How to kill a VoZD (Vampire lord on zombie dragon)

[Korazell]

So, I'm a soul-blight player, love vampires, always have, so I naturally went with this faction. So far, It's been amazing, fun models, great power in the models, but now I'm being regarded as "That guy" because the Stormcast player and Destruction player I play with frequently says the thing is unkillable. It's a fantastic model, to be sure, but, really, I don't feel for them.I'm not a j erk about it, don't gloat, but I don't put up with whining when I'm especially trying to help.  However, it's hurting the vibe at the local store because everyone now thinks I'm some bad-sport with an OP unkillable dragon. 

TL;DR can we brain storm how we can kill the thing? What reliable ways are there to destroy it? 

VoZD:  Red fury, Tomb blade on the death-lance, chalice and shield. 

 

That's the load-out, fairly standard. What kicks my dragon's teeth in so they can stop whining at me? 

 

[Countmoore]

Just take a Mourngul along side him then they can moan about that as well ?

Seriously though mine has died many times many many games. My (least) favourite being him charging a frost Lord on stonehorn - command ability up, red fury, charge for 3 damage on lance, going first. Stone horn killed me!

[Korazell]

See,  my destruction friend wants a way to kill it with just boys, or a Warboss, he doesn't seem to understand monsters are best met with OTHER monsters and he won't GET a Stornhorn or anything else even if he wants a ranged option for his Ironjawz force.  I mentioned this very same thing to him so I'm glad I'm not nuts. 

[Teletomas]

I don't think its that hard at all. 

But I run a soulblight list myself as my main army. Another of the locals in my neighborhood store runs a vampire lord on zombie dragon list as well.

We have fun trying to show up with new lists that tackle the hard comers of each others list.  I've built a surprise destruction list against same which I showed up with at our local store one day to try out. It's a mixed destruction list, which includes some spider riders as well as a arachnarok spider with a shaman on top (she's costed at 280 points)

I run arachnarok with shamans double mortal wound from pincer attack spell, battle brew and bellowing tyrant. This means it has 4 attacks that give out d3 mortal wounds on 3+ / then double damage.

So first time we played I charged his dragon and all attacks were over the mortal wound threshold and all four d3 rolled pretty high so I gave out 20 mortal wounds in that round of combat. Dragon was dead.

All in all pretty easy! Spiderfang arachnarok can run in any mixed destruction at 280 points only.  Its a killer if you screen it from attacks. Also the 10 spider riders that I ran could have killed him in the first round of combat as well with a little worse ward save as they actually gave him 16 mortal wounds of which the ward save saved 4...

About a week after we played another round, this time my opponent had planned an even more sinister answer than me: he brought both dragon and mourngul. But even though my arachnarok was inside of mournguls -2 to hit modifier, his dragon was killed again by arachnarok -but only just, and this time it could have gone both ways, as arachnarok was down to two wounds at the time! 

So, there you have it; something to kill the zombie dragon with. Now when your local destruction players starts bringing the arachnarok - then you take the mourngul... See, I just gave your advice on how to kill dragon and also on how to mitigate that advice again!

That zombie dragon and chauffeur. He's not too much he's just good. Your opponent could take him out with the megaboss on mawkrusha as well I would  think. 

Edit: post made no sense.

[Criti]

I... don't understand the question.

My most regular Death opponent doesn't use the damn thing anymore solely because I've killed it so many times in so many different ways...

I've ground it out with Liberators.

I've shot it off the table with javelins and Judicators.

I've mortal wounded it to death with Heraldors and Relictors.

I've smacked it around with Starsouls.

I've straight up Celestant on Dracoth murdered him.

I've torn him down with the Celestant Prime.

See,  my destruction friend wants a way to kill it with just boys, or a Warboss, he doesn't seem to understand monsters are best met with OTHER monsters and he won't GET a Stornhorn or anything else even if he wants a ranged option for his Ironjawz force

That sounds like a personal problem.

Taking a real world example, if my toolbox was lacking a claw hammer, I would have to get creative.  A pipe could sub in the hammer just fine.  Until I needed to pull a nail.  That pipe just won't pull that nail.  So I have no choice but to invest in new tools to get the job done.

My miniatures toolbox is no different.  I'm not suggesting he buy something solely to fight a VLoZD.  But surely there's something that could enhance his entire army overall... and still have the added side effect of killing the VLoZD.

[Korazell]

@Teletomas  That's highly helpful! I told him right now Ironjawz doesn't have the model support I think he wants as besides death he has the least model support and not even a unique book with spells and artifacts I'm aware of. I'll bring up the spider as he knows I HATE SPIDERS and they are stupidly good if you screen with them. So yeah, seems pretty decent!

@Criti I'm asking how you would kill a zombie dragon so I can use my nicely painted and beloved Zombie dragon without feeling like an a-hole.  I don't know what to tell you, with Tomb blade and Red fury I wipe his "5 man unit" or his "ten man unit" but being Alpha striked usually means you die, especially with a monster.  So far, I've gotten in 17 games and the thing won't die, usually ends at full wounds or darn near close. I don't know what to tell them because they just don't want to listen. You have any suggestions

 

[Double Misfire]

[Korazell]

13 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

I love it. I almost WISH they had cannons. 

[Double Misfire]

Thanks. I'd actually use Grudge Throwers to take out a VLoZD, but the slogan's got a much less catchy ring to it.

[Thor]

Your  stormcast friend can use protectors. they straight  up murder monsters. And they have 3 inch  range so you  can protect  Them  with liberators. Or mass them to do more murder. In general  stormcast  have a lot of ways to deal with  big things.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Retributors . Get Buffy McLanternFace to give them a bonus to save, and fill them with those cheesy Starsoul Maces. Then get Skeleton-On-A-Stick-Man to give them the new Blessed Weapons ability. Take like, four of those. Then take the Lord Celestant to give them +1 to Hit.

2 Attacks each at Damage 2 with 2 Mortal Wounds on a 5+ to Hit as well as an extra attack for each of these that then gets 2 Mortal Wounds on a 5+ to hit in turn. On top of the Starsoul Maces, this shalt drown ye in Mortal Wounds that doth hurt.

As far as the Ironjawz player? Tell him to stop trying to kill paper with rock, it just doesn't work. Can't really kill Gordrakk with Skeletons, by the same token you can't really kill a Zombie Dragon with 'Ardboys. Tell him to buff the heck out of some Brutes or something.

[Korazell]

@CoffeeGrunt

 

Pray tell, who is Skeleton-on-a-stick-man? I'm not familiar but that does sound pretty darn reasonable! 

As for the destruction player, yeah, I've tried saying that. He only has gruntas at the moment, no brutes. 

 

@Thor

Oh man, those things WOULD chew me up. I'll have to suggest those. 

[TerrorPenguin]

Just shoot the ****** out of it.

[CoffeeGrunt]

23 minutes ago, Korazell said:

@CoffeeGrunt

Pray tell, who is Skeleton-on-a-stick-man? I'm not familiar but that does sound pretty darn reasonable! 

As for the destruction player, yeah, I've tried saying that. He only has gruntas at the moment, no brutes. 

What kind of Ironjaws player has no Brutes? I thought they were magnetically attracted to them?

Also Skeleton-On-A-Stick man:

[Korazell]

@CoffeeGrunt  Hm...do you happen to know the name? I'm checking on the website and I don't seem him at all listed. 

 

Nevermind! I'm blind. AS A BAT, AHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA...ha...ha.

[Criti]

2 hours ago, Korazell said:

 

@Criti I'm asking how you would kill a zombie dragon so I can use my nicely painted and beloved Zombie dragon without feeling like an a-hole.  I don't know what to tell you, with Tomb blade and Red fury I wipe his "5 man unit" or his "ten man unit" but being Alpha striked usually means you die, especially with a monster.  So far, I've gotten in 17 games and the thing won't die, usually ends at full wounds or darn near close. I don't know what to tell them because they just don't want to listen. You have any suggestions

 

I feel like I gave several... for Stormcast at least.

For Destruction, I have no idea what your regular guy owns.  Suffice to say this - the VLoZD's save is not insurmountable (and if he's getting a Mystic Shield to buff it, great... Death spells tend to be quite good... I'd be happy as an opponent to watch you burn a spell on Shield), but he does have a healthy number of wounds.  

So the only real advice I can give without an army list is to attack the game's breaking point.

The key to killing anything is to crack the armor.  This can be achieved via excessive dice or minimal dice.

For excessive dice, it's all about pounding it with so many dice that it either dies straight away, or takes so many wounds it can't heal them all back and then it dies the next turn.  Extra attack spells or Command abilities help here.  Concentrated shooting... basically, lean the whole army on that model if he really deems it important enough to kill.  Doesn't much matter what your save is at that point.  If you're rolling 40, 50, 60+ saves in a turn, the hurt is coming.

Otherwise, minimize the dice.  This is all about mortal wounds.  They bypass armour, and depending on the source, sometimes bypass the hit and wound rolls.  The fewer times you have to roll to cause a wound, the fewer number ofntimes you can fail.

Realistically thougg, your friends need to learn to play the scenario.  The VLoZD is not a game winner by himself, especially since most objectives are based on "massess of asses" (model count).  Kill the little things.  Tank the big boy. A big unit of Boyz or Ardboyz with Inspiring Presence goes a long way - even if you decide not to stay in combat, a turn retreating is a turn not fighting.

If your regular opponents refuse to expand their collections to "even the meta," they have the options of overwhelming force, mortal wound application, or tanking and ignoring.

If they can't do any of those, they have no options but to update their armies.  If they still refuse to do that, they're pretty much beyond help.

I'm all for a fluffy, relaxed games without a lot of die hard competitive play and list building - but there comes a point where it's like, "bro, I can only tone things down on my end so much... you've got to meet me halfway"

[AverageBoss]

As a Stormcast players and a long time Undead/Vampire Counts player, the Zombie Dragon (all 3 of the VL, GK, and unmounted versions), are pretty easy to take out for Stormcasts.

Retributors or Protectors with Star Soul Maces is an elite melee option.

Judicators, Javelin Prosecutors, and Longstrike Raptors are good shooting options.

Liberator spam will win the war of attrition (and 40 wounds to his 14 for equal points). Better if he has a way to teleport them into charge range (see Vanguard Wing).

A single Glaive Dracoth Rider (and they come in pairs), can potentially kill Archaon on the charge by his lonesome. Hero Dracoth rider is a similar story.

Don't know Destruction well enough outside Ogre Kingdoms to comment on them.

[tolstedt]

You don't need to kill it to win the game.

[Velonge]

Hello guys, first off thanks for all of the great advice and sharing your experiences. I'm looking forward to sharing some painting and battle reports here as I finish up more of my kits. (I'm the destruction player Korazell mentioned they linked me to this thread.)

Though there is one clarification I want to make.

5 hours ago, Korazell said:

See,  my destruction friend wants a way to kill it with just boys, or a Warboss, he doesn't seem to understand monsters are best met with OTHER monsters and he won't GET a Stornhorn or anything else even if he wants a ranged option for his Ironjawz force.  I mentioned this very same thing to him so I'm glad I'm not nuts. 

More honestly in our first two battles he suggested I could kill his Zombie Dragon if I alpha strike'd it. So I positioned my forces so I could get all 10 of my boyz with double weapons and my Megaboss in on the same charge with a waaaggh for +1 attack. The 'Ard boys threw 40 attacks at 2+/3+ and the Megaboss threw another 7 attacks at 3+/3+ and 3 attacks at 5+/3+ He made a bunch of his 2+/3+ saves and mitigated the remaining chunk on his 5+/6+ saves. The net result was nine wounds stuck after which he promptly killed me on the crack back after winning the initiative roll for the following round.

Unfortunately I learned in our first battle it was unlikely that I could kill his behemoth with my rank and file, a bummer but a good test to see what could happen. The next time we fought he changed from ruler of the night over to red fury and the rest is pretty much history. I spend the whole game avoiding combat while trying to get on objectives. (Unsuccessfully I may add, since the bloody thing fly's 14 inches and tears anything I can put on the table to shreds.) 

The hope was to get some suggestions about tactics for later battles and I literally have a Mawkrusha kit now that I'm assembling next. Just very discouraging watching it tear not only me but one of the other Storm Cast players and a Nurgle player to bits in our 1200 point games.

[Planar]

The monster killing unit of the ironjaws is the brutes. They have worked wonders against monsters for me. You might want to try them. In this case you will need a unit if at least 10 and protect them with inspiring presence since they are very easy to run away

Otherwise If you really want to kill it everytime get a Frostlord on Stonehorn...

[Velonge]

Cool cool, I'll just plan on getting ten and working from there.

[erasercrumbs]

I guess the Ironjawz player wouldn't feel proper splashing in some Gitmob war machines? 

[Teletomas]

1 hour ago, Velonge said:

Cool cool, I'll just plan on getting ten and working from there.

Gotta say, with ten brutes you're not certain of taking out the dragon with if it has red fury and tomb blade + mystic shield.. It can happen, you could also loose a lot of points if it fails. Maw krusha is the way to go to be certain. Dragon has to die in first try. But apart from that you NEED brutes in an ironjawz list. They are a scary unit! 

 

8 hours ago, Korazell said:

@CoffeeGrunt

 

Pray tell, who is Skeleton-on-a-stick-man? I'm not familiar but that does sound pretty darn reasonable! 

As for the destruction player, yeah, I've tried saying that. He only has gruntas at the moment, no brutes.  

He plays Gore Gruntas? Okay, your list is definitely not overpowered- his is way underpowered. Gore Gruntas suck in most cases. Gore Gruntas won't do anything if they don't get that 8" charge and d3 damage from their attacks. Seeing as this rarely goes according to plan they are over glorified objective takers that look menacing (until hopefully they are fixed in next ironjawz book) . 

[CoffeeGrunt]

8 hours ago, Criti said:

Doesn't much matter what your save is at that point.  If you're rolling 40, 50, 60+ saves in a turn, the hurt is coming.

I hear this alot in 40K circles and it often doesn't ring true. For example, if the VLoZD is Mystic Shielded and you have no Rend,  it has a 1/6 chance to fail its 2+ save, and then a 1/6 or 2/6 to negate the wound, meaning that even your 60 Wounds might only land about 8-9 actual Wounds in damage.

And if you threw that much chaff at it, it's basically free to feed itself back up to full strength, especially with the Chalice of Blood.

Take it from a Guard player, chaff is chaff for a reason. If you throw a hundred rubbish things at a target, they might just about match 5 good things.

6 hours ago, Velonge said:

(Unsuccessfully I may add, since the bloody thing fly's 14 inches and tears anything I can put on the table to shreds.) 

Only if it's unwounded. Put the hurt on it and it's much slower. You also need to not throw chaff at it; it'll just slaughter everything and heal up. Single, rough models work best against it, something like the Mawkrusha, for example.

[Criti]

If you're not comfortable with all out engagement if it Mystic Shields, you chaff.  Chaff doesn't always mean engage in AoS, either.

A basic Orruk on a 32mm base has a 7.25" diameter zone of blocking that the Vampire can't enter without charging.  A unit of 10, properly spaced, can blot out a huge area and force the Vampire to engage them.  A second and/or 3rd unit of chaff positioned so that they will be caight within 3" when the Vampire engages will keep him in combat, but far enough away that he'll need to use his pile in to engage them - forcing a 2nd and 3rd turn of engagement.  If he retreats, he doesn't fight that turn.  If the chaff happens to survive into your turn, you pull it out of combat and use whatever models are left to create as big a blocking zone as possible to limit the Vampire's options again. 

Then,  if he doesn't shield, you pounce with everything.

Take it from a Necron player who fields almost nothing but Warriors.  Roll enough dice and everything dies.