8th Ed. 2.4k game vs Orcs

[underdog6750]

Im getting ready for my fourth game of WFB on wednesday. Ill be playin against an Orc horde. Ive never played against them so was yet again lookin for some advice on lists and tactics. Ill get a list up tomorrow or monday for some comments. Thanks

 

[Arli]

I have faced an all orc list before. It is very tough. Post your list and let us have a look at it.

 

[Lord Tsunami]

orcs are very standard for us. the "normal" list with a good slann, TG, some sauri, some skinks and some salamanders will work just great.

he has cheap infantry, but except for the first round, your sauri (especially when buffed by the slann) should have no problem against them. Just beware of fanatics and manglers (or do you litterally mean he plays only orcs?). move over them with skinks to kill them (and the skinks ofc).

If he focuses on orcs he will likely have a lvl 4 wizard (since plenty of lvl 2s are pretty expensive for orcs). Becalming Cogitation will be your best friend. Couppled with the extra power dice, you should really own him in both magic phases. he rest should work itself out.

 

[Arli]

If he takes a mixed army (with goblins), he can take a lot of cheap goblin shaman. Look for that if he has them. If you think he may go that way, you should put two skink priests in your list. One with the cube of darkness and one with a dispel scroll.

 

[underdog6750]

Right the list i will be running is as follows;

LORDS

General: Slann,BSB, Flamming Standard, 2x discipines, cupped hands and running lore of light.

Old Blood: Armour of fortune, Amulet of Quetzl, VOTFFF and great weapon.

HEROS

Scar Vet: Glittering Scales, Hand weapon and Sheild

Skink Priest: lvl2 dispell scroll, EOTG

CORE

30 saurus w/hand weapons and sheild. Full command

40 saurus with Spears. Full command

20 skinks with 2 kroxigor

SPEACIAL

24 Temple Guard with full command and Razor Standard

The idea i have in my head is the slann and the temple guard will take on his unit of trolls. Apparently he will use a big unit of about 8 or so. The large unit of spear men will recieve a charge by his boar boys or horde of boys with hand weapon and shields. The other saurus unit will try hit the flank of which ever unit charges first. Hopefully he will run his boys ahead of his main battle line. If not ill be using the steg against an available flank.

The skinks will be going giant hunting. Not sure if he has one? If he dosnt they will take on manglers or possibly a flanking charge or forst spiders which he might be fielding. If he has a wyvern they will be going for that. Hopefully being able to tie it up for a few turns while i take on his three main units (boys,boar boys,and trolls)

Some comments and suggestions would be greatly apprichiated Thanks

 

[BEEGfrog]

General: Slann,BSB, Flamming Standard, 2x discipines, cupped hands and running lore of light. Don't say which disciplines, extra die, loremaster are most common but ignoring 6s can also be worthwhile.
Old Blood: Armour of fortune, Amulet of Quetzl, VOTFFF and great weapon. Do you mean Aura of Quetzl? I think you have too many points in Lords, BSB and flaming banner count toward slann's points, would probably go for dawnstone over aura and 4+ ward armour over 5+, would also consider putting on Cold One

HEROS
Scar Vet: Glittering Scales, Hand weapon and Sheild Would put at least light armour and would consider mounting on cold one

Skink Priest: lvl2 dispell scroll, EOTG would consider the one use 4+ ward and iron curse icon if any possibility of war machines from orcs.

CORE
30 saurus w/hand weapons and sheild. Full command would only have champ if character in unit
40 saurus with Spears. Full command Don't like spears in this edition would have all saurus with HW, the ward is better than the extra rank of attacks
20 skinks with 2 kroxigor would have musician and banner here

SPEACIAL
24 Temple Guard with full command and Razor Standard Full command is good here as protection for slann, would consider cheap magic item for champ. Not sure if razor std is worth it as you already have -2 to AS, worth it against Chaos warriors or possibly if expecting boar riders otherwise war banner, charge reach banner or +1 Ld banners are probably better

Why no sallies, good against orcs especially outside army standard re-rell bubble? Watch out for squig herds!
I also make you at 2483 points as well as too many points in lords.

 

[underdog6750]

Thanks for the input. The spear unit will be 10 wide benefitting from an additional rank in close combat. As its such an unwieldy unit being so wide the idea is to slowly advance inviting a charge. Giving 2attacks from the front rank and an adittional 3 supporting.

The banner giving an extra D6 charge will be really handy thinkin about it. Nice one for that

Ill be using both my saurus charachters in the units so is it worth while putting them on cold ones? Also glittering scales is light armour. The amulet on the lord is ment to be the one that is -1 to hit in cc so hopefully in a challange against his general he will only be hitting on 5s?

I think the only warmachine my oppent has is a doom diver? So im planning on taking my chances with the steg although a 4+ ward save would be good

 

[underdog6750]

Oh sorry for got to say the game has been bumped upto 2.5k so should be a legal army?

 

[BEEGfrog]

Iirc you may be 10 points high in Lords but have 17 total points spare.

With WS 3 and losing attacks with your first casualties you are still better off with HW than spears except possibly against gobbos.

Cost benefit of Cold ones in unit:
- slight chance of being affected by stupidity so keep within army standard bubble;
- stupidity also gives unit ITP as one model with stupid rule makes entire unit subject to stupidity and since entire unit = majority of unit then unit becomes ITP;
- character on cold one loses "Look Out Sir"; character causes fear teasts in enemy;
- model only counts as one rank deep for supporting attacks so saurus behind gets supporting attack.

 

[Lord Tsunami]

indeed spears on sauruses does not make sense unless the unit has plenty of ranks. now you have 40 sauruses all fighting. after 10 are dead all benefit from the spears are gone. it wont take long for at least 5-6 saurus are dead, making the spears an expensive upgrade for only a very few extra attacks, and more importantly the loss of the ward save.

a deep unit of saurus can benefit from spears, since they will retain the extra attacks much longer. obviously the benefit becomes larger the more files you have so the "ideal" unit would be lets say, 50 strong, and 10 wide. however, such a unit is very expensive for what it does, and i wouldnt play it at all. i think 40 is a little much, and i try to stay away from saurus hordes alltogether, but that is more of a personal preference.

- model only counts as one rank deep for supporting attacks so saurus behind gets supporting attack.

i cant find any support for this in the rulebook. the rules seem very vague here, but on page 5 it says that "ranks are horizontal lines" and on page 98 it says that the character "displaces two models to the back rank". i interpret this as "the guy behind a cold one mounted hero cant make support attacks". if you (or any one else) have any support for a different interpretation it would be great to hear it.

 

[BEEGfrog]

The rules talk about how ranks actually affect the game in three ways: support attacks, shooting attacks and calculating how many ranks a unit has for steadfast or rank bonusses.

The first two are about how models work within a unit and both count actual models not rank equivalents, look at the actual supporting attack rule and the shooting in two ranks rule.

The third example isn't about effects within units but the effects of units as a single whole entity. It is only when treated as a whole that base size equivalents come into effect. Generally whenever you roll a die per model you need to count actual models to determine the rank of any model, when you roll a die or pair of dice for the unit as a whole you use smallest base size rank equivalents to determine rank value for the whole unit.

 

[Taipan]

Right the list i will be running is as follows;

LORDS

General: Slann,BSB, Flamming Standard, 2x discipines, cupped hands and running lore of light.

Old Blood: Armour of fortune, Amulet of Quetzl, VOTFFF and great weapon.

Illegal, your Lords allocation is over 625pts (25% of 2,500). Also, your Old-Blood build is complete garbage (Slann is fine, I'd move the Banner to the TG unit to save some points). He's the only I4 Saurus we have, don't waste it.

I'd field something along these lines;

Light Slann w/Rumination, Mystery, BSB, Cupped Hands
(395 points)

Old-Blood w/Piranha Blade, Armour of Destiny
(230 points)

HEROES

Scar Vet: Glittering Scales, Hand weapon and Sheild

Skink Priest: lvl2 dispell scroll, EOTG

Decent. I'd drop Glittering Scales, buy another Scar-Vet to attach to your Core blocks. Halberd and light armour is decent, you miss out on the 6+ parry save but its not a huge loss (you only have two wounds anyway), and S6 is awesome for that price.

For the Priest, Level 2 isn't needed, Heavens magic isn't anything special next to your Slann. I'd take Blood Statuette instead, it lets you snipe out enemy Wizards and BSB's handily, and its great to sneakily cast it after your opponent has burned out all his dispel scrolls/runes/dice stopping the Slann.

CORE

30 saurus w/hand weapons and sheild. Full command

40 saurus with Spears. Full command

20 skinks with 2 kroxigor

You're spending over 40% of your points here, when you only need to spend 25%. That really limits what you can take in Special and Rare. There is no reason to load up on our Core anyway, its mostly just chaff to prevent the enemy just ganking your TG block straight away. Saurus are ok but they need serious buffing to be useful (handily Light helps us there), and you don't need heaps of them, a couple of blocks is enough.

First of all, drop the Skrox unit. If you're gonna do it, go whole hog and field the 3-4 Krox and required billion Skink meatshield. I don't advocate the unit, but you can't do it by halves. Also, Saurus are better.

Your Saurus units are too big. 20 is really the maximum I'd take. Spears are pretty worthless this edition, we get more mileage out of the hand weapon+shield combo. Not to mention, slightly cheaper (no need to make our ludicrously overpriced Core any more expensive). Two or three blocks of 20 with Standard Bearer and Musician (Champion is worthless, chuck in a cheap Scar-Vet instead) is fine. Three blocks will easily fulfill Core requirements.

If you just take two Saurus blocks, you have points enough to fill with Skink blowpipes. There are very few armies they won't be useful to some degree against (even as cheap redirectors to foil enemy assaults), and they can bulk out your army without their deaths meaning much. 2 x 11 strong units will fulfill Core requirements when combined with your two Saurus units.

SPEACIAL

24 Temple Guard with full command and Razor Standard

Again, don't need that many. Slann displaces four TG with his fat bum, and your Old-Blood displaces another, so 20 strong is fine (making a 5x5 brick). Razor Standard is very pricey, and as I recommended you shift the Flame Banner down here (as it makes your army illegal to have it on the Slann), you can drop it and save even more points. Also drop the Champion, Old-Blood makes him unnecessary.

Making those changes, you have enough points to bring in 4 Salamanders (2 units of 2) and another Scar-Vet in Heroes for supporting your Saurus blocks.