hagbane and general hunting

[solieann_veriket]

i was thinking about a 1500 list to build around hagbane arrows to take on vampire counts with wood elves.
I want to utilize hagbane arrows to go leader hunting. This is a really intriguing arrow, im wondering but its not clicking; is there anyway to reduce my opponents toughness for his leaders so that hagbane would out right kill my opponents characters?

[Beithir Seun]

Firstly, you will not be able to shoot at the general unless they are one their own or in a unit of less than five models, which any half-decent Vampire Counts general will be well aware of. Any VC player fielding their general outside of a unit is not a very good player...

There is no way to reduce the general's toughness with a Wood Elf army - we don't have any magic items that reduce characteristics, and we don't have access to any spells that reduce characteristics either.

All in all, Hagbane Arrows are attractive in theory but next to useless in practice. In the unlikely event that you did get a shot at shooting a VC general, you are firing a single S3 arrow at a T4+ character who will likely have both armour and ward saves to take, if not Regeneration as well. Even if you do cause a wound, the Vampire would still have at least a 66% chance of passing his Toughness test at the end of the phase.

[solieann_veriket]

haha well he does field his character models alone :P or behind his wall of undead but not with i was figuring firing in from an eagle

[Beithir Seun]

In that case, you should take full advantage of that. Hagbane arrows are probably not the best way to do that though.

Statistically, you'd get a maximum of 6 shots with the Hagbane arrows per game (assuming you're in a position to shoot in all turns of the game). In the unlikely event that you manage to get within short range in the first turn, you'll be hitting on 2s - that's 4 hits on average. Of those 4 hits, 1.33 will wound and would still have to get past any armour, ward or regeneration save (and in some cases, all three).


Combining the Hagbane arrows with the Bow of Loren would give you 18 shots per game with a Noble and 24 per game with a Highborn (24 or 30 with Alter equivalents). Naturally, the number of wounds caused would increase proportionally - a Noble would hit with 12 shots and wound with 4, a Highborn would hit with 16 and wound with 5.33. That gives you a much better chance of a wound eventually getting past the armour, wards and regeneration. Then you just have to hope the Vampire fails it's Toughness test

[ArchMagosAlchemys]

To hit a single model 2/3
To wound 1/3 or 1/6 if T5
To get past armour 1/2 at best
To get past ward /egen 1/2 at best
To fail T test, 1/3 at best.

2/3*1/6*1/2*1/2*1/3 = 2/216 or about 1% on a good day. My VC general is T5 and wears decent armour, has a ward, and regen. To get the shot, the bearer needs to be in some peril from counter-magics and attacks. You are paying 35 points for a 1% change of killing the general each turn you can get a clear shot at them, something that may be difficult from an eagle or anything less than a Dragon.

At low point levels, the General may be softer, but the opportunity cost is greater.

Hagbane + Bow of Loren starts to get dangerous, but I'm still not sure it is cost effective. The threat might cramp your opponent's style though.

I cannot see why he would not just hide in a unit for a while.

[Peleborn]

Combining the Hagbane arrows with the Bow of Loren would give you 18 shots per game with a Noble and 24 per game with a Highborn

Unfortunately, neither of these combinations is possible. A noble cannot carry 70pts of magic items, and you can't run a lord at 1500pts.

Hagbane arrows are a waste of time as demonstrated by AMA. You're much better off firing the HoDA at the VC general.

On a slightly different note, does anyone use Hagbane arrows with any degree of success?

[The Virgin Forest]

Or rather does anybody use other arrows than the HoDA and the Arcane Bodkins?

You almost never see any other than these in the army lists, except for the occasional Starfire Arrows to take out a friends O&G, but never as a stable element.

[Tethlis]

The concept of magical arrows was a nice idea by Games Workshop, but it fell short a bit in actual practice. Obviously they were worried about balance issues, and the result is that most of our magic bows/magic arrows are useless. Given the power of Dark Elf and Skaven shooting these days, and the nasty nature of devastating one-use-only ranged weapons that Skaven have access to (Doomrocket, Brass Orb) I think we'll see a major upgraded in our ranged capabilities next book. Not just our magic item arsenal, but to our shooting overall as well. Once upon a time, Glade Guard could be fielded in minimum units of 5 with armor piercing, 36-inch range longbows. That was considered far too powerful when our current book was released, but given the current climate of the game, it doesn't seem quite so overpowered anymore...

[Beithir Seun]

Combining the Hagbane arrows with the Bow of Loren would give you 18 shots per game with a Noble and 24 per game with a Highborn

Unfortunately, neither of these combinations is possible. A noble cannot carry 70pts of magic items, and you can't run a lord at 1500pts.

I was talking in general. Of course a Lord is not an option at 1500pts, but that is largely irrelvant to the point I was making

[khaosgoblin]

I put hunters talon & arcane bodkins on my bsb as a sniper shot works well against any elf (T3) or even T4 characters, certainly upsets many opponenents. i always add in pageant of shrikes on my branchwraith primarily as a wizard sniper but also a lot of vamps dont have armour at all so 50/50 for a wound, combo the two together & you can knock out a character in a round.

generals are always hard to take down with shooting (except we ones) so i tend to leave them to the wardancers (killing blow FTW!)

Khaosgoblin

[Shyanekh]

I put hunters talon & arcane bodkins on my bsb as a sniper shot works well against any elf (T3) or even T4 characters, certainly upsets many opponenents.

Nice idea, but unfortunately not allowed. The "sniping" ability of the hunter's talon only works with non-magical arrows (ridiculous in my opinion, but there you go).

[ArchMagosAlchemys]

Deleted two OT posts.

-AMA-

[imriel]

I recently was treated to watching my Bow of Loren and Arcane Bodkins ping off of my friend's Vampire characters. (Incidentally, Vampires going solo are incredibly dangerous when fielded by a good general...) Too many wards/magic against shooting......

In any case, if you want to hunt down an enemy vampire general, think Alter Kindred-Helm of the Hunt-Annoyance of Nettlings-Great Weapon-Etc. Get that big 18 inch charge, then challenge. Even with Hatred, he might get one or two hits, max. Bitch slap him back when you hit on 3s, then wound on 2s. He won't have an armour save left because he will probably have used his points on Wards and magic weapons rather than the 1+ armour. So you should probably win the combat, unless you are unlucky (Wound him twice in combat, win by res 1 or 2, hope he misses his ward save and his vampire goes poof).

It might sound like an expensive gamble, but nothing is too expensive when you can knock off the vampire lord, because the game is essentially won at that point.

[Leafstalker]

Hmm, Hagbane with Bow of Loren vs all these new big monsters from skaven and beastman... might be worth it!!! I know it would wound on 6s but still... theres that wee chance!!!

I think the Hag and. Loren bow seems great for big game hunting !

Generals to hard to nail unless mounted on beasties.