Topic: Tactical Decision Game 2.1: Strategy and Deployment

[grifter]

Well, the forest around the magic circle hinders both sides about the same, and the other forest is so deep in our own deployment zone that it won´t matter terribly, no? I mean, our only shooting is the Hellblasters, the Stank and the Wizard, right?

But, like I said, the top deployment zone is fine with me as well. If you want to use your teamleader veto, go ahead. 

[zakalwe]

top for me, i prefer the fields of fire for our HBVG and i think we can hold a more central position to move towards either objective without splitting our forces too much.

Spell wise, sig 1,4,5

I would suggest deploying one HBVG in woods, the other on the hill to preferably to cover both objectives.  Depending on how deployment goes, i would suggest a tightish central top formation, in a semi circle allowing us to move swiftly into better positions on T1.

I.e, have our small knight units facing the way we think they will need to charge/go in T1 as they have no musicians.

[Noght]

I think 0 1 4 5 voted for spells.  Split on deployment, let's see who else votes.

[MrAbyssal]

Seeing as I don't think I've used Beasts yet this edition, I'm thinking I'll go with crowd consensus on this one, especially as I don't have my book with me. Strength on FoD may hinder us but as we're only targeting T3 the 2D6 S2 should at least help us clear chaff. It may even help against Dark Riders. At least Fandir got Savage Beast so his base game plan is in tact.

For deployment I'm thinking bottom, as we'll be moving quickly and we don't want our opponent to be able to use the terrain to shield his flanks.

[Empire - Ulric]

Bottom Deployment

Good Gravy, fighting a non-shooing Elf list and you want to shoot through forests rather than the wide open top half?
Yikes.

Put one Hellblaster in the trees right next to the hill. We get cover, still have a decent field of fire and don't have to worry about those trees providing cover to the enemy. The other one can be deployed more centrally and they are still somewhat mutually supporting.

The goal is to control the arcane ruins and the area around it and make him come to us.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Ouch! that list really really really can ruin our day...on the other hand the problem are "only" his characters with them gone we should rip the rest a new one....lucky for us that we have 3 cannons so every second turn might mean a failed look out sir roll and one "splat" character.

For spells I think yes we should go for

Wyssans
Murder of Crows
Curse of Anraheir and

Savage beast. Any ruling of you HHG on the Captasus and Savage beast? It is one multipart model so wouldn´t the Pegasus also profit from the spell? +3 attacks and +3 S?


I am confident we can take this list if we manage to either kill the supreme sorceress or the lord with cannonballs to the face the rest will be a piece of cake. I would say bottom too.

Posture should be semi agressive I would like to have both stanks on the side of the magic resistance (4+ ward against metal is huge) the cannon on the other flank protected by the small knight units and the archers (spread out good enough to deny the shades to be in our backfield) also the mage with the archers close to the arcane ruins at least one of the knight busses close to the magic circle too also our captasus.

the bunker of the mage woman is very small 15 dark elves mean that 2-3 cannonballs some archery maybe one flock of crows could reduce the unit below five denying the look out sir roll if she is gone the magic phase is ours we should concentrate fire first on that unit and slow down the warriors with curse of Anraheir (no look out sir for his characters either muahahahaahaha) either he stays put or takes difficult terrain tests. bleed them as much as possible kill of the chaff with our fast elements small knight units big knight units captasus and maybe stank and concentrate on the two big blocks only in the endgame.

[Friar Metick]

Top deployment, spells: 0, 3, 4, 5

[Friar Metick]

Team, I don't use a steam tank in my lists so I may not have a lot to suggest with its use. I do know it has random movement and I'm wondering if it was deployed between the 2 HVG's is that wise?
I have played against DE's a lot and I know when I use HVG's they hate them and try to target them. The shades and harpies may come after them and with the random movement the stank could get a charge on them without a charge reaction to take them out early.
Thoughts on this?

[Eighty]

it took me a while to find each specific list (they are both on page 4-5 of the first thread!) but i really enjoy this whole two list idea!
I would rarely double volleygun OR double steam tank any opponent (except maybe WoC  ) so i shall await the final deployment decisions from both teams before i decide which bandwagon to hop onto.

goodluck everyone, as i say around my table* May the best Archlector win!! 





*my opponent is rarely impressed, but i say it regardless

[Noght]

Team, I don't use a steam tank in my lists so I may not have a lot to suggest with its use. I do know it has random movement and I'm wondering if it was deployed between the 2 HVG's is that wise?
I have played against DE's a lot and I know when I use HVG's they hate them and try to target them. The shades and harpies may come after them and with the random movement the stank could get a charge on them without a charge reaction to take them out early.
Thoughts on this?

I'm deferring all steam tank decisions to the group as I don't ever use one, including deployment.

[Bildskoene Bengtsson]

the bunker of the mage woman is very small 15 dark elves mean that 2-3 cannonballs some archery maybe one flock of crows could reduce the unit below five denying the look out sir roll if she is gone the magic phase is ours we should concentrate fire first on that unit and slow down the warriors with curse of Anraheir (no look out sir for his characters either muahahahaahaha) either he stays put or takes difficult terrain tests. bleed them as much as possible kill of the chaff with our fast elements small knight units big knight units captasus and maybe stank and concentrate on the two big blocks only in the endgame.

Agreed. I'm thinking our battle plan should be a little like that scene from The Holy Grail. "We've found a witch may we burn her!?"

For deployment I'm thinking bottom, as we'll be moving quickly and we don't want our opponent to be able to use the terrain to shield his flanks.

+1

[Fandir Nightshade]

More food thought for placement and why I would like the bottom.

IF we get control of the arcane tower most of our spells will go off at +6 and we will dispel at +5 as there are two extremely dangerous spells out there searing doom and spirit leech the +5 would be grand against the tiny wizard. if he gets the top and wants to close his mages to the tower we have a free field of fire to them if the stanks are parked on the hill in the safety of MR of 3. and can fire their cannons down there.

We can deny the shades to scout into our deployment zone if we place smart here a pic of what I have in mind (not final but rough planning). I really would like our grandmaster unit to touch the magic resistance sphere but if we move too fast through the woods we might lose models so perhaps he might be better placed further left we should start with our small knights units as they are only bait and to kill off harpies and dark riders and later to throw them in the way of the executioners and the spears. What I would like to do is getting all the cannons in place to fire on the big blocks and/or the wizard bunker as soon as possible as soon the stanks are on the hill they could achieve this so we would have to go for 4 steam points (3 to go up and 1 to fire the cannon) we should plan on enfilading shots to get more than one target under our "template" so we might be able to kill some harpies AND force a look out sir roll for the witch queen or get a nice enfilading shot on the executioners killing 8-10 of them with one shot would be nice....doing this twice a turn would be fantastic.



Only problem I see is his little mage with spirit leech that could kill our mage and put us in serious trouble.

[Wojownik]

Top for me.

Spell wise: sig, 1, 4, 5

[Windelov]

More food thought for placement and why I would like the bottom.

IF we get control of the arcane tower most of our spells will go off at +6 and we will dispel at +5 as there are two extremely dangerous spells out there searing doom and spirit leech the +5 would be grand against the tiny wizard. if he gets the top and wants to close his mages to the tower we have a free field of fire to them if the stanks are parked on the hill in the safety of MR of 3. and can fire their cannons down there.

We can deny the shades to scout into our deployment zone if we place smart here a pic of what I have in mind (not final but rough planning). I really would like our grandmaster unit to touch the magic resistance sphere but if we move too fast through the woods we might lose models so perhaps he might be better placed further left we should start with our small knights units as they are only bait and to kill off harpies and dark riders and later to throw them in the way of the executioners and the spears. What I would like to do is getting all the cannons in place to fire on the big blocks and/or the wizard bunker as soon as possible as soon the stanks are on the hill they could achieve this so we would have to go for 4 steam points (3 to go up and 1 to fire the cannon) we should plan on enfilading shots to get more than one target under our "template" so we might be able to kill some harpies AND force a look out sir roll for the witch queen or get a nice enfilading shot on the executioners killing 8-10 of them with one shot would be nice....doing this twice a turn would be fantastic.

Only problem I see is his little mage with spirit leech that could kill our mage and put us in serious trouble.

+1 for that plan, the cannon behind the main archer unit on hill (so when archers move into the arcane it has almost unrestricted LOS)?

and a bit of math hammer:
Spirit leach if not dispelled, has a 42% risk of killing our mage outright, 17% risk of inflicting 2 wounds and 14% risk of inflicting one wound. cummulative a 72% of inflicting wounds.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Perhaps we should attach him to the Luthor huss unit then for the first one or two turns I would like luthor close to the ruins too so we have two guys channeling better.

The unit has Ld of 9 so the chances to die are limited....well or we hide behind the tower he has to see the mage right?

[Windelov]

The unit has Ld of 9 so the chances to die are limited....well or we hide behind the tower he has to see the mage right?

That limits risk to: 27% of 3+ wounds, 11% of 2 wounds and 14% of 1 wounds, and cummulative 53% of wounding. Although the arcane ruins provides a much needed boost for our magic phase, it's not without risks, the fate of bjuna is also 50% risk of instant kill for mage, although it cannot be boosted and thus relies on 12" range

[SevenSins]

I agree with what we got going so far, bottom half, and burn the witch is a decent plan.

Being horrible at deployment I'll just +1 Fandirs suggestion   

[Noght]

Voting tally so far:

Top @ 5-3
Spells 0145 @ 6-2

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Fandir and Noght-  you guys are doing a great job in the assist.  Appreciate it!


However-

Perhaps we should attach him to the Luthor huss unit then for the first one or two turns I would like luthor close to the ruins too so we have two guys channeling better.

I think Fandir is getting so excited about the tactical problem in front of him....that he is forgetting to use Blue!!   

--------------------------------------

I got stuck in Tokyo (sounds like some kind of movie cliche') so I am on the 'net now, but will be out of pocket most of tomorrow while in the air. 
Because of that, I am going to ramble out a few thoughts while I can-

I love the discussion so far.  I wasn't too excited about rolling a Magic Circle for terrain...but now that I see it may come into play I am happy it is there!

I think it would be really interesting to see each Team pick a different deployment zone edge for different reasons-  as it appears to be shaping up that way at the moment.  The two battles will certainly be unique.  The DE units are going to be in purple, but I plan to be saving two separate Battle C files-  one with Blue units for Blue and Green units for Green.  That will ensure that no one will get confused on which graphs depict their battle and their forces!   

Interesting many people recommend going after the witch.  I play DE all the time... and sometimes I forget I have ways to make life difficult for her.  I think it is good to see people thinking about it right up front.  With her abilities, she is her own magic cannon.

For her Death she-witch side-kick-  I have seen this opponent use Spirit Leech in interesting ways...all of them painful.  Characters, Warmachines, STanks, and Arcane Altars have all suffered under her wrath.

One note while I am thinking about it-  the DE General is very aggressive in the magic phase and is not afraid to toss dice and take risks to get the spells he wants off.  Many times I have wanted to use my Dispel Scroll to protect something early and held off....and my tactical patience usually served me really well in later turns when things really started to get ugly.

One last thing-  if anyone has The Battle Chronicler and wants access to the terrain file so you can annotate ideas on it...PM me and I will send you the file.

This is shaping up to be a great throw-down.   

[Bildskoene Bengtsson]

One note while I am thinking about it-  the DE General is very aggressive in the magic phase and is not afraid to toss dice and take risks to get the spells he wants off.  Many times I have wanted to use my Dispel Scroll to protect something early and held off....and my tactical patience usually served me really well in later turns when things really started to get ugly.

God I wish we had the Nuke-scroll. It is so much fun to see her blow up in a sea of mindrazored spearmen.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Just so there is no confusion-  the Arcane Ruins are impassable terrain in this scenario.

It is not a tower, you can't occupy it, move in to it, etc.  Since you can't "physically" see it on the forum, I will describe it to you-  it is a pile of rubble that doesn't look like it is worth the trouble to fight over.

However, you can expect units near it to receive hard cover modifiers for ranged assets firing at it that are not on an elevated position-  i.e, a hill.

Pretty much-  if you have a ranged weapon on a hill in this scenario and the unit is not right next to the Ruins....there will be no modifier.  If the unit is tight to the ruins and the shooter is on the other side-  expect hard cover.

I hope this clears up how the Ruins will come into play for TLOS, shooting, and movement.

[Harshey]

I'm back...

I think we should go with 0,1,4,5 for spells and deploy on the top as well. We should try and pit the stank against the executioners, but play defensively. in general our deployment should be a little bit bunkered in the top left corner and first priority to beating the dark elves is to take out their fast stuff as fast as possible.

[Noght]

I'm back...

I think we should go with 0,1,4,5 for spells and deploy on the top as well. We should try and pit the stank against the executioners, but play defensively. in general our deployment should be a little bit bunkered in the top left corner and first priority to beating the dark elves is to take out their fast stuff as fast as possible.

Welcome back.  Votes noted.  Top & 0145 it is if the math is correct.

Helblasters and Comets pounding south edge of Ruins for the win.

[mottdon]

I'm good with the aforementioned spells.  Bottom is good as well. 
As for the strategy, it sounds like a good plan, but we are going to have some serious problems if the DE start gunning for him.  Our strategy will need to quickly adapt.  If we lose our magic defense, we're gonna be hurtin'!  That being said, I do think we need to create some critical decisions for our opponent by forcing him into either dividing his fragile forces, or fully committing one way or the other and opening up his flanks to attack.  This is why I'm good with the deployment.  I think this battle will be determined in the first few moves.

[mottdon]

As for the strategy, it sounds like a good plan, but we are going to have some serious problems if the DE start gunning for him.   

Sorry I'm talking about our wizard.