behind the first.  Either way, don’t let yourself get tied into staying a horde when you shouldn’t, just because you have bad movement trays!  Make them flexible like this so you can make the right decision at the right time.