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I think a Horde Undead list could be a potential counter to the Skryre list. Assuming good use of bubble wrap around important heroes and relying on Deathless Minions faction ability to not care about the Mortal Wounds caused.

@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

@Aeonotakist vulkites are 16 ppm, not 8 :(

 Icelord wrote:

swarmofseals wrote:
Just want to reiterate and be absolutely clear that I was arguing that AoS balance is pretty great IF you completely ignore the obvious cheese lists. There are a LOT of obvious cheese lists, of course so in practice the balance isn't so good --- but if you get past the cheese a lot of armies are quite competitive.

I disagree with this though. The cheese lists ARE what is competitive. Just because you can have some really close and fun games doesn't truly mean competitive. The nature of competitive gaming by GW has always been maxing the cheese.

I don't find the points in the GHB to be very balanced. I do like that there are guide lines now to build in and that there are some more enjoyable ways to play but as far as competitive there are just too many things you can do to break this game.

I like AOS, but as a casual game with friends. I don't have interest in this for competitive play. I do know and agree that 40k has some balance issues of course but I think there are still a variety of armies which can be top tier. (elder/tau obv the best)

I don't actually think that we disagree all that much. In my original post (earlier in the thread) I listed a bunch of cheese builds as the most competitive. I totally agree that the cheese lists are what is competitive in a no-holds-barred setting for AOS. What I meant is that aside from cheese lists AOS is relatively balanced compared to some previous editions of WHFB where you saw army books that were broadly MUCH more efficient/powerful than others. There have definitely been army books where you actively have to try to bend over backwards handicapping yourself to get a fair game against most other army books. I don't think that is nearly as true in AoS at the moment. Hence in friendly games (where you mutually agree to not be cheeseballs), it's relatively easy to get balanced games. Also, I agree that points balance in the GHB is a bit off in some ways, but it tends to be off in a unit type by unit type sort of way rather than a faction by faction sort of way (with some exceptions, of course). I think behemoths in general tend to be undercosted, but nearly every faction has access to undercosted behemoths so it doesn't have as much of an impact on cross-faction balance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

swarmofseals wrote:
]

Arrowboys are not battleline. Savage Orruks, Boarboys, and Maniak Boar Boys are the battleline options. What does this Bonesplitterz list look like?

Brainfart, my bad! I believe the 1k list is something like this:

Savage Big Boss
Maniak Weirdnob

40 Savage Arrowboys
10 Savage Orruks
10 Savage Boarboyz

Kunnin' Rukk

240 shots per turn and still points left over for a decent block of boarboyz.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

Yes they were. The Stonehorn/Thundertusk spam has been on the scene since SCGT and I know the player that first introduced it did very well at Alliance (top 3) but still lost out to the Order gunline. I heard anecdotally on Heelanhammer, Wayne talking about that specific Clan Skryre formation being at Warlords and how he had tipped it for being good since the GA: Chaos - but I don't think it made it onto the podium (although I can't remember who came 2nd at Warlords.)

So like I said I see these lists more for dominating a local meta just because of ease of construction. But they aren't dominating the top flight. Still, that can be an interesting discussion in its own right.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

@Aeonotakist vulkites are 16 ppm, not 8 :(

it has a ward save of 4++ against MW when they are 20 plus models in a unit.

swarmofseals wrote:



I don't actually think that we disagree all that much. In my original post (earlier in the thread) I listed a bunch of cheese builds as the most competitive. I totally agree that the cheese lists are what is competitive in a no-holds-barred setting for AOS. What I meant is that aside from cheese lists AOS is relatively balanced compared to some previous editions of WHFB where you saw army books that were broadly MUCH more efficient/powerful than others. There have definitely been army books where you actively have to try to bend over backwards handicapping yourself to get a fair game against most other army books. I don't think that is nearly as true in AoS at the moment. Hence in friendly games (where you mutually agree to not be cheeseballs), it's relatively easy to get balanced games. Also, I agree that points balance in the GHB is a bit off in some ways, but it tends to be off in a unit type by unit type sort of way rather than a faction by faction sort of way (with some exceptions, of course). I think behemoths in general tend to be undercosted, but nearly every faction has access to undercosted behemoths so it doesn't have as much of an impact on cross-faction balance.

I think the behemoths are generally bit cheaper, because they are not too good for the scenarios, which needs either 5 guys, more guys or a hero to score them and generally you need to win the objectives to win the game. The GHB points seem to be calculated those matched play scenarios in mind.

Aeonotakist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

@Aeonotakist vulkites are 16 ppm, not 8 :(

it has a ward save of 4++ against MW when they are 20 plus models in a unit.

Oh I see what you meant, I misinterpreted. At any rate, what is the actual list? Because I'm not seeing how it works, especially with a vulkite unit cap at 30.

 Bottle wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

Yes they were. The Stonehorn/Thundertusk spam has been on the scene since SCGT and I know the player that first introduced it did very well at Alliance (top 3) but still lost out to the Order gunline. I heard anecdotally on Heelanhammer, Wayne talking about that specific Clan Skryre formation being at Warlords and how he had tipped it for being good since the GA: Chaos - but I don't think it made it onto the podium (although I can't remember who came 2nd at Warlords.)

So like I said I see these lists more for dominating a local meta just because of ease of construction. But they aren't dominating the top flight. Still, that can be an interesting discussion in its own right.

No offense but that seems a bit vague on the Skryre front. Fwiw though I agree that thunderhorn spam won't dominate the competitive scene. The Skryre list seems like it hasn't shown up proper in tournaments, or even much at all -- probably because it costs a lot of money to build (the saving grace for many, I suspect). But properly run there's no hard counter I know of, though options to fight it on equal terms are possible provided it doesn't get a double turn. No army out there is going to eat an average of 110 mortal wounds and survive to contest the game after that.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Aeonotakist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

@Aeonotakist vulkites are 16 ppm, not 8 :(

it has a ward save of 4++ against MW when they are 20 plus models in a unit.

Oh I see what you meant, I misinterpreted. At any rate, what is the actual list? Because I'm not seeing how it works, especially with a vulkite unit cap at 30.

 Bottle wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

Yes they were. The Stonehorn/Thundertusk spam has been on the scene since SCGT and I know the player that first introduced it did very well at Alliance (top 3) but still lost out to the Order gunline. I heard anecdotally on Heelanhammer, Wayne talking about that specific Clan Skryre formation being at Warlords and how he had tipped it for being good since the GA: Chaos - but I don't think it made it onto the podium (although I can't remember who came 2nd at Warlords.)

So like I said I see these lists more for dominating a local meta just because of ease of construction. But they aren't dominating the top flight. Still, that can be an interesting discussion in its own right.

No offense but that seems a bit vague on the Skryre front. Fwiw though I agree that thunderhorn spam won't dominate the competitive scene. The Skryre list seems like it hasn't shown up proper in tournaments, or even much at all -- probably because it costs a lot of money to build (the saving grace for many, I suspect). But properly run there's no hard counter I know of, though options to fight it on equal terms are possible provided it doesn't get a double turn. No army out there is going to eat an average of 110 mortal wounds and survive to contest the game after that.

It's actually easy to understand.

They devided the berserkers at two units each of 20/20. Since Skave is a one shot list so we dont need the berserker to stand a second round. all 20/20 units have the ability to own 4++ ward save.

Hearthguard is the same thing. They devide them to 20/20 units standing together with a Lords of Lodege Battleion as close with each other as possiple. The central group made a big circle of 7' diameter.

Two units of bersernkers stand in a large circle (20' diameter) outside the central group. I believe berserker models in one unit has 0,9' space between each other so they can keep as two units.

This big formation move together to capture objects etc. (in the first round because you can only setup in 12', you may set the berserkers in a 'C' shape not 'O' shape around the inner circle, but they can still protect everyone inside and with a movement phase they will be good as planned)

When Skaven merged up, they cannot setup inside the big formation (the distance between berserker units and inner circle is less than 6') so they have to setup 3' outward the large circle. That made them more than 8' from the Hearthguards and can only hit berserkers.
So their warpfire (about 9D6+12D3 MD with a few misfire) can do about 50 MW and kill 25 berserkers, that is davastating two units considering battle shock.
As the Skaven always merges when they are the later one in a round, hoping they can get a double turn, but the Lords of Lodge battlion will garuantee that will not happen.
Then it's Fyreslayers turn now. With shooting (50 throwing axe and 80 melten rock bullets with half reroll failed wound, 50 axes can do 18 unsaved damage and 80 bullets can do 40 unsaved damage with -1 rend) they can kill easily all the warpfire weapon team and kill at least 3 stormfiend. Then the Fyreslayer will charge (use Order general skill) and most likely kill a few other things. Then in Skaven' turn they only have a few very useless units and two worlocks standing.

 auticus wrote:
i haven't seen a good counter in person to the skaven list that pops up and doles out 30-50 mortal wounds yet. I'm sure one exists, but I'm also sure its a hard counter, which would put it in the classification of about what the eldar do to 40k right now.

The counter is numbers, if your important units are ringed by hordes then the 8" ranges isn't going to do much as they have to be 3" away from your bubble. They won't assault as you'll crush the stormfiends with numbers and when you get a turn you can pound them . The issue I've seen with them is they predominantly play against armies that can't take 40-60 mortal wounds (assuming they've no saves against). Take moonclan grots for instance, you drop up and kill 60 grots then your stormfiend haven't even gotten their points back

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Spyro_Killer wrote:

 auticus wrote:
i haven't seen a good counter in person to the skaven list that pops up and doles out 30-50 mortal wounds yet. I'm sure one exists, but I'm also sure its a hard counter, which would put it in the classification of about what the eldar do to 40k right now.

The counter is numbers, if your important units are ringed by hordes then the 8" ranges isn't going to do much as they have to be 3" away from your bubble. They won't assault as you'll crush the stormfiends with numbers and when you get a turn you can pound them . The issue I've seen with them is they predominantly play against armies that can't take 40-60 mortal wounds (assuming they've no saves against). Take moonclan grots for instance, you drop up and kill 60 grots then your stormfiend haven't even gotten their points back

It will hardly work cause if Skaven get a double turn (50%) they can first clear up your cheap units and then again 50+MW to your core which is still too much for almost everyone. So you always have 50% chance to lose the game unless you can play with initiative.
Secondly if your core army cannot kill skaven firs fast enough (I mean they have 2 warlock, 6 stormfiend and 10 Warpfire team). The next turn if half of them is still on the ground it will be again 25+ MW that is fatal for a ending game.

Now I can only find Fyreslayer as a safe counter to Skavens.

I've seen it played against a horde army and it still kicked the hell out of it. While the strategy outlined is probably sound and valid, I just haven't seen it countered yet even with numbers.

Aeonotakist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Aeonotakist wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

@Aeonotakist vulkites are 16 ppm, not 8 :(

it has a ward save of 4++ against MW when they are 20 plus models in a unit.

Oh I see what you meant, I misinterpreted. At any rate, what is the actual list? Because I'm not seeing how it works, especially with a vulkite unit cap at 30.

 Bottle wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
@Bottle - you disagree? Burn the witch! But more seriously it seems like this discussion has evolved to top lists since top armies is misleading to quantify like that. Also, were some of the cheese lists mentioned present in those tourneys? Because they can't win competitions they aren't in...

Yes they were. The Stonehorn/Thundertusk spam has been on the scene since SCGT and I know the player that first introduced it did very well at Alliance (top 3) but still lost out to the Order gunline. I heard anecdotally on Heelanhammer, Wayne talking about that specific Clan Skryre formation being at Warlords and how he had tipped it for being good since the GA: Chaos - but I don't think it made it onto the podium (although I can't remember who came 2nd at Warlords.)

So like I said I see these lists more for dominating a local meta just because of ease of construction. But they aren't dominating the top flight. Still, that can be an interesting discussion in its own right.

No offense but that seems a bit vague on the Skryre front. Fwiw though I agree that thunderhorn spam won't dominate the competitive scene. The Skryre list seems like it hasn't shown up proper in tournaments, or even much at all -- probably because it costs a lot of money to build (the saving grace for many, I suspect). But properly run there's no hard counter I know of, though options to fight it on equal terms are possible provided it doesn't get a double turn. No army out there is going to eat an average of 110 mortal wounds and survive to contest the game after that.

It's actually easy to understand.

They devided the berserkers at two units each of 20/20. Since Skave is a one shot list so we dont need the berserker to stand a second round. all 20/20 units have the ability to own 4++ ward save.

Hearthguard is the same thing. They devide them to 20/20 units standing together with a Lords of Lodege Battleion as close with each other as possiple. The central group made a big circle of 7' diameter.

Two units of bersernkers stand in a large circle (20' diameter) outside the central group. I believe berserker models in one unit has 0,9' space between each other so they can keep as two units.

This big formation move together to capture objects etc. (in the first round because you can only setup in 12', you may set the berserkers in a 'C' shape not 'O' shape around the inner circle, but they can still protect everyone inside and with a movement phase they will be good as planned)

When Skaven merged up, they cannot setup inside the big formation (the distance between berserker units and inner circle is less than 6') so they have to setup 3' outward the large circle. That made them more than 8' from the Hearthguards and can only hit berserkers.
So their warpfire (about 9D6+12D3 MD with a few misfire) can do about 50 MW and kill 25 berserkers, that is davastating two units considering battle shock.
As the Skaven always merges when they are the later one in a round, hoping they can get a double turn, but the Lords of Lodge battlion will garuantee that will not happen.
Then it's Fyreslayers turn now. With shooting (50 throwing axe and 80 melten rock bullets with half reroll failed wound, 50 axes can do 18 unsaved damage and 80 bullets can do 40 unsaved damage with -1 rend) they can kill easily all the warpfire weapon team and kill at least 3 stormfiend. Then the Fyreslayer will charge (use Order general skill) and most likely kill a few other things. Then in Skaven' turn they only have a few very useless units and two worlocks standing.

That's...bloody great! I'm stealing that, thanks I set up covering as much ground so they couldn't fit on some spaces or within a unit but never thought of that, thanks!

ZebioLizard2 wrote:The balance is nowhere as bad as it was with late 7th, DoC alone made entire armies useless, and then followed up by VC and DE.. Typically here at least the mid-codex's have SOME bite to them, with lower codex's not being regulated to 'pure trash' pile.

+1 on the 7E imbalance, though I'd rank it DOC, DE then VC, even if some of that is personal butthurt at facing DE a lot. I think the difference with 7E's imbalance vs AOS's is that DOC, for example, were so much better that they drastically changed the gaming experience - one of my favorite 7E jokes was that time two players showed up to play, both put down the meta DOC army, looked at each other, and decided to get pints while their dogs played it out. Honestly I think DE's insane quality of shooting / magic / combat did the same thing for me, by skewing the flow of the game so hard that I wasn't really playing the same thing with my WOC / Ogres.

Aside: Sometimes I feel like Thundertusks do a similar thing, with that insta-six wound cannon as long as you don't roll a 1. I don't own an army that has an auto-remove ability - especially at range! - and I'm not sure I know of another in AOS, which makes this sort of thing extremely jarring to face, to the point it no longer feels like we're playing the same game (i.e. Yahtzeehammer).

Bottle wrote:Rain of Stars - Flesheater Courts*
Alliance - Mixed Order Gunline (Hurricanum, Kurnoth Hunters, Glade Guard).
Brothers of Sigmar (doubles) - Mixed Chaos
Warlords - Kunnin' Ruk Bonesplitterz
Facehammer - Stormcast Eternals**

And here in the states, wasn't NOVA Open won by the Neferata + Mourngul Death list? Which coincidentally also rolled that NoVA RTT over in batreps right now ... And Crossroads GT was won by Beastclaw or Beastclaw-heavy Ogres.

It seems to me like there's still a lot of variety in the power armies, however it also seems fairly obvious that some battletomes are going to be far out of balance with others, between legacy armies and pre-GHB battletomes and post-GHB battletomes. I think I'm most excited to see where AOS is in a year, when another ~10 full battletomes have been released (read: magic lores!)

- Salvage

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
No offense but that seems a bit vague on the Skryre front. Fwiw though I agree that thunderhorn spam won't dominate the competitive scene. The Skryre list seems like it hasn't shown up proper in tournaments, or even much at all -- probably because it costs a lot of money to build (the saving grace for many, I suspect). But properly run there's no hard counter I know of, though options to fight it on equal terms are possible provided it doesn't get a double turn. No army out there is going to eat an average of 110 mortal wounds and survive to contest the game after that.

Just a thought here, but what about a Slaves to Darkness army composed primarily of Warriors/Knights with shields and marks of Tzeentch supported by a Chaos Shrine of Tzeentch? They would get a 5+save against mortal wounds with one unit getting rerollable saves, units of twenty Warriors would be able to rerolls saves of "1", everything close to the shrine (within 9" as long as it's at full health) would have essentially have a 6+ FNP, and the army would have a lot of wounds to absorb the failed saves. At 18 ppm for warriors and 40 ppm for knights, the force would still be a little small, with some luck on the saves, there should still leave plenty of models to ruin the Stormfiends' day. Probably relies a lot on luck, but I'm just spitballing ideas here.

Edit: double-checked some rules and corrected them in my original post.

 EnTyme wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
No offense but that seems a bit vague on the Skryre front. Fwiw though I agree that thunderhorn spam won't dominate the competitive scene. The Skryre list seems like it hasn't shown up proper in tournaments, or even much at all -- probably because it costs a lot of money to build (the saving grace for many, I suspect). But properly run there's no hard counter I know of, though options to fight it on equal terms are possible provided it doesn't get a double turn. No army out there is going to eat an average of 110 mortal wounds and survive to contest the game after that.

Just a thought here, but what about a Slaves to Darkness army composed primarily of Warriors/Knights with shields and marks of Tzeentch supported by a Chaos Shrine of Tzeentch? They would get a 5+save against mortal wounds with one unit getting rerollable saves, units of twenty Warriors would be able to rerolls saves of "1", everything close to the shrine (within 9" as long as it's at full health) would have essentially have a 6+ FNP, and the army would have a lot of wounds to absorb the failed saves. At 18 ppm for warriors and 40 ppm for knights, the force would still be a little small, with some luck on the saves, there should still leave plenty of models to ruin the Stormfiends' day. Probably relies a lot on luck, but I'm just spitballing ideas here.

Edit: double-checked some rules and corrected them in my original post.

Can Tzeentch units change initiative of a certain round? I think if they cannot they still have at least 50% chance to fail after a double turn...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
I've seen it played against a horde army and it still kicked the hell out of it. While the strategy outlined is probably sound and valid, I just haven't seen it countered yet even with numbers.

Another problem of most hordes army is they dont have elite ranged damage dealer like Hearthgurad. 20 points of Hearthgurad have an average 1,3 damage on skaven warpfire team, while 20 points of Konoth Hunter can do merely 0,7...

 auticus wrote:
I've seen it played against a horde army and it still kicked the hell out of it. While the strategy outlined is probably sound and valid, I just haven't seen it countered yet even with numbers.

Keep in mind that it can also be countered by MSU style stuff. Most of these Alpha Strike/Deep Strike type lists are relatively low model count and also need to be grouped up when they come on the board. Having a bunch of units across your DZ and the ability to run them around and spread out on the board can make a big difference. They'll of course focus on sniping off your most important unit/hero/etc, but in the end if they can't kill all your models at once, you're usually in a pretty good spot.

Of course, some armies in the game are much more elite focused and can't do that - Stormcast, for instance, have no real cheap MSU units other than if you decide to spam Prosecutors - but different armies should play differently.

Aeonotakist wrote:


Can Tzeentch units change initiative of a certain round? I think if they cannot they still have at least 50% chance to fail after a double turn...

Well, you could throw in a Fateweaver, or if the game is large enough, add the Everchosen formation (though that requires about 1200 points on its own) to at least be able to anticipate the double turn, but I'm mostly just trying to put forth some ideas. I'm getting off topic though.

Aeonotakist wrote:
It's actually easy to understand.

They devided the berserkers at two units each of 20/20. Since Skave is a one shot list so we dont need the berserker to stand a second round. all 20/20 units have the ability to own 4++ ward save.

Hearthguard is the same thing. They devide them to 20/20 units standing together with a Lords of Lodege Battleion as close with each other as possiple. The central group made a big circle of 7' diameter.

Two units of bersernkers stand in a large circle (20' diameter) outside the central group. I believe berserker models in one unit has 0,9' space between each other so they can keep as two units.

This big formation move together to capture objects etc. (in the first round because you can only setup in 12', you may set the berserkers in a 'C' shape not 'O' shape around the inner circle, but they can still protect everyone inside and with a movement phase they will be good as planned)

When Skaven merged up, they cannot setup inside the big formation (the distance between berserker units and inner circle is less than 6') so they have to setup 3' outward the large circle. That made them more than 8' from the Hearthguards and can only hit berserkers.
So their warpfire (about 9D6+12D3 MD with a few misfire) can do about 50 MW and kill 25 berserkers, that is davastating two units considering battle shock.
As the Skaven always merges when they are the later one in a round, hoping they can get a double turn, but the Lords of Lodge battlion will garuantee that will not happen.
Then it's Fyreslayers turn now. With shooting (50 throwing axe and 80 melten rock bullets with half reroll failed wound, 50 axes can do 18 unsaved damage and 80 bullets can do 40 unsaved damage with -1 rend) they can kill easily all the warpfire weapon team and kill at least 3 stormfiend. Then the Fyreslayer will charge (use Order general skill) and most likely kill a few other things. Then in Skaven' turn they only have a few very useless units and two worlocks standing.

They can set up within 3" the unit just takes d3 mortal wounds for doing so, something the stormfiends don't care about. So that already throws a wrench into things. Secondly, if the skaven player didn't know what he was doing this would probably work well. However...

-Two wizards show up with those shooters, each of which can cast a spell dealing mortal wounds to the vulkite units. If these work the mw save is already knocked down to a 5+ before shooting even starts.

-Assuming the above does not work, a shot from one of the six warpfire throwers for each vulkite unit will do the trick.

-The remaining warpfire throwers can kill off ~5 vulkites from each unit, assuring that they will both be taking further casualties from battleshock.

-The Stormfiends now have their ~36 mortal wounds to add to the mix, more than enough to kill half of each hearthguard unit and have plenty left over to dump on vulkites. Then they can charge the hearthguard (or just pile-in, if they started within 3"), who are going to eat it pretty hard to stormfiends in melee.

-Battleshock ensues, and the fyreslayer player loses d6 models off each of those four units (minus one unit, assuming inspiring presence)

You aren't left with enough to oppose the skaven.

Surely the best counter is something like Skybourne Slayers. You keep most your army up in the air, keep some on the board to start scoring objectives. That forces the Skaven player to bring everything up. Now you can bring your stuff down when you want to take him out.

Note - I am not a top flight player anything but in fact! But that seems like a theoretical counter.

@Ninth, yeah I am being vague. I didn't go to Warlords. Maybe someone who did can chip in and comment either way.

 Bottle wrote:
Surely the best counter is something like Skybourne Slayers. You keep most your army up in the air, keep some on the board to start scoring objectives. That forces the Skaven player to bring everything up. Now you can bring your stuff down when you want to take him out.

Note - I am not a top flight player anything but in fact! But that seems like a theoretical counter.

@Ninth, yeah I am being vague. I didn't go to Warlords. Maybe someone who did can chip in and comment either way.

Does the Skyre stuff have to come in on/before a specific turn? Skyborne Slayers can do so on whatever turn they feel like.

I have this wonderful image of two players with no models on the board like "no YOU come in first!" "no YOU come in!"

I'd definitely be very interested to see a response from someone that has either seen or has countered that list (with details).

Out of curiosity, what allows the Stormfiends to set up with 3"? I'm only finding things that would allow them to setup at least 9" away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Actually, what's the list look like? I keep reading about this, but have never seen a list. I gather it involves Stormfiends, but what else?

It's the Warp grinders in the Skryre formation I believe.

They come in, and they carry a unit with them to set up within 9" of them. If the unit sets up too close to an enemy unit, 3" or so, then they take D3 mortal wounds.

They're free to act otherwise.

The list that people are talking about is something like

Clan Skyre Battalion
Arch-Warlock

Gautfyre Scorch
Warlock Engineer
2x 3 Stormfiends all with warpfire projectors
1x warpflame thrower
1x Warp Grinder team

Gautfyre Scorch
Warlock Engineer
1x3 Stormfiends with warpfire projectors
5x1 Warpfire thrower teams
1x Warpgrinder team

Both Gautfyres pop up and shoot Stormfiends and Warpfire teams, which do Mortal Wounds at short ranges (mitigated by the burrowing).

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Aeonotakist wrote:
It's actually easy to understand.

They devided the berserkers at two units each of 20/20. Since Skave is a one shot list so we dont need the berserker to stand a second round. all 20/20 units have the ability to own 4++ ward save.

Hearthguard is the same thing. They devide them to 20/20 units standing together with a Lords of Lodege Battleion as close with each other as possiple. The central group made a big circle of 7' diameter.

Two units of bersernkers stand in a large circle (20' diameter) outside the central group. I believe berserker models in one unit has 0,9' space between each other so they can keep as two units.

This big formation move together to capture objects etc. (in the first round because you can only setup in 12', you may set the berserkers in a 'C' shape not 'O' shape around the inner circle, but they can still protect everyone inside and with a movement phase they will be good as planned)

When Skaven merged up, they cannot setup inside the big formation (the distance between berserker units and inner circle is less than 6') so they have to setup 3' outward the large circle. That made them more than 8' from the Hearthguards and can only hit berserkers.
So their warpfire (about 9D6+12D3 MD with a few misfire) can do about 50 MW and kill 25 berserkers, that is davastating two units considering battle shock.
As the Skaven always merges when they are the later one in a round, hoping they can get a double turn, but the Lords of Lodge battlion will garuantee that will not happen.
Then it's Fyreslayers turn now. With shooting (50 throwing axe and 80 melten rock bullets with half reroll failed wound, 50 axes can do 18 unsaved damage and 80 bullets can do 40 unsaved damage with -1 rend) they can kill easily all the warpfire weapon team and kill at least 3 stormfiend. Then the Fyreslayer will charge (use Order general skill) and most likely kill a few other things. Then in Skaven' turn they only have a few very useless units and two worlocks standing.

They can set up within 3" the unit just takes d3 mortal wounds for doing so, something the stormfiends don't care about. So that already throws a wrench into things. Secondly, if the skaven player didn't know what he was doing this would probably work well. However...

-Two wizards show up with those shooters, each of which can cast a spell dealing mortal wounds to the vulkite units. If these work the mw save is already knocked down to a 5+ before shooting even starts.

-Assuming the above does not work, a shot from one of the six warpfire throwers for each vulkite unit will do the trick.

-The remaining warpfire throwers can kill off ~5 vulkites from each unit, assuring that they will both be taking further casualties from battleshock.

-The Stormfiends now have their ~36 mortal wounds to add to the mix, more than enough to kill half of each hearthguard unit and have plenty left over to dump on vulkites. Then they can charge the hearthguard (or just pile-in, if they started within 3"), who are going to eat it pretty hard to stormfiends in melee.

-Battleshock ensues, and the fyreslayer player loses d6 models off each of those four units (minus one unit, assuming inspiring presence)

You aren't left with enough to oppose the skaven.

Actually now I understand what you say. your list has less weapon teams but more stormfiends so they can stand the damage of getting 3' of enemy units (you will suffer D6 MW not D3 as you mentioned, fatal for weapon team). I guess it includes 3 units of Stormfiends (900), the battlion (200), 6 warpfire thrower (360), 2 enginners (200), 2 grinders (180), 1 arch-warlock (140). If you landed in 3' of enemy units, .all the warpfire teams cannot really take the risk.of suffering D6, and three units of Stromfiends with warpfire projector can do that but most likely they will lose one model when they get out.

This is actually a practical trick since most Skryre players dont have enough Stormfiend over there. SO they never think about getting into 3' of enemy, but that might turn the tide against this.

BTW, I still dont think the Skryre is without counter. Like the mentioned Skyborn Slayer that most units is in the sky, or even Fyreslayer with multipal Runesmiter and Hearthgurad. Skaven only have two waves (with only a Arc-warloch on table that is quite weak) and their opponents can have more (like fyreslayer 1Runsmiter and 20 Hearthguards only cost 500 so they can launch 4 times)

Your principle is sound, but it's Bonesplittaz that can pull it off well. They have the double turn issue.

Ditto on the hilarity of 'playing chicken's with skyborne slayers though, that sounds like it could pull it off.

Not sure if its been brought up yet,but another thing to consider is if the use of sideboards becomes the accepted norm.
I know in my area ITC is jumping into the AoS competative scene and there has already been at least one 2k tournament using a 500 pt sideboard.Im schedualed to attend another in a couple weeks with the same format.

It remains to be seen if sideboarding can even the field of course.

I've done Skyborn Slayers against 6 Stormfiends, and it is still highly dependent on getting the double turn. Force your opponent to go first, use your shooting to punch through any chaff, and then push your Paladins in to help crush as many fiends as you can. The problem is that besides the auto-mortal wounds, they fight very well in melee to boot, and require a large number of wounds to put down.

Overall though, it strikes me as a block of models that overpowers most units in the game, and worse if they're using the grinders to be immune to attacks until they deploy. This is the first time I've seen the Fyreslayers brought up as a counter to just about anything, so its cool to hear them in action.

Honestly I think Aeon really had something, the only flaw being how expensive vulkites are. If he could afford to bring more infantry to 'fill in' the circle and prevent -storming- it the combo with lords of the lodge would work excellently.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Honestly I think Aeon really had something, the only flaw being how expensive vulkites are. If he could afford to bring more infantry to 'fill in' the circle and prevent -storming- it the combo with lords of the lodge would work excellently.

Actually I am think the same after your idea popup. 25 units of 25mm base standing in a web-like formation with 1' with each other can cover a large 8' by 8' area with no holes for Stromfiend to come up.

but the central formation will need 7' by 7' area to stand themselves... So the outer circle will be as many as 140 models to really fill every holes stormfiend can use, that is way to much. As far as I know the cheapest units in Order is 8 points per model. so its 1320 already. EIther you give up battlion or you have too few hearthguards.

However, yesterday I invented a tactics that might beat Skaven Skryre to ashes.

List is still Fyreslayers with 30/30 Hearthgurads and Lord of Lodge Battlion. However I dont put any Berserkers, I put 10 Gryph-Hounds stand next to our center circle.

SO no matter how Skaven popup, it is consider as setup and will immediately trigger the Hearthguards formation to shot with their one weapon (melton stone of cause). I believe the special effect can even trigger more than once if you have more than one Gryph Hounds.
Also the Lord of Lodge still prevent Sakven from a double turn so they will not be able to setup 10' away from dogs and use a double turn to move and shot.




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 Bottle wrote:
Surely the best counter is something like Skybourne Slayers. You keep most your army up in the air, keep some on the board to start scoring objectives. That forces the Skaven player to bring everything up. Now you can bring your stuff down when you want to take him out.

Note - I am not a top flight player anything but in fact! But that seems like a theoretical counter.

@Ninth, yeah I am being vague. I didn't go to Warlords. Maybe someone who did can chip in and comment either way.

I am not sure about Skybornslayers, I think it is even more expansive than Skaven fire. A gourp of that will cost 100 (Lord) + 320 (Judicators) + Librators (200) + Battlion (140) + Paladins (400+). That is 1160 point already with all minimal size. SO you also only have one chance to hault everything. (In the formation description you have to get down all the units at once)
No matter what you have in the remaining army on table (even you spread them widely is no use, a covern group can actually cover more than 30' of battle fileds 7'+7'+8'+8'). The Skaven can use one covern group to kill them while another group still underneath. When you force to launch your Skyborn slayers, the other covern might then can come out.

It might be possible to have another Hammerstrike Force Battlion besides this Skyborn (600 ponts minimal). The problem of Hammerstrike is it's little bit unstable. The Prosecutors used as pilot will be killed without any doubts . If the Procecutors are killed, then Paladin has to charge 9' which might fail and will destroy everything you planned.