How to build your BK-Deathstar-bus army (advanced)
- Thread starter Gaze-bo
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Lord_Mortis
Crying Dude
Does anyone else just love putting a vampire on a barded nightmare, giving him all the armour and just flashing him out with Red Fury and Obsidian Blade? I wish I could have photographed the look on my opponents face when I killed his entire unit of knights of the realm with just my vampire.
Pure example of just how versatile vampires are. And it's was an awesome and hilarious moment XD
Pure example of just how versatile vampires are. And it's was an awesome and hilarious moment XD
Yorga said:
Yeah, but cutting out a good chuck of those attacks helps. And for what does get through, you have to deal with at worst a T5 and 1+ or 2+ AS with a 4+ WS. I generally don't have to worry about my R&F getting hit as I run a Brett themed list so run my bus in a lance formation.
midean said:
That's a pretty cool idea. That way you can have your BK std, musician and champ up front and all the characters in the second rank and then make way as you please when they get into combat.
You really don't need rank bonuses.
For the most time your Blender Vamps and Lord will deal enough damage to make the +1 or +2 CR from your rank bonus seem useless but I don't see the point running them in lance formation (except when playing a bretonian themed list of course) for some reason.
- First because of the rules for Steadfast. The enemy unit needs just a single rank after the first to gain Steadfast and test on their Leadership unaffected by CR. The Cav Star is a shock unit that should break the enemy in the first round of combat (because of rubber-lance-syndrome, counter charges in your back or flank etc). When running a lance formation you don't have the problem of the rubber-lance-syndrome (except you're running your vamps with lances) but you definitely don't want to get charged in your enormous huge flank. So breaking your enemy fast with the Cav Star is essential no matter.
- Secondly because sometimes it is exactly this +1 or +2 you need to win the combat (happened a few times to me and I was glad to have it).
- And lastly because I want the black knights in combat. I love their T4, 2+ armour save and Killing Blow. Of course, 8 attacks at WS3 and S6 won't do that much compared to your Blenders but Killing Blow does and there is always the chance of rolling a 6 against a character.
I admit I have changed formation against some enemies but I always start with a 5 wide front.
- First because of the rules for Steadfast. The enemy unit needs just a single rank after the first to gain Steadfast and test on their Leadership unaffected by CR. The Cav Star is a shock unit that should break the enemy in the first round of combat (because of rubber-lance-syndrome, counter charges in your back or flank etc). When running a lance formation you don't have the problem of the rubber-lance-syndrome (except you're running your vamps with lances) but you definitely don't want to get charged in your enormous huge flank. So breaking your enemy fast with the Cav Star is essential no matter.
- Secondly because sometimes it is exactly this +1 or +2 you need to win the combat (happened a few times to me and I was glad to have it).
- And lastly because I want the black knights in combat. I love their T4, 2+ armour save and Killing Blow. Of course, 8 attacks at WS3 and S6 won't do that much compared to your Blenders but Killing Blow does and there is always the chance of rolling a 6 against a character.
I admit I have changed formation against some enemies but I always start with a 5 wide front.
Well that's one of the nice things about running a bus is you can go either lance formation or run 5 wide. Just depends of what your throwing them against. Although I always worry about getting hit in the flank with a larger lance formation I use the same chaff/redirecters that clear the way for my bus to keep my flanks clear. And as for the unit being steadfast having that 1 or 2 ranks is only going to help against a MMU sized unit where you might get them down below 2 ranks to try and break them. Bigger units will still be steadfast for a couple rounds. So you really just have to look at what your hitting, where your hitting (front-flank) and decide is it worth going 5 wide and maybe suffer some losses in R&F or go lance with 3 characters at T5, high WS and 1+ AS and 4+WS with the nightshround negating most high S attacks back. Against S3-4 targets yeah I'll go wider. Against higher S targets you'll be hitting a T5 wall. It's all about the numbers.....
Gaze-bo said:
Do you think you get this done, say, during the weekend? I see a few games coming in the near future and I would like to see some other opinions on the deployment and general behaviour of the units on the tabletop during movement. I always suck when it comes to deployment so any input would be appreciated. Thanks a lot!
whats the "lance formation" look like, i though u needed 5 wide minimum for units.
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is it like the above?
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is it like the above?
Lance is three models wide. You just need to be 5 models wide to get a rank bonus but otherwise there are no restrictions (just that every rank has to be the same width except the last one which can be smaller). The term lance formation comes from the Bretonnian Army Book. Bretonnian Knights just need to be 3 wide to get the rank bonus and every knight at the flank can fight as long as a fighting knight is in his front.
All very good stuff here, however there's a small design flaw...
A thermal exhaust port, if you will.
No magic defense. Where's the MR2 or MR3?
The VL lord has a 4+ ward. What happens when someone spirit leaches him and rolls a 6, and u roll a 1? Do u want a 4+ or 2+? Just a 4+? Ok fine... Fail 3 4+ wards on bad dice... It happens, right?
Kabooooom
And don't get me started on Banishment.
Death Stars are supposed to withstand crazy amounts of punishment. Without MR this is just the Deathstar in Empire.
You want the Deathstar in Jedi, where it can only die from within... Ie. dimensional cascade.
Maybe I'm being too cautious... Or maybe I'm speaking from battle-hardened experience.
Other than that, very killy stuff... Too Killy if u ask me, but I do enjoy my MR.
Edit: ok I saw the first post listed as MR being the 4th and last choice among a number of little things. IMO magic res should be a requisite, not an option when it comes to character heavy Death Stars. But that's just me
A thermal exhaust port, if you will.
No magic defense. Where's the MR2 or MR3?
The VL lord has a 4+ ward. What happens when someone spirit leaches him and rolls a 6, and u roll a 1? Do u want a 4+ or 2+? Just a 4+? Ok fine... Fail 3 4+ wards on bad dice... It happens, right?
Kabooooom
And don't get me started on Banishment.
Death Stars are supposed to withstand crazy amounts of punishment. Without MR this is just the Deathstar in Empire.
You want the Deathstar in Jedi, where it can only die from within... Ie. dimensional cascade.
Maybe I'm being too cautious... Or maybe I'm speaking from battle-hardened experience.
Other than that, very killy stuff... Too Killy if u ask me, but I do enjoy my MR.
Edit: ok I saw the first post listed as MR being the 4th and last choice among a number of little things. IMO magic res should be a requisite, not an option when it comes to character heavy Death Stars. But that's just me
But how does the Lodestone help the unit... surely it will just give the character MR? One of the MR items even says "grants the bearer MR (2)". The (3) and (1) mysteriously don't, so maybe that's not just bad editing...?
Nagashizzar
Vargheist
I'm really sorry I took so long but now I've made an update to the post and written about deployment, usage and some other stuff concerning the Deathstar. I've been really busy lately but been doing allot of thinking (especially during this weekend when I used the deathstar in a tournament, to bad I only got 2nd place...)
Also, Thanks for all the positive feedback!
Also, Thanks for all the positive feedback!
Yorga said:Grats on 2d place!What did you lose to?
2500p tournament, no comp rules, SC allowed, you randomly get one of the 6 standard scenarios from the BRB, 6 games spread across 2 days.
I lost to my biggest rival who played Daemons of Chaos this game, we where in the final last tournament as well... The Scenario was watchtower and I couldn't deploy in it since I had no unit with less than 20 models (Stupid me!). The watchtower was empty the first 3 turns while I constantly threw raise dead in front of his Plaguebearers and Bloodletters while trying to rush into the tower with my large unit of ghouls. I didn't have enough zombies on one flank (where he had some Screamers of Tzeentch, Bloodcrushers and Khorne hounds) This made him able to charge my ghouls with a unit of bloodletters and by that making it first to the tower with his Plaguebearers who just had killed the last zombies turn 3.
The ghouls was dying and my deathstar had destroyed everything on the other flank, the Plaguebearers entered the tower turn 4 forcing me to charge it with my Deathstar while I had 2 Terrorgheists scream at it. I think I killed 20 Plaguebearers (almost half of them in Combat resolution) and would have completely destroyed them and taken the tower turn 5 if he hadn't been able to block my path with his last 3 Bloodletter models (the ghouls and a terrorgheist had killed the other 22) stopping me from charging turn 5. I rolled bad on the screams and so he had 5 plaguebearers left in there. My Deathstar where fully healed with no wounds (he only had a lvl2 Tzeentch Loremaster so my magic phases went along fine for my Lvl4 General) but had to charge the plaguebearers, couldn't overrun into the tower and at the end of turn 5 I rolled a 5 in the scenario rules and he won. Another turn and I would have won... :frown:
I took about 1300 VP, he took 300. Not that it matters in watchtower.
