[LoR rubs hands together, shoots cuffs and cracks knuckles]
Once again, I'll present you with my honest personal thoughts, ideas and analysis. I could well be wrong.
And once again, I appreciate you taking the time to go through it. Because of my life scheduling, I don't get to play that often so I like to work over and create ridiculous or crazy lists see how I think they would turn out, etc. It helps when there is another viewpoint on the line that has played a lot that can add some experience into the mix. Each time I get new input, I can look over the lists in a new light.
That said, I may end up playing the list I put up just to see how it does in real time. We'll see. In the meantime, it's great to discuss and throw concepts about.
In short, I think you're going to have a good turn 1 and 2, followed by really bad turns 3, 4, 5 and 6.
You have essentially no combat units in the entire list (the Necrosphinx is the closet thing you have, but it stands very little chance against any of your opponents 4-5 dedicated combat units). As such, you completely concede the combat phase to your opponent.
So it comes down to... can you win a game when completely conceding a phase of the game? YES... but, certain things have to be in place:
- Conceding the movement phase ➨ By conceding the movement phase, I mean that your army is largely stationary, but you'll still have to deploy well and make minor adjustments to line up engagements with your incoming opponent. The trick here is that you have to significantly out range your opponent, thereby forcing them to come to you. This is your classic gunline build, of which Dwarfs are the best example (but many other armies can pull it off as well).
- Conceding the magic phase ➨ Dwarfs are once again the classic example. Magic defense is required, which Dwarfs can bring in spades. If you're not Dwarfs, it is pretty tough to completely give up on the magic phase. This is why most non-Dwarf armies field a level 4 wizard (or at the very least a level 2 + scroll).
- Conceding the shooting phase ➨ This is probably the easiest phase to concede, and many armies/builds do so. Some armies have next to no shooting (Chaos) and other armies can easily create solid lists without choosing to incorporate a significant amount of shooting. As long as you can get favourable match ups, close combat can easily make up for a lack of shooting.
- Conceding the close combat phase ➨ This is probably the trickiest one to employ. This is the classic avoidance build. Wood Elves are the classic example of how this strategy can be successfully employed. I believe it requires three things, without which, it will fail miserably. First, the player must have a high degree of skill/generalship. It is not an easy strategy to employ and a player will be greatly penalized for any mistakes. Second, the player must have significant ranged capabilities (magic / shooting) and/or be able to set up situations where they only engage in very limited CC that is highly stacked in their favour. Lastly, the player must have great mobility and superior chaff play. Tomb Kings are slow. Your opponent will march straight for your lines, and there is nothing you can do about it. Sure he'll take some damage coming in, but once he hits your lines, your forces will be decimated. You have nothing to protect your back lines (in fact your army is composed of predominately back line squishy units). The DP and the Chaos Knights can arrive turn 2 and the Warriors should be there by turn 3.
I agree with your analysis that your friend's army (which is composed of nothing less than 4+ armour saves, discounting chaff of course) is pretty resilient to missile fire. Some TK archers will still be useful for chaff removal, but 150 archers is a very significant investment (900 points before command). My actual Khalida list has less archers than that.
So why the complete 180 degree change of heart?
From what I have read, Bowshabti are not that impressive on the field (although, I have also heard from a minority of players who do like them and find success with them). The problem is that of the 12 shots they put out, only 4 will hit on average. Against the Knights you'll average 1.7 wounds per round of shooting. Admittedly, you might be able to double this with magic because of the threat your Banishment spell imposes (Banishment is the #1 priority to dispel). Is that output worth the cost of a 600+ point unit? If you can keep them off this unit, it will be interesting to see.
If you do decide to use the list, I'll be interested to see how the game plays out. Maybe you can find a way to make it work, but I find it very risky. I do like the inclusion of the Stalkers though! In the end though, the list has to work for you and your particular play style! As you say, it will be an interesting and fun experiment. Then we can tweak and revise, if necessary.
I'd say of the three lists you have posted, I think the first one stands the best chance. That's just my two cents though. We got to get some more people involved in this analysis and list building process!
Thoughts?
Hmmmm.... These are great points and makes for some good analyses of the list.
Why 180 degree change of heart? Well, I was working over the list to see how I can play to my strengths as he has genuinely very little weaknesses to exploit.
I took a look over the four categories that you gave above:
1. Movement: I concede here automatically almost. There is no way as a Tomb Kings army that I'll be able to feasibly out move WoC. I will have to utilize the deployment phase as smartly as possible to lessen the blow but there is nothing I'm going to do here. The fastest units I have (Chariots, Horsemen, Horse Archers) will be ground to pieces if they are caught away from the main body of the army.
So, nothing to do here.
2. Magic: This is where I need to shine. I have been repeatedly told by the very friend that I am playing (as well as others) that to rely on magic alone is folly as it can be fickle. As a Tomb Kings army with CoS and Hierotitan, I will have a very heavy advantage. Even if he has taken a dispel scroll that will be good for the first banishment and I can even tempt it out by utilizing all bound spells first (including CoS which just by itself is one he'll want to dispel otherwise I can get a chain reaction going through each unit of the army as I know he'll be advancing as a battle line to prevent any chariot charges to the flanks from rolling through units).
I've been trying to capitalize on this through the list.
3. Shooting: I have more resources for shooting than he does. The Hellcannon still packs a pretty serious punch in the shooting phase, but I plan to have one Stalker unit go after him and hopefully neutralize while the other goes after the Chaos Knights unit. Otherwise, I was entertaining the concept of overcoming through numbers with the large units of Archers and Bowshabtis. If the Archers get engaged they will die just as quickly as normal Skeleton warriors or TG (if not buffed by a TK, which doesn't really seem worth the points investment considering at best I will still be a sub-par combat unit), but could still do some damage if buffed by Lore of Nehekhara spells.
4. Combat: I feel I have to concede this here. Even with my fantastical ideas about how much damage two huge units of Chariots could do, They would take care of maybe one unit, possibly two if I was very, very lucky and then he would still have 3 left which I would have no handling for and he would roll over me. So basically no viable.
I could make one TG unit able to do some damage with a TK, but in the grand scheme of things this would MAYBE take care of one WoC unit and this not even definitely.
So, I resolved to try out some unorthodox tactics and make a pretty much entirely shooting army.
Theories:
1. If I concentrated the other Stalker unit, Bowshabtis and magic attacks on the faster moving units (DP, CK) then I could bring them down to a point where the Necrosphinx could charge and at least keep busy while I deal with the rest.
2. 150 shots with mathhammer isn't great but again if concentrated on one unit could whittle it down enough that it could get bogged in a combat with a huge archer unit (or two even).
3. I have a couple of spells that I can utilize to slow down some of the other units from the Lore of Nehekhara with the dangerous terrain one and Net of whatever it is.
4. Plan to have the Stalker unit neutralize the Hellcannon and then go after the flanks of the slower moving infantry.
Yes, there are holes in the above and it would need luck to succeed, but I figured it was worth a try since like you said I'm playing in hard mode and with the rules/army list as it is I'll need to try something daring.
Of course, the funny thing is that I'm not dead set on this list. It was a "Hmmmm.... I wonder...." type of list and I like making lists and discussing them anyways
Your move
(meaning: Thoughts?)
