How do you stop war machines?

[TobinRoss89]

I know how I take car of war machines which is with wolves and vargulfs but I was wondering how everyone else does this?

With the rise of war machines in 8th edition we need to be able to deal with many more than we have had to in the past. When you run into double Hell Cannons, Great Cannon/ Hellstorm Rocket Battery spam , and Dwarven Gun lines that make your Vampire Lord cry cheese what do you do? What tactics do you use? What units? and what dirty tricks do you have up your sleves to deal with all of these things?

 

[Mikael.K]

I´ll be trying the dual varghs myself and see how that goes. Seems more reliable than fell bats and wolves. Raised zombies could potentially hold, and eventually kill, the intended warmachine. Magic is another option.

 

[Countess Ashyln]

I always try and fit an Ironcurse Icon on one of my characters, usually the one in the Grave Guard.

It's only a 6+ ward but for 5 points it helps and might encourage them to shoot at something else.

 

[ulrik]

Nowadays I play Warriors of Chaos, and therefore my tips may not be the best, but here goes anyway:

As with the Undead, my Warriors know not about fear, know not about hesitation or know not about selfpreservation.

Thus, I just charge forward.

And in most cases, that ends up with my Warriors getting to know very, VERY well about PAIN...

 

[space cowboy]

I run a Vamp with Lycni, Nightshroud, and Hunter in the Dark to hunt war machines. Set him up somewhere out of sight (hooray for war machines only seeing 180 degrees) and then charge in when you get the chance. Nightshroud is for the pesky HElf machines.

 

[abhorash_chile]

fear of 2 little elves? i suggest the armour of the night if you are going to warmachine hunting.

 

[merenwen]

for war machines such as the empire steamtank (even thought it is now classed as a chariot) i like to use ethereals coz it cant wound my ethereals. i like to charge up with my varghulf for the canons and bolt throwers, grudge throwers and general artilery types. i find it takes them out in 1 turn normally. the dwarven gun line i generaly have a tarpit infront or something like bats or wolves to run up inthere and disrupt the firing long enough for me to get up the field and slaughter them

 

[space cowboy]

fear of 2 little elves? i suggest the armour of the night if you are going to warmachine hunting.

You say that, but inevitably he gets charged by some unit that is hanging out near the back because I put the guy behind his army. The last time I ran him, I was able to route a unit of White Lions because they struck last.

 

[WhiteStar]

I second the the Nike Vampire and Varghulfs. But I also feel that Spirit Leach could be quite good on especially Orc and Empire warmachines. With their Ld 7, a vamp lord would would kill of the thing with an equal roll.

 

[Bravo_10]

I personally think Fell Bats are fantastic for taking out cannons and the like. As skirmishers, it's hard for a cannon or stone thrower to really hit a substantial amount of them, and they can go ahead and fly straight over the enemy's troops and into the front of whatever's giving you trouble.

That said, I've never really found Fell Bats useful for much else...

 

[Coyote]

I used to LOVE Fell Bats in 7th. But then you could IoN them like infantry. *sigh*

Currently, I think that a Varghulf tag-team is the winner. Especially with the Terror-cheese that you can do with that approach. Oh, and Nike Vamps are no longer what they where. Without Swiftstride, you're better of with a Hellstead for the 3D6-lowest" charge.

 

[Zanthor]

I've chosen Fell Bats for a few reasons.

1) They can multi-charge several war machine units at once.
2) They have more wounds
3) They are much cheaper than a Vargulf, much less two
4) 6 Fell bats at only 120 points will keep most mobile mages occupied for most of the game, if not even killing them.

Simply put, I can't stomach shelling out the points for a Vargulf just to hunt war-machines, but I'll toss the 120 points to the Fell Bats different functionality.

 

[Coyote]

Fair enough. And those are many of the reasons why I made 12 converted "Fantasia" Fell Bats last summer.

To me, Varghulf are like free-agent, pro-bowler wide receivers in the NFL. They don't get the big score every single game. But they're a constant, nagging threat around the fringes that changes the way that other people play.

 

[BaronBloodfist]

Since you are mentioning a more expensive unit of fellbats for 120pts rather than the old 3 fellbat group (they will probably die before doing anything and cant be raised back), i will throw in my idea.



5 naked Black Knights. 115pts?

With their high armor save and T4 they have almost immunity to bowfire or closecombat-retaliation of the warmachine crew.

With the new TloS and Etheral Movement they can actually charge almost all targets without too many problems since they just need to see a tiny bit of the war machine and just charge throu buildings etc.

With 5 attacks S6 and 5 attacks S3 they inflict an average of 3 wounds per round of combat against WS3-6 T3 targets and thus kill most warmachines outright. If only three Black Knights arrive due to casualties from a stone thrower etc. They still manage to take out 1.75 wounds in the first round of combat so they are able to still wipe a warmachine with a litte bit of luck in one round.

 

[Gokamok]

I'm not all too sold on Black Knights against war machines, since a Varghulf does the job so much better; smaller footprint than a unit of knights, much more resilient, and with a smaller risk of fluffing its attacks due to Hatred.

My personal favorite against war machines is Wind of Undeath, in order to raise Spirit Hosts next to the WMs

 

[PapaNasty]

You wouldn't be able to raise the spirit host next to the war machine, unless your vampire was within 12"

Only really 5 options for taking out war machines that I can think of:

1x Vampire + Forbidden Lore with long range dmg / magic missile spell.
1x Vampire + Hunter in the Dark
1x Varghulf
5x black knights + hellish vigour
4x blood knights

Anything else is probably just going to be too many points to waste, or not going to be fast enough to be effective enough (Even some of these might not be worth hunting the war machine, as by the time you get to it, most of your units are probably in combat with the enemy already anyway, so can't be targeted)

With any unit assigned to taking down the war machine, probably being "out" of the battle for a significant period of time (particularly if they overrun off the board lol). Which is best, probably depends on how who you're facing and how many points you want to spend.

Personally I've decided to go with a Varghulf for my next game, although this might not help much if they put a screen of defenders infront of it (Or it might just mean that I kill a unit aswell lol)

 

[RedDuke]

Fell bats have not been faq'd not to be infantry anymore. If you own a copy of the armybook, they still are. And I would not accept the argument that we should get used to the new rules since now, for we don't know the new options and costs of the future armybook

 

[loquar]

At a tournament last weekend fell bats were D6 per Ion, they will also be at the warrington GT next month. The debate seems to be on the side of D6 wounds per raise atm.

For war machines I use bats or just get my inf in with VHD.

Fought an empire army on the weekend at maelstrom with stank, lvl4, walter, 2 cannons, 2 mortars (which rolled hit 9/10 shots) and a rocket battery with 40 crossbows. It was hard but I won, all the artillery went down to ghouls or zombies except for the cannon and stank which were victims of a purple sun.

There is no problem with overrun as you just kill the crew then combat reform and charge the next one

 

[PapaNasty]

There is no problem with overrun as you just kill the crew then combat reform and charge the next one

Huh what? You don't have to test vs leadership for overrun if you kill all models on a warmachine after you've charged? Or is it something tricky where you can combat reform first and then overrun in the direction you want to go? (As that'd be awesome!!)


And imo Fel Bats are still not good for Killing War Machines, as they only move 10". Since unless they have a Vampire with them, they can't march. And if they can't march, then that's probably an additional turn of being rock lobber'd.

(And if you have a vampire killing war machines, then you shouldn't bother with the bats, as he can just kill it himself).

So they'd only be viable if the war machine was next to the rest of their army, but if that's the case, then you have an exhaustive list of options available to kill it anyway

 

[Zanthor]

I don't have problems putting a vampire on the edges so I can get that first turn 20" movement. After that, it's all about the charge, which doesn't require a vampire.

@ Bloodfist, I like the idea of 5 black knights as well, however they are much less maneuverable, and because of their larger footprint you can multi-charge several warmachines at the same time. I'm not particularly worried about "fluffing attacks" against warmachine crew. If I keep them from shooting for 2 or more turns, then the bats have done their job IMO.

 

[Coyote]

Fell bats have not been faq'd not to be infantry anymore.

I believe that you're mistaken. In the appendix of the new 8th ed. BRB, the chart for VC units defines both Dire Wolves and Fell Bats as having the unit type "War Beast". And War Beasts have been defined in the FAQ as not eligible for d6 wounds from IoN. This is also why Dire Wolves are no longer Fast Cavalry.

 

[marshal torrick]

Well, technically Dire Wolves are no longer fast cav because the errata told us to ignore the 'fast cavalry' rule, otherwise there should be no reason that they aren't fast cav AND war beasts. The end result is still 8 points/model of pure suck.

 

[Bravo_10]

It was hard but I won, all the artillery went down to ghouls or zombies except for the cannon and stank which were victims of a purple sun.

Um...I thought the STank was immune to all magic that doesn't have a specific strength value. You may have gotten away with one if that's still the case.

But other than that, the Purple Sun of Xerxeus seems to be awesome for the Initiative-test-auto-failing war machines. Just shoot that sucker straight down a gun line...and then watch your opponent cry.

 

[RedDuke]

Coyote, you are only compelled to look at that table if you don't have your army book with you, otherwise the army book prevails. And, contrary to dire wolves, nowhere in the faq their unit type has been changed. As I said, the only reason to treat them as war beast is to get used to the future armybook, but that's silly, because we don't know what to expect in terms of cost, rules or even profile...

 

[Bravo_10]

I would agree with RedDuke here, Coyote. I broke out my copy of the errata just now and can confirm this.

Personally, I'll play with Fell Bats as War Beasts in friendly games for now because it's obviously what GW intended, and it was likely a simple oversight that they didn't amend the Fell Bats too.