Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

Discuss your tactics for the 7th Ed army book here, together with tactics for other races.

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Sturen
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Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#1 Post by Sturen »

Tailoring to beat the All Comers List
This guide was inspired by Kroxigor01's excellent army composition guide, which is more focused on 40K. It can be found here. However many of the theories are applicable to fantasy as well. Here I have translated the guide into fantasy terms, particularly high elves and hopefully expanded on a few of his points including a more in depth look at magic, which was obviously left out by Kroxigor01 for 40K. Enjoy!

Firstly, there are a couple of terms you should understand:
Elements these are both counters and Strengths.
Counter: a counter is any unit or item that is used to counter any specific part of an enemy army, eg. taking several war machines in case a monster heavy army turns up. An all comers army can be expected to have medium counters to everything.
Strength: this is any powerful trait your army has, such as speed, armour, magic ect. These categories should either be overloaded or underloaded.
Overload: overloading is taking such a large amount of something that an all comer list cannot have enough counters to defeat it. For example taking so many knights and large monsters that an all comers list cannot possibly have enough war machines to deal with it.
Underload: possibly the most important tactic. This is where you bring so little of a strength that the enemies counters are wasted.

The 'Proof'
Imagine your building an all comers list, you'll take enough defensive magic to deal with a reasonable magic phase, enough high strength knight killers to deal with a reasonable amount of armour and enough shooting to do a bit of damage or make sure your fast enough to get to the enemy. Basically you will try to get a counter for any strength the enemy could bring, as well as some strengths of your own, an all comers list.

Now obviously your opponent will do this too and both of you will have lists with middle power in everything. This will lead to a fairly even game. But say you take absolutely no heavy armored troops, all lightly armored hordes, the points he spent on those knight killers are wasted, they can still kill light troops but so could lesser strength troops. This is the underloading part. The overloading part is where his multi attack unit killers come in. Since he used points on a bit of everything he doesn’t have enough unit killers to beat all your light troops. Now say you take nothing but heavily armored troops, those unit killers with loads of attacks will be unable to hurt you and have no weak chaff to kill instead, so are wasted. This is again underloading those elements of his army. His can openers will be overloaded and won't be able to deal with everything.

The point where a counter is overloaded and cannot deal with everything is called its overload threshold. The power of a list is dependent on how far above or below its strength level is to the enemies counter threshold. If your strength and the enemies counter are equal then you gain nothing. If your strength overloads the counter you gain power in that area. If you underload the counter the enemy has wasted points. You should keep this in mind when building your list.

Threshold Reduction
It isn't as simple as that though. You can reduce the threshold needed to overload an enemy counter by staying out of its range or simply by killing it. This will obviously be done best by something you haven't focused your list on because the only reason you want to remove this thing is that it counters your overloading element. This is not always true so you should make sure that if possible the threshold is reduced quickly.

But my opponent is doing the same :(
Defeating another army of this type requires your own overloading list. The counters you have, however few, to your enemies overload should be protected at all costs and you shouldn't be afraid to sacrifice your underloaded troops to save your counters.

The Strengths and their Counters
There are three strengths not counting magic, which is discussed later. They are: survivability, shooting and high numbers. The counters are can openers, movement and massed attacks. Survivability is high toughness and armour and is countered by can openers, which can kill them easily. Shooting is the damage and threat that your shooting can create. Movement counters it as you can get there fast. High numbers is the opposite of survivability as it means having lots of weak troops. It however is countered by massed attacks.

The One Counter and Strength to Rule them All
The problem with magic is it can perform the role of any of the counters, with damage spells and movement spells. It can also increase our own strengths with magical wards and ranged damage. High elves are lucky enough to effectively choose their counters and strengths from magic after seeing the enemy list, which is why magic heavy is so powerful for us. Because magic is an across the board improvement it is best to assume it is simply one strength and one counter, albeit more powerful ones. The strength is magic offense and the counter is magic defense. Confusingly, magic offense boosts all our other elements whilst magic defense reduces all our enemies elements, which is unlike any other counter or strength. Magic also allows us to counter counters! These advantages are balanced by the fact that magic is unpredictable to use. High elves have advantages in magic in a lot of ways, being able to choose our spell to boost all our elements and having plus one to dispel helps reduce the enemies gains from magic. The minimum magic should be considered a scroll caddy because taking none is never a good idea. A caddy effectively underloads the enemies magic defense whilst hopefully letting you counter their offense.

The Minor Elements
These elements have less impact on the game and are often smaller parts of a main element. They are mostly items that play of against one another, such as flaming attacks and dragon armour or the Book of Hoeth and the Ring of Hotek. Some of them are quite complex (try adding flammable monsters into the first example :lol:) but are rare enough that they needn’t be considered in depth.

So what does it mean in practice?
Overall to build a powerful list you should overload one strength and underload on every other. You should try and keep a little of each counter, in particular magic, just in case. Probably the most important part is this: “The power of a list is dependent on how far above or below its strength level is compared to the enemies overload threshold.” This is unbelievably important and will improve your lists greatly.

Disclaimer
Some players will claim (quite rightly) that a list built with these things in mind is min/maxed and cheesy. I do not recommend using a list built on this guide for friendly play and will accept no responsibility for loss of friends, limbs, sanity or anything else as a result of this guide :D. For tournaments hard lists are the norm so this should be absolutely fine to use.

Hope you enjoyed the read and learnt something new. Make sure you check out Kroxigor01's tactica it probably explains better than me. Feel free to comment on, disagree with or insult this :).
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#2 Post by geoguswrek »

I'm unsure as to how this applies to 40k, but i notice some problems in terms of fantasy.
The unit in question is Choas knights: with t4 and a 1+ save they are certainly "survivable", however s5 is close to being a "can opener" m7 is pretty much high movement and with 2 attacks each +s4 horse they have "massed attacks", so they become the king of all counter units (along with flesh hounds, and other similar units).

What about flamers? survivable shooters, shades are high movement shooters (scout + skirmish) as are dark riders.

Now that i'm done picking minor holes..

Also i'd like to note there is a disparity in the counters

because: can openers are good at killing survivable troops, but massed attack units are also good for killing survivable troops (lots of hits means lots of wounds, means some failed armour saves) whilst movement isn't so good.

massed units are best killed by massed attacks, but can openers are good too (since high strength translates to many wounds), but less so by movement.

Also note that swordmasters are both massed attacks and can openers.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#3 Post by Sturen »

The unit in question is Choas knights: with t4 and a 1+ save they are certainly "survivable", however s5 is close to being a "can opener" m7 is pretty much high movement and with 2 attacks each +s4 horse they have "massed attacks", so they become the king of all counter units (along with flesh hounds, and other similar units).
Yes knights are a combination of several counters and strengths however they pay for it. All multitask units are (theoretically) more expensive for it. Units should not be looked at as single objects but as contributing to the whole army. You could think of it as all units having a portion of their points spent on each of the strengths and counters, even if it's very little.
can openers are good at killing survivable troops, but massed attack units are also good for killing survivable troops (lots of hits means lots of wounds, means some failed armour saves) whilst movement isn't so good
Massed attacks and can openers are similar however generally speaking a survivable should have less than a 1/4 chance of death after saves at S4 and a can opener should be at least S5 or S4 AP, whilst massed attacks should be at least 2 attacks per model and/or armed with spears but no more than S3, maybe 4 at most. The point is a can opener should be more efficient at killing tough thing since you pay high points for the extra strength whilst massed attacks should be more effiecient against hordes as extra strength make little difference to their killing power.
massed units are best killed by massed attacks, but can openers are good too (since high strength translates to many wounds)
If the enemy is T2 the highest strength you need is 4 and higher strength is wasted. This is an example of the can opener counter being underloaded if only low toughness units are available targets.
but less so by movement.
Hence why movement is the counter to shooting not hordes or survivable troops
Also note that swordmasters are both massed attacks and can openers
However spears are a more efficient form of massed attack as you can have two thirds more for the same points and for killing hordes they are only a little less deadly. You are wasting points on high strength which is an example of the can opener function being underloaded. Of course against highly survivable enemies they are dangerous and not obsolete, hence their role being the can opener.

Does that make any sense. I feel that if I rephrase it enough times something will come through.
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Jaith
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#4 Post by Jaith »

It makes sense what you are saying.

But think about this: Can-Openers are good enough at killing light horde units albeit inefficiently and therefore massed attacks are obsolete because they can't kill tough stuff as efficiently.

Basically Mass attacks can be substituted with can-opners with little consequence, but the same cannot be said for the opposite.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#5 Post by Sturen »

Yeah, I guess the point is horde armies and horde army killers versus heavily armoured armies and heavy armour breakers. The distinction seems to be clearer in 40K where tanks ect. are almost invunrebale to infantry killing weapons. Maybe massed attacks is an obsolete element :( But only 3 seems so small.

Hmm... Physcology :lol:
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#6 Post by Lord Anathir »

To be honest I think this is whole thing is a bit of a moot point.
There are 3 types of games:

a) friendlies
- in which you take just play for kicks and armies and army lists are selected based on entertainment and aesthetics.

b) No comp tournaments
- in which case you need DoC or Daemons or you don't have a serious chance

c) Comped tournaments
- where this sort of min maxing like you outline in your article is banned anyways.


-----
That said, you do bring up some legimate points. A mild example: in my most recent balanced lists I have no heavy cav. I find that enemy units that are designed to take out heavy cav are sort of wasted and arent as useful.

I think most people have already identified what you said, and when it comes to chosing which 'niches' their army list is going to be based on, infantry always lose out, because of mobility. But then if people stop bringing anti infantry and load up on mobile can openers then going the opposite direction with a skaven esque horde becomes a decent option. So its a bit of a cat and mouse thing when deciding on what kind of army you're going to play.

Every comp setting is different.
if comp is:

a) peer comp.
- you want an army that is secretly hard as nails but contains elements that most people deem as weak. Avoid maxing out on any phase. So for us its easy... if you take 3 core units, some helms, moon or sun dragon you auto score big points. But a moon dragon is still good and you can still score a massacre with it and say 'but i didnt take a star dragon'. max 2 rbt, 9 pd and you shouldnt lose a single point of comp. If you take alot of a weaker unit like fast cav or shadows then you get extra points too.

b) restrictions.
- you take the toughest list you can without breaking the restrictions. No need to tone it down more. this is where this article applies a bit I think.

c) restricitons + peer.
- make the toughest list you can then tone it done a wee bit. IE if restrictions allow you to take 11 power dice max, only take

d) no comp.
- hardest list.


One thing Im not quite sure about is when you say magic is our universal counter. In theory it is but its too unreliable. I think star dragon is more of a counter then anything, and considerably more reliable then magic and is a nice contrast to the heavy shooting that we will take regardless. Or maybe I'm wrong and magic is the way to go. Basically you need to playtest a lot.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#7 Post by Sturen »

I see your point that it is a little bit moot but it helps anywhere you need to make a strong list under any restrictions. You need to remember to stay as far from the enemies overload thresholds as possible, if you want to win at all. This can take into account what you guess your opponents army will look like, it doesn't have to be all comers.

As for magic, the star dragon gives you a strong part of all the counters and some strengths however magic can both boost other units contribution to these and magic can uniquely reduce your enemies strengths and counters. The thing is that magic can boost everything yet can all be controlled in one way, magic defense, unlike the SD which though it adds to everything can be controlled in a variety of ways (it is possible to kill the wizard but that means you've made a big mistake). Miscasts are what tone magic down.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#8 Post by ~Milliardo~ »

I think both the original piece and your translation of it into fantasy are good points for a conversation, but the main problem I have with the underlying theme is that it attempts to codify and oversimplify a somewhat complicated game into rock-paper-scissors. It's fine to do that, but at least in my case I tend to keep things fast and loose and rely on broader generalizations. There are too many exceptions in units that can perform everything well, simply because most seem that they were designed more for story than on how it would operate under rules. I think it fits 40k a bit better than Warhammer.

It's also overly pedantic in an attempt to sound official - military tactics books do that incessantly and it comes across as clunky and vaguely irritating, like a term paper written by someone attending a military academy. The original was very much like this; your interpretation is thankfully written in plain English, but just needs a bit of streamlining.

That sounds very critical, but please understand I like it as a piece to get thought started. But like most tactics books, I think the underlying message needs to be understood, absorbed, and then the book should be tossed away. Not literally of course, and that's not to say its garbage - far from it - but to keep your thought process from becoming too tight and restrictive.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#9 Post by Sturen »

It does work better under 40K. Surviviable troops are meant to be the equivelent of tanks and monsters that need anti tank weapons and are near enough invunrable to infantry weapons. I don't play 40K so I don't know how true this is but the original article gave this immpresion. Massed attacks and large numbers are meant to be the equivelent of an ork or tyranid horde against which specific infantry weapons (maybe flamers?) are far more effective.

I see what you mean about rock paper scissors, but in the end if you can simplify the game to that level then you should be able to understand it better. I will admit that I probably attempted to oversimplify by actually listing the strengths and counters, perhaps it would be better to let people decide what counters what and come to their own conclusions depending on their army specifically.

Anyway I'm glad you like it :)
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#10 Post by Ilthaen »

No offense, but i can´t help and agree that it is a bit of a mess. Well i am not a native speaker you see, so maybe is my fault, but i kind of had a headache trying to read it. I got the general idea but i really think it could be rewritten to put it more clear, and if possibly, avoiding the use of 40k terminology as much as possible. But i will not make a big deal about it, i just generally prefer things as simple as possible (KISS principle is good) so even people like me can understand it :lol:

About the article´s content, i think the points it brings are pretty interesting. The only problem is trying to fit them "as is" to fantasy, that is what i think is causing the problem. It would be better if instead a new article was done, adapting the ideas of the 40k article and applying them to fantasy, only the ideas. For that you pretty much would need someone who plays 40k and fantasy, otherwise you are just interpretating it as you think it is, with may or may not be the same as the 40k player read it. Anyway i think the overall idea of the article is a nice one, but it pretty much should be converted to something like: the phases of the game. Or something like that, and then there talk about how each phase makes other more/less useful and how to counter the enemy strong phases, makes your own phases stronger etc. I think that would be a lot more generic and applicable, while keeping the same principles.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#11 Post by Sturen »

Thanks for the feedback. I think I will rewrite this using the 5 phases of the game (movement, magic, shooting, combat, phycology) and try to make it clearer and more streamlined. What is the KISS principle?
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#12 Post by clangerman »

Keep It Simple, Stupid

Thanks for the effort in adjusting it to HE but that sort of article isn't my cup of tea.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#13 Post by Sturen »

Okay, version 2. Tidied up and now with added pictures!!

Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

There are five phases in warhammer fantasy: movement, magic, shooting, combat and psychology. All of these phases can be split into their aggressive parts and their defensive parts.

Aggressive Movement
Marching to reach the enemy. This involves everything that allows you to reach the enemy fast as well as sabotaging enemy war machines with flyers and scouts.

Defensive Movement
Slowing the enemy down through march blocking is an example of defensive movement.

Aggressive Magic
Casting any spells, except those such as drain magic that are purely defensive.

Defensive Magic
Anything that reduces the effect of enemy magic including spells such as drain magic.

Aggressive Shooting
Using ranged attacks to damage the enemy.

Defensive Shooting
Having troops that are durable and can survive a lot of shooing. This includes having enough cheap troops that you do not care about the losses.

Aggressive Combat
The ability to deal damage in combat.

Defensive Combat
The ability to survive attacks in combat. This includes simply having so many troops that the enemy cannot kill them all.

Aggressive Psychology
Anything which increases the chance an enemy will flee such as fear, rank bonuses, standard bearers ect.

Defensive Psychology
Anything that reduces your own troops chance of fleeing such as fear causing or immunity, ranks, standards, BSB ect.

Note
Many things contribute to more than one phase, high armour improves the defensive shooting and defensive combat phase for example whilst rank bonuses boost both psychology phases. This is absolutely fine and make sense.


All defensive forms of the phases attempt to neutralize the offensive forms of the phases. A balanced list can be expected to have enough of each defensive phase to neutralize a reasonable amount of each aggressive phase.

However it is possible to create a list with an unreasonable amount of an aggressive phase. Either heaps of it or very little. If the enemy takes, for example, the lion standard in order to get fear immunity, which is common in a balanced list and you bring no fear causing troops the points spent on that banner are wasted, you have underloaded his defensive psychology. Likewise if your entire army was fear causing (yes I'm looking at you daemons :lol:) then his one fear immune unit would be unable to deal with all the fear causing units gaining you an advantage. You have overloaded his defensive psychology.

Note
Some units are effective in several phases, most notably knights and characters. However these units pay for this and can be considered to spend a portion of their points on each phase they contribute to.


To build a strong list all of the aggressive phases should be either overloading or underloading the enemies defensive phases.

Unfortunately there is a problem with this. For example, high movement allows you to reach a gun line faster therefore aggressive movement is actually a defense against aggressive shooting. There are other examples of this. As already mentioned, movement is a defense against shooting however magic is actually a defense against any of the aggressive phases with such a wide variety of spells. Shooting is a defense against combat, as the army doesn't need to be fought up close, and psychology, as many psychology effects are based on proximity. Combat is a defense against psychology as wounds in combat count against the enemies static combat resolution. Psychology is a defense against combat, despite combat being a defense against it because static combat resolution and fear are most powerful when fighting up close.

This becomes quite confusing with so many phases depending on so many phases however I have drawn up a diagram for you to show this clearly:

Image

Now that that fantastic work of art has made everything clear to you I'll explain what it all means :lol:. Basically you should try and either have either an overwhelming amount of, or next to none of, each aggressive phase as this means the enemies defenses against some phases will be wasted whilst they will be overloaded in others.

The point where an enemies defensive phase is overloaded is called it's threshold. The threshold of a list with only a caddy could for example be 7 or 8 power dice whilst the threshold of a list two level twos will be much higher, needing at least 10 dice to make a real impact. In this example threshold reduction is killing one of the mages. This makes the threshold lower and therefore increases the advantage you are gaining from that phase.

What if your opponent brings his own list like this, which overloads one of your phases and underloads the rest? You should focus on weakening his one overloading phase. He will be trying to lower your overload threshold but you must not let him. Don’t be afraid to sacrifice underloaded units to save your important defences.

I have hopefully made this clearer, tell me what you think and suggest improvements :).
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#14 Post by Prince of Spires »

Personally, I think that the principle that is explained is a sounds one if not taken too far. In my mind it sums up to 'take enough of something to get the job done, but no more'.

However, as others have mentioned, this article reduces the making of an armylist to a rock - paper - scissors game. On the level described by the article, it is only realy usefull if you know the army list of your opponent. Otherwise you are just guessing that your opponent is bringing the right troops for you to combat. I agree that for a given fase you have to choose between taking enough for it to be usefull or taking as little as you can get away with as possible. However, the only way you can react in advance to a unit having the banner of balance is by know it has it and thus knowing the list.

Of course, on the battlefield you should 'locally' min-max to either make sure you counter your opponent or by bringing enough to win.

I also think that some of the phases you describe are broader than you describe them

I think defensive movement also means creating zones of control to make your opponent move in a certain way. I.e. a chariot will often keep lighter troops away from their charge range. Same goes for bolttrowers and flank shots.

Were would defensive spells like shield of saphery or courage of aenarion go? They don't counter offensive magic, but they aren't agressive spells IMHO.

My thoughts...

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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#15 Post by Sturen »

The point is that it doesn't matter what the opponent brings. If it's an all comers list it will have a bit of everything. If you take lots of something then you get success because you have more than they can handle. If you take a middle amount of it then you lose because either they have enough to handle it and it's wasted points or you get a small gain. If you decide to take next to none then you waste no points.

Image
-----good---------Okay---------Bad----------Good

Another picture shows what I mean :lol: Points that do not reach red are neutralized by the blue (turning purple :D). The higher the bar the more points invested. From left to right: You gain a large advantage, you gain a small advantage, you lose out because your aggressive phases is neutralized by the enemies defense so you waste points, you gain an advantage because the enemies defense is wasted.

I know what you mean about defensive movement, that use should also be mentioned, along with any other use not mentioned.

Those defensive spells are aggressive magic because they boost another phase, defensive of aggressively they do still improve another phase and are therefore aggressive magic, counterintuitively.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#16 Post by Musashi »

As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.


I love restrictions, especially if they are fairly and widely spread across all factions, because, when it comes down to it, you can game any system.

The way the current magic phase works, I wouldn't try to outmagic my opponent, and knowing there are definite limits on the number of PD just makes my job easier. Close combat is where High Elves win, despite appearances to the contrary.

I'm quite happy to abide by unit limitations, spamming is boring, and having a balanced army is more aesthetic. And at this point, the better tactician takes over.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#17 Post by Sturen »

Well... Okay. I'm not sure how that connects to the topic but...

Outmagicing is not needed, infact if you don't want magic heavy then very light magic is encouraged. Heavy CC is again encouraged, or very light.

This guide is basically a proof for why spamming works, not in any way saying it is a fun way to play, just an effective one. The better tactitian will still win, though with more difficulty.

Does that answer your questions/comments/musings?
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#18 Post by geoguswrek »

what if you come up against an army that doesn't play the same game you are playing?

Dark elves and Wood Elves both play points-denial/avoidance tactics. Thus all your survivable and massed elements are mitigated by your opponent's not actually letting them do anything, it isn't about counters as you described them, just about not having to counter these objects.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#19 Post by Lord Anathir »

thats why you need bulk core shooting to put up a semblence of a firefight. LSG!
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#20 Post by Sturen »

@geo That is a good point. I think that is movement countering combat and phycology since it counters strong combat blocks with rank bonuses. I will add that in when I have some time :)
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#21 Post by Spartan »

I actually really enjoyed your theories :D . Like Milliardo said, they're grossly oversimplified, but I think that these sorts fundamentals are great to keep in mind when forming army composition and functional intent. There are far too many exceptions, complications, imbalances, and dice-related risks to view these theories canonically, but they certainly do have a place in Warhammer tactics. With a weather-minded general and the right army concept, fundamentals such as these are great building blocks for success in battle :D .
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Sturen
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#22 Post by Sturen »

Thanks, that is what I aimed to do really. Basically simplify to rock paper scissors and then that makes it easier to see what troops are needed where and what you're army is lacking.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#23 Post by geoguswrek »

The fact of the matter is that its impossible to design a list that can beat the perfect gunline and the perfact cav army (for example), meaning that "all comer" lists, which you normally see at tournaments, will have holes you can exploit. Some may not be good at dealing with magic heavy (dragon lists for example) and others may suffer against heavy shooting, super magic defence, spam or juggernaut lists. The theory that most people ascribe to when building a tournamment list is "i need to be able to deal with a little bit of everything" because over the course of many games, you'll face lots of different things.

This idea is to exploit those lists by building an army that just does one thing and does it well. It may be a one trick pony, but its a pretty impressive trick. And it can work, because your opponent may well see a list full of only bolt throwers, archers and wizards and think "i'm never getting across the board", but equally he may well see that list and think "instant win", thats the tradeoff, you'll win some games and lose others, skill won't really come into it as there won't be tight matchups, mostly big wins and big losses. But it will work at getting mid flight a lot. (but then a decent player can get mid flight anyway).

Oh and i don't see how this will be fun. It'd be like taking thorek, or kairos, or teclis... Boredom incarnate.
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Re: Tailoring to beat the All Comers List

#24 Post by Sturen »

I didn't say it would be fun, just effective :D. It is really a proof of why magic/shooting/combat heavy armies are difficult to deal with.
In my mind it sums up to 'take enough of something to get the job done, but no more'.
Just reading this thread again and saw this. That is exactly not what it suggest :lol:. For example, if your enemy can deal with a level 4 and a level 2 and you have the banner of sorcery as well you will only really have D3 more dice than the enemy can deal with. If you took another 2 level 2s as well as the BoS then you would have another D3+4 more than the enemy can deal with. If the archmage and level 2 cost, say, 500 points then with just the BoS you have a 50 point advantage, or a ratio of useful points to blocked points of 1:10, not good. If you take another 2 level twos that is another 400 pointsish giving you a useful to blocked ratio of 9:10, which is good.

The opposite is taking a caddy, meaning the enemies magic defense is wasted.

:lol: I get the feeling this is making no sense
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