How Do You Counter the Beastman Ambush?

Old_crow · Post by **Old_crow** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 9:53 pm

As some of you may have seen in the army list forum I am soon to fight 3k worth of Beasts of Chaos. My question is, how do you counter their special ambush rule? The army I am most likely to face will start with chariots, spawn and a few herds on the table. The rest of his force, consisting of herds, hounds and characters, will come on right behind me.

I'd love to hear some ideas. What I am considering is making a dash for the center, destroy as much of his chariot force as possible with a dragon, manticore, magic and maybe a rending assassin and then reform and engage his herds as they approach.

Comrade igor · Post by **Comrade igor** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:09 am

There are a few things. You can use harpies to tackle smaller herds and hound units thanks their their 360 degree line of sight, same with shades. Alternatively you can shoot them by turning your crossbowmen around and using your RBTs and hope to panic them - beastmen are usually leadership 8 or lower, so it's not too hard. Or you could take a really mobile force and smash the part of the beastman army that doesn't ambush, and then turn around and finish the ambushers later.

Post by **Dalamar** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:24 am

Beastmen are Ld 6 on units, Ld 7 on champions (say hello to bladewind!), Ld 8 on heroes and Ld 9 on lords.

Getting them to panic is a good tactic as they're pretty squishy.

Malevion · Post by **Malevion** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:38 am

A Hyrda or 2 should work wonders. It's too tough for most of their units to kill. It causes terror. It breathes fire at s5 (they have no shooting to lower this) and it is relatively manouverable. The beasts won't know what hit them.

Just keep it away from dragon ogres and gw minotaurs.

Post by **Dyvim tvar** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:20 am

Aside from issues of army composition, rush forward with your army. Kill the stuff in front of you, then turn around and deal with the stuff behind. If you aren't hanging around your back table edge, Ambush is no big deal.

Cat-the-odd · Post by **Cat-the-odd** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:34 am

Hi,

if you want to rush the rest of his army you migth use 1-2 Units of crossbow corsairs with musican. Since they can turn on the spot and rebuild ranks you'll get at least 2 shooting s at the herds (using S&S). This will soften them and better - delay their advance to your back. When you can spare some DR you could fairly set up a deathly trap combining the slavers rule and 3d6 pursue.

Have fun.

Pops71408 · Post by **Pops71408** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:32 pm

Dalamar, their lords are actually Ld 8 for the beast lord and Ld 9 for the minotar lord

Mr. anderson · Post by **Mr. anderson** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 12:38 pm

Dyvim Tvar wrote:Aside from issues of army composition, rush forward with your army. Kill the stuff in front of you, then turn around and deal with the stuff behind. If you aren't hanging around your back table edge, Ambush is no big deal.

QFT. On top of that, if your army is not designed in a way that exposes a fatal weakness to the ambush rule (like dwarves with a billion war machines and single-ranked shooting units), the ambush rule is a weakness in itself because it splits up an army which means you can first deal with one half and then the other, and you can focus your entire army on a part of your opponent's army. And we all know what a fight ends up like where the bad kids get to gang up on the good guys (although, this might be an instant of two bad fellas fighting each other, or rather one bad guy defending himself against a mob of bad elves that are hell-bent on sticking something pointy up his nose).

HUZZAH!

Stonecutter · Post by **Stonecutter** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 3:25 pm

There are a few easy ways to deal with the ambushing herds. The first is the best - kill the general before turn 2 if possible and the herds not only don't show up, but you get full VPs for them!! While killing the general this quickly is difficult, panicing the beast general's unit through concentrated missile and magic attacks can work wonders and is much easier to achieve, especially if your wizards can get doom and darkness from the lore of death and reduce the unit's LD to 5. Each shooting and magic phase should be used to cause a panic check on the general's unit and, if successful, the shooting and magic should continue to reduce the unit to <25% strength so that it cannot rally. Terror checks via a hydra add another opportunity to panic the unit and forcing additional panic checks by causing other units to flee through the herd either as a charge reaction or losing in combat give more opportunities to get the unit running off the board (and 5 harpies placed behind them remove any chance of rallying!!).

A second and simple way to deal with the herds is a lone, mounted character with good close combat ability. By turning them to face a threatened flank, they will be in position to charge any herds that appear and will likely break the herd and be able to overrun in an advantageous direction - like toward a 2nd herd!!

Lastly, there is a passive method of dealing with the herd by maintaining sufficient distance to prevent 25% of the models from reaching your units. If you remain 9" away, it is very unlikely they can get enough models in to have a successful charge and thus are delayed another turn.

Old_crow · Post by **Old_crow** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 4:06 pm

Thanks guys, this has given me much food for thought. I had considered trying to kill the general on turn 1 but then I remembered that he runs Khazrak One-Eye which allows every unit, including the general, that has the Ambush ability to set up that way. He typically runs a shaman or two with that unit as well and casts bear's anger to boost his combat power.

Post by **Dalamar** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 5:08 pm

If he runs Khazrak and wants to be really mean, you can't win that game.

He'll simply ambush you with his entire army on turn 6.

Old_crow · Post by **Old_crow** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 6:17 pm

From what I have seen him run, he starts the game with several chariots and spawn on the board which hurtle forwards and crash into whatever units the enemy has presented. Then on turn two, he ambushes with several herds and hound units and moves to engage what he can. So far, he has enveloped everyone he has played using these tactics since they typically have a static shooty element that gets engaged when he comes on the board.

If he ambushes on turn 6 it would most likely be a draw since neither of us could really do enough damage to effectively win the game. I would turtle in the center and stay out of his charge and magic range.

Druchii77 · Post by **Druchii77** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:49 pm

Remember a few things.

1) He can only ambush up to half his ambushable units AND only half of his ambushable characters. So if he takes 6 characters, only 3 ar ambushing, same with units. The only ambushable units are hounds and herds which are fairly easily dealt with. Also, you can only ambush if your army general is a beastlord, shaman, or wargor. If he takes a doombull you are safe from ambush altogether. Also, the general himself can't ambush. So one of the 2 possible lord level characters has to start on the board in front of you. Get rid of him.

2) They can't charge the turn they ambush. So, you have a turn at the very least to thin them down, panic them or outright destroy them.

Ambush isn't that strong of a rule if you plan for it. With low leadership, they are succeptible to panic. Use this to your advantage. At 3K you should have plenty of magic and shooting to deal with ambushing threats.

Post by **Dalamar** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:54 pm

If he runs Khazrak he can ambush anything he wants that has the ambush rule including the general. In a properly built Khazrak army that means *everything*.

And they have a bound spell that lets them charge on the turn they show up (only one unit though) so save dispel dice for that one. (and hope they didn't take lore of shadow and rolled plenty unseen lurkers)

Old_crow · Post by **Old_crow** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 9:02 pm

The army list that I am taking can be found in this thread: http://druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=62869 It is the second list in that thread.

From what I've seen, he usually takes Lore of Beasts and wears down dispel pools with Bear's Anger and then goes for his movement spells. I have three casters (lv4 and 2 lv2s) along with two scrolls so I am fairly confident that I can stop his movement magic during the turn he ambushes at least. That will buy me some more time to arrange my battle line to meet him.

I am counting heavily on my mounted characters, magic and assassin to take out the chariots that are the biggest threat to my infantry center and then reform my battle line to meet his ambushers when they come on the table. The DRs and harpies will work to delay his hounds and the infantry/chariots/hydra will eat up his herds with support from the casters and mounted characters. That's the simple version anyway...no plan survives first contact though so we'll see how it plays out.

Kargan daemonclaw · Post by **Kargan daemonclaw** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 9:35 am

Don't the ambushing beast units, have to pass a leadership test to sho up where they want to? With LD 7 or less nearly half the units will show up randomly around the edge.

[llct]kain · Post by **[llct]kain** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:00 pm

One last think not mentioned at all.

Chariots.
If you have the option keep them back and turn them around before his second turn. You get impact hits and he gets no ranks because he can only line up 4 modells wide.

Ehakir · Post by **Ehakir** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:13 am

Chariots are indeed quite good when facing beastmen. It is quite a retarded way on the other hand, as the rules they got were developed to give them their rank bonus even when they wouldn't have gained it (even when they were charged by lone characters etc.)
Another nice tactic is to use your Dark Rider fast cavalry rule to full extent. You can deploy them one wide to get a looong line and place it at a table edge where you do not want any beasts. He may not enter the field within 1"of you, so now you are preventing him in coming on the table at that edge.

Old_crow · Post by **Old_crow** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:47 pm

Thanks for all of the great advice guys! I will be fighting this battle tonight so I'll let you know how it goes. I am thinking that I will take dark magic on all of my casters as this seems to be the most effective against his herds.