Recently a round of arguments was raised among the "young ones" regarding people's reliance on Lords in 2000 pts games. Some people say it is essential while some say its nothing but a crutch. This was merely my opinion regarding the subject of why using a Lord choice.

SO WHY USE A LORD?

a) He's ability to open a can of whoop-ass on the enemy.

- Admittedly the hard rock models are characters and back in 5th ed. A lone chaos Exalted champion (without a dragon) could deal 8 attacks, kill6 and break a unit of spearmen. Alas the people in
development saw the light and dumbed down the characters to manageable levels that although they can still kick ass at least now need a supporting regiment to do the job.

Even if the character only kills 3 models, that's 3 models that don't strike back and can add significantly to combat resolution.

Someone once asked me how do I beat a Blood Dragon Lord in hand to hand combat. My answer is simple, I don't. I'm not going to waste my Orc Warboss on an insane mission like that. I'll throw snotlings at it and goblins. Pick your fights, that's the way to win.

b) To fit him with more expensive or more magic items.

- face it, though some of us give our lords magic items in combination to make him more of a threat in combat or in magic, sometimes we put a lord so that we can give him a magic item that's more than 50 points worth. [Axe of the Last Waggh, Acorns, Staffs of Tzeentch].

Though this is in itself not bad, the choice of magic items should be there to enhance the character. [magic items don't make a hero- they just make him more powerful :P ]

c) To have a Level 4 mage.

- You want a lord to make him level 4 [ ever seen a level 3 mage when the player can turn him to level 4?] so that you can dish out some pretty hefty magic right? This will probably include a hero list of
other magic casters.

- In my experience if you're a hand to hand army having all mages is not a good thing because you're going forward to the enemy. That means that your mages either hide at the back of the army where they can be picked off by flankers, shooting, flyers and magic or you put them in the unit where they get killed by the unit in front of you if your opponent is smart enough to allocate his attacks on the mage.

- Also with me kind of rolling a lot of ones magic is iffy for me as I tend to turn my shamans to frothing bouncing squigs everytime I miscast.

An all out pure magic army will work out for "shooty" armies - Empire and Elves [what you think I was going to include Dwarves in this list?]

However there is the case of when the enemy army does hit your lines its kinda over because you put WAY to many points on magic users and not on troops or heroes with whoop ass potential. So you hope you have delayed him longer by putting skirmishers to prevent them from marching, reducing there numbers and cause panic checks. This last one puts us to the last reason for putting a lord.

d) I need the general's leadership.

Ever tried moving Leadership 5 night goblins through a hail of arrows, gunpowder, bolt throwers, cannons and hope to whatever gods you pray that they make their panic checks?

I have and they had ran as fast as any skaven can.

But put those same goblins 12 inches near there general and you can have a block of them tie up the enemy for a lot of turns. Make them 40 models, give them spears and then they become a threat. For horde armies and close combat armies you got to reach the enemies lines first before you can deal a can of whoop ass.

Oh and how annoying do you think it is when you need to past a fear check for your wolfriders, to support flank charge the unit of skeletons, to pass on ld. 6?

You got to think that from ld. 7 to 8 is not much of a difference, believe me it is. Especially when you hit ld. 9 then only bad luck will make you run. --- Or probably rigged dice.

Different people with different armies will take lords for the four reasons stated above some will want there lords for all the 4 reasons.

There maybe more but then they become sub requirements. So there it is on the reasons why people pick lords. Of course the other reason is more of "hey I can get a lord why not get one?"