Against Empire with Dwellers Below, Steam Tank and 3 Mortars

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Drei
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Against Empire with Dwellers Below, Steam Tank and 3 Mortars

Post by Drei »

Ok here is what i found out, maybe it helps someone or somebody can give me more hints.

Against such an army u need to place a hill infront of your troops. That will protect you against warmachins in the first round if Empire starts.

In later round u should always use the 5+ Wards from COB on your big unit.

U also need a Lvl 4 Metal SS against the Steamtank.

Dont use Corsairs, the are to expensive and will dy as fast as everything else.


Your army should have:

40 SM with Heros/HB
Lvl 4 Metal SS
COB
2 RSS
Some shades and/or Harpien
2 COC
maybe a Hero on Peg/horse to hunt warmachins


The Prob is that Dwellers Below can kill your SS on foot with 50 % plus up to 20 SM.


Thats why i only play against people that allow a Look out Sir against this spell, else its just useless to play against Empire.


Thats what happens most of the time :

Empire gets firstround (De has more units all the time)

Empire kills 25-30 SM before they reach CC

SS kills Steamtank

HB and Heros kill mass units and the Empire Swordsmen are broken in CC

In the last game IF Dwellers Below (original rules) killed one HB, one SS and one MA in one round. Thats why i finally decided that it is overpowerd. Maybe the spell is ok if u look at all races in all possible combinations, but in DE vs EMP its just the doom of the DE.

If u lose the SS or HB , what is very likely to happen, the game is over, because 1) noone take care about the steamtank 2) noone kills mass of the spearmen to win the fight against there SCR ( dont expect to get more then 15 SM out of 40 into CC )

just wanted to hear your opinion, thx drei
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Dalamar
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Post by Dalamar »

Both Dwellers from Below and Mortars are counters to the same thing.

Large units with low T/S

Split your Spearmen... wait, forget about spearmen

Deploy your army as units of 10 strong crossbowmen.

Plenty of harpies, they need to take care of mortars by turn 2, make sure they charge units with the Dwellers Below wizard as well. They're I5 and stand a good chance at killing him outright.

Where are your hydras? they kinda laugh at both mortars and Dwellers Below while making short work of almost anything Empire can throw at them in close combat (Steam Tanks win, Heavy Cavalry only wins if Hydra didn't get KB from the CoB)
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Shadowblade his Dwellers mage :O
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Now that we understand each other, lets get down to business.

Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

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*Magical properties possibly imbued
Drei
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Post by Drei »

Dalamar wrote:Deploy your army as units of 10 strong crossbowmen.


Still he can target(Dwellers Below) the unit with the SS sooner or later. Also small units dont give me a good target for my COB and cant counter the SCR of his big Swordmenunit+Attachment (40+15).

Dalamar wrote:Plenty of harpies, they need to take care of mortars by turn 2, make sure they charge units with the Dwellers Below wizard as well. They're I5 and stand a good chance at killing him outright.


If i hide behind a hill in the firstround the 3 Mortars, 2 pigeon bombs and this fastcav kill most if my Harpies. If im lucky i kill 2 of 3 Mortars in my second round. He still has 2 pigeons and 1 Mortar left. 55 Harpies are nearly 10 SM, u cant take Plenty of them. I use 3 units of 5 plus 5 Shades.

Dalamar wrote:Where are your hydras? they kinda laugh at both mortars and Dwellers Below


Hydra is the most useless unit ever against Empire. His 20 S4 Range 30" Crossbowmen with Flaming Attacks finish it in 1 Round.
COC are more usefull.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Deploy your spears in a thin line to minimise the damage of mortars, and reform before you engage them. Put an Ironcurse Icon in one unit (character carrying it of course). If you're taking a CoB, you can 5+ ward another big mortar magnet unit.

You can use Corsairs to shield your units from enemy guns. If you use Lore of Metal you can cast glittering scales upgrade version to enhance the armour of all your nearby troops so you could get an AS against those mortars and guns.

You can't do too much about Dwellers, just pray he doesn't get it off on IF so you can dispel it. Take a DP mounted Master to fly in and deal with that mage asap. I'd refrain from taking multi wound units such as chariots and hydras altogether because you're giving his war machines something worthwhile to shoot at. 3 units of 5 Harpies and 2 units of 5 AHW shades should give you ample opportunities to kill his mage and silence a few war machines.

Other than that, there isn't much you could do but weather the damage and press on. Metal magic is my answer to mortars and a steam tank. Or Shadowblade :D
What's mine is mine, What's yours is mine.
Now that we understand each other, lets get down to business.

Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

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Basic Stealth, Awareness, TWF, Suithenlu Khythan, Ride

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*Magical properties possibly imbued
Drei
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Post by Drei »

Meteor wrote:Deploy your spears in a thin line to minimise the damage of mortars, and reform before you engage them.


Im using 40-50 SM, in what formation do u want them ?
Reforming gives him another round to shoot.
If your unit is wide a Steamtank can easily reach u and you can not hide your SS in the second Rank (Im using HB MA + Full Command)

Meteor wrote:Put an Ironcurse Icon in one unit (character carrying it of course). If you're taking a CoB, you can 5+ ward another big mortar magnet unit.


Yes im doing that already

Meteor wrote:You can use Corsairs to shield your units from enemy guns. If you use Lore of Metal you can cast glittering scales upgrade version to enhance the armour of all your nearby troops so you could get an AS against those mortars and guns.


The guns are only good against Hydras and Knights (thats why i never use them), versus SM they are not the big problem because they dont make enough wounds. Corsair while block my LOS and stop me from using the DragonEgg. Against Mortars on hills or on the side of the map blocking LOS doesnt work.

I tried the Armor too, the problem is that Empire has a very good Magicdefense and you want to get a high roll or IF on the signature spell to kill the Steam Tank as soon as you see it. Most of the time you just dont have the dice to useboth. IF for the signature spell means he uses all other disspell dice against the next spell.


Meteor wrote:You can't do too much about Dwellers, just pray he doesn't get it off on IF so you can dispel it. .


Right, thats why its overpowered and i dont play against it anymore. If my opponent agress that it allows "Look out Sir" its ok, else i wont play.

Meteor wrote:Take a DP mounted Master to fly in and deal with that mage asap


He is in the biggest Empire Unit and the MA will loose combat, if u reach it. Most of the time the Steam Tank / Crossbowmen or a single Char charging the MA will stop the plan.

Meteor wrote: I'd refrain from taking multi wound units such as chariots


Completely wrong, he doesnt take cannons anymore and has no easy way to kill them. They can solo charge his Crossbowmen or help me to fight this big unit. Pick 2 of them every game.

Maybe i can take Dragonlord, but he is vulnerable if he has 1-2 cannons and i need my HB to kill 4-5 Units each round in CC.

Meteor wrote:3 units of 5 Harpies and 2 units of 5 AHW shades should give you ample opportunities to kill his mage and silence a few war machines.


That isnt fast enough, you need a hill to protect from his first round of shooting because he always gets +1 for the "to start roll".

Meteor wrote:Metal magic is my answer to mortars and a steam tank.


SS 4 and S 2 both Metal magic is the best combo. Everything else is just fancy fooling around and will fail. Next best combo is SS 4 Metall and S 2(Furion) Dark. But the Crossbowmen are not so dangerous to be afraid to recive 1-2 rounds of shooting.
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Post by Burizan »

Don't underestimate shadow magic, cheap way to negate a unit shooting, nerf his toughness (for example on the mage unit that just got charged by harpies), and pit of shades is efficient for killing war machines.

I don't understand how his crossbowmen have flaming attacks, unless through lore of fire? In which case he can't guarantee either dwellers OR flaming sword.
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Post by Drei »

There is a Banner in the rulebook, it cost 15 P and he always has it.

Its not guaranteed that Shadow magic will kill the steam tank. Even if houserulez allow Pit of Shades to kill the Tank.

"cheap way to negate a unit shooting" thats not a prob,i have enough SM. Against Mortars it doesnt help.

"nerf his toughness" Might be usefull from time to time, but my HB and MA have Str 6+ and dont need that support that much.

"pit of shades is efficient for killing war machines" He will laugh at you if u use it against Warmachines other then the Steam Tank. And against the Steam Tank it can missfire, if u have only 1 chance to kill that freaky Tank und dont want that.

Without a second mage with Lore of Shadows its not guaranteed that u get the the Pit of Shadows.

The #6 from Lore of Shadows isnt that great, because most of the time i reach CC with 10-15 SM out of 40 ( Even if i hide behind a hill in his first round !!! ). There are just not enough modells left to get a big boost from this spell. If u compare it with the #6 of Metall and assume that u dont need the signature spell against the Steam Tank you can try to cast the #6 maybe 2 times and kill 30 Modells if the unit ist 40 Modells big.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

dreikaesehoch wrote:
Meteor wrote:Deploy your spears in a thin line to minimise the damage of mortars, and reform before you engage them.


dreikaesehoch wrote:Im using 40-50 SM, in what formation do u want them ?
Reforming gives him another round to shoot.
If your unit is wide a Steamtank can easily reach u and you can not hide your SS in the second Rank (Im using HB MA + Full Command)


20x2, easy way to avoid mass destruction from mortars. Reform before you engage. You should have his guns and war machines disabled or reduced before this happens.


Meteor wrote:You can use Corsairs to shield your units from enemy guns. If you use Lore of Metal you can cast glittering scales upgrade version to enhance the armour of all your nearby troops so you could get an AS against those mortars and guns.


dreikaesehoch wrote:The guns are only good against Hydras and Knights (thats why i never use them), versus SM they are not the big problem because they dont make enough wounds. Corsair while block my LOS and stop me from using the DragonEgg. Against Mortars on hills or on the side of the map blocking LOS doesnt work.


They're there to absorb firepower from the guns, not the mortars, for when glittering scale doesn't go off or when you didn't get it.


Meteor wrote:You can't do too much about Dwellers, just pray he doesn't get it off on IF so you can dispel it. .


dreikaesehoch wrote:Right, thats why its overpowered and i dont play against it anymore. If my opponent agress that it allows "Look out Sir" its ok, else i wont play.


Suck it up...it's not that easy to get off, IF on 6 dice isn't easy either.

Meteor wrote:Take a DP mounted Master to fly in and deal with that mage asap


dreikaesehoch wrote:He is in the biggest Empire Unit and the MA will loose combat, if u reach it. Most of the time the Steam Tank / Crossbowmen or a single Char charging the MA will stop the plan.


Then take an unkillable stubborn dreadlord. Let him shoot your dreadlord all he wants, ram the dreadlord in and tie up the stupid steamtank, or the massive block of swords.

Meteor wrote: I'd refrain from taking multi wound units such as chariots


dreikaesehoch wrote:Completely wrong, he doesnt take cannons anymore and has no easy way to kill them. They can solo charge his Crossbowmen or help me to fight this big unit. Pick 2 of them every game.


So you're saying a direct hit from a mortar isn't going to cripple them if not destroy them?

Meteor wrote:3 units of 5 Harpies and 2 units of 5 AHW shades should give you ample opportunities to kill his mage and silence a few war machines.


dreikaesehoch wrote:That isnt fast enough, you need a hill to protect from his first round of shooting because he always gets +1 for the "to start roll".


YOU CANT GET ANY FASTER THAN THAT!! OMG! You might as well ask him to not shoot you. If you're that scared of his guns then deploy further behind your 12" line and let him have first turn. Or deploy forests on the middle of the board so you can at least take soft cover along the way.

Meteor wrote:Metal magic is my answer to mortars and a steam tank.


dreikaesehoch wrote:SS 4 and S 2 both Metal magic is the best combo. Everything else is just fancy fooling around and will fail. Next best combo is SS 4 Metall and S 2(Furion) Dark. But the Crossbowmen are not so dangerous to be afraid to recive 1-2 rounds of shooting.


Completely diagree. Best universal synergy combo is Dark magic and Shadow magic. And no I don't mean metal is an answer for mortars (mistake), but yes for a steam tank.
What's mine is mine, What's yours is mine.
Now that we understand each other, lets get down to business.

Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

Skills
Basic Stealth, Awareness, TWF, Suithenlu Khythan, Ride

Magic Item
Eye of the Jabberwock

*Magical properties possibly imbued
Burizan
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Post by Burizan »

dreikaesehoch wrote:There is a Banner in the rulebook, it cost 15 P and he always has it.
Crossbowmen aren't allowed a banner choice, so he could only have this if he committed a BSB or cheated.


dreikaesehoch wrote:Its not guaranteed that Shadow magic will kill the steam tank. Even if houserulez allow Pit of Shades to kill the Tank.

"cheap way to negate a unit shooting" thats not a prob,i have enough SM. Against Mortars it doesnt help.
If you take small units of ten witch elves / black guard then mortars just can't do very much, and with the rest of his shooting negated you will laugh at him.

dreikaesehoch wrote:"nerf his toughness" Might be usefull from time to time, but my HB and MA have Str 6+ and dont need that support that much.
Just saying its an easy way to turn s3 hits into a fearsome weapon

dreikaesehoch wrote:"pit of shades is efficient for killing war machines" He will laugh at you if u use it against Warmachines other then the Steam Tank. And against the Steam Tank it can missfire, if u have only 1 chance to kill that freaky Tank und dont want that.

Without a second mage with Lore of Shadows its not guaranteed that u get the the Pit of Shadows.
Why would he laugh at pit of shades against his war machines? For a single spell easily cast on 3 dice (with sac dagger) even 75 points is juicy, and neutralising them early in the game is what you want right? I would use it even without being able to kill a steam tank. I'm not saying pit of shades is even the best spell in the lore, just that its an effective war machine killer, and if you combined it with the signature spell it can destroy entire units as well.

dreikaesehoch wrote:The #6 from Lore of Shadows isnt that great, because most of the time i reach CC with 10-15 SM out of 40 ( Even if i hide behind a hill in his first round !!! ). There are just not enough modells left to get a big boost from this spell. If u compare it with the #6 of Metall and assume that u dont need the signature spell against the Steam Tank you can try to cast the #6 maybe 2 times and kill 30 Modells if the unit ist 40 Modells big.
It's not the most effective spell against empire but it still has plenty of uses, any combat units he has will turn to dust against any unit with more than 1 attack
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Post by Drei »

Meteor wrote:Suck it up...it's not that easy to get off, IF on 6 dice isn't easy either.

IF Scroll. The chance for IF with 6 dice is 26 %. It kills HB on 5+ and SS on 4+. Last game i lost my Bannscroll because of IF on 4 dice ... .
This spell is to strong, i will only play against it if Look Out Sir is allowed.

Meteor wrote:Then take an unkillable stubborn dreadlord. Let him shoot your dreadlord all he wants, ram the dreadlord in and tie up the stupid steamtank, or the massive block of swords.

I wont kill the SteamTank either, and sooner or later it will roll over the HB. It might be good against the Lvl 4 in the Swordsmen, to stop him from using Magic. Assuming he has no cannons and no Sword of Fate in that unit. I might give it a try. But without the HB i might loose the Combat because of this Mass SCR (Ranks, CounterCharge, BSB)

Meteor wrote:So you're saying a direct hit from a mortar isn't going to cripple them if not destroy them?

The prob for him is that i will win the CC always, because my SM and Heros are better then his. He needs to have more Ranks then my SM to avoid fleeing from combat. A Mortar shoot on a chariot will most of the time not kill it and is simple a waste (i dont know the exact mortar rules, but its is weak and does less wounds then a cannon, he never used it against a chariot ).

Meteor wrote:YOU CANT GET ANY FASTER THAN THAT!! OMG! ...

I dont care about the Crossbowmen, the prob are the Mortars. As i already said a hill infront of your troops is the best protection from his first round of shooting (he will get to start most of the time because all his artillery counts as one unit). By the time the Harpies reach the Mortars the damage is already done if u dont use a hill as protection. Remember you dont have that COB Ward save in this first round. 3 Mortars, 2 Pingeons with 2 technicus...

Meteor wrote:"Completely diagree. Best universal synergy combo is Dark magic and Shadow magic. "

I want to beat Empire, i dont play against anything else.

I will try the unkillable HB and the 20*2 formation, thx
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Post by Drei »

@ Burizan the banner is allowed because of this general + state troop special rule.

You need to be able to kill the Steam Tank in one round.


Burizan wrote:If you take small units of ten witch elves / black guard then mortars just can't do very much, and with the rest of his shooting negated you will laugh at him.

You can not negate Mortars ! What are small units supposed to do ? You cant place heros in them because 1 Mortar hit will result in a single char ;-). Single Chars against Empire dont live long...
A COC is better then units of 10 BG or WE. I already try to use 5 Harpiens , in most of the games he killes 2-3 in 1 round, using Crossbowmen/Pingeons/Mortars/Scouts. His Crossbowmen might be on a hill, shooting over the Corsairs without penalty.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

You seem to turn down many things with the perfect counter by the empire opponent. If that's the case then there is absolutely no solution to beating them. Everything is situational, you react accordingly as the game swings back and forth. In general, so long as you construct an army list that takes in precautions, has the appropriate defenses, and counter strategy to these precautions, you will be fine. (aka a balanced army) A solution doesn't just involve the perfect unit or kit, it factors in movement, positioning, timing, luck and terrain. And I don't get how hills shelter your units from mortar harm...

You said the mage is bunkered in a huge unit of swords? Who cares? So long as your Master kills that wizard that has Dwellers, one of your problem has been solved. So you lost a 200pt model, his wizard costs more than that, and you just protected your army, your SS from a cheap death. To gain, you need to sacrifice.

No one, absolutely no one (well except for you), will laugh when you roll a 'HIT' for your pit of shade that's covering a bunch of war machines.

Penumbral Pendulum is also a great spell for tackling the steamtank, and the rest of the spells are useful to help you not rely on your Masters and other combat characters to inflict damage on his regular R&F troops.

I also said an unkillable STUBBORN dreadlord. Meaning he does not care about SCR, he doesn't care if you've got +3 rank bonus, banner, war banner, BSB, flank, rear, charge and charging down a hill. He will still be staying on a Ld10 break test no matter what. He is unkillable because he has 1+ AS and PoK, a perfect counter to regular Low Strength and high strength attacks. He is not designed to kill things like the steamtank, he is designed to hold that steamtank up till the game is over so you could focus on other problems until you're ready to deal with that tank.

A direct hit (center of hole over the chariot) is a S9 hit I believe, that causes either D3 or D6 wounds.

There is no way in hell for you to neutralise his mortars before he has fired with them at least once. Unless he's foolish enough to place them at the 12" line and you cast a 24" ranged spell on him, or are lucky to wound and kill them off with bolt throwers. Harpies are the most reliable method of these three. If you positioned your Harpies well using terrain to your advantage, they'll arrive relatively intact. It's also why you take multiple units of them, so when one group dies, the second group can complete the task. You just have to weather the shots, accept the casualties and soldier on. It is a pretty cheese list to be using THREE mortars and pidgeon bombs,...AND a tank. If you really want to kill mortars asap, or that dwellers mage asap, then take Shadowblade and place him within a mortar unit or within the dwellers mage unit. Pop him next to the mage and kill the mage. During that time your precious SS will be 24" away to stay out of range.

IF scroll is one use, and you still have at worst, 50% of dieing, just take the gamble and if you fail, murder his army afterwards when he's blown up and taken half his unit with him too.

Shadow and Dark magic is simply one of the best combinations we can concoct. Metal is only useful against his knights and his tank. Shadow is useful on EVERYTHING of his, and Dark Magic has two mass destruction spells that are also great on his knights. They've got excellent synergy with each other as well as with your army in general. Withering improves Soul Stealer, Enfeebling Foe improves Black Horror.

Small units makes it harder for his mortars to hit them when it scatters. And the damage inflicted is lesser than to a large unit. Which is also why I suggested you to try deploying your large blocks in thin lines of 20x2 as you progress across the battlefield.
What's mine is mine, What's yours is mine.
Now that we understand each other, lets get down to business.

Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

Skills
Basic Stealth, Awareness, TWF, Suithenlu Khythan, Ride

Magic Item
Eye of the Jabberwock

*Magical properties possibly imbued
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Post by Drei »

Meteor wrote: And I don't get how hills shelter your units from mortar harm...

He doesnt see my in his first round.

Meteor wrote:You said the mage is bunkered in a huge unit of swords? Who cares? So long as your Master kills that wizard that has Dwellers, one of your problem has been solved.

He will use a challenge to protect it, maybe move him out of the unit and into a forest where he cannot be charged. With the Lore of Life and the Sigmar priest he is very good in healing chars too. The best i can hope for is to charge the unit, use the Crown of Command and stop the mage using Magic, but as i said he will just move it out of the unit.

Meteor wrote:
No one, absolutely no one (well except for you), will laugh when you roll a 'HIT' for your pit of shade that's covering a bunch of war machines.

I can kill max 1 mortar and the Steamtank is still out there.

Meteor wrote:
Penumbral Pendulum is also a great spell for tackling the steamtank, and the rest of the spells are useful to help you not rely on your Masters and other combat characters to inflict damage on his regular R&F troops.

Maybe u dont get that spell and Lore of Metal offers better protection against Mortars.


Meteor wrote:
It is a pretty cheese list to be using THREE mortars and pidgeon bombs,...AND a tank.

and 2 technicus and Lore of Life.

No Special Chars. If he get the first round he can march an reach my SS in the Firstround (he doesnt need LOS for the #6 Life).

Meteor wrote:
IF scroll is one use, and you still have at worst, 50% of dieing, just take the gamble and if you fail, murder his army afterwards when he's blown up and taken half his unit with him too.

Lore of Life can protect him on a 2+. If i loose my SS and/or HB i will abandon because i can not kill his Steam Tank anymore nor can i kill this troops.

Meteor wrote:
Shadow and Dark magic is simply one of the best combinations we can concoct. Metal is only useful against his knights and his tank.
Shadow is useful on EVERYTHING of his, and Dark Magic has two mass destruction spells that are also great on his knights. They've got excellent synergy with each other as well as with your army in general. Withering improves Soul Stealer, Enfeebling Foe improves Black Horror.

Most of the time u can only cast one Spell each round because he gets +1 disspelldice for every SigmarPriest. And this Spell is either used to kill the Tank or to increase armor. Knights are no problem because they dont have enough Ranks to fight versus my SM with Killing Blow. In the worst case szenario you need to kill 2 Steam Tanks in one round, only a SS 4 with Dagger and a SS 2 can do that. The big difference between Shadow and Metall is that you have a very good chance to get Metall #6 and #0. With Shadow u need Pendulum and Mindrazor get the same effect, the chance to get both isnt that good. And the #0 Metall can used with 2 dice.
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Meteor
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Post by Meteor »

Mmm ok, I'm out of ideas for you then, good luck.
What's mine is mine, What's yours is mine.
Now that we understand each other, lets get down to business.

Jacks -Shade
- WS 5 - - S 3 - - T 2 - - D 6 - - I 5 -

Equipment
Short Sword, MC Long Sword*, Dagger, RxB & RHB [20/10] MC Shade Cloak, 4 Throwing Daggers, 3x Healing Vials, 451C, [3]Dark Venom, [4]Unseen Chains, Food, Dark Steed- Spike

Skills
Basic Stealth, Awareness, TWF, Suithenlu Khythan, Ride

Magic Item
Eye of the Jabberwock

*Magical properties possibly imbued
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Thanee
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Post by Thanee »

dreikaesehoch wrote:Lore of Life can protect him on a 2+


Yep, the Throne of Vines should be dispelled in most cases. :)

There is no real protection against Dwellers, other than making the targets small, so the spell cannot deal much damage.

If i loose my SS and/or HB i will abandon because i can not kill his Steam Tank anymore nor can i kill this troops.


I can certainly see how it becomes harder, but not being able to kill his troops without your SS or DL (Dreadlord is the english name of the Highborn, they kept the 6th edition names in the german translation, while the english armybook has different names for the characters since 7th edition) is a bit of an overstatement for sure. Empire troops are not exactly elite and from them only the knights are hard to kill.

The Steam Tank is a tough bugger, I will give you that. Takes a lot of hits at normal strength values to give it a Wound. And it needs a few before it becomes less of a threat.

Bye
Thanee
Drei
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Post by Drei »

Hehe , no Prob :-)

I will test the 15*2 formation with Corsairs(in this case lesser modells is better, thats why i prefer them over SM which i normally take) and if i pick Shadow with the SS i still can use the Metal signature Spell with my S.

Before i had SS Metal and S Black, but i dont think that Black is worth it because the chance to get Black Horror it too small without Furion and i cant use Furion anymore (she has a Scroll now).

Like u said Shadow has 2 spells to deal with the Tank and its better against Monster which i expect more often now.

Corsairs with SSS COB and Lore of Shadow will kill many Swordsmen. (Normally im very bad with the wound roll)

I will test your 2 ideas(15*2 and Shadow) in my next games, but first i want to test a Dragonlord since he stopped using Cannons.
But still i think that Shadow and Black is weak against Empire.

thx drei
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Dalamar
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Post by Dalamar »

How many points are you playing?
Empire is one of the easiest opponents to deal with now that they can't use two steam tanks until 2400pts.

I'll write you a list and add a little tactic tidbit to how to beat them.

I could also use his specific list since we're talking about countering a specific enemy.
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Post by Drei »

Thanee wrote:I can certainly see how it becomes harder, but not being able to kill his troops without your SS or DL is a bit of an overstatement for sure. Empire troops are not exactly elite and from them only the knights are hard to kill.


I just dont have the numbers to beat his troops in CC if i loose the DL ( Dwellers means -20 SM ). Swordsmen have 6+ Ward and 5+ Armor.

Knights are easy to kill because they are a good target for the RSS and have to less ranks to win against 8-9 Str 6 Attacks (DL + MA + COB).

We play at 2500 Points.

His army has:

Steam Tank
Lvl 4 Lore of Life Lvl 2 Lore of Life
40 Swordsmen 15 Swordsmen Attachment
3 Mortars
2 Technicus
General on Greif
20 Crossbowmen , Flamebanner
Sigmar Priest
BSB
MA with Sword of Fate
10-15 Scouts
~5 Pistoleros

Maybe i will post a Battlereport of our next game if i find the time for that, we play on Thursday/Friday again.

I started this post after like 15 games against Empire and my friend plays Warhammer since 6 or more years. Just to give u a feeling for our lvl of playing. This is my standard list, sorry i dont know the english words for some items


HB
Ring of Dark 40
Herokiller 30
LA -1 to hit 25
Luckstone 5
SDC 6
140


SS
Stufe 4 35
Dagger 25
Ward 4+ 45
Egg 30
Metall 225


S
Stufe 2 35
Ikone 5
Scroll 25
Metall 100


DH
COB 110
BSB 25
90


MA
GW I order 25
Bloodarmor 15


MA
Khaeleth 35
Lance 4
HA 4
SDC 4
Sh 2
Pegasus 50
80


35 SM
Com. 15
Sh 35
Bone 15
210


35 SM
Com. 15
Sh 35
210



15 RXB
150


2 RSS
200


2 COC
200


5 SH
ADH 5
80

5 H
55

5 H
55
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Post by Sulla »

Meteor wrote:Shadowblade his Dwellers mage :O
Just a wee note about this; shadowblade is nearly useless as a character assassin now because other characters and the champion can reposition and challenge him.
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Post by Meteor »

Ah just keep cutting until there's none left. He scores 2x the CR for overkill so he shouldn't be taking break checks on too big of a modifier.

And dreikaesehoch it's no wonder you're struggling and always outnumbered significantly by the Empire player. You've got WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too many points spent on characters.

I only have 4 characters the max from 3000pts onwards (well one's a dragonlord at that stage). But definitely only 3 characters at 2000-2500pts for me, which are SS, S and COB BSB.

You need to drop at least two of them and invest those points into more units.
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Ichiyo1821
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Post by Ichiyo1821 »

Wow never heard anyone have that much of a hard time against Empire unti lI saw the list. The keys against shooting armies in general are

have a lot more bodies than he can shoot
have warmachine hunters
get into close combat as quickly as you can
get lucky with panic checks

The problem to be honest is you are thinking to much. Too much countering like if he does A I'll do this, if he has B ill do this..what it things don't go to your plan? You have invested so much into characters and only have one unit that will be targeted by dwellers, what do you expect he'll do? Let's face it elves in general really have a hard time against shooting so just suck it up. At 2500 points 5 characters are way way too much. You barely have an army and you are playing his game and consider too much meta like using Ring of Darkness with the Dreadlord. Before we could give you specific tactics on how to go against Empire, change your list first into something more balanced then that is when you tweak it up. But to be honest with your current list, it will be very very difficult to win against him.
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Post by Drei »

Before warhammer i played a computer game called warcraft the frozen throne, in this game its all about heros. That might be the reason that i use that much.


Which hero should i drop ?

Maybe the MA with Bloodarmour. The SS with Dagger is too good not to use it and i need the small one to carry a scroll against Dwellers Below.

The other MA is the warmachine hunter and the DL can kill 4+1(COB)+1(Item)+3(Herokiller) enemies in one round.

The reason why i have that many heros is that they wont dy so fast against Dwellers Below (with the rules we use, LOS)

If i buy more units, shoud i use them in something like 30 30 30 SM or COR ?

The Warmachine Hunter was always worth it, killing 2 Mortars and 1 Technikus most of the time.
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Post by Red... »

You're very keen on your big horde units.

That's not really a strength of Druchii armies: it works for many armies (orcs and goblins and skaven come immediately to mind) but is not very well suited for dark elves. That's in part because even our core troops are quite expensive (6 points a model for a T3 elf versus 5 points a model for a T4 orc with S4 on the first round of combat, or even 3 points for a T3 goblin).

At this stage, I'd suggest considering switching armies. You play his empire for a bit, while he plays your dark elves. See what weaknesses you find you have when fielding his troops and what strengths he has when fielding yours. That might give you some new ideas about how to tackle empire with dark elves, beyond lore of metal.

I don't think that simply refusing to play any opponent who won't get on board with your house rule requirement of changing dwellers below to include 'look out sir' when it doesn't, is much more than a stop gap. You risk alienating your current opponents, as well as prevent yourself from gaining new ones and risk missing out on a lot of fun gaming opportunities at tournaments, gaming club campaigns and in-store battle evenings, etc.
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Post by Drei »

We did that already and we figured out that Mass SM + COB is the best thing.

Making the Units smaller and smaller isnt always practicable because only one Unit can get a blessing and the mortar doesnt care to which unit a model belongs that he kills.
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