8th Ed. Power builds among friends - a discussion

So this isn't a rant. Just to be clear. However, I do need to talk to someone about this and how your experience is with the subject.

Now, before I begin I'm not talking about regular power builds. If a friend of mine consequently would make power builds I'd just tell them that it isn't fun. Hell the one time my friend brough a WoC Trogg Troll Horde it was even clear to him that it wasn't fun.

So here's the deal:

My friends and I (we're 4 in total) have prepared ourself for this little mini-tourny we had today for roughly a month. We have all been quite excited because it was a different way to play against each other.

The rules where:

1500pts, no SC.
We should all play against each other (so 3 games each).
We used the normal tournament 20-0 points system for VPs.

Before the tourny I managed to get 3 games off so I figured my list was optimized as much as my experience would allow. The list is the following:

Slann with WD and channel combo.
2 pimped scar vets.

3 skink skirmisher units
1 big cohort unit as an anvil.

7 CORs.

2 salamanders.

Depending on what I would come up against I had the tool for a bit of everything. Right?


The first game I came up against my wood elf friend. An entire gunline army. Only a unit of 5 wild riders couldn't shoot. He got first turn and also got curse of anrahir off on my bus. I don't think I need to continue much further because the skinks where shot to sh1t and at turn 3 (my turn) I surrendered since my entire bus was death with the exception of the characters and I only had my slanns and his bunker. And I hadn't even moved far up the board!

SO wth? To be honest I got annoyed. It wasn't my idea of having fun. I didn't even bother to continue so I resigned. The heroes would've been dead in the following round leaving the slann. I've taken a look at the Asrai forum and others have called a similar list as what I met as a cheese list. TBH I'm not sure if it is - I don't have the proper experience against them yet - but at 1500pts and not starting first it's quite hard.

If only Tetto'Eko was allowed.

Fine.

Second game was against the least experience member of our group and was actually quite a fun game from my perspective. It was quite close in the end so that was fair. He played DE btw.

The last game was against my WoC friend.

He had:

Flying nurgle prince.

lvl 2 mage.

22 Warriors w/ nurgle and halbard (mage was here).
8 hounds.

1 gorebeast chariot.

4 Skullcrushers.

So not only is this army super fast, but it's also very heavily armoured and hits HARD. The warriors are so numerous that it's hard to kill them off.

I really like my friend, but this kind of army is hard to enjoy. Pretty much everything except the hounds is one big FVCK YOU. I got first turn, 6-diced searing doom on the skull crushers. Lost 2 lvls including searing doom and.. I did a wooping 2 wounds on them. FFS. Oh I also lost spirit leech..
At turn 1 both his prince and skullcrushers were in combat because I got greedy and had moved up too quick, my bad. At turn 2 he charges his demon prince against my bus and I was like "whelp, this is it".

The prince is forced to challenge and I accepted with my AoD scar vet. I wasn't optimistic at all and you know what? I only lost 1 wound. Here's the funny thing though, my SV needed to roll 5+ To Hit so obviously I rolled 2 x 5 and 2 x 6, the two additional attacks resulted in 1 x 5 and 1 x 6. WHAT? I just got SIX attacks through the To Hit phase against a demon prince who only have T5 and 2+/5+? He died. Boom.

My bus then continued to flop all their attacks on his skull crushers as if they had completely forgotten the previously heroic deed.

Anyway I had a fun mini tourny, but the lists I went up against (with the excpetion of one list) were super tough. Let's face it - I was incredible lucky with killing the prince. On average I should've done 0.7 wounds with the SV's attack.

I can accept the wood elf list. He have only played 3 game prior to our tourny so he's still in the learning process. However it was still super frustrating though and I know that he kow what he was doing. A WE gunline is probably the ultimate risk-reward list because should *anything* get into close combat it's very easily GG WP, but on the same time it can delete a lot of stuff in the process.

The WoC list? I have no clue what to do. I should've stayed a bit further back alright, but they still hit so damn hard. The skull crushes's front rank have 18 attacks without champ + 3 attacks from warrior in the back and 3 stomps. All at +1 AS and M7. It's just so brutal x_x and that's just one aspect of the army. The chariot is a b1tch, the warriors is just one big point denial and the prince.. Well, look past my extreme luck and he would've murdered my characters one by one.

So I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to say here. I'm not frustrated as of right now. I still did have some fun, but not as much as I had anticipated. I didn't excpet to outright win it all, but getting so massacred wasn't part of the plan either ._.
I don't want to be "that guy" who tell people how to make their lists when it's a "tournament" - I mean we all put a bit more effort into this than normally and that is to be expected. The thing is though that I'm vastly more experienced than my WoC friend and yet I've lost close to all games against him. I simply cannot win. It's frustrating to begin with and when I'm brutalized in the very first game before I met the WoC army it was hard to deal with. I didn't rage though :0)

Have you ever tried something similar? I realize that going to a normal tournament true power builds are to be expected and you sort of mentally prepares for that. I just didn't realize that things would go so wrong for me so fast lol.

 

Arh yes I completely agree and that's also kinda the problem. My WoC friend realizes that his list is heavy, but on the same time he looks at everything else in the book and doesn't consider them good. So in his point of view he has made a fair list since it's not the net-list, but he wouldn't dare to touch some of the other (IMO) more interesting subjects in the book.

Each to their own I guess.

Anyway I realize that is it me who needs to get better or "L2P" and that's fair. Just calling them "power gamers" doesn't change the fact that I lost and merely saying it's their fault and not my doesn't cut it. With that said it'll be an uphill struggle and frankly I've been looking more and more on the Vampire Count idea I've been thinking about for quite a while. Not because I want to make the infamous blender lord bus, but because I only have a Lizardmen army and while I do enjoy them a lot there are times I just need a break from them.

Unfortunately this is quite the expensive hobby though

 

I don't know man.. I mean, sure the WoC list isn't a "netlist" which is fair enough, but a demon prince, gorebeast chariot and 4 skullcrushers at 1500pts isn't considered hard?

I don't know, but I'd love to see some more bat reps of how people deal with WoC because I find them to be incredible hard to deal with.

I just have no clue. My list isn't good enough you say, but what is? Not including any luck. Magic is, still with the mage I used, unreliable. Even then though I actually did get searing doom off with IF. 2 wounds were caused by the boosted version. Actually it was a bigger blow to me because I lost both Searing Doom and Spirit Leech.

So let's also look past the warriors.

I assume a more appropriate list wouldn't have had a big cohort unit of skinks, but instead more skirmisher units. That would leave me with 1 unit/model who I don't want to be too reliant on (the slann) and a single unit (my bus) who can actually hurt.

Comparable The skullcrushers, demon prince and gorebeasts are all very tough targets to take down. I would have to dedicate phases of combat with my bus just to take down the chariot. I would have to spend more combat phases to take down 12 wounds of WS5/AS1+ skullcrushers.

So fair enough - the list isn't the hardest possible to make, but it's still incredible hard (IMO) to take down and actually win over. It requires a better tactical and strategic overview and overall perfomance to beat. If you can't win by magic you'll have to redirect everything and take each unit down one by one.

Now just to be clear I'm not actually whining OR for that matter frustrated. Hell if I could I'd love to play some more vs WoC just to learn how to properly deal with them, but as it stands they're tough as nails for me to deal with.

With that said I didn't actually call any of them cheese lists, although I've seen people complain about the WE gunline which has been questioned as cheese - is it tough? I don't know, but it definately hits hard and needs to be dealt with as quickyl as possible. I found it to be a hard list and the WE player also won our little tourny, followed by the chaos player.

So not calling them cheese lists, but with all the great stuff in the WoC book I find it hard not to call what I was up against as "hard to deal with", comparable to what else he could've fielded.

One last thing: I don't want to be that sour loser who's doesn't want others to play the list they want. I can't get myself to say "yo dude? Would you please consider not talking the skullcrushers OR demon prince this time?". It's fair, but it's still a hard list IMO.

Overall tough this isn't a thread where I'm actually complaining, just a discussion on the subject. Others can feel free to contribute with how they deal with such "issues" and in worst case I'm always open for learning something new in terms of lists, strategy etc.

 

If I were to play a WoC army I'd definately try out something else than the usual Prince/Chariot/skullcrusher/nurgle on everything possible list. If he could he would've put in a chimera. Which is fine, I just would've tried out some of the difference aspects of the book. Especially considering the skill level we're playering at anyway. But this isn't the thread about what I want to field as an WoC player

But here's the thing though:

I don't feel that 3 smaller cohort units can do anything. Maybe it's just me though - I suppose I should try it out some more. I'd just rather have skirmish units instead tbh, but oh well.
I do, however, feel "safe" knowing that I have one big cohort unit that can take a beating without breaking for a couple of roundt. Not to mention that it's still somewhat cheap, but I'll have to try out a more cloudy list and learn.

What probably fvcks me over time and time again is that I went into the LM army with the excpetation of my saurus actually being awesome. Not that they aren't decent, but.. Yeah you know what I mean. The LM army looks like an tough army with good melee units. Instead I've come to learn the opposite and I need to get many more games under the belt so that I can properly learn to play. Unfortunately there aren't that many nearby WFB gamers and even less LM players. Learning by doing is obviously the best way to learn, but it also takes a lot of time when there is noone to correct you.

About WD - I don't think fireball could've done much. Roughly 3 wounds on the warriors if boosted to 3D6 isn't amazing. However, I did completely forget about the D6 + D6 S6 hits from shems burning gaze on the Demon Prince - it could've on average do 1-2 wounds pr cast so that's not terrible considering it only have 4 wounds.

With that said I rolled like a beaten dog in most of my WoM rolls. Stuff like 2 x 2 dice and no channel is hard and once my slann was reduced to lvl 2 I didn't quite have the lvl advantage I started out with.

Later in the game, after the prince had died untimely I focused getting hexes on the skullcrushers, so it's not as if I didn't get spells off, but once CC hit his units bumped from one combat to another. Now here's the odd thing. 3 skullcrushers were hold up by my slann for 2 turns. 4 CC phases. I got wyssans wildform off, but he should've still been dead after 2 rounds of combat.

against the WE player I did get off some spells, but for whatever reason I rolled horrible. I also only had two turns of doing anything before I resigned. At my T3 I had nothing left. It had all been shot and my friend was lucky enough to get blade wind off on IF (not suffering from it) on my cohort unit.

From my point of view at 1500pts I figured my army looked alright - I had an "anvil", hammer, some redirecters and hopefully the superior mage along with salamanders to burn any potential big blocks (the WoC friend also have Skaven for instance).

From what you're saying it sounds as if I should'ved left the sallies at home, taken some terradons, not have a large cohort unit, but instead smaller unit. Cut down on disciplines so I could've added another 2 COR, (I think I had 405pts core) so cut down on core to meet minimum and added a third COR. That would've bumped them from 7 -> 10.

Two of my friends went with lvl 4 mages and I knew they would so going with a single single just didn't appeal to me. Maybe it was a mistake.

It's hard for me to get used to the skink cloud with added redirectors. I think I'll have to play more defensively against some armies, especially WoC. It definately feels as an army you'll have to pick apart one by one.

One day though.. One day it'll happen.

Luckily I have 3 friends to play against and I've just learned some more people to play against so I'm hoping that I can get some more experience.

The thing about comp might just work, but.. yeah I don't know. I'll definately ask my WoC friend to continue bring his prince/skullcrusher etc so I can eventually learn to deal with it. Asking them to play with comp only means that I avoid the problem and not deal with it.

 

Tbh it's mostly just one friend. Fortunately he changes army quite often. I've played Empire, Dwarfs, High Elfs, Wood Elfs and O&G with him alone. We live 300m from each other.

I then have a friend living in another city who I play once a month or so and another friend close by who doesn't play that much.

They all have more than one army so I'm lucky to play against qutie a lot of different armies.

Anyway You've given me some ideas of how to do things. It's going to get messy and rough. I often time look at the armies I've played and how much more easy they appear to be. Empire have a lot of high armour save units and cannons. One can even drive around. Access to all lores. WoC are just brutal. Britonnia appear to be just straight forward at the right time, ogres are sort of similar to WoC and dwarfs are.. dwarfs.

Wait, "easy" isn't the right word, but more straight forward in the approach to gameplay. This is just something I have to adapt to and learn to deal with. I think I've played them "wrong" for quite a lot of games, but then again it's quite easy with how our units are ._.

Oh and usually I'm allowed to play with SC, so tetto'eko would be optimal for the COR bus.

Since we're talking about it anyway how about something like this (I suspect it'll be close to Daly's list lol):

@2500pts:

OB w/ piranha blade, Potion of Strenght, Charmed Shield, dawnstone.
OB w/ +4 taliman, dragonhelm (or glittering scales?), great weapon.
SV w/ Armour of Destiny, GW. BSB.
SV w/ steg helmet, Light armour, Luckstone, Ironcurse Icon.
Tetto
LvL 1 Beast Priest w/ scroll.

625 pts of skink cloud core, some small-ish cohort for bunker.


2 units of 3 terradons.

13 CORs w/ musician and champion (for challenges).

2 x sallies w/ snack.

checks in around 2500pts.

By going 6 wide with the CORs I can get maximum damage (w/ predatory fighter it should be around 45-46 attacks with various strenghts).

Going 5 wide would reduce the amount of attacks that can be distributed to the regular COs, but I'm not sure if I'm even supposed to care? The total amount of attacks should be 39 (6-7 less S4 attacks).

What I like about that list is that it's looks brutal as hell. The piranha OB will brutalize anyone with multipe wounds for one round. Get harmonic convergence off with tetto'eko and it's basically GG WP unless the characters die first.

This unit will also, with the help from Tetto'eko, be in CC by turn two at latest. hmm..

This is why I like 2500pts much more than 1500 or 2000pts <.<

**EDIT**

While I do sometimes roll horrible with WoM I have a tendency to roll amazing with other things. I've killed plenty of AS1+ knights with my skinks, parrying like a boss - killed the demon prince in a single phase of close combat with a 154pts expensive scar vet. So it evens out, just in other phases of the game lol.

 

Now I can't wait to play some more vs WoC. Damn exam

I'll force myself to play some more with the skink cloud and eventually have everyone I know hate me for it :3