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I recently played a 1500 pt. Ynarri vs. Chaos battle. I used D-Scythes on my Wraithguard for the first time and they were incredible. They seemed too good, my opponent and I both thought that we may have been doing something wrong in this scenario:

It was Chaos charge phase. A Maulerfiend with 6 wounds remaining was 2” from my unit of 5 Wraithguard, a unit of 10 Bloodletters was 9” away (it had been summoned during the movement phase), and a Chaos 12” away.

The Bloodletters charged, my Wraithguard overwatched, I rolled a 5 on the number of shots, so they got 15 shots, 14 wounds. The Bloodletters did not do well on the inv. save roll, they all died. Since there were still no models within 1” of the Wraithguard, they overwatched when the Maulerfiend charged, it died (don't remember how many shots that I got). The lord charged and died from overwatch.

Did we do something wrong here? Are Wraithguard that hard to charge?

Yes - autohit is very nice on overwatch. Charging d-scythes is not recommended.

Edit: units outside the d-scythe's range could not be overwatched in the above scenario

Edit: Derp I misread D-Scythe as D-Cannon


In any case, yes, D-Scythes are stupidly powerful and pretty much make any unit wielding them unchargable. It's also why Hemlock's are broken OP cheesemachines. The downside is, well, the range.

Your opponent did the right thing in trying to tie them up so they couldn't overwatch again, but luck wasn't on his side.

Oh, to check one thing, did they all charge from within 8"? Because if they charged from 8.1 to 8.99" away, they only need an 8 on the charge roll (to get 0.1-0.99" away, only need to get within 1" to successfully charge) and you can't overwatch with them because out of range.

The rules don't dictate a range for overwatch. I envisage that as they charge they enter the range of the weapons as they open fire (and possibly die horribly).

Edit: I don't know why I assumed this der me - I got it wrong - ignore

 S.e.r.a.p.h.i.m wrote:
The rules don't dictate a range for overwatch. I envisage that as they charge they enter the range of the weapons as they open fire (and possibly die horribly).

Did you... Read the overwatch rule? You're still making a shooting attack. Why on earth would range cease to exist?

Ah yep. Don't know how I missed that one. Der me. Cheers

Thanks. We made a mistake then, the initial charge from the Bloodletters was from outside the D-Scythes range, so I could not have overwatched at all. My opponent will be happy to learn that this was an illegal sequence.

The lesson from this is don't charge the D-Scythe unit from within 8".

Discodoggy wrote:
Thanks. We made a mistake then, the initial charge from the Bloodletters was from outside the D-Scythes range, so I could not have overwatched at all. My opponent will be happy to learn that this was an illegal sequence.

The lesson from this is don't charge the D-Scythe unit from within 8".

Or Charge with more than 15 models so it's impossible for them to kill them all

Correct, however a charge of 9" or more is quite difficult. Generally speaking stay away from a unit full of Strength 10 flamers...always.

 Elbows wrote:
Correct, however a charge of 9" or more is quite difficult. Generally speaking stay away from a unit full of Strength 10 flamers...always.

You only need an 8 to avoid flamers (aka 8" range).

Since a charge is successful if you make it within 1", you can charge from anywhere from 8.00001" to 8.99999999", roll an 8, avoid overwatch because you're 0.00001" out of range, then move to 0.99999" away from the enemy, thus making a successful charge.

Now, Pyrovores on the other hand with their 10" range are a bit of a sticky wicket.

The best way to deal with Flamers (especially S10 flamers) is to use chaff, if you can throw more bodies than they can theoretically kill, you can lock them in!

Chaff units are indeed a good way to deal with flamer units.

Another somewhat more situational option (although it still comes up a lot in my experience) is to charge a different unit positioned next to the flamer unit, then pile into the flamers.
Say there is a wave serpent next to those wraith guard. You declare a charge on the serpent. It does its overwatch. Then you place one charging model in range of the wave serpent, and all the others are placed just outside of 1" of the wraith guard.
The charging unit can then pile 3" into the wraith guard, and consolidate another 3" to try and completely surround at least one model, preventing them from retreating.

Bear in mind that the charging models won't be able to make attacks against the wraith guard on the turn they charge, while the wraith guard will still be able to punch you.

Also of note is that Bloodletters can be summoned with Instruments of Chaos, which give them +1" to their charge roll. So even at 9.000001" away, they only need to roll an 8, rather than a 9.

Just always keep in mind that units that drop in a set distance from enemy units MUST be X.1" way. So the 'Letter would have been 9.1" away, not 9" as the rule that summons them does so 'outside' of 9", not within
So it kind of washes with the 1" needed to make a charge.