Tactics against VC summon horde?

Master_of_onion · Post by **Master_of_onion** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:37 am

How the hell can I make the VC player stop from summoning more and more units to the battlefield? Should I use fast and harhitting units to get in fast and tie the units CC? Could there be any way to hunt or snipe the necromances at the start and then just watch when hes army just turns to dust?

The VC player owns all matches since no-one has anyway of distrupting them...

Katon · Post by **Katon** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:45 am

Shades deployed hidden where he normaly deploys is necro?
Harpies are ment to be good at hunting wizards and war machines, not tried them myself yet.
A DR unit with a mounted Noble/ Highborn might work?

Type of list are you fielding?

Seanzala · Post by **Seanzala** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:56 am

Shades are nice but have become less effective in 7th edition. Haven't tried them since the new rules. Generally Harpies are the way to go, but passing your fear test is hard which makes them less effective against Undead. A fast hard hitting magic defensive army could work.

SZ

Post by **Vorchild** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:10 pm

Kill the necros - simple as that. Units of dark riders and COK are excellent at charging in and killing the necros. You don't expect to win (unless maybe with COK) but you should expect a wound or two off a necro sitting in a unit. Many times its worth sacrificing a unit of DR for the chance. If the necros leave the units, shoot them, plain and simple. If you've designed the army right and are appropriately aggressive, you should be able to kill all the L2 necros by turn 3.

Opera of death · Post by **Opera of death** » Sat Apr 21, 2007 11:22 pm

More complex tactics may be required if the enemy is using the 'Necrobunker', since their spells do not need LOS. You will need to clear away the intervening protection units but at the same tim, even if you fail, you may absorb enough of the enemy's attention for you to defeat the rest of their army.

Xerasi · Post by **Xerasi** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 1:44 am

you could also just go for a witch elf heavy army if you have big problems. CoB if you want to be fluffy, but as most combats will be prolonged there is no real idea in doing so. DR's and rxb warriors as core, 2 or 3 units of WE, and some magic. If he doesn't use champions a beastmaster/noble with the web of shadows on some kind of mount.

Also remember to throw your lines out wide. Getting into combat with two of his units is a great advantage for you. He will improve his US by a bit, keeping the +1 CR for that, while you might be getting 5 models that can attack the unit. If everything goes right, a unit of witches deployed 10 wide should easily be able to destroy 2 units of zombies in a given combat round.

A beastmaster on peg with the ring og Hotec might not either be a bad idea to heras the main necromancher, but it depends on how he plays the army, and what units he has to start of with.

Xerasi

Danceman · Post by **Danceman** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:11 am

If you've designed the army right and are appropriately aggressive, you should be able to kill all the L2 necros by turn 3.

That is pretty damn optimistic.

turn 1 : moving up
turn 2 : positioning(as the VC player should be countering your movement with a few screens and blocks).
turn 3 : You have to pass alot of fear tests / actually be able to charge the bunker ie killed the screen etc.

Then of course the VC player will have other units that just zombies to consider. Wolves will make life hard for you for one cause he sure as hell wont make it easy for you.

"Kill the necro´s" is alot easier said than done against a decent VC player.

So basicly, kill his fast stuff asap! it will make the route to his vulnerable necro´s a much simpler task indeed. Wolves arent tough so even RXB fire should be able to off them relatively easily.

If you have RBTs shoot the units he cannot raise first. He will depend upon these since he wont have very fighty characters.

so kill ;
1. fast stuff to get to the necros
2. kill the stuff he cannot raise.

Khel · Post by **Khel** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 2:34 am

Im not quite sure about this, but if you tye a unit with a necro in it, does being in the unit mean be can still cast off spells?

Cold one Chariots, plus with a small flank attack of Witch elves in the front, can break any undead unit....well sorta...? Try to get some good hunting units on to his necro unit's, and concentrate RBT's on GEneral for the crumble rule to apply.

Opera of death · Post by **Opera of death** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 3:31 am

As someone who's main army is VC, I assure you that 'kill the necros' is not an easy thing to accomplish against an experienced player. You should not even be able to bring them to combt until at least turn 4 and if you are not very careful, your hunting units will all be killed or beaten off. THe VC play must be careful notto spend too much of his effort on defense and you must not spend too much of your effort on getting the Neromancers.

Not all players are capable of handling two complex events at the same time and your opponent may get distracted by your assault.

Ninsaneja · Post by **Ninsaneja** » Sun Apr 22, 2007 6:33 am

I play VC as a secondary army, and I am generally able to hold off attacking enemies for more than 4 turns. At the least, one can summon a unit of zombies at an angle - a trick I thought of after reading all the stuff on this very forum about baiting and diverting with DR. A small unit of zombies can force them to turn up to 45 degrees to charge it, or attempt to go around it. They can't overrun, because it'd take them away from the necro and facing away. They can't go around, because getting flanked by zombies is embarrassing. Even if they destroy the zombies in only one turn, they are delayed.

I used this trick in a "king of the hill" game, forcing some empire knights + priest to turn at the foot of the hill and stick until the game ended.

Necros are hard to get at when the undead have more magic, which they generally do. If the undead is skilled enough, he'll cast spells you have to dispel first, such as a gaze of nagash into the unit you're trying to charge him with, then place a unit of zombies in the way. You really need to get a ranked unit down the front of his line, so he can't hide from all sides. Either that, or carry enough scrolls and hold them till they'd win you the game... Get rid of that integral summoning or vanhel's, instead of worrying about one or two knight units...

Post by **Vorchild** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:33 am

"Kill the necro´s" is alot easier said than done against a decent VC player.

This is quite true. A good VC player is normally a seriously good VC player. Most VC players I find though aren't really so great to the point where I find VC is the easiest army out there for me to defeat. Very few people actually use a bunker as I've seen, for example, or really use any advanced tactics.

This begs the question: What sort of army specifically is he using and how is he using it?

Jekkakhan · Post by **Jekkakhan** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 4:57 am

I stop them by stopping them from raising outside the units. I use 2 level 1 wizards, 3 dispell scrolls, and seal of ghrond. When they base there whole strategy on this they tend to get frustrated at you not letting them cast outside the unit. I generally let most everything else go. And use 3 dark rider units in various ways to get at the necros. Killing 1 or 2 even is a good way to slow done there magic phase. But they are the TOP priority in armys that base tactics on raising units.

Khel · Post by **Khel** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 6:26 am

I agree with msot of you, that it is more harder to kill a necro than expected,

1: You gotta be aware about the units around you...and beneath you! As soon as you get close enough, he can simply summon up a unit of zombies in your way.

2: They can still cast, hurtful magic.

3: You dont kill the necro in one turn you can be in serious trouble, for he'll raise more models around him to flank you...which is very scary.

Young dark elf · Post by **Young dark elf** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:49 am

I never played against VC nor shall i play because no one is colecting em!I think the harpies are useless against necros because some expirianced player will put them in a unit of 10 skeletons...task of the skeletons is simple...keep necro alive!and if something bad happenes and enemy starts advancing towards that unit of necro and skelies necro just raises many skeletons and is safe....
Now your task is hard because your harpies are useless in this situation...DR will probably do nothing ...And only choices are your trusty regiments of CoK and CoC ....Take 2 for one CoC and two units of CoK and take unit of witch elves and give hag witchbrew so your enemy doesnt count bonuses for rear flank and outnumber and since WE are frenzy (like my mom when i make some sh**) and are immune to psyhologie and are perfect for their many atacks will crush skelies
Take corsairs too and 2 RBT and unit of warriors with repeater xbows shoot life outta them (again) and shoot unit which guards necromancer!

Dancingpigeon · Post by **Dancingpigeon** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:08 pm

My only experience against VC was against a semi-decent 1000pt list a friend of mine played at Conflict. With 3DD I didn't find the magic phase too intimidating, I'd dispel Curse of Years if it went off, ignore him summoning new units for the most bit, and then cancel out the book. I did, however, manage to kill his Necro-general on the 2nd (?) turn with a harpy flank charge. 8 harpies do wonders against WS3, T3

Having said that, this was an isolated example against someone who wasn't particularly experienced with the army- he did learn an important lesson though.

Repeater Crossbow fire is great for canceling out any re-summoning of ranks that he gets off, and Reapers are nice for scaring Black Knights from directly moving across the battlefield.

Its hard to give specific advice without seeing the regular list your VC player is using.

Marauder mitch2 · Post by **Marauder mitch2** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:18 pm

I've been having problems against my flat mate who is a good player with VC's. His main army is druchii so it makes it a little bit harder. I had problems killing off his support. Therefore my aarmy is now designed to kill support and worry about the blocks later.

cheers rob

Dancingpigeon · Post by **Dancingpigeon** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:34 pm

Marauder Mitch2 wrote:I've been having problems against my flat mate who is a good player with VC's. His main army is druchii so it makes it a little bit harder. I had problems killing off his support. Therefore my aarmy is now designed to kill support and worry about the blocks later.

cheers rob

Generally the most sound tactic against any army.

Post by **Vorchild** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 2:02 pm

Khelmor Blackspine wrote:I agree with msot of you, that it is more harder to kill a necro than expected,

1: You gotta be aware about the units around you...and beneath you! As soon as you get close enough, he can simply summon up a unit of zombies in your way.

For sure. That being said, all the long range VC support units can very easily be dealt with. In my opinion these are wolves and bats. Wolves go down so fast to shooting its not funny and once they lose a few models to the unit you can just let them sit there since all they're good for at that point is giving you an overrun move. Its not as easy to shoot bats but you can easily engage them in combat and wipe them out. Newly summoned units are similarly just extra VPs to most DE attack units unless they can raise a whole lot in one round (raise and support casting), which is fine too since that should be the limit of their casting potential (2 spells) if you've chosen your magic defence properly.

2: They can still cast, hurtful magic.

For sure, but you have to keep in mind that magic is limited, whether by opponent dispel attempts, failed casting, miscasts, etc. As such, you get a finite number of spells that you can reliably get off, so normally you won't see a lot of raising and then a lot of hurtful magic being cast your way. Also, the only spell you really need to worry about damaging you is gaze of nagash as the curse is too difficult to cast reliably with most wizards (and if they are in fact using a necrobunker that spell will be pretty useless).

3: You dont kill the necro in one turn you can be in serious trouble, for he'll raise more models around him to flank you...which is very scary.

Sure, he'll raise more units (or possibly heal himself) but keep in mind that most time you don't get him successfully you're likely to break and run and flanking zombies shouldn't concern you much at that point. A charge from a unit of 5 COK will get 2 S5 attacks and 2 S4 attacks on a necro. That's a high chance of success to kill the guy. You get less of a chance of success with a unit of DR and an in between chance of success (still good) with a chariot (which is cheaper and like the COK doesn't need to test for fear and might not break either). Also, even taking a wound off the guy will give you an advantage since there are so many miscast results that could then end up killing him. The other benefit of the suicide charge (if you get the opportunity) is that most often you'll get away and be able to try it again someplace else in a couple turns.