Got slaughtered by Lizards/High Elves

[Dibidoolandas]

My friend and I just did a teamed match with his WoC and my vamps vs. a Lizardmen/High Elves team. Sorry for the spoiler, but we lost, badly. My basic strategy going into it was to shield his troops with a zombie, skelly and ghoul horde (about 40, 35, 30 respectively) and just let them die/hope to tie up the opponents' troops until he can get in with his giant-ass 1200-something point Warrior horde. I also brought BK with a vamp lord, had a necro with the zombies, two carts, a black coach and a varghulf.

To make a really, really long story short, the enemy didn't advance... AT ALL... (you should have seen the board when we finally got into combat, they were literally an inch from the edge of their side) and they let us 4-inch a turn slog it (HE perched an eagle just at our backside so we couldn't march - annoying) through a hail of skink and salamander fire (because of course terrain was an absolute travesty from our side, giving them a mountain and a building which we couldn't access), so that my zombies and skellies could only tie them up for 1 round before biting the dust, and his Slaughterbrute had 1 wound left. Basically it was the most frustrating game of Warhammer I've ever played.

My question is two-point: 1.) Is there anything I can do to defend against a heavy-shooting army? and 2.) How do I combat these... well, annoying tactics of sitting pretty/hiding behind terrain? I'm guessing the answer to both questions is the same, bringing either vargheists, dire wolves or hexwraiths into the mix. The entire time I was wishing I had a solid flying unit that could just kick those annoying skinks right in the ass. And hexwraiths would have just ignored that terrain and might have at least upset their side a bit. Never used dire wolves, or any of those units actually, so I'm not sure how well they would succeed. What do you guys think?

 

[Wraithguardian]

When you are fighting a gunline or something that packs a lot of artillery your best bet is to flank. Majority of the players playing Empire, HE and DE will focus their ranged units on either side of the board. This way they can be better protected against fast movers like bats, vargulfs, pegasus knights and all the things naturally made for the pupose of hunting artillery units.

For this reason I think the best way to beat a solid gunline is to rush one of its flanks. Once you make contact with your opponent's frontline, there is relatively little that he or she can do but throw his shooters at you in order to try to overwhelm you. Best way to implement this is to deploy most of your fast movers on one side of the board (vargs, ghulf, wolves, cavalry and etc). Your frontline would hold the center, but the ghouls would be deployed on the side of the board with all the fast movers. You walk your whole front line forward while rushing the ghouls and fast movers forwards as quickly as possible (while keeping cover in mind). I've put up a pic of one of my deployment plans for one of the army lists, just to give you so basic idea of how I would rush a flank

The only other strategy that may work is to get a horde or skeletons/zombies and support them with multiple necros on corpse cards w/ unholy stones. WHatever casualties you'll be suffering, you will be able to raise back easily before you make contact.

 

[ATP485]

(HE perched an eagle just at our backside so we couldn't march - annoying)

Could you not march by passing a leadership test and doesn't it only effect units with 6"?

 

[Dibidoolandas]

(HE perched an eagle just at our backside so we couldn't march - annoying)

Could you not march by passing a leadership test and doesn't it only effect units with 6"?

Interesting... I'm not able to look at my rulebook right now but I thought the rule was just that if an enemy model is within 12" you cannot march. You can if you pass a leadership test?

 

[alppikutka]

This rule changed in 8th edition, better re-check it. (I'd tell it but I believe that posting rules is against forum rules and perhaps even considered piracy.)

 

[PrinceCharming]

(HE perched an eagle just at our backside so we couldn't march - annoying)

Could you not march by passing a leadership test and doesn't it only effect units with 6"?

Interesting... I'm not able to look at my rulebook right now but I thought the rule was just that if an enemy model is within 12" you cannot march. You can if you pass a leadership test?

within 8 inch, and if u pass ld test u can march

 

[alppikutka]

Oh, well..

 

[Adam_Barrow]

@al Posting rules is fine. It's individual points costs that GW doesn't allow. Normally you'll see, for example, a SH - xxpts entry in somebody's army list.

 

[rothgar13]

Frankly, a large part of the reason you had problems with that sort of list was the strategy you tried to employ. VC Core is more of a liability than anything else, and your goal should be to minimize its involvement in determining the outcome of the game, because if you're relying on them to do anything but get their butts kicked, chances are you will be disappointed.

The way you combat "sit back and shoot" is with speed and ranged attacks - that means cavalry, fliers, and/or a Lore other than Vampires. And as mentioned above, 8th edition made it such that you can pass a Leadership test to march if an enemy unit is within 8" of you.

 

[Dibidoolandas]

Frankly, a large part of the reason you had problems with that sort of list was the strategy you tried to employ. VC Core is more of a liability than anything else, and your goal should be to minimize its involvement in determining the outcome of the game, because if you're relying on them to do anything but get their butts kicked, chances are you will be disappointed.

The way you combat "sit back and shoot" is with speed and ranged attacks - that means cavalry, fliers, and/or a Lore other than Vampires. And as mentioned above, 8th edition made it such that you can pass a Leadership test to march if an enemy unit is within 8" of you.

I've thought about this too. Obviously we need the 25% core makeup, but with VC pretty much anything is a waste. I've found a horde of ghouls CAN get some kills (provided my opponent doesn't manage to armor save SIX WOUNDS on one roll like he did in this game), but for the most part unstable will wipe them out in one or two bad rounds. That being said, I could go the super cheap route and just field an absolute assload of zombies, which will never do anything but they might at least deflect some fire/magic. Never played dire wolves before though, and in this instane they may have been something actually good to spend those core points on.

 

[rothgar13]

My favorite Core setup is a Horde of Ghouls with some sort of character to deal with armored foes, two units of Zeds to provide banners and tarpit, and a couple of units of Dire Wolves for speed and harassment purposes. Try that out next time.

 

[kevin.hopkins7]

Thats exactly what I run for core. 40 Ghouls with ghast, two units of zombies muso/std and 3 units of puppies. It works great, you have a solid combat block that can take on alot of enemies. A zombie bunker for a necro, banners and 3 fast chaff units/wm hunters. Don't spend any more on core and you are set to run any build you want.

 

[Darbagal]

Bring a copuple of hellcannons and make them regret packing up in a corner..... Other templates are also nice against packed up enemies.

Other than that WoC can take a lot of shooting so they dont really need a lot of protection against that. What they do need is someone to kill that lvl4 lore of metal wizard. Also bring fast stuff and preferably also flying stuff (chimera, bats etc) to kill warmachines, wizards etc. I would happily exhange my chimera for a lvl4 metal caster in a suicide mission if I can get access and get decent odds of killing him.

Snipe spells can also take care of this problem.

 

[datalink7]

Yes, don't forget you can march if you pass a leadership

Hexwraiths are good for clearing out eagles btw. Last time I fought a High Elf he tried to block me with eagles but I just ran over them with Hexwraiths first, then marched everything forward. They are also solid for dealing with Skinks and Salamanders.

 

[BloodbathMcGrath]

Yes, don't forget you can march if you pass a leadership

Hexwraiths are good for clearing out eagles btw. Last time I fought a High Elf he tried to block me with eagles but I just ran over them with Hexwraiths first, then marched everything forward. They are also solid for dealing with Skinks and Salamanders.

This. And monsters and knights and anything without lots of Static CR or magic attacks. Although their drive-by is def better than getting them in combat since it hits automatically.

 

[Fluffytemplar]

One of things I love about our 8th edition book is how much fast stuff we have.
My normal tournament list makes heavy use of Vargheists, Varghulfs, Terrorgheists, Blood knights and Dire wolves. A big horde of ghouls, a couple of 30 man zombie units, spirit hosts and a corpse cart rounds out the rest.
Gun line armies tend to just collapse against this type of build as I'm usually in combat turn 2.
Use Vanhels Danse to keep the infantry moving alongside everything else.
Even when against a very combat heavy army the list can still do quite well since I tend to out deploy my opponent and then use multiple charges to completely collapse one flank while chaff keeps the rest busy until I can clean up his lines.