Trouble with WoC

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Vietnow
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Trouble with WoC

Post by Vietnow »

Sorry in advance for the novel I'm about to write, but I assure you this thread will give you something to think about.

One of my frequent opponents plays WoC. With the new basic magic item list he's begun marking hist characters with Tzeentch, and taking the 4+ ward save items. His BSB takes Hw+shield also, giving him a 2+ ward save. This is beginning to frustrate me greatly.

His lord always takes the 4+ ward talisman, and then the ASF armor from the WoC book, and the Initiative 10 sword. This lets him reroll all his attacks due to ASF and having I10. Not to mention he's Tzeentch, so his ridiculous armor save is backed by a 3+ ward, and I'm facing 5 S5 attacks going first and re-rolling misses.

He's also fond of taking multiple war shrines, and marking them with Tzeentch as well. T6 with a 3+ ward save makes them rocks in combat.

His favorite unit tactic is either a large anvil of knights or chosen with the rapturous standard. (on break test any single die roll of a 1 or any double counts as insane courage) I've broken this unit before with combo charging front, flank and rear, but I was lucky with his break test roll. With either knights or chosen the unit has a lot of active combat resolution. Often times flank charging gives him more CR from kills, than flank/charge/denying ranks takes away.

His 2 war shrines generally buff this large unit. Frequently I'm facing T6, S5-6, stubborn 4+ ward or some other nonsense. Chosen marked with Tzeentch and HW+S get a 5+ ward also. Its even better when a caster joins the unit with the Collar of Khorne giving the whole unit a ridiculous ward against magic as well.

The best way to take out his characters is to break the unit, however his General and BSB are always in the same unit. Convenient if you can break and catch the unit, but with the standard, and the active CR its a chore. Not to mention He has to challenge every round of combat, which either risks the life of my characters, or denies their attacks. I can only have so many champions after all. Also, the champs dying might give him a roll on the eye of the gods chart, I'm not sure if champions allow that rule or just characters/monsters.

He's also a fan of the signatures shadow spell on 2 casters. Using it on the units he's in combat with.

He generally takes 3 casters L4, L2, L1. One will have a dispell scroll, one will have a feedback scroll, and the other will take an arcane buff item.

This is starting to give me headaches. My Druchii have pulled out victories each engagement, but they've mostly been Pyriak ones. My Empire did poorly, but misfires on turn one will do that.

The only solutions I've developed have been aoe and effects the whole unit spells. However due to WoC amazing base stat line, these aren't very effective. Killing 1/6 of a 20-26 person unit does very little to hamper its ability, and does nothing to nerf its active CR.

My ideas:
Use two lvl 2 sorcs with shadow, both taking the signature spell.
One lvl 4 sorc with either Death or Dark lore.
Using the shadow spell to reduce stats it makes Purple sun, soulstealer, and black horror more effective. However, this relies on me getting multiple spells off each magic phase.

The benefit of taking Death is the bonus power dice you get from wounds caused. Also, purple sun doesn't allow ward saves. The downside is the spells are mostly initiative based. If I can't reduce their initiative, I'm stuck killing 1/6 of the unit, while risking my caster by throwing a lot of dice on one spell, thanks to miscasting and/or the feedback scroll. Miscasting and the feedback scroll mandate I give my L4 a 4+ ward talisman and this prevents me from taking nul's on her. Also I'm pretty sure the war shrines are dying under purple sun 5/6 of the time, which is good news because they DO NOT die in combat, and the buffs are getting very annoying.

Metal's final transmutation spell only removes 1/3 of his unit, but does provide other more useful buff spells. With the abundance of ward saves, the metal snipe spells are much much less effective against WoC compared to 7th.

Taking Dark Magic gives me 2 great aoe spells, black horror and soulstealer. But these both allow ward saves. The benefits of Dark are the lower casting values, and SS replenishing wounds lost on my sorc. The problem with Dark is the spells are reliant on 2 different stats, strength and toughness, while Death is only reliant on initiative. Altering one stat with the signatures shadow spell is much more likely.

The downside of this entire strategy is the Winds of Magic roll. If i start with 3 power dice, I'm pretty screwed. Sure I have power of darkness, but a bad casting roll or 2 lucky dispell rolls and I'm toast. This strat also requires a hefty point cost investment, which is fine since our games are normally 3k-3.5k, but this leaves me less bodies to hold off his death star, shrines and multiple units of 12-15 halberd wielding Khorne warrior units.

What I take:
Large spears unit 25-28ish
2-3 units of 10 RBX ranked 5x2
2 units of dark riders

20 BG
1-2 chariots
2-3 units of 7 Witch Elves (stubborn with the CoB, and great for taking on marauders, warhounds, ogres, trolls, anything with low armor. They're also stubborn near the CoB

2 hydras

I've tested out a unit of 24 AHW corsairs with SSS, great with KB, or against low T units

Combat lord
BSB
Hero sometimes in a chariot
L4 peggy
L2 Feedback
L2 darkstar cloak

I'm also having issues deciding where to place the L2 sorcs. BSB goes with the BG, and the General goes with the spears.

If you see any obvious flaws with my basic game plan feel free to point those out as well.
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Post by Toddums »

What about an assassin with the venom sword to take out the bsb?
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Post by Red... »

I had been wondering a lot recently about how the new ward save rules would affect Tzeentch WoC, with expectations that they could be a huge boost - I think your conundrum illustrates some of the ways that it has benefitted.

I'm sure there are lots of clever, in-depth strategies that could be developed to tackle the problem.

But, to be honest, I'd just play him at his own game.

Here's what to do:

Take a dreadlord, with crown of command, full mundane armour, and pendant of khaine, with the weapon of your choice (crimson death could be good) and stick him on a cold one. Also take a master as battle standard bearer, give him armour of eternal servitude and dragonbane pearl, as well as full mundane kit, stick him on a cold one too. Finally, take a cauldron of blood as well.

Now run the BSB and general together as a unit - no other members needed. Run them as quickly as you can into the front of his uber unit. Use the cauldron to give them killing blow.

Now you've got a unit with a leadership 10, re-rolling stubborn and immune to psych, with a general who has as good as you can get armour save with an awesome ward save (anything but a 6 against his general), standing next to a battle standard bearer who has as good as you can get armour save, followed by a 4+ regen save (or 2+ ward save versus fire attacks).

His big unit will be stopped dead in its tracks, with a far higher probability of you killing his characters (due to killing blow and the fact he actually has a worse ward save than you) than of him killing you.

The kicker is that the combo will cost you A LOT less than his uber unit costs him. So you can then use the rest of your army to deal with the rest of his less expensive forces.

At the end of the game, inform him that unless he's willing to make his army a bit more game fun, you'll keep on running this list or variants of this list to oppose him. He should get the idea pretty quick. Few armies have the capability to be silly broken as much as Dark Elves do - if he wants it to be like that, just bring it on.
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Post by Markusswe »

Most my 8th games have been against WOC and I have been using different kinds of armies. So far 5-2 to me. 2500pts.

Some notes on my armycompositions:
- All games a lvl 4 (shadow) with sac dagger, half the games with a lvl 2 death.
- Some combination of dreadlord, master bsb or cauldron bsb to go with that. 0-2 on pegasus.
- Most games atleast 3x 10rpx + 2 bolt throwers to shoot with.
- Most games 1 small (sac bunker for lvl4) and 1 big unit of warriors (war banner).
- I think two units of 5 harpies all games.
- 1-2 chariots in most lists.
- Only 2 hydra in one game, 1 in all others (I think two is a bit cheesy, my opponent doesn't though!).

My opponent used lots of different stuff but always bring "reroll a non1" + "change misscast D3" magic items. These are extremly powerful and makes him practically immune to misscast trouble. Normally he got a lvl4 tz caster + lvl 2 death or 2x lvl 1 death spamming signature or other assassination spell.

I have encountered lots of tzentch war shrines & many units of 18ish chaos warriors. Often a big marauder khorne block with GW.

One of the most powerful things you don't seem to have encountered is the hellcannon. My opponent brings 1-2. With str 5 template elves die fast to that.

My basic strategy: I try to slow him down with shadow signature spell + lower toughness to shoot warriors down. Pit of shades always try to target hellcannon. My hydra preferably breaths a warrior block from the side. Basically I hope to deplete the numbers in 2 of 3 blocks and try to avoid the third. At the same time I move my units so that I can finish the depleted ones. If I got the spell to change ldr-str (shadow#6) I use it with CoB for +1 attack in combat. Even my large block of spearelves do a lot then vs chaos warriors or knights!

In the games I have lost my lvl4 rolled misscasts with 3 dice rolls and died or got crippled early/mid game. So, magic plays a big roll in beating WOC!
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Post by Fingol23 »

Well you could always point out that his lord re-rolls hits rather than misses (wording in the book is "re-rolls failed misses", something which has failed to miss is a hit).

Seriously though I would suggest a mix of shadow and death magic, the shadow signiture spell is hugely usefull against Warriors of Chaos while Laniph and Bjuna are great for sniping characters and both Purple Sun and pit give you a 1 in 6 chance to kill those annoying characters outright.
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Post by Markusswe »

So, a couple suggestions:

It seems both you and your opponent takes too many points in chars. I would guess something like 1200+, right? You are going to need more units.

DR is a lot worse now and cost a lot for what they do. I would only run them in a pure shooting list. Atleast drop one of those units.

Your warrior unit is far too small to last in combat. Atleast add 5+ guys. Especially when you don't have bolt throwers and got a more melee focused list. What are these going to do vs 40+ marauder khorne GW unit or 18 warriors?

I think shadow is the best list we can bring with a lvl 4. It's good vs all armies.

Personally I think WEs are unplayable in 8th and think that those are wasted points.

If you play 3.5k points and would drop one sorc and this stuff for larger warrior unit, more shooting (bolt throwers, more crossbowmen, shades) and play shadow on your lvl 4 I think you'll have an easier time!
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Post by Rork »

Hold on...I assume the BSB has a 2+ armour save?
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Post by Red... »

Hold on...I assume the BSB has a 2+ armour save?


Ward save item = 4+
Mark of Tzeentch =+1 to ward save, so 3+
Parry = +1 to ward save, so 2+.

[edit = just saw the post below, hadn't looked at the rule book before my post - ah well, its still 3+...]

That's why Tzeentch took the biggest boost from the new rules (other than khorne, who of course now don't need to worry about frenzy baiting as much anymore...)


Lots of people on here seem to be suggesting magic as the solution. I'd suggest otherwise.

In the games I have lost my lvl4 rolled misscasts with 3 dice rolls and died or got crippled early/mid game.


That's why. It's a single shot tactic that is doomed to high potential for failure. Particularly if your opponent gets smart and starts combining anti-magic items, such as black tongue (forces miscast on a failed roll, in exchange for 1 wound), infernal puppet (allows him to alter your dice roll by d3 on the miscast table), tendrils of tzeentch (allows him to force you to re-roll a power dice per turn) and pandemonium spell (you miscast on a roll of a double rather than 2 sixes). He could even access non-tzeentch magic items, such as the feedback scroll and the scroll of toad-making (I forget its exact name). Oh, and of course - as you already mentioned - he has super nasty ward saves versus magic.

Magic is a useful tool, but definitely don't base your strategy on it, especially against WoC Tzeentch!
Last edited by Red... on Mon Aug 09, 2010 12:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Lord tsunami »

His BSB takes Hw+shield also, giving him a 2+ ward save. This is beginning to frustrate me greatly.

no it isnt. mark of tzeench stacks with other ward saves, but parry doesnt. he would get a 4+ ward from the talisman and MoTz would improve that to 3+, but the parry can not stack with the 4+ from the talisman. If he had only shield + MoTz he would have a 5+ ward save. its the MoTz that stacks, not the parry.

and then the ASF armor from the WoC book, and the Initiative 10 sword.

then he is quite frankly an idiot. he already has "equal or greater initiative" than any opponent he can encounter, doesnt he?


His favorite unit tactic is either a large anvil of knights or chosen with the rapturous standard. (on break test any single die roll of a 1 or any double counts as insane courage) I've broken this unit before with combo charging front, flank and rear, but I was lucky with his break test roll. With either knights or chosen the unit has a lot of active combat resolution. Often times flank charging gives him more CR from kills, than flank/charge/denying ranks takes away.

His 2 war shrines generally buff this large unit. Frequently I'm facing T6, S5-6, stubborn 4+ ward or some other nonsense. Chosen marked with Tzeentch and HW+S get a 5+ ward also. Its even better when a caster joins the unit with the Collar of Khorne giving the whole unit a ridiculous ward against magic as well.

Lore of shadows can reduce their strangth and WS, making them unable to kill enough ppl to win the vombat. you win on static combat resolution, and even with the flag he will run sooner or later. Mindrazor lets even your archers chop the unit to bits.

The best way to take out his characters is to break the unit, however his General and BSB are always in the same unit. Convenient if you can break and catch the unit, but with the standard, and the active CR its a chore. Not to mention He has to challenge every round of combat, which either risks the life of my characters, or denies their attacks. I can only have so many champions after all. Also, the champs dying might give him a roll on the eye of the gods chart, I'm not sure if champions allow that rule or just characters/monsters.

champions does not give him an eye of the gods roll. you can bog down this unit quite easily, so that you dont have to fight him. a dreadlord on cold one, with full mundane armor (1+ AS), PoK, Crown of command and whip of agony (CD would be better, but you lose AS if you use it) can charge the unit, challenge and then just spend the entire battle locking them there. he costs under 300 points, his unit cost... 800 points? more? meanwhile you go and kill his other units. its actually posible that you manage to slay one of his chars!

He generally takes 3 casters L4, L2, L1. One will have a dispell scroll, one will have a feedback scroll, and the other will take an arcane buff item.

does he have ANY units at all? that many chaos characters plus the knights and chosen you mentioned... or do you play very large battles?

This is starting to give me headaches. My Druchii have pulled out victories each engagement, but they've mostly been Pyriak ones.

get used to it. in 8th its very common that very few models remain on the board after a fight. a win is a win still.


Use two lvl 2 sorcs with shadow, both taking the signature spell.
One lvl 4 sorc with either Death or Dark lore.
Using the shadow spell to reduce stats it makes Purple sun, soulstealer, and black horror more effective. However, this relies on me getting multiple spells off each magic phase.

first, 3 mages is too much. a lvl 4 + a lvl 2 should be plenty. IF you go for 2 mini-mages, make them lvl 1 atleast to save points. you wont have the dice to get off more than 6 spells per turn anyway. (not counting PoD). Also you say he has incredible ward saves (high MR and MoTz) then dont hurt him directly with magic. he will just save the wounds. use shadows to hex him so he becomes useless and then flank charge him!

WoC is probably the only army where you can successfully use dark riders, since you dont have to worry about shooting. use by placing them right in front of his units, but angled to the side of the board. he will have to charge them, but then he wastes a movement phase and you can either shoot him an extra turn or set up a nice flank charge. id sacrafice 84 points for that any day.

the only unit we have that can go toe to toe with WoC are executioners. in a horde formation with CoB blessing they chop through even frenzied chosen with halberds. if you are going to use frontal assult, executioners can work, but otherwise do NOT give him a fair fight! flee or sacrifice cheap troops to set up that flank charge. gang up on him with several units + hydra. be as much of a coward as it takes to beat him. just killing one of his units can be enough with their high points cost :)

warshrines are tough, but they wont stand against your warriors. kill them for cheap points. they wont be steadfast :)

I would leave the corsairs and witches at home. they are awesome against unprotected troops, but it sounds like he uses mostly "tin-head" units, and their puny S3 attacks will just bounce off the chaos armour.
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Post by Tethlis »

Generally speaking, I disagree with this 8th edition tendency towards magic. Virtually everyone seems ready to suggest "oh, debuff your opponent with this spell, then hit it with this uber spell" without thinking of the probability of actually achieving that kind of success. The magic phase simply has too many variables, in my opinion, to form any kind of decent basis for reliable strategy.

What does your opponent have, besides characters, Chosen/Knights and a Warshrine? That won't leave many points left for other units, but you mentioned that your Witch Elves go after Marauders, hounds, trolls and some other units. Is this part of the same opponent's list?

I would try to ignore that large unit and simply use speed and shooting to eradicate the weaker choices. My standard 2500 point list uses the following:

-Dreadlord on Dragon
-Cauldron BSB
-Level 2
-25 spearmen
-25 spearmen
-20 crossbowmen
-Manbane/Rending Star Assassin + 9 Shades
-Cold One Chariot
-20 Black Guard
-Hydra

Now, I'm not suggesting you use my list, but I would look at an opponent like yours and try to use my list to hunt support units. Avoid/slow down anything with a big Ward Save, and go for weak choices. The more points invested in characters and one or two big units, the less of a battle line he has to protect his support units and softer choices. The Asssassin/Shades have a very reasonable chance of killing a Warshrine on Turn 1 via shooting, and there isn't much that a WoC player can implement as a counter.

Also, one of the best ways to tackle enemy regiments these days is to fight them in terrain which negates Steadfast. If you roll a water or river terrain piece, use it as a buffer for your unit. Your opponent will have to march across it, in which case you can charge for maximum Static Combat resolution, or he'll have to circle around it, which buys you more time to attack support units.
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Post by Dangerous Beans »

I see a large part of the issue here is combat and magic orientated - have you tried taking an avoidance army?

To deal with specific chunks (eg. warshrines and hellcannons) have you tried a Dragon Lord with The Other Tricksters Shard (re-roll successful ward saves), Crimson Death (to make sure you always hurt it/them) and some protective talisman/armour?

If you took a couple of these units too:

8 Shades
AHWs

Assassin
Rending Stars, Manbane

Begin the game out in the open (or preferably out of LOS of his casters if you can) then use your better march distance/shoot ability to help whittle down some of his units?

Unfortunately theres not a lot you can do to counter his powerful magic (its just as well that he has chosen not to take The Black Tongue against you too as that can be an annoying combo with Infernal Puppet) except to take super strong magic yourself. I'll write most when I get a chance to re-read this thread again in the morning (am still drunk right now... 8))

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edit: I ALSO fully agree completely with Red - genius suggestion mate... ;)
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Post by Oldschoolmonk »

I've played only about 4 games against WoC in 8th, but I found a few tricks to work:

Level 1 mage as the only magic with a dispel scroll and lore of metal: Throw all your dice at the signature spell on some knights or shielded warriors. Inexpensive, effective, a channeller, and a scroll to stop gateway. Other than throwing all my dice at Okkams I haven't had a great result in the magic phase with anything else.

Shades are better than RXB. They cause similar hits due to position and BS. Chaos has trouble chasing them, since they arent a #1 magic priority and result in some denied VPs. Excellent at plinking a spawn, ogres, or plinking at warriors.

Blackguard, Hydras, and Dragons cause a lot of pain as always. Executioners can in theoryhammer kill warriors of Tz, but usually a unit of Khorne warriors with halberds rips them a new one.

CoB is excellent as always. Use it to give your BDE Lord KB and have him challenge those 3+ ward baddies. 2-3 KB hits is usually enough to drop them.
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Post by Comrade igor »

If you want to annoy your mate to no end, take this;

Dreadlord, Soulrender, Pendant of Khaeleth, Crown of Command, Cold one, HA, SDC = 267

Run him at his main unit with a BSB near by (but not in the combat) and hold it there for the whole game, slowly killing it with your 4 S6 AP attacks. Stubborn on LD 10 with a re-roll is godly. Also means that while him mega unit is held up by 1 267pt character, you can kill the rest of his army and pile in on the big unit towards the end.
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Wow thanks for the replies. Another novel for everyone.

Post by Vietnow »

Yea, I'm gonna run the lord with crown of command, pok, soulrender, and plop him on a cold one..... or possibly a peggy. The Pegasus gives him an additional wound and a much faster movement. It does however leave him with a lower AS so I might go shield and whip of agony. Whip allows a total of -3 as, and gives an additional attack.

My main concern with this tar pit character is the nurgle snipe spell, and the other newer snipe spells which don't have strength values. Some are direct damage which is negated by being in combat, but It's just something to think about. I can always make those spells my priority dispell.

Relying on magic is well not reliable. I've conceded this point. points will be better spent on more models. Thank you for your general consensus on this point. I promise I will not try to rely on one magic phase wrecking his whole army. It's too risky, and he does always take the item which modifies miscasts. Also thank you for helping me realize I do not have to fill my hero/lord point allowances to be effective. I'm used to opponents doing this, I guess I just followed suit.

I'm also thinking of making my cauldron hag my bsb. Thoughts?

I've recently thought of another point. His characters are not allowed to take heavy armor. This effectively prevent him from taking the rule book magic list item of HA 4+ ward. Correct? He says the WoC errata says his casters may take magic armor, but the current one does not. What takes precedent? I know my orc and savage orc bosses can't take heavy armor even if its magic. Only black orcs can. Why would his chaos sorcerers and lords be allowed to downgrade their armor, esp if the rule book is in direct violation of this? PLEASE tell me this is the case. I'm so f'n sick of 3+ ward saves. The WoC player is also a lawyer, screwing him with rules is an absolute joy.

I have had a dragon lord fight a war shrine....... the shrine killed him and eventually the dragon did a wound and his bsb was dead, so it ran. Pok gave him a 4- ward, and he died in 3 rounds of combat. Bad luck? Yes, probably but very repeatable.

Harpies generally just give WoC more active combat res. Nothing really goes Hell Cannon hunting very well. Its also hard to sorc hunt when they wear armor, have a higher initiative, and have 3+ ward saves.

I haven't touched assassins since 7th, but the rending star assassins in shades might be more effective, esp if i spend less points in characters.

The witches mostly allowed me to set up charges, since being stubborn (CoB) forces my opponent to kill the whole unit in one turn. It helps me set up flank charges with hydras, chariots and the dragon lord. Only 70 points a model for 21 poison attacks, sure not great against heavily armored troops, but with this many attacks they generally kill something.

I def think another unit of warriors would help my cause. Too frequently I'm left with few to no units left alive on turn 6. Previously this has been offset by a heavy point investment in characters, who tend to survive.

Are RBolt throwers worth it in 8th? They're very pricey, and with T6 and ward saves on his shrines my only real option is to shoot chariots (which Dark Riders can rear charge on turn 2 with the vanguard move) or blocks of warriors. They don't seem to be very efficient against WoC, spread shot is especially worthless. 100 points is quite a bit. O&G you get 2 for 70 points. 65 extra points for BS4 does not seem worthwhile.

I'm very much against avoidance armies ever since I saw a 50yr old man take an "Army of the Southlands" lizzies list. This guy was total 3rd Reich rules Nazi, and abused the magic phase as much as humanly possible. This kills all fun. My old roommate did something similar to me in an O&G v lizzies game. He just ran his slann's to separate corners, no combat till turn 5. That game was to fun, like Jenna Jameson is to chastity.

Again thanks for all the replies, hopefully this is helping other players, besides me, too.
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Post by Red... »

I've recently thought of another point. His characters are not allowed to take heavy armor. This effectively prevent him from taking the rule book magic list item of HA 4+ ward. Correct? He says the WoC errata says his casters may take magic armor, but the current one does not. What takes precedent? I know my orc and savage orc bosses can't take heavy armor even if its magic. Only black orcs can. Why would his chaos sorcerers and lords be allowed to downgrade their armor, esp if the rule book is in direct violation of this? PLEASE tell me this is the case. I'm so f'n sick of 3+ ward saves. The WoC player is also a lawyer, screwing him with rules is an absolute joy.


I think you're pushing your luck with this one. He is allowed to take magic items up to the value of 50 or 100 points (except arcane, obviously). It doesn't say anywhere that he CAN'T take heavy armour, its just not a mundane equipment option for him. That applies for O&G too by the way, non-black orc bosses and warbosses can take whatever magic items they like (again, except arcane), they just can't take mundane heavy armour.

The only reason this has never really come up before is that the O&G book has no heavy armour magic armours and the WoC book has no non-chaos armour magic armour, and in 7th ed the common magic items didn't include those things either. Well, now it does, so those character types in both armies can access heavy armour magic items, for the very first time!

I'll comment more in a bit...
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Post by Lord tsunami »

The Pegasus gives him an additional wound and a much faster movement.

no. you use the highest number of wounds. both lord and peg has 3, so the total is 3. a HERO though will get an extra wound.

My main concern with this tar pit character is the nurgle snipe spell, and the other newer snipe spells which don't have strength values. Some are direct damage which is negated by being in combat, but It's just something to think about. I can always make those spells my priority dispell.

yep. just dispel the snipes. when he is in CC, he is usually safe from them. a scroll is handy.
I'm also thinking of making my cauldron hag my bsb. Thoughts?

yes. if you have a cauldron, it should be bsb to save points.
'
I've recently thought of another point. His characters are not allowed to take heavy armor. This effectively prevent him from taking the rule book magic list item of HA 4+ ward. Correct?

no. his combat characters has chaos armour and can take a shield. and thus they can take magic armour too. His mages cant though. there is nothing in the FAQ that says they can. they can take chaos armour, and some of the magic armour in the chaos book, as discribed in there.
EDIT: i was wrong here. he can indeed use magic armour for both sorcerer and combat chars.


I have had a dragon lord fight a war shrine....... the shrine killed him and eventually the dragon did a wound and his bsb was dead, so it ran. Pok gave him a 4- ward, and he died in 3 rounds of combat. Bad luck? Yes, probably but very repeatable.

must be incredibly bad luck. with a 1+ AS and PoK your lord can statistically withstand 162 WS5 S4 attacks.

Harpies generally just give WoC more active combat res. Nothing really goes Hell Cannon hunting very well. Its also hard to sorc hunt when they wear armor, have a higher initiative, and have 3+ ward saves.

use them to force him to charge in weird directions. its just another form of march blocking.
I def think another unit of warriors would help my cause. Too frequently I'm left with few to no units left alive on turn 6. Previously this has been offset by a heavy point investment in characters, who tend to survive.

Chararcters as a means to generate combat res is very inefficient. a lord with 5 S5 attacks (WoA) will still only cause ~1.3 wounds per turn BEFORE ward save. compare that to a 25 point warbanner... Beef up your units a bit. 25 will not last long against chaos. 30-35 can survive until help arrives. gang up on him! executioners in the flank will make short work of even the toughest foes!
Are RBolt throwers worth it in 8th? They're very pricey, and with T6 and ward saves on his shrines my only real option is to shoot chariots (which Dark Riders can rear charge on turn 2 with the vanguard move) or blocks of warriors. They don't seem to be very efficient against WoC, spread shot is especially worthless. 100 points is quite a bit. O&G you get 2 for 70 points. 65 extra points for BS4 does not seem worthwhile.

in short: no they arent worth it.

I'm very much against avoidance armies

Then get some punchy units. Executioners, hydras and CoK are really nasty. bog him down with warriors in the front, and then flank with at least one punchy unit to win combat and negate his steadfast (since you have plenty of ranks in total). but you still cant afford to fight his entire army at once. you must avoid part of it and kill one unit at a time. toe to toe we are weak. divide and conquer! :)
Last edited by Lord tsunami on Wed Aug 11, 2010 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Red... »

a lord with 5 S5 attacks (WoA) will still only cause ~1.3 wounds per turn BEFORE ward save


True, but a lord with 6 S7 attacks (sword of strife and potion of strength) will cause 4.444 wounds on average, when you really need it.

Executioners, hydras and CoK are really nasty


Execs = yes
CoK = yes
Hydras vs Tzeentch WoC = a crispy burning smell (flickering fire of tzeentch makes short work of hydras)

no. his combat characters has chaos armour and can take a shield. and thus they can take magic armour too.


Your answer is right, but your logic wrong. It's not because they can take a shield, but as I said previously, any character can take any magic item as long as its not arcane. Otherwise, I don't know how all those dark elf sorceresses have been going around toting lifetaker all these years, I'm pretty certain that sorceresses can not be given ranged weapons as a mundane equipment choice.

His mages cant though


Pretty certain you're wrong on this, but I don't have the WoC book with me to confirm. Chaos Sorcerors can take any type of magic armour because they can wear armour. It's in the WoC book IIRC. It's not that chaos armour is somehow special, its that the wizards themselves possess the ability to wear armour.

Even if I'm wrong (which I'm pretty certain I'm not), it won't help much. He'd just give the wizard the enchanted item 4+ ward save rather than the armour.
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Post by Rork »

Chaos Sorcerers can indeed wear magic armour since they already wear Chaos Armour.
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Post by Lord tsunami »

Your answer is right, but your logic wrong. It's not because they can take a shield, but as I said previously, any character can take any magic item as long as its not arcane. Otherwise, I don't know how all those dark elf sorceresses have been going around toting lifetaker all these years, I'm pretty certain that sorceresses can not be given ranged weapons as a mundane equipment choice.

yes indeed. i was wrong. i had confused the rules with the rules for casting spells. you can only cast spells while wearing armour IF you can wear normal armour. so chaos sorcerer can indeed both buy and cast spells with magical armour. sorry bout that :roll:
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A Few explanations and a possible, great idea.

Post by Vietnow »

My dragon lord had already taken a wound from flickering fire 9 S4 hits. S4 is statistically the worst strength against pok. On a dragon without an enchanted shield you can't get a 1+ AS; HA, SDC, mounted, Shield is 2+ 1+ against ranged. He also had the SDC which reduced ranged attack strength by 1/2. Not a great decision with POK.... but since it's worded "attacks targeted at the model" my concern was the hell cannon becoming S5 for hits on the dragon.

I also had 15 spears with KB roll six 6's to in their to hit rolls.. 10 hits total, resulting in 1 wound no KB's. My general with whip of agony got 1 hit RE ROLLING MISSES and rolled a 2 for wounding.

Did i mention his combat lord killed my CoB in one round of combat in a challenge......failed 4 4+ wards in one round. I had some bad rolls.

He always takes 1 hell cannon, rarely if ever takes spawn.

I'm starting to like the idea of naked DR's and harpies more. by sacrificing them to charges i can split his battle line and open up his flanks more. By just holding against the charge i can make him do goofy moves, esp since he takes so few units.

Another thought I had. If I take the newly useless ASF bsb hag..... and make sure she fights a unit with a character or champ, am I allowed to refuse the challenge and keep her safe? He has to challenge, If i refuse he has to nominate a hero to get to the back of the bus, correct? If she is the only character, she has to hide correct? Is this possibly the only army where ASF hag in execs is viable?

Also, a very wide frontage of exec's, 8+, could leave the ASF hag out of base contact. if i shielded her with a unit of DR's or harpies, I could prevent a charging unit from even touching her. They would be forced to charge the bait unit, or the exec unit and she wouldn't be in contact. This shield also prevents her from charging due to frenzy. Yea yea I know step up makes her useless, but ASF exec's with +1 attack can pretty much destroy anything WoC has to offer.

Using her would require constant babysitting, but is it worth it against WoC. I would never take her in a tournament list, but to mop my buddy up I definetly would.

Also thank you all for clearing up the magic armor question I had. Savage orc bosses might make a comeback in my list. Possibly even a goblin boss here or there.
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Post by Gailbraithe »

I would bring a big block of cheddar to the next game and place it on the table during deployment instead of your army. When he asks why you've placed a big block of cheddar on the board look him straight in the eye and say "This is the only thing I could find that's cheesier than your army."
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Post by Red... »

I would bring a big block of cheddar to the next game and place it on the table during deployment instead of your army. When he asks why you've placed a big block of cheddar on the board look him straight in the eye and say "This is the only thing I could find that's cheesier than your army."


I actually did something like that once. My wife had asked me to go via the supermarket near my games club and pick up - amongst other things - a particular type of cheese (not available at our local store). Sadly, pulling the blocks out of my bag was not as funny as hoped - recieving about the same reception as such a bad pun should. *sigh*.
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Post by tmr »

This really works - just tried this today and but i also had to charge my Blk Grd got the Mindrazor off in the second round of combat. lost all the Blk Grd but tied up his big unit. Killed his general in a challenge.
cleaned up the rest of his army with shooting and a Hydra.

eventually work over the big unit and my worthy opponent was done on turn 4.

Red - this was an awesome tactic - thanks

dreadlord, with crown of command, full mundane armour, and pendant of khaine, with the weapon of your choice (crimson death

Red... wrote:I had been wondering a lot recently about how the new ward save rules would affect Tzeentch WoC, with expectations that they could be a huge boost - I think your conundrum illustrates some of the ways that it has benefitted.

I'm sure there are lots of clever, in-depth strategies that could be developed to tackle the problem.

But, to be honest, I'd just play him at his own game.

Here's what to do:

Take a dreadlord, with crown of command, full mundane armour, and pendant of khaine, with the weapon of your choice (crimson death could be good) and stick him on a cold one. Also take a master as battle standard bearer, give him armour of eternal servitude and dragonbane pearl, as well as full mundane kit, stick him on a cold one too. Finally, take a cauldron of blood as well.

Now run the BSB and general together as a unit - no other members needed. Run them as quickly as you can into the front of his uber unit. Use the cauldron to give them killing blow.

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Post by Vulcan »

If I'm running the Unkillable Dreadlord, I go POK, CoC, Dragonbane Helm, and the killing blow greatsword (don't remember the name offhand) on top of full mundane armor and a mount. Ordinarily going last is a Very Bad Thing with T3; with the PoK you know you'll still be around to swing.

Then just tie up his deathstar indefinitely. Issue challegnes to cut down the number of attacks coming in, keep the BSB nearby but not actually in combat - AoES helps, but doesn't hold up as well as the PoK.
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Post by Red... »

the killing blow greatsword (don't remember the name offhand)


You must mean Deathpiercer, which is a lance not a sword, it's the only non-special character magical weapon we have access to that has killing blow.

An interesting issue with this - which I don't know if they ever resolved (does anyone know if they did?) is whether you can use the killing blow rule after the first turn. According to the BRB you can't use a lance in the second round of combat, you must switch to a hand weapon. However, the BRB also tells us that if you have a magic weapon then you must always use it.
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