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Escalation league down at the FLGS that is starting out with 500pt Warbands-style, but no rares allowed since many rares are extremely game-changing at this level (Hydra and Vargulf come to mind).

So that being said, I'm thinking about bringing this list:

5x Dark Riders - Repeater Crossbows - 110
5x Dark Riders - Repeater Crossbows - 110
3x Harpies - 33
5x Cold One Knights - Champion (Commander) - 151
5x Shades - Great Weapons - 90
Total: 494

Very much a cavalry list with a unit of three harpies as march-blockers or suicidal character bombers and the Shades for showing up in very inconvenient places. I figure having more bodies on the field at this points level would be better than sinking at minimum 100pts into a mounted Master.

I'm trying to think of ways to counter this list (see my WoC warband posting) & have no solutions. The Riders chip away at the opposing army, the cold ones throw in a late game charge. Should be almost impossible bring this list to a fight. Only thing you have to fear is being out ranged with shooting. Or maybe a VC growing back zombies faster than you can kill them.

RanTheCid wrote:Only thing you have to fear is being out ranged with shooting. Or maybe a VC growing back zombies faster than you can kill them.

Being outranged with shooting would be a huge downer for me. I'm hoping I can at least get my Shades into the back lines quickly enough to help and use my Harpies as a screen from at least one round of shooting from an opposing unit.

VC respawning their troops does concern me. My thought to combat this would be just like in larger games: suicidal charges directed at the character. I don't mind sacrificing a unit or two if it means that character is dead. Once it is, the rest of the army starts crumbling on its own.

I've thought about the aspect of bringing magic to a Warband since most people don't really bother. I can see a Lv.2 with Darkstar Cloak as being viable, though. Two Power Dice for the army, another 3 on her. Toss two dice at PoD, assume your opponent dispels it. You still have three left over to throw at anything and will probably get any 10+ spells off with regularity. If your opponent doesn't dispel PoD, they're in for a world of hurt.

My only qualms with this technique would be the 160pts put into a Lv.2 with Cloak, quite literally 1/3 of the army and could be taken out by any suicidal charge aimed at her. In fact, it's for characters just like this that I have those three Harpies. Fly them in, six attacks with hatred directed at the wizard. Assume they hit on 4+, 4 of them hit, that's two wounds on average against a T3 wizard with no armor save. Dead wizard, dead harpies. I'll take that any day.

Edit: Good thing I didn't run this Sorceress, it would've been illegal. Warband characters can only be 150pts or less. I could take a Tome of Furion, though, for that third spell. Not as powerful as the third Power Die, but still good.

Maybe a wizard is the best defense against this sort of army. A Chaos wizard will be T4 with a 4+ save..... eat those harpies and ask for more.

RanTheCid wrote:Maybe a wizard is the best defense against this sort of army. A Chaos wizard will be T4 with a 4+ save..... eat those harpies and ask for more.

That isn't a bad idea. Since cavalry bases are 25mm across, I could only get two Dark Riders directly attacking your Wizard if I wanted to suicide charge with them instead. Both riders will hit at S4 and both horses at S3, on average all four will hit due to hatred. I think this would still kill your Wizard often enough, but bad rolls from me or good save rolls on your part would make this a 110pt flop. However, if they succeed then it's very worth it to me since I'm sure your Wizard costs more than 110 and a Wizard could ruin my day.

I like that list, nice and fast. I've never been a big fan of magic (I don't know why).

I don't have much experience, but I can put the 2 lists I would play.

Dwarfs

Runesmith
GW, shield, Rune of Resistance = 101

10x Hammerers w/ shields and command = 160 ( could get another 40 pts by dropping extras)

10x Quarrellers w/ shields = 120 (another 10)

10x Quarrellers w/ shields = 120 (and another 10)

total = 501 (or with the extra 60 could throw in a bolt thrower with engineer)

Still don't think it could handle your speed or a charge from those cold ones.

Wood Elves

Branchwraith lvl 1 w/ radiants = 140

8x dryads = 96

11x glade guard = 132

5x glade riders w/ musician = 129

total = 497 or I would drop the extra glade guard and branchwraith and get 5x wild riders w/ musucian and Hunter, plus a musician for the guard = 499

This list at least can move and shoot with you. Probably wouldn't do the branchwraith unless I knew there was going to be magic against me. Same goes for the runesmith, would probably substitute with another ranged unit.

Don't know if this helped at all, but there they are.

The only way i can think of thats really going to beat this list is a very shooty army, perhaps with a cannon.

Very good list.

How about lizardmen?

Lizardmen

5x cold one calvary w/ champion = 195

10x skirmishing skinks = 70

10x skirmishing skinks = 70

1x jungle swarm = 45

4x terradon riders = 120

total = 500

Probably still not optimal, I tend to make them with the intention of making them into my bigger army. Since I can't offer any better advice on your DE, I figured I would throw out the lists of the army books I have. I might even look at my daemon and bretonnians.

You'll have problems with Dwarfs, but at this point level, who doesn't?

Looks pretty solid, IMHO. Pretty fast.

In low point games where you don't have the mass of a full army behind you, speed kills. So a fast raiding force is ideal. Kirbinator, your list is exactly what makes a good raiding force. Good luck with the league.

That lizardman force looks pretty good too, Skinks are very effective at this points level. not sure how the terradons will perform, but I imagine quite well.

So I had three games with this list. One vs. Skink-spam Lizardmen, and two vs. WoC.

Versus Lizardmen: It was literally three groups of blowpipe skirmishing skinks, a skink chief, and a trio of Kroxigors. I singled out each skirmisher group with both Rider units and Shades and whittled them all down. Just for fun I threw my CoK directly at the front of the Kroxigor trio and wow that hurt. I won combat and ran them down, it just surprised me how much punishment those things can take and put out. March blocking with Harpies worked just as well as I had intended it to.

Versus WoC #1: He had a big scary unit of Chaos Warriors and a mounted Sorcerer as well as a unit of Hounds and a unit of no-mark Marauder horsemen. The Hounds charged one unit of my Riders and killed one rider, the remaining four killed three of the hounds and ran down the rest. The Chaos Sorcerer could not manage to get a spell off since he was only lv.1 he couldn't toss more than two dice out and each time my dispel matched it or he failed. I shot down the Marauder Light Cavalry with my own. Eventually my opponent charged my Riders with the Sorcerer by himself. The riders lost, but held their place and my GW Shades came in and finished him off. A turn or two later I found out that Chaos Warriors are insane. I flank AND rear charged the Warriors with my squads of Dark Riders. The rear squad got annihilated and my flank squad didn't do much of anything. They lost combat but got away. Moral of the story, just kill everything else in the list and leave blocks of Warriors to my Knights.

Versus WoC #2: This one had Khorne Marauder Cavalry, a block of Khorne Marauders, and an exalted hero on a disk. I did not like the hero on a disk, but probably because I don't like things faster than me. I made quite a few mistakes in trying to hide from him, mostly because I forgot that even though he can fly in any direction, his line of sight was still limited. This one wound up being a draw, but could've been a major victory for me had I not made so many mistakes.

All in all, I think I rather like this list. The speed of the cavalry combined with the heavier hitting of my Knights and my Shades gives a good combination. I love how versatile my Shades are for this list, providing either a pinch of heavy hitting against small squads or adding yet another hail of bolts to turn opponents into pincushions. I'm a little worried about people bringing heavier magic like a level two as I described earlier, but I will deal with that when it comes.

Congratz. It sounds like you and your list performed admirably. It is smart to single out units and hit it with everything. With the speed of your list, you were able to out manouver all your opponents. Again, well done. Hope to hear more of your continued success. What is your next increase? How does the league work?

Thank you all for the helpful comments. The league has not quite gotten started yet, I think it does in a couple weeks. I'm pretty sure this is the list I will be running but that could always change with more playtesting. I don't think I've ever stuck with Version #1 of a list.

boogeyman wrote:What is your next increase? How does the league work?

I think the next increase is to 750, then 1000 after that. I think they wanted to keep it as a 500pt Warband thing for a little while though to give people time to build and paint as we go along.

Also, thank you for the 500pt lists you've been tossing into the thread. They give me a good look at what I would need to do in that situation.

Lizardmen: I'd do just as I did with that last bout I had with Lizardmen, singling out stray units. While blowpipe skinks can be very nasty, my range is longer and anything can charge into them and overrun out of the forest if need be. Harpies march blocking those cold ones would keep them out of the fight until I got around to dealing with them. I'd focus my Dark Rider Crossbows on your Terradons to knock them out of the sky, otherwise they could be a pain. With 360 line of sight, though, it's hard to escape those crossbows.

Dwarfs: I'm not familiar with Dwarfs at all. I also don't think any will be showing up, but it's still good to know your enemy. I'm assuming Quarrellers are gun users since you brought so many and mentioned gunlines being a bad thing for me. They aren't skirmishers though, are they? The slowness of the Dwarfs would be a huge, huge disadvantage since I would just get out of line of sight and just beyond half range so they're taking a -2 at minimum to hit my Riders. I could also very easily set up flank charges. No shields when being hit in the sides, S4 on the charge, I think my Riders could kill at least the two touching them so no strikes back and win combat that way. The Knights would eat whatever flank they ran into.

Wood Elves: These guys I'd have to think about and be very careful with my movement. Warband games are played with a bunch of terrain and we typically use rounded plots of felt as forests. Treesinging could really play with my movement plans. The Dryads I could get away from or just shoot enough to panic. The glade guard are almost as good as my Dark Riders and march blocking with harpies wouldn't work too well; they'd just shoot the harpies. I think I'd swing in with both units of Riders and sent a hail of bolts their way to get them off the board asap.

Of course, this is all theoryhammer, but given the large amount of terrain in our Warbands games my high speed, high maneuverability gives a very large advantage. One army I'm concerned about is Skaven, but even their shooting still needs plenty of LoS and it shouldn't be too terribly difficult to hide.

Any time. Good luck with your league, I'm sure your list will rock. I don't think you will have many problems.

Even though you don't need it, here is some more info on dwarfs. They have no units that are skirmishers. They are all T 4, WS 4, and Ld 9. Quarrellers are just crossbowmen, I actually like thunderers better. They are more expensive and only a 24" range, but also have a +1 to hit. I didn't know that flank charges negated shields. That is useful to know, thanks. Also an oathstone would negate any flank or rear charge bonuses, however once the stone is set, the unit is stuck there for the rest of the game.

I haven't looked at the daemons or bretonnians yet to come up with a list. I am sure I would have some pegasus knights, skirmishing bowmen, and a bunch of knights for the Brets. The daemons would have flesh hounds for sure and any of the core units are pretty good. My only other book is DE and my list would look a lot like yours, since those are my favorite units anyway. (I just need to get glade riders to convert to dark riders)

Do you have to keep your original list and add to it or do you start fresh with a new 750 list? I would like to be in a league that makes you keep your original list pretty much intact, maybe with one change with increases. Oh well, enjoy your gaming.