SLAYERS changes suggestion

[The bearded one]

Skirmish is a great idea I think, as the fluff in no way supports slayers slowly and orderly marching in formation along the rest of an army, skirmish just makes more sense...

to be fair, there are lots of troops you wouldn't expect to walk in an ordered ranked up unit, like orcs and beastmen or, good lord, savage orcs. If there's any crazed frenzied unit of maniacs I'd expect to have the cohesion and discipline for a formation, it's dwarf slayers.

[theunwantedbeing]

to be fair, there are lots of troops you wouldn't expect to walk in an ordered ranked up unit, like orcs and beastmen or, good lord, savage orcs. If there's any crazed frenzied unit of maniacs I'd expect to have the cohesion and discipline for a formation, it's dwarf slayers.

I explain it as follows:

Ranked troops are just those who move together as a grouped mass.
This can be extremely neat inch perfect ranks marching in unison or it can be a fairly disordered mass of bodies
The big thing is that they operate fairly close together and are not a dispersed formation with several feet between each other.

Skirmishers are very orderly for the most part, they operate in a loose formation several feet apart and co-ordinate their movements together.
Which doesn't actually fit that well with things like orcs or deranged slayers as they lack the order required to function properly as a dispersed formation.

This is why lone single models don't get to be skirmishers.
Skirmishing takes training and discipline and slayers just don't spend enough time together and generally just revert to their dwarven training where they fight as a group.
It would be unlikely for lots of slayers to have been predominantly skirmishers before becoming slayers.

I don't see any big problem with them being a ranked unit.
The really deranged crazy loons are the doomseekers and those guys certainly aren't going to be a ranked unit.

[Son of Sanguinius]

Frenzy, vanguard, and Hatred (monsters, monstrous infantry, monstrous cavalry)

[Hellebore]

I explain it as follows:

Ranked troops are just those who move together as a grouped mass.
This can be extremely neat inch perfect ranks marching in unison or it can be a fairly disordered mass of bodies
The big thing is that they operate fairly close together and are not a dispersed formation with several feet between each other.

Skirmishers are very orderly for the most part, they operate in a loose formation several feet apart and co-ordinate their movements together.
Which doesn't actually fit that well with things like orcs or deranged slayers as they lack the order required to function properly as a dispersed formation.

This is why lone single models don't get to be skirmishers.
Skirmishing takes training and discipline and slayers just don't spend enough time together and generally just revert to their dwarven training where they fight as a group.
It would be unlikely for lots of slayers to have been predominantly skirmishers before becoming slayers.

I don't see any big problem with them being a ranked unit.
The really deranged crazy loons are the doomseekers and those guys certainly aren't going to be a ranked unit.

You can rationalise it any way really, given it's just a set of abstract rules applied to a unit. You could just as easily say that as slayers are loners by nature seeking death in personal combat, but are not very sociable, they find other slayers easier to associate with on the battlefield. But they don't wish to fight in marched rank and file, so they associate in loose groups and charge across the battlefield. An orc 'regiment' is nothing more than the group mind think of a species that loves fighting in massive brawling scrums, not spread out. Slayers are less team players than orcs are, ironically, because of their solitary social standing. Just look at the orc squabble table where it says (or said previously, haven't looked at the most recent one) 'we'll show em!' and they charge across. Not 'I'll show em' but we as a group will show that we are better. Orcs associate in tribes, they have heirarchies based on might makes right, but they aren't loners. Slayers are less social than orcs are.

Basically you can create any justification for any rule, it just comes down to what works best for unit in question. IMO the mechanics for skirmish work best for helping slayers survive getting across the battlefield and they fit the loner mentality of the slayer.

Hellebore

[theunwantedbeing]

Basically you can create any justification for any rule, it just comes down to what works best for unit in question. IMO the mechanics for skirmish work best for helping slayers survive getting across the battlefield and they fit the loner mentality of the slayer.

I just can't stand people moving large units of skirmishers across the board as they either....

1. Take forever
2. Move them in an incohesive blob to save time and then just lie about the facings to gain an advantage
3. Have stupid giant trays that foul on all the scenery and nearby models prompting far too many lies about where they claimed it was

Slayers could do without the skirmish rule.
Afterall is it just a -1 to hit they gain from it

[The bearded one]

I can definately imagine 20'ish slayers being a ridiculous pain to move as skirmishers.

[shelfunit.]

I can definately imagine 20'ish slayers being a ridiculous pain to move as skirmishers.

All your skirmish basing/movement problems solved!

[theunwantedbeing]

All your skirmish basing/movement problems solved!

For when there are still roughly 20 alive in that formation and they aren't in combat.

[shelfunit.]

For when there are still roughly 20 alive in that formation and they aren't in combat.

Please enlighten us to your alternatives...

[theunwantedbeing]

Please enlighten us to your alternatives...

Smaller trays obviously.
Although I see that you can purchase a 5x1 tray from that site but the gap between ranks is much larger than the files if you use multiples of them.

You can make better trays from scratch.

[Haravikk]

to be fair, there are lots of troops you wouldn't expect to walk in an ordered ranked up unit, like orcs and beastmen or, good lord, savage orcs. If there's any crazed frenzied unit of maniacs I'd expect to have the cohesion and discipline for a formation, it's dwarf slayers.

I just wanted to add that you can actually get many of the advantages of skirmish movement, minus the massive formation, by using the Fast Cavalry rule. The rule itself does in fact note that a unit needn't be of type Cavalry, as it's simply to represent fast moving/responsive units.

My current favourite fixes for Slayers would be to shift over to use of Killing Blow in favour of the current Strength scale, but to give them a scaling Dodge save to them a bit less easy to mow down in huge quantities. For example, Troll Slayers and Giant Slayers would have Dodge (6+), Dragon Slayers would have 5+, and Daemon Slayers 4+, with the dodge being simply a Ward Save that only works in close combat. My reasoning for the shift to Killing Blow is that Troll Slayers aren't really masters at killing monsters yet, as Trolls are what they're currently aiming for as an opponent. So really it makes more sense that they'd be better at killing lesser enemies; plus Killing Blow represents units that are good at finding the weak points of an enemy, which seems to me to represent slayers fairly well.
Heroic Killing Blow would then kick in for Dragon and Daemon Slayers, though for the Dragon Slayer it might be a limited (for example, only applies to anything with a Monstrous type, but not Monsters).

[Son of Sanguinius]

A Dwarf with a dodge save?

A Dwarf regiment with a dodge save?

[GrottoKnight]

Frenzy. Sure.

But also, RUNIC TATTOOS! That way the unit can have a plausible ward save of some kind, as well as other options to diversify the units. And a damn good excuse to take time painting cool tattoos on your slayers.

I like this and always thought tattoos (seem much of their art) would be sweet but unfortunately they gave this to Savage Orcs and I don't like the idea of the dwarfs being like the orcs in any way. Runic tattoos are an option for painters in my book but not a rule.

Killing blow for troll and giant slayers-heroic killing blow for dragon and daemon slayers.

Further I am for a ward save-call it "a greater death awaits" save. 6+ for troll and giant slayers, 5+ for dragons, and 4+ for daemon slayers.
Mostly on the grounds that it is absurd that slayers die quickly to the most unworthy foes, slaves, goblins, & most undead core

Really like the above

I like one or more of these:
-frenzy
-ward save, dodge was a neat touch
-parting blow idea as a las hurrah
-get a victory point bonus if they are dead

[theunwantedbeing]

I don't like the idea of the dwarfs being like the orcs in any way. R

Good job dwarves don't have low initiatives, high toughness or use a lot of infantry

[Lord Inquisitor]

Switching Slayer Skill for Heroic Killing Blow would make every monster terrified of that unit! They'd be able to take on Trolls properly then...

Some kind of rule that penalises you for having slayers alive at the end of the game but don't give up vps for dying is very fluffy, but this is very tricky to implement. I've played against Lone Wolves in 40K and it isn't any kind of fun. Certainly the old Slayer list didn't do it very well.

Frenzy would work, but I'd say that makes them a bit too much like Flagellants. They're not frothers, they're pretty serious about dying.

[The bearded one]

Switching Slayer Skill for Heroic Killing Blow would make every monster terrified of that unit! They'd be able to take on Trolls properly then...

Some kind of rule that penalises you for having slayers alive at the end of the game but don't give up vps for dying is very fluffy, but this is very tricky to implement. I've played against Lone Wolves in 40K and it isn't any kind of fun. Certainly the old Slayer list didn't do it very well.

Frenzy would work, but I'd say that makes them a bit too much like Flagellants. They're not frothers, they're pretty serious about dying.

The slayerarmy had the mechanic that every slayer killed by a model with str5 or t5 on his statprofile, grants 10 VPs to the dwarf player.

[Liber]

to be fair, there are lots of troops you wouldn't expect to walk in an ordered ranked up unit, like orcs and beastmen or, good lord, savage orcs. If there's any crazed frenzied unit of maniacs I'd expect to have the cohesion and discipline for a formation, it's dwarf slayers.

Well having entire armies of skirmishers would just be wrong, so the whole orc and beastmen thing doesn't matter.

I feel the game should try and mimic the fluff where possible, and from what I've read slayers skirmish (aka all run towards nearest dangerous thing).

Skirmishing would make slayers harder to kill with all template weapons, all ranged weapons, and make them more manuverable and therefore easier to get (alive) into combat...which is the biggest problem slayers have. Considering the Dwarfs don't have access to any skirmishing units (even our scouts march in formation) makes this an obvious and beneficial change in my mind.

[Lord Inquisitor]

The slayerarmy had the mechanic that every slayer killed by a model with str5 or t5 on his statprofile, grants 10 VPs to the dwarf player.

Yes I remember those days and not fondly. Along with the heroes that could total a good sized undead unit in one turn by themselves. Getting 1 vp per model if you killed them with anyone that could fight - Urgh! It was the most unbalanced army ever, some armies steamrollered them and others - well, vampire counts just couldn't win. It was almost entirely impossible.

Anyway suffice to say any mechanism that mucks with VPs better be thought out and tested well. Neither the slayer army or the 40k lone wolves are shining examples.

[GrottoKnight]

Good job dwarves don't have low initiatives, high toughness or use a lot of infantry

I know right?