Dealing with Banner of the World Dragon Deathstar

[eggsPR]

Wait... ASF High Elves with GWs don't get rerolls??!?!

Sword Masters and White Lions can't reroll hits!?!?

Oh happppppy days! Who cares about the Banner.... just throw in 8-10 Crypt horrors and a bat swarm and watch them fly like bowling pins!

Come on people, get with the program lol

The Blendy Vamp will take out the Pokemon birds and the Silverhelm buses./

 

[Tawg]

Wait... ASF High Elves with GWs don't get rerolls??!?!

Sword Masters and White Lions can't reroll hits!?!?

Oh happppppy days! Who cares about the Banner.... just throw in 8-10 Crypt horrors and a bat swarm and watch them fly like bowling pins!

Come on people, get with the program lol

The Blendy Vamp will take out the Pokemon birds and the Silverhelm buses./

Bat swarms are the ASL "Gonna give up all the CR I can" unit right?

What exactly do the Bats bring here that warrant them more than normal? I thought people avoided bats because they literally just explode on contact?

 

[The Sun King]

I love how all of you say "I love" and I love how everyone suddenly turned on a f'ing dime about the powerlevel. Love is in the air!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNC0kIzM1Fo

 

[eggsPR]

Wait... ASF High Elves with GWs don't get rerolls??!?!

Sword Masters and White Lions can't reroll hits!?!?

Oh happppppy days! Who cares about the Banner.... just throw in 8-10 Crypt horrors and a bat swarm and watch them fly like bowling pins!

Come on people, get with the program lol

The Blendy Vamp will take out the Pokemon birds and the Silverhelm buses./

Bat swarms are the ASL "Gonna give up all the CR I can" unit right?

What exactly do the Bats bring here that warrant them more than normal? I thought people avoided bats because they literally just explode on contact?

Bat swarms 1 wide, 2 deep charge the corner of White Lions or Sword MAsters along with ALL the crypt horrors.

Now, those elves which were attacking at initiative 5 or 6, because their ASF and GWs cancel out, are now ASL from the bats.

8-10 CHs will dish out 24-30 S4 poison attacks before the elves get to hit back, plus another 4-5 simultaneous S4 stomps...

The 5-8 swordmasters or whit lions remaining from the horde of 30 would certainly be able to swing at those bats...

 

[Tawg]

Bat swarms are the ASL "Gonna give up all the CR I can" unit right?

What exactly do the Bats bring here that warrant them more than normal? I thought people avoided bats because they literally just explode on contact?

Bat swarms 1 wide, 2 deep charge the corner of White Lions or Sword MAsters along with ALL the crypt horrors.

Now, those elves which were attacking at initiative 5 or 6, because their ASF and GWs cancel out, are now ASL from the bats.

8-10 CHs will dish out 24-30 S4 poison attacks before the elves get to hit back, plus another 4-5 simultaneous S4 stomps...

The 5-8 swordmasters or whit lions remaining from the horde of 30 would certainly be able to swing at those bats...

:Vampire1: They kill that many? 24-30 attacks right? Not wounds? Do they really get all that much damage in on a horde to stop attacks?

Oh I mean, I guess if they are not going full on horde, or rather deathstar, I see. The unit is expected to be 15-25 strong? Is that the assumption?

 

[Zhatan]

to re-iterate a point I made earlier. I would rather face this spell than Vauls Unmaking any day of the week. We can easily get the wound back with our lore atribute, the enemy doesn't choose which item gets destroyed and there is now a 1/6 chance it will fail. *arnold schwarzenegger voice* Quit your whining! ;-p

Yeah I agree it's a good spell but it was even better in the last book in some ways.

If the game is suffering from power creep, then why are OK still generally regarded as the most powerful army in the game when they were the 1st new book?

It's not suffering from powercreep yet imo but I do see some tendancies in the last two books. The introduction of some really powerful combos and the high availability of good ward saves has me worried. Nothing is more boring to face than unkillable characters or units.

I can't believe anyone who says we are lacking in power as a book when we have a model that can fly up to a unit of 5 chaos knights and on an adverage roll wipe them off the table like they wernt there.

Yeah were not lacking in power but we do lack ways of dealing with certain kinds of units/models. There is always the terrorgheist to deal with tough armoured foes but as has been pointed out we don't really have any other options.

We have units like Grave guard that are incredibly good value when compared to similar troops.

Yes they have been good but also costly because you have to include banner of barrows to make GG hit things as their WS sucks. HE elites now cost one point more and strike before GG at better WS. They have either 2A at S5 or 1A at S6.

I find it especially funny to compare HE's troops stat and cost with empire greatswords.

I Personaly think that warhammer has never been more balanced than it is right now (in my limited exp to be fair, I picked up the game I'm 6th ed)

This might be true. I have felt it was pretty balanced but now I'm starting to wonder if it's slipping away and if the creep has begun.

Let the new Helf book come out play some games, and I'm sure it will all blow over eventually. Like it did with the Hell Heart, like it did with Skull Crushers, like it did with the Tbat and so on.

It all blows over as there is nothing we can do about it. That doesn't change the fact that some things are a bit OP.

 

[Zhatan]

Wait... ASF High Elves with GWs don't get rerolls??!?!

Sword Masters and White Lions can't reroll hits!?!?

Oh happppppy days! Who cares about the Banner.... just throw in 8-10 Crypt horrors and a bat swarm and watch them fly like bowling pins!

Come on people, get with the program lol

The Blendy Vamp will take out the Pokemon birds and the Silverhelm buses./

Anyone who doesn't shoot down that bat swarm right away is retarded.
They lost their reroll but gained extra ranks instead and they still have good WS so will be hitting alot anyway.

 

[Vipoid]

to re-iterate a point I made earlier. I would rather face this spell than Vauls Unmaking any day of the week. We can easily get the wound back with our lore atribute, the enemy doesn't choose which item gets destroyed and there is now a 1/6 chance it will fail. *arnold schwarzenegger voice* Quit your whining! ;-p

The fact that it's slightly less horrible than the previous incarnation doesn't automatically make it a balanced spell.

I can't believe anyone who says we are lacking in power as a book when we have a model that can fly up to a unit of 5 chaos knights and on an adverage roll wipe them off the table like they wernt there.

Indeed, and then your 500pt lord could charge into a unit of elves with the Banner of the World Dragon, and kill one model! Maybe two! All fear the vampires...

In any case, there's a difference between lacking in power, and lacking good counters.

We have units like Grave guard that are incredibly good value when compared to similar troops.

Which similar troops are you comparing them to?

Maybe I just don't care about BotWD as much because I run my lord mounted with a lance.

Perhaps.

Out of interest, which mundane weapon would you recommend for my ghoul king then?

 

[RobTheWise]

@ Zhatan

I agree, although I genuinely don't think the banner is op. It is powerful indeed, but not compared to near Invincible Disc Lords and some scary Demon Prince builds I have heard of but not faced personally.

On the Empire Greatswords, I believe their true strength lies in their detachment rules, the ability to give confer special rules onto support units is powerful and I think it is worth bearing in mind that empire are an army designed around characters supporting units so it is harder to take them at face value. Stat for stat? Yeh, GG and White Lions Laugh in their face, but when they have hatred, stubborn, and hold the line, and are supported by detatchments with the same rules for free then things get a little more grey as to what the true value of an soldier of the empire really is.

I do share your concern that the slip may have begun, but I think we will have to wait until the next Army Book to really confirm this. Apparently this is a Ward book, so the next one should be ok right?

 

[The Sun King]

@Rob: Greatswords seem to be a good unit at first glance, but internal power level in the Empire book just makes them subpar. Fill core with 2+ AS knight and Special with Demigryphs. It's pretty sad actually since I really like all the options in the empire book, but infantry lists are just too expensive and has too little offensive output to be really competetive(as far as I'm concerned).

 

[RobTheWise]

The fact that it's slightly less horrible than the previous incarnation doesn't automatically make it a balanced spell.

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree there.

On the bright side, s/he might accidently destroy your Lords Ogre blade allowing you to rip into the BotWD unit

Indeed, and then your 500pt lord could charge into a unit of elves with the Banner of the World Dragon, and kill one model! Maybe two! All fear the vampires...

Don't charge the BotWD with your Vampire Lord then.

In any case, there's a difference between lacking in power, and lacking good counters.

I know it is said a lot. But we have the Terrorghiest. It literally counters almost everything in this game.

We aren't laking in counters, we lack a variety of counters. I think.

Which similar troops are you comparing them to?

I admit, I assume BoB is taken.

- Chaos Marauders (tougher, stronger, heavy armour Killing Blow)
- Empire Great swords, (tougher, stronger, Killing Blow)
- Executioners, (tougher, stronger)
- Tomb Guard, (Going to be honest, I just remember looking at the book thinking "yeh, we can take em")
- Chaos Warriors (MUCH Cheaper, Killing Blow and Grt weapons is not a disadvantage as our I is already poor)
- Even Lions themselves (Cheaper, tougher, Killing Blow)

And I am not even taking into account the natural advantages that come with being undead (because we all know there are natural disadvantages too )

Out of interest, which mundane weapon would you recommend for my ghoul king then?

. . . . Don't charge the BotWD with your Vampire Lord then.

Once again I will have to re-iterate a point made earlier. 30 - 40 White Lions with BotWD will cost a lot of points, your Vampire Lord will probably have free reign to run around and surgically destroy the rest of his army.

What do you do against Gutstars? avoid them and kill everything else with your Vampire Lord. What do you do against Chosen stars? avoid them and kill everything else with your Vampire Lord. What do you do against big scary units that you already know before the game starts that you aren't going to get any VPs out of them (a concept not lost on most armies) . . . AVOID THEM AND KILL EVERYTHING ELSE WITH YOUR VAMPIRE LORD! So why is implementing the same strategy against this unit (albeit for a different reason) any different to those scenarios that you may well have played, adapted to and even beaten on multiple occasions?

Edit: If anything the "World Dragon Star???" Has a weakness in that many many units, simply won't care about it. It also doesn't protect them from Hexs, and you can still buff your own units. And it certainly doesn't protect them from Dwellers (I'm thinking in a more general gaming sense now). I think too many people are thinking about army composition over play style. We can beat this unit the same way we beat any other deathstar we face . . . . avoid them and kill everything else with your Vampire Lord :-D

 

[Zhatan]

I feel we are kinda getting of track in this thread. Does anyone have any more tips for dealing with this?
I was thinking about getting large units of cheap troops to fight them, like a big horded unit of 100 skeletons with spears, since their T is so poor after all.

However after doing the math for 40 WL vs 100 skeletons it seems crumble kills that idea... the skeletons would loose so many models extra per turn it wouldn't work. After the combat there would be over 20 WL's left.
The idea might work for armies like skaven that can mass units of clanrats and still have LD 10 re-rollable break tests.

Still it's not many other cases where you would want huge units like this.

 

[Blutsauger]

I feel we are kinda getting of track in this thread. Does anyone have any more tips for dealing with this?
I was thinking about getting large units of cheap troops to fight them, like a big horded unit of 100 skeletons with spears, since their T is so poor after all.

However after doing the math for 40 WL vs 100 skeletons it seems crumble kills that idea... the skeletons would loose so many models extra per turn it wouldn't work. After the combat there would be over 20 WL's left.
The idea might work for armies like skaven that can mass units of clanrats and still have LD 10 re-rollable break tests.

Still it's not many other cases where you would want huge units like this.

It's a six turn game (mostly). The WLs spend two turns marching across the table, then you stick a unit of chaff in front of it. It charges (or sits still) and winds up facing the wrong direction, and has to spend it's next turn re-positioning. Then you do it again, and now we're up to turn six and the unit has killed two 40 point units of Dire Wolves.

Now, if he's using the WL horde as a bunker for spellcasters, you've got a slightly different problem, but not an insurmountable one. You can throw Wolf darts at it to snipe the characters out, or just hope for the best with your dispell rolls. Has the book of "any double is irresistible" been changed?

 

[RobTheWise]

Has the book of "any double is irresistible" been changed?

Book of Hoeth still exists but it no longer has that effect. Now it lets you re-roll a dice when casting a spell

It is also worth noting that Teclis no longer has this ability either.

 

[Zhatan]

It's a six turn game (mostly). The WLs spend two turns marching across the table, then you stick a unit of chaff in front of it. It charges (or sits still) and winds up facing the wrong direction, and has to spend it's next turn re-positioning. Then you do it again, and now we're up to turn six and the unit has killed two 40 point units of Dire Wolves.

Now, if he's using the WL horde as a bunker for spellcasters, you've got a slightly different problem, but not an insurmountable one. You can throw Wolf darts at it to snipe the characters out, or just hope for the best with your dispell rolls. Has the book of "any double is irresistible" been changed?

You might be able to stall it for a while with chaff but seeing it's important for the opponent to get this unit into combat I find it very likely he will be using missile troops to clear chaff asap and spells to clear etherals.

I'm not saying it's possible to avoid the unit but it's not that easy either and if that fails and you don't have another plan on how to deal with the unit things might get messy.

As for the spellcasters I find it very likely that we will find spellcasters in the unit carrying the banner as it negates alot of the miscast damages. Darts might work to kill casters if you are able to throw enough of them at the unit but with shooting and HE striking first it's likely they will die before they get the chance to strike.

 

[RobTheWise]

I think your average Lionstar will be 30 Strong. With full com and the banner that will cost 235ss

Let's say in pre combat dicking around you manage to get one average scream and take them down to 25/26 (fair?)

Then hit em with 8 Crypt Horrors. 26 S6 WS5 attacks against Horrors will do 12 wounds before regen. After normal or boosted regen (mortis engine) they will probably kill 2.

You hit back with 18 attacks, 9 hits 3 of which are poison you get 4 wounding hits totalling 7 wounds. You will probably take down 6. Then you stomp killing 3 or 4 more. Now there are only 16/17 Lions left. A perfectly manageable unit that is significantly weakened. Another scream and another round of combat later, bish, bash, bosh, job done. Terrorghiest can go scream at the Silver helm bus and your remaining Horrors (if any) can go archer hunting or something.

 

[Vipoid]

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree there.

On the bright side, s/he might accidently destroy your Lords Ogre blade allowing you to rip into the BotWD unit

That would be entertaining, but since you can't rely on that, it's more likely you'll just attempt to stop the spell.

Don't charge the BotWD with your Vampire Lord then.

So, you think it's reasonable for a 50pt banner to negate a ~500pt lord?

I know it is said a lot. But we have the Terrorghiest. It literally counters almost everything in this game.

We aren't laking in counters, we lack a variety of counters. I think.

That's a fair point about variety. It would be nice to have more options, instead of my having to think:

"How do I deal with..." Terrorgheist.
"Well what about..." Terrorgheist.
"But then there's..." Terrorgheist.
"And..." Terrorgheist.

I admit, I assume BoB is taken.

- Chaos Marauders (tougher, stronger, heavy armour Killing Blow)
- Empire Great swords, (tougher, stronger, Killing Blow)
- Executioners, (tougher, stronger)
- Tomb Guard, (Going to be honest, I just remember looking at the book thinking "yeh, we can take em")
- Chaos Warriors (MUCH Cheaper, Killing Blow and Grt weapons is not a disadvantage as our I is already poor)
- Even Lions themselves (Cheaper, tougher, Killing Blow)

And I am not even taking into account the natural advantages that come with being undead (because we all know there are natural disadvantages too )

BotB is a fair assumption (although it does increase cost).

With Marauders and Chaos Warriors, they're both troops - so you'd certainly hope GG are better. :tongue:

Out of interest, does this depend on what the chaos warriors are armed with? MoN and Halberds seem like they would hurt a lot, but I could be wrong.

Tomb Guard with halberds will strike first (but wound on 3s), whilst we strike afterwards, but wound on 2s. If anything, the banner would probably win this one. I know what you mean though - Tomb Guard are one of the units that don't really concern me.

. . . . Don't charge the BotWD with your Vampire Lord then.

Once again I will have to re-iterate a point made earlier. 30 - 40 White Lions with BotWD will cost a lot of points, your Vampire Lord will probably have free reign to run around and surgically destroy the rest of his army.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Especially with their new movement spell, Elves certainly don't lack mobility. And, chaff can easily be killed with archers or other shooting.

What do you do against Gutstars? avoid them and kill everything else with your Vampire Lord. What do you do against Chosen stars? avoid them and kill everything else with your Vampire Lord.

I fear I haven't faced either of those. Do chosen stars even still exist, now that the 3++ is gone?

In any case, those at least feel like I'd have options against them. The aforementioned terrorgheist can pick away at them, magic can hurt them.

Edit: If anything the "World Dragon Star???" Has a weakness in that many many units, simply won't care about it.

Wish my units didn't...

It also doesn't protect them from Hexs, and you can still buff your own units.

Just as they can hex mine or buff their own... and they have stronger magic.

 

[Zhatan]

I think your average Lionstar will be 30 Strong. With full com and the banner that will cost 235ss

Let's say in pre combat dicking around you manage to get one average scream and take them down to 25/26 (fair?)

Then hit em with 8 Crypt Horrors. 26 S6 WS5 attacks against Horrors will do 12 wounds before regen. After normal or boosted regen (mortis engine) they will probably kill 2.

You hit back with 18 attacks, 9 hits 3 of which are poison you get 4 wounding hits totalling 7 wounds. You will probably take down 6. Then you stomp killing 3 or 4 more. Now there are only 16/17 Lions left. A perfectly manageable unit that is significantly weakened. Another scream and another round of combat later, bish, bash, bosh, job done. Terrorghiest can go scream at the Silver helm bus and your remaining Horrors (if any) can go archer hunting or something.

I think that you are right in that CH's are a good choice to beat this unit as 8-9 horros are pretty cheap but then if you count that you need a mortis engine and terrorgheist to do the job the cost goes up quite a bit.

Also I don't think that a Lionstar will be only 30 models as you say. To get more benefit from the banner I think it will be minimum 40 models and most likely a character.

For roughly the same points( as 40 WL banner and command) you get 16 CH or 10 CH and a terrorgheist.
If you want to count both the engine for regen and gheist you are left with 4 CH if you want to keep points even.

 

[RobTheWise]

So, you think it's reasonable for a 50pt banner to negate a ~500pt lord?

The answer to this question is . . . not . . . really. I'm not trying to argue this banner isn't hella powerful. But there are others like it. The Hellheart can potentially kill / wound multiple spell casters in our army as well as having collateral effect on the units they stand in. That's 50 points, but pretty lame against armies with low magic. The storm banner can totally shut down an empire shooting phase, negating hundreds of points of missile fire but we could not care less about it, 50 points down the drain for the skaven player

"How do I deal with..." Terrorgheist.
"Well what about..." Terrorgheist.
"But then there's..." Terrorgheist.
"And..." Terrorgheist.

Hahaha! Good ol'TG

Out of interest, does this depend on what the chaos warriors are armed with? MoN and Halberds seem like they would hurt a lot, but I could be wrong.

I have faced down multiple warrior builds with GG and almost always come out on top. I'm very careful though, I always attempt to cast multiple buffs on them and normally one gets through which tips the odds juuuuust in my favour, but that's all I need to have a catastrophic effect on the Warrior unit.

I fear I haven't faced either of those. Do chosen stars even still exist, now that the 3++ is gone?

My bad, this was more a reference to the prev Chaos book. But you get my point.

In any case, those at least feel like I'd have options against them. The aforementioned terrorgheist can pick away at them, magic can hurt them.

TG Screams aren't magical . . . . are they?

Just as they can hex mine or buff their own... and they have stronger magic.

Very true.

I think that you are right in that CH's are a good choice to beat this unit as 8-9 horros are pretty cheap but then if you count that you need a mortis engine and terrorgheist to do the job the cost goes up quite a bit.

Also I don't think that a Lionstar will be only 30 models as you say. To get more benefit from the banner I think it will be minimum 40 models and most likely a character.

For roughly the same points you get 16 CH or 10 CH and a terrorgheist.
If you want to count both the engine for regen and gheist you are left with 4 CH if you want to keep points even.

40 Model Lionstar is 300ss not including characters. That will severely limit their ability to out deploy and out move you. If this is what you face, see my previous post about Killing the rest of the army with your Vampire Lord. Although it might still be worth hitting that unit with a CH unit just to beat the crap out of a mage in the unit. depending on placement you could get 12 attacks + stomps on the poor little elf.

And I think it is important to bear in mind also when measuring up multiple units vs the Lionstar, you are getting more utility in your army as a whole as opposed to just having a big unit that smashes what's in front of it.

The reason I added the TG into my assumptions above, was not to create an unfavourable scenario for the lions to face, but because most of the time you are going to have a Terrorghiest anyway, and that would be a darn good use of it

This is the very essence of Warhammer is it not? Combining units and strategy's on the table top in order to come out on top, as opposed to doing all the math before hand and think of everything as an equal points match up. If that were the case, every game would end in a draw would it not?

 

[Zhatan]

The reason I added the TG into my assumptions above, was not to create an unfavourable scenario for the lions to face, but because most of the time you are going to have a Terrorghiest anyway, and that would be a darn good use of it

TG won't be able to hurt a unit with the banner though

 

[RobTheWise]

The reason I added the TG into my assumptions above, was not to create an unfavourable scenario for the lions to face, but because most of the time you are going to have a Terrorghiest anyway, and that would be a darn good use of it

TG won't be able to hurt a unit with the banner though

Sorry I don't have a book with me. Are screams magical?

 

[Zhatan]

The reason I added the TG into my assumptions above, was not to create an unfavourable scenario for the lions to face, but because most of the time you are going to have a Terrorghiest anyway, and that would be a darn good use of it

TG won't be able to hurt a unit with the banner though

Sorry I don't have a book with me. Are screams magical?

Yeah

 

[The Sun King]

Yeah, not to be sour and all but it's about 3 or 4 pages past that we confirmed that it's magical...

 

[RobTheWise]

The reason I added the TG into my assumptions above, was not to create an unfavourable scenario for the lions to face, but because most of the time you are going to have a Terrorghiest anyway, and that would be a darn good use of it

TG won't be able to hurt a unit with the banner though

Sorry I don't have a book with me. Are screams magical?

Yeah

:slapface: Well bugger me :slapface:

 

[Yorga]

Wait... ASF High Elves with GWs don't get rerolls??!?!

Sword Masters and White Lions can't reroll hits!?!?

Oh happppppy days! Who cares about the Banner.... just throw in 8-10 Crypt horrors and a bat swarm and watch them fly like bowling pins!

Come on people, get with the program lol

The Blendy Vamp will take out the Pokemon birds and the Silverhelm buses./

Anyone who doesn't shoot down that bat swarm right away is retarded.
They lost their reroll but gained extra ranks instead and they still have good WS so will be hitting alot anyway.

THIS! We have to remember that elves love those little pointy sticks called...wait for it.....arrows. I mean what do you think their core is going to be doing as they position their mighty Lionstar? I'll certainly be using Reaver Knights again now that they are core. Your bats will never see the light o' day. *evil chuckle* :devil2:

Hell, I'll even be taking Bolt throwers again with the 30 point reduction. Just what they needed because a 2 wound warmachine for 100 points was stupid. :slapface: