Suicide Witch Squads

Swab · Post by **Swab** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 10:11 pm

I've been experimenting lately with suicide witch squads and they seem to be impressive. They work best with a Cauldron of Blood.

The unit only consists of 5 models.

This unit is so small that most people won't waste a round of shooting or magic missiles on it. Even if they do, they will most likely either need to use two spells or two rounds of shooting from one unit which will detract the damage from the rest of the army. When your opponent kills it, they spent their effort to kill 50 points of models. Nothing significant in the current set up for the amount of havoc they can cause.

The uses of the unit:

Character killing:
This is probably my favorite thing to do with them. If your opponent places a character near the middle of his unit (which is rare in tournament settings) they can do everything almost stand alone. Line them up in 3x2 formation and give them KB from the CoB. Focus all of your attacks on the character and the result is a dead character.

With 11 attacks you have 8.25 hits. With 7.25 hits (counting 1 poison) should statistically provide you with at least 1 KB. I don't know the exact statistics of this.

If your opponent is scared (as they sould be) and places them in the corners, you can run them in conjunction with another unit.

Hordes with low or no armor:

Witches in the flanks will be devastating to anything that has no armor. They will do on average 5.75 wounds (not counting poison). Sure, trading 5 witches for 5 or 6 models doesn't seem so great. But if it is a combined charge, then it pulls damage from your main unit. They will need to attack with 12 attacks at S5 to kill the witches. This pulls a large chunk of damage from anyone in the front that is more valuable.
If they don't attack the witches, they keep having fun in the flank!

Small units:

You can use them to clean up enemy small units that are trying to redirect you. Fast cav, flyers or zombies. They will kill it all.

Redirect:

Sure Harpies are better at this but they can come in handy whenever its later game or to keep their deathstar tied up.

Not sure what you guys think about this but they are amazing in my latest games.

I am trying to go to MSM and MSU styles of play. No units larger than 20 models and just alot of units. 2 chariots, 2 hydras, and 2 peg mounts (not the dreadlord). I want to use Synergy and tactics to break my opponents.

They are a cheap unit that serves multiple support roles, that can be deadly if they are ignored. They can pull damage from the rest of the more expensive units as your opponent is trying to get easy VPs.

Anyway, thought I would share.

Ace073 · Post by **Ace073** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 11:31 pm

You raise some good points, just adding - stubborn if close to cauldron, so if you get a nice flank, they statistically shouldnt kill all of your witches in the first turn, so you get to hold them up longer.

Also, remember that if you engage a unit from more than one side, it cant combat reform. MSU armies need to take advantage of bigger units in ways like that to be effective, but they can work.

Meteor · Post by **Meteor** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 2:05 am

Thanks for further input into the effectiveness of 5 WE units, it is good to see they're still useful in units of 5 even till now.

Just remember you can only have three units of WE no matter the size in a standard sized game, and double that in grand sized games.

Also their effectiveness will be hindered by flanking multiple attack units. You'll only be giving your opponent more attacks than they would've had, unless they're monstrous infantry. I also wouldn't want to throw another unit to their deaths just to maximise the WE against an enemy character. Though if it's another throw away unit like a second WE unit or some Shades or Harpies, then perhaps it is worth considering a combined charge to maximise the KB WE's.

A.andersson · Post by **A.andersson** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:30 am

I just played three games in a local tournament using two units of five. They are just awesome! I agree to everything said in the previous post and would like to add that they absolutely kill most other supporting units. Chaos spawn eagles etc. They can also be used to kill wounded monsters.

Flash29 · Post by **Flash29** » Sat Jun 16, 2012 8:59 am

i had units of 7 used against my dark elves. they did quite poorly in that battle but they had some mean tricks. one was to park them infront of my large knight unit and give them okkam's mindrazor. thats allot of i6 st8 attacks for a little bit of points. luckely i had asf banner on my knights so they didn't get the chance. but against anything but dark elven and high elf cavalry (both of which crossbows work well against)

Vulcan · Post by **Vulcan** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:22 pm

I use slightly larger squads (10 with musician) in the tirestrip role.

It's sorta like a speedbump/redirector, except when they see combat the rip the tires out of whatever runs over them. A lot of the time there are one or two survivors of even a frontal assault, pinning the enemy down for that crucial turn for a countercharge.

Meteor · Post by **Meteor** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 5:45 am

I rather put two units in a redirect path of the target I want to stop. If they overrun, they won't get to attack the second unit they overrun into. If they restrain and reform, they're still in position to get charged.

It ensures they're well and truly stopped rather than risk allowing your slightly larger WE unit get wiped out and giving them freedom to overrun.

Vulcan · Post by **Vulcan** » Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:55 pm

I can handle when they overrun. The witches being there angles the target unit in the direction I want them in, and they won't go far enough to get out of my charge arc with the flanking unit.

Its when they're smart enough to reform that things can get interesting... and many of my opponents are that smart. So I prefer to get them into an extended combat; it's amazing how many time they forget to combat reform... assuming they Witches haven't generated so much ACR they still can!