Vanguard wing

[Dan.Ford]

I play this over the weekend, it was a good game , lost 8-24 Star strike.

 

This vanguard wing is untapped :

So think about your army and units abilities that are triggers by charges and pile in's. 

 

So you are in combat with a unit of big Libs .

in their movement turn they teleport away out of combat, placing the first model 5" away from the Prosecutors that could almost be anywhere on the table.

And now the Libs conga lining all the other Libs models in to your army .  

Now in their combat phase they attack, no charges or pile in , as they have set up where they need to be .

it hard and will make you think , the ring / line of screen of models 1" apart will not protect you ,as they will set up though it , too get to your characters etc .

You will now need two screening lines touching.

 

it it got me thinking, I love this game

 

 

[Nico]

They can only leap over a line of 25mm bases unless you leave fat gaps between models - but yep - don't leave a snake line route to your heroes.

I still cannot see how he beat you?

Surely even one unit of 30 Bloodletters would wreck his Liberators?

[Auroch]

What was your list ?

I think about a list like his since a long time.

Never tested it, wondering if the resilience could make it grind the ennemy while he struggles to damage the Liberators or to catch the Prosecutors.

Looks like it does

[Carnelian]

Vanguard wing just won facehammer right?

[Thebiggesthat]

22 minutes ago, Carnelian said:

Vanguard wing just won facehammer right?

Yup, this is the list Dan is talking about, He played Jack

[Killax]

It's a certain massive Death Star and it's cool, as mentioned since GH2017's release a lot of armies have the option to do something like this (less hopping around but basically presenting the largest Death Star unit that makes a sub-game).
In that same vein parts of it can be negated if opponents keep it into consideration while playing this and respecting how wide spacing can work in their favour too in this particular match up.

All in all I like the list, like the concept and am happily suprised to see it being this effective. A while ago we discussed Bloodforged in a similar manner to this on the Blades of Khorne Facebook page, including a massive Blood Warrior block supported by Wrathmonger to do some crazy stuff.  

The downside of the list is offcourse that certain tables will not really allow you to optimize 30  Liberators and still have enough impact to contest multiple Objectives. At the same time it's mad fun too. The list in question:


Cheers,

[Auroch]

I really like this list too.

I am just wondering how it can deal with big save units since the only source of MW is the stardrake.

[Ben]

3 hours ago, Auroch said:

I really like this list too.

I am just wondering how it can deal with big save units since the only source of MW is the stardrake.

it doesn't always need to.  You can pin them in place and keep them off the objectives while scoring.  You don't actually need to kill units.  

[MOMUS]

Within.

Its a funny word for GW, this wouldn't be a list if the wording was 'wholly within'.

Maybe more redeploy effects will be reworded in future. 

 

[heywoah_twitch]

11 hours ago, Dan.Ford said:

This vanguard wing is untapped :

No, that's clearly tapped. 

[Thomas Lyons]

1 hour ago, MOMUS said:

Within.

Its a funny word for GW, this wouldn't be a list if the wording was 'wholly within'.

Maybe more redeploy effects will be reworded in future. 

 

Yep.  It's just the right kind of thing to get reworded in an FAQ/errata.  It's one reason I decided not to build the list.  It will get abused until it gets this fix. 

[Jack Armstrong]

It was a great game thanks Dan.  Also think I played the whole tournament thinking they needed to be within 6" to trigger the extra attack ability and it's actually within 8 so the trail guy could have been piling in!  Not much of a difference but nice to know.

In answer to the other question I didn't face any high armour save units on the whole, the one I was worried about was the SCE mirror against Drake + Fulminators that Sam was using.  As Ben said earlier though the whole trick of the list actually isn't in the offensive power of the Liberators it's the fact that it's 60 wounds, with inspiring presence and a 2+ rerolling 1 save that you just cant chew through.  It's the same theory as Dans army actually, the bloodletters are just there to die slowly while the rest of his army scores objectives.  If the Liberators can die slowly over 3-4 rounds while I'm scoring all the objectives and chipping away at all the units then I'm very happy.

For instance in the Changehost matchup it takes them 2-3 magic phases to do the 60 wounds by which time my prosecutors and judicators have normally cleaned up and I've been scoring objectives.  If instead he focused magic on the Drake/shooting the liberators clear up in combat (they are amazing against 5+ wound stuff due to the +1 to hit meaning they get extra wound rolls on 5's).

[James Ramsay]

42 minutes ago, Jack Armstrong said:

It was a great game thanks Dan.  Also think I played the whole tournament thinking they needed to be within 6" to trigger the extra attack ability and it's actually within 8 so the trail guy could have been piling in!  Not much of a difference but nice to know.

In answer to the other question I didn't face any high armour save units on the whole, the one I was worried about was the SCE mirror against Drake + Fulminators that Sam was using.  As Ben said earlier though the whole trick of the list actually isn't in the offensive power of the Liberators it's the fact that it's 60 wounds, with inspiring presence and a 2+ rerolling 1 save that you just cant chew through.  It's the same theory as Dans army actually, the bloodletters are just there to die slowly while the rest of his army scores objectives.  If the Liberators can die slowly over 3-4 rounds while I'm scoring all the objectives and chipping away at all the units then I'm very happy.

For instance in the Changehost matchup it takes them 2-3 magic phases to do the 60 wounds by which time my prosecutors and judicators have normally cleaned up and I've been scoring objectives.  If instead he focused magic on the Drake/shooting the liberators clear up in combat (they are amazing against 5+ wound stuff due to the +1 to hit meaning they get extra wound rolls on 5's).

It's a great list Jack and even better with tempests eye! Reliability is key and the list had it. I really wanted to play it with the jabbers and magma cannons as It would have been a great game but we missed each other unfortunately!

 

Yes this is how I lost to Dan, needed to kill his army 1 turn faster but couldn't win the turn order late on to score so was stuck on my side killing all the letters while the dogs scored for 3 turns.

 

[Nico]

It is a great list in very capable hands.

It's also a poster boy for why the new Firestorm abilities aren't appropriate for factions that have their own allegiance (e.g. Stormcast).

Drake on a 1+ rerolling 1s and Liberators on a 2+ rerolling ones at the start of the game in the short window before they become Battleshock immune and get the Lantern buff up is really bad for balance.

If they use these abilities at a matched play event , then they should be for armies without faction allegiances - so you can get Grand Alliance Order allegiance plus your new Tempest's Eye ability - that might actually be pro-balance.

[svnvaldez]

I hope GW is aware of this and It gets an FAQ. I played the Vanguard wing last week with 3 stack lanterns and IP on the teleporting Libs. Its a small army so if you have a lot of mortal wounds its manageable but it would be nice to see  'wholly within' or no stacking lanterns.

[Tommm]

Here’s what it looks like on setup for anyone struggling to understand how the Liberator’s come down.

[Carnelian]

37 minutes ago, Tommm said:

Here’s what it looks like on setup for anyone struggling to understand how the Liberator’s come down.

That is both awful and awesome 

[Captain Marius]

Cool pic, surely the answer tho is just to take more cheap ghouls and have them in 2 ranks (or any horde type unit?) 

[Vaux]

The problem is that the SCE player needs just one small gap to get through your line, that gap can be anywhere as long as it is in range to kongaline through it. The other thing is that that even if you take two lines of ghouls... he will just block you from objectives until you killed 60 wound off of a 2+ rerolling ones armor save unit which is immun to battleshocks.

[Captain Marius]

That is a tough one, id like to give that a go!

[Major]

Its a great list. It has its weaknesses like everything else. I'm still not sure if it requires FAQ or if we as a community just need to evolve again to deal with it. I am running this list, but its not my main force (I prefer Free Guild) so am looking at this from both perspectives. Either way it's great to see it roll out especially against armies such as Death or anything that gets bonuses on the charge. 

[Player33]

On 10/18/2017 at 7:31 AM, Tommm said:

Here’s what it looks like on setup for anyone struggling to understand how the Liberator’s come down.

I understand how the Vanguard Wing says that the unit of Liberators can set up anywhere within 5" of the Prosecutors, but I'm just surprised this doesn't violate being within 3" of enemy models prior to charging.

[AverageBoss]

2 hours ago, Player33 said:

I understand how the Vanguard Wing says that the unit of Liberators can set up anywhere within 5" of the Prosecutors, but I'm just surprised this doesn't violate being within 3" of enemy models prior to charging.

You can't move within 3" during the movement phase. This is not a move, it is a placement. Most placement effects, such as Lightning Chariot and Scions have placement restrictions. Vanguard Wing has no such restriction until the Prosecutors are removed from the table.

[NurglesFirstChosen]

Tbh I think it’s pretty shady taking advantage of mistakes in rules like this. If someone I played with opted for dishonourable tactics of this kind, it would be the last time we played for a good while. But then again, I don’t play tournaments. 

[Nico]

It isn’t taking advantage - just because you have a 3” Metal Block to measure things (hopefully not around your neck) does not mean that the 3” rule is on a pedestal. The FAQ kicked it off any pedestal anyway by reaffirming that setups are distinct from moves.

The photo above illustrates the worst case - chaff on 25mm bases that aren’t properly deployed in a zig zag line. Next time that person plays if he zig zags the chaff then the Liberators cannot coherently hop over the line on their fat 40mm bases. 32mm chaff are more or less immune to that problem.

The list is very strong but is beatable. I’ve beaten it once and drawn against another (Minor victory on Knife to The Heart but he got a secondary). I all but tabled him.

If it does need a nerf, then my proposed answer was capping the Liberators at 20 Models not 30 - fewer Grand Weapons, lower effective bravery and cover less ground.