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Need Help Breaking an Empire Turtle; My friend is playing like a jerk.
Topic Started: 12th November 2010 - 01:43 AM (1,447 Views)
DeathBeforeDinos


Hello fellow Skaven players. I recently picked up Skaven (and Warhammer Fantasy itself) shortly before the release of IOB. I've only been playing with one person so far who plays Empire and I have won 0 of 3 games so far. I always feel like I have a lot of leverage against his Army, but things seem to go horribly wrong for several reasons. I'll focus on the games I played with him today and cover some of the problems I had, but first...my list for the game:

Also, we're playing 1500 points right now. So my options are limited.

Plague Priest (deployed with Stormvermin) - General, Level 2, Flail, Foul Pendant - 169 points

Warlock Engineer - Level 2, Warpmusket, Warp-Energy Condenser, Dispel Scroll - 160 points

Chieftan - Shield, Battle Standard Bearer, Storm Banner - 122 points

Rat Ogres - 2x Rat Ogres, Master Moulder with Great Weapon - 117 points

Stormvermin - 20x Stormvermin, Full Command, Warpfire Thrower - 235 points

Clanrats - 40xClanrats, Full Command, Spears/Shields, Warpfire Thrower - 290 points

Clanrats - 25xClanrats, Full Command, Spears/Shields - 145 points

Clanrats - 25xClanrats, Full Command, HW/Shields - 133 points

Clanrats - 25xClanrats, Full Command, HW Shields - 133 points


I don't have his list, but I can tell you the problem causing units and my problems with his play style.

Essentially when placing terrain he makes sure he will have a hill near the table edge in his deployment area. He puts 2 mortars, a volley gun or rocket battery, crossbowmen, handgunners, huntsmen, and a battle wizard with lore of fire on the hill...puts his infantry units and knights at the base of the hill and just stands back and blasts at me while I attempt to break his line. The only melee groups that give me problems are his greatswords w/general who has helm of the ratslayer. His knights actually don't cause me much issue...my Rat Ogres usually deal with them nicely.

So to list my issues for ease of reading:

- War machines do entirely too much damage to my units before I am able to reach his line. Even with Stormbanner I'm finding them extremely problematic when combined with the handgunners, crossbowmen, and huntsmen.

- Battle wizard adds to the shooting damage I'm taking and generally complicates it with fulminating flame cage which he always seems to get.

- Greatswords tear my weakened units apart when I get close.

- Warpfire Throwers never even get to fire since by the time they get close enough to hit something + the turn they have to wait to shoot, they are generally destroyed or on their own.

- Magic users always seem to do very little of anything for me. I've had some luck with scorch/plague but they seem to do negligible damage for their cost.

- In general, I just hate even playing against his style of play. It's very not fun for me to spend hours trying to attack a hill that he sits on for almost the whole game. I'm not sure how common it is for players to turtle but if there's any advice on how to render that tactic a very bad idea I would appreciate it.

Okay...so those are my issues listed very loosely. I would appreciate any help you all could provide because as of now I'm not really having much fun with the game. Not so much because I'm losing...but because I feel like throwing tons of rats at a wall of guns is pretty tedious and uninteresting.

I'm open to buying more/different models and retooling my list extensively. I plan to play at the 2k level for quite awhile, but I definitely need to stay within 1500 points for now due to my friend's limited number of models. I'm really open to any suggestions in terms of tactics or army structure. I'm just really tired of playing game after game of trying to break a turtle with no luck at all. Thanks in advance and please let me know if you'd like any more info on my tactics. Glad to be a part of Under Empire!
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CapAmr05
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1; Expendability; There is rarely a time when a skaven army should be deployed without slaves, these lowcost meat shields take all of the damage by screening our good troops and then tying up enemies. Another bonus about slaves is that they don't cause panic on any of your valuable units (only other slaves). Don't give them shields, don't give them spears, keep them cheap and get them into the front of your enemies battle line as fast as you can (ensuring that they keep ranks) and move a couple of your other units into flanking position.

2; Leadership; You need a LD 7 hero somwhere on the board. I always go for a Warlord, he's cheaper and can be more readily equipped to survive. His LD 7 bubble will boost any unit within his Inspiring Presence range to LD7+ their ranks. Reliable leadership is the only thing that can keep our cowardly little guys on the board.

A Battle standard is also a must, they allow you to reroll leadership checks.

A fully ranked unit of slaves within 12" of the General and BSB will be a rerollable LD 10. It doesn't matter how much damage your opponent puts out, he's not likely to send that running anytime soon.

3; Shutting down shooting. There are great ways to deal with shooting at your disposal; Storm Banner (activate it at the start of his turn and watch most of his paltry BS3 shooting fail and only half of his artillery go off); Shadow Magnet trinket; Howling Warpgale (spell); Gutter Runners.

Gutter Runners can literally start behind your opponent, or walk onto his back board edge starting in the second turn, a unit of 6 with slings and poison can easially put 3-5 (depending on how many 6's you roll) wounds on those artillery pieces in a single round of doubleshots. Combine those badboys with a storm banner and shooting shouldnt be too much of an issue.

It looks like the list you're taking is in no way able to cope with the 3-4 rounds of shooting you're having to endure. Get 2 or 3 units of 5-6 man gutter runners to scout/infiltrate behind his little hill and look for an easy route.

--Cap
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DeathBeforeDinos


That definitely seems like good advice. The list I'm working for the next game is going to include slaves for sure. I wanted to put them in this game but didn't have enough models to throw slaves in and still hit 1500 points. But yeah I definitely intend to field some huge blocks of slaves.

The gutter runners are a good idea too. I actually haven't thought too much about most of the Clan Eshin models. Would an assassin be a good idea to go after the artillery or is that too much or not good points wise?

I'm also thinking that if he continues to turtle I should definitely drop the Warpfire Throwers for Poisoned Wind Mortars or just drop the weapon teams altogether. Thoughts?
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chieftainskritchskritch
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The Freshmaker

The easiest way to get him to quit turtling around a hill is, as has been said, to take some Gutter Runners. 2 units of 5 with poisoned slings deployed as Sneaky Infiltrators will wreck everything that is sitting on that hill, and anything that tries to charge the Gutter Runners will get chopped into little bits.

An assassin would work as well, but generally its better to go for the Gutter Runners because A - they are cheaper and B - they can put out more poisoned shots/attacks, making it more likely you'll kill your target.

Trust me, after you pull this on him once or twice he wont turtle ever again.

As for your issue with the Greatswords, this is what you should be using the WarpFire Thrower on.
You kids these days have it so easy, what with your Plague Furnaces and your Hellpit Abominations and your Bonebreaker Warlords. Back in MY day, all we had was Slaves and Clanrats!...and auto-hit Ratling Guns...and skirmishing Jezzails...and 2D6 Warp Lightning...and Lead From The Back...wait, what was my arguement again?
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DeathBeforeDinos


Gutter runners sounds like the best counter to his turtling...I'm definitely going to try this next game. I felt like I was missing something by not taking any Eshin. I think I'm going to go with some gutter runners and try to beef up my numbers a bit using more slaves. I do need much more expendability to throw against his Army.
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Paricidas
Doomwheel Driver
If you lack the models or your gutterrunners dont show up until turn 6, here is something you can try too: If it works (which it probably will not..), it will cause spectacular damage, if it does not work, not much is lost.

You need someone with skitterleap (a grey seer)
Skitterleap a warplock engineer on that hill and let him throw a brassorb at as many warmachines as possibly (remember, a missfire is a hit on the engineer, so if he stands one inch away from a cannon, it is hit in 50% of all cases). Any warmachine touched by the template is simply killed.

or you can take a unit of 60 slaves, put an engineer with a doomrocket into it and straightly run in the direction of that hill. If he does not send somebody to intercept them slaves, you can try your luck with the doomrocket as soon as you are close enough (around 14 inches).

These are of course not the best options, as they rely more or less purely on luck, but as GR and stormbanner wherer already mentioned...
Ceterum censeo Altdorfem esse delendam
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Snikt1cmm
Clanrat
i'd go heavy war machines, let him sit there and eat str2 with no armor saves all day long. take poisoned wind mortars for weapon teams. put an assassin in with the gutter runners and let him go after the mage.
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reddogfish77
Grey Seer
yeah and it might even be an occasion where a night runner unit with a grinder would be good.

that way he has too many targets coming at him... and he wont get a charge reaction from the night runners i dont think.

doom wheels would be good too... run them around the flank of the great swords into his warmachines... after that he will consider taking cannons then you take slaves... he wont know what to pack his bags for... lol..

also if you are having trouble fill the points grey seer definately worth taking... plague with a bit of luck will half the number of a few of his units in one go...
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Rat Pack
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Clanrat
As was said before: PlagueClaw and Mortars! Good range and concentrated troops in a small area. That is some funny scat! :D
I like the simple things in life...art and beer
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xxrathammerxx
Stormvermin
First, I don't know if everyone else will agree with me, but until a model has proven itself to me on the board, I'm not going to buy it. I proxy everything that's not a slave/clanrat/stormvermin basically. From one of your comments "I'm open to buying more/different models and retooling my list extensively." I take it you have some money to spend, but I'd still see what works first. The stuff ain't cheap.

Second, I personally don't see any point in sending a unit of clanrats if it doesn't have a weapon team attached. Other armies get magic banners and better unit champions, Skaven get weapon teams, and as random as they can be sometimes, they can really put on a hurtin' sometimes. I once killed 10 high elf swordmasters with one mortar shot. That's 150 points of elf dead for 65 points of Skaven. Think of ways for your units to earn their points back.
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Chitterfitz
Warlord
The big problem with weapon teams its they eat your points fast, and at that low point cost you really don't have the points to be throwing around. I completly screwed up my friends turtle tactic one time by deploying a 40 man unit of plague monks on his right flank with the Banner of verminous Scurrying, plague furnace, and a naked engineer with the iron curse ammy. First turn it showed up on his flank and for the next turn he focused fired on that unit allowing the rest of my army to get into charge, i think the monk unit was down to 25 models after one round then it duel charged his iron breakers with clanrats and punched right through his flank. I wiped the dwarfs down to a man and the monk unit lived :)

I think if you can get into his face fast and from the sides he won't know what to do. Look at how you set up your army. A lot of Games can be won in the deployment phase. Unless your dice completely hate you without question.
Looking for the Limited Edition Skaven Standard Bearer. PM if you know where i can get one.
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xxrathammerxx
Stormvermin
I'll agree that they eat a lot of points. And I'm sure I'm a poor tactician with only about 11 games under my belt, but it seems like my clanrats run away a lot since they die just as fast as slaves but don't have enough models to be steadfast for their cost. I pretty much want to soften enemy units up to about half size by late turn 2 or early turn 3 with weapon team fire so that my rats have a chance in CC. I digress
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Kevlar
Doomwheel Driver
Remember empire have generally low leadership and have very few troops immune to panic. Pick on stuff outside his leadership bubble. Take auto panic items like warp fire throwers. Take leadership dropping items like sacred standard and portents.
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Paricidas
Doomwheel Driver
blackrock1117
Nov 12 2010, 10:03 AM
I pretty much want to soften enemy units up to about half size by late turn 2 or early turn 3 with weapon team fire so that my rats have a chance in CC.

Unfortunatly, that is not going to happen. The only weapon team that can bring such a big amount of pain to a unit is the WFT, and it has move or shoot, so you its quite unlikely that you can shoot a unit to 50% by turn two just with weapon teams.
Side-note: Why must it be turn 2?, your slaves should at least hold almost anything for 2 turns, thats enough for two shots with a WFT...

The most realiable things that can bring down units to 50% by turn 2 are spells, the 13th and plague, to name them.

Alternativly, you can take a furnace, which will simply demolish anything the empire can field (except the steam tank), if it ever sees CC
Ceterum censeo Altdorfem esse delendam
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DeathBeforeDinos


These are all great suggestions. I think I'm going to take the advice of using more slaves which should free up enough points to fit in the gutter runners. I'll still deploy some clanrats because I think getting some poisoned winds on the field will help me a lot.

He seems to be very afraid of my Rat Ogres too and I'm only fielding 2 at this point. I might try to add a third to that not only because they seem to chop through Empire (from my experience so far) but also because they draw so much of his fire. He's pretty easily baited into firing at large blocks of infantry too, so maybe some 40 strong units of slaves.

Definitely good advice so far, I appreciate it!
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