Wanderer Unit Questions

[acovarru91]

Hello! I'm collecting some Wanderer units and have questions in regards to what unit size works best for certain models and what is worthwhile. 

Eternal Guard: Are these worth to run in larger units? Are these best run in 10, 20, or 30? 

Wildwood Rangers: Are these worth using at all? I can make 10 of these instead of more Eternal Guard, but unsure if they're worth it at 10 or only more useful on larger unit sizes.

Sisters of the Thorn: These seem best run in 5s, i don't see a reason to have them run in larger sizes. 

Wild Riders: Are these worth running now? I see some conflicting advice on whether they're good or not and they cost the same points and money.

Sisters of the Watch: these are expensive both money and points wise so I'm not sure if they're worth it. Any advice on how good these are at all would be helpful.

[Doko]

Eternal guard are better as units of 10 if you gonna let them sit in a objetive and better as 20\30 if you want figth with them

Wildwood rangers are useless,the worst elite unit of all aos,every other elite unit cost the same or less,have same damage or better and have better save, dont use them and build them as eternal guard

Sister of the thorn are overcosted as mage,and have too much low damage to be used as damage unit so usually they are ****** because you are better bringing a 80 points mage if you want magic or wildriders(or any other cos cavalry) if you want damage

Sisters of the watch are one of the best shooting units of citys of sigmar.

Wildriders are great and our best dps cavalry,are cheap and have great damage but bad save(glasscanon)

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Doko

[Aloth_Corfiser]

Are you planning to use the Units in Cities of Sigmar or play with the Old Wanderer Allegiance Abilities from the GHB 2018 and GHB 2019?
As a player whos experience it is to collect some of the worst Units in the Game ,I will try to give my spoiled advice (take it with a load of salt though)

I tend to agree with Doko about the Wildwood Rangers and the Sisters of the Thorn, nevertheless I use both of them in my Living City force. 

My bold claim would also be that Wanderers, out of all the Factions, are most susceptible to Bravery losses. Just because of rather expensive Units, a low save and High Numbers.

The Sisters have the problem that they have no damage output whatsoever and no casting buffs,  in my games they often fail to cast and I use them to annoy my opponent a little bit and grab objectives or try to unbind spells. Their signature Spell is also quite weak - the Old Shield of Thorn Spell (in the GHB Allegiances) was better in my opinion. So yes they are best used in Units of 5.

Wildwood Rangers can be good against monsters and are a threat to them - they have chopped down Arkhan or a Gothizzar Harvester to 1 or 2 Wounds for me. Problem is: they dont survive the retaliation. Even Freeguild Greatswords have strictily speaking better buffs and abilities. The WWR are so niche and situational that most would never use them. I roll with my 3 Units of 10 and the CoS Battalion: A Nomad Princce with Spear of the Hunt who strikes first then followed by buffed WWR out of the Hidden Paths can have some impact. But as always with Aelves Show and Glory are more important.  

There is also the real risk if you want to ambush with them and have no Hero nearby to reroll Charges - the WWR are just sitting there waiting to be shot or charged by some counter Unit.

Sisters of the Watch can of course gain crazy amount of Attacks when standing still. Again Living City or Tempest Eye seem well suited. You can ambush them in or run them into position.

If you like the concept: you could always team up Eternal Guard and Sisters of the Watch - since the Sisters will get their Overwatch in a 3" Radius you could place them behind the Guard.

In my opinion Sisters of the Watch are totally worth it - I use Units of 20 to Ambush sometimes but rarely - smart opponents will Block of the Ambush opprotunities with chaff and all your potetantial shots are wasted. But it is fun to have multiple Units of 10 in reserve in a Living City Army. Those small reserves have won me some games and I am always proud of them. 🥰  

Edited December 29, 2020 by Aloth_Corfiser

[acovarru91]

I am for sure doing Cities of Sigmar in Living City!  I have a mixed force of Freeguild, Wanderers, and Sylvaneth.

The way i looked at Sisters of the Thorn is a 20 point upgrade to a Battlemage and they look super cool.

I have another box of Sisters that i will assemble as Wild Riders.

I'll be making a block of 30 Eternal Guard for my Battleline. Sounds like I'll be staying far away from Wildwood Rangers. Maybe ill use their draich bits on some Freeguild bodies to make cool Freeguild Greatswords conversion. 

I'll have to keep an eye out for Sisters of the Watch and try to get a decent deal on them. I did want to use them but they aren't the easiest to find or collect. 

 

[Aelfric]

34 minutes ago, acovarru91 said:

I'll have to keep an eye out for Sisters of the Watch and try to get a decent deal on them. I did want to use them but they aren't the easiest to find or collect. 

Sisters of the Watch are the alternative build for Shadow Warriors, which are on the front of the box.  They are still available from GW.

[Popisdead]

Eternal Guard are good as 20 if you want them to be a threat.  10 if you want them to support or not main-line hold an objective all game.  Currently I'm looking at Tempest Eye and LC where a NP isn't the general so I'm going to take them as 10-man and 3 units.  That solves my BL issue.  30 large might work better in Temptest Eye than LC.  

Wildwood Rangers are good, and in the meta of Behemat becoming more prevalent are good.  10 can take out a Ghorgon in one go.  Sure you don't see a lot but as clean up they work nicely.  They've been super niche but the stand out points of them is 2" reach (if you wanted them to be 3,4,3 for ranks) or taking larger units.  They -1 rend is good and they 3+/3+ is good.  When you sneak a few of those hits through saves vs a Monster getting that much damage is nice.  But they are really not going to stand up to a sneeze.    I would say that people dismiss them mostly on lack of use more than experience.  I've had great success with them when I used them but I was more reserved with them and they cleaned up well.  

Sisters of the Thorn are a mage until they are down to 1 model and we have the ability to cast Empowered healing endless spell.  They are fragile, not great attacks and were popular as BL in the mage city,.. hallowheart?  I dunno I only play LC and TE.  They can scoot up the flank and cast Purple Sun.  Personally I wouldn't go out of my way to take them before other choices but they aren't terrible.  

SotW are amazing and scale REALLY well particularly in LC where you deploy half your army in reserve.  Just popping on and deleting things is so decimating to your opponent.  

Wildriders are like mobile Rangers and I love them as clean up as well.  Plus their reach is 2" so you can run 10, put the first 5 sideways and have a second rank attack as well.  Tricky to buff though.  I've had a friend joke I should just take 20-30 and vs his Anvil guard they performed well.

Basically on the whole Wanderers aren't bad, for any unit but some aren't good or great or at least limited in uses.  the NP himself is really good and as the general supporting a unit holds his own.

 

On 12/29/2020 at 8:32 AM, acovarru91 said:

The way i looked at Sisters of the Thorn is a 20 point upgrade to a Battlemage and they look super cool.

I have another box of Sisters that i will assemble as Wild Riders.

I'll be making a block of 30 Eternal Guard for my Battleline. Sounds like I'll be staying far away from Wildwood Rangers. Maybe ill use their draich bits on some Freeguild bodies to make cool Freeguild Greatswords conversion. 

I'll have to keep an eye out for Sisters of the Watch and try to get a decent deal on them. I did want to use them but they aren't the easiest to find or collect. 

 

Keep in mind Battle Mages aren't that great for their points.  Consider a Sorceress and 10 dark elf chumps to stab (and heal?) who drastically out shadows a solo BM.  It also gets you another BL unit.  However you touched on the #1 thing which is rule of cool.  If Sisters of the Thorn appeal to you, you can make them work.  People usually respond with sweeping comments of doom regarding units.  This is amazing or this is bad.  Sisters of the Thorn heal a wound a turn.  if your opponent leaves your unit on 3, (5 or 7) wounds it heals up.  A battle mage cannot take 7 wounds and come back as a 4W caster next turn.  

If you have Glade Guard or friends getting rid of them, consider getting good with green stuff to sculpt flaming bows on them.  I scrounged SotW bows from friend who made Shadow Warriors and I have a good 70-90 SotW now.  unless your area is strict you could probably just counts-as GG as SotW if you ended up with them.  

[Zeblasky]

I will agree with mostly everything here (aka Eternal Guard very solid, Wildwood Rangers questionable-situational, Wild Riders okay, Sisters of the Watch amazing), but I will deifinetly reinforce the point about Sisters of the Thorn.

Sure their damage and tankiness are quite mediocre for their points. IF you do not consider that they are Wizards.  Comparing them to the cheapest wizard we have (Sorceress) for 40 points more you get:

No optional +2 to cast

+ 1 to save

+ 5 wounds

+ 4 models on wide bases (useful both for objectives and wide formation screening)

+ 6 move

A ranged and melee profile that can actually do some damage instead of Sorceress that is pretty much a zero in combat.

 

Sure they are not a must pick, but they are very solid. They can cast, fight-harrass, screen and cap objectives, while not dying to anything that looks at them funny (only to most things instead). Their casting is pretty basic, but even if you fail it or your opponent has too strong anti magic potencial, you are still left with a fast and okay combat unit.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Zeblasky