Fanatics can be great if your opponent has loads of them - 2 or 3 are a nuisance - 12 - 15 are a royal pain in the butt and means he is going to just sit back for 2 - 3 turns whilst they spin around, then you will struggle to get many points as he will have large block of mostly unit night goblins. I have seen this sort of army lsit a few times backed up with a doom diver / bolt throwers a giant or two and being lead by skarsnik and hit can be fairlydeadly although it comes unstuck very quickly against certain armies such as VC or tomb kings
Generally, I deal with fanatics with blunderbusses, or hobgoblin archers. If there are enough of them on the board, or if I really need them out of the way, then there is always a magic missile.
The other thing is Fanatics can just as easily backfire and lose the game for your opponent. In one game I was starting to lose, but his fanatics killed his giant and panickd an Orc unit… turning the tide in my favor.
Swiss - i always think that taking fanatics and having expensive units of your own anywhere near them = dumb play.
They work best if you take loads of them and have an army of cheap huge NG units. It almost becomes a fanatics score the points and the rest of the army is a vp denial machine as none of the units are worth anything. Very annoying to play and not much fun at all
I have also had my opponents fanatics ruin his game. They came out and stalled in front of his battle line. He did not want to have them tear-up his units so his whole battle line spent two turns waiting for them to disperse. You better believe that bolt throwers enjoyed that delay.
For giant I completely agree with Ubertechie, bolt throwers. As a large target the +1 to hit never hurts.
I have never played an opponent with that 12+ fanatics. That is a lot of points (12 fanatics is 300 points). I find the nets more of an issue then the fanatics.
The most I ever see seems to be six. Either 3 to 2 units or 2 to 3 units. I have seen 8 (2 to 4 units). As DeathFromAbove said to me at a recent tournament: They quickly make a night gobbo unit expensive with the other things you give them.
If I were ever to take up the Greenskins again I’d have one fanatic per unit (still a threat, and my opponents will be cautious as they will know I take them)… but I’d take Nets. Netters seem very fluffy, and far less dangerous. Plus they almost always (in the 5/6 times they snare the opponent) help the Night Gobbos a lot.
hmmm, fannatics, well, here’s my way to deal with them.
1)Throw one throw away unit near the night gobbo units to draw them all out. that unit will probably be dead, so yeah. the rest of your army stays back
2) laugh as your opponent is now at the nercy of thier own fannatics and needs to risk thier units to get to you
3) pound with arttilary whilst laughing some more…
thanks for all the replies and i just have one more question. i dont have the greenskin rulbook but my friend says that it does not have to go towards the unit that comes within 8, it just says that the goblins push the fanatics out of the unit.
poisoned attacks seems like a great wway to take out giant
Yes this is true they can go in any direction and you measure from the nearest point of the unit to that direction ( even backwards if the night goblin player wants) the only stipulation we play ( and not 100% sure rules inforce this) is that all directions for all fanatics In a unit must be declared before any distance rolls are made