Re: Enemy of the Month September: Daemons
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:36 am
INTERNET GREMINS ATE MY GODAMN POST!
OK, defensive armies should focus their game around concentrated fire, and as such must be careful when choosing targets. Mostly, fire should be concentrated towards hard units that can be diminished in efficacy (knights, mostly), while large ones that cannot (monsters, massive infantry blocks) should be dealt with via bolt throwers and magic respectively. This is because super heavy cav costs more than twice what most super heavy infantry cost, hit harder and will be at your lines a round or two sooner. Even if it halves your kills, the kills mean more. When giant monsters are your primary threat, massed bowfire can also contribute to their demise. I like to fire my bolt throwers first, so my archers can polish off that last wound if the monster has any.
A note of those fast, flighty buggers that zip around to hunt your war machines, you only really need to pick them down to 2, which usually translates to 3 kills. Use magic for this when possible, but since your archer line can withstand a charge from these light units, you don't need to worry about them too much. Of course, this assumes your war machines are either in terrain, have a hero (which I'll talk about later) or have something to get in the way, like shadow warriors. This generally means you can wait a turn before they turn into a priority. In the case of daemons, this of course means furies. I find at 2, I have better than even chances of my war machine crews winning that crucial first combat against them. Of course, reducing them to 1 is preferable, but if they are down to 2, and you have bigger fish to fry (which facing chaos, you will) then fire at the other target.
When discussing flesh hounds, blood crushers, other giant deadly uber units, people erroneously prioritize them as a target to be dealt with at range. I find the better option is to use overwhelming force agains their flank in melee. This has two benefits. It locks them in a combat that prevents them from bringing many attacks to bear, lets you win combats via combat resolution. A gutsier move I've used is counter charging them when they've been locked in place. If I get say, my white lions with the lion standard into combat with flesh hounds on my left flank, I'll have a pair of chariots with them, who will counter charge from the front or sides and try to crush them via overwhelming wounds. On the other side, it might be my other specials, a chariot, some phoenix guard and the dragon princes with the banner of ellyrion. If they ran their hounds down the center, I absolutely must use my eagle to draw them to the flanks, or I may even sacrafice an archer unit to redirect them to the sides, though that is a last chance. Other times, I'll retreat my center and have my chariots and princes pounce on them from the flanks, redirection their flank forces away from the battle in general.
When playing defensive against armies with little shooting, I like to put my melee heroes into bolt thrower units for a few rounds. (Generally, it's Archmage, mage, commander, commander.) For the first turns, it prevents my bolt throwers from getting over run by fast zippy bastards. After those things have lost their opportunity to prevent my shooting from taking its toll, I simply move them to either flank infantry unit, which helps them hold that one round before I countercharge everything. By then, it doesn't matter so much if my bolt throwers are down because the big bad monster will either be dead, or will be in melee.
Once I've started the countercharge part of the strategy, I generally try to turn their flanks in, because my flanks have my hard hitters, while the center only has shooting. Generally a mix of archers and some small units of seaguard to prevent medium units from stomping through my middle too fast.
Specific units
The star dragon is the lazy man's solution to a lot of our problems. It's powerful, and it tends to get leaned on unecessarily. A strong general (conceit on my part) can do more with the 350 points in infantry than they can with the stard dragon. People assume it's needed to deal with the real big bads in daemonic armies, but the truth is, giant fucking monster vs. giant fucking monster is a crap shoot when they're even, and a retarded arms race escalation when they aren't.
While I admit, we definitely can win with the bastard, it's hardly the only way, nor the best way. It's the penultimate of the hammer. It is a crushing tool that swipes in from whatever angle it pleazes to wreck things, but the cost at which is does so does not always get paid back. Nor do inordinately fancy tactics make it a better tool. The faster it hits melee against something terrifying, the more value you're getting from it, sans walking into traps. Of course, walking into traps is exactly what chaos players will try to force your dragon to do when facing some slaanesh units.
You can cover for that weakness (Ie, it's a high priority siren song target) by moving your dragon in tandem with a unit of dragon princes who can counter the counter charge that you got countered with when you took the sirens song. For this purpose, you may want to keep him nearer the BSB than you normally would.
Teclis is a decent choice against most anything, and works well enough against expensive, relatively fragile pieces like chaos, but I've not used him all that often against daemons. I find most of my chaos opponents however have very few dispel dice. This reduces Teclis' utility when compared to a standard archmage, or my typical Eltharion list. The exception is Tzeentch heavy lists, but I find those are best dealt with by thrusting the dragon princes and heroes forward with reckless abandon while sniping his units down to more manageable sizes.
When using Teclis, I almost invariably pick high or shadow. The movement spells are the ones that absolutely must go off, and the high magic school does fairly well against daemons when used at the right time. Particularly drain magic, wrecking horrors.
A foot prince is a rather sub par choice under most circumstances, unless you have a shadow wizard around him. A prince in dragon armour on foot suddenly flying into that unit of flamers can really wreck a chaos opponents day. I use them most commonly with the bow of the seafarer, plonk him in my swordmasters, and completely demolish the daemon prince with shooting. He makes a good leadership base when I'm moving forward slowly, giving that unit something to do while moving up slowly.
Archmages are about the same vs. daemons as Teclis from my experience. I try and move my units around with magic, getting flank charges, blowing apart small flying units, or whatever.
Commanders on foot are far more common for me than princes. I typically take one with the full armour kit, and great weapon, the battle standard and the radiant gem of hoeth, though of course other options are viable. A commander in a small unit of swordmasters is nearly redundant, but in a unit of spear elves, lions or phoenix guard, his additional high strength attacks can really swing the tide.
Battle standard bearers have been fairly essential to my success. My units are either immune to fear, fear causing, disposable, shock troops or bulky. Other types of units are pretty much a liability vs. daemons. You'll see me run three elite infantry units rather often. Phoenix guard with the banner of sorcery, lions with the lion standard and swordmasters with the standard of balance. My core of seaguard are generally bulky enough to avoid autobreaking. Due to the current prevalence of fear causers, I actually use this standard set up all the time. These re-rolls are less essential when taking an offense heavy list, where you should be pressing through, and routing then regrouping lets you make another push in the late game if necessary. You can break, you just need enough scary melee units to keep the pressure on anyway.
Level 2 mages, due to my focus on mid level movement and low level missiles work just like archmages, but smaller.
Archers are a liability in my lists. I don't take them because they don't contribute much, and they are an easy victim if my opponent is looking for some easy points.
Spear elves are an occassional choice when I playing all out offensive. They do well against support elements at 15 strong, and can beat average units/hold up good units at 28. For their cost, they don't do as much as I'd want them to at either level, but a pair of 15s do well as units pressuring the flanks when going for balls out attacks.
Sea guard are expensive for what they do, but they can do it well. They are for destroying monsters with mass volleys, and for taking out hills, then getting charged by the enemy's countercharge forces, and either holding them up or winning. I even use them to press the final attack against the enemy once their choicest targets are gone. Playing them agressively in the last 2 turns has consistently paid off. It would have with spears as well, but they would not have contributed in the same way in the first through third rounds of combat.
Silver helms are a joke.
Dragon princes are best taken in units of 6. Against daemons, you can manage 7 across since they also prefer wide frontages. I find I have difficulty setting up charges with the larger units though. My favourite kit for these guys is the banner of ellyrion, a champion, standard and musician. When I have a secondary unit, they have the war banner, and I try to point both them and the dragon at the same unit, which is pretty much boned.
Swordmasters do well against daemons, who lack a lot of shooting. You need magic defense when you take them, and high magic becomes much more viable, due to the shield of saphery and due to drain magic. They can turn anything short of crushers and plaguebearers into mush. Even the feared bloodhounds have consistently been cut down by my swordmasters. units of 14, 7 across is ideal against daemons. They do need some immunity to fear from some source, as they can lose combats. It should be noted that even though my unit has accounted for a unit of daemonnettes, a bloodthirster, a unit of fleshounds and a unit of bloodletters in one battle, they are almost always depleted down to 1 or 2 models. They even lost most rounds of combat. But once the enemy units were ground down that first turn, the second turn usually pulps what's left.
White lions are a bit of an odd choice. They have special equipment that isn't likely to come up, due to a lack of shooting, lack the multitudinous attacks needed to fend off the melee daemons, and they have little to no combat protection. Despite all this, their stick-to-iteveness is a resounding plus in their favour. I'd let them anchor my flank any day, if you catch my meaning. They do however need a means to ignore fear. Even more so than swordmasters. Once they do, pick a unit or units, move them towards it, and set up counter charges. Against experience opponents, they make an excellent delay unit, and an experienced opponent won't want to step into the trap of charging them and getting counter charged, and may instead try to move around them. Of course, you need shooting or magic to capitolize on this, as well has have a countercharge unit ready.
Phoenix guard give me mixed signals. They are bloody hard to kill, but have little offense themselves. They make the worst character bunker because they don't kill off as many enemies as the other infantry units (which would reduce attacks on your character) and enemyies don't like attacking them because they don't generate much combat resolution. When I use them, I stick the general in there, because it gives him immunity to fear, he gives them some much needed killing power, and they can take enough of a pounding to safely get my general through the battle without running from unit to unit.
Shadow warriors are too costly for what they do, but in some instances when I can't take more eagles due to a pressing need for bolt throwers, I take a single unit to march block. I even charge the flanks of some tougher units from time to time. With their high weapon skill, hatred and the flank, they can actually beat units in this manner, so long as it's fast cav or something. I actually beat a unit of mounted daemonnettes that way, though don't expect this opportunity to happen often. Just know they are sometimes overly underestimated, which can work to their advantage.
The tiranoc chariot is my chariot of choice. With its higher move speed, it's like a one shot missile, used in conjunction with an elite infantry unit, or charging with the dragon princes, these things can add a couple crucial pips of combat resolution needed to break the back of a small elite unit, like flesh hounds.
The lion chariot is similar in nature, and vs. daemons is a superior choice, due to immunity to fear, and to superior staying power. I don't take them because those are not usually required traits in my chariots.
Ellyrion reavers are too expensive and take too valuable a slot to generally consider. When I do use them, I use them to get around to the enemy's flanks, charging them in solo hoping to win via combat resolution. It's a cost effective yet risky way to eliminate large, weak blocks.
Eagles are crucial to the success of diversion forces. I also put them facing my lines blocking my charges to stop the siren song from working.
Bolt throwers are basically your monster slayer. Work on the biggest targets first, then the fast cavalry if they took any, then flyers. After that, whatever he presents as a target.
OK, defensive armies should focus their game around concentrated fire, and as such must be careful when choosing targets. Mostly, fire should be concentrated towards hard units that can be diminished in efficacy (knights, mostly), while large ones that cannot (monsters, massive infantry blocks) should be dealt with via bolt throwers and magic respectively. This is because super heavy cav costs more than twice what most super heavy infantry cost, hit harder and will be at your lines a round or two sooner. Even if it halves your kills, the kills mean more. When giant monsters are your primary threat, massed bowfire can also contribute to their demise. I like to fire my bolt throwers first, so my archers can polish off that last wound if the monster has any.
A note of those fast, flighty buggers that zip around to hunt your war machines, you only really need to pick them down to 2, which usually translates to 3 kills. Use magic for this when possible, but since your archer line can withstand a charge from these light units, you don't need to worry about them too much. Of course, this assumes your war machines are either in terrain, have a hero (which I'll talk about later) or have something to get in the way, like shadow warriors. This generally means you can wait a turn before they turn into a priority. In the case of daemons, this of course means furies. I find at 2, I have better than even chances of my war machine crews winning that crucial first combat against them. Of course, reducing them to 1 is preferable, but if they are down to 2, and you have bigger fish to fry (which facing chaos, you will) then fire at the other target.
When discussing flesh hounds, blood crushers, other giant deadly uber units, people erroneously prioritize them as a target to be dealt with at range. I find the better option is to use overwhelming force agains their flank in melee. This has two benefits. It locks them in a combat that prevents them from bringing many attacks to bear, lets you win combats via combat resolution. A gutsier move I've used is counter charging them when they've been locked in place. If I get say, my white lions with the lion standard into combat with flesh hounds on my left flank, I'll have a pair of chariots with them, who will counter charge from the front or sides and try to crush them via overwhelming wounds. On the other side, it might be my other specials, a chariot, some phoenix guard and the dragon princes with the banner of ellyrion. If they ran their hounds down the center, I absolutely must use my eagle to draw them to the flanks, or I may even sacrafice an archer unit to redirect them to the sides, though that is a last chance. Other times, I'll retreat my center and have my chariots and princes pounce on them from the flanks, redirection their flank forces away from the battle in general.
When playing defensive against armies with little shooting, I like to put my melee heroes into bolt thrower units for a few rounds. (Generally, it's Archmage, mage, commander, commander.) For the first turns, it prevents my bolt throwers from getting over run by fast zippy bastards. After those things have lost their opportunity to prevent my shooting from taking its toll, I simply move them to either flank infantry unit, which helps them hold that one round before I countercharge everything. By then, it doesn't matter so much if my bolt throwers are down because the big bad monster will either be dead, or will be in melee.
Once I've started the countercharge part of the strategy, I generally try to turn their flanks in, because my flanks have my hard hitters, while the center only has shooting. Generally a mix of archers and some small units of seaguard to prevent medium units from stomping through my middle too fast.
Specific units
The star dragon is the lazy man's solution to a lot of our problems. It's powerful, and it tends to get leaned on unecessarily. A strong general (conceit on my part) can do more with the 350 points in infantry than they can with the stard dragon. People assume it's needed to deal with the real big bads in daemonic armies, but the truth is, giant fucking monster vs. giant fucking monster is a crap shoot when they're even, and a retarded arms race escalation when they aren't.
While I admit, we definitely can win with the bastard, it's hardly the only way, nor the best way. It's the penultimate of the hammer. It is a crushing tool that swipes in from whatever angle it pleazes to wreck things, but the cost at which is does so does not always get paid back. Nor do inordinately fancy tactics make it a better tool. The faster it hits melee against something terrifying, the more value you're getting from it, sans walking into traps. Of course, walking into traps is exactly what chaos players will try to force your dragon to do when facing some slaanesh units.
You can cover for that weakness (Ie, it's a high priority siren song target) by moving your dragon in tandem with a unit of dragon princes who can counter the counter charge that you got countered with when you took the sirens song. For this purpose, you may want to keep him nearer the BSB than you normally would.
Teclis is a decent choice against most anything, and works well enough against expensive, relatively fragile pieces like chaos, but I've not used him all that often against daemons. I find most of my chaos opponents however have very few dispel dice. This reduces Teclis' utility when compared to a standard archmage, or my typical Eltharion list. The exception is Tzeentch heavy lists, but I find those are best dealt with by thrusting the dragon princes and heroes forward with reckless abandon while sniping his units down to more manageable sizes.
When using Teclis, I almost invariably pick high or shadow. The movement spells are the ones that absolutely must go off, and the high magic school does fairly well against daemons when used at the right time. Particularly drain magic, wrecking horrors.
A foot prince is a rather sub par choice under most circumstances, unless you have a shadow wizard around him. A prince in dragon armour on foot suddenly flying into that unit of flamers can really wreck a chaos opponents day. I use them most commonly with the bow of the seafarer, plonk him in my swordmasters, and completely demolish the daemon prince with shooting. He makes a good leadership base when I'm moving forward slowly, giving that unit something to do while moving up slowly.
Archmages are about the same vs. daemons as Teclis from my experience. I try and move my units around with magic, getting flank charges, blowing apart small flying units, or whatever.
Commanders on foot are far more common for me than princes. I typically take one with the full armour kit, and great weapon, the battle standard and the radiant gem of hoeth, though of course other options are viable. A commander in a small unit of swordmasters is nearly redundant, but in a unit of spear elves, lions or phoenix guard, his additional high strength attacks can really swing the tide.
Battle standard bearers have been fairly essential to my success. My units are either immune to fear, fear causing, disposable, shock troops or bulky. Other types of units are pretty much a liability vs. daemons. You'll see me run three elite infantry units rather often. Phoenix guard with the banner of sorcery, lions with the lion standard and swordmasters with the standard of balance. My core of seaguard are generally bulky enough to avoid autobreaking. Due to the current prevalence of fear causers, I actually use this standard set up all the time. These re-rolls are less essential when taking an offense heavy list, where you should be pressing through, and routing then regrouping lets you make another push in the late game if necessary. You can break, you just need enough scary melee units to keep the pressure on anyway.
Level 2 mages, due to my focus on mid level movement and low level missiles work just like archmages, but smaller.
Archers are a liability in my lists. I don't take them because they don't contribute much, and they are an easy victim if my opponent is looking for some easy points.
Spear elves are an occassional choice when I playing all out offensive. They do well against support elements at 15 strong, and can beat average units/hold up good units at 28. For their cost, they don't do as much as I'd want them to at either level, but a pair of 15s do well as units pressuring the flanks when going for balls out attacks.
Sea guard are expensive for what they do, but they can do it well. They are for destroying monsters with mass volleys, and for taking out hills, then getting charged by the enemy's countercharge forces, and either holding them up or winning. I even use them to press the final attack against the enemy once their choicest targets are gone. Playing them agressively in the last 2 turns has consistently paid off. It would have with spears as well, but they would not have contributed in the same way in the first through third rounds of combat.
Silver helms are a joke.
Dragon princes are best taken in units of 6. Against daemons, you can manage 7 across since they also prefer wide frontages. I find I have difficulty setting up charges with the larger units though. My favourite kit for these guys is the banner of ellyrion, a champion, standard and musician. When I have a secondary unit, they have the war banner, and I try to point both them and the dragon at the same unit, which is pretty much boned.
Swordmasters do well against daemons, who lack a lot of shooting. You need magic defense when you take them, and high magic becomes much more viable, due to the shield of saphery and due to drain magic. They can turn anything short of crushers and plaguebearers into mush. Even the feared bloodhounds have consistently been cut down by my swordmasters. units of 14, 7 across is ideal against daemons. They do need some immunity to fear from some source, as they can lose combats. It should be noted that even though my unit has accounted for a unit of daemonnettes, a bloodthirster, a unit of fleshounds and a unit of bloodletters in one battle, they are almost always depleted down to 1 or 2 models. They even lost most rounds of combat. But once the enemy units were ground down that first turn, the second turn usually pulps what's left.
White lions are a bit of an odd choice. They have special equipment that isn't likely to come up, due to a lack of shooting, lack the multitudinous attacks needed to fend off the melee daemons, and they have little to no combat protection. Despite all this, their stick-to-iteveness is a resounding plus in their favour. I'd let them anchor my flank any day, if you catch my meaning. They do however need a means to ignore fear. Even more so than swordmasters. Once they do, pick a unit or units, move them towards it, and set up counter charges. Against experience opponents, they make an excellent delay unit, and an experienced opponent won't want to step into the trap of charging them and getting counter charged, and may instead try to move around them. Of course, you need shooting or magic to capitolize on this, as well has have a countercharge unit ready.
Phoenix guard give me mixed signals. They are bloody hard to kill, but have little offense themselves. They make the worst character bunker because they don't kill off as many enemies as the other infantry units (which would reduce attacks on your character) and enemyies don't like attacking them because they don't generate much combat resolution. When I use them, I stick the general in there, because it gives him immunity to fear, he gives them some much needed killing power, and they can take enough of a pounding to safely get my general through the battle without running from unit to unit.
Shadow warriors are too costly for what they do, but in some instances when I can't take more eagles due to a pressing need for bolt throwers, I take a single unit to march block. I even charge the flanks of some tougher units from time to time. With their high weapon skill, hatred and the flank, they can actually beat units in this manner, so long as it's fast cav or something. I actually beat a unit of mounted daemonnettes that way, though don't expect this opportunity to happen often. Just know they are sometimes overly underestimated, which can work to their advantage.
The tiranoc chariot is my chariot of choice. With its higher move speed, it's like a one shot missile, used in conjunction with an elite infantry unit, or charging with the dragon princes, these things can add a couple crucial pips of combat resolution needed to break the back of a small elite unit, like flesh hounds.
The lion chariot is similar in nature, and vs. daemons is a superior choice, due to immunity to fear, and to superior staying power. I don't take them because those are not usually required traits in my chariots.
Ellyrion reavers are too expensive and take too valuable a slot to generally consider. When I do use them, I use them to get around to the enemy's flanks, charging them in solo hoping to win via combat resolution. It's a cost effective yet risky way to eliminate large, weak blocks.
Eagles are crucial to the success of diversion forces. I also put them facing my lines blocking my charges to stop the siren song from working.
Bolt throwers are basically your monster slayer. Work on the biggest targets first, then the fast cavalry if they took any, then flyers. After that, whatever he presents as a target.