The Flying Circus - ETC Rules, Eagle Riders Heavy

[Elithmar]

I was discussing this Eagle Riders Heavy 'Flying Circus' list idea with Sirgilly in thelordcal's double dragon thread (sorry about that, lordcal!). So here's my version, which (I think) complies with the ETC rules:

Lord
Prince, General, Great Eagle, Charmed Shield, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-228

Level 3 Beasts Archmage, Great Eagle, Silverwand, Golden Crown of Atrazar
-325

Hero
Noble, Great Eagle, Talisman of Preservation, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-194

Noble, Great Eagle, Opal Amulet, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-189

Noble, Great Eagle, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (High?), Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-194

Core
30 Spearelves, Full Command, Lion Standard
-320

30 Spearelves, Full Command
-295

Special
14 Sword Masters of Hoeth, Full Command
-240

14 Sword Masters of Hoeth, Full Command, Amulet of Light
-255

5 Dragon Princes of Caledor, Musician
-160
____
2400

Sounds fun! The fact that the Eagle Riders cost more than 1000pts is a problem, so I took a full core of spearelves (60!) to raise the model count. They'll go 5x6. I decided not to take a BSB, as he'd be so far from the main army that it'd just be a waste of points. The riders all have some kind of protection against cannon, some have better protection than others (the lords get the best!). The Sword Masters won't really get any attention, because the Flying Circus will get all of that.

[Malossar]

A smart opponent will target your Swordmasters and isolate your flying circus, they're almost useless without support.

The way to play a list like this, and this almost goes for any mounted character builds, is using those characters as your support elements.

You have a ton of MSU and the style might work, but i think you're better off making some dedicated combat blocks, and using those eagles as the flankers and hammers.

I'd recommend a large block of white lions to provide extra shooting protection.

I'd think about dropping 1 of the nobles in favor of a BSB, and get some more equiptment on your Lord and a Level 4 upgrade for the archmage.

The BSB might be away from the majority of the army, but i assume several eagle riders will be together? IF one of them gets blasted by magic or shooting, those around him will be taking panic checks, i'd hate to have more than 1,000pts start fleeing from one noble getting blown apart, the odds are low yes but it happens more often than one would think.

And its called the Amulet of Light on your swordmasters

By dropping 1 noble you should be able to run 20-21 white lions and 10 swordmasters.

Hope it works for you, check out jwg 20's thread, a wealth of knowledge for using characters on eagles.

[pk-ng]

Just curious why would do your AM on GE?
Why don't you get some normal GE?

[Elithmar]

A smart opponent will target your Swordmasters and isolate your flying circus, they're almost useless without support.

I suppose so.

The way to play a list like this, and this almost goes for any mounted character builds, is using those characters as your support elements.

The list will need a bit of tweaking to play like this then. The idea was just to send the Circus ahead and brutally murder some units!

You have a ton of MSU and the style might work, but i think you're better off making some dedicated combat blocks, and using those eagles as the flankers and hammers.

A few less eagles might be needed then, and more attention paid to the rest of the army list.

I'd recommend a large block of white lions to provide extra shooting protection.

I had one in originally, but reasoned that the eagle riders are going to attract all the attention, so I swapped for Sword Masters.

I'd think about dropping 1 of the nobles in favor of a BSB, and get some more equiptment on your Lord and a Level 4 upgrade for the archmage.

The BSB might be away from the majority of the army, but i assume several eagle riders will be together? IF one of them gets blasted by magic or shooting, those around him will be taking panic checks, i'd hate to have more than 1,000pts start fleeing from one noble getting blown apart, the odds are low yes but it happens more often than one would think.

I was wondering about that, but wanted to keep the points of the Circus down! I'll fiddle about with equipment...

And its called the Amulet of Light on your swordmasters

Edited!

By dropping 1 noble you should be able to run 20-21 white lions and 10 swordmasters.

Maybe...

Hope it works for you, check out jwg 20's thread, a wealth of knowledge for using characters on eagles.

Thank you very much for your input! I'll certainly check his thread.

Just curious why would do your AM on GE?

To keep him close to the other riders for Savage Beast and the like.

Why don't you get some normal GE?

I have enough already?

Thank you, both of you.

I was originally going to do this with my WE, but I decided it wouldn't work as well.

[joey_boy]

I think your on the right track but you have missed some minor things.

1, gear your Nobles for defense. Armour, re-roles and ward saves where you can. ie: temakador's+Sword of Might+luck stone, AoC+Dawn stone, Helm of Fortune+Guardian Phoenix.

All the Nobles will have a 2+as, two of them with re-roles and two of the nobles will have a 5+ward.

2, The core. I'd recommend going all out archers. They can whittle down enemy units, kill WM with the volume of fire, rank up and break steadfast.

3, Elite. I prefer dual units of WL over the SM. The reason is that they don't need magic support to protect them or to be killy against monsters and Heavy Cav. The archers will help against units so the mass attacks of SM is not really needed. You can give one of them the flaming banner and the other the gleaming so they can go off and stop incoming units while the rest of the army focuses on killing. Or you can drop the banner of sorcery in one of them. This list gets exponentially better the more magic dice it has since there are 3 spells you will always want to cast(Savage beast, curse, wildform) and Amberspear or Pann's pelt depending on your opponent.

4, Great eagles for blocking enemy troops. I think they would add more to your list then the 5 DP's would. It's very important to fight where you want to fight rather then having to use something expensive to block the enemy with.

[Sirgilly]

Hi Elithmar of Lothern,

As you know from our previous discussion I like the flying circus immensely, as I think it is really fun looking with a huge amount of utility if used by a clever general.

Commenting on the list I would definitely have a BSB on an eagle so that if a noble is slain you have ld 10 tests with rerolls, if the prince is slain you have ld 9 tests with rerolls and if the BSB is slain you still get ld 10 tests - it feels a lot more resilient to panic.

I have copied some of the stuff I said in the other thread over as i think it is relevant.

I don't believe the flying circus is as fragile as people might think who are used to a big block of white lions. A big block of white lions and other infantry usually get shot and magiced to a few turns before getting stuck in and with this approach you usually rely on a couple of low resilience eagles to silence missile troops and artillery which is risky. The chances are the light infantry will die a death as they make their way over.

The flying circus has a lot less wounds but has some significant advantages that can allow it to survive:

They will almost certainly be in combat turn 2 so the enemy get 1 round of decent shooting at them. With 5 separate units for the enemy to shoot and 3 of them being the general, an archmage and a BSB the choice of target is difficult. The big unit killing spells can usually only hit one guy and the template spells will face a high initiative to kill anyone.

The enemy will almost certainly go for 1 or 2 of the big three guys (BSB, archie and lord) so these guys can have the ward saves and re-rollable armor with the 2 other nobles wearing the usual aluminium foil armour. If any 1 of the guys goes down the group is still extremely effective even if the archmage is killed and you dont get your buffs off.

I like the idea that against a typical army with a load of infantry (say 3 blocks), you can hit 1 in the flank with a prince, BSB, noble and mage and then stick another noble into the front of the 2nd unit. In combat you will eat the first block and run into the 2nd block and since the noble is already there you will fight again - slaying the 2nd block and crashing into the 3rd block to fight in the enemies turn. That would be funny.

Once buffed you can also break up the unit with a couple of nobles able to hit the front of a unit containing their lvl4 caster with 1 noble taking the inevitable challenge and the other noble dedicating their 6 strength 9 attacks at their caster to shut down their magic phase.

The flying circus can hunt warmachines, destroy archer units, eat large blocks of infantry and slay even the nastiest of units like a Bloodthirster - whats not to love?

I think the people on the tread make some good points though, if unsupported they will die. The key to staying alive is mobility and target saturation. I would swap out all of your footslogging elites for dragon princes. The enemy may want to target all or part of the flying circus, but if they also have 2 units of 10 dragon princes able to hit them in the same turn or 4 units of 5 there are some seriously hard choices for the enemy to make. Gunlines usually make short work of the elves, but in this situation they can take out 1 or 2 units (be they a character of a unit of dragon princes) and everything else will crash into their softest targets and spend the rest of the battle flying and running around and dictating favorable combats. I don't know what I would shoot with so many dangerous units moving at my lines.

It is the ability to dictate combats that makes the army strong and will be an enormous headache for other armies. You characters can fly over redirect attempts and hit pretty much anywhere they need to. They can act as assassins for characters like mages, redirect and delay deathstar units and be an extremely potent hammer with or without the buffs. I think with the dragon princes it could be unexpectedly strong.

I agree that the spearmen should be archers. Forget the usual hammer and anvil tactic for this list as I think the spearmen are too slow. Instead use your mobility to pick the fights you want and combo charge the enemy to annihilation. Multiple smaller units of archers can be used to pick off skirmishers, depleted units and generally be a nuisance to the enemy, moving where possible to avoid the fight and sometimes being used as a sacrifice.

If you use spearmen people will ignore them and focus on your flying circus, but if they are getting 60 arrows in the arse as they try to manuouvre and bring their units against your eagles it will force them to send troops after the archers.

I will be trying the list myself once I get enough models

[Elithmar]

Ok then, here's the Flying Circus Mk. 2:

Lord
Prince, General, Great Eagle, Charmed Shield, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-228

Level 3 Beasts Archmage, Great Eagle, Silverwand, Golden Crown of Atrazar
-325

Hero
Noble, Great Eagle, Battle Standard Bearer, Armour of Caledor, Dawnstone, Great Weapon
-218

Noble, Great Eagle, Ruby Ring of Ruin, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-174

Noble, Great Eagle, Great Weapon, Dragon Armour
-149

Core
20 Archers, Full Command
-245

20 Archers
-220

11 Archers, Standard Bearer, Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame
-136

Special
10 Dragon Princes of Caledor, Musician, Standard Bearer, Banner of Ellyrion
-345

10 Dragon Princes of Caledor, Musician
-310

Rare
Great Eagle
-50
____
2400

[joey_boy]

Looks solid, I would recommend shields on the nobles. Just to help against shooting and S&S. I prefer more armor on the Nobles but thats just me.

[pk-ng]

Why not get Helm of Fortune & Shield on your Prince?

That'lls be 3+ Re-rollable AS in combat and a 2+ Re-rollable AS against Shooting..