So I just bought a box of Goblins; what would you guys upgrade them with?

Also Nasty Skulkers; are they worth it? What are the odds that they actually killing blow something? I don't know statistics, so I'm guessing somewhere between 11-18% chance that they'll do it. To me that's not worth the costs of an entire group of goblins and 30 points in the skulkers. What do you guys think?

Skulkers have a much more important task than KB, which is to make sure uba killing units don't kill enough goblins to remove the steadfast.

When you are forced to kill 3 Skulkers and say a champ instead of a gazillion gobboes, your expensive unit may get that nasty flank attack or is unable to support the rest of your army because you are locked in combat.

Killing Blow is just a bonus. :)

The odds are actually much better than that. Each skulker has 3 attacks so if you can get all of them in b2b contact with the same character you get 9 attacks of which at least 4.5 should hit, more if they have low initiative. so you get at least 4.5 attempts at rolling that 6, not too bad. If you are going to use them for character hunting I would put them in a small unit with no command otherwise you will not get them all in B2B contact with your target.

As Shadowlord said, the best point of the skulkers is not to kill things with killing blow (something that happends sometimes though :D), is to deny CR points to the enemy. With 3 skulkers, unit champion and a goblin big boss, the nastiest unit you can imagine in the game only can deal 6 wounds! Be careful with opponents with different I.

No, 4,5 wont hit. 3 will hit. Goblins are WS2, and basically the only other character out there with WS4 is another Goblin.

Skulkers are, as has been mentioned, best used to deny opponents CR by forcing them to allocate attacks (since the Skulkers are characters, you can't just hit RnF).

I use Skulkers as part of my character bunker, which includes my General, BSB and lv4 wizard/lv2 wizard. This way I can keep my BSB/Lv4 shaman in the second rank as combat begins since the frontrank will be General, lowly lv2 wizard, full command. Use the skulkers to take the place of the champion when he dies so your BSB don't have to jump in to front rank (or your lv4).

I do this because my Goblin BSB has standard of discipline and can't survive in a fight.



Skulkers are also great if you are just looking to have a goblin core unit on a flank somewhere. They will beat most small chaff units of the opponents and deny CR in the process, probably! Neato! They can also beat small units of course, but they are very vulnerable to LD tests caused by whatever.

But you can introduce a goblin warboss with a wonderful Ld8!

I had a question for Cust. Support in US and I asked a question about Skulkers early on. I don't recall the answer that I didn't like and asked "What the heck are they used for, then?". The response I got was to add them to Hordes as extra attacks to grind down the enemy. Never used it that way, but seems a cheap character might be better.

Part of the problem with Skulkers is placement. You can have a max of 3 command and then 2 other spots up front. If you have characters, they have to stay there. When combat comes, you have to replace regular rank and file not in the front rank. You can then MAKE WAY to the front and displace the command group. You CANNOT displace a character in the front, including a wizard. Characters have to stay.

I say it's worth it to take a champ and displace him for the first round as that's the round you get the ASF.

Well, yeah. Mainly because when the skulker dies, the goblin champ is likely to be able to pop out to do his attacks aswell, see what I mean?

You uh... called Warhammer customer support for tactical advice did you? :P

Heh....not exactly.....

I asked a rules question and then snipped "what good are they, then?". I got that answer.

Back to one of my questions, what should I upgrade the regular goblins with?

Small front - shield/handweapon

Long front/big unit - shield/shortbow

hand weapon, shield and shortbow.

consider the command crew, but for the points are you getting enough benefit? i've begun dropping mine. that amount of points is almost a troll/spear chukka or ten more night goblins.

nasty skulkers are good for all the above, and i also just like them for the ASF, especially if they survive to a second round - they're annoying and they stab in da hurty bits

I ALWAYS take a musician, at least...in every unit that can. I have primarily done it to help with the rally test. We do run away a lot. I have been surprised, though, at the number of combats I've won due to the fact that the enemy doesn't have a musician!!! Also, you can't swift reform without one.

I usually go for a banner, too, as our Gobbos need as much CR as they can get. I don't go with a champ, especially if I want to put Skulkers in.

For some reason my Goblins didn't come with hand weapons. Are spears a definate nono?

I would say they are - they cost more for something that's not really a benefit.

Spears are fine, the difference is not that big.

you can get hand weapons from skaven or empire plastic sets. pick some up on ebay for a few $ and convert them (weapon swap). also a clan rat's arm could pass as a goblins arm.