Recommendations for a starting Druchii Warband

Post by **Kitrik** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:10 pm

Aight guys - I need some help! I've been trying to start a Druchii warband for an upcoming campaign in my area but all of my warbands rarely make it past the first encounter! It may just be extremely bad luck but some good suggestions/feedback on my current warband would be a good starting place. (Bad luck example: after out third game last night 2 of my 5 henchman died and 2 of 3 heroes died - too many 1s - I was left with 4 models out of the 8 I started with).

Here is my current warband idea:

Highborn (decked out)
2 Fellblades (decked out)
2 Corsairs

The idea is to survive the first few rounds (not win, just survive) to get experience and thus increase their ability to survive. Once they are powerful enough then I can start adding a Beastmaster, Cold Ones and then some more Corsairs.

Also - can someone tell me why anyone in their right mind would take Shades? For 5 GC more you can get a Corsair that has +1 WS and +1 BS plus they can take SDCs (though they are expensive). Is the extra hiding ability that the Shades have really that useful at all?

I will post some more details on the warband if you want - I don't have the list in front of me so...

Thanks!
Kitrik

Mielkith · Post by **Mielkith** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:58 pm

I have never tried anything so Elitest. In fact you have inspired me to have ago myselve.
as always, I recomend full maximum heroes, the Beastmaster is little use if you are keeping things small but you need to advance. The Sorcerss can always help some how. Her use will completly change depending on the spell.

Nonone should ever take shades, 5 gold more gets you so much. There equipment is limited too, and since you are spending about 100 an a models you could easily equip some corsairs with Cloaks.

If you only take three heroes, you have the ones you need. Remember the highborn is the most important, if need be you can sacrifice the rest of them to see he escapes.

I assume when you say decked out they all have crossbows and will be using them often. The way I see it you can leg it away when the enemy get too close, shooting over your shoulder or back your way into a nice corner were you cannot be surrounded.
If you are in multiplayer games you may be able to speed around the board on hit and run missions but it is a risky strategy.

Heldrak · Post by **Heldrak** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:38 pm

You might find this to be a fruitful thread:

http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t= ... sc&start=0

My short advice: Take all 5 Heroes (including Beastmaster & Sorceress) and as many Repeater Crossbows as you can afford/are allowed (usually 2 or 3). Also take at least 2 Henchmen (including a Cold One Beasthound if you like). This will have used up most of your points- I think expensive equipment (other than RXBows) is not cost-effective when starting out.

Place a lot of terrain, spread out and keep your heroes hiding ( I'm always surprised how little other warbands hide) and moving, then snipe when targets present themselves. Keep Fellblades with other important characters (usually Highborn & Sorceress) as bodyguards to intercept charges & take fire. Depending on the scenario, adapt your tactics accordingly, but remember you can scarper after 25% casualties (usually 2 out of a starting warband of eight). Try to make these casualties Henchmen if possible. With max Heroes, you'll be finding as much warpstone in the search phase as other warbands, even if you ran off early. Although they're expensive, Cold One Beasthounds make good sacrifices since they never improve.

Remember that early on it is not your job to win. Your job is to survive uninjured & improve.

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:45 pm

I take three shades and two corsairs along with one hfellblade in addition to the mandatory leader.

Why take shades? Because in combat WS doesn't matter as much as S and the shades and corsairs are equal there. Plus, an interesting discrepancy in the rules is that it's easier to parry hits from a more skillful swordsman.

My corsairs have RXB's and use them while closing. The missile weapons often make my opponent assume that they are easy targets which works to my advantage quite often.

Dark elf blades are excellent and a good trick is to give your highborn one from the start as the extra chance of stunning makes for a better chance of taking your opponent out of action next turn for that oh so valuable +1 xp. I usually give him an extra sword so that in combat with multiple enemies he can take more than one out this way.

I found that having less heroes than usual did affect my income but since the warband was so small it didn't matter much and they quickly found their feet becoming extremely nasty in only a few games.

EDIT: In response to the above, posted just as I posted, I found the SDC given to my highborn at the start increased his survivability immensly. The addition of light armour and a lucky charm made him nigh-unkillable very swiftly.

Falahk · Post by **Falahk** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:31 am

I would take somthing like this.....I dont know if I have used all gc(dont have the list here at the moment), but its a good basic example of a dark elf warband

highborne
rxb with dark venom, 2 swords
he is the only start hero that can take shooting skills(quick shoot and a s4 rxb).......he also gets more surviable as he hang back and shoot, get more kills if a bit lucky

sorceress
spear, dagger
she is in manly cos of warety and to make use of dark magic

beast master
2 beastlashes
suport hero, he dont need to be in btb to attack and can help out the rest of your troops in combat, manly by taking out stuned foes....

fell blade
sword, dagger
nice bodyguard for the high borne

2 corsiars
swords, daggers, rxb's
shooting suport is important in a small warband like this, if one of them gets lads got a talant he can select shooting skills aswel

and if I have gc one cold one beast hound or a crossbow for the beastmaster

hope this helped and added a few ideas about how to make a warband

Mime · Post by **Mime** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:24 am

I'm just in the process of making my third Warband, first one had max shooting, but I got frustrated trying (and failing) to do enough damage -

So to Warband 2; All CC except for the Highborn, who I planned to use as a Snipper, with 2 fellblades, witch, BM with hounds and a corsairs when I could afford them. This worked OK but I got a little frutstrated not being able to mix it up with my Highborn ( I live in the camp of my heroes need to be heroic )

So to my new Warband; Still in development but as many bods as I can get on the table, includeing max heroes, CO hounds ( great against Skaven ) and some Corsairs as I can afford. No idea how it'll go, but thats half the fun.

Mike

Post by **Vorchild** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:37 am

My starting warband had a bit of a mix of everything with a highborn, sorceress, pair of fell blades, and 4 corsairs (yeah, didn't get to 9 models) and the highborn and fell blades all had RXBs. Due to some lucky rolling, that warband almost managed to beat a pocessed warband in close combat. :shock:

Shooting thus far has been fairly useless in my view, but I've just started and we'll see how it goes from here.

Heldrak · Post by **Heldrak** » Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:55 am

fell blades all had RXBs

Fellblades may not use missile weapons of any kind.

Post by **Vorchild** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:17 am

Ah, shows how well I read rules, eh?

Hmmm, looks like some changes will have to be made. Guess that just means more dark elf blades for me then! :twisted:

Not like its made much of a difference since I can't hit anything worth junk...

Mime · Post by **Mime** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:25 am

Heldrak wrote:
fell blades all had RXBs

Fellblades may not use missile weapons of any kind.

The one reason why DE will never become a shooty Warband, 2 bods with BS4 and no chance to use it :cry:

.

Mike

Post by **Vorchild** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:24 am

Well, on the upside, we can get totally tricked our henchmen... :roll:

Damn, and I was so liking them with missile weapons - they were just so much cooler that way. Ah well, now I'll just have to use the highborn and sorceress as snipers along with the beastmaster (big help there) and let the corsairs and fellblades do all the real fighting.

Mime · Post by **Mime** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:04 am

Only problem with giving the Witch Rxb is you lose her spells, as I believe you cast in the shooting phase. Then again some of her spells arnt to flash so that may not be alll bad.

Mike

Post by **Vorchild** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 3:51 pm

I find its a decent thing to give the sorceress an RXB even though its a choice between that and casting spells. Its just for that added little bit of versatilty in case you don't have the spell you want. That being said, once she gets some nice spells, the RXB will be fairly useless, I know.

Mielkith · Post by **Mielkith** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:33 pm

RXbow and witches flight work very well together. She can get to all the best vantage points, slowing the enemy down as they take other streets and allow you to get to the objective.

If you lucky she may even hit something.

Post by **Vorchild** » Wed Nov 03, 2004 9:38 pm

I had her peg a dwarf engineer, so maybe its my dice, but I owe it to her to keep her RXB in action.

Heldrak · Post by **Heldrak** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:16 pm

Quote:
fell blades all had RXBs

Fellblades may not use missile weapons of any kind.

The one reason why DE will never become a shooty Warband, 2 bods with BS4 and no chance to use it .

This is one of the great deficiencies of the Druchii Warband, along with the inability to use black powder weapons in a game rife with them (an inability not shared by our accursed kin over in the High Elf Shadow Warrior Warband, I might add). Other than their high Weapon Skill, the Fellblades receive no compensatory advantages either.

In practice, I like to outfit 1 Fellblade as a Witch Elf-style warrior (starting with 2 swords and later adding poison) and the other Fellblade as an Executioner-style warrior (starting with great weapon and later adding heavy armor & strength skills).

Ultimately, the add-on warbands (everything not in the original book) need some revision. I consider the Pirate warband to be pretty unbalanced, and the Dark Elf warband deserves a second look in terms of its absurdly high points cost and shooting disadvantages.

Heldrak · Post by **Heldrak** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:19 pm

RXbow and witches flight work very well together. She can get to all the best vantage points, slowing the enemy down as they take other streets and allow you to get to the objective.

If you lucky she may even hit something.

Well said. My Sorceress with Witch Flight and RXB had the best/most reliable kill rate of my entire warband!

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Thu Nov 04, 2004 2:52 pm

Ultimately, the add-on warbands (everything not in the original book) need some revision. I consider the Pirate warband to be pretty unbalanced, and the Dark Elf warband deserves a second look in terms of its absurdly high points cost and shooting disadvantages.

I found that I was quite happy with the druchii warband. In my opinion it's a tad overpowered if anything.

Geophrim · Post by **Geophrim** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 1:05 pm

@ Falahk: In your example, why get the "quickshoot" skill with a high born? Would it even apply to an RxB? The rules say it can't be used for a X-bow pistol, so I suspect that's similar for an RxB. And if it CAN be used with an RxB, what would be the result? 4 shots a round? 3 shots?

highborne
rxb with dark venom, 2 swords
he is the only start hero that can take shooting skills(quick shoot and a s4 rxb).......he also gets more surviable as he hang back and shoot, get more kills if a bit lucky

Ansob. · Post by **Ansob.** » Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:36 pm

Geophrim wrote:@ Falahk: In your example, why get the "quickshoot" skill with a high born? Would it even apply to an RxB? The rules say it can't be used for a X-bow pistol, so I suspect that's similar for an RxB. And if it CAN be used with an RxB, what would be the result? 4 shots a round? 3 shots?

The RxB is a crossbow so, methinks, yes, 'twould work, and double the amount of shots... That is, two shots without mod, or four at -1.

Geophrim · Post by **Geophrim** » Thu Nov 11, 2004 7:19 pm

Hmm, a nice combination then with Poison Making Skill (Dark Venom)! 4 Str. 4 RxB shots a round. This could be fun! Thanks MwaS!

Steady · Post by **Steady** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:22 am

I started with something like this:
Highborn: SDC, DES, Sword, FrDg
2x Fellblades: Sword FrDg
Sorceress: Sword, FrDg (she'd have a spear if we weren't playing with the revision)
Beastmaster: 2 Swords
Corsair: Dagger FrDg

I found the SDC very useful. This little warband does extremely well in the exploration phase. I find shooting nigh on useless in Mordheim, so I decided to forget about it.

Shadowdravyn · Post by **Shadowdravyn** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:08 pm

Both of my Fellblades have twin swords and a dagger..

Gurthang · Post by **Gurthang** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:31 pm

mmmm... where can i find PDFs containing explanation, rules, equipment and fluff of the warbands not covered by the original rulebook? I know druchii and lizardmen are covered in the Lustria rules (downloadable on GWs site) but what about others? bretonnians? woodelves? i read on a post above about a pirate warband.... where can i find those rules?

Tastyfish · Post by **Tastyfish** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 1:13 pm

Can't quite remember but had
Noble - dagger,dark elf bladed sword, R-Xbow
Felblade - dagger, dark elf bladed sword
Felblade - dagger, dark elf bladed sword
3 shades - 2 daggers, R- Xbow

Added a sorceress, couple more shades (how may have had light armour) and some equipment (light armour and helmets for all)

The repeater is really good, I found that most of the time you killed people through ciritical hits so all that is really important is maximising attacks. Armour seem next to useless for its price compared to the ward saves from the skill lists, especially seeing as people seemed only really to be killed most of the time by critical hits that bypass armour anyway