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Post by auraco on Dec 17, 2019 14:48:54 GMT
Beast 09 on Strakhov with overrun can probably go after two archons in a single turn if you can clear the stuff between the two archons. Use your feat (or just get boundless charge from Sorscha0) to get the charge on an archon, kill it, then overrun to the next archon. Most of the 4 archon list I've seen don't tend to have all that many models to block charge lanes, or well, not enough to have too much that you can't remove them with shooting from winterguard kommand.
Sorscha1 can just focus on killing the thamarite archon on her feat turn and deal with the easier to hit (at range at least) morrowan archon afterward. Her feat is also pretty good against flame where most people stick to a fairly small battlegroup.
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Dec 17, 2019 19:20:02 GMT
I'd second using Sorscha against them. Divine Manifestation only gives them immunity to KD and blind and the feat doesn't use an attack roll. Exactly. And once she freezes with her feat, the shield guards are shut down, so if you can reach out and touch at range, you actually hit the models you want.
Fog of War on DEF13+ models is also decent - True Sight on the Thamarite Archons doesn't affect Concealment, so you can get to DEF15 against the shooting. Getting them below 50% to hit before the reroll makes the Thamarites less effective.
So Sorschas then... how about S3 AC? She can freeze them if she gets close enough, she's giving out Flank for extra accuracy, and her infantry are pretty tough so can maybe tank the alpha. Possible, but you're probably going to need to run S3 into range of a whole load of other threats to do it (or hit with Winter's Wrath, but given the DEF skew issue, that's not very reliable). It's also very unlikely to work if the Archons are on both flanks.
Why does probability to hit before reroll matter? It's 66% chance to hit, because they have a reroll every time.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Dec 17, 2019 19:44:07 GMT
Why does probability to hit before reroll matter? It's 66% chance to hit, because they have a reroll every time. I think he's just trying to say that the reroll becomes less effective as the dice result required to hit becomes higher (so rerolling on a 50% base success rate adds 25% to your overall chance of success, rerolling on a 10% base success rate only adds 9%). Well, that's my interpretation, apologies if I'm mistaken.
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Post by borderprince on Dec 18, 2019 5:52:05 GMT
Why does probability to hit before reroll matter? It's 66% chance to hit, because they have a reroll every time. I think he's just trying to say that the reroll becomes less effective as the dice result required to hit becomes higher (so rerolling on a 50% base success rate adds 25% to your overall chance of success, rerolling on a 10% base success rate only adds 9%). Well, that's my interpretation, apologies if I'm mistaken. What he said. And I was a bit rushed so wasn't working out the full probabilities.
Also worth adding with the more detailed statistics that when an attack roll even with reroll is <75%, if it's against a key model (charge lane blocker or the like) that starts to be where I at least want to boost. Which happily Thamarite Archons can't do (as an aside, I like that PP gave the Thamarites rerolls to reflect Thamar as the patron of gamblers, whereas the Void Archons can just extract more power - it's nicely thematic rules design).
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Post by michael on Dec 26, 2019 20:56:58 GMT
I played against a DEF skew Llaelese Resistance army last week. It was kind of dumb. I dropped Wolves of Winter list (not a super good or optimized list, mind you) and basically 60 points of my army got roadblocked by one unit of Crucible Guard Assault Troopers backed up by one Morrowan Archon.
The last time I had such a stupid (read: un-fun) game was back in like 2015 during the Company of Iron league, when I dropped the Doom Reaver squad against the Kayazy Assassin squad. “Well...just need 11’s or better to hit on every roll. Cool.”
Archons really seem insanely strong for 8 point models.
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Juris
Junior Strategist
Posts: 578
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Post by Juris on Dec 26, 2019 23:00:15 GMT
I played against a DEF skew Llaelese Resistance army last week. It was kind of dumb. I dropped Wolves of Winter list (not a super good or optimized list, mind you) and basically 60 points of my army got roadblocked by one unit of Crucible Guard Assault Troopers backed up by one Morrowan Archon. The last time I had such a stupid (read: un-fun) game was back in like 2015 during the Company of Iron league, when I dropped the Doom Reaver squad against the Kayazy Assassin squad. “Well...just need 11’s or better to hit on every roll. Cool.” Archons really seem insanely strong for 8 point models. Sounds like you played the wrong list. That should be a good learning experience, and is not indicative of a problem with any given models. Towards that end, what was the Merc list that you played against, and why did the Assault Troopers give you so much trouble?
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Post by michael on Dec 27, 2019 2:02:03 GMT
I played against a DEF skew Llaelese Resistance army last week. It was kind of dumb. I dropped Wolves of Winter list (not a super good or optimized list, mind you) and basically 60 points of my army got roadblocked by one unit of Crucible Guard Assault Troopers backed up by one Morrowan Archon. The last time I had such a stupid (read: un-fun) game was back in like 2015 during the Company of Iron league, when I dropped the Doom Reaver squad against the Kayazy Assassin squad. “Well...just need 11’s or better to hit on every roll. Cool.” Archons really seem insanely strong for 8 point models. Sounds like you played the wrong list. That should be a good learning experience, and is not indicative of a problem with any given models. Towards that end, what was the Merc list that you played against, and why did the Assault Troopers give you so much trouble? I’m not keen on the school of thought that says that I need to have a teched-out uber list to just play a pickup game. But Doom Reavers don’t care to be effectively MAT 3 when affected by Ashen Veil and the Morrowan Archon, while being sniped by Thorn Gun Mages, a Thamarite Archon, and sitting around waiting for Ashlynn’s feat. Everything else in the army besides the Assault Troopers was DEF 14 or above, which is already on the bad side of the dice curve for Doom Reavers anyway. The only practical counter on the Khador side is Sorcha1 or maybe Vlad1, but they weren’t on the table. The two Archons basically cleaned up my army.
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Post by gobber on Dec 27, 2019 4:42:44 GMT
Kinda with Juris here, five def 13-15 models (depending even under something like ash feat does not seem like something that needs a teched out uber list at all. Ash also can run rocketdudes which are way harder to hit, but in either case single wound arm crackers like doomreavers seem like the exact sort of thing Ash wants to see across the table...
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Post by borderprince on Dec 27, 2019 10:56:22 GMT
I’m not keen on the school of thought that says that I need to have a teched-out uber list to just play a pickup game. But Doom Reavers don’t care to be effectively MAT 3 when affected by Ashen Veil and the Morrowan Archon, while being sniped by Thorn Gun Mages, a Thamarite Archon, and sitting around waiting for Ashlynn’s feat. Everything else in the army besides the Assault Troopers was DEF 14 or above, which is already on the bad side of the dice curve for Doom Reavers anyway. The only practical counter on the Khador side is Sorcha1 or maybe Vlad1, but they weren’t on the table. The two Archons basically cleaned up my army. It's not clear to me that you need a teched-out list. If the meta starts to swing towards DEF skew, then list building needs to react to that, but that doesn't mean you are teching for it specifically. I was running Sorscha1 in Wolves before the Archons were out, not for fixing DEF skew but to give better anti-shooting defence than Vlad2. It just so happens she's also good into DEF skew, which is nice.
There are also other things to change beyond just a caster. Kodiaks are a good choice of jack generally and the Vent Steam ability likes high DEF low ARM models. It's one reason Kodiaks should always be considered in list building (even if their pathfinder benefit is now replicated in our primary jack theme, grumble grumble grumble). They're a useful jack with added utility in this kind of situation. Not going to take out the Archons so easily, but if the rest of the list folds, that's less of an issue.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Dec 27, 2019 13:53:22 GMT
Load up some Mad Dogs and throw them at them. Even if you don't have trample lanes you can just charge in and blow up to kill everything. Berserkers could work too, but then you're commited to exploding rather than just hoping for tramples.
Hmm, Winter Guard with Last Stand? Or CMA-ing Pikemen, but blah blah themes.
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Post by michael on Dec 27, 2019 20:44:48 GMT
Kinda with Juris here, five def 13-15 models (depending even under something like ash feat does not seem like something that needs a teched out uber list at all. Ash also can run rocketdudes which are way harder to hit, but in either case single wound arm crackers like doomreavers seem like the exact sort of thing Ash wants to see across the table... My annoyance was with the archons. They took the matchup from "maybe a little tough, but playable, it's a game" to "Nope. Not ever going to happen, unless my opponent has a heart attack and dies mid-turn." (Also the list had the full Rocketmen boat. Didn't need them, because he cleaned up something like 42 of my 50 Doom Reavers with the Gun Mages and Archons alone in 2 turns. It was bad and dumb.) Load up some Mad Dogs and throw them at them. Even if you don't have trample lanes you can just charge in and blow up to kill everything. Berserkers could work too, but then you're commited to exploding rather than just hoping for tramples. I will never, ever use the POS that is the Berserker chassis. There are like three things in this game that I refuse to budge on, and this is one of them*. They haven't managed to get the Berserker right since it released in 2005. I have given up on it. The Berserker can go die in a fire. * I think the other two are probably Drago and Butcher2.
I’m not keen on the school of thought that says that I need to have a teched-out uber list to just play a pickup game. But Doom Reavers don’t care to be effectively MAT 3 when affected by Ashen Veil and the Morrowan Archon, while being sniped by Thorn Gun Mages, a Thamarite Archon, and sitting around waiting for Ashlynn’s feat. Everything else in the army besides the Assault Troopers was DEF 14 or above, which is already on the bad side of the dice curve for Doom Reavers anyway. The only practical counter on the Khador side is Sorcha1 or maybe Vlad1, but they weren’t on the table. The two Archons basically cleaned up my army. It's not clear to me that you need a teched-out list. If the meta starts to swing towards DEF skew, then list building needs to react to that, but that doesn't mean you are teching for it specifically. I was running Sorscha1 in Wolves before the Archons were out, not for fixing DEF skew but to give better anti-shooting defence than Vlad2. It just so happens she's also good into DEF skew, which is nice.
There are also other things to change beyond just a caster. Kodiaks are a good choice of jack generally and the Vent Steam ability likes high DEF low ARM models. It's one reason Kodiaks should always be considered in list building (even if their pathfinder benefit is now replicated in our primary jack theme, grumble grumble grumble). They're a useful jack with added utility in this kind of situation. Not going to take out the Archons so easily, but if the rest of the list folds, that's less of an issue.
Sadly, I didn't have a Kodiak packed in my bag last week. Still, he can space Rocketmen exceptionally easily, so long as there are no obstructions in just the wrong places. They remind me of a MK I unit, honestly. Flight + blast immune + high DEF is annoying. They are expensive, sure, but...like... geez, they're worth it.
I didn't explain it well the first time around, but like I said in a response above, my main annoyance is that the archons single-handedly (well, there were two of them, so double-handed-ly?) took the matchup from "somewhat unfavorable, but can be overcome with good play or a little luck" to "Ha ha ha, well this was lost upon deployment... Good game?"
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Post by sand20go on Dec 28, 2019 1:42:26 GMT
Ditto to Juris and Michael. I think, at least for a bit, Khador needs to have SOME of our anti-def skew tools. I don't think I get to play Ashlyn tonight but if I do I will let you know how my current plan of just rain of deathing thing to death works ;-)
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Post by Soul Samurai on Dec 28, 2019 5:02:07 GMT
I will never, ever use the POS that is the Berserker chassis. There are like three things in this game that I refuse to budge on, and this is one of them*. They haven't managed to get the Berserker right since it released in 2005. I have given up on it. The Berserker can go die in a fire. * I think the other two are probably Drago and Butcher2.I ran a Berserker in my last couple of games and I was happy with it. Of course Superiority and access to Overrun makes a big difference. I mean, I wasn't expecting much from it, I just brought it for fun (the idea being to leverage Overrun + MAT8 P+S16 Berserk), but I found it nice to have a cheap "throwaway" heavy to keep my opponent busy and also soften up some of their problem pieces a bit.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Dec 29, 2019 5:04:52 GMT
Oh, how about Butcher1? With Berserkers and Mad Dogs he can afford to cast Full Throttle. Berserkers with all the boosted attack rolls should be able to handle high DEF infantry. Mad Dogs bring a speed buff that Butcher lacks, and they can afford to use it when charging thanks to Full Throttle. And of course even a Mad Dog can crack armour under Butcher. Build the rest of the list to taste.
I might be getting too carried away with this Berserker train of thought...
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shmeep
Junior Strategist
Posts: 742
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Post by shmeep on Dec 29, 2019 9:47:24 GMT
Don't think this is it, chief. You're only gonna be able to trample over so many models every turn, and unstable's blast is blast damage, not typeless. No point blowing up if it doesn't affect them. Ditto to rain of death.
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