I’ve been asking a lot of questions over in the Tactics section. I think I’ve finally got a list hammered out that I think should be good. Any advice would be appreciated.
Chaos Dwarf Lord
Great Taurus
Armor of the Furnace
Black Hammer of Hashut
Bull Centaur BSB
Armor of Gazrakh
Sword of Might
LVL 2 Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer
Chalice of Darkness
LVL 2 Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer
2 x dispel scrolls
9 Bull Centaur (for BSB)
hvy armor, standard, musician, and War Banner
10 Bull Centaur
hvy armor, standard, and musician
10 hobgoblin wolfriders
light armor, shield, bows
13 Chaos Dwarf warriors (sorcerers go here)
full command
2 x 15 Blunderbussiers
20 naked hobgoblins (well, they have weapons)
2 x Bolt Throwers
Death Rocket
The idea is to place the BC and heroes last. Start a standard gunline setup with the chaos dwarfs, war machines, and hobgoblins. Wolf riders on a flank won’t attract too much attention, but they should be put right before the BC. At this point, the enemy should be placing to go against a strong center. The last two Bull Centaur units goes down on the same, light flank that they hobgoblins are down on. The Taurus Lord should go on that flank, as well. With this type of setup, I should see which of his flanks has lighter shooting. Avoiding the bulk of his shooting is important.
The idea is to race the hammer units up the flank and get charges off as soon as possible. Use terrain as best as possible to cover the Great Taurus or any unit from missile fire or magic. One BC unit will have the BSB and War Banner, and should have an easier time breaking through it’s target. I should not pick any unit that I cannot break in that first turn or else I will start to be trapped.
While the hammer units go up the flank, the war machines shoot at anything in the middle or on the flank, particularly anything that can hit my line fast. The infantry unit should have the two casters and be flanked by the blunderbussiers and have a flank threatening hobbo unit. Or the Hobgobs can be a throw away unit that diverts anyone incoming.
With two lvl 2’s, the Chalice, and dispel scrolls, I should have enough magic defense to delay allow the Hammer units to take out enemy casters. Once the enemy starts to get close to my lines, I should be able to hit them with some offensive spells. That, the war machines, and the blunderbussiers should take care of any incoming units.
Not your standard Chaos Dwarf unit, but one that I think would be pretty effective. Your thoughts?
Well I’m not the best tactician and don’t really pay much attention to lists and such but I even I know this is an interesting list. I’ve never seen this many BC in such a small army, pretty cool.
The idea is to place the BC and heroes last. Start a standard gunline setup with the chaos dwarfs, war machines, and hobgoblins. Wolf riders on a flank won’t attract too much attention, but they should be put right before the BC. At this point, the enemy should be placing to go against a strong center. The last two Bull Centaur units goes down on the same, light flank that they hobgoblins are down on. The Taurus Lord should go on that flank, as well. With this type of setup, I should see which of his flanks has lighter shooting. Avoiding the bulk of his shooting is important.
Groznit Goregut
Hmm, seems risky, to have them all on that flank like that maybe a bit too much dependent on the opposition.
I will keep an eye on this, see how the regular gamers feel about this setup, could be interesting if it works out…
I’ve played a similiar list with Orcs and Goblins. I’ve gone with an All Mounted list, which few people have done before. I have had some pretty good success with it and even won Best General at a local game store tournament. Orc Boar Boyz have T4 and 3+ AS, but suffer from animosity, lower leadership, and aren’t as tough in combat.
Everyone seems to think this will be easy to deal with. Let’s just say that the enemy has half it’s units down and you plop down 2 large Bull Centaur units, the 10 hobgoblins, and a Lord on Great Taurus. What exactly is the enemy going to do to handle it? With a 16" charge range (20" for the Lord), I’m most likely going to get the charge off on most enemies. I am not saying it is impossible, but it won’t be an easy thing to do to handle them. If I get first turn, they will have a single round to react before I am charging anything on that side of the table.
That’s pretty much the way I use my CD army. Stack a flank with fast moving stuff and try to break one end of his line.
The only difference is that I only have one unit of BC, Wolfies and a guy on Taurus. I use the extra points to buy some more infantry and deploy with a denied flank.
Seems to work OK, so long as the enemy doesn’t have any heavy cav on the flank.
It’s the classic oblique line formation. As long as you have enough punch, it will do well against most infantry armies. My biggest fear with BCs is getting worn down by magic and missile fire. A very good general will be able to pull out the units to force your manoevres, making it hard for you to charge down the flanks, so watch out for that.
Just a couple of things i’ve noticed. First off, the melee warriors unit looks a bit small. In an ideal world that would be 20 big, but I’m not really positive where you would want to trim the points from in order to make this possible. An earth shaker would do you better than the Death rocket also, if you could find the points for it. This list sounds pretty tough to deal with though, well done!
I understand that you want to play fast, so I will not say anything about so many cavalry…
Just a point: I don’t see so many war machines (even no earthshaker… but, we know, in 2000 pt there are only two rare choices) You can find some space for them with some little cuts
something like…
Chalice of darkness: do you really need it? with only 6 power dices you will never use it in attack with 4 dispel dices you have not enough dispel scroll for use it more than once/twice.
Bows on wolf rider: i’m not convinced… you can shoot only in the 1st turn… after you must charge something light.
you can save up about 60 point
with this points you can put 2 bolt throwers maybe in the future you can report how this list works
Thanks for the comments, guys. Oh, I forgot to thank Ghrask Dragh as I felt his comment about it being interesting was a compliment.
I know the warrior unit is pretty small, but I don’t see where I can trim more points to get it.
I wish I could take an Earth Shaker, but it would take a Rare slot. I would rather use both on two Bull Centaur units.
If I dropped the bows on the hobgoblins, that would give me 30 pts. That only means another unit of naked hobgoblins. I have done some really good things with my regular goblin fast cav units. I believe I could pick off war machine crew or throw a few units here or there. Yeah, I know they don’t do a lot, but they can do some. How much is a bolt thrower again? Maybe I can get one more of those…
I think two sorcerers w/ 2 dispel scrolls and the Chalice are enough magic defense. I think that the heavy flank can get in and start causing trouble against any enemy casters by mid-game. The scrolls and chalice should help stop the enemy until then. I agree with cornixt and worry about magic and missile fire and want to stop enemy casting.
@wallacer: Can you tell me a little bit more on how your army did? What was your bane? What did you crush? I’d love to hear more from your experiences.
Oh, I forgot to thank Ghrask Dragh as I felt his comment about it being interesting was a compliment.
Groznit Goregut
It was certainly meant as a compliment, I just thought I would let the regular gamers have a look to see if it was worth copying ;)
@wallacer: Can you tell me a little bit more on how your army did? What was your bane? What did you crush? I'd love to hear more from your experiences.
@wallacer: Can you tell me a little bit more on how your army did? What was your bane? What did you crush? I'd love to hear more from your experiences.
Groznit Goregut
I mostly did well against horde armies or armies without a lot of heavy infantry or cavalry. Turning a flank is a lot harder if the other guy has heavy cav or some decent infantry sitting on his flank (or even something unbreakable or stubborn).
I would imagine it would be a lot harder without an earthshaker too, as you'll struggle to stop his centre from swinging around to support the flank.
I think the recent Word of Hashut (or maybe the one before that) has one of my battle reports in it of a game I played against Orcs.
Why would heavy cav give such a hard time? The Bull Centaurs have a charge range of 16". The Great Taurus has 20". Most heavy cav units are only around 5 guys or so. The Taurus Lord could charge in. They would have to take a terror check. With S6 attacks, I don’t see the cav lasting long enough to get attacks back. Even if they got one or two attacks back, they aren’t that tough when not on the charge. If you were able to hit with the bull centaurs AND the great taurus, it should be the end of that unit.
I think the plan would be to hit the flank fast enough that the center would have to pivot to handle it. Most attacks my war machines would falter, with just a few continuing. This could be taken care of via the war machines, magic, and chaos dwarfs. A unit of hobgoblins could also help detour an attack for a round or two.
I definitely think you should hang onto the chalice, its saved me numerous times and can help you dominate the magic phase or mitigate the damage, depending on what you’re dealing with.
I agree that heavy cavalry wouldn’t give you a huge problem, but I would worry about massed low strength shooting. A skaven SAD army would make your life miserable, the jezzails would snipe out your taurus lord leaving the ratling guns to chew through your BCs at their leisure. Sadly you can’t depend on magic to take out such threats, and without bow hobbos (which are impractical as I don’t see where you’d trim the points from to afford them) you can’t really deal with such things.
I would also worry about march blockers- if your taurus lord goes off cavalry hunting on his own and your BCs are off on a flank, the enemy is liable to drop some fliers of his own (carrion, harpies etc.) in and march block you. Your slowed BCs would get picked off by shooting or come in piecemeal, where they could be overwhelmed more easily.
I don’t know that these are the only liabilities you would need to be aware of, but I play Skaven and Tomb Kings and this is how I would deal with a list like this. Having said this, your army looks pretty hard and it should be fun to play without being cheesy or unfair.
