Banners

Lord of Winterfell · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:00 am

Does any one have an average ratio of Banners to troops?

I've got a 700 pt list with two banners and around 30 infantry.

1 banner per 15 men is about right? :roll:

They will fight in two blocks of 14 including captains and banners.

:boromir

JamesR · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:43 am

Personally I seldom ever take banners. They're typically not worth it IMO. The extra bodies are worth more

rigg1313 · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2014 12:18 pm

It depends who the banners are with, they're worth while with shieldwalls but other arrangements like bowmen/weak infantry/cavalry they're not as good.

Wan Shi Tong · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2014 2:27 pm

Yes you've got it right one per warband is a high a you need to go with banners. I don't think you'll need more coverage than that in a typical slug fest.

Lord of Winterfell · **Posted:** Sun Mar 09, 2014 3:06 pm

I thought as much...just wanted to get other people's views on the subject!

Thanks

SuicidalMarsbar · **Joined:** Sun Apr 24, 2011 1:14 am **Posts:** 1712

From a competetive standpoint banners are useless - I have not seen an army finish in the top 5 that features a banner. This excludes the kings champions heralds because the kings champion is great.

Gondorian Captain · **Joined:** Mon Aug 06, 2012 1:13 pm **Posts:** 267

From a competitive stand point banners are the most undervalued option in the game. No one uses them but they are very much worthwhile.

Infantry, cavalry, and hero hammer, they all can put a banner to good use.
Yes a banner is expensive and yes some people prefer to have the extra warriors. Its entirely up to your playstyle in which you prefer but banner's have never let me down.
Not doing overly great in the big league this year but I did finish in stockport in 2nd last year with two armies that each had banners

In most armies I would say that one banner is enough, you could probably go with two in games of 700+ but three is probably just overkill. I'd also say they're probably that touch too expensive under 250 but in 500 I always try and include one if I can.

Beowulf03809 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 10, 2014 3:00 pm

It really is a play-style option, but in nearly all cases I'll take extra troops or an upgraded Hero over a banner in SBG. I have found them useful in my forces of regular Orcs because the generic Captains are cheap and the troop counts can be pretty big even with the banner. Similarly for Haradrim infantry (cheap Captains and troops). Each of these though I'd still only do it when playing over 500pts. At 500 or less, or with a more expensive force (more troops > banner IMO), I doubt I'd ever add a banner.

But DANG they do make an army look good on the table.

Paboook · **Joined:** Sun Feb 05, 2012 8:41 pm **Posts:** 172

I guess it depends on the army.

I use one banner with my Lotr dwarf army, which obviously lacks spear support, and it works very nice. You just need to be careful with the banner and guard it well. And then there's the king's champion with two banner bearers, whom I consider just broken for his points :shock:

I have also painted one banner for my Harad force, but had not the opportunity to field it yet.

Lord Hurin · **Posted:** Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:11 am

I love the looks of banners on the battlefield, but I've personally never used one.

LordElrond · **Posted:** Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:12 am

You can only have 1 banner per hero in your army, right?

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:19 am

That was the old rule back in the rotk era. No such restrictions now. You could take an entire warband of banners if you really wanted to.

Coenus Scaldingus · **Joined:** Sat Aug 17, 2013 9:14 am **Posts:** 1121

That rule isn't likely to be important now anyway: back then, quite some armies were 1 hero and as many warriors as could fit in (until you reached the then-existing model limit), but these days you'll often haven at least 3 heroes in 500pts anyway - and I've yet to see an army with 3 or more banners at any normal level of points.

As for the inclusion in an army, it depends enormously on the force in all manner of ways: high Fight troops benefit more from a banner than low quality troops do, cavalry can fit less models in range than infantry, heroes can sometimes provide much better banner effects (Dark Marshal, Imrahil) and sometimes you end up with some 30 spare points, while at other times you can use those to get more elites, more M/W/F on your Nazgûl or other upgrades.

Would almost always take 1 (or more) with Dwarves, occasionally with Rohan and, even though they benefit a lot from one, rarely would include one in a High Elf list, as those points are often better spend on 2 more warriors, at least in smaller games.

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