8th Ed. Dealing with warmachines & dwarvern gunlines

This. Skinks against trueflight? Those guys hits on 3+, wounds on 3+ and have armour piercing.

Alternatively WEs can do the avoidance list much better than us which isn't exactly funny either.

 

If not the ranged units what should I be afraid of? All their melee units with the exception of wild riders (who generally comes in limited quantity) are laughable.

They can probably turn out 50 trueflight shots a turn and stay as far back as possible (within range). Most skinks will be killed before they reach the archers and the rest will be decimated by wild riders. Our saurus blocks will be danced around or redirected by eagles. Our scar vets will be shot by waywatchers or risk getting hold up by curse of anrahir.

I have a WE friend and he have gone away from masses bows because nobody enjoys playing with him. Even if it turns out to be a draw people will be bored to death.

**EDIT**

Figured I'd try and find out what one can get at 2500pts as a WE player:

Lvl 4 shadow on steed, 4+ ward.
Glade captain with hail of doom and GW.
Waystalker with bow of lothren.
Lvl 1 scroll caddy, shadow.

50 trueflight archers.
20 poison scouts.
5 wild riders.
5 sisters as mage bunker.

2 eagles.
20 waywatchers.

None of this is meant to combat any blocks. Should the withering get on a scar vets he's gone, if not he will just lose a wound each turn. This is obviosuly assuming the SV have a ward.

Skinks WILL die and fair enough, they're cheap, but that's a trap to lure yourself into. If you haven't gotten any substantial points from your opponent and you've lost all your skinks you've probably lost the game.

Now, can we count this? Sure go ahead and tailor a list, but in general terms a WE gunline is hard and boring to deal with for most armies and what I came up with isn't tailored to deal with LM, I just consider trueflight to be superior in most instances. Fortunately our army is better suited to deal with it compared to many other.

The reason I dislike the WE army more than the dwarf is because with the dwarfs you can atleas expect to see combat. With woodies that's not necessarily a thing. Also WE got magic and shadow have a wonderful synergy with massed bows, it's just a bonus the initiative spells work better against us oppose to some other armies.

 

Maybe it's just me if they're so easy to deal with.

In an environment where you don't know who you'll be facing you'll be making an all-comers list.

You can bring 900pts of skinks if that's what you want. You can also bring 9 units of skirmishers at roughly 625pts, thing is though that unless you fill up the entire area around the slann you'll be struggling to reach all 90 skinks with your Ld Bubble.

Obviously though if you want to tailor the list you can bring down any lists, but honestly I've never seen anyone bring 15 units of skink cohorts. But maybe I should try it.

50 trueflights will do 18 wounds and make two skink units flee without chance of returning (less than 25% models left = snake eyes).
20 hagbane scouts at close range (15") will do 6,45 wounds.
Now maybe I'm wrong here, but waywactchers can have the multiple shot. At close range they'll do 11 wounds first round.
Should a unit of skinks get close to the Hail of Doom Arrows guy he'll remove an entire unit with that.
A couple of shots from the sniping waystalker and a shot from the glade captain will probanly add e few more dead skinks.

Obviously this is if everything goes according to the WE player. Fact is though that there's a likely chance he'll get first turn. He can remove over 1/3 of massed skink skirmishers before they even move. Luckily a shadow lvl 4 mage won't really hurt skinks so magic isn't the biggest deal here. Magic becomes a big deal if they can hinder our movement of our block(s) - At this point I'd assume the only block there is is a TG blocks house the frog.
-D3 toughness is rough, but should with waywatchers losing a single pip of toughness is basically instant doom to scar vets unless you're lucky. No hyperbole.

Then there's curse of anrahir from the sisters. So you basically have 2 movement spells to watch out for.

I think the worst thing here is that all of this likely happens before we move. It's obviously a bit of a gamble from the WE players side, but that's how it is.

Now obviously we have several counters to this and a list from me would probably include:

9 units of skink skirmishers.
1-2 units of terradons. Rocks are nasty against T3 and no saves.
Maybe 10 cameleons. Depending on what I feel like and amount of terradons.
2 salamanders with snacks.
a block of 30 templeguards.
1-2 scar vets.
1 priest.
slann with WD - so lots of magic missiles.

Putting scouts within 15" range is a gamble as well and maybe they shouldn't. But I still feel it's an uphill struggle.

They can still take out the immediate threats (out scouts(fliers), focus fire skinks and mostly deal with those before they're within range which leaves at least me with very little. Once 2/3 of the skinks are gone along with cameleons and terradons what's to stop them from avoiding the one block I have and redirect it? One can't redirect if all the redirectors have been shot moving up the board.

Obivously though one can take 15 cohort units (which is btw 900pts including a musician in all of those, a 24-30 model saurus warrrior and templeguard units two units of terradons, a pimped slann and a couple of scar vets and call it a day,

The reason I dislike the Wood Elfs is that if you're up agianst a smart player he WILL avoide you at all cost. He doens't have to take out the 1-2 block(s) you show up with. He'll just take out everything else and leave you not rolling your dice.

Are Dwarfs much better? Perhaps not, but at least you'll be seeing some kind of "fair" close combat.

I also find it troubling that you'll risk a 24 casting value spell to kill off some archers. The best targets would be waywatchers, but even then it's only around 200pts. But fair enough, I'm just not much for blowing holes in my guards.

Just a question though - do you seriously deply with 15 units of 10 skink cohorts? If yes have you thus tailored your list (which is fair enough) or is this your general setup? In which case how does it work out against other armies?
I'm just curious because I haven't seen anyone recommend that many cohort units and all would need musicians (which would also make rallying easier.

**EDIT**

Disregarding the 15 cohort units I'm personally struggling to deploy 9 units of skink skirmishers in a reasonable way.

Here's the issue: They're at Ld5 so they'll have to be within the slann. 2 things with that:

1) they can't all be infront of him and his TG unit or whatever you're using. So some of these will have to stay behind each other. Now include the 1" apart rule and suddeny you have skinks standing quite a bit away from the deployment line (which we would need to be as close to as possible).

Realistically I think one could field the skinks something like:

SSSSS SSSSS SSSSS SSSSS SSSSS

SSSSS SSSSS TGTGT SSSSS SSSSS


2) If we deploy like this the only unit we screen is the TG unit OR we have to the scar vets and salamanders further behind. Both units wants to be up in the face of our opponent as fast as possible

Alternatively one can spread out the skinks some more, but the 12" Ld bubble isn't exactly much ground covered. One can also have the BSB on a scar vet which would definately make him a priority target among the waywatchers, but cover more skinks.

Cohort skinks takes up less space, but there are also quite a lot more of them so I'd wager they're harder to cover. Cohort skinks also cannot march and shoot which IMO is a big penalty.

I think deployment is kinda tricky with a lot of skinks and you'll be restricting yourself regardless of how you do it. One can stay withing the bubble and thus make it easier for the WE player to avoid combat or spread out and make panic a bigger problem.

 

When I said fair I was more referering to how you'll eventually end up in combat with them, regardless of how superior they are. That isn't inheriantly true with WE. They know their own weakness and if you eventually get into combat you won't win much on it.

It's kinda like other players view on us, albeit it can be even worse when facing us (a full LM skink avoidance army wouldn't be fun to deal with either). Imagine once you finally catch a unit of skinks/end up in combat you're fighting to remove a unit worth 70 points.

Obviously you'll be getting twice the amount of points from WEs, but depending on their army composition you'll be hard pressed to actually get something worthwhile.

Anyway lets get back on track:
Yes a fully fledged gunline is a true beast. They'll force us to them, especially LM players. At lot of other armies can at least *try* and take out their warmachines and force out the dwarfs.

Back with the 7th edition Dwarf book I kinda looked at them as the perfect counter to us. Long ranged artillery, very good anti magic, superior melee units. I don't know the exact current pricing on dwarfen models, but WS5 on longbears, hammerers and ironbreakers, S4/T4 as a minimum and 2 S6 attacks on the hammerers makes for a menacing foe.

I think when plaing against dwarfs one have to remember certain aspects of the game use them to our own advantage.
Generally speaking there are two principles I think one have to remember:

1) Try and be as proactive as possible. Force the opponent into being reactive. This is hard with dwarfs though and the best weapon is a well placed boosted comet.

2) The more phases of the game you can "win" at the bigger is your chance to win the game.

A) Movement phase is kinda odd here due to the mostly passive dwarfen army, but there is still an advantage to be taken. While their lords can be ridiculous one have to remember that they're bunkered. We pay for our mobility (COs) while still being able to put out rather ridiculous combat characters. This mean that unless our characters are dead we can use them to boost combat where needed. Dwaren players cannot.
Apply same way of thinking to other units.
With some clever thinking we can win this phase.

B) Dwarfs basically have no magic, unless you count their weak bound spells. We'll be quite superior regardless due to lvl 4 vs 0. Their anti magic have been considerably nerfed so while it's still alright they cannot possibly compete against us.
This is basically an auto-win for us.

C) Shooting is kinda an uphill struggle. We can't possibly compete with a battery of artillery and ranged infantry models. Nope. Dwarfs will easily win this one and it's our job to minimize the damage. Use magic and anti warmachine units to deal with them. This can be hard if they castle up.
This one obviously goes to the dwarfs regardless of how we deal with their warmachines. At the end of the day we can't stop it all and our skinks have a hard time against T4 heavy armoured units.

D) Close Combat. This is yet an uphill struggle. Our units will now be in worse shape than we started and their own will generally speaking be superior, but fret we're not completely without advantages.
2 WS5 S6 attacks are scary, but here's the thing - there won't be many of these guys. Remember that if they spend a lot of points on warmachines they can't also spend a lot of points on infantry models. So the reason this is important is because we will hit first. Templeguards with a front of 6 models and a Slann will be able to safely remove 6 models before they strike. The issue here is that they'll probably swing back with full numbers and do 10 wounds to us, assuming 6 wide.

That's basically the same as hitting a brick of white lions, with one very important difference.
We can much easier get magic through once we hit combat. This is why I appreciate Wandering Deliberation more than High Magic. With WD you have 4 spells to alter that outcome. For instance mystifying miasma and iceshard blizzard will result in 5 wounds taken. That's HALF of what we would've taken, not to mention that there's a decent chance that we'll have a superior WS meaning we'll do 8 wounds. Oh we just won combat here.
Wyssan's Wildform + 5+ regen = 5 wounds taken and 8 wounds done.
Wyssan's + iceshard = 6 taken and 8 done.
Mysifying + regen = assuming we hit on 3+ we'll take 5 and do 8.

See a trend here? We'll just have to do any combination of 2 spells to win against hammerers. Against longbeards we'll win even more due to their 1 attack each. All of the WD spells are easy to cast and the dwarfs have a harder time stopping all of them compared to other armies (unless they heavily invest in anti magic).
The great thing here is that not only have their anti magic been nerfed compared to previous editions, but unlike other armies their only magic are a bunch of ridiculous bound spells we can easily stop. Don't expect them to counter your magic with some of their own.

Losing 5 models combat phase isn't glorious, but it's what we have to deal with here.
Obviously this is assuming they have any hammerers. I just picked their hardest hitting infantry models. If we can get in CC with their WS4 S5, ASL ranged models we'll eat them much easier.

So then comes the other important bit. How do we make out guys survive running up the board?
Magic, target saturation and harassment.
Expect our TG unit to take the most punishment. I always bring 30 because we need some in reserve. Takin 24 in a 2500pts game is IMO more of a defensive bunker, with 30 you can take some beating and still dish out.

This is important to keep in mind because barrels will be turned at the TG unit's direction. So prioritize artillery that'll do the most damage to us:
Organg cannons will on average roll 10 shots, runed up half will hit (long range), 2/3 of that will wound and 5/6 will go through armour resulting in 2,77 wounds a turn, on average. With ironcurse icon it's down to 2,33.

Should a cannon ball hit expect 5/6 chance for it to wound and 5/6 to wound. It'll probably plow through 2-3 models before you see either a 1 or a 6 on the dice.

We'll have to utilize magic again here. Regen will make the organg cannon do 1,8 wounds, with wyssan's that's 1,38 wounds.

So to summarize:
- See if you can't take out a prioritize warmachine out with anti-warmchine units.
- Take an ironcurse icon with the slann.
- Use magic to counter whatever they have. For this you have regen, wyssan's and iceshard blizzard.

If we can bring a scar vet fully up the board (lol) he can safely hammer into a cross-bow unit with GWs. He'll take 6 attacks at best and only have 25% to take a single wound. They'll be steadfast though. We can on average eat 3 of them so consider this as a way to hold up a unit you dont want to suddenly flank your templeguards.

Last note I suppose:

Focus fire on whatver you deem the main threatening unit. For instance, should he have a unit with 24 hammerers cast every damage spell you can on them, have your terradons cast rock on them if possible, flame them with your salamanders, try and get a few poison wounds on them with skinks. It doesn't matter if you only score 3-5 wounds before you them because even that is a lot. They'll always hit last agaisnt us so if we can remove 2 entire ranks before they hit they'll lose combat efficiency after first round of combat.
What out for characters though. Should they have lord in the hammerer unit keep away from it. He'll tear up the slann in no time if properly kitted. If they have a Thane in the unit on the other hand I'd even wager you can be so bold as to challenge him with the slann. A thane only have 3 attacks and probably S6 so you'll be looking at 0,83 wounds a turn. Get off regen once and you're back to full wounds. A thane will do 1,66 wounds against templeguards, but here's another bonus: our slann is useless in combat anyway, the thane isn't. If we can bait a thane the dwarf won't be doing as many wounds against us as he otherwise would (we've effectively removed the thane from combat without sacrificing hitting power in the process, it's a win/win). Even if the thane have hatred he'll still only do 1 wound. <.<

So I think the thing against dwarfs is to be smart and horribly abuse what little advantage we have.

One very very last thing. Don't let them charge you. This is obviouslly a non-issue with hammerers, but a lot of their other models suddenly gain S5/6 due to their new +1S rule. Personally I'd rather deal with a 5+ parry and S5.

 

Different opinions, but that's fine. OP wanted to know what he can do and now we've given it to him. I disagree with your notion about HM -> WD, but fair enough. Personally I don't feel like adding an addition layer of randomness in order to have 4 spells, but each to their own.