Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I've been "practicing" for 'ard boyz and I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I can't ignore deathstars. In any game where I avoid, march block, lead into terrain, etc. etc. an enemy's deathstar, the game is inevitably a tie. Even without the 'Ard Boyz high points difference requirement, it's just a flat out tie. That doesn't cut it.

Essentially, I need to go after the enemy's deathstar, and just hope I do well. Unfortunately most of them are deadly enough that I can't send in skeletons on the flank to negate their rank bonus - they'll build more combat res killing skeletons than I will take away by flanking. I just have to hope for the best, and use things like the Varghulf or my Cairn Wraiths to come in the side and just cause extra damage.


Thoughts? Honestly I'm sick of all these deathstars. Give me a cheesy daemons army that uses multiple units in conjunction with one another to create a powerful army build than one power unit with a supporting cast.

What's a deathstar?

A Deathstar is when a unit is spammed to excessive numbers.

I.E. 20 Man Minotaur Regiment.

Beating Deathstars just involves charging it with every other unit it your army, IMHO.

ehh.....depends on the deathstar. Minotaurs aren't very resilient, due to lack of armour. Multi-charging it could work....

But something like a block of chosen with greatweapons with regenerate and a 4+ ward save... you'll end up just losing multiple units.

In MOST cases, beating a deathstar requires another deathstar.

But this thread's not about how to beat a deathstar, more of SHOULD you. Is it necessary, when someone brings one, to actually devote the resources to take it down? NOT doing so usually results in a tie if you can avoid the deathmachine. USUALLY. Should you try to kill everything else, keep your stuff alive, and hope it's enough? Or should you try to bring it down? That's the question for this thread.

I do believe the OP made the point that deathstars have so many points in them that you pretty much have to kill them to get anything other than a draw.

Deathstars power entirely depends on whether it is unbreakable or not IMO. Unbreakable usually means that even if you charge with your entire force, you may not do enough damage to stop the deathstars killing machines from breaking you off. Deathstars that are breakable are easily defeated with multi charges in rear and flank. No rank, stay away from the characters in the front, oops! Broken, run down, win!

Undead are probably the hardest deathstar I could think of, followed by an unholy one I encountered of 17 Juggers and 3 Heralds of Khorne. *shudder*

1 T-65 X-Wing fighter.

A 100 zombie tarpit.

ZF-

With the new Skaven book, I'd recommend Curse of the Horned Rat. Max out on PD, and roll good. Not the fastest way of dealing with them, but it can still remove huge chunks of it (max of 24 guys!). Poisoned Wind Mortars are amazing too, I suggest taking those. Ratling guns would still be OK for dealing with them.

There's only one efficient way of getting off Curse of the Horned rat, that's casting on two dice and hoping for irresistible force. Anything else just wastes power dice and risks blowing up your Grey Seer.

He's playing Undead, so no Grey Seers there.

If you feel sad and pathetic enough, you could make a unit of your own. 15 Blood Knights with the Flag of Blood Keep, and a Vampire BSB with the Drakenhof Banner, Dread Knight and Walking Death, and a Vampire Lord with Dread Knight, Walach's Bloody Hauberk, Infinite Hatred and Red Fury... I think the Sword of Might would be all he needs in the magic weapon department.

I don't think there are many units that could stand up to these guys.

15 Blood Knights are $360 over here.

A lot of people use Chaos Knights for Blood Knights.

40Kenthusiast did a good analysis of this stuff in a thread here, do a search and it should come up. It's a good read.

That was mostly "how to build a deathstar" and tactics on defeating them.

Having seen so many though, I'm starting to figure them out. For instance the amazing chosen chaos deathstar using warshrines - generally, to allow them to do damage, they go sorceror heavy, and in order to cast spells they need to be in the front rank. That means their front rank consists of....crap, pretty much. 2 or 3 S4 attacks at WS5, per model. And once they're in melee, they can't cast half their spells, and you're killing them off gradually. You may in the end lose against their deathstar, but if you can lose your unit and in the process kill all their characters, then you should win out in the deal and may just win anyway!

Someone mentioned unbreakable deathstars - aren't stubborn deathstars just as hard? Rolling on a Stubborn 10 with a re-roll seems pretty hard to shake to me, unless I'm rolling the dice.

If it is a points issue... do not try to kill the deathstar try to do two things. Try to kill the heros in the star as mentioned. Second... if you can get it below half without loosing too much in the process you should be able to get plenty of points. and squeak a win with table quarters and the rest of the army.

With Gateway out there every death star other than DE can suddenly have a really bad day

I am not a fan of Death Stars..... makes the game too boring.

1 T-65 X-Wing fighter. Thats right. But dont forget torpedos at home.

Blood knights are probably your best bet. They're by far the hardest hitting unit in the vamp count army. You just have to be careful with them. It will take luck for any unit to withstand a charge from them.

Leonidas, at the Battle of Thermopylae, was basically just a big cheese-monster, and totally fielded a death star made of Spartans.

Take an elite level unit from your army. and make a typical death star unit and configure that unit in the most horribly effective way possible

Take your elite level unit and charge the front 5 times and work out the results.

Then do the same when charging the flank.

Then do the same when charging the rear.

Now take that information that you just learned, and figure out a way to charge your opponents death star unit in the rear, or flank 100% of the time.. sorry that I spoiled the results of the test.

Also a character in that unit will really help the your cause.

small footprint rank breakers are disgustingly effective for about 1/5th the points cost.

Ragnar4 wrote:small footprint rank breakers are disgustingly effective for about 1/5th the points cost.

Pardon my ignorance... "Small footprint rank breakers"?

Vulcan wrote:

Ragnar4 wrote:small footprint rank breakers are disgustingly effective for about 1/5th the points cost.

Pardon my ignorance... "Small footprint rank breakers"?

Not ignorant at all... don't sweat it! =D

Bone Giant, Giants, Hydras characters on most monsterous mounts.

Small footprint means they have a smaller base, and a rank-breaker means just that, if they charge in the rear or flank they nullify ranks.

A bone giant will crushinate a lot of deathstar units, and that deathstar unit is 1k points, my giant is 265. A regular giant will also put the hurt on a deathstar...

Depends on the deathstar. Chosen with greatweapons will murder a giant in short order, particularly if they get a strength buff from a warshrine.

Then again the giant could yell and send them running, lol.

[that, by the way, is another reason I prefer undead. Oh, we lose by 2? let me make regeneration saves...ok failed one. Now my BSB kicks in, and nobody dies. We've already made our attacks for the round, so no harm done! Thanks for not jumping on me!]

Flames of the Phoenix.... the bigger the unit, the more pain it suffers.

I don't play new chaos, is Green Fire of Tzeentch still about?

Is that the "unit attacks itself" spell? Yeah, I believe it is.

xenite wrote:Leonidas, at the Battle of Thermopylae, was basically just a big cheese-monster, and totally fielded a death star made of Spartans.

Technically true, but the scenario was a Meat Grinder derivative, and he was playing at a 10:1 point handicap against a slave-spamming Skaven, err, Persian general.

Infernal Gateway.

Some deathstars (mostly cavalry ones) can probably be ground down if you hit them in the side. I think probably each one will have a different weakness though.

The question of what to do about deathstars is dependent on what sort and what else is in the army. Assuming that we're talking about a tournament scenario; a situation where a draw is not good enough.
When you come up with a battle plan at the start of game think about which of these three strategies will garner the most points and has the highest chances for success.

1) Kill the Characters. All deathstars are led by characters and usually theyre the ones making the deathstar a deathstar. Find a simple non-risky way to cake this character.

2) Kill the Rest of the Army. Generally a deathstar costs 1k or more points. As a direct result of that the rest of the army is cummy in comparison. Cut it down while taking minimal casualties and you can easily get a minor victory or even a solid.

3) Kill the Deathstar. I once vowed to kill a 20 man unit of blackguard at the beginning of a game. By the end they were all dead. When it comes to elven deathstars that's the usual way to go. In any event if you can destroy half of the deathstar and take out some of the rest of the army then winning wont be a problem. Remember if the deathstar dies, youre pretty much guaranteed a victory.

Orlanth wrote:Flames of the Phoenix.... the bigger the unit, the more pain it suffers.

I don't play new chaos, is Green Fire of Tzeentch still about?

No it is not, but we have a new one
Infernal Gateway, cast value 15, 2d6 hist and 2d6 Strength. Roll an 11 or 12 on the strength and the whole
targeted unit is gone, including characters, ouch! (not very easy to pull of though, hitting 11/12, only done it twice myself)

//Edge



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ops! Sorry Forgot the name change. Yeah it is still there but under another name... Treason of Tzeentch...

//Edge