A vc playing friend of mine has more or less told me of a list he wants to try hes conviced i wont be able to beat it. not sure on most of it but it has 2 x 100 zombies in hordes 2 mortis engines 6 crypt horrors 5 hexwraiths 2 spirit hosts banshee or 2 manfred and a necro and other stuff to fill . the main plan is to get curse of ears off twice each magic phase as he thinks i wont be able to stop his casting as with the 2 engines hes at +4 to cast. everything ill be behind the zombies so hes playing points denile. im not worried about any of the other stuff just that the zombies will take forever to chew through especially as they wil have 5+ regen.
My bet would be to avoid the zombie blocks. 100 zombies?? No way! Not unless you cast dwellers or transmutation on them or something, because that affects the entire block. In theory you could kill off 50+ in one magic phase. But I would recommend death magic and try to snipe of his leaders so his zombies are likely to break.
Well first off two Mortis Engines do NOT add +4. Vampire army book page 53 states all wizards within 12" of one or more. The effect doesn't stack. Second, Salamander templates wreck zombies especially if you're running Shadow on you Slann. Drop the toughness of the zombies and you'll be pull 12+ off with each template hit. Third, what Lore do you take on your Slann? Mortis Engines a mediocre initiative, so anything that forces said tests. Zombies are even more vulnerable to said spells. Light lore is, of course, amazing in this match up. It can give you more attacks, and the magic missiles can brutalize his smaller units with the extra damage dice. Fire might even be worth considering since Bolt and Flaming Head does more damage the more ranks the target has and it eliminates regeneration. Oh and Purple Sun can be cast even after you've engaged the zombie block... Lastly, put a scar vet with the Burning Blade into one zombie units so he can nullify the regeneration there, and put a Temple Guard with the Gleaming Standard into the other.
I'd avoid Death. It's tempting to take out the vampires and cause crumbles, but vampires have high Ld, T, and S making them hard to snipe. I'd recommend Fire. Piercing Bolts of Burning will knock big blocks with lots of ranks down. Flaming Sword will make his ethereal unit far less scary. I'd take a Skink priest to caddy a Cube or Forbidden Rod. THe Skink Priest can also help you target magic missiles. Crypt horrors are less scary when you can negate their regeneration. With two Mortis Engines most of his units will have Regeneration saves and fire can remedy that nicely. The downside of going with fire is that while fire can inflict a lot of hits, it can't really inflict high strength hits so the Mortis Engines would be hard to kill. Kroxigor (with or without Skinks) and/or Scar Veterans packing high strength magical hits are your best bet to take out a Mortis Engine but beware that Mortis Engines explode when they die. Another warning about Mortis Engines. Since they have banshee screams you should probably keep your Ld 6 troops over 8 inches away from them at all times. The screams from Banshees, Terrorgheists, and Mortise Engines are brutal to our Stegadons and Salamanders. I would also suggest going light on Skink Skink Skirmishers, Terradons, and Chamo Skinks. These units are handy for taking down Terrorgheists but it appears your foe is planning not to use them. Without high toughness low save targets to go after, they will be a liability vis a vis his ethereal troops and Mortis Engines.
A Zombie horde allows you to get 10 Saurus Warriors in contact and you'll win that even if you're unbuffed. You don't even have to take a big unit. Burning Blade of Chotec removes regen before your Warriors strike. Becalming Cogitations will mess up Mannfred's magic good. You can also deny him extra dice by taking a Scar-Vet with a 1+ rerollable save as he is only S5. The Scar-Vet will win that challenge eventually with a great weapon and Venom of the Firefly Frog. I think Heavens would be good. S5-6 damage spells is good for the Engines. Their area effects are pretty short ranged so they will bunch up close, ideal for the Comet. Then the buffs and hexes will help you mow down Zombies. Rumination of course.
Ignore the Hexwraiths, they're way overpriced for what they do, and remind him that their fancy move through attack only works when they move through a unit, not marching, or charging, and he only get 1 attack per hexwraith. Also, static combat resolution IS YOUR FRIEND. Grab anything that gives it to you. The only thing that's killy in his list are the Banshees and the Crypt Horrors, he's lacking a big punch, but lots of anvils, don't get bogged down.
The point with double engine is that the zombies now have a 5+ regen. That makes them very resilient. It is a pure point denial list. He is betting that you can not kill any of his units and he hopes to snipe off a few of yours. However, his units are quite pillow fisted. A standard LM army with lore of life or light (yes yes, and other lores too) has access to at least some magic ranged attacks. Start off by killing his hexwaraiths and spirit hosts. now you own the movement phase. Assuming you are getting off some defensive buffs, none of his units can really hurt a saurus block. Try and bog down one zombie block with sauruses and gang up on either crypt horrors or the other block. you should be able to break one of his units while he cant break yours, and thus you out-points-denial him. Your skinks and chameleons can shoot down at least one mortis engine. they will most likely die, but it costs over 200 points, so thats plenty of skinks. the explosion will hurt him too, especially the crypt horrors. If you are a pro life (lol) remember that a unit of skinks with shield of thorns can charge his ethereals and have them go pop in the magic phase. so often they will not dispel that spell, since they have so many other spells to worry about. Another useful tactics is to use your salamanders to shoot the crypt horrors. yes they wont do much BUT 2-3 sallies should get off one wound and then your skinks can have a field day. Yes manfred can heal them for 5-6 wounds, but he can only do it once (and thus you can dispel it), and 2-4 wounds healed from a necro caddy is not that bad. they will go down to 3-4 models before combat starts and then you can kill them with your combat units (though it will still take time). you CAN kill the zombie units though i would not recomend it. start off with dwellers and follow up with 2-3 salamanders and then see whos laughing. he can then heal back maybe 10 zombies and the unit will be at a laughable 30 something. you arent afraid of 30 zombies are you? however, you just used your mega power spell AND your nastiest shooter to decimate a 300 point unit that cant really threaten you anyway. when you chose what unit to actually kill, think long and hard on where manfred is. he is not a real combat vampire, but he can tip the balance in his units favour, and at least make the crumbling go very slow. I suggest picking a unit where he is not, maximize frontage with the sauruses and then go to town. a unit of 25 sauruses versus 100 zombies will be a massacre in your favor if you deploy 10 wide. you should win by about 10 points, thus getting rid of 20 zombies per turn. remember thats 40 zombies between his opportunities to heal. you will come out on top in the end, and 25 sauruses are actually cheaper than 100 zombies. imagine what will happen when your engine of the gods joins the party! In closing, i suggest getting rid of his mini units FAST. then be kinda passive and let him come to you while you shoot him up a bit. then try and pick ONE unit to kill while throwing your defensive buffs on other units to allow them to stay alive during the grind fest. you will kill more of his stuff than he will kill of yours. GL /T
excellent tips everyone. his idea i believe it to just sit behind the zombies and get a few curse of years off. Im not gonna correct him on the mortis engine casting bonus not stacking unitl he trys it. Dont get me wrong its a fun game but he is so competitive its nice to win. I should have learnt before that he talks a good game and comes up with interesting combos but they never work aswell as planned.
if he sits behind the zombies... just go kill him. a stegadon + a unit of TGs will tear a zombie unit up in just a few turns. Curse of the years can be nasty, yes, but he can only have one up, and its very easy to dispel if you are willing to do it with powerdice. it all depends on what else you have to dispel.
One thing that people used against me all the time when I curse of years them is to watch me chunk a load of dice at it, cast it with alot, and not try to dispel it. Yes, it pops, but on their next magic phase, they dispel it was the minimum casting total, usually half of what I actually cast it with. Yes, they take the effects of it one turn, but it doesn't start getting really nasty till the second or third effect.
what tear through 100? also he will b able to cast curse twice a turn. manfred with lore master and a necro could get it aswell.
If hes just gonna sit behind his Zombies and chill out id just take Lore of Heavens and just keep nuking him with comets it would be pretty hilarious to just keep dropping them and watch his forces take all those hits and shrink. Your friend sounds alot like mine hes a Dark Elf player and a grade A competitive jerk he brings competitive tourney lists to friendly games. EX. Double Hydra, 40 man executioner block with the cauldron of blood and the Hag grief Banner? I think thats what its called. This was just a friendly game on a rainy day btw............... Lore of Light can definitely be your friend here in this match up hit those Mortis Engines with a magic missile from Lore of Light and you can really put the hurt on them. Becalming Cogitation is your best friend to shut down Vamp magic phases denying those sixes can help alot. Honestly if your buddy wants this challenge so bad bring the cheesiest Slann ever. 4 Disciplines give him that cupped hands and try to force a miscast and toss it to his caster see what happens lol. I dont have much experience against the Counts only played them once with my lizzies. From my experience he didnt seem to take anything to scary like a huge deathstar of Grave Guard or a big unit of Hexwraiths sure theres alot of zombies in his list but those things are booty even with the 5 up regen most of the time they just end up being bad combat rez for the vamp player cause if you slaughter lots of them any other unit in the combat will pay the price for the losing round and take crumbling. The tactic i like to use with any of my armies vs Counts is to ignore his chaff and go straight for the meat and potatoes targeting Dwellers at his Grave Guard, Hexwraiths, Black Coach Etc. and ignoring Skeletons and Zombies sure getting flanked by his chaff can end badly but i find Cold Blooded Saurus tend to stick anyway and like i said hitting those zombies in a multiple combat usually just makes the Vampire player lose more bodies and makes combats easier to swing in your favor.
can you please tell me where it says this in the rule book it only mentions the wizard that casts it as he can only power one at a time. It makes no mention of another wizard not being able to. And hes a rules as written kind of guy .
At any given time.[/quote] can you please tell me where it says this in the rule book it only mentions the wizard that casts it as he can only power one at a time. It makes no mention of another wizard not being able to. And hes a rules as written kind of guy .[/quote] It dosent specify from what i can tell in the BRB about multiple Wizards having the the same remains in play spell i can say this though "The Wizard can continue to cast other spells ( but not the same remains in play spell in subsequent turns) as he requires only a little concentration to keep a remains in play spell going." Page 36 of the BRB It does say THE Wizard so it sounds to me like its Wizard specific my interpretation would be that 2 Wizards with the same RIP Spell can cast it separately and stack it i would say in such a case. Of course this is just my interpretation
about tearing up 100 zombies.... thats easy. 25 TG (deployed 10 wide and with a slann, they have the flaming banner) will do on average ~19 wounds a stegaon will do another 5-6 (with skinks and stomps) and another 2,5 with impact hits he will do ~1 wound back depending on what kind of buffs you are running. so, 1st round you have 19+6+3+5(standard, bsb 2 ranks, charge)= 33 in CR he has 1+4 = 5 you win by 28, so 27 more zombies die (if he has a bsb). you have now taken the unit from 100 to 45 in a single round, and thats assuming you didnt roast the unit with salamanders first. yes, he can raise some, but he can NOT make up for 3 salamanders. next round you have your TG and a stegadon against less than 50 zombies. that doesnt seem too impossible does it? I myself tried this "brilliant" idea when i started VC (i started when this book came out, so im not a real veteran with VC. i have been playing LM for almost 20 years though ) but it turned out that these cheap "invincible" blocks weren't so invincible. pretty much any elite unit will cut them to ribbons in just a few rounds. you know the zombies wont die on the first turn, but thats pretty much everything that you know. BTW, do NOT tell your fiend to deploy his zombies 5 wide. they will last much longer then and you dont want that
I just realized something. Why not use terrain to beat your opponent? Forests completely mess over steadfast. I believe rivers do too. Because there's 100 of them, they'll cover a lot of area. EDIT: The majority of them needs to be in the forest for steadfast to be nullified. Next thing you know they break and you're in. A bit unreliable, but if you're placing terrain yourself and not rolling for it, place a forest right where you want your big blocks to go.