This match is now officially open for voting! Here are the tactics:
squeek's
Critta's
squeek's
squeek said:None of my casters require dice rolls as they are both MoS. Both HoTs know all spells in the Lore of Heavens.
Meh, what a horrid 1st draw (damn you Nathan!), my Plaguebearers will have to try to avoid Critta's Tzeentch units, but I have a cunning plan!
Since our armies are so similar it strikes me that denial of VPs and good use of terrain to dictate where and when combat and shooting occurs is crucial in this match. Critta's magic phase is stronger, but he is weaker in terms of numbers and close combat. I intend to setup a castle deployment in one corner of my deployment zone, aiming to keep LoS on parts of Critta's army, whilst ensuring some of his Horrors and HoTs are as far away as possible.
I will leave my Plaguebearer's until late in my deployment to ensure I can place them further away from flaming units, and will aim to use at least one unit to screen them from particularly risky foe. My Flesh Hounds and Flamers will be used to attack Critta's Horrors if they can get to them, or if Critta pushes forwards with his flamers and flesh hounds I will use them to pick them off in combined assaults. Bloody, but if I can keep them together I hope to get the upper hand.
My basic approach is to force Critta to push towards me due to my setup and better range. This should allow me to pick off weaker units at range and engage his units piecemeal and force instability tests at nasty modifiers.
My Plaguebearer's should end up with a 4+ ward for magic shooting thanks to the Celestial Shield, I intend to use them as an anvil unit for multi charging Critta's units once he brings his units to me. They lose regen from flaming attacks, but they are still plenty tough enough to deal with Critta's units in combat, and they are ideal for giving me some CR in combat.
The shooting phase should be quiet initially since Critta's range is only 18". Happily my HoN's Staff of Nurgle has a range of 24", I will be making good use of the increased range and casting it every turn possible. I expect Critta to have it high in his dispel list, but either way it is a useful item. If he dispels it I have more chance of getting the other spells through, if he ignores it (unlikely for a DoC player considering how nasty it is) then it has a fantastic chance of wiping out a lot of his models since it causes D6 S5 hits again and again until he passes a T test, which with his T3 Horrors isn't an easy.
Otherwise I intend to pick off the most dangerous targets first with my shooting, the Furies should die fast at T3 with the number of missiles I have, the T4 flesh hounds and flamers aren't so easy but will die to concentrated fire. I suspect he will attempt to outflank my army with his faster units, but castling should mean that I can control when and where he is able to attack my units.
Magic wise Critta may have more dice, but he only has access to the Lore of Tzeentch. Since his casters are all level 2 and can only use a maximum of 3 casting dice I expect him to want to swap out Bolt of Change and Tzeentch's Firestorm, due to their high casting values. This leaves him with 4 spells, 2 of which worry me more than the others. I will concentrate my DD on Glean Magic since that allows him to cast my spells and to a lesser degree Gift of Chaos, as it has the potential to do a lot of damage, but only situationally.
For my magic phase I intend to make good use of the spells in Lore of Heavens, initially my HoTs will be using Forked Lightning to attack Critta's units at range since it only requires the target to be in LoS. They will also attempt to cast Celestial Shield on any units that are at risk from shooting since the 4+ ward versus all shooting is useful here; probably the Plaguebearers and whichever unit is closest to the bulk of Critta's army, but this depends on set-up.
If the casters can't see Critta's units early on I will attempt to cast the Comet of Cassandra on a choke point between the trees where Critta is forced to move multiple units through. If I am lucky this may draw out a Spellbreaker (DoC dispel scroll), since it has the potential to be devastating. Once the armies are closer to each other I will use Portent of Far and Second Sign of Amul to allow me to re-roll key dice, and pick off any stragglers with my Forked Lightning.
My flying HoT will remain with his unit of Horror's initially to give them the ward save and protect him, but later he can be used to flank and rear charge weak units, particularly the Horrors, since his ability to fly gives him fantastic mobility. My Flames of Tzeentch HoT will remain with the Horrors and shoot at anything that moves!
In summary, I will castle, shoot at Critta whilst he is out of his range, and attempt to draw out dispels early on forcing him to engage me. Then I will engage his units with joint assaults to force nasty modifiers with his instability tests, whilst using the Lore of Heavens re-roll spells to give me better rolls at crucial moments and combats.
Critta's
Right, I think I got a bit lucky with the deployment edge on this one, but we shall see
Spells
General spell preference will be:
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All wizards will swap one spell for Flickering Fire, the only exception to this will be if I manage to roll boon + bolt of change or boon + tzeentch's firestorm in either of those cases I would ignore flickering fire.
Deployment
I did a bit of photoshop jiggerypokery to see if the units would fit, then I realised I may as well just pretty it up.
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Red = Hounds
Pink = Horrors + Herald
Blue = Flamers
Black = Furies
If I have any herald with gift of chaos he will be deployed with the centre unit of horrors, other than this, my general will be in the centre. The other herals with the spellbreaker will be deployed with the right hand unit. If any wizard rolls Boon + one of the big blasty spells, he'll go on the right instead.
The Plan
Right, the basic plan is this...
Horrors & Heralds will stay in their line, flanks anchored by the woods. If anything comes through any of the gaps in the woods, they will blast it with a mixture of the herald's flames of tzeentch and 11PD worth of flickering fire and whatever else I can muster from my spell rolls. Any flesh hounds willl be hit with the flames from the heralds, but I'll cast spells elsewhere if at all possible due to MR.
Target order if they get within spell range: Winged Herald if he leaves his unit, Flamers, Plaguebearers (lots of flaming attacks from spells and flames = no regen!), horrors, hounds
Flesh hounds will be sent against the matching units in Squeek's army, if they come down the flanks, I'll hit them head on trying to get the charge if possible, holding back if necessary, but with the aim of stopping them before they hit the squishy horrors.
If they come down the centre, I'll swing my hounds in
and try to hit them in the side.
Target order: Hounds, Flamers, Horrors, Plaguebearers
Flamers will march (if I get first turn) or move normally (if I don't and the wood is occupied) into the woods in front of them, from here they'll then move to the edge of the wood to march block and blast anything they can see with flames. They will try and stay out of the line of fire of the enemy horrors if at all possible unless they're shooting at them.
Target order: Flamers, Hounds, Horrors, Plaguebearers
Furies will try to be annoying and marchblock one or both units of fleshounds. They'll also attempt to get a rear charge on a unit of flesh hounds at the same time as they are being charged in the front with one of my units of hounds. If this looks like it's going to be impossible, I'll throw them into one of the units of horrors in the flank or rear.
Target order: Hounds with combined charge, Horrors, Flamers, Plaguebearers
How it might go horribly wrong
This assumes that the main bulk of squeeks force comes up the centre of the board with fleshounds as either the vanguard or on the flanks. If this doesn't happen it might go a bit wrong.
It's quite risky pitting hounds vs hounds, hopefully I won't lose both fights. Ideally if one of Squeeks hound units wins, my flamers, or the flames from one of my HoT's will be able to finish them off before they get much further.
I suspect that both sets of flamers will also end up in the woods, hopefully if I get first turn I can hand towards the back of the woods and get first shot, failing this, if Squeek gets into the woods first I'll send them in anyway and hopefully finish them off with spells from the horrors if they survive.
Anyways - this has already turned into an essay and I *really* need to do some painting so I'm going to leave it there.
