How to deal with plague monks spam

[alterdeqip]

Hi all. Im rather expirienced in death but suddenly get bitten by skaven in my local meta:

200 plague monks, 2 furnaces and verminlord warspeer.

Any ideas how to deal with this?)

last time i tryed FE gristlegore but 2 GKoTG killed only 60-70 of monks.

Olso have NH and LoN armies so gethering any ideas how to beat this list)

THx 

[Evil Bob]

A monster mash-up against a horde army is the worst possible situation.  Attacks to point values favor the lowly battle line.  The more elite models have specializations or traits to make up for this.  Fundamentally a great concept since it avoids an “elite only” mentality.

The mortal wound spam on your monsters must have been brutal.

I’d be hesitant to solely match them with ghouls, even with the chalice.  Unfortunately ranged damage is the general solution to Plague Monks.  This might be an exception to not using the Purple Sun.  Stampede should be golden.  Shackles and Corpse Barrier to slow them down or trap them among predatory spells.  He just has to force combat with his big units or park them on objectives.  You need to manage the fights for a chance at victory.  If he’s running large blocks of units don’t fight them evenly across the board.  Try to focus on limited areas and sweep your way across the table.

Edited May 7, 2019 by Evil Bob

[Evil Bob]

What Battletomb:LoN units do you have?

Edited May 5, 2019 by Evil Bob
Mangled English

[alterdeqip]

HI. thx for advice.

I prefer to play LoB or FeC with elite army but seems monk spam is counter matchup for this...

Im now thinking about LoN with Nahash Purple Sun + mass spam of undead troops ( 40 chaighast horde, 40 skellies, zombiez and 30 grimghast reapers ). Or arkhan with a chance to destroy a unit of monks that is not under 6+ aura from furnace...

 

[Skreech Verminking]

This might be wrong telling you and you might not trust me, but almost all skaven units have a very low bravery.

Id take as many bravery debuffers with you and go for the plague monks which aren’t wholly Within 13of one of the furnaces.

do a bit of damage and the rest should run away quit easily.

Also you should maybe consider taking a few battleline units that aren’t a single monster model.

sometimes a unit of ghosts or Shellie’s are perfectly made for such a kind of things.

Edited May 6, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[Honk]

2 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

go for the plague monks which aren’t wholly Within 13of one of the furnaces

Or go after the furnaces...

(no use to hit the ghouls if three courtiers are lurking behind) 

FEC might not have artillery, but you could spirit host or blisterskin some flayers on their heads (cogs to buff charges)

dealing with such a tight spammy formation is tricky. Give away one flank to concentrate on another (refused flank or whatever they call it)?!

Legion of Night and harvesters or VloZd

 

[alterdeqip]

2 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Id take as many bravery debuffers with you and go for the plague monks which aren’t wholly Within 13of one of the furnaces.

 

to solve this problem he had verminlord warpspeer and gain autopass battleshock for all units in 23" from him for 1 CP (

[Skreech Verminking]

39 minutes ago, alterdeqip said:

to solve this problem he had verminlord warpspeer and gain autopass battleshock for all units in 23" from him for 1 CP (

Au Right forgot he still existed.

let me guess he was impossible to kill, because he had two 5++ aftersaves😅?

 

[Uvatha]

I wonder the same and I have never tested this below. So I just look for ideas as you do. I assume we are all in brainstorming mode here  

---------

1) Of course,  spells can be unbound, but would Nighthaunt spell "Soul Cage" help? I mean if the 40 plage monks have to be the last ones of their army to fight then it might be that they are no longer 40 when they reach that stage because you would focus your attacks on them before. Ok, now I realize that the army you fight has actually 5 hordes of 40 plague monks >_<

2) Still in spell area: would Lore of Deathmage spell "Fading Vigour" help? Reducing their number of attacks also reduces their probability to do 6's and to double their damage?

3) To destroy the hordes... maybe stay with FEC and field an Abhorrant Ghoul King on Royal Terrorgheist with The Grim Garland  artefact and 5 Royal Terrorgheist in a Gristlegore court. (1900pts ). Your birds will shout at 10" with average rolls of 3.5+6=9.5, against debuffed Plague Monks's bravery of 4 (the artefact doing -2 bravery and his furnaces doing +1),  resulting in 9.5-4=5.5 MW each. With 6 birds: 5.5*6=33 MW. Drrrrracarrrrys?  Ok, 5 rounds required to wipe 5 hordes while trying to survive... Sounds impossible I admit ^^

4) I would like to know how are organised the 200 Plague Monks your opponent is playing: 5 Hordes of 40? 10 units of 20? Etc. I think it makes sense to look at this because in one case (5 Hordes of 40) it could be interesting to field several expendable/suicide units with the sole purpose of screening your elite range damage dealers. So one last (expensive) try. Your opponent has a very thematic/roleplay army but seems to abuse a little bit of the hordes to be honest. If they are all painted he probably deserves a medal. But why not looking for another abuse option? If he basically has 5 big blob units in total + 3 heroes then you would need:

• more and smaller units than what he has, so that:
  •  maximizing his number of attacks is difficult for him
  • loosing one unit in a 1v1 unit fight is not a big loss for you
  • and so that you can still attack with many powerful other units still fresh
• range units so you can start diminishing his hordes without being in contact with them, playing mouse ("rat", sorry ) & cat with them.

The Chainghasts are always said to be very average Nighthaunt unit.. and too expensive (both in army Pts and money $_$). But except for the spells and the bravery shrieks of Terrorgheists/Banshees/Flayers, they are the only real range units in Nighthaunt I think. And their melee attacks scales with number of models in 2" range of them (good against hordes no?).

Let's imagine:

• 40 Chainghasts doing ~30 range damages after 6+ save, from 12" to any blob approaching, or to any blob they approach.
• You land a soulsnare endless spell to slow the Plague Monks hordes approaching, and to start eating them slowly.
• If they come at contact then first you screen your elite range units with expendable/oneshot Chainrasps. Then each Chainghast will probably soon arrive in 2"range of from 5 to 10 Plague Monks. Of course one unit of Chainghast will not survive such an encounter, however:
  • Then it is only one of your 10 units which dies
  • While your opponent spent the attack sequence of one of his 5 blobs (not even maximising the number of attacks because getting in range of 4 Chainghasts with all 40 Monks will be difficult)
  • You would still have 9 units of 4 models left for attacking. One Chainghast in range of a Spirit Torment and in range of one enemy model would do ~0.39 damages after +6 save. But if he is in range of 5 models (more likely with the hordes you fight against) then it will retaliate with ~1.94 damages after save. 36 models would deliver ~70 damages after 6+ save and you would have flexibility to spread these damages adequately. I don't know if people here have experience with Chainghast but is it rare to be in 2" range of 5/10/more models, when you fight against hordes like this?

I believe that because the opponent abuses of the horde bonus/effect (even though as I wrote before, visually, I would probably be in admiration of such a vermintide!) then we also have to abuse of something else. It might be in the fact that such hordes may basically destroy anything they touch, but at the end: they cannot pile in twice. So, great if such horde can wipe out a unit of 4 models in one attack sequence, but then it just crushed a fly with a mallet and your opponent wasted the firepower of 240 pts to kill 160 pts (for 4 Chainghasts) or 80pts (for 10 Chainrasps).

If the 200 monks are in 10 units of 20 then I have no idea yet  Also I have just figured out the bill for buying such army below... 750 Euros of Chainghast you'd better have to win otherwise this Skaven player will have a good reason to laugh  Ok I always sounds crazy with my 3 xCoven thrones army ideas, or this new one here below. It is just that: 200 monks is really insane, and wouldn't insane problems deserve insane solutions? 

Allegiance: Nighthaunt

Leaders
Spirit Torment (120)
- General
- Artefact: Midnight Tome 

Battleline
10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)
10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)
10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)

Units
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)

Endless Spells
Soulsnare Shackles (20)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 115
 

[alterdeqip]

28 minutes ago, Uvatha said:

2) Still in spell area: would Lore of Deathmage spell "Fading Vigour" help? Reducing their number of attacks also reduces their probability to do 6's and to double their damage?

 

Thx for brainstorming) No -1 to hit/to  wont help in this case cause they are doing  on unmodified 6s.

the main problem for dragons not the damage monks can do, but the mortal wounds they gives back on model killed ( on 6s )

he is moving them 5x40 as a one big front ( also there all painted   ) 

so now im thinking aout heavy magic list or troops spam

About heavy magic im thinking about nahash + some spells like sun of shyish, vault of souls and mirror, trying to kill his 3 heroes by hand of dust. 

 

[Honk]

Interesting might be the FEC spell stampede and... Nagash is allowed to cast it and 14“ should get the placement sorted out. Every unit suffering MWs if you roll higher than the hp...

also the Barrier Blocks his movement, while ignoring you...

Edited May 7, 2019 by Honk

[Aleister]

Maybe play Morghaunt with 120+ Ghouls in groups of 40, using Feeding Frenzy for killing and the Morghaunt Command Ability to bring a unit of 40 back to full strength if it wasn't totally destroyed...  Combine that with Stampede and Blood Feast for direct damage, using Barricade and Shackles to keep some of the Monks at bay?

[XReN]

Go LoB and stack Neferata's CA, watch him fishing for 6s. Everything else should be hordes and a couple of support heroes, maybe allied archregent summoning 3 horrors and casting cadaverous barricade.

If you take a monster - give them Shardfist Pelt or Smouldering Helm to return MWs

If you go gristlegore take 3 mounted GKs and minimal ghoul patrol, give one of GKs Doppelganger Cloak, charge and attack with all 3 before he punches them back, need to have a lot of CPs though, then use fight-before-removed CA in his turn.

[Evil Bob]

On 5/7/2019 at 9:27 AM, Uvatha said:

 <Snip>

Leaders
Spirit Torment (120)

 <Snip>

Units
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)
4 x Chainghasts (160)

Just thinking of setting up the synergies bubble gives me the chuckles.

[Evil Bob]

On 5/6/2019 at 10:55 AM, alterdeqip said:

HI. thx for advice.

I prefer to play LoB or FeC with elite army but seems monk spam is counter matchup for this...

Im now thinking about LoN with Nahash Purple Sun + mass spam of undead troops ( 40 chaighast horde, 40 skellies, zombiez and 30 grimghast reapers ). Or arkhan with a chance to destroy a unit of monks that is not under 6+ aura from furnace...

All of your massed units have potential.  I’d warn against bringing only 40 zombies.  Thanks to the mortal wound spam the Chainwrasps lose some of their value.

Battletomb:LoN is still where the strongest Death options are.  Skeletons in GHoN are terrifyingly great with a second 6+ shrug and +1 attack.  Although giving up the Terrorghiest Mantle against a low Bravery army is almost criminal.  Bringing back a unit for a CP leaves me warm and fuzzy inside.

I like to bring four Morghasts Harbingers with Spirit Halberds.  Normally their positioning disrupts enemy movements (probably less so  in your situation unless the furnaces are left open in the back).  Executing a Han-shot-first has only ever failed me once and even then it was my fault for not throwing Dread Knight on them and having an epically terrible dice roll.

Only use Nagash if you really want to.  I generally try to gauge my magic needs from the bottom up (imagining if Necromancers & Vamps handle it - no, can Arkham do it - no, time to bring in Nagash).  Those dirty rats are Chaos now so  Quicksilver Swords is an option.