In 8th edition, I was a big fan of the Great Stag, I think partially because I’m Irish and we literally used to have the enormous elk walking around on our island (albeit 15,000 years ago).
Seeing the Stag back in our army roster made me want to think of ways to build characters for a really hard hitting and fun unit to play with. With all the various rules about characters joining units, I was a bit worried about not being able to make anything work, especially because the Stag is on a 50×50 base, and Wild Riders are on 30×60. However, Monstrous Cavalry units can join cavalry or infantry no problem, just not the other way around. However, there’s also a rule that says you can’t have more characters in the fighting rank than you have rank and file troops, so this was another restriction to work into my thinking. In the end, I’ve settled on a unit of 9 Wild Riders, in 3×3, with two Stag Riders, one on either side. This seems like it will work well enough, as it’s only 190mm frontage, which isn’t too bad in terms of being able to fit into places, and it meets the requirement to have the command group in front, while also only having 2 models out of 5 being characters. It’s also likely that both characters will get to attack the enemy, as the Wild Riders themselves are only 90mm wide – most units are at least 120mm wide when in Combat Order. It means not getting any rank bonus, but the highest bonus I could get is +1, so that’s not a huge deal.
Here’s a visual to get an idea of unit sizes. The dashed square is 12″ per side.
Building the Stag
The Great Stag is pretty cheap at +50pts, it gets two attacks, plus an impact hit and a stomp, all at S5, and everything but the Stomp gets AP -1 and Armour Bane (1). It also grants the rider +1 T and +1 W, which is a nice bonus for our T3 Elves. Finally, and critically, it has Armoured Hide (2) which means that your Armour Save goes up by 2. This is one of the few ways we can get a 2+ Armour Save in the army, starting with Light Armour and Shield, and using magic items to get the final +1. There are several choices for that last +1:
- Armour of Destiny: 70 points, but swaps out the Light Armour for heavy, AND grants a 4++ ward save. Glade Lord only, obviously.
- Bedazzling Helm: 60 points, gives a +1 Armour Save and puts opponents at -1 to hit the wearer. Still Glade Lord only.
- Helm of the Hunt: 50 points (so can go on a Glade Captain), gives +1 Armour Save, as well as +1 A and +1 WS on the charge.
Not a fan of the Bedazzling Helm, just given how expensive it is. So that leaves me with the other two as choices. I’d also rather be able to take two Glade Captains and save the points, but that would mean only have a 3+ AS 🙁
But before we get into building the characters, I have to decide if one of them is the BSB or not. Wild Riders can take a magic banner already, but taking the BSB gives me at least +1 combat res, and potentially more depending on the banners I take. I like the idea of the equivalent of 1 (or more!) free “wounds,” so I think I’ll put the BSB on one of the Stags and give him the War Banner. I could give him the slightly cheaper Banner of the Eternal Queen, but it requires being close to a forest, so for the extra 5 points, I think the War Banner is the sensible choice. So, what banner do I give the Wild Riders themselves? I think there are three options: Razor Banner (giving +2 Armour Bane to everyone), Banner of the Hunter King (now the unit can Vanguard, all the better for getting into combat ASAP) or the Wildwood Banner (making the unit cause Terror). There are pros and cons to each, but I think I’ll take the Hunter King banner, because I don’t want this unit being shot at a lot, I just want them to smash hard and they already have a good amount of AP built in. So, for 50 points, I get +2 combat res, and get re-rolls on my break tests. I’m hoping I never have to roll any of those! I’m not 100% sold on it yet, but let’s try it out …
In terms of build, what do I want this unit to do? It’s really for wrecking my opponents combat blocks, so I’m going to focus on trying to optimize for that. I’m mostly concerned about annoying blocks of high armour/toughness infantry blocks like Dwarfs and Warriors of Chaos. So, on the Lord then, let’s start with Armour of Destiny for that very sweet 2+/4++, and now I’m T4/W4. I only have 30 points left to spend on the remaining magic items. However, I’m also pretty happy to just give the Lord a Great Weapon to make him S6. He has Strike First, which will cancel out the Strike Last, putting him on flat I6, which goes to I9 on the charge. Only something else with Strike First will hit him first in that case. Looking around, there’s not much else worth taking for 30 points, so I’ll leave it at that. For the BSB, I’ll give her the Helm of the Hunt, and also a Great Weapon, and see how that goes.
OK, let’s roll some dice and see how we do!
Mathhammer
Assuming the unit gets to charge, I’m going to work out how well it hits against a unit of Warriors. Obviously we should expect the Stag Night to do well given that it has a lot more points in it. I’m assuming the Warriors have T4 and a 3+ Armour Save.
We get two Impact Hits at S5, which is 0.72 wounds. Then the Lord will hit with 4 attacks at WS7 S6, resulting in 1.47 wounds. Then the BSB will hit also with 4 attacks (+1 from the Helm), also at WS7 S6, so another 1.47 wounds. Then the Wild Riders will go, 10 attacks (1 each, +1 for the champ, +3 for Furious charge, +3 for Frenzy) at WS 5 and S5 with AP -2 AB (1), resulting in another 2.37 wounds. Then the mounts go, starting with Stags: 4 attacks at WS 4, S5, AP -1 AB (1) gives another 0.72 wounds, then the Steeds of Kurnous will add another 0.25 wounds. Before Stomps happen, we’ve done 7.72 wounds … this is significantly over 5, which is the normal width of a unit of infantry, so I feel pretty good that there will usually be no attacks back. Then the final two stomps happen, to get another 0.44 wounds on average. With a static combat res of +3, that’s averaging a 11 combat res (vs say 4 from the rank bonus, close order and a banner).
I think for this to be worthwhile, it would need to be able to justify the points versus just having a similar width of Wild Riders. So, a unit of 12 Wild Riders in 6×2, running with the War Banner would do an average of 5.0 wounds on the charge … much more likely to be attacked back and then lose a model.
Cost for 12 Wild Riders with the War Banner and FC: 382pts with shields
Cost for the Stag Night: 785!
It’s really hard to justify spending that much to get such a small incremental benefit, especially as the 2+ AS on the stags only counts for shooting, if I give the characters great weapons. If I only give them cavalry spears they do fewer wounds. I do think there’s a good build of a Lord as a solo rider, with the Helm of the Hunt, but I’m not 100% sure what it would be and it’s going to pale in comparison to the fighting power of putting the same Lord on a Dragon instead.
I think we will get some special rules in the Arcane Journal which will allow us to build a Wild Hunt-style list (probably with Orion, would be my guess), so this is kind of in preparation for that. Maybe we’ll get some more rules that will make this a bit more viable (e.g. maybe our characters will be able to take the
Hunting Spears that the Wild Riders have) but for now I think this one sits firmly in the category of “very cool, but not very competitive” camp 🙂
Have you used the Great Stag? If so, what was your build and how did it go? Let me know in the comments!
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