I was listening to one of my favorite podcast recently, and the hosts were discussing the Ogre list. The topic at that particular moment was the Ogre giant, and how many people felt that it was vastly inferior to the normal giant, because it lacks the stubborn ability: that is, the ability to roll break tests on its unmodified leadership. The hosts pointed out it was too harsh to condemn the Ogre Slave Giant soley on this fact. Despite my intense hatred of giants in Warhammer, I would agree with this point. However, the hosts went on to justify their point by saying that relying on stubborn means that you are losing combats (true), and that if you are in combats you are planning on losing, you are not playing in a manner thats going to win you the game. Now, as a general rule, losing combats in Warhammer is not a great reciepe for success. However, it depends why those combats are being lost. Charging your Giant into a fully ranked unit of Chaos Chosen containing a Standard and Warbanner when you know you won't beat that static combat resolution is not good tactics. Charging into said unit assuming your lose to pin them in place so that your savage boar boys and General can snap off a flank charge the next round and crush the unit IS good tactics. And thats the point. Counting on Stubborn to keep your units around in isolated, losing combats makes no sense, but counting on stubborn to keep your units around so that you can blunt attacks for countercharges or pin mobile units in place is great tactics. In that sense, having stubborn troops is great.
I think the best use of stubborn troops is against knights. Almost all units of knights outside of choas knights count on a devastating charge to smash and break enemy units. Whether its Cold One Knights, Bret Grail Lances, or even Inner Circle Empire Knights, those units get a lot worse on the second round of combat. Often, if a unit can find away to stand up to the devasting charge these elite and costly units can deliver, than those cavalry units become extremely vulnerable in following rounds of combat. This, to me, is the best use of stubborn. Bait those knights into your Empire Greatswords or Black Guard, and watch your opponents face turn to dispair as he realizes his mobile strike force is going to sticking in one place next round, delivering 1 mighty S4 attack each.
on a side note, here's a couple updated pics of my initial models for the Angel's army.
