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First of all I'd like to apologize for posting another topic so closely to my previous, but this is a serious question I'd like to ask too...

I haven't found anyone talking about this on this forum which is quite surprising, I was expecting MOST tournament players to be asking the same question:

How to deal with point denial units (and if you do have a unit like that, what to watch out for?) ?

What I mean are units like:
1. Lvl 4 life, Lvl 4 high w/ book of ashur, MR 2, 10 sisters of the thorn, some other heros. Easily 1250pt in 1 unit that's ALMOST unkillable...

2. Lvl 4 High w/ book of hoeth, Lvl 4 Heavens w/ book of ashur, some heros, block of White lions w/ BotWD

3. Slann and a huge brick of temple guards

Super death spells like dwellers is a good idea, but not everyone runs lore of life in every tournament he plays right? Breaking them from combat is a good idea, but with the wood elves the unit is impossible to catch in combat unless something went really wrong for the WE player. And for the other two the chances of breaking them is either really low or impossible. Anyone with experiences against this kind of lists? I'd love to hear some ideas.

Cheers dakka

Units like that are the super spells were designed for. Throw your max casting dice for irresistible force.
When a unit like that loses 1/3 or more to a single spell the rest of the army and game becomes quite easy.
What army are you playing?

Yeah, people mostly stopped deathstarring because of the mega spells. BotWD only protects against wounds caused by spells. Not save or die.

You can also, and rarely does anyone do this, use Sniper to take out outrageously good and equipped heroes. If you take out the bannerman, you can all of a sudden drop a simple debuff and make that massive megastar be a pile of poop.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
You can also, and rarely does anyone do this, use Sniper to take out outrageously good and equipped heroes. If you take out the bannerman, you can all of a sudden drop a simple debuff and make that massive megastar be a pile of poop.

Not if it's on a standard bearer.


However, some of those are pretty easy to deal with.

Those sisters have pretty Meh spells. So either you lock down the level 4s, or you just pump a tonne of shooting into them. If you pump more shots than the level 4 high can spawn tokens, then you'll grind the unit down.

As for the White Lions. You just lock down the level 4 high and charge them with something that is good at killing them.

The points denial units aren't the problem. It's points denial lists that are. Double flee lists like skink clouds, where a death slaan takes out the characters whilst giving up next to no points are not fun to play.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
You can also, and rarely does anyone do this, use Sniper to take out outrageously good and equipped heroes. If you take out the bannerman, you can all of a sudden drop a simple debuff and make that massive megastar be a pile of poop.

Not if it's on a standard bearer.


However, some of those are pretty easy to deal with.

Those sisters have pretty Meh spells. So either you lock down the level 4s, or you just pump a tonne of shooting into them. If you pump more shots than the level 4 high can spawn tokens, then you'll grind the unit down.

As for the White Lions. You just lock down the level 4 high and charge them with something that is good at killing them.

The points denial units aren't the problem. It's points denial lists that are. Double flee lists like skink clouds, where a death slaan takes out the characters whilst giving up next to no points are not fun to play.

Double flee has its weaknesses, for example if you get charged by 2 units. You can only flee once, and then at least 1 of the units is exposed...? Or am I missing something here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Throt wrote:
Units like that are the super spells were designed for. Throw your max casting dice for irresistible force.
When a unit like that loses 1/3 or more to a single spell the rest of the army and game becomes quite easy.
What army are you playing?

I play high elves, I usually run high and heavens for my magic.

Most bannermen with a magic banner are heroes. And they can be sniped. HE are one of the few who aren't, because they're big poopy faces.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Most bannermen with a magic banner are heroes. And they can be sniped. HE are one of the few who aren't, because they're big poopy faces.

Confirmed for Malekith tier butthurt.


You can however just avoid that one unit.

1250 points in a single unit is very prohibitive as far as versatility goes.

Chaff it up, avoid it, kill everything else.

BronzeJon wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Most bannermen with a magic banner are heroes. And they can be sniped. HE are one of the few who aren't, because they're big poopy faces.

Confirmed for Malekith tier butthurt.


You can however just avoid that one unit.

1250 points in a single unit is very prohibitive as far as versatility goes.

Chaff it up, avoid it, kill everything else.

Exactly. It's the way to beat most points denial lists, barring double flee lizards, because those lists are the Adolf Hitlers of the Warhammer scene,

Hmm...so what about Dark Elf fast cav list or the skink cloud lists? How would a high elf player deal with those? Since charging is not a realistic option just lots of magic missiles and such?

Wings of Purity wrote:
Hmm...so what about Dark Elf fast cav list or the skink cloud lists? How would a high elf player deal with those? Since charging is not a realistic option just lots of magic missiles and such?

For Dark Elf Fast Cav lists, bolt throwers deal with the dark riders just fine, as do a tonne of archers. The problem is the warlock unit with all the characters. If you charge it with something threatening, and force it to flee, you can push it out of place so that you can once more focus on the dark riders. Or just focus on the dark riders and chaff up the bus.

As for skink cloud lists, you have to kill the skinks before they get into range.

This is probably not going to be helpful, so I apologise in advance, but the more I hear about tournaments, the less I want to take part in them. They sound like a bunch of people tooling their armies specifically to win the event, without regards to fun or fluff. Point denial units? To me, that means a unit that charges the enemy's general, bounces his head off the ground, then jumps up and down on him until his eyes turn into little Xs and little cartoon struthids run in circles around his head - thereby denying him the chance to accrue any victory points for his side. But then, I'm not a tournament player

"Point denial" means that the points you've invested in that character/unit/army are very difficult for your opponent to get.
18 Ogres and a handful of characters stomping around together in a big ol' Gutstar? Point denial. A cabal of Necromancers, Mortis Engines, and several hundred Zombies? Point denial.

They can be fun to play and play against, but if that is literally all the whole army does--just stay alive and chip away at you, in hopes that they'll kill more than they die--it can be frustrating. But that's the case for anything in Warhammer that gets super All-Your-Eggs-In-One-Basket-y.

But yes. Tournaments are not for everyone. Not by any means.

If you have access to Lore of Shadow, take a couple Lv1s for Miasma and nuke the deathstar's movement. WoC & DoC can also bring Slaany magic for Acquiescence and Caco.
Why spend 300pts chaffing it if you can make it M1 or 'Random Movement D6'?!

Of course, BotWD Mage bunkers are still brutal though, as they don't exactly need to get within charge range of anything, just within range of whichever nuke spell their Lv4 is using...

Warpsolution wrote:
"Point denial" means that the points you've invested in that character/unit/army are very difficult for your opponent to get.
18 Ogres and a handful of characters stomping around together in a big ol' Gutstar? Point denial. A cabal of Necromancers, Mortis Engines, and several hundred Zombies? Point denial.

Another example of point denial are large numbers of cheap, mobile units that can affect your enemy at range and avoid combat. The units are easy to kill, but hard to engage, and don't give up any points when you do kill them. This results in having to work really hard for no significant gain.

At the Brawler Bash, there was a guy running a list like this that involved piles of 10-man Horror units coupled with small Flamer units each containing two of the Exalter Flamer guys from the White Dwarf update. Can't remember what else there was in there, but none of the units were really worth all that many points. I had a friend who had almost max points (three massacres almost tabling the opponent each time) in the first three games, but only got around 500 points off of this list in game 4.

I used to run ogres with 20 units of 10 gnoblars. It's 500 points of units that take a very, very long time to kill.
Meanwhile, the rest of the ogre army would run about curb-stomping the enemy, with the bulk of the enemy unable to engage anything of value.

That is VP denial.

-Matt

That depends. Can you actually kill the unit, or are you wasting your time in trying?

That big temple guard unit isn't just where all of your enemy's points are, it's also his main hammer. Redirect it for a couple turns while you pick everything else apart, then hit it with everything and don't stop 'till it's dead.

Other units, like the big sisters bus, are just a waste of time though. Similar to BotWD deathstars that are resistant to your hittiest hammers. Sometimes it's better to just ignore those units and get points where you can. The Sisters Bus is purposely designed to avoid combat, High tokens and a 4++ make it resistant to shooting, and MR(2)/(3) will make it immune to magic missiles. So why bother? It's like shooting your archers at his cold one knights instead of his witch elves...just a waste.

Tournaments often have min/maxers. I'd go so far as to say every tournament of even a moderate size will have min/maxers.

If you go in with the idea of having fun. And basically being able to play a lot of different people and seeing a lot of different stuff, it will be a good time.

With high elves, the two 'main' point denial units mentioned here (Slann and temple guard + elf unit with BotWD) can be easily countered with magic. Purple Sun of Xereus will turn Lizardmen into soup, and Arcane Unforging can pop BotWD easily.

 YourIntestines wrote:
With high elves, the two 'main' point denial units mentioned here (Slann and temple guard + elf unit with BotWD) can be easily countered with magic. Purple Sun of Xereus will turn Lizardmen into soup, and Arcane Unforging can pop BotWD easily.

A) The Temple Guard unit isn't a point denial unit. Hit it with white lions and watch it go "ARGH!" *dead*. Seriously. Without life/light buffs up every orifice, it doesn't survive combats.

B) That only works if the Banner is on the BSB. As you can't pick out a standard bearer with arcane unforging. It targets a single model, with the exception that you can pick characters out of the unit. You cannot physically choose to target the standard bearer.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 YourIntestines wrote:
With high elves, the two 'main' point denial units mentioned here (Slann and temple guard + elf unit with BotWD) can be easily countered with magic. Purple Sun of Xereus will turn Lizardmen into soup, and Arcane Unforging can pop BotWD easily.

A) The Temple Guard unit isn't a point denial unit. Hit it with white lions and watch it go "ARGH!" *dead*. Seriously. Without life/light buffs up every orifice, it doesn't survive combats.

B) That only works if the Banner is on the BSB. As you can't pick out a standard bearer with arcane unforging. It targets a single model, with the exception that you can pick characters out of the unit. You cannot physically choose to target the standard bearer.

So you are saying that a standard bearer is more than one model?

I get the feeling that we are using different definitions of 'single'

YourIntestines, seriously dont bother going into this again. In TDA's meta and local group, apparently the presiding ruling is that A.U cant hit standards. Despite the fact that almost every single other person plays it the other way...

 japehlio wrote:
YourIntestines, seriously dont bother going into this again. In TDA's meta and local group, apparently the presiding ruling is that A.U cant hit standards. Despite the fact that almost every single other person plays it the other way...

In that case, unless OP is playing that way, what I said still applies.

 japehlio wrote:
YourIntestines, seriously dont bother going into this again. In TDA's meta and local group, apparently the presiding ruling is that A.U cant hit standards. Despite the fact that almost every single other person plays it the other way...

With deathsnipes, it specifically states, even a model within a unit. This overrides the whole "You can't target a standard bearer" thing.

Now. Arcane Unforging doesn't say that. It says, you can target a single model, even a character in a unit.


Is a standard bearer a character? No. Is he/she a single model? Yes.

Ergo, deathsnipes will target him, but unforging won't.

Um...at any rate. That's not what this thread is about at all. If we really want to go back to that whole thing about standard bearers and High Magic, that thread is still floating out there.

And on that note, Purple Sun is a huge threat to a lot of Deathstars, which are a form of point denial.
Ogres and Orcs hate it. Lizardmen and Dwarfs do too, but they don't really Deathstar as well.

Consider trying to beat these deathstar units with static combat res. Clearing the board of smaller stuff then try hitting the unit getting static res from ranks (3), charge/flank/rear (4), banner/bsb (2). Right there if you can maximize that by surviving the first round of combat you are getting a static 9 combat res while at most if you deny ranks he can get 2. So you are +7 already. Where this really hurts is if the unit is stubborn like white lions and anything with crown of command. If that is not the case then you should be able to run that unit down after winning combat.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
With deathsnipes, it specifically states, even a model within a unit. This overrides the whole "You can't target a standard bearer" thing.

Now. Arcane Unforging doesn't say that. It says, you can target a single model, even a character in a unit.

Is a standard bearer a character? No. Is he/she a single model? Yes. Ergo, deathsnipes will target him, but unforging won't.

Whether a standard bearer is a character or not is irrelevant. "Even" is an addendum. It's a corollary.

**I can stand on my hands, even in the snow.

I.e., it does not have to be snowing for me to stand on my hands. I can stand on my hands in either case. The "even" provides an expansion to the first clause, not a reduction.

"A single model" would include a standard bearer. If it then said: "even a model with a really bad paint job." You wouldn't be limited to only casting at a model with a bad paint job. It would just say, you can attack them too. It's really redundant, because a single model covers anything. Even is used for clarification. It's to let you know something that you might not think is true in the first clause, is true in the second clause. If it said, except, but not, excluding, etc, those would be modifiers that removed the next phrase from the first. I think you can see that even is not a synonym for those words.

**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, even holidays. -- Doesn't mean it has to be a holiday for them to be open. Normally you might think the first clause doesn't include it, so it's a clarification.
**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, excluding holidays. -- Very different.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
With deathsnipes, it specifically states, even a model within a unit. This overrides the whole "You can't target a standard bearer" thing.

Now. Arcane Unforging doesn't say that. It says, you can target a single model, even a character in a unit.

Is a standard bearer a character? No. Is he/she a single model? Yes. Ergo, deathsnipes will target him, but unforging won't.

Whether a standard bearer is a character or not is irrelevant. "Even" is an addendum. It's a corollary.

**I can stand on my hands, even in the snow.

I.e., it does not have to be snowing for me to stand on my hands. I can stand on my hands in either case. The "even" provides an expansion to the first clause, not a reduction.

"A single model" would include a standard bearer. If it then said: "even a model with a really bad paint job." You wouldn't be limited to only casting at a model with a bad paint job. It would just say, you can attack them too. It's really redundant, because a single model covers anything. Even is used for clarification. It's to let you know something that you might not think is true in the first clause, is true in the second clause. If it said, except, but not, excluding, etc, those would be modifiers that removed the next phrase from the first. I think you can see that even is not a synonym for those words.

**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, even holidays. -- Doesn't mean it has to be a holiday for them to be open. Normally you might think the first clause doesn't include it, so it's a clarification.
**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, excluding holidays. -- Very different.

It kind of does matter. With death snipes, if specifically overrides the targeting restrictions by saying you can target a model in a unit. Arcane Unforging does not. As it targets single models. But only characters in units.

 thedarkavenger wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
With deathsnipes, it specifically states, even a model within a unit. This overrides the whole "You can't target a standard bearer" thing.

Now. Arcane Unforging doesn't say that. It says, you can target a single model, even a character in a unit.

Is a standard bearer a character? No. Is he/she a single model? Yes. Ergo, deathsnipes will target him, but unforging won't.

Whether a standard bearer is a character or not is irrelevant. "Even" is an addendum. It's a corollary.

**I can stand on my hands, even in the snow.

I.e., it does not have to be snowing for me to stand on my hands. I can stand on my hands in either case. The "even" provides an expansion to the first clause, not a reduction.

"A single model" would include a standard bearer. If it then said: "even a model with a really bad paint job." You wouldn't be limited to only casting at a model with a bad paint job. It would just say, you can attack them too. It's really redundant, because a single model covers anything. Even is used for clarification. It's to let you know something that you might not think is true in the first clause, is true in the second clause. If it said, except, but not, excluding, etc, those would be modifiers that removed the next phrase from the first. I think you can see that even is not a synonym for those words.

**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, even holidays. -- Doesn't mean it has to be a holiday for them to be open. Normally you might think the first clause doesn't include it, so it's a clarification.
**We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week, excluding holidays. -- Very different.

It kind of does matter. With death snipes, if specifically overrides the targeting restrictions by saying you can target a model in a unit. Arcane Unforging does not. As it targets single models. But only characters in units.

Shall we stop this argument now?

It is clear that it will only derail the thread. This is a thread on how to counter point denial, not a thread for persuading the OP to play the game your way.

 thedarkavenger wrote:
It kind of does matter. With death snipes, if specifically overrides the targeting restrictions by saying you can target a model in a unit. Arcane Unforging does not. As it targets single models. But only characters in units.

Deathsnipes do not override anything. They do exactly what I said and uses the English language.

--A single enemy model

and

--A single enemy model (even a character in a unit)

Are exactly the same. There isn't one functional difference. There is nothing you can target in the game that does not fall under the category of "a single enemy model" (if it adheres to the other rules, like it's not already dead and not off the board). If you can attack a single enemy model, you can attack anything that can be attacked. The "even" clause is just clarification. But we already know a character in a unit is a single enemy model.

*I speak English, even when I'm drunk.
*I like using a computer, even to read books.
*Even if they're too spicy, I like eating tacos.

Even does not limit those things at all. It clarifies. It answers a question before you ask. "I like tacos." "Even if they are too spicy?" "Yes."

ANNNNNDDDDD the big ending, I'm not sure if you're talking about Spirit Leech and Caress of Laniph and Fate, but they are word-for-word exactly the same as Arcane Unforging...

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 thedarkavenger wrote:
It kind of does matter. With death snipes, if specifically overrides the targeting restrictions by saying you can target a model in a unit. Arcane Unforging does not. As it targets single models. But only characters in units.

Deathsnipes do not override anything. They do exactly what I said and uses the English language.

--A single enemy model

and

--A single enemy model (even a character in a unit)

Are exactly the same. There isn't one functional difference. There is nothing you can target in the game that does not fall under the category of "a single enemy model" (if it adheres to the other rules, like it's not already dead and not off the board). If you can attack a single enemy model, you can attack anything that can be attacked. The "even" clause is just clarification. But we already know a character in a unit is a single enemy model.

*I speak English, even when I'm drunk.
*I like using a computer, even to read books.
*Even if they're too spicy, I like eating tacos.

Even does not limit those things at all. It clarifies. It answers a question before you ask. "I like tacos." "Even if they are too spicy?" "Yes."

ANNNNNDDDDD the big ending, I'm not sure if you're talking about Spirit Leech and Caress of Laniph and Fate, but they are word-for-word exactly the same as Arcane Unforging...

So. Tell me where in that rule it overrides ANY form of targetting restrictions?

Let me tell you where. NOWHERE.

Sure, you can target a model in a unit, but within the targetting rules. As such, you have to respect the fact that you can't allocate attacks on a standard bearer due to the profile issues.