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So here's the ultimate lvl 1 wizard spam for the orcs & goblins army. I've played 3 times against it as it's getting old, unfun, and annoying. He can consistently rely on magic while I have to hope and pray for an irresistible force to have just one of my spells go off. I need help and if we are interpreting the rules wrong lets me know asap. Or if you know how to counter this that'd be great too.

1 Great goblin Shaman on top of an Arachnarock Spider
The Arachnarock Spider is equipped with the following: Catchweb Spider shrine which grants the great goblin shaman the "loremaster" ability giving him knowledge of all the goblin spells. As well as grant a +2 to friendly wizards channeling. This means that wizards within 12" can now channel on a 4+ instead of the traditional 6+!
He then uses his remaining heroes choice selection to max out with 10 or less Night Goblin Shaman, all taken as independent characters, and they are all deployed closely around the Arachnarock Spider. All 10 now channel on a 4+!

He then just maxs out on black orcs and hordes of goblins to shield his lvl 1 wizards from my army and I cannot penetrate his horde blocks with glade guard, treemen, or treekin, or wardancers, or dryads. I am always vastly outnumbered and even though I usually kill more in combat his numbered ranks cause me to loose combat every time.

My only hope is for an irresistible force cast from my wizard because more often then not he ends up having equal to or more dispel dice than I have power dice! This is insane. And seeing how magic totally sways the tide of the melee battles all he needs to take is large blocks of 3pt. goblins to act as meat shields. Shooting at them is pointless because you can only target one and even if one dies it's no big deal he still has 9 more!

Now I play Wood Elves and i've tried everything, I've tried 3 Treemen, waywatchers, Great Eagle dive-bombs, and 9 treekin, but nothing matters because I and essential denied ever using any kind of magic. I also play Dark Elves, and even 3 War Hydras cannot chew threw 200+ goblins surrounding his spider and Night Goblin lvl 1 wizards. What's a fantasy player to do? I've used dispel scrolls, and feedback scrolls but once they're gone I'm back to where I started being denied my magic phase. And don't just say kill all 8-10 of the Night Goblin wizards with oyur waywatchers it's impossible, that'd be at least 10 rounds of shooting, and I don't have that time.

I would really appreciate some help from the online warhammer community as to what I could do to counter this lvl 1 wizard spam cheese. Any help from the community would be greatly appreciate. If he is totally doing something illegal let me know too, and cite some sources. But we've been looking into it and it's 100% legit, so far as we could read.

So if you're an orcs & goblin player, give it a try and deny your opponent any magic what-so-ever. Or if you are like me and you constantly fight against the green tide, let me know what I'm supposed to do to combat this cheeseball! Thanks!

I am watching this thread. This seems like a very Goblin-y build, at least the mass shaman part of it. Got a few magic heavy players I'd like to troll the daylights out of.

This is a Hellheart's dream come true. I'm amazed that most of the goblins don't panic off the board when one of the little idiots die. All I can say is try to force those panic tests, try out Starfire arrows, as a Skaven player I have actually been tripped up by the stupid things....

There's no option in the poll for "this is legal and it's not OP either". As long as he's not going over his Heroes Allowance with all these Shamans, it's fine.

Now, onto why it's not OP.

A level 4 Goblin Shaman on a Catcherweb Spider, with 10 Lvl 1 Night Goblin Shamans, without any other equipment is over 1000 points. He'll have to have a BSB on there somewhere, which brings the total up to closer to 1100 points. That is a lot of points, meaning he's going to be thin on the ground as far as troops go.

Also, the list you've described sounds very different to why is widely agreed to be the most competitive setup for OnG, so you can be grateful for that.

Finally, unless he's bought another general, which would involve spending yet more points on characters, his General is the Lvl4 Shaman, who has a Leadership of 7. That is appalling. If you can force a panic check near the goblin shamans, a lot of them will run. Heck, the same goes for anywhere. Disrupt his infantry with a flank charge, which should allow you to win the combat. Even if you don't strip steadfast, they'll be testing on Ld7, which is pretty poor.

As far as other tactics go, take some fast cab or some fliers, with the lack of infantry he'll have, it'll be easy to get round his sides to pick off the shamans (and force panic checks too)

Ok, the real question is what's he doing with all his power dice? The goblin signature spell sucks balls, and having lots of signature spell suck even more. He may have 12 or close to 12 power dice each phase, but so what? The lore is very ineffective at killing you.
Also, kill one shaman and all goblin units within 6" are taking a panic test, most likely at Ld7. That is not good odds.
At long range, 24 shots through hard cover (units in the way) will hit 4 times and wound twice. Two units of 12 glade guard should drop a shaman turn 1.
With ~half his points in characters, this is a perfect list for MSU. For ~700 points, you get 3 units of 3 warhawks,2 great eagles, and 2 nobles riding great eagles.
With 7 flyers, you should be able to sweep away those shaman pretty fast. The high initiative on them means you can even hit the spider and suicide assassinate the wizard lord (best defense he can get is 4+ ward).
Between panic and over-runs, you should sweep these pesky wizards out pretty fast.
Best thing to take against super channel block is no wizards. If you know you're going to be massively outclassed, to blow points on being outclassed.

-Matt

What exactly are all those Goblins going to do when 4 of them only have the signature spell that is really bad? :/

Also: I don't appreciate a poll with three yes options.

Also: belongs in Tactics, not YMDC.

 The Shadow wrote:

That is a lot of points, meaning he's going to be thin on the ground as far as troops go.

How so? The remaining points should easily get him 3*50 Goblins with two Fanatics each, possibly nets, and the Arachnarok is no slouch in combat.

As said above, kill one shaman and all the nearby ones take panic tests. Kill the spider and he loses the bonus to channel.
Do you have stone throwers? Not familiar with non-high elf books.
Can you take scouts or ambushers with bows?

 Mike der Ritter wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

That is a lot of points, meaning he's going to be thin on the ground as far as troops go.

How so? The remaining points should easily get him 3*50 Goblins with two Fanatics each, possibly nets, and the Arachnarok is no slouch in combat.

Yes, you're right, that's quite a lot of goblins. It is, however, an almost pitiful amount compared to the number of goblins he could have bought if he'd spend the usual amount of points on characters.

I've tried the scouts and ambushers strategy. I have also tried fast cavalry and fliers but since he has fewer "units" than I do (because I usually depoly many small units) he usually gets to go first and crash his mangler squigs into my fast cavalry. I can't make the lvl 1 wizards panic because his Arachnarock spider is also his BSB so they get a reroll at their leaders LD value. You guys have given me a lot to think about.
Ill try some of those, I'm going to play my DE army next time against him. I have 2 hordes to match up against his hordes.

I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective. Sneaky stabbin granting further armour piercing, which only makes his black orcs with great weapons hit so much harder. But there's a lot of other magic spells that help boost his troops. He also usually takes another orc shaman so he can have a few orc spells too. Which he benefits from having ample power dice to cast his big WAAAGH spells too.

Sorry for posting this thread here, I'm new and I was a little frustrated with how anyone could deal with this.

Sheeb wrote:
I've tried the scouts and ambushers strategy. I have also tried fast cavalry and fliers but since he has fewer "units" than I do (because I usually depoly many small units) he usually gets to go first and crash his mangler squigs into my fast cavalry. I can't make the lvl 1 wizards panic because his Arachnarock spider is also his BSB so they get a reroll at their leaders LD value. You guys have given me a lot to think about.
Ill try some of those, I'm going to play my DE army next time against him. I have 2 hordes to match up against his hordes.

I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective. Sneaky stabbin granting further armour piercing, which only makes his black orcs with great weapons hit so much harder. But there's a lot of other magic spells that help boost his troops. He also usually takes another orc shaman so he can have a few orc spells too. Which he benefits from having ample power dice to cast his big WAAAGH spells too.

Sorry for posting this thread here, I'm new and I was a little frustrated with how anyone could deal with this.

Ok, that was the information we were looking for.
1) If it has a shrine, the only guy riding it is the wizard. There is only one way to make it the BSB, and that is to cheat.
2) I'm sorry, but what does armor piercing on S5 to S7 do vs wood elves? He's already blowing past all your armor.
3) Don't vanguard your cav toward his manglers. They move 3D6, your eagles move 20. Select an eagle to "Receive Glory" and just land on the mangler, killing both. 50 point eagle traded for 65 mangler is a win.

If you can get a more complete list of what he's taking, we can help you with what he's doing against the rules.
His tactic simply isn't that good, and the only want to make it good is to play the rules wrong.

-Matt

Ahhhh, the old my _____ is a BSB trick, that is a tough strategy to combat, I mean when my Skaven use the screaming Bell BSB it is pretty hard to overcome.

Sheeb wrote:


I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective.

It ain't, it's a perfectly balanced lore. The problem is that 4 of your Shamans, if all are lvl 1, only have the signature spell...and it's a rather weak one.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Sheeb wrote:


I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective.

It ain't, it's a perfectly balanced lore. The problem is that 4 of your Shamans, if all are lvl 1, only have the signature spell...and it's a rather weak one.

Especially against wood elves.
Signature: Shouldn't get a flank charge off against something as mobile as wood elves and armor piercing does nothing to the naked bark army.
1) 2D6/3D6 S3 hits. Possibly the best spell in the lore for elf killing.
2) Poison attacks. Neat, but given that his army is LD7 at best, and fears everything in the wood elf army, Goblins are going to be WS1 very often, and poison won't make the difference.
3) Itchy: Dropping init is good, and dropping movement is good, but the real problem is, it's on 1 unit. Wood elves should still be running MSU (more or less) and 1 unit getting slower isn't that big of a deal.
4) Gork fix: hex that you re-roll 6's. That's decent, but again, only against 1 unit, and when said unit is already performing on a 3+, re-rolling 6's isn't that great.
5)Dangerous terrain tests for the front rank in base to base. Laughable. soft cover is nice, boosting it on a 15+ is most likely the best bet, giving the soft cover to a good chunk of the army.
6) Vortex. Normally I'm a big fan of these. They work great to disrupt movement of large blocks and do a ton of damage to really big units. The problem is, wood elves aren't hugely affected by a vortex in the way, and even if you do hit a unit, wood elf units being small means it's not a big deal. On the other hand, goblins do have giant blocks and that template coming back at you is a big risk.

Playing against a 12 power die I have 2 of every spell goblin wizard swarm, I'd save my dice to dispel the magic missiles, and pretty much let everything else go off.
Nothing else is really game winning. I might dispel the boosted Night Shroud if I was shooting heavy, but I'd run a mostly melee wood elf army, and shoot something else, or just suck it up and shoot with the light cover.
With so few spells that are actually dangerous to me, it tells me who to shoot.
First I'm going to pick off the magic missile level 1 shaman. Then the wizard lord. That leaves him with a lot of level 1's that I'm not all that worried about.
If he's running night goblin shaman instead of goblin shaman, keep in mind the bad part of the mushroom rule (on a "1" on the bonus die, roll D6, 1-3 shaman takes a wound, and unless the spell was Unstoppable, it auto fails).
With so many power dice, I actually want him casting those less useful spells. Those miscasts can really help out. All wizards take a S6 hit is a godsend. Most spells you'll need a few dice to attempt, so the odds of miscasting over the first few turns is pretty damn high.

Keep in mind, when you shoot at the spider, the hits (not wounds) are split between the rider (his wizardlord general) and the araknarock. 5+ hits the wizard, who's T4 with a 6+ armor save.
You can use volume of fire to kill the wizard lord.
Glade Guard at 15" and hail of doom should kill the wizard.
Hail of doom hits on 2's, with each hit allocated to the wiz on 5+ and wounding him on a 4+.
Glade Guard hit on 3's, allocated on a 5+ and wound on a 4+.
On average, it's only 15 glade guard +hail of doom to shoot the shaman off the top.

-Matt

I think it's fine. Perfectly legal, perfectly ok.

However, it is not a great tactic. There are plenty of ways to deal with this.

Just ignore the magical hijinx and deal with what you can deal with. Take the opportunities you get and play smart.

How bunched are his shaman? Miscasts could be a real problem for that army, not only if they get the effect that delivers a hit on every spellcaster in the army but also those with a blast radius.

As many of the spells are not exactly problematical all those gobbos wildly casting might do them more harm than good.

Agreed on shooting the spider shaman off his monster.

Finally get Starfire arrows which require a Lord with the Bow of Loren for any reliability. Unless you have missed out on describing the orc warboss in the list also has it looks to me like leadership is something absent from this army. Keep shooting the spider shaman with your lord, sooner or later he will fail his ward save and then have an ld7 test to stick around, repeat next turn. Even nicer of you can get the wraithstone in range somehow.

This doesn't seem that powerful. I'd gladly play against it.

Also TreeKin with lvl 4 life support would wreck goblin face.

With him channeling 5 to 6 extra dispel dice, I wouldn't even bother trying to get a spell off.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
With him channeling 5 to 6 extra dispel dice, I wouldn't even bother trying to get a spell off.

-Matt

With lore of life, you do have throne of vines, so you can hope for IF.

I know for my TK I'd have a lvl4/5 + hierotitan, and not worry.

 Acardia wrote:
With lore of life, you do have throne of vines, so you can hope for IF.

So you need to get IF to get Throne, then get IF again on another spell?

I think that amounts to "I wouldn't even bother trying to get a spell off". Focus on other things.

so just skip over the whole magic phase? I'd try but I wouldn't expect results. Never know until you try.

Oh, I'd try. I just wouldn't try to IF-cast Throne of Vines, and then try to IF-cast another spell.

I'd probably just throw out as many dice as I could at Dwellers or Flesh to Stone or the like, and be content.

As for general strategy, I'd have to say that shooting/flying at the Shamans are your best bet.
Remember that you can shoot at his foot-shamans through his other units, if you need to. Not the best of choices (especially if Night Shroud is up), but still a choice.

I'd run Nobles on Eagles, Hawks, and Great Eagles. Toss in the Hail of Doom Arrow, the Bow of Loren, and/or Starfire Arrows, and I think you'll be in business.
If you could fit him in, a Treeman or some Treekin would give him something tough and expensive to focus-fire on.

 The Shadow wrote:

Yes, you're right, that's quite a lot of goblins. It is, however, an almost pitiful amount compared to the number of goblins he could have bought if he'd spend the usual amount of points on characters.

Could you explain that some more? I'm not that familiar with O&G. What difference in terms of points and numbers are we talking about? If 150 is pitiful, I assume you think of something like 300+? I don't think that is a good measuring stick. Of course I've seen such lists but they're rather rare, so to argue that some other extreme could potentially be more dangerous seems odd.

My Night Goblin army usually has 200-250 models. But they're not just goblins.

I think the real problem here is that this army is relying entirely on magic to get any points. And the Little Waaagh! doesn't do much, offensively. Especially against a MSU army like Wood Elves, where the Curse A Da' Bad Moon is more a liability than a weapon.

Also, I'd point out that, if I were this goblin-general, I'd put my wizards, spider, and blocks so close together that you couldn't fit an Eagle or the like anywhere near my casters. So, if that's the case, you'll probably have to move in close, shoot at them through the goblin blocks. If one of the tar pits tries to charge you, you can flee, and then (maybe) squeeze an Eagle through the gap?

It's a really static list. You're giving up a lot to protect your shaman-cabal. And they're not doing a ton in return. Really, I think Night Shroud and Blessing of the Spider God are his best spells here.

Warpsolution wrote:
My Night Goblin army usually has 200-250 models. But they're not just goblins.

I think the real problem here is that this army is relying entirely on magic to get any points. And the Little Waaagh! doesn't do much, offensively. Especially against a MSU army like Wood Elves, where the Curse A Da' Bad Moon is more a liability than a weapon.

Also, I'd point out that, if I were this goblin-general, I'd put my wizards, spider, and blocks so close together that you couldn't fit an Eagle or the like anywhere near my casters. So, if that's the case, you'll probably have to move in close, shoot at them through the goblin blocks. If one of the tar pits tries to charge you, you can flee, and then (maybe) squeeze an Eagle through the gap?

It's a really static list. You're giving up a lot to protect your shaman-cabal. And they're not doing a ton in return. Really, I think Night Shroud and Blessing of the Spider God are his best spells here.

The tactic actually works better if you max out on level 1 orc shaman crowded around the spider.
You only get 9 Orc shaman, but showing up with 9 decent direct damage spells are going to do more than the goblin lore.

-Matt

Except most of them would get stuck with Gaze, which is going to think your own troops, isn't it?

I mean, killing a few goblins each turn isn't a huge deal, and it's certainly better than Gobbo Shamans, but it's still static, still underwhelming, and still mostly crap.

The best thing about it is that you can pack your units in so tight that the enemy cannot engage anyone in the center in CC. But then, of course, one dead Shaman would result in a dozen panic checks.
Of course, the Orc Shaman is T4...

Warpsolution wrote:
Except most of them would get stuck with Gaze, which is going to think your own troops, isn't it?

I mean, killing a few goblins each turn isn't a huge deal, and it's certainly better than Gobbo Shamans, but it's still static, still underwhelming, and still mostly crap.

The best thing about it is that you can pack your units in so tight that the enemy cannot engage anyone in the center in CC. But then, of course, one dead Shaman would result in a dozen panic checks.
Of course, the Orc Shaman is T4...

S5 hits if you have more units in combat than fleeing.
7+ to do a 4D6" line, 10+ for a 8D6" line. If you run shaman on boars, you've got the speed to keep up with the Rok, and the speed to get flank shots with the Gaze.
Take some disposable wolf riders to fling into combat for the +1 to strength on all the orc spells.

You've also got a chance to get the S5 sniper, or the wizard snipe, or the teleport. ~6 mounted shaman should give you a good spread.

-Matt

No issue with it here either. Would welcome anyone wanting to play this kind of list against me.

The shaman has a BIG target sign on him.
I mean, with 4++ that is 555 points in one model. He cannot hide due to spider being really big.
Let him take this VS empire or Dwarfs.

regular longbows might not be the most efficient way to do it but i guess that what wood elves have.

If you do some math(just a quick calculation, with some approximate values to get the idea), you need around 7 wounding hits(to get past his 6+,4++), that is 21 hits on shaman(5+ to wound) and 63 on the model (again 5+ for hitting shaman). Those 42 hits on spider will only wound the spider 5 times but that is still something.
Even if you are hitting on 3+, that is still 95 shots (i am rounding up) or 126 at long range.
For 555 points you get 46 longbows, so you will need 3 turns to kill the model.
Now add some magic arrows and bows and you can reasonably cut this to 2 turns.
If he is coming towards you, first remove mangler (with great eagle, as already stated) and draw the fanatics then redirect his fighting unit. If he has his Nigh goblins unit close to each other, you might do a precise measuring and draw fanatics from both unit at the same time with just one eagle. Since he has his unit crowded together there is a reasonable chance and he will really hate it. It's a nasty trick.

Add those sprites that can target characters (18 range, hits on 3+, S4, can't remember the name) and you are adding to your chances.
Also use Bow of Loren and Starfire arrows. He is bound to fail a leadership that can cause a chain reaction. this is not directly related to killing shaman but against his army.
If you will be lucky Hail of doom arrows will give him one wound, but its always worth it in WE army. So with HODA and and 46 Glade guards you could bring it down in 2 turns. Then you can turn those longbows VS more soft targets.
Just bring those MSU so you will be able to negate other threats until then

I would still bring LVL4 to the game, because once his shaman (or spider) is gone, you will have the magic phase.

Im guessing since you have tried 3 hydra's that your playing at 3,000+ points.

In which case, you have access to 6 bolt throwers, and core units of harpies.

Use harpies to pick off lone wizards and just keep firing the bolt throwers at the spider, it shouldnt take long to make it fall.



Its not even really a sounf tactic for O&G though.
Your having to rely on meh spells to try and get a small result.
And against empire or dwarf, this guy is screwed since any blasts hit both the spider, and character.