So with a banner, If I place my horn blower next to my bannerman, and lets say the bannerman gets shot with an arrow, can a horn blower pick up the banner if hes not in combat? If so does he give both a banner and a horn blower bonuses? Will he have to drop his shield to carry both items?

Also I was reading compel, where it says you can force the model under the spell to drop items. If items are dropped do they follow the banner rule where it the item is lost in the fray of battle at that point or can you recover a dropped item later on?

Interesting questions, my interpretation as follows:

Nowhere does it say a banner man cannot be equipped with a horn, and vice versa, heck they even deleted the rule about not being able to carry a shield
There are no mentions anywhere of having to drop the shield for the horn or banner.

In a battle if you drop something you very unlikely to pick back up later on;
I would assume If you (are made to)drop something it is lost.
So in short:

YES
YES
NO
YES
NO

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K, I've got an army that I am building where I plan on deploying my banner and horn blower next to each other base to base and then having another unit basing them both from behind with spear support. I figured that way if the bannerman gets shot while our lines are closing in, I can have the horn blower grab the banner. ( I dont see a rule where someone can grab the horn from the horn blower if he dies, so I figure its banner only)

I guess if the banner was based, providing that the horn blower and spear support were not based, I could support with spear and then grab the banner with the horn blower should I lose the fight and my bannerman is slain is what I am trying to make sure will work. So depoly below A is Banner B is Horn and C is spear support

A B
C

Wow you really care about keeping that banner in the game, fair play to you, I always forget about these instances, as I usually take heroes who happen to count as banners, and if they die, there are much bigger worries than the banner disappearing.

your plan looks solid, however should your opponent get wind of your tactic, they could counter with different things...
channelled chill soul (potentially killing your banner and horn in 1)
fire breath (same idea as above)
monsters will make a mess of this situation
a compel to get you banner bearer away
or simply force your men to spread out, making the spearman needed elsewhere on the field

Be aware of these things, control the battlefield, and victory will be yours.
Consider ways to counter those things stated above.

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http://grungehog.blogspot.co.uk/

1) channeled Chill Soul: I have no answer for that, my horn blower nor my banner have Will so I cant resist that.
2) Fire Breath: I should have crazy model count on a force with a dragon in it, I focus on burning his normal troops down to break him and give up my horn blower and banner, deploy them further away from each other so he cant nail them both. buy me more time.
3) Monsters: They shouldnt get back there. If they do, then I have lost anyways. I built my flanks to engage any monsters on the board before they should be able to hit my center. Fountain Guards, Cirion and Knight of the white tower in my list should be able to tangle with monsters using heroic strikes and surround.
4) Compell: Nothing I can do about that but try and base the nazgul asap. I am also running an evil army so thats partly why I asked about dropping items. With compel, nazgul can move a banner away from anyone basing them, then just have them drop the banner. Poof! -30 pts off one spell!

well that seems to be well thought out.

You play evil, have access to hornblowers and banners, do happen to play harad/black numenoreans by any chance.

And as far as monsters go, an enraged spider queen pulling a heroic combat, is almost unstopable, what with A5, move 10" and over walls poisoned attacks, you really need to have your banner behind the spear line of your shield wall to stop that kind of madness.
Also a sensible player will be flanking you with monsters to hurl your entire spear support away, or barging through the side of your army.

back to the point, your hornblower can take the banner, but too many eggs in one basket me thinks.
Feasibly you could buy the horn for a bannerman in the firstplace....
food for thought

Ps in the old rules if in agreement with your opponent, it was possible to pick up wargear in the fashion of banners , need a bow, swap items with a fallen(in base contact) comrade

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Compel does not let you force an enemy model to drop a piece of wargear, when it says 'item' it means the scenario specific pieces of tat that come under the 'carrying objects' section of the rules. For example if you are playing that old scenario from LoME where the aim is to uncover an artefact and have one of your models run off the table with it, compel would force an enemy to drop the item, but never their wargear.

Thanks guys! I was wondering why people never did that with nazgul," ill compel durin to drop his axe..." That makes sense. Going to bilbo's birthday bash in november and I don't want to misplay anything if I can help it. These are just some questions we are coming up with while play test.