Tutorial Meeting Engagement tactics

[Bartuk]

In this thread i want to collect as much usefull information as possible for meeting engagements, wich has some gamechanging limitations.

In this post i would like to collect topics to touch on. I appriciate every help / criticism.
Consider everything as work in progress.

Table of Content:

1. Unit Limits
2. Order of appearence / Contigents / Setup
3. Victory Points
4. Building your list (examples)
5. Realmshaper engine
6. Common strategies
7. ...

1. Unit Limits:
- 1000 Points

- You must split your army into 3 contigents Spearhead, Mainbody, Rearguard each contigent must have at least 1 unit.

Further restrictions are:
- Everything must be in minimum unit size
- you are allowed a maximum of 2 units of the same warscroll (excluding battalions)
- you are allowed 1 Battalion, 1 endless Spell, 1 allied unit in min size, 1 CP

Spearhead:
- No: doublesized Unit / Artillery / Behemoth
- 0-1: Leader, Battleline
- 0-2: Other units

Main Body:
- No: Artillery
- Only Battleline can be double sized
- 1-2: Leader
- 0-1: Behemoth
- 1+ : Battleline
- 0+ : Other Units
- 0-1 :Behemoth

Rearguard:
- Any unit can be double-sized
- 0-1: Leader
- 0-1: Behemoth
- 0-2: Artillery, Battleline, Other units

2. Order of appearence / Contigents / Setup
The 3 contigents arrive at different times wholly within 3" of that contigent's arrival edge all depending on the battle plan. (-> no screening)


Example below:


This is one of the most important parts of (list buildung for) meeting engagements. Your double-sized unit of Salamanders / Terradons has to be in the Rearguard and may arrive after turn 2. Which means only 2 rounds of action for a big chunk of our 1000 Points. (ME's only last 4 rounds.)

There are 6 battleplans with the following order of appearence:
Start / After turn 1 / After turn 2
S / M / R
S / M / R
M / S / R
M / R / S
R / M / S other player S / M / R
S / M / R


Your modells may overlap their arrival edge of the board, but they must have as much of their base on the board as possible. The smallest possible deployment zone is 10" x 3" consider this while splitting your army into the 3 contigents.


Below are some pictures. Of course a regular table is much bigger, but the deployment zone is marked on the paper. I will take better pictures someday. .

Here is an example of a Slann and 10 Knights. (460 Points) You can see how stacked the deployment zone is.

Spoiler

If you deside to bring some buffing characters with your 10 Knights unit you can easily see the problem. (There may be a solution and you are not allowed 3 Leaders. I just try to point out what i am talking about. ) You have to solve the puzzle how to line up your deployment before you start deploying.

Below you can see an impressive example of a carno with some Saurus / Guard.

Spoiler

Carno placed first -> 12 Saurus


Carno placed last -> 21 Saurus

Conclusions:
- Never put your most important / most expensive units in your Rearguard. They will be only 1 out of 12 games your starting force and will arrive 9 out of 12 games AFTER turn 2.

- Keep your synergies together in one contigent. (They may arrive on completely differnt edges of the board. See the above image.)

- Get look out sir for your skink heroes if the enemy has any deepstrike because you can't screen them out.

- Think about base sizes while dividing your army into the contigents.

- If in doubt, place the biggest base last.

3. Victory Points
There is one more major difference to normal pitched battles. The game is no longer won by only capturing objectives.

At the end of each battle round, you add up the Wounds characteristics of all enemy models that were slain during that battle round. The player with the higher total scores 2 victory points.

You score 3 victory points for having the main / most objectives.

There are 20 victory points to gather at max.

Conclusions:
- Objective play is still more important than killing your enemy but much less then in pitched battles.

- This is why, skinks were bad before the new battletome and is a concern for me looking at Terradons / Skinks again.

- You have to kill at least one model turn one because your enemy will do so.

4. Listbuilding (Examples)

List 1: Shooting Dracothion's Tail

Spoiler

Allegiance: Seraphon
Constellation: Dracothion's Tail

SPEARHEAD
Skink Priest (70)
4 x Razordon Hunting Pack (80)
4 x Salamander Hunting Pack (80)

MAIN BODY
Slann Starmaster (260)
- General
- Command Trait : Ancient Knowledge
- Artefact : Godbeast Pendant
- Spell : Stellar Tempest
- Ancient Knowledge Spell : Mystical Unforging

Skink Starpriest (120)
- Spell : Hand of Glory
10 x Saurus Warriors (90)
- Clubs
4 x Razordon Hunting Pack (80)

REARGUARD
8 x Salamander Hunting Pack (160)

ENDLESS SPELLS
Bound Purple Sun of Shyish (60)

Spoiler

Spearhead first:
- The hunting packs provide Look out Sir for the Priest if you don't go first.
- If you go first, buff one of your packs in your hero phase und LoSaT it to snipe the enemy hero first turn. (Get the DoT summon Hero, the lone Terrachief, the single wizard ...)

Mainbody first:
- Protect your Starpriest and Slann with Look out Sir.
- Kill something with comet call and your LoSaT Razordon.
- You can keep the Warrios off the table, if you are confident your Slann is going to survive if you don't go first.

List 2: Stegadon Spearhead Thunderlizards

Spoiler

Allegiance: Seraphon
- Mortal Realm: Ghyran
- Constellation: Thunder Lizard

SPEARHEAD
Slann Starmaster (260)
- Spell : Stellar Tempest
Stegadon (240)
- Weapon : Skystreak Bow
- Seraphon Battleline (Constellation: Thunder Lizard)

MAIN BODY
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (210)
- General
- Command Trait : Prime Warbeast
- War Spear
- Artefact : Fusil of Conflaguration
Skink Starpriest (120)
- Spell : Hand of Glory
5 x Saurus Knights (100)
- Lances

REARGUARD
10 x Skinks (60)
- Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Buckler

990/1000

- Rearguard first: tbd

List 3: Kroak competetive

Spoiler

Allegiance: Seraphon
- Constellation: Fangs of Sotek

SPEARHEAD

Lord Kroak (320)
- General
- Spell : Stellar Tempest
5 x Saurus Guard (100)
3 x Kroxigor (140)
4 x Salamander Hunting Pack (80)

MAIN BODY

Skink Starpriest (120)
- Spell : Hand of Glory
- Artefact : Serpent God Dagger
20 x Skinks (120)
- Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers

REARGUARD
4 x Salamander Hunting Pack (80)

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Balewind Vortex or Quicksilver Swords

TOTAL: 1000/1000 EXTRA COMMAND POINTS: 0 WOUNDS: 59

Things i consider important for this topic:
(Not sorted)

- small table (objectives 9 - 18" from starting edge - Screening objectives first turn / cleering screens)
- threatrange vs 24-42 starting distance comets call / skystrikebow 32" / carno 10 + run + 12TL Fusil (+ Hunters steed)
- 4 rounds instead of 5
- Triumph for having less points
- no / less hordes due to limitations
- buffing is weaker
- Salamanders weaker (only 2x1 or 2x2 arrive after 2 rounds)

I will try to explain every topic in future posts.

 

[LizardWizard]

Look forward to this thread.

 

[Bartuk]

The first 2 chapters are started. Feel free to give input / feedback.

 

[Bartuk]

Chapter 3 and 4 are under construction now.
I feel there is very little interest in meeting engagements here. Seems to be a local thing.

 

[LizardWizard]

Chapter 3 and 4 are under construction now.
I feel there is very little interest in meeting engagements here. Seems to be a local thing.

I am intersted in ME. All my local play group is either 2k games or slow grow leagues to bring more people in. I run some form a slow grow every 3-4 months for AoS locally. Otherwise it is just 2k pitched battles and Warcry. Enjoying the thread though

 

[Koriialstraz]

Chapter 3 and 4 are under construction now.
I feel there is very little interest in meeting engagements here. Seems to be a local thing.

At the moment, like lot of people, It's difficult to play.
And in normal time, I don't play a lot because it's hard to find time with my group.
BUT I'm really interested in all the tactics that I can read. It's just a bad habit to just read and never comment.
And I'm so frustrated because I'm stuck on the other side of the world from my home and I can't read my copy of the new battletome.

 

[Canas]

I'm confused, why are you putting them on a piece of paper? Is that just to show? It somehow feels very weird.

 

[Bartuk]

The smallest possible deployment zone is marked on the paper. What kind of showing would you prefer?

 

[Canas]

Right now it appears to me like the paper is the entire battlefield, which would be weird to say the least. As playing on a A4 paper is effectivly impossible.

I'd try sticking them on a larger paper so you don't get the visual distinction between paper and table. Cuz I think that's what's throwing me off.

Or I'd suggest very explicitly stating that this is purely a representation of how small the deploymentzone is and that the actual battlefield is significantly larger than an A4.

 

[Ivan Ang]

Hi guys,
I am new here. I am quite new to the game and will most likely only play ME since my store only supports it for tournament play monthly.

For you shooting list do you still prioritise the same targets on the priority list from the other thread?

And do you always LoSt to snipe of the target hero in the first turn?

 

[Bartuk]

Hey, welcome .

LoSaT: I don't do it every game. You have to consider if you are going to gain more then you lose. But if the enemy has a summonig hero i will go for it every time if i can get him before he summons.

If you know your oponent can't kill anything you can hold back too and forego the 2 victory points.

Priority targets: You won't have much to chose. There will only be one or two heroes at one time. (Spearhead 1 / Mainbody 1-2) Killing some chaff is most of the time not worth to risk your Salamander/Razordon. (If you chose to let the 2 VP go.)

 

[Ivan Ang]

Ah I see thanks for the reply.
So which list do you prefer? The stegadon spearhead or the shooting list?

 

[Bartuk]

I prefer list 2. It is something new and you can use big dinos.
Although i had only one normal game before the lock down vs Ironjawz. The list felt pretty good but it should do so, because coalescend is favored against Ironjawz i think.


Now i am restricted to either play vs my wife or myself.

 

[Ivan Ang]

I see! Just to double confirm for list 2 you can use a behemoth (Stegadon) for the spearhead?

 

[Bartuk]

Yes. It loses his behemoth tag when it becomes battleline.

 

[Überskink]

Hey there!
We also wanted to make an ME tournament in our community in summer (before Covid-19) to encourage new players with small games and i just played pitched play in the past.
I was also thinking for going with thunderlizard but when you use the Warscroll Builder for Meeting Engagement the Stegadon becomes battleline
but does NOT loose the behemoth tag. So with the Warscroll Builder you can not use stegadon in Spearhead.
(sorry for my english i`m non native speaker)

 

[Bartuk]

I am not at home right now. I only found this with a quick search.

 

[Canas]

Warscroll builder is just wrong. IT seems terribly slow to update at times.

 

[Überskink]

Thank you for posting this link @Bartuk !
I think you are right, but my problem is to tell this my opponents. It seems very unclear in Seraphon BT because there is only mentioned that Stegadons get Battleline when i´m using Thunderlizard. (not that they loose Behemoth tag)
I was discussing this a month ago with them and they where arguing that there are servereal units with multiple tags (like Carno: Leader and Behemoth).
So we said that we do it like Warscroll Builder does.
My opponents will field Maggotkin (Affliction Cyst or Blight Cyst), Ironjawz and Fyreslayers so i think i have to go more the elite way.
I think warriors or skinks wont last long against this units because of the small size of them.
As an alternative i thought going with Kroak and Mortal Wounds.
But i never played ME before so this is just theory, we wanted to play some testgames but then everything locked down.

 

[LizardWizard]

Check the OMT and FeC errata and designer commentary. Pretty sure there is something which addresses units losing the behemoth restriction once made battleline.