What advice would you give when playing AGAINST your own faction?

[Lord_Skrolk]

No one knows their own faction's tricks, what makes it work on the battlefield, and how to counter it than the people that play it. 

For example, as a competitive Slaanesh player, I would say things I hate to see are: 

* Lots of 1 wound screening models

* Shooting like the Stormcast Ballistas that can put out of a horrifying amount of shots at close range. Volume of attacks matters much more than quality of attacks because we have mediocre saves and no ability to stack defensive bonuses like Order lists can do (outside of maybe 1 Pretenders KoS in the list that can be built rather tanky) 

* Deployment far enough back off the line that I can't reliably get turn 1 charges 

What are some specific pieces of advice you would give to someone playing against your own faction? Can be as broad or detailed as you want Cheers! 

Edited June 17, 2019 by Lord_Skrolk

[Melcavuk]

Also against my Slaanesh:

Dont charge into locus range, Pile into it. The Locus activates at the end of the charge phase so if you can charge part of a screening unit that isnt within 6 inches of the hero and then pile into combat you can avoid the locus entirely.

Surround or destroy heroes, if a summoned unit cannot be placed within range of the hero it cant be summoned, if there are no heroes left it doesnt matter how much depravity the Hedonites have its wasted.

Dont try and outcast Slaanesh, with so many Heroes or anti magic abilities its surprisingly competenant in the Hero Phase.

 

[Double Misfire]

Ironweld Arsenal:

-Kill the artillery crew. Seriously, just kill them, you've got to do 3 wounds four times to disable the 800 point anchor of my army.

-For extra salt tell me I should get a real army with a battletome, or possibly consider 9th Age while I'm packing away my stuff 30 minutes into a game.  

[Praecautus]

Khorne mortals (specifically my list)

stay away, everything hurts, but you will have a fun game

claim objectives quickly, I can’t take them al off you fast enough

if my army is together, don’t charge it

invest in killing the daemon prince, if you don’t keep your valuable leaders away or swamp him with chaff or protect the hero. He had a threat range of 24 inches plus charge, you are not out of range

Dont kill the reavers units and deny me tithe

stay away from the priests, they’re stuck near the big spiky thing anyway. Seriously, stay away. 1 will  pull you in range of the other two

Those blood warriors smack back when they die,  they hurt when buffed

the skull reapers are really rather painful  in combat

the shrine is not as amazing as you think, kill what it will buff

Kevin the khorgorath can tear a chaff unit apart quite nicely

thw blood secrator can move now, he deals MW every combat phase

 

 

 

[Lord_Skrolk]

5 hours ago, Double Misfire said:

Ironweld Arsenal:

-Kill the artillery crew. Seriously, just kill them, you've got to do 3 wounds four times to disable the 800 point anchor of my army.

-For extra salt tell me I should get a real army with a battletome, or possibly consider 9th Age while I'm packing away my stuff 30 minutes into a game.  

I think it's pretty absurd that you can kill artillery crew members instead of the crew and the machine having a collective pool of wounds... a very poor design decisiom especially when Warplightning Cannons are way stronger and have to be killed as one model

Oh well, anyone running a heavy Ironweld Arsenal army is going to be cool in my eyes regardless of how they do! 

[MrZakalwe]

Against my mixed High Elves .

 

Move forward and either shoot or charge (depending on the focus of the unit in question) my units. As a general rule much of my stuff is rather overcosted and I don't get allegiance abilities so following that simple guide you should win the vast majority of games.

 

[soak314]

Gloomspite:

Don't let yourself get stuck in with battleline blobs (grots or squigs) as 98% of the time that's exactly what the gloomspite player wants you to do.

If our horde battleline units (grots, squigs, spiders) aren't covered by battleshock immunity, they're likely to run away in droves after a solid nuke.

Tied to the battleshock bit, target our heroes. They may force you to roll sixes to hit or have a 4+ FnP, but they don't have a lot of wounds total. Once they're gone, you've either removed a massive buff vector, a source of a key spell, a source of free CP,  AND a source of battleshock immunity. A list sporting Skragrott in particular is likely to have tied most of their synergies to the Loonking's spellcasting and moon control. Same goes for a loonboss on mangler squig, which can make squig units in a massive bubble all wound on 2+'s.

The Loonshrine has a 50/50 chance of bringing back grot blobs, it can do so wholly within 12" of it, and can spawn the grots just 3" out of enemy units. Don't be afraid of this ability, as in don't try and swamp the shrine to try and deny it. You're likely wasting precious turns doing so, and half the time it won't even go off.  If you're at the point where you have to worry about a big blob of grots coming back, you've likely whupped the gloomspite player enough for it to not be an issue.

If the loonshrine is parked near an objective, don't bother with it unless you utterly table the gloomspite player. It's likely to be buried in grots for most of the battle.

And if all else fails, run Tzeentch or ally in a gaunt summoner and do the spell that wipes out half a grot blob from an entire map away.

[Tropical Ghost General]

I always start with a brief run down of the army, highlighting the main threats. Then in game I normally coach my opponents, pointing out better moves to make against me, better targets to attack, etc...at least until they've played my army a good number of times and have learned all it's tricks. 

I find being super open creates a much better play experience for both players, sure I get beaten a lot 😂, but I'd rather be winning games due to skill and luck of the dice rather than causing a 'got you moment' later in the game because my opponent didn't know or didn't remember what some of my units do.

I also find that having just a simple breakdown at the start of the game leads to information overall which all gets forgotten straight away. Giving reminders throughout the game helps cement the information better for future games rather than having that single brief summary before any dice are rolled. 

I mainly play ghosts, so the biggest tip I give players, both before and during the game, is focus on the super squishy heroes first, after that the rest of the army will crumple, and then it's generally a walk in the park for my opponent. 

[Ruhraffe]

Sylvaneth: Don't fight blobs of dryads near the woods. The -1 to hit heavily decreases your damage output against a chaff unit. Also: Hunters that dig them self in the woods have a 3+ rerollable save. Just don't.

Instead: try to focus down the big behemoths with mortal wounds to get aroun their 3+ save. Be wary of woods being a spot where units just can pop up. Block them with a small unit or hero, we have to keep 9'' distance when teleporting.

[Double Misfire]

11 hours ago, Lord_Skrolk said:

I think it's pretty absurd that you can kill artillery crew members instead of the crew and the machine having a collective pool of wounds... a very poor design decisiom especially when Warplightning Cannons are way stronger and have to be killed as one model

Oh well, anyone running a heavy Ironweld Arsenal army is going to be cool in my eyes regardless of how they do! 

Thanks.

I'm sure Ironweld artillery and crews will be given merged profiles in line with the Celestar Ballista when whatever battletome they end up in is released, but I really do wish GW would hurry it up and stick them in an faq.

[Kramer]

Learn it’s strengths and weaknesses  

[Chickenbits]

Shoot them

[Skreech Verminking]

 

Overrun-kill them-them.

more-more Bodys are needed, yes-yes let them suffocate in a ocean of brown furred body’s!

[GlitzFan]

Could a FEC player give us some insight please? 

[Lightbox]

Soulblight:

-Charge our blood knights... no seriously these horsemen pack a wallop on the charge but are much much worse when they haven't charged.
-Bring rend, a -1 rend reduces our blood knights to 5+ save, a rend of - gives us a 3+ save.
-Try to position yourself so our lord on zombie dragon (and knights if a particular bloodline) can't just leap over your front lines to savage your support heroes.
-Hit the zombie dragon before he hits you. He's a beast in combat but will worsen as he deteriorates, he's another unit who wants to charge you and not the other way around.
-Bring hordes, we're a low model count army. Bog our knights down by charging them with chaff as it will take us time to kill them and meanwhile you can hold all the objectives with superior numbers.

 

Everchosen:

-Kill Archaon. He's a massive force multiplier for varanguard putting them to a 2+ instead of a 3+ to hit and being able to make them reroll charges (very nasty for fellspears where we want every one of those attacks hitting you on a charge)
-Don't let the Varanguard charge you with fellspears, they will really hurt and their rend -2 on the charge will make the hurt even hurtier.
-Don't rely on magic, archaon has 2 unbinds and he and all the varanguard have a 4+ ignore magic wounds. If it's my list there will also likely be a bloodsecrator making you reroll.
-Bring hordes. We're even lower model count than soulblight, we can't hold objectives nor do varanguard have enough punch to get through proper tarpits, especially if they use inspiring presence. Lets not discuss the game where one spear unit got held up by 30 savage orruks for the entire match (after charging).
-Block our movement, we're all fairly chunky bases (especially archaon) so good positioning will block us being able to get where we want to get.

 

(Because obviously we gotta represent the underplayed factions in this who are easy to beat anyway ) 

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Lightbox

[darranh1]

This is a great thread, hope other players post as this was one of the posts I was going to make as a fairly new 6 month AoS player it can be impossible to formulate a tactic against a army you havn't played against a few times.

I played against Fyreslayers last week. Lost terribly which isn't a problem. The run down as we set up was "fyreslayer troops attack first and attack twice. Negate magic on 4+, and save after save of 4+". I figured as an alpha strike army avoid his tight pile of 3 troop units of 5,10  and 10 and 2 heros on one objective and go for the large 30 single unit with hero as at least only have 2 attacks against me rather than 4-5 before I get to even attack.

Afterwards with a bit of homework I realise only 1 unit can attack twice and attack first with command point spend (his big unit), the negate magic actually is a priest artefact with 12" range and save after save is also a limited area buff. (Im right thinking an army can only have one copy of an artefact?) I don't have battletome to check. So I figure next time, I'll know to ask which hearthguard bezerkers are part of battalion as that's the unit to avoid, not attack!!!

So summarising your army, what do people recommend? Brief can be unhelpful as above to new players and it natural not to reveal major weaknesses but then newbies make quite glaring errors from the off. My main concern is not trying to win but by losing so easily, players wont want to replay again as I provided no fun or challenge at all. 

How much detail should we go into and how many questions are appropriate when trying  to really understand your opponents army synergies?

Do keep posting as is a really helpful thread.

[Skreech Verminking]

Skaven:

What ever you do don’t let a unit or most of your army camp in or next to a gnawholes because your afraid that something would pop up there.

nor do you have to ignore it when trying to move over it.

yes it’s deadly but not impossible to  moved through.

and also if you see any plague monks shoot them down.

you don’t want them in combat with you at all.

Deepstriking won’t help you too much, unless your friend/foe made some mistake or’s just playing for the first time.

better of just trying too shoot yourselves through the hordes or kill them off like it is nothing in combat.

still try and ignore plague monks as good as possible, especially when they are buffed with deathfrenzy.

if you have a unit that costs less than 40plagur monks and  can deal around 40ish wounds they are the perfect monk killers.

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by Skreech Verminking

[Forrix]

Against Fyreslayers:

Don't face plant a fully buffed Hermdar HGB unit from the Lords of the Lodge battalion. I don't care if you're the Gristlegore general it won't work. Seriously, I've won a lot of games by people doing this.

Do: Play the objectives. Fyreslayers don't have a huge amount of bodies and our mobility sucks. This is usually how I lose games.

Do: Kill the heroes. If a Fyreslayer hero is on foot he's easy to kill. If he's on a Magmadroth he can be a lot tougher but is still highly vulnerable to mortal wounds.

Keep in mind: Fyreslayers are a slow moving death star army, play accordingly.  Fyreslayers, unless allying in Stormcast or taking specific artefacts, have no unbinding ability or ability to dispel endless spells. The 4+ ignore spell artifact has a wholly within 12 inch range and is carried by a hero with a 3+ save, no mortal wound save and 5 wounds. Vulkite Berzerkers pile in when they die ability is once per game and has to be activated at the start of the combat phase. Its tricky but very possible to play around, especially for armies that can attack at the start of the combat phase.

Against Nurgle:

Move your army onto objectives.

More seriously: Kill the Harbinger of Decay if your opponent is playing mortals. If you see a bunch of Blight Kings throw a -1 hit on them as they are very dependent on rolling a 6+ for their damage output. Don't be afraid to engage a Great Unclean One, most people seem to seriously overestimate both their durability and damage potential. A sword/flail GUO with + hit on his sword is about the only kind that can really do damage. GUOs can heal quite a bit so make sure to focus fire them down as much as possible. If your opponent is running Thricefold make sure to save an unbind for Plague Wind. Rotigus's Deluge of Nurgle is probably the most overrated spell in AOS if you're not Nighthaunt (Sorry, Nighthaunt). Nurgle's damage output is for the most part very low so if you can lower it further by debuffs and removing a few key components you can just pile on to objectives and win.

[Sleboda]

Against Khorne demons:

Get drunk so your opponent has a chance, otherwise he'll rage quit in short order and pick an army that might beat you.

[Mayple]

My Gloomspite (Largely consisting of a strong midfield of 60 goblins, big juicy troggboss, some troggoths - and supported on the flanks by squig knights):

- Don't try to kill my super tanky general (Troggboss) in an attempt to remove my command point generation/battleshock immunity shenanigans. He's specifically there to draw attention to himself, and then promptly survive whatever you throw at him. Kill my regular Troggoths and/or Boingrot Bounderz instead.

- Don't charge my center, hoping to be able to dish it out because "they're only goblins" -- There are fanatics, troggoths, and an angry troggboss all in position to punish that exact maneouver.

- Don't leave gaps in your frontline. That's what the Boingrot Bounders (commonly reffered to as Squig Knights) are for, and they will punish you.

- Don't chase lone units of Squig Knights that are way off on the flanks trying to bait you out of position. If you have no business being there, then you can safely assume their job is to die to pull you that way.

- Don't abandon backfield objectives. I can teleport, sometimes.

- Don't try to win by being a camping gunline. Goblins are -really- tanky against that strategy.
- Don't expect an honorable, straight-forward fight. I will do the unexpected. 

- Do distract me by making conversation. I have a horrible attention span, and a social attitude, and will play worse as a result. I will approve of such underhanded tactics.


Nice topic  

Edited June 18, 2019 by Mayple

[Swooper]

Most BoC players will leave a shaman and an ungor unit at the herdstone, kill them to deny most of our summoning points.

Deploy to deny ambush units easy access to your backline (ambushing units have to set up within 6" of board edge, 9" or more from enemy units - same with summoned units).

Try to get the charge on bestigors, they gain an extra attack if they get to charge.

Gavespawn players will have a single beastlord with the Mutating Gnarlblade artifact, he's actually deceptively deadly (6 attacks at 3+/3+/-1/3 with some rerolls in the mix). Kill him before he assassinates one of your heroes. He'll probably turn into a chaos spawn when he dies, like all Gavespawn heroes. Spawns are the focus for the Gavespawn command ability which gives a nearby unit an extra attack. Kill the spawns so they can't use that buff.

Our monsters may look scary, but they're actually made of papier-mâché. They have somewhere between 8 and 14 wounds but only 5+ or 6+ saves, they go down pretty easily. Most of them also deflate significantly after moderate damage.

[Scurvydog]

Not like most need advice against Ironjawz but here goes anyway:

Screen screen and screen. No amount of attacks from whaagh will help if the only target is skinks, ungors or whatever cheap chaff they are forced to run into. Both gruntas and especially mawkrushas which are the only units with any speed, got big bases and are easy to deny space. The MK can fly, but needs a LOT of space to land, especially in the movement phase to stay 3" away.

The rest of the army is very slow, play against them like a worse version of fyreslayers as mentioned earlier.

If any character has the aethorquartz brooch go for him, IJ are incredibly CP hungry. In GHB 19 all IJ heroes will also have a new command ability, so it is no longer enough to shut down the megaboss to deny most offensive power of the army.

[King Taloren]

Idoneth Deepkin:

We will be faster than everything else outside of anything that can always run and charge. Half our stuff flys too. Don’t try to outrace us instead limit our places to move with broad coverage of units. Don’t let us go where we can do damage to you.

The more damage you do in turn 1 and 2 will limit the return damage if turn 3.

Unless you can outmaneuver us, you will only be allowed to shoot my 3+ save Ishalen Guard because they will be in cover always unless they charge. And then they will still have 3+ save.

The faster you either kill them or hit me with a scary unit into my Morrsarr Guard the faster I will pop my mortal wound ability and save you from worrying about something else getting zapped.

Charge my eels, don’t let me charge. Things are worse for me when I can’t charge them. Because my bonuses don’t get to be used.

Leviadon is a underrated melee monster that will wipe out chaff units like a boss. Fear the Massive Scythed Fins!

Volturnos is the lynchpin of my army. Kill him and my turn 3 fizzles our like a wet firecracker. But you have to shoot everything in front of him, hope you can use magic with his 3+ ignore spells, or try to charge him with something that can live through 5 3+ 3+ D3 that can be -5 rend on 6+. If he survives the attack.

Don’t fight me on turn 3. Just run and try not to give me two turns to attack you first during high tide.

Edited June 19, 2019 by King Taloren

[Frowny]

At least for old sylvaneth

1) Don't charge into the woods. Instead pile into them, as it negates the 1's kill models rule

2) If given the option, take first turn and move up. Limiting my woods placement on t1 is quite useful for you. Don't just turtle, as I can turtle better. I'm bad at pushing you off objectives but excellent at holding them. 

3) Acknowledge that the woods are dark and full of terrors. Know their rules (MW w/in 1 inch on casts w/in 6 in)

4) Don't be so afraid of the woods that you give up easy objectives or avoid fights you might easily win. If there are no sylvaneth there, the woods is just a scenery piece. 

5) Do 3 wounds to durthu. he looses a ton of effectiveness on his first bracket

Some  parts will probably change very shortly though

[Belper]

Kill the Haq queens if you can. Other than that. Other than that, all you have to do is deny charge priority and wait until I fail blessing of khaine or leap out of the haggnarr bubble.  Then just watch out for Morathi.

In a list without morathi, REALLY focus down the hag queens and medusa, also try to hit me hard on the unit that doesn't have blessing.