# Night Gobbo unit size



## Llamafish (Mar 3, 2009)

Working out a new army and having a models count up

currently i have

two 40+ models units of gobo spearmen

one 45 model unit of night gob bowman

one 20 model unit of night gob bowman

and a share command unit..

would i be better having more smaller bowman units? ie three 20+ bowman unit. 

My thinking is that more units which can help in outflanking moves, and gobo are meant to be "tiring up" units while my black orc can get dug into a units flanks


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Not really sure, depends on how you use them. I use my own gnoblar units in units of 10*2. Means that 10 can shoot or all 20 if either me or the opponent are on a hill. I normally have them covering a flank (fending off fast cav or skirmisher units) or just blocking LOS to protect my other units getting shot/magicked.

If your running gobbos to help flank enemy units or just to delay them then I would say scrub the bows, make sure you have shields and are nice and deep (so that you can have +3 rank bonus even after a few casualities have been taken).


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

I can't think of any reason for taking 65 NG bows in one army personally, I think it is far too many of them unfortunately. I would tend to take them in units of 20 (10x2) so that you have enough models to last past turn 2 and have 10 shots a turn without taking up too much frontage. I wouldn't take them in unit larger than this as any more frontage is really going to start dominating your deployment area, plus in a unit of 40 (10x4) you only get any use out of the first rank or two (if on a hill or against a large target, etc) so the other 20 models are just a points sink.

Feel free to do the maths to check yourself and see what you think of them. They almost always hit on a 5+ (or worse) as their range is only 16". So out of 10 shots you should average 3.33 (recurring) hits, then against most base troops wound on 4+ gives 1.66 (recurring) wounds on average. So against a 5+ save you may as well call that an average of 1 wound taken from 10 shots. That isn't to say they wont sometimes do much better, but they can't be relied upon to do well, particularly with 65 of them.

What you might consider doing is converting some to count as hand weapon and shield since these are widely regarded to be the most effective NG units for the points. It wouldn't be too difficult if you don't mind the pose and arrow quiver, just use spare shields (or make something out of plasticard or a bit of wood or something) and find any old spiky thing for a hand weapon. Feel free to disregard my advice if you particularly like NG bows of course. I could see you fielding two units of 10x2 if you wanted to, but I think adding 25 more would just be handicapping yourself unnecessarily.


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## Llamafish (Mar 3, 2009)

ah yes, this gobos are all from old and new game sets, so trying to reduce cost [££] of buying units, also converting them would give me something new to do without buying new models... 

so 20 is the max that you would deploy, to be honest i not think gobo shooting has any merit to it, just leave that to lobber and diver!!

ok next questions i have 4 shaman, one savage orc (hexagon base era none the less) and three goblin, in a 2000 + point game
how would you use them, thinking of using a magic heavy gobo army.... as bowmen suck!!


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

I wouldn't bring large units f bows either. I would split into as many small units as possible. Gobos have a bad tendancy to squabble or panic so you can minimize the effect by not putting them all in one unit.


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## Bolshavic (Dec 8, 2008)

Personally I field my night gobbos bow men in units of 20. 10 gobbos wide to use as a screenining units to my melee troops. The more night gobbo units the more spinning death of fun you can field, once these are released reform to standard 5 x 4 blocks to recieve charge then stand and shoot, though unlikely to last more than a couple of rounds of combat they do give you time to manovre an can tip the balance by helping with the out numbering bonus.


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