8th Ed. Surprise Chiefs on foot

[SilverFaith]

The players I regularly play with is really fond of characters. The worse one is a VC player, who can easily have 3 or 4 characters in one unit.

I thought about trying something fun - A small unit of skinks, with a chief in it, carrying the anti-heroes blade. He almost never run combat lords, so it's only heroes, which, unless I remember wrong, means our chiefs has a better initiative.

This just sounds too good to be true, somehow - I mean, against his usual 3 vampire setups, I get a total of 6 attacks at S7. At a lower WS than them, sure, but with 6 attacks, something is bound to get through, and with S7, I am sure to wound on 2+, and ignore any armour save they might have had.

The reason I feel it sounds too good to actually be workable, is that this guy only costs 70 points. Thats just seems far too cheap for something this strong. Have I missed something, or would this character just get killed without accomplishing anything?

 

[GCPD]

Its cheap because its situational (when he isn't facing more than one character, he's not all that great) and because, like you said, he's still low WS.

Some other interesting things that you can do is to chuck Potion of Strength or Other Trickster's Shard and Enchanted Shield. Do any of the Vamps have Quickblood or Sword of Swift Slaying? If so, you want the Potion of Toughness or Speed.

 

[SilverFaith]

Its cheap because its situational (when he isn't facing more than one character, he's not all that great) and because, like you said, he's still low WS.

Some other interesting things that you can do is to chuck Potion of Strength or Other Trickster's Shard and Enchanted Shield. Do any of the Vamps have Quickblood or Sword of Swift Slaying? If so, you want the Potion of Toughness or Speed.

Arg, had forgotten about quick blood. And yeah, he could kit them out in ASF or ward saves, but ward saves are a rarity - he prefers to give them heavy army, shield, and then make them killers with +S or A weapons.

But potion of speed wont help against ASF, so maybe throw him a potions of toughness and hope he survives. It's just 20 expensive points, but of course, that'll bring the chief to T6.

Too bad he can still pick and choose his weapons. If he gives him a +2S sword, then I will still be wounded on 3+.

Meh, might be worth a try anyway. He still needs to chip down 2 wounds, and it requires ASF - granted, those are unarmoured wounds, but still.

Is there a potentially bettr choice for some nice surprise slaughter?

 

[GCPD]

Potion of Speed will at least deny their re-rolls. Your best bet is to declare a challenge, in which event he's unlikely to kill your Chief with just one Vampire either without re-rolls or vs T6, whichever you go for, and you get your full Anti-Heroes bonuses still, or he declines and you send the most threatening one to the back, and savage the others instead.

Still, if you are looking for something else, then I would suggest an Oldblood with Quango Egg, Sword of Might and Talisman of Preservation. He's tanky as all hell, and can basically pick one Vampire per round of combat to kill. You can use the Egg at the start of combat to try and kill off one character before anyone has drawn a sword. Alternatively, use the Egg to destroy whatever unit they are in. The key is to probably focus on winning combat by destroying the unit and then crumbling them more than it is to kill the characters.

 

[SilverFaith]

Potion of Speed will at least deny their re-rolls. Your best bet is to declare a challenge, in which event he's unlikely to kill your Chief with just one Vampire either without re-rolls or vs T6, whichever you go for, and you get your full Anti-Heroes bonuses still, or he declines and you send the most threatening one to the back, and savage the others instead.

Still, if you are looking for something else, then I would suggest an Oldblood with Quango Egg, Sword of Might and Talisman of Preservation. He's tanky as all hell, and can basically pick one Vampire per round of combat to kill. You can use the Egg at the start of combat to try and kill off one character before anyone has drawn a sword. Alternatively, use the Egg to destroy whatever unit they are in. The key is to probably focus on winning combat by destroying the unit and then crumbling them more than it is to kill the characters.

I do have combat monsters. But he always throw the tougher, non-character shit at it, like Grave Guards or knights.

A skink chief doesn't seem all that threatening, at least until he faced it once.

I am fairly certain vampire heroes only have Initiative 5. Could be wrong, though. And quick blood only gives ASF doesn't it?

 

[GCPD]

Initiative 6, so they'll still be getting re-rolls (and also striking simultaneously).

Edit: You could do Anti-Heroes, Potion of Speed and Opal Amulet.

 

[SilverFaith]

Initiative 6, so they'll still be getting re-rolls (and also striking simultaneously).

Edit: You could do Anti-Heroes, Potion of Speed and Opal Amulet.

Damnit, I had to recheck - ASF only requires equal I to grant rerolls.

Damn I hate that bullshit special rule.

If I just wanted cheap defense, wouldn't Charmed Shield make more sense?

Besides, I want to keep the cost as low as possible. No reason to throw an expensive guy in to get killed. The idea was to srow a low budget hero-killer against him, just to fuck up some of his heroes, without really losing anything if he fails.

 

[Screamer]

I would at least give him enchanted shield and LA for a 3+sv. and blowpipe. At least he'somewhat safe against the rank and files.

 

[Scalenex]

I'd consider a Scar Veteran or an Oldblood with a the Sword of Anti-Heroes.

A Skink Chief with said sword will be more surprising and probably take out one of the enemy characters ad wound another, but a Saurus character can do a lot more killing.

You need to kill enemy VC characters quickly. If you try to kill them slowly they'll use the Lore of Vampires attribute to heal damage every magic phase.

 

[SilverFaith]

I'd consider a Scar Veteran or an Oldblood with a the Sword of Anti-Heroes.

A Skink Chief with said sword will be more surprising and probably take out one of the enemy characters ad wound another, but a Saurus character can do a lot more killing.

You need to kill enemy VC characters quickly. If you try to kill them slowly they'll use the Lore of Vampires attribute to heal damage every magic phase.

My current Hero List is:
Scar Vet on Cold One
-Dragon Helm
-Shield
-Sword of Striking
-Dawnstone
Skink Priest level 1
-channeling staff
Tetto'Eko

This comes out at 419, out of 500 (2k point game)

So I can't afford another Scar Vet, and I want another hero killer in my hero slot.