8th Ed. How to form Saurus?

I have a block of 24 saurus and im putting an oldblood with them so how should i set them in battle?
Thank You.

 

Put oposite of nastiest enemy block and charge..?

 

ok but how should their rows and ranks be? 6X4; 5X5; or what else?

 

I'd put them in 5x5. I find their abilities to kill actually not that good. This is because their ability hit is quite low. Oldblood will handle the most damage output on them and then you might have more ranks and such with deeper formation.

BR
Agrem

 

ok thanks!

 

Depends on what you are facing. If it is 20 chaos warriors with halberds and frenzy you probably want them 5x5 to give you the best chance to be steadfast. If it is 40 clanrats and you can get 6 across all in combat you probably want that to do as much damage as possible and help reduce their chances at steadfast. Remember you can reform the unit in the middle of the game. You don't have to keep them 5 wide or 6 wide.

 

Very good points here I think. Especially the last one which you should keep in mind.

But then again +3 attacks or one more rank vs. 40 clanrats. I think you are still better off with more ranks than attacks because that way in my opinion you can break their steadfast earlier. Ofcourse I am talking about non buffed saurus here all the time so any magic augments/hexes on enemies might change the strategy.

If it is 20 chaos warriors with halbers and frenzy... well you don't really want to be there in any formation.

BR
Agrem

 

3 attacks hiting on 4+ wounding on 3+ with a modified AS of 6+ (human, elf, goblin and skaven infantry in other words) will result in 0,83 kills on average for the saurus. this means that they kill almost one enemy more every turn, and thus can grind down their foe quicker. this should be balanced against the fact that if they are deployed 6x4 (compared to 5x5) they will likely not have 3+ rank bonus for very long, and the fact that one extra rank can be important in the long run to deny steadfast.

it is a very tricky choice, and it is very hard to say what is correct. i use troops 6 wide because i want to be able to win the first round of combat decisively, but 5 wide is a very good option too. If you use temple guard or spear sauri, 6 wide should be much more efficient than 5 wide. same goes if you are fighting enemies with T4 or greater.