8th Ed. Vanguarding, the ultimate hero hammer

[Lizardmatt]

I went up against a tomb king army this weekend and used ~300 points of characters to totally neuter a 1300 point shooting death star (Kahleda, or whatever her name is, and 80 archers, along with 2 other characters).

What I did, was join 2 Scar Vets on coldones together, and joined a skink chief on Ripperdactyl to them as well.

I rolled D3 units for vanguard, and got 1.
So, I vanguarded the unit of heroes 12" forward.
I then won the roll to go first, and passed the stupidity test.
The Chief flew behind the unit, 1 scar vet marched out to the flank, and the 3rd marched out to the front.
This effectively pinned his death star and let the rest of my army (2200 points) to slug it out with the rest of his army (1200 points). Needless to say, I won the slugging match.


This got my thinking. If you're going to Run Tetto for Vanguard, why not Max on hitting characters.
In a 2500 point list, you can get 3 Old Bloods on Cold Ones (w/cheap magic weapons), 3 Scar Vets on Cold Ones, and a Chief on Ripperdactyl.
Then Vanguard forward the 7 beat sticks in a "Deal with this!" so of way. Turn 1, you can split them off into multiple smaller units or go solo to limit your losses.
No much is going to want to ride into ~27 S7 great weapon attacks (with PF), and 18 S4 attacks.


-Matt

 

[Scalenex]

That's so powerful it will surely let to old Tet being comped

 

[Dreadgrass]

It's an interesting concept, 99% sure you can't attach a pipperdactyl/terradon mounted character to a unit though (flying cav rules)

 

[Lizardmatt]

It's an interesting concept, 99% sure you can't attach a pipperdactyl/terradon mounted character to a unit though (flying cav rules)

You're mistaken.
Characters cannot join units with flying. Characters with flying are not being joined, but doing the joining.

I highly expect Tetto to get banned; not only is he too cheap; but he's flat out too good.

I'm now working with 3 Chiefs on Rippers (they can't join up to each other), but they still have the flying cav special rule, so they can vanguard without Tetto's help. It's not packing as much punch, but it's still good.
Combined, they do 9 S5 attacks on the charge, and 9 S4 Armor piercing killing blow attacks, and 3 S4 stomps.

-Matt

 

[Wizgamer]

I was under the impression that taking a flying mount for a hero stopped them joining a unit.

Also, I would probably not allow fewer than 5 cold ones make a unit, as that is the unit size in the book for cold one riders....

Not sure how other people would feel about that....

 

[Lizardmatt]

I was under the impression that taking a flying mount for a hero stopped them joining a unit.

Also, I would probably not allow fewer than 5 cold ones make a unit, as that is the unit size in the book for cold one riders....

Not sure how other people would feel about that....

It's a unit of characters on cold ones, not a unit of Cold One Riders.
Take a look at page 97 for characters, under "What Unit Can I Join?".
You can join infantry, beasts, cavalry, monstrous infantry, monstrous beasts or monstrous cavalry. Characters can also join other characters belonging to one the troop types listed above, thus forming an impromptu unit entirely made of characters.

A character cannot join a unit of monsters, a unit of flyers, a unit of chariots, or a warmachine. Similarly, if your riding a monster or chariot, or you are a monster, you cannot join other units.

Saurus Characters can join up as per the Impromptu Character unit rule. The chief on the ripperdactyl can join, as the unit he is joining is unit type Cavalry, and the saurus do not fly. Further more, he is not riding a Monster, or chariot, nor is he a Monster.

 

[rexti]

Uh, this sounds fun, and entirely unfair! Now the big question is: what is the best way to get so many characters, money-wise? Besides simply sticking your entire bitz box onto your CoRs

 

[Worloch]

So, if I'm reading your interpretation right, the Skink Chief on Ripper (Flyer) can join the Scar Vet on Cold One (Calvary) but the Scar Vet on Cold One (Calvary) can not join the Skink Chief on Ripper (Flyer). Is that right?

Seems a little .... wonky.

 

[Smexygor]

The Saurus character isn't joining a flying unit in the skink chief though?

 

[Lizardmatt]

The Saurus character isn't joining a flying unit in the skink chief though?

Not at all. Place the chief last.
Or if your opponent whines, place the chief on his own. The chief gets Vanguard naturally from being flying cav (from ripper), so the chief can use his vanguard movement to move up and join with the rest.

-Matt

 

[datalink7]

This seems like... an awesome idea. I'm off to make a list.

 

[Caprasauridae]

Huh, can you clarify a bit... So you didn't charge the Khalida-star with your characters, just but your characters all around it? Was the archer unit not in 40x2 formation and you prevented it from reforming?

The great weakness of the Khalida-star is that once it is charged basically anything, it is almost useless. So it's not exactly difficult to deal with, if you know what you are facing. How would you use this Ultimate Hero Hammer against other armies/lists?

 

[Blugunner38]

"Some characters can ride monstrous beasts in which case they use the monstrous cavalry rules" that is strait from the digital army book when you click on the terradon. So therefor you can't have a chief on terradon join a cold one unit.

 

[Lizardmatt]

Huh, can you clarify a bit... So you didn't charge the Khalida-star with your characters, just but your characters all around it? Was the archer unit not in 40x2 formation and you prevented it from reforming?

The great weakness of the Khalida-star is that once it is charged basically anything, it is almost useless. So it's not exactly difficult to deal with, if you know what you are facing. How would you use this Ultimate Hero Hammer against other armies/lists?

The position kept him from reforming. I couldn't charge, turn 1, as I had the first turn.
On his first turn, he brought 2 necrosphinxes in to count charge. Rather than just rolling into combat, I danced around for another turn, still pinning his unit. My goal was to tie him up and hit the rest of his army. Khalida had to come out of the unit to force the issue, and she broke the chief (who rallied) and she was killed by a scar-vet, a split second before the comet dropped on where she was (killing a sphinex, the scar vet, and newly rallied chief, killed sphinx and took out a good number of archers). The 2nd sphinx was killed by heroes.
So the 3 heroes all dies ("selected for glory"), but took out his general and 2 sphinxes (with help from tetto's comet).

On the other side of the table, the other 2200 points of my army was mauling what he had left.
He surrendered turn 4ish with his archers out of position and khalida-less, and his other half mostly crushed or surrounded and about to be crushed.

 

[Lizardmatt]

"Some characters can ride monstrous beasts in which case they use the monstrous cavalry rules" that is strait from the digital army book when you click on the terradon. So therefor you can't have a chief on terradon join a cold one unit.

And?
Monstrous Cav is on the list of things that can be joined, and it isn't on the list of things that cannot join.
Read all the rules, I think it's around page 96.

-Matt

 

[Pinktaco]

How would this work against a britonnia player who has a Lord with heroic killing blow?

 

[Lizardmatt]

How would this work against a britonnia player who has a Lord with heroic killing blow?

Put the 1+ 4++ old blood on him and hope you make the ward. Then beat the rest of the unit senseless.

-Matt

 

[thegraymist]

On the 'power of Tetto' that is quite powerful BUT, you still can't charge on the first turn you vanguard, which means it leaves your unit vulnerable. If you've got a unit of characters out in front of the enemy army, they can be shot to death - Khaelida's unit could have shot everything or their other archers should have) and there are a number of nasty spells that can pull down a unit first turn like that eg. Metal, Pit, or really anything that has a number of wounds. Once you start rolling dice, those nasty 1's are going to appear.

Just like monsters, volume of attacks is the way to take that down. It's a formidable unit, don't get me wrong, but it also has it's weaknesses. So my take is: powerful yes, overpowered, probably not. You could just as easily walk between worlds to similar effect since you can't charge anyway.

 

[Lizardmatt]

On the 'power of Tetto' that is quite powerful BUT, you still can't charge on the first turn you vanguard, which means it leaves your unit vulnerable. If you've got a unit of characters out in front of the enemy army, they can be shot to death - Khaelida's unit could have shot everything or their other archers should have) and there are a number of nasty spells that can pull down a unit first turn like that eg. Metal, Pit, or really anything that has a number of wounds. Once you start rolling dice, those nasty 1's are going to appear.

Just like monsters, volume of attacks is the way to take that down. It's a formidable unit, don't get me wrong, but it also has it's weaknesses. So my take is: powerful yes, overpowered, probably not. You could just as easily walk between worlds to similar effect since you can't charge anyway.

Actually, it holds up really well to shooting.
Khaelida's unit (in another game) scored 9 poison hits, and 21 normal hits.
Split between the 3 characters (you divide up hits when you don't have 5 rank and file). Each character took 10 hits, 3 poison, and 7 normal. Vs vets, the normal hits needed 6's to wound and I save on 2+. Against the Chief, they needed 4's to wound and I saved on 2+.
End result was that the Chief failed 1 save, scar vets were unharmed.

With more characters, shooting is even more dispersed between the characters and you're more likely to do a single wound to different characters than you are to actually kill anything.

What's worse, is that if you just join all the characters to a saurus cav unit, then the rank and file are taking the hits and the characters skate in unmolested.

In a refined list, I'd consider tictactoe for the -1 to be shot in place of the skink chief.

-Matt

 

[oldmandale]

if the ripper were to join a unit it would then lose its fly ability and only be able to move 2" sadly but as it gets vanguard anyway there is no problem moving it as a solo character.