Hordes ??? where to go from here ?

[Slappy666]

Hey guys first I would like to say I have mixed feelings about are new book. I have put serious thought into it and here's what I've come up with. Im by no means an expert and I hope Callison comments because he's sees the game in so many ways lol. I feel our best course of action with the majority of our elite units will be hordes: Execs, Witches, BG, SoS, Corsairs (possibly) to get the most bang for our buck. Also the bigger the unit that hits/grinds harder and its tougher for them to wipe out.

My problem comes in with terrain Im located in Calgary Canada where a local gentleman Paul T. over the years has been the ultimate fantasy player lol....... Im not joking lmao. He would give Callison and other players on this site run for there money in math hammer and he paints like a madman (quick and beautiful). A wonderful but frustrating by product of this is he's created some of the best/largest terrain this side of the pond and when I traveled to the GW bunker in England, his terrain rivaled much of there's check out http://warhammerd.blogspot.ca/ and you will see some very nice pics.

Wow I digress lol...The terrain is large and not friendly to hordes and I have a lot of trouble moving them around the map. I use chaff like DR, shades and Harpies (personal preference) to slow my opponent down and maneuver for the hammer blow. Paul's terrain is used or rented out to all other tourneys in our area which means Im SOL. Also I play against a very skilled WE player and he follows suit with the terrain we use in my basement.....6+ pieces. He knows the more terrain the slower I move and the horde is slowly warn away or easily flanked .

But is there other options to be competitive somewhat with out a horde period I know the COK bus but I also know the DE are back to the status of elite players because nothing we do in game will be easy..... which excites and worries me. lol

P.S. I have similar trouble with knights in buses lol. Remember Im also not the greatest player either.

[Dalamar]

Terrain doesn't slow you down in any way. If it's built to be unwieldy you should agree with your opponent how to move through it because frankly, 8th edition warhammer is designed to have plenty of terrain pieces (5-10 on a 4'x6' table) because the terrain doesn't affect movement speed (it may end up killing your models though)

Also, hordes are certainly not the way to go with dark elves IMO, our new book very well fits an MSU style with no anvils and all hammers, dividing enemy force with our fast units and smashing them with our high strength combat monsters (not neccessarily actual monsters, CoKs and Execs are pretty monstrous too)

[Calisson]

I don't know any Callison. If you don't mind, I'll comment myself.
Also, I spend a lot of time in D.net, but hardly any on battlefields, so it must be easy to give better advice than me.



Back on topic.

There are advantage to hordes:
- more attacks frontally
- every augment boosts many models

There are costs:
- many models in the rear have only 1 attack, or even 0
- facing a bus, will not remove steadfast
- large frontage is most of the time partially empty
- difficult to maneuver, flanks and rear must be protected.

There are problems with hordes.
- mass murderer spells like Dark #3, Life #6, Metal #6, Fire #5...
- all eggs in single basket syndrome
- one tar pit and your horde is wasted
- your horde will meet what the opponent choses; feed the horde with chaff and your horde worth 1/2 of your army destroyed 1/4 of the opponents. Guess what happened with the other half of your army...

Execs are excellent for hordes: instead of 1 attack per model in the front, you'd get triple.
WE are not benefitting that much, instead of 3, you'd get 5, not even double.
BG, SoS and corsairs are in between and double their attacks.

Overall, on a large terrain, you might be better off with smaller hammer units than hordes, or even with minimal size MSU units.

[Slappy666]

What do mean by MSU? And hammer units ?

[Ichiyo1821]

DE were never meant to be hoard.

[Bounce]

If you have lots of terrain shades may be your friend. Also flying heroes and monsters. With more terrain they can hide better and with smaller bases can move around it.

As has been pointed out though remember that terrain doesn't actually do much to infantry. You can simply move straight through a forest with no effects plus it gives you cover as well.

[Loran]

What do mean by MSU? And hammer units ?

MSU = Many Small Units, ie. an army where you have a lot of small units (duh... ). This would mean a lot of units at the minimum unit size, or close to that amount of models...

Hammer = a unit that hits hard and brings the pain to your opponent. The opposite of the "Anvil"-unit, which is something that can soak up damage and is usually large enough to weather the attacks made by a unit, then keeping that unit in place so your "Hammer"-units can swoop in to do their stuff.

- Loran