About Malekith's spellshield...

Babnik · Post by **Babnik** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:13 am

I've always been a big fan of bringing our Lord into the battlefied, players become obsessed with Malekith mounted on his majestuous dragon.
That's why they always manage to kill him during the game!

What happenss with the spellshield if I include our King in an unit like the BG? Does it get the magical resistance?

Is it worthy to put Malekith in a Black Guard unit? In a COK unit?

Ozur · Post by **Ozur** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:51 am

The spellshield will also protect the unit he is in.

If you want to include Malekith in your army he would fit in nicely in a BG unit. Where he'll be relatively safe. But be aware that Malekith is fragile. Most enemy characters with a magic weapon or something like a Greater Deamon or Treeman will easily hurt him. As he has low armor and no ward save against magical attacks.

I wouldn't put him in a CoK unit. If you fail stupidity you risk getting flanked and losing alot of points. And they always go stupid when you dont want them to. But maybe I just have bad luck with stupidity.

As a result I always keep my CoK units cheap and expendable. Even 5 basic knights with cauldron blessing can break most units and dont need any boost from characters.

Desmodeus · Post by **Desmodeus** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:58 am

Although I agree that Stupidity could be a liability (unless you also had Malus or the Banner of Cold Blood) I'd still point out that he's likely to dispell magic missiles aimed his way. (You will have some dispell dice saved for that if you're thinking ahead!)

But putting him in Black Guard with a Tower Master would be a plan, then he can refuse challenges from big nasties with magic weapons, or have the much loved ASF banner to make sure that front enemy rank dies and can't hit back.

Babnik · Post by **Babnik** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:10 am

Good news for the spellshield!

I like the COK option as Malekith gets a 2+ save. But stupidity is indeed a big liability. I'm sure I'll fail the test when a charge is needed!

Let's try malekith in a 20 strong BG unit with tower master + hag graef. Kind of deathstar but not too cheesy... :twisted:

Red... · Post by **Red...** » Wed Feb 03, 2010 10:26 am

Let's try malekith in a 20 strong BG unit with tower master + hag graef. Kind of deathstar but not too cheesy...

Any saavy opponent will avoid this unit like the plague. He'll either use your hatred to pull you off to one side or hammer you with missile fire or both.

To avoid the missile problem, you'll need to put an extra master in the unit, equipped with ring of darkness. Or take a cauldron to give the unit a 5+ ward save. Or both. Your opponent will still avoid it, but at least your super 1000+ point unit will not take much damage...

You may find that your opponents do initially try to take him on, just because they're unaware of the threat. But once they figure it out (or if you're playing a skilled/experienced opponent) you'll find they leave a 12" insulation zone around the unit at all times... You won't lose any games, but you won't win any either.

I played a 3k DE vs HE game some time back where I fielded a unit of quite chunky black guard (14 strong with dreadlord with ring of darkness, standard of HG and supported by cauldron), along with two hydras and exactly that happened (the only combat the BG achieved was to kill a single shadow warrior who charged them in the side, making them veer off to the right when I needed them to go centre left!) At the end of the game the rest of my army had taken an absolute hammering (I made some strategic mistakes...) but we still drew because he failed to dent the two hydras and the black guard. Your uber unit of malekith led black guard is likely to incur a similar fate.

(Conversely, I tend to do the same against VC and other armies with units of uber-horrifyingness (blood knights love chasing fast cavalry and harpies around the board...)).

Sulla · Post by **Sulla** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:17 am

deathknight27 wrote:To avoid the missile problem, you'll need to put an extra master in the unit, equipped with ring of darkness. Or take a cauldron to give the unit a 5+ ward save. Or both. Your opponent will still avoid it, but at least your super 1000+ point unit will not take much damage...

...Or you could, like, kill the shooters? I don't know why you wouldn't after all. You are playing a t3, low armour army. It doesn't really matter what they are shooting (except hydras). It's gonna hurt.

Plus the ring of darkness is hideously overpriced. It only gives -1 to hit vs bs3 which is the vast bulk of your opponents shooting and does nothing to protect against war machines. If you are putting a master in the unit, he/she is probably better off with the pendant to act as a bodyguard for the big boss.

You should probably be taking the cauldron in the list regardless, because 4s5 attacks from mally aren't really enough to achieve much in the game these days. He may need killing blow or the extra attack in challenges.

Post by **Dalamar** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 7:13 am

-1 to hit can mean changing from hitting on 5s to hitting on 6s.
That *halves* the chance to hit.

Sulla · Post by **Sulla** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:18 am

Dalamar wrote:-1 to hit can mean changing from hitting on 5s to hitting on 6s.
That *halves* the chance to hit.

Or it may change dwarven thunderers from hitting on 3/4's to 4/5's... not nearly so impressive. Or your opponents may just pummel you with stone throwers or warpfire

I find the easiest way to protect a unit from shooting is to kill the shooters. 7th ed DE have some of the best options in the game for doing that. That and taking a few extra warm bodies in each unit help greatly.

Red... · Post by **Red...** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 8:28 am

...Or you could, like, kill the shooters? I don't know why you wouldn't after all. You are playing a t3, low armour army. It doesn't really matter what they are shooting (except hydras). It's gonna hurt.

Plus the ring of darkness is hideously overpriced. It only gives -1 to hit vs bs3 which is the vast bulk of your opponents shooting and does nothing to protect against war machines. If you are putting a master in the unit, he/she is probably better off with the pendant to act as a bodyguard for the big boss.

Hmm. I've used ring of darkness in several games with my BG and find it to be very useful. Why? Well, because the moment my blackguard turn up on the field they become a missile target. In the aforementioned 3k HE vs DE battle, I moved my army forward on my turn one, on his he immediately aimed all four of his repeating bolt throwers against my black guard. That's 24 shots. All of which would usually hit on 4s. So that's 12 hits. And 8 wounds, with no armour save. So that would be 8 dead black guard on turn one. Nothing I could do about it.

Fortunately my guard were protected by the ring and cauldron and I only lost 1. I then dealt with the enemy missile troops as quick as possible.

The Ring can be really helpful for delivering a unit that you know is going to get hammered by missile fire in turn one to the other side of the board successfully.

Yeah, in some circumstances missile defence isn't needed/efficient. In others it definitely is.

Sulla · Post by **Sulla** » Thu Feb 04, 2010 6:05 pm

deathknight27 wrote:
The Ring can be really helpful for delivering a unit that you know is going to get hammered by missile fire in turn one to the other side of the board successfully.

Yeah, in some circumstances missile defence isn't needed/efficient. In others it definitely is.

The ring costs, what? 130-140pts minimum. You really think it will save 10+ black guard? I have a hard time believing that. Plus, the unit already has malekith in it. He should be laying about him with chillwind and word of pain.