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

Two things I forgot to say:

Hooray!

This made me chuckle

 

Short answer: Tzeentch help me, god no!
Long answer: Khorne help me, I'd rather see the thread die on a mound of charred skulls and crimson blood!

I delayed this thread for months because I didn't feel like going back and working out these 3 matchups. When all is said and done, this tournament will consist of 120 matchups. Going back through all of those to re-calculate things would take an obscene amount of time. Plus, there is no limit to how much fine tuning could be done. Imagine matchups consisting of only lower point models (infantry), each one could have several starting point levels within our limit.

In this case, something struck me as odd and I investigated. Usually though, the results are fairly decisive and it wouldn't make much of a difference. My focus will remain on most accurately balancing the sides in terms of points cost, and the rest will be up to the luck of the draw. There are nearly infinite numbers of variables that could be tweaked if one were so inclined.

This is the second time for your mangy Dwarfs! The Dawi were problematic in the White Lion matchup too.

The Dwarfs should consider themselves lucky. Although they went 1-1 against the Demigryphs and we seem to agree that it should be treated as a draw, we just as easily could have given the Demigryphs the win because at both points levels they are winning each round of combat resolution. Stubborn leadership 9 may be essentially unbreakable according to our tournament rules, but in WFB it is not. Eventually the Hammerers would fail their break test.

@Lizards of Renown @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl @Imrahil We all seem to be in agreement. It shall be so. Later on tonight, I'll update the chart. We have one more matchup in this round, and then we move onto round 10 of 15.

 

Hooray!

 

Thank you to @Lizards of Renown @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl @Imrahil and @Killer Angel for the feedback!


I have added the updated table to my previous post. That chapter is officially behind us. One match left to finish out this round.

 

Match time. In the last match of the round we have the Savage Orc Big'uns facing off against the Chaos Warriors.

Key rules in play:

• Chaos Warriors: MoN
• Savage Orc Big'uns: Choppas, Frenzy, Warpaint

Once the Chaos Warriors were able to edge out a victory in round 1, the contest was pretty much over. The Savage Orcs stood little chance once their Frenzy and Choppas special rules were no longer in play. Hitting on 5's really hurt them.




That marks the conclusion to round #9 of the competition. With the win the Chaos Warriors are sitting at -2 points and find themselves still 2 points behind the Savage Orcs. Thoughts?

 

Can you post the standings again?

I knew the WoC would win this match, but I thought it would be much more decisively. It was all over as soon as the Frenzy was gone. I really hate the Savage Orcs... They're kind of a Kamikaze unit. They can do a lot of damage but if you can weather the storm then they become a lot more confrontable.

 

This one is very straight forward and easy compared to the before
Good going.

I am curious if 'my' Witch Elves are anywhere near the top three

Grrr, Imrahil

 

So at the end of round 9, the units stack up as follows...

 

Glad to see two of my contenders (Beasts of Nurgle and Executioners) are still holding Silver and Bronze!

The K'Daai is ridiculous!!!!!! How are you supposed to kill the damn thing?!?!

 

Several ways:

• a non-stompable character with either the Dragon Bane Gem or Dragonhelm
• mass poisoned attacks
• ethereal units
• magical attacks

The more of the above you can throw at it, the easier it will go down.

In fact, within Chaos Dwarf circles, there are a large contingent of players that claim that the Destroyer isn't all that great of a unit for its points cost (when going up against a skilled general). The Destroyer is really hurt by the fact that a 5 point magic item grants you a 2+ ward save against it. I personally still believe it to be a fantastic unit, but the trick is to keep it away from the few things on the battlefield that can hard counter it.

Everything has a weakness and the Destroyer is no exception.

 

I briefly forgot about the flaming attacks. Fair enough.

 

Just make sure that your character with the 2+ ward save against flaming attacks can't be Thunderstomped! Thunderstomps do not benefit from any additional special rules, so the Destroyer's Thunderstomps are not flaming attacks. Also, you don't want that character in a unit, otherwise the Destroyer will simply direct all of its attacks at the unit instead.

 

I think it will be pretty hard to dislodge the Beasts of Nurgle from their silver medal standing. The Executioners on the other hand, I see them falling a few places before all is said and done.

 

Here we go... the start of round #10. For the first matchup (having nothing to do with the fact that the Demigryphs caused a great deal of annoyance last round ) we have the Demigryph Knights facing off against the current tourney leader, the K'daai Destroyer!

Key rules in play:

• K'daai Destroyer: Blazing Body, Bound Fire Daemon, Frenzy (D3 attacks)
• Demigryph Knights: none

What can be said? An easy win for the Destroyer. The only reason it went on for so long was that the Demigryphs remained steadfast while they had 3 or more models. Their S4/5 attacks that are non-magical and aren't poison, simply can't penetrate the Destroyer's impressive defenses. Similarly, the mighty 1+ armour save of the Demigryphs is reduced to a 5+ by the Destroyer's S7 attacks.



With the loss, the Demigryph's total score now stands at -2. The Destroyer on the other hand is sporting an impressive score of 14. The question is how many of the other leading contenders can keep from losing further ground to the Destroyer. We shall see.

Thoughts?

 

"Good, good, the Demigryph's must go down"
*strokes a white cat on his lap*

Grrr, Imrahil

 

Well we have a clear tournament winner. No-one's going to build up enough points to knock the K'Daai of the top spot.

With a brief look over the other match-ups, I think the Beasts will stay at Number 2 and I think that the Witch Elves will make their way past the Executioners for Number 3. The Witch Elves attack output is just too heavy in a straight up fight. (Which is why any sane general whittles them down before getting into combat... Kroak Bomb anyone?)

 

True, but wouldn't you just take even more Witch Elves to counter this aspect?

Grrr, Imrahil

 

You could. But in addition to whittling them down, a sane general is going to send a 1+ armour save unit up against them and they will do absolutely nothing to them. They tend to be a bit situational/strategic. I've never played a game that had more than one (albeit large) unit of Witch Elves.

Their main advantage is that they are CORE (ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?) and pretty cheap. If I was a Dark Elf general, it would be a "Why not?" choice for my Core Tax. They are fast and can be very useful. Even if only as a distraction tactic.