demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jul 4, 2018 17:23:43 GMT
Have you ever been hit with a pow 9 with 5 dice followed by a pow 9 with 4 dice? 2 swordsmen are enough to clean sweep a heavy, a unit can take down buffed colossals with relative ease. Using willbreakers are enough to get about half a unit up the board under fire, only you have to be tricksy with Xerxis to have the swordsmen within 10 of him upon activation. A unit of Cetratii with defender's ward marching up the field under shield wall, you have plenty of pressure mid field and can hold back on bringing the swordsmen into the kill box. In my current list, the only thing I'm trying to squeeze in is Tibs, cuz tibs under feat is just a whole bunch of *drool*
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Post by oranjejus on Jul 4, 2018 21:07:11 GMT
I've never been able to fit Tibs in Pre-themes, I was playing him with Molik sometimes....
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Post by challenger on Jul 4, 2018 23:55:11 GMT
Have you ever been hit with a pow 9 with 5 dice followed by a pow 9 with 4 dice? 2 swordsmen are enough to clean sweep a heavy, a unit can take down buffed colossals with relative ease. Using willbreakers are enough to get about half a unit up the board under fire, only you have to be tricksy with Xerxis to have the swordsmen within 10 of him upon activation. A unit of Cetratii with defender's ward marching up the field under shield wall, you have plenty of pressure mid field and can hold back on bringing the swordsmen into the kill box. In my current list, the only thing I'm trying to squeeze in is Tibs, cuz tibs under feat is just a whole bunch of *drool* yeah, xerxis has BIG DAMAGE NUMBERS in a vacuum. But the problem is what happens when you can't use your BIG NUMBERS. if you actually played the game you would understand that theorycrafting out some big damage numbers isn't the same as actually delivering them on a caster with no threat range extension, and only one survivability buff that has plenty of answers. Mk3 has a whole lot of dispel and blessed. Let me give you some examples of current meta casters:- Krueger2 laughs at your melee infantry, his list has so many sprays and so many lightning hazards on top of shoving everyone back. Placing defenders ward on your cetrati allows Wyrds to gun them all down after krueger feat pushes them out of b2b
- Harbinger has a constant -2 accuracy aura to your troops, when she pops feat you can't advance your melee troops towards her easily at all.
- Haley3 will deny you a charge every round with her clouds as her list advances and shoots. When your troops finally do make it Xerxis lack of accuracy fixing ensures you struggle to hit anything.
- I'm no expert on Khador but suppression tankers are a thing
- Ossrum is really brutal when he brings spray bunnies with powerful attack, those things can even spike on heavies but infantry usually just melt.
You also face much worse situation if your officer gets sniped out, which is not incredibly hard to do. Then you're capping out at 4d6 which is suddenly just... a normal weaponmaster charge.
i really suggest you throw down xerxis vs the good casters of the game and see what happens.
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jul 5, 2018 3:44:18 GMT
calm the Firetruck DOWN. I do play Xerxis and have been playing him since Mk1 when he was laughable. Telling me that I don't play as my favorite lock when I'm carrying close to 4k USD in Skorne and play with them once to twice a week is not very friendly. If you know how to spread out your swordsmen, it's practically impossible to gun them all down in 1 turn; I've learned how to do this with ACTUAL EXPERIENCE and do it even against casters like harby. Playing attrition for a turn is not that difficult and using them to simply neuter your opponent (take out collossals, character beasts, etc) works much better than devouring their caster. Krueger2 is a joke against cetrati, bringing in your slow ass beasts just makes it easier to slaughter you with the swordsmen. Harby's feat is another laugh against the cetrati, while you strategically place your other models for next turn's kill. You're looking at things as if specific casters are completely overpowered against everything, but I only use Xerxis for cracking armor; I have rasheth WoD to take down spams. One of the fun things about Warmahordes is that everything has its counter, there is no ungodly list that can play into anything.
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Post by oranjejus on Jul 5, 2018 4:36:36 GMT
My last 2 years of playing him in tournaments has taught me he is good into the _vast majority_ of opponents. I've been deleted before, but it's a very rare exception (and I expect would have happened regardless of which caster I took into that match) Maybe it's because I play him so much but whatever the reason, I can categorically state that in actual play I see big damage numbers. The only vacuum in those games is the table space left behind after damage rolls have stopped Basically, I theory-crafted the numbers back at the start of mk3 when I was using him with swordsmen who added dice to mat rolls, not damage rolls. I've stuck with him through the faction rework and he got even better. I've learnt to play with his weaknesses and found his greatest strengths are not where most people point - instead it's the layers and flexibility he brings to infantry. The reality is that he's great for me in live competitive play. I love the way he plays and how versatile I find him in changing fortunes from turn to turn - I don't suffer from his weaknesses as much as the international internet community tells me I'm supposed to, so I _love_ playing games with him even when I lose. Speaking of which, I'll tell you what happens into good casters: It's an uphill battle, but part of tournament play is you sometimes have to fight in the bad match-up no matter who you have in your pair. Dice don't roll average every turn. Clocks run out. Risk taking pays off. Terrain dictates the fight. People make mistakes. I've only ever played against Haley3 twice, and I won both of them on clock. I'll never underestimate her, but I won't assume I have to lose before the game has even begun
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Post by bloodsplatterartist on Jul 5, 2018 22:43:39 GMT
My last 2 years of playing him in tournaments has taught me he is good into the _vast majority_ of opponents. I've been deleted before, but it's a very rare exception (and I expect would have happened regardless of which caster I took into that match) Maybe it's because I play him so much but whatever the reason, I can categorically state that in actual play I see big damage numbers. The only vacuum in those games is the table space left behind after damage rolls have stopped Basically, I theory-crafted the numbers back at the start of mk3 when I was using him with swordsmen who added dice to mat rolls, not damage rolls. I've stuck with him through the faction rework and he got even better. I've learnt to play with his weaknesses and found his greatest strengths are not where most people point - instead it's the layers and flexibility he brings to infantry. The reality is that he's great for me in live competitive play. I love the way he plays and how versatile I find him in changing fortunes from turn to turn - I don't suffer from his weaknesses as much as the international internet community tells me I'm supposed to, so I _love_ playing games with him even when I lose. Speaking of which, I'll tell you what happens into good casters: It's an uphill battle, but part of tournament play is you sometimes have to fight in the bad match-up no matter who you have in your pair. Dice don't roll average every turn. Clocks run out. Risk taking pays off. Terrain dictates the fight. People make mistakes. I've only ever played against Haley3 twice, and I won both of them on clock. I'll never underestimate her, but I won't assume I have to lose before the game has even begun Totally agree. The two biggest flaws he has can be greatly reduced with a good pair and familiarity with your caster. Just dropping a caster a couple if times then playing him into a bad matchup is a bad plan for any caster good or bad. I've seen plenty of players sweep tournaments with casters considered bad by the community because the caster was less well known and they new it's abilities inside and out. I believe Keith won WMW with mk2 kraye back in 2012-13. Yes big X isn't as good in a vacuum as rasheth but their are plenty of matchups that rasheth struggles into that xerxis can handle.
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jul 6, 2018 0:06:22 GMT
iron gauntlet's masters, 3rd place Brandon Andrews use constance blaze in all match ups but 1
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tanan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 209
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Post by tanan on Jul 6, 2018 22:24:51 GMT
I'm not a skorne player, but Xerxis1 feels strong. Solid melee attrition and defensive feat and best defensive buff in the game. Tactician is a great ability. 4 max units of Catapharacks and Tiberion in Masters of War seems like a no-braider that can challenge and win with top tier lists.
I would go for 2 derp turtles, Agonizer, Krea and Tiberion in Imperial Warhost, because anything that buffs derp turtles is awesome.
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jul 7, 2018 2:25:21 GMT
Xerxis feat is only on melee attacks, crutching what would otherwise be an awesome feat for derpies. The lack of models really hurts Xerxis1 as well, who requires some sort of screen to not get shot off the table. Instead of going Xerxis1 we go Xerxis2 in IWH because his buffs are much more beneficial for beasts, extremely so. I just suck at hiding battle engine casters x.x; Cataphract are not all they appear to be, only the cetrati are valid for game play unless you are going into something like a troll champ spam where you can strip their advantages with the acurarii's drag. The incinderari still need a bit of work and are not worth their points, as Rasheth WoD is a much better infantry clear. Since you can only bring 1 vorkesh, you can only make 1 unit of cataphract worth it, meaning a 4 max isn't going to happen. This is why we take swordsmen who are 2 attacks at pow 9 with a mini feat that gives them an additional di on their melee attacks. You combine this with Xerxis1's feat to make them charge at 9 + 5 dice followed by an additional 9 + 4 dice per swordsman. With a base defense of 13, using terrain to keep them under concealment and cover makes them valid for creeping up the sides of the board until you can smash face. Even after feat turn, they can deal 1 auto damage for each of their blades against warjacks and warbeasts while combo striking to make them a pow 12 with 1 swing to break defensive walls made up of light infantry.
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tanan
Junior Strategist
Posts: 209
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Post by tanan on Jul 7, 2018 10:03:22 GMT
Derp turtles are ideal feat targets because they have six melee attacks and can’t be pushed out of b2b contact.
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demonic
Junior Strategist
Posts: 649
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Post by demonic on Jul 7, 2018 20:28:27 GMT
and you can't take them in masters of war OR exalted x.O;
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Post by oranjejus on Jul 8, 2018 22:23:48 GMT
I almost always stir the blood of swordsmen. So either a p+s11 with 5 dice, followed by p+s9 with 4, or a p+s14 with 5 dice. I get far better results using the combo strikes because I can have clock problems if I try to be too efficient with that many dice. Instead, I save the "extra" attacks for when I specifically need them - usually that relates to leveraging side-step more often than not. It helps me often end well up on clock compared to when I first started with him and was making twice as many attacks, with twice as many extra moves. On the topic, it's worth considering splitting up feat and power swell if your positioning is good. With practice, it's possible to engineer two p+s14 with 4 dice turns from a single unit when abusing tactician. re: the wartortoise, I think he'd adore the feat. Smashing him into melee for massive damage, and it would be pretty simple to pop someone into b2b at that point for the option of layered defenses (if that's your jam, it's not really mine.) The problem for me is I only want to run Xerxis1 in either MoW or TE, so I'm really only guessing at this point
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