Is the cavalry army effective?

[Hillbilly Carl]

Hi all, I'm about halfway to building a 2500 point all-cavalry army but I have yet to play a game with it (I'm waiting until I have it fully assembled and painted). Before I go the rest of the way and buy another 4 boxes of dark riders, 2 boxes of COK and 3 more chariots I would like to know if this type of army is at all effective.

I have my list posted in the army list section (although it is most likely buried under a heap of new threads) but it is basically:

6 units of 5 dark riders with spears, xbows and shields, musician and standard for core
2 units of 9 COK, each with a fighty hero (one is the general, one is the bsb)
2 scourgerunner chariots
2 cold one chariots
2 units of 5 warlocks

Can this army be competitive? Do I absolutely need a spellcasting character or can I get away with the 2 units of warlocks for magic? Am I shooting myself in the foot by not taking Malus? I welcome any opinions as I don't want to spend the rest of my money on an army that isn't going to work. As it stands I can use the other half of my points to build a more conventional army so I'll end up with a good mix of mobility and infantry.

[Setomidor]

Hi there!

Actually, I think noone knows if it's going to work or not. The book is still pretty new, and I don't think anybody got enough experience yet to tell if all-cav is a good or bad idea. That said, a more conventional mix would of course be a more safe bet, since that is what many people are already playing.

I personally think an army without sorceresses can work quite well. Your biggest problem is going to be the lack of a dispel scroll, sometimes there is that single spell that you simply NEED to stop, and a dispel scroll is by far the most reliable way of achieving that.

Looking at your army list I'd say that 3 units of Dark Riders, 10 CoK, the heroes, 2 Cold One chariots and 10 Warlocks is the backbone of the army and these models will be useful in any list. What I'm a bit more sceptical about are the Scourgerunner chariots. I have not tried them on the battlefield myself, but on paper they seem to be a bit expensive for what they do.

Good luck!

[Hillbilly Carl]

Thanks for the reply. I agree that going into a game with no dispel scroll is definitely a scary prospect. I can only hope that my somewhat MSU approach will help minimize the damage if and when spells get through.

The scourgerunners are there for the threat of some high-strength shooting. I agree that they probably aren't the best bang for your buck but hopefully with 2 I'll be able to at least make my opponent nervous for a turn or two before they inevitably get shot to pieces. Hopefully I'll have enough other fast-moving threats to keep them alive long enough to do some damage.

I'm wondering, should I try to find the points to upgrade the general to ride a dark pegasus? It would give me another highly mobile threat and if I give him the cloak he'll be survivable too. It will make the one COK unit a little less killy but it might help the overall list.

[mypantsarefree13]

Hi all, I'm about halfway to building a 2500 point all-cavalry army but I have yet to play a game with it (I'm waiting until I have it fully assembled and painted). Before I go the rest of the way and buy another 4 boxes of dark riders, 2 boxes of COK and 3 more chariots I would like to know if this type of army is at all effective.

I have my list posted in the army list section (although it is most likely buried under a heap of new threads) but it is basically:

6 units of 5 dark riders with spears, xbows and shields, musician and standard for core
2 units of 9 COK, each with a fighty hero (one is the general, one is the bsb)
2 scourgerunner chariots
2 cold one chariots
2 units of 5 warlocks

Can this army be competitive? Do I absolutely need a spellcasting character or can I get away with the 2 units of warlocks for magic? Am I shooting myself in the foot by not taking Malus? I welcome any opinions as I don't want to spend the rest of my money on an army that isn't going to work. As it stands I can use the other half of my points to build a more conventional army so I'll end up with a good mix of mobility and infantry.

It could be competitive, but I have a few concerns:

* The two main, big hammer blocks are Stupid. I'd definetly keep them together so both are in range of the general's LD and BSB range. Hug the flanks of those units with the COCs. Four units with Stupid is playing with fire. That'll be the best you can do for stability but there will be those times when even a re-roll 10 fails. It happens to me so much I hope I'm absorbing other DE players' negative probablility outcomes

* I'm still not convinced any of our shooting that typically hits on 5s and 6s are worth much for their points without magic help, and especially not on single-shot, lightly armored scourgerunners. I might not have played with them enough to justify this statement yet.

It might be worth trying Malus out if more stability is important to you. It might not be, and that's OK! A possible change is to swap Malus in for the Highborn and put the BSB in that same COK unit. This way they won't get separated if the other knight unit becomes Stupid.

-mypantsarefree13

[Clockwork]

Try a Beasts Sorceress on a Dark Steed. Her spells will be +1 to cast on all your units as they are mounted.

[Daeron]

I haven't played such a list with the new book yet, but for what it's worth, here's my 2 cents on it.

I've managed to scare a few opponents with a cavalry heavy army. There's nothing quite like shouting "roaaarr!!" as you advance a humongous block of Cold One Knights and a few pegs. But I've also seen such an army decimated in two turns against a Dwarven gunline. That's what 4 hits out of 4 shots with a stone thrower will do.
I find that COKs are a hit or a miss. IMO they don't have the attacks required to break a large opponent, and whatever protection they have is offset by the lack of wounds the unit can take without losing its threat.

Of course there's the argument that you can whittle the enemy before hitting it with the COKs. And there's the argument that you can take out threats for the COKs with fast units. But combined, those arguments are bollocks, IMO:
- You have 2 turns before you make them count in combat.
- That's 2 turns to both neutralize threats and whittle down the enemy.
If you can do all that in 2 turns, then why bother with COKs? The actual punch from the COKs becomes but an act of frovility... something you'd do for the fun and sake of it.

You can improve the situation by picking fights where you didn't need to whittle the enemy down first, or not as much anyway. But this is not something done easily against an experienced opponent, who might happily sacrifice a smaller unit if that puts your COKs in a bad spot for a flank attack by his main troops. This can be prevented, again, by having good support to prohibit your opponent from positioning like this.

And so I found that the cavalry armies I managed to make effective were really about all the support you had to put around it. I found that COKs as main hammer unit have such gravity on the list that your whole list starts to evolve around that one unit... because it needs that much support to guarantee effectiveness... so much support, that the support itself becomes a force to be reckoned with.

[Hillbilly Carl]

Interesting points Daeron. When you say supporting units, are you referring to units that I have in my list like the chariots and dark riders or are you saying I should add some infantry in the form of witch elves, black guard, and/or executioners or monsters?

I like the point you make about having 2 turns at the start of the game to set up my combats. I have experience with cavalry-heavy armies as I also play Bretonnians and my High Elf army has a lot of cavalry too. It is always a challenge to create the right matchups but it is very satisfying when you get it right. You definitely don't want to rush into anything just because you can and I have found that in my most successful games my cavalry sometimes don't see combat until turn 3 or 4 once I have created a "perfect" charging solution.

War machines, high strength (or armour piercing) shooting and magic are all definitely going to be a big threat and will likely give me a lot of headaches. I'm hoping that my abundance of fast cavalry will be able to harrass and destroy enemy war machines early in the game. If I present a threat to the enemy shooting from turn 1 I may be able to get my cold one knights and chariots into combat unscathed. It works in theory but I know that in reality things seldom work as planned.

I played with the numbers a bit and managed to upgrade the general to be riding a dark pegasus and added a COK to the unit that the general used to be in to bring it up to 10. I achieved this by combining two units of dark riders into 1, making a 10-man unit and dropping another unit of 5. I also dropped the magic banner from the unit of 10 COK. I then upped the remaining 3 units of 5 to 6 and added a warlock to each of my warlock units bringing them to 6 each. I think this will help the army, giving me a couple new combat threats in the larger dark rider unit and pegasus rider. It also makes my support units a bit more survivable with 6 wounds each instead of 5. It also keeps the dark rider/warlock numbers in multiples of 5 so I still need 8 boxes of them total but I won't have any left over (waste not, want not).

Not sure if that is the right move, the original list had the general's unit with the standard of discipline which would help with the stupidity issues that mypantsarefree13 commented on by making the general's leadership 10 (he's just a hero-level character).

[Ichiyo1821]

I have done 2 units of 10 CoK, 2 Hydras, 15 Dark Riders and 2 pegasus characters and harpies with shades with the old book and I son't think it will be any different from the new book. It is actually better now since we had cheaper and better kbeasts and Warlocks!! It will work however you need sustained high str attacjs as the cok lose half of its killing power aftee the charge. To compensate for this you can add cheap masrers in all the cok busses with gw to mitigate the loss of lances on subsequent turns of combat. Also with a list like this u need a way to fit bolt throwera as the new meta forces people to use lore of metal or death in some gaming areas which can kill your knights. You can add Hydras barebones to add to the target saturation or even a master on a manticore.

[Hillbilly Carl]

I put the razor standard on one unit of cold one knights which will give me a bit more sustained punch against armour, especially with the Cold One's attacks, a unit of 10 will have 21 S4 Armour piercing attacks which is pretty good in my opinion. I like the idea of giving the characters great weapons to keep some high strength attacks too. Right now they have lances as well but I may have to re-think that. Too bad I can't give them both.

[Datalink7]

I put the razor standard on one unit of cold one knights which will give me a bit more sustained punch against armour, especially with the Cold One's attacks, a unit of 10 will have 21 S4 Armour piercing attacks which is pretty good in my opinion. I like the idea of giving the characters great weapons to keep some high strength attacks too. Right now they have lances as well but I may have to re-think that. Too bad I can't give them both.

Go halfway and get Halberd. This way you can still benefit from ASF, and S5 -3AS isn't bas.

[Kargan daemonclaw]

I think you can give characters both a lance a a great weapon. the lance is only used when charging and the great wepon is used other times.

Big question do you play scenarios from the rulebook?

If so you need command on both units of knights and probably on some dark riders to avoid being an easy beat for the blood and glory mission.

Also you are in trouble in Watch tower as you can't take and hold the tower.

I think scourge runner chariots are overpriced rubbish. If they were 75 points with no harpoon I think they would be very useful. but at 150 points with no defence they looks like easy points. I'd drop them and invest in a L4.

As has been noted, cavalry can struggle to break formed infantry on the charge so you need magic support to weaken the enemy combat blocks before your knights go in. I'd look at a lore that has a good number 6 spell that can remove units, top of mind would be purple sun, dwellers or final trans. Mind razor is also great, when all the attacks are S10 its very useful.

Once half the enemy combat block as been eaten by magic a charge by the knights should scatter the rest.

[Gidean]

I think you can give characters both a lance a a great weapon. the lance is only used when charging and the great wepon is used other times.

p.86 of our army book. One option. Sorry...no can do. Nor do the basic rules in the basic rule book support that. If you use a great weapon you are ALWAYS using it.

[Hillbilly Carl]

Hi Kargan, all the dark rider units will have banners so no worries on the blood or glory scenario and our group will almost always re-roll a watchtower result or change it up to be king of the hill instead so you only have to control a central hill.

I'm going to give the scourgerunners a chance (or I'll try out 1 at 1250) and see how it goes. I think dual Doombolts from the warlocks, especially the boosted versions, should be able to thin out a unit without too much trouble. 8D6 S5 hits can do a lot of damage. Although the chances of me getting off 2 boosted versions in a single phase are very slim. I'm hesitant to throw in a Sorceress because I don't know where to put one. I like that all my dark rider units are disposable and I think that putting her on her own is just going to make her the target of everything my opponents can throw at her.

I think at this point I've beaten this dead horse enough and I just have to try the list out in the real world and see how it goes. I'll definitely report back here once I've had some games with it.

[kaloomte]

Yes, batreps please--I would like to hear how the scougerunner does!

As for beating a dead horse, there's probably an app for that...

[Searinox Nagharha]

As for the boosted doombolt from the warlocks; you still need to roll 22 to pull it off. even on 6 dice thats just aboce your average roll (beeing 21) tho you can hope for an IF. which you will need cause no1 will like to get hit by 4d6 s5 hits xD

as for the Scourgerunner; personally I love it. both model wise and the way it plays.
Of the 5 games i played with it it only survived once, ppl generaly seem to be dead scared of the s7 bolt it shoots. even if it only hits 1/3 of the time.