Dealing with WoC

[Swaiper]

I know there are other threads about this and I read a well written one but I still want to discuss it.

So! Most of what ive experienced and heard from others, our main tool is the Bolt Thrower! Tah-Dah! And sure... they work great! But those four need to deal with the Daemon Prince, Chariots, Chimeras, and that damn BSB with 1+ 3++ rerolling 1++ on daemonic mount that ive only ever killed by breaking... Then theres Skull Crushers ofcourse (cant forget about those now can we!). Metal and Bolt Throwers are my usual defence against all of this but when you manage to get through a 2d6 Searing Doom and you feel pretty good about taking out that one target and he gets through a Plague Wind killing 50% of your army... that just sux...

Sure Cauldron of Blood is nice with a 4++ against magic, and then I usually put my Sorceress in a large infantry block with Obsidian Lodestone... problem is if I do that he just runs in with the DP and starts hacking away at my sorceress... killing her as she has no defence... Usually he goes nurgle and either hightens his own Toughness with spells making my Executioners (which is where my sorc hides) wound on 4s - 6s or lowers my WS so I have to hit him on 6s.... either way... it doesnt work out very well for me...

Hit me with Ideas!

[Bigboar]

put your ss on a dark horse (dr or w unit) and flee when he charges... if your unit lose to many horses, leave for another fasy cav. if you fear his magic give her MR2 (or ring of hotek) and some warlocks.
even alone with CoT can work.
other you can have a serious lord in the same unit and challenge him:he can't refuse!
you can even try dalamar strategy: black amulet and antiheroes sword on the ss, then if the dp is already wounded she can finish him in a challenge!

[direweasel]

Cold one knights and chariots are also pretty useful against chaos. I like Cold Ones with the Gleaming Pennant - for only 5 points you can reroll a failed Ld test - very useful for reducing the possibility of a poorly timed stupidity fail.

Those will help open up Chaos armor. Executioners too. If you can set it up, executioners in the front, and then a flank charge from knights or chariots, and you'll tear through them. They're expensive points-wise so you should be able to get at the flanks, because you're likely to have more units on the field than they do.

Shadow and Metal magic are good against them too. Debuffing Chaos Warriors is a good idea.

[Akholrak]

Cold one knights and chariots are also pretty useful against chaos. I like Cold Ones with the Gleaming Pennant - for only 5 points you can reroll a failed Ld test - very useful for reducing the possibility of a poorly timed stupidity fail.

Those will help open up Chaos armor. Executioners too. If you can set it up, executioners in the front, and then a flank charge from knights or chariots, and you'll tear through them. They're expensive points-wise so you should be able to get at the flanks, because you're likely to have more units on the field than they do.

Shadow and Metal magic are good against them too. Debuffing Chaos Warriors is a good idea.

I agree that Cold One Knights are a good solution as they are incredibly reliable, well once they reach combat, they are. The Gleaming Pennant I consider mandatory on them, unless I run a BSB in the unit.

However, I find Executioners to be underwhelming. This stems from the fact that majority of Chaos units are Nurgle, making the Executioners need 5s to hit without a re-roll.

Shadow works wonders against Warriors of Chaos, reducing any or all of their M, WS, S, T, I is brilliant in tipping combats in our favour. Also, Mindrazor works great due to our naturally high leadership. I also find that Dark is good being able to get +1 Strength from Power of Darkness, Doombolt, and of course, Word of Pain.

[direweasel]

We do have one Nurgle guy around here, and yes, Executioners don't do as well against them. But I wouldn't say "the majority" of Chaos units are Nurgle...maybe they just are in your area.

[Bigboar]

Tzench or nurgle I don't know which one I hate most... I always try to go around the first and shoot at the second.

Anyway with razor standard the BGs perform great with 2attacks and rerolls. If the unit is too big, I put in an hero with ring of hotek. Since wc don't have shooting Bg only suffer the 1+cavalry but few units don't...

[Pablo]

Run death and snipe the dp first then go for the other big gribblies. Witches cn kill chimeras, but bolt throwers are your best bet.

Vietnow wrote a sweet article on it somewhere.
Just avoid combat and shoot him

[Vietnow]

http://druchii.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=74217

WoC are a difficult match up for DE. The most effective tactics we have against most armies, are rather lame vs WoC. In a non comped game, they are very difficult to deal with, esp if the WoC takes a hard as nails list.

If you're tailoring a list specifically for WoC, you can manage to do some nasty things to them. Executioners aren't useless, but against Nurgle, yea they basically are. The real problem with WoC is match ups. WE can't kill things with armor. Even taking razor banner, you have to buff their strength or its next to worthless. S3 does nothing to a 1+. 3 crushers can win combat vs a WE horde.

Executioners are good against anything not marked with Nurgle. Tzeentch warriors are tough with the 5+ parry save, also.

Black guard are the most buffable infantry unit in the game. Their special rules are absolutely stupid. Always reroll misses, stubborn, ItP, Reroll 1's to wound. Buff this unit with +1s +1t.... They hit at S5. What if combined with power of darkness? Or Word of Pain? Soulblight? CoB frenzy buff? Things can get nasty, and don't take many dice. A L4 dark in a BG horde with BWS. A L2 of beasts with a fast cav unit. Shroud of despair can do bad things to WoC. You just need 1 good round of combat.

CoK can hurt crushers on the charge, after that tho....

Hydras generally just die vs WoC in combat. BUT statistically the a fiery breath hydra and a 275pt chimera kill each other in the 2nd round of combat. Just gotta remove regen with flaming breath 1st round. Yay for tied initiative. Kbeast... well its I4. Great vs a lot of armies... dead vs WoC.

Fast cav and crazy peg masters can be used to diverty DP's chims, crushers. Provided he only faces attacks from 1 crusher (flank attack, or a combined combat), the CoT peg master can break crushers on the charge. Dark riders can break chariots with rear charges, unless its a gorebeast. Dark riders can flank crushers and force bad overruns after they lose combat.

Read the post i pasted, it should give you more ideas, these were just off the top of my head. Again, these aren't GREAT ideas, but remember this is a very difficult army for us in a non comp'd environment.

[Swaiper]

Yeah I remember reading that post. You did a hell of a job writing it! And I do agree that buffing a unit of Black Guard or mindrazor WEs is the best bet you have against WoC most of the time... But thats only good if you can catch his stuff... Chims and DPs arent gonna run into that... they can pick their battles as can any flyer... and Peg Masters rarely work out for me for some reason : / I suck ad rolling dice and my WoC friend has the most insane rolls youll ever see... He should be studied or something... anywho... I thank you guys for all the great tips and I guess ill just try to do as much of it as I can fit in the same game... ive even started using feedback scroll to some effect, its actually pretty good.

[dms505]

I held some Crushers in place for about 4 turns with a Peg Master and Word of Pain nearby. He killed one on the charge but lost in round 3 when I wasn't able to re-Word them.