I've been painting up the new Forgeworld Galadhrim court guard, including a banner. As I started writing an army list, I noticed the Galadhrim court have only pikes, and the option to swap pike for banner.

So is the lovely new bannerman model effectively unarmed? And does that put him at minus two in duel rolls? (One for the banner, one for unarmed)

I would say that in the illustration he has an identical pike to the others but with a banner on it so just the -1 for that.

I agree with you that the banner is essentially a pike with a flag on and if you were playing by look, he should be able to stab someone with it in emergency.

But I know that, for example, Boromir's flag doesn't count as a lance that gives +1 to wound, even though it looks exactly like one.

With a normal elf banner on a spear it's solved because the spearmen all have swords too ... so they can fight with the sword if the banner doesn't count as a spear.

Perhaps GW could FAQ if the Galahdrim court banner has a sword somewhere too!

(Obviously at home you could play that they have a weapon, but I'm just wondering if it could be questioned at a strict tournament setting).

Since not every model is assumed to have a hand weapon like last edition, and the only weapon listed is swap away for a banner, I'd saw that you would be both unarmed and at a -2 to duel rolls if you did that. It might be possible to argue that the banner is a piece of wargear that is also a hand weapon in a participial sense, but I think the rules regard banners like a piece of armor or a ring or warhorn and not something that can be used as a weapon.

Definitely seems GW might want to change that since no one would want to give a model with that kind of fight a -2 on the duel role.

If you were to buy the banner on another elf and then get that elf killed so that a guard could pick up the banner you'd then have a guard with both a banner and a pike and, thus, only a -1. So, there might be some use for the model in the respect.

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"Draw your sword with a heavy heart, but swing it with a heavy hand"

Wan Shi Tong ... yes this is how I interpret it. Which leaves it being a nice model to paint, but a pretty sub-optimal choice to take to a tournament if people are being strict on the rules.

I think GW should put in the FAQs that the model has a hidden dagger so it can still fight at just minus 1.

Or (more fun) maybe as the Lothlorien pikemen have a special fighting style that allows them to fight or shield with pikes, perhaps Lothlorien pikemen could use this skill to fight and shield with the banner.

I'd like it if the model could fight and shield with the banner, but maybe not support other combats with it ... you could imagine the elf was knocking someone over with the bottom half of the banner, but not wanting to stab them with the bit with the flag at the top!

I don’t think they would count as unarmed, so would only get -1 for the banner. See this from the FAQ:

That seems to make sense, thanks.