2250 Cheese Vs. Skaven - Results are in !!!

[Brian Mage]

Hey hey,

Some of you guys may remember me from my post about being a sucky elf player!!!
Well, as you all said, i've turned the corner and am now very much holding my own (although only playing agaist Empire, Brets & OKs)

One of the group is going to be rolling out his Skaven again soon (he wanted to get some modifications done).

This months enemy of the month is Skaven, but i thought this post should go here…

His list will have Hell Pit Abomination and Plague Furnace but no Bell or Doomwheel.
He does use a lot of plague dudes…

I've come up with this list and wanted to see your opinions - My other option is an Arch mage & Dragon mage list… but we'll look at that later if this fails!!!
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Teclis (Boo… Hisssss…..) Don't know which lore… Possibly High for IF's Flames of Pheonix!! - 475
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Lv1 Caddy (Purely defensive + ocasionaly Drain Magic) - 140
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Noble (in DPs)- Barded Steed, Heavy Armour, GW, Helm of Fortune, Guardian Pheonix, - 163
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Noble (in SM's)- Heavy Armour, GW, Reaver Bow, ToL (is GW and Reaver Bow legal? if not, replace with White Sword) - 147
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Swordmasters x11 (Noble here) - 165
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Dragon Princes x5 (Nobel here) - 150
Dragon Princes x6 - 180
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Pheonix Guard x14 - (BB & Bannery of Sorcery, Teclis in here) - 260
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Spearelves x 21 - 189
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Archers x10 - 110
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Lion Chariot (to support one infantry unit depending on deployment) - 140
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Tiranoc Chariot (to support 1 cavalry unit) - 85
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RBT's x 2 - 200
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PD = 7 + 2xD3
DD = 5 + D3
3 scrolls (inc teclis)

I'm 150 points over, so plenty of room to fiddle around - my immediate choice would be goodbye to a unit of DP's but want to see your thoughts…

Basic Idea -
Stand back and use magic and shooting turn 1&2.
Turn 3 charge in and have a right good scrap?
Chariots purely to get in corners on charges.
Bolters will take care of Hell Pit - [hopes]
I'll just try to avoid furnace as much as possible (Magic resistance)

Please feel free to point out any weaknesses and pointers - trust me, I need it!

[Who8themoon]

I like it.

Maybe drop the DP's and squeeze in an eagle to help break up the horde advance with some fancy march blocking/charge redirecting/frenzy pulling fun?

[Brian Mage]

Eagle Vs Plague furnace frenzy is good idea, however very wary of this due to the fact i KNOW he'll bring the stormbanner. (He'll be expecting my DM list with 30 Archers!)

[geoguswrek]

Teclis takes lore of fire, go for wall of fire on the plague furnace unit (you irresistable, forget bloody magic resistance), and then a fiery blast at the hellpit. bolters go for the small units/take ranks/cause panic. Swordmasters walk forward and deal with everything that isn't a plague furnace while the eagle, chariot and whatever else you can find, ensure the plague furnace unit is charging every turn (that is quite mean when you consider wall of fire is gonna kill half the unit each time it is forced to move in this way.

Thus teclis destroys the furnace's unit (in probably 2-3 turns the unit will be moving real slow) then you can turn on the other stuff.

[Sturen]

Agree with the eagle and geos sneaky trick is great. I think that you could use a BSB, maybe make your mounted noble a BB BSB to guarantee breaking the enemy. You might even break the furnace unit if your chariot or other DPs help?

GW and reaver bow is legal as far as I know

[geoguswrek]

Sturen: furnace is unbreakable.

[Sturen]

Umm.... I knew that
Well they'll break any unbreakable, not stubborn unit, is the Abom stubborn?

[Who8themoon]

geoguswrek, amazing tactic.... seriously never even thought about it.

[geoguswrek]

Sturen: the abom isn't stubborn, but fire magic is the best way to kill it, since in combat theres a chance it gets 12 s6 hits on the DP..
who8themoon:
i've spent a long time working out how to beat skaven...
Its all in death/fire.

Also, i don't like high magic very much.

[Feyd]

I agree with what geoguswrek advises it is all sound advise. IF Fire/Death vs Skaven for the Win. Just keep pumping out the Fiery Blasts against the Abomination and it will go down fast enough. Just never fight the Plague Furnace or Abom if you can help it.

[Brian Mage]

When he first glued his models together we had a few games to see how they played.

First game i bolted the HPA to death. Second game i thought "that thing is pants" and charged it with 12 SM's.. They got ate.....

Plague and the stormbanner are what has beaten me in the past, so the wall of fire thing is a fantastic idea. however might need reavers to do the bait job. If the banner is up, the eagle can't fly and therefore wall of fire is not gonna work...

Does everyone agree to drop a unit of DP's or should i drop the LC?

[geoguswrek]

when the banner is up, just use DP for the bait job.

[smart elf]

I would drop one of your nobles. then you can keep both your dragon princes and lion chariot. but i am not sure which one. maybe the one on horse? The reaver bow is good against their weapon teams i think. wanna try that out in my next battle

coming to another thing i read here. I really like the tactic of geoguswrek with the wall of fire against the plague furnace. my question is: can it also be done with a book of hoeth archmage, banner of sorcery and lvl2 caddy? I have a battle next week against skaven and i gave that friend the new skaven book for his birthday. He really liked it and felt really sorry for my elves .
we play without special caracters, otherwise i would have taken teclis. so my only option is the BOH archmage...... just remembering that the mage has to choose his spells. so a 2/3 chance of getting the right spell is not that good. soooo.....guess there goes my idea

[Brian Mage]

The battle happened this weekend.

Result - MASSACRE in favour of the Elves!!!

I slightly edited my list before the battle - I droped both nobels, and put korhil in the lion chariot and went with 15 spears with war banner. 2247 points in total.

Teclis was awesome. I've used him plenty before, but it was like he was on a mission to put those ratty ass mutants back in their place!!!

GWreks tactic with wall of fire. His face dropped when he realised that the spell which he thought was over rated actually was about to affect every model on the furnace and his 2W plague wizard dude had taken a hit when the wall first went up too!!! The storm banner (which we've agreed is once use only until the FAQ comes out) had fadded, the eagle flew!!!

As it happens, the furnace didn't get dragged through the wall, A minor debate about frenzied charges - They take place after normal declared charges so he therefore charged the eagle with a cheap unit which meant they were in the way of the furnace and therefore the furnace was not in a position that it could charge... his troops blocked line of sight- i disagreed with this, but thats a differnt post all together!!! (i'll be asking about this in the general forum)

The rest of the army was awsome. PG's held there own against constant bararges from a scrap launcher and PWG's. Lion Chariot and SM's swung into the flanks of the PG anvil. 2 units of DP's destroyed averything they touched and got the over run each time.

The only thing i did which i though was low was... his HPA was down to 2 wounds (from IF'd blasts and balls) but i put a chariot in the way of him so he was tied up fighting that on turn 3. After turn 3, the only thing left was the HPA - with one wound (lucky spearman) and the Furnace about half strength.

General died from RBTS and arches in turn 3 (his unit was laghably too small!)

At this point he conceeded... I drank a beer and smiled

[Silver]

In this case, as discussed on the other sub-forum (Fantasy Discussion) the furnace would have had to charge as well, as Chargers move Simultaneously against a same target. So the support unit declared first, but the furnace is forced to go as well due to frenzy and they are moved together toward the eagle.

[geoguswrek]

which is why you put a unit infront of the furnace and then charge with both if you want to charge.

[Brian Mage]

Geoguswrek - thanks for the tip btw. Although we didn't play it right, the idea worked and the eagle totally messed up his lines. It was my first use of an eagle, so i was bound to make some tactical errors. I'm up against a GT finalist next week, Elves vs Elves. He's only just put his army together so the idea is we'll learn off each other, even though i will get battered.

His tounaments are normally comp'd against named characters, so book of hoeth Arch mage in for Teclis, Korhil dropped - some extra points to play with. May put mounted noble star lance in with a unit of DP's.

He doesn't use eagles, so i pinning a lot of hope on that pulling his SM's around

GO EAGLES!!!

[pk-ng]

eagles are the bomb
I once killed 2 mages (one in a unit of spear 7x3) (another in a unit of PGs) I obviously lost combat but who cares I killed his mage hahaha!!!