8th Ed. Defeating The New Nagash

So it's come to my attention that Games Workshops new model, Nagash, is a complete and utter killing machine (after looking at the rules). Is there anything that the children of the Old Ones may utilize in order to bring down this heinous abomination that stands as an affront to our Great Plan? My go to plan for dealing with monsters are either a bunch of Kroxigor or Sharpened Horns Ancient Stegadon charges. But then I read he has access to d3 multiple wounds and heroic killing blow! Like wholly crap, I bet all the (awake) Slann will need to convene in order to solve this threat.

Nagash ruleshttp://http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/n...page=3&num=15&_wpnonce=92e6665ef5#post-104285

He has no weakness really other than his absurd point cost. The statlines too good to kill him with Death snipe spells and he's strong enough to hold his own against an Oldblood on a Carnosaur before spells are factored in. This is my hypothetical plan for beating him.

If I was building a 4000 point LM list specifically to kill Nagash I would start with a Slann with Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cognition, Harmonic Convergence, Channeling Staff and either take Unfathomable Presence or one of the upper level MR bestowing talisimans. Then give him a unit of AT LEAST 40 Temple Guard. You want the Razor Standard or War Banner.

I would take at two Carnosaur riding Saurus characters (I'd favor Strength boosters, the Other Trickster's Shard, and pretty much any potion). I'd probably take Tet and two or three Skink priests (with Lore of Beasts since Tet has Heaven's covered).

I would cast Arcane Forging at Nagash at every opportunity. Take his magic armor and he is Carnosaur chow. Take his magic weapon and he can no longer beat a Carnosaur rider in a straight fight. Take his Arcane item and he loses four spells. PROBABLY this will draw Nagash's dispel dice. One thing Nagash can't do is dispel spells in an exceptional fashion (besides +5 I guess), so either the player will have to take the hit with Arcane Forging or give you a free reign with the rest of the casting phase. Keep Drain Magic. Cast Soul Quench and Tempest once (at units screening Nagash) and then swap them out for Light spells (direct damage for wilting Nagash's support units, but mostly you want the buffs).

Use Tet's Vanguard and/or Walk Between Worlds to shove your Carnosaurs down the throat of Nagash's model. Once the unit is pinned in place you SHOULD control the board since your opponent spent 1000 points on one model. Therefore you should be able to flank the enemy Deathstar with Kroxigor, an Ancient Stegadon, Carnosaur or Saurus Cowboy (or multiple tihings!). Once in close combat you want to cast Hand of Glory (unless you get Speed of Light then you can ditch Hand of Glory), Birona's Time Warp if you got it, Curse of the Midnight Wind, and Harmonic Convergence and maybe Wyssans or Ice Shard Blizzard if you have power dice to spare.

If Nagash tries to avoids combat that's spectacular. First off that's more opportunities to hit him with Arcane Forging. More importantly his ridiculously strong statline is meaningless outside of close combat making him basically an overpriced Slann. Take the rest of his army apart and win by points.
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An alternative would be to take two Slann instead of a Focus of Mystery Slann (probably want to leave out Tet with ths). The Slann take Light and one with Shadow. Once hexed to a manageable level, your Carnosaur riders should be able to beat Nagash down. Steed of Shadows is a huge plus to let you move a Carnosaur into range (I don't see any text saying the character has to be on foot). If you roll the Withering you can combo it with augmented Shem's Burning Gaze or Banishment to knock Nagash down a peg.

Can he heal up his wounds?

Otherwise, couldn't large numbers of skink skirmishers wear him down over a few turns? (although only 25% of the sixes will get past his armor & ward). Or atleast bring his wounds down enough so it will be tricky for him to risk combat with a serious unit.

Keep in mind that Nagash can be fielded in a 2000 point game if using the new supplement rules from end times supplement (Lords can be up to 50% of your army).

borkbork said:

Can he heal up his wounds?

Otherwise, couldn't large numbers of skink skirmishers wear him down over a few turns? (although only 25% of the sixes will get past his armor & ward). Or atleast bring his wounds down enough so it will be tricky for him to risk combat with a serious unit.

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Good idea, but the lore of Vampires can heal one wound per successful spell cast. Add to this that he can just the Lore of Vampires Counts signature spell Invocation of Nehek he can heal 1d6+5 wounds!

rychek said:

Keep in mind that Nagash can be fielded in a 2000 point game if using the new supplement rules from end times supplement (Lords can be up to 50% of your army).

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Take two fully loaded Oldbloods on Carnosaurs with your 1000 points of Lords. Alternatively, put away the minis and play an RPG which generally has more interesting character versus character combat if that's what you are going for.

Just use the built-in balances that the game provides -

Scenarios and the #6 spells.

Sleboda said:

Just use the built-in balances that the game provides -

Scenarios and the #6 spells.

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Exactly what I was thinking.

We dont have to defeat HIM.

1) maske sure Tour friend tell you that he intent to use Nagash. He is after all quite powerful.

2) get a cohort unit of 100 skinks and 2 scrolls.

3) while Nagash is good in the magic phase he isn't THAT good. Scroll spells he needs and dispel the rest for 2 turns.

4) at T3 you better be able to get into close combat with him with your skinks. They can last the rest of the game.

5) @2000pts he only have 500pts left to special/rare unit. Hardly an issue. Their core is utter trash as well.



Nagash will want to raise a lot of units to compensate for his high cost. If we can get to T3 without him having raised more units we can probably also remove what he had to begin with. This mean that while he may go about and raise 600pts of core we don't care much. Just take it down. Obviously we cannot stop everything he throws at us so he'll probably try and bait us by raising core first or something like that. In CC he can't use damage spells so he'll need somewhat restricted.
Should the player decide to have a scroll caddy he'll only have roughly 400pts at his disposal after core tax.

Try and get 1st turn by having few drops. 100 skinks is a decent start. Also this trying to do a hardcore list tailor. All I'm asking for is 2 scrolls and a single tarpit that can last. Everything else can be fast moving in order to quickly kill his core, but isn't strictly necesssry.

Nagash is ridiculous, but the rest if the army isnt.

Scalenex said:

borkbork said:

Can he heal up his wounds?

Otherwise, couldn't large numbers of skink skirmishers wear him down over a few turns? (although only 25% of the sixes will get past his armor & ward). Or atleast bring his wounds down enough so it will be tricky for him to risk combat with a serious unit.

Click to expand...

Good idea, but the lore of Vampires can heal one wound per successful spell cast. Add to this that he can just the Lore of Vampires Counts signature spell Invocation of Nehek he can heal 1d6+5 wounds!

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How could i forget.....played VC only 2 weeks ago, and he was indeed healing all the time. So yeah, grinding him down won't work.

For my O&G probably the best way to tacle Nagash would be a 100-200 strong unit of Goblin Archers with the Spider banner (poison) and than hoping you will get gift of the spider god off (for 5+ poison). And that only works if the Nagash player would be stupid enough to dance in front of that unit.

Honestly not seeing this as that threatening... These stats, while good, are subpar at best, considering his massive cost. My immediate though was "Throw a massive saurus unit with lots of characters against him, make sure at least 1 confers stubborn, get tons of beast priets, buff their s and t to ridiculous levels, and go to town. With only 2 wyssans, you'll be wounding on 5s, with 3 you will be wounding on 4s, and he'll now wound on 3s.

Even better if you have a light slann to support them, but it isn't even necessary. Just stick a slann with banner of disc nearby, and they'll never, ever, break.

I know my local player wants to do this at 4k points. We agreed that, considering this is nagash we are talking about, it made sense that the lizardmen would gather their absolute best defensive line. No way they wouldn't see a guy like this coming.

Nagash likely isn't intended as an addition to the codex, but rather a "you can have fun with this if you want" model, that you need permission to use. A lot like how forge world is generally considered "on permission only" use.

Sleboda said:

Just use the built-in balances that the game provides -

Scenarios and the #6 spells.

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I agree with this. Also, if he's undead (which i assume he is) you can static combat res him to death. or dwellers/final trans as Sleb mentioned.
Also, maybe doom/darkness followed by spirit leech may be useful.

Dwellers can't hurt him without some hex assists. He is S7.
Purple Sun can't hurt him without some hex assists. His is I6
Final Transmutation could work, but only 33% chance of success.

Dwellers and purple sun can't hurt Tyrion either... yet I have lost him to these things both times i have used him in the last 12 months (yes, I've used him only twice in 12 months because this happens).

But Doom/Darkness him to LD 7 and combat res the crap out of him

CR with what? He have 7 attacks + a thunderstomp. I think he can easily gain at least 4 kills unless unlucky.

Flanks and rears, and ranks and banners. You know, the same way you beat a dragon. He is the same as a Star Dragon, after all. Only, he loses wounds instead of running away.

Actually.. Templeguards with banner, slann with BSB and the war banner will give a static CR of 6, assuming 3 ranks.

Nagash only have 6 attacks and not 7. *if* we can get both doom and darkness and the -1S/T we should actually win combat.

The other option is to throw a steg into him with sharpened horns and a big, fat unit of cold ones (so he can't stomp)

Theres not a real good way to end Nagash. Wound him? He just heals his wounds. Win in CR? he can do a good bunch of CR himself, he gets -2 to crumble and then he just heals himself. And good luck getting to him with all the core blocking.

Cannons are the way to go, too bad we dont have any. But cannons also need like on avg. 4 bullseye hits to kill him. He will most likely try to heal himself if you dont finish him. We also dont have any HKB.

Maybe a Shadow Slann+TG with succesful Mindrazor? And as suggested earlier, arcane unforging/final trasmutation are good bets.

NexS1 said:

Dwellers and purple sun can't hurt Tyrion either... yet I have lost him to these things both times i have used him in the last 12 months (yes, I've used him only twice in 12 months because this happens).

But Doom/Darkness him to LD 7 and combat res the crap out of him

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Is it safe to assume Tyrion was hit by some hex or other that dropped his stats? If so, statistically speaking, how reliably would such a tactic work against Nagash?

Final Transmutation, or, better yet, Arcane Unforging sounds more likely to succeed, IMO.

No need. A 6 always fails.