Dwarf Slayers Question

[Shogunate]

Hi!

Just a quick one regarding dwarf slayers. I'm new to dwarfs and fantasy, and I find myself confused about this unit.

Their special slayer axes allow them to choose to have either two 1h weapons or a great weapon for a turn, right?

And their special rule allows them to raise their strength to meet their opponents toughness, including any other modifiers such as the great weapon.

The example in the book along with the above rule suggests then that a slayer versus a toughness 6 creature would raise his strength to match. So, strength 3 basic, +2 for great weapon, +1 to match his opponents toughness would make a total of one attack at strength 6.

Would it not by default be the better option to use two 1 handers and be raised to strength 6 with two attacks? Strength 3 basic, + 3 to match opponents toughness, 2 attacks. Or am I misreading the rule?

[theunwantedbeing]

They can pick at the start of the combat.
Yes they work better with 2 hand weapons when facing toughness 6 foes due to the strength cap, the great weapon is for weaker foes where the extra hand weapon doesn't help you.

[excessiveswagger]

I also had a question about slayers. Giant slayers count as unit champions yes? Does this mean the opponent cannot direct attacks against them unless in a challenge? So if it's a normal fight you could remove troll slayer casualties from the back even if the entire front rank is made of giant slayers (you can upgrade multiple slayers to giant slayers correct?) so you can have an entire front rank who can issue and accept challenges but can't be directly killed until the trollslayers run out?

[Munin]

I also had a question about slayers. Giant slayers count as unit champions yes? Does this mean the opponent cannot direct attacks against them unless in a challenge? So if it's a normal fight you could remove troll slayer casualties from the back even if the entire front rank is made of giant slayers (you can upgrade multiple slayers to giant slayers correct?) so you can have an entire front rank who can issue and accept challenges but can't be directly killed until the trollslayers run out?

You can allocate attacks at a unit champion w/o being in challenge.

In your example it would actually be the other way around. The opponent would be forced to allocate all his attacks at different champions thus making it impossible to kill the actual unit until he cuts through them.

[warplock]

I don't have the book to hand but I thought slayers increased their S to meet target T up to T6. So a slayer with a GW would be S8 vs a Dragon.

[White_13oy]

I believe the GW strength bonus is applied before adding strength to meet toughness. So a Slayer against a Dragon would still be S6. I wish I was wrong. Hoping the new dwarf book fixes their issues and lets me field a Slayer Army.

[T10]

Giant slayers are champions, yes.

Champions and characters can be attacked outside of challenges: Simply put: Attacking models get to allocate their attacks to the models in base contact, and except for rank-and-file-troops it is the actual targeted models that are removed if killed.(Rank-and-file casualties are removed from the rear)

This means that you cannot effectively protect the entire front rank by filling it with champions, but you can force the enemy to allocate attacks to specific models and hope that he wastes some attacks by causing 2 or more wounds on a 1 wound champion.

You can also form the unit up in a single file and have the front champion model issue challenges.

Either tactic is vulnerable to enemies with mixed initiative values, however, since the enemy can always refuse the challenge and kill off a few champions in each of his initiative brackets.

-T10

[excessiveswagger]

I see, still useful against a greater daemon or something which would be forced to use all it's attacks against a single giant slayer. If he's only in bsb with giant slayers does thunder stomp hit them? It says it's distributed as shooting so it would technically hit the unit as a whole correct and not the giant slayers?

[T10]

I see, still useful against a greater daemon or something which would be forced to use all it's attacks against a single giant slayer. If he's only in bsb with giant slayers does thunder stomp hit them? It says it's distributed as shooting so it would technically hit the unit as a whole correct and not the giant slayers?

Sure, but there are two pit-falls.

Either you get your giant slayer into a challenge, in which case he is likely to get over-killed by the daemon's regular attacks, or you decline the challenge and lose the first giant slayer to the regular attack, then suffer the thunder-stomp attacks: These are not limited to the first model in the line but are distributed as shooting.

-T10

[excessiveswagger]

Actually being champions they don't have to accept challenges so the opponent can either hope for a challenge and waste a whole round squashing a single guy or waste all his attacks on a single slayer, thunderstomp the unit and then cop 12 attacks with 4s to hit and wound from the 4 giant slayers in bsb (assuming ahw on them). Pretty good deal