8th Ed. The Path to Awesome - Tracking Every Game Ever

[hdctambien]

I'm willing to concede that the DE player is foolish enough to allow the charge at all, but not that he'll allow himself to be flanked.

I haven't run 2 units of Ripper yet, but I imagine that a game of Movement Phase Chess could occur where you get the Rippers into a position where one of them would get a flank/rear charge on the unit. Otherwise, just one unit of Rippers probably won't even get into combat with the warlocks (I imagine they would just flee!)

Or maybe the first unit of Rippers doesn't hit them in the Flank, but it holds them in position for the second unit to flank them. Remember, dinosaurs hunt in packs.

Plus, there is a horde of 50 skinks (or 2 hordes!) that is gunning for them, too! If your goal is to flank that unit, then you should throw kill bots at it until one of them hits them in the flank!

I don't think much of anything in the LM book wins against much of anything else 1 on 1. We're all about teamwork.

 

[hdctambien]

My main point (one of them) about the Warlock situation is precisely that it totally sidesteps so many of the reasons magic is never a good plan. Soulblight on its own is reasonble, but takes so darn many things to make happen at the boosted level that it is indeed foolish to plan on it. With Warlocks, that's not so.

Warlocks give you all the benefits of bound spells (not randomly selected, miscasts are mostly meaningless) but none of the problems (can't add caster level, can't go for boosted).

Frankly, Warlocks are how magic should be for everyone.

I'm totally in agreement that the Warlocks, nay the entire Dark Elf army is a little beardy!

Of course, our same old skink cloud standby could work ... how many S2 poison shots would it take to wipe out a unit of warlocks? 5 wounds, 10 before wards, 12 before save, 72 shots should be all it takes to kill 5 warlocks (That's about what it takes to kill a K'Dai, too)! You won't do that in 1 turn... but it's nice to know the "magic number"

 

[Man0waR]

Dealing with ward saves

Skink chief on Ripperdactyle
Egg of Quango
Other Trickster Shard.

Charge. Pop it. Reroll successfull ward saves.

Cowboy with OTS.

Oldblood CO LA blade of realities

If it go heavy ward save, you can fit your hero/lord points to counter it.

 

[jgascoine011]

Lol i love so many of these comments

"just fly a guy on terradactyl into the warlocks with the egg and OTS"

Yea because in a game it is just warlocks vs guy on terradctyl, the dark elf player has no shooing/magic of any kind.
Besides, i am pretty sure the warlocks will probably kill the skink chief before he got to attack.

Anyway warlocks are good but they are not insane.
They dont actually kill much and all soul blight does is counter the lore of beasts signature spell (whatever its called again).

Tbh i think warlocks are about perfectly balanced. Expensive enough that you cant take massive units of them and not too expensive where really they just dont become viable.

 

[Sleboda]

Besides, i am pretty sure the warlocks will probably kill the skink chief before he got to attack.

=> You beat me to it. Yes, the Chief is likely dead before he can swing.

Anyway warlocks are good but they are not insane.
They dont actually kill much and all soul blight does is counter the lore of beasts signature spell (whatever its called again).

=> The killing is secondary. It really is the free/no risk boosted Soulblight that is an issue. Wildform helps one unit and risks the life of the caster and the rest of the magic phase to cast. Warlock Boosted Soulblight affects your entire army (making all his shooting and combat across the board better), has almost no chance to harm the "caster" and has zero chance of wrecking the rest of the magic phase for the DE player. Again, it's the utter freedom with which it can be tossed around that makes it so horrible.

 

[jgascoine011]

Yea they are good at magic.
In the same way that skull crushers are good in combat.


Also you have to remember that this is dark elves. They are all about magic and cheating.
They have such low strength and toughness and virtually no armour that they need posion and soulblight.
They just compliment dark elves so well. If they were in the chaos warriors book then i dont think you would see as many as they would not be as needed. Or even in a lizardmen book
But dark elves need these kind of things.

Yes your javelins are now S2, but against a T3 model with a 4++


Dont get me wrong. They are great and i love the warlocks but just as you fear warlocks, i fear salamanders and skull crushers.

 

[Kimiko]

Elaborating on how i killed the warlocks with my rippers:

- both units are on a flank. there's also a RBT at border of the table. Toad on warlock+mage unit, psychological effect kicks in.

- I hide the 4 behind a house next to my deploy, he runs past them always staying out of charge arc.

- He gets behind my lines. I get out of the house, with my back to right table border, looking at mage's rear and having a line to the RBT.

- He gets close to TG+Slann. I fear PSX now. RBT fires on Rippers, doing 2 wounds, I have 2 and a wounded Ripper now.
I risk a long charge (11') and get it. At this time i remember he has 4 warlocks+mage now, but dont remember if i attacked with only 1 ripper, or had another with 1 wound remaining.

That said, DE player made at max 3 wounds. Thats my garanteed CR (+1 charge,+2 rear). IIRC, i killed 2 warlocks. So he needed 7's, failed, got caught.

 

[laribold]

Dealing with ward saves

Skink chief on Ripperdactyle
Egg of Quango
Other Trickster Shard.

Charge. Pop it. Reroll successfull ward saves.

Sorry old chap. Nice idea but OTS and Egg of Quango are both Enchanted Items so it's a no-go combo...

 

[Sleboda]

Yea they are good at magic.
In the same way that skull crushers are good in combat.

Dont get me wrong. They are great and i love the warlocks but just as you fear warlocks, i fear salamanders and skull crushers.

=> I hear you, and I don't mean to belabor the point, but magic is not supposed to be this predictable, whereas combat or shooting is.

I support this with the following:

1) The main rulebook tells us that magic is not a plan any general counts on.

2) If any army in the entire game deserved this level of stability, predictability, and sandboxing, it would have been Tomb Kings, and we both know they got nothing close to this. If they had, it would have been, gosh, sort of akin to the old incantations system...that they ditched because it did not fit with 8th edition's magical mayhem.

3) When I spent points on a given combat or shooting model, skullcrushers or whatever, I get an almost completely known set of capabilities and those capabilities cannot kill itself (with very rare exceptions) nor can they cause unrelated units to lose their ability to fight or shoot.

Combat and shooting, in other words, are self-contained and predictable and, importantly, were designed to be this way in the game and for all armies. Magic, from jump street, was designed to have a ton of randomness and faults that are largely impossible to avoid. The way Warlocks work completely crushes the system as it was built. That's their problem.



EDIT: Also, @ those who encounter Warlock blocks as opposed to the little 5-man units - it's a totally different circumstance. I think the Lockblocks are working against the DE player more than helping him. Too much focus, too much room for problems to creep in or doubts to interfere with plans. The little 5-man unit is used as a one-for-on swap out for a sorceress. It's a small footprint, very maneuverable, 5W 4+ ward L2 wizard with no miscasts (not really anyway). That's _not_ the same as using them as a cavalry combat block.

 

[Kimiko]

Uh Sleboda.... i was playing against 2x5 warlocks, as said before. Not a big block. I would never charge 4 rippers to lets say, 10 warlocks.

 

[Sleboda]

Ah, sorry. I'll edit.

 

[jgascoine011]

Elaborating on how i killed the warlocks with my rippers:

- both units are on a flank. there's also a RBT at border of the table. Toad on warlock+mage unit, psychological effect kicks in.

- I hide the 4 behind a house next to my deploy, he runs past them always staying out of charge arc.

- He gets behind my lines. I get out of the house, with my back to right table border, looking at mage's rear and having a line to the RBT.

- He gets close to TG+Slann. I fear PSX now. RBT fires on Rippers, doing 2 wounds, I have 2 and a wounded Ripper now.
I risk a long charge (11') and get it. At this time i remember he has 4 warlocks+mage now, but dont remember if i attacked with only 1 ripper, or had another with 1 wound remaining.

That said, DE player made at max 3 wounds. Thats my garanteed CR (+1 charge,+2 rear). IIRC, i killed 2 warlocks. So he needed 7's, failed, got caught.

I am sorry but that is not a reliable way to kill warlocks.

That is literally like me saying that one time my 3 warlocks charged into a unit of 5 tzeentch screamers, he failed all of his 5+ ward saves and i passed all my 4+ ward saves, won combat and he went poof so therefore warlocks are great for killing screamers.

No i got lucky that one time and if i was to do the same thing 100 more times he would win combat every time.
So many of those things needed to go right for you to catch those warlocks.

 

[Kimiko]

A unit with so many attacks charging the rear of a small unit, is not going to end well.

Furthermore, a flank charge would mean a auto-break almost (2 attacks+1 horse to the side, and they already losing by 2).
Also don't forget the unit was toaded.

Point of the story, opponent was afraid of rippers, it was a psychological effect, and i was able to dictate where the warlocks would go, getting some luck and grabbing a rear-charge, breaking them.

 

[jgascoine011]

A unit with so many attacks charging the rear of a small unit, is not going to end well.

Furthermore, a flank charge would mean a auto-break almost (2 attacks+1 horse to the side, and they already losing by 2).
Also don't forget the unit was toaded.

Point of the story, opponent was afraid of rippers, it was a psychological effect, and i was able to dictate where the warlocks would go, getting some luck and grabbing a rear-charge, breaking them.

Yes a unit with so many attacks charging the rear of such a small unit is not going to end well....but how are they charging the unit. Ripperdactyls are not dictating the move of any dark elf unit. If anything with Ld5 and frenzy dark elves are dictating the movement of those ripperdactyls.


Your dark elf opponent is an idiot if he allows you to rear charge his warlocks with rippers.
Infact there is no reason why his warlocks should be behind the lizardmen lines when they have no arty to take care of.
All he has to do his standback and shoot doombolt at you, forcing you to come to him.
His warlock units should be taking care of the skink clouds and not running around unsupported behind enemy lines trying to flank templeguard and letting themselves get rear charged by rippers.

 

[Kimiko]

He´s no idiot. Believe me, he got 1st place in some major tournaments here in Portugal.

Also, go read again my first post. He was afraid of the rippers - always staying outside of the charge arc, taking measures to see where they could land etc. All because of the toad. After blasting +20 of his WE with Fiery Convocation, he was losing - he needed to get the upper side.

Next to my deploy i had 27TG+ Frog, Basti, Ancient Steg and my block of Saurus. He saw the opportunity and went for PSX. This was like more than 50% of my army. He 6-diced it and failed to get IF, Slann with Becalming and Reservoir can control an enemy magic phase, i dispelled it.

I had luck, he not. I was winning the game and he went for a gamble. I don't call it stupidity.

Also about gim giving the rear to me: the only unit that could charge them were the rippers. I was 21'' away. I got the 11. That's not stupidity also, it's luck.

 

[jgascoine011]

Well maybe, its hard to tell what happened in writing up reports.


Anyway my point wasnt to diss your opponent it was to say that rear charging them is not really a viable option of taking out warlocks.

 

[Man0waR]

Im tired of reading how stupid would be the player if...
- got charged his daemon prince.
- got outmaneuvered his fast cavalry.

This game has one really not random phase, and it is near the most important phase and when most mistakes happen. MOVEMENT PHASE. Before and After this phase, dice roll will lead the game.

Plz stop telling people how stupid they are. Cause you may be aren't better. Judging on situation never saw, just imagine how could you¡ve done perfectly. Theoryhammer does not say anything about movement and situations.

Well my point on ripperchief OTS EoQ was wrong, but the other options are still viable. I'll add another one.

- Razordons: 2 units of 2-3 Razordons will deny fast cavalry moving the flanks.

And Warlocks are OP. Just another bad design idea. You can avoid to get a LVL4 sorcerer and go for a heavy hitting lord, while getting the spells you want, with 5 wounds and 4++ save. Just like a lvl2 Slann for 1/3 of its cost, fast cavalry , nice combat stats for a caster and you can bring two units.

So lets compare:
Common level 2 sorcerer at average of most races = 80 points
- comes with 2 wounds.
- M4 to M6.
- You have to pay expensive mounts if you want Movement stat boost. +18-30 points
- 1 attack
- Strenght 3 Toughness 3.
- You can pay a 4+ Ward Save +45 points
- You got only 2 spells, randomized, you may have luck or stay with your signature and another randomed spell.

Total cost: 160 points on average.

How many points are the 5 Warlock unit?
- 5 wounds
- M9
- 4+ Ward Save (no unforgable)
- 2 attacks
- Fast Cavalry
- Strenght 4
- You always get the same 2 spells with no miscast downfall to your army. just punish the warlocks and they are guaranteed of survive even with max d3 wounds rolled.
I don't know it cost, if someone could tell us I'll be thankfull, but I think is less than our already expensive lvl2 sorcerer.

If you are a DE player and you worship them, its ok. But don't deny the truth.

 

[Kimiko]

5 warlocks are 125pts (25 each).

 

[Knight Errant]

Wow - talk about hijacking this thread. I'm looking forward to more reports Sleboda!

 

[Putzfrau]

Agreed.

At the Sheffield slaughter empire took first and third place.

Ben curry came in second with 15 warlocks.

Apparently you need more than just warlocks to win. Who knew.