7th Ed. Daemon Emergency: Need Advice

[Gor-rok]

My first ever battle against night goblin fanatics didn't go so well in our Mighty Empires campaign, and it's put me in a bind. I had to challenge the Daemon of Chaos player in an effort to avoid getting cut off on the map, and I don't see things going well for Slann and Friends.

The game is 3000 points, with fixed Generals. Mine is:

Slann: Mystery, Rumination, Becalming. Cupped Hands, Bane Head. Battle Standard.

His is a lvl 4 Lord of Change, but I don't know what gifts of evil it has.

Other info: He runs tons of pink horror units for core, with possibly a big plaguebearer block to defend them. Special choices are those Khorne Dogs , and flamers for rare. For heroes he takes the Blue Scribe, Tzeentch heralds, one Nurgle herald if he has plaguebearers, and, in all unfortunate likelihood, a fully tooled up Bloodthirster.

I drew Elite Army this round, which means I can take as many rare and special choices as I want. One unit of my choosing has hatred, and I have 134 gold (extra points) to use.

So, anyone have an Idea how I can turn this into anything other than an embarrassing disaster?

 

[Skrox]

Well you could always.... no that wont work.
Then again there is the old standby of...crikey that wouldn't work either.
Maybe...

No.

 

[Nakai]

could always take a load of regular stegs shoot down the blood thirster take some skink caddies to help fend off his magic. temple guard are a must here possibly with the banner that makes them cause fear. saurus warriors for support , lots of skink skirmishers with blow pipes to go after his lord of change as it only has the 5+ward so poison the hell out of him. cold one cavalry to hit his unit of plaguebearers in the flank you want this unit to lose combat all the time so there constantly having to make that regeneration save, heh maybe a hero with the burning blade to get rid of there regeneration all together. thats my 2 cents hope it helps

 

[kroxigor01]

Run 2 Slann and 4 EoTGs. Not even daemons can face that cheese.

 

[Eagleblaze]

This could be worse, Keeper w/ Siren Song + Masque + Herald with leadership penalty banner is a seriously hard to deal with combo. This army however has something to get to grips with so it's totally manageable.

EOTG's are really nice to have here, their ward save against ranged attacks will help against those flamers which while having the chance to get off a lot of shots don't really tend to perform too well against out high toughness units in my experience.

Skink Skirmishers, and many of them, and when I say many, I mean MANY, 60 would be nice here. You CAN and SHOULD shoot EVERYTHING to death, start with the high pointers, bloodthirster etc

One or two blocks of saurus wouldn't go amis here, possibly with SV w/ BBoC in one to negate nurgle regen, possibly thrown into the unit with hatred, that'd make for an effective nurgle killing unit even with their regen and ward.

A JSoD wouldn't be a terrible idea here, you could launch him into a unit of flamers, they are skirmishers and so you only need to wound one to score drawn cobmat res provided they don't wound you, kill two and you could win...you see where this is going, of course lose and you're going to be outnumbered by a fear causing enemy.

Horrors are useless, I don't understand why DoC players fill out on them so much other than to fill core requirments I suppose, their magic is easily dispelled and D6+1 hits at D6+1 Strength isn't that effective against anything other than skinks. One charge from an EOTG massacres them, I've never been held up by them but then again my opponent runs them in units of 10 so just charge, BA, Impact Hits, 3 Steg hits, 4 crew, 1 priest, any left? Yup (for arguments sake, not that that will be the case lol), no attacks back, ok, resolution, ermmm...I think the horrors lost, ok, now vanish...Oh Noez! Overrun. More Impact Hits.

These are all just ideas that I have, hope they help.

-Eagle

 

[Wolf]

temple guard are a must here possibly with the banner that makes them cause fear.

I don't see the point of taking the fear banner on the TG; they're already Immune to Psychology and you won't be autobreaking Daemons, leave it at home. It's just a waste of points in this game. I do agree with taking TG though, keep that Bloodthirsther away from your Slann. So definitely get a nice unit of them, and try to get the War Banner on either the Slann (don't know if this is possible in your setting?) or on the TG.

cold one cavalry to hit his unit of plaguebearers in the flank you want this unit to lose combat all the time so there constantly having to make that regeneration save, heh maybe a hero with the burning blade to get rid of there regeneration all together.

Do take the Cold One Cavalry, but stay away from the Plague Bearer unit, even from its flanks or rear. 9 times out of 10 the Herald will have a gift called Slime Trail; any unit charging the Plague Bearers do NOT get bonuses for flank or rear charges and neither will you negate his ranks. Considering that you have to do 3 wounds before one Plague Bearer dies... just stay away from them unless you're certain you can get rid of the Herald, BBoC is nice So what to do with the Cold One Cavalry? Go hunt yourself some Horrors these guys seriously suck in CC and once you have them tied down, their magic becomes useless as they can only cast MM (check this first, I'm fairly certain this is the case with the smaller blocks, not sure on the bigger ones...).

Take at least two Engines, one with the War Drums, and dance around those Deamons, even a Thirster won't stand up to 2D6 S5 no armour save hits for long...

Skink Skirmishers, and many of them, and when I say many, I mean MANY, 60 would be nice here. You CAN and SHOULD shoot EVERYTHING to death, start with the high pointers, bloodthirster etc

-Eagle

Have to agree with this, mass poison takes care of any Large Target go for it

 

[jmg101]

2 slanns and at least two engines for sure.

several salamanders for his paque bearers, if u have multple engines they cannot stop the burning alignement, and it is str5 against demons, no armor saves. if you want to go ballsy then you could try the oldblood blade or realities. but dont leave home with out at least one slaan and 2 engines. try to avoid plaque bearer combat if at all possible, you might could bane head rule of burning iron him

take fire or light magic on slann. dont forget buring alignment and the slann( in TG) can cast in combat. so spam it.

hell it would be funny to have 4 engines, charge all four of them into his unit, burning alignment, then impact hits, i doubt after that there would be much a unit left. win by combat rez, make them pop and overrun.

my opponets hate that.

 

[Gor-rok]

What worries me about going magic heavy is the Blue Scribe getting a power dice every time I cast. With all the dispel dice generated by his horrors, he can shut down any critical spell of mine and let other less important ones through to get more dice for himself.

He also loves to take lore of Beasts with the Tzeentch Heralds and spam beast cowers at any monster or cavalry that threatens him. Or he uses Wolf Hunts to send the Khorne Dogs charging across the board into targets of opportunity. I've got a feeling between those and the flamer's shooting, my skirmishers won't last long.

We're playing on a GW "Battle Realm" board with hills already molded into the terrain. He likes to get all his wizards atop the hills to see more targets; I wonder if Plaque of Dominion on my temple guard might help here.

I'm also torn between a carnosaur or another Slann running solo. If the carnosaur could make it through to his casters, it'd be all over for him I'd like to think. If only I had some way of making sure he couldn't cower it...

I haven't seen him run the banner of "ruin your magic phase and die if you take lore of light" yet, but that's not to say it won't make an appearance.

 

[Wolf]

Take a couple of scroll cadies unless he's throwing a ridiculous amount of irresistibles your monsters and cav should be fine save up your dispel dice for other things. 2 scroll cadies, a scroll (or 2) on the Slann and The Becalming Cogitation should see you safe to the other side

 

[the-graven]

For characters:
Slann1
Slann2
Scroll Caddy(On EotG if you prefer)
Ancient Spearadon/EotG
EotG
EotG
(Of course you can change things if you want)
THe slanns will put out too much magic for him to stop, you've got a scroll caddy and the Engines will destroy alot of Daemons.
Core:
Skink skirmishers(for redirecting the Bloodthirster and hurting it)
A lot of Saurus(if you have too much saurus and he hasn't got enough magic for them they will arive at station cruell brutatlity in favour of the old ones)
Special:
TG(some solid blocks as Slann bodyguard)
Terradons(They will always be handy)

That concludes my advice, I haven't played DoC yet so I might have said stupid things, but I guess this will help,

the-graven

 

[spacelizard]

I haven't seen him run the banner of "ruin your magic phase and die if you take lore of light" yet, but that's not to say it won't make an appearance.

Not familiar with the banner you're talking about, but if you don't want to take lore of light, I'd go with either fire (for offense), or life (for defense). You may think fire is the no-brainer option here, since it has more damage spells and their all flaming to deal with nurgle, but consider: you've the potential to field LOT's of multi-wound models, like stegs, in this game (gift of life), you can pretty much guarantee he's bringing flamers (howler wind/rainlord), and with the realm of battle board, I'm assuming there will be hills that he'll want to plant that Lord of Change on (master of stone); so I would say life is actually worth considering here.

 

[Gor-rok]

Hey, that's not a bad idea. I'd like to run 2x light wizards if not for the aforementioned banner.

It's called the "Great Banner of Sundering" or something to that effect, and he can take it as the army standard on a Herald. It makes all spells from a lore of his choosing (and he names it after you say what lore you will use) cost +2 to cast. On top of that, any spells from the lore of light will miscast on double 1's, 2's, or 3's, making it lethal to even try and cast any light spells. And the best part is... It costs him 50 points!

Light is the only lore I think that will reliably hurt Bloodthirster, since it will be hacking it's way through temple guard from the get go and I'll need something that can would it in combat. The bad part is that any of the radial damage spells will also hit his dogs, which have MR3, so he'll always have a good shot at dispelling.

Sadly at this point I think I'm going to have to leave all my cool, fun units at home and go pure provolone ranger with 2x temple guard Slann, 2x EotG, and swarms and swarms of blowpipe skinks to hunt the Change Lord. Maybe a saurus block if I have the points; if he's smart he'll hunt the skinks with his dogs and I'll need something to fall back to.

The game's at 8 AM sharp tomorrow, so await news of my humiliating defeat.

 

[Wolf]

Not sure about this, but do you get Magic Resistance against radius spells? I thought not...

 

[Xlcontiqu]

You do not get Magic Resistance from radial spells. It does not specifically target the unit, so MR is not applied.

 

[Gor-rok]

You do not get Magic Resistance from radial spells. It does not specifically target the unit, so MR is not applied.

The big book says magic resistance is "...extra dice that may be rolled when trying to dispel each spell that affects the magically resistant model."

So radial spell are in fact affected by magic resistance just by having an effect on one unit with MR. However...

Rejoice, fellow Mage Priests! The Daemon menace has been annihilated!

Now, keep in mind this is hot on the heels of my solid loss against night goblins. Yes, night goblins. I'm not sure if that makes this game more spectacular or just laughable, but either way I'm grinning.

He threw me a surprise turn and took a pure Tzeench list: Change Lord with +2 to cast and any lore he wanted (can't remember what lore he took), Kairos , four Heralds in pink horror units with "power vortex" on each (+1 power dice pool), four flying manta ray thing units, and two units of flamers. I was surprised by the Blue Scribe not making an appearance, as well as the lack of aforementioned evil banner. Still, it was an insane number of casting and dispel dice I was up against.

I had my Slann with guard (lore of Light, since I didn't see a banner on his tray), the carnosaur rider, two blocks of saurus spears with a hero in each, 2X EotG (despite my resolve to never run more than one I felt justified this time), and 3 X 10 blowpipe skinks.

The result was a Massacre for the servants of the Old Ones. I'll try and get a report written for this one, as well as one for the massacre I got against the Dwarven gun line. Granted, they are the only two games out of five in this league that I've won, but the losses were basically just what you'd expect and don't really need too much elaboration- or maybe that's just embarrassment talking.

Thanks for the input everyone; I seriously wouldn't have done it without all the great advice.

 

[Wolf]

Wow, well done in beating that!! Can't wait to read the battle report!!

 

[Xlcontiqu]

The big book says magic resistance is "...extra dice that may be rolled when trying to dispel each spell that affects the magically resistant model."

So radial spell are in fact affected by magic resistance just by having an effect on one unit with MR.

The spell is not affecting the model specifically. It is affecting an area.

This is a list of spells and abilities that ignore magic resistance.

Gift of Chaos Tzeentch Daemon Lore
Miasma of Pestilence Nurgle Daemon Lore
Stream of Corruption Nurgle Daemon Lore
Cacophonic Caress Slaanesh Daemon Lore
Phantasmagoria Slaanesh Daemon Lore
Black Horror Dark Magic
Drain Magic High magic
Vermintide Skaven Lore
Pestilent Breath Skaven Lore
Rot, Glorious Rot! Lore of Nurgle
Hellshriek Lore of Slaanesh
Pandaemonium Lore of Tzeentch
Drain Life Lore of Death
Burning Head Lore of Fire
Crown of Taidron Lore of Shadows
Cleansing Flare Lore of Light
Wind of Undeath Vampire Counts

Empire Orb of Thunder bound spell
Warrior Priest Soulfire
Orc and Goblin Horn of Urgok bound spell
Vampire Counts Hand of Dust bound spell
Daemons of Chaos Banner of Hellfire bound spell

 

[Gor-rok]

Hmmm... I was going to have to disagree with you about the magic resistance issue, but after looking at the errata I'm not so sure. They do specifically use the word "targeted" now, so even though radial spells are affecting "units within" an area and not the area itself (unlike the Comet, which does specifically target a point on the board), you don't declare any unit in particular as the target. This has major and wonderful ramifications for me, since I love Cleansing Flare/ Drain Life, and play against magic resistance quite a bit.

Would you mind showing me where that spell list was taken from? It'd sure help me convince some folks that they're no longer safe against the might of my Slann... And thanks for the rules clarification.

 

[Xlcontiqu]

I got it from this topic on the Warhammer Forum. You can probably google it too.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=63673&p=780682&hilit=magic+resistance#p780682

 

[Kurlin]

Hmmm... I was going to have to disagree with you about the magic resistance issue, but after looking at the errata I'm not so sure. They do specifically use the word "targeted" now, so even though radial spells are affecting "units within" an area and not the area itself (unlike the Comet, which does specifically target a point on the board), you don't declare any unit in particular as the target. This has major and wonderful ramifications for me, since I love Cleansing Flare/ Drain Life, and play against magic resistance quite a bit.

Would you mind showing me where that spell list was taken from? It'd sure help me convince some folks that they're no longer safe against the might of my Slann... And thanks for the rules clarification.

Personally I would just continue the way you are currently playing. Since 8th is out in a month it may not be worth the hassle of arguing. Of course if your group is able to discuss rules calmly then go for it, but if someone has a chance to get upset about it I would let it lie until 8th, as MR seems to be much better explained in it, since each spell is put into a category, and MR works against specific categories.