I have 18 Saurus Warriors with HWS, and I just got 16 more on the sprue and I have 16 more coming that are built with spears inc command that I got on ebay for a song. I am having a really hard time deciding what to do. I have read the arguments but want advice. Should I build them asd 30 HWs and 20 spears or vice versa. Thinking the spears would do better in a group of 30 as the have the extra row of attacks and feeding them in a 6wide 5 deep may work better but I am not sure and I have these fresh models to build and I am going nuts here...
It's up to you man. If you run with spears, take big units to maximise the advantage, and go in three ranks. That way, everyone is fighting, and you're also minimizing incoming cannonballs and bolt thrower damage. I don't like paying points to give up the free parry 6+ ward save in close-combat, so I run mine in 4x6 and just step up the inevitable casualties.
I'm with Taipan on this. I would rather have the parry save and the shield. If spears hadn't taken a hit in 8th edition, I would do spears. HW and shield are just better in my opinion.
Since you are asking about how to model your troops I will make some general points to clarify your options... As various people say, HW+Sh generally performs better on the battlefield than Spear+Sh but costs less. This means that in this edition with this army book you will currently be best fielding HW+Sh. How long have you been playing Warhammer? How long are you planning to keep playing WH and especially LM? There is likely to be a new book in 2 or 3 years and a new edition in 4 or 5. Either of these and especially the LM book are likely to affect the balance between spears and HW for Saurus. What will happen if you are still playing and spears get a big hike over HW? Alternatively, what happens if you want to sell your army on e-bay while HW are better than Spears? Final point, all previous versions of WH have allowed you to specify the majority type of model in a unit as the actual type of the whole unit. This allows you to have rear ranks of spear armed saurus in a HW+Sp unit. Or vice versa if you want to field a spear unit larger than the actual number of spear armed models that you have. Also most versions of WH allow you to use discontinued or obsolete models as an allowable proxy to current models. I often field my shortbow skinks as blowpipe skinks or sallie crew. Will your current opponents be happy with you fielding spear models in the back ranks of your HW+Sh units, if so then it may be worth building some models with spears to give you more variety in your painting, it the armies you could field and in the look of your units on the table. Or you could build them all with HW+Sh and worry about spears when the next edition comes out...
I completely feel your pain, as I'm struggling with the same question. I'm new to lizzies (new to the game, really), and I struggling with model building for skinks (jav vs bg for skimmishers) and warriors. This forum generally seems to say go with HW, whereas I've seen other forums that generally tend to be adament about the spears. Ultimately playtesting will probably determine how you want to play. If you can put them together except their right arm and play a few games with some friends, that may help you decide. Some tournys and people are strict WYSIWYG, so what I'm going to try to experiment with is to use 1/16x1/32 rare earth magnents on the arms, so that I can swap them out. Not sure if this is practical or not. At 15 cents a magnent (local retail price), for 45 cents I can have a swapable weapon. A little extra work with the drill, but less money and work then putting together and painting twice the models (unless I don't know what I'm getting into . Again, this is just my idea for what it's worth; I haven't tried it yet, but hope to in the next couple of days.
Actually, this is often performed a lot. Many people are getting even more creative with their models in magnetizing bodies on mounts, warmachine riders, different weapons on main Lords or Heroes. From what Ive heard, most are quite happy with the results though the prep time per model building takes longer, which those that have done this are ok with. If you decide to go this direction.. or anyone on this forum, please post work-in-process pics and finished results with commentary if possible so others can get a better idea on how this would work with thier models. - Lord Cedric
I magnetized the shield arm on my TG to make them easier to paint down the line. Fairly simple task, but time consuming. Make sure you have the right size drill bit for a tight fit. Make sure you don't drill the hole too deep so the magnet doesn't sit flat with the plastic, but at the same time it is better to have the magnet slightly under the surface rather than stiking out so make sure the hole is deep enough. Make sure you have put the magnets the correct way around so they will attract not repel. Lots of dry fitting in the process. But back on topic... Hand weapons are much better IMO, but the difference is not really overly significant so you aren't going to lose just by having spears instead. And as mentioned, you can almost bet next edition spears will be better again. I suggest assembling half and half with them and as BEEGFrog said, your opponents should have no problem with you fielding first 2 ranks of one type to represent the unit and the rest with the other type just as fillers.
Lord Cedric, Thanks for the feedback and that's definitely encouraging. I originally bought the magnets just for the bases (i use one size larger). I saw a lot of 40k players using them for guns on their vehicles, but didn't see any fantasy guys using them (of course, it seems we have way more 40k players at our local store). The stinks might be pushing it, since their arms are so small, but the saurus should work okay. After doing some more research, it definitely seems HW the more wide ranged approach (certainly can create some scenarios where the spears would be better), but as BEEGfrog pointing out, seems like things change from edition to edition so it would be nice to have. I'll definitely post some progress pictures.
I use Spears on my Saurus. You need to remember that you don't get the rank bonus if you charge. I'm going to switch to HW because the Saurus are really meant to be an anvil and the extra save is going to help imo. It also allows you to charge without worry.