I'm trying to shave off some points on my list and was wondering if it is worth it to take out my musicians in both of my two saurus units. Let me know if it is wise.
If you are really tight for points, thats the first thing I would ditch. Consider any units that could afford to lose a model though. For example, if you have 20 models and a character for the unit, drop a model and you will still have an even 20 models when the character is added. If you have a unit of 20, maybe you could drop it to 18 and go 6x3. Its all about squeezing the points out and optimizing.
In a 1000 points battle a few weeks ago, I was twice thankful that I had bought a Musician for my Saurus. IMO, it's one of those things that you may not always need, but you'll be glad to have on the occasions where it comes in to effect.
I never take musicians in Saurus units. Here are my justifications: Saurus need no help rallying. LD8 on 3 dice is plenty. If the enemy has a musician yours will do nothing. If the combat is drawn you take a test at LD7 on 3 dice. Boo ho. If the enemy causes fear and outnumbers you, well you're obviously in trouble. However, how many fear causing units are there that can afford to outnumber saurus but still draw combat with them? Drawn combats are very rare. By my calculations, 2 units of Saurus Spearmen of frontage 5 engaged in combat have roughly a 17% chance of drawing combat (I was assuming that the 2 units were striking at the same time, which is impossible, but the statistic is still useful). If the enemy does not have a musician and you manage to draw the enemy then gets to take (read: pass) a leadership test. Yippy. Either that or he loses 1 model to crumbling
I never used to leave home without musicians in my saurus blocks. For their price I find them invaluable.
Personally, I'd say it's worth the cost. Since 6 points is just barely over half the cost of another Saurus.