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.

Aeonotakist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Honestly I think Aeon really had something, the only flaw being how expensive vulkites are. If he could afford to bring more infantry to 'fill in' the circle and prevent -storming- it the combo with lords of the lodge would work excellently.

Actually I am think the same after your idea popup. 25 units of 25mm base standing in a web-like formation with 1' with each other can cover a large 8' by 8' area with no holes for Stromfiend to come up.

but the central formation will need 7' by 7' area to stand themselves... So the outer circle will be as many as 140 models to really fill every holes stormfiend can use, that is way to much. As far as I know the cheapest units in Order is 8 points per model. so its 1320 already. EIther you give up battlion or you have too few hearthguards.

However, yesterday I invented a tactics that might beat Skaven Skryre to ashes.

List is still Fyreslayers with 30/30 Hearthgurads and Lord of Lodge Battlion. However I dont put any Berserkers, I put 10 Gryph-Hounds stand next to our center circle.

SO no matter how Skaven popup, it is consider as setup and will immediately trigger the Hearthguards formation to shot with their one weapon (melton stone of cause). I believe the special effect can even trigger more than once if you have more than one Gryph Hounds.
Also the Lord of Lodge still prevent Sakven from a double turn so they will not be able to setup 10' away from dogs and use a double turn to move and shot.

Haha! That is brilliant, and seems liike it would totally work. I'll have to keep this in mind...

And this proves this game can be balanced as we see how counters appear without the need to make up new gak.

Aeonotakist wrote:


I am not sure about Skybornslayers, I think it is even more expansive than Skaven fire. A gourp of that will cost 100 (Lord) + 320 (Judicators) + Librators (200) + Battlion (140) + Paladins (400+). That is 1160 point already with all minimal size. SO you also only have one chance to hault everything. (In the formation description you have to get down all the units at once)
No matter what you have in the remaining army on table (even you spread them widely is no use, a covern group can actually cover more than 30' of battle fileds 7'+7'+8'+8'). The Skaven can use one covern group to kill them while another group still underneath. When you force to launch your Skyborn slayers, the other covern might then can come out.

It might be possible to have another Hammerstrike Force Battlion besides this Skyborn (600 ponts minimal). The problem of Hammerstrike is it's little bit unstable. The Prosecutors used as pilot will be killed without any doubts . If the Procecutors are killed, then Paladin has to charge 9' which might fail and will destroy everything you planned.

Recent Facehammer tournament was won by skyborne slayer list, against which a skryre player didn't even bother to use his skyre-list (as it was a two list event). Tells something about the match up. (All based on forum talks on my part, I wasn't there.)

Now that I think about it I want to ask how many stormfiends does the flameskryre have? 4 or so? If so, and the skyborne slayers are taken in a way that occupy all (or leave 500-600 for a stardrake) then the latter will be able to select 2nd turn, force the skaven out of their hiding places and maul their stormfiend units, and each unit decreases a lot the firepower.

 jamopower wrote:

Aeonotakist wrote:


I am not sure about Skybornslayers, I think it is even more expansive than Skaven fire. A gourp of that will cost 100 (Lord) + 320 (Judicators) + Librators (200) + Battlion (140) + Paladins (400+). That is 1160 point already with all minimal size. SO you also only have one chance to hault everything. (In the formation description you have to get down all the units at once)
No matter what you have in the remaining army on table (even you spread them widely is no use, a covern group can actually cover more than 30' of battle fileds 7'+7'+8'+8'). The Skaven can use one covern group to kill them while another group still underneath. When you force to launch your Skyborn slayers, the other covern might then can come out.

It might be possible to have another Hammerstrike Force Battlion besides this Skyborn (600 ponts minimal). The problem of Hammerstrike is it's little bit unstable. The Prosecutors used as pilot will be killed without any doubts . If the Procecutors are killed, then Paladin has to charge 9' which might fail and will destroy everything you planned.

Recent Facehammer tournament was won by skyborne slayer list, against which a skryre player didn't even bother to use his skyre-list (as it was a two list event). Tells something about the match up. (All based on forum talks on my part, I wasn't there.)

I still dont see the reason behind it. I guess that match doesn't mean everything maybe the palyer just think his other list a a harder counter to Skyborn (there must be) or he just made mistakes.
Actually all the tactics here and there can easily reviewed by a home practice with bases/coins replacing different units and some dices. That will give you a direct feeling of what is strong and what is not. I already tried Skyborn and it took me two hours to realize it is not the best counter for Skryre.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lord Kragan wrote:
Now that I think about it I want to ask how many stormfiends does the flameskryre have? 4 or so? If so, and the skyborne slayers are taken in a way that occupy all (or leave 500-600 for a stardrake) then the latter will be able to select 2nd turn, force the skaven out of their hiding places and maul their stormfiend units, and each unit decreases a lot the firepower.

Flame Skryre usually have 6~9 stormfiends and 6~10 weapon team. It's a combination of 6+10 or 9+6.

Skryrefyre will always have 3x3 Stormfiends at 2000 points since they are the battleline, and 4 units won't fit.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Skryrefyre will always have 3x3 Stormfiends at 2000 points since they are the battleline, and 4 units won't fit.

I think a lot of people forget that 2000-2499 point lists require 3+ Battleline units.

Part of the problem (IMHO) is that stormfiends have no business being battleline ever.

 auticus wrote:
Part of the problem (IMHO) is that stormfiends have no business being battleline ever.

I think that GW realized no one would make a skryre army otherwise. Also, plastic uber-rats, we need to cover those expenses.

Thats the kind of ******** idiocy that had me fearing the GHB "officialdom" in the first place. Things like stormfiends being made battleline.

 auticus wrote:
Part of the problem (IMHO) is that stormfiends have no business being battleline ever.

Yup. Like you were saying earlier a number of the OP lists (and most of the armies) rely on battleline units that really shouldn't be battleline, even with an appropriate allegiance. I imagine they did it to make mono-Skryre possible but there are several factions that cannot be run on their own, either in a literal or realistic sense and I don't see why Skryre deserves an exception.

It seems to be a temporary stopgap measure until they could print more units for the faction in general.

Or they could have just let clan rats and stormvermin be in any of the clan houses as battleline to any of the clan houses.

 auticus wrote:
Or they could have just let clan rats and stormvermin be in any of the clan houses as battleline to any of the clan houses.

That's not too dissimilar from just using chaos allegiance instead of a specific clan allegiance, but would still be better than stormfiend battleline. Btw, stormvermin are not battleline (something the rest of us are glad for).

Considering there's no clan skryre, but thousands of successors, I imagine the new ones have become a select few (acolytes and archwarlocks) that lord over massive stacks of mindless lobotomized sods, hence why they are battleline.

I wouldn't be opposed to stormvermin being battleline. Maybe if your general is a warlord or something.

The thing is if only clan rats are battleline (i'm mostly for this) it will chaffe people who don't want to have to paint a bunch of rats (understandable).

We can justify anything in the fluff as battleline but from a gaming perspective, nothing that is that powerful should ever be battleline. It removes the point of having battleline in the first place. GW could have just said "clan skyre does not need to follow battlelline requirements" and have gotten the same effect as letting people bypass having "normal" troops by having one of the most powerful units in the game as a battleline option.

 auticus wrote:
I wouldn't be opposed to stormvermin being battleline. Maybe if your general is a warlord or something.

I was actually quite excited to rebuild my Skaven with proper GeeDub plastics, with a metric fakkton of Stormies making up a proper Verminus army. But then we found out SV weren't battleline, and since I refuse to run Clanrats, I suppose I'll just keep doing Ratkin over in KOW lands

On that note, quite excited for the Clan battetomes, particularly my militant Verminus furry things

- Salvage

Listening to the Bad Dice podcast today, apparently tunnelling Stormfiend filth was present at Warlords, but only got to top 10. Ben Curry also took the list to Facehammer and failed to make any headlines from what I saw.

It doesn't seem to be setting the tournament meta on fire. Maybe it will in time, or maybe there are already multiple counters. It's a shame we have no top ranking tournament players from the UK on this board to contribute to the discussion.

With Skybourne Slayers, it's not just the amusing game of chicken. As soon as your stuff on the board starts scoring it forces the Skaven player to bring up everything, and then you're free to bring down the stuff in sky and pick your targets.

 Bottle wrote:
As soon as your stuff on the board starts scoring it forces the Skaven player to bring up everything, and then you're free to bring down the stuff in sky and pick your targets.

It's almost like playing to the mission and attempting to win on objectives works.

Seriously though... a 'weaker' army can dictate the actions of an alpha strike army to a certain degree by playing to the mission. Skyre Fyre will be strong in a game of 'let's table each other', but isn't always going to win in a game of 'let's get the most VP'.

If I was playing against Skyre, I'd spread out WIDE so that they had to pick their initial target. I'd then throw sacrifice units to tie them up in combat, even if for only a turn. So long as you're winning on objectives, all you need to do is stall long enough. It doesn't matter if your opponent would have utterly tabled you in turn 6. The game is only 5 turns long. One model left alive with more objective points is a win.

Also remember that Skyre is pretty fast for foot dudes at 6" move, but Warpfire weapons are 8". A fast army made up of lots of cavalry/chariots/flyers can just deploy really spread out and then scatter across the board.


I think what more people need to look out for is Legacy Dwarfs. Flame Cannons are no joke - 24" range d6 MW with a 50% chance for d6 more is pretty brutal. Two properly bubble wrapped Flame Cannons can walk to the middle of the board and lock down two or more objectives pretty easily against any army that doesn't have the range to pick them off or enough alpha strike to burn through the chaff.

These are some pretty good considerations.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
As soon as your stuff on the board starts scoring it forces the Skaven player to bring up everything, and then you're free to bring down the stuff in sky and pick your targets.

It's almost like playing to the mission and attempting to win on objectives works.

Seriously though... a 'weaker' army can dictate the actions of an alpha strike army to a certain degree by playing to the mission. Skyre Fyre will be strong in a game of 'let's table each other', but isn't always going to win in a game of 'let's get the most VP'.

If I was playing against Skyre, I'd spread out WIDE so that they had to pick their initial target. I'd then throw sacrifice units to tie them up in combat, even if for only a turn. So long as you're winning on objectives, all you need to do is stall long enough. It doesn't matter if your opponent would have utterly tabled you in turn 6. The game is only 5 turns long. One model left alive with more objective points is a win.

based on my understanding, the Skaven can deploy 7' within the Warpgrinder team and then still move (which is amazing) and try to hit something 8' away. That means they can cover a huge circle of 42' diameter with one covern crew and they have two. The only problem is the units they sent to kill your MSU can do theri job. But I dont think spread wide really mean anything.

Also for the Skyborn, they can have any units from the formation to obtain objects, but Skaven can still send the first covern to davastating them and hold second covern prepared for you real launch.

I heard there was a Skryre list defeated by a Savage Orcs in Facehammer but the skaven player really misplayed. He launched everything to kill the archer boyz formation and thought that was the end of battle. But then got carnaged by Savage orcs HQs and Boar Riders with hand of Gork and some really lucky rolls.

Aeonotakist wrote:

based on my understanding, the Skaven can deploy 7' within the Warpgrinder team and then still move (which is amazing) and try to hit something 8' away. That means they can cover a huge circle of 42' diameter with one covern crew and they have two. The only problem is the units they sent to kill your MSU can do theri job. But I dont think spread wide really mean anything.

Nope. It says very clearly in the Warp-Grinder rules that the tunneling counts as the movement for that unit in the turn they come up, and the accompanying units have to come up within 3" of the team. So they have to be quite clustered, making it easier to spread out and limit their target selection.

Also for the Skyborn, they can have any units from the formation to obtain objects, but Skaven can still send the first covern to davastating them and hold second covern prepared for you real launch.

Any Skyborne Slayers units put in Celestial Realm all have to come down simultaneously in a bubble. The tactic being discussed is leaving some on the table to score or utilizing the rest of your army (since Slayers is 1160 baseline and you have room for other units) to score while keeping the Celestial Realm units out until it's tactically advantageous.

So you spread out your foot dudes so a single Gautfyre can't kill the board by itself, and then the Skaven:
a) brings in a single Gautfyre to kill the board dudes, at which point the Stormcast stays off the board and uses the rest of their army to play the mission
b) brings in both Gautfyres in one side to kill off that side, at which point the Stormcast moves the rest of his army away and either brings in the Skyborne to fight the Gautfyre or drops them across the board to play objectives
c) brings in both Gautfyres but in different locations, at which point the Stormcast focuses one with the Skyborne, probably winning the fight, and then it's a toss up as to what happens next.

It's by no means a hard counter, but it's also not an easy game for either side. Depending on what the Stormcast player brings for the rest of his points, it can change the play of the match significantly.

I heard there was a Skryre list defeated by a Savage Orcs in Facehammer but the skaven player really misplayed. He launched everything to kill the archer boyz formation and thought that was the end of battle. But then got carnaged by Savage orcs HQs and Boar Riders with hand of Gork and some really lucky rolls.

Could be interesting. Bonesplittaz have lots of cheap bodies and a 6+ against Mortal Wounds, so they're relatively ok against the Gautfyre damage. Much like Fyreslayer blobs having 4+ against MWs as long as they're over 20 dudes, though Fyreslayers are more expensive per model.

Again, probably not a one sided match, but I still think it's enough to say that Gautfyre cheese isn't the end-all-be-all.



Personally, I only have Stormcast at this point and feel ok against such a thing, but if it becomes problematic I might go something like Skyborne Slayers + 2 Bastiladons bubblewrapped in Skinks.

Nevermind

The grinder is placed first, then the rest of the coven goes within 8". This is unit based, meaning a Stormfiend unit just needs the back edge of one model in range and can string the other two out for extra range. Then they shoot another 8", and can charge 2d6 if need be. Suffice it to say one coven can easily hit two units even 40" apart. It's an op list that does op things, there are counters but that doesn't negate that 90+ percent of armies have no chance, which is a problem.

I think sometimes these conversations begin to assume that everyone should be bringing tournament meta lists and therein lies some of the crossover issue (like pointed out, many armies have no chance, but we often disregard those armies since they aren't tournament viable anyway).

Surely a lot of my issue with the stormfiend shenanigans here is that I field a relatively non tournament khorne army which has a lot of reavers and blood warriors.

There is literally nothing that I can do against the stormfiend list above other than just pick up a tournament army and just field that instead, which sucks.

 auticus wrote:
I think sometimes these conversations begin to assume that everyone should be bringing tournament meta lists and therein lies some of the crossover issue (like pointed out, many armies have no chance, but we often disregard those armies since they aren't tournament viable anyway).

Surely a lot of my issue with the stormfiend shenanigans here is that I field a relatively non tournament khorne army which has a lot of reavers and blood warriors.

There is literally nothing that I can do against the stormfiend list above other than just pick up a tournament army and just field that instead, which sucks.

Agreed. I think a lot of the disconnect here is that when talking about a "filthy" list, you kind of have to assume for discussion purposes that you are also bringing a "tournament" list because otherwise there isn't really a discussion to be had as far as how to combat the list; you'll get steamrolled with little or no resistance, which is fine for explaining why the filth list is bad but doesn't really do anything as far as "How do you beat it" because the answer in that context is "You don't".

I felt like the discussion was drifting away from the real context of op lists and going into 'what counters Skryrefyre' which is somewhat trivial since that is merely one of a large number of tourney lists that one may face. Thus my comment.

Yeah, just because we now have points and TGH, doesn't mean you have perfect balance across all items.

Just yesterday I played a game against my friend's Dwarves, and before the game I asked if he was using his Flame Cannons. If he wasn't, I wouldn't use Skyborne Slayers because it's really overbearing against a standard army, but it's basically necessary against similar levels of bullcrap. Some discussion should still be had when playing non-tournament games.

As for the topic of the thread, it becomes more complex. There is a difference between strong armies and tournament armies:
You can have a book that has lots of strong units and plays extremely well "out of the box" against other similar armies, but isn't tournament viable. In my experience, mono-Nurgle Daemons falls here - you can make a pretty strong list but if you put it against someone building for cheese it might not hold up all that well, or at all.
On the other hand, you can have an army that seems weak "out of the box" but makes extremely strong tournament lists. That's easily Skyre in my book - I think mono-Skyre just on foot is pretty meh. Decent enough but nothing special. But then you just pull the cheese and it becomes something crazy, as we're seeing right now.

Not to mention that Grand Alliances make it all kind of moot anyway. Unless you're going for theme or allegiance bonuses, there's no reason not to shore up your weaknesses with different armies in your GA.

I'm really waiting for people to realize how OP luminarks summoning balewind vortex's are. Or vortex cheese in general.