Scorched Earth battleplan

[Chikout]

There has been some discussion on twitter after a UK tournament at the weekend in which there were a couple of turn one victories using the Scorched Earth battleplan.

In both cases the winning player was using the murderhost battalion which lets big units of bloodletters move up the board very quickly on turn one, claim all the opponents objectives and destroy them before the opponent even has the chance to move. 

This essentially ends the game before it has begun. 

There has been some debate about what to do about this possible issue so I thought I would open it up for discussion here.

Apologies if this has already been discussed but I had a look around and did not see anything.

 

[TerrorPenguin]

I am not familiar with how the khorne list works, but what are some of the things the other armies could have done to mitigate their win?

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

15 minutes ago, TerrorPenguin said:

I am not familiar with how the khorne list works, but what are some of the things the other armies could have done to mitigate their win?

Essentially the list works (with some variation) by having the entire Khorne army within the murderhost battalion warscroll which grants multiple units an additional 2d6" move after deployment and then again in the hero phase. 

Because the list is one drop it will likely go first and can move 4d6" before it's actual move phase. Essentially they can run 5+5d6" or charge 5+6d6" in the first turn. Which on average is 22.5"/26" respectively. His allowing the unit to be on top of your objectives turn one unless they have below average rolls. (Objectives are 24" away but you need to move 22" to be within 3" to burn them)

To mitigate this you can:

- deploy on the back edge and hope they don't make their rolls for all/most of their units, which is unlikely as each unit will have at least 50% chance of reaching them  

- deploy on top of the objective with 25/32mm based models to ensure you have equal or more models than them controlling the objective. However they will have a combat phase to try and even this out so unless you have two or three tanky hordes this will also be hard to cover. 

- have your own movement abilities with freeguild archers, fanatics etc to get in front of the objectives prior to their move. Still this isn't a perfect solution as these tend to be weak unit which will be destroyed easily. 

All in all its the murderhost is a hard counter for this scenario, you likely won't even be able to play for a draw and will most likely spend five turns going for kill points. 

My personal opinion is that no one list should have this much impact on a scenario and require every other lists has to be completely changed just to be able to survive. So therefor the murderhost for at least GHB2017 (as it was fine for the previous six battleplans) should be increased further in points. 

[Marc Wilson]

Great explanation @The Jabber Tzeentch

People are bandying about this one-drop Murderhost army as a case study, which is adopting an extreme (and unlikely)position. No one wanting to do well at a tournament is going to take a 1 drop Murderhost because it's... just not very good in other scenarios  - 3 drops minimum would be more like it. There are a good number of armies who can in the Scorched Earth scenario chose to go first and smash up DoK. I don't think crippling an army because it's great in one particular scenario is a proportional response. On the other hand I bet no one play-tested this scenario with a Murderhost either, otherwise I think, yeah, maybe burning objectives in T1 would not be a thing.

There are noT so many DoK armies around, and most people who are running them aren't winning tournaments, or even doing well.  Dan is top player who does well with all sorts of lists. There's a small chance of not even facing this scenario at a tournament, and a much smaller chance of avoiding the combination of Dok/Scorched Earth combo.

Plus... it's only been a week, c'mon....!!

[TerrorPenguin]

15 minutes ago, Marc Wilson said:

. No one wanting to do well at a tournament is going to take a 1 drop Murderhost because it's... just not very good in other scenarios  - 3 drops minimum would be more like it. There are a good number of armies who can in the Scorched Earth scenario chose to go first and smash up DoK. I don't think crippling an army because it's great in one particular scenario is a proportional response. On the other hand I bet no one play-tested this scenario with a Murderhost either, otherwise I think, yeah, maybe burning objectives in T1 would not be a thing.

Which list just won blackout this weekend? I know it was khorne was it a murderhost?

[RuneBrush]

I've played this a couple of times and the battleplan is really enjoyable.  It's only one or two particular builds that gain a massive advantage

If memory serves scoring is done after each players turn? (please correct me if I'm wrong I don't have the battleplan to hand).  So one simple fix would be to tweak it so that victory points are gained at the end of the game turn and that you cannot raize an objective if there are any enemy models within 6".

Alternatively you declare you intention to raize an objective at the end of your turn and claim D3 at the end of your opponents turn, again if there are no enemy models within 6".

The simplest way would be to tweak the raizing rules so that you can only raize objectives you've controlled for a turn.  Would mean that an army with a super-fast horde has to withstand potentially two turns of being attacked.

[Marc Wilson]

50 minutes ago, TerrorPenguin said:

Which list just won blackout this weekend? I know it was khorne was it a murderhost?

It was Murderhost. 

Skybourne Slayers were second. If Ricky has won his last game we'd be talking about how bent and broken and cheap that formation is. Well, maybe not...

[Nico]

"This essentially ends the game before it has begun."

Even on its face, this isn't true. Let's say the opponent just leaves the objectives unguarded and let's the Khorne plyayer run at them. Even with the crazy movement, he's only likely to get models onto 2 objectives. On average he scores 2D3 = 4 plus 3 for 7. In response, you then double turn him half the time - killing most of his squishy Bloodletters.

Let's say, he scores 3 more points in Battleround 2, so it's now 10-0. You then clear off the rest of his army in Battleround 3 and score 3 points. Same again in Battleround 4 (so 10-6). Then you burn the objectives in Battleround 5 and can win 10-12. Perhaps this is an optimistic assessment, but it's far from an autowin.

Similarly, take a single drop army and you might be able to delete/cripple two blocks of the Bloodletters, score 3 points and get a wall of chaff around each of your objectives. Another option is to pack models in a ring 3" behind the objective - making the charge harder and making it harder to run enough models into range.

As has been discussed - you could easily fail the 22" run of the average is 22.5 (if you backline everything against the Murderhost),

It's obviously a favourable battleplan for alpha strikes, but several of the others suit gunlines.

[Killax]

Objective interactions not being available the first turn should settle this. In most other games this is actually allready a norm.

[stato]

Its way to early to be changing the scenario.  Its only just been released and these faction/builds are only dominating it as they were already popular previously.  GHB2017 shook thinks up, to play the new book 'well' we need to adapt. Tactics will evolve to match scenarios, they need to be given time for this to happen, so a tournament ran only a few weeks after such a big change is not the right place to focus on what needs changing.  There will be solutions but they will take time to become apparent as people try to work out how to play with what they have or decide what they want to build into their army.

[RuneBrush]

I think it's right that we're having the discussion early on before it becomes a really sore point.  At Blackout people were still experimenting with what was viable and what wasn't, the fact that two people who ran murderhost and were able to basically raize objectives in the first turn says that we're going to see more people fielding that battalion and seeing what other alpha strike armies can do similar shenanigans.  It's the only battleplan that really poses the risk as there's no way to bubblewrap the objective until you've taken a turn.

[tolstedt]

Gorefist meta 2017.  Anyone selling gruntaz?

Allegiance: Ironjawz

Leaders
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (460)
- General
- Trait: Brutish Cunning 
- Artefact: Daubing of Mork 

Battleline
9 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (420)
- Ironjawz Battleline
9 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (420)
- Ironjawz Battleline
9 x Orruk Gore Gruntas (420)
- Ironjawz Battleline

Battalions
Gorefist (220)

Total: 1940/2000
 

[Thomas Lyons]

 

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I think it's right that we're having the discussion early on before it becomes a really sore point.  At Blackout people were still experimenting with what was viable and what wasn't, the fact that two people who ran murderhost and were able to basically raize objectives in the first turn says that we're going to see more people fielding that battalion and seeing what other alpha strike armies can do similar shenanigans.  It's the only battleplan that really poses the risk as there's no way to bubblewrap the objective until you've taken a turn.

It should be noted that Changehost can do this tactic more reliably while having a balanced force due to to their teleporting shenanigans.  They can bring in blues and even if you kill them, they'll become Brimstones and fill in around the objective.  Once they raze it, they teleport them out.  If you don't have a whole mess of 25mm based models around that objective, they will body steal it out from under you.  

This will likely become much more prevalent in the new meta if things aren't changed.  In competitive play, this is what we call Tier 0 lists.  Tier 0 lists are lists that you must always have a counter for otherwise you will almost certainly lose when you play them.  Their weight is so heavy in the meta that they warp other list's compositions around their presence.  the reality is that this is a scenario problem, not a necessarily a list problem.  

[Kramer]

10 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

Their weight is so heavy in the meta that they warp other list's compositions around their presence.  the reality is that this is a scenario problem, not a necessarily a list problem.  

But is it in general or only at top top level? Looking at the scenario, it offers a lot of shenanigans that require taking risks, but might reward you. Adds some weight to the deployment and in general offers a very cool scenario mechanic. I'm guessing (and let's be fair only 2 weeks in we're all guessing how it will work in the long term) that it won't really be an issue if you randomly determine the scenario. Because a list that's so specifically made for that scenario won't necessarily do as well in other scenario's. 

For that reason I don't see it becoming an issue in my area. So to me it feels like something that might be an issue in top tournaments but not much else. So for me it's a don't change it, although disallowing razing the first turn would not hurt the scenario to much. 

Full disclosure though haven't played the scenario yet and am not a very competitive gamer. And as such generally feel that issue that only crop up in the top 1% of games should not be the reason for big changes  

[Countmoore]

7 hours ago, Marc Wilson said:

It was Murderhost. 

Skybourne Slayers were second. If Ricky has won his last game we'd be talking about how bent and broken and cheap that formation is. Well, maybe not...

I think you will find my changehost was second.  ?

Though Ricky gave me a good run in the last round  

 

[Nico]

"It should be noted that Changehost can do this tactic more reliably while having a balanced force due to to their teleporting shenanigans. They can bring in blues and even if you kill them, they'll become Brimstones and fill in around the objective. Once they raze it, they teleport them out. If you don't have a whole mess of 25mm based models around that objective, they will body steal it out from under you." You can counter this by packing the area with your own models (and indeed by not attacking the Pinks). Provided you're not using large bases like Stormcast you should be able to have an equal number of models in range.

[Thomas Lyons]

21 minutes ago, Nico said:

 You can counter this by packing the area with your own models (and indeed by not attacking the Pinks). Provided you're not using large bases like Stormcast you should be able to have an equal number of models in range.

You're thinking too big.  You teleport in blues who are on 25 mm rounds, not pinks (which are on 32s).  They're going to  put ranged pressure on the blocking unit with both ranged units and spells (which they excel at), in addition to meleeing with the units.  Even if you don't attack them, they'll attack you and if you even lose 1 25mm model within range, they'll steal the objective from you if you're optimized by using 25mm based models to hold the objective.  If you are trying to hold the objective with a base size of anything greater than 25mm, they will automatically steal it from you, no combat needed.

[TerrorPenguin]

21 minutes ago, Nico said:

"It should be noted that Changehost can do this tactic more reliably while having a balanced force due to to their teleporting shenanigans. They can bring in blues and even if you kill them, they'll become Brimstones and fill in around the objective. Once they raze it, they teleport them out. If you don't have a whole mess of 25mm based models around that objective, they will body steal it out from under you." You can counter this by packing the area with your own models (and indeed by not attacking the Pinks). Provided you're not using large bases like Stormcast you should be able to have an equal number of models in range.

Am I misremembering an faq or do you now have to attack something if you're engaged with it? 

[Marc Wilson]

55 minutes ago, Countmoore said:

I think you will find my changehost was second.  ?

Though Ricky gave me a good run in the last round  

 

I humbly redact my erroneous statement - one game away I meant

[BURF1]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

"It should be noted that Changehost can do this tactic more reliably while having a balanced force due to to their teleporting shenanigans. They can bring in blues and even if you kill them, they'll become Brimstones and fill in around the objective. Once they raze it, they teleport them out. If you don't have a whole mess of 25mm based models around that objective, they will body steal it out from under you." You can counter this by packing the area with your own models (and indeed by not attacking the Pinks). Provided you're not using large bases like Stormcast you should be able to have an equal number of models in range.

So basically what you're saying is 'it's okay cause only SOME armies are totally arsed from the get go!'

[Nico]

At most you're getting in one unit of Blues (and giving up about half the alpha strike damage from the Changehost). 

 

[Paul Buckler]

Is this much different to the escalation mission in GH1, that got changed to prevent an extremely unlikely set of circumstances?  ATM the turn 1 auto win is just as likely a matchup, maybe even moreso?

 

[DeadlySarcasm]

I'm really enjoying the discussion on this one, it's certainly an interesting topic with some (from my perspective) interesting viewpoints from certain people.

I think the problem can essentially be broken down to a root cause, and a symptom of the cause.

I personally think the root cause is the design of the battleplan itself, we can see this is true because it is the only scenario that allows certain armies to win turn 1. A symptom of the issue with the battleplan would be armies such as (and I only bring this up as its been mentioned here already) the Murder Host, that can exploit the battleplan to take a victory at turn one.

From my perspective, if you don't treat the cause, you could end up with more symptoms. Another formation/army could pop up that has some really cool movement mechanics that can exploit a scenario that has a weak point in its writing. 

As an Ironjawz player I don't see any way for me to change my list to deal with a turn one loss, and I'm sure that there are many many other armies out there that are in the same boat, so that doesn't really feel like a viable solution either.

You could make changes to the armies that can exploit the turn 1 victory, but that punishes them unnecessarily in other scenarios where their design doesn't result in a non-game occurring.

Balance is a difficult thing to get right, and I agree with some of the comments that have been made that making snap decisions is probably a bad idea, but as @Paul Buckler has pointed out, they did a similar thing with escalation in the previous iteration of the book because it was open to abuse.

I think a change to stop turn 1 burning is the best way to resolve what was most likely an oversight in the scenarios design.

[Cerlin]

My problem with the suggestion for no turn one burning basically means you do not have to defend and can focus on killing. I like that this scenerio forces you to spread your units out and punishes the old murderball tactics of ghb3016.

I just played this last night as dispossessed vs nighthaunt, which showed the power all fast or teleporting armies have in this scenario, which there are many more of now.

He tried to contest my 2 far points with mournguls, and I turn one used my ancestor pickaxe on a 20 block of Ironbreakers. I managed to hold three for 2 turns, and burn his mid point turn 3.  With my set up and placement I had won by turn 3, as dispossessed...with a single teleporting unit.

Had it been a turn one charge? Fine, I had to prep for that because nighthaunt. That is their ability...they can snipe any point I leave underdefended...thats my fault not the nighthaunt.

Obviously they wanted to make hordes more useful, and now they are...adapt. They also made many armies more mobile so prepare.

[DeadlySarcasm]

22 minutes ago, Cerlin said:

My problem with the suggestion for no turn one burning basically means you do not have to defend and can focus on killing. I like that this scenerio forces you to spread your units out and punishes the old murderball tactics of ghb3016.

I just played this last night as dispossessed vs nighthaunt, which showed the power all fast or teleporting armies have in this scenario, which there are many more of now.

He tried to contest my 2 far points with mournguls, and I turn one used my ancestor pickaxe on a 20 block of Ironbreakers. I managed to hold three for 2 turns, and burn his mid point turn 3.  With my set up and placement I had won by turn 3, as dispossessed...with a single teleporting unit.

Had it been a turn one charge? Fine, I had to prep for that because nighthaunt. That is their ability...they can snipe any point I leave underdefended...thats my fault not the nighthaunt.

Obviously they wanted to make hordes more useful, and now they are...adapt. They also made many armies more mobile so prepare.

So would a change to "no turn 1 burning" have changed the outcome or affected the result of your game? From your (admittedly very brief) rundown, it doesn't sound like it would have done as he was only contesting with single models.

The specific issue with this battleplan is certain armies abilities to push 20/40/60+ models in your face turn 1, outnumber/kill a tonne of stuff off, and burn 2 or 3 of your objectives, even if you have all 3 objectives covered.