Round 2 Match 2- Gharof von Carstein vs squeek

squeek said:

My tactics are too big for one PM so they are in two parts, they are labelled so hopefully they will be easy enough to C&P

None of my casters require dice rolls as they are both Masters of Sorcery. The HoTs know all spells in the Lore; Hero 2 Bodg’it can have Lore of Light and Hero 3 Scarp’a can have Lore of Fire.

I am having to rush this as I have a lot on at the moment, but here goes! I think this battle is going to be about control of the magic and therefore movement phase, so I am going to have to use my DD carefully to limit the damage that Gharof can do. I have 1 more DD than he has PD and 3 more PD than he has DD, though he has the irksome Black Periapt so may add 1 to either of those occasionally.

My target list will be the corpse carts, the necro, the caster vamp then the general. The other units will be targeted as necessary. I want rid of the corpse carts as they are potentially the most annoying with the ability to give ASF to undead within 6” and could cause a fair amount of damage if they get at the Horrors. They should be relatively easy to kill as they will lose regen to most of my army, particularly the flamers, but will also be easy to kill for the flesh hounds.

The Necro appears to be his healer and all round nuisance caster, but mercifully is fairly easy to kill. I expect him to stick it on a corpse cart as he did last time, with his Sceptre de Noirot he will looking to raise a unit of zombies early in the magic phase and IoN it up to a silly size. I would imagine the Necro will go with a unit of ghouls and am quite happy to slow them down with my flesh hounds if needs be to prevent them getting at the Horrors.

The caster vamp will also likely be with a block of ghouls, particularly as he has Summon Ghouls. With his Vanhels and Gaze of Nagash I expect him to be a bit of a nuisance so I aim to get in to combat as soon as possible, preferably with my Plaguebearers, or if needs be with Flesh Hounds.

The general is kitted out for combat and will likely be with the Black Knights, these are going to be a nuisance if I allow them to get the charge, so I will aim to magic the shit out of them and keep them busy with my combat units to stop them getting to my Horrors. There isn’t a whole lot of point me trying to catch him out by assassinating the general as only my HoN can really go toe to toe with him and I doubt he will go anywhere near the Plaguebearers.

Zombies wont last long against anything in my army so I am not too bothered about them. The Cairn Wraiths are also not so nasty for me as normal since all Daemons have magical attacks; they are more of a suck it and see. I expect he will move them in to cover and try to outflank me, but I very much doubt he will want to cop a face load of stand and shoot Flames of Tzeentch so they aren’t too much hassle. If they piss me off I will send the Flamers to get rid of them.

The Dire Wolves are also not much bother as they aren’t going to enjoy being barbequed either and frankly are a little naff compared to Flesh Hounds and Flamers.

On to general tactics; I aint afraid of no ghosts is my general policy here. Vampires and Necros don’t do well in combat generally. Barring his general I will aim to slap them down at the first opportunity and since I have no champions and few heroes he has got very few places to hide. Their lack of wounds and my lack of champions for them to play challenge chicken with means they wont last long as I can ignore the unit and target all hits from 3 models on them in combat. If he allows re-raisable units to stray out of IoN range they are going to jump up the targeting list so that I can wipe them out without any chance of them being healed. This will be a lot easier once his casters have copped it, particularly if his general is off dilly dallying with the Black Knights. I intend to concentrate fire and dispels on ghoul blocks to ensure that they die completely under a concerted effort, before moving on to the next one.

Magic-wise I plan to target my dispels, I have no reason to double up dice against his so as long as I am sensible and only use 1 DD to dispel one PD I can keep a lid on his crucial Vanhels and IoNs. The Gaze of Nagash is painful potentially, but I expect him to try to Vanhels that unit forward. If this is the case I am quite happy to let that one leap forward then multi-charge it and massacre it before the caster can do too much damage. The other Vanhels can then be dispelled happily leaving his units out of line and easy pickings for my Flesh Hounds. I fully intend to dispel the Necro’s first raise with the Sceptre de Noirot as I know Gharof will think I will ignore it then IoN the buggers up to a silly size.

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squeek said:

Part 2 of my tactics:

My HoTs will stay with their Horrors for the buff they give to the unit and to avoid them being picked on. If needs be the HoT with Winged Horror can fly out to make the most of opportunities as they present themselves. The HoT with Lore of Fire will give himself Flaming Sword of Rhuin early on to make him a nasty prospect in combat. The HoT with Lore of Light will give himself Pha’s Illumination for the same reason.

The HoT with Lore of Light will use Burning Gaze to target any dangerous units, this spell is particularly good as against all of Gharof’s units it will do D6 S6 hits and can target them from virtually the word go due to the range. I would dearly like to fry his stinky Black Knights with this spell! The HoT with Lore of Fire will do the same with Fireball, or preferably Fiery Blast if Gharof lacks the DD to stop me. If the enemy are out of the 24” range of this HoT I will cast Conflagration of Doom on one of the ghoul units with a caster in it.

The HoT with Lore of Light will be looking to cast Cleansing Flare when combat is joined as it has the potential with D6 S6 hits all round (inside a fairly large range) to end the battle in one spell. I will also look to cast Dazzling Brightness on the Black Knights and any other unit that looks to be dangerous in combat.

My HoN will save his bound item in the hope that Gharof blows his DD early on, if he does the D6 S5 over and over until a T test is passed is enough to cripple any of his units and is particularly dangerous for the large part of his army that is T3 (or less with the zombies). If he saves DD for then he is allowing one of the other magic missiles through in its place, so either way I hurt him in my magic phase.


In summary, targeted no nonsense dispels win the day. I am not afraid of any of his units really, the Black Knights are fragile with my magic and the rest aren’t scary. I will dispel only what is needed and plan to let some vanhels through to allow one unit to get infront of the others, then smash it to bits. I should be able to control the magic phase for much of the battle as I have more dice than him and can afford to suffer a few dispels as so much of my magic overlaps. Erm, that is it I think! Good luck Gharof.

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Gharof von Carstein said:

Oke, so its daemons eyy??

My tactics would be quite simple! Scream and run! up the field that is. My deployment will be like this:

Id deploy the 3 ghoul blocks (fielded 5 wide btw) in the center to the right at the top they will be close together (i know it doesnt look like that but thats my crap paint skillz...) to make sure that the vampire can keep it all marching and the necro is within 12 inches of everything. My general vampire will be in the black knight unit.(characters are red spots) The necro goes in the right most ghoul unit on his corpse cart. (its noted wrong in my list but he is on the cart) Which will be parked close to the building to try and stay within vanhels range. The brown spot near the left ghoul unit is the other cart which will be kept back behind the center and left ghoul unit to try and keep it safe to use ASF when in combat. To the right of the map is my hamburger of death. In the front line are my dire wolves, than there are my wraiths, and than my black knights with general.

This double screening will make sure that squeek cant possibly shoot at the knights without having to go through the rest. This entire block moves fast and will keep doing so (march due to within 12 inches of general) as soon as he sees my hamburger im sure flamers or flesh hounds will go that way. If he is desperate his plaguebearers.

However i expect him to field a wide range of units next to each other to try and maximise his shooting. This will make sure nothing but those flamers can try and touch the units. The problem for him will be that if he does try ill just move within half my charge range and macabrepult myself against him. Its not a sure fire way but... my lord i have...a cunning plan!

The other option is to charge in the wraiths and black knights together and just watch him shoot one of both he can only stand and shoot once! should the units survive my general can spend some dice to heal them up.

My general will always be save this way. Either he is the last remaining thing to finish the charge together with the wraiths or the full black knight unit hits. (im figuring he will shoot the dire wolves before this all goes down) If the flamers dont show, my hamburger will wreak flanking and rear flanking havoc on him. Even if he decides to castle in center field these units should be able to tear him up or distract him long enough for the ghouls to sprint across the field. being ethereal and all i can take advantage of the rocks etc or moving through the building to get the most use out of my wraiths.

In the magic phase i have my work cut out for me. High on my dispel list are his staff of nurgle, the comet of cassandora together with the celestial shield (cant have that on the targets i want to magic missile on). The rest I really dont care about seeing as im planning on drawing his dice in the following way: ill try my magic missile, with 2 dice first, (i rolled a 3) gaze of nagash has a 24" range, high on the targeting list are his pink horrors (they go squish) and after that his flamers. im basically going to avoid his plaguebearers like...well like the plague should he dispell this magic missile, (he has 6 PD so he has to match me dice for dice) im going to go nuts on raise dead with my necro (1 dice of himself and 1 from the pool) (second option trying it with 1 dice should the first casting fail)

if he fails to dispell this or ignore it i will create a nice little screen infront of myself as i would do with a gunline army. The rest of my dice go to IoN on that unit (try and match me again) or i will enlarge that minimum 10 long screen by about 10 more This way ill make sure he has to shoot at the screen. He cant ignore it as i will gladly keep adding to it cheaply and moving it up along with the rest of my army. This way i should get across the board reasonably unscathed. Any wounds on ghoul units will be healed and hopefully even added to if i should spare a dice or 2. Should the screen block my own LoS im going into full ghoul raising mode.

When it gets to combat he has the bigger problem that now, he doesnt get to shoot at me and i get to focus on raising up my ghoul units further. When it gets to combat (horrors and flesh hounds first) plaguebearers will be zombiepitted to boredome. His flamers have probably fallen to the death of my hamburger while my corpse carts will start to shine. The ASF will either win it big for me or at the least draw his dice which are stretched even further giving me more and more ghouls and zombies for flanking. This way I will wear down his army until the foul creatures are in the warp once again!

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Gharof von Carstein said:

another thing to add to my tactics would be of course that when close vanhels will be used to add a swift dose of charge mania seeing as i roled it on my vamp and my necro has it i see him hard pressed to stop it when i can cast it around 3 times saving a dice in my periapt.

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Gharof von Carstein said:

if he takes lore of light than what i have to do is basically try and take out every cleansing flare he tries. high priority on the dispell list! If he tries the smaller magic missile it wont worry me too much as i can still zombie screen my units, and every ghoul he blasts would die anyway, i can raise more. the only thing id like to add. seeing as my general has the raise zombie power as well id like to add that he can use the screening tactic as well. should it be necessary. cleansing flare still cant be cast when in combat (seeing as its not mentioned it cant) so as soon as the screening tactic gets me close and i enter combat i should be oke.

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