Is this still a thing. I'm looking to get back into fantasy with some dark elves, but haven't seen any lists running hydras and dragons.
Are these lists still viable in the current edition?
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Is this still a thing. I'm looking to get back into fantasy with some dark elves, but haven't seen any lists running hydras and dragons.
Are these lists still viable in the current edition?
Due to the still huge bonus you get using cannons in tournaments they are still not used much lately. It's just not worth taking them and losing them first turn. People will still use them in more fun games with friends and there are still a few out there with use a hydra and a Karb but pretty rare. Hydras are still as deadly and fun as they were previously but it's still the same with the cannons. The Karybdis can be super good against other monsters as well but since they aren't used by other armies in tournaments either that use is limited. Dragons can still be a little more popular but since your having to place your general on them it's even more dangerous. The best you can give your dragon is a 6+ ward from the Ironcurse icon. The Lord can still save his wound with a 4+ usually and survive which allows him to hold on to those 300 dragon points but then he's still not nearly as useful and tends to have to hide in a unit.
I guess I'll have to stick with a normal list for the weekend games and save the big stuff for big friendly games then.
I've been toying with a scaled army look. Dragon command, hydras, and lots of cold ones.
What dms said. I personally have an ogre monster mash with thundertusks and stonehorns, but I hardly ever use it unless I know my opponent isn't a cannon-mongering cheesecake. Losing a 250 point monster the very first turn to a cannonball with a lucky 6 is frustrating, especially if it takes 3 turns for your monsters to footslog over there.
Until cannons get looked at, monsters will remain a purely "for fun" option.
haha theik that's not really a fair comparison with a Stonehorn due to his multiple wounds rules taking only 1 single wound. Stoneys are viable even in tournaments but The other downsides are what keeps them out I think. Needing your rare slot for other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by Theik
That's not actually how stonehorns work. They take half damage from multi-wound attacks, rounded up. So it will take two cannons instead of one to kill them, which is hardly that big a deal when cannons can reach from one end of the table to the guy in the back of the store grabbing a drink.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Theik
Ahh ok I stand corrected. Still sucks but just gives you maybe 1 extra turn before it dies.
It's tough to say what they will do with monsters and cannons next edition. Going by prices I'd say they'll throw monster players a bone so they can sell more. I've heard a lot of different ideas coming from cannon enemies and cannon users that are fairly decent. below are some options I liked the ideas of.
-Guess ranges again for cannons.
-D3+1 wounds instead of D6.
-Add some randomness to the shot like scatter d3 on where the shell hits the ground.
-Use ballistics skill for rolling to hit. (not sure how this would work, I don't the ball shouldn't just disappear if they miss)
. . . But anyway that's a whole other thread that's been done to death out on the interwebs.
I personally think that the biggest offender is the fact that they are strength 10, d6 wounds. Even against the toughest monsters I can come up with, you are going to be wounding on 2's, which isn't a whole lot of luck involved, especially when it is so easy to to hit a monster, it takes little more than a "this far before end of base" trick to reliably hit it, and then a 2 to wound it. No luck or skill involved.
I'm not entirely certain what should be done to make monsters better though, because I don't think it's really the monsters that are the problem. Most infantry will require 6's to wound them and will take quite a while to whittle down their 6 health, so it's not like monsters aren't durable enough. They will also generally chew through basically everything but other monsters when they get into them, so their killing power isn't the problem either.
To me it feels like the only thing that is holding monsters back from being a viable option is because there is a 100-something point costing doodad that will end their existence in 1 lucky roll before they have even moved. It's not even that warmachines in general are the problem, because I have yet to encounter anybody who stopped fielding monsters because of stonethrowers.
So to get back on topic, it is certainly possible to get a "big beasties" list, but it isn't something you would want to play unless you're good at dealing with frustration. You -might- be able to pull it off if you invest heavily into dark riders as your core, and rush them across the field in an attempt to take out their warmachines. Even if they aren't able to get a charge off against the warmachines in turn 2, your opponent might be tricked into firing his cannons at the riders to get rid of the threat, which will make it easier to march your monsters up the field. You might be able to pull of a similar trick by mounting heroes on pegasi and charging those across the field to provide a big threat for them to aim at, but you might want to save those heroes to put them on big beasties. Perhaps mounting all your heroes on dragons and manticores and filling your special with hydras and your rare with kharybiss will end up flooding the field so badly that the enemy simply can't take everything down with their cannons. Expect heavy losses the first few turns, but flying heroes should be able to make short work of their war machines (and use their 20" movement to avoid being charged before getting there). The big problem at that point is that you most likely lost 500 points worth of monsters before managing to take down 100 points worth of cannons.
The only other strategy I can come up with is to try and make their cannons unable to find valid targets. With a 20" march and a 24 inch charge threat range, you could very well have your heroes in combat by turn 2, possibly turn 1 if you vanguarded and they did the same. This will stop his cannons from firing at those monsters. March the rest of your monsters up behind them (utilizing the fact that his cannons can't aim anywhere where they might hit a combat, which may force him to pick less than optimal firing ranges and missing cannonballs) and get them into combat as quickly as possible as well.
Can't shoot at things in combat after all. If all that fails as well... eh... I suppose try to utilize terrain setup rules. Put large line of sight blocking things in the middle, and cover hills (cannon ball country) with forests and what not. Cannons become a lot less of a threat when they do not have high ground to get line of sight across the entire field, and they can't shoot at things they can't see.
One note to remember though is a lot of tournaments have special hill rules that make them act infinitely high so that a cannon cannot choose a target that's on the other side of a hill. Also note that they must be able to target the spot on the table they are shooting at so if you even place your monster 6" behind a fat unit or large tree, building, temple, etc. then they probably won't even be able to target that spot on the ground. Call me annoying but I bring a laser pointer to tournaments, just in case. I haven't had to use it to settle an argument yet but have used it just to check line of site casually. (You can get decent laser points on ebay for less than 2 dollars shipped). I kind of want to make a 45 degree angle LoS template that has a laser on each angle for checking charges and shooting LoS. The tiny lasers are a little more expensive though.
After talking about this I will mention am I playing in a large grand tournament this coming weekend at Buckeye Battles near Columbus Ohio and I have a dragon lord general as my only monster. In test games about 1/5 I lose the dragon turn 1, 1/5 lose him later, 3/5 he owns things and rampages across the map giving my general a nice 18" leadership range. About half of the time I lose the dragon I lose the lord as well. many times I just run him into a unit the next turn to hide him, saving myself the loss of 516 points.