Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

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thesustainablecenter
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Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

So I don't know much about wood elves. But I know 1 thing for certain. I need to have someone on that sweet Stag in my army! Now I know its not competitive, but that isn't the point. I'm not playing WE, my 7th army, to win. I want to play it to have fun, run sweet models, and have it be my best painted force. I'll let me Empire and Daemons armies worry about winning.

So what do you guys recommend in terms of builds and tactics? I know as a MB he can only join Eagles so he's going to be running solo, which has me worried about war machines. Is the Stag a separate model from the rider? I don't think so but just want to be sure. So please throw up your stag builds and the larger types of armies you would use him in.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by hutobega »

It's a monsterous cavalry meaning it's one model. So he gets the highest wounds and toughness from either profile. He can join Wild riders if you wanted to give him a unit. If he's runing solo which is very dangerous. Give him Amaranthin broach, or seed of rebirth, Great weapon. Light armor shield. helm of the hunt? try those maybe? and that leaves points left over for other stuff...Or go for -1 to hit items such as dawn spear, glittering scales, fimbulwinter shard BUT cannons won't care haha
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Didn't know he could run with WR as their classified as Ca. Is that in the army book or errata? Not doubting you but I know my gaming group will so I want to be able to point to where its allowed.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by hutobega »

yes You can even run an unmounted character in a mounted unit.. but thats dumb haha, On a great stag he is mounted and can join units of tree spirits because he himself will have to be a treespirit to ride the great stag if I am not wrong.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by frogboy »

He can't have a great weapon, a shield or normal light armour.

He can have a magical suit of light armour or spear or any magic talismans.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by kakwah »

there is only 1 way to run stag riders.

In a big stag/wildrider bus of doom obviously..

As he is on a 50mm base he takes up 2 slots so if you have 2 stag riders and a champ in the front rank people will need to allocate hits. You give your stag riders ward saves and the whole deal is not as bad as you would think at first.

Then you go balls out and put a spellweaver in the second rank on a unicorn.....
Last edited by kakwah on 21 Feb 2014, 15:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by hutobega »

Thanks frog boy! shows how much I know about them silly wild elves....lol
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

thesustainablecenter wrote:I know its not competitive
This remains to be seen.

I run Lord, Wild Rider Kindred, Stag, Spear of Twilight, Helm of the Hunt, Stone of the Crystal Mere, Potion of Strength, which rocks in at 345pts. Pricey and it can impinge on your lord-level caster but this army needs models that can kill things and this guy can.

I feel the Stone is very important for the 3+ Ward (especially against cannon). If you lose it you still have the 5++/6++ from Forest Spirit/Talismanic Tattoos. Potion of Strength is vital because you need tons of Strength to kill tough, armoured opponents and Savage Beast is not reliable enough here, for me. The Spear gives you a KB edge to take down 1+ AS re-rolling characters for example. The 4+ AS from the Helm is useful and it's good to be hitting almost anything you charge (including most Lords) on a 3 because this army has no re-rolls. The Helm also ensures you have five attacks at all times.

I run him in 8 Wild Riders, FC, Gleaming Pennant. The combined unit can take down MC, Skillcannon etc, in general elite flanking units. It won't break blocks by itself but that's what combined charges (M9/Swiftstride) are for. By being in the unit he loses the flexibility of, for example, an eagle rider but there are many advantages. Protection from BS shooting/screams/spells, static combat res, extra S5 attacks, etc.. Gleaming Pennant is key, because they'll usually be out of BSB range and on Ld10 the re-roll should keep them steady after a lost combat round.

The Stag gives the Lord immunity to Killing Blow, T4 and has S5 (two attacks and maybe a Stomp). It's worth noting that with Lore of Beasts these are bases which can be built on. Being Monstrous Cavalry the Lord and Stag are treated as a single model, so if the Lord dies the Stag is removed also. It can Make Way to face flank charges etc. because the footprint is compatible with the Wild Riders but due to differing troop type there is no Look out Sir vs cannon etc.. Some players prefer the Lord on a horse for this reason. There are things you can do though, screening with Obstacles/Treekin for example. But in general the unit is reasonably robust, so using that speed and getting into combat pronto is usually the best idea. I tend to deploy them last to make sure I can do this favourably.

Worth a try at least IMHO.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Drstrangelove »

frogboy wrote:He can't have normal light armour.
Erm, he comes with it for free. And a free spear. All part of the wildrider kindred.

Here's what I use. Seems to work rather well.

Noble, wildrider kidred, stag, Dawnspear, Dragonhelm, Potion of Foolhardiness (+ he gets light armour for free)
Wildriders x 8, Full Command with Razor standard.

The noble strikes before most enemies, and after swallowing his potion has 5 S5 attacks (with armour piercing) so should be able to kill a model. This then makes the WHOLE unit -1 to be hit in CC. Against WS5, this means that anything less than WS6 is hitting only on 5s. I find the perfect target to be anything WS4 or less, as hitting on 3s really helps the offensive output. Empire and Bret core knights are perfect, as their armour is at -3.

The noble himself is fairly durable. 3 wounds, T4, 4+ armour and 5+ ward (which makes cannons far from a sure thing), and the 2+ ward against flaming means that flaming cannons (daemons, WoC, dwarf) may as well not bother. And I can charge him out of the unit to deal with K'daai, etc. Just remember that you aren't Fast Cav with the Stag in your Wild Riders: that rule is sadly lost until the Stag leaves.
The only controversial bit of this build is the dragonhelm itself: the rules under wildrider kindred only state that magical LIGHT armour is allowed. HOWEVER the FAQ allowed Helm of the Hunt to be used, and by the extension of the same logic there is absolutely no reason why the Dragonhelm can't be used as well. My gaming group completely agree, and I have never had anyone disagree............I mean for crying out loud, you are fielding a stag noble. If anyone is going to be a jerk about it then they clearly haven't realised how stacked the odds are in their favour.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

Drstrangelove wrote:The noble himself is fairly durable. 3 wounds, T4, 4+ armour and 5+ ward (which makes cannons far from a sure thing), and the 2+ ward against flaming means that flaming cannons (daemons, WoC, dwarf) may as well not bother. And I can charge him out of the unit to deal with K'daai, etc. Just remember that you aren't Fast Cav with the Stag in your Wild Riders: that rule is sadly lost until the Stag leaves.
Interesting build. I toyed with Dragonbane Gem/Oaken Armour but wanted the 3++ just too badly in the end. I guess I'm spending a lot more points so I want that insurance against non-flaming cannon (I don't think Hellcannon are?) . But the potential of the fireward to deal with things like the Destroyer is wonderful. Spot on about the FastCav it's a downside. Though I rock Treekin too and he can join them instead of the Riders if I can cope with the loss of speed and don't want him shot to death by DE's for example. The Riders can then Vanguard of course and still deal with a fair bit of flanking stuff.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Mollesvinet »

A stag and a unicorn in a unit of wild riders with banner and of course musician. Now your unicorn can never go to the first rank, unless your stag dies. Or all the wild riders i suppose. I'm not sure if its optimal or anything, but it's something to consider.

I like stone of rebirth on a stag because they already have a ward save, it is a bit risky when it comes to cannons though. Note that i mainly play etc, so the 5+ ward of forest spirit is a hard ward save (even more sexy combined with the magic res).
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Thanks for the replies, tons of good info here! II'm leaning towards a hero build since I can maximize the benefits of 3 wounds being transferred to the rider and minimize the points being spent on him. But the lord build is def. killier. The unicorn is on my list also since real men aren't afraid to have unicorns in there army. You need to ahe a pair of balls to put WE on the table nowadays anyway, nonetheless a Stag/Unicorn build!

I'm surprised no one advised on the razor standard since S5 AP is brutal and lets you hit hard as anything else out there.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by kakwah »

Unicorn is boss mate.

Spellweaver on a Unicorn + talisman of Pres + toad scroll (or arcane item of your choice)

4++ 2++ vs magic, 20` move. Just hide behind buildings and dwellers people. Pretty fun.

Also good enough to charge chaff and or warmachines with s6 on the charge, and a stomp

Edit - Forgot to mention the best part of running the unicorn. When you do win a game you can stir you mates up for being beaten by wood elves.....with a unicorn...
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by godswearhats »

kakwah wrote:Forgot to mention the best part of running the unicorn. When you do win a game you can stir you mates up for being beaten by wood elves.....with a unicorn...
Hahahahahah!
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Billthesurly »

The first few times out I ran the WR bus with a Highborn and two Nobles. I discovered very quickly that this build is way too expensive. Too many points in one basket. Good for large games but not so much for day to day wear. I now usually run 10 with a noble on the Stag with at least the Dawnspear. Sometimes two nobles. I no longer try to take on the bad guy's main force units as magic augments are too iffy. They usually do very well out on the flanks where I can put them against the target of my choice as I drop them last. They may not be fast cav with the Stag present but they still move very quickly. The ability of the noble-on-stag to take out all warmachines and chaff units means my opponents have to look out for a unit "MIRV" in their backfield.
So it's no longer the BRB, now it's the DERB. (Digital Edition Rule Book) I am all in for 9th Age.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

thesustainablecenter wrote:I'm surprised no one advised on the razor standard since S5 AP is brutal and lets you hit hard as anything else out there.
I need it more for my Eternal Guard. Plus as mentioned, keeping the BSB within 12" can be difficult with Wild Riders, so there's a good case for Gleaming Pennant.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by thesustainablecenter »

Phil Rossiter wrote:
thesustainablecenter wrote:I'm surprised no one advised on the razor standard since S5 AP is brutal and lets you hit hard as anything else out there.
I need it more for my Eternal Guard. Plus as mentioned, keeping the BSB within 12" can be difficult with Wild Riders, so there's a good case for Gleaming Pennant.
Excellent points and ya those poor Eternal s NEED THAT BANNER.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

Thanks. With Wildform up EG are Ok but nothing more than that. ASF is really going to help them and hopefully they'll get more than that.
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Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Dalsgaard »

I have brought wildriderbus with noble on stag to the table a couple of times and they rocked hard! Completely eliminated an entire flank of Ogres and a Stonehorn thanks to the amount of str5 attacks (6 with wyssans) that they put out. In this case, I was happy for the stags extra 2 attacks at I4, and specially happy for the Dawnspear, that minimised the number of wounds I took in return, giving me a good combat res and therefore made my opponent flee into their deaths.

I agree on dawnspear being almost a must-have, but you could also consider Odsidian loadstone for a unitwide 3++ against magic, if that is in your meta.

I have read about giving the unit warbanner and using them and the staghero as the ultimate flank/rear combatres generator. Sounds solid with +5 from flank (charge, flank, rank, standard, banner) and 6 from rear.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Jamesaet3 »

You can use him/her as a warmachine killer, or in your wildriders unit. You can also put him/her in with your treekin.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by popisdead »

Dalsgaard wrote:I have brought wildriderbus with noble on stag to the table a couple of times and they rocked hard!
What is your character load out?
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Dalsgaard »

I use Dawnspear and Potion of Foolhardiness. And standardbearer with Razorbanner.
If I know I am facing strong magic like HE and Lizards I take Obsidian amulet instead of Dawnspear.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Gwill_of_the_Woods »

I must say, it really bugs me that the Great stag slows the Wild Riders down by removing their Fast Cav rule. I'd be more inclined to run him on his own.

Could always provide flank/rear assistance in addition to your Wild Riders.

Edit: Do our Stags get the impact hits? I'm sure the storm of magic stags do?! I could be wrong though.
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Re: Great Stag: I Must Have It...How do I use it?

Post by Phil Rossiter »

Yeah, it's unfortunate but really, M9/Swiftstride is damn fast anyway and lets the unit plus character hit hard and fast enough IMHO.

I've tried running him solo and it worked OK. But without the protection of the unit you have to watch out for BS shooting, screams, magic missiles etc.. You also have to make two charge rolls to get him in alongside the Riders. There's a lot of benefit simply running them together. The combined unit can take charges for one thing.

You can also run him with the Treekin if you want to Vanguard the Riders for example. No impact hits I'm afraid but you do get a Stomp of course.
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