Stopping Murderhost in Scorched Earth

[Ratatatata]

I'm not sure the murderhost is the big offender here. Dreadwood sylvaneth list can do more or less the same, though just with two objectives. A dreadwoood list would have the staying power and the mobility to not only burn two objectives turn one but also compete in the following turns. As @Andreas noted, tunneling Vulcites could do some shenanigans too. 

I'm not sure about every battle tome but there are offensive and defensive ways to handle this scenario for every grand alliance out there, possibly bar Death. 

[Gotrek]

17 minutes ago, Ratatatata said:

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I'm not sure about every battle tome but there are offensive and defensive ways to handle this scenario for every grand alliance out there, possibly bar Death. 

Death IMO can be pretty resilient to it. Take 3x40 skeletons with spears. Deploy each unit in a single thin line stretching across the table one right behind the other (well, units 2 and 3 are right behind each other, small gap between units 1 and 2 to make sure they are out of reach for the blood letters). 90 letters impact and delete unit 1, units 2 and 3 pile in, each delivering 120 attacks, 60 of them hit, 30 wound and 20 score damage. So between them you have 40 dead blood letters. Bonus points if you also have some morghast archai or VLoZD on the flanks, both have 2+" range and will shred letters (each pair of archai will kill ~9 letters)

[FRoper]

The main question about this scenario, is that despite this scenario being great for murderhost, will it work for others. if it does not. then you probably won't see the battalion, so there is little to worry about. 

 

also given that you can take your opponents, quite easily if you went for a flying list, especially with Soulbligth for death, with multiple units of Varghiests. 

[Killax]

Absolutely agree with the notes from the above three posts. I play Murderhost, see the power it could have for this specific scenario but also see different armies indeed being capable of roughly doing the same. 

As the game is really comming to a great point of balance in my opinion I feel that this too is a tactic that works when your opponent is not aware of it. Because for sure things can get skewy but in order for the Murderhost player to do this consistently he is still thaking a risk and running an army with 1 Bloodletter hero and 8 units of either Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, Fleshhounds or Skullcannons. While Bloodletters are a certain incredible unit from that list when ran in 30's it's impossible to run 8 of those units at 2K.

So... personally I really believe the only awnser would be to change some rules for this specific Scenario. However we also have to be realistic that typically playing this Scenario is a 1 in 6 'thing' and then, while Murderhost is great anyway, in order for the Murderhost to consistently be effective for this 1 in 6 Scenario it has to be filled with a lot of units that arn't incredible by any stretch of the imagniation.

The fact that a Khorne army or Murderhost Army wins a tournament in many cases doesn't come directly from the build, especially because AoS is being balanced really well. A part skill is included for any win and if your running something the field isn't aware about it becomes a whole lot harder to counter that skill at a specific game or tournament...

[Requizen]

Does Freeguild Allegiance not stop this dead? Put the Grand Company Guard on the objective, maybe a second in a rank behind, and then when they get charged you blast away with the Handgunners behind. Good luck outnumbering when you lose 18 Bloodletters before they get to swing! Honestly though, Freeguild Allegiance is almost freaking unstoppable for melee armies, from what I've seen.

Aetherwings, especially those in an Aetherstrike, should be able to stop it as well for Stormcast. They can move up with the near Vanguard-Raptor move before the charge (potentially stopping the Bloodletters in their tracks), and then if they die, the Longstrikes or Hurricanes shoot in and cripple the remainder of the unit. 

 

I think the big thing stopping it will be armies that can Deep Strike or Outflank. If the entire enemy army charges into your backline to kill your objectives, you just go into their DZ, away from the now far-off melee units, and destroy theirs. Would have to see how it works out list wise but it's very feasible.

[Solaris]

21 hours ago, hobgoblinclub said:

He burns your objectives beside you get a turn though. He charges, kills the first wave of horrors. Unless you see manage to squeeze enough bodies in, he burns all three. But the time the Tzaangor pile in it'd be all over. 

No, he burns them at the end of the turn. He runs three units of 30 Bloodletters across the field and kills my 60 Horrors that cover my entire 12" line. Before the end of the turn, in his combat phase, I pile 6 Enlightened in to kill one of his units and 30 Tzaangors in to kill the remaining two units. The Tzaangors are deployed in a line behind the Horrors, ensuring that they get to attack but cannot be attacked themselves.

He charges. He kills my chaff. My hard-hitting units behind my chaff hits him back. Now, at the end of the turn, I control all three of my objectives and have lost 220 points worth of Horrors, while my opponent has lost 810 points worth of Bloodletters. He'd be a ****** to charge me in this setup, it would straight up lose him the game.

I think that in principle, any TAC competitive list needs to include screens of chaff and blender units - as far as I am concerned, both of these are absolutely essential tools. If you have these two, you can counter the Murderhost turn 1 victory through simple deployment. If you don't have these two I would argue that your list is not very TAC, in which case there will always be an element of rock-paper-scissors involved in your pairings. As @Nico says, almost every army should be able to do this. Therefore, I don't see this as much of a problem at all. I don't foresee myself ever going to a tournament with a list unable to handle it.

[MrCharisma]

So I just played my friend's Soulblight army which has the bloodline with +2 move and fly... and I'm much more scared of playing this again compared to Murder Host.