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Uses for MSE.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:31 am
by Calisson
Question risen in: Forgoing "Elite" infantry all together?
SiegeCommander wrote:Is it even worth paying for these guys instead of spearmen? Since none of our units generate enough attacks to negate stepping up usually why pay around double for the same durability with slightly increased stats? What are your guys thoughts on our elite special choices compared to our core in 8th?



Here, I'd like to explore some uses for small units of elites,taking advantage of their minimum size of 5, which allow the units to remain very cheap and therefore expandable,
while the army selection allows us to take 3 similar elite choices and up to 50% of the army as elite,
therefore it is now possible to have a real MSE army (alongside classical mass core choices if needed).
For example, you can take 3 WE squads plus 3 BG squads and still have pts for a large Execs unit plus some chariots.
If you wish to discuss about slightly larger units, 10-14 strong, please report toUses for MME (Many MEDIUM Elites)
The largest elite units are dealt with inFLE (FEW LARGE Elites).



At present, I can imagine a few roles for small elite teams:


1. WE assassin squad
A commando of 6 "naked" WE to charge a large opposing unit in order to concentrate their high I attacks on the BSB - of course, they will die in the process.
The 3x2 unit charges the opposing BSB in the middle of the front line of the opposing large unit.
All 6 WE direct their hits on the BSB, which makes 3x3+3x1=12 poison attacks. Possibly a COB makes them KB. If the BSB happens to have a specific high I or ASF weapon and strikes first, then the rear WE will die first, so the amount of attacks is not that much decreased.
When BSB dies, the WE receive the vengeance of 5 models + 5 or 10 supporting attacks. Who cares? They were worth 66pts with little influence. The dead BSB was worth much more pts and had a gamewide influence.

EDIT: more on that tactics, courtesy of Lord Tsunami: Witches as suicide squads


2. BG speed bumper
A congo line of 5 naked BG to slow down a large unit:
1x5 BG line walks at 1" in front of the opponent and waits for the charge. Only 1 BG in contact, so only 3 models + 3 support attacks can hit the BG. Odds are that at least 1 BG survives. Stubborn BG holds. The opponent may reform but not move.
Then it is your turn: you charge with chariots or other elites on the flanks of the opposing unit. Alternatively, you may choose to elude it.
Watch out, some people might resent this trick as a cheap exploitation of a loophole in the rules.



3. CoK Charge of the Light Brigade
The knights are also an I6. They can make a few long range charges targeting wizards and running them through.



4. Shades warmachine trappers
6 infantrymen can fight any warmachine now.
Take 6 AHW Shades for that purpose.
Note that harpies are to be taken 6 in a unit for the same purpose.



Please develop your own ideas, as Wirewolf did below.
I'll edit this post, which could possibly become D.R.A.I.C.H.ed in the process.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 11:56 am
by Wirewolf
MSE is not dead, its just a suicide mission. Our elite units now will best serve to soften up units and assassinate characters/champs so that our spears and pirates can march in and overpower our enemies. Except for shades, which are better for warmachines, and execs, still better in med sized units to the flanks, all of our other naked special units will now excel at suicide-bombing.
in my lists 12 strong WE are making a big come back and are great at what they do. I'm also taking 2 small units of barebones CoK to do similar "Charge of the Light Brigade" heroics as the knights are also an I6. They have made a few long range charges targeting wizards and running them through.
I'm going to have to break open the piggy-bank and get a few BG and try the single file thing. That should annoy my brother some!

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:20 pm
by Mr. anderson
MSE is not dead, its just a suicide mission. Our elite units now will best serve to soften up units and assassinate characters/champs so that our spears and pirates can march in and overpower our enemies.
You will forgive me for going :roll: when I read this... That is the worst possible way to use elites (short of leaving them in front of musketeers for a few turns...). Thats just my opinion, of course, but using elites this way is a waste. And can you imagine a general on a campaing throwing his elites in the meat grinder so the speargrunts can finish the enemy off?

Elites are there to prevent unecessary losses from spearmen, for sure, but not by getting themselves killed. It works a lot better if you bind your opponent in font, then charge the flanks with witch elves or black guard to get you those kills that'll tip the combat, break ranks and rout the enemy rather quickly.

In order to be able to do this, you need to break your opponent's line first (softening up the center, then using shock troops like cold one knights to charge the weakened unit). This requires you to plan your shooting out properly, of course. Once you break through, you have split your opponent's army in two, and your knights will be at the back of the army, hunting war machines, or preferably stopping reinforcements moving towards the isolated flank facing your majority of units. Once there is a gap in the lines, you can flank charge (because now you have the room to do so) with your elites and quickly finish off combats that would drag on endlessly otherwise and likely see both sides ground to dust.

If you are in a position where a flank is isolated, small elite units really come in their own. Two units of 10 witch elves in the flanks do much more damage than one 20-strong unit in front. Black riders in the rear will add some very welcome combat resolution bonuses as well. This will see hordes finished off rather quickly, seeing as each witch elf unit puts out around 30 attacks (deadly against low toughness hordes) and there is bound to be someone breaking their ranks. This will allow you to pick units off amost at will, while your spearmen, war machines and skirmishers hold off the other flank until you're finished with the flank you're concentrating on.

This requires very well thought-out maneuvring and deployment, but belive me when it works, it'll see your opponent ground to dust enormously quickly.


The conga line I find slightly... odd, to be honest. Can you picture five black guards holding against a horde of 100 goblins? that'd be a sight to behold. It is a bit of a silly tactic, to be honest. On top of that, assuming they're stopping hordes (which are rather often equipped with spears - like gobbos, nightgobbos etc.), they'll face 13 attacks back, and that'll kill them off much too quickly to be any use - and this is disregarding the possibility of characters in the unit.

However, with the tendency towards larger but fewer units, well-coordinated small(ish) elite units may well be a great way of wreaking havoc - having more units and more room (and higher movement, quite often) will mean that your opponent can't possibly avoid rear charges and flank charges. And horde or not, even 100 goblins will be in a lot of trouble when they have units all around them. Taking 30+ kills a turn won't go unnoticed for long. They'll do one turn (i.e. two combat phases) and then they're toast.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:35 pm
by The virgin forest
Mr. Anderson wrote:The conga line I find slightly... odd, to be honest. Can you picture five black guards holding against a horde of 100 goblins? that'd be a sight to behold.


Should I encounter this, I'd lift my eyebrows, shake my head for a bit and then start to pack up :roll:

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 12:46 pm
by Mr. anderson
Fixed your quote for you ;)

It also doesn't make any sense for the black guard to be able to do that... exactly what would (realistically) stop the goblins just walking past? the black guards don't have arms quite that long...

Pulling this off would also be ever so slightly disrespectful towards the guy who spent a lifetime and a half painting those up :lol:
I should know... just finished painting 35 halberdiers, and though it is satisfying to see them in all their splendour, I think painting three times that many green gits would fill you with an irresistible urge to lick every window you walk past...

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:24 pm
by Meteor
That is a WEIRD way to vent your frustration at someone who congo held your 100gobs with ONE bg remainig haha. Not sure I'd utilise the five BG idea though, maybe in holding the line against something behind that's important yes. But I'd rather five Harpies redirecting their charge direction whilst getting run over. Cheaper and easier since five BG costs more then five Harpies. It really is an odd thought, don't think Malekith will be very pleased with his generals throwing his personal trusted guards to the grave like so.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:30 pm
by Red...
Gah, the single file conga thing was discussed on a different post some time ago and I was derisive of it then, am still derisive of it now. It represents putting rules above fun, and that's never a good thing in my book.

(By the way, a particularly nasty variant, IIRC (and I should, as I came up with it!), is to give the champ the armour of darkness. With a 1+ save, its even more silly).

That all said, Mr Anderson, its no sillier that a unit of blackguard in a conga line could hold up a unit of 100 gobbos than it is that a single dreadlord (or even master) with crown of command and tooled up armour could do the same. That's one of the main reasons I think that the crown is one of the worst magic items that GW could possibly have made. Outnumbering SHOULD mean something: the crown of command makes it so it doesn't.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 1:42 pm
by Mr. anderson
That all said, Mr Anderson, its no sillier that a unit of blackguard in a conga line could hold up a unit of 100 gobbos than it is that a single dreadlord (or even master) with crown of command and tooled up armour could do the same.


Never said it was sillier ;)

Although, you can find some consolation in the fact that that fella will cost along the lines of 250 points, and those gobbos will cost about 200 or some such (assuming its not 100, but maybe 70 or 80) The 5 black guard are going to cost a grand toal of 65 points (the 1+ AS really doesn't mean that much as the amounts of armour saves the champ has to take will be on the nasty side of 4 - magical number to have at least one 1 in the roll in my experience - and thus will simply die anyway, and you won't have the armour on your BSB who needs it much more desperately). This means they've tied up more than their points worth for the rest of the game, and stopped it from chopping apart some black orcs... And I'm sure there are (depending on how many windows the greenskin player was willing to risk feeling the urge to lick) some more blocks of those gobbos round to be annoying and otherwise cause trouble in all sorts of nasty ways.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:22 pm
by Calisson
Hey, I never said that all tactics must be up to the highest standards of sportmanship! Are we playing DE or Bretonnians, after all? ;)

The BG congo line is a DE version of the Black Knight in Monthy Python and the Holy Grail "Thou shalt not pass".
Stubborn indeed, but will slow down the opponent only for a short time, they will vanish rather quickly to the retaliation. A nuisance, yes, but not frustrating to the point of refusing to play anymore.
IMO much less than the unkillable crowned lord.
By the way, don't forget that the last BG killed triggers panic into all friendly troops within 6" IIRC. So it is self-tricky to use small units.

@ Mr. Anderson
I agree with your use of maneuvre and elites. No dispute on that. Except that it is not the topic of the present thread.
The question is if there is a use for small units of elite troops.
Here, the BG congo line may help to control the enemies' maneuver and get the flank charges for large elite troops.



By the way, I should have posted this thread in the tactics forum. I'll be happy to see it moved there...

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:42 pm
by Mr. anderson
Good point Callisson, moved.

@ Mr. Anderson
I agree with your use of maneuvre and elites. No dispute on that. Except that it is not the topic of the present thread.
The question is if there is a use for small units of elite troops.


Point taken - but why not turn this into a discussion for those? I haven't seen a thread around, and seeing as we got started on it... the way you originally intended this discussion to go can still be part of that, after all. It'll just be slightly more expansive. MSE always meant 10-14 strong elites to me. Otherwise you'd have to cally MRRSME - multiple really really small elites ;)

Hey, I never said that all tactics must be up to the highest standards of sportmanship! Are we playing DE or Bretonnians, after all?


Depends on how much of your personality of your army seeps into the player... It is a nice thing to have up your sleeve when you play against someone who tries to use these sorts of things against you, but in general, all tactics have to be somewhat in line with sportsmanship, after all we're playing a game here to have fun, not fighting for our lives (if we were, that'd be another thing entirely ;) ). I just wouldn't want to pull it off in a game against a friend, and usually not even in a tournament (there are some players who make that principle waver quite strongly - usually those who try to exploit loopholes and then in the best manner of double standards start telling you off for doing the same - they're just asking for it and had it coming).

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:18 pm
by Meteor
yea fighting for our lives involves two black dragon, 6 sets of 10CoK, two hydras and 25% worth of DR :P

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 3:56 pm
by Calisson
Yes! Now I'm the one who can play with the mod's stick!

I'll edit the BG congo line to mention that some people might resent this trick as cheap (well, giving away 65 VPs just to delay a large unit for 1 turn is not that cheap IMO, but I don't want to judge other people with my standards and I expect the same in return).

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 5:27 pm
by L1qw1d
"Watch out, some people might resent this trick as a cheap exploitation of a loophole in the rules. "

... I believe that is what we call "your average dwarven player" :D lol

I think the point of Elites are just over tarpit status unless you know how to throw them at things. You throw 40 Spears to slow someone down until 5-20 BG can GET there and chainsaw thru them.

Infantry got a big boost. Admittedly, it DOES dissuade some from initially taking Elites. But each one is there for specific purposes. Skirmishers may have altered, but kept in perspective are still great delivery units and COK are still shocktroopers. The Stubborn, ItP, and Always rerolling to hit or (slightly) higher S KB's DO add up.

Besides: Have fun. Points is points.

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 6:10 pm
by Calisson
Mr. Anderson wrote:"your use of maneuvre and elites it is not the topic of the present thread."
Point taken - but why not turn this into a discussion for those? I haven't seen a thread around, and seeing as we got started on it... MSE always meant 10-14 strong elites to me.
New thread started aye aye, Sir!
Uses for MME (Many MEDIUM Elites)
I've quoted all your posts above relevant to a lager-than-minimal size of elitewhich are now in dark blue above.

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 3:39 am
by Bounce
Personally I quite like the idea of multiple units of 7 Witch Elves.
Consider them charging a unit of 30 Night Goblins
21 attacks, 18.67 hits, (incl 4.67 Poison) 11.67 wounds, 9.73 dead Gobbos
Gobbos attack back
15 attacks, 7.5 hits, 3.75 Wounds
Witches get combat res of 11 (incl Charging)
Gobbos get 8 (3 ranks and standard) The Gobbos are stubborn but only on Ld 5 so they'll probably run and that unit costs almost double the Witches. If the Gobbos don't take Spears than there will be even more Witches to survive and attack in the next round although they lose hatred they might win again.

Similar tactics can also be done on bigger, tougher units in order to weaken them for your main blocks. Just don't try this against High Elves though.

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 4:47 am
by Dalamar
I'll probably be using Witch Elves in tiny shock troops. Small unit of 6 can get unnoticed by the opponent.

They cost mere 60 points, and now that there are no special slots you can spend whooping 180 points on three units of them and still field other specials.

6 of them pack 18 attacks, have silly high I so they likely go first even if charged, and can dent any unit they face (Cauldron KB blessing comes in handy here)

Definitely worth fielding... and it so fits crazy drugged witches to charge forward, heedless of any danger.