need help with Empire Knights

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Etancross
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Post by Etancross »

not sure of what part of them (Harpies) getting shot down and killed before they make it too the warmachines isn't registering here.

-hill>|C C|
Handgunners-> HHHHH
Handgunners-> HHHHH



->Harpies H H H H H
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Red...
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Post by Red... »

every time i say ANYTHING about struggling with Ogres, or Struggling with empire Knights/Artillery i keep hearing "you shouldn't have trouble against this, how are you losing to ogres, how this how that" and if DE's are susposed to be such a scaple ready to cut the heart out of our oponents then i can't find a place to make the inital incision with empire.


Despite the hype about Dark Elves being "one of the big three" they remain very challenging to play and can have lots of problems against any and all opponent armies. They can be a very fun and powerful army to play, but are also very fragile. Don't let comments suggesting that you should be doing better than you are bother you: they're not meant to make you feel bad or anything like that, I think they're expressing that it sounds like you are doing the right thing and so - like you - they are puzzled as to why its not working.

I've not played against Empire much with Dark Elves, but it has always struck me that an effective Empire general could pummel you from afar with guns while keeping you away from his gunlines through the use of his mobile knights and infantry.

It's a nasty choice: if you try to rush his lines with your dark riders, harpies etc. He can counter-charge with his knights and infantry and see you off. If you don't try to rush his lines then he just sits back and pummels you from afar.

I don't have the answers I'm afraid (I've always been very lucky against Empire, particularly in my last game with my WoC, where one unit fled from terror due to my Daemon Prince and the entire army leapfrogged over each other in their haste to get away, sparing me from the horrifying defeat I was about to suffer...) but I do think you should know that it is a hard army you are playing against and you shouldn't feel bad about it :)

I agree, it is far easier on a forum to make general sweeping statements like "if you're not getting the charge with your <insert name of unit here> then you're 'playing them wrong'".

Do you play against any other opponents? How do you fare against them?

I agree with Dread_Knight666: it would be useful if you could post your list so we could make comments on it :) Even if we can't guarantee that the dice gods will go in your favour, we can hopefully suggest a few changes you could make to enhance your list or some strategies you might not have considered that you could use with your army.

Finally (sorry for the long post): I would avoid taking 2 level 2 wizards unless you absolutely have to. 1 level 1 scroll caddy and the ring of hotek should really be enough. I play quite regularly against armies of 10+ power dice at 2250 level and have found that the key is to know which spells to dispel and which not to: if he casts a magic missile at your block of spearmen, let it go. If he casts spirit of the forge at your cold one knights then use all your dispel dice or dispel scroll asap! The 1 extra dispel dice that taking a second level 2 wizard provides doesn't change your magic defense that much: you'd be better off spending the additional 185 points in other places (more troops, magic immune fighting hero, etc). But that's just my opinion :)


Oh, and finally, as I just saw your last comment: My harpies always get shot to hell too (I joke that they never make it past turn 2, in fact they usually get wiped out by enemy missiles/magic/running away before I get my first turn!!!)

Sorry for so many edits, apparently I can't manage comprehendable sentences today!
Last edited by Red... on Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Borog »

But they should only get one shot at them, hitting on 6s?

hitting at 4+, over half range 5+. and skirmisher 6+.

They are not on a hill, otherwise they would block the cannons line of sight, unless you play with a tiered hill, which is just mean.

so that's about 5 shots from two units? Hitting on 6s and wounding on 3+.

And you can use one unit of harpies to block LOS to the other one. So one unit of harpies should be able to charge, and only be hit on 6s, or land just outside of the handgunners LOS so they can charge next turn.

So you shouldn't be shot to pieces in every game at least?

If they still get shot, then more harpies! :P
4 units of 5 should make him sweat :D
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Post by Drek »

You are welcome.

I do not think your problem is that your opponent is playing Empire. Your problem, rather, is that your opponent is better with empire than you are with DE. You do, however, have the tools to be successful. I'm happy to help you learn how to use them.

So, on to your particular struggles: your opponent is deploying a castle formation. When playing against such a formation, there are numerous factors to consider.

1. Terrain. I don't know how you guys set up terrain, but if he doesn't have a hill, it changes things. And if he does, you want to have a forest you can hide behind on your way to his castle. The closer to the hill the better. Without cover, you will never get there.
2. Deployment. You want to be able to hide your Cannon killers on turn 1 but be able to threaten his WM on Turn 2. Hence terrain to hide behind.
3. The threat. You have to either outmaneuver or outnumber the castles shooters. If he has 2 units of handgunners, send 3 units to kill them. If he has 3, send 4. Also, handgunners are move-or-fire. So if possible avoid putting your WM killers in their shooting arc. If he has 2 units angled differently, put 2 of your units so that they are in LOS of only 1 unit.
4. Charging. If possible, do not charge the handgunners. Charge the cannons. Harpies may be able to fly over handgunners, DR may be able to go around them, but take out the cannons. They are the main threat (see below) and are easier to kill. There's no stand and shoot, and they'll die easy. Then when you kill the cannon and your guys come back on the board, those move-or-fire handgunners are screwed.

Here's the thing to remember in all this, though: THIS IS NOT THE MAIN BATTLE. And I said that in caps on purpose. It's that critical. He's got 300ish points on the hill, you'll be attacking with less. You are trying to win this little side fight so you can have the upper hand on the rest of the board. That's where patience comes into play. This is an important sideshow, but that's ultimately what it is, and if you try too hard to win here, he'll sink you someplace else.
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Post by Borog »

Just so I don't come across as an "you suck, I rule" person:

I hate empire knights as well :P
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Post by Etancross »

Red... wrote:
I do think you should know that it is a hard army you are playing against and you shouldn't feel bad about it :)


That makes me feel 1000% better because i know im not a "terriable" fantasy player but I was starting to feel like the village freak that everyone was pointing at and thinking is an idiot.
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Post by Drek »

You most certainly are not the 'village idiot'! This can be a tough nut to crack even when the opponent is an idiot, and it's a royal pain when they know what they are doing. I went two years without winning a game with my DE. Now I hardly ever lose. You're going to take some lumps, but keep at it. You'll get there.
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Post by Bies »

hehe this thread is making me miss my empire...Outriders gentlemen, Outriders make an Empire general smile!
Not another 1...
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Post by Etancross »

My list was in my other thread about ogres, this list is usually 1500 but i added other units to bump it up to 2k; for my last game i tried a supreme sorceress on pegasis which was AMAZING! but normally i would run something like this:

(Ratajczyk) Dreadlord on cold one
(Fitzroy) Sorceress Lv2
(Death Belle) Sorceress Lv2


2x5 Harpies
3x10 Rxb
1x20 Spearmen
2x5 CoK’s
9 Shades
5 Dark Riders
2 Reaper Bolt Throwers
1 Hydra

It was hard for me because im used to playing with big blocks of troops but in my thread about ogres someone made me realize i was playing DE like I played Orc's and that wasn't going to work so i switched up my list and style of play totally.

Since ive changed to this List ive Massacared Ogres (beat him to a butcher and a leadbelcher) and lost 2x's to Empire.
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Post by Dread_knight666 »

As far as charging his cannons with harpies, he keeps a detachment of hand gunngers on the hill in front of the cannons to keep them from being taken out with ease

Easy to deal with. Move you DR up the flank hidden behind terrain and place them in the flank of the hand gunners(remember handguns cannot move or fire), Harpies go up the front, but keep them over half range of the hand gunners but able to charge cannons.

He can shoot your harpies, but will likely fail to do much.(I believe empire hand gunners hit on a 4+, over half 5+ and skirmisher 6+( Then you charge on turn 2 and easily slay his cannon crew. If hand gunners are blocking line of sight to his cannon, then they are also blocking his cannons line of sight and if they are below the cannon, then you can charge right over their heads. Now when you get done with the cannon, you can easily charge the hand gunners in the rear, or in the front if he turns, it really won't matter since you will be so close he can't stand and shoot.

If somehow he is doing enough damage to cause both harpy units to flee from panic, try to position your general within 12" preferably behind cover, so they can use generals Ld for the panic.

The last time my Hydra died it was hiding in the woods from cannons and to get closer to his units, it hoped out (couldn’t charge because it started more than 2” in the woods) and flamed a unit of ? with spearmen detachments, hit 5 guys and got 2 of the 4 partials (7 in all) and killed 2, it was charged and killed. I was frustrated and was told that shouldn’t have happened but it did.

Why move your hydra where it can get charged, especially for 5 hits? It sounds like you got greedy to burn some crappy core and got counter charged as a result. Although the fact it died sounds like bad luck(Did they take terror check?).

I could tell by the way he was moving he thought I was going to charge them with the COK’s so I hit them in the flank with shades and from the front with… dark riders because the next closest unit to them had my sorceress inside so the shades didn’t die but they were getting cut down slowly but surely not at all had I wanted to use them but just had to make that decision on the fly.

Not that I fully understand the whole picture here, but you could have also just shot the flagalents(?)march blocked and redirected them.

I can't give much advice on magic and I don't really understand how he is generating so many dispel dice, but it shouldn't matter with sacrificial dagger and dark star cloak(10PD + 2 POD). I would try casting some big scary spells first to absorb some dispel dice, but remember a spell like chill wind could be the most beneficial spell you cast against empire, I would try and save it until his dispel dice are gone. With two wizards you may also want to try a flying assassin, which could seriously mess up his cannons.

BTW blade wind would be the worst spell you could cast at knights. Poor decisions like this are probably why your magic phase fails miserably. Blade wind could decimate a cannon, or even a unit of hand gunners, or the dreaded pistol cavalry.

Well im not getting massacred anymore and our last 3 games two were minor victories to him

Don't feel bad, it's just a game and you are obviously getting better if you aren't getting trounced so bad. When I first started playing against gun lines, I had a hard time too, but I just had to learn how to handle them. You need to learn to not present easy targets and surgically remove the worst of his shooting before advancing.
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Post by Red... »

Etancross,

Thanks for the list. Could I suggest a few ideas?

Take more dark riders: 2+ units of 5 is probably better than 1. Same with the harpies: take 2+ units if you can.

Change the 2 level 2 sorceresses into a single level 1 scroll caddy. Dark Elf magic is an all or nothing game, and you're risking wasting points by doing it in the middle. You don't strike me as someone who loves magic (I do not like magic with dark elves at all, but some people do: its the beauty of our fair race that we can choose which way we go), so don't waste time with trying imo.

I'd go back to taking a block of Black Guard, as currently your army just doesn't have the umph it needs to take on his nastier heavily armoured foes. To lower its risk of getting pulverised before it gets there, consider the following set up:

13 Black guard
Full command
Standard of Hag Graef
Ring of Hotek
264 points

1 Master
Ring of Darkness
Great Weapon, heavy armour, shield and seadragon cloak
134 points

This set up is good because it will make it hard for him to do them much damage: if he tries to shoot you, he's firing at half BS (BS3 vs Ring of Darkness = 6+ to hit at long range, 5+ to hit at short range) and if he hits you with a cannon then he's only going to get two of them. They also can't rout from missile fire due to immune to psych. If he concentrates his fire on the unit then he's not hitting other things, whereas if he doesn't focus on them then you can really hurt his units (the 3 ASF hatred S6 attacks from the master in CC make it possible to kill even heavy cavalry, and better yet, even if you lost in CC you're stubborn on Ld9, so he is tarpitted there at least...). The Ring of Hotek will help make them resistant to magic :)

Reduce the amount of shooting you are fielding. Dark Elf shooting vs heavy armour armies is fickle at best: the dice gods can be frustrating, but the best way around this is not to ask for their help unless you need it: rolling 60 shots that need 5s to hit, 4s to wound and rely on him rolling 1s on his armour save is just tempting fate. I don't think the solution to fighting against a strong gunline army is to field a pseudo gunline in response. Dark Elf missile lines can be very powerful against some enemies: empire is not usually one of them imo.

My suggested list then would be:

Dreadlord on cold one with armour of eternal servitude, death piercer and potion of strength, with sea dragon cloak and shield (269)
Master with Ring of Darkness, great weapon, heavy armour and sea dragon cloak (132)
Sorceress level 1 with 2 dispel scrolls (150)
2x5 Harpies: 110
12x BG, standard of HG, ring of hotek, full command: 251
5 Cold One Knights with standard and banner of cold blood: 166
5 Cold One Knights with standard and banner of murder: 183 (Dreadlord goes here)
2x5 Shades with great weapons: 180
2x5 Dark Riders with musicians (no RxBs): 184
2 Reaper Bolt Throwers: 200
1 Hydra: 175

2000 exactly. I had to shave off one BG and the shield from the master to make it fit(!). Run that unit as 7 in the front line (including master) and 6 in the rear line.


You then have 6 super mobile units: (2 units of harpies, 2 units of dark riders and 2 units of shades), as well as three hard hitting medium fast units (2 units of cold one knights and the hydra). The Blackguard give your centre a strong anchor, while your Reapers can irritate his knights from afar. The key to the army would then be to be aggressive: move everything forward as quickly as you can, but....

Advance in such a way so that if he charges your dark riders or harpies with his knights, you can flee them and counter charge next turn with your own cold one knights. If he doesn't charge them with his knights, go for gold and charge his artillery units with them asap. Then mop up his heavy knight units after.

Finally, consider taking Malus (275 points) instead of the dreadlord build (269 points). He is very tasty against T3 heavy armour armies because, while he attacks with S5 (still enough to wound on 2s), re-rolls to wound, negates stupidity and - most importantly - doesn't allow armour saves!



This is all a bit conjectural I'm afraid, so hopefully others with more experience vs Empire can chip in and correct me, but even if you don't like my suggested revised list (which you could very well not like! I won't be offended :)) I guess the key themes for me would be to suggest:

- Add more mobility to your list.
- Reinforce your hard hitting core.
- Reduce your dependence on missile fire and magic.
- Drop the warriors altogether: blocks of 20 spears have no place against cannon armies.
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Post by The warchief »

Back to the original question of Knights. I experimented this week by Killing Blow Cauldron blessing a unit of spearmen and placing them next to my ASF Black Guard directly in front of the Knights. They now have a choice of targets and usually the Spearmen look juicier! I also ensured that my assassin was in the correct place in the front rank so as to put him next to the Warrior Priest (this can also be done by keeping him hidden and placing him next to the WP when revealed). I don't think the Warrior Priest can shuffle around the front rank on the turn he charges so this should be easy enough to do? Instead of challenging (he would have accepted with a champion) I directed all his ASF on to the WP. The assassin benefits from the Cauldron blessing as well, so 1 killing blow later the WP is dead. The Knights then don't hit as hard (I think they killed 2) and my return attacks with 2 ranks of hatred+KB spears resulted in 2 more KB dead. Final CR was 8 v 4, they held thanks to the general and BSB nearby but the assassin would make mincemeat of the rank and file knights in the next turn.

DISCLAIMER - I know this is very situational, relies on rolling a few sixes and just because it worked once for me doesn't mean it will work everytime

Also, a shamless plug I know, but check out the blog in my sig, it has 2 recent battle reports against empire...
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Post by Etancross »

Red... wrote:
My suggested list then would be:

Dreadlord on cold one with armour of eternal servitude, death piercer and potion of strength, with sea dragon cloak and shield (269)
Master with Ring of Darkness, great weapon, heavy armour and sea dragon cloak (132)
Sorceress level 1 with 2 dispel scrolls (150)
2x5 Harpies: 110
12x BG, standard of HG, ring of hotek, full command: 251
5 Cold One Knights with standard and banner of cold blood: 166
5 Cold One Knights with standard and banner of murder: 183 (Dreadlord goes here)
2x5 Shades with great weapons: 180
2x5 Dark Riders with musicians (no RxBs): 184
2 Reaper Bolt Throwers: 200
1 Hydra: 175

2000 exactly. I had to shave off one BG and the shield from the master to make it fit(!). Run that unit as 7 in the front line (including master) and 6 in the rear line.



Thanks for all your help, we have a game scheduled for monday. How can i extend this list to 2500 points?

We'll also have to change a few things cause the list isn't legal, 5 specials and not enough core.
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Post by Calisson »

What about a nice unit of corsairs, FC, SSS?
Add a CoB, and the perspective of 22 KB will frighten any knight!

etancross wrote:Let me talk more about magic because the guys in my gaming group are constantly telling me that my magic is actually pretty good but what ends up happeing is just bad luck or shouldn’t be happening. I usually take 2 wizards (mostly for magic defense because ive accepted they don’t do anything else) magic time…

I give Sorceress F the darkstart cloak, and give Sorceress D either the Sac Dagger or nothing, depending on spells ill give Sorceress D either one extra dice or just let her keep the pool and roll for her zero level spell and the last few games she’s rolled under 7 and its been dispelled so she has 2 dice to work with and Sorceress F has 3 so ill roll her spell whitch usually fails to go off or is dispelled because the empire’s “ONE” wizard has like 5 or 6 dispell dice.

With Sorceress F’s spell ill try to roll on 3 dice usually ends up being dispelled or like the last time the spell went off with double 6’s, it was Bladewind on one of his Knight units, I still remember this because of all the laughter in the room at what happened. I said “OMG maybe magic is FINALLY gonna do something for me”! I got 13 hits, 9 wounds…. Guess how many died.. “0” (that’s when everyone laughed) once again I was told there was no way that should have happened... I had to laugh to keep from crying.... and before im asked "why dont i use lore of metal" I usually give Sorceress D lore of metal but I have nothing to type here about it because it doesn't go off or is dispelled everytime.

Ive been taking Brazilian Jiujitsu for awhile, and one thing one of our instructors tells us is if you have no faith in what your doing is going to work, then its not going to work well with magic im always hoping its going to work but I have NO faith in it at all and I would love to run one of those lists ive seen where people just don’t take magic, but the guys I play against take lots of magic and as soon as they found out I had none, that would be a nightmare.

...I believe DE magic is garbage.
Instead of telling you to take only a level 1, I'll tell you how to use your 2 level 2.

First of all, let's understand the Empire's sceptre of power.
This is, indeed, a very potent arcane item: it can store 1-3 powerdice (PD) and make them Dispel Dice (DD) in the next phase (or store DD and make them PD). However, the more D he stores, the highest the chances of misfunction (1/6 for 2D, 2/6 for 3D).
As a result, a single wizard level 1 or 2 will have to decide:
- facing strong magic, he'll get 4 or 5 DD and will not even try to cast anything.
- facing weak magic, he'll get 4 or 5 PD (useful only for a level 2) and 2 DD.
The good news is that he has no dispel scroll, due to the cost of the sceptre.


What can you do with 2 level 2?
Give both of them Metal Lore, both of them spell #1. At least you know that all your sorceresses have a dangerous spell easy to cast.
In your magic phase, you have 6PD, he has 5DD.
Sorc 1 casts a dangerous spell with 4 PD (yes, even if that dangerous spell is the easy to cast Metal #1).
If she casts high, he will let it pass and will dispel the last 2 PD. One spell cast.
If she casts low, he will dispel, but he will need most or all of his DD to do it reliably. Then sorc 2 can cast PoD with the remaining 2D and cast her spell with whatever she gets (or directly with 2D if she wants to cast spell #1).
That is one spell per turn almost guaranteed (as long as sorc 1 does not double 1).

In order to increase your magic efficiency, you can use:
ToF, in order to increase your chances to get Metal #6, to be cast with the 4 dice spell.
Sac Dag, in order to have sorceress #2 cast 2 spells instead of 1 (using PoD or not, according to the situation).
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Post by Red... »

No worries :) Like I say, I'm not very experienced vs Empire, so can't guarantee how the list will do, but hopefully the added manoueverability (which you can maximise like others on here have suggested), combined with the hard centre will do well.
We'll also have to change a few things cause the list isn't legal, 5 specials and not enough core.
LOL, you're right, I didn;t notice that. Drop one unit of shades and take another unit of naked dark riders?

Calisson's suggestion of a Cauldron of Blood and a nice unit of SSS Corsairs is a really good one: the Cauldron at first can give one of your units a 5+ ward save (very helpful for the first part of the game when he is pounding you with his guns) and then later switch to giving one unit each turn the power of killing blow or an extra attack each.

Is he bringing his steam tank? That may alter the dynamics a bit: I've never played against one but I think there's some info in the DRAICH that may be helpful. I do know it's a beast!

Anyway, good luck with your game on Monday. Even if you lose, hopefully applying the different ideas suggested by Borog, Drek, Dread_Knight666, Bies, The Warchief and Calisson etc will bring you closer to knowing how to kill the empire :) It may take a bit of time to get used to a less shooty and more agile list though...
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Post by Eglard »

If he is bringing his steam tank, be sure to shoot it with bolt throwers. It is unlikely that they will kill it, that isn't the point. The steam tank will not be effective once you have done a few wounds to it. 3 or 4 will make it useless. Then all you have to do is to avoid it.

Assassins are something that every empire player is afraid of. They will make a blody pulp of state troopers.
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Post by Laina »

eglard wrote:Assassins are something that every empire player is afraid of. They will make a blody pulp of state troopers.


I have to disagree there. Yes they kill state troopers with ease but...
1. State Troops rarely provide a strong role.
2. Lots of people run State Troops as throw away units.
3. Some people don't even bother taking them anymore.

Although I do have to say that an assassin would be quite amazing if you can get him into a unit of flaggies. WS 2 T 3 no armour save 10 points a pop.
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Post by Eglard »

Well it depends. In a very competive enviroment people might not give an important role to them, but at least the bulk of my army is state troopers.
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Post by Etancross »

Well i could post a battle rep if you guys want me too... but im trying to find the right words to describe what happened tonight. The only analogy i can think of would be....

if Gandhi in his prime got in a full on fist fight with Mike Tyson in his prime.... The beating that Gandhi would get is the beating i got tonight i absolutly got raped to the nth degree.... i mean im sitting on a pillow right now because my butt is hurting so badly from that beating.

Here is his deployment:
Image

and heres Mine
Image

I had to do some proxying because my dark riders (woodelf gladriders) just got in and i had to use Goblin's for harpies because i dont have harpies yet.

from left to right its COK's, Dark Riders, COB, RBT, harpies, rxb's(sorc here), dark riders, harpies, rbx's (sorce here), Hydra, harpies, cok's.

His list was: 3 units of knights, with some kind of champ that did double wounds in CC, a steam tank, 3 - 4 units of crossbows, great swords, 2 cannons and i dont remember what else.

Long rape store later, I should have kept my mouth shut but in the proccess of insuring i had a lot of terrain, we roll on the D# plus one in the book and get a one, reroll it and get a 2 so we got 2 pieces of terrain on the board, He put a hill on a hill i put on a woods and that was it.

On to the game.....He killed EVERYTHING i had except for 2 units of rbx, a rbt, a dreadlord and unit of 3 cok's left, 2 sorc's, 2 units of harpies.

First shot of the game he fires and hits my hydra, he fails his 4 up regen then he rolls a 6 for D6 wounds and he informs me that my hydra doesn't get a chance to save those and just dies....

he took crossbows instead of gun's and at 30" str4 crossbows the harpies never got close to the canons at ALL!! They did nothing to speak of all game except NOT run off the table... I actually hit his steam canon with a RBT, wounded it and on my D3 roll did 2 wounds... it ended the game with 7 wounds total.

I had a charge on his Knights with my Cok's and the EFFEN knights ran opening me up to a counter charge from another unit of knights which kills 2 cok's, on the right side the other cok's got killed from 2 units of crossbows and did nothing.

The ONLY bright spot to this game for me comes with a question... I took lore of Metal on both Sorc's and one of them miscast the first turn of the game and did nothing, the other got it off and it was dispelled, but later in the game, both of them got Bane of the Forged off and killed a unit of knights, so my question is can Bane of the Forged be cast into combat? I cast it into combat and killed a ton of knights.

If anyone has any question please feel free to ask but this was an embarrassing defeat just down right embarrassing.

-----Edit-----

please don't be too brutal guys, we are still assembling our armies, thats why almost nothing is painted.
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Bounce
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Post by Bounce »

Nothing to be harsh about. I can't see how you could have done much from that position.

There is no terrain on the table?! Most tables I play on at tournaments have 4-6 pieces which are spread across the board giving you area to hide.

That was incredibly unlucky losing the Hydra to one cannon ball.
That sort of thing will almost never happen normally.

CoK's are also going to really struggle in this set up as all his archers are S4 AP meaning you only get a reduced save and he is going to have 2-3 turns of shooting.

How did you manage to lose all the Harpies so quickly?
In this case I'd deploy them all nearby the general so they can use his ld. Turn 1 don't move them too far forward. Stay at long range from his archers then charge in your turn two.
One round of shooting shouldn't be able to wipe them all out. Even if it does this then lets your Knights freely charge into his handgunners by turn 2

Don't take on his knights with your Knights.

I'd strongly suggest running several large spear blocks.
This completely negates all his shooting as losing 2-3 warriors is inconsequential and Cannons can't do anywhere near as much damage to them compared to your poor hydra.
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Bies
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Post by Bies »

OK.

*Pompous Arse mode ON!*

Cannon on far right by the Empire player - deployed very well, the one in the centre - not so much.

2nd you played with a single forest - what are you suicidal!!! you need 3-5 pieces of terrain minimum. Tbh you don't want more then 5 and you don't want less then 3 otherwise you'll get shot to bits (like in this game).

3rd - this is a cavalry tactica I wrote for Warhammer-Empire.com and it was uploaded to the Empire wiki along with my co-authors comments and tactics. While more in line for your opponent there is a tibbit on bait/flee tactics that it sounds like you ran into with the COK vs Knights.

Mayhap you want to take a read of it : FYI I'm Nicholas Bies

Main tactica page:http://www.warhammer-empire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Cavalry

Bait/flee page: http://www.warhammer-empire.com/wiki/in ... _Maneuvers

FYI,

I'd drop your metal lore and take Dark Magic then I'd ALWAYS have chill wind. If those crossbowmen (hitting on 6+ you know) are causing you such a headache, hit them with chill wind and stop them firing. In your first turn you can march that mage (or move 5" with that unit of crossbowmen) and launch a volley into his crossbowmen plus chill wind should dent such a unit and stops them firing at you!

FYI tell you friend to make his infantry 6 wide and 5 deep not 5 wide and 6 deep.

If he was using a Templar Grand Master with Laurels of Victory (has to be a lord as the item is 55pts) that makes his unit immune to psyche and a Combat Res monster. The good news is that most people (myself incl.) give him the Sword of Power for str6 always (40pts compared to Crimson Death's 25). That means his lord has a 1+ AS and no ward or regen. You get an assassin with +d3 attacks and killing blow in touch and you should kill him no worries. And if you don't he'll (on average) only get 2 wounds on you so average CR4 which is heavy but you can recover (hell 3 ranks, outnumber, standard = CR5)

Suggest putting in a unit of shades - you don't need the Ninja Assassin (although I'd recommend it) but a unit of 7 shades with greatweapons hiding in that forest would have been awesome for you could have shot the crossbowmen next to the forest to pieces turn 1 and charged into the detachment turn 2 leaving his infantry block isolated and alone.

Your deployment:

Deploy all your cavalry on 1 flank next time, Hydra, both COK and 1 dark rider unit totally swamp this flank, punch through what units he may have and then sweep across the board into his flank. Cover this group with 1 unit of harpies while covering your other flank with the 2nd unit of Dark riders ad 2nd Harpy unit (which aren't there to attack but to stop him attacking you - bait and fleet etc.)

Steam tanks: make sure you deploy your Bolt throwers last and hopefully after he's deployed his artillery (remember the stank is a warmachine so it gets deployed at the same time as both his cannons) have both of these targeting the stank, 3+ to hit, 4+ to wound average 2 wounds. Once a stank takes 4-5 wounds it's mostly dead in the water. A Ninja assassin can also help out here as you'll be 2+ to hit, 3+ to wound.

Alternatively deploy your bolt throwers on the flanks of your line so you get good cross-board shots into the flanks of his knights - and you can use your dark riders/harpies to try and pull his knights out of formation and open up that flank shot for you.

*end pompous arse mode*

Hope all the above helps.
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Etancross
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Post by Etancross »

I actually did use 2 units of shades
one unit got shot by the steam tank the other unit failed a terror check and ran like a chubby kid from fat camp.
the reason cav ended up on both flanks is i was waiting to see what he was going to do with the steam tank.

I had that side of the board covered, the plan was to jump the shades out behind the knights, the cok's would have monster mashed them in CC, they run and hit the shades, him killing that effen hydra first shot of the game sent that whole plan to hell.

I was going to take black guard but im glad i didnt because that would have been a 300pt mistake.

we have tons of woods but we rolled to see how many pieces go out and we rolled 2 then re rolled and rolled 2 again.... i wasn't happy about that at effen all.

The only way i could have been more embarrassed is if the local news would have flashed to my mother holding up a picture of me on the potty when i was a small boy...

the only bright spot of this game was the one thing i lost faith in and thats magic... one sorc had 4 dice (with the pool) the other had 3(with the pool) and Bane of the Forged wiped out his knights with ease.

Once again....can Bane of the Forged be cast into combat?
Dread_knight666
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Post by Dread_knight666 »

Not sure what you are trying to accomplish by spreading your army all the way across the board? You pretty much ensured he didn't have to move any of his "move or fire weapons" by providing him with a wide range of targets, ultimately maximizing his fire power. You should really read the deployment articles in the D.R.A.I.C.H. I personally tend to weight one flank heavily in most cases.

I can't figure out how you are loosing harpies so easily. If you would have placed both units in your right hand flank, you could have moved both so they were in the flank of one crossbow unit and in front of the other. This would have meant he could have only shot one unit, with one unit of crossbows and a cannon, then in your turn, providing neither unit fled, one could charge the cannon and another could have charged the crossbows flank. If the unit that charges the cannon won, you would have overran into his other crossbow unit. BTW I am only assuming those are crossbows, considering the ten wide deployment.

I hope your not using what appears to be a large blue foam dice... :lol:

I also agree with the above, more terrain would be to your advantage. I divide a table into 6 sections and each section gets one piece of terrain.

BTW that was a bad place to deploy your hydra, you allowed him line of sight with both cannons, granted you didn't have much cover. If you had placed it in the right flank as well, his own unit would have blocked line of sight from at least one cannon and at the very least it may have soaked up all the crossbow fire that apparently killed your harpy units..

Bottom line is you could have probably had a better deployment, you should be playing with more terrain and you really need to learn to move your harpies and DR effectively. Hopefully some of this will help you next time, good luck..
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Post by Bies »

wow dreadknight...you're meant to go *pompous mode on!* not just launch into it! :P :D

My final piece of advice (for the meantime) is to not go into the game with a set plan in action or to play to that plan above all else - not to say you do.

The best way I've found to play is at the end of my turn make some brief ideas on what I'll do next turn and how I'll do it. Then has his turn progresses and units die/flee/move I revise my moves while keep the general goals the same.

I.e. That stank needs to go down but he moves behind cover. Then how can I move to still hit it and if I can't what can I do to cause him pain even if it means going against my original T1 plan?
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Calisson
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Post by Calisson »

- If I understand well, the harpies were not lost (they are mentioned to have survived till the end), but etancross was scared to death to loose them to the Empire's shooting, so they did nothing.
Lesson learned: if you provide too many targets in a single moment, there will be some targets which will survive. If you hide some targets, the remaining targets will be easily shot.


- spells: p.107, first column, a sorcerer cannot cast a spell onto a unit in melee unless the spell affects only himself or if the description specifies differently.

Metal #6 is the same as #1 except for the number of victims.
Metal #1 specifies no restriction whatsoever except a LOS.
However, #6 is not so straightforward.
As a result of this wording, even if there is no question that #1 can be cast in melee, there is still some interpretation (and arguing) about #6.
But wait until 10th of July, there will be a new rulebook for Warhammer, so there will be many more interpretations...


OK.
This is a challenge for the D.net tactical community.
We need to coach etancross until he gets a deserved victoy against his arch-foe.


I assume you have usually the same opponent, playing all the time the same Empire list.

Could you first tell us a little bit more about:

- your army: which models do you have (amount, command), which ones you can proxy?
- your experience?
- his army: your description and the picture can help experimented Empire players who posted above to determine the exact composition - and to determine its weaknesses.
- the rules you're using (you mentioned already the number of terrain, is there any other rule such as placing the terrain out of the central 12"radius?).

Finally, your opponent seems quite more experienced than you, and furthermore, he has been blessed with extraordinary dice.
This will not last forever: not only you'll learn more with your losses than he will learn from his victory, but the dice gods will not support him blatantly forever.
And finally, the expericen you lack is here, in D.net, and we are going to help you.
Just be patient, experience requires some time and perseverence!
Winds never stop blowing, Oceans are borderless. Get a ship and a crew, so the World will be ours! Today the World, tomorrow Nagg! {--|oBrotherhood of the Coast!o|--}
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