How do the little guys win?

[Urgat]

That's right, it bounces through everything in one go. Note that if the units are more than 2" apart, though, there's an exception making the fanatic stop as it is allowed to stop closer than 1" from another unit.

[Lord Inquisitor]

The full answer is in the FAQ:

Q: What happens if a Night Goblin Fanatic hits a unit and there
is not room to place it an inch out the other side of the unit? (p53)
A: There are several possibilities here:
1) If placing the Fanatic an inch away from the unit
that was hit brings it into contact with another unit,
then that unit will also be hit and the Fanatic should
then be placed an inch beyond that unit.
2) If placing the Fanatic an inch away would take it
off of the board or into terrain (other than a hill) then
it is destroyed.
3) If placing the Fanatic an inch away from the unit
that was hit brings it to within an inch of another unit
then leave it where it is (even though you cannot
normally go within an inch unless you are charging).
This will not effect the movement of the unit it is
within an inch of. However, if the unit contacts the
Fanatic during its move, the Fanatic will inflict hits
on the unit and then be destroyed as usual.

Note that the FAQ on the Magical Vortecies gave the opposite answer, if the template can't be placed it bounces through but doesn't affect any further troops.

[Jind_Singh]

Over the last year or so my Goblin only army has been ripping a new one in the local tournament scene - my lowest placing was 4th of 44 players and i had to beat:

Dark Elves with twin hydras, shades, dark riders, horde of corsairs with frenzy banner, caludren bsb, level 4, 2, black guard
Dwarvres - thorek list with 5 war machines, 3 blocks of infantry
Empire - Karl Franz with some knights, blocks of men, war machines, stank

LOST to the tournament winner by SIX points who played Tzeentch Warriors list

Vampire player with lots and LOTS of etheral units - me with ONE MAGIC WEAPON and magic missile!!

So five games = 4 wins, 1 loss

And my gobbos were pretty relaxed::

Gobbo Warboss, great weapon, 4+ ward
Gobbo BSB, spider banner
45 Gobbos, FC, bows/shields and 3 nasty skulkers
2 wolf chariots
2 spear chukkas

5 spider riders, bows
arachnarok spider

night goblin warboss, stunty basha, 5+ ward
night goblin big boss, great axe
48 night goblins, h/w shield, fc, netters, 1 fanatic

night goblin level 4 great shaman
49 Night gobbos, spears/shields, netters, 1 fanatic

15 squigs, 10 night goblin herders

night goblin boss, spear/enchanted shield, light armor
Giant Squig

giant

pump wagon

mangler squig

And this army has marched to war many a time and done well - what is the success factor???#

1) Know thy army - and I do! I have played the above list sooooo much that I am very comfertable with the limits of my army - I know what is a last gasp chance vs a decent gamble. I know what the army is like when I lose my only caster turn 1, general/bsb die turn 1 - I know how they fair vs elites of other armies - how fast the army is. \But more importantly I know what the enemy will find tp be a serious threat and what they will concentrate on killing. This is HUGE as I have leanred to function with elements of my list others find harmless - and then by making it look like I care about the juicy stuff in my list - but really i'm glad!!!!

2) Know thy magic - this is HUGE for my own army as I know just how much I rely on the buffs/damage the spells of the little waaagh - infact the magic aspect is HUGE in my game play as every game I'll need that one or two crucial spells - especially the buffs/hexes

3) Deployment - this is HUGE - I'll use some out of the ball park deployments to throw the other players games off - I will try to bluff them into deploying were I want them - and more importanly I'll see how I can use the terrian to my personal advantage. Know what happens to my army when it comes up vs 40 bloodletters in horde formation with a herald? It dies!!!! So I learn to take advantage of the layout of the land

4) Know thy rules - sometimes the way out is through the use of the rules!!! I had made enough points to claim a draw once vs an Ogre who had destroyed my list - and I had basically one unit of gobbos with the bsb/warboss left alive!! So they did a swift reform but I took full advantage of the fact that models can move UP TO the double move allowance to reform into a narrow 2 wide column facing AWAY from the enemy - and then moved 4" to touch a building so they could all climb inside to SAFETY!!!

5) Grow a pair...this is huge as there can be no holding back when the odds are against you have to just go for it!!!! Doing the unexpected is massive as the element of surprise is everything - i know it's a dice game but it's more a mental game - if you can get inside the other players head then you are half way there!!

6) NEVER GIVE UP!!!! Doesn't matter how dire the battle goes, how crap the dice gods are, just suck it up and carry on!! there are a few times I'll ask my opponent if I can take a time out - and wander around for 5 minutes or so - and reclaim my good spirits and come back to the game - trust me, it's better this way as the game is only worth playing if YOU AND YOUR OPPONENT ARE HAVING FUN!!!!

Otherwise it's a load of twaddle and a massive waste of money and time!!!!

7) Play Goblins!!!


Those are the 7 steps to being good with a crappy army!!!!!

[DaemonReign]

Nice try Jind_Singh! We all know Goblins are broken!

[Seriously though: Nice summary and congrats to your well-deserved placings.]

[Urgat]

And as you can see, there is a lot of huge things in a goblin army
Love the tactic in point 4), I wouldn't have thought of that, I'm sure (but now I will )

[Lord Inquisitor]

That's a pretty good list there Jind. I think you missed one "know thy enemy" and your list can mostly be summed up in the quote "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles". That said, is there a space in your list for "play well during the game" too?

That said, number 4 might as well be titled "dirty goblin sneaky tricks". (But yes, I've done that in tournaments too. Sad thing is, people will learn your sneaky tricks and soon everyone you know is doing The Reform Trick. )

[Memnos]

Okay, so your argument is that fast cavalry will be able to draw out the fanatics.

What if the Night Goblin player is intelligent enough to shoot the fast cavalry using his fast cavalry? Or magic? Or artlilery? Or chariots? Or characters on boars? Or anything which can hit the fast cavalry, which usually have a 5+ save, and wipe them out before they get within 2 inches unless... Are you suggesting people use a horde of fast cavalry? Or are you suggesting that you're facing an army that is cheaper than Orcs and Goblins so that you can't outdeploy them?

I'm puzzled, Urgat. It sounds like your argument is that it's a bad tactic as long as you do everything else wrong and your opponent does everything else right. If that's the case, then I would say you're absolutely correct. If you make every wrong decision and your opponent makes every good decision, then the tactic won't work. Of course, that's a bit irrelevant as no tactic would work in the situation you've conjured up.

Actually, it sounds like you're just being contrary for the sake of being contrary. The fanatics thing works. I've seen it work.

The argument is now between you and reality.

Not in Memnos' case. He clearly said a small unit of orcs. I use that tactic too, every goblin player probably uses that tactic, it's a common one since 6th ed. They use big units that can fight, fanatics behind or not.
Your purple is a pain for quotes

You got ogres, you had an incentive to charge, fine (I still thing the impact hits are not worth the fanatics, but that was your call. can't see why charging was mandatory anyway). But most units don't have impact hits. Why should the aforementioned swordmasters, black guards or chaos warriors care one bit if the orcs charge and not them? They'll still win the fight regardless, and, chaos aside, they also probably got superior shooting and waiting is a benefit to them. I'd also like to point out that we're not in 6th ed anymore, and even if our units are not expensive, we can't just take all those sacrificial units, plus the horde of fanatics, plus the pump wagons, plus the manglers, plus, plus. Seriously, if the OnG player has all that, it's a 2500pts game at least and you should have options out of such a trap, supporting units to flank the orcs, don't know, ogres are faster than orcs, they have yetis, they have cannibals, they have sabertusks, they got plenty options. If you don't, it means you horded up and, don't you know? Deathstars (gutstars? ) are unbeatable, remember, everybody at Warseer says so. So you aren't scared of a few fanatic hits, right?

[Urgat]

No, my argument isn't that light cav will draw out the fanatics. It is but one of the few points I made (it's not even in the post you quoted, is it?), but fine, I'll address that this once. What if shooting, light cav, warboss, you say. High M plus vanguard brings light cavalry at 12' of the opponent before the game even begins. If you get first turn, hopefully, you have your own fast troop able to charge it, or he's in LoS of your shooting, that's counting on your opponent making that mistake. If he gets first turn (he probably has less units than you, and will have the +1 for the roll, btw), you're not shooting, intercepting or anything, you can't do anything about it. He just moves up to the goblins, and the fanatics are released. Simples. It is not rocket science tactic to do that, it won't make him a tactical genius, and if he pulls it, it's not your fault, you did nothing wrong, because there's just nothing you can do about it. Now that that's dealt with...

...I've said it a few times already, I'll say it one last time, bluntly: my main point against this trick is that your opponent either has never played against goblins, or has got to be a bloody idiot if he charges your orcs if there's a unit of night goblins withing 8' just behind, or there's an extremely peculiar situation which makes taking 6D6 S5 hits better than not moving at all. That is my main point. It's fine if you disagree.

You seem to think I'm doing guesswork. I'm not, I've been playing goblins only since 5th ed, I've been playing with fanatics for just as long. I've seen it all in regards to getting rid of fanatics, from teleporting a mage within 8" back when fanatics released by something that never was at exactly 8" would have them exit their parent unit in a random direction (happy times...) to now. Almost every battle I've played ever since has been at least somewhat about getting rid of my fanatics. And I don't play random blokes, I play regular opponents who know what to expect, and have learnt and played for as long as me. That's plenty of experience facing the whirling loons. They've tried every trick in the book. And I can tell you, there is no way ever that trick would work, because it is so Gork-damned obvious. If you've seen it work, that's great (I expect you won't see it a second time on the same guy though). I've seen lots of absurd things work too. That doesn't make it a sound tactic, at least in an environment where your opponents have a clue about how fanatics work.

Now that my main point about the feasibility of the tactic is dealt with, I'll go back to the point of my original post: using a minimum size-unit of orcs is a bad idea for that. You want a unit that can take the fanatic hits (that's still up to 18 hits...) w/o panicking and still be able to stand a charge if the fanatics don't deal the expected amount of wounds to the target. A unit of 20 orcs that have been hit by three fanatics is not the correct unit to do that.