Najo needs advice for campaign game #3

[najo]

OK, so I'm fiting another nurgle legions of chaos player in 14hrs!!! I need some quick input from everyone.

We are playing the scenario from Glottkin entitled battle for the temple. He is attacking, using festus, and I'm using undead legion with Vlad. We aren't requiring that I use empire or Leon and I can split my army into two forces. All other rules are the same. We are playing 2400 points.

I have to keep fetus back 6" away from a temple and kill him. He has to be within 6" of the temple at the start of his turn. We deploy in opposite diagonal corners with. the temple in mind and the secondary force coming in the middle at round three. The table is going to be covered in buildings and I can secretly deploy units in went buildings in my deployment zone, writing down what unit is in which building and having it ambush him unexpectedly.

So, how do I hold off and kill festus? Tactics? Army build? Thoughts?

 

[The Sun King]

Bring Karl Franz!

 

[Seneschal]

-I'm tempted to suggest a GG brick backed up by cursed blades, smiting, dance etc with vlad inside to make them extra resilient.
-you could go the ultra annoying route with chaff and the building ambush rule to keep tying him up. Heck maybe even tomb scorpions could be viable to snipe him
-speaking of snipes, festus is Ld 8 and must be the general. Death lore might be helpful

 

[najo]

So, here is what I wrote up before posing. Idea is to ambush with zombies, deploy the archers in front of the temple with the light council and shoot and cast the hell out of festus unit. Then go to town with the death magic and light magic, Vlad in combat and the zombies being grown by the vampire lore necro.

+++ Vs Ryan (2399pts) +++

++ Undead Legion 8th (Armies of the End Times) ++

+ Rare +

Casket of Souls
····Casket Guards x2 [Great Weapon, Light Armour]
····Keeper of the Casket [Hand Weapon, Light Armour]

Hierotitan [Icon of Petra, Scales of Usirian]

+ Special +

Fell Bats [2x Fell Bat]

Fell Bats [2x Fell Bat]

+ Core +

Skeleton Archers [Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer]
····60x Skeleton Archers [60x Bow, 60x Hand Weapons]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

+ Heroes +

Liche Priest [Hand Weapon, Lore of Light, Wizard Level 2]
····Magic Items [BRB - Dispel Scroll]

Liche Priest [Hand Weapon, Lore of Light, Magic Items, Wizard Level 2]

+ Lords +

Liche High Priest [Hand Weapon, Lore of Light, Wizard Level 4]

Master Necromancer [Hand Weapon, Lore of Death, Wizard Level 4]
····Magic Items [AB - Black Periapt]

Master Necromancer [Hand Weapon, Lore of the Vampires, Wizard Level 4]
····Magic Items [AB - Book of Arkhan]

Vlad von Carstein, Mortarch of Shadow [AB - The Carstein Ring, Lore of Shadows, Lore of Undeath, Lore of Vampires, Mortarch of Shadow, The Hunger, Wizard Level 3]
····Magic Items: Weapon [Blood Drinker]

 

[Adam_Barrow]

My first thought was two units of 50 Zombos parked in front of the temple. More than 6" deep, and he'll never chew through them all. Set up that bog right where he has to get and win.

 

[estwheadn]

Two tooled up vampire lords, lvl 4 Lore of death. Put them on hellsteeds and go for the nutpunch. Just kill festus

 

[The Sun King]

I am with estwheadn on this, build something fast and killy and go for festus.

 

[najo]

Plan is focus flaming attacks onto festus' unit and then charge in and kill him. Zombies and dire wolves ambushing for back up.

++ Vs ryan (2398pts) +++

++ Undead Legion 8th (Armies of the End Times) ++

+ Rare +

Hierotitan [Icon of Petra, Scales of Usirian]

Morghast Archai [Ebon-wrought Armour, Halberd, 3x Morghast Archai]

+ Core +

Dire Wolves [5x Dire Wolf]

Dire Wolves [5x Dire Wolf]

Skeleton Archers [Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer]
····47x Skeleton Archers [47x Bow, 47x Hand Weapons]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

Zombies [Musician, Standard Bearer, 20x Zombie]

+ Heroes +

Vampire [Dread Knight, Great Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Lore of the Vampires, Magic Items, Wizard Level 1]
····Battle Standard Bearer [BRB - Banner of Eternal Flame]

+ Lords +

Master Necromancer [Hand Weapon, Lore of Death, Wizard Level 4]
····Magic Items [AB - Black Periapt]

Vampire Lord [Great Weapon, Hand Weapon, Heavy Armour, Lore of the Vampires, Quickblood, Red Fury, Shield, Wizard Level 2]
····Magic Items [AB - Book of Arkhan, BRB - Armour of Destiny, BRB - Potion of Foolhardiness]

Vlad von Carstein, Mortarch of Shadow [AB - The Carstein Ring, Lore of Shadows, Lore of Undeath, Lore of Vampires, Mortarch of Shadow, The Hunger, Wizard Level 3]
····Magic Items: Weapon [Blood Drinker]

 

[LordTobiothan]

Just two questions. Where are the characters going? and what is the reasoning on having a vampire be the bsb over a wight king? Seems like your paying a lot extra for basically a level 1 wizard. Edit: unless you are thinking dread knight will be a game changer.

 

[najo]

Just finished. Won my game!

The city fighting rules for warhammer are awesome. Totally different game. Moving into and out of buildings and between them was really cool.

He brought two units of 20+ chaos warriors, a big and small unit of plague bearers, a unit of 3 beasts, 6 blight kings, spume and festus.

I had Vlad take a vampire spell, Undeath spell, and a shadow spell. He got curse of years, abyssal swarm and miasma.

My death necro got soulblight, spirit leech, purple sun and doom & darkness.

Lord got VHDM and invocation. Bsb got hellish vigor.

The game was chaos. Ambushers popping out of buildings. Units controlling roads. Both of us summoning. Characters hopping between units. Ryan initially was trying to flank and go around with festus and his warriors. I moved my zombies and vampires that direction along with the morghasts. I get miasma off on festus' unit and shoot a purple sun his way. It misfires and runs over vlad killing him. Vlad returns with 1 wound at the end of the phase. On the next magic phase the purple sun runs through a combat killing all the beasts of nurgle, two of my morghasts and a couple chaos warriors. In the meantime plague wind is rolling around the table too killing my archers. I started throwing doom and leech at festus. I roll a 1 on the test and him a 6 both magic phases I get the spell off. Festus bails on his units and b lines behind some buildings seeking cover. This causes my vampires to hop out of their units to go after him. Fights are raging around everyone. My archers make their way into a tower to start shooting at festus, putting a wound on him. The center of the table is clogged up with blight kings engaged with my spirit host I summoned. Plague bearers get caught behind them giving festus a route around the back. I throw miasma on festus hexing his movement. We go through some shuffling around in his phase, I counter festus summoning so he can't block my path to him. On my turn that buys me the window to have vlad charge him. I then cast VHDM and hellish vigor on Vlad, also healing him. Vlad proceeds to destroy festus in combat and undead legions gets another victory notch. Bam!

 

[LordTobiothan]

Congrats! Trying to protect a character from the might of a vampire lord proves as futile as ever.

Which units did you feel underperformed and which shined?

 

[najo]

Just two questions. Where are the characters going? and what is the reasoning on having a vampire be the bsb over a wight king? Seems like your paying a lot extra for basically a level 1 wizard. Edit: unless you are thinking dread knight will be a game changer.

Characters hopped amongst the infantry units. The original plan was to boost the zombies and block off buildings and roads as needed. Eventually the characters were out of the units running between buildings and units.

Vampire bsb are viable. They can produce decent damage, the give you cheap magic levels (compared to necromancers) and can get up into front lines and fight rank and file safely. There is some risk with how I took mine, but I kept him out of dangerous fights, using him as a caster and bsb. Wight kings are better in wight units with banner of the barrows or as body guards to vampires.

 

[najo]

Congrats! Trying to protect a character from the might of a vampire lord proves as futile as ever.

Which units did you feel underperformed and which shined?

The shadow magic neutered festus, keeping him from getting away. I had multiple methods of killing him. Sniper spells, purple sun+miasma, curse of years, flaming shooting, vampires attacking him in combat, archai, sniping from the titan. My while goal was to pin in festus and snipe him.

My archers would have been better broken up into multiple units or smaller, although the one unit was so the flaming banner effected them all. They had trouble manuvering and seeing their targets.Two of the zombie units ended up being not needed, but they would of mattered if festus went the other way. Everything else performed as expected.

Units that shined, once more the morghasts and heirotitan. Morghasts kept an area locked down the whole game, blocking off festus unit and making him bail out of his unit. They were engaged with the beasts of nurgle, then purple sun ran over both units and killed two morghasts and all the beasts. He had to abandon the chaos warriors to leave an obstacle the morghasts couldn't hover over. If he hadnt left the unit my morghasts and vampires would have been on him. The morghast and bsb also kept a single spirit host locking the blight kings down due to the -2 to crumble. Morghasts are hard to kill and cause them to crumble.

The heirotitan not only gets spells off with its +d3, but it's two bound spells give it character sniping and anti daemon/undead spells with flaming. Plus it can thunderstomp. Time and again the titan has adapted and put that extra umph into my games. Personally it's more reliable than the casket and less risky than the mortis engine.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Quick question. Does the Heiro get +d3 to his own bound spells? I had a guy argue that last battle because I believe it says "Wizards get..." and the Heiro isn't a wizard. In the end I didn't use the + because I had forgotten my TK book at the crib.

I've loved the Heiro's performance in the two UL games I've played thus far. Taking him once more into the breech this weekend.

 

[najo]

No he doesn't. He is not a wizard.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

Noted. I believe I'll post a Mk II list this evening. Still needs some tweaking. Thanks, and condraculations on the win!

 

[najo]

hehe, con-dracula-tions was that intentional? If not its an awesome subliminal slip

 

[The Sun King]

Congrats najo! Another well deserved victory, you seem unstoppable these days. The cityfighting sounds AWESOME very 40kish - I love it.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

@najo I'll never tell!

 

[John Rainbow]

Nice work! Are you getting some more insight above and beyond just looking at combos about what works really well in an UL list? i.e stuff that really does work well on the field or stuff that you would think works but is tough to get to work?