AoS Shadowstrike Starhost Clarification

[nine7six]

Hi guys!

I have a 1250 point game tomorrow against a sylvaneth force with Alarielle and was planning to bring this formation just wanted clarification, I'm assuming this ability only works for the beginning hero phase?

"The Trap is Sprung:In your hero phase, pick a unit that is visible to the starhost’s Skink Priest or Starpriest. Until your next hero phase, you can re-roll hit and wound rolls of 1 for units from the Shadowstrike Starhost that attack the unit you picked.”

Excerpt From: Games Workshop Ltd. “Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Battletome Seraphon.” iBooks.

My plan was too drop ripperdactyls, chameleon skinks and hopefully get my boltspitter skinks all in range in my first turn and go to town.

I'm scared of her and not really sure what to bring :S

 

[InfamousBeany]

Fret not- you get to use it every turn! When I get 2 secomds, I'll see if I can offer advice on going against Alarielle- what else you thinking of taking?

 

[nine7six]

Stegadon with bow
Skink priest
Skink starpriest
Skink chief

 

[Freddy25]

I'm assuming this ability only works for the beginning hero phase?

Hi @nine7six !
Well, fortunately this ability does NOT work only in your first turn: you can use it every turn if your Skink Hero is still alive!

By the way, I'm not sure your plan can work... I mean, it is nice, but is a sort of suicide attack with low possibility to deal some real damage:
Alarielle has a Save of 3+, and you would attack her with no Rend attacks!
If she get the first turn, she will probably cast a Mistic Shield on herself too... and even if you could hurt her a bit, she would heal herself during the next round!

What I'm trying to say is I would try something else to defeat her:
your opponent fields Alarielle? Why don't you use Kroak? I don't remember Sylvaneth costs, but I think the skele-toad is less expensive than her.
You shuould try to snipe her from 1st turn onward with the Comet spell (helped by Kroak's rerolls).
Then you have to be brave and go towards her with your magic dead frog: your aim is to arrive near enough to cast Celestial Deliverance as many time as possible, and maybe use one of your spell to summon 3 Salamanders in a right position to shoot at that damn Beetle!

This would be the best case scenario:
I'm assuming you have a Saurus BSB with his standard planted.
You succed in making your Kroak survive for 1 turn or 2, while he moves forward and casts a few times the Comet.
Hopefully, Alarielle cannot heal all the wounds you have inflicted her (remember your rerolls).
As soon as your Kroak is at a distance of 19'' circa from Alarielle, you
- cast Celestial Deliverance (1 or 2 times)
- cast Arcane Bolt/Mystic Shield as you prefer
- summon a pack of 3 Salamanders at 9'' from Alarielle.
If everything goes as planned you should deal on average
2 (Celestial Deliverance) + 2 (Celestial Deliverance) + 2 (Arcane Bolt) + 7 (Sallies) wounds to Alarielle and some others to her minions.

The problems are:
- we are assuming EVERY Kroak's spell is cast successfully, but it is not granted.
Alarielle is a "3rd level" mage, so can try to unbind 3 spells... you should use the longer range the BSB grants you to avoid this, but be careful: being too distant from her could make your Celestial Deliverance useless!
- you can count on some rerolls to maximize your damage output (reroll Sallies to Hits/Damage rolls), but they are not a certainty
- if Alarielle is in range of your spells, then you are in range of her Missile Weapon. And it hurts a lot
- if for any reason she succeeds in engaging a close fight with Kroak while she has suffered fewer than 7 wounds, he is probably dead...
I mean, more than he already is

Don't know it may be helpful to you: I admit I've never had to face Alarielle on the battlefield... it was just thinking out loud!

 

[InfamousBeany]

Freddy makes some decent points, but a lot of that would revolve around changing your entire list from the ground up.

Lets take a look at what you can do with what you're currently bringing.

You are absolutely correct in wanting to Alpha strike Alarielle, she is a very dangerous unit and Sylvaneth have a lot of access to healing. Freddy is totally correct in that a decent save that gets better very easily, a rather healthy amount of wounds, coupled with some silly silly damage from her beetle, she's a tough nut to crack.

You are David, they are Goliath- time to bring down the beast!

Now, I have to admit, I'm far less experienced in using skinks, but you do definitely have some options.

Option 1: Ignore.

Now, after bigging up Alarielle you might think I've lost my mind when I propose this as an option. However, when we take a look at what she can do, a lot of her damage potential is in close combat. This is where we need to use terrain to our advantage. The first step is to ensure that your characters are completely blocked from line of sight, not just in cover- this will mean that her scary ranged attack has limited options to choose from. Parking them behind your poor Stegadon is a perfectly viable option.

Now, the trick when it comes to the counter attack is to isolate their ranged units and totally wipe them out. This is where the Camo skinks and your rippers come into play. Any kurnoth hunters with bows, murder them. Make sure that you outright kill a unit (or at very least, a model) at a time, even if it means you overkill drastically- multi wound bulky units plus easy healing will be a pain to shift otherwise.

Finally, its a case of using our far superior mobility to divide and conquer- pepper the rest of the army with shots and kite them across the board, use the Camo skinks abilities to their fullest to divert attention. Dividing your units into multiple small teams will be far better than their big group buffs- you can feed them to Alarielle to bog her down, all the while casting Starlight on her to slow her down.

Option 2: Stegarun

So if you want to play aggressively, and outright kill Alarielle- we're gonna need that steg. Buff it to hell- target it with your starpriest and your priest (if you can get a second magic user in your army, absolutely go for it). Starlight plus re-rolls to save will do you well, and if you can squeeze a mystic shield in there as well, youre golden. Now, the game plan.

Youre going to have to distract Alarielle in your initial turns, be it with camo skinks, rippers or speedy suicide skinks. You then need to buff up Steggy and march him forward with your priests tucked in behind him. Use the shooting attack every turn (preferably buffed with the chief) and unleash your deluge of rubbish shooting on clearing out anything squishier between your steg and alarielle. Get Steggy into combat, and his horns + buffs, coupled with any shots from your priest or assorted skinks, will bring her down. This is ballsy, and I'm always wary on relying on a single model to do all the lifting, but you're going to need that high rend stat if you want to win.

/ / / /

Hope any of that helps, you've got a tough fight ahead of you but I commend you for bringing what you enjoy.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[nine7six]

Unfortunately I don't have lord kroak so that makes things hard but I do have a lot of other things like warriors, slann, cavalry, engine, salamanders.

Also no Bastilidon

Thanks for all the input! I was also thinking of bogging her down with smaller troops as her melee special that kills units is good against heroes

 

[Bowser]

Unfortunately I don't have lord kroak so that makes things hard but I do have a lot of other things like warriors, slann, cavalry, engine, salamanders.

Also no Bastilidon

Thanks for all the input! I was also thinking of bogging her down with smaller troops as her melee special that kills units is good against heroes

Slann is always good for a skink army, throw out the great drake constellation and rerolls of 1s.

 

[nine7six]

How about

Slann
Skink priest
Skink starpriest

5 Chameleon skinks
20 Skinks bolt spitter
Ripperdactyls
Engine of the gods
Shadow strike formation

 

[Bowser]

It's a pretty aggressive army, but it's a great place to start!