Can't beat the hordes - try this...the birth of MSU

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Dark Alliance
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Post by Dark Alliance »

Against the Undead you will be taking fear tests whether you have ranks or not. Use Lore of Shadow on at least one of your Sorceresses, preferably one equipped with the tome so you get 3 spells. The movement spells are very useful because you need to get the second unit in, and on the flank. Unseen Lurker will do this for you.

There is also a very useful spell which makes one of your units cause fear.
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Malekithau
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Post by Malekithau »

I have had my most successful enconters versus undead.

Firstly - always take the lifetaker against them. Banshess and wraiths hate it as do spirit hosts.
Secondly - Witch Elves - take at least one unit (10-12) with a hag and witchbrew. Start deployed as 2 ranks then expand to a single rank lined up opposite skellies and/or zombies. Your opponent will probably laugh at this until you carve both units up in 2 turns of combat. Corsairs are good for this as well but the frenzy and poison really sets the WEs apart.
Thirdly - Musos - give them to every unit you can.

Deny every table quarter - make them come after you and they will present flanks. Most undead are also only T3 so rxbs and rbts carve them up.

Oh and lastly - kill the general! :D !lol!
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Drachanthir
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Post by Drachanthir »

As for the 100 night goblin unit, try casting soul stealer or black horror on it :mrgreen: (that's if you get the spells!).

Even if he deploys 10x10, hitting it with 6 or 7 wide witches will hurt- say 6 with hag and 'brew:- 19 attacks, 13 hits, 6 or 7 wounds, maybe 2 hits back (flank charge) killing one witch. You have CR 5, he has CR 0 (flank charge negates rank bonus, witchbrew ignores outnumbering), automatically fails break test due to low Ld (I think it's 5 or 6), and there's a 50/50 chance of catching them and wiping them out. It's also viable with corsairs/dark riders/ cold one knights but you need a wider frontage or the hydra banner to inflict more casualties. Remember also that they fear us, so may need 6's to hit , or might even run away! I would be more afraid of 100 skaven...
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Smokey
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Post by Smokey »

Dark Alliance and Malekithau: Thanks to the both of you for the advice. I've also begun to see the strong points of Shadow Magic. Of course I will take Ld-tests regardless, but my nemesis has been the rule that makes you brake automaticly if you lose combat against a fear-causing enemy that outnumbers you. And with his setup (15 black knights + 1 blood dragon lord + 1-2 vampire thralls) he always outnumbers me.

What I have had best results with is to use a large group of Black Guards (with Dread Banner) as an anvil and a lord on a dragon as hammer. But if I add a small group of Witch Elves with Witch brew to flank him, it would work even better!
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Post by Malekithau »

Dark Alliance and Malekithau: Thanks to the both of you for the advice.


I think I speak for DA as well when I say - no problem! We love helping fellow Druchii skin some mon keigh.

Good luck dude. Just remember - always challenge with champs versus those tough dudes ie Vamp lords and pin him in combat and hit the flanks with some tough stuff or WEs. He won't be able to move from an engaged unit to a flank etc.
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Malekithau
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Post by Malekithau »

Can anyone tell me what the record is for the most "views" of a pots? :D
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Post by Cardinal fang »

malekithau wrote:
Congrats on a cool concept Malekithau, will you be taking a MSU Druchii Army to MOAB?


Fang! Good to hear from you my boy. I gather you've seen the posts from Andrew Galea and Charles Black about their MSU armies? I've managed to get a couple of the better Oz players to give it a shot. Personally I won't play again till next year when I will go to Dogcon3 to give Chucky a kicking!

John O


Yep, been following Andrew Galea's posts on Wargamerau with great interest. Move over Chaos and Vampire Counts, Druchii MSU armies are taking over from now on! ;)

In a battle last night, my unit of 11 Witch Elves absolutely rocked, accounting for a unit of 16 Bloodletters, 8 Chaos Furies, and a Spawn in quick succession. Bring it on! :twisted:

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Malekithau
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Post by Malekithau »

Excellent Fang! Just the sort of stuff I like to hear. Personally I think WEs are a necessity in a MSU army.
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Post by Draek'n »

This looks good, but what if a large unit lapped around your unit of, say, spearmen? wouldn't they be torn apart? :|
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Post by Dark Alliance »

malekithau wrote:Excellent Fang! Just the sort of stuff I like to hear. Personally I think WEs are a necessity in a MSU army.


Absolutlely agree here, but I do like to include Executioners too.
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Post by Malekithau »

This looks good, but what if a large unit lapped around your unit of, say, spearmen? wouldn't they be torn apart?


I'd say it's almost guaranteed. But then you should have "redundancy" built into your tactical plans in the form of flank charges etc. Or even better flee from the large unit leaving them in no mans land for another round of shooting or magic or flank charge. MSU is all about manuevre and combined arms.
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Drachanthir
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Post by Drachanthir »

If a lapping-round unit is successfully charged, all the lappers have to return to their orginal positions, and with MSU, that should be relatively easy to do given our speed.
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Post by Mig el pig »

In my DE army i tend to use blocks small blocks(10) of spearmen with shield and lordling(90pnts total) Deployed 5x2

I place a few between my hard hitting troops( COK,COC,WE or COR). This allows a great flexibelity in your front line and gives a wider array of charge opportunities if the enemy advances. And the enemy is sure to advance if you got 5 times 10 RXBelfs pounding on his troops. 100 STR3 arrows a turn for only 550 points
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My version of MSU

Post by Darkspear »

I been reading a lot abt MSU but i wasn't really confident about using it yet...so i got a slightly modified version...can u guys give me ur opinion?

1 Lvl 4 sorcerous on pegasus
1 beastmaster on manticore
1 noble with sword of might and enchhanted shield(wif the executioners)

10 spearmen
10 repeater crossbowmen
5 dark riders with musician

10 witch elves with full command
10 executioners with full command
8 cold one knights
2 RBT
In my land, everyone calls me the darkspear. The most famous spearmen commander of all.
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Post by Kayleor »

I had a played a total of three games as the dark elves and I have a 2-1 record ATM. Only the in most recent game did I use this MSU tactic it was amazing. I played against lizardmen where it works quite well because they cost so much. They can be maneuvered all around and are easy to flank, thanks for a good tactic.
I'm not stupid I'm just misinformed.
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Post by Lord happyslave »

Can you flank them??

I find that rather hard with xroxies and stegadons luring around the battkfield, that's quite distractive.
And what'd you do against terradons
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Post by Kayleor »

Only a 2000 point match and my opponent went character heavy, 51% of force. Faced the basic guys, warriors, skinks, and kroxigors.
I'm not stupid I'm just misinformed.
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Post by Freeze »

Well...if you did that, you'd not only have the reapeater function, but you'd also be moving, so you'd conistantly need 6's to hit. That's just not worth the points since they probably wouldn't be killing much at all with roles like that.
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Post by Malekithau »

Guys, you were saying about those 'bait' regiments of 10 spearmen in one rank, covering the rest of your troops. Well, is it reasonable to use Xbowmen instead? I mean such nasty advancinng shooting 'walls'. If they die anyway, why don't make them shoot to inflict some more damage before they die or flee?


The whole idea of using the 10 spearelf units is they are cheap. RXBW units are not cheap. You could still use them as bait but at a longer range perhaps. I always use 2 RXBW units with shields. They together with 10 DRs, 5-7 shades and 2 RBTs plus lifetaker there is a huge amount of firepower going down range. Sure they tend not to hit often due to the -1 for repeating but concentrated properly this amount of fire will bother almost any unit.

Moral of the above - look after your RXBWs. Which doesn't mean they shouldn't be sacrificed occasinally if it means you can get a tactical advantage.

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Post by Skaven_micester »

msu is all fine and great but its is just a stratagy no diffrent from any other stragies like take magic it heavy it can easily beat an army however it can just as easily have the tables turned. i think Mordekai of Khal'ath had the right thing writen there so im not going to go through all the weaknesses but how ever even if the army doesnt bring one your weaknesses he could still have a good chance of beating u :twisted:
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Post by Wodenau »

OK, I've been following this thread and I've printed it all out for future reference. Malekithau also told me about it as I bought my Dark Elf army off him (where are those 6 Shades, Johno?). I've tried the old way and I've had two games with the new way. I was going to give up Warhammer and I've sold my High Elves and I'm still in the process of selling my Dwarves and Khemri but thanks to this new tactic my interest in Warhammer has been revitalised. Let me tell you about my most recent game with MSU tactics.
Here is my army (magic and shooting theme as you'd expect from Druchii)...
CHARACTERS
Lvl 2 Sorceress w/dispel scroll (General)
Lvl 2 Sorceress w/Lifetaker & Darkstar Cloak
Lvl 1 Sorceress
All take Chillwind plus I got WoP and Black Horror

CORE
10 Corsairs
10 Corsairs
10 Corsairs
10 Corsairs
5 x Dark Riders w/muso and rxbws

SPECIAL
10 Witch Elves w/Hag
10 Executioners w/Draich Master
5 x Shades

RARE
2 x RBTs

Played a DOW army with ...
Lvl 2 Wizard
Lvl 2 Wizard
General/BSB Paymaster with Heavy Cav
Light Cav
16 x Lumpin Croops
12 x Long Drong Slayers
16 x Miraglianos Xbowmen
20 x Norse Marauders w/GWs

Turn 1
Deployed beautifully and had the advantage. Completely had his Heavy Cav under control. Concentrated shooting at Light Cav who were within 4". Totally destroyed them and forced Heavy Cav to panic and run off the table. Then owned the right flank!

Turn 2
Used Black Horror to kill 15 out of 16 Lumpin Croop's halflings. Lumpin all alone thinking "What the ....?" Shot everything else or used magic, moving units into position without opposition.

End of Game
I lost half of one unit of Corsairs and my Dark Riders he had two wizards and half of Long Drong Slayers left. I also had three table quarters.
I regard that as a pretty good win for MSU tactics.
dAz
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Post by Cardinal fang »

I had a game against a Khorne Daemon army last night. Blood Thirster, Exalted Daemon, Lots of Bloodletters and Flesh Hounds.

The Deamons grabbed the first turn and swarmed all over my troops before I can blink. Because I didn't have first turn I didn't have a chance to bait them, so was on the back foot in the early to mid game.

However MSU allowed me to sacrifice small units to weather the onslaught, and those sacrifices created opportunities for my hardhitting units to pull the game back towards the end. It was a borderline draw/minor loss in the end in my opponent's favour. However I'm pretty sure if I had my original setup of ranked up units I would've been massacred.

So call me a convert! :P

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Post by Phantom rider »

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