[Freedirtyneedles]

the gauntlet has been thrown down....
so a local player has been using skaven and has crushed all before him, I'm the last one and it's scheduled for thursday. This will be my first 8th edition game and I could use all the help/ tips I can get.
here is what I know:
the list will be 2500 pts.
he loves to field a huge block of clanrats(150) pushing a bell.

has been known to field 2 furnaces with blocks of 40 monks.
he has 2 doomwheels
and an abomination.
I've also seen him use a a special character with 8 rat ogres.
he's an amazing player who rarely makes mistakes.

what I have.
the worst dice in the history of wargames (rolled 6 1's on 6 dice)
a huge amount of nurgle models.
a festus conversion
60 warriors.(40 nurgle 20 khorne)
5 knights(painted nurgle)
40 marauders(flails and nurgle)
30 hounds
a warshrine
unfinished Kholek conversion
4 nurgled chaos spwans
2 nurgled up demon princes
and enough spare models to make just about any characters I can imagine.

what i need?
a whole lot of luck and some advice.
I'm thinking of going with a lv4 sorc with lore of shadow and trying to sap his huge block of skaven to atleast one stat of 1, then using festus to leper them into oblivion.(long shot I know)
is it possible for a unit to go ws 0? if so I can always use the mark of nurgle and terror/fear to make his mobs useless.

anyway thanks in advance to anyone who responds.

 

[Tim/Steve]

So assuming something like-
Grey Seer-bell
Plague Monk- furnace
Plague Monk- furnace
massive clan rats
large monks
large monks
rat ogres
doomwheel
abomination

Basically he's playing a tourny list against you... and its a nasty one.
It took me a while but I think you have a chance of beating it, if you build specifically to take on its few weaknesses and dont make too many mistakes in the game itself.

So the list I would counter with is something like:

Lv4 Tzeentch Sorcerer, talisman of preservation, disc if possible
Lv2 Tzeentch Sorcerer, golden eye, disc if possible
Lv2 Tzeentch Sorcerer, disc, ward of some sort
- mebbe take Vilitch instead (if he is teh one I mean- gives you opponent's fails to cast/dispel), you'll need infernal puppet and the item that turns a fail into a miscast (black spot?) is nearly vital too. Tzeentch can use flickering fire on the doomwheel, abomination (flaming so no regen) and the towers, traitor kin (or whatever its called) to smash his hoards and gateway if you're desperate- I've seen 2 full units of scaven plus towers killed by an 11+ gateway in 2 successive turns before... hilarious to see, but very unlikely. Magic is basically your best weapon, so dont try for buffs/hexs, you pretty much have to use offensive magic.
- miscasts are so much worse then they used to be, and infernal puppet is massively lethal. 1 Miscast, eitehr forced or natural could take out his general and a fair few skaven to boot (a S10 large blast hitting the centre of a huge crawling mass hurts in a way that we just did not see in 7th).

2* Hellcannons
- beg/borrow/steal/proxy these guys, just get them into the fight. They can take out those towers and characters at long range, plus will exact huge casualities on the pushing unit and basically cannot miss. You want your BSB close to them so that they are shooting every turn rather then running off to attack the enemy in melee.

Everything else- you want high S weapons on everything. Halberdsand flails are vital- the enemy weakness is that its only the few 'big things' that he's relying on to kill things.. the rats just dont matter and are there to draw you eye, shooting and make you make mistakes. Concentrate on killing the towers (and take out the doomwheel and abomination as they become problems) and you'll find the rats much less of a problem.

- target the grey seer
- target the bell, and the furnaces
- do not enter combat until the towers are dead or almost dead
- take out the abomination/doomwheel if they are causing you issues.. but consentrate on the towers if you can
- try to smash through the enemy turn 5-6, avoid the blocks till then if you can. If the towers are gone and you've killed the general (and BSB if there is one) then you should have a good chance at beating the skaven in a turn or 2 of combat.. whiel they still live you'll win every round of combat but lose the battle regardless.



As for WS0, yes its possible to make the enemy WS0, but forget about it for this game... the attacks from the rats arent nearly as important as the plague furnace and screaming bells- he can afford to take endless fear/terror tests and lots of break tests because he'll be Ld10 or unbreakable (or just plain ItP from frenzy) pretty much everywhere... so just dont worry about that.

 

[Freedirtyneedles]

thx for the info Tim, tons of stuff to digest....now his list does'nt look as unbeatable as it did.

hate to be a ninny,but...all my casters are obviously painted and converted to be nurgled out the wazoo(I try to fieldwysiwyg and fully painted figs.) , is there any way nurgle magic(or the standard lores) can do the same job as Tz? I'll be doing everything I can to get 2 h-cannons done by thurs.

 

[Aramoro]

Magic is the best offence against these massive units. Unfortunately Chaos don't have the access to the super death lores. A suicide caster with Life or Metal can be devastating.

Death Is probably your best Lore to go for, that allows you to single out and kill the Abomination and the Doomwheel and Purple Sun will give you a nice big template to fire through that huge clan rat unit.

I tend to use suicide casters for these big spells, by which I mean a small unit or by themselves dumping 6 dice in and hoping for unstoppable power. If you can run right up to the target unit first all the better, then when you miscast you might catch them in the blast. Imagine running up to the side of the Clan Rat unit and casting an unstoppable Boosted Purple sun on them. It would be better if it was an unstoppable Dwellers from below but you can't have everything.

A Slaneesh Caster with Ecstatic Seizures would do just as well against those Clan Rats.

Aramoro

 

[Tim/Steve]

Im afraid I dont have access to the WoC book and havent really faced nurgle magic much beyond festus... and I've never once been scared enough to bother dispelling his magic (he's normally used with Vilich, so I know something nasty is coming my way). The honest answer is that I dont think nurgle magic is nasty enough to really hurt the skaven... and I believe that it would mostly be aiming at the mass of rats.


Mostly nurgle isnt going to be the most helpful army to take since the since teh bell and furnace will ignore its benefits... but nurgle cav would be fairly handy against the doomwheel, rat ogres and abomination (to a certain extent)... although I think khorne would be better (also gets round fear- if you dont have ItP then try to have your BSB near any units in combat with units they fear... but then you need the BSB all over for your fear, break and hellcannon tests).


I suggest just breaking WYSIWYG for this game- I like playing WYSIWYG armies and will often take penalties to my army to keep it, but this is a tournament build that you'll be playing, and frankly its a bit of a dickhead who plays that sort of list in a friendly game.. so I would go all out to beat him, and then return to a nice WYSIWYG army you want to use and just dont play him again unless he starts playing a decent army.

Mainly though you need as nasty a list as possible... because without having played any 8th ed I dont think you really have much of a chance- playing a tourny list in the hands of a player who knows how to use it and who obviously has played enough of 8th to know his way round the rules is probably just about the hardest first game of a new ruleset I can imagine. So I think you should try to bloody his nose (on the table of course, but your discretion ) and make him work for it... but if you could gateway his huge unit of clanrats then that would be great, especially if you did it turn 1 :laugh:

 

[VeronaKid]

One thing to add/second from Tim/Steve's first reply: the 2*Hell Cannons will do wonders for you against this type of horde build. If you can possibly proxy any of you or your friends' models for the Hell Cannons, then do it! Anything, and I do mean ANYTHING that you can possibly take that will cause template hits will be your saving grace.

Good luck mate! Make sure you let us know how it goes!

 

[NagashKhemmler]

I've faced similar builds before a few things really did save me as I've created my chaos list to be flexible and tournament orientated, it's been quite powerful so far versus such things:

Chaos Lord on Dragon
Hellcannon x2
2x 12 warriors (MoK)
2x7 chaos hounds
Exalted with Doom Totem
5 chaos knights (MoK)
Slaneshi Sorc on Steed of slanesh with spell familiar and steam of corruption.

If you use the dragon and slaneshi stream of corruption in one turn you're looking at knocking out at least 60 clanrats, combined with the hellcannons and you have about 100 knocked out already.

If you get of ecstatic seizures on the unit that's 75 dead rats straight away.....this spell really makes hoard units pay. Also, every panic test from the hellcannons is being taken at -2, which is horrible for him. The hellcannons will also reliably knock out the plague furnaces, at least one of them before they get to you anyways.

The dragon will anihilate the plague furnace/screaming bell in a single round really, just throw a 3+ ward in there (MoT and 4+ ward amulet).

Another trick to really getting him is to use the terrain to your advantage, much of his army can't move through forests even (iirc the plague furnace takes 1d6 S6 hits for moving into any terrain). Forests will also remove his steadfast bonuses for the clanrat units, so if you can deploy the hellcannons in any forests as this will make it VERY hard for him to counter them, they will tend to win combat against clanrats and similar and without steadfast he will break and run horribly.

Given his horribly wide and unwieldy units, you can also avoid a big chunk of his army and pick on one part of it with smaller more agile units, that's how I've dealt with such situations before and it's worked really well, even against veteran players.

This player doesn't sound skills, just cheap, use your tactics.

Kholek Suneater will smash any of those warmachines apart, his lightning bolt + his massive strength and 1d3 wounds will really make a mess of so many large things. Throw two hellcannons into the mixture and watch him cry . Kholek will be hitting with 8 Str 8 attacks and a thunderstomp at 1d6 S8 attacks and he can single out the bell with his 1d6 hits.

If you really want to rip him apart and annoy the crap out of him, send an exalted hero with the stubborn crown and necrotic phylactery against his plague furnace and challenge him. He can't refuse because he's on a big machine, the phylactery makes you immune to most of the plague furnace, stubborn keeps you sitting there holding up a massive unit being annoying as all hell, you have a decent chance of winning that challenge too iirc.

I haven't run the numbers on the phylactery yet, so you'll have to crunch that and see if it works.

 

[Creon]

Beware large single model troopers. He may surprise you and take Jezzails.

 

[Khorothis]

Vilitch is a great idea since hes the only way you can get doubles of the Lore of Tzeentch. And two Gateways in today's 1 Dispel Scroll/army system its going to be beyond brutal. And who cares about miscasts? Give Blood of Tzeentch to your Sorcerer and Infernal puppet to another and you're ready to roll. Though make sure Vilitch casts last so that he can get some free power dice from your opponent's failed dispel attempts. Add to that a pair of Hellcannons and you'll be throwing templates around like its no problem.

 

[Tim/Steve]

Had a look at the lore of nurgle today... and I cant say Im at all impressed. None of it is particularly useful unless you double team it with the lore of death, killing every clanrat in a unit in 1 turn by combining the withering with the no.5 spell (the one that take 1 steangth and 1 toughness each friendly magic phase) would be hilarious... but is a pretty bad thing to base an army around. So I dont think taking a nurgle sorcerer is a great idea.

Other then that I would agree with pretty much Nagash said, although Im not a great fan of dragons in 8th and I prefer tzeentch magic to slaanesh (except for daemons, when slaanesh is just so funny you have to use it).

 

[Vaz]

Galrauch is pretty much a must have for this list.

For his shooting, and not his Combat though.

Level 4 Tzeentch Sorceror, and 3 Breath Attacks. Cover a grey seer with his Toughness Breath weapon, and it's dead on a 4+. Even touching the bell/furnace will destroy it as it cannot take Toughness Tests, automatically failing them.

With Fly, Terror I6, and a 3+ Scaly Skin, it's a massive threat. It also has a 6+ Ward Save, for all the good that does.

It has a +5 to cast spells - cast Pandaemonium, and Treason of Tzeentch, backed up by a Sorceror with Puppet, and a BSB with Doom Totem and you're laughing (-1 to Leadership for those in sight, cannot use Characters leadership, and wizards miscast on a double). As he knows all spells, it's not an issue you cannot use them, and at 2500 pts, his 616pts is not an issue - 25% is 625.

Being Leadership 9 with a BSB nearby, you should be able to stave off the worst of his Spirit of Galrauch.

In addition - he's a character, so can challenge. What the games designers aren't aware of if you challenge his Grey Seer - you can inflict 2D6 Toughness Test causing hits on the Grey Seer/Challengee thanks to the new breath weapons rules. I had bare fun today with this bad boy.

So to cap off

Chaos Dragon
Breath of Change
Level 4 Sorceror, +5 to Cast, knows all spells

If you're looking for my ideal list, I'd take the following:

Lords = 616pts
Galrauch
Heroes = 615pts
Throgg (Ld 8 Trolls, and a potential 3D6 S5 No armour Save automatic hits once per game, and mutant regeneration)
Chaos Sorceror, MoN/MoT, l2, Puppet, Third Eye of Tzeentch
BSB, Doom Totem, Stream of Corruption, MoT, Shield (2D6 S3 hits -1 to AS in combat)

Core 705
5 Trolls
25 Chaos Warriors, Shields, MoT, Full Command, Blasted Standard

Rare 560pts
Hellcannon (you might want them to misfire and roll a 3 - you can then modify your result to nothing for yourself, and more devastating for your opponent)
Hellcannon
Warshrine, MoT

= 2496

 

[Freedirtyneedles]

holy cow! tons of feedback thx guys.
it makes me shed a tear, but I'll be leaving my nurgle sorcs at home it seems, though I do like the poison attacks and regen from festus.

regardless of what happens, I feel that I'm much more prepared to take him on.
on a side note, the guy is actually really cool , and always a joy to play against, he's just testing this list out for a tourney at the "other" store, where anything semi friendly gets crushed and mocked by a bunch of walking stereotypes.
I don't have my list made up yet, cause I'm too busy making last minute hell cannons.....

 

[NagashKhemmler]

Had a look at the lore of nurgle today... and I cant say Im at all impressed. None of it is particularly useful unless you double team it with the lore of death, killing every clanrat in a unit in 1 turn by combining the withering with the no.5 spell (the one that take 1 steangth and 1 toughness each friendly magic phase) would be hilarious... but is a pretty bad thing to base an army around. So I dont think taking a nurgle sorcerer is a great idea.

Other then that I would agree with pretty much Nagash said, although Im not a great fan of dragons in 8th and I prefer tzeentch magic to slaanesh (except for daemons, when slaanesh is just so funny you have to use it).

Mostly I like dragons because of the two breath weapons from the chaos dragon will knock out a good 40-50 rats. Add in the stream of corruption and you can wipe half the unit in a single turn! Two hellcannon hits and that's another 40 rats, suddenly his 150 is down to 60, far far more manageable. Next turn you charge in two units of warriors and a unit of knights and the whole unit is gone.

Mainly I like slanesh versus massive units because tzeentch will kill a maximum of 12 (unless if you get a lucky gateway) whilst slanesh will pretty much guarantee a good half of the unit is gone, making units far easier to handle, combine that with forcing them to move in weird directions (if you can cut him off with his own unit then great) and you have a game winner, it's the least loved of the chaos lores, but controlling the movement phase is the most powerful magic of all imo.

 

[Tim/Steve]

Yeah, slaanesh is a powerful lore, but while I think the illusion movement spell is beyond awsome and think killing half a unit with T tests is also pretty handy I just think it aims at the wrong part of this army. Tzeentch can take out about 1/4 of units with the traitor spell but its all the spells that you can pull out just to mash a difficult doomwheel, hellpit, jezzail unit etc... I like them both but tzeentch just seems a little more vital (plus the +1 ward can be really nice if combined with good armour and a 4++ item).

Dragons I used to like a lot, but cannons do really bad things to them now... so even though its very rare to see any cannons in my FLGS I still dont want to take one (especially not the sisters, since a cannon bypasses its special rules and will likely kill both sisters in 1 shot).

 

[Aramoro]

You could always take the Eye of Tzeentch thing to try and fire off a quick Plague or Cracks Call here and there.

Aramoro

 

[NagashKhemmler]

You could always take the Eye of Tzeentch thing to try and fire off a quick Plague or Cracks Call here and there.

Aramoro

I agree, the eye of tzeentch makes the sorcerer flexible, whilst maintaining the usage of slanesh's powerful magic.

 

[Freedirtyneedles]

o.k guys, the battle is over. He won, but I did'nt make it easy for him.
mostly he got very lucky with certain spells. like eating my general's unit in one turn with the dreaded 13th spell, the lucky s.o.b.

what he fieled:
10x10 block of skaven pushing a bell
40 monks
2 doom wheels
an abomination
and anopther block of I think 40 clanrats.
he also had an engineer skitterleaping around. he also had a plague mortar and a warpfire team running around as well.


I ran a level 4 sorc and 2 lvl 2's
and my a bsb
2 hell cannons(which are amazing)
2 units of 20 warriors 20 marauders and a warshrine.

or the most part I found a nice choke point and let him come to me as I blasted the living hell out of his doombell, good idea, just had bad rolls and he had very lucky shots. thx again for the help guys.