I was thinking about changing the Ancients to Ceremonial Guard (to get Phalanx) as I currently don't have anything that can neuter cavalry charges. My reasoning is that I already have quite a few hard hitters with the monsters, so taking another hard hitting unit seems superfluous. The dwarf unit I was using with Phalanx was able to effectively control the movement of my opponents cavalry because he was trying to avoid combat with them. Do people think this would be advisable at all?
I do agree that a unit with phalanx gives you a HUGE board control, the answer to to your question depends on the meta of the tournament and the amount of really, so there isn't a good answer I can give you. They really are very close in terms of effectivness. Also I'm glad you had a game of KoW at last, keep them going!
Thank you for your thoughts! I've changed the Ancients to Ceremonial Guard, and as they will hopefully be taking cavalry charges I've given them Dwarven Ale (Headstrong) to make up the points.
I read the linked article yesterday and you don't really need any special troops to deal with them if you play smart, so I would need loads of special troops!
With flyers you have to be extremely careful when you move your units, measure once, then measure again from their position and you can measure a couple more times just to be sure. Give them options to move or charge that they wouldn't chose and wait. You want them to charge in the front, you cannot do anything about it really with movement 10 but once they are there they are finished if you survive. Once again not easy, but not frightening if you control the movement phase. If your line falls though, well you will lose.
Ok, I understand that @Itepixcauh is going to have an absolute hissy fit over this, but I'm thinking to remove my Ghekkotah Skylord and replace him with a Ghekkotah Clutch Warden, using the additional points to give my Clan Lord on Fire Drake Fly. In the army I've taken, the Ghekkotah Skylord is the only unit I've got with flying, and with just the one of him he'll die pretty quickly and waste 135 points. If I've only got one option to jump behind enemy lines, it seems more rational to have something powerful to punch a big hole before flying away again. Also, the Clutch Warden will actually be near my Ghekkotah so they'll be inspired, whereas the Skylord would often be the other end of the battlefield.
I've said it before, what works for one player doesn't necessarily work on another player, we each have our different styles. Actually it really makes sense to do that, flying is much better in a clan lord on dragon that it is on a Skylord that's for sure. Just to add on my 2 pennys here, I would choose a Herald with the diadem of dragon-kin or a healing charm (90 points), but I just love the fireball (10) and he is inspiring to everything. Gotta love the Mage-Priest, and he has the same stats but without Elite, it's a way to get a cheaper Inspiring Mage-Priest. I'm just retuning home from a game, and my God do I love the Mage-Priest, he was MVP of the game by a mile. First he Surged my Elementals into a Drakon Lord that flew over them, wavering him and taking him the next turn. Then he fireballed a Troop of Palace Guard, once again wavering them and preventing a next turn flank charge. He saved my Fire Elementals thanks to his Inspiring from a devastating charge from a Regiment of Knights (Next turn they counter-charged them and routed the Knights) and finally he hold a charge from a Horde of Drakon Riders only getting wavered and letting my finally charge and rout them). I'm in love
You are an absolute frickin' GENIUS. I completely missed this setup!! And it would win out over a Clutch Warden every day of the week! The whole point of an Inspiring character is to a. Inspire people and b. stay alive so that he can do 'a'. A Herald with Diadem of Dragon-Kind inspires all, not just Ghekkotah, is tougher (same nerve but 5+ Defense), and as an added bonus probably has more chance of doing damage (I've not really play tested Vicious yet though). The only downside is with movement - slower, and with no Pathfinder. But that's not the point of an Inspiring character. He'll be sitting behind the lines wandering around, maybe attacking a flier that jumps behind with him.
You see, that is the reason why I think the Clutch Warden is not really worth it, for 90 points we have much better options. The only place where I think he is useful is if you add the Chameleon cloak and to use him surrounded with Chameleon Hunters, as a kind of elite shooting force. I discovered that setup when I was building a 1000 point list and I had to squeeze the points out of nowhere. That build gives you a 30 point advantage over a Mage-Priest with Inspiring and playing 1000 points that is a lot. I also use it now when I play 2000 points and need two Inspiring wizards.
There is a fantastic post on the Mantic Forums sharing a Google Sheet that calculates the average number of wounds that will be caused by a single attack from units, and consequently the dphp (damage per hundred points): http://vb.manticforum.com/forum/kings-of-war/general-discussion-aa/251752-kings-of-math One word of caution is that it does not account for defensive or other abilities, so anvils will always come out looking worse than they should, but for the most part it provides a very compelling perspective to assess an army list. One thing it has highlighted is just how weak Ghekkotah Hunters are - with chameleon cloaks and bows (I can't see that they would be much use with De3+ or 12" range), they cause 1.6 dphp against De3+, 1.2 against De4+, 0.8 against De5+ and 0.4 against De6+. This is absolutely pathetic considering the Lekelidon comes out at 2.92, 2.34, 1.75 and 1.17 respectively. The Lekelidon has the same range, better nerve, but doesn't have Nimble or Pathfinder, but those traits don't seem to justify the radical difference in skills. The main question I have is whether anyone has been able to use Hunters to good effect? Does their speed and agility come to the fore when making last minute dashes in Invade! / Dominate! etc.? Or are there other tactics they are useful for?
I've been using Hunters lately, and without any upgrades and the truth is that most of the time they end up being used as chaff. The thing is the lekelidon can't move and shoot without loosing the +3 to hit while the hunters being nimble can move and shoot with no penalties and also remember the lekelidon uses a very valuable Monster slot. All in all, the lekelidon is far better than the Hunters shooting, surviving and I would say equal in combat, the problem is fitting him in my lists, and also don't really know why I have no problem sacrificing the hunters but it really hurts me to let a Lekelidon die for some reason. I will play test them a bit more but my feeling is that I will be better off with a regiment of warriors instead.
I've had a few more battles recently, two 2000pts vs Kingdoms of Man and one 2000pts vs The Elves, as well as a smaller, 1000pts vs Salamanders. The 1000pts wasn't that informative - KoW really doesn't seem to scale down that well due to the points system being based around units rather than models like in WHFB. However, I learned a lot in the KoM and Elf battles and have made a few more tweaks to the army list! Any thoughts on the list as it now stands would be appreciated! In terms of how units have fared, I've been surprisingly impressed with the Hunters! I think throughout all three battles they only caused a single point of damage (and I don't mean one wound per battle, I mean one in total!) but they provide an amazing distraction. Each time they draw around 2 units that get sent to deal with them. By moving backwards then can tie those units up for 2-3 turns, stalling them enough for you to try to get the upper hand where you're making your main attack. In terms of tactics, I have found that small, elite armies really do need to fight on the smallest front possible, and this is the case with Salamanders. I lost both against the Kingdoms of Man, and this was because I deployed badly and ended up having to stretch myself out. It was then easy work for him to multi-charge and flank me into submission. Against The Elves I bunched up tight and smashed his left flank with everything (using the Hunters and a unit of Ghekkotah Warriors as a distraction the other side). Using this tactic you also get the most use out of your breath weapons: any opponent's unit that gets charged gets cut down by superior strength, anything that tries to play tricksy and move out of line of sight gets flamed because you can move and let loose. Being able to focus all your flames on the same unit (because all your flamers are on the one flank) also makes for an impressive pre-charge carnage: on turn 2, my opponent's Drakon Riders were forced to land in front of my line and received 52 breath attacks, a Lekelidon's fire bolt and an Ankylodon's blowpipes. They went from un-wounded to routed in one shooting phase.
Few more battles, few more changes, and probably the biggest changes to date. The Ankylodon, one unit of Ghekkotah Warriors and a few additions are dropped and I am now taking a Greater Fire Elemental and a horde of Fire Elementals. After using the Ankylodon a good number of times, and in numerous different positions, I just can't make it work, which is unsurprising given the sheer number of bad reviews of the unit. Rather annoyingly I've spent ages painting one up, but I'd rather drop him now than have him dragging me back at Clash of Kings. The Greater Fire Elemental and Fire Elementals combo was working much, much better: Fire Elementals into the front, GFE move round the side and surge into the flank = 18 CS(2) + 16 CS(4) attacks. As the competition is fast approaching I doubt I'll be able to change the list again as I won't have time to paint the units up. Thank you everyone for helping out with suggestions, they have been significantly appreciated and have helped me get this far! The list on the front isn't my ideal list, which I will need more time to buy / build / paint (I've got one that I think will work better in competition), but it's the best I'm going to get from the position I am in now. Roll on Clash of Kings 2016!
I'm glad you started playtesting the Fire Elementals and the GFE. They are by far my favourite units in the army right now, I also love how well the Mage-Priest surges. Good luck and keep us informed