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At 3k, you have the option for multiple cauldrons and 60 Black Guard. Combine that with shadow magic and you can chew through goblins pretty effectively. Pit of Shades can drop the spider. Withering can make your corsairs eat a unit in a turn or two. And Black Guard just run in and kill things. Druchii Sorcery doesn't care about all his channels, as you'll probably be throwing more than enough dice at each spell. Remember, with dark elf magic, if you aren't rolling irresistable force on mindrazor, you aren't using enough dice.

But joking aside, Dark Elf combat armies will eat goblins like hot cakes. Just take enough chaff to gain favourable matchups(Harpies) and enough redirectors to bait out fanatics(Dark Riders). Your Hydras will go for the spider, and your corsairs and black guard will go for the infantry.

Shadow magic is not needed in this match up, in fact is a waste. High volume of attacks to chew up t3 gobbos is what is needed. Corsairs and witch elves should lead the way.

I would choose Death over Shadow. There are several spells worth throwing all your dice (remember, Dark Elves are not capped at 6 dice). Cast Doom and Darkness on the unit sitting in front of the shaman party and Arock. Then you can terror bomb with the Hydras at Ld4 or force it to make a Ld4 steadfast check, watch them run and clear the path to the Arock/spidershrine.

Spirit Leach v. Ld7 will quickly see the Greater Shaman dead as well. Take a couple of disposable L1’s you can chuck more than 6 dice with.

Take as many RBT’s as you can. Several turns of shooting will take the problem model down.

Leadership is the issue with this army, you must be ruthless in exploiting it. Create panic and terror checks whenever possible. He will eventually fail a critical one. Watch how fast he includes a orc general in the next game. Even so, the above counters will still work.

hinge wrote:
Shadow magic is not needed in this match up, in fact is a waste. High volume of attacks to chew up t3 gobbos is what is needed. Corsairs and witch elves should lead the way.

I would choose Death over Shadow. There are several spells worth throwing all your dice (remember, Dark Elves are not capped at 6 dice). Cast Doom and Darkness on the unit sitting in front of the shaman party and Arock. Then you can terror bomb with the Hydras at Ld4 or force it to make a Ld4 steadfast check, watch them run and clear the path to the Arock/spidershrine.

Spirit Leach v. Ld7 will quickly see the Greater Shaman dead as well. Take a couple of disposable L1’s you can chuck more than 6 dice with.

Take as many RBT’s as you can. Several turns of shooting will take the problem model down.

Leadership is the issue with this army, you must be ruthless in exploiting it. Create panic and terror checks whenever possible. He will eventually fail a critical one. Watch how fast he includes a orc general in the next game. Even so, the above counters will still work.

You're making the mistake most people make. Assuming Shadow is all about combat. It isn't. It has the ranged threat with pit and pendulum. Both of those spells are great at taking out goblin shamans and normal goblin. Pit is amazing vs arachnaroks due to their base size and 50% chance of failing. And whilst wounding on 4s with corsairs is nice, wounding on 2s or even 3s makes that much more of a difference. Withering gives you that much more of a ranged threat vs goblins. As it means that your crossbowmen may kill stuff.

Was thinking that in a 10k game, you could easily bring a boat load of lvl 1's, arack with shrine, 4 manglers, extra aracks, wyverns, and azhag even... and really add more target saturation?

I mean, if you had 15 cannons per turn to shoot at 10k, and you had 4 manglers, 10 squig bosses, 8 pump wagons, 3 aracks, 3 wyverns etc... you gotta start picking right? would the spider/shaman with shrine in back still be your first target?

skyfi wrote:
Was thinking that in a 10k game, you could easily bring a boat load of lvl 1's, arack with shrine, 4 manglers, extra aracks, wyverns, and azhag even... and really add more target saturation?

I mean, if you had 15 cannons per turn to shoot at 10k, and you had 4 manglers, 10 squig bosses, 8 pump wagons, 3 aracks, 3 wyverns etc... you gotta start picking right? would the spider/shaman with shrine in back still be your first target?

Nah, turn 1 I'd fire all 15 cannons at the BSB until he was dead (failed look out), then fire all remaining cannons at the general until he was dead.
Round 2, finish the general if he's still alive, and then start picking off easy to kill units to force panic.

Leadership issues with O&G amplify as games get bigger. Killing off the bubbles makes the rest of the army pop pretty quick.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

skyfi wrote:
Was thinking that in a 10k game, you could easily bring a boat load of lvl 1's, arack with shrine, 4 manglers, extra aracks, wyverns, and azhag even... and really add more target saturation?

I mean, if you had 15 cannons per turn to shoot at 10k, and you had 4 manglers, 10 squig bosses, 8 pump wagons, 3 aracks, 3 wyverns etc... you gotta start picking right? would the spider/shaman with shrine in back still be your first target?

Nah, turn 1 I'd fire all 15 cannons at the BSB until he was dead (failed look out), then fire all remaining cannons at the general until he was dead.
Round 2, finish the general if he's still alive, and then start picking off easy to kill units to force panic.

Leadership issues with O&G amplify as games get bigger. Killing off the bubbles makes the rest of the army pop pretty quick.

-Matt

I can imagine they do. I would only hope you could sufficiently tool up the bsb or general, or put a block of trolls in front of them to catch cannons. Could even put a block of trolls, then a squig boss with 2+ flaming for occasional flaming cannon? and just leave him parked in front of bsb?

I mean, has to be some way to protect a infantry model with a 2+ los and access to magic gear some safety right? Hmm can always over shoot stuff I suppose and hit bsb on nose but... got me thinking here matt!

I'm not speaking from experience, I'm genuinely curious as I work on getting a 10k force to field a giant game in a few months. My opponents will likely be demons, 5k of nurgle and 5k of tzeentch, i think? unless they decide to go 10k demons 10k goblins vs 10k WoC and 10k demons

The problem at 10K is that if you box your general and BSB in behind trolls and gear them up with ward saves, then all you're opponent has to do then is shoot up your flanks.

Panic can cost you large portions of your army and at 10K, you just can't keep that much that close to the general.

At 10K, I'd play with 1 grand general (+6" to inspiring presence) and maybe 1 or 2 normal generals. Other than that, run lots of very big blocks, and stick cheap fighting lords in every one of them, just for the leadership.
I do like the idea though of a Black Orc overlord, an orc general and a goblin warboss, each leading a different part of the massive army.

-Matt

Maybe I haven't hit grand army section of brb hard enough but.... WHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? (mind blown)

grand general??? and normal generals??? Whaaaaa? *scurries off to google stuff*

Sheeb wrote:
I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective.

You spelt this wrong, goblins can't speak in caps.

 ferret61 wrote:

Sheeb wrote:
I disagree that the little WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGH lore is ineffective.

You spelt this wrong, goblins can't speak in caps.

And frankly don't have the lungs for such a long Waaghh. Eight letters max for goblins.

This sounds like a terrible list: use the DEs, take artillery and fast cav to rush up and shoot his piddly wizards in the face. Force panic checks and go nuts-if you try to win with magic, you'll lose. Beat him by shooting the crap out of the little ones, force panic checks, and run his idiots off the board. And force him to play a legal BSB too-he's winning through cheating at the moment.

What exactly would be the point in taking 10 Goblins Shamans? You'd have most of them being unable to cast any spell (Yeah, I know, the Signature can be cast, but look at it...) and you can't have more than 12 dispel dice anyway.

 Sigvatr wrote:
What exactly would be the point in taking 10 Goblins Shamans? You'd have most of them being unable to cast any spell (Yeah, I know, the Signature can be cast, but look at it...) and you can't have more than 12 dispel dice anyway.

10 Shamans channelling on a 4+, that's an extra 5 dice a turn...

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What exactly would be the point in taking 10 Goblins Shamans? You'd have most of them being unable to cast any spell (Yeah, I know, the Signature can be cast, but look at it...) and you can't have more than 12 dispel dice anyway.

10 Shamans channelling on a 4+, that's an extra 5 dice a turn...

And what do you do with those ~12 dice?
For it to pay off for O&G you'd need high damage output and decent range.
You don't get either.

-Matt

I have to say, its a point sink, but for 1491~ points (in a huge game obv) you could get arack lvl 4 gob shrine, lvl 4 savage orc, wizard hat ng lord, and azhag...

lvl 3 death, lvl 2 random, lvl 4 lil, and lvl 4 big...

+ points left all your lvl 1's for doubling up on poison/vind glare/channels/Gaze of mork spam?

I only mention it because, the question is, what do you do with those dice? with implication being "because you only have big and little waagh lores"

so we need to get access to other lores to utilize those dice in this setup.

I propose by inclusion of wiz hat, azhag, and ruby ring. skarsniks prodda could potentially be helpful here as well?

I'm just spitballin here guys!

I got to use my squig-wyvern over weekend for first time, and loved it. So need to find more fun things to do with it! (such as using it for azhag!) lol ... color me looking for an excuse!

In stupidly large games, using it to power other lores is ok, but it will shake down to what rules you are using for the winds of magic.

You're still better off with 12 spear chukkas, 4 rock lobbers and 4 doom divers (less points, more damage output).

HawaiiMatt wrote:
In stupidly large games, using it to power other lores is ok, but it will shake down to what rules you are using for the winds of magic.

You're still better off with 12 spear chukkas, 4 rock lobbers and 4 doom divers (less points, more damage output).

I have asked how they do winds here, and last I heard they give a winds roll to each player per side (with even #s on each side).. but I haven't participated in any of the stupidly large games.


As far as damage output goes, I feel that it is largely dependent on who your opponent is, and what lore your wizard hat gets. While the artillery will probably out damage them, I feel the utility brought by the casters could outweigh the raw damage....

but going back to goblin logic.... stuff is so cheap, why not bring it all?

1080 for all that artillery?... 560 for 8 pump wagons with sails and rollas, 260 for 4 manglers... still room for a few giants in a 10k game in rare allowance... (or could do just that artillery/4 manglers/8 wagons for less than a cool 1500 rare so could really fit all that crap in a 6k (though your general would suck with selection in my other post and would have to be moved around for 1500 point lord limit)


at games larger than 6k, seems very easy to include full artillery and shaman spam?


Again, not arguing that its the most efficient, or anything... but if you really want to find a way to use all those dice every turn.. It seems like the only way you could feasibly make it worthwhile. As even spamming GoM from lvl 1 orcs can often roll poor on distance and do no damage, especially if being held back in spider channel range...? (ofc unless whole army moves together or simply stays put together... but never my exp with O&G due to animosity)

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What exactly would be the point in taking 10 Goblins Shamans? You'd have most of them being unable to cast any spell (Yeah, I know, the Signature can be cast, but look at it...) and you can't have more than 12 dispel dice anyway.

10 Shamans channelling on a 4+, that's an extra 5 dice a turn...

And what do you do with those ~12 dice?
For it to pay off for O&G you'd need high damage output and decent range.
You don't get either.

-Matt

The Lore of the little Waagh may not be the Lore of Life or the Lore of Shadow, but it's still a decent enough lore. You will have a lot of dice, and potentially gain more from the lore attribute, so you will get a very large portion of your spells through and although the spells may not all be brilliant, that's certainly nothing to be sniffed at. I've been on the receiving end of a powered up Curse of Da Bad Moon before as well and it's not pretty.

The real "danger" though is in your Magic Phase, when the Goblin Player gets an extra 5 Dispel Dice. Chances are he's going to be able to shut down the vast majority of your magic. As both a Dark Elf and High Elf Player, that makes me die inside.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What exactly would be the point in taking 10 Goblins Shamans? You'd have most of them being unable to cast any spell (Yeah, I know, the Signature can be cast, but look at it...) and you can't have more than 12 dispel dice anyway.

10 Shamans channelling on a 4+, that's an extra 5 dice a turn...

And what do you do with those ~12 dice?
For it to pay off for O&G you'd need high damage output and decent range.
You don't get either.

-Matt

That's my point. The energy dice are wasted for the most part. The dispel dice are useful, but come at a HUGE price you just cannot afford in a Goblin army.

So you can't like shoot the arachnarok to death or hope a shot actually hits him instead. There are bolt throwers, and all sorts of other flying creatures that could probably get to the spider in time.

I'm not as aware of what O&G have as i should be but i've fought them quite a bit. It sounds like this is all banking on the spider and the wizard on top. Snipe off the wizard or similar and suddenly most of his magic is gone except for signature spells mostly. He probably has one of every goblin spell before he uses all the signature spells but it'll be much easier. Once the spider is dead then the goblin shamans are just taking up space.

So yeah this is all the spider and somewhat the goblin shaman on top. You kill those with shooting like with bolt thrower shots or similar and the rest should go downhill.

I'm not entirely sure what wood elves have but i know they have a decent amount of shooting. I also know that dark elves are great at shooting. Then there's the case of wood elves being movement kings and dark elves having stuff like shades and harpies. You're an elf player so you'd hit first in combat. Even if he blocks most of your guys it's a large target that you have line of sight to with your flying units. You should be able to do a fly charge over his units or a fly march at least.

Anyway i just checked and jackal has some of the same advice.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I also know that dark elves are great at shooting.

Dark Elves are good at shooting.... Infantry.

The Arachnarok is T6, which is a bit too hard to deal with for DE Crossbowmen (and the RBTs suck). That said, T6 isn't THAT high for a monster and, even though it does have a very impressive 8 Wounds, compared to other monsters, it's relatively easy to take down. It does have only a 4+ Armour, after all. Any S6 hit is going to be wounding on 4s and not permitting any armour save. By that logic, you only need to wound it with 16 S6 hits to take it down. Sounds a fair amount, but it's not really. I've taken an Arachnarok out with a White Lion horde many a time! It's only WS4 as well.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I also know that dark elves are great at shooting.

They really aren't. I've been playing Dark Elves, for close to 2 years now. And the 10 crossbows in my list have killed, to date, a smattering of wood elves. Against anything that matters, they fail. All the army can shoot is chaff.