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Hi,

Am brand new to the game, played once before. I am beginning to understand the rules and looked through the book looking for something I really liked.

I came up with Lylyh Herald of Everblight, what I wanted to know is, is it a viable strategy to take lots of grunts and not have a ton of beasts. Field of slaughter works best with more shots, though you lack the power. I was looking at doing a Blighted Nyss archer warband/team or whatever it's called.

My friends all play 35pts, and I was wondering if it's a viable strategy to say take 2 groups of Archers and 2 more of striders with a heavy warbeast like the carnivean. The group fire ability seemed good and creating suppression fire seemed fun too.

That said, I don't know if this is a sure way to get yourself massaccred repeatedly, despite being new I'd like to know if I am doing something massively wrong. Will I have the ability to take down the warbeasts with shooting.

Thanks,
C-Hydra

Hordes relies on beasts for fury unlike their Warmachine counter-parts who get their Focus re-filled at the beginning of their turn.

This means that if you go too light on beasts and they are taken out, you have to rely on cutting yourself to cast, which is really a last ditch effort to begin with. Not good.

That said, pLylyth does very well with beast light and lots of troops, but you still need a good amount of both.

The archers unit isn't exactly bad, but Striders and Raptors and Annyssa Ryvaal make them look bad. If you have them, then run em, but otherwise I'd say stick to Striders +UA and Raptors and Annyssa.

For beasts Cani is a good choice as Spiny Growth can help keep him alive and he can help tackle heavy ARM. I'd say get one shredder as a transfer target and Tenacity battery. Tenacity is one of our bread and butter animi and for 2 pts the shredder is great.

I've run the following list, and have had success with it.

pLylyth -6
Scythean 9
Scythean 9
Shredder 2 - (Or Two Shepherds, depends on play style)
Striders+UA 9
Deathstalker 2
Annyssa Ryvaal 4
Min Raptors 6

Her troops can really take advantage of the feat, while the Scytheans are fast and heavy beaters who can either engage quickly or stay back to punish those who get too close.

Have Raptors and Annyssa take one flank and solo hunt if need be. Put the striders on the other or middle and just CRA and back up. Infintry will fall quick and heavy ARM targets you can CRA to plink them down and send in the Scytheans to mop up.

The list has limits, lots of high ARM is going to be problematic even with the two Scytheans but should prove itself against high infintry and well balanced lists.

Remember Parasite is you friend. Learn to get that on key targets before you CRA or send in the heavy beaters. Bad blood is good vs a hordes caster and can really limit their options. Eruption of Spines is amazing but costs 3 and with fury 5 its rough.

As a side note, I often take Shepherds with Lylyth to help mitigate fury and extend her lousy 10" control range. It has been very helpful for that. I'd squeeze one in if you can.

Thanks a lot for the feedback, looked into it, I really like the striders and the raptors with respective solo's.

You said that the weakness was heavy armour, would it be possible to swop a scythean for an angelius, it is fast enough to fall back to defend with if needed but it can assassinate effectively too. But crucially it provides an anti heavy armour niche.

Why do you recomend the UA on the striders, it seem's expensive, what's the bonus that's good with them?

C-Hydra

I know elylth works well if you have some nephilims like two bolt throwers. Someone who runs that elylth tier lists runs a set of archers i believe two units of striders the carabu riders min unit. and a shepherd i believe. That list works really well every time i played against him he would kill me in like 3-4 turns i think out of all the times i played his list i beat it 1once or twice and then he also runs a really could absylonia list. I play legion and use that and want to get bethany and belphagore as my other caster if you need any suggestions of the that lists or bethany and belphagore i have an idea for a good list with her.

Hmm,

I'm liking Lylyth cos her feat is great for shooting which i am trying to build around, she has decent shooting herself,

Looking at tiers, the one where you can place raptors with their solo as advance deployment times seems fun. (tier 3) Cos you could play a deprived flank. Using Striders which are advance deployment you could wait for them to spread their battlegroup out across their deployment, then dump all the striders and raptors down on one flank, and crush through one half their force.

Lylyhs feat + the raptors with poison seems really cute too, cos if you are accurately hitting their poison arrows seem quite nasty.
When you factor the raptor solo damage boost in it gets quite lethal.

I was looking at something like
Lylyth -6
Angelius 9
Scythean 9
Shepherd 1
Deathstalker 2
Striders 6
Raptors and 4 grunts 10
Annyssa Ryvaal 4

I figure as I am learning I can use both the Angelius and the Scythean to learn the differences and which i prefer, while if I use two of the same heavy I'm not gonna have a chance to compare, annyssa's veteran leader benefits from having slightly more raptors in exchange for 1 shepherd and the UA for the striders.

The only thing you have to actually deploy is Lylyh, the two heavies and the shepherd then you can place everything else in advance deployment. It also seems quite fluffy having the two scout squadrons together with their relative leaders.

with lylyth you do not really want to use the scythe an I would use the ravager instead of a scythean. Definitly keep the angelus in it is a monster in combat especially against large bases since it has armor piercing

Striders UA benefits:

2 more CRA targets for a total of 8 in the unit. Meaning you could shoot a single CRA at +8 to hit and damage! Its really good for those higher arm targets.

UA gives:

1. Reform: Allows the entire unit to advance 3" after activation. So you Advance deploy first turn and run into position. Turn two you start shooting and then move 3" back, slowly kiting them back. This ability is pure win.

2. Tactics: Hunter. Need I say more? Forests, concealment, cover, yeah they ignore them... Thats amazingly good, and for 3 pts its a steal.

3. Musician has in step so extends command 3" which is nifty to help spread them out, helps CRA.

My opinion is if you have striders they should have the UA, pretty much every time if not just for Hunter. Forests and the like block LOS so its the difference between being able to shoot at all sometimes. Also, cover is +4 DEF! Ignoring that is amazingly good. Oh, Janissa Stonetide is behind her wall again huh? Sweet, I put an arrow in her face. Problem solved lol.

As far as the Angelius vs. Scythean goes, I'm biased so take what I say with a grain of salt. The Angelius is good, and has a specific role, but I feel the Scythean performs this role often times much better. A Scythean is nearly as good at dealing damage as a Carni and costs 9. Angelius' first attack is Armor Piercing, which can be devistating indeed, BUT, after the first you're doing P/S 14. It also depends on its high DEF to stay alive. If the enemy can get past that, its going to die quickly, whereas the Scythean can weather due to higher ARM.

This is just my opinion, flight is greatness and nothing makes me happier than a high roll on a charged AP attack. Since Lylyth favors range, it would seem that the Angel's ranged attack gets a small boost, but again, I don't know if thats enough for me to drop the pure killing power of the Scythean.

Ravagores are amazingly good, but in a list that already has so much anti-infintry, it seems to me like over kill. Although they can perform ok in Melee, they need someone to beef up their MAT as its low and P/S 16 is one lower than the Scythean's 17's which vs high arm can make a significant difference.