Tactica: Centigors, My 1000th post celebration

Tactica: Centigors

Hey guys. Well seeing as this is my 1000th post, I’ve decided to give something back to you guys who have helped me to enjoy every minute I have been on here. So I decided to write a tactica about my second favourite unit, herds being my favourite. As you have probably gathered it is about Centigors. There has been a lot of talk ever since I have been here about whether centigors are worth it, and I am going to try to convince you they are.

Special Rules

Okay, let’s look at the Centigor special rules:

May use the hand weapon and shield bonus as if on foot – Okay, this rule is useful (though I rarely use it). It means that if you are charged (which you shouldn’t be) you can get a 4+ armour save. This makes you able to stand up to fast cavalry charges, especially when combined with trample.

Use the cavalry rule for spears – This means that we get the +1 strength on the charge, which is infinitely better than fight in two ranks (the vast majority of the time).

Drunken – Okay let’s clear this up. THIS RULE IS GOOD FOR US! Basically it gives us a 1 in 6 chance of getting 2 S5 Attacks and a S4 Attacks on the charge. Now it also gives us a 1 in 6 chance of testing for stupidity. Now, as you probably gathered, testing is the key word. With leadership 7 we have a 58% chance of passing. That isn’t too bad really considering it gives us only a 9.7% chance of failing each turn. So only once every two games pretty much. Also one of the BIG upshots is that while we are under the effect of either of these we are immune to psychology. Seeing as for some reason my centigors are the first things shot at by most of my opponents, we are immune to panic and can take another turn of fire without spreading panic.
Also an important point to remember is that if it is important to get a job done, send two Centigor units, and a herd if you are really paranoid, or it is really important (I usually use a minimum sized herd to support them).

Move through woods – Use this every chance you get. I go out of my way to put them behind / in forests because this rule is so good. Basically go in and make sure at least one model has line of sight. Then wait. That’s it, wait. Your enemy will get paranoid about their flanks, which they should be because a centigor unit will crush their flanks. Also it means that you are screened from most missile fire while in there. Just basically from here you can see anything that is worth charging most of the time. Honestly believe that most of the time I should use any nearby woods for my centigors, rather than my herds.

Trample – This rule just gives us another attack ALL THE TIME, not just when we charge for some reason. So if some fast cavalry charge us, we will most probably win (except empire pistoliers *shudders at the fusiliers rule*). It also means that charging with frenzy is really brutal, as I mentioned in the Drunken section.

Okay those are the special rules that matter. An important point to remember is that we CANNOT use two hand weapons. GW were being idiots when they wrote that part of the book, so anything we use do not count as two hand weapons.

Weapon Options

17 points will get you your basic centigor with spear, hand weapon and light armour. You have an option to get a shield for 2 points and throwing axes for 3 points. I suggest only getting the shields. Throwing weapons are just not that good (except in a few situations, such as sniping wizards out of units, which will be outside 8 inches most of the time). This means that you have spent 19 points to get a model that charges really well and can take a charge (due to the 4+ save) from light unit. However don’t overestimate them, they will die to ranked units or when charged by heavy cavalry (unless the cavalry whiff, or you role beyond brilliantly).

Command Options

Always, always, always get a musician. I cannot stress this enough without using flashy formatting such as a cool font and italics. Anyway, a musician is so important for all of our units because of our poor leadership.
Champions and standards really depend on the roles you want your centigors to play, which I shall now go to.

Tactical Uses

Okay this is where you have to make a tough choice. What should my unit do? There are three basic uses that I have seen for them:

Flankers / Fast Cavalry – This is what I used to use. Basically a unit of 5 or 6 with a musician, no standard or champion. This unit hides on the flanks in a forest (or wherever one is, centre is good too) and waits for the enemy to make a mistake, or at least divert an enemy unit. Then they either charge or flee at your discretion. They can also take fast cavalry on (As explained earlier). With toughness 4 you should be fine with whatever is dished out (usually S4). Also try to use them for baiting and switching (fleeing a charge and counter charging with a good unit like Minotaurs). Also wizard hunting (sacrificing yourself to kill a wizard) is a brilliant role of this unit as they are quick and can move through woods for free. Also they will probably get 4 attacks on the wizard.

Hammer Unit – A unit of 10 or 12 with full command. Charge into a ranked unit and fight your way through. That is it… I really don’t see how this could work. Most infantry will take the charge and lose by like one, then probably hold with the General nearby. I suppose you could use this as a cavalry hunting unit (and it would probably work well) except that you aren’t very manoeuvrable. If you have any positive experiences with this unit feel free to explain how you used it, and I will edit this.

Cavalry Hunting Unit – This is what I enjoy, and I don’t know anyone else who does it. Basically a unit of 6 with Full Command (The champion isn’t that important). Use them as flankers at the start (ie hide in forests and wait for an opportunity). Then eventually a heavy cavalry unit will show itself (as noone sees this coming). Charge it if it is armour save 2+ or worse without a ward (stupid Bretts…) and hasn’t got a rank (though errant knights are fine if there are 6 or less because they are WS 3). You should probably cause two wounds and maybe get one back (though with low strength (DON’T CHARGE CHAOS KNIGHTS) you might get none). This means that you have numbers, a standard and two wounds to their wound and standard. Your 140ish point unit has charged and beaten their more expensive one. Run them down and take their standard. Then you can turn around and join your ambushing units to support them. Chariots are a good target as well though their value isn’t as high.
People might argue that Minotaurs are more suited to this and I would agree with them, except that everyone sees it coming and Minotaurs probably won’t get the charge off with a 12 inch range.
Another beauty of this tactic is that it allows you to flank and crush infantry units as you can fulfil that role as well.
(If you wish to debate the usefulness of this feel free to post, always up for it, and maybe we can drag some statistics out…)

Place in the list

We are spoiled for special units in our list, but with beast only armies I would suggest 2 Minotaurs or big units and 2 Centigors. This will allow you to combat most threats and you can supplement with Core choices (A centigor and chariot charge will break most units or a herd in the front and centigors on the flank will do the same).
In mixed lists I would have 2 Minotaurs or hard hitting choices like Chaos Knights, a Flying unit like furies and a centigor unit. The furies can support the centigors when they aren’t killing war machines or wizard hunting.

I think that wraps it up, feel free to add your thoughts. I will keep updating it if there are any other relevant posts.

Thanks for the time guys and this is my present to you guys for my 1000th post.

PS could an admin add this to the tactical articles (Also my beast herd article isn’t WIP any more)

Now thats interesting, I wish I knew someone who took small units of knights that werent chaos knights to try this out on. All the knights I see are either brets, chaos knights or units of 8-10 high elves. Actually I think theres a lizardman player who uses saurus cav - theyd be a good target to try this out on - although I seem to remember there might be a scar vet in there too...hmmmm.

Yeah that could be a problem. Heros are a real pain for that tactic, as are large units bceause you need the Numbers bonus to tip the combat.

Personally, I always keep my centigors cheap and effective. 5 of them w/ a musician & sheilds comes in at 102 points. What I've found is that this unit can get their main job done well (flanking, taking down small units) and the enemy barely pays attention to them. BoC have so many hard hitters, between minotaurs, chariots, giants and character led herds (and your list will have atleast some of these) that the enemy will usually focus on them instead of your meagre 5 man unit.

Another thing to note is that sometimes you might want to use the sheilds when charging a flank. Especially when they are flanking an engaged enemy the extra staying power means you're more likely to keep your strength up enough to negate ranks. It isn't for every situation, but it does come up sometimes.

I am one of those people who has great success with centigors as a hammer unit in any of the armies i have used with them. Indeed my 2 looses was when i didn't use the centigors. (cause i didn't have the models at the time)\

I'll admit that they don't always win and are not as reliable as other units like dragon ogres but they are the only beast unit with a movement of 8 and can move through woods.

I would charge chaos knights with centigors as long as there wasn't a char or were chosen knights. (I've done it a few times even when one had a war banner)

My tactical use of centigors is throw them in a woods and then charge out of them against whereever the centigors would do the most damage or just match them up against things that they have a higher movement against (like chariots or most types of infantry) and control that side of the board.

Finally I am willing to wait a turn if there is no rush to charge and see if i'm lucky enough to get frenzy. When this happens to a centigor unit it CAN (if within charge range obviously) deal massive damage to just about any unit it meets.

Centigors really go well with a beast army that wants to make sure it can outmanouver any army that you meet (Maybe a all flying army or any elven army with lots of cav will have more mobility) because this is where i win all my battles. Even if i stuff up my deployment i can then make the required adjustments to it cause of the mobility beastmen have and exploit any weakness they have. A good example of this was when a played a undivided chaos army last week and saved his best units for last for his deployment. Just a simply resuffle of my army and i pulled of a 1900+pts victory.

I think that regardless of how big the unit of centigors is they still have to be played in almost the same way anyway.

glad to find some people who agree with me about centigors i was worried it was just me who liked centigors. i gotta say against smaller units of lightly armouredinfantry you can usually batter your way through with only 6 centigors with a champion. units of 15 elves is a prime example of a unit to use them on.
although in one case i managed to get 20 orc big uns with additional hand weapons to break in one turn. i managed to roll up frenzy and cut round the whole front rank plus a few more and they broke testing on ld 6 i ran them down on turn 2 he was devastated

in games of 500 and less, i have smashing success with my centigors. every time except one.

Now that is a story! LOL!

Yes it is great for me too to find people who realise that this underestimated unit is really good, and has a lot of potential. I think that it is a shame that they are overshadowed by minotaurs, Marauder horse (Which I believe have no hope vs Centigors), fliers and chaos knights.

They are such beautiful models as well.

Arach, thanks for this tactica it was a really good read.
These guys got me into BoC, but I still have a unpainted unit lying around. The plan is to start on this unit soon. They need to be re-based and I've got a couple of conversion idea's to make them a bit more special.

I must say I believe Maruader Horsemen to be a much better choice in game terms. Shame they dont fit in fluff wise.

Fast being fast cav that has the option of being st5 in 1st round of h2h, and can still have throwing axes (fast cav with these is very useful)
Okay - theyre not as tough - but they are cheaper.

AND they wont go mental on you when you least need it.

Good read although i do think that Minotaurs or even Chaos knights work better at taking out enemy cavalry (but as you said, they will see that coming).

centigor frenzy can be a good thing.

centigor frenzy is good in most cases as you either cant charge or you tend to obliterate whats in front of you.

stupidity is only a 1-6 chance and even then its only a leadership test so chances of going stupid are pretty low. and if you do just run a hound unit in front to divert charges away

Yeah I spend most of my time hoping for Frenzy. With 6 centigors and a standard I will be able to cut through most units.

Hey a question: Having 14 points spare in my 1000 point army which I have decided to spend on my 6 man(beast?) centigor unit should I upgrade to a champion or upgrade to a standard bearer. I already have a musician. Cheers, One-Eye