Editing The 9th Age/Tactics/The Vermin Swarm (section)

===Core===
'''Rats-at-Arms''' If you need cheap bodies that you can rely on this is where to look.  At only 7 points per model you get surprisingly good value, light armor and a shield with average stats (except discipline).  They can get full command and a magic standard, don't bother with a champion but a musician to help maneuver your horde and a standard bearer to help swing combats will do the trick.  Spears are up to you, if you need them to brick leave them vanilla, if you want some damage out of them as well pony up the 1 ppm for spears.

'''Vermin Guard''' Your strongest core unit and is actually one of the better core units in the game.  Heavy armor and a shield gives them a 4+ vs shooting and halberds with fight in extra rank is great for melee.  On top of this they have decent off/def skill and good agility.  They will cost you a pretty penny, 16 points each, so a horde of 60 how you want them will take a decent chunk of points, but they will hold ground and throw down.

'''Plague Brotherhood''' A blender is all they are.  Paired weapons, hatred, and battle focus makes them scary to fight, but their only defense is res 4.  Give them a defensive buff of some kind (or plenty of ablative wounds).

'''Slaves''' As trash as they come.  A max sized unit with all available upgrades will only cost 285 points.  No other army can field as many models as you and the slaves are why.  They are shit, but that many hit points is hard to burn through.  They do have some other quirks, if they break from combat they just die, they can't break steadfast unless they are engaging an enemy in the flank, and if they are the only friendly unit engaged in a combat other ranged units with callous get +2 to-hit (bumping your generally 4+ units to 2+) but change the hit randomization to be 50/50.  So tarpit a deathstar and watch as your slaves and enemies get equally melted by gas globes.

'''Footpads''' Your core ranged option.  They only have slings but at a 3+ to-hit and they have volume of fire over any other downsides.  Don't bother with paired weapons, you have better units to be in melee and footpads can't come in the volume to be useful there, just stick to ranged.