Topic: Enter the era of the Pigeon Council

[Mortim]

Hi, I ll be testing something different for the next tourney: a Pigeon Council (3+ pigeoneers)

I have totaly given up playing Empire fantasy style (too unfair asf rules mainly), so I ll play Empire 40 k style from nowon. This means: Light council devastator squad + Pigeoneer devastator squad supported by Heavens Basilisk Comets and maybe even mortars/hellstroms.

For the Pigeon council, I think i ll go 8-9 vanilla knights + naked Grandmaster for ITP to the unit and a ld9 general+ 3-4 mounted pigeoneers and stay 24" away and blast away. The Light council can use the normal archer unit.

Cheers,

Mortim!

[wilsonthenarc]

While not my style, this sounds super interesting. Do you have the army list?
I'd love to see it play out.

What sound do pigeons make? Caw? Coo? Hoot?
This is what it sounds like, when Pigeons Die.

[Waywatcher]

Sounds fun. Hero points will get tight quick with a light council and pigeoneer council.

My experience with WHFB currently has lead me to abandon empire infantry in favor of knights. WS4 and a 1+ armor save is the only thing I have found to 'counter' ASF.

ASF is definitely OP right now. Maybe 9th will tone it down. At the least the rerolls to hit should disappear.

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

I would rather call it "the Imperial dovecote".

[Mortim]

I am working on a list atm. I need to get ready with the list to 4th oktober!

Its a swedish comp tourney 10-15 with all the Swedish ETC masters (they won this years ETC) so I need to bring something unconventional and still effective vs all thos fast armies.

Here in Sweden the top armies are 1) DE, 2) DAemons, 3) HE/WE. Rest is all midpack

[Glory_of_Bogenhafen]

I can't wait to see this! Maybe you could put the engineers on horses and have mobile stone-throwers.

[Mortim]

Yeah they all need horses to got with my 1+ save Aircraft Carrier unit!

Envision a Strike Froce of Pigeons bombing all those heretics!!!!

Its a new era of Pigeon Drones! In fact I am disgusted by asf that I ll fight them Drone style... Send In the Pigeons!!!

[Mortim]

Quick draft: (its swedish comp so you ll see L3 wizs and odd knight numbers)

Lords and Heroes: 501+ 613 = 1114pts

1 Grand Master, Gw, dragonhelm 171pts
1 L3 Heavens Lord, 165pts
1 L3 Light Lord, 165pts

1 Bsb, Bd wh, fp, skaven helm, GW 128pts
1 L2 Heavens Wiz, 100pts
1 L2 Light Wiz, 100pts
3 Pigeoneers, warhorse 285pts

Core: 628pts

9 Knights, msc: 208pts
9 Knights IC, msc 235pts
2x10 Archers, 140pts
5 crossbowmen detachment 45pts

Special and Rare: 750pts

1 Great Cannon 120pts
2 Mortars 200pts
1 Hurricanum 130pts
5 Demigryphs, msc 300pts

Total 2492 pts.

Tbh even with 1100 pts in charcaters the army has the main components of the netlist. I could try to treem down stuff (the heavens concept).. Lets see what our community can work together for this Pigeon Project!

Cheers,

Mortim

[emcdunna]

If it was me I would lose the grand master and lose the knights. you want to be fighting at long range, you want to basically be a gunline. id suggest basically all infantry core, maybe demigryphs but use pigeoneers (no one knows what they do so itd totally work) and the wizards to simply blast the shit out of people. also remember cannons and helblasters will be necessary.

what i am saying is ditch the expensive heavy close combat units and just shoot away and tarpit with halberdiers or spearmen.

[Mortim]

Hmm. I dont believe in infantry at all anymore sadly. The thing is nobody is scared of infantry, on the contrary they júst dive into them to get safe from shooting/magic! And If its a 300 pt infantry tarpit that lasts a while, even better fro them! they are safe in combat while they tear me apart!

But Knights/demis are good att keeping alot of stuff at bay, say at around 17-18" away because they have a decent charge range. empire infantry doesnt keep anything at bay and are too slow to react any quickly.

[Waywatcher]

Hmm. I dont believe in infantry at all anymore sadly. The thing is nobody is scared of infantry, on the contrary they júst dive into them to get safe from shooting/magic! And If its a 300 pt infantry tarpit that lasts a while, even better fro them! they are safe in combat while they tear me apart!

But Knights/demis are good att keeping alot of stuff at bay, say at around 17-18" away because they have a decent charge range. empire infantry doesnt keep anything at bay and are too slow to react any quickly.

I agree with this 100%.

[emcdunna]

i still think armies that dont have enough wounds worth of models on the board can lose from specific tactics. searing doom, save or die spells.... you are donezo.

im never gonna give up on infantry because thats why i play the game, to have boots on the ground.

[Mortim]

If only infantri had movement 6" I would still use them, but in a 6 turn game where double flee/redirect owns any infanteri unit... They are only a "bunker" nothing more sadly...

[emcdunna]

if you have enough magic and artillery then you dont need to go to them, you can let them come to you. and if you deploy intelligently then you can be successful without M7.

[Mortim]

Yes so very true Emcdunna!

Anyway, I d love if we could try different builds with lots of pigeoneers. Could you do a quick army 2500pts with Infantry please?

Cheers,

Mortim

[emcdunna]

If i were to do it i would just adapt my list to use pigeoneers. id essentially remove my investment in reiksguard and add in 3 pigeon guys.

to be clear i have:

50 swordsmen
50 halberdiers
10 archers
10 handguns
helblaster
cannon
3 demis
a lvl 4 wizard
an arch lector general
a bsb

then i would use knights, reiksguard and inner circle, but i would suggest you instead go with a balanced list of infantry, BS shooters, the artillery, 3 pigeon guys (who are only here because they are technically better than mortars, if mortars didnt suck then wed use them), and just try to magic and shoot the snot out of everything that comes at you. i think it can work. i think you need to focus on doing damage with spells and only use the infantry for tarpitting while you shoot other units.

dont attack, just hang back and delay/stall with demis and cav and archer detachments while you shoot and cast comet of casandora or dwellers or fireballs at your enemy and maybe you can essentially play as if you were a dwarf army but with magic.

[Jomppexx]

Pigeon bombers and magic? Doesn't sound like fantasy battle to me, sounds more like fantasy boring.
I always wanted this game to be :
 - Ranged is support, can't win games with ranged fighting.
 - Infantry forms the core of the game, everyone has big infantry blocks.
 - Cavalry works as support aswell, cant just run forward with knights and win.
 - Magic is for BUFFING, not initiative tests to destroy entire units.

[Mortim]

I agree Jompex, its just I stopped believing... Some races are just so much better than Empire... So I ll give them hell with pigeons, magic and knights to keep them away!

I ll litteraly shit all over those pointy ears!

[emcdunna]

i think we run to our knights when our infantry doesnt work but our knights arent great either. a lancing charge from knights against elves sees them attacking first and wrecking us.

[Mortim]

yes everythings sux compared to asf elves, but knights at least scare them abit. Our infantry blocks is like a big supermarket filled with candy (characters on foot with crappy saves and attacks) waiting to get vandalised by asf kids on steroids.

[Jomppexx]

Our entire army is like how you described it, Mortim...
People are like "demigryphs should cost 60 points", but why they can't accomplish anything. S5 is sad, elf infantry has better S...
Same thing with greatswords, give them ASF and I6, voila, completely broken unit...

Whenever I talk about how chaos is wayyyyy more powerful than empire and elves are above even that, everyone just answers with "Well chaos & elf models cost far more points per model! This makes it balanced!" So, if you think like this, that also means that if the points are equal, the units are balanced. Lets do a little comparison, compare Chaos warriors and halberdiers, both worth say 250 points.
So were gonna equip the warriors with the following :

Chaos warrior - 19 points
 mark of nurgle
 Halberds

And compare to our 6 point halberdiers.
250 points gets the empire roughly 42 halberdiers.
250 points gets the woc roughly 13 warriors.

So lets compare them in combat :
Consider the warriors are 6x2 with one extra guy in the back, therefore getting 18 attacks.
They strike at I5, meaning they go first. WS5 versus WS3, the warriors hit on 3+ so roughly 10 or so hits.
With halberds they wound our paper thin "elite" soldiers on 2+ causing 9 wounds and 9 casualties.

Lets assume we also deploy in 6x7, meaning we get 2 ranks of attacks, adding up to a whopping 10 attacks.
WS3 vs WS5 + mark of nurgle (-1 to hit) means our trained soldiers hit on 5+ causing a massive 3 hits. With our amazing S4 we wound on 4+, which means 1,5 wounds, so lets assume that scores a wound. The warriors still get a 5+ armour save, so a 32% chance not to suffer ANY damage. This means empire loses by 9 to start off with, still have 3 ranks, so empire only loses by 6, if warriors fail their 5+ save we lose by 5.

So uumm what? 42 (!) halberdiers averagely lose against 13 (!) mark of nurgle, halberd warriors of chaos. No wonder nobody brings empire infantry... Not sure if any of the math is accurate, but I think its pretty close.

About the pigeons. So you have a 5+ chance to cause a small template S4, AP. Not very convincing.
The more math I do about empire, the more sure I become I chose the absolute worst and hardest army ever. Elves and any kind of demons offer free wins, whenever I play against my local WoC player he just charges everything towards me and I lose, doesn't matter whether my knights charge or not, trolls and daemon princes won't care, I'm lucky if I manage to hit the lords or even hurt the 4+ regen trolls.

I'm utterly lost, I really need help with how to play this army.
Edit: hastily posted, added more.

[emcdunna]

luminark + hurricanum + hatred + prayers + buff spells on a halberd horde of 50 will weather the attacks of any high elf elite units then utterly destroy them. you have to invest a TON in it, but if you do, boom. you got yourself a dead elf unit.

the same asf elf unit will wreck your cav unit with their white lion S6 attacks that negate that armor you love so much and your depleted knight unit strikes back with 3 or 4 attacks that you miss with and youre dead.

10 knights vs 50 halberds... i think you know which one i vouch for.

[Mortim]

forget hatred, dead priest before he gets to do anything.

Have you btw taken the charge of a unit of 14 Wild riders lately?

- about 30-40 kills on the charge...

[emcdunna]

well you can have a war altar for bubble hatred and warrior priests often dont die first turn if you put them in the corner of a unit and the unit charging you isnt a horde (which most of these elf units are not)

and holy shit wild riders do 30 kills? holy balls. well then that means you just need 60 halberdiers with 2 units of 30 swordsmen detachments. if they dont deal with your flanking detachments then they are butt f'd anyway

[Jomppexx]

well you can have a war altar for bubble hatred and warrior priests often dont die first turn if you put them in the corner of a unit and the unit charging you isnt a horde (which most of these elf units are not)

and holy shit wild riders do 30 kills? holy balls. well then that means you just need 60 halberdiers with 2 units of 30 swordsmen detachments. if they dont deal with your flanking detachments then they are butt f'd anyway

Expect our elite troops break and flee against anything...