Archnomad's Skaven vs. TheLieutenant's High Elves.

So folks, sorry for the lack of activity lately, but I've had a busy weekend. I'm absolutely shattered right now, so the coherence of this post may suffer a little because of it, but I bring you a Batrep to sate your lust for Warhammer related chatter. I feel this was a good game to report because it swung a few times and it was damn close. Personally I reckon I had it at the end and threw it away, you'll see what I mean.

So the armies. I was using my MSU skaven army from the blog. I was against;
Teclis
Korhil
2 Units of 25 Spears w/FC
20 White Lions w/FC and Flaming Banner (Teclis went here)
20 Phoenix Guard w/FC and champ has Skeinsliver
15/16 Swordmasters w/FC and Banner of Sorcerery

It's a fun list. And by fun I mean it has Teclis in it and should be burnt at the stake. But anyway, sizing up this army my amazing powers of clairvoyance foretold my Seer being nabbed by Dwellers. Otherwise I shouldn't have too many problems if I can get enough redirection done. So, this is how we deployed. We were playing Dawn Attack so our deployment was kind of haphazard. I have to apologise for the mass of grey and some metal, but our armies are new for 8th ed (except my slaves but there's over 100 of them and I can't be bothered right now) so we haven't gotten round to painting them yet. There are a few proxies as I'm just finishing off the army, and I don't want to build Plagueclaw Catapults before I test them. Now I just don't want to build them. Anyway! Here's how we deployed:

On the skaven side,the three big long units at the front are slaves. Behind the slaves are giant rats, all 3 stormvermin units with weapon teams, all my artillery (I rolled a lot of 3-5s) a unit of jezzails, another unit of jezzails in the "jungle". Behind the forest is another proxied Plagueclaw, and the forward units are obviously gutter runners. My Warlock had Warp Lightning, my seer had Skitterleap, Scorch, Plague and the 13th.

The High Elves are much easier to explain, having 5 units. Closest to the camera is the white lions with teclis, then spearmen, then another spearmen unit, then the Phoenix Guard. Behind the Phoenix Guard are the Swordmasters (don't you hate Dawn Attack?)

TURN ONE

In the first High Elf turn, the entire army marched forward, and in the magic phase Teclis managed to get off 3 irresistables. He got off Throne of Vines, Flesh to Stone on his White Lions, killed some slaves with Awakening, 5 dice'd an irresistable Dwellers on to a WLC. What a wanker.

In my turn not much movement happened. I was pretty well set as far as redirection went, but I moved my seer up in to range to get the Alpha strike on teclis, hopefully I could Warp Lightning/Scorch/Plague the lions and then 5/6 dice a 13th into the unit and get Teclis. I moved my gutter runners around to avoid charges, but stay in range. Sadly in my magic phase I rolled 4 dice. I used 3 dice on scorch and it was dispelled, and I cast Warp Lightning (somehow) on one dice and did absolutely nothing.

However in my shooting phase I sort of made up for it. See, I had a weapon suited for taking out T7 white lions. It was a Brace of Poisoned Wind Mortars. The first one scattered and killed one. However the second got a hit and took out nine! Victory dance ho. Everything else pretty much flopped though. A plagueclaw blew itself up, and my gutter runners killed a spearman and a phoenix guard. Also, a jezzail picked off a white lion.

TURN TWO

So the Elves bravely marched up again, almost in contact with a fair few of my skaven units. Teclis gets off flesh to stone (irresistably), I dispel regrowth on the lions, he gets earthblood off on them though. He also gets Dwellers off on my slave unit housing the Grey Seer. He kills 11 slaves and my seer. What a wanker. Finally he Awakening's a WFT and my slaves run off the board.

So out march my redirectors!

I did some reforming, my gutter runners play about with charge arcs again (they never failed a LD test to not march, seriously). My warlock engineer moves up to get in doomrocket range of some spearmen (14" is my preferred range).

I use 5 dice on warp lightning, which is dispelled. I use 3 dice to remove throne of vines. My doomrocket kills 9 spearmen, my warpfire thrower however makes about double its points up by frying 16 spearmen (surprise muthafucka! ) from the unit near Teclis. My Poisoned Wind Globadiers join in the fun and kill another one, while my Catapult kills a spearman and 2 phoenix guard. Jezzails kill a swordmaster, and my gutter runners kill 3. The swordmasters panic and run off the board! Result! The phoenix guard however don't care and stand firm.

TURN THREE

In the High Elf turn the spearman charge into a warlock engineer, the white lions hurtle into the giant rats and the phoenix guard charge the jezzails in the forest. The other spearmen however fail their charge, which is good.

In the Elf magic phase Teclis gets off dwellers and kills 8 stormvermin. I dispel regrowth. The phoenix guard win the combat against the Jezzails, fail their overrun horribly and are still in the jungle. The slaves however panic and bolt off the board. The spearmen kill the engineer and overrun about 3" or something. The White Lions kill the giant rats and (this was this turn's theme) overrun about a centimetre. However the death of the giant rats touches the stormvermin and shocks them to the core, and they run off the board. This became a recurring theme.

In my turn my gutters again move around, otherwise it's pretty much clean up at this point, or so I thought. I march out some more redirectors (the pic is me redirecting the spearmen, the hand isn't mine).

My slaves kill nothing, my jezzails pop a lion, my gutters kill of a phoenix guard, my WFT kills 2 more lions, and now Teclis is in major trouble, as there were now only 4 white lions, the champion and teclis left in the unit (he's using the IoB model as Teclis, it looks better).

Feels good man.

So with that bugger dead I ended my turn.

TURN FOUR

For the High Elves the spearmen charged into my (now redirectory) unit of 2 stormvermin. The phoenix guard charged into the (redirectory) gutter runners, the spearmen charged the (redirectory) warlock engineer. The spearmin kill the stormvermin and overrun into the flank of a slave block. The other spearmen kill the engineer and overrun into a Poisoned Wind Mortar and the phoenix guard kill all the gutter runners.

In my turn my BSB walks in front of the Phoenix Guard to buy my army some time to pull itself together. Irritatingly I mispositioned him so he was within 6" of my Warp Lightning Cannon. That was a mistake. By the way that horse is a Poisoned Wind Mortar!

My Warpfire thrower fires into the spearmen on the flank of the slaves and kills them all, as well as 8 slaves. The Warp Lightning Cannon nabs a pair of phoenix guard (those things are so damn hard to kill!) and the spearmen kill my Plague Wind Mortar/

TURN FIVE

The Phoenix Guard charge my BSB (oh damn). The spears charge my gutter runners (yay redirects!). In combat the spearmen kill my gutter runners to one guy, but they don't catch him (Scurry away saves the day!). The phoenix guard hack my BSB down in cold blood, and overrun. My WLC panics (argh!) and dies. Grand. Looking at that pile (it's a collective dead pile) I could just feel "draw" coming along. Haha.

In my turn my gutter runner flees, panicking my Warpfire thrower (which flees). However in my shooting phase my plagueclaw catapult kills 6 spearmen (the best it's done all game). The Jezzails kill another 2, and the gutter runners kill one. My poisoned wind globadiers finish that unit off, leaving just the phoenix guard. They fail their panic (hurrah!) and run back a bit.

TURN SIX
The Phoenix Guard rally.

The globadiers kill one and the slaves kill 2.

So that's game folks. I feel I underestimated the resilience of the Phoenix Guard, and should have spent the last few turns running away rather than trying to kill them, cause I could have won then. Regardless it was a good game, it definitely swung, and I had a great time. Of course, had I passed my Dwellers strength check on my seer it could have been very different! Kudos to TheLieutenant for giving me a good game. (:

The end result: Draw. Damn good game I say.

I'm the one on the left. We were both quite hysterical by this point, enough sugar and alcohol will do that to anyone I feel. Check out my neckbeard. If it's any consolation to you I've shaved by now. And showered. Ugh.

Photogrophy done by Russel Coid. Our resident racist (but not really) Wise Chinese Hydra. I honestly feel bad for putting this picture on here but he insisted.

Finally, here's myself and Clayman reminiscing on our game earlier that day, where his Lizards soundly beat up my Skaven. As ever, our signs summarise our feelings toward the game. I might make that a recurring thing.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article! There's more to come, I have those same Lizards vs Tomb Kings, and a mini report of myself vs Clayman.

Stay Classy.

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A Matter of Life and Death. Part One.

Hej folks. Here today for yet another magic article. This time the infamous Lore of Life, and the Lore of Death ft. the infamous Purple Sun of Xereus. These lores have worked up quite a reputation for themselves. Personally I'm of the opinion that Life is the best of the BRB lores. So, to the spellbooks!

Article One is Lore of Life and Article Two is Lore of Death. So, to the forest!

The Lore of Life
LA: Lifebloom *****
This is a spell you want to build up slowly on the tanks, or if you're on raid healing spread around the raid- Wait what? WHFB? Oh sorry. This is your lore attribute. It is awesome. In my opinion one of the reasons the Lore of Life is so damn good. Every time you cast a life spell you get a wound back. This goes very well in a friend's Lizardmen army with an EotG, an Ancient and a Slann (who, because of this effect is immortal, by the way). It's good because you don't even need to work to get this effect off. Watch Warrior Priests glower at you in envy. Seriously, this is one of the reasons the lore is so god damn good. Always remember to use this.

#0 Earth Blood ***
WOW, another warcraft joke (ho ho!). This spell isn't cast often because it works only on the wizard's unit. And you do not want your wizard in combat. However this is another brownie point towards Slann using the lore as they can happily sit in their T8 regenerating shield of thornsing regrowing temple guard unit, while remaining safe from retaliation. So if you're a combat caster or a Slann, fantastic. Otherwise gtfo. Shout out to Brettonia here, who can make effective use of this within their knight units. OH NO WAIT A SECOND IT DOESN'T STACK WITH WARD SAVES. Ugh, that's one of the main reasons I dislike this spell. Too hard to cast for what it does imo.

#1 Awakening of the Wood ***
This spell is Not Safe For Work. It's best cast in the morning. I'm actually just trying to fill space. It's a magic missile, what can you complain about? I mean, it only has an 18" range but it has a nifty little condition to hit harder. So erm, cool? However this spell becomes absolutely brutal with Throne of Vines up. Very easy to cast.

#2 Flesh to Stone ****
This spell kicks arse. It's not 5 stars in this article just by comparison. And the fact it can sometimes be no help at all, for example if they already wound on 6s (I laugh at people who cast it on monsters to make them T10, when the monster is in combat). However, if an infantry v infantry slugfest is occurring, then this spell, even without throne of vines will usually push your opponent to wounding you on at least a 6. With throne of vines it's almost guaranteed. Very good spell for buying yourself time or swinging a combat in your favour. Also very easy to cast.

#3 Throne of Vines *************
Over rated? Yes. Honestly I feel the best thing about this spell is what it does to regrowth. It turns it from a few models in to a rank resurrecting monster. The second most important is bumping Shield of Thorns up to S4. After that it makes Flesh to Stone T4 (which I find is better vs shooting than vs close combat, as heavy shooting is usually high/good strength) in addition to making Earthblood a 4+ and raising Awakening of the Wood to S6, which is nice admittedly. This spell is fantastic and you should get it on every life wizard you have, by any means necessary. It just raises your magic to a whole new level. Absolutely no reason to not have this running, and if you have a Slann/powerful wizard and your opponent dispels this in their own turn, you should absolutely recast this all the time.

#4 Shield of Thorns ****
Sleeper hit of the lore. This is probably a 4.5 if that exists. It's not a powerhouse spell. It's just damn damn damn good. This spell is underrated, and very very powerful. It's a magic missile that works every magic phase, as long as whatever you cast it on is in combat. I've seen this take units down, over a scarily short period of time. It's brutal because most people let it through then forget to dispel it. You should always have this running if you have it. Awesome spell in an awesome lore.

#5 Regrowth *****
Yeah, this spell. Now let me say, it's not very good without Throne of Vines. It's not bad, just not good. With Throne of Vines up however this spell is awesome. D6+1 models back for 3 dice is a kickass deal on elite units like White Lions and Temple Guard, as well as stuff like Bloodletters. It's a very good spell and tends to be the key factor in making elite armies with lore of life so hard to shift. That and Lifebloom. Not much to say about it, other than it's very good. It also works well on ogre sized things, remember that.

#6 The Dwellers Below *****
This spell is good for clearing out hordes. It's good for taking out small elite units (like Black Guard and such). But most of all, yeah most of all, it's best for assassinating wizards. I'm sure you've all discovered that. This is one of those spells that doesn't need much explanation. It's as subtle as a (primal concrete) sledgehammer and it does it's job admirably. Almost always worth the extra range.

So in general, the average rating of the Lore of Life is 4.375. It is in my opinion one of the best lores in the game, and definitely the best lore for high elves, wood elves, bretonnians, chaos daemons and lizardmen. It just suits elite armies down to the ground. It has everything. Honestly, it's pretty point and click. Use spells where they're effective, assassinate wizards with dwellers, and keep your life wizard near multi wound models and you'll do fine.

Next magic article is the Lore of Death, of course.

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2k Wood Elf Army Request: Trees for Brother Loring.

So just a quick post, it's a Tree Army at request for a friend, Brother Loring. I'll put a brief word on why I picked the units I did after each one.

Macbeth's Hell.

Lord
Spellweaver
Level 4
Wand of Wych Elm
Dragonbane Gem
Lore of Life
310

This guy is awesome at dispelling, and knows the lore of consecrated winsauce that is Life. What's not to love here?

Heroes
Noble
Asyendi's Bane
Hail of Doom Arrow
Battle Standard Bearer
130

Bog standard wood elf BSB. What's not to love here either?

Core
14 Dryads
168

14 Dryads
168

14 Dryads
168

Trees! Trees! Realistically, dryads are awesome combat troops, with a rock solid I6, WS4, T4, S4, and a 5+ ward. Oh and 2A each. Oh and they cause fear. They're skirmishers which means no ranks, but in Killtacular 8th edition they should be ok as long as they don't bite off too much, and combo charge, in true wood elf fashion. Or they go in with magical support.

Special
8 Treekin
520

The muscle. This block is terrifying. Nuff said really, 24 S5 attacks, T5 etc. It's very killy, and works as a good anvil to put in the middle.

8 Wardancers
Musician
151

Character bunker. Don't be afraid to boot the characters out if you need these guys to go somewhere unsafe for the characters though. Good in close combat, good on a flank, but you want your BSB near CC you might not win, so position these wisely. They're cheap enough to use as a reserve troop.

Rare
Treeman
285

It's a treeman. Do you really need an explanation? He adds to every phase of the game. What more do you want? Oh, he's also awesome with life magic.

Great Eagle
50

Great Eagle
50

Warmachine and (very) light unit hunters. Also good redirectors and general nuisances. Good unit

So there you have it BroLo, that's my take on tree heavy woodies for 8E. I should say, this probably isn't the ultimate or even penultimate wood elf list, but if you want tree heavy, looks pretty and beginner friendly, I'd run something like this. Not to say this list doesn't have teeth though ^^.

Hope you enjoy the list.

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All Along the Watchtower.

Righty. Going to start with Scenarios, and I'm gonna dive in the deep end. Watchtower. This scenario is irritatingly one sided. However I'll talk you all through how to make the most of it. Basically bring an army like WoC. But anyway.

For those of you that haven't worked it out yet, Watchtower revolves around a Watchtower. This means the first thing you should know is the rules for buildings, inside and out. So I'm gonna talk you through that.

First off, and this is important. Only one unit can be inside a building. I know a lot of you are going "duh", but some of the things I have seen... In addition, if you wish to leave a building, you must have at least one model in your back rank touching the building. That means you basically just place the unit next to the building. All nice and clear so far, yeah?

Irritatingly, anything template oriented (magic and shooting) does D6 hits on a unit inside a building. For cannons, great. For plagueclaw catapults, boo! However you pretty much have to grin and bear it. Bolt Throwers and the like hit one model.

If you are shooting from within a building, you have a 360 degree Line of Sight. You always measure from the closest point of the building, even that little griffon on a stick tied to a weather vane poking out the side. If you're shooting at troops within a building they're in hard cover. Sup.

Ok combat. Ugh, I hate fighting in buildings. The extra fun part is that you can only assault it in your turn, because you move out after combat has been fought. Also, you can only hold or stand and shoot. You each pick 10 models to fight, who get "step up", meaning you always have 10 models to fight. You get no charge bonuses. The unit in the building is always steadfast. The only CR you can get in a building is a Musician and kills.

If the defender loses he leaves the building and you can move in. If you lose then oh well. You don't have to take a rout. A lot of people forget this, it's important. There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief. However hopefully you guys are starting to see why this is such a fun scenario for me. Especially against WoC and High Elves and stuff.

Ok, now we all know how to work a Watchtower.

So, how to win at Watchtower? Ugh. Basically the scenario revolves around one person starting with a core unit of 20 or less models in a Watchtower, which goes in the center of the board. The other person 5/6 times goes first and has to try take it off them. The winner is whoever has the Watchtower when the game ends. There's a random game length thing thrown in there too, just to make it even more "super fun".

So, tactics. Ok, first off, whether or not you want to attack or defend. Well, most often you'd want to defend. However, myself for example, against WoC, I actually find it easier to attack in watchtower. Here's what I can say.

If your army has kickass close combat troops with high LD, who can butcher face in CC (White Lions, Chaos Warriors, Temple Guard) then you want to start with the watchtower. You hold turn one, move out turn 2 and move your big elite unit in. If you're chaos warriors put your hardest to shift unit (MoTz with hand weapon and shield?) in the watchtower at the start of the game, and laugh as they try to get rid of it. Your tactics on the defense are just stop people going near the watchtower. If you're nowhere near being budged by turn 4, there's a good chance you've won. Armies like this do really well in Watchtower.

If you're on the offense, then you should set up your biggest, hardest, most groundpounding unit opposite the watchtower, and charge it in the first turn. From there, your goal is to cordon off the tower, so they can't interrupt the sacking of their objective. Ideally, you want to have it by turn 4. You never want to be not attacking the tower. It is the only victory condition, remember that.

If you play a shooty and magic heavy army, then this scenario (on offense) doesn't change your tactics much. What you need to do is shoot and magic them out the building, while not letting any units get near the tower. Sounds hard, in reality it's quite easy. You do need something to take the tower with though. For me that's usually slaves on turn 3 or 4. But for armies like this, watchtower is very very hard. Your big goal is to get the unit out of the building and get one of your units in it turn 4. That means you have 3 turns to get the unit out the building, in addition to making sure they don't leave and put another enemy unit in it. Starting to see what kind of army this scenario favours? However, it's doable, you just need to pour a lot of firepower in to the tower. I find magic works best, especially spells like Plague.

On the defensive it's not much better. You get to start with a unit in the tower, which you usually lose by turn 2, and are then playing offensive. It's really not good, which is why against most armies I opt to play the attacker. Because it's easier to play "Take the tower" than it is to play "Lose the tower then take the tower". So play aggressive if you can.

If you're playing a horde army with no real big hitters, against an elite army, just ragequit. Seriously. Nah, I have no experience with hordes in watchtower, so I don't feel I should give any. But I can't think of any decent horde armies anyway. No offense goblins. You'll suffer all the problems of the shooty army described above.

So general tips and tricks for Watchtower...

• As I'm sure you've picked up by now, try and take the Watchtower on turn 3 or 4. It gives your opponent less time to try and get it off you.
• This scenario you really can ignore the flanks. Just try and control the center of the board, and act as some kind of blockade so your opponent can't "relieve the siege" on his tower. In your endo.
• With that said, try and set up long ranged units far away from the tower, so if your opponent wants to deal with them, he'll have to basically take his unit out of the game. This is an easy game for artillery, it goes unmolested pretty much.
• Random turn limit sucks. Luck can decide this scenario. Ending on Turn 4 isn't cool, or enough time for a game.
• Magic is usually the best thing for clearing tough infantry from a tower. Dreaded 13th is ace for this. So are other similar spells.
• This scenario is heavily stacked towards elite armies.
• You don't get ranks in the building, and can only place core units of up to 20 models in there. This doesn't mean you can't move your core unit out and replace it with 30 grave guard with the drakenhof banner and your general.

So there we go folks. Hopefully this provided some insight. Again, I had to cut the length down, but hopefully you all learned something about watchtower. My tactic is Turns 1-3 establish board control. Turns 4-6, take the tower.  Of course you should be assaulting the tower turn 1, but it shouldn't be your main interest.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article.

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Skaven Magic. Ruin, Plague and The Dreaded 13th.

So at request from my last thread, I'm starting on magic. However, I'm doing the Skaven lores as I can do them quickly, because I know them pretty well. Skaven magic is pretty point and click, the most difficult part being knowing what lore to take versus most opponents. So, a nice quick overview of the lores is in order I think

We'll start with ruin. A quick overview, from the name people would expect this to be the more destructive lore of the two, but I honestly find it does less damage than plague, with the only real big hitter being Scorch. Crack's call is quite situational but has the potential to be absolutely brutal (Slann, Hydras, Stegadons, anything I2 or lower like Dwarfs, War Machines etc). So, the spells.

*note: When I say how many dice to use for each spell, I'm referring to the grey seer having his +4.

THE LORE OF RUIN - Fear, Hatred, Power. This is the art of Ruin.

#1 Skitterleap**
This spell has been with Skaven for a while now. What it does is teleports one infantry model to someplace on the board. It doesn't work on weapon teams, cause that'd be batshit crazy. As is, the only person who can swap for this spell is the Grey Seer and even then, he should be swapping for The Dreaded 13th. As such this spell gets very little use. I don't really find this spell useful, and if you roll it, I'd swap it. Exceptions being if you're bringing things like the Brass Orb or some shenanigans, but I don't. So I don't use this. If you have a character you need to get close to use something then feel free to utilise it though. If it's not important you get it off (then why are you wasting dice on it?) then use one dice. If it is then use two.

#2 Warp Lightning****
Another skaven classic. It has quite the reputation from the last army book. However it's been toned down considerably. It's a good spell for your warlock engineer(s) to have, and I quite like it with the Warp Energy Condenser. Simple spell, point and click damage. Cast it on two dice. Three if you have one spare.

#3 Howling Warpgale*
Ugh. This spell is pretty god damn bad. It's one and only use (in my opinion) is to stop flyers. You should swap this if you can, unless you roll this and skitterleap on your seer and your opponent has a big flyer like a dragon. (Don't) Cast it on 2 dice.

#4 Death Frenzy***
Ok, here we have a spell that's not that bad, it just really doesn't fit with my army, as the casualties will most often cause a panic in most of my units. However in a list with some nice big blocks it can be pretty potent. On 50 slaves in a 10 ranks of 5 formation for example, it can turn them in to a unit that can actually throw a punch. However otherwise the casualties from this spell tend to be too severe, seeing as you can't cancel it. Good for last ditch attempts at killing things, if you're unit is gonna die anyway. Cast this on 2 dice. As ever, +1 if it's important. In fact, I'm going to state this now, depending on how important a spell is to get off, add extra dice at your discretion. I'm sure you all knew that though.

#5 Scorch*****
Ah, now we're talking. This spell gets 20 hits on a unit of twenty 20mm models. It's S4 (which is good) and automatically causes a panic test. Awesome! Isn't this just that fire spell from the BRB? What? In MY army book? NO! This is cast much easier and doesn't scatter. Admittedly there's no big blast option. However this spell is still fantastic against ranked infantry, and not bad against skirmishers. If your seer rolls this I'd almost always take it. Cast this spell on 3 dice to get it off reliably.

#6 Crack's Call****
Hurm. Situational spell is situational. Against some armies this spell is amazing. Lizardmen and Dwarfs. I'd take this spell against armies with low initiative models you would otherwise struggle to kill. Honestly, I contemplate it and seriously consider it against dark elves, just to get rid of hydras. Your mileage may vary on this one, if you're fighting stuff with low initiative and high cost models it's one to consider. Cast this on 3 dice to get it off reliably.

Ok there we go. Now, on to the second (and in my opinion, better) lore.

THE LORE OF PLAGUE - Rotting Organs, Ripping, Grinding.

#1 Pestilient Breath**
Huh. If this worked using the teardrop in combat it'd be awesome. If it used the normal Breath Weapon in combat rules, it'd be ok. As is, in combat, this sucks unless you're fighting withered knights or something. However, this spell kicks serious arse on a Verminlord, who can get some sweet shots with it due to M8. Cast this spell on 1 dice if you have it spare, 2-3 dice if you have a good shot lined up.

#2 Bless With Filth***
Why oh why don't you work on ranged attacks? Oh well, anyway. Pretty much anything in my army I want in combat already has poison. However, on some units like big units of giant rats, or death frenzy'd slaves this can be an alright spell. The big hubba hubba is of course plague monks. This cast on a unit of those bad boys is just frightening. It's also very cheap and easy to cast for what it does (as are all Army Book lores, except beasts). Great spell for throwing a dice or two at, but don't hesitate to get rid of it if your army looks like mine. Cast on 1 dice if you have it spare, otherwise use 2.

#3 Wither*****
Holy mother. This spell is amazing. Seriously, this spell and plague are the main reasons I roll on this lore. This spell it just. It just. Man. It wouldn't be a bad cast even if it only lasted a turn. But it doesn't. It's freaking permanent. Cast this on units you will have a hard time downing, or units you're about to cast plague on/shoot with catapults. It's not a complicated spell, just a damn good one. I wouldn't cast it on anything that you don't expect to be around for a while, so you get the most mileage out of it. Cast this on 2 dice. I usually go with 3 however, because people love to dispel this.

#4 Vermintide***
Oh so you want to play MSU do you? Say hi to this spell. Honestly, this spell is amazing against MSU. Easy to cast for what it does and what it can do. Someone once made the mistake of leaving their wizards out of units while I had rolled this. Haha, good times. It tends to only do about 3 wounds or so though, so you really do need to maximise what you're hitting. 10 Man missile units, fast cavalry, skirmishers, single characters. That kind of thing is what you should be aiming for. Good spell, I like it. Cast this on 2 or 3 dice. Most don't bother to dispel it. Oh and bear in mind the template is 5" in diameter, so add that to your 4D6.

#5 Cloud of Corruption**
In traditional bigblockhammer skaven this spell can kick some serious arse. In an all pestilens army this spell would probably kick major arse. In MSU, this spell blows mighty chunks because you end up hurting yourself more than your enemy. In short however, I don't like this spell. It spells death for weapon teams and small units. I do however like it on my Verminlord when I'm playing that army. Very much a YMMV spell, but I'd recommend against it if you have any weapon teams in your army. Cast it on 3 dice to get it off reliably.

#6 Plague*****
The namesake of the lore, and this thing damn well lives up to it. It destroys most big block units. Well by destroy I mean halves. And thirds some others. But when you combine this spell with wither it gets sick. What's really nasty though is how easy it is to cast. You can happily 3 dice this with a Seer/Verminlord but I'd always use 4. Wither leading in to this works wonders. Not much to say about this spell, it's fairly point and click. Go for big units, or good armour saves. It has a c-c-combo with wither, and NEVER forget the bounce!

THE DREADED 13TH - O Fortuna. Delut Luna.*************
The spell. You have around a 50% (slightly higher) chance of casting this on 6 dice with a level 4. What to say about this spell? Well tell you what, here's some good targets it can reliably destroy on a single casting. Temple Guard with Slann. Black Guard. Any small unit with a character. Any unit with a stupidly good save (chosen deathstar). Why? Because this ignores all saves and kills around 14 models. It's a great way to destroy an opposing enemy wizard. The tactical nuke of WHFB. Another point and click spell. Go for the biggest and most expensive thing you can, or go for something that'll win you the game (troops in the watchtower in watchtower). Don't be afraid to power scroll this, as you will most likely make your points back if you're going for a unit with a character. Also, vampire counts HATE this spell. Hur hur hur. Cast it on 6 dice to even have a shot at casting it. If you want to see it every game, bring a power scroll.


There we are folks. Hopefully this will give you a nice overview of Skaven Magic. I had to leave out some things, as it ended up being pretty long, but hey what you gonna do? The next lore I'm going to do will probably be life.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article!
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Are You Not Entertained!?

So then folks, as much as reaching out to people, barring other bloggers, on blogs is usually a bad idea, I have a question I need to know. What would you, the thriving fanbase *ahem* that reads my blog, and blogs in general, want from a WHFB blog? More tactics? List building? Rule explanations? Whatever.

You see it is my dream to turn this blog in to a hub of WHFB activity. I know that's a long road, more winding than the travel route of a jefferson aeroplane. More winding than a twizzler. More winding than one of those sticks that look like they have multiple ends but actually have one. It's a distant glimmer from where I am now. But I will get there.

And so I turn to you, what do you want from me? What is it, you WHFB blogging enthusiasts would like to read about? At the moment i'm just going with general fantasy, nothing too in depth. Enlighten me.

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The 2k MSU Skaven Shooting Army MK I.I

So, without further ado, here's the latest take on the MSU skaven shooty army of shooty skaven death.

Lord
Grey Seer
Power Stone
275

Tried and tested to work, I don't even mind losing him to miscast if I get 13th off on something big. Like any unit with the opposing general in it. Especially if that play also removes the enemy magic phase, and that's almost guaranteed to make my seer's points back.

Heroes
Chieftan
Battle Standard Bearer
70

He's a BSB. Don't you have one?

Warlock Engineer
Doomrocket
Level 1 Wizard
Warp Energy Accumulator
115

BOOM SHAKKA LAKKA LAKKA. Nah seriously, I love this bit of kit. I usually go for 4 dice, and with premeasuring I make sure he's exactly 14" away. As a leadbelcher once said "BOOM! Hur hur hur...". And as to him getting upgraded to a wizard, well I decided that D6+2 S5 hits every turn was better than a unit of Jezzails. He also gives me something to do when my Seer is busy being out of range.

Warlock Engineer
15

Warlock Engineer
15

These guys are here to annoy people. It works to be honest, but I agree I did have too many last time.

Core
10 Stormvermin
Standard
Warpfire Thrower
150

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Warpfire Thrower
150

10 Stormvermin
Standard
Poisoned Wind Mortar
145

With the shiny new catapults I think the 3rd Poisoned Wind Mortar is too much, so opted for a second Warpfire Thrower. If it ends up being less useful I'll just replace it, again. Admittedly though I'm tempted to try a ratling gun, because as I said in my shooting article you do still need BS reliant shooting.

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

20 Slaves
Slings
Musician
52

Cheap chaff redirectors that can shoot and swift reform if need be.

5 Giant Rats
Packmaster
23

Cheaper chaff redirectors.

Special
5 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
Poisoned Wind Mortar
115

Cheap, annoying redirectors, can actually kill things, bring along a mortar, what's not to love?

5 Gutter Runners
Poison
Slings
90

5 Gutter Runners
Poison
Slings
90

5 Gutter Runners
Poison
Slings
90

Not cheap. But as cost increases, so does annoyance potential. These guys are great, and rock against things like Greater Daemons, Giants, Griffons, that kind of thing. But of course, their common role is obliterating fast cav and war machines.

3 Jezzails
60

3 Jezzails
60

No one really bothers shooting these, and rightfully so. They usually only hit 2 times a turn. But it adds up. And I've found them good for dropping big things and cavalry. Not quickly, but they drop wounds. -4 to your save is fun. And this list struggles with big armoured monsters (like the bloodthirster for example). These give me another out to it.

Rare
Warp Lightning Cannon
90

Warp Lightning Cannon
90

180 Points of pure win. It saddens me comparing these to 9 jezzails, but whatever.

Plagueclaw Catapult
100

Plagueclaw Catapult
100

I find them more efficient than doomwheels. Doomwheels never did much of anything for me. Ah well.


So there we have it. I personally think this looks quite nice. I wouldn't like to be the guy who has to get close to it, that's for sure. Also, without characters my most expensive unit is 100 points. Fun fun fun fun. I'll definitely be using this list in future.

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I Hate Dark Elves.

So, by popular suggestion and suchlike, I've come to find myself writing an article about how we all hate Dark Elves. It's not just that one comment on the I hate thread. My entire friend circle, except the Dark Elf players, hates the bloody Druchii. See, if you go in to a conversation or a meeting hating everyone, then people will reciprocate. And when it comes to Dark Elves, there's no such thing as a fair trial.

So, let's start out with the most common reason people hate the Dark Elves. Well, it's a definite toss up. There's Hydras, Crossbowmen, Magic, General Undercostedness, Hydras, Universal Hatred, the Cauldron of Blood, and Hydras.

So, Hydras. Now let's be fair. In fact fuck it. I'll be fair to them when a 175pt model with 13 attacks, T5, a 4+ save AND Regenerate, M6 and a S5 breath weapon is fair. I know the breath weapon is variable, but we're being unfair remember. So why do people hate Hydras? Because, lets consider this. 2 Hydras charged a 50 man unit of slaves I had. Now, while that made me happy, 102pts for 50 models and suchlike, by the end of round one, and after 3D6 S5 hits, 7S5 attacks at WS4 with hatred, and then 6 handler attacks, there was 4 ranks left. I started with fucking 10. Jesus christ.

Ok, so, they have astounding killtacular potential. So how do we deal with them? I'm going to be frank, unless, like my High Elf playing friend starring in the last article, you have a unit of 20 White Lions with flaming attacks, you're going to need to make a stupid point investment. Hydras you can approach in two ways I find. If you can bog them down in combat, they lose their punch. If you can keep them there you'll probably be alright. So for example, if while my unit of 50 slaves got massacred I'd charged more slaves in, I'd probably be ok. I know the hydras would almost certainly make their points up, but it prevents them from going and running rampant all over my lines. Which is a bit of a Dick Move, all said. So, if you want to actually deal with them, I can offer a few words of advice. Kill it with fire being the main one. Example, Bretonnia, shoot it with fire then a catapult. Which is nice with the new regen rules. Myself I go with crack's call and Warp Lightning Cannons. But yeah, Hydras, unless you're dwarfs you will probably have a hard time dealing with them. But to be honest, they're just really resilient. General anti-monster duty does take care of them, but they have 4+ saves. By the way, check the end of this article to see why I hate 4+ saves*. And they're WS4. What the hell? I hate WS4 and hatred.

So what's next? Crossbowmen? Sure, why not. Right, why is Dark Elf shooting so good? Well in my 8th edition shooting article, I mentioned that BS reliant shooting needs to come in a large volume to have a significant impact. And well, multiple shots across the whole army tends to guarantee large numbers of shots. Hurm. But wait! They're all BS4 and have armour piercing too. They can move and fire and also have a 24" range. Oh but Dark Elf shooting can be stupidly manoeuvrable. Dark Riders ith Crossbows that can vanguard 12" before the game starts and then march 18" before shooting 24". Sure, that's cool bro. Man. Oh and shades, lest we forget. Scouting 12" away, marching 10 and firing with a horde of BS5 shots in to your arse. Fuck that man, I hate shades. Mostly because I don't have a good way of dealing with them. And this comes to you at a premium of Space Marine points cost. Woop-di-doo. Then there's the fact most random things in the army have Repeaters. Example, characters, chariots, Sorceress with the Lifetaker. It can be like running the bloody gauntlet.

So, how do we effectively deal with this? Honestly, a grand solution I've found is Hard Cover. It bumps them up to hitting on 7s. Which is just grand. To achieve this make liberal use of (obviously) terrain or just unit screens. I usually assign my sling slaves to this duty. Hard Cover for all! And cause Stormvermin are huge (I keep mentioning this) I can see over the screen to fire with my mortars. Screening works. Alternatively getting close to deal with the threat. And 1+ saves or high toughness works. Realistically it is only S3. It just mows down infantry. But boy, it mows down infantry. So something like an army of chaos knights and stuff will probably weather the storm ok, if properly outfitted (the 4+ ward unit and the unit with the MoN and banner of rage) they will have a hard time dealing with that kind of thing, and Dark Elves in general have difficulty dealing with those kind of units.

Sorceresses. Hum, well first off there's Power of Darkness. This is a fun spell that gives the finger to the 12 dice limit on power dice (not as much as a Slann, but getting there). Because if you don't already know you can use dice, then get them back, then use those, then get them back with your second sorceress. Fun. They have access to death and shadow, which are probably the best lores available from the BRB. But don't dismiss the Dark Lore they have. Black Horror on an 11 is brutal. Bladewind is also a very good spell, as is Word of Pain for rigging things in your favour. But the reason this lore is good is just for being damn easy to cast when you have a +4 to cast. Also, they can burn 7 (or more) power dice on a spell. Which is extra super fun when there's a power scroll, a Slann and a dark tinged slightly lilac star involved.

Realistically though, there's not all that much use in complaining about the Druchii's magic. It's like complaining about WoC being good in close combat. It just happens. Deal with it in any way you can really, I'm not going to teach you about magic just yet, I'll probably do that on monday children. Seriously though, I assume you know how magic works. Power of Darkness is usually worth dispelling if they roll low on it. If you can get away with 1 or 2 dice. Otherwise it's usually worth stopping the big spells, because realistically they only have a few big spells to choose from, and they'll be casting them anyway most often.

General undercostnedness I can't really comment on as it's not something you can fight. You can however get their army book and replace the cost of everything with costs from Warhammer Armies: Beastmen.

The Cauldron of Blood isn't actually that overpowered. It's just really good. Kind of like an engine of the gods, if going near an engine of the gods meant your entire first, and usually second rank dropped dead. And you can't really bring characters near them to deal with Barbara Streisand and her bowl of haemoglobin because they can go "And suddenly Killing Blow". Well good for you. Seriously though, in close combat it's 4 wounds at toughness 3 with a 4+ ward. It's not that hard to kill, the problem is because it's a war machine you can only bring 6 models to the fight. Which Sucks. Especially when you have a unit of slaves or something in combat with them. Yay.

To deal with it I'd honestly run in with something like a unit of 30 Swordsmen. You'll take heavy casualties, but you will kill them. And it's usually the BSB, which means you'll get megapoints. And by megapoints, because it's dark elves, you'll barely make your points back. Huzzah. But what can you do? Against Dark Elves the trick is to grab points where you can, and just deny them the rest.

A weakness I feel obligated to point out is Hatred after combat. I know you're all thinking "what the hell you on about Archy", but things with hatred have to overrun if they can. Which makes cheap sacrifices to the dice gods a fantastic asset against dark elves, when their unit of xyz runs out and exposes it's flank to your army. Admittedly this could be offset by hatred for everything ever. Even parfait, and no one cool hates parfait.

So in conclusion. Dark Elves are fast, high leadership and kind of fragile (except the unkillable characters, the cauldron of blood, cold one knights, cold one chariots and hydras). They have damn good shooting and magic, and kick ass in combat. So wait, what's their weakness? They move too quick, cast too well, shoot too accurately and kick ass in combat. So their weakness? The fleshy bastard playing them. You'll find he bleeds, and has internal organs you can probably rupture with your army case. Or his hydra in a rugby sock. In all seriousness though Dark Elves don't actually have that big a weakness other than the inherent weaknesses of being elite. They're a damn good army and while I don't think they're as overpowered as people (myself included) make them out to be, they're definitely top end of the power scale, even in 8th edition. Honestly, my motto against them is grab points where you can. And don't play battle of the pass with them.

Sorry this turned in to a really long rant. But I absolutely loathe that army book. So some prejudice may have leaked in to my article. So I hope you enjoyed it.

I'm watching you Gary.

*4+ Saves suck because you can't rely on them, but you can't discount them either.  Which I hate. If you roll four 4+s then quite often you'll get 3 passes, but equally often you'll get 3 fails. I just hate them. Ugh, Read more!

High Elf Hordes, some horde banter, by TheLieutenant.

Hey folks, Archnomad here, bringing you a guest article from a friend of mine TheLieutenant. It's about hordes. Personally, I've never used hordes, only played against them. They're too big and clunky for my playstyle. However my friend here has used the High Elf Spear Horde, and has some thoughts on it. So here's what he wrote. From here on out, until further notice, it's TheLieutenant speaking.

Horde

Hi, I’m The Lieutenant. Been a friend of Archnomad's for a while now, and he asked me to do a guest blog since I’m the only person in our group who has used a Horde(The fact I’m an English Lit student probably helped too). As such, Horde is the topic to which we’ll be turning our attention today.

Horde is, at face value, fantastic. Ten wide frontage, bonus rank of attacks.
I’ll admit, when I first saw it, I danced a little at the thought of a unit of 50 HE spears, getting 50 attacks. Also, with command and a 25pt banner, that unit is exactly 500pts, Core for 2k taken care of in one swift, not so subtle move.

Plus, with Life magic as good these days, they’d be T7! Fantastic! Just what I need, a big anvil unit to soak up casualties, which can just be Regrowthed if there’s no better target.

Of course, life seems to exist purely for the purpose of crushing my most dearly held dreams.

The horde was…not good. A fifty strong squad is big, but it doesn’t do its job of taking casualties, because people were most unsporting, and instead simply shot up(and magic-ed. And Repeater Crossbowed, which frankly deserves a special mention) my elite units which I had sneakily positioned to counter-charge any charge on the spears. Not happy.
The spearmen unit was far too big to be manoeuvred effectively. It had no ranged attack, and could be safely ignored by the enemy, except to cast spells(I’m looking at you Final Transmutation) which could kill off twenty or so models for little effort. Also, its not even that good in combat. In 8th ed, combat is entirely done on kills. Ranks and numbers count for precisely naff all, by my count, and the spearmen couldn’t kill anything. Yet, my small, elite, punchy units of White Lions and Swordmasters couldn’t safely go off by themselves, because they needed the weight of numbers in the spearmen unit to safely do well in combat. It was, in essence, an anvil like I’d thought. Something big and weighty, which dragged my army down like an informer who’s been reintroduced to his former comrade’s hospitality, including a diving trip, sans any of the traditionally vital accessories.

I can only speak from experience, I haven’t tried using a horde with any other unit yet(Although I’ll admit the thought of 10 wide, 3 deep White Lions gives me a flutter). I can’t speak for other armies as well. But hordes don’t work. A unit ten wide is just too unwieldy to function, and it’s likely to be so expensive that you end up having to work hard trying to keep the blasted thing alive, as opposed to it seemingly being a hugely survivable unit through weight of numbers. The bonus attacks don’t have that much effect either, since the only units you can afford to have hordes of generally won’t be punching that hard. 51 attacks from my spearmen, going first and (generally) re-rolling misses sounds hard. Course, in practice, you’re NEVER going to get all of those models in combat. And if you do, some will be dead. And S3 rears its ugly, yet pathetically weak head, in this situation too. Life Magic generally has too many better targets for bonus Toughness and Regrowth, especially with HE.

So, hopefully this has been an informative guest blog. Thanks for reading, and goodnight!

------------------------------------------

So there we have it folks. Some real life experience from an actual horde user. Just before we end tonight, I'm going to say some quick words on my thoughts on horde. It's not all bad, because I have seen TheLieutenant play and it's turn 6, where he has 5 spearmen left. 5 Spearmen, that represent a whole 500 points. But to be honest, hordes are so clunky, and so easy to stimmy with small cheap units. And then you flank them big time with your own big hitters and giggle as they don't get their supporting attacks. So yeah, hordes folks.

Give big thank you to TheLieutenant for this article. I also hope you enjoyed it.
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A Brief Overview of Shooting in 8th.

Shooting attracted a lot of attention to itself in 8th edition. With the ability to fire in two ranks you can effectively double the number of shots you can produce in fire lanes/areas with limited frontage (and in empire handgunner spam, that can be the whole table). In addition, gunlines no longer have to camp on hills to receive bonuses like this. So gunlines have been cropping up a lot more lately. My own skaven army is shooty. But this article is weighing up the important pros and cons of the shooting phase in 8th edition.

Ok, let's start with the bad. BS reliant shooting. In 8E terrain barely hinders the game anymore, so people are in it quite a lot. In addition, units in the way provide hard cover. Finally, there's a lot more terrain on the board. What does this mean to you guys? Modifiers. Lots of them. Example. Unit in their deployment zone and in a forest. That means that your unit of Dark Elf Crossbowmen, or Empire Handgunners is hitting them on 6s. In their first turn they will move out the forest and hopefully in to/behind a nice terrain feature. In addition, against an army with a lot of BS reliant shots, I tend to put my 3 slave units (so that's 30 models wide) in a nice line in front of my army. Stormvermin are large enough to see over slaves (no, really) which means my whole army tends to get hard cover with no negative impacts other than a slightly hindered movement phase.

What this means is BS reliant shooting tends to need to be brought in absolute bucketfuls to achieve a significant result. Or be poisoned (which makes hitting on 6s a good thing). Or you could be Tomb Kings (whose archers actually gained by comparison this edition). Of course this isn't always the case, but it does mean an entire army of BS related shots isn't so good. Lookin at Woodies, for example. Dark Elves work out fine just cause they have the form of BS related shooting that IS good. Bucketfuls of it and...

Fast moving high BS skirmishers and fast cavalry (but the only good fast cav I can think of are dark riders and pistoliers). These guys are still good. Flamers, Shades, Gutter Runners, that kind of thing. These guys are good because they can march and shoot. This means they can get in to a position easily that doesn't suffer modifiers other than "moved". But by that point you wont be suffering long range, so it doesn't really matter. The ability to march and shoot really helps skirmishers with half decent/good ranged weapons, because now they're really really hard to catch, if they don't want to be caught. But they can still easily remain within short range and pelt your guys to death. You'll find these units tend to hit on 5s most of the time, with a lot of shots. Shades, being the cocky dark elf pricks they are, hit on 4s.

                                                             

Now, the shooting that really got buffed. We all know what's coming here. Yup, tequila. I mean, templates. This includes cannons, as that line is technically a template. More specifically I mean non ballistic related templates. The ones you just place and they go a random range. For example, short of a misfire, it's very hard to miss a monster/chariot with a cannon. And no amount of modifiers could save it. It could be 66" away in a ruin wearing a cloak made of shadow magnet trinkets and rings of darkness, while also being a single character and a skirmisher. Don't care, you're getting slapped by a cannonball, flying towards you which will wittily say "Buona Giorno" like Bradd Pit in Inglorious Basterds before scalping you and moving on to the poor block of infantry behind it.

Tangents aside, these kind of weapons are really really good in 8th edition. That's why my army has 8 of them. I can't really go in to this, but I can point out something important relating to army balance within your missile troops. As the number of enemy units decreases, the power of these weapons decreases. It's fairly simple, and you could work it out by looking at pictures of how these things fire, but it needs to be said. Moving on, because of that, as I found out, an army that uses templates and blasts to the exclusion of all else doesn't function so well. Because if you have a small cadre of elites left they'll munch your units anyway (4 chaos warriors or something like that). So, what can we do? In this hour of need who do we turn to?

Well, it's the underdog. The downtrodden unsung hero of 8th edition. No, not you Korhil, get back in your cage. BS-reliant shooting. BS reliant shooting doesn't change in effectiveness in relation to the size of the units you're shooting. They can shoot a unit of 50, 20, and 2 guys with the same effectiveness, all along the watchtower. BS-reliant shooting stands up tall, among the horde of template weapons you brought, holds his head high, swings his sling around his head and breaks the faces of that unit of 4 swordmasters you just can't get a good template hit on, before receding back in to the folds of mediocrity, and the bards shall laud that shot that did save your general from certain death for all of history.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article.

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