AoS Daughters of khaine and nagash

Discussion in 'Seraphon Tactics' started by John1974, Nov 14, 2018.

  1. John1974
    Cold One

    John1974 Active Member

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    So looking to join a comp in the coming month and it's at 2k, and surprise surprise it has a few legions of nagash and alot of daughters of khaine.
    What's a good list to deal with these OP armies and how are people tackling DOK armies strategy wise, from what I've seen, they are near impossible to defeat
     
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  2. PJetski
    Chameleon Skink

    PJetski Active Member

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    Thunderquake Starhost, with a Doppelganger Cloak on Engine of the Gods is a hard counter to Daughters.
    You can put 4x Salamanders with an Astrolith Bearer in there to reroll hits and wounds... not much can stand up to that kind of focused fire.
     
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  3. LizardWizard
    OldBlood

    LizardWizard Grand Skink Handler Staff Member

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    Shadowstrike Starhost is pretty decent vs both LoN and DoK.

    Speed bump Skeletons. LoS with Arkhan and 120 skeles is pretty much an auto win for them. You can not win the combat side of the game. The only way to win is to avoid their hordes and keep them tied up with Chafe. Play the objective game and pretend you are just trying to harvest the field or something. Tie up the Skeletons and try to get first turn. Bring Cameleon Skinks if you expect the Death players to take the speedy skele battalion. You can use them to tie up the Skeletons in the Hero Phase to prevent their bonus move. Lords of Space and Time is your best friend vs LoS. An allied Knight Incantor isn't a bad idea either. She an auto unbind a crucial Vanhel's Danse Macabre, her area ranged spell can slow down the hordes movements, and you could then take the SCE comet spell if you desire.

    Kill Morathi before she turns. If she turns just seepbumb her and ignore her. DoK are great at being able to pick contained fights and win them. They are weak to counter attacks though. Many DoK players will try to only engage with one unit of Witch Elves as a result. If you can make them chose between which unit of WE attacks first then you will likely wipe out the second one. Do what you can to prevent them form being the one who charged. WE are significantly weaker when not on the charge. Put your shooting into Doomfire Warlocks and any large units of Witch Elves first.
     
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  4. Nart
    Carnasaur

    Nart Well-Known Member

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    How's that possible, if she takes only 3 wounds per turn? Only if you manage to inflict 3 wounds on turn 1, then she doesn't transform turn 2 by will or automaticaly?
     
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  5. LizardWizard
    OldBlood

    LizardWizard Grand Skink Handler Staff Member

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    Yep. Go second. Wound her, get the double turn, wound her again.

    Normally you want to force her transformation to make her a weaker wizard, then just keep speedbumping her all game. That is what Skinks do best.
     
  6. Tokek
    Chameleon Skink

    Tokek Well-Known Member

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    Also there is an exception to the Morathi rule for Endless Spells. If you get an endless spell to hit her before the first player turn of the battle round it does not count towards the limit of how much damage she can take per turn.

    https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/...r_malign_sorcery_designers_commmentary_en.pdf

    A pendulum can ruin her day. Pendulum plus some others can totally ruin her day and take her right off the table.

    It is really obscure, I would suggest having a print-out of that FAQ if you are planning on doing this to Morathi as the DOK player is probably unaware of it and having Morathi taken off without a chance to react might be a real shock to the player.
     
  7. Nart
    Carnasaur

    Nart Well-Known Member

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    It is almost impossible to achieve.

    1) You must teleport starpriest to cast it;
    2) Spell must not be undbound;
    3) You should place it in suitable place, so it can reach Morathi the nex turn;
    4) Opponent, for some reason, won't be able to move Morathi from the line of spell's movement;
    5) He doesn't dispell it;
    6) You have to roll at lest 3+;
    7) You still can put 1-3 wounds on her in your turn.

    Consider, that the player, who goes second in turn, moves the spells first, so add here that you must be going second.

    In the end, if stars are right, and you could do it, was it really worth it? Morathi is really a pain in battleplans where you have to take objectives by characters. Otherwise, she can be swarmed with skinks.
     
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  8. Tokek
    Chameleon Skink

    Tokek Well-Known Member

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    Basically if you are currently going second you can pull it off. If you are going first trickery with endless spells will usually be harder to pull off.

    1. Or cast an umbral spellportal and send your damaging spell through it.
    2. You should at least have +1 to cast, possibly +2 with constellation or even +3 with Curse of Fate; Morathi only gets a +1. If using a spellportal you can do all the casting from outside unbind range anyway.
    3. Yes, that is why you used teleport or the spellportal
    4. If you are going second the turn you do this they get no chance
    5. If you are going second the turn you do this they get no chance
    6. Yes you need to roll 3+ on the initial D6 to get maximum results. Not guaranteed but if you roll badly and teleported your starpriest top up the damage with an offensive spell from your Slann using Arcane Vassal so the Slann is outside unbind range.
    7. Yes if you fall short by a wound or two you can finish her off in your turn because the pre-turn wounds do not count towards the limit of 3. Unless you got the double-turn she will probably go monstrous so you will have more wounds to take off but she will really struggle to unbind your spells.

    If you tool up to maximise this sort of tactic it is fairly likely to work but far from guaranteed; this is a dice game and a crippling blow like this should not be auto-succeed. If you have not tooled up for it but happen to have a suitable endless spell and want to have a go then it is more of a long shot.

    The real key to success is that on the turn when you unleash endless spell shenanigans you usually want to be the player who is going second. If you are going first and your opponent understands how this works then you should assume they will do everything in their power to avoid it - to an extent you can use that fact to dictate or limit their play but its really not as good as taking Morathi off the table. If your opponent does not know how this works (and as I said it is pretty obscure) they may walk into it the first time you play them but they will surely learn their lesson.
     
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  9. Nart
    Carnasaur

    Nart Well-Known Member

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    1. So you must successfully cast 2 spells. Any of them failded/unbound and all the plan will cripple.
    2. You have only one reliable +1 - from Astrolith. Chance to get constellation is 1/3 - very unreliable. Casting curse of fates may be easy, but it is still can be unbound and will apply only to one roll. This means you need to take Vast Intellect instead of Great Rememberer.
    3. Spell portal is good at it, but still don't grant you infinite range. There is still a chance it won't be enough, but OK, assuming that you managed to cast it.
    4. Why are you saying it like if you go second, you automatically have a double turn? Lose the roll, and you are screwed.
    5. If you go first the turn after, you cannot move Pendulum. If you go second, Morathi will simply move out of the line.
    6. You cannot cast endless spells from arcane vassal.
    7. Don't forget she has 6+ save from MWs. After all lucky saves you made above, you still have another one. If you deal less than 3 wounds, you just won't kill her in the following turn - she will be left with 1.

    In short, dice gods must be really on your side to pull this out. And if they are on your side, why bother with strategy?
     
  10. Tokek
    Chameleon Skink

    Tokek Well-Known Member

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    It's a dice game. There are ways to mitigate bad rolls here and in some parts there can be back-up plans for bad dice rolls but it is still a dice game. If you want do do something dramatic and game-changing like this there will be a few dice involved. You want certainty you are playing the wrong game.

    I used pendulum in the example because regardless of who goes first next turn the limitations on its movement mean that a well-placed pendulum is inescapable. Check out its rules and the FAQ on them.

    But honestly if you have terrible dice, your opponent can roll 6's for days or just perfectly anticipates everything you do and perfectly counters it then I guess you lose. *Shrug*. You don't like the tactic, don't use it. Does not mean it is not a viable trick to pull off in the hands of other players who want to use it; nor is it an auto-win, nor should it be.
     
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  11. LizardWizard
    OldBlood

    LizardWizard Grand Skink Handler Staff Member

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    Yep, the only "reliable" method is to hit Morathi in Elf form, trigger her snake form, and speed bump/ignore her. You can kill her if you get the double turn, but it isn't guaranteed. Either way, you want to go second vs DoK most of the time. Dok on the double turn is very painful and you need to make sure they don't get that opportunity till after turn three. Focus on killing off Witch Alef units and Doomfire Warlocks. Morathi doesn't win the game on her own. She can only be in one place at a time and most Battleplans have more than one objective.
     
  12. Nart
    Carnasaur

    Nart Well-Known Member

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    Yes, but there is a difference between 2+ roll and 6+ roll. Here you need a consequence of successful rolls and failed roll from opponent, and if you fail any single of them, you lose. It was OK, if you needn't invest in it. Portal and pendulum all cost points. You still need put Slann in position, that can end up dangerous for him, sacrifice cast attempts, etc. Warhammer is about mitigating random, not relying on it.

    Killing Morathi with Endless spells is more of a fun fact, than a working strategy. And it even doesn't win you a game, because DoK still have 1500 pts of their army, which can decimate anything.
     
  13. Tokek
    Chameleon Skink

    Tokek Well-Known Member

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    Dude, I'm done. If you regard getting off a spell with a casting value of 6 as ridiculously difficult with Seraphon then that is just your opinion.
     
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  14. Putzfrau
    Skar-Veteran

    Putzfrau Well-Known Member

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    Morathi doesn't seem like she'd be the main concern regardless, its the hordes of witch elves.

    I feel like any difficult fight for seraphon always has one answer: defensive play with skinks.

    I haven't played DoK so i can only presume, but it seems like thats been the lizardmen solution for the last 4 editions...
     
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  15. LizardWizard
    OldBlood

    LizardWizard Grand Skink Handler Staff Member

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    Yep. Speed bump all game. Let their 480 point model spend all game kill 60 points of Skinks a turn. lol
     
  16. Nart
    Carnasaur

    Nart Well-Known Member

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    Don't take my words out of contex, please. Needing to cast spells is probably the easiest part here.
     
  17. Aginor
    Slann

    Aginor Fifth Spawning Staff Member

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    Things like that make people furious. :Dl
    One day I tanked a Maw-Krusha with a horde of Skeletons, for three rounds or more, which is basically the same thing. The Ironjawz player was.... not happy.
     
  18. Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl
    Slann

    Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl Eleventh Spawning

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    I can tell you how I would approach these armies with Fyreslayers, but Seraphon I’m not so sure about.

    DoK are probably one of the nicest opponents for Fyreslayers - they are both melee armies, so it’s really a matter of who charges first. Fyreslayers are actually superior to Daughters one-on-one, because of their armour, better Ward saves and being better in combat, but Daughters are faster and they have magic (the latter of course is easier for you Seraphon players because you have wizards aplenty). Concerning Morathi, just try to knock the maximum 3 wounds off her each turn and don’t waste any more fire on her. She only has 6 wounds in the beginning so if you’re lucky you can kill her in 2 turns. If she transforms after the first 3 wounds, those wounds suffered not only carry over, they double, so she will only have 6 wounds left if she does transform. This means that if you keep up the flak, you can kill her in another 2 turns after transformation. Also remember that her magic output decreases a lot when she transforms (she can only cast and unbind one spell compared to 3 when she hasn’t transformed). People say witch elves are scary but they have truly dreadful save rolls so just focus all your remaining fire on machine-gunning them down before they get to you.

    LoN are a different story of course - they rely more on spamming hordes of expendable Undead rather than elite troops, but then Seraphon are a summoning Army too so you should be able to spam units to match them. I’d say Saurus are individually stronger than Skeletons so try to spam Saurus units to whittle them down or Skinks to act as Sword-fodder as others say, while using your better units to hug objectives.

    Hope this is useful anyway.
     
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  19. Killer Angel
    Slann

    Killer Angel Prophet of the Stars Staff Member

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    Well, to sacrifice chaffs to block costly units was a tactic also in old WHFB...
     
  20. IggyStarhost
    Ripperdactil

    IggyStarhost Well-Known Member

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    On the Mortahi part. She can take max 3 damage per turn right? And not max 3 per battle round?

    So in each battleround max 6 damage? That makes her less scary than I thought.
     
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