Destroyed by Thorek.... need help

[Wojmir Von Carstein]

I just played a friendly 2200 pt game with my brother and got totally massacred. We have a friendly atmoshpere here so we are not "power gamesr". Anyway, for this game my bro wanted to try a dwarf "gunline" headed by Thorek.... I got wiped off the table.

My list was more or less standard.

level 4 VL
grave guard horde
min core
Terrogheist
some flankers
a few heroes

My bro had Thorek. a couple of runessmiths.
One big GW horde
A couple of units of thunderers
A lot of warmachines.

We usually play scenerio and this time we rolled to play the pitched battle. I could not believe what I was facing. My brother had about 10-11 Dispel dice a turn and I had about 6 or 7 power dice!!! (Thorek gives +2, the two runesmiths give another +2, he had one masterrune which took my PD and gave him another DD and then the anvil gives another DD. Thats plus 6 DD for him and minus 1 for me)

I got one spell off during the entire game with IF and it almost killed my VL.

Anyway, how do you fight this kind of list? Thorek hits D3 of your units and makes them unable to fly/halves their movement. The warmachines kill off all flyers and then go to work on your hard hitting units. Without invo and moving at a pace of 4 inches a turn (half movement) my horde of 40 GG made it to close combat with 12 models left (at this point I knew its over but I just wanted to finis the game off).

What is the answer?
How can we be succesful when it is next to impossible to get a spell off!!!!!!
Take a GK and no other casters since we cannot cast anyway?
Knight bus will be moving 7 inches a turn and will still be shot to pieces. Terrorghesits will not survive warmachines especially if they cannot fly.... what to do?

 

[Noobafrass]

sounds like a rather "power gamer" list to me...

 

[Wojmir Von Carstein]

sounds like a rather "power gamer" list to me...

You are right. Uusally he takes quite "unpower gamer" type of list. He will sometimes go with no powder armies, or lots of slayers type armies both of which are not really tough to play against. On the other hand I too experiment with all core armies or ghost themed armies etc. The problem isn't that he took that army this time. The problem is how to defeat this army in general. What if I met it a tournament?

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

Ummmmm holy crap that is a mean list! I would say get a lot of spirit host drops? And small bat and wolf units? Idk if he can only slow D3 of your units and you saturate the field with fast chaff, those warmachines/gunners will get tied up eventually.

Also, you could try an infantry-heavy list with a deep unit of Crypt horrors backed by a mortis engine in its center. The horrors will catch cannon balls for the engine; you could also possibly sneak a terrorgheist behind as well and then unleash him when you are really close.

Or TG with VGs in front of it on a flank and ME and CHs up center. Maybe even a Varghulf on opposite or same flank as flyers, or a few 'Ghulfs instead of TG and VGs? Again, it gives him a lot of things he wants dead, but only so many turns to do it..

 

[The Dread King]

Two words: spam zombies.

Throw into the list as many baby necros as you can, all taking IoN. Spend the rest of your points on 50+ strong units of zombies and watch as your opponent is slowly dragged down.

 

[Adam_Barrow]

@The Dread King Is there any punch in that setup?

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

Yeah baby necros and zombies can only get so far.....dwarves are no slouches in combat and are unlikely to run most of the time. I could see 100s and 100s of zombies eventually winning through attrition, but with such strong dispelling, you will be unlikely to get off very many IoN's with only lvl 2s. How about Banshee spamming/scream cheese??

 

[The Dread King]

You wouldn't get off many Ions, but the point is that you would have so many zombies that the dwarves would eventually die. Admittedly there is no punch in this list, but it works well against a dwarf list like this.

 

[Uziel]

You wouldn't get off many Ions, but the point is that you would have so many zombies that the dwarves would eventually die. Admittedly there is no punch in this list, but it works well against a dwarf list like this.

Have you play tested this D.K?
I've played dwarfs quite a lot in previous editions, but not for in 8.ed. Just sounds too me like there is too many DD for IoN to spam zombies successfully in the first place, and even f you do, dwarfs can hold their ground against zombies for a very long time.
Just sounds to me like this would require a game of more than 6 rounds for it to stand much of a chance at success, which is where my skepticism comes from in this case, but if you've had success with it against this kind of magical defense I find that noteworthy.

 

[The Dread King]

The point is that IoN only adds to the zombie spamming; the main spamming has been done in the list building.

 

[rothgar13]

I don't see how this would faze a Dwarf army, to be honest. Dwarf Warriors are more than capable of crushing Zombies in combat, they'll stuff your IoN's with ease, and they'll mow down anything important with their war machines before it gets there. You can pit 2 units of 50 Zeds against a Dwarf Warrior Horde, and it's still a blowout win for the stunties.

You need to have multiple threatening units as well as war machine hunters to threaten Dwarfs. Since the OP has stated he's not a power gamer, I recommend a "Beasts of the Night" themed list - Strigoi Vampires, Ghouls, Dire Wolves, Crypt Horrors, Varghulfs, and Terrorgheists.

 

[midean]

Chances are you won't ever see Thorek in a tournament. He's up there with Teclis on the OTT list of characters that are banned from pretty much EVERY tourney out there. And Rothgar has it right. Counting on magic against Dwarfs is a sure way to get crushed. They are the perfect counter to ANY list that needs magic to help it. Most times they will have more DD then you will have PD.

 

[The Dread King]

Nooo, I meant spam the WHOLE list with zombies. Keep the necros behind front lines, and most zed units should be 70 or 100 strong anyway in this list.

Not that this list works against much else, but against a list like this, it should do well. I mean that most of the list should be zombies and necros. Maybe one or two varg units to take out artillery, but nothing else.

Edit: The zed units will be so big that it will take many, many rounds of combat for the dwarfs to wipe each unit out even if every attack they made was successful. And bear in mind this list is a gunline, meaning that while his combat troops are bogged with zeds, you can take down his other stuff much more easily with more zeds.

Edit 2: Whilst the warrior horde is bogged down with multiple units of zombies, you can just steal all the VPs by dedicating most of your force to taking down the rest of his army. As long as you keep throwing enough of the dead guys in, the warriors should be held up until the end of the game.

 

[Wojmir Von Carstein]

Since the OP has stated he's not a power gamer, I recommend a "Beasts of the Night" themed list - Strigoi Vampires, Ghouls, Dire Wolves, Crypt Horrors, Varghulfs, and Terrorgheists.

Thanks for all the advice. Its not like I take a "themed" list everytime. What I meant to say is now that we see how cheesy Thorek is, we probably won't use him. But I think that flying vampires, and lots of fast unis might to the trick. In a list like that once Thorek goes the little stunties are done for.

 

[The Dread King]

If you're looking to take down Thorek himself, instead of just focusing on the army, then you will need one or two death snipers. They are very good at character killing.

 

[Uziel]

I really don't see it happening D.K, but I'm working out of pure theory here..

The problems I anticipate are:

-Spamming necromancers don't really give you much of an increase in the P.D department, which will leave you with a lot of spells, but not much more of a chance of getting them cast

-Your army will be very slow, allowing for missile fire to whittle you down before you get into close combat, and with such a strong magic defense, you won't get your numbers back up, unless your opponent for some reason doesn't bother with stopping your IoN, which in itself should be a warning signal that he ain't all that scared of the zeds...

-With only the support of a couple of Varghulfs, these will be the target of every war machine or other ranged attack, since shooting at zombies which he can always just slay in droves in close combat anyway will always be a secondary option

-Even your average gobbo isn't afraid of a zombie, so even if you get into close combat with multiple hordes of zombies (which against one unit of multiple ranks is as we all know more often than not a good idea at all), you still have to crush at least one of his regiments completely to get the VP's before the end of combat, and that is without him killing your precious necros in the front rank to get some easy VP's of his own..

 

[Johnny-Crass]

Theorik is almost impossible to death snipe due to his ward and ld and the way wounds are allocated on a anvil. Best advice is cut out the storm banner entry and paste it over the banner of barrows and hope stuntie does not notice

 

[The Dread King]

I mean two units of vargheists, Uziel. The idea of spamming necros and keeping them behind many of the forces is to ensure that your army doesn't stand much of a chance of crumbling.

The zeds themselves will take down opponent's army through sheer weight of numbers; can one dwarf opponent, with his warrior unit tied up, take on literally hundreds and hundreds of zombies without sustaining serious casualties? The necros only have IoN to add to the zombies whenever they can; the army does not rely on their casting.

 

[Uziel]

I mean two units of vargheists, Uziel. The idea of spamming necros and keeping them behind many of the forces is to ensure that your army doesn't stand much of a chance of crumbling.

The zeds themselves will take down opponent's army through sheer weight of numbers; can one dwarf opponent, with his warrior unit tied up, take on literally hundreds and hundreds of zombies without sustaining serious casualties? The necros only have IoN to add to the zombies whenever they can; the army does not rely on their casting.

Vargheist or Varghulfs, I don't see it being much of a difference to be honest, not against a decent Dwarf player in any case. Varghulfs are just juicy targets for cannons, while the Varghiests are easy pickings for the rest of his missile units.
The Vargheist have wings, enabling them to fly over the dwarf lines to get to the artillery, but they will have to land in the front of the dwarf army for one round to get that charge in, and that assumes that there is even a place to land the Vargheists in front of a war machine in the first place. There might just be 1" between his war machine and his artillery, then what will you do?

Assuming you reach the dwarf line with hundreds of zombies, which granted, you might do; you will already be behind in points due to the destruction of the rather expensive and fragile Vargheists.
Then, you will loose combat after combat for at least several rounds, in which case your necromancers will be picked apart if they are in said zombie units for protection, or get shot to pieces if they are not, leaving you even more behind in points and with less magic too save the day..
One big horde of GW dwarfs is a menace to zombie hordes. Ganging up only gets you killed twice as fast.. Even Flanking is a bad idea..
Hundreds of zombies still need lots of time and a lot of IoN to get them to push through a solid dwarf line, especially one only five wide. Dwarfs die slowly, and they probably won't have to take a Break Test until there are only one or two ranks left, if at all..

I'm very skeptical of this working against a decent dwarf opponent, at least to the degree that we can call it a good strategy. That said however, if you can prove me wrong on the gaming table using this strategy on a semi-regular basis, I'll be mighty impressed

 

[The Dread King]

I used massed hordes against a dwarves gunline before and it worked with devastating effect. In my experience, hordes are excellent against dwarf gunlines and I play VC and OnG, and my main opponents are dwarfs, so I should know.

 

[Uziel]

If you say it works well, and you have tested it against a decent opponent on many an occasion, I can't really argue the point any longer can I?

It just seemed to me like a very unlikely route to victory, based on my own experiences so far in 8.ed, and I do tend to win the vast majority of my games. Maybe I'm just unlucky with my zombies. I had 60 zombies slaughtered on the charge from a 6 Ogre Ironguts and a Tyrant here the other day.. Didn't even get to strike back.. hehe

 

[eggsPR]

Big CH blocks
lvl 1 VL with Charmed Shield, QB, RF, 4+ ward
Level 4 MN on Death

Purple Sun for. the. win.