I was making more of a philosophical point. It actually will definitely never matter to me - I’m the one with the Chaos Dwarfs and, if I do use the LoA list with the Destroyer, I won’t play it as immune to Strength 4 or less - but that doesn’t mean I don’t think the issue is worth discussing. This is a forum, and it’s dedicated to having online conversations about these sorts of things, so I’m not sure how anyone benefits from a completely pragmatic solution that amounts to “just ignore it”. We may as well all go home then if that’s a viable resolution here.
Sorry if I offended you. I actually have no emotional investment in this argument at all, so if it came across like this was some sort of major deal that I was willing to start a massive flame war about then that isn’t the case at all. I just have a certain opinion about a certain thing, and this was the thread for discussing it.
I’m using one at the winter incursion this weekend, so I’ll have a better opinion on it after that. First game is a lovely HE infantry army. That should be messy…
The real problem with the Destroyer starts when a good player gets hold of one. Against a crafty opponent, that HE lord won’t see combat with the Destroyer, those redirecting fast cav will get Fireballed down asap and those ethereals will get run over by a Hellbound ID (or something similar, you get the point). Giving a good player a unit like the Destroyer is a massive game-changer imo.
But give it a few months and we’ll know one way or the other.
For the record, I really don't think it's going to stay as immune to S4 or less.
It can certainly be read that way but I don't think that's the intent.
The easiest way for high elves to deal with it would be to make one of their characters ethereal then charge it.
Won't kill it of course, but it will take the destroyer out of the game.
VC could do the same thing with one of their ethereal gribblies.
wallacer
I'm using one at the winter incursion this weekend, so I'll have a better opinion on it after that. First game is a lovely HE infantry army. That should be messy...
The real problem with the Destroyer starts when a good player gets hold of one. Against a crafty opponent, that HE lord won't see combat with the Destroyer, those redirecting fast cav will get Fireballed down asap and those ethereals will get run over by a Hellbound ID (or something similar, you get the point). Giving a good player a unit like the Destroyer is a massive game-changer imo.
But give it a few months and we'll know one way or the other.
Baggronor
Agreed - will see how mine does too. I think 6 Renders with GW might be a better option...
if the rules weren’t poorly written then why did someone have to email forgeworld to clarify?
maybe you misinterpreted what I said, but before that dude emailed fw, was everyone already playing it immune to str 4 or less? Or since the lore of fire faq was released, did everyone know upon reading it, that the destroyer was automatically immune to str 3/4? I didn’t on the first glance, I automatically assumed it was wounded on 6’s.
if two groups of people read the rules differently, and someone needs some clarification then I see the rules as poorly written. That’s all im saying, not that im saying I like or dislike the destroyer, but everyone should be able to be able to understand the rules from the get go.
That said the destroyer RAW will probably push people to go back to the indy book on the gt scene (because it’s so strong, which I do think is bad for the cd)
Zhorn,
if the rules weren't poorly written then why did someone have to email forgeworld to clarify?
maybe you misinterpreted what I said, but before that dude emailed fw, was everyone already playing it immune to str 4 or less? Or since the lore of fire faq was released, did everyone know upon reading it, that the destroyer was automatically immune to str 3/4? I didn't on the first glance, I automatically assumed it was wounded on 6's.
Method
Yes, when i first read that rule i was confused, too. But then i read the rules book again - and everything became quite clear. ;)
The rules are quite clear on what number you need to wound something, and since there is no "6+4+" to wound (unlike the to hit chart), the conclusion is quite clear, as far as the rules go.
I think the real confusion comes not from poorly written rules, but from people going "no! they cannot really mean that!". The reverse rule is already in the game (auto-wound), why not this (auto-fail-to-wound)?
That said the destroyer RAW will probably push people to go back to the indy book on the gt scene (because it's so strong, which I do think is bad for the cd)
Method
So - you think "strong" is bad for the CD? Well, then we differ in this: I'm actually pleased that there are 2-3 competitive choices amongst the overpriced stuff in the new list, otherwise i wouldn't be able to give my opponents a challenging game. As i said earlier, i do think the destroyer is rather (too) cheap for what it does. But then, most other things in the list are way too expensive for what they offer (this is certainly true for every single infantry choice in the list). I've played several dozen games now with and against the list, and the destroyer is the only thing that will give me a run for my money when playing against it (well, that and irresistible force on ash storm...).
We'll see how it pans out on the tournament scene across the globe (will the ETC allow the list? What will the US indy scene do? Since the indy GT list - which i liked a lot, and playtested in development - wasn't allowed at tournaments around here anyways there is no "going back to" for me anyways).
In short: I don't think the single destroyer in games under 2600 points is going to grant the LoA autowins, so everything is fine. :)
I hear ya. I don’t think it will grant autowins either.
maybe “strong” is the wrong word, abusable is probably what im looking for.
I love the list and think it’s fine, but players can partially circumvent the expensive core and make broken lists by adding horrid templates (magma cannon) and destroyers.
I guess I wanted the list not to risk polarizing opponents, and strong chances are, players will min/max and that will hurt the cd cause to be generally accepted.
I playtested the indy cd book as well , and while allowed in gt’s here in the US, I never brought it to a gt, and in fact didn’t allow it in the GT I have run (ravening hordes was allowed)
I play down at the ‘local’ GW, and regularly face some real tough lists.
Frankly, anything that can deal with large monsters can deal with a Destroyer. What does that mean? Lore of shadow hex combos, S4 w/GWs, cannons, high damage spells, tooled up lords, large units of charging cav.
The worst match up I’ve faced up against is VCs with a horde of 30 grave guard w/GWs, two massive blocks of ghouls a terrorgeist and a pair of Vargoulfs. Of that army, the Graveguard are untouchable, the terrorguist is a serious ranged threat and is just as fast and can fly, and the Ghols have poison. THIS WAS NOT A TAILORED ARMY! This didn’t even come first in the store tournament!
Another deadly army I’ve run up against was ogres. The army’s infantry was a largish block of ironguts w/GW and a unit of handweapon/ironfist bulls with a butcher, recognizing that the unit would look soft to opposing monsters she whacked a GW on the butcher and with magic could pump that guy up to S8! ALSO NOT TAILORED!
Empire army with a pair of cannons, strong magic offense and a war altar for defence and the Light magic. Haven’t run up against this one yet but I doubt my Destroyer would enjoy it.
I went up against a new player starting out with High Elves. His army was rocking two units of 10 dragon princes one on each flank and a dragon lord with an ogreblade! I ended up having to spend my first 3 turns (including magic phases!) to prevent those units from taking it out and while I won by about 600pts, that was only due to his inexperience and the fact we had to call the game early due to time before his cav really got their mojo on, NOT his army which scared the hell out of me.
Dragon princes are often considered not worth their points, but 10 pump out 16 WS5 S5 attacks, with ASF and re-rolls to hit on the charge & 2+ fire ward, they will consistently annihilate a Destroyer on the charge.
The point is that a strong competitive army has nothing at all to fear from a Destroyer because it should ALREADY have the tools to orchestrate its demise.
Also, none of these players are regular tournament players. (the store one was a ‘fun’ little thing so doesn’t count)
A butcher with a great weapon inside of a unit of S4 guys is pretty much DoA to a Destroyer, Klemanius. Destroyer will {barring freakish luck} kill the butcher before it gets to attack, then be immune to the Ogre unit until it eventually destroys/runs them down.
From that undead list, the only thing that seriously threatens it is the Ghouls, and they have a movement of four. Even with Vanhels, you can avoid them fairly easily with a movement nine single model. The Destroyer should be able to handle thirty Graveguard single-handedly, if you’ve managed to give it hatred. It’ll get the charge off, kill six or seven of them with attacks {no save, no regen}, another few with thunderstomp… Thirty horded Graveguard are only getting 2 ranks after that, and a banner, so the Destroyer should win by a solid margin. Terrorgeist and Vargulfs wound the Destroyer on sixes, and it ignores their regeneration. I guess I just don’t see it.
As for Dragon princes - this thread’s already pretty much summed them up. They are far too expensive to be worth taking against any army, unless you know you are running up against a gunline of flame cannons, six fire mages, or a Destroyer. Take them if you enjoy the miniatures, of course, but they are almost never going to be worth the points.
The point of all of this isn’t that a competitive army has nothing to fear from a destroyer. The point is that the destroyer is simply far too good for a system such as Warhammer, without being a unique scenario monster. It is killable, nobody is saying it isn’t. But you have to be lucky to kill it. Immunity to S4 and under, relative immunity to fire, and utter immunity to the lore of fire, absolutely enormous damage output, the thing is simply too good for its points cost, with the only drawback being that if you are hugely unlucky, you may take a few wounds.
A balance would be to reduce it’s attacks, give it random attacks, or remove the -1 to wound. It shouldn’t have both incredible damage output and the most survivability of any monster in the game.
The point is that a strong competitive army has nothing at all to fear from a Destroyer because it should ALREADY have the tools to orchestrate its demise.
I just came back from a tournament with some of the best UK players. I would disagree with your point of view :)
It doesn't matter that so-and-so can kill it with this or that item combo - its M9, I choose where it fights and that means you react to me. I know which is the guy with dragonhelm, he's the one that looks suspiciously keen to fight the hardest monster in Warhammer. So that's the guy that gets Ash Storm and Curse of Hashut in the face. Then the Destroyer eats all his friends. And then, when that guy does eventually catch up with the Destroyer, it kills him anyway - I killed 2 elf characters with 2+ fire wards this weekend, through sheer amount of forced saves. Hit him in the face 9 times at str 7 and he'll still die, especially if he's become flammable ;)
Basically, against the players on the lower tables, it won games on its own, with a little support from the Prophet and artillery. The IG may as well have brought deckchairs and worked on their tans.
It died in 3 out of 6 games and never once failed to not only do it's points in damage but also dominated the entire game. Failed T tests were what did for him every time basically, reducing his wounds so a hero or great weapon unit could chip him down.
Having said which: it is VERY easy to divert once it has been committed to a course of attack - its base is massive and its on a race against time to do as much damage as possible before it burns out or the game ends. Mobile chaff is the only real effective defence... but it does work. Its just that most people don't bring any :)
Did you get any complaints or at least askance looks about it? I don’t know how well-publicised the LoA list was before the tournament but if someone showed up to a tourney game using a FW list with that in it, I’d be asking a few pointed questions!
I’ve contacted the TO at the next tourney I’m going to and told him the controversy around this. I’ve posted on the relevant tourney thread on the warhammer forum (where most, if not all, the players are registered and will probably read about it).
The TO has said he’s taking FWs ruling on this i.e. immune to non-magical attacks S4 or below. Hopefully a fair few of the other players will see my post and not be too surprised when I turn up with it.
Did you get any complaints or at least askance looks about it? I don't know how well-publicised the LoA list was before the tournament but if someone showed up to a tourney game using a FW list with that in it, I'd be asking a few pointed questions!
No complaints, no. Its in the book after all. There were the usual mutterings of 'filth!' and so on, but its a tournament crowd, everyone gets a bit of that; when people are running 12 Mournfang cav like its normal and DEs, VCs and DoC don't even make the top 10 anymore, I doubt the Destroyer is that much of a big deal. Like I said, you can deal with it simply by redirecting, and the players I faced did cotton onto that.
Elves do suffer, but they just need to adjust the tools they bring to deal with it. WEs are a bit more screwed than the rest, but that's nothing new.
A butcher with a great weapon inside of a unit of S4 guys is pretty much DoA to a Destroyer, Klemanius. Destroyer will {barring freakish luck} kill the butcher before it gets to attack, then be immune to the Ogre unit until it eventually destroys/runs them down.
From that undead list, the only thing that seriously threatens it is the Ghouls, and they have a movement of four. Even with Vanhels, you can avoid them fairly easily with a movement nine single model. The Destroyer should be able to handle thirty Graveguard single-handedly, if you've managed to give it hatred. It'll get the charge off, kill six or seven of them with attacks {no save, no regen}, another few with thunderstomp.. Thirty horded Graveguard are only getting 2 ranks after that, and a banner, so the Destroyer should win by a solid margin. Terrorgeist and Vargulfs wound the Destroyer on sixes, and it ignores their regeneration. I guess I just don't see it.
khedyarl
On this, A unit of Ironguts will be wounding the Destroyer on 5+ and with 3 attacks each it's nothing to be sniffed at. It should be able to handle the bulls though.
Re: the Grave Guard, this is a terrible matchup for the Destroyer. I mean horde will have Great Weapons, so Strength 6, with magical attacks it's only a 4+ to wound. Also with either the +1 to hit banner or a Vamp with the Commandment Helm lurking near by they will hit on 3's (2's if both). With the number of attacks they will kill a Destroyer pretty quick
Regarding the Terrorgheist, it's come to my attention that this thing can actually scream into close combat (that it's in) in its turn. That's how my local GW plays it. It's the scream which gives it a chance vs the Destroyer otherwise it's meat.
Just saying i can see how a Destroyer is getting pwned by these things.
He said Bulls, not Ironguts. hence the S4, and the Terrorgeist/Banshee can’t scream at unbreakable creatures, can it? Did they change the rules?
You’re completely right about the great weapons on Wights, though. For some reason, I assumed they would have HW+shield, which they pretty much obviously won’t.
"The army’s infantry was a largish block of ironguts w/GW and a unit of handweapon/ironfist bulls with a butcher"
He mentioned both, hence my comment regarding the Ironguts. I nuffed the quote a bit. Was more talking ogres in general than a direct response type thing. Ogres are possibly the worst army for the big D to face as it’s auto strength 4 hits will only get 3 ogres and it can’t stomp em… and a couple of Ironblasters with their super bounce will cause problems.
I agree with you that the Destroyer is powerful for its price vs all of the Warhammer monsters. When you compare it with the blubber dragon from SOM at 350 it’s quite reasonable I think. I’d pick the Destroyer to win any 2 vs 1 against the beastmen rares (any combination) (325 pts vs 550) . I could be wrong though, maybe 2 Ghorgons could take it. Will have to test, i’m planning on building a Ghorgon… thinking of doing up a funky head with a top knot and calling it Goro…
I wonder on average how many White Lions or Bestigor a Destroyer could munch though before dying. The Strength 4 auto hit rule makes flank or rear charges on it high risk due to the massive base size.
Regarding Beastmen, for anyone with familiarity with the army. Excluding magic for the sake of this, what would be the best way to kill it? Horde of Bestigor, super powered Gorebull (think that’s what their minotaur lord is called), Mino’s, Spiky pigs, monsters?
For beastmen, your best bet would be to use Minotaurs led by a Mino lord with a the +3 strength weapon {can’t for the life of me remember the name right now}.
Mino’s are fast enough to potentially pin it down, can’t be thunderstomped, but you’ll still need some luck - or soften it up with magic first. Bestigors are simply too expensive to throw at it in hopes that he’ll fail 6 4+ ward saves after you wound it on 5s.
Ultimately, although Beastmen aren’t as screwed as Wood Elves, they will still find a Destroyer very difficult to deal with.
For beastmen, your best bet would be to use Minotaurs led by a Mino lord with a the +3 strength weapon {can't for the life of me remember the name right now}.
Mino's are fast enough to potentially pin it down, can't be thunderstomped, but you'll still need some luck - or soften it up with magic first. Bestigors are simply too expensive to throw at it in hopes that he'll fail 6 4+ ward saves after you wound it on 5s.
Ultimately, although Beastmen aren't as screwed as Wood Elves, they will still find a Destroyer very difficult to deal with.
khedyarl
Uhh blackedplate? Tricksters other shard? Maybe a dragonbane gem? Great weps =destroyer neutralized find a way to add magic weapons even better.
Ultimately, although Beastmen aren't as screwed as Wood Elves, they will still find a Destroyer very difficult to deal with.
Not at all. Just bring bucketloads of chaff. Hounds, Ungor skirmishers, harpies. Lead it around the board. They have an easier time than most if played well.
Or a Gorebull BSB with Dragonhelm/whatever sheepman item that gives anti-fire ward, and a magic weapon. He should grind it down.
Or use Withering to lower its Toughness and watch it fail Burning Bright rolls.
Suppose I should’ve clarified. By deal with, I meant kill, since that is the subject of the thread. Kingfisher: I’ve said it before in this thread, and I’ll say it again now; magic items on a character with movement five are not going to trap a single model with movement nine, unless you are brilliant with hound placement and the Legion player gets sloppy.
Bagg: You’re right about hounds/ungors. You can certainly move it around the table with enough dedicated chaff, but that’s 360 victory points you’re not going to get. The Gorebull is basically your only chance, and if he’s going to survive against our artillery, he’ll have to be inside of a unit. I guess I just don’t see it happening very often against a careful player. It’s not like the Destroyer can’t just restrain his frenzy charge on Leadership ten, then make another leadership check to march his eighteen inches and avoid a bunch of the chaff. Eighteen inches is a huge distance, specially when you can freely pivot every inch of the way. Even if they charge you, they must line up to your base, so as long as you avoid being flanked, you will chase in a direction of your choosing (assuming you don’t just vaporise the unit that charges). Even assuming all of that, they have now ultimately been forced to deploy and play their entire battle line in such a way that they are responding to the kdaii, rather than the entire rest of the legion army, which effectively has free reign.
The more and more I play, and think about this thing, the more I wish it had been playtested at some point during design.