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Like the title says, I'm getting my rear handed to me repeatedly by a mob of 30 Tzaangors, and so far nothing works! I've tried shooting (the math says 1 Tzaangor should die to an average Judicator volley, and that's proven to be the case). I've tried hitting them (both Liberators with a 2+ save and Protectors with 4 Starsoul Maces have just vanished as soon as they touch them). I've tried chopping them (even Decimators charging a densely packed unit can't put a dent in them). I've even tried stalling them (Those 2+ save Protectors lasted 3 whole turns of combat)! Nothing, at all, works.

Even Skryre Fyre would only remove MOST OF THE UNIT. Yes, what is considered to be the most broken army in the game still can't deal with a single unit if they dump everything into them.

Something is very wrong with this unit.

So, I challenge Dakka to beat an ideally equipped Tzaangor unit with only the tools in the Stormcast arsenal. Thirty models, max great weapons (1 on the leader), max mutants w/ additional weapons, the rest with shields.

Hit the side or edge of the unit. The range on their weapons is 1". That means that at most you're getting 2 lines worth of dudes fighting you (if they space properly, remember their bases are over 1" so they have to zipper to get anyone not in base to base to fight). If you can hit two sides of the unit at the same time that helps because they can't pull from the far side of the unit and they can't dog pile the one unit their engaged with. Dropping them to 26 models before you charge drops their efficiency solidly..

It's not going to be a one-on-one type fight. It's a 480pt unit not counting support they might throw behind it. And one that hits well above it's weight but generally it's defenses are meh. Ideal unit feels like protectors on one side w/maces due to the range of their weapons.

Well on the whole Tzaangor units lack rend aside from their great weapons, so look into Stormcast units that have strong saves, as well as a Lord Castellant. In particular, any dracoth character/unit with the Castellant's buff is going to be very difficult for Tzaangors to damage even with tons of attacks. Also, like most units with tons of attacks Tzaangors fare very poorly against hit penalties--a Lord Relictor and/or Tempestors can both inflict hit penalties on the whole unit and multiple instances will stack, so its not that hard to even give the unit -3 to hit and render it effectively nil in terms of offense.

 Etna's Vassal wrote:
Even Skryre Fyre would only remove MOST OF THE UNIT. Yes, what is considered to be the most broken army in the game still can't deal with a single unit if they dump everything into them.

As a sidenote, if the Skryrefyre player isn't running one of his stormfiend units as shock-gauntlets with lord of war he's doing it wrong, and units like this are exactly why. If the Skryrefyre player does have the gauntlet unit he will rip through Tzaangors with little trouble.

Expensive indeed, it's 540 points. Hit them first and they'll be far worse off. Maybe even hit them two turns in a row. Should be easy enough to bring them to 26 models, for 540 you can bring a lot of punch against them. Can you get them near 20 models or weaker with 5 decimators?

Let's be positive and assume each decimator will reach 8 tzaangors. That's 40 attacks, of which half will hit and damage = 20. 3 of those will bounce off shields (6+) and 3 will bounce off armour (5+, -1). So 14 damage, which is 7 tzaangors. And the the poor decimators die to 6 or 12 (?) great blades with 3 attacks each.

Next wave you'll attack with concussors, buffed with warding lantern. As many of each as you'll accept for this exercise. That combo will likely stop tzaangors from piling in, and +1 or +2 to save rolls, re-rolling 1s will keep the knights going.

Unfortunately the above solutions are all things I have tried, and they all failed. The speed of the Tzaangors, combined with their ability to crank out mortal wounds when they're near my usual opponent's 7 (!) wizards negates any "clever" attempts at out maneuvering them. Yesterday my Lord Celestant was casually deleted by his wizards' spells. Their resilience to shooting (the aforementioned 1 casualty per Judicator volley) makes "thinning them out" a fool's errand. Their gigantic footprint means they can be wherever they want, and you can't escape.

Basically, when they get deployed against Stormcast the game is on easy mode for the Arcanite player, if not outright won.

I guess I'll have to call it quits until GW gets this outright debacle fixed.

If this is an "outright debacle" then you probably should just quit forever.

Also saying you "cant escape" is ridiculous unless you are playing on a 4x4 table. Just deploy with two blocks of dudes in opposite corners and play objectives. If he deploys in the middle then you can double charge him and reduce his attacks by quite a bit.

The above tactics will work if done correctly, if you are looking for something to delete the unit in one turn, then you will be very disappointed. you said even skyre cant kill them, but skyre can kill them in two turns of shooting...

If they're spread out its even easier to implement some of the above recommendations and grind the unit to pieces in tiny chunks....

There is no I win button. It's a strong unit. But can be countered by good play with other solid units. Additionally play scenarios helps too. Also 7 sorcerors is 3.5 mortal wound from the banner. He'd have to roll exceedingly well to drop heros with that ability. I feel at this point you'd rather throw your hands up than figure things out which is fine but don't pretend like it's a problem everyone has.

It sounds like you aren't looking for a solution so much as confirmation that the unit you cannot beat is unbeatable. But it isn't unbeatable, there are a lot of ways to outplay a big blob of Tzaangors. The question becomes are you really interested in doing so?

No, I am interseted in winning one- ONE game against this army, but when you dump every damn attack in your army into a target and they just shrug it off and overrun you, it's pretty effing frustrating. When it happens every week since that friggin' book came out, and one stupid lake of 30 unkillable models is the culprit EVERY TIME, it's infuriating. I tried running 3x5 Judicators, and removed... 3 models. I tried dumping every mortal wound in the army into them. No real effect due to those moronic shields. I tried doing both, plus slamming 2+ save Liberators with Shields AND Protectors with 4 Starsoul Maces into them, with Mystifying Miasma cast on the Tzaangors, and I still lost every single model within three rounds of combat.

I want a way to deal with this problem. The fact that short of taking a hammer to my opponent's models I can't get rid of them has driven me up the wall. The game really loses a lot of it's shine when you try a new tactic against the same target every week and get the exact same result every last time.

I'm frustrated. I enjoyed AoS until this happened. I want to enjoy it again, but with a unit across the table from me every single week that has no weaknesses whatsoever, the game has devolved into "set up the table, roll up scenario, deploy armies, lose the game on turn 2". If that doesn't sound frustrating to you, you have a screw loose.

So yes, if you have an actual solution, I'm all ears. Until then...

Three units of tempestors. Each of them puts a -1 hit penalty on the Tzaangor unit, at -3 to hit they can't do anything regardless of how many attacks they have. The Tempestors fight well enough in melee to clean up from there.

Sheilds only stop 1 mortal wound in 6. Consider a unit of 10 retributors with just hammers (no maces) with the lord celestant on foot command ability drop out 14 mortal wounds when they attack it doesn't seem like you should have a problem. That's 6 dead dudes before you do any of the other hitting. And as soon as the shields go down that number goes up. And if you're hitting a flank you're taking relatively low damage output back.

I'm sorry man. I'm just not seeing how you can't counter this. I've got a 1500pt army that I've put together knowing I'll face this unit supported by at least 2 units of skyfires and some sorceror support. And I'm pretty sure I'll do fine against it. Especially since you can now deepstrike, priestly teleport, banner throw, and so on and so on.

*Deep breath.*

First off, thanks for the tips, and sorry about the angryrants earlier.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I'm sorry man. I'm just not seeing how you can't counter this. I've got a 1500pt army that I've put together knowing I'll face this unit supported by at least 2 units of skyfires and some sorcerer support. And I'm pretty sure I'll do fine against it. Especially since you can now deepstrike, priestly teleport, banner throw, and so on and so on.

We're playing 2k pts., and my opponent buffs the hell out of the Tzaangors, makes them immune to battleshock, and then just runs them forward. They have a 4+, re-rollable save (1s, 2s, & 3s) plus the shield. The stupid things also have 2 wounds. He has a magic item on 2 of his wizards that, whenever he spends a fate die he can roll a die and on a 6 he gets the fate die back. 2 wizards with the things means 2 rolls each time. He also has a spell that generates fate dice. This means that as long as he doesn't waste his fate dice, he's at or very close to 9 at all times. He screens his flanks with Pink Horrors, giving him excellent uses for any 1s he rolls for fate dice. Basically, you must delete the unit or it will come back (and if you're trying to delete them, the Tzaangors are moving in unmolested). He has some battalion that lets him cast extra spells when he rolls doubles. He has 2 of the Tzaangor wizards on discs. Finally he has 3 units of Skyfires and a Thaumaturge. I'm pretty sure he has another battalion, but I don't have his actual army list here in front of me.

Now, I've thought about taking 10 Retributors with 2 maces (that's what I own) and backing them up with 2 Lords Celestant (one the General with the ability that lets both Lords use their Command Abilities) and 2 Lord Relictors (to try to force prayers to go through), casting "Bless Weapon" on the paladins, and watching them smash (both the hammers and Bless Weapon will simultaneously trigger on 4s), but the Mortal Wounds that get cranked out by my opponent make me think that a 440 point unit would be a waste.

As far as Tempestors... I hate the models, so I don't own any, but I may look at ebay. Dropping $200 on something I'm not a fan of the looks of just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. That said, if that's the only solution, that's the only solution.

Relictor can also stack hit penalties, albeit on a 3+. But something like 1 tempestors unit and two Relictor should reliably get at least -2. The nice thing is this tactic works on near any death Star unit, not just Tzaangors. Very few things in the game can handle -3 to hit even if they are buffed to hell.

People have given good solutions. Another solution to look at is trying to use some of the formations you have to blitz down his caster and claim objectives. Tzaangors are fine but those buffs are what make them super strong. Eliminate his ability to cast the re-roll saves, give them arcane shield, etc. and their defense goes way down. You should be able to whittle them down or just avoid them altogether and score points via objectives.

Big scary melee units that all strike in one activation are very powerful in AoS but they lack versatility and mobility. So use that to your advantage. Stormcast have some of the best setup in the game (with deep strike essentially) so you should be able to avoid the big blob.

Also, DO NOT charge in with your whole army split up in 5 or 6 activations. You will get to use one small group and then he can activate the big blob and consolidate attacks into all your models. Maybe try and feed him one small squad a turn and just hold him up. It's boring and sucks to do, but in the end you should be able to win with objective points.

If the Tzeentch player is decently skilled then killing the majority of casters in one go will be nearly impossible. The new battletome gave them some pretty powerful tools to stay alive, and he probably has 10-man acolyte units to bubble wrap them while filling the other two battleline choices.

one unit of 9 vanguard raptors thats 81 shots. Now add Relictor so every 6 rolled is another attack. So on avg (roughly) that over a 100 shots from one unit. thats got to put a hurting on them plus unit is only 480pts

Is your opponent removing Shields first when models die? Regardless of Wounds or Mortal wounds, if those saves fail, those die and then the rest will be much easier to kill.

Yep, the shields die first, just
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That's one of the most frustrating things. When he was talking with me about how frustrated I am by his army and I broke down how the math works so far in his favor, he was actually shocked how tough the unit is even though he had seen it first hand over and over(!).

As far as his casters, they stay out of reach until they are ready to attack, at which point they move just barely into range, assassinate their target, and then they're safe. I have tried to eliminate caster support while tying up the Tzaangors, but I lost that one on objectives as well.

Maybe when the Raptors come out I'll look at them. They'll at least strip the shields off in a single volley.

I watched the Tzaangors die to a unit of Grots with the Moon Banner, shields and nets, and Mystic Shield. Out-grinded the Tzaangors for cheaper while his Arrer Boyz shot the rest of the Tzeentch army to pieces.

The Tzaangor unit is solid, but there is no win button in the game right now.

So there is another option that's become available; use either the Aetherstrike Force or Vanguard Justicar Conclave battalions with Longstrike-Raptors. You can use the aetherwings to 'chump block' the Tzaangors from charging more valuable targets while reliably killing off 1-2 wizards a turn. As an added bonus if you go second and get a double turn you'll basically have the game won right off the bat.

Let's break down the buffs he's giving the unit and see what we can figure out. I don't think he's playing some of these right.

Etna's Vassal wrote: We're playing 2k pts., and my opponent buffs the hell out of the Tzaangors, makes them immune to battleshock, and then just runs them forward. They have a 4+, re-rollable save (1s, 2s, & 3s) plus the shield.

What is the source of this reroll? Warshrine? If so, note that the prayer requires a 3+ to go off. Spell? Consider a Lord-Veritant so you can unbind and Sanction his casters. Is he rerolling the "6" for his shields? If so, remind him that this is not a save.

Etna's Vassal wrote: He has a magic item on 2 of his wizards that, whenever he spends a fate die he can roll a die and on a 6 he gets the fate die back. 2 wizards with the things means 2 rolls each time.

Per the rules of one, abilities from the same source don't stack. While he can take two of the items for redundancy, he can't use both for the same destiny die. He should only be rolling once per destiny die used.

Etna's Vassal wrote: He also has a spell that generates fate dice. This means that as long as he doesn't waste his fate dice, he's at or very close to 9 at all times.

See my previous not about the Lord-Veritant.

Etna's Vassal wrote: He has some battalion that lets him cast extra spells when he rolls doubles. He has 2 of the Tzaangor wizards on discs.

Remember the rules of one. He can't cast the same spell twice in the same turn. Even if a battalion gives him the ability to do so, that only applies to Open Play.

It is key to remember he can't re-roll the shield 'save' since it is not actually a save, which could make a small difference if he is actually doing that.

Re roll saves is from a spell with an 18" range so the veritant would have to be closer to the wizards than the Tzaangors in order to attempt dispelling it. The veritant also dispels only one potential spell a turn, which is a pittance compared to what a dedicated Tzeentch force will throw out. He is hardly a cure to the issue. Rules of one have nothing about ability stacking, and the dice generated is a new fate dice anyway. With lore of Tzeentch, signature spell, arcane bolt and mystic shield he'll have no problem casting extra spells on a double without violating that rule of one.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is key to remember he can't re-roll the shield 'save' since it is not actually a save, which could make a small difference if he is actually doing that.

Re roll saves is from a spell with an 18" range so the veritant would have to be closer to the wizards than the Tzaangors in order to attempt dispelling it. The veritant also dispels only one potential spell a turn, which is a pittance compared to what a dedicated Tzeentch force will throw out. He is hardly a cure to the issue. Rules of one have nothing about ability stacking, and the dice generated is a new fate dice anyway. With lore of Tzeentch, signature spell, arcane bolt and mystic shield he'll have no problem casting extra spells on a double without violating that rule of one.

The Veritant's unbind ability has the same wording as the Mighty Lord of Khorne's collar, and according to the FAQ, he can attempt to unbind any number of spells per turn.

It was updated with the battletome to say one.

Ah. His online rules haven't been updated then.

 EnTyme wrote:
Ah. His online rules haven't been updated then.

It's unfortunate but even the 'new' GW is still wildly inconsistent with updating their digital rules. The app in particular has an eclectic mix of warscrolls that have not been updated since launch (despite being included in printed material), stuff that was updated with a grand alliance book (but not when it was changed in a subsequent battletome), and stuff that is actually current. Suffice it to say I rarely blame anyone for the referencing issues that result.