Versus...Teclis

Spells are a pretty bad way to try to counter this old lad- if he isnt paired with banner of the world dragon its likely he'll be with caradryan and so will have MR3 (unlikely not to have any MR) so wil have a save against spells like the golden hounds. Characteristic tests or straight dead spells like swellers and final transmulation are great... but a little hard to pull off against Teclis without irrisistable force: he comes with his own scroll which is almost certain to be used if you are targeting a spell at him that can kill him in 1 go (and may well stop you using that spell again) and if not then he still has +D3 dispel dice and +5 to dispel... not easy.

If I was going to use magic then I would hope to have something like a lv4 with life, a lv2 with life and a power scroll. Lv4 bufs your army and rolls spells first (does not take dwellers), Lv2 almost has to get dwellers (certainly will if the Lv4 didnt roll it and didnt change anything to earthblood)... that lets you march the Lv2 away from all units turn 1 and then throw <6 dice at dwellers to force it through.... without a banner of teh world dragon or some serious luck Teclis would die. Its also not a bad set up against other armies... but it is broken and beardy as all hell (BoLS made a list top6 broken things in 8th- Teclis, power scroll and dwellers all made it on).

If you have any directed (sniper) shooting then Teclis is in trouble. Things like the hunter's bow, pageant of shrikes or hotchland longrifle are all pretty sweet against Teclis... but you'll often find he takes life and so that is pretty irritating too, as you mihgt put 2W on Teclis, but then by casting a few spells (and you wont stop him casting at least 2 a turn) he'll be back to full wounds... arrgghhh

The best way to kill him is always to get into combat and munch him... but you come into problems here too: the standard suicide assault squad that I would use to kill enemy wizards wouldnt work on Teclis. First he's a lord and so has 3W meaning that you need to have 3A to have a chance at him, and ~6 to make it really likely but the bigger issue is that he will normally sit in a bit unit of HE, with huge numbers of attacks, rerolls to hit and they'll go first... Dum dum derrrr.
However, on the up side you dont need all that many to survive and you can jump all over a massively expensive character. So sending a unit of 30 clanrats into a fight they cannot possibly win is fine: you might lose 15 rats and have no chance of winning, but you can kill Teclis (and mebbe a few bonus HE) and draw the enemy out of position if they pursue you while only risking a relatively cheap unit. Almost all armies have something they can try this with... about the worst example would be ogres, but even then they can use gnoblars for this purpose (if you ever manage to get them into position).

experiment 626 said:

Have to agree with the above comments... For VC's the ghoul sling-shot + nightsroud'ed Wight King is ideal. (less pts that will go down the drain)
Only problem that assassin unit will run into is either an IF dwellers or net of amnytok. And wight kings butcher elves far more efficiently than thralls do.

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sir_m1ke said:

Beastmen have it easiest- Stone of Spite, chuck 6 dice at it and watch as Teclis disappears under 3D6 S4 hits

25pts for an item that has claimed Teclis and 3 High Elf Archmages in this edition so far:music:

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Both decent tactics for dealing with Teclis if he is on his own, but not very helpful if the enemy uses the build that my local players do:

Teclis
BSB- world dragon
Caradryan
50+ spearmen with full command and warbanner.

+6 static combat res, immunity to all magic (so Teclis is offensive, not buffing), a champion to negate lesser characters (eg a wight king charge- let him die from SCR) or Caradryan to kil/suicide on anything big. If you charge in with a big unit then you're going to get hit by a huge amount of attacks befreo your strike (and unless they've been forgetful the HE player has normally just let Teclis jump ship to another unit).

I've managed to smash armies with this unit in before with my WE (yay, elven pincushion) which are almost perfectly designed to take on HE but my ogres just see it and cry. I normally get magicked to pieces before I get close, and the 1 time I managed to destroy it Teclis had jumped out ran away from my charges for the rest of the game (stupid fleeing isn't dead rule) letting the HE win by about 120pts.

I think the answer is big units of cheap rubbish backed up by ranged magic/shooting. Send in a unit of skaven slaves, let them be ripped to pieces and hope you have 6 attacks left to allocate to Teclis (and pray you get lucky)... if he jumps out then just kill him with magic/shooting. Seems like a fair tactic... but not every army can do it.

Well I mentioned this tactic to itsonlyme earlier and said it was so hard to do that I wouldn't post it here... but I thought I may as well regardless.

Best way my ogres have of beating Teclis and his unit of death (probably the same for beastmen and a few others) is getting simaltaneous flank charges.

Charge both flanks, or a flank and a rear and the unit is toast: If your in both flanks you'll be looking at ~10 attacks from spearmen/champ and probably another 3 from Caradryan (or similar hero), while you pump out all your normal attacks and have a huge SCR bonus- you'll win every round and the HEs cant reform to bring their spears to bear... but they'll never break at Ld10 with a BSB reroll. You'll have to kill the whole unit (doen't take too long for my ogres.. other armies would struggle though).

I assume that Teclis would count as being in combat if his unit is engaged... not too sure on that though.

Problem is this tactic has some major flaws- its very hard to manouver into both flanks, especially with Teclis blasting you with spells, and doubly especially since a clever HE player would just turn to face 1 and let the other hit the rear... then he's bringing his entire unit's attacks to bear. You also have to be careful of being flanked yourself as you'll have to leave yourself wide open to get this to work.
This is where a VC player with a couple units of zombies can be laughing... but you'll have to try to outmagic Teclis to really get it working (and we all know how hard that is).


Alternatively you could try what I often do with my WE- send in a small sacrificial typoe unit to the deathstar's flank: I normally charge with wardancers (often with a hero wardancer) or dryads- I'm not looking to win the fight, just to have a shot at some of the the HE characters (caradyan losing to my noble wardancer is quite common).
All you are really looking to do is to slow up the HEs- if your little unit can stay in the fight (by winning or not breaking) then the HEs cant move for a turn, while if you break you're hoping the HE player pursues and puts himself out of position.

Obviously I do this with WE, so I'm pincusushioning HEs the whole time, but getting an extra turn to fire at other units or a couple extra turns for baiting the deathstar out of position is always very useful (and 5-10 extra dead spearmen isnt a bad start at knobbling the unit).

You'll never see yhetees in an 8th ed OK army... not a decent one anyway. They're 30pts more then bulls (almost double) for +1S, +1M -1 to hit and strider. On the other hand bulls have AP, have impact hits, can have command and can be buffed...
I also wish impact hits were that good, but you only get impacts from the front rank, but a 2*4 unit of bulls would give you 4 S5 impacts, which is nice, but not game changing.

Its incredibly hard to get into both flanks on the same turn... if you can do it then you'll beat almost anything, but its should be a passive focus rather then outright tactic: if you see the opportunity to manage it go for it, but starting the game with it as your main plan will only lead to disappointment.
If you were planning on trying something like this its probably easier to use something like chariots or blocks of fast but cheap rubbish (eg 10 chaos warhounds) while you manouver a ranked unit to replace/join them and win the fight.

I think I could manage it with my dryads for WE much more easily then with ogres, but then if Im playing WE Im not that scared of HE...

Hmm, if its really that easy why are we all discussing this one?

Have to say itsonlyme that for someone who admits that rarely play SCs you seem to be very overconfident about this one. Other then artillery being great I disagree with almost everything you said there: these units tend to be too big for the concentrated shooting of most armies to be more then an irritant: it takes ~4 turns of close range fire from my shooty based WE army to really bring it to its knees. I doubt any other army could use small arms fire as anything other then an addition to artillery to weaken it.

Caradryan is immense; but its not his attacks that are his best feature. Sure he's strong
enough to kill a chariot in 1 turn without that much difficulty, but if he fails and you kill him he explodes and kills you that way. Even if you do keep characters with 2++ vs flaming just in case you'll need a decent ward to survive his death- a 3+ on a hero of tzeentch is a nice start, but there's still a good chance of you dying (about 40% or so).

Sword of Anti-Heroes is a pretty huge risk, and it isnt much of a help- firstly you need to survive being hit, then you need for your attacks to matter. If your fighting Caradryan then the HE player probably wants him to die...
Personally I would say the Sword of Swift Striking giving you ASF would be a better idea. Send a cheap unit with a cheap hero with that at Teclis, have the champ accept any challenges the HE issue and the hero attack Teclis and you might get somewhere... unless the HEs spent the extra points to make the unit LSG rather then spearmen (as is done in my local meta... which also makes it a points denial unit).

An arch-lector on war alter is an ok tactic if you're forced to it... but its so very risky. Personally I would use a similar, but safer, approach of using a steam tank with a couple of cheap units. Move the Stank up one flank (you get the nice bonus of sending a cannonball along a file of 10 elves) and the other small units up the other flank (HEs probably wont have the units to counter these... and wont see them as a threat).
Teclis has little choice but to keep turning to face the Stank since his magic is probably the only way the HEs have to counter it (allowing you plenty of time to use artillery/shooting to weaken his unit in case this goes wrong). Either way send your stank into a charge as soon as you can- if you hit a flank then your laughing but it doesnt make much differenece. The HE player has to hold since if he flees then you can charge him with the small units you sent the other way... and he'll have to flee from them, which if he does will bring him back towards the Stank and instant anhiliation.
WHen you get in combat the STank can grind away; the HE player would be forced to reform to face the Stank (unless they were already) to have any chance of killing it, giving your infantry (or even knights) a free flank to charge into when the STank has lowered the enemy numbers- you even use the HE's LD against them since with a rerollable stubborn Ld10 they wont be able to break from combat with the stank until their character start dying and/or they are drastically reduced in numbers (by which time your infantry should have caught up to them).

OKay forgive me if if this doesn't make sense... Tim/Steve has been drinking :shok:

itsonlyme said:

Sword of anti-heroes - I wasn't on about using it to attack Caradryan but rather to boost a even a weak character in combat, at the moment I am trying it out on my lvl4 sorcerer with MoT, Talisman of Endurance and charmed shield. I think with a 3+/4+ save he is more than able to take a lot of damage, your right the character certainly needs some protection and its certainly no use on a hero with no wardsave, still I don't think its a bad item in general. It just so happens that against these types of units you really get your points worth.Yeah, its a pretty good item to add to a mage, you dont lose anything normally and in some cases you become effective in combat.I might actually steal that idea for some of my WE spellweaver/singers get them to be half decent if the shit hits the fan (though I never want them in combat).

Caradryan - I believe its less than 40% with a 3+ wardsave, I mean what maths is:

3 attacks -> 2.25hits -> 1.5 wounds -> 1.25 after armour -> 0.416 after wardsave but before the D3

back -> 4 attacks -> 2.66hits -> 2.22wounds -> 1.11 after wardsave
I wasn't working on average wounds, just chance of getting killed straight.
I was assuming 2+/3++ (not a bad set of saves). Thats 0.25w after wardsave but before D3 or 1W every 4 turns. 2/3 of those wounds will be enough to kill a 2W hero with the D3, or 16.7% chance of death.
Then I assumed that Caradryan died, with a 1/3 chance of beating the wardsave and then 5/6 chance of getting killed (D6 wounds). 27% chance of death from explosion, 16.7% chance of death from attacks... 44% total (ignoring chance of 1w from each). If Caradryan doesnt die that first round then it becomes even more likely he'll kill the hero, either with his turn 2 attacks or just a collection of wounds from all the above.

For me the maths says here on average he wont wound the Tzeentch, he wont die in the first round, even if he does die then he only does 3-4 wounds so with a 3+ wardsave he will on average only do 1 wound.
Since a Tzeentch hero is just about the best possible counter to Caradryan thats fairly good...

I mean he's certainly a problem to deal with for some armies but I think most character will fail to kill him in a round, if you can break the unit he is with steadfast and win combat not so hard with chaos warriors depending on the unit) then his exploding wont be a issue.
Tends to be in a unit of 5 ranks, you need to kill 9 before they lose that 5th rank (unit of 50 with 3 characters- Caradryan, Teclis and a BSB), the HEs will normlaly be steadfast even if they lose, and can reform into flank attacks if needed... when I use my ogres this makes me cry (first time I played it I flanked them with 9 ironguts and a tyrant, killed Caradryan and won by +9 ish... and still it doesnt matter).

He's a good character no doubt but he is a lot of points and in a lot of cases he will only kill something of equal of less points.
???
I dont play WoC but I expect most exhalted heros are about the same cost as Caradryan, they can certainly be more if you give them both magical items and gifts.

When it comes to dealing with special characters all you can do is play with cards you have dealt yourself and make the most of it, the one advantage you will always have against people who do these deathstar type units is numbers and more tactical options available.
Couldn't agree more- I dislike SCs in general. They're effective and all but I prefer to build an army as I want it to be, that includes characters. Sometimes I use them for a bit of a change but I always think the funnest characters are the ones you've designed to fit the exact roles you need to fit with the tactics you use.

I doubt a stank would even make it across the table against teclis, lore of shadows and death are good choices against empire, even metal to less degree. Anyways a archlector does have his own bonuses, lore master of lore of life, all he needs to do is kill the BSB and he can start using powers in combat. He is far more resistant to magic than the stank with MR1/2 with a 4+ wardsave, also as the stank starts taking wounds it starts losing effectiveness. I don't really think any way of dealing with such a target is safe or reliable, each has its own pro's and cons.
Shadows and death would both kill a stank pretty quick, but then they both have a decent chance of taking out a war alter too. If you are playing against Teclis with a stank and he takes either you'll need to change tactics, but thats fine- neither is particularly effetcive against other empire units. Its if Teclis takes high, heavens, fire, light or life that the stank can really own him.

Its not being overconfident but rather not being so negative, at the end of the day I don't collect empire and rarely play with VC so a lot of what I am saying for other armies is off memory rather than reading through pages and pages of army books thinking of every single combo, for any army the best option for dealing with big expensive blocks like this is going to be shooting, empire its dropping two mortars a turn, or a hellstrom or even trying a volley gun! You can't spend the whole game shooting.

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Yeah, undeniably the best thing empire can do is drop mortars on Teclis's head turn after turn... and if you have a couple mortars (or similar artillery) in your army you're set. Its how to deal with the big T if you dont... thats where ti gets tricky.
Personally I tend to think worst case scenarios: I like to have back up plans for my back up plans- if I only have 1 tactic that I think stands a chance when I head into a battle then I tend to be pretty antsy... then again I have got something of a rep for having both awful luck and winning most games, mainly because I have options available for when my primary tactics fall through.


Experiment- Teclis can choose his lore before the game, but he doesnt get to spy your army first. Ask him to choose his lore before you get your army out, or even better, write an army list and leave it on the table, and get out a load of random models. Then when he declares what he is using, put away the random models and get out your army... your army list hasn't changed since its been on the table and you get to laugh at the opponent if he conplains because his complaint would also be an admission of cheating...

If you really cant deal with Teclis's unit then you can just play denial (assuming the HEs aren't already playing that). Just summon some zombies in front of the unit, close by if possible and angled to push the HEs off into an unhelpful direction. You'll lose 50VP a turn, but you should be able to ignore Teclis and his unit for most of the game- focus on killing the rest of his army (and hope Teclis doesnt pull anything too nasty out of the bag and you might be able to scrape a victory.
Sometimes all you can do in a game is make it as hard as possible for the enemy to win, rather then trying to win yourself... occasionally you'll come out ahead, but more often then not you'll lose but be able to walk away with your head held high- most ogres players have learned this lesson already (its often painful playing ogres).

Actually, I would say a Teclis lore of metal is probably even nastier against night goblins: sure searing doom, plague of rust and golden hounds are crap... bu the rest is incredibly powerful.

Enchanted Blades- +1 to hit, always nice
Glittering robe- 3+ save on spearmen/special infantry... pretty immense
Transmutation of Lead- WS1 goblins mean your even hitting spearmen on 5s
Final Transmutation... OH MY GOD!! This is nasty against things like WoC because it kills 1/3 of the unit, its nasty against goblins because it kills 1/3 of the unit and then forces Ld6-7 stupidity tests on EVERY unit within 12". In a goblin army that'll be a lot of units, and a huge chunk of his army just bimbling forward D6" a turn

I took the wizard's hat on my WE highborn just for a giggle and rolled metal against an empire army that didn't have better then 6+ save anywhere... my opponent laughed. I then killed about 12 handgunners out of a big unit of 27 (yeah, I don't know why 27 either), killed his general and caused every unit in his army to take Ld7-8 stupidity tests next turn (12 or 13 units in all).
I was unlucky and only got the spell off once, and it still changed the game, and against NGs it'd be worse.