I was looking over some of the tournament lists posted for Black Legion games ; is it pretty much a given that any time it's possible to select a Forlorn Hope formation, then the BL player will almost certainly take one?

In other words, is the formation being used as a crutch (to increase activations) ?


In all my own BL games I've always taken them, enough that they might as well be a '1' choice, not '0-1'.

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Well they shouldn't be a 1 as sometimes you don't have enough points left

They are great for a number of reasons. Yes they are cheap but perhaps more importantly they are scouts which is an ability you otherwise lack and of course if you are a demon user they are great for unexpected attacks as the demons have the potential to really bulk out the unit, oh and of course when planetfalling they are a nice extra barrage.

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Maybe when that goes away, they won't be such a '1', I guess.

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There fine with the 1 per retinue limit IMO.

My question is whether the list would be fine without them from time to time, or rather, whether they should be such an essential part of the list, not whether the 0-1 limit is a good idea.

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Having played with the BL for some time now, I think that the list certainly needs *something* in their points bracket. I quite like them, they're a very flexible little formation.

The simple fact of the matter is (to me at least) that they are cheap In a Black Legion army at 3k, you can only fit 3 sub-200 point formations in (not counting a Cruiser, assuming you have 2 retinues), and that's only the case if you take your singular Raptor Cult as a small formation. In a game which (increasingly in my experience) is about a decent activation count they help the Black Legion compete, especially when you need to sink points into your Daemon pool.

Seeing the game relies on the Activation count in such a large aspect, they are without a doubt, a necessity. They have to be taken to keep the activation count competative.

In effect, this is the one area of the game that I would like to see changed; a reduction in the reliance on activations to win a battle.

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The main reasons I take them are
- boost activation count
- they are effective as an assault formation when given a pact
- the most succesful lists are nearly always the most balanced combined-arms lists. So a couple of WEs, a couple of ground holding formations, a couple of fast formations and a couple of scout formations. BL have only 1 scout option so therefore it gets taken a lot.

I doubt many other lists often feature less than a couple of scout formations. Certainly of the 6 different lists from 3 races I've taken to tourneys this year they have all featured as many if not more scouts than when I've taken BL
Full Scale Assault - Eldar - War Walkers, Rangers
Open War - Eldar - 2x Rangers
London - BL - Forlorn Hope
Wakefield - BL - Forlorn Hope
Open War - SM - 2x Scouts, Land Speeders
GT - BL - 2x Forlorn Hopes

As they are the only BL scout formation they are commonly used.

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Fair enough.

It just looked odd to me that every BL list out there takes their maximum allowance of Forlorn hope Formations.

If a Core:Support style was implemented as with the Red Corsairs, maybe it wouldn't look so odd as the same number would end up being taken, but they wouldn't be maxing out their slot.

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Red Corsairs Forlorn Hope (called Chosen there) is 6 units strong and more expensive. Should make it a non-compulsory choice.

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It does ; I never take the damn thing.  

Might wanna see about dropping it back to 4 units.

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Personally, I don't take a large number of Forlorn Hopes, certainly not the max.  As I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing at this point, I like to play Black Legion with an area denial strategy.  2-3 larger Retinues with things like Havocs and Noise Marines do that well.  I only take 1-2 Forlorn Hopes with Pacts to accent that area denial via Scout ability and the threat of a daemon assault.


I continue to disagree that activation count in the army list is uber-critical and that there are two more accurate qualifications on activation count:

1)  Local activation count - not total activations, but what you can bring to bear in the area of the board with the most critical action.

2)  Effective activation count - again, not total activations but the number you can expect to remain after action begins.  Also includes the ability to achieve something against enemy forces rather than just a token unit or two for objective grabs (though that's obviously important as well).

Total army list activations will contribute to both of those, but it's not the end-all-be-all by itself.  In my experience an army can generally hang if it has 2/3-3/4 of the enemy activation count, as long as those activations are sufficiently durable.

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Neal

I would agree with Neal on this point. In a recent game fielding Krieg vs. a real zippy SH Eldar list, the resiliance of my much fewer activations (by approx. 1/3rd if I am remembering correctly) while beating on the more numerous, but more fragile Eldar activations allowed me to pull the win.

Total activation count "can" be an indicator in well skilled hands, but I have also seen low activation Ork and IG armies weather the initial storm (or blow it off completely) and bludgeon their more numerous opponent.

Suffice to say that I don't think you can make a general statement about the correlation between activation count and ability to win.

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If you go lower than average on the activation count the formation has to be able to a) stand up to any an all attempts at breaking it and b) dish out enough fire-power to remove one activation per turn IMO.

Without these 2 abilities you just end up even further behind the activation curve and in real trouble.