What to do against heavy skaven magic at 1k

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Shoyer
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What to do against heavy skaven magic at 1k

Post by Shoyer »

Hey.
Im playing against one of my friends soon and I know he always bring 3 warplock engineers fully upgraded.
I honestly have no idea what to do against magic that heavy at 1000 points.
Any ideas what to bring and how to deal with it. ?
I thought about bringing some shades to kill the ones that are by themselves, maybe some darkriders to, But what about the first and second turn.

Thanks
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Cananatra
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Post by Cananatra »

I tend to go magic heavy myself when smeone pulls this on me. With Power of Darkness even if you roll high spells you have a good chance of getting them off. Mind you I realise some people dont like going magic heavy.
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Post by Dark Alliance »

Take 2 level 2s with one scroll each, one with darkstar cloak, one with dagger.

Take 2 units of Harpies, 2 units of DRs and a Hydra. 15 spears for the dagger girl and a unit of 10 rxbs.

Deploy out of sight if possible. He will deploy the Engineers in units because you have so much shooting, so in your turn 1 you fly the Harpies right in front of his units, along with the DRs. Use your scrolls and dice to stop the 3 warp lightning spells in his next magic phase.

Your next turn you charge the Engineer units and kill the characters. After that you have the advantage and should mop up quite easily.

Remember the Skaven strength is in their ld so mitigating this gives you an immediate advantage.
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Post by Desert icon »

Go either magic heavy yourself or go completely anti-magic. A few Null Talismans scattered here and there and the Ring if you feel frisky will do a good job of scaring him away from your big combat units, and if it doesn't you should be able to get rid of most of his spam.

Just remember that your infantry/cavalry can tear his infantry apart, just keep an eye out for any Jezzails, Ratling guns, and/or Warp weapons he might take (warpfire, globadiers, etc.).
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Post by Dark Alliance »

If taking them apart from a distance I work on reducing their rank bonus and thus affect their ld value for the resultant panic tests.
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Post by Thomus darkblade »

This is the perfect oppurtunity to use the often forgotten crystal of midnight! Throw it on a level 2 with the tome or a master with a null shard. It pretty good in all games under 2000 points, and especially good against the low leadership- one spell only skaven.

That said- I would go magic light- with the ring of hotek, seal of ghrond and crystal of midnight- a couple of units spearmen to hold the clanrats at bay. RBTs and RXBs to shoot up any jezzails he might take and specialized combat troops to taste.
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Post by Rabidnid »

Take 2/3 lvl 2s and just blow his army to bits. I blew a Thzeech army apart a couple weeks ago at 1,000 points - he thought he was magic heavy as well until I rolled 14 PD (with pod) about turn 3 :)

Life taker or blade wind for the jezzails,
hydra for the furry blocks of kindling,
witches for fce first charge up the middle
naked CoKs for riding down flanks
magic missiles and RXB for the skirmishers and gun teams.
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Post by Camaris »

As everyone has been saying, go magic heavy yourself. Am I correct in assuming that the rest of his army is skyre heavy? If so, make sure to utilize black horror/mass magic missiles on his low ld skirmishers to cause panic tests.
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Post by Dyvim tvar »

If you are facing 3 warlock Engineers with Storm Daemon, that means 4 Warp-Lightning spells every turn (untill you can take down some of his engineers). A key here is that Warp Lightning is a magic missile, so if you can mess with the enemey line of sight, you can protect the troops you really care about. I would probably take 3 units of harpies if you have the models for them, and just use them to screen your troops from shooting and magic. Take the Ring of Hotek and try to keep it within 12" of all 3 harpy units. Run a second wave of fast units behind the harpies -- stuff with long charge ranges so that you can get into combat quickly. Knights work best in this role, although a Hydra could be good to draw fire. Even against high-strength Skaven shooting and magic, it can take a lot before going down. Plus, with no fighty characters, the Skeven leadership will be pretty low and terror could be a good thing.
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Post by Dalamar »

The Crystal of Midnight as far as I know doesn't work on Warlock Engineers...
They don't know any spells.
They have their warplock contraptions that give the same effect as the spell.
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Post by Stonecutter »

I would like to take the opposite approach to the magic heavy recommendations dealing with the rats. They are vermin and are easily crushed once you get into contact with them so it is merely a matter of getting there, which is easy for druuchi if they don't have qualms about spilling some of their own blood. The cost of a tooled up sorceress is the same as an entire block of disposable spear elves so I think you can go troop heavy and really hurt them. Here is an option for a non-magic appraoch:

Take two mounted masters, one a BSB, and between them ensure they have RoH, null talisman x 2 and RXBs on both characters with something to make them S5 or S6 (A halberd or lance is ideal as it saves points). Bring along a couple units of RXBs with shields (or one unit plus dark riders with RXB) and 3 full (20) blocks of spearelves, 2 with standard & musician and perhaps banner of murder for one while the 3rd is bare bones and possibly less than 20 due to points. Stretch the 3rd unit of spear elves in a thin line across the centre of the board and push them forward with the two blocks manoeuvering behind. Warp lightning is great but your opponent will be miscasting on any double (i.e. about 50% of the time with 3 dice) and even when he gets the spell off, the sacrificial unit will absorb the damage and every 1 on the d6 puts a wound on the engineer. At the same time, RXBs can peel off a rank or two from the clanrats, take out jezzails and ratling guns and slowly move up to provide flank protection. The characters, with BS 6, will have 4 shots between them to aid in hitting high value targets although they will have to move <=5" to do so. After 2 turns of marching, the rats should be backed up against a wall and with two characters on dark steeds, you can charge out 18" to go after something critical a little earlier. The BSB and general can rush in, kill an engineer and some rats and have a decent chance of breaking the unit if it has had a rank or two removed through shooting before combat. Meanwhile, your two surviving blocks of spears can move in to take on the remaining rats well within the 12" range of your general, RoH and BSB. With the SDC and fully armoured, your characters will have 2+ saves on dark steeds or 1+ on cold ones (0+ vs spells and shooting).

If there is decent terrain (i.e. make sure you deploy it yourself), taking a hydra in lieu of the 2nd block of spears also could work as it could move 12" turn 1 to cover, then march again and flame 8" on turn 2. The terror and panic checks should remove some shooters and casters and with only a bit of luck, the hydra can charge on turn 3 and shred any rats its comes into contact with. Meanwhile, the rest of the army advances up the centre.
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Post by Kinslayer »

3 fully kitted out warlocks at 1k means he will not have much else. Not to mention that warlocks are not actually that great except when backing up a greyseer in bigger games. It should not be too much problem to just wipe out the units with the warlocks in by running them away or something and then sweeping up the mess that's left.
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Dalamar
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Post by Dalamar »

Actually warlocks on their own are pretty amazing with 2d6 S5 missile... they can take down smaller units single handedly, and obliterate a unit per turn when they all focus on same target.

That is if all their spells come through so some magic protection is neccessary.
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Shoyer
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Post by Shoyer »

Hey.
I just went with alot of troops and alot of shooting.
Made one of his units with a engineer flee in the second turn. =)
Anyways I won. =D

Thanks for all the ideas.
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