2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

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Baleanoon
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2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#1 Post by Baleanoon »

Alright time to start getting prepped for Xroads this fall, and planning on taking the HE's. I'll be updating my list, and painting as I play test. I'm also in a 1000 point league right now so I'll be using it to try some things out.

Here is the list:

Prince - 290
Dragon Armour, Shield, Ilthimar Barded Elven Steed
Giant Blade, Dragon Helm, Dawnstone, Potion of Foolhardiness
*General
**With Silver Helms

Archmage - 275
Level 4
Book of Hoeth
High Magic
*with White Lions

Noble - 170
Dragon Armour, Ilthimar Barded Steed
Star Lance, Enchanted Shield, Obsidian Trinket
Battle Standard Bearer

5 Ellyrian Reavers - 105
Spears and Bows
Musician

5 Ellyrian Reavers - 105
Spears and Bows
Musician

5 Ellyrian Reavers - 105
Spears and Bows
Musician

13 Silver Helms - 319
Shields
Musician, Standard

25 Phoenix Guard - 440
Musician, Standard
Razor Standard

5 Shadow Warriors - 70

5 Shadow Warriors - 70

20 White Lions of Chrace - 340
Musician, Standard
Banner of the World Dragon

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

2499

First up on the painting block is, 10 Ellyrian Reavers, 8 Silver Helms, 10 Shadow Warriors, Prince, and a Bolt Thrower.
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
Nicene
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#2 Post by Nicene »

Looks solid! Do you not have room for any other kit on your archmage?

Golden Crown and/or Ring of Fury spring to mind; surely dropping a couple of PG would be a good tradeoff?
[url=http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=61399]my MSU army list/battle reports[/url]

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Curu Olannon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#3 Post by Curu Olannon »

Looks very similar to what I`m fielding :) What exactly is the comp here? I would consider dropping a unit of Shadow Warriors and a couple of PG to get a scroll caddy. Also, do you consider Star Lance superior to TOTS? :D
Retired from Warhammer. Playing Warmachine & Hordes (Cygnar).

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Baleanoon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#4 Post by Baleanoon »

Curu Olannon wrote:Looks very similar to what I`m fielding :) What exactly is the comp here? I would consider dropping a unit of Shadow Warriors and a couple of PG to get a scroll caddy. Also, do you consider Star Lance superior to TOTS? :D
Can't take a scroll I have Book of Hoeth and Banner of the world dragon. Which is basically the only HE specific comp, the rest can be found here. I'm testing out Shadow warriors and Reavers together as a double flee team, it may change in the long run though, as I play test.

On Star Lance, I don't really see the Prince as a Character Killer, I more want the ability to charge things link Steam Tank, and Mcav an kill them in one round, or two round at the most. Even with shard I don't see the Prince as able to fight characters adequately,Combined with Star Lances, Ignore armour even the 3++ save characters need to worry, as at Xroads they aren't permitted 3rd Eye of Tzeentch. I'd much rather force them to rely on the 3++ rather than say a 4+, and re-rollable 3++.

That and I'm also finding true wards to be getting rarer, as people start taking MR to protect from Death Magic, and such. Even my army only has 6++ on combat characters.
Nicene wrote:Looks solid! Do you not have room for any other kit on your archmage?

Golden Crown and/or Ring of Fury spring to mind; surely dropping a couple of PG would be a good tradeoff?
To be honest he's going to be in the unit of White Lions most of the time, so he should be safe from range damage with BotWD, its only when the White Lions engage that he'll be in danger, and hopefully he should have some sort of ward save from his spells.

The PG are my one Anvil and source of tough ranks, losing even one changes the units it can safely take on so I would be hesitant to make them smaller. If I'm seeing the Archmage dieing a lot before he gives any affect, I may reconsider, would probably drop a unit of shadow warriors to a Great Eagle first though.
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
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Curu Olannon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#5 Post by Curu Olannon »

Some really, really weird comp rules there. Anyways, assuming this is your preferred approach I agree that a second mage isn`t worth it. However I still believe the second unit of SWs isn`t worth it: yes double-flee is nice but I view the SWs primarily as an anti-vanguard deterrent. I`m sure the points can be better spent somewhere else. Even though you`re sporting high magic I believe the AM needs some kind of ward: once combat starts you`re going to be needing more than what Shield provides. I`d suggest 5++ and Ironcurse Icon. The rest of the points can go into more infantry :)
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Baleanoon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#6 Post by Baleanoon »

So having used 5 shadow warriors other than blocking vanguard and some other scout deploys they didn't do to much. I'm going to try combining the units for 1 unit of 10. If they are still unimpressive I will likely just drop it to one unit of 5 to block vanguard and be happy with them.

Dropping the 2nd unit I would like to try and wrestle up some points to get a unit of sisters. Where would I find those points? Here is a mock of potential 2nd draft.

Prince
Shield, Ithilmar Barded Steed
Giant Blade, Dragon helm, Dawnstone

Archmage
Level 4
Book of Hoeth

Noble
Bsb
Dragon Armour, Ithilmar Barded Steed
Star Lance, Enchanted Shield, Obsidian Trinket

5 Reavers
Spears
Musician

5 Reavers
spears+bows
Musician

5 Reavers
spears+bows
Musician

13 Silver Helms
Full Command
Shields

24 Phoenix Guard
Standard
Razor Standard

18 White Lions
Musician, Standard
BotWD

5 Shadow Warriors

2x RBT

10 Sisters of Averlorn
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
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Baleanoon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#7 Post by Baleanoon »

So I'm back after some games against DE shooting, and there have been some sweeping changes made to the list. With wood elves on the horizon I want to have the option of playing a whole lot more defensively, with enough shooting to at least make the enemy think they need to advance. The build has changed quite significantly so take a look.

Loremaster of Hoeth - 330
Greatweapon
Armour of Silvered Steel, Book of Hoeth

Handmaiden of Averlorn - 140
Spear, Light Armour,
Reaver Bow, Potion of Strength

Noble - 170
Star Lance, Enchanted Shield, Golden Crown of Atrazar, Potion of Foolhardiness
Dragon armour
Ithilmar Barded Elven Steed

18 Archers - 200
Longbows
Musician, Standard

5 Ellyrian Reavers - 80
Spears, Light Armour
Elven Steed

5 Ellyrian Reavers - 80
Spears, Light Armour
Elven Steed

11 Silver Helms - 273
Lances, Hand weapon, Shield, Heavy Armour
Ithilmar Barded Elven Steed
Musician, Standard

18 Phoenix Guard - 290
Halberds, Heavy Armour
Musician, Standard

Shadow Warriors - 70
Longbow, Heavy Armour

20 Swordmasters - 340
Great weapons, Heavy Armour
Bladelord, Musician, Standard
Banner of the World Dragon

ECBT - 70

ECBT - 70

ECBT - 70

ECBT - 70

Great Eagle - 50

14 Sisters of Averlorn - 196
Bow of Averlorn, Light Armour
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
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Baleanoon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#8 Post by Baleanoon »

So after playing ome games both large and small I've finally settled on a list that I think is adequate for my needs in a shooty and avoidance heavy meta, and that can still deal with chaos. Here it is. I should have some pictures of models by the end of the day as I have two weeks to get the army to a presentable/table top level.

Archmage - 285
level 4
Golden Crown of Atrazar
Book of Hoeth
Shadow or Heavens - still undecided here, makes me miss 7th edition.

Shadow helps me turn all my units into combat blocks, has T debuff which is rip, pit for monster, and the always good melkoth's

Heaven's has aoe re-roll 1's, 3 good ranged spells, re-roll debuff, and ice shard to change panic dynamics

Noble - 170
Battle Standard Bearer
Dragon Armour, Barded Elven Steed
Star Lance, Enchanted Shield, Obsidian Trinket

Noble (Gen) - 138
Dragon Helm, Dawnstone, Potion of Foolhardiness
Lance, Dragon Armour, Shield, Barded Elven Steed

18 Archers - 200
w/ Musician, standard

6 Ellyrian Reavers - 96
w/ Spears

13 Silver Helms - 329
w/ Shields, Full Command

20 Phoenix Guard - 320
w/ Musician, Standard

5 Shadow Warriors - 70
w/ Longbows

20 White Lions of Chrace - 330
w/ Musician, Standard, Banner of the World Dragon

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower - 70

Great Eagle - 50

Great Eagle - 50

18 Sisters of Averlorn
- the lack of musician has seen me generally deploy these ladies in the center of my battle line, where wheeling is enough to keep my target in sight. And, my archers on the flank with their greater range, musician and standard will keep them resilient against typical flanking forces. Even wild rider units need to fear these guys as they are quite capable of removing 6 or 7 in a a game turn.

This list will probably be my norm for the next year or so the only changes I have in mind are playing around with a unit of 10 Dragon Princes in exchange for one of the infantry blocks, and maybe a mounted High mage in the unit. There are two for sure maybe four, 2500 point events I plan to take this army to in the next 4-5 months so I'll keep you guys up to date with my results, and hopefully the continued progress on painting.
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#9 Post by Ferny »

This current list looks like a little of everything but not enough of anything - though I'm sure you've got a plan for it all - could you expand on your thinking with some of it...specifically:

1. Without the Prince (S7) the helms role must surely be different. You have star-lance, but that's it for high S, and even then only on charge. What role do you see? Would you consider switching MR1 for TOTS? What about this set up for one of the nobles?: PoS, enchanted shield, dawnstone - packs punch but feels safer. Other to have starlance and preferences. If you're not taking the BotWD on your BSB, nor a TOTS caddy, and you lack the S7 of a prince, do you even need a second noble there? What does he do?

2. No razor banner on the PG?

3. 6 reavers rather than 5? No musician?

4. no champs in the combat units? Actually - that might work well - can't be challenged out and means you maximise unit attacks?

5. 18 sisters is a huge investment for something so vulnerable - what's the plan to keep them safe?
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Baleanoon
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Re: 2500 - Crossroads GT Comp

#10 Post by Baleanoon »

The list has basically become a shoot and counter attack army. Which has meant I needed certain priorities.

a. To consistently out shoot or have more bodies than other shooty builds

b. Have a variety of diverters to minimize the number of combat rounds the enemy receives

c. Maximize the amount of board space I take up, but have the flexibility to contract quickly.

1. The second noble came about as an experiment, I need to be able to consitantly charge and destroy units like Doomwheel, and monsters, as I need to keep my army compact and out of combat. I found I would often have to pursue which would give my opponent 2-3 rounds of combat before I could help with my cav again. Which pretty much eliminates the benefit of being cavalry. The noble came about to add the extra S6 attacks to kill these sorts of models. Leaving my RBTs and Sisters to shoot targets they excel against. I don't mean to be in extended combats, in situations where this might be an eventuality I would send in my PG or Archers to stall until I can get a telling de/buff off to finish off the combat in one round.

He is also my general so I have a vested interest in keeping him cheap and defensive so as to manage BPs over the course of the event.

2.I found razor standard was often not worth the points on Phoenix Guard. If the enemy was armoured I would generally match them up against my White Lions, and in a pinch a quick debuff on Ws, T, or Mindrazor pushes the wound count up enough that even 1+ armour struggles to manage. Remember a lot of the targets that have enough armour to punish the lack of Ap are going through a hail of s4 -2 to save shots first, and usually getting those sorts of units down to 2 models is enough to limit their effectiveness. If I was taking lore of Death of Heavens I would have found a way to keep it in the list though.

3. The Reavers, my core is exactly 625 and I worked pretty hard to get it that way. In a fled or dead environment having that last Reaver be alive hiding behind a tree is near enough to get me an additional BP.

4. I wasn't seeing enough of a return on my unit champions, I very rarely if ever challenged. And in the case the enemy some how traps me in a combat where the unit champion is killy enough to do 4 wounds, and the character in the unit doesn't have a magic weapon, well the wizard isn't my general.

5. The Sisters are usually deployed first out of my blocks, right in the middle of where I form my battle line. People often forget their really potent combat stats, only lacking in Strength which my magic phase provides me options for. It's hard to engage them when I have PG on one flank and White Lions on the other. Generally my MO if I go first is to move forward (into range), and then move backwards as I shoot over the next few turns. If I go second there is no need to move so I just shoot once the enemy gets to within 18" I start moving backwards.
I saw Karaz-a-Karak...and then I burned it to the ground.

Baleanoon and House Morhathel march once again for the Glory of Khaine and his chosen King.
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