I agree, its definitely an army of support choices. I think it would be a little bit hit or miss because of that... I think against certain armies that couldn't catch it or shoot it, it would be good and others, not as much.
I'm quite bored tonight, so I think I'm going to try to make a case for Reavers. There's some good information in this wall of text, I swear, and though it does go all over the place, I'll try to come back around to the topic! Promise. Probably.
Questionable Historical Bit
Historically, as I understand it (and I'm probably wrong; feel free to edumacate' me) Mongolian Armies consisted mostly of mounted troops, backed up by missile armed spearmen and foot archers. They won their battles more on raids and blitzkrieg style hit and run tactics than in large, drawn out infantry battles, and were successful largely because of how evasive and fast they were, as well as their ability to remain in the field indefinitely because of their nomadic lifestyle (logistics). The enemy were used to large, bold, slow infantry tactics, and the Mongolians refused to play the same game.
I think fast cavalry and scouts in general are relegated to support role because of how the game is played. The scenarios in the book, and the size of the table, are all conducive to short and bloody combats. Its decisive, heroic, cinematic and in my view represents the tipping point of a much larger battle. The game doesn't represent the lead up to the battle, where armies are scouting and trying to find each other, jostling for good position and high ground, or the aftermath, where an army has broken, and is being ridden down and scattered.
Questionable advice on expanding Warhammer
Unless you're expanding on the game and playing in really detailed campaigns (IE somewhat boring for most people and interminably long), its hard to represent the actions where horse-archers excel. You'd need to play the game in a car-lot to take advantage of the advantages of maneuver, hit and run, and missile power horse archers possess and it would require the black, wretched, technical soul of a lawyer to appreciate. (My apologies to any actual black-souled, pitiable lawyers out there I may have offended.)
In larger campaigns, and even one off games back in 6th and early 7th, my friends and I would sometimes give bonuses to deployment and terrain placement to armies that include fast cavalry and scouts, which I highly recommend trying at least once.
Applying it to 8th here quickly, without much thought given for balance, you could say that armies may re-roll once on the terrain chart when selecting terrain for each unit of scouts or fast cavalry they have. Also, for each unit of missile scouts or cavalry, a randomly chosen unit in the enemy army suffers 2D6 S3 hits before the fight, though the enemy may elect to take these hits on a unit of his fast cavalry or scouts. Dice off for which player applies damage first, and alternate each unit of scouts or fast cavalry applying its damage in turn until both players run out. This would represent scouts and fast cavalry being sent out against the enemy army for harrying actions as it marched into position, and enemy scouts attempting to delay or stall them with counter-actions.
Anyway, enough of that!
Questionably getting to the point
I think if you're inclined to use them, whether you give extra incentives or not, the first bit would be to compile a short list of what they can do, compare it to what our other support choices (Eagles and Shadow Warriors) can do, and then decide from there.
I think its important to look at all three choices holistically to get a better feel for how Reavers should be used. I'll get the ball rolling as I've been thinking about this anyway, then others can add more to it if I've missed something or correct me if I've gotten something wrong. When that's sorted, and everyone is on the same page, then we can start talking about tactics.
Questionable Pro and Con list
Reaver Knights:
Pros:
- Movement. Vanguard Move can put them into shooting/charge range quickly, providing very early pressure. It also allows the Reavers to give no clue to the rest of your deployment, as they can re-deploy quickly.
- Missiles. With bows, they can provide constant harassment to the enemy, even while marching. This allows them to sit on flanks and 'plunk' enemies, without the pressure to immediately charge into action.
- Spears. They provide S4 on the charge, useful for taking on Warmachines or Light Missile Troops.
- Variable Kit. They can be taken with Spears(17 points each), Bows (19 each), or Bows and Spears (21 pts), depending on how you intend to use them. This actually makes Reavers some of the most economical troops in our army, or some of the most expensive...
- Swiftstride. This allows them to make long charges, pursuit and flee movements more reliably than infantry. This allows you to sit them at the edge of their maximum charge range, which adds something to their protection from missiles. They can then wait for a combined charge into the flank while contributing bowfire, and then make this charge more reliably, and when the enemy breaks, pursue them more reliably.
- Free and Swift Reform. This makes the unit incredibly flexible; there's no excuse for it not to be pointing in the direction you want with a little foresight, and they can maneuver easily around terrain, impassible or dangerous, as well as enemy formations.
- Feigned Flight. This makes Reavers ideal for bait-and-flee tactics, as well as march blocking.
Cons:
- 6+ save. While not much worse than the rest of our army, they are more expensive, depending on how you kit them. This is mitigated somewhat by their ability to skirt the maximum range of enemy missile troops in some cases.
- Expensive. While they're relatively cheap if armed with just spears or bows, they are more expensive than Silver Helms if armed with both.
- Protracted Combat. Without strong armor, throwing these units into a battle of attrition is almost always a doomed affair.
- Characters. Characters that join the unit cause the entire unit to lose its Fast Cavalry status, which hurts many of their primary roles. They also offer very little protection to the character when compared to something like Silver Helms, although they can still shoot.
- Buildings. Mounted troops in general should probably not be used against them, as they lose all their benefits and can't hold them.
- Special Choice. They compete for points with our Elite Infantry, the bulk of most High Elf armies.
Shadow Warriors:
- Scout. They can deploy extremely close to the enemy, putting them in danger of an early charge and close range bowfire.
- Missile Fire. They're armed with longbows, so they'll almost always be within range, if not short range.
- Hatred. While not nearly as useful as it used to be, this ensures that they'll be re-rolling hits against units with higher initiative or ASF.
- Buildings. This, I feel, is their strongest use - a unit of Shadow Warriors can be deployed into a building and fire from it all game, as well as march-blocking. They're also disproportionately hard to shift - most enemy combat units can, but it takes more time than its worth, while an equal sized unit will have difficulty.
- Skirmish. Both a help and a hindrance, I'll summarize both here quickly, they get -1 to hit, free reforms, and fire on the march, making them ideal as missile troops... but are penalized with no ranks, no steadfast (unless in terrain!) and cannot disorder ranks. This makes them ideal for sitting in terrain and being an annoyance, but weakens them in combat significantly.
Cons:
- Expense. They're expensive, making them hard to take in larger units without them becoming huge targets.
- Vulnerability. While they do quite well against missile fire (they benefit from -2 in terrain) they can be wiped out or crippled by a single magic missile.
- Protracted Combats. Their Skirmish status and their price tag ensures that they have neither the numbers or muscle to handle anything ranked unit without dying. However, they can hold up a missile unit from firing, and can wipe out machine crews in short order.
- Maneuverability. While they're more maneuverable than infantry blocks, they have a wide foot-print due to their staggered Skirmish formation.
- Special choice. See Reavers.
- Skirmish. Curse you Skirmish!
Eagles:
Pro:
- They're awesome. Eagles are hands down one of the best units in the army, if not the game.
- Maneuverable. With Fly, they can provide a very early threat to warmachines, missile troops and other scouts and fast cavalry. Though they won't always win, they are...
- Economical. At 50 points each, they're cheap as chips and since most people don't like RBT any longer, you can buy 4 of them in a standard army quite easily for 200 points, freeing up more points for Elite Infantry. Even if you're like me and see the use in an RBT, you'll most likely not be taking more than 2, and so you can still take 4 Eagles. Simply put, the only limitation on them is the cost of the actual model, and if you're clever, there are a lot of alternatives out there.
- Versatility. I struggle to conceive of an army out there that they would be of no use against. There are entire threads out there on their use, so I'll keep this short.
- Rare Choice. They compete with RBT. See above. They don't really cut into the rest of the army, while Shadow Warriors and Reavers do.
Cons:
- Rare Choice. You can only take 4 of them.
- 3 wounds. They do die quite easily, although they're so economical I struggle to care. They're the closest thing to chaff our otherwise elite army has.
- PETA. If Great Eagles were real, they'd be an endangered species. They seem purpose-built to throw under the bus.
Right then. I'm sure I missed a dozen things, but I'm tired of that part now. Feel free to add things though.
Questionable Unit Comparison of Shadow Warriors, Eagles and Reavers
So then, I mentioned several tactics above in my overly verbose pro and con list above.
So now, many of you will be wondering whether or not one should take Shadow Warriors or Reavers in comparison to Eagles, and rightly so! Eagles are so good, and are such a bargain, that they can serve many of the same purposes, and points in a High Elf list are always at a premium. I think its safe to assume that support units in general, besides our obligatory core troops, is always in a tooth and nail fight for points with our elite infantry.
While I don't like telling people how they should build their lists (the length of this post might suggest otherwise, but its a purely a reflection of unemployment, I assure you. Possibly some form of Autism as well.), I would never advise cutting too heavily into the elite infantry selection for most standard builds. There are exceptions, like heavy cavalry lists, avoidance lists, or shooting lists, but I think its safe to assume that for a default, standard list, elite infantry will always be doing the lions share of the fighting and dying, and so I would recommend not spending too much more than a quarter of your army at most on things like Reavers, Eagles or Shadow Warriors unless you've got something special in mind.
The Precious Quarter
Most functioning High Elf lists at around 2-2.5k are remarkably homogeneous in organization when you get down to it, which probably fits our character.
You have your Lord and Heroes, usually an Archmage and a BSB, because Magic is too important to ignore, and our army is too small to sacrifice reliability in leadership. It usually adds up to a quarter or slightly less of the army - if you're spending the allowed combined 50% on Lords and Heroes and doing well, I'd be very curious.
Next you have Core, which is usually always a quarter as well, as most people don't want to spend more than the minimum and I usually don't blame them, even though I love my Seaguard. A lot of the variance and individuality of the army can be found here .
Then you have your Specials, which can be a maximum of 50% of your army, and certainly you could make an effective army out of nothing but what I've listed so far - many people do. I think the variety and individuality of the army mainly comes down to which of the three elites you choose to make up the bulk of your force.
Now this is the main difference in army builds that I see. Most people will take a few eagles if they can - they'll have taken minimum core, and then they may still have 50 to 100 points for their Lords and Heroes, but not everyone is comfortable cutting into that 50% of Specials. There's very little slack or variety in list design because of that.
I really think that if you're not comfortable cutting into that, then there's no reason to even consider using anything for support other than eagles, but if you are, and you're still reading this, and you've been a good little boy/girl/other, then I'm going to teach you about something I've dubbed The Precious Quarter (TM).
Many of you have been following Seredain's cavalry thread, and among those that have, he's become something of a Ulthuan celebrity for his AUDACIOUS use of cavalry. You could almost hear the resounding 'spelunk' of hundreds of jaded internet wargamer monocles landing in their tea simultaneously with the bold statement that yes, cavalry still has a major use. I think though, that there's a second and less recognized part at play.
He's cut all his elite units down to almost the minimum amount required to be of any use. Their use now lies in the fact that they must be used together in concert, but when they are, the sheer amount of damage they generate often evaporates the enemy, thus ensuring their safety. Since there are so many units, and enemy gunlines are presumably under attack via cavalry bus very quickly, the danger of missile fire to the slower infantry is mitigated somewhat.
This is where I think that we can find this Precious Quarter to spend for our points on support - by hacking down our elite infantry to the point where Reavers, Shadow Warriors, Chariots, RBT, and yes, Eagles too can all be of use.
By hacking up my three standard blocks of 25-30 elite infantry into half-units of 14 to 20, I've now got six - I could probably use this alone, as the benefit of having multiple units for combined arms tactics outstrips their use as a one on one battering ram. From there, I can start removing these half-units and replacing them with support elements.
And this is where I think that taking a medley of not only eagles, but Shadow Warriors and Reavers can become useful. The points become much less tight this way, however, it gets tighter in how the army must play - every unit must perform as part of a whole, even more so than normal, to be effective.
The Bloody Point Emerges!
I think this is where Reavers, among Shadow Warriors and Eagles, begin to be of real use - the High Elf army excels in close combat. However, if it goes 1 on 1 against the enemy, it quickly gets ground down, due to return attacks. Therefore, you're left with two options - take huge blocks of 30 elite infantry to withstand the attrition, and open yourself up to Dwellers, Mortars and all that other happy-shite that makes me cry, or, split your forces up and try to take units on two at a time, if not three at a time.
Great, I hear you cry, but how in the holy hell are High Elves supposed to manage this? My Skaven opponent has blocks clear across the table, with only an inch gap between them! High Elves are consistently outnumbered by enemy, even if they split up into half units, you silly yank! By carefully using those small units of expendable Reavers and Eagles to pull the enemy into disarray, our hero responds with characteristic arrogance and disdain!
There was a topic I was reading over at Asrai.org recently about a much-maligned tactic, or trick in some people's opinion, of using two units of Fast Cavalry to cause an opponent to have an incomplete charge. I'll paraphrase here as best I can, but it should be easy to find.
Essentially, you place two units of Fast Cavalry parallel to each other, one in front, one behind, inch apart, both facing the enemy unit. The enemy has to declare a charge if he wants to get anywhere, whereupon the first unit (A) flees. Even if he gets a very short roll, he lands on top of the unit behind (B), and slides over it another inch. The enemy has to stop an inch from unit B, since he can't move into unit B without charging, so he redirects the charge into B. B flees behind A, and since the enemy unit can only redirect once, he's stopped cold. You've pulled him forward a few inches inches out of line, and the unit can be ganged up upon by chariots, elite infantry, etc.
Against a gunline, the Reavers can just run-pell mell for the enemy missile troops and attempt to tie them up. If you've got 2 units of Reavers (or more, for your Mongolian list), a unit of Shadow Warriors, and several eagles, you should still have enough for a solid infantry line as well, especially if you're using Spearelves as your Core Choice.
I'll stop there, as I think I've worn out my keyboard, but hopefully that will keep the topic going, or at the very least, cause a huge wave of argument and backlash that we can all bicker about.