I've been putting together an oldblood from a start collecting box and it got me thinking. Could we use it commands ability to cycle charge with for example Saurus Knights? When properly set up you should be able to keep moving the Knights in and out of the 3" requirement for charges, but I'm not sure if this'd count as retreating or not. It's the first use of its command ability that I can think of that's properly good. The movement it allows in most other situations isn't enough to really be all that interesting as flanking isn't that big a deal in AoS. Any thoughts?
As I understood it that works, but it probably doesn't work well because one of the models has to stay where it is. So you would have to keep one of your Knights out of 3" of the enemy at all times.
Not too tricky though, models have to be within 1" of each other, so you just put one model 1" behind the rest of the unit and the bases are already just over 2". Best if you charged at the edge of an enemy unit so there's not too much chance of that model being too close to the enemy unit after they've made their pile in attacks. Another use that I think would be effective for the Oldblood's ability is moving the units in such a way that they can get a lot of attacks on an enemy unit, but they can't get lots of models piled in to retaliate.
Cool, Imma try it then To be honest, given their relative size this shouldn't be too much of an issue. Doubly so if you go for larger units . It'd make 10-man squads more usuable as well seeing their base sizes currently make 10-man quite a pain to use. But now getting 8 or 8 of em to continuosly charge in and out should be fairly amazing. The remaining 2 are just there to rotate them for the cycle charge and as buffe wounds.
The idea would be to move the ones that are in combat out of the 3" range so they no longer count as in combat and thus can charge. Basicly you'd do te following. Say we have 5 Knights: Step 1) Charge 4 of em all the way in, keep the 5th 3" away Step 2) use the command ability to move the 4 that charged in back 3" Step 3) Repeat step 1 & 2 as necesary It's easier with a larger group though.
Hm you'd miss out on that 5ths attacks but whatever you charged would have a chance to get you before your next chance at reforming with the oldblood right? Seems like I'd rather just attempt to dish out another wound or two with the 5th knight
With five Knights one might really argue that it isn't worth it. But imagine a unit of 10 or 15 Knights. Chances are high that you won't get every one of them in range to strike anyway so you might just as well use it for that little trick.
It gets significantly better in a unit of 10 where you're unlikely to get the entire unit to actually reach the enemy anyway. And the greatest use would come from the fact that you can use it on multiple units of saurus Knights. 1 unit f 5 saurus Knights cycling probably won't gain you much. 3 units fo 5 saurus Knights will actually get you somewhere. 3 units of 10 cycling will definitly net you an extra couple mortal wounds per cycle. Especially since the oldblood also allows em to re-roll wound rolls.of 1.