Yea so I was wondering if it where a viable tactic to include decoy units of 20-man night goblins to control deployment.

For example:
You have 5 regiments of 20 strong night goblins, but only 2 include fanatics. You deploy one of the none-fanatic units to one side and the two others in the center, forcing your opponent to place his army on the other side where you deploy the two units with fanatics in them.

This way you can completely control deployment and still get two units worth of fanatics ripping up the opponent's battle line while the decoy units give a bit of bow- support and otherwise mind their own business.

What do you think? Would it work? Is it viable? Would it be cost-efficient or just something fun to play?

The hard bit with that there are often plenty of chaff units whose primary purpose in life is to divert units and draw out fanatics. You run the risk of having 6 fanatics whirling 3-10" away from your battleline, and directlyin your own path of advance.

I usually only run 2-3 fanatics in my entire army these days, with only 2 units of gobbos. Still keeps them guessing, and doesn't risk my advance :)

RoV

Definitely viable. 20 NGs with a musician is just 70 points, you can afford to put that on a flank.

Keeping your opponent guessing where the Fanatics are is always good fun too.

When I run fanatics I like to put them in my bunker. The unit is now too far back to be baited out by chaff, it can be used to defend your bunker if needed, and then when you want you can move up and send the fanatics through your lines and into the enemy.

Having lots of units and making your opponent guess which unit the fanatic is in can be a fun game to play but can also lead to him making you prove how it is set which unit actually has them.

That's easy, I have a bunch of cards that I place at the back of my units (face down) to reveal how many fanatics are in each unit (obviously I decide at the beginning of the game) I call it Madcap Hold Em

Nice :)

Well then with a set up like that I see no problem with the plan in general.

Some things to look out for is that units on the flanks tend to be out of the general's LD bubble so the opponent will try to kill 5 models and make them take a LD 5 test, knowing if they fail the fanatics die.

Then again if they are focusing on the little NG units then they aren't focusing on your main force ;)

Heh heh, good one.

I often field 2 of the above mentioned units of 20 NGs, one on each flank, and only one equipped with 2 Fanatics. The NGs have Short Bows, so they can annoy the enemy and hurt chaff.

The 2 units are actually really useful, and often surprise me, when flanking or shooting things. Well, I dont expect much of them, so any hurt they give is positive.

And the Fanatics do their stuff.

if you want to play extra dirty, make sure you have 5x3 fanatics with you and make sure your opponent sees them before the games starts ;)

Haha, now that's what i call mind games :D

The typical "oh no I'm no tusing them, they were just in my carry case" tactic ey?

That's why I always run ,ultiples of 4 +1. So instead of 20, I run 21. For 3 more points they have to kill 6, not 5, to make them test. Just a tad bit more durable, maybe forces them to devote a tad more missile fire to deal with them. Not bad for 3 points.

RoV

I think that's some 3 points very well spent, especially since that NightGoblin unit will often be far from the leadership bubble.

21? Good thinking.

21 is also good if you'd like to go 7 wide for some shooting! :)