Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

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JohnnyH5
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Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by JohnnyH5 »

I have been challenged to a huge game - 4580pts :eek: - vs. Skaven on Saturday and I don't really know what magic lore's to take against them.

In regards to items/equipment I'm thinking of taking the Acorn of Ages item to give my army a bit of breathing room from his horde units as they come across the table, with that many models he should roll a couple of one's here and there ;) further suggestions on what items I should take/use would also be very helpful.

My list is virtually everything I have so I may not be optimal.

My army list - I will only include models themselves and not equipment otherwise I'll be here all night typing away.

LORDS:
Glade Lord
Spellweaver lvl 4 (x2)

HEROES:
Glade Captain (x3) - 1 is my BSB
Waystalker (x2)

CORE:
Eternal Guard (35)
Glade Guard (10) x2)
Glade Riders (8)
Dryads (12)

SPECIAL:
Deepwood Scouts (10) x2)
Wildriders (8)
Wildriders (7)

RARE:
Great Eagle (x2)
Waywatchers (10) x2) - Thinking of using these units to go after his Doom Wheel from the get go.
Treemen (x2)


His list is roughly the following:

Lords/Heroes: I know he has a grey seer, engineers (3) and most of the named characters.

Clan Rats (50) x3) + Ratling Guns, Wind Mortars plus another one that I don't know of

Plaque Catapult (1)

Rat Ogres (3) x2)

Jezzails (3)

Doom Wheel (1)

Stormvermin (24-30) x2)

Rat swarms (2)

He doesn't have any ABombs, or those tower models so I should be thankful for that and no slaves whatsoever, he told me he doesn't like them and won't be using them period.
CauCaSus
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by CauCaSus »

Lucky for you that he doesn't have any abombs. Facing three of them would be painful!

His list isn't really optimized and if I were you I'd probably do what I usually do vs skaven: shoot the expensive and vulnerable stuff and leave his blocks alone.

Rat ogres, jezzails, weapon teams and doomwheel are all excellent targets for your ranged attacks. Try and take out his wizards and particularly the grey seer. Waystalkers, wild riders and lone characters are useful here.

Are you playing on a 6x4 table? It could be hard to manouver around the board.

Treemen are good at tarpitting his blocks, but make sure the BSB is within range and take out that Doomwheel first!
JohnnyH5
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by JohnnyH5 »

Thanks for your reply, the table is a tad smaller than a 6x4, so I will concentrate on his characters and dangerous items.

Quick question in regards to the banner they have that really does a number on shooting do our trueflight arrows ignore the minus to BS?
Aezeal
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by Aezeal »

Tf does not negate lowering of BS... it does negate -1 (or more) to hit.
nXken
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by nXken »

Like -1 to hit from infantry with shield...
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Sunshine coconut
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by Sunshine coconut »

could I recommend taking some branch wraiths? They make great redirectors (and you'll want a few more for all the big blocks). Also you can give them lore of undeath take the signiture and summon more units to get in his way.

Have you thought about what lores you wanna take? Life +Shadow work well together since you can neg his T to improve your shooting, or neg his str and make Dwellers scarier than orc in an opera.

looks like it'll be a fun game though :D
Monsters shot down by arrows: Cockatrice, Stonehorn, Thunder Tusk, Manticore, Chimera, Blood Thirster, Galrauch, Abomination, Brood Horror, Jabbaslythe, Hydra, Kharibdyss, Stegagon, Necrosphinx, Warsphinx, Terror Gheist, Varghulf, Giant, Frost Phoenix aaannnnnnd Treeman :(
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Ember of the Hidden Paths
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by Ember of the Hidden Paths »

In these sorts of games I love heavens. Drop a comet in the middle of his his expensive pack, and all the weapons teams, doom wheels and war machines die. Worth a thought
One does not simply take a Wild Rider charge...
JohnnyH5
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by JohnnyH5 »

Thanks for all your help people, much appreciated.

Well what can I say, to put it simple I won by a large margin.

The game took over five hours to play due to interruptions and so on but it was a really good game. I made several stupid blunders ie. Gave one of my supporting Wild Riders units extra attacks from Frenzy and Devastating charge when they only get one attack, and I set one of my waystalkers an inch too close but on the good side I deployed most of my army correctly on the table in regards to positioning and it paid out in the end.

As for my opponent he was having a very bad dice day, no seem to go right for him rolling low to hit and wound and high when he had to pass leadership tests. His deployment of his army in my opinion was incorrect and due to terrain and the forests (poison etc..) seem to slow him down and I guessed correctly what units he was hoping to use to great effect and I neutralised them quickly (Catapult, Rat Ogres, Weapon Teams).

Lessons I Learned vs Skaven:

* Spells that lower Leadership, Toughness are very good - failing a leadership test and running a huge unit of rats off board was my highlight. Lowering his toughness naturally allowed more wounds to get through.

* Terrain - I used it to great effect moving in and out of forests whenever I needed to whilst he did go into the forest, forcing up to fifty dice rolls for dangerous terrain at one stage was very painful.

* Magic Lores - Lore of Death: I used this lore to good use especially The Caress of Laniph as his characters didn't have really high strength and no ward saves and the look on his face when I first used this spell was priceless as his BSB and several other characters were whittled down, the same happened with Spirit Leech when he read that he couldn't use SIN to add to his leadership was another "What The" moment. The second lore I used my Fire and to be honest it was a bit meh, I only chose it for something different as I haven't used it since the last edition of WHFB.

* Sniper is brilliant, just telling him he doesn't get a look out sir on a unit that has just been hit with a hex against toughness and then have my two waystalkers (one with BOL) kill and or put wounds on his characters was great, watching him try and get skitterleap off to get them out of my archers LOS was great as he wasn't concentrating on the bigger nastier spells.

* Wildriders need to get the charge, everyone knows this little piece of advice but in my game, one unit got the charge and virtually destroyed his plague rats unit with Snitch in it I believe, whilst the other one received a charge from his gutter runners + assassin + warp drill weapon team(?) and barely survived the first turn of combat

* I really liked trueflight arrows in this game as I was moving around something fierce as I didn't want to stay still, so I did a lot of move and shoot - he'd called my army the Viet Cong of our games club.

* HIs doomwheel is very tough to deal with, so I tried to lure it into terrain, didn't really work and thank god his shooting was pretty crap otherwise he would have done a lot more damage. Still trying to figure this one out as my shooting did squat to it and I needed nearly four turns of shooting to bring it down.

There is probably a lot more that I learned from this game but I have other things to ask so I'll leave it at that for now, if anyone else has any tips that work for them vs Skaven please let me know as I am still a newbie when it comes to dealing with the Skaven.

Just a quick question or two before I go:

1. Can a Wizard cast any type of spell whilst the unit they're in is in close combat?
2. If they can, if said wizard is not on the front rank corner of the unit but next model in, do they have line of sight to any units that are out of combat?
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Mollesvinet
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by Mollesvinet »

Congrats on the game!

Trueflight arrows are also my favorite by far. They are not as good as hagbane if hagbane has perfect conditions, but they are so much more flexible and given enough penalties they will beat hagbane against any target.

Leadership spells are indeed very good. It takes a lot of wounds to kill off 200 slaves, but potentially only a single failed leadership test.

The doomwheel is a tough one. It can be taken out by spells, massed fire, wild rider charge or combat resolution (it can't be steadfast and only LD7). In your case, spirit leech would have been good on it.

For your questions:

1. Can a Wizard cast any type of spell whilst the unit they're in is in close combat?

Wizards can't cast magic missiles while they are in combat (BRB p31). They also cannot cast direct damage on the unit they are fighting against, but they could cast it on an enemy unit behind the engaged on.

2. If they can, if said wizard is not on the front rank corner of the unit but next model in, do they have line of sight to any units that are out of combat?

I guess you mean if the wizard is in the second rank? The only spells that require line of sight is magical missiles, and it is mentioned that the targetting works similar to missile weapons (BRB p31). When firing a missile weapon, Fire in two ranks (BRB p39) allows you to use the line of sight of the model in front of you. Even if you don't play with this rule, warhammer currently uses true line of sight so if you can trace a direct line from your wizard head to the target then you are fine.
CauCaSus
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Re: Huge game vs Skaven - Help is needed

Post by CauCaSus »

Regarding question nr 1, be aware that the skaven book is pre-8th ed so none of the spells are actually classified like the BRB spells (hexes, direct damage and so far)
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