'Pushing us off the table'

[Aezeal]

I think you are using very low arrows for 2400 points (unless needed by comp). Against most lists (monsters/warmachines) extra arrows to first deal with the monsters and later with .. well anything are nice.

I remember a 1500 point game vs TK with 2 types of sphinxes. First one dropped turn 2 and the 2nd one the next turn. which saved me a WHOLE lot of combat. It also means you can quickly eliminate fliers that will threaten to go to awkward places (which means diverting melee units OR accepting the treat of a rear charge). Being able to deal with these treats before they become a problem is worth SO much. Basicly you win the movement battle by just eliminating his most mobile pieces.

[astorre]

Lv 4 Shadoweaver - Power Scroll
Lv 3 Highweaver - Dispel Scroll, 4++, Steed
Glade Captain - GW, Dragonhelm, Hail of Doom, Bodkins
18 Eternal Guard - FC
2x12 Glade Guard - Standard, Musician, Trueflight
6 Sisters - Standard, Musician, BoEF
2x6 Wild Riders - Shields
2x3 Warhawks
2x Eagle
8 Watchers
7 Watchers

Its a 9.8 and very fun. Im not too worried about people seein it before masters because what 99% of people think is the counter isnt. What is the counter isnt common and isnt all comers (it struggles with certain orc, tk, dwarf, and bret builds). I've been gettin my buddies to build counter lists, lettin them tailor to beat it, and haven't lost, but weve just been playin tobattleline and they haven't been using swedish so i haven't started down 420 points yet

[Phil Rossiter]

Different builds have different answers to things like Sphinxes. In my last game vs TK my 40 shots dealt with one while the cavalry ran straight over the other.

You seem to have most things covered astorre. The counters I can think of will probably be comped out.

[Coyle_Ravane]

I think you are using very low arrows for 2400 points (unless needed by comp). Against most lists (monsters/warmachines) extra arrows to first deal with the monsters and later with .. well anything are nice.

I find extra spears even nicer. Taking extra arrows would cut into my EG, WWR, wildriders and warhawks.

This is the minimum shooting for this level in my opinion, and only because I also have a metalsinger to help with armour, otherwise it'd be at least 10 or 12 waywatchers, not 6.

I don't find shooting to be an enjoyable aspect of the game (although I did with the old GG, the challenge of keeping them at short range while moving them around to avoid getting charged made it fun). So I take the minimum amount of shooting needed to do what I need. Between them they do a decent job of handling enemy archers, warmachines, monsters and armour, and stripping the odd rank off an enemy block so they won't have steadfast against my WWR or EG. Skirmishers and fast cavalry type stuff are a secondary target for them, but I often find that with a little care and forethought, warhawks and wildriders can often take care of them much more effectively during the first turn or two while I'm still trying to maneuver the "main battle lines".

[astorre]

Warhawks are great, but probably our second hardest unit to use properly.
See with that list if my opponent spreads out, i can punch through somewhere, isolate targets, and hang something up on the spears while i regroup for the bottom half.
Castling or compacting their army is their best bet, as ill need msgic then to crack that nut, but they probably wont be gettin a lot of points out of me either.
High magic makes their dispel priorities harder, and makes one of my fast cav units hard to kill. With 2 or 3 counters the combat res that uniy can generate vs things like chariots and monsters is crazy.

[Aezeal]

Not sure if WH are THAT hard to use.. they are very manouverable being fliers so you can pick targets.

1. deploy on a side, preferably near a warmachine.
2 get behind the lines
3. attack warmachines, most things (trebuchets, cannons etc) should die in one charge
4. attack archers (in the back), archers usually are not stubborn so with a decent CR you might get them if they don't have ranks for steadfast.

all the while just making sure you don't get charged by something turning about (if they do it's great because it iwll mean it's not going to your archers)

[astorre]

Well thatd be one way
Ive been usin them in tandom with the other fast cav.
They make a great screen for Wild Riders to control frenzy and block shooting.
Then if they charge a unit a wild rider is going to overrun into they get two rounds of combat and a reform because you cant overrun twice. Master that and you can run through armies.
I dont worry about cannons and my units are pretty small but templates still worry me.

[Aezeal]

anyone with characters should worry about cannons... anyway..

I sort of understand your idea but you can't get 2 rounds of combat from the same unit in the same phase right?

[Coyle_Ravane]

Yes you can. As long as you do the wildriders combat first, they overrun into the flank of the unit fighting the warhawks, then you resolve that combat, and the wildriders get to fight all over again.

[astorre]

Sure you can. If you overrun into a combat that hasnt happened yet they join the fight! But theres better things for warhawks to do than chase cannons turn 1. I will send them after things like bolt throwers, trebs, and wlc.

[nXken]

Cannon = warmachine. So you both basically agree ... Right?

[Aezeal]

Sure you can. If you overrun into a combat that hasnt happened yet they join the fight! But theres better things for warhawks to do than chase cannons turn 1. I will send them after things like bolt throwers, trebs, and wlc.

Apart from the fact that it's all the same... I'd really go for the cannon first if I had to choose from that list.

Sure you can. If you overrun into a combat that hasnt happened yet they join the fight! But theres better things for warhawks to do than chase cannons turn 1. I will send them after things like bolt throwers, trebs, and wlc.

&

Yes you can. As long as you do the wildriders combat first, they overrun into the flank of the unit fighting the warhawks, then you resolve that combat, and the wildriders get to fight all over again.

Seriously that is allowed? I thought you could just fight the next turn (next combat phase). Is that in the BRB somewhere explicitly or in an erratum?

[Phil Rossiter]

It's on page 58 of the BRB.

[astorre]

So, at the risk of derailing this thread further, here is a Swedish list with all glade guard core that I seriously doubt could get boxed in or swept off the table... what do y'all think?

Lv4 Heavensweaver - Book of Asur
Glade Captain - BSB, Spear, Helm of the Hunt, Shield, Hail of Doom Arrow, Steed
Lv2 Metalsinger - Dispel Scroll

4x10 Glade Guard - 4x Musician, True flight

3x6 Wild Riders - 2x Standards, Shields
2x6 Sisters - 2x Standards, 2x Musicians
2x3 Warhawks

2xEagles

Still have 20pts left. Its a 12.0, I'm actually gonna try it out soon.

[CauCaSus]

Haha how can you make your argument angelus and then say we have no chance agsinst woc netlist? Clearly its not a good argument. I dont worry about woc netlist at all, many times ive played variations of that army and i haven't lost yet.

Please tell me how you do this, WoC (and DoC) are my least favourite match ups.

What kind of list is the WoC fielding? Do you consider him/her a good player or at least to your own level?

[Coyle_Ravane]

So, at the risk of derailing this thread further, here is a Swedish list with all glade guard core that I seriously doubt could get boxed in or swept off the table... what do y'all think?

Well, the main army I see try these tactics is the dwarf player I mentioned earlier, and I'm pretty sure he would love facing that list.

You don't have any scouts or waywatchers, so you'd have 6 or 7 units of 20 dwarves plus a few gyros starting turn 1 already 12" from the edge of your deployment zone.

If he decided not to simply stand there and outshoot you (you'd struggle to stack enough to hit modifiers to cancel out the fact they have nearly 3 times as many shots, which wound on 3+, while yours wound on 5+), he'd probably have you boxed into a 12" strip along your table edge on turn 3(even accounting for slowing to shoot for a turn or two), and with your wildriders and possibly warhawks dead, you'd lack the punch to break greatweapon wielding dwarves in combat. Sisters and some warhawks might manage to slip through but that's a best case scenario.

Obviously, it might not go that way, you might have some great luck or pull off a tactical masterstroke. On the surface though, that looks like the most obvious result.

What it highlights to me is that while you might do well against a straight up rush version of the box in/push off the table tactics, the subtler variants might cause you problems. In particular, anyone with scouts can stop you vanguarding up the table to spread your forces early, and anyone who couples these tactics with decent shooting support could kill off the wildriders and leave no way to punch through.

You have a decent chance with that list, but you cannot just write off the strategy and assume your army can counter it.

[Aezeal]

So, at the risk of derailing this thread further, here is a Swedish list with all glade guard core that I seriously doubt could get boxed in or swept off the table... what do y'all think?

Well, the main army I see try these tactics is the dwarf player I mentioned earlier, and I'm pretty sure he would love facing that list.

You don't have any scouts or waywatchers, so you'd have 6 or 7 units of 20 dwarves plus a few gyros starting turn 1 already 12" from the edge of your deployment zone.

If he decided not to simply stand there and outshoot you (you'd struggle to stack enough to hit modifiers to cancel out the fact they have nearly 3 times as many shots, which wound on 3+, while yours wound on 5+), he'd probably have you boxed into a 12" strip along your table edge on turn 3(even accounting for slowing to shoot for a turn or two), and with your wildriders and possibly warhawks dead, you'd lack the punch to break greatweapon wielding dwarves in combat. Sisters and some warhawks might manage to slip through but that's a best case scenario.

Obviously, it might not go that way, you might have some great luck or pull off a tactical masterstroke. On the surface though, that looks like the most obvious result.

What it highlights to me is that while you might do well against a straight up rush version of the box in/push off the table tactics, the subtler variants might cause you problems. In particular, anyone with scouts can stop you vanguarding up the table to spread your forces early, and anyone who couples these tactics with decent shooting support could kill off the wildriders and leave no way to punch through.

You have a decent chance with that list, but you cannot just write off the strategy and assume your army can counter it.

Against dwarves I'd say hagbanes would be better anyway, certainly if he's gonna be close from turn 1 anyway. Not to mention I'd drop the musicians. But if he's 12 inch away after vanguarding your WR WILL be able to charge him and hurt. That could be before he can shoot.

[Coyle_Ravane]

Like I said, you'd have a decent chance. You'd need to get first turn or the wildriders would be dead (20 crossbows at -1 to hit averages 5 dead wildriders and we're talking about 6 or 7 units like that as well as gyrocopters), and you'd need a bit of luck for those charges to get through stand and shoot with enough riders left alive to do serious damage, and an awful lot of luck for enough left afterwards to be useful beyond that first turn, but it would be a chance to make a hole your sisters and warhawks could escape through.

That would force the dwarf player to choose between wiping out the gladeguard or the sisters and hawks. If he tried to do both he could fail to do either, and certainly wouldn't manage both unless you mad some serious mistakes.

[astorre]

Yeah, I don't much like that list. I was seeing if I could make a list using all glade guard core that I like, and I cant. Haha...
I wish someone played that Dwarf army around here... so theres no War Machines? A cannon or two?
Against that army, we are forgetting one big wild card, and I know its not dependable.... but magic. Heavens would be pretty nasty vs that list. Chain Lightning and Comet in particular. Not to mention Iceshard... Shadow as well, they could stop Pit or they could stop Withering, but probably not both after their scroll is burned. The trick would be to find a way to get more modifiers on that army instead of just long range. I'd try to screen the Wild Riders with some Hawks or Sisters, let them die, then charge. Wild Riders should do a number on their blocks, even if they die, you just have to stall that army long enough for the comet to fall.....

@Cacaucus, whats your list? What are they running? Id just suggest to get comfortable with what you can and cannot lose and still win the game. For example, Chaos always goes after my Glade Guard. Its the only thing they can catch haha. I usually hold a lot or all of my army back until theyre around the halfway point on the field, then open a hole and let my Glade Guard die. Scouts and Cav make it through.
I'd take out the Chimeras first, as they fly and if you get lucky you can drop them before the bane of elves <b>[censored]</b> breath weapon drops. (A tip... If your BSB, who I run on foot, has HoDA, and one of your units of Wild Riders has BoEF, put him in there first turn and don't vanguard, so his HoDA will be flaming. Follow up with some poison shots, its pretty much a guarantee that you drop one first turn if you dont take Starfire arrows. You can move him out turn 2 into some scouts.)
Ok so lets assume his Chimeras are dead, there goes his Daemon Prince's cover. Withering. Waywatchers. Some more Waywatchers. Once that sucker drops the game just got a lot easier. If he's smart, he went with a Lv4 on Disc or a Lord, either with 3++ rerolling 1s. If they did, ignore that guy.
So now you have 2 components left, a wall of Chariots and Skullcrushers. Ignore the Skullcrushers. An Eagle or two, and Miasma, can pretty much take them out of the game. Make them overrun at stupid angles.
Chariots can be beaten in the deployment phase. Make them come through dangerous terrain, which by time the Chimeras/Daemon Prince are down they should be doing. If no terrain was available, oh well!
This is where Wild Riders come in. They are now free to move about without fear of getting hit by Chimera's breath, you can work towards the flanks and by turn 3 or so you should start getting charges off. Hopefully your opponent didn't bring a bunch of Marauder Cav or Dogs, as it will take you a turn or two to shoot through those, but if they didn't bring much you can start Withering + shooting them off. Don't worry if your Wild Riders die, the main goal really is to just tie those Chariots up, but if you're in danger of getting counter charged, make sure you try to swing that combat with magic so you can overrun out of the way.
By this time, turn 4 or so, the Skullcrushers and BSB on Daemonic Mount are killing your Glade Guard. Hopefully you were able to get your characters out of there. (Steed of Shadows... All I'm sayin...)
Now, depending where you are at on points, you can run and hide your cav and skirmishers, or you can try to shoot them. If they didn't bring a Daemon Prince, you're gonna have to shoot them. Your Wild Riders are too banged up to go after either of them, so unless you have a unit of 5+ and feel like gambling on mindrazor or can get into the Skullcrusher's flank, dont worry about it. Have them go hide somewhere. Hopefully you kept your Shadoweaver alive, if so then you can Wither the Skullcrushers and Waywatcher them. Once again, ignore 3++ guys unless you cant.
If you didn't go Shadow, hopefully you went Heavens + Metal, much the same but less Withering, more Searing Doom/Chain Lightning/Thunderbolt.
If you went High, hope you brought a Metal or Death singer for support. The game changes here a little bit, because with Unforging you can tackle those 3++ characters. High T stuff gets Spirit Leeched/Searing Doomed. Don't Spirit Leech Chimera's unless theyre out of the General's Ld, their Regen makes it not worthwhile. Your other friend is Walk Between Worlds.
If you went Dark or Light Council, youre 6 dicing Doombolt/Banishment.
If you went with something else, you chose a bad lore haha. I guess Beasts would be alright if you can get Amber Spear through. Death is OK but it will work like a not as good Shadow. Life is pretty bad against Chaos, and if you took Fire then I just don't really know what to say about that.

[CauCaSus]

That's all solid advice, and correlates with my experience as well. Thanks.

[Coyle_Ravane]

Yeah, I don't much like that list. I was seeing if I could make a list using all glade guard core that I like, and I cant. Haha...
I wish someone played that Dwarf army around here... so theres no War Machines? A cannon or two?
Against that army, we are forgetting one big wild card, and I know its not dependable.... but magic. Heavens would be pretty nasty vs that list. Chain Lightning and Comet in particular. Not to mention Iceshard... Shadow as well, they could stop Pit or they could stop Withering, but probably not both after their scroll is burned. The trick would be to find a way to get more modifiers on that army instead of just long range. I'd try to screen the Wild Riders with some Hawks or Sisters, let them die, then charge. Wild Riders should do a number on their blocks, even if they die, you just have to stall that army long enough for the comet to fall.....

Yep, no cannons or anything, just GW wielding xbow blocks, gyros and minimal characters. It is the most fun dwarf army I've ever played against when in good hands. A poor player would probably turn it into a tough gunline with redeployment shenanigans, which is a useful option, but they'd miss the more adventurous uses of the list. Watching a good player use it is fantastic though.

Magic can be the big game changer against it, especially movement control like wind blast, comet, curse of anraheir etc.

Wildriders can't be relied on like normal, as they'll be frontal charging solid dwarf blocks. Still good, but not the usual slaughter.

[Phil Rossiter]

The Chimaeras are definitely the priority if the WoC player pushes them in your face, which most will. In my last game against them I got lucky shooting one off (had no Flaming) and charged the other. Is there some mileage in the Warriors player being more cagey with them, maybe sending them round the flanks?

I agree with astorre's point that it's the Ward characters you have to watch for. T5, 3/4++, 1/2+ is very hard to shoot off. He can fit around 4 into a 25% list, more with the new FAQ. Daemonic mounts can be redirected for a while but not the flyers so much.

As said I like my Treeman here (though not vs Daemons). Dwellers isn't ideal vs WoC but Flesh, Regrowth and Lifebloom go a long way. He might also be good vs Coyle's Dwarf list. Of course whether you want him in an avoidance list is another matter.

[Aezeal]

Yeah, I don't much like that list. I was seeing if I could make a list using all glade guard core that I like, and I cant. Haha...
I wish someone played that Dwarf army around here... so theres no War Machines? A cannon or two?
Against that army, we are forgetting one big wild card, and I know its not dependable.... but magic. Heavens would be pretty nasty vs that list. Chain Lightning and Comet in particular. Not to mention Iceshard... Shadow as well, they could stop Pit or they could stop Withering, but probably not both after their scroll is burned. The trick would be to find a way to get more modifiers on that army instead of just long range. I'd try to screen the Wild Riders with some Hawks or Sisters, let them die, then charge. Wild Riders should do a number on their blocks, even if they die, you just have to stall that army long enough for the comet to fall.....

Yep, no cannons or anything, just GW wielding xbow blocks, gyros and minimal characters. It is the most fun dwarf army I've ever played against when in good hands. A poor player would probably turn it into a tough gunline with redeployment shenanigans, which is a useful option, but they'd miss the more adventurous uses of the list. Watching a good player use it is fantastic though.

Magic can be the big game changer against it, especially movement control like wind blast, comet, curse of anraheir etc.

Wildriders can't be relied on like normal, as they'll be frontal charging solid dwarf blocks. Still good, but not the usual slaughter.

If he brings 7 blocks of 20... and all armored, GW and guns scouting and vanguard special rules and dwarven (= above average) stats... how much are they per model? They sound expensive but still it seems like he'd have more models than a WE army.
Good to hear that there at least are no warmachine next to this. What is his magic defense like in this setup. We are often pretty high in magic levels so as mentioned before (and by you) there should be options there (apart from heavens and shadow I think basic blasting with fire could be usefull here.. the units are small enough to have to test when a enough get downed.

About the WR: if he deploys them in some formation that allows all of them to shoot wouldnt'that mean he couldn't have many of them fighitng in ranks (or better said: the damage WR do would make him get less hits in return pretty quick right?)

[Coyle_Ravane]

If he brings 7 blocks of 20... and all armored, GW and guns scouting and vanguard special rules and dwarven (= above average) stats... how much are they per model? They sound expensive but still it seems like he'd have more models than a WE army.
Good to hear that there at least are no warmachine next to this. What is his magic defense like in this setup. We are often pretty high in magic levels so as mentioned before (and by you) there should be options there (apart from heavens and shadow I think basic blasting with fire could be usefull here.. the units are small enough to have to test when a enough get downed.

I think they work out somewhere around 15 pts each with xbow, heavy armour, shield and greatweapon, + about 50 odd points of runes on each standard (because they can't have identical runes, so each one has the vanguard rune and another cheapish rune). 2 of the units are rangers, also about 15 pts each but scout so no rune standard needed. Then there's 3 gyrocopters, a bsb (minimal kit, xbow, gw, and armour with a defensive rune for 3+ save)and a runesmith or runelord (can't remember which, but also minimal kit) with the dispel scroll type rune.

Most of his points go on the troops. So that's a lot of bodies at 2400pts. Either 120 or 140 dwarves in total, making them nearly impossible to get around. He uses two rows when he uses this tactic, with units in 2 ranks and the second row just behind the first, allowing them to catch anyone trying to dodge between or fly over the first row. If he turns it into an advanced gunline it becomes a single row which pretty much covers the width of the table, flying over or making a hole is the only way to get through, and the gyros often hang back a little to cover that or move to reinforce parts of the line which need it.

Magic can work well but it is unreliable, and they aren't completely defenceless.

About the WR: if he deploys them in some formation that allows all of them to shoot wouldnt'that mean he couldn't have many of them fighitng in ranks (or better said: the damage WR do would make him get less hits in return pretty quick right?)

2 ranks of 10, so you have to get through 20 shots on stand and shoot (without the usual -1 to hit) which can easily wipe out 6 wildriders with only moderate dice rolls. Unless you do something to reduce the effectiveness of that shooting you will not have enough attacks to reduce the number of return attacks, even if you make it through.

You won't have any spells yet on 1st turn move phase, so the best bet is cover. That has them needing 6 to hit, which ruins the stand and shoot. They still won't break easily, but with a touch of luck you can make a hole to get your faster units through.

My experience has been that using my own scouts to hold at least part of them back through vanguard blocking, then pushing EG and a treeman forward aggressively can hold them up and stop them making a unified push forwards, which makes it easier to outshoot them through stacked modifiers, and makes it easier to spread them out and pick them apart with wildriders and warhawks (no stand and shoot when you charge them in the rear!). The lack of cannons make the treeman's life a lot easier, and a lot longer, although universal gw's means he won't last as long in combat as usual.

I think similar tactics should work better against rush armies like WoC which don't have the manpower to cover the width of the board, or enough xbows to make a bowline weep.

Push EG and treemen forward to hold them up and stop them advancing in a unified formation. Then you can break the formation up, pull them in different directions and shoot some while butchering others in combat.

[Phil Rossiter]

I'd be fairly happy putting the Treeman in vs S5 Great Weapons, S6 not so much.