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I play Demons of Nurgle and my friend plays Demons of Slaanesh. At the moment we are just going to play 1000pt games so I'm safe... but at some point we will start playing 2000pt games and then I think I'm in trouble. Shalaxi Hellbane looks terrifying and he will be running it in his 2k lineup. Shalaxi is designed to kill characters and 10th is all about characters! The only thing I can think of is trying to bog down Shalaxi with large unit of Plague Drones. Another option might be Beasts of Nurgle with their ability to deal mortal wounds, if they can catch it. None of my options seem good.

What do you think is the best way for Demons of Nurgle to counter Shalaxi Hellbane?

Sounds like your best option. Beasts of nurgle have the keyword beasts, so no rerolls for shalaxi. Your beasts however wont last long against its soulpiercer, maybe two turns. You could add some nurglings for -1 to hit.

At the moment my Beasts of Nurgle are led by Horticulous Slimux but Shalaxi Hellbane would delete him. However, I could run a unit of two Beasts of Nurgle by themselves. But this is still assuming I could catch Shalaxi with the Beasts of Nurgle (6" move vs 14" move).

Nurglings don't give the "-1 to hit" to monsters. Not that it would matter, because he could easily avoid them.

-Matt

In general terms there's three key ways to deal with a powerful unit on the table whilst minimising damage/risk to your army

1) Tarpit. Basically throw cheaper models at it which won't kill it, but will also tie it up in close combat for several turns. You are basically sacrificing a cheaper unit to protect your better ones whilst denying your opponent the mobility to choose their fights with their character killer model.

2) Avoid/ignore it. Very good if its on one corner of the map. Basically instead of worrying about it you focus on the other half of the table. So their big powerful ultra model - can't do much for several turns until its moved closer. Meanwhile you've focused all your army on a smaller portion of your opponents. This works really well against those 500 point models that can suddenly be useless for several turns if they are on one side of the board.

Of course this tactic relies upon how the game gets setup. So whilst its good in-game its not one to rely on pre-game during your army design phase.

3) Ranged firepower. Magic also works. Basically depending how much your army has and how tough the opponents model is to ranged/magical damage - you can go for a focused fire approach. Of course this runs the risk that the rest of their army is free to advance without being fired upon and requires terrain to allow you to fire easily at them; but it can be an approach for some armies.

The final strategy is to swamp them. Focus everything you've got on them in the hope that in the mass battle your units come out winning. This is risky because you could end up killing that powerful model and leaving the rest of the board open for your opponent who then wins on secured objectives. Or you lose one too many of your own better units in the battle which means you come out worse off.

 Overread wrote:

2) Avoid/ignore it. Very good if its on one corner of the map. Basically instead of worrying about it you focus on the other half of the table. So their big powerful ultra model - can't do much for several turns until its moved closer. Meanwhile you've focused all your army on a smaller portion of your opponents. This works really well against those 500 point models that can suddenly be useless for several turns if they are on one side of the board.

This won't work not only is Shalaxi immensely fast at 14inch movement, but Daemon's have a stratagem that lets them put units into strategic reserve at the end of the opponents turn then deep strike them, meaning if Shalaxi is out of position they can be redeployed where they are needed.

 Overread wrote:
In general terms there's three key ways to deal with a powerful unit on the table whilst minimising damage/risk to your army

1) Tarpit. Basically throw cheaper models at it which won't kill it, but will also tie it up in close combat for several turns. You are basically sacrificing a cheaper unit to protect your better ones whilst denying your opponent the mobility to choose their fights with their character killer model.

2) Avoid/ignore it. Very good if its on one corner of the map. Basically instead of worrying about it you focus on the other half of the table. So their big powerful ultra model - can't do much for several turns until its moved closer. Meanwhile you've focused all your army on a smaller portion of your opponents. This works really well against those 500 point models that can suddenly be useless for several turns if they are on one side of the board.

Of course this tactic relies upon how the game gets setup. So whilst its good in-game its not one to rely on pre-game during your army design phase.

3) Ranged firepower. Magic also works. Basically depending how much your army has and how tough the opponents model is to ranged/magical damage - you can go for a focused fire approach. Of course this runs the risk that the rest of their army is free to advance without being fired upon and requires terrain to allow you to fire easily at them; but it can be an approach for some armies.

The final strategy is to swamp them. Focus everything you've got on them in the hope that in the mass battle your units come out winning. This is risky because you could end up killing that powerful model and leaving the rest of the board open for your opponent who then wins on secured objectives. Or you lose one too many of your own better units in the battle which means you come out worse off.

In most cases the above would all be sound advice. However, in this case only the first and last options might work.

1. Shalaxi has a 14" move and with the "monster" keyword it can step over small units as if they aren't there. Even if I was somehow able to catch it with a large unit of Nurglings, it could just step over them and leave. I might be able to do this with Plague Drones. Plague Drones have a 10" move and a 12" ranged attack so if Shalaxi runs, I will likely still be able to attack it. With that said... Shalaxi could wipe a full unit of Plague Drones in a single fight phase so this may just be a 1 turn expensive delay.

2. 14" move plus a strat that allows you to put demons in reserve and redeploy makes this not possible.

3. Nurgle has nothing with a range greater than 12" and only a couple of those.

4. This might be the only option... which sucks. However, I do have the ability to put demons back into reserve to redeploy them on objectives.

If you can force slaanesh to use the stratagem to put into reserve at least he's charging less than half the time even if he has CP for reroll

tneva82 wrote:
If you can force slaanesh to use the stratagem to put into reserve at least he's charging less than half the time even if he has CP for reroll

Shalaxi can reroll charges vs characters, monsters or vehicles inherently, without the stratagem.

tneva82 wrote:
If you can force slaanesh to use the stratagem to put into reserve at least he's charging less than half the time even if he has CP for reroll

Shalaxi has a 14" move and if it's in the shadow of chaos, it can advance and charge in the same turn. There is no reason he should have to put the model in reserve. Also, as mentioned above Shalaxi gets to reroll charges, hits, wounds, and amount of damage against units with characters. It also has 18 wounds, is T10, a 4+ invulnerable save, gives -1 to hit, has a 5+ feel no pain, and can regain a lost wound for each model it kills (if you spend 15pts on the upgrade).

Shalaxi cannot take enhancements.
They’re a named character.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Shalaxi cannot take enhancements. They’re a named character.

Praise the Grandfather! I forgot about that, Shalaxi was scary enough without it!

Screen her with 3-6 units of nurglings. Infiltrate them and use them to move block her. Hide them all over the board, out of line of sight, and in a way that limits her ability to land in any useful position. She will kill whatever she touches, so just focus on containing her and force feeding her low value targets.

I reread the rules for moving monsters and it appears I was incorrect. They cannot pass over the top of enemy units. So, if I managed to surround Shalaxi with Nurglings, it would be stuck for at least a little bit.

Perhaps an army of Nurglings sprinkled all over the map might work.