8th Ed. Defeating The New Nagash

Do remember that he only gets heroic killing blow IF he spends power dice. Power dice spent = power dice not spent healing, making it significantly easier to shut down his magic phase.

And really, if he stores 4 power dice in order to throw out 4 HKB attacks, I'd be more than happy. Those 4 power dice has a 66% chance of actually hitting with 1 HKB attack, of which you have a 50 % chance of saving it with your ward save. That's a MASSIVE trade-off, and I don't think we'll ever see anyone actually use that effect, unless they are fighting something like a Star Dragon. Nothing we have in our book is worth throwing power dice away for.

Lizardmen pretty much don't need cannons against this guy, though. Like Elves, High Lore's Arcane unforging will instantly render him very easy to kill, even for simple skinks, if you get rid of his armour. Now you just need an average of 42 poison shots, and those 7 wounds are gone. This even assumes 6s to hit. This is so laughably easy it is almost sad.

Also remember that "reroll on the miscast table" don't have to be for a better result. He could feasibly roll 11, and instead of accepting the power drain, reroll the dice, and instead get cascade. He don't get to choose which one you want.

One thing that did strike me as odd is, why does Lizardmen really don't have any HKBs available anywhere? Almost all armies I know of have it somewhere, even if expensive, but the monster heavy army have nothing. That's pretty odd.

 

My math took that into consideration. There's an 11.1% chance that the reroll will be one of the really bad results (and if you take into account that there is only a 50% chance that he falls in the hole with cascade, it falls to 8.4% for a bad result occurring)

I wonder what the optimum Nagash Magic Phase strategy would be.

Usually you're out of range for the nasty spells and most augments/hexes aren't super useful on the first turn, so my first thought was that the first turn would be a nice time to store some of your dice.

However, the first turn could be spent raising new units! (Just thought of this, good luck getting a charge on Nagash, he'll just plop a unit down in front of you to redirect ... over and over again)

And I guess some of the undead units need magic in order for them to march, so that's a first-turn contender.

If you were Nagash, what would you do first turn? Store dice? Raise units? Cast something else?

How would those decisions change based on your matchup?

 

I would focus on raising as much as possible, while storing 4 dice for the next turn. I would make damn sure I had enough for when the enemy was in cast-range, but I'd probably also do everything in my power to make sure whatever roadblocks I had where strong enough to hold back anything.

Basically, combat res is the end-all to undead units in general, and this guy is no different. Placing him in a unit would be utterly STUPID, because that would just make it even EASIER to kill him, as he would die to combat res without getting any benefit from his armour, invul or high T.

He is very vulnerable, despite 4+/4++. Placing Nagash by himself is setting him up to get killed by tons of artillery/shooting, and placing him in a bunker is absolute suicide. Undead units are simply too fragile, and if you get a rear or flank charge on his unit, his attacks will mean nothing compared to the losses he'll recieve.

From a LM perspective, getting a charge with two units, especially if one is a rear charge, coupled with 3 ranks and banner of War is an easy 7 combat res. He has a stomp, which is 1 automatic hit, and you can just challenge him with any oldblood with a 4+ ward save, and he will, on average only deal 2 wounds without HKB, including his stomp.

So he really isn't all that dangerous by himself. And if he ISN'T by himself, that's even better - Just CR him to death by munching his unit of fragile undead infantry.

 

And following the same reasoning trend.....ever power dice spent on healing = power dice not used for summoning or hexing your key troops (or dispelling your buffs).


I think key to defeating him is playing a very smart magic defense, by forcing him to spent his magic dice.

 

I wonder if hiting him with several large blocks of poision upgraded cohorts would work...
that would get arround the toughness... and provide some "posible" combat res...
either way they would be fairly cheep... considering the alterturnitives.

 

If you're up against Nagash that means you're playing 4000 points or with the 50% Lords allotment. That means you could run 2 Slann!

Lore Master High (for Arcane Unforging) and Light!

or Lore Master High and Level 4 High (for 2 Arcane Unforgings! and ability to trade for Light!)

Heck, you could afford 3 Slanns!

The Trifecta: Lore Master High, Wandering Deliberations, Level 4 High. Both High Mages can trade out for Light Spells to make a little Light Council. If the Level 4 doesn't roll Arcane Unforging, you can trade for it.

With two Unforgings (and the fact that Nagash probably doesn't have a scroll lying around) you should be able to take out one (or both) of his Armor and Weapon by turn 3.

After that, its' just a matter of Skink cleanup and magic missiles.

 

Countercharge Ancient stegadons with a oldblood with other trickster shard! And your done!

 

Charge with several old bloods and pray nagash does not attack the one with the blade of realities.

 

Sounds like more people here need some 40k experience

"Unkillable" deathstars/characters are common place. There is ALWAYS a way to deal with something.

Sleboda was right on the money when he talked about scenario's/ 6 spells. They are there for precisely this reason.

 

And specifically the End Times book comes with new scenarios. It's likely that they (at least some of them) will be written with the expectation that one side is fielding Nagash.

 

I think so too. Similar to the old lustria campaign book (which, by the sounds of it will be getting a revamp in the near future), the expectation that someone is fielding LM.

 

Ran a quick 2k game today. He fielded Nagash and 2x50 zombies with FC, 30 skeletons with FC, a corpse cart (don't remember the enhancement.) and 30 Grave Guard.

Already here, it's obvious how little he actually brought to the table. Of course, being able to summon tons of units per turn, he would get more... eventually.

It was only a test game, obviously - and we actually ran standard battleline, just to test him out under "optimal conditions".

Not going to make a battlereport unless people want me to. but basically, this is my list:
Lord were all slann with standard of discipline, becalming, harmonic, focus of mystery and a channeling staff.

Heroes were a beast priests level 1 with dispel scroll, along with tetto. Basically, I wanted to out-magic the master necromancer.

And then I had an idea, which is why I took a Scar Vet with warrior bane on Cold one with potion of strength and charmed shield. See, you lose attacks when wounded, down to 1, but there is no mention of regaining those attacks just because you healed those lost wounds.

I decided to forego skinks aside from 2x10 skirmishers. I took a massive block of 40 saurus with HHW+S (parry save seemed better than volume of attacks) with FC.

special was 30 tg with FC and war banner. And finally a bastiladon with solar engine.

Magic went my way always entirely. he barely summoned anything, and only got a few nuisance spells off. I, on the other hand, got 2 arcane unforging off on him, both cast with IF, which didn't hurt me all that much luckily, but took away his staff and armour, which was awesome.

I smashed through his lines, as expected, and shut down his magic almost entirely. My scar vet with warrior bane ´got lucky and did a full 3 wounds on him - but he also got lucky and did a full 6 stomp wounds on my saurus, and 4 more from his standard attacks on the unit. He lost a total of 6 wounds after the combat had been resolved, but he healed them up to 7 during his following magic phase. Howeer, this left him with 3 fewer attacks, which meant the ensuing combat phase was easily survived. The following turn, I got my basti into a rear charge, and combat ended with me killing him through combat res.

He certainly wasn't as scary as expected. But of course, the slann kit + high lore is pretty much a counter to Nagash, especially when coupled with tetto. I got lucky, sure, but so did he, and it didn't help him much.

 

Great work.

I actually expected him to be extremely scary at 2k....cause you cant bring all the toys, but the fact that he cant bring much at all is probably more important. Except himself he does not have anything to threaten your main units.

 

What you have to remember is that, at 2k, he is still forced to take 500 points of core, and thus only have 500 points for everything else. As he pointed out, he NEEDED a block with a bit more power than zombies or skeletons. Characters are out of the question, and most of his options would simply be lacking he necessary support.

His hope was to have these powerblocks, and then summon new characters, special and rare monsters. Unfortunately, he kept avoiding IF, and I managed to dispel every single time - destroying his staff on the first turn was a stroke of luck, but...

As always, magic is fickle in WHFB. Slanns feel like an extreme waste of points when the winds aren't going your way. Imagine how it feels to a guy like Nagash. To make matters worse, the slann just seems far too good at getting more dice and dispelling in general, making magic a living hell for Nagash.

Tetto did help a lot here though.

 

I'm sure nagash gets 4 extra dice to use so he can use up to 10 to cast a spell in a turn. To me this would be hilarious with a feedback scroll haha

 

Only if he stores them up (IE. not using them during his previous turn), so it isn't necessarily a bad thing that he stores up 4 of those power dice.

 

I may in a team game this weekend and would like your thoughts on our list. It will be:
Nagash and VC/ Tomb Kings vs Lizards and Lizards 4k/2k.

Judging by the Legion Rules I'm assuming the undead lists to be something liek this:

Nagash, Necromancer or 2, some skeleton and zombie blocks and maybe some monstrous infantry to fill in the special. TK will have a Prince, Caster lvl 2,Necrotec, Casket, Titan, catapult, 20 bowman, 10-12 bow Ushtabi, 6-12 chariots.

Here is what I came up with as our two lizard lists:

Force 1:
Lord Kroak (400pts)
Gor-Rok (185pts)
Skink Priest, Arabyan Carpet (50pts)
30x Saurus Warrior, Spears
10x Skink Skirmisher, Skink Skirmisher Brave
10x Skink Skirmisher
x6 Cold One Cavalry
3x Ripperdactyl Rider
31x Temple Guard, Standard of Discipline
-----------
Force 2:
Sarus OldbloodArmor of Destiny, Carnasour, Dawnstone, Great Weapon, Shield, The Other Trickster's Shard
Slann Mage-Priest, Battle standard, Channelling Staff, Focus of Mystery, Harmonic Convergence
Skink Priest, Cube of Darkness (30pts)
30x Saurus Warrior
10x Skink Skirmisher
10x Skink Skirmisher
10x Skink Skirmisher
10x Skink
10x Skink
6x Cold One Rider
Salamander Hunting Pack
Salamander Hunting Pack


Kroak gets 3d6 S4 hits vs undead and can cast it through a priest cheaply as many times as he can so that's partial reason for him as well as making the 30 TG unbreakable and -1 to hit. His spell can also hit unit's in combat so if his TG unit runs into Nagash he can still have a chance to do a wound or 2. Gorok can fill a couple of positions whether it's leading another unit of saurus, charging out of a unit or taking out a character hero.

Force 2 will use High magic to keep casting Unforging. As mentioned I think if he loses even 1 or 2 items it multiplies the ease of killing him. And of course OB on Carnasaur is there to mop up Nagash if he drops gear to the point of taking possibly taking him out and/or a side charge.

Salamanders do what they do to undead blocks. CoR can hold on for a long time against about anything TK can throw at them. Skinks will just generally irritate, bait and poison anything bigger.

Possibly swap Tetto and Gorok. Might be nice to get to redeploy but I seriously doubt we'll have any magic dice for him to use.

 

Just wondering... why Arabyan Carpet rather than Cloak of Feathers?

Seems solid otherwise

I'd keep Gor-Rok, myself.

 

I wondered that too! Cloak of feathers on a skink is just throwing away 15 points. My standard priest for Kroak carries the cloak and a scroll of shielding (for the same points), to make up for our lack of a dispel scroll in that list.
Also viable is Cloak+ Opal amulet, to keep your vassal alive.