8th Ed. 2500 vs Dark Elves

[hdctambien]

I finally had a successful battle against the local Dark Elf player!

His list is approximately:

General on Fast Cav (str 7 and bounce-back ward, causes terror?)
Level 4 on Fast Cav (dispel scroll)
BSB on Fast Cav (Cause me to miscast on double 1's)

18 Warlocks (or maybe 16... 3 ranks worth with a few empty spaces i the bank rank once characters join)

3 Repeater Bolt Throwers

7x 5 Dark Riders with Musicians

2x 9 Shades

All the characters are in the Warlocks and the Wizard takes Dark Magic, plus the Warlocks have their two spells. They may have other magic items that I didn't list, I'm not too sure.

The list I ran was:

Slann
BSB (War Banner)
Focus of Mystery (Loremaster High)
Becalming Cogitation (reroll dispel attempts)
Transcendent Healing (weird regeneration)
Higher Consciousness (ethereal & unstable)
Sword of Anti-Heroes
Other Tricksters Shard
Obsidian Amulet
Dispel Scroll

Scar Vet #1
Cold One
Gold Sigil Sword (Initiative 10)
Dawnstone
Shield

Scar Vet #2
Cold One
Armor of Destiny
Great Weapon

Scar Vet #3
Cold One
Talisman of Preservation
Light Armor
Dragonbane Gem
Great Weapon

Skink Chief
Ripperdactyl
Light Armor
Shield
Spear
Luckstone
Stegadon Helm

4x 10 Skink Skirmishers
Jav & Shield

3x 11 Skink Cohorts w/ 1 Kroxigor ea.
Javs & Shields
Standard

2x 5 Chameleon Skinks

2x 3 Ripperdactyl Riders

Ancient Stegadon
Sharpened Horns
Engine of the Gods


He started deployment by putting his Warlocks in the center of his deployment. Then he puts his Bolt Throwers on the hill in his territory, and finally he starts lining his Dark Riders up across his deployment boundary forming a vanguard wall.

I bunched all my stuff up on the right side of the table and used my scouts to block him from vanguarding into that space.

He put his scouts in the left side of my zone that I left empty. Then he vanguarded as many Dark Riders as he could while I moved my Ripperdactyls up in front of my Stegadon and Scar Vets.

I dropped my Blot Toads on two of the units of Dark Riders that were in front of his Bolt Throwers.

I didn't take any photos of this game, but I did draw this terrible (not to scale) picture:



Normally the Dark Elf player wins because everyone tries different ways to crack the Warlock block and everyone fails.

Instead, I avoided the Warlocks and sent almost everything I had after the Repeater Bolt Throwers. My Slann, a unit of Skinks, and Scar Vet #2 went after the Shades. I basically gave up the middle of the board and turned the battle into two separate fights on each flank.

Early on it started to look bad when Scar Vet #1 was killed by heavy Bolt Thrower fire and Dark/Warlock magic causing my left-most Skrox unit to panic through all the other Skrox units, which caused the middle Skrox unit to panic all the way off the board...

He sent his Warlocks after my Slann, but my Slann just kept them running in circles. Whenever he thought he had me right where he wanted me, I got Walk Between Worlds off and jetted away to safety.

The Skink Chief wrecked a unit of Dark Riders, as did the units of Ripperdactyls (even after losing a model in each unit from shooting)

By turn 4 I had reduced the Dark Riders on the right side to 1 or 2 models each and taken out all of his Both Throwers with Rippers and Skinks.

The Engine of the Gods' Burning Alignment was finishing off the minimized units of Dark Riders while my Slann was throwing Soul Quench and Fireballs at the Shades. Eventually the Warlocks realized they couldn't catch my Slann and turned their attentions towards my Stegadon... Steggie didn't last long after that.

Scar Vet #2 kept the Shades and Dark Riders scurrying about, and eventually he caught a few of them and finished them off. Meanwhile the Slann got off a turn 5 Fiery Convocation that finished off the last of the Shades and they tried to get out of harms way.

I ended up losing both units of Chameleon Skinks, my Stegadon, 1 unit of Ripperdactyls, the Skink Chief, and Scar Vet #1. (One of my Skink Skirmisher units was reduced to a single fleeing Skink, but he lived to fight another day!)

I killed everything in the Dark Elf army except 1 unit of Dark Riders, the Warlocks, and all his characters... I ended up winning by just over 200 points! (since at least half of his army was in the Warlock unit ... I knew I wouldn't be scoring too many points...)

He wants to play my list again next week. I don't think he's going to chase after my Slann so aggressively next time and he'll probably focus on killing everything else in my army. I don't know if this army is will be a one trick pony or not.

I'll be making a few minor adjustments to the Slann load out. I'm dropping the Sword of Anti-Heroes and OTS for the Fencer's Blades and Potion of Foolhardiness. I really want my Slann to get into some Shades or Dark Riders and get some Elf blood on his hands!

I'm also trading the Skink Chief's Spear for a Javelin so he can take some pot shots on his way to combat.

What do you think? Do I have a chance at winning the rematch?

 

[cwalker]

What about a skink chief on a Terradon with a blowpipe? He can drop rocks and blowpipe a Dark Rider unit. Should do so e damage. Give him shield of ptolos and dawn stone !

Take the ancient steg with 4 giant blowpipes. That should hurt those dark rider units. Put a dent in the warlocks too.

Could also run Life Slaan in a big unit of TG. Tried and true tactic. Dwellers those wimpy Elves to oblivion. If he wants to take Warlocks into your TG then he should go for it.

 

[hdctambien]

What about a skink chief on a Terradon with a blowpipe? He can drop rocks and blowpipe a Dark Rider unit. Should do so e damage. Give him shield of ptolos and dawn stone !

Take the ancient steg with 4 giant blowpipes. That should hurt those dark rider units. Put a dent in the warlocks too.

Could also run Life Slaan in a big unit of TG. Tried and true tactic. Dwellers those wimpy Elves to oblivion. If he wants to take Warlocks into your TG then he should go for it.

When the new book first came out I was taking a Chief on a Terradon, but in close combat the Ripper is far better than the Terradon, and I can get him into more close combats than the Terradon has rocks to drop!

I also ran the math on BS5 Jav vs BS5 Blowpipe and the Jav produces a wound a little more often than the Blowpipe does (although the blowpipe has the potential to product 2 wounds, the Jav is Str 4 when th Chief throws it!)

I'll definitely think about dropping the Engine of the Gods for the blowpipes. I'll have to see how it compares to the Burning Alignment. Because it's hard to pin down the Dark Riders, and because there are so many of them, the bubble of damage works pretty well at blasting the elves to oblivion. And the 6+ ward is nice to have against all the armor piercing shooting his army produces.

My previous army was actually a Life Slann rocking the Skavenpelt Banner in a horde of Temple Guard with the Razor Banner (and a Scar Vet was in there for support, too) Turns out the Warlocks (with 3 characters) kick the crap out of that unit in a jiffy...

Also, the store has 2 house rules. #1) Hills and Forests block line of sight (for shooting, war machines, and charging) and #2) You get a Ward Save+ MR vs the big spells that normally don't allow any saves of any kind (but only down to a 4+) So Dwellers only works half as well against the Warlocks here... but I think that's the only real option for taking that unit out. (I don't really like this house rule, and it turns out the guy that game up with it is this particular Dark Elf player! He is also the local store's TO for Fantasy.)

 

[havik110]

you could always switch to a kroak bomb list...add croak, remove kroxes for a few priests and proceed to spam the deliverance

 

[cwalker]

I would suggest playing the game by the actual rules - it does not seem fair to put in a house rule that just allows you to do this.

Of course you could do that also - bring a Death Star of Cold One Riders packed full of Old Bloods and Scar Vets.

 

[laribold]

Can't your Slann take on the Warlock bus by himself?

He's only got one character in there with magic weapons (the lord) that can hurt your Slann. Your Sword of AntiHeroes will give you a 4 attacks at strength 7 and he'll have to reroll any wards as well.

You've got High Magic too, so try and Arcane his magic weapon away (assuming he has one), or else use it to Apotheosis any wounds you might take from the Lord/crumbling.

High risk but potentially high reward.

Oh and surely you can thin that big warlock bus down with some shooting (skinks/razordons/salamanders). Sure they've got a 4+ ward, but they are only T3...

 

[hdctambien]

Can't your Slann take on the Warlock bus by himself?

He's only got one character in there with magic weapons (the lord) that can hurt your Slann. Your Sword of AntiHeroes will give you a 4 attacks at strength 7 and he'll have to reroll any wards as well.

You've got High Magic too, so try and Arcane his magic weapon away (assuming he has one), or else use it to Apotheosis any wounds you might take from the Lord/crumbling.

High risk but potentially high reward.

I don't think the Slann (even with a best case Anti-Hero situation) wins against a decked out Dreadlord.

I ran the numbers and this is what they looked like, assuming the Slann charges in and gets into base contact with the BSB and Wizard and then gets involved in a Challenge with the General (moving the Slann into contact with all three Dark Elf Characters)

Dreadlord hits 2.66 times, plus 0.89 more times from rerolls, totaling 3.55 hits (from 4 attacks...).
He wounds 2.96 times plus 0.49 more from rerolling 1's totaling 3.45 wounds (why do Dark Elves even bother rolling?)
The Slann saves half of those, taking 1.72 wounds.

The Slann, has 5 attacks at WS 2 and S 6. He hits 1.33 times and wounds 1.11 times.
The Dreadlord gets a 4+ save, reducing that to 0.55 wounds
Then he gets a 4+ ward, reducing the wounds to 0.27, but he has to reroll his successful ward saves
So the Slann ultimately deals 0.4 wounds to the Dreadlord...

And the Black Amulet bounces the 0.15 wounds back at the Slann who takes 0.07 more wounds after his Ward giving him a grand total off 1.72 wounds taken.

So, the Slann has a CR of Charge+BSB+WarBanner+0.4 wounds = 3.4
The Warlocks have BSB+2 Ranks+1.72 wounds = 4.7

Slann loses by 1.3 and has taken a total of 3.09 wounds. If he passes his Ld7/8 test (rerollable!) he probably won't live through the Dark Elf combat phase to try to regen or magic any of his wounds back (and he wouldn't likely get enough (read: all of them) back anyways)

Even if I destroy his magic weapon, he should still challenge me with his general. I won't deal much (if any) damage to him and even if I do, there is a 50/50 chance he'll bounce a wound back onto me. I'll eventually crumble to death or flee (and explode because he's the BSB).

I ran the numbers using the Fencer's Blades instead of Anti-Heros and the Slann becomes a little bit more survivable, but he does even less damage to the Dreadlord.

Also, because of the Ring of Hotek, it's dangerous to even try to buff myself in combat (although, if we're going High Risk, it may be worth it to try an get a miscast and kill 3 or so Warlocks before combat begins...)

I think avoiding them / picking them off with Skinks is the way to go!

He just placed 32nd with this army at the Lonewolf GT, so it's definitely a beatable army. I'll have to ask what armies he had trouble playing against.