What to do with the Executioners?

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Dark Alliance
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Post by Dark Alliance »

If you want to try using Executioners as Knight killers without their being outflanked or even cherged theirselves, how about using 2 units of DRs to bait the Knights, give the Exe's the Banner of Murder and flank charge them in when the knights come to a halt as they hit the second unit of DRs.

10 Exe's will negate any rank bonus and are not likely to get hit back at by more than 1 knight, second round 2 at most. Then the basic heavy armour or even s4 will be viable and probably quite lethal assuming the knights don't break on the first round.

Corsairs are probably the better halting unit due to rank bonus/war banner etc. Put an Assassin or a Noble with GW and killing blow into the Exe's and it looks even more favourable. They are a shock troop in my eyes and need to do the damage in turn 1 and that's it.
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Post by /\\//\ »

I agree. Shock troops designed to do or die in round one of combat. I think all they need is the heavy armour option and S4 for +1 point a model. Trying to make them troops that can hold the enemy for loads of rounds is just going to make the unit more and more expensive and so more and more of a target. It's like trying to make Dark Riders as powerful as Cold One Knights while still keeping them as light cavalry.
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Post by Draichlord »

I use these guys all the time, in units of 19-23 + noble or assassin, making a block of 20-24. Coincidentally, I use them on the flank of city guard or spearmen as mentioned above. The other way I use them is out toward a flank to take on cav, with a unit of dr to the outside of the exes. It all depends on my opponent's army and his deployment. Some of our new magic items have boosted my tactics tremendously. I take spellcall familiar to ensure getting word of pain, give them either standard of slaughter(d3 cr each charge) or war banner. A noble with them gets either chillblade or dark swords of khaine. In 3000pt game or larger where a high sorceress is my 2nd lord choice, she gets the staff of slavery(dominion)
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Post by Draichlord »

I've done 16 playtest games w/various exes formats. The 5+KB isn't as powerful as you'd think. The best I got with this was 3 kb's in a 6 turn game. Keep in mind, you have to hit first for any kb to work. If you've been charged, your strikes back are reduced. What I repeatedly found was that at base S3 (S5 w/draich) I seldom had "can-opening abilty" needed vs. T4/high AS enemy even w/5+kb because I couldn't increase my math odds when striking back for the kb to come into play. With S4 base (S6 w/draich) and 6+kb I consistently whacked grave guard, black knights, chaos warriors and dragon princes. Heavy armor is a given for them, and I feel it should be no pt. increase myself. Allow 1 unit of exes upgrade option to S4 base. This will also be the easiest for Gav/GW to accept, since they were always this way prior to 6th ed. Either +1pt for hvy armor and +1pt for S4, or no pt. increase for hvy armor and +2pt for S4. Either way they come out at 13pts for heavy armor/S4.
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Post by Draichlord »

My whole point was to make both hvy armor and S4 as options for the unit. It would read,"Any unit of exes may take hvy armor for +1pt. One unit of exes may be increased to base S4 for +1pt, being a 0-1 choice, but remaining special. You may take additional executioner units, but only one unit ("Temple Executioners")may have S4."......By doing this, everyone who uses them is satisfied and it really allows them a degree of customizing depending on your opponent or what you anticipate at a tournament. I've spoken per your request Grots.
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Post by Maelis »

How about:

Heavy armor, 25 pts magic item from ToK slot for chapion and 75 banner slot for +1 point?

That would allow them to cause fear if needed, improve their AS twice against bows or S3 attacks and give some options for chapion to help keep unit alive for more than one round?
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Post by Maelis »

Im starting to convince to your idea GrogsnotPowwabomba - Relentless Assault seems realy balanced option. With Heavy Armour, KB6+ and Relentless Assault I would price the execs 13 pts easily, but still my idea of 12 pts Execs with item for champion, standard for 75 and HA seems also good. AND KB5+ is still nice option.

Damn... Im pretty sure we WONT EVER DECIDE what is the best and this thread will streatch like the previos one to zillions of post and 100's of pages... :|

WE MUST GET IT ROUGH AND MADE SOME DECISION, then PLAYTEST IT - too many options to choose from make this subject blury. We know the statistics - Langmann made them LONG while ago, you Grogsnot are going to prestent tests for your idea, so lets COMPARE them, THINK for a while and DECIDE.

Please, please, please... lets decide WHAT WE WANT so we can playtest it and submit to Gav, otherwise we will never get this done under 5 weeks dead-line and we lost our chance to fix executioners.
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Post by Saithis »

hi @all !!!

i playtested the rentless assault (i saw that many others tested this rule, too) and now i think it's clear that we must avoid the combiantation of hydrabanner and rentless assault; the combination of CoB and rentless aussault when playing against HE (but we shouldn't forget that WE and the CoB are very heavy against them, too... but mainly the foottroops. the exec. would blast everything away)
this seems very difficult to me... perhaps we could make a rule like no ASB can join the executioners, because they don't accept the lead of non executioners (but with this argumentation we've problems to place a normal hero in their ranks, too! but we could still use an asassin, because the execs can't test on his LD)
this rule is good against most enemies but against HE this rule is too strong (without restrictions)...

regards Morasul
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Post by Maelis »

Hmm.. They are only HE, Besides that their heavy magic and arrow fire can whipe ALL unit of executioners and think about all those costs - 13 pts per Exec. + BSB + Hydra Banner 80 pts + 200 pts CoB = TOO much for ONE unit that can be easily destroyed by ranged attacks. Other armies got POWERFUL combos against ALL opponents - why shouldnt we have something strong against our hated enemies?
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Post by Ivelios »

How bout to keep people from abusing hydra banner with the executioners we just put in a line in the rule that says "The relentless assault rule does not apply to any additional attacks the executioners receive through magical means." This would prevent the hydra banner from adding to many attacks as well as stopping any other spells that give the executioners extra attacks.

Or another possibility that me and the people I play with like is make the extra attacks at the executioners base strength without killing blow. If you think about it the relentless assault is the executioner cutting through his oppponent and into another, it would make sense that much of the power of his swing would be lost cutting through the first opponent and he wouldnt have the time to place the blow accurately enough to get killing blow. This rule would make them less poweful but would still help them to get extra kills against weaker troops, and if your lucky against tougher more heavily armored troops.
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Post by Maelis »

I dont know... Relentless assault is much worse than Killing Blow 5+ and Hydra Banner Combo is VERy expensice (I belive only placa for Hydra Banner is CoK unit, because of doubled attacks AND mounts - otherwise its rarely pays off its cos <- Noble+BSB upgrade+Hydra Banner). I dont belive we should add more restrictions to it - its quite ok already.

The only problem now is WHAT OPTION WE SHOULD CHOOSE for Executioners.
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Post by Draichlord »

Exes are supposed to be our can openers. The best playtest results comes from deploying them opposite your opponents hardest troops. If you've done that in your playtesting, you'll see that base S4, heavy armor, 6+KB rules supreme over any other option. Like I've repeatedly said, this is the way they originally were and are therefore the easiest for Gav/GW to accept from us.
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Post by Medved »

i think we are going in the wrong way, talking about the hydra banner, its designed to work like this, and anyway every army hav something really powerful against another army (thik SM that smash in a DE unit...), and a unit of executionner with a bST could be wipe out as easily as any other unit of executionner.... as Maelis said, its not about the hydra banner, its about the executionner, we have to make a choice or end up like last time with 100+ post with no solution...

as for option:
st4 OR relentless (ive playtest both and prefer relentless)
HA
75 pts banner slot

thats my opinion :oops: , anyone else?
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Post by Medved »

i think we are going in the wrong way, talking about the hydra banner, its designed to work like this, and anyway every army hav something really powerful against another army (thik SM that smash in a DE unit...), and a unit of executionner with a bST could be wipe out as easily as any other unit of executionner.... as Maelis said, its not about the hydra banner, its about the executionner, we have to make a choice or end up like last time with 100+ post with no solution...

as for option:
st4 OR relentless (ive playtest both and prefer relentless)
HA
75 pts banner slot

thats my opinion :oops: , anyone else?
Dalamar: 03/10/2013 "Yes, we are the epitome of glass cannon now. In fact the cannon is so powerful that it's possible for it to damage itself."
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Post by Sulla »

I totally support s4 executioners with optional heavy armour. S6 is critical for killing the tougher things in the game unless you want to gamble on a killing blow or well armoured oppinents rolling a 1 or 2 armour save.

I would be totally satisfied with this for my shock troops.
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Post by Saithis »

with S4 we've monster killers (they can wound a dragon on 4+!) do we want to use them against heavy troops or against medium troops?

the rentless assault rule is a nice idea, it would be unique and with this rule the execs would be much more efficient against light and medium troops (T3 and 4 with AS3+, 4+,...)... but at the moment we've already many units against weaker targets!
the S4 would be good against heavy cavalry (i suppose rentless assault is still better against T3 and 2+ AS)

do you have experience with +5 KB? is a combination of S4 and 5+ KB useful? with S4 and 5+ KB we would have a real knightkillerunit... (AND we would have a perfect foot-unit against the damn chosen chaoswarriors)
i think they deserve a greater change than only S4!

the idea of giving them (the option for) a 75 banner is no very good idea. at the moment the BG has this opition and this makes them very interesting! a suportunit (even the execs.) doesn't really need to cause fear! the DE have enough options to cause fear or terror...

what exec. we need? when reading the posts i realized there are still great differences!

i would take S4 and 5+ KB (don't know if 5+ KB is too strong against characters)
but would be satisfied with rentless assault, too (each way, i would use them much more, but they would have different mission, that's clear!)
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Post by Draichlord »

I'd never requested a mix of both S4 and 5+KB, nor would I, nor was it a playtest option. It would be too powerful a combination by attempting a "failsafe". Combining them would be entering us into the skaven and empire realms (rattling guns/steam tanks) of ubercheese I think. I, myself, despise players that use those items and prefer we not become like them. Druchii have more honor than that...... That's just my feelings
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Post by Draichlord »

I'd never requested a mix of both S4 and 5+KB, nor would I, nor was it a playtest option. It would be too powerful a combination by attempting a "failsafe". Combining them would be entering us into the skaven and empire realms (rattling guns/steam tanks) of ubercheese I think. I, myself, despise players that use those items and prefer we not become like them. Druchii have more honor than that...... That's just my feelings
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Post by Zorn »

My thoughts on this (all subjective and just personal :) ).

Heavy armour is a given. I'd say NO! price increase for this (never using initiative while paying premium for it IS a drwaback and should be considered).

I like:

- S 4 (makes the unit the strongest DE unit in the arsenal, even stronger than knights. Thus there would be a reason to include this elite infantry unit - which are for the most part outclassed by core heavy cavalry in most army lists).

- Relentless Assault (just feels good and gives this infantry unit a much needed edge. As written above most elite infantry is seldom seen on the battlefield because of cheap and effective cavalry. More attacks for infantry means more reason to use them).

- Special "executioner banner". Of course, i favour my own idea ;) but honestly it is stolen from the mind of Tuomas Pirinen:

Banner of Har Ganeth:
This is the only standart the executioners ever had and it was never lost in battle since it's creation 1000 years ago. The banner depicts Khaela Mensha Khaine in his aspect of the executioner and is so gruesome to behold that the foes of the executioners cower in fear when looking at it.

Game effects:
Enemies in contact with the unit bearing the banner suffer a -1 to hit penalty against the unit.
In addition each enemy unit in contact with the unit bearing the banner must pass a LD test each combat round. If the unit(s) fail the test they hit last against the executioners.

50 points. Executioners only.

(The standart gives the unit some staying power in HtH making them a nice medium shock unit and setting them apart from the other DE elite infantry unit - witch elves, who have no protection whatsoever. 2 units, 2 different roles and abilities.)

Of course, all of these options are are too much. One ability and perhaps the banner would suffice... :mrgreen:

As much as i should work atm i'll try to support our cause further - the new deadlines are coming too soon to drop out now!

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Zorn
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Post by Medved »

i support banner, cause i heard of it already, but i think the option is st4 or relentless, 5+ killing blow doesnt work, its only against character...
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Post by Medved »

i support banner, cause i heard of it already, but i think the option is st4 or relentless, 5+ killing blow doesnt work, its only against character...
Dalamar: 03/10/2013 "Yes, we are the epitome of glass cannon now. In fact the cannon is so powerful that it's possible for it to damage itself."
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Post by Medved »

i support banner, cause i heard of it already, but i think the option is st4 or relentless, 5+ killing blow doesnt work, its only against character...
Dalamar: 03/10/2013 "Yes, we are the epitome of glass cannon now. In fact the cannon is so powerful that it's possible for it to damage itself."
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Post by Draichlord »

I love Zorn's idea on the exes banner. My original thought was bringing back the Ruby Chalice as a DE magic item.
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Post by Draichlord »

I love Zorn's idea on the exes banner. My original thought was bringing back the Ruby Chalice as a DE magic item.
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Post by Medved »

its cool but i think we should focus on the unit, not more magic item... even if i love the banner :twisted:

we hav to find a solution for the executionner...we hav to decide wich option is best
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