First of all, sorry if this is in the wrong sub-board… Feel free to move the tread if its wrong…
Im starting this tread to document my way on to a (semi)big tournament held here in Denmark in the middle of august… The two last years i have played with my High Elves, but this year i have decided to make a Chaos Dwarf army, paint it, and hopefully end in the top of the tournament
I will sculpt or scratchbuild most of the army myself, so its gonna take some time - and im planning to begin playtesting now, to get accustomed to the army-feel and learn all the tricks and surprises i can…
First up, is a test game against my good friend Jonas and his Vampire Counts - we will play a 2500 game this saturday, and this is the list i plan on using (with a LOT of proxies, since i virtually dont own any CD models yet)
Sorcerer Prophet General, Lvl 4, Lore of Hashut, Pistol, Blood of Hashut
Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservance, Channeling Staff, Crown of command
Infernal Castellan BSB, Shield, Great Weapon, Pistol
Mask of the Furnace, Luckstone
Daemonsmith Lvl 1, Lore of Fire
Chalice of Blood and Darkness
Hobgoblin Khan Giant Wolf
Shrieking Blade
24 Infernal Guard Handweapon and Shield, Full Command (Champion has Pistol)
24 Infernal Guard Handweapon and Shield, Full Command (Champion has Pistol)
Magma Cannon
Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher
Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher
6 K’daai Fireborn Champion
1 K’daai Destroyer
Army ends up at 2498 points…
The plan im thinking of (and bear in mind, i have NEVER played CD or any other warmachine army before) is to plot a stubborn character (SP and IC) in each IG unit, and use those as my anvils and WM protectors… The daemonsmith is placed among the warmachines for reroll, and the Khan is on redirecting/wizardhunting duty… The K’daai though… How to use those the best?
Please chip in if you have some advice - if nothing is added, i will write a report of my battle and thoughts after saturday…
Does you friend run ethereal units? If so you’ll need some stuff to deal with that. I would not count on magic either. The winds of magic are very fickle. A Hellbound war machine or two might do the trick. If memory serves, I don’t have my book in front of me, K’daai attacks are not magical in nature so they can’t touch ethereal units.
Oh damn, i thought the K’daai were magical? Bummer
I think the only ethereal unit he runs is a unit of hexwraiths… I think in the list as it is, the best option of taking it out is magic… I know its a chance, but i dont like to tailor my lists to certain enemies - i always try to make an allcomer-list
Will you remember to fire those pistol? 4 stand and shoot if you remember them - for 12 points. That should be able to earn itself in. But on the other hand it’s half a hellbound warmachine. And having one of them is allways good.
Don’t put your destroyer against a large unit of zombies/skeletons. I ended up in a situation like that a couple of times - and the destroyer will suddently don’t earn itself in. That large block of zombies wont break and they’ll keep comming back.
I know i got a lot of pistols, and frankly i just put them on the BSB and Sorceror to use the remaining points… Those on the IG champs is to get them an extra attack in cc (and the stand and shoot is nice too)
I would really have liked a hellbound deathshrieker, but that means removing all the pistols + the shrieking blade from the Khan… And i dont know if thats worth it…
Do you think the destroyer could take on a unit of bloodknights? I know he brings a unit of 7…
If you get to charge him - no problem. And you should also be able to take a charge from them.
Destroyer and Blood Knights hit at the same time. So you’ll have to eat all his attacks. Thats 22 attacks if the 7 ride in on broad unit (inc. frenzy and champion). They’ll hit on 4+, so that 11 attacks. Then they’ll wound you on 3+ curtesy of the lances and s5. So that’s 8 wounds (7,something really). Those have to be re-rolled due to blazing body.
And you get the 4+ ward save at that time.
And then you crush him with minimum 7 attacks (if 1 on the frenzy) and your thunder stomp. And blazing body s4.
Yeah - he can take them.
But with some flank support you’re definately safe.
If you get to charge him - no problem. And you should also be able to take a charge from them.
Destroyer and Blood Knights hit at the same time. So you'll have to eat all his attacks. Thats 22 attacks if the 7 ride in on broad unit (inc. frenzy and champion). They'll hit on 4+, so that 11 attacks. Then they'll wound you on 3+ curtesy of the lances and s5. So that's 8 wounds (7,something really). Those have to be re-rolled due to blazing body.
And you get the 4+ ward save at that time.
And then you crush him with minimum 7 attacks (if 1 on the frenzy) and your thunder stomp. And blazing body s4.
Yeah - he can take them.
But with some flank support you're definately safe.
Bloodbeard
Here's the math:
Some basic assumptions: BK's are run 1 rank of 7, full command, no magic weapon on the champion. BK's get the charge (he will significantly out-chaff you).
BK's can attack up to 6 wide. Blazing body will give you 6x Str4 hits which results in 3 wounds before armor and 1 casualty after saves. There are still 6 BK's attacking you on I5. Including a champion, that's 19 attacks for the riders and 6 attacks for the horses. Results are 8.5 hits for the riders and 3 hits for the horses which after rerolls gives about 3.8 wounds for the riders and about 0.1 wounds from the horses. After saves, the Destroyer takes about 2 wounds.
The Destroyer takes an average of 8 attacks (6 +2 Frenzy), resulting in 4 hits, so 3.3 wounds, and after saves 2.8 wounds. There is no thunderstomp, so we move to combat result.
The Destroyer loses combat by a musician, losing frenzy and taking another wound.
There's a lot of random factors involved in this combat. Although the Destroyer loses a close round 1 when you look at averages, it could have gone either way. The fact that it is a coin flip, means you normally do NOT want this match up.
If you can get the charge and/or support your Destroyer with flanks or magic, then I would definitely send it in. If the BK get the charge (or have support from a mounted character or magic), I would look for other options.
Some basic assumptions: BK's are run 1 rank of 7, full command, no magic weapon on the champion. BK's get the charge (he will significantly out-chaff you).
BK's can attack up to 6 wide. Blazing body will give you 6x Str4 hits which results in 3 wounds before armor and 1 casualty after saves. There are still 6 BK's attacking you on I5. Including a champion, that's 19 attacks for the riders and 6 attacks for the horses. Results are 8.5 hits for the riders and 3 hits for the horses which after rerolls gives about 3.8 wounds for the riders and about 0.1 wounds from the horses. After saves, the Destroyer takes about 2 wounds.
The Destroyer takes an average of 8 attacks (6 +2 Frenzy), resulting in 4 hits, so 3.3 wounds, and after saves 2.8 wounds. There is no thunderstomp, so we move to combat result.
The Destroyer loses combat by a musician, losing frenzy and taking another wound.
There's a lot of random factors involved in this combat. Although the Destroyer loses a close round 1 when you look at averages, it could have gone either way. The fact that it is a coin flip, means you normally do NOT want this match up.
If you can get the charge and/or support your Destroyer with flanks or magic, then I would definitely send it in. If the BK get the charge (or have support from a mounted character or magic), I would look for other options.
Hope this helps!
-Snark
Snarkhunter
Good post. Thanks for the corrections. Played four games with the destroyer - two of them multiplayer. Only taken 1 wound in that time - and that was from burning bright.
Thanks for the advice and the math-work… I was never any good with calculating the odds and so… I make most of my tactical decision based on my gut feeling, which, more often than not, end up in some really spectacular moves
With no more than 30 minutes before my first CD match ever, im totally stoked! I have decided to stick with my list as it is out of good sportsmanship (we emailed eachother our list, without magic items)
I will write a battlereport (or at least a summary) of the game tonight or tomorrow…
So, as promised - a little summary of my game (or should i say games) yesterday…
We ended up having two games, since i shamingly had to call the first game after his turn 1 The reason for this was he had brought a lvl 2 suicide mage with lore of death - and he ofcourse ended up with the purple sun… Im used to playing elves with high initiative, so i really had no idea what kind of havoc that spell could cause in a CD army… But the gamebreaker for me was him getting it through with irresistable force - and it was the boosted version, so i had a big template traveling over BOTH my IG units and the two Deathshriekers… I rolled awful, and saw no way of getting back, so i surrendered… My pal was fortunatly ready for another game, and we decided to put a dice cap of 4 on purple sun (so you cant use more than 4 dices to cast it)
In the second game, his death wizard again got the sun, but because of the dice cap, and better rolling from my side, he didnt get it through the entire game, although he tried a couple of times… This game went much better, and i really got to see the strength and weaknesses of many aspects of the army… Our artillery rocks, and is surprisingly accurate with a daemonsmith nearby - it didnt have much effect on VC though… Lore of Hashut was kinda underwhelming, and the only spell that was of some use was Burning Hatred and Ashstorm… K’daai is awesomesauce allround, and i was really surprised how killy they are - they are definatly a keeper in the list! And the IG bunkers really showed me how great an anvil they are, when one of them held up his big Blood Knight unit with general for 3 turns, before the other came to the rescue… Those dwarfs just dont die! The game ended with him surrendering in turn 4 after i had decimated his BK+general with static CR
Overall, im very pleased with the army, and im absolutely loving the way it plays! Sure, its a lot different from elves, but damn it feels evil and powerful! Im sure i will love building this army…
