Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - 05/12 Battle Report

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T.Faulkner
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#541 Post by T.Faulkner »

I really like the new list Brewmaster. The additional archers appear to be providing much more utility then the spearmen did previously. I think its helping force your opponent to you where your setting up the counter charges needed to crush your opponents.

I agree with the others about letting the first Banishment through. I really don't see the dagger as being worth the death of the master, especially given the master was his only shot at taking out your Coven, the linchpin of your army.

I sincerely hope I don't play you Saturday; You put out a scary amount of ranged firepower. :shock:
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#542 Post by John Rainbow »

Ghost is right about the cauldron being a warmachine and that it therefore cannot charge. The DE FAQ also supports this - it's still a warmachine and gets some special rules but none to do with charging.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#543 Post by Jhaantikaal »

Nicely done. I'm finding myself checking this thread twice a day now. Such good reading and you have definately found a strong list which still needs good play to work. Very High Elf-y.

This blog has also contributed in my recent purchase of another 32 archers :/
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#544 Post by Caradryal »

New list seems to be working out nicely mate. You seem to be managing the change from multiple smaller units to hordes very well. Do they feel unwieldy to use?

The amount of ranged firepower your throwing out is just insane now! :shock:
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#545 Post by Jimmy »

Awesome display of your generalship once again BM, well done.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#546 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

Hi Brewmaster!

Thanks for the report and congratulations on your win!

In the game like that there is more to say about your opponent moves and opportunities rather than your part. You know the strengths of your army well and can use that to a great advantage.

1. Starting first is good for you so having that +2 to roll off is very handy.
2. Seeing two big units of Archers with so many wizards among them makes the enemy to deploy as close as possible. It means they are already in range of bow fire (speaking of which, are you still adamant about the uslesness of the archery? :)). But they face a huge dilemma, if they approach as fast as possible they enter Lions Den and are in a greater danger as they have to face shooting, magic and close combat specialists. You can wait, the opponent cannot.
3. The choice for you is what to target first and I think you did well. Although you had superiority in the shooting match anyway, elimination of the enemy fire base forced him even more to move forward. But this time without any support at all. It really looked like the enemy has to chose between many bad options. He had to risk long distance charges which if successful might not be enough to get rid of lions. But that was the only opportunity he had to change the game and he didn't succeed.
4. After the combat when corsairs failed to break through lions (which was not easy anyway) the game was over as with your shooting base and powerful magic he would be killed anyway.

This game also shows that with defensive list like that and very little movement on your side it is up to the enemy to create openings he could exploit while suffering from barrage of bow fire and banishments. It is a very comfortable position for you and very difficult for the opponent. I think, with more drops and knowing that you would occupy center more likely than any other part of deployment, he should have put majority of his army on the East. You would have less targets to aim at and he could try to maximise his attacks on this flank. Leaving just shooting units at the center to engage in shooting match he might be able to inflict some casualties too.

In the end Dark Elves played in a similar way to Lizardmen and it seems that deploying in the center against your army without any means to divert Lions (and not being shot at in the meantime) is not good idea for the enemy while great set up for you.

Cheers!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#547 Post by Curu Olannon »

Feedback time, yet again!

T1: In my opinion it is a huge risk going for the shooters prior to clearing out the Harpies. Remember that these are exactly like our Eagles and you know what Ptolemy says about them. I guess the question ends up being, will he be so reduced by the time the harpies will be effective that you don't really need to take care of them? Magic is good - I forgot that your Archmage didn't have Shem's so better off with Timewarp-threatening him. Eat that!

T2: Letting one Banishment through is mandatory here. 3W go a long way and if he lets you have it, you could be in for a rough ride indeed! As it turned out though, you got a perfect situation and made the most of it. I think your Archers should've targeted Harpies here.. Hmm, it's hard though, with only 1 remaining they still perform the same role. Perhaps Shades are a better target after all ;)

T3: Not much to comment on here, he pretty much forced your hand. You could consider just backing up and leave the Harpies be, which would probably leave him pretty puzzled but overall I think this is the safer approach. Magic and shooting - excellent priorites.

His T3 is another story though, not dispelling miasma here sounds very wrong to me. Let's do some math, shall we?
- miasma makes you lose 40% of your damage output. In addition, 67% of the time he enhances his own damage output by 15%.
- enfeebling foe makes you lose 0% of your damage output 33% of the time. You lose ~20% of your damage output 33% of the time and the last 33% you lose ~50%. His damage output is not affected.
So miasma is at a steady 40%, with a 67% chance of increasing his by 15%, which is roughly a -50% average damage output effect. Enfeebling foe is 0 * 1/3 + 0.2 * 1/3 + 0.5 * 1/3 = 23.23, which is a -23.23% average damage output effect. As we see, dispelling miasma is twice as effective as dispelling Enfeebling Foe.

T4: Trickle is king. There are very few counters in the game to spell redundancy coupled with trickle cast values. The beauty of the Coven is that Banishment almost always draws the scroll - allowing you double casts of Pha's later on. I'd argue that this is the main reason why High Elves perhaps have the strongest Coven of all: do not underestimate the effect of spell redundancy with low-cast value spells! Mindrazor doubled wouldn't be that hard because you seldom have an opportunity to cast it twice, whereas Pha's and Banishment are always super-dangerous.

The game is pretty much over here, well played!

What could the DE have done differently? Save for making a better army, I don't know. Many people claim Hydras are overrated because they are so hit-or-miss. In this matchup, they're definitely a big 'miss'. Overall, this matchup is so hard for him because there's nothing he can do about your strong counters: even your core is worth their weight in gold here!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#548 Post by Muzykant »

Hay Brewmaster D! It`s amazing blog! And it keep a nice conversation among those renown generals of Ulthuan :D . I even began reading all this pages from very beginning (what I have not done before). It`s very edifying.

Especially because I recently also play my version of Coven of Light army. I used two big units of lions, two pack of 25 spears, bunker of archers, (of course) eagles and more anti-magic oriented setup of heroes. I had rather good success with this army.

Two great thing founded in your tread are - using more archers instead of spears and double banishment craziness! I very exited abut this especially the second one! :D I never even heard about such possibility to get two same spells with different mages. After trying to find allowance for this by my self, I finally give up. Can you (or somebody else :wink: ) kindly explain how do you arguing this or give me a link to read about this please?

P.S. Apologize for my bad English :oops:
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#549 Post by Curu Olannon »

Double Banishment is simple, actually.

In the Rulebook, it says that you cannot duplicate a spell unless the spell in question is written down at the roster during army creation. It also says that items which allow you to choose spells must choose said spells at army creation.

The Seerstaff of Saphery is such an item, and because of this you have to write down the spells on your army list (Brewmaster's chosen Pha's Protection and Banishment). This means that the other mages can get any spells from Lore of Light (if they roll them) and with the excellent spell selection of an Archmage, you almost always double up on both :)
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#550 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Guys!

As always, great discussion and thank you so much for your input.

@ Ghostwarrior - My main issue with the powered up version of shem's is the casting cost. It's so high that it can really take the wind out of my sails in terms of my ability to trickle through spells in the rest of the phase, and also has a good chance of miscasting, all for a measly D6 hits. It's a lot on the line to bank on a single D6 roll, if you know what I mean.

I agree with you though about the saves - it really is a darned shame, because I think they overcosted the juiced up version of Shem's a bit too much. It's the one (half of a) spell that I feel they missed the boat on a bit in the lore.

@T.Falukner - Bring your game face buddy! Looks like lots of the great players from the last tourney will be there, so it should be a good show.

Regarding the master - had the phase been a wash and I only gotten 1 banishment off, I had a backup plan - 47 archer shots in the face :P I was hitting on 3's at that point, and they should have been good for a wound or two. Not ideal, but they'd (hopefully) get the job done.

@ Jhaantikaal - Glad you're enjoying it! It's definitely been a lot of fun developing this list, and it's certainly had some ups and downs on the way. I think I'm getting close to a setup that is extremely tough to counter though, which is always a great feeling - the more options we High Elves have for competitive setups, the better in my eyes!

@ Caradryal - It's definitely a new challenge. Deployment mistakes are a whole lot tougher to come back from with this setup, so significantly more emphasis has shifted to the deployment phase for me. I'm usually at a disadvantage in this one, so it's very important to conceptualize before the match the opponent's army, and where his units are likely to go.

When it comes to being unwieldy during the match - surprisingly no. This is mainly due to the de-emphasis this list puts on the movement phase. If anything, it makes the opponents army feel unwieldly in trying to approach in a manner that avoids taking a head on charge from White Lions.

@ Swordmaster - Thanks for the comments!

1. I think the skeinsliver is single-handedly the best 25 point investment I've ever made lol. Having a crack at the opponent's army unbuffed and unmoved is amazing.
2. Haha! I haven't been against archery really, I've been against core. The fact of the matter is that our core is overcosted for what it does. Can you imagine this army if I had that many repeater crossbowmen or glade guard instead of archers? I'd be banned from tournaments due to poor sportsmanship I think :P
3. This was really my hope here - force him into the jaws by removing his option to have a ranged war.
4. Incidentally, I really blew it this turn, as others have pointed out. Dispelling Enfeebling was the wrong move, and caused me to suffer *way* more casualties than I needed to.

As I get more games under my belt with this setup, I start to realize that most enemies are going to try to flank around me and get out of my firing arcs. It's going to be up to me to use deployment, terrain and my own ranged ability to force people down the gauntlet so to speak.

The problem with trying to divert the lions is that the archers are a hard counter to most diverting units. In this case he managed it because he had enough chaff that I couldn't possibly shoot it all before it was time.

@ Curu - Once again, great analysis

T1 - Agree, but I had to commit one way or another. Those crossbowmen would quickly reduce my firing base, so I had to go all in to taking them out, or probably not bother at all. When you do your analysis about 24" vs 30" range, consider this game too :P

T2: I mentioned it earlier, but I'll mention it again - worst case scenario I unleash the archers on the Master if banishment fails to kill him. I mean, how much damage could he possibly soak up? #famouslastwords

T3: Looking at it more closely, I think you're right. At the time I was worried about him switching his attention to the coven at that point, but realistically the distances were too far and the witch elves were pretty much doomed regardless. Could even run the coven into the other unit and reform into a horde. Great suggestion!

"The Miasma Ordeal", as I've come to call it, was definitely my biggest mistake this game in my opinion. Had I not made this blunder, There was a good chance I'd have still crushed the corsairs and been able to support the swordmasters on the hydra! Oh well, better now than in a tournament.

It's definitely crossed my mind, the idea of doubling up Timewarp. However, I inevitably reach this point: What can 41 white lions not kill that 51 can? Banishments are a reliable way to draw out dispel dice, so it's very unusual to not get a timewarp off when I need it. The only real risk that doubling up on it would avoid is not rolling it in the first place.

@ Muzykant
- No worries! I read you loud and clear.

Glad you're getting value from the thread! I'm just doing my part to shed some "light" on the lore of light. (yeah, ok, that was a 4/10 at best :P)

It actually comes up quite a bit how I double up the spells, I should really just put a link to it in the table of contents - it'll get an update after the tournament.

Here it is:

Refer them to page 134 under the heading "Wizards and Spell Lores"

The last sentence in the paragraph is "If you have a Wizard that is allowed to choose specific spells, you must select which spells they are at the time you pick your army"

This sentence clarifies that it doesn't matter how the wizard is able to choose his/her spells, they still have to write them into the army list.

This clarification then interacts with the rule on page 490:

- If a model has no choice over which spell(s) it knows, either because it is fixed by the model's rules, or because it has 'bought' a specific spell as part of army selection

Since you are required to write the spells in to army selection, it is encompassed by the above rule; the model has no choice over what spells it has access to

If they persist, I then bring up the fact that since their argument is based on the premise that the seerstaff isn't requiring me to choose my spells when I write the army list, that I get to pick them each match. The implications of that usually ends the conversation.




Thanks again everyone for the comments! Final tournament prep tonight, then it's go time.

Catch you on the other side.

D
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#551 Post by Muzykant »

Cool! Now I see how it works out :D . Can`t wait to try it tomorrow :twisted: Thanks guys for answering!
And good luck at the tournament Brewmaster_D!!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#552 Post by theviking »

Brewmaster, in your experience with the coven, how often have you lost any of your mages? Either to miscasts or being attacked. Also I am wondering if you ever find yourself not having banishment on the AM and how it affects your strategy? Would you consider the wand to give better odds of having the spells you need?
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#553 Post by Jimmy »

Brewmaster, just on your latest 2200 list vs DE, did you plan on using Light of Battle to mitigate no BSB at all? Did you find you didn't even need it?
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#554 Post by Jhaantikaal »

Valour of the ages gives us army wide bsb effects don't forget, Jimmy ;)
Muzykant, I'd have thought the chances of the archmage not getting banishment would be very low, as with the other level ones he's rolling 6 spells anyway. Even if by the small chance the am doesn't roll it, one of the level ones will.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#555 Post by Curu Olannon »

I completely forgot about Valour of Ages! That is indeed important to remember when fighting Dark Elves - especially for BSB-less armies.

Break a leg Brewmaster - show them the power of the Asur!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#556 Post by Tassadaren »

Here it is:

Refer them to page 134 under the heading "Wizards and Spell Lores"

The last sentence in the paragraph is "If you have a Wizard that is allowed to choose specific spells, you must select which spells they are at the time you pick your army"

This sentence clarifies that it doesn't matter how the wizard is able to choose his/her spells, they still have to write them into the army list.

This clarification then interacts with the rule on page 490:

- If a model has no choice over which spell(s) it knows, either because it is fixed by the model's rules, or because it has 'bought' a specific spell as part of army selection

Since you are required to write the spells in to army selection, it is encompassed by the above rule; the model has no choice over what spells it has access to

If they persist, I then bring up the fact that since their argument is based on the premise that the seerstaff isn't requiring me to choose my spells when I write the army list, that I get to pick them each match. The implications of that usually ends the conversation.
This is one interpretation. However, the text for seerstaff says: "The bearer may choose his spells, instead of rolling for them at the start of the game". As far as I know, there is no official faq that says that you should ignore this text and do it "the BRB way" (which you cited). In this case I would say that the armybook trumphs the BRB and you CAN choose your spells before each battle, and thus you will be unable to get two banishments.

For what it is worth, ETC also ruled it this way https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... ljr88lr45j:
"2. Do spells chosen via Seerstaff of Saphery have to be noted down on the army list e.g. prior to the tournament?
A. No."
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#557 Post by SpellArcher »

If there was no comma after the word 'spells' I think most of us would agree with you Tassadaren. But the comma means the army book is not saying when we should choose spells, as far as we read it. So we believe the spells must be written into the army list per pg 134 of the BRB. It follows by extension that the spells.can be duplicated.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#558 Post by Tassadaren »

When I reread my previous post i realize it might have come off a bit as "bad, bad brewmaster, stop cheating". I am sorry for that, it was not my intention. In fact, I do not want to be right, I think it is an awesome army and i would love to play something similiar myself. Not necessarily light coven, but I can come up with a few other interesting ideas.
So in short, I am not going to continue trying argue my point as I dont want to be right, but my experience is that most tournament admins will refer to the ETC faq when asked a question... and then I would be screwed with an army like brewmasters.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#559 Post by SpellArcher »

That's cool, you came across as quite polite to me!

Sure, we agree to disagree. This is also a regional meta thing. Brewmaster plays in Canada where ETC comp (and hence rulings) are rarely used I think? I play UK which is similar, though ETC comped events are beginning to appear here.

Of course I'm sure that when he gets back from winning his tournament Brewmaster will have his own ideas...
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#560 Post by Curu Olannon »

What's interesting about the ETC FAQ is that it doesn't state that you cannot use the Seerstaff this way. It simply states that you don't need to do it this way.

Regardless I strongly disagree with their assessment of this item as it appears to be exactly the kind which the rulebook refers to. The wording, as SpellArcher noted, is all about the comma placement and I think they've simply gotten this one wrong.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#561 Post by Muzykant »

I`d like to put my 5 cents in discussion. Tassadaren made my really sad, because most people in my area use ETC ruling and I preparing to take part in next ETC tourney in Poland. But then I find other place in ETC FAQs 2012. Here it is:

General Questions
1. Deployment and Start of the Match

2. How are we to interpret the rules for choosing spells - i.e. when can you double a spell?
A. If a mage automatically knows a spell X, or can exchange a rolled spell to X, other mages rolling the spell X may (must if rolled) take it too. If one mage that can’t automatically have X takes it, other similar mages no longer can.

So, if I understand right "automatically have", this mean we can double spells. :)


Here is the other example that can (maybe) show as possibility to double spells:

28. Do the effects of multiple copies of same spells stack? Net of Amyntok, Pha's Protection, etc.
A. Yes. Net and Pha's for example would now require two tests each time.

And finally. I believe that this:
"2. Do spells chosen via Seerstaff of Saphery have to be noted down on the army list e.g. prior to the tournament?
A. No."

only means that we can exchange our chosen spells before every game :D

What do you think guys?
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#562 Post by Tassadaren »

After reading the rules again i changed my mind.

Page 162: "Ordunarily each spell can only be known once in the same army. The only exceptions are when a spell is not generated randomly, such as:.... .(list of examples).

With seerstaff the spells are definitely not generated randomly, so you should be able to get duplicates.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#563 Post by Lecai »

Heil Braumeister Dietrich! I've been following your fine blog here for some time now because of how similar your army is to my own Saphery army, an inquisitorial taskforce from the White Tower backed by a regiment of White Lions led by a Guardian representing the Phoenix Throne. They get sent to all kinds of places in the WH world with a mission usually concerning the incineration of various abominations to the Asur civilization with the blindingly sexy power of Hysh...

Here is my version of the Coven as I've been using for a long time now:

Lords -%12

1x Archmage (The Lore of Light) - Level 4, Dragonhorn, Jewel of the Dusk = 300

Heroes -%17

1x Mage (The Lore of Light: Pha's Protection, Banishment) - Level 2, Seerstaff of Saphery = 165
1x Mage (The Lore of Light) - Annulian Crystal = 140
1x Mage (The Lore of Light) - Ring of Corin = 120

Core -%25,2

30x Archers - Musician, Standard, Banner of Eternal Flame = 355
14x Archers - Musician = 159
10x Archers - Musician = 115

Special -%41,8

30x White Lions of Chrace - Full Command, Banner of Sorcery, The Gem of Courage = 540
14x Sword Masters of Hoeth - Musician, Standard, Standard of Balance = 273
14x Sword Masters of Hoeth - Musician, Standard, Gleaming Pennant = 233

Rare -%4

1x Great Eagle = 50
1x Great Eagle = 50

Total = 2500

I play in a small, moderately cheesy and un-comped environment and this roster has served me well. Only came close to getting defeated by some nightmarish Gobbo army led by a pretty damn good WHFB old-timer, barely managing to scrape a draw against the dismal green tide.

I play very defensively with this list. I've also tried your current "compact" list with the Skeinsliver but unfortunately you really do get surrounded pretty badly against some armies and I think the Sword Masters work terrible in a single large unit with lots of ranks. These ultimate shock troops of ours work best in two regiments of fourteen elves both backed by the two leadership banners. The SM's having musicians to make them more maneuverable really does help when setting traps for counter-charges or just for getting the most favorable charges in general.

I have nothing to add to praise the Lion Pride after your perfect analysis of why they're so damn good backed by the Coven of Light. The timewarped Lion Horde really is great for a defensive list like this. Other than the t-warped lion horde fever for defensive battlefield control purposes, they're even superb for aggressive endeavors such as taking your chances for a long distance charge for crashing the t-warped horde into a spell-deflection banner toting, hellheart carrying Irongut regiment. 41 S6 ASF attacks at WS5 can hurt... A lot.

The Archer horde can sometimes serve as a stalling unit just like your usual 35-elf spearmen regiment with 6 ranks of 5 archers which can usually hold sh.t for a turn or two. I sometimes distribute the Coven to the two smaller Archer regiments to free the horde a bit to do its thing but miscasts in such small units can be terrifying in a BSB-less army. Killy scouts and early enemy firepower can also be nasty for the Coven members stationed in the smaller regiments.

Sometimes I take Shem's with multiple casters and just spam away along with the Banishments in the first few turns. Spamming tons of magic missiles early game can work great against certain army lists. Shem's would have served you well aginst those small Shade units in the last game, S7 Banishments that could have been used on the Hydras was a bit overkill against those Shades. Try giving your Mages Shem's in games where you feel it'd be appropriate. You can get them off in just one or two dice. A 12-dice magic phase common for this PD-rich list is excellent for raining magic missiles on the enemy if needed early game for rapidly taking out certain threats like those Shades.

The Banner of Eternal Flame on the Archer horde helps a lot in taking some pressure off the Coven for dealing with the regenerating big gribblies as relying completely on spamming Shem's and Banishment takes away too much from your overall magic phase and is not always enough. Double Hydras and A-bombs can be too much to deal with just by magic.

The Dragonhorn is a damn good item for this kind of BSB-less roster and don't you forget about its value just because you didn't need it in a couple of recent games. It is an absolute life-saver against certain VC and DoC army lists.

P.S.

Isn't it great how that new and popular K'daii Destroyer which really looks like a veritable nightmare gets so effortlessly wtfpwnd by the double S7 Banishment spam? I'd really like to see you take on a cheesed-up Chaos Dwarf roster D, I reckon it would make for a most entertaining battle report! Don't you forget to PS in the NUKE effect when the day comes, will you? Damn, even the double Pha's is a horrendously good match against the CD army...

P.P.S.

Good luck in the tournament, pal!
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#564 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Hey Guys!

Thanks for all of the comments - glad you were able to come to a resolution regarding doubling up spells under the ETC rules. It really would take a lot of oomph out of this list to lose that!

Well, the tournament is done; it was three matches, and once again my performance was decidedly "meh"

Scenario 1: Battle Line
Scenario 2: 3 objectives on the field that units could take with them, win is based on who has more at the end (ouch, forced me to play aggressively with a defensive list)
Scenario 3: Blood and Glory (Ouch, breaking point of 3 with a fortitude of 5)

Having said this, I knew this going in so I should have been better prepared for these challenges.

I'll get the battle reports up starting tomorrow. All in all, the list was pretty solid - mostly the guy running it that was the letdown :P

@ Lecai - Wow, that is downright uncanny! How long have you been running the list? Seeing that really solidifies in my mind that it's one of the best builds for the coven, considering two separate people ended up at almost the exact same spot with a pretty out there list.

Interestingly, after my tournament last night, I spent a lot of time mulling things over and decided that the second unit of swordmasters really was necessary. Here's what I came up with at 2200, prior to reading your response here:

Archmage, Level 4, Ring of Corin, Dragonhorn
Mage, Level 2, Seerstaff (Pha's, Banishment)
Mage, Level 1, Annulian Crystal

30 x Archers, Banner, Musician, Banner of Discipline
17 x Archers, Musician

28 x White Lions, Standard, Champion, Banner of Sorcery, Gem of Courage
12 x Swordmasters, Standard, Gleaming Pennant
12 x Swordmasters, Standard, Standard of Balance

2 x Great Eagles

Pretty crazy, no?

I opted to drop the strength of banishment in the 2200 point list, because it really became apparent how easy it was to get to the coven in the right circumstances with only two combat blocks, even if one is scary as hell. What you say is exactly true - too many threats from too many angles, and you're pretty much finished.

Keep your eyes peeled for the matches in the coming days, I'd love for your input! I also have a match on Thursday evening at 2500 points, which I will be fielding your exact list, since frankly it's where I was going in my head anyway :P

D
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#565 Post by Arhain »

I like the changes in the elite set up Brew. It's actually similar to what i'm using now, and I belief with the right magic setup that protects troops in combat (such as lore of light, life, shadow, or heavens) then having 1 block of X (PG or WL) and then two smaller units of swordmasters is a sweet spot. As a list's focus on magic goes down, I think the blocks need to be a little bigger, so it makes it harder to run smaller sword master units. Two Phas and light of battle though makes killing Swordmasters much harder though, so I love this setup.

S6 banishments are still brutal, and i've always thought S7 wasn't so needed on the redundant banishment. S6 will still make 'em sweat =P~

Just my two cents.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#566 Post by quikman »

Long time lurker, thought I would also post my experience with the coven. I'm balanced between playing a coven style list and a shadow based PG heavy list. As for being allowed to have multiples of the same spell, I've always relied primarily on the rule listed by tass on 162.

Archmage - Level 4, Silver Wand, Talisman of Preservation

Mage - Level 2, Seerstaff (Pha's and Banishment)
Mage - Annulian
Mage - Jewel of Dusk

19 Archers - Musician
19 Archers - Musician
17 Archers - Musician

24 White Lions - Full Command, BoS
14 Swordmasters
14 Swordmasters
12 Swordmasters

Great Eagle
Great Eagle

I've had some great fun playing with this list, it is really surprising to a lot of opponents. My favorite has actually been playing against daemons, twice now I've managed to banish a bloodthirster in one shot on T1. The list has some weaknesses, but it is a lot of fun to play.
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#567 Post by Swordmaster of Hoeth »

I am looking forward to reading the reports, in particular to the reason which led you to come back to two small Swordmasters units as it is quite a surprise for me :)
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/24

#568 Post by Curu Olannon »

When you first fielded the big Swordmaster unit, my initial comments were (among others):
Curu Olannon wrote:Some comments about that last game:
- Army list: I don't like the big SM unit, it just doesn't fit their nature I think. Either go with 2 (!) Lion Hordes or reduce it to 14+12 would be my suggestion. Other than that it looks good :)
Not to say 'I told you so' but I'm not surprised you found them lacking compared to smaller units. It simply doesn't fit their nature to be that big:
- footprint gets deeper, making them way more vulnerable to templates (not that big a problem for Lions who have a better save)
- additional ranks see the damage output decreased, compared to 2 smaller units (again, not a problem for Lions)
- a bigger unit is more unwieldy and as such it's harder to protect flanks etc (Lions are stubborn, which somewhat mitigates this)

Anyway, you confirmed that they're not working that well yourself so I guess there's little point to stressing this point now. The interesting part is, are Swordmasters the best ones to support that Lion horde in the first place?

Here's to hoping you had some good games! I'm really looking forward to the reports and, of course, your final standing :)
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#569 Post by Brewmaster_D »

Tournament Game 1 of 3

Alrighty, here we go! Game 1 was a pitched battle, and I was up against a character heavy Empire list with plenty of knights. On paper, it looks like my list is a great counter:

Empire

Kurt Helborg
Wizard Lord, Lore of Life, Dispel Scroll
Battle Wizard, Lore of Shadow, Level 2, Van Horstman's Speculum
Captain, BSB, Enchanted Shield, Luckstone, Barded Warhorse, Lance, Shield
Captain, Dragonhelm, Lance, Shield, Barded Warhorse
Captain

5 x Inner Circle Knights, Standard, Champion
5 x Knights
27 x Swordsmen, Full Command
13 x Halbrediers (Detachment)

9 x Reiksguard Knights, Full Command, Standard of Discipline

Steamtank
Great Cannon

I look at his list and identify a few key threats - stubborn unit of knights stacked with combat res, Steamtank and Dwellers Below.

Spells are:

Wizard Lord: Flesh, Throne, Regrowth and Dwellers
Battle Wizard: Miasma, Withering

Archmage: Pha's, Net, Banishment, Timewarp
Ring Mage: Light of Battle
Crystal Mage: Speed of Light

I apologize in advance about the lack of details in the reports and the lack of spell effects - going to try to get them done a bit quicker, and my notes were few and far between by choice in this tournament in order to try to keep focused (Didn't help much :P)

Deployment

Image

The archers are basically limited to hard targets, but other than that I'm pretty happy with it. The altar in the middle is counting as a forest that blocks line of sight.

The lions are set to make life miserable for the stubborn unit of knights, and I'm confident that they can also deal with the steamtank, provided I get a banishment off on it.

We roll off, and thanks to the skeinsliver, I get first turn.

Turn 1, High Elves

Image

The White Lions move to create a threat zone in front of the archers should the knights get any funny ideas, and the Swordmasters move up to threaten the flank of the swordsmen if they move to the West to get in dwellers range of the coven.

Magic is 10 v 5 - I start with a 4 dice banishment on his steamtank with my level 2, and promptly fail my first cast of the tournament. I try a second banishment on the tank, but he manages to dispel it with 5 dice. With my remaining 2, I put up a pha's protection on my archmage's unit to help prevent any cannon sniping attempts. The failure couldn't come at a worse time - with the speed of this army, I wasn't going to have many opportunities to banish the important targets, so I had really wanted to draw the scroll out this turn.

Shooting sees me put all of my shots on the cannon, but fail to wound it even once due to the cover presented by the wall in front of it.

Turn 1, Empire

Image

His unit of 5 plain knights are *just* able to see the Eagle, so he charges it - shame on me for not double checking with an angle tool when I placed it. He does, however, lose a knight to its difficult terrain test.

Amazingly, he moves his knights up to square off against my lions - it's an easy charge and he seems to know it.

The swordsmen move up to get in Dwellers rage of the lions, but not in range of the swordmasters.

His magic phase is 10 v 9 (crystal plus two channels!). He starts off with a 3D6 Throne of Vines on his Wizard Lord, which I allow. He follows up with a 2D6 flesh to stone, which I take out with 2. He then 5 dices a Dwellers on my lions, and gets it off irresistably. I lose 7 lions to the weird plant things. I use my gem of courage on the lions and roll a 6, 6, 1 for their test. *phew*

His cannon fires at my Archmage, makes it through pha's, but the cannonball falls short.

My eagle loses combat and flees off the board, and his knights reform.

Turn 2, High Elves

Image

The lions are hurting, but I still have confidence that they can take down the bus. I charge them in, and move the swordmasters out of easy charge range of the steamtank.

Magic is 12 v 6 (5 & 6, terrible roll for me) - I start with a 3D6 banishment on his steamtank, which he dispels with 4D6. I follow that up with a second 3D6 banishment on the tank, which he scrolls (Yargh, if only this had been used turn 1!). With 6 v 2 left, I then throw 3D6 at a timewarp on the lions, which he allows. I follow that up with a 2D6 pha's, which he attempts to dispel but fails, and my D6 attempt at pha's also succeeds.

I put all my archer shots on his knights, and only manage to sneak 2 wounds past his armour. He passes his panic test.

In combat, I direct every attack I can to taking down his leadership base. Kurt, the BSB and the battle mage all fall before they can swing their weapons, along with 4 of their Reiksguard retinue. He doesn't manage any kills (hitting on 6's) but passes his Ld9 stubborn check. This is a *huge* chunk of victory points for me.

Empire, Turn 2

Image

His steamtank generates full steam points for the turn, and his knights charge my swordmasters. The unit of two knights in the West sweep around to force the unit of archers to turn to address them.

Magic is 6 v 8, and he throws 6 dice at dwellers, which I stop with 8 to be safe.

His cannon drops another shot at the archmage, but once again fails to reach him.

In combat, the steamtank rolls HUGE on its impact hits. Between the D6 and 3D3, he manages a total of 11 wounds. I almost break down in tears, but manage to keep my dignity by pretending I hit my funny bone. The remaining lions (still timewarped) manage to finish off the knights and get two wounds on the steamtank, but since the steamgun breath attack counts as a close combat attack, I get neither pha's nor their cloaks and lose another two. I take my Ld 10 stubborn test, and promptly fail that too. Luckily the steamtank cannot pursue, however the bumbling lions manage to leave their banner of sorcery behind.

At this point I feel like I've been hit by a mac truck. Or a steamtank. I guess that's probably more relevant.

The swordmasters also perform sub-par - out of all 21 of their attacks, I only manage a single wound on the character and 3 knights. He manages the same number of wounds on the swordmasters but got a charge, so the swordmasters lose by 1... Luckily they pass their steadfast break test.

High Elves, Turn 3


Image

The lions rally and reform and switch to 5 wide to face another incoming steam tank charge. I've shifted the archers over a bit in this picture - I really need to represent the distance here properly between them and the swordsmen. Essentially, I reform to face the swordsmen and put a good deal of distance between them; he'll effectively need a 9 or a 10 to charge them. My goal here is to get one full stand and shoot, followed by a reform into a horde for the inevitable combat.

Magic is 8 v 6 (6 & 1, with the banner gone I only added 1 for the jewel) - I started off with a 4D6 banishment on his steam tank, which he dispels with 6. I follow it up with a 3D6 banishment from my archmage on the steamtank and... fail the cast once again. I finish up with a pha's on the swordmasters.

I desperately put my archers on his steamtank - even 1 wound would help increase the odds of it blowing off all of its steam points in the next turn if he got too eager with the points. They fail to wound it.

In combat, the swordmasters finish off the unit but once again fail to kill the captain. This time, however, he loses combat and the swordmasters pursue him into the halbrediers, catching him in the process.

Empire, Turn 3

Image

He declares a charge with his swordsmen into my archers - the archers stand and shoot, killing 4 of them. He needs a high roll to make it in (can't remember exactly what it was), and makes it. At this point I realize my critical error - I should have reformed the archers into a horde at the first sign of danger. His steam tank also successfully generates 4 steam points, and slams into the white lions again. His two remaining knights also charge the small unit of archers, who once again fail to penetrate the armour.

At this point my notes get a bit fuzzy due to being completely frazzled by my string of bad luck - I know he tried to get a flesh to stone off on his swords, which I dispelled, and he ended up getting a regrowth off on the steam tank, putting it back at full wounds.

In combat, the lions once again manage a couple wounds on the tank, and it smashes up 5 of them (he rolled much, much lower this time for impact hits). They hold this time.

2 knights vs archers - the knights manage no wounds, and neither do the archers. He loses combat due to my musician, but manages to hold. I forget to reform into ranks here :oops:

In the combat vs. the coven - I manage four wounds, and he manages 5. I have to take a break test on ld 6, and fail. He pursues, and catches me. With that, the game is pretty much lost.

The swordmasters in the east finish off the halbrediers and reform to face the steamtank.

High Elves, Turn 4

Image

The swordmasters charge the rear of the steamtank, hoping to do some serious damage and prevent it from doing anything next turn.

Magic is a wash - I only have two spells, and his level 4 shuts them both down.

The swordmasters and lions (I accidentally took the swordmaster casualties from next turn off already, they had about 9 left at this point) manage to get 5 more wounds on the steamtank.

The archers again fail to wound his knights, and the knights manage to kill one mage and wound the other. The archers hold, and this time I remember to reform

Empire, Turn 4

Image

His swordsmen move to rear charge the archers next turn.

Magic sees him get up flesh to stone on the two knights, and plunk a wound back on the steamtank.

His cannon shoots at the eagle, but misfires and can't shoot this turn or next.

In combat, the archers fail to wound the T7 knights, and they manage to kill the last mage and a couple archers. He loses combat again, but holds.

High Elves, Turn 5


Image

Last turn we played; archers finally manage to break the two knights but fail to catch them, and the swordmasters fail to rally, fleeing out of his halbredier's charge range. With that, we end the game since there wasn't enough time to finish another turn, and it was fairly decisive at this point.


Final Result: 13-7 victory for Empire and a 20-0 victory for Ranald (Bonus points for anyone who gets that warhammer world reference :P)

After Battle Thoughts

I think I would have given anything for that second unit of swordmasters this game! It would have answered so many questions that I had no answer for; with the horde tied up (it more than earned its points this game, 1100 points in that one charge!), there was just too much for one unit of swordmasters to try to tie up.

Having said that, there were some seriously boneheaded moves on my part - most glaringly I failed to reform those archers to make that charge *impossible* instead of just unlikely. In essence, I need to learn to do the complete opposite of what I recommended Curu do with his own playing - I need to take less risks, particularly when there isn't a huge reward. I had already won this game on turn 2, all I had to do was last it out!

So despite the bad luck, there was definitely plenty I could have done to make it so that luck was not a factor to begin with.

It's pretty harsh going in to a tournament with a first game loss, particularly one as heartbreaking as this one was - you know at that point that you're pretty much out of contention, especially in a 3 game tourney.

Anyway, looking forward to your feedback!

D

In combat, the swordmasters
Last edited by Brewmaster_D on Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
[i]There is nothing do fear but fear itself... well, that and Toughness tests. [/i]

Check out my Army Blog for tactics, battle reports and general ramblings: [url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=35454]Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Army List Blog[/url]
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Re: Brewmaster D's Coven of Light Blog - Updated Battle 04/26

#570 Post by Baeronvonbleat »

Not worrying about the cannon too much, I think that your best bet would have been to base a bit more on the eastern side of the field. Forcing the knights and steam tank to travel through the temple (Forest) would have kept them at bay a little more, giving you more time to blast. The failures to cast really hurt your magic output, and that steam tank does amazingly well even against Str 6 models! I'm surpised at the damage output of the swordsmen though, I wouldn't expect them to rout archers that well.

What was the eastern eagle doing in turn 3?

Overall, touch match, and when the dice start rolling south that much, it's a hard start to the tournament! Hopefully things turn around round 2?
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