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I started a project about a year ago. Mostly I wanted to see which models benefit from banners, Shamans, other forms of support, and who doesn't benefit as much. Basically what I did was take a standard rank-and-file model, give it spear support, then calculate its odds against a few different enemies (also with spear support). The odds factor odds of winning/losing the fight, and odds of killing/dying. Then I averaged all of this and am now deciding what the numbers mean. The numbers are arbitrary based on what you choose to face them off against, I picked WoMT in Shieldwall, Iron Hills Dwarves in Shieldwall, Rivendell Elves, Wood Elves, Galadhrim, and Uruk Hai with a single support (so no pike block).
This topic is what I found with the Orc Warriors. Without any kind of buffs, taking a spear supported Orc Warrior with shield against the averaged out spear supported enemy warrior, you a 16% chance of killing with the Orc and a 32% chance of losing the Orc. So you're twice as likely to lose an Orc as you are to kill with it. This also amounts to you losing more points worth of Orc Warriors than you're killing, even with how cheap they are and how expensive some of the enemies I put in can be.
So, for Orc Warriors, I did this again when they have Banner support, a Shaman, and a Shade, separately and together. This is where it's tricky, because of course each of these will help push the numbers in your favour, but you still have a decision to make about whether or not it's worth spending the points.
Banner is huge. You're still losing a lot more than you're killing, but now you're at 19% kill and 28% die, and now you're killing slightly more in points than losing per fight. Banner + Fury takes your Orcs' mortality rate down to 23% per fight.
Banner is huge, Shade is (understandably) even bigger. I just spotted a flaw in my Shade math now that I've fixed, it's almost 4am here as I type this so I'm not trusting my numbers yet, but Orcs backed up by Shades become a decent killing force. You're still losing more Orcs than you're killing with just a Shade, Shade + Banner helps with that quite significantly. Again, I still have to proof my numbers, but it looks like with both, Orcs actually become one of the most survivable rank-and-file troops, simply because you're not losing many fights.
SO, what does this mean for army selection? Whether you're playing Mordor, Barad Dur, or Angmar, if you want your Orcs to get in combat without any of the above supports, you're going to lose a lot of Orcs. We already knew that, I think this just highlights how many Orcs you're losing. Does this mean your all Orc Warrior battleline is hopeless? Not necessarily, my mathhammer doesn't factor in any shenanigans that arise when you outnumber your opponent or what your heroes are doing.
Banner by itself helps quite a bit, Shade by itself helps quite a bit, both together help quite a bit more. The question I ask is, at what point am I dropping too many points into making my Orcs as good in combat as other models that already exist? The math that I still would like to do is whether piercing strike becomes a good trade-off when the Orcs are backed by Shade + Banner.
So, there it is. Maybe it's nothing new, Shades are ridiculously powerful. Then again, I never take banners, seeing how much they help has been useful information for me.
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