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Defensive army


Temp

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Evening all

just a quick one to ask your options on Witch army in aos you think is very defensive, I have found my play style is to sit back and camp objectives and try to grind down/shoot the opposing army.  I have found In the few games I have played (mainly stormcast and one sylvaneth game) that not attacking more has more or less lost me the game witch I don't mind but would to find an army that fits my play style I was thinking nurgle/sylvaneth but I am interested in your thoughts.

 

cheers

Temp

 

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Free People as well are pretty defensive.  Handgunners and Crossbowmen get a stand and shoot if charged, and the General on foot or on a horse can give plus one to hit and wound to up to three different units as long as they don't move or charge on your turn.  Freeguild Guard and Greatswords can counter charge an enemy in certain circumstances and because you are counter charging on your enemies turn you can keep your plus one to hit and wound.  Also, if you take the Indomitable trait on your general you can add 1 to you save rolls of Free People units wholly within 12", this makes your Guard and Greatswords a three plus save in close combat, again as long as you don't charge.  But alas you do not get a Battletome either.

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The new Fyreslayers are probably the absolute top-tier in defensive play right now ;) Assuming you go for the "Hermdar" lodge, which gives battleshock immunity to units wholly within 12" of an objective, and -1 to wound wholly within 12" of the general (as his command trait, which I think might be mandatory) --- Combine that with the ease of which they stack bonuses to their armour saves, two wounds per infantry model, and a 4+ save-after-the-save on their elite units (provided they're near a friendly Fyreslayer hero), you end up with an army that -really- wants to move onto an objective somewhere, and just tank it out while slapping whatever their opponent throws at them senseless. That they can deepstrike some of their units also plays heavily into this.

 

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yeah i had heard about the fyreslayers being able to reduce there saves down to a 2+ ill have to look into that more, but they don't have any shooting do they? 

Phoenix Temple and free people i never even thought about if i am honest as they don't have a bt yet but are worth a look as i would be surprised if they got compendium treatment.

 

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16 minutes ago, Temp said:

yeah i had heard about the fyreslayers being able to reduce there saves down to a 2+ ill have to look into that more, but they don't have any shooting do they? 

Phoenix Temple and free people i never even thought about if i am honest as they don't have a bt yet but are worth a look as i would be surprised if they got compendium treatment.

 

They have a dedicated shooting unit. Can't comment much about how good they are, but they're there. Other than that you can squeeze in two cannons and a gunmaster (in the form of a dwarf, of course) from Ironweld Arsenal as allies if you're dying to get some long range pew pew :) You'll need to go heavy on the unit numbers to get that though. 

Edit: Not that you really need to shoot much. You'll mulch whatever front line engagement you run into, and enemy shooting won't really do much to you, no matter how heavy it is (unless it's skaven warplightning cannons targetting your leaders specifically)

Edited by Mayple
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2 minutes ago, Mayple said:

They have a dedicated shooting unit. Can't comment much about how good they are, but they're there. Other than that you can squeeze in two cannons and a gunmaster (in the form of a dwarf, of course) from Ironweld Arsenal as allies if you're dying to get some long range pew pew :) You'll need to go heavy on the unit numbers to get that though. 

Edit: Not that you really need to shoot much. You'll mulch whatever front line engagement you run into, and enemy shooting won't really do much to you, no matter how heavy it is (unless it's skaven warplightning cannons targetting your leaders specifically)

just been reading up on the fyrslayers and your right they do have a shooting unit, and like you say they seem very defensive and definitely look like they would fit my play style,

thanks a lot for the advise ill get some more reading done over the weekend 

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1 minute ago, Temp said:

just been reading up on the fyrslayers and your right they do have a shooting unit, and like you say they seem very defensive and definitely look like they would fit my play style,

thanks a lot for the advise ill get some more reading done over the weekend 

Happy to help!

Note that the tankiest possible approach you could go would be a "core" of 30 hearthguard berserkers, supported why whatever else you feel like. Those fellows won't be dying anytime soon with the proper support, and will serve as your undeniably uncontested infantry superiority unit. Figured it's good to point out, since if you're not keen on the idea of that, then you might want to look at other armies instead. A small horde of naked angry elite dwarves tend to be the approach with the good old Fyreslayers as long as you're going for defensive over offensive ;) Best of luck! 

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If you are looking for an army to pick up right now - I would really look towards the ones that have dedicated Battletomes and not look into armies without them.  Most of those armies will likely eventually be rolled up into a Battletome, but we simply don't know how drastically those armies will change when that happens.   All armies have the potential for drastic playstyle changes when they get new books, but armies that currently do not have a book at all stand a much higher chance of large-scale change.

So the question sort of becomes - what kind of defense do you want.  There are a variety of forms that can take in this game.  You can go with traditional defense where your units are tough to kill.  Or you can go with other forms such as the ability to reinforce or completely replace units.

I would say you should look into:

Fyreslayers (traditional hard to kill)

Nurgle (hard to kill)

Stormcast (elite units with good defense and offense)

NightHaunt (medium armor with immunity to rend and ability to reinforce units via summoning)

Legions of Nagash (ability to reinforce or completely replace destroyed units with summoning)

Edited by Skabnoze
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You guys shouldn't confuse "defensive" with good durability. Nighthaunt are an aggressive army but they have pretty good durability. Seraphon are pretty average durability overall but they can play a great defensive style because of specific unit combinations.

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Stormcast and Nurgle both are great defensively. Honestly though Legions of Nagash too in that they can bring back units that have been wiped out and heal up units so become quite durable in that sense. 

You won't really find many/any defensive or static gun line armies in AOS because unlike WHFB its not  just about killing your opponents army, it's about movement and taking objectives. 

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3 hours ago, PJetski said:

You guys shouldn't confuse "defensive" with good durability. Nighthaunt are an aggressive army but they have pretty good durability. Seraphon are pretty average durability overall but they can play a great defensive style because of specific unit combinations.

Many armies can play both offensively and defensively.  I mentioned Nighthaunt because the OP mentioned grinding down the enemy with attrition and Nighthaunt can do that if someone was so inclined.

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2 hours ago, Lord Veshnakar said:

You won't really find many/any defensive or static gun line armies in AOS because unlike WHFB its not  just about killing your opponents army, it's about movement and taking objectives. 

The closest AoS gets to gun lines are generally not very static forces.  KO was designed (poorly - lets hope they fix them soon) to be a mobile shooting force that uses surgical strikes.  Bonesplitterz gun line forces play an aggressive swarming assault similar to the "blot out the sun" tactic from the movie 300.  The old Tzeentch sky-fires army was another highly mobile surgical strike force type of army.

If you want to sit defensively and camp then that is usually done through some form of durable melee force.

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Many armies can play defensively if you build your list to do so. I assume you want your army to be based around defensive positioning and not just units that have good saves/high wounds. Do keep in mind that you'll need to be able to take objectives though and not just sit back and shoot all game.

All the dwarf armies have a defensive playstyle where they turtle up, lob shots, and clean up in melee. Fyreslayers are much more aggressive though since they want to rip and tear the enemies up close, and they have more bodies for objectives. Only fyreslayers have an up-to-date tome at the moment, so I'd recommend them. The other dwarfs have no tome/are outdated and struggle to take objectives but I'd still look into them.

Free Peoples also play defensively with gun lines backed up by guards and greatswords to screen, take objectives and chop up stuff. Stormcasts can also play similarly, if you want a more elite army (plus they actually have a tome). Skaven can also kinda play "defensively" if you play skryre-heavy, tying up your opponents and objectives with clanrat hordes while jezzails, wizards, cannons and acolytes shoot everything down is viable and fun. 😉

Tzeentch, Gitz, and Bonesplitterz are also worth looking at if you're looking for armies with lots of magic, walls of dudes, and shooting.

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Wow thank you all so much for all the help the death faction never really entered my head but read some of you replies has certainly opened me up to the idea as the idea of bringing units back from the brink sounds really cool.  Hopeing to get the chance to pop into my local store next week to get the ball rolling on a new army.

 

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When someone says defensive... Fyreslayers & Gloomspite Gitz spring to mind, Fyreslayers are incredibly durable with good armour saves AND after damage saves, as well access to -1 to wound and ASF. Gloomspite can have as many -1 to hit's as you'd like and can camp on objectives with very large numbers of bodies. 

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Dispossessed are super defensive, to the point of actually making them quite slow. But once they are on something and shield wall is up they are very durable, they have have great shooting as well between thunderers, quarrellers, Irondrakes and artillery allied in from the Ironweld Arsenal. Biggest downside is no battletome, the GHB18 gives them some army and command traits artefacts but nothing super amazing. Still they are one to consider. I'd wait and see if they are part if this weekends Warhammer Fest teasers for a future battletome.

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