8th Ed. The BEST close combat units in all of Warhammer ~BONUS MATCHES~

Brong it on!
Interested to see the difference

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Speak of the devil and he shall appear...



Styles make fights. The Bull Centaur's 2+ armour save was simply too much. They were able to assemble 6 wide and easily tank the damage (which the GW variant could not do, because they were not able to strip the Witch Elves of their Frenzy)



Of course, I expect the HW&S Bull Centaurs to get pounded by the Mournfang.

 

Tzeentch. Not the devil. You are the master of mayhem!

THUNDERCATS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Close battle, but another poor showing by the Fireborn, who are not living up to their bigger brother's legacy.

 

Interesting, I would have thought that they would have one out with the auto damage and regular attacks.

I guess this is another example of the maths of the fights, strictly % compared to %.

 

Agreed. While there are still plenty of great matchups awaiting the Fireborn, they stand no chance at living up to the Destroyer. Unfortunately for them, they still have several tough matchups (some of which the Destroyer had on issue with). The Destroyer's T6 + forcing re-rolls of successful wounds was simply amazing, and the T4 of the Fireborn doesn't even come close. Then there is the issue of S5 trying to get through armour, while the Destroyer sliced through it with ease with its S7.

 

Still trying to find a way to counter the Beasts of Nurgle in close combat with a unit from the Chaos Dwarfs army. Alas, the search continues... the search has finally ended...

***The original calculations have been updated, as the parry save of the Bull Centaurs was not initially included. With the correction, the result actually flips, and the Bull Centaurs pull out a very long and hard fought victory***




A disgustingly long pillow fight. Neither unit was particularly good at damaging the other, but the Beasts were better. The Bull Centaurs were able to win a couple of rounds of combat at the onset thanks to their Standard and rank bonus of 1. However, once they lost their rank bonus, their standard was only able to draw the combat and they were slowly ground down.

That said, it is quite a close match. With the simple addition of a musician, all those drawn rounds of combat would transition to the Bull Centaurs winning by 1 and thus the Beasts bleeding wounds to instability. Add the banner of the eternal flame for another 10 points and things would be closer still (although I am lazy to go through the agony of recalculating the match with these changes).

The best counter will have to (unfortunately) come from a character. A Bull Centaur Taur'ruk with a 1+ rerollable armour save and GW should do nicely. If he is in a unit of Bull Centaurs with the Banner of Eternal flame, then drop the OTS on him as well. Of course, this isn't my typical all comers list build. I am reluctant to give the unit the banner of eternal flame, because the K'daai are already saddled with flaming attacks and I don't want to be any more vulnerable to Dragonbane Gem / Dragonhelm counters (in a general list).


A seemingly small change (a parry save) completely flips the result. The Bull Centaurs take slightly less wounds and over the course of so many rounds this slowly adds up and they are left with more models to attack back. Those close draws that we saw previously, now become close 1 combat resolution point victories for the Bull Centaurs. As a result, the Beasts of Nurgle keep bleeding additional wounds to Daemonic Instability, which then further compounds this effect.

The Beasts of Nurgle are such an impressive unit. They are nearly uncounterable. They only really seem to fear 1+ armour thus far (and of course the silly Banner of the World Dragon)

While the Beasts of Nurgle are without doubt one of the very best units in the entire game of Warhammer, at least the Chaos Dwarfs have finally found a unit with which to counter them. While the battle is extremely long and drawn out, a few options available to the Bull Centaurs (like the Banner of Eternal flame or War Banner) would help expedite the process. With the addition of a musician, the Bull Centaurs could even help negate some limited bad dice rolling on their part. In the end, it's far from a sure thing, far from a hard-counter, but it is a counter!

 

I think that the Bull Centaurs would always have a character and thus the Beasts would take a hiding, losing more to daemonic instability each round.

Quite an apt description

Does this item work on Regen saves? I never thought of it that way to be honest... But I guess it does say that the Regen gives them a 4+ ward save...

Interesting, gonna keep that in mind for future list building.

 

Perhaps... but such a unit does become prohibitively expensive very quickly. I was hoping to find a non-character option to counter the Beasts of Nurgle with... but no luck (at least with the Chaos Dwarfs).

It was a grossly tedious matchup to calculate.

I don't think OTS works on regeneration saves, as they are not ward saves. That's why its inclusion should only be considered if the unit already has the Banner of Eternal Flame.

 

Good point. (I shudder to think how long a decent sized 13 turn game would take to play...)

The Beasts are a pretty epic tarpit in that way.

 

Their dominance continues...






The Beasts of Nurgle make short work of the fledgling Fireborn.

 

The Fireborn finally get a victory (barely)...





It's a start I suppose.

 

To be fair their big cousin had lost to them as well albeit a regular loss.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

That is very true. That's why I would have loved to have found a counter to the Beasts of Nurgle that didn't involve a character or magic. Oh well.

In CC tournament revealed many things, the Destroyer was definitely the most destructive, but the Beasts of Nurgle seem to be the most reliable and hardest to counter.

How many non-character units can you think of that can beat the Beasts of Nurgle in a straight up fight? What counters the Beasts of Nurgle?

• 1+ saves (in some instances)
• pit of shades or purple sun (magic is fickle)

They are such a solid unit and an absolute auto-include. They are hard to hit because of the MoN, hard to wound (T5) and have solid saves and a very generous wound count. They also sport a large number of poisoned attacks and decent movement. Plus they're unbreakable! At least they can't take command, so they are a bit more limited when it comes to static combat resolution.

If I had access to a unit with their rules/profile, I would always include them in my TK, LM, CD or WoC army lists! Without question or hesitation.

 

Regenerating Chaos Trolls versus flaming K'daai Fireborn, what could go wrong?





This was always going to be a solid matchup for the Fireborn, but at least they have a Massive Victory to their name!

 

Yup.

And don't forget they can issue challenges. Mental!

 

And they don't concede combat resolution for being hit in the flank/rear!

They are simply one of the very best units in the entire game of Warhammer.

 

Which I never knew until your whole Math-hammer work-out. Now I've got 6 and thinking about getting some more...