In defence of the Death Hag BSB led Executioner Horde (done)

[Lord tsunami]

you stand and shoot in the enemies "charge" phase. you fight in the enemies "combat" phase. regen will only be removed for the enemies "charge" phase if you hit them with flaming stand and shoot.

however, to give the assasin flaming attacks, you would have to give the whole unit flaming attacks, so there is no need to have an assasin to remove regen... am i missing something here?

[Tyrannus deathbringer]

Hi Tsunami,

It appears to be me that is missing something in this case

Im new to 8th ed and I was used to thinking of ways to take regeneration ability off creatures permanently before engaging them. So take a flaming wound in the stand and shoot would mean that the enemy loses regeneration before the draichs get to swing. But of course as you rightly point out the regeneration ability is only discounted across phases in this edition

I suppose the shooting attack is still useful in the case where a regen beastie tries to avoid your Execs rather than charge at them

Getting confused over flaming attacks aside, a manbane stand and shoot and an assassin adds punch to what is already a highly punchy build and fits into the strategies that I would employ for such a unit. That's the main gist of the Star Assassin plus ASF Execs.

Will try out at somepoint and feedback...

[Lord tsunami]

the assassin sure has his perks, but it has pretty much no special synergy with the executioners. you could put him in any unit and he would preform pretty much the same way.

[Kirves]

Well, I've just played my first full scale battle with my fledgeling Dark Elf army andall I can say is... Wow! My orc enemy threw a troll, a boar chariot and twenty boyz with war boss at my executioner horde and it was carnage! I think i lost four men, his troll died, the chariot lost all but one wound, and his entire orc unit was killed bar the boss! I had a ward save from the cob which helped.

Thank you Red for having such a great tactical idea, my enemy regrets starting his orc army thanks to you and is going back to empire next week!

I think i lost under 200 points to his 2000...

[Uberskooper]

I have used this exact unit in quite a few games now. I think that it has the most raw damage potential by itself than anything else in the Dark Elf army, baring Mindrazor or what have you.

Lately though I have been more cautious using them. Someone said in a previous post that this unit is not a points sink. This unit is absolutely a point sink. In addition to paying for 29 Executioners, you need to buy a very fragile character to make them strike at initiative, as well as a Cauldron of Blood to support them and make them stubborn. This is close to a 400 point investment by itself, not counting the unit.

Having frenzy on the BSB is a bigger liability than it might seem on the surface. You get all the drawbacks of frenzy without any of the benefits. Not only can a clever opponent drag you around, you also have to treat the unit as if it were fire-and-forget.

As an example, I took a Khanite themed army that included this unit to a tournament. In two of my three games, the Executioners decimated whatever was in front of them in them after the battle lines made contact. Then they ran off and it took a whole turn or two to reform them to support the rest of the army, during which time the wussy spearmen block that was holding the enemy in place got more and more decimated.

Lastly, this build is really second best compared to what other armies can do. There are couple of armies out there that can do the same thing, only better and cheaper than the Dark Elves. I would absolutely take a unit of White Lions, Swordmasters, or Chaos Warriors over Executioners with a Death Hag.

All things considered, this build is an excellent hammer that will destroy a lot things. It has a few serious faults and can get pretty easily crippled before it gets to combat, or get outclassed by common choices in a couple of armies when it does get there.

[Uberskooper]

Well, I've just played my first full scale battle with my fledgeling Dark Elf army andall I can say is... Wow! My orc enemy threw a troll, a boar chariot and twenty boyz with war boss at my executioner horde and it was carnage! I think i lost four men, his troll died, the chariot lost all but one wound, and his entire orc unit was killed bar the boss! I had a ward save from the cob which helped.

Thank you Red for having such a great tactical idea, my enemy regrets starting his orc army thanks to you and is going back to empire next week!

I think i lost under 200 points to his 2000...

Haha. Just wait until he gets a couple of stone throwers and a Doom Diver on those Executioners. Or any number of the grenade units that Orcs and Goblins have. Or just throws a unit or two of Wolf Riders at them and have them not do anything all game.

[Lord tsunami]

doomdivers... lol

any good dark elf player will combine this type of unit with a superior number of fast units like harpies, DRs, shades or flying masters. Yes this type of "deathstar" can be diverted easily by enemy fast units, but that assumes you let him keep his fast units. we have so many tools at our disposal to be completly superior in the movement phase that this should be a non issue.


About other races being able to do the same thing cheaper, that is not really true (in most cases). Yes there are cheaper deathstars, but when you put this unit against pretty much any of those deatstars it will come out on top. the combined power of hatred and the extra attacks from cauldron and S6 AND killing blow is overwhelming by most standards. remember that any unit containing characters should tread very lightly around executioners. you just need that one lucky 6... One of the few units that will actually beat an executioners horde is a horde of ogres. the immunity to KB really helps them

[Uberskooper]

About other races being able to do the same thing cheaper, that is not really true (in most cases). Yes there are cheaper deathstars, but when you put this unit against pretty much any of those deatstars it will come out on top. the combined power of hatred and the extra attacks from cauldron and S6 AND killing blow is overwhelming by most standards. remember that any unit containing characters should tread very lightly around executioners. you just need that one lucky 6... One of the few units that will actually beat an executioners horde is a horde of ogres. the immunity to KB really helps them

There are only a few armies that can do this, but the do it better and cheaper. Let's take the White Lions for example. That's the unit that the Executioners are a "dark" reflection of in the High Elf army.

A unit of 29 Executioners will run you 348 points. They'll get chopped to bits if they strike last though so you need to buy a Death Hag BSB. That will run you 150 points. I usually buy the Dance of Doom for her so that I don't have to use the Shield of Khaine on the Executioners every turn. That's another 30 points. That's a total of 528 points.

A unit of 30 White Lions is 450 points. That's all you need. They already have better always strike first, and as a result of their high initiative get better "hatred" than the Executioners do. They will attack before anyone else (as opposed to just initiative 5 things), and will usually get to reroll their hits every round. There's also no fragile frenzied character to handicap them.

Killing blow on the Executioners is kind of a gimmick. If you're going to allocate enough attacks on a character to get killing blow reliably, chance are that you will just kill the character anyway with that many strength 6 attacks. It's a nice little bonus and it's nice for 1+ armor save knights, but kind of redundant with strength 6.

[Omnichron]

One of the few units that will actually beat an executioners horde is a horde of ogres. the immunity to KB really helps them

Lets not put the Executioners on such a high pedestal that they come crashing down heavily for druchii players in tournaments and such.

There are other options that are cheaper than the big unit. Missile attacks can wither their numbers down to more easily handled numbers. Chariots can run in and cause alot of damage before the combat starts, masses of units who rely on numbers and ranks will get to strike back, and the executioners will eventually wittle down and die... Frenzied marauders for about 500 pts (80-90 of them?) with great weapons will most likely be much more effective against them as well, even while taking lots of hits...

There's many more units who all will do quite well against the executioners for such point costs. I will agree though that the smaller units will be totally butchered by the Executioner Deathstar...

I'd love to get withering and soulsteal on such a unit

[Setomidor]

The Lions are better, aye, but with a Cauldron buff the Execs are real solid with 5+ Ward and stubborn. The KB is sometimes more of a gimmick, but only because we kill enemy characters anyway with S6 and Hatred. It's a very good tactic to direct all attacks against enemy characters if they are stupid enough to get into combat with the enemy, even a lowly level two wizard is usually almost half the cost of the entire Executioner "Death star"!

Omnichron: Don't underestimate Miasma or Word of pain Miasma can either be used to lower the I and avoid enemy rerolls (against Elves such as White Lions), and Word of Pain will cause the enemy to hit only on fives, and make a huge impact on combat results;

Assuming 450 pts worth of Execs vs. White lions (37.5 on 30 models), both deployed Horde.

Vanilla Execs vs. White Lions (450 pts each): 18 Execs dead vs 11.5 Lions
5+ Ward Execs vs. White Lions: 12 Exec dead vs 16 Lions
Vanilla Execs vs. Miasma'd White Lions: 12.5 Execs dead vs 15.5 Lions
Vanilla Execs vs. Word of Pain'd White Lions: 13.5 Execs dead vs 17.5 Lions
5+ Ward Execs vs. Word of Pain'd White Lions: 9 Execs dead vs 21 Lions (That's 108 vs 315 pts!)

Edit: Also note that Execs kick the un-living s#!t out of Grave Guard

[Uberskooper]

The Lions are better, aye, but with a Cauldron buff the Execs are real solid with 5+ Ward and stubborn. The KB is sometimes more of a gimmick, but only because we kill enemy characters anyway with S6 and Hatred. It's a very good tactic to direct all attacks against enemy characters if they are stupid enough to get into combat with the enemy, even a lowly level two wizard is usually almost half the cost of the entire Executioner "Death star"!

Omnichron: Don't underestimate Miasma or Word of pain Miasma can either be used to lower the I and avoid enemy rerolls (against Elves such as White Lions), and Word of Pain will cause the enemy to hit only on fives, and make a huge impact on combat results;

Assuming 450 pts worth of Execs vs. White lions (37.5 on 30 models), both deployed Horde.

Vanilla Execs vs. White Lions (450 pts each): 18 Execs dead vs 11.5 Lions
5+ Ward Execs vs. White Lions: 12 Exec dead vs 16 Lions
Vanilla Execs vs. Miasma'd White Lions: 12.5 Execs dead vs 15.5 Lions
Vanilla Execs vs. Word of Pain'd White Lions: 13.5 Execs dead vs 17.5 Lions
5+ Ward Execs vs. Word of Pain'd White Lions: 9 Execs dead vs 21 Lions (That's 108 vs 315 pts!)

Edit: Also note that Execs kick the un-living s#!t out of Grave Guard

It's disingenuous to consider the effects of buffs (from the Cauldron and from spells for one unit but not the other). It makes the Executioners look artificially better. The High Elf player is going to be casting spells too. His White Lions can have a magic banner. What if he takes the Standard of Balance and makes you lose hatred?

Moreover adding the effects of buffs increases the de facto cost of the Executioners. A Cauldron is 200 points. And now that 200 points is using it's ability to help out an expensive unit become marginally more effective. So in the 5+ ward save example above, you are comparing the effectiveness of 650 points worth of stuff vs. 450.

My point that I wanted to get across was that yes, Executioners are really good at killing stuff and will serve you well in a lot of games. It's a fragile combo though. It can be led by the nose by chaff units and the Executioners drop like flies whenever anything hits them. All it takes is for three surviving grunts to stab the Death Hag and it's over. It's also a very expensive combo if you consider not only the cost of the Executioners plus the Death Hag, but also all of the extra stuff you are putting on to them to make them slightly better (buffs, hexes, Cauldron blessing). The relative efficiency is quite low when you add in all of those points.

[Omnichron]

The more dependencies the unit has, the easier it is to destroy. For instance, the HE player just needs to use one siphon life on the BSB, and suddenly the unit has lost that edge. One pit of shades and the cauldron is gone in the blink of the eye... Even though I'd like to think of such a unit as very strong and dependable on paper, in the battle it suddenly might turn out to be really weak.

For instance, the hydra is SO strong on paper, and it can be awesome! However, most armies with somewhat more experienced players, can deal with it within 2 rounds, before it can deal any damage.

That's why I think that even though it works, I wouldn't build my strategy upon the unit.

[Uberskooper]

The more dependencies the unit has, the easier it is to destroy. For instance, the HE player just needs to use one siphon life on the BSB, and suddenly the unit has lost that edge. One pit of shades and the cauldron is gone in the blink of the eye... Even though I'd like to think of such a unit as very strong and dependable on paper, in the battle it suddenly might turn out to be really weak.

For instance, the hydra is SO strong on paper, and it can be awesome! However, most armies with somewhat more experienced players, can deal with it within 2 rounds, before it can deal any damage.

That's why I think that even though it works, I wouldn't build my strategy upon the unit.

This is true. The more moving parts something has, the easier it is for things to go wrong. I think Mindrazor Dark Elf lists are a lot like this. You have to roll the spell and you have to get it off at a critical time, or else your strength 3 guys suck all the way home.

I think the beauty of this Executioner combo is that it has less moving parts. Against most things, this combo is just good. You don't need to worry about spells of buffs. It will just murder everything in front of it. It's easy for an opponent to exploit this combo and make it less effective though.

Also, against a High Elf player, the Death Hag BSB is not needed. You will go last anyway, so why waste the points. In fact you don't really need Executioners against High Elves, since they have low toughness and armor. In my comparison, I did not mean to say that White Lions and Executioners should be pitted against each other. I simply said that White Lions (and a few other units for that matter) can do the exact same thing that the Executioners do, only better and cheaper.

[Setomidor]

I agree that it is unfair to compare them right away, my intention is just to show that it takes very little to beat units such as White Lions even though they are better on paper.

The Cauldron excels in this because there is no die rolling involved. Statistically the magic buffs would probably cancel each other out, but Dark Elves players can rely on the Cauldron buff to be there, and to boost the army where it is most needed.

Although it may not be fair to count this buff in, it also does not make any sense to acclaim the full 200 pts cost to the cost of the Exec unit. The Cauldron will be able to provide a buff to any unit within 24" for as long as it lives, so each "buff" should only be valued at roughly 35 points.

[Lord tsunami]

high elves are the obvious "paper" to the otherwise very sturdy "rock" of an executioner horde. yes, WLs will beat executioners. against pretty much anything else though... Try khorne warriors with halberds for example.

[Red...]

It is difficult to estimate the 'true' cost of any unit in warhammer. The Death Hag led Executioner horde is no exception. Do you count the Cauldron in as part of its points cost? IMO you don't, because the Cauldron can be used to support other troops. Thats true for all support pieces - do you factor in the cost of taking a level 4 shadow sorceress into the points costs of your RxBs for example? No, and for the same reason.

The DH BSB Executioner Horde is by no means a death star unit, nor is it impervious to everything. Run it up against the wrong enemy and you will either a) die or b) crash through a cheap and meaningless unit and spend the rest of the day trying to turn them around. The combo does require some degree of skill and isn't going to win you the game on your own. As Lord Tsunami accurately points out:

any good dark elf player will combine this type of unit with a superior number of fast units like harpies, DRs, shades or flying masters. Yes this type of "deathstar" can be diverted easily by enemy fast units, but that assumes you let him keep his fast units. we have so many tools at our disposal to be completly superior in the movement phase that this should be a non issue.

Artillery is less of an issue than you might think. A stonethrower hit looks scary, but only half of the models affected will be wounded, either one third (basic save) or two thirds (glittering scales save) of those will fail their armour save and a further third (cauldron of blood) of those may have a ward save. Sure, you'll lose a few, but not many really.

The joy of the unit is that it puts out such a remarkably high amount of damage while:

- Not including your top fighting characters
- Not including your mages
- Costly only just over 25% of your points in a 2k game or just 17% in a 3k game. As you can see from my sample list, I run a lot of other powerful elements in my army too, all of which can do perfectly well without the executioner block if needed/wanted.

Yes, it won't win you the game by itself, and yes it isn't invulnerable. But it does a kickass amount of damage for a suprisingly small chunk of your army cost. You don't need to use it if you don't like it, but for me it works like a dream.

P.S. Any melee troop comparisson with High Elves is a bit silly. That's because high elf melee forces in 8th ed are very strong, particularly against dark elves. Our biggest selling point is we are a glass cannon who usually strike first - high elves shatter that cannon before we get to hit. I find that against high elves a tailored list of chariots, RxBs, witch elves, lots of magic and black guard is most useful. My army list can and will be used against the asur as it stands, but i would be very careful about which match ups to accept with the execs...certainly not about to maul it out with a unit of white lions or swordmasters! By the by, killing blow and a significantly cheaper points cost are what put Execs into at least the same league as White Lions and Sword Masters. Against a unit of 1+ save Chaos Cavalry or a Uber lord of ubersaveness, that killing blow can really come in handy!

[Setomidor]

Played two games against beastmen yesterday and brought my 33 Execs with CoB support (No ASF Hag). These guys rarely disappoint me and that held true also for these games! Bringing lots of Death and Shadow magic he didn't really have anything to soften them up before combat, and once in combat they don't really care about him getting Mindrazor or Withering off (they're most often wounded on 2's or 3' anyway). At the end of the second came, they fought a unit of Bestigors with BSB and Lvl4 Death mage, and despite being affected by Soulblight, Miasma AND him having Wyssans Wildform they could still reliably threaten his characters with Killing blow while holding firm in range of the cauldron.

Now all I have to do is learn how to roll 6:es for Killing blow, threw 35+ attacks against his characters over the course of a few turns and just couldn't roll that 6. Hardly their fault though.

[Dirty Mac]

Now all I have to do is learn how to roll 6:es for Killing blow

Just keep a bowl of Pre-Rolled dice handy. just for 6's, great for When you need an IF spell cast too.

Would you like to know more?

[Omnichron]

Now all I have to do is learn how to roll 6:es for Killing blow, threw 35+ attacks against his characters over the course of a few turns and just couldn't roll that 6.

Rolling a killing blow is really hard though. I had KB with my corsairs against some dragonprinces this weekend, and out of about 20-25 hits, not a single KB landed. I guess I should be happy about it, because the failure of doing any wounds enabled my witch elves to see the unit amd charge them with mindrazor the next round

I don't see the KB of the executioners as some trustful ability at all, especially as they already have the strength to punch through most armor and deal lots of damage...

[Red...]

I seem to have no problems rolling poison for witch elves, but can never manage to get killing blows with my execs. It's funny really. But, theoretically, 24 wounds should equal 4 killing blows - not too shabby against enemies with uber armour or characters with re-rollable uber armour saves (I'm looking at you, Chaos Lord of Khorne on Juggernaught with dawnstone).

[Tzelok]

I don't see the KB of the executioners as some trustful ability at all

Its funny I have had the exact opposite experience in that I can consistently roll above average for my KB's. I was going up against some templeguard the other week and out of my 20 hits I got about 11Kb's!

That being said I have only ever been able to get mindrazor off at the right time on the right unit ONCE, so I see Executioners KB to be more reliable then MR...so much that I no longer take shadow!

[van Awful]

@ Red they're the bomb!!
I used them 6x5 with the bsb, against dwarfs this weekend
They charged a largeunit of dwarven quarellers togehter with a pegmaster, which got killed by stand and shoot!(according to plan) i blessed them with the CoB so 17 attacks plus the hags.

The few dwarfs that where left ran of and got overrun and i slammed into the flank of 25 longbeards(not very good positioned, but he had them guarding his armies right flank with his organgun!)

So he had the next turn and was able to rear charge my executioners thanks to his anvil extra move thingie with hhis ironbreakers... my guys still won the battle with 9 CRpoints. Longbeards ran of the table and i got outrunned by ironbreakers. which fled through his hammerers.

So i was able to flank charge them the my next turn, slaughtered them to the last men(stubborn grumble) this costed me my bsb and i 3 rounds of combat( oponnent forget his reform...twice) but in the end i still had 15 left and in my final turn send another unit of iron breakers(who were battleing some spearmen running, this time overruning them)

Maybe with same luck, but hey..it's Warhammer, but i can say they won me the game!!

[Vulcan]

Sounds like the Dwarf player goofed. He should have targeted the BSB with the Quarrelers. They may not have killed her, but they would have at least laid a wound on her so the Longbeards could finish her.

Then the hammerers would have been meeting you on much more equal ground.

[Red...]

Awesome - glad it worked out so well dh'akor - many thanks for reporting your experiences with it

Just out of curiousity, why did you run them as 6x5 rather than 10x3? To make them more compact and thus more manoueverable? The difference in attacks is quite massive - with 6x5 you get 17 when blessed with the CoB, but with 10x3 you get up to 40! That said, horde units are a pain to fit into an effective battle line and are rather unwieldy, so I can see the draw of the 6x5 block too...

Vulcan - one of the beauties of the unit is that most players simply don't consider hitting the death hag as a possibility. While we as seasoned DE players are intimately aware of it, I've always been suprised by how many non-DE players don't think about it. That said, the true aim of the unit is not only to rout the enemy, but actually destroy them so that they don't get any strike backs at all...best way to keep the BSB safe

[van Awful]

@ red , being a msu player at hart, normally I didn't field my units larger then 18 atc the very most. I think I still have trouble letting that go. When I play druchii I hardly have any units larger then 30. I had one corsair horde that game, and like you said find them troublesome to fit in or move.and i want my dark elves to be manouverable 6x5 is the largest I field ny spearmen .aswell...

Vulcan is right though, my opponenent goofed, a couple of times. And i dont think he'll let her live long the next time. (me to tbh like forgetting the blessing at the start of a turn...twice). Maybe ill try that horde and put her on a corner