Battle Standards

I have many times ranted about the bsb. Here I try to consolidate my thoughts on bsb's (should there be an apostrophe there? Otherwise it would be bsbs which looks kind of off).

Lady Eboshi never goes to battle without San, her personal banner bearer.

"Friendly models withinn 12" of the battle standard bearer re-roll failed leadership tests of any kind". Pretty useful. Any kind of leadership test is where the utility lies: panic, break, fear, rally, spells that force tests, etc, etc.

I can't imagine an army that is subject to morale coming to the field without one of these, to be honest. Sure, you may be ld 10 stubborn, whatever, still 1 in 12 rolls fails. May sound like a risk worth taking, but between musical reforms, stupidity, fears, breaks, panics you could be looking at a test every second phase for a 6 turn game. And bad luck happens so why not mitigate it.

Also, nobody ever said you couldn't tool up your bsb as a badass fighter. He'll be a hero level character and this should be taken into consideration.

Some armies that may not need a bsb:
- undead
- unbreakable screaming bell list
- cold-blooded lizardmen (I would take one anyways)
- daemons

That aside, I think every other army should have a bsb or at least a really good reason why not to take one.

Now I take this opportunity to show off my new chaos battle standards =D

BSB, mark of khorne, (barded) daemonic steed, helm of many eyes, dawnstone, flail

Here I have both a mounted and on-foot battle standard bearer, depending on my fancy. These two are kitted out similarly, depending on if I want the mount or not. both have 1+ re-rollable armour. The mark of khorne + flail gives me 5 S7 attacks first round. The halberd is nice for a continuous 4 S6 attacks during the grind.

BSB, mark of nurgle, scaly skin (5+), helm of many eyes, dawnstone, halberd