Beating the Anvil tactic?

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Swab
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Beating the Anvil tactic?

Post by Swab »

I believe this is a wide spread tactic used with most armies (In pitched battles)

First is terrain, usually we do it where one sets up till someone says stop. Two pieces of terrain, rocks or woods, that block LOS and deduct movement 12.5 inches from the center of the table in the middle area. Thus creating something that will look like this...

----- -----

I usually place hills on the sides or obstacles somewhere (I like to put it in the center 12 inches out so it halves the opening movement)

Next is unit placement. You have your hardest hitting CC unit in the very center of the table flanked by your two good CC units but arn't as expensive. Then you place a BSB in one squad, your lord lvl character in the middle and a hero on the other side. This provides a deadly center force which is hard to break. Your flanks are guarded by those pieces of terrain and you can have some spare units that can guard the openings at the edge.

This tactic is widely used in my store and is difficult to break unless you can counter it with the same tactic. Just harder hitting units.

My main thought it... instead of going anvil to anvil or hammer to anvil, can you counter it other ways than the traditional way?

I have two ideas I haven't really tried out yet.

1. Place heavy shooting in the center of your deployment zone. 2 RBT, 2 RxB squads of 10 (hopefully on a hill) with a sorceress in each to give that extra punch. Sometimes the sorceress goes with the warmachine. Then you move your anvils up the flanks to sweep the easy targets out of the way to surround them in the back. Have a few hammers (corsairs, chariots and warriors in my case) in the center to give him something to look at. By the time the anvils reach the center of the table, you should have units on their flanks and they should be thinned. This will place them in a predicament. They can face the new threats and meet them head on, or they can progress and hopefully stay out of range. Either way your opponent can open up flanks and allow you to tear into them. This tactic relies on alot of speed to get behind their lines.

2. Heavy shooting in the center again but instead of going up his flanks, try to meet him on your side of the table. Create a V shape formation around the center for him to send his units through. Have your smaller, weaker units going up the flanks to prevent being outflanked. When they come up the center table, you can hit him with so many units, he'll break and you can cause massive chaos. I have tried this one once, and it worked amazingly well. Also, this can cause them to hesitate in their movement and force them into mistakes or going in other directions.

What do you think?
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Rabidnid
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Re: Beating the Anvil tactic?

Post by Rabidnid »

Swab wrote:1. Place heavy shooting in the center of your deployment zone. 2 RBT, 2 RxB squads of 10 (hopefully on a hill) with a sorceress in each to give that extra punch. Sometimes the sorceress goes with the warmachine. Then you move your anvils up the flanks to sweep the easy targets out of the way to surround them in the back. Have a few hammers (corsairs, chariots and warriors in my case) in the center to give him something to look at. By the time the anvils reach the center of the table, you should have units on their flanks and they should be thinned. This will place them in a predicament. They can face the new threats and meet them head on, or they can progress and hopefully stay out of range. Either way your opponent can open up flanks and allow you to tear into them. This tactic relies on alot of speed to get behind their lines.

What do you think?


Congradulations, you have discovered tactics :D

Pretty much as described above but:

use light cav to sit in his face in the centre of the table to march block his big units so they respond slowly to you flanck attacks - making sure you do not block LOS to your shooting..

Take control of the difficult on the flank you are enveloping so you have the opportunity to flank any defending units from within the difficult. Hydras are good, and harpies on foot work too.


On the side you are not advancing use light cav to march block the units there so they respond slowly and take them ibn the ass if they turn to face your troops behind them.

This is called a single envelopment and is as old as warfare.
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Harabec
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Post by Harabec »

Well I'm not sure what exactly you are looking for from us, as you seem to have laid out an effective strategy for yourself. Assuming that you are running Dark Elves, you will rarely have anything that can standup to the described battle line head-on. But that is not the DE way anyhow. Ue your shooting and magic to force the enemy to move forward out of their terrian bunker, while having your quicker elements set up to flank them when they move out.

DE's are a finesse army that requires more work than some others in the movement phase. If you let your opponent dictate your movement and combats you will lose. Don't be afraid to avoid a fight if the odds are not in your favour.
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Post by Vorchild »

Personally, I don't bother with anvils. I look at the game like playing the piano - lots of small hammers working away together. Anybody shows me a distinct anvil and I just tend to ignore it and wipe out everything else instead. Its also not hard to mess up the coherency of a set of units like that. A unit of scouts in the nearby terrain for one will work wonders.
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Swab
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Post by Swab »

I was just wondering if there are any other tactics someone could come up with other than what I stated.

I like the single envelope tactic, gives my units more concentration.

The problem with the small hammers on a piano, is that you can't use them effectively. Of course using our DE as anvils is a huge waste of points. I normally go with this tactic, but it isn't as easy against the anvil egg as some call it. Mainly because you cannot ignore the juicy 1000+ points just sitting in the middle of the table.
Camaris
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Post by Camaris »

Vorchild wrote:Anybody shows me a distinct anvil and I just tend to ignore it and wipe out everything else instead.


That's pretty much what I do. Once I had a friend that ran an orc anvil with grimgor ironhide and 20 immortulz(black orc bodyguard). I pretty much just used morathi and my sorc dr teams to run circles around the entire army while hitting them with shooting and magic. After all his goblins were dead I just let grimgor and his immortulz walk into the cauldron zone. Cast word of pain on them and swarmed them with a wave of cold ones. Anvils aren't so tough when they're hitting you with ws 1. :)
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Thanee
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Post by Thanee »

Dragon + Cavalry. Fly above him and into his back with the dragon. Drive the cavalry forward, so that you are in charge range, but he is not. Flank or rear charge as appropriate. Optional: Combine this with additional fast units coming from both flanks.

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Thanee
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Post by Thanee »

Camaris wrote:Anvils aren't so tough when they're hitting you with ws 1. :)


While that is certainly true... the anvil is usually not the one to fear in close combat. It's the one that comes after you did not manage to break the anvil.

Anvil - tough to break, will hold a charge
Hammer - strong on the charge, will break the target; or just a moderately strong unit coming into your flank while the Anvil is holding you in place

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Lhel
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Post by Lhel »

I used a very simple and cheap anvil which does wonders, haven't seen a single heavy hitting unit ever break it in a turn. A block of skeletons with a tomb prince with scorpion armor and a GW. Usually an easy flank charge the turn following and the slaughter commences.

With anvil armies you think like a fisherman, bait and reel in. Soon you'll be shooting fish in a barrel. Ruin the flanks and tear his lines apart. The very nature of an anvil require you to actually hit it for it to be useful.
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Bounce
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Post by Bounce »

I have found it difficult to use a hammer and anvil tactic with dark Elves as our core units can never seem to hold for one turn to allow the Hammer to smash in from the flank or rear
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Camaris
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Post by Camaris »

Thanee wrote:
Camaris wrote:Anvils aren't so tough when they're hitting you with ws 1. :)


While that is certainly true... the anvil is usually not the one to fear in close combat. It's the one that comes after you did not manage to break the anvil.

Anvil - tough to break, will hold a charge
Hammer - strong on the charge, will break the target; or just a moderately strong unit coming into your flank while the Anvil is holding you in place

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Thanee


That is a very good point. That's generally why I obliterate any possible hammers before I go after the anvil.
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Post by Melinia »

Bounce wrote:I have found it difficult to use a hammer and anvil tactic with dark Elves as our core units can never seem to hold for one turn to allow the Hammer to smash in from the flank or rear


Black Guard should work in that role if you pack enough to survive the inevitable casualties, since they're stubborn.

But they're too expensive, imo, and take up a valuable rare slot. So I've yet to try them.
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Rabidnid
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Post by Rabidnid »

Melinia wrote:
Bounce wrote:I have found it difficult to use a hammer and anvil tactic with dark Elves as our core units can never seem to hold for one turn to allow the Hammer to smash in from the flank or rear


Black Guard should work in that role if you pack enough to survive the inevitable casualties, since they're stubborn.

But they're too expensive, imo, and take up a valuable rare slot. So I've yet to try them.


Witches with witchbrew are about the best anvil we have, though not a cheap one.
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Irtehdar
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Post by Irtehdar »

Both the tactics you describe is what most DE players do anyway. We cant really counter the traditional setup head on so we go around and use as many tricks as we can to have the opponent break up his line.
In the 3 blocks setup you describe the opponents of having march blocking is awesome. If you can march block 1 of the 3 blocks your opponent faces a dificult choice. Slow the line down or split up. either you get more time before he reaches you or he splits his line up and you can destroy 1 of the units with minimal effort.
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Post by Kargan daemonclaw »

If you place terrain in the middle of the table 24" appart and a hill in each deployment zone, you create a valley of death.

The enemy deploys their shooting firebase around their hill supported by their counter attach unit(s).

They then infest the difficult terrain with scouts or skirmishers or fast moving units. When the enemy move through the valley of death to get at the enemy shooters they get harrassed from the flank, march blocked and then combo charged.

For DE you might do this with 3 units of crossbows, a sorceress and a couple of repeater bolt throwers and then you send your hydra into the terrain on one side and some shades in on the other.

It's worse if the enemy is wood elves because they put their forest in the middle of the table leasing two 12" wide gaps to try and get through, then stick their treeman ancient in the forest in the middle of the table and 30+ archers at the back shooting you up. The flanks are then infested with wardancers and dryads. This is proving prety hard to beat.

Alternatively you can use flyers to vertically envelope the enemy, as they come forwards the flyers go over the terrain and end up behind the advancing anvil. this then gets combo charged. Brettonians are pretty horrible for this, lance of knights in the front and pegasus knights in the back.

Vampire counts would use things like ghoulkin and dark knights to infest the flanks and then magically charge out of terrain as you go past.

Tyring to walk into a narrow valley of death with your phalanx only works if you have secure flanks. If you don't you will get cut to pieces.
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