How to deal with Anointed on Frost Phoenix!?!

[Aphotic]

A local guy is playing living cities with an anointed on frost Phoenix plus arlielle. The frost Phoenix seems insanely overpowered. 2+ with rerolling ones due to shield and a 4+ shrug. The guy seems impossible to kill and the list has so many threats none of us are able to do anything against it.

 

Is it just me or is this anointed completely ridiculous?

Edited November 29, 2019 by Gaz Taylor
Title tweak

[Gecktron]

Hi! First of all, do you know how he gets to a 2+ save? A Frostheart Phoenix starts with a 4+ and gets +1 if within 12" of a succesfull cast. Mystic shield gives re-rolls of 1 but there is still another +1 that I dont see. 

[Aphotic]

12 minutes ago, Gecktron said:

Hi! First of all, do you know how he gets to a 2+ save? A Frostheart Phoenix starts with a 4+ and gets +1 if within 12" of a succesfull cast. Mystic shield gives re-rolls of 1 but there is still another +1 that I dont see. 

I guess it gets plus one to hit rolls and to wound for the warlord trait; I meant to type 3+. Just seems excessive with all the shrugs and negative to wound etc.

[schwabbele]

iron oak artisan command trait of living city gives +1 to save and wound

[Gecktron]

11 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

iron oak artisan command trait of living city gives +1 to save and wound

12 minutes ago, Aphotic said:

I guess it gets plus one to hit rolls and to wound for the warlord trait; I meant to type 3+. Just seems excessive with all the shrugs and negative to wound etc.

Ah! Okay, I thought Phoenicium at first. All right! Remember, the trait only gives the +1 to wound only to his halberd, not the phoenix! 

Try to snipe his wizards so he doesnt get the +1 to saves and whittle him down from afar with mortals or high rend attacks. Maybe tie him down with tarpit units. Dont try to fight him in close combat. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Gecktron

[Aphotic]

His wizard tends to be either a hidden branchwych or arlielle, which can ambush, so getting rid of her is difficult. If he ambushes arlielle he holds the bird back so it cant get hit without its buff.

 

The +1 to wound doesnt apply to the mount? 

[Lord Krungharr]

I think I might make my old metal dragon with a Sorceress to give my Frostheart Phoenix Mystic Shield then too, plus the Ironoak Armor.   

[Gecktron]

3 minutes ago, Aphotic said:

His wizard tends to be either a hidden branchwych or arlielle, which can ambush, so getting rid of her is difficult. If he ambushes arlielle he holds the bird back so it cant get hit without its buff.

 

The +1 to wound doesnt apply to the mount? 

The wizard has to be within 12" of the phoenix to give the +1 save! If he keeps his phoenix back to stay with the wych, just ignore them. If he is not in range of his blizzard he is basically dead weight.

No. Warlord traits never apply to the mount as written in the core rules. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by Gecktron

[Double Misfire]

What a truly vile combo. What army are you using against it @Aphotic?  

[Aphotic]

27 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

What a truly vile combo. What army are you using against it @Aphotic?  

I usually play maggotkin, which struggles with rend. I have death as well.

[Double Misfire]

Just now, Aphotic said:

I usually play maggotkin, which struggles with rend. I have death as well.

I'm not super familiar with Maggotkin, but I'd always assumed Festus and a hero with the Rustfang made tough armour saves a cakewalk. 🤷‍♂️

Concentrated Plagueclaw shooting to soften it up?

[Aphotic]

12 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

I'm not super familiar with Maggotkin, but I'd always assumed Festus and a hero with the Rustfang made tough armour saves a cakewalk. 🤷‍♂️

Concentrated Plagueclaw shooting to soften it up?

Counter fire can be very difficult. He can pop a cp to make anyone move after a unit shoots so arlielle can first turn charge after shooting is done. 

 

Rustfang is alright but the hero needs to live. Overall his list is very, very good at killing characters. 

[Gecktron]

You could also always just throw Plague Monks at the problem. 280 points for 40 makes for a great chaff unit. Generating mortal wounds when killed is also extremly usefull. 

[Double Misfire]

56 minutes ago, Aphotic said:

Rustfang is alright but the hero needs to live. Overall his list is very, very good at killing characters. 

Whatever the fat bloke on a rotfly's called? I've found them pretty hard to shift, and all you need to do is get him into position for a turn.

[Gypsy_Pistolero]

12 hours ago, Aphotic said:

His wizard tends to be either a hidden branchwych or arlielle, which can ambush, so getting rid of her is difficult. If he ambushes arlielle he holds the bird back so it cant get hit without its buff.

 

The +1 to wound doesnt apply to the mount? 

From what I've read in the cities group arlielle can't ambush because of the wholly within 6" of the board edge and her base is too big, unless house ruling to let her hang off the edge

[Kitsumy]

Lol a phoenix still can get to 2s rerroling 1s and 4+++?? Thats nuts. I thought it was nerfed to 4+ on tome and thats is. 

 

Of course everything with 2+ save is op broken and should be nerfed, same thing as nagash on new bonereapers saving at 2s rerrolling 1s and 6+++. No mini should get anything better than 3+. Isnt fun to play against those

Edited November 29, 2019 by Kitsumy

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Kitsumy said:

Lol a phoenix still can get to 2s rerroling 1s and 4+++?? Thats nuts. I thought it was nerfed to 4+ on tome and thats is. 

 

Of course everything with 2+ save is op broken and should be nerfed, same thing as nagash on new bonereapers saving at 2s rerrolling 1s and 6+++. No mini should get anything better than 3+. Isnt fun to play against those

Looking at Petrifex, GW does not agree with this statement. (You already noticed this).

I am of two minds with this. On one hand, having a save (n) negate any (y) is interesting. I could see a stubborn dwarf having more resistance vs mortal wounds than vs regular weapons, but I do like looking at a model, and being able to guess the save, which doesn't work for the save after saves.

Edited November 29, 2019 by zilberfrid

[Thiagoma]

The anointed currently starts with 4+ and goes to 3+ if an ally sucessfully cast something at 12" from it. Not sure how you are get to 2+.

Things you can do:

-Unbind spells cast near him.

- Mortal Wounds. Allarielle cannot heal him (he is not sylvaneth) unless she uses the lore spell (1d6). Will require focus fire and lucky tho.

 

With that said:

You wont kill it. Dont try. Your adversary spent half of his points into this duo, so toss cheap units into its way and go for the objectives.  You should be able to hold then up long enough to score a win.

[Thiagoma]

PS: Phoenix used to be way more abusive. You would get +1 to armor for each casting attempt, yours or adversary, with no limits. But had a starting armor of 5+.

[Gecktron]

21 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

The anointed currently starts with 4+ and goes to 3+ if an ally sucessfully cast something at 12" from it. Not sure how you are get to 2+.

There is a Living City warlord trait that gives another +1. 

[Aelfric]

I'm looking at running an Anointed on Flamespyre Phoenix in Anvilguard with the Drakescale Cloak artefact.  This would give him a save of 4+ , 4++, 5+++;  3+ if spell cast.  Not sure if it's better or worse than a 2+, 4++, but then it is Anvilguard  

[NinthMusketeer]

GW in general does not seem to fully recognize that a 4+ to ignore wounds taken in effect doubles the wounds characteristic of the model with the added benefit that healing is worth double as well. So a frostheart phoenix is a 12-wound monster, but an annointed on frostheart phoenix is in practice a 24-wound monster that heals double. While this is not represented in the point costs it is important to recognize the dynamic on the battlefield and treat it accordingly.

Now as for actually dealing with it. The phoenix is  more durable than it is killy, especially the way he is running it. He is counting on you to try and kill it, something many armies may need to do... but not Maggotkin. Your wound profiles are good enough and your unit options durable enough that you can afford to hold it down in melee while the rest of your army goes to do other things. Here are some good tools to do that, pick & choose what you like:

-30 Plaguebearers + Lord of Blights + GUO with witherstave: a great combo in general, it applies here too. The LoB uses his command ability on the plaguebearers to make them -2 to hit in melee while the GUO stands nearby so the witherstave forces the enemy to re-roll 6s to hit. Generally you want a GUO to carry the witherstave specifically, both so his fat base increases the size of the bubble and because a smaller hero can be more easily sniped.

-Pusgoyles + Harbinger of Decay: When the harbinger uses his command ability it puts the pusgoyles at 4+ armor, then two 5+ to ignore wounds. They will sit in front of that phoenix for the rest of the game. Even without the harbinger they will stand there for some time. Note they won't deal much damage but that isn't the point.

-Poxbringer w/Glorious Afflictions: The spell gives -1 to hit, to wound, and to saves, which neuters just about anything and as an added bonus lasts until the caster moves, casts again, or dies. This means you get it off once then just stand there and don't cast anything, simply maintaining the spell. Obviously he will try to kill the hero, but that's why you use a poxbringer for this; with his small base he can easily find cover to stand in (even just on a feculent gnarlmaw) giving him a 3+ armor plus 5+ to ignore wounds, he can heal himself for 1 wound every turn, and can benefit from look out sir. He'll still die but you make your opponent work disproportionately hard to do it.

Here are some things NOT to do:

-Blightkings. These are generally the offense of a Nurgle army and you want them to be fighting something other than the most durable target he has.

-Plague Monks. Their damage output is insane, but 2+ armor will stop that in its tracks and the phoenix will only take a small amount of damage from them bouncing MWs on death (note that wiping out an entire unit only deals an average of 6.6 MWs, which the phoenix will cancel half of).

-Plagueclaws. Plagueclaws have more than double the damage output when targeting units with 10+ models so while utilizing their rend -2 here may be attractive, it isn't worth it. The average damage dealt to a 2+ save phoenix is tiny.

-Don't engage. While you don't want to try to kill it, you also can't afford to have this thing flying around everywhere. You want to charge it with something if it doesn't charge you, that way he must retreat and wait a turn before charging something else. Summoned plague drones or plaguebearer units can fill the roll if nothing else is available.

 

 

But let's say you really hate this thing and want it to die... 

Grashrak Fellhoof (and Despoilers) - A nice little wizard you can ally in and his accompanying unit can eat wounds for him on a 4+, helping him stay alive to cast his spell which does d3 MWs and more importantly gives unit attacking the target +1 to hit in the subsequent combat phase.

Plague Monks w/double blades - Plague monks have a lot of attacks, just not much rend. Normally they can't put a dent in a phoenix even at +1 to hit, but not after you cast...

Blades of Putrefaction - 6+ to hit deals a MW. At +1 to hit that becomes a 5+. Plague monks with two foetid blades "can re-roll hit rolls" meaning you can re-roll 1s, 2s, 3s, and 4s since you are just gunning for the 5+ anyways. 

You can also swap the plague monks for marauders (less attacks but their own +1 to hit mechanic), chaos knights + lord on daemonic mount (his command ability gives them +1 to hit) or blightkings from the blight cyst battalion (rend -1 so their base attacks can deal some damage).

[InSaint]

3 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Now as for actually dealing with it. The phoenix is  more durable than it is killy, especially the way he is running it. He is counting on you to try and kill it, something many armies may need to do... but not Maggotkin. Your wound profiles are good enough and your unit options durable enough that you can afford to hold it down in melee while the rest of your army goes to do other things.

This, they do not hit very hard and their main role is to tie up hammer units in combat. Remember AOS is an objective game, retreating to just outside of 3" to break out of combat,  conserve your model count and capture objectives is the more appropriate move. 

[Tidings]

I'm someone who has been using Frosthearts for most games over the past 2 or 3 years. The main thing I WANT you to do is try to kill it. It will soak damage more efficiently than any other unit I have. My gameplan with the Frostheart is to bait your hammer into charging it, then counter-charge your hammer with my own own (or spam shooting). The thing I DON'T want is for you to tie it down with chaff and waste my time, or (more commonly) run towards an objective and force me to use its 16" movement to challenge your move. If you can create a situation where I have to react to you pressuring an objective, and the only unit I can do that with is my frostheart, then I'm not using it the way I want since now it is only mitigating damage for itself. 

If your opponent's list has a lot of mobility, he won't need to use the Phoenix to run off, but he also will not have as many points invested in hammers and shooting. Don't do a grindy fight with the Phoenix. Just charge it with chaff, retreat your more valuable unit, and force him to either grind out the chaff or also retreat. The Phoenix is pretty good at killing weak stuff but it isn't a big damage dealer. 

[amsoly]

Just mentioning here I don’t think Alarielle can use hidden paths due to base size and the 6” from the board edge. (Came up in another thread)