Swordsmen vs. Nihilators, part 3, Command and Occupation

This is the third installment in my comparison of Praetorian Swordsmen and Nihilators.  The first two are part 1, Math and Tough, and part 2, A Game of Inches.  Part 1 (which was updated recently) looks at Tough as an advantage for an attrition unit.  Part 2 looks at the benefits of Reach (for the Nihilators) and Side Step (for the Swordsmen).

Where A Game of Inches looked at the engagement potential of a single Praetorian Swordsman or Nihilator, this installment will look at the engagement potential of the units.  The biggest factor determining a units potential to occupy or engage a large swathe of the table is its leader's Command score.  Models can only receive orders, take actions, and make attacks when they are in their leaders' Cmd range.  Praetorian Swordsmen have an elite Cmd of 9, and the Officer in the UA has a Cmd of 10.  Nihilators are fairly uninterested in stuff like discipline, and have a Cmd of 7.

In terms of occupying table space, the swordsmen have a 10" radius in which to place models, while the Nihilators have only a 7" radius.  This is a very significant difference.*  When I'm trying to engage specific targets or block specific lines of sight, I need to be able to place my models in fairly specific positions.  I almost never worry about being outside of Cmd 10 when I play Swordsmen, but I do often worry about being outside of Cmd 7 when I play Nihilators.

When the Nihilator leader can be relatively centered, Nihilators partially make up for their lack of Cmd with Reach.**  In my last installment, I mainly talked about the threat range and occupation area of a single Nihilator.  In terms of the whole unit, the Reach advantage lets Nihilators engage a roughly 10" radius at maximum (accounting very roughly for both the base width of the individual Nihilators and their weapons' 2" Reach).  With Cmd 10, Swordsmen occupy a rough maximum radius of 11.5 inches.  That 1.5 extra inches is still a significant advantage over the Nihilators (just as the Nihilators 1.5 extra inches of threat range is a significant advantage over the Swordsmen), but it's nowhere near as large a gap as 3" would be.  With Reach, Nihilators go a long way toward making up the difference between their Cmd and that of the Swordsmen.

Often, however, a unit's leader won't be at the exact center of a unit, letting it spread out to its full potential.  He's much more likely to be doing something useful himself - engaging the enemy, making attacks, or occupying a specific location.  The Swordsmen Officer, due to his high Cmd, has a lot more freedom to position itself usefully than the Nihilator leader.  Of course, the Nihilator leader is no different, stat-wise, from the rest of his unit, so there's no real reason to keep him away from a center position if the Nihilators are in one cluster or line.  Frequently, however, I want my infantry to be in two places at once: attacking one thing, and screening another.  The leader usually ends up either making attacks or occupying space, so it has to be with one group or the other. Swordsmen are better at dividing their attention like this than Nihilators when I need them to.

These situations are fairly common, and are where the 3" difference in Cmd range matters the most offensively.  Often, the Swordsmen Officer will have plenty of range to be useful, and the Swordsmen themselves will engage the enemy, make their attacks, and maybe even have space to do some Side-Stepping into good positions.  Nihilators might engage most of the same models, but won't be able to take full advantage of their signature offensive ability, Berserk.  There's a big difference offensively between a Nihilator attacking one or two models near the edge of its melee range, and getting into a group of 3 or 4 models while threatening more space behind them.

Overall, Praetorian Swordsmen can engage a wider total area as a unit than Nihilators can.  Although Nihilators partially make up for the sheer area covered with Reach, they're less able to divide their attention between two or more objectives.  Swordsmen are more flexible; they can perform both offensive and defensive roles at the same time much more easily thanks to their higher Cmd.

In my next installment, I'll talk about both units and their offensive potential.

*Cmd 10 actually gives just under twice the area to place bases in (around 121*pi square inches as opposed to around 64*pi square inches) once model's bases are factored in.  I'm usually more worried about the front line of models than I am about any kind of depth, though, so I feel like radius from the unit leader is usually the best way to measure the impact of Cmd.  It's also less abstract to think about a linear distance, which, when you're trying to think quickly about a tactical problem, is pretty helpful.

**It's worth mentioning that there are a bunch of ways in the game to avoid free strikes, like Ghostsly (which I'm most familiar with), and Parry.  When dealing with immunity to Free Strikes, the extra engagement range from Reach doesn't count for much, but the extra Cmd range to place interposing bodies that the Swordsmen have can be critical.