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I never played 7th ed but I understand warmachines were not point and shoot. From what I've been told they used to require some finese to use. So far, I have found this to be quite untrue in 8th.

I want to field a Greater Daemon any flavor will work. I prefer to play mono-khorne but at this point anything is open. I also play 40k and have gotten used to my greater daemons being at the top of the target priority. Problem is in almost all cases a Greater Daemon in 40k will not be removed from play in a single turn of shooting. This is very very untrue in WHFB. As soon as I place a GD on the field some warmachine will target in and multiwound him to death. Now I realize there is only a 33 percent chance of losing a GD to one warmachine round but for the most part armies field 3 to 4 warmachines each. This means turn 1 a GD is dead. On average a GD costs about 500 ish points. This means I would have to lose 500 points of other models for the arguement of at least theyre not shooting at ur other things to become valid.

So my question is how in the holy heck do I field a GD and actually get some use out of it other than catching a stone/warp lightning/pile of whatever to the face?

I've been playing with some lists that involve a Great Unclean One. He can be made quite durable, and with a natural 10 wounds, he's pretty hardy anyway. Just slow, relative to the other demons.

The Keeper of Secrets can also get some protection with incredible speed and Siren Song. Force an important unit to charge into combat early and you won't be able to be targeted by any war machines.

You can also use monstrous beasts/cav (beasts of Nurgle, fiends, or bloodcrushers) as cannon stoppers. Fiends are optimal there, because they are the cheapest. Cannons can't carry on through a monstrous infantry/beast/cav model if it does not kill it outright.

Outside of that? Hide behind a building?

Are you using enough terrain? Between the bloodthirster and the keeper, you should be able to stay behind cover. Try some games using the main books terrain rules. Should provide enough cover to get you into combat.

Ward saves are ward saves. But yeah, expensive monsters are just asking for those multi-wound shots to hit them. That's why stuff like Hydras are so powerful, cuz they're cheap as hell.

But if you have a Demon Prince at 400 pts or whatever standing all by his lonesome, it can get ugly. But he does have a ward.

Play Salvage; his WLCs can't hit for crap.

I hear you though, that seems to be a really common complaint about 8th and monstrous critters. Terrain might be the key (as most people don't seem to use enough) but I think it might be a little more problematic than that. It seems to me that there is a bit of imbalance between cannons, big critters and little guys, with cannons being too good against large multi wound models and monsters being too expensive for it, but being able to smash lots of little guys.

I don't have the answer, but it is a rough problem these days, and impossible to deal with if you have very open tables. (Well, ok one answer is to make cannons NOT laser pointers of doom. They should scatter left and right a little along with their bounce at least.)

The other side of the coin is that if you are always facing 4-5 warmachines, you might not want to be running greater daemons.

500 points sure buys a lot of furies (8 units of 5) which typically tear warmachines apart.

You might need to mix up your lists so everyone isn't always maxing out on warmachines. If you're the khrone guy that always takes the blood thirster, then yes, you will encourage a lot of warmachines.

-Matt




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I didn't think of it before, but walls stop a cannon bounce. If you can place wall terrain mid-table, they'll absorb a cannon shot. Might be enough to let you get into melee.

-Matt

Dwarves, Empire, Skaven and O&G are the big war machine armies. I guess WoC are an issue with their only ranged option. Is that it? It hardly seems like the game is filled with them. I never thought the elf bolt throwers worthwhile, maybe I'm wrong about that.

Cannon were all that much more effective in hitting big monsters in previous editions. Sure you had to guess the range, but people were very good at this anyway, and it didn't really cange the odds of hitting big creatures anyway (it still came down to rolling right on the distance and bounce dice rolls).

No matter what edition cannon were always a big worry for big monsters, and any environment with loads of cannons was always going to see monsters struggling to make an impact.

The solution here is to grin an bare it and try to use cover to your best advantage, or cut back on the use of big monsters until you get into group of players where there's less warmachines around.

Run the demon anyway. Sure, it's expensive, but every shot it absorbs is a shot not directed at your bread-n-butter troops. Who knows, maybe it shrugs off the wounds with its wards saves.

ok so the general consesus so far is to grin and bear it and find more cover.

in home games getting enough cover would definately be my responsibility, however in our LGS this becomes problematic. Our tournament tables tend to be kinda sparse especially if the long table mission gets rolled up.

A wall stops a cannon? Interesting does this mean a GD standing right against a wall is mostly sniper proof?

I worry about fielding GDs less from a desire to field a monster and more from the fact that they are our only LORD choice.

I have considered keeping him in reserve until the fury screen can get into position. That means I'll not be getting 540 points on the field till turn 3 but at least he may not get sniped turn 1.

txscotch12 wrote:
Now I realize there is only a 33 percent chance of losing a GD to one warmachine round

I know this isn't very helpful when your particular GD's tend to die in your games but a 33 % chance? The number is much lower. First of all, a cannon needs line of sight to its target point. It will very probably be able to always see the GD itself but will it see the point on the ground it is aiming at to adjust for the bounce? About 6" behind a regiment, your GD will be a lot safer against cannon on the same level as the infantry.

Secondly, there's a 1/6 chance to misfire. Even though the chance drops sharply with an Imperial Engineer, he can only use it on one machine. He can also not use his re-roll for the second bounce, so that's another 1/6 chance for a misfire and a certain chance to undershoot. If you hit, there's a 1/6 chance not to wound at all, and against almost all GD's a 66 % chance not to take off all wounds. A Nurgle GD has more than 6 wounds I gather but I don't know if they changed it at one point. Even if all these chances are slim on their own, it all adds up, and that is before ward saves.

Some other warmachines fare even worse. A mortar needs to hit, which including misfire is already less than 33 % and wounds on 4's instead of 2's.

I am considering running lord less at ard boyz, because of this situation, I can justify a bloodthirster, or fateweaver or LOC. But without wings, it would be hard to hide.

txscotch12 wrote:ok so the general consesus so far is to grin and bear it and find more cover.

Well, I did post some alternatives that were based around things you can take, though they're not perfect.

A wall stops a cannon? Interesting does this mean a GD standing right against a wall is mostly sniper proof?

To be precise, obstacles stop bouncing cannon balls (and are removed as a result). So a cannon still might land on you, but if you're right against an obstacle, your odds of survival have gone way up.

sebster wrote:Cannon were all that much more effective in hitting big monsters in previous editions. Sure you had to guess the range, but people were very good at this anyway, and it didn't really cange the odds of hitting big creatures anyway (it still came down to rolling right on the distance and bounce dice rolls).

No matter what edition cannon were always a big worry for big monsters, and any environment with loads of cannons was always going to see monsters struggling to make an impact.

The solution here is to grin an bare it and try to use cover to your best advantage, or cut back on the use of big monsters until you get into group of players where there's less warmachines around.

well the difference is last edition cannons are limited by the number of specials you can have and they compete with other specials, now thats no longer an issue.

Well, you can still only take a max of 3 specials of anyone type, and they compete against other specials in your points allowance - although 50% is fairly generous

My strategy is to give my opponent 3 difficult choices: A unit of 4 Bloodcrushers with Skulltaker, bringing it up to 5, a horded up unit of Bloodletters with a big and scary looking BSB, and a Bloodthirster. Give all your units that can have it the banner of +D6" to the charge and you're only looking at one turn of shooting for your enemy. And really, you're only worrying about Dwarf shooting. Maybe Empire, but the more they bring the more has a good chance of blowing up.

The FAQ made daemonic icons magical standards so theyre limited to 1 per army now.

DoC FAQ wrote:Page 95 - Daemonic Icons
Add “Daemonic Icons are Magic Standards.” to the start of
the first paragraph.

I like to play my Greater Daemons whenever I get the chance, they can be good fun (Though surprisingly not that devastating given the cost). Unfortunately, like you I tend to face a lot of artillery, especially one Empire guy who only takes two cannons but in the ten or so games I've played against him never ever rolled a misfire, not even once! He makes up for that with his Steam Tank and Hellblaster regularly exploding into pieces, of their own accord.

For the most part Terrain is the key, but anything that blocks LOS (even his own men!) to where he might want to put his marker is good.

That said, taking a raging death monster like a Bloodthirster and then playing a lame version of hide and seek with it just feels so stupid it's depressing.

HoverBoy wrote:The FAQ made daemonic icons magical standards so theyre limited to 1 per army now.

DoC FAQ wrote:Page 95 - Daemonic Icons
Add “Daemonic Icons are Magic Standards.” to the start of
the first paragraph.

GMR wrote:I like to play my Greater Daemons whenever I get the chance, they can be good fun (Though surprisingly not that devastating given the cost). Unfortunately, like you I tend to face a lot of artillery, especially one Empire guy who only takes two cannons but in the ten or so games I've played against him never ever rolled a misfire, not even once! He makes up for that with his Steam Tank and Hellblaster regularly exploding into pieces, of their own accord.

For the most part Terrain is the key, but anything that blocks LOS (even his own men!) to where he might want to put his marker is good.

That said, taking a raging death monster like a Bloodthirster and then playing a lame version of hide and seek with it just feels so stupid it's depressing.

On the subject of the FAQ daemonic icon: damn. I would keep it on the Bloodcrushers, though.

As for hiding your Bloodthirster: Big and scary things like that tend to make opponents react in ways that are less rational, especially if they've been playing the game for a while and remember previous editions. In any edition before 8th, a Bloodthirster would rip apart an army. A lot of the time, they still have an irrational fear of them, and may make mistakes by trying too hard to protect their army from it. This gives you the ability to exploit that with the real money-makers in your army: your Bloodletters.

I'm working on a list that features a horde of Bloodletter with a Herald in it, with a battle bus of horrors with skulltaker in it running right along side of it for hard boys, but the question to run a lord or not is what really gets my goat tangled up. Maybe a cheap DP and use as a distraction?

For 405- Slaneesh, siren song, unatural swiftness, winged horror.

If you have first turn can fly and use the song on turn one to get into combat and avoid being shot.

8th is designed with a ton of terrain in mind, with a lot of LOS blockers. Most people either don't want to play with or don't have that much terrain, so the rules don't work as intended for them.

But yeah try to absorb the cannon bounce with walls in the middle of the field if possible.

I understand the issue, but as someone who runs a Chaos lord whose fairly well tooled often, I think there has to be something to deter these powerful choices or else they just walk through everything.
How would Empire deal with a GD of Khorn without a cannon? you'd get charged in the second turn and it would rip any of your units to bits...?
It's a funny balance in the new rules, I'll grant you, but it's always going to be difficult to get the balance right when your getting very powerful monsters involved. (note, I'm certainly not saying they HAVE got it right, but still)

abdulaapocolyps wrote:I understand the issue, but as someone who runs a Chaos lord whose fairly well tooled often, I think there has to be something to deter these powerful choices or else they just walk through everything.
How would Empire deal with a GD of Khorn without a cannon? you'd get charged in the second turn and it would rip any of your units to bits...?
It's a funny balance in the new rules, I'll grant you, but it's always going to be difficult to get the balance right when your getting very powerful monsters involved. (note, I'm certainly not saying they HAVE got it right, but still)

The unit champion makes way and takes one for the team. The greater daemon scores a 8 for combat res (1 wound, 5 over-kill, flank and charge) against the empires 4 (3 ranks, standard). The empire unit is steadfast, and takes an unmodified break test.
Then it becomes a race between the blood thirsters 7 attacks and D6 thunder stomp taking steadfast away, and the empires character with the speculum making it into the fight.
My money is on the empire.

-Matt

In some cases, you might even be able to ignore the monster, once he's stuck in like that. A bloodthirster is generally worst-case-scenario in terms of chewing through a tar pit, but even so; if all he manages to do is eat through a big block of spearmen and put a dent in your greatswords on the last turn, he hasn't made up his points.

Of course, the other way 'round, if that's all you through at him, thats 500+ points that you won't get at.

Dwarf player here, figured I would give you an option from the other side of the table.

I would highly suggest nurglings for war machine hunting. They have a high wound/attack per point cost and poison. The scout ability I feel makes up for the slow movement. Skirmish is also quite nice as you will be facing shots on your way in to eat the war machines.

If you decide to use a wall as cover, hug right against it. Any space you leave is room for the cannon ball to land in. Otherwise they have to land right on your base, which isn't easy.

If you are fighting dwarves, keep in mind the cannons are likely going to be magical attacks.

Also worth keeping in mind is the fact that you have 4 GD choices. I personally think Lord of Change is the best vs artillery armies. It is easy enough to keep his head down a few turns and still be effective. I always suggest trying to a round army, so you don't run into one army that just tools you outright. If you are heavy with evil khorn killers, take a lord of change to add some flexibility and range. If you love large horror units, perhaps a blood thirster would be a good choice to help kill anything hitty that is eying your core blocks. This way, if you find your Blood Thirster pinned down behind a building by 5 war machines you can take heart in the fact that those war machines are bouncing off your horrors and nurglings to no avail.

Skip the greater daemon and run heralds: a herald of Slaanesh on a Seeker will make it fast cav, giving it Vanguard-this can give you a first turn charge potentially against your opponents artillery crew-not much in the way of crewmen can withstand that charge; a herald of Khorne can be decked out to do huge amounts of damage (flaming) that will eat hydras and Hellpits, the two scariest monsters in the game (if you think there is a scarier monster, you're playing against joke opponents). Fact is, Greater Daemons don't cut it anymore, just like most other big monsters-most, not all. Hellpits and Hydras do a lot of damage and are cheap and both have a 4+ save against anything non-flaming. Greater daemons cost around 500 with a 5+ save and with some better stats, but no more wounds. Why pay 2-3 times the amount for a similar model? No thanks, leave it at home

Well...yes.

I mean, no offense or anything, but that seems relatively obvious. 8th is all about point-for-point efficiency (less about point-denial), and a few Heralds is obviously a much better deal than their respective points in a Greater Daemon.

The OP wants to field one of the big guys, though. So that's what's going on here.

For the record: the Slaanesh herald idea would also be a great way to keep those artillery pieces off of your general.

And I don't think 235-250pts for a Hell Pit Abomination is particularly cheap. They're certainly a great model, but I don't see everyone ever field two of them, like I do with Hydras (two gigantic monsters, and you haven't even broken 400pts...).

And Greater Daemons are more expensive because (1) having a giant, super-tough general should, in theory, have more benefits than drawbacks, and (2) some of them are Wizards, which makes all those points you spent a lot more versatile than a Hydra or an A-bomb is.

Artillery hurt big ol' monsters, which is a shame, really. The only reason I target the Bloodthirster before anything else is because he's 500+ points that I can nab with relative ease. And that's definately not what was going through Gandalf's mind when he faced down the Balrog.

"And that's definately not what was going through Gandalf's mind when he faced down the Balrog"

@warpsolution: damn cool sentence right there I laughed hard!

I just realised noone has suggested using it as a paperweight yet.

I try, m'LordofMuck. I try.

And I think no one's made that suggestion, Hoverboy, because a greater daemon would make a terrible paperweight. If he fell off your desk, his one arm and the axe/staff/sword/pincher would all break off, and probably his head. And the paint would chip.

No thanks. I look for something a little sturdier (and cheaper) in my paperweights.

...who actually uses paperweights? Is that even a legit. sentence? Can you really "use" a paperweight?