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More often than not i find myself playing my buddies bretonnians and every game he is fielding that log of bretonnian KOTR with a battle standard bearer paladin, and lord. I have tried everything, even a hoarde of 40 orc boyz spearmen, but every time he manages to win the combat and run down whatever was in his path. So dont get me wrong, im new to fantasy and i pretty much am just shooting in the dark at this point, FNG i know.

So im fielding dark elves, what could or should i be using or doing to completely destroy that log of horsey death rather than getting run over every game?

I can't really help you with Dark Elves, but 40 - 50 Savage Orc Big'Uns with Additional Hand Weapon in a Horde formation and a Shaman with Shrunken Head and the spell 'Ere We Go! will crush anything in it's path. You could try that.

just sold my orks im afraid

Mindrazor on a horde of Wytch Elves/Corsairs/Spearmen is your friend.

Trouble is the Bretonnians have unit caps, so its easy enough to make up steadfast blocks of orcs. If you have enough boyz to have six ranks after the charge you can laugh at that 'deathstar'.

I think you could even get it to work with goblins. 60+ gobbos nice and deep, with hand weapon and shield ought to do the trick, so long as the general is nearby.

Bolt throwers, hydras, black guard (especially if you get mindrazor off), hell even base DE warriors with mindrazor could walk through the brets, S8 negating their armour save FTW. Corsairs with the frenzy banner and okram's mindrazor would destroy all the rank and file brets in one turn

Can DE still take Lore of Metal? I know they could in previous army books, but can't remember if they can now.

Lore of Metal eats knights of all types.

Yes, Dark Elves can use Metal.

They can use Dark Magic, Shadow, Metal, Death and Fire.

dino999 wrote:More often than not i find myself playing my buddies bretonnians and every game he is fielding that log of bretonnian KOTR with a battle standard bearer paladin, and lord. I have tried everything, even a hoarde of 40 orc boyz spearmen, but every time he manages to win the combat and run down whatever was in his path. So dont get me wrong, im new to fantasy and i pretty much am just shooting in the dark at this point, FNG i know.

So im fielding dark elves, what could or should i be using or doing to completely destroy that log of horsey death rather than getting run over every game?

Send in the stubborn dread lord on peg with 1+ armor and reverse ward save. Once he's tied up, start taking apart the rest of his army.

-Matt

I like what Matt said dread lord torpedo for the win.

But ya bolt throwers down the front is nice.

Mindrazor elves will butcher them.

Mok warriors with halberds and the razor standard is brutal wounding on 2s and doing -3 armor, knights don't live through that.

Dark Elves should murder them! XD Bolt Throwers negate armor completely, and stab through the ranks (the first 2 shots are wounding on 2s!) Lore of Metal just makes them CRY! And a block of steadfast whatever will keep them tied up till a Hydra or 2 hit the flanks. XD

Bretonnia hits hards, but if you can either whittle them down before they charge or keep them stuck in place, they lose their power VERY fast.

They are in a nice colum.... Tell him to say hello to the purple sun

The one thing I'd be worried about with the dreadlord is the heroic killing blow character who inevitably resides in that unit. Otherwise that's your best option. Dreadlord in the flank, he can only make way with one character, in subsequent rounds declare a challenge so you can send one of his characters to the back of the bus. You should survive that for a while. Other than that pelt him with magic and shooting. The point of the bus is to retain ranks for steadfast by not letting you kill regular knights in close combat. Kill them before that and he's easily tarpittable.

The PoK dreadlord will be very difficult for the Brett lord to kill. He only dies on a 6, and only if KB is actually rolled. against his other attacks he gets his armor and the Ward save. and the dreadlord could actually kill the lord back possably.

Skaven slave unit would laugh at that bret unit at a considerable points difference. And the wonderful thing about brets is after the charge there mounts become more of a threat then the riders most of the time.

Unless you get the charge on them all you can do really is Tarpit them with steadfast which is doable by all armies unless your running MSU which then makes it harder

OR

All armies can make use of misdirect, use cheap expendable small units to deliberately take the charge. Worst case scenario they don't take the bait and stand there like lemons being shot at by siege equipment or magic.

Best case scenario, they charge and get redirected either forcing them to over-run / chase down the fleeing unit directly into your army to get punk'ed by just about everything your fielding (no charge no str5) OR you misdirect them out of your way to reduce there threat for a turn or so.

A random example off the top of my head could be...

Face unit diagonally, unit gets charged dies in one turn enemy overruns putting them out of the game one turn or stays put.

your turn, said cannon facing into that wonderful linear formation sends a cannonball through every rank.

Another example

Unit tilts 45, forces brets to reform at the charge so that units are directly facing for combat. Unit of say 50 beastmen gors or something, lose combat but manage to stay due to steadfast assuming your running a 5 wide 10 deep block.

your turn - Charriots have a nice clean view of the flanks of the brets, removing there rank bonuses and completely hammering them on the charge with impact hits (or your own cavalry units with lances etc) while keeping them at a measly str 4.

The only problem being is there lord no doubt but you should have one of your own that can deal the hurt as well, or any big creatures that can also lay the hurt.

A previous example all though not against brets where redirect is useful was ina game I was playing against dark elves. I redirected a unit of 30 corsairs using a rat dart (7 large rats) his lack of time to sit around waiting for the dart to die to something else due to my cannons sights being on him forced him to make a critical error, he charged, won the combat and at an angle he didn't want. Lead me to flank him with a hell pit abom and within that single turn he lost the entire unit to 3d6 str 5/6 hits and then failing leadership due to no rank bonus.


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Dark elves misdirect is pretty nice if your using a bolt thrower vs brets. Also even if you do it to land them infront of a lot of crossbows.

Alternatively misdirecting into the path of a hydra's flame attack can be equally as devastating.

I don't think dark elves would struggle at all if you play your game right.


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Only problem is if he does get the charge, its str5 vs your t3 I wouldn't expect to forego casualties any different from orcs, if anything he will kill your people more easily.

The Brettonian Deathstar is easily dealt with.

First off, if you are facing this build you are facing a player with little understanding of the tactical nuaces for playing Brets. This is the 'bigger hammer' method, about as subtle as.. a hammer. There are so many better options with maneuver and outflanking and multicharges, that tying up all his resources in one big unit really is a waste.

Second, there are much better hammers in the game. 50 DE Executioners in Horde will eat them alive. Chaos Chosen. Temple Guard with Slann. The list goes on and on...

Third, with those ENORMOUS flanks, they are very vulnerable to countercharges. And let's face it, if they aren't charging Bret Knights are about as 'hard' as tissue paper.


So for a DE army, there are harpies - cheap redirectors to draw him into position for a flank charge. There are shades which can endlessly pelt him with AP fire. There are Assassins, with Manbane they can take down even a Bret Lord pretty easily. With Manbane and Rending Stars they will pop a rank off the back of that 'Deathstar' per volley. Even a L1 Fire Sorceress with Lifetaker can whittle several bodies off the unit per round. Remember, shooting is resolved against the far-softer unit until you reduce it to under 5 Rank&File Models. Once you get him that low, you can easily hit him with a unit deeper than 3 ranks to get Steadfast.

Bait units of 10 Witches can do a number on this unit even when charged, they rain down enough attacks to kill at least one character, and quite possibly two (if he has two characters and a Chump, that becomes a certainty). That exposes the squishy knights behind them in the next combat, so you can generate some serious CR against them. Pit of Shades or Black Horror will halve the unit, Knights are only I3. The same for Dwellers vs. S3.

I recently had to face this type of build at 1500 points. Harpies baited him into position up against the board edge, my Repeater Crossbows shot a rank off in two turns (no Assassin in that list, sadly), he reformed to face the RXBs and wound up with his front rank 10" away from the RXBs. They charged in, pinned him down, and held until a Mindrazor finished the issue.

Take 40-70 repeater xbows twice daily for maximum effect. Its patented armor piercing str3 shots will have any case of a bretonnian death star a long forgotten memory.

WARNING: This treatement may cause alienation of your friends and a rapid drop in the amount of "fluffiness" normally found at you local gaming scene. Using this remedy will also casting mindrazor on a horde of corsairs may cause a rapid drop in the willingness of your friends and gaming club mates to ever talk to you again, ever.

Grey Templar wrote:Mindrazor on a horde of Wytch Elves/Corsairs/Spearmen is your friend.

With mindrazor even Repeater Crossbowmen can do it.