Just had the 8000p battle on Saturday. Was a great game, feels like Warhammer 8th really comes to life with large scales battles. 2500p is really good for normal games, anything lower than that and the tactics seem to become more irrelevant.
Don't want to derail the thread too much, will make a battlereport for the entire battle.
The Executioners with Death hag+Cauldron of blood was awesome, they faced off a knight charge with no casualties and massacred the knights with their strength 6 2A WS5, later they flanked and destroyed a 25 spearmen regiment that was locked fighting crypt ghouls and killed off another knight group with ease. They even faced a Great Fire Dragon
(The one with basically 8 everything ) and the death hag poison was what dealt the final death blow to the dragon, though at this point there were only 4 executioners left. The dragon had been in combat for 5 rounds against 25+ Tomb Guard+Tomb King. My ally had the final say in magic use, and due to 5 rounds with pathetic power dice he did not want to dispel the transformation of kadon spell and instead focus on resurrection. Remembered murderous prowess the entire game and damn it can make a big difference.
My biggest fault was the formation I ran them in, I had the cauldron at the side instead of in the middle, this led to the empire player sending forth a Pidgeon of doom that blew up 8 executioners
After that a cannon ball killed off another 8 executioners. The 6+ward helped a little though, but the synergy of the unit worked really well. Ofc I can see why people use witch elves with 4+ save instead.
We also banned 4 spells from the game, purple sun, that transformation into gold spell, pit of shades and dwellers bellow. Life magic was a great choice, especially with the sacrificial dagger, though since my ally the TK player was wholly dependent on the PD for his army I was left with 0-2 PD a turn and the empire player focused on dispelling my buff/heal spells. This let the TK player resurrect a lot though. The dreadspears+Supreme Sorceress were trampled in the end though, as my executioners had gone from the left to the middle I had only 2x10 xbows to support the dreadspears and this game I really saw the weakness of the DE army which is lack of strong weapons. The xbows works great against light cavalry
(the empire player went MSU with the cavalry 5x4 pistoliers and 4x4-6 IC/Reiksguard) but 4 knights obliterated my entire left flank which only have S3 attacks. The pistoliers also killed off the Cold one Knights before they got a chance to contribute.
The Corsairs were able to hold ground against 4 knights for 5 rounds taking only 4-6 wounds, but the low strength against +1armor save made them dependent on support, I can see why MSU shades can work better as the corsairs are too expensive to be just a block. They were able to finish two groups of pistoliers though after they got saved by the executioners.
Vulcan wrote:When all else fails, converting Handbow Corsairs into Shades is pretty simple. Just smooth greenstuff over the scales of the sea dragon cloak and you're done.
But Dark Riders, Harpies, Peggy masters, and Warlocks are wonderful aids to the Dark Elf maneuver battle.
Will definitely get dark riders and warlocks. Fast cav is awesome being able to march and shoot they ran circles around the chariots and tomb guard, only the corsairs were able to finish the pistoliers off in the end before getting shredded by cannon fire themselves.
(Morathi is a proxy for the Great Fire Dragon which the lvl 2 amber wizard turned into)