Battleplan Strategies (Blood and Glory)

[daedalus81]

Objective

There are four objectives spread broadly across the board.  Controlling these requires more models within 6" than enemy models.  The objective remains under your control until an enemy takes it.  A major victory immediately occurs if someone owns all four starting turn 3.  Game concludes at turn 5 with majority control giving a minor victory and points from units killed breaking ties.


Paper, Scissors, Rock (Strong, Stronger, Strongest)

Ranged, fast stuff, hordes

From one objective the next closest is 24", then 36", and finally a bit over 43" away (on a 4x6).  Getting across the table will be important -- regardless of whether you're going for a major or minor victory.  Most summoners won't have the speed to get where they need to be.  Ranged will be able to abuse units to making the long slog.

Teleporters can still bring something to the table, but it would be later in the game to get a last minute objective.  Other fast units like cavalry and flyers can pressure the two closest objectives very quickly and will be needed for a shot at all four.

Hordes are the brute force method.  Someone with enough models can place a horde at both end of the table and try to push hard for that win.

Strategy

Like with Take and Hold if you can prevent the enemy coming within 6" of the objective all the better.  

This is where fast units and chaff shine.  Having the ability to out deploy your enemy can set you up for a big advantage.  Did you remember your chaos warhounds? The goal is to out deploy the enemy.  e.g. Make them think you're deploying broadly, but really set up only a small portion of your army that is fast and/or expendable to one side.  On the other side you stack the rest of your army.  The goal being to acquire numerical advantage on one side of the board and force them to split their army.  Some opponents may opt to deploy entirely in the center and just move up and outward. 

Most importantly you need to be fluid in your decision making.  This scenario can unfold in a number of different ways depending how well your opponent can read your intentions and how flexible their army is.  To play it safe the best goal is control one side of the table with the closest objectives.  Cut off angles by controlling the middle if you can.

[mmimzie]

Pile in and attack twice is very powerful in this scenario. you can use the first one to do some damage, then maybe do damage with a few other unit, then the second one to get a sneaky pile in toward the objective in an aggressive way.  This one it matter more as it not a contesting at 5 models, you jsut own it when you have more. 

 

Small base size is really big here.  Sneaking past with one or two models on a pile in can win it, where as take and hold is limits you to 5 model contesting. In Take and Hold we want to focus on that kill as we need the objective to be under 5 models. Killing here becomes a much lower priority when it's horde Vs Elite army. The elite was to hold stiff none porous front lines, and hordes want to sneak as many models in as possible. 

 

Fast deployment for a short term hold can also win the game. Cav heavy destruction armies will be able to almost hop on every objective out the gate. 

 

Gunline might struggle as you have multiple points of fire to cover. Again your shooting needs to make room for your units, but now you have 2 enemy spots rather than just one. While also having to defend a more forward objective. This objective will also require you to move up to really encompass your objectives. So fast armies can ****** you really bad.  This i'd say is one of the most punishing to gunline armies.  Specialyl when you look at enteral guard/glave guard + sister of the thorn wonders who use old fashion gun line with mobile cav. You'll need to use your first turn moving up after which you could receive a charge. This will potentially lead to you being left with your guard down. 

 

Summoned models can work well. They might be slow, but again the pile in is big here. IF you summon behind enemy units you get more surface area to leak your models toward the objective. 

 

Monsters are also punished. While taking up space. Only counting as one of 20 or 30 models holding an objective. They are effectively nothing when it comes to claiming objectives. Monsters can take a 4th of your army and taking 4 objectives you are really gonna feel thier price tag here. In take and hold it's not so bad as model contest is again only limited to 5, but here it's all numbers.

[daedalus81]

Right - gunlines are a big no no here if only because your opponent can run and claim objectives far away and then come straight to you.  If you have no way to get past the enemy then you'll never capture the majority of the objectives.

Monsters are ok, because they contest and can deal with spread out armies.

[mmimzie]

How so do you mean, "they contest". This one is all about who has the most models at the objective. If I have 3 zombies at an objective and you have a monster there, I own the objective. 

 

To make himself worth taking the monster has to drop or otherwise prevent 60-80 enemy model when against a horde. More double is about 15-20 models against an elite army. 

[daedalus81]

Oops you're right.  I was writing another one up and my brain did some magic.

[SuperHappyTime]

Not to sound picky, but I think for the scenario it's important to note your distances between objectives are off by a foot (since the objective is really a 6" radius bubble).

The way I look at the scenario is a two sided protect the bubbleline and a two sided crack the bubble.

Initial defenses should be to protect one bubble at all costs, the other can go early and isn't necessary until you push out to try and claim at the end.

For protection, spread your forces along a line tangent to the circle. As bodies die, pull from the back and sides first. If you go for a round the inside of the circle approach, your opponent will be able to fitmore bodies on the line and may find gaps they can shift models into to add bodies to the objective count.

If you're defending both bubbles and losing one bubbles, the goal would be to pull the enemy toward the corner and anyway from possibly helping another bubble. 

Summoned Units: Having bodies on the table is more effective than no bodies on the table, so summoning early is to your advantage. However, the job for them is to take maybe a turn to get into position and then drop a unit behind and in the zone.

And monsters have their place, it's attacking and lowering size of the opponent's horde.

[daedalus81]

No, that's a valid point.  The true distance that you'll have to cover will be a little closer to the posted values since you have to get into that zone far enough to make sure you have more models.  The actual distance you travel will vary depending where you are on the table at that time, of course.

I do see most games fighting along the meridian.  Then it's a battle of positioning.

 

 

[WoollyMammoth]

Blood and Glory is the hardest BP to win a major victory. Controlling the entire table is no easy feat.  Realistically you are going to need to table your opponent, or come close to it. This is especially hard due to the fact that you have to do so while leaving parts of your army behind to defend an objective. Unlike other scenarios where you can get lucky with one key objective for a Major Victory, Blood and Glory requires a very decisive victory. Because of this, most games will end in Minor Victory.

B&G favors bigger games. 1000 point games, even in a 4x4 are going to be really tough. In some cases you might only have 4 or 5 units so you would have to win every combat to achieve a major victory. 

I don't think you can really favor anything. Speed is good, defense is good, ability to cause wounds is good; as in all games. Sure ranged is good since you can sit on an objective while contributing to another by attacking enemy models, but you can say this about any of the objective based BP. Basically, a good list is good, a bad list is bad. If you have a lot of few attacks with rending, they will be wasted on massive hordes with low saves. If you have a lot of weak attacks, they will be wasted on heavy defense. It comes down to the same things that all games come down to.

If I had to favor one thing, it would be speed. A fast unit might be able to contribute to a key combat, then run back quickly to an undefended objective. summoning and ambushes are a big part of that. If you hold off 10 zombies for a mere 60 points, you can push your entire army across the board, tie down combat units / defeat or disabled ranged units, then summon the zombies on an objective that your opponent cannot contest.

Having larger models like ogors, stormcast or monsters is a good thing. These units are especially good at holding an objective. unit footprint is key; bigger footprints can guard larger areas. 



You can use larger models to block off your enemys units from advancing. Even a horde which has a lot more models is going to have a lot of difficulty getting around you to try and get any models near the objective, so your one model is fine. The exception would be models which have a poor cost/footprint ratio.

Of course, hordes have massive footprints and can do the same, but hordes tend to have low saves and so get taken down quickly. Its actually not all that hard to take a unit of 5 tough big guys and defend an objective against 20 weak infantry. Hordes tend to be weak to mass wounds, as they often have low saves and then suffer poorly from battleshock - but they are strong against few powerful rending/mortal wounds since they have so many wounds to eat through. Monsters and big units are often strong to both massive attacks and rending attacks. Units like a Bastiladon or a Necrosphinx is good against almost everything. Sometimes having one immovable model can be better than having 30 weak ones. 

This of course requires strict adherence to the rules, if your opponent thinks he can slide around to the back of your units during pile in, then hes going to get models in, but in most cases this is completely illegal. Each model has to make a legal move of up to 3" towards the closest enemy model. Models in base contact have no reason to pile in, and cannot move at all. A long charge might allow them to move around your unit though.

Yesterday I had a 1000 point army which included 13 models and I didn't have any issues competing for objectives.
 

[mmimzie]

5 cab bases have the same foot print as a monster. Most monster have 4 or 3+ saves. Cost about 300-400 points mor clean on the 400 point side. They also have 12-16 wounds.

 

Hexwraiths ignore rend have. 4+ save and for about 300 points you get 20 wounds, 10 of which have the same foot print. 

 

Dire wolves have cab bases, 2 wounds each, 5models are 60 points. With a cart they have a 4+ save. Including the cart but ignoring the base you get about 30 wounds of 4+ save dogs that have a MUCH larger foot print.

 

10 zombies which are 10 wounds have the same foot print as any monster. Mind you they have no save but for about 360 you get 60 wounds of zombies. 50+ of which need removing before you fall under a monster base.

 

I don't know. I just don't see monsters really as a strong thing here. Now they are good at making holes as they do dramatically explosive damage against a small surface area. Which is the point of a monster

[WoollyMammoth]

@mmimzie
I was specifically taking about holding an objective. 5 liberators with a 4+ save (rerolling 1s) can hold the line against 10 dire wolves, hexwraiths or zombies, all of which hit like a wet noodle. Ideally you would add a Castelant to make them 3+, and they re-roll 1s. If you manage to get in cover, none of these units could even kill a single liberator. 5 liberators are only 100 points, if you match the points its quite easy. You get 15 liberators for 300 points so they are already taking an objective against 10 hexwraiths. 

Also my stardrake is more like 10 cavalry bases. 

You're comparing it to an undead horde list. Hordes have a particular strength in wounds and footprint, but things you can mass die very very quickly to a hard punch. I recently lost 30 ghouls all at once to one Questing Knights charge. Hard hitters can blow a hole in skeletons/zombies/ghouls which will then lose a lot of models to battleshock. 

Many armies like Ironjaws, Stormcast, ogors, etc don't even have a horde options, but its mostly fine. I had 1000 point list with 13 models last night, and I did not have any issues managing my objectives. 

[mmimzie]

I wasn't talking about those units taking objectives. I was talking about them holding objectives.
 

My point more or less is. Holding objectives with monsters is super weak. Defensively monsters for the most part aren't worth much. Dire wolves are all tank i think they are some of the sturdiest stuff for the lowest price you can get when a corpse cart is around to tank them up. I'd say they as tanks Dire wolves are about at the top of the pyramid for thier points 4+ save (w/ carts around) only 60 points for 5. even at a 5+ they are super cost effective as tanks. Sure they do no damage, but the point is... that they hold points, and do so better than i think Monsters can.  

Of course anything can die that's pretty much the point of AoS. Everything dies and it does so quickly, but i think monsters are very squishy.

 

As far as wet noodles, Don't count zombies out With the right buffs and such, they each get 4 attacks hitting on 2+ wound on 3+ attacking 2 rows deeps.  They've deleted entire armies off a map in a single turn. 

 

As far as cav bases. % cav bases making a circles with one cav base in the middle takes lots of space, special because they have all get .92" between each of them and not be porous to enemy 25mm units on the pile in. 

I just think monsters, in this scenario, should be used almost specifically for offensive point taking. With high speed and high damage out put per points makes them good, but usualy monsters are just super squishy for thier points. 

[cranect]

I would agree that lower model count armies would probably struggle here. I know my warherd would have a hard time since it would be difficult to take and hold objectives with a max of 3 models in a unit and only 11 models at 1000 points. Sure everything they hit tends to die but if I were to take it against my other 1000 point beastmen list it would be creamed by fast moving hordes with hundreds of attacks. I played chaos warriors the other day and 40 gors took out 20 chaos warriors with mystic shield and rerolling ones to save. The gors were hitting on 3s rerolling ones and wounding on threes and had twice as many attacks half the time. While an elite army can pull it out it will be an uphill battle.

[WoollyMammoth]

Dire Wolves are a classic example of overconfidence in synergy. A Corpse Cart is 6 wounds 6+. Even multiple CC are dieing when your opponent so much as looks at them. Then your CC are dead, and the chances are you have a lot of zombies - they are hurt hard from this as well. Death lists tend to be heavy in the middle like this, and suffer very hard when a key, (often easy to kill) model dies. Then you just have a bunch of 5+ wolves that are going to die. My Flesh Eaters are the same way (luckily an Abhorrant on a Tgheist is not so easy to kill).

Here's an example of what I did recently with a Stardrake. I used my mobility to cut off and charge a unit attempting to capture an objective. They were then tied down, unable to get to the objective until I was dead, which is probably not going to happen. This way you can hold an objective against 20+ models with a single model.

[Nico]

Quote

Defensively monsters for the most part aren't worth much.

Little bit of a generalisation. There are some good ones - Stonehorn, Necrosphinx, Dread Maw, Rogue Idol and Mourngul.

 

Skaarac is the most satisfying way to keep a horde off an objective - Boom!

[mmimzie]

4 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Dire Wolves are a classic example of overconfidence in synergy. A Corpse Cart is 6 wounds 6+. Even multiple CC are dieing when your opponent so much as looks at them. Then your CC are dead, and the chances are you have a lot of zombies - they are hurt hard from this as well. Death lists tend to be heavy in the middle like this, and suffer very hard when a key, (often easy to kill) model dies. Then you just have a bunch of 5+ wolves that are going to die. My Flesh Eaters are the same way (luckily an Abhorrant on a Tgheist is not so easy to kill).

Here's an example of what I did recently with a Stardrake. I used my mobility to cut off and charge a unit attempting to capture an objective. They were then tied down, unable to get to the objective until I was dead, which is probably not going to happen. This way you can hold an objective against 20+ models with a single model.

Yeah see you can kill the CC but again that's 6/12 wounds you need to do before you start working on 20 wounds of dire wolves. 10 of who which need to be hacked through before you even get to the same space filling if a start Drake, and even the. You have 10 more 5+ wounds to work through. 

 

Mind you 10  wolves(20 wounds) and 2 CCs cost less than a stardrake. But the CCs are also buffing and doing other things. 

 

So let's say I have a shooting army. I could A kill two separate CCs and start working in 10 wolves, or just blow a star Drake off the map. 

 

Let do some math. Let's ignore the CCd and the wolves saves. Let's do 3 units of wolves (30 wounds), and 2 CCs that's 380 points. Then add .16more wounds for deathless minion save. That's a total of 49 (30*1.16 + 12*1.16). Now let's give the start Drake his armor save 49*2/6. That's 16 wounds... oh that star Drake dies to the same stuff the cart's and the wolves would die to if they had no save at all. Now battleship might tip the svales but if all the wolf units were separate that wouldn't be an issue. 

 

I get what your saying but monsters are glass cannons for the most part. They are more about the big smash in than the tankin 

[WoollyMammoth]

My stardrake is 3+ rerolling 1. With a Castellant its 2+ re-rolling 1. With a Relictor its got a 66% chance to heal up to 3 wounds every turn. (I have a Casteallant and 3 Relictors). You can smash an entire army of non rending attacks at my stardrake and he will tank it like nothing.

Many monsters like a stardrake, necrosphinx, bastiladon or Stonehorn are tanks. Tanks do not die to the same kinds of things as hordes for 6+ or no save models. Tanks are going to tank for a long time until you are able to focus rending or mortal wounds on them. Most monsters are at least 4+ and are not glass cannons at all. My Tgheist for example - Its usually 3+/5++ so you cant exactly say its made of glass. I'm not sure what you are thinking of when you say monsters are glass cannons. 

[mmimzie]

Feel free to disagree, but the math doesn't agree.  That said i could blow one up in a single turn of combat with a handful of zombies at a fraction of the price. Monster make their points on the attack. If they are going Defensive it's just not worth it.

I'll just use zombie dogs because the math is easy for 600 points i can get 10 units of zombie dogs. That's 50 zombie dogs. That's 100 wounds. Pretend they have no save. You need to do 100 wounds to kill those dogs, i can deploy them all as separate units so battle shot doesn't matter. now for 600 points you can get 14 wounds with a 3+ save rerolling wounds. so all wounds have to get through 357% of its wounds or effectively the star drake has 49.98 wounds after saves. The star drake is dead twice over to no rend attacks. You can analogy him all you want but he's still gonna be pretty dead.

heck lets pretend i say he live 5 turns instead of having you roll i just give him the average number of wounds he could get every turn as his new max health. D3 average is 2, so 2*5*66%= 6.6 wounds all game that's still only 73 wounds after saves. 

I'm done doing math, and i bet with all those relictors and castealants you can come close to what i can get with zombie dogs or zombie dogs and corpse carts with me staying under 600 points, but now i'm giving you free stuff here. Plus as you said i can kill all your support stuff??

The fact is monsters just aren't all that tanky. I'm not saying Stardrake, necrosphinx, etc aren't tanky monster. But saying they are monsters that are good at tanking, is like saying " Wow this knife makes a good bottle opener in a pinch." It's a knife bro don't keep it around to tank and hold an objective go cut some one.

TLDR: I'll give it to you, your stardrake can get tanky... but monsters just aren't made to tank. That's not why you bring a monster. In a pinch they can tank, but your better off looking else where for that role. Others do it better. I'm not saying monsters are bad, or you should never use them to defend. I'm saying they aren't all stars at it. I'm saying if you were making a list specifically to win this mission i wouldn't take monsters. That's the point here. It's jsut not a good Idea, when my dogs can swarm the monster, and maybe no kill it but most likely jack the objective from you.

[WoollyMammoth]

I bring my stardrake to tank. I respect the math but games have more factors than flat math - If I cast Shield or have my Castellant make him a 2+, you aren't going to kill him. The chances of rolling a 1 twice are 1/36, meaning you need to cause 36 wounds before one makes it through. with 16 wounds that's 576 wounds you need to cause to kill him. You simply aren't causing 576 wounds. You could have him surrounded on all sides with zombies and wolves - it doesn't matter, you aren't killing him unless I roll the worst rolls in the history of rolls. You can have 50 wolves or 100 zombies, it doesn't matter. 

I can increase my ability to absorb wounds, but you cant give your zombies or wolves the ability to rend my armor.

While you are doing 1 wound per turn if you are lucky, I will cause a lot of wounds. Hes going to literally eat 3 models to start,  then do about 6 wounds with his sword, then do like 6 more with his claws, so you are losing 5+D6 models to battleshock. It will take me a while but that's what tarpits like zombies do - they tarpit.

Breaking up your units is a bad idea, because he is likely going to do D3 mortal wounds to every unit near him with his tail, and in the shooting phase, he can cause D3 mortal wounds to up to 6 units, so your 10 units of Dire Wolves are melting fast.

Its a good list though. just one of the wolves can tie up the drake for a turn, and then 10 of them can move around to the objective. But monster have their uses, and one of the uses is often to be a very tanky tank.

[mmimzie]

What a beast that drake is

[cranect]

For this he doesn't need to kill you. You can retreat out of combat or since its just the drake trying to tie them up if you charge it it doesn't matter because now you have more guys on the point. So really the thing you charge doest have to stay near you. They can retreat past you I they have a decent move.

[WoollyMammoth]

Ya, monsters are often hard to kill. A lot of them are 'glass cannons' but most often they are 4+, which is better than most units, especially hordes. Some hordes are especially tanky, like Free Company with SnS, but generally hordes are capped at 5+ and more likely 6+ or no save at all. Monsters also being immune to battleshock adds to their tankyness. But a standard monster, even with a 4+ save is probably getting torn down if a horde is attacking first. The exception are monsters with especially tanky abilities such as halving all wounds, natural 3+, ability to ignore all wounds on a 5+ (nurgle).

Stormcast's special trait is that they are very hard to kill, so naturally, the only monster in the army is especially hard to kill. But its costly - 500-600 points is hard to come by.  the 600 point version has the re-rolling 1 ability, which is really incredibly tanky. It can pretty much sit there and take any charge it wants, provided the opponent doesn't have rending. With even -1 rend its ability to tank is very hindered. During the game you'd be pointing all your rending at it, casting arcane bolt, etc. and it will die. AoS is very nicely balanced, there is nothing like the dreaded lord of tzeentch from 8th edition that literally could not die. Unless you built a poor list with no rending or mortal of any kind, you can take out a stardrake.

@cranect
Retreating is a normal movement that must end outside of 3" of any enemy models. In the picture above, the unit would have this great bubble they need to avoid when retreating, mostly back and out. Sure the unit could move some things closer to the objective, but in the case of zombies, they probably cant move even a single model close enough yet. The monster is a great hindrance. Even if he did manage to get a few models into it, I've explained that the stardrake is easily killing 20 models altogether - there are only 20 models in the picture. In the case of larger units, they can try their best but then the drake is just going to charge again, kill another 20, and likely wipe them out. 

Retreating is not a great option but if we are taking 600 points vs 600 points of hordes, 2-3 units of hordes could easily deal with the unit by pinning it with a suicide unit and sending other units to crowd the objective. By the end of the game, the drake would have likely killed all the units, but by that time they would have claimed the objective a few times, tipping the game in their favor. 

This is why I love the objective-based battleplans, really make the game more complex than just having more power than your opponent. 

[cranect]

To be fair even with an average horde moving 5 inches you have the 3 inch pile in, move 5+d6 and that should be enough to swing a few around. Of course at just 20 models they might be down to very few models but they still take the objective. For instance with my luck the stardrake would kill a total of nothing just because I need it to do damage. A faster horde such as what the beastmen have could easily retreat to it with 6+d6+1 just for their move. If the beastlord command ability is on them and a shaman is nearby then they go 6+3+d6+1+1. For the 600 points for the stardrake I can get 40 gors, a bray shaman, and gorthor the beastlord. They can run and charge with a +1 to charge. So if I charged the stardrake in that position then I will probably be in the circle and could easily hold the objective for 3 game turns with the 600 points. So the gors will probably take two player turns to kill each if not more and hold the objective the whole time. So for some hordes retreat may not work as well since they don't have the movement but I know for the ones I bring it would work beautifully. I can move up to right in front of you, then retreat, and then to take the objective you have to kill that unit that retreated and the other one that is on the objective. It has been a full game turn and the first one is still alive. The scenarios do make a huge impact but I think you are better off not using a monster for defence since it is so easily overwhelmed without needing to damage it.

[WoollyMammoth]

Most infantry moves 4", gors move 6" (50% farther) and they have a special ability to run and charge which would allow them to ignore the point I was making of pinning down a unit with a monster. Regardless a stardrake is fairly easily killing 40 gors in as little as one turn since they have such little bravery. Realistically two combats which could be by the end of the first turn. Using the shooting and tail attacks, he could likely kill the gorthor and beastlord, but these guys arent going to kill the stardrake. The result is that i will have a 600 point advantage by the end of turn 1 or 2, which means you are in very bad shape to win the game. you might get the objective for 1 turn but the other 4-5 turns its mine. A stardrake cannot "steal" an objective but he can obliterate everything on it and keep it for most of the game, which will be a win in the end. 

My point is monsters are not useless and you don't have to worry too much about massing models to get the upper hand in the objective.

[cranect]

You are correct monsters are not useless. They make great distractions going for the enemies objective and killing their way there. They do not defend as well simply because they are a single model. With 2 units of 20 and inspiring presence the gors will take 2 rounds to kill with average rolls. With mystic shield you can make it more likely to take 2 to kill one unit. You feed the drake one unit at a time and stay out of the 3 inch bubble. If the drake charges you like in your diagram then you retreat onto the point with one unit and move the other around to take its place while the shaman and beastlord can just hang at the other side of the objective. The point is not to kill it but you can keep it occupied for plenty of time. And while its occupied the whole time there are more models in your objective. The monsters make better attackers purely because with one model they can't defend very well. Whereas if they go on the offensive they can mess some stuff up and hopefully kill some of the guys at the back by his objectives. This allows you to put pressure on them and potentially take an objective. I just don't see them defending very well.