Help against Casket of Sorcery

[Zhatan]

I recently came up against a Empire player with a character on pegasus with Aldred's Casket of Sorcery(which steals spells and then destroys them) and found I had no real way of defending against that tactic. With it he managed to destroy 2 of my 3 invocations and my wind of undeath. Lucily he had no use for the invocations and failed to cast wind of undeath on me but judging from the FAQ he would be in control of the spirit hosts created if he had got it off. Is this correct?

Even though I finally managed to win the game I can't seem to find a good way to counter this really annoying tactic.

How do you guys deal with it?

 

[Count Lasombra]

The only real answer is to kill that wizard...he'll be alone obviously and if he's not the general he won't be packing a ward save.You need to anticapate where he wants to place him and position some Fell bats or ethereals so that they charge him if he goes there.Try to force through wind of undeath early and put the new host in front of him and try and VH's it.
A feedback scroll may kill him too,especially if he's throwing 6 dice at those bound spells.

 

[Bravo_10]

I don't believe I've ever found myself facing the Casket of Sorcery before. It doesn't seem to be a very popular item among Empire players. You could perhaps try taking a couple of Necromancers with IoN so that if your Vampires lose the spell, you'll at least have a few casters who can still hammer it out and keep your troops topped off. But yeah, like Lasombra said, killing the wizard seems to be the only foolproof option when it comes to dealing with this thing.

 

[Zhatan]

The only real answer is to kill that wizard...he'll be alone obviously and if he's not the general he won't be packing a ward save.You need to anticapate where he wants to place him and position some Fell bats or ethereals so that they charge him if he goes there.Try to force through wind of undeath early and put the new host in front of him and try and VH's it.
A feedback scroll may kill him too,especially if he's throwing 6 dice at those bound spells.

That wind of undeath thing might work, I'll try that unless he steals it first. Other then that its hard to kill him as he is very mobile and we lack ranged attacks. I actually tried a feedback scroll last time and it only did one wound to him. I find it kinda expensive for what it does considering it doesnt even dispell the spell and its not often that many dice are used imo.

I don't believe I've ever found myself facing the Casket of Sorcery before. It doesn't seem to be a very popular item among Empire players. You could perhaps try taking a couple of Necromancers with IoN so that if your Vampires lose the spell, you'll at least have a few casters who can still hammer it out and keep your troops topped off. But yeah, like Lasombra said, killing the wizard seems to be the only foolproof option when it comes to dealing with this thing.

I'm not sure but I think it's a fairly common tactic considering it's even got a name, a captain with casket on a pagasus is called "caskasus".

Anyway using alot of characters with invo sure is one way but that might be hard in lower points games. I thought the 3 casters I had would be plenty but I was left with only one that could cast... and that was even though he actually forgot to use the casket once.

I guess one way would be to hide my casters far behind my troops so they are out of reach of the casket but that might also limit their use to me...

 

[Rammstein]

The Casket will more than likely not be on Wizard, The "Capatus" as it is known among Empire players is a Captain on a Pegasus with full plate etc so its not the easiest of Empire Characters to kill but far from being the toughest.

It is very maneuverable but if he is packing the Casket he wont be able to afford a decent Ward Save so could be vulnerable to some Death Magic or High Strength attacks.

I'd say a Varghulf or Wraiths could be the trick to catch the little bugger.

 

[Zhatan]

The Casket will more than likely not be on Wizard, The "Capatus" as it is known among Empire players is a Captain on a Pegasus with full plate etc so its not the easiest of Empire Characters to kill but far from being the toughest.

It is very maneuverable but if he is packing the Casket he wont be able to afford a decent Ward Save so could be vulnerable to some Death Magic or High Strength attacks.

I'd say a Varghulf or Wraiths could be the trick to catch the little bugger.

Ah I got the name wrong, sorry.
Magic is one way of course but that can be hard as his arch lector gives him quite alot of dispell dice to throw around and the vargulf is risky considering his cannon....

 

[Anubis]

Here's some ideas to try;
- 'Hunter vampire' if you have pts to blow... Just a little bait to draw him out. Give him the armour of the night or wristbands, hunter in the dark to scout, and either a sword of +1A or +1 to-hit.
At best against a S5 model his capastus will have a 4+/6++ save, so nothing a thrall can't handle.

- Or fight fire with fire and take a hellsteed thrall!
Infinite Hatred plus some armour and say the balefire spike will easily decaptiate the offending captain! (or even just a basic lance so he can't pull out a dragonhelm or dragonbane gem on you!)
The steed, hatred & dreadknight powers combined only run you a modest 170pts, so it's easily do-able... Add on the wristbands and even his cannons will have a hard time nailing your winged avenger!

- On a similar note, raising a big 'ol unit of zombies and then vanhels'ing them into combat will lock him down all game or else force him to divert troops to help out and get the casket flying about again.

- Ghoulkin march some ghouls at him right off the bat.

- One vargulf might fail, but 2 of 'em should be able to hunt him down and take him out quite easily.

- Wraiths are quite mean vs and empire army!

- a small'ish block of 6 black knights in a 3x2 formation with the banner of hellish vigor can keep upto his flying horse and they'll all get their swings too!


While an Arch Lector gives the empire army the added dispel dice, depending on the pts you're playing, you should still be able to over-power him with higher level wizards...

Hope this helps,
Cheers!