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Post by Russell on Feb 28, 2014 13:48:36 GMT -6
Dwarfs are upon us and with them come the super exciting and tactically enriching play style of the gun line. Warmachines are a common sight now since a fair number of armies can field them, so, how do you deal with warmachines? To elaborate, how do you eliminate them or what do you do to minimize their damage?
All of my tactics with regards to cannons or other machines can be summed up thusly: "Well, I hope I don't get fucking murdered before I can charge this hellblaster off the board."
Also, for those of you with the audacity to run characters outside of units I have two questions: 1) are you stupid? 2) how do you prevent your character from getting blasted by a laser guided cannonball?
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Post by Nick P on Feb 28, 2014 14:32:16 GMT -6
I love thwarting war machines, so so much, because it isn't that hard, but you feel like a god damn genius when it works. Also, though war machines are rarely that expensive, for some reason a lot of the opponents army tends to rely on them being effective.
There are a few tried and true tactics for dealing with them, from flat out ignoring them while they misfire to dedicating combat units specifically to take them out, but my favorite way to deal with them is with lone characters and/or monsters.
The pros to this strategy: you only dedicate a relatively small amount of your army to dealing with the warmachine, vs an entier block of troops or what have you. You also have a dedicated target for that character/monster, so your decision making isn't clouded in that regard. Characters and monsters will also (almost ALWAYS) cut through a warmachine in a single round of combat, freeing them up to either charge another or help out with the main battle.
The cons: characters and monsters can be expensive, and those points are extremely vulnerable when it comes to a cannon shot. Dedicating a monster typically also involves dedicating a LD baby sitter, so it doesnt become stupid or flee. Finally, the main defense of most monsters/characters, higher than average T and Armor, are negated entirely by most war machines.
A character with a lot of movement - either flying, or on fast cav, or ambushing - is ideal. Getting to the warmachine fast is key, so that at most the weapons only have 1 turn to shoot at you.
Using magic items to their best use is important - 4+ wards are amazing, as are negating the first hit on a 2+. Combined with the "lots of movement" above, the ward or charmed shield should easily deal with that first turn of shooting.
Finally, target saturation is key. Have one flying character flying towards the warmachines? Good news, its going to be sniped hard by everything within range. Have 2 characters and a monster? Well shit, now the opponent has to make a decision, and even if he manages to kill off one of these enemies he isn't going to be saving his gun line from destruction.
In my WoC army, this role is filled by a hero on a disc with a ward save, a daemon prince with wings and the charmed shield, and a chimeara with regeneration.
In my Lizardmen army, this role is filled by skink chiefs on teradons/ripperdactyls with wards/charmed shield, as well as single saurus heroes on cold ones to flank the enemy quickly.
In my tomb kings, this role is filled with ambushing tomb scorpions and scouting fast cav, as well as a hero on a magic carpet (bc arabia and tomb kings, duh).
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