Best army for defensive players.

[Jome]

Hey all.  After trying out a few of the armies over just a couple of games, I've decided that my playstyle is Defensive and conquer through attrition, so durability is very importaint to me.  I'm looking for an army that can take the biggest beating and still be there to dish it back.  With so many faction options availible, I thought it would just be easier to ask more experienced players, who know the game and all the armies far better than me, which army fits this scheme best.  

 

Thanks for any insight that is offered here.

Cheers.

[rokapoke]

Start with Stormcast. Most units have pretty good saves (frequently 4+), and heroes have even better saves (most have a 3+, some with bonuses to that). Plus, even though you can't take a mage from within the faction, you can boost saves with the un-dispellable ability of the Lord-Castellant, making your big tarpits even more resistant to assault. 

[Kyriakin]

Daemons of Nurgle?

[Double Misfire]

3 hours ago, Kyriakin said:

Daemons of Nurgle?

Good at taking a beating, not so great at giving it back.

@JomeDo you want to put out a lot of ranged damage while soaking up damage and waiting for stuff to come to you, or are you more of a march forward and let stuff hit you until it gets tired type? If it's the latter you might want to look at a Deathrattle (skeleton) heavy Death force. With the Death Allegiance abilities you easily play a 2k game with 100+ skeletons in three units that have a 5+ ward, a 6+ ward and heal D6+1 models back a turn, with enough room for whatever other fun units you feel like throwing in. You could even play the army with Tomb King artillery if you wanted to stand back in a corner and shoot.

Fyreslayers can also be a horrendous pain in the ****** to shift if you want them to be, and with the recent point drops are now a much more viable force. You can easily run large units of Vulkite Berzerkers (their basic infantry) with a 4+ rerollable armour save, followed by a 4+ ward. They're not very flexible though and you might want to supplement them with ranged units and speedy objective grabbers from other Order factions.

[Lucio]

Seraphon can easily get 2+ re rollable saves in cover that ignore a lot of rend so they can be horrnendous to shift out of cover

[Nico]

Mixed Order can build some ridiculous defensive bunkers.

Frost Phoenix behind Phoenix Guard/Vulkite Berserkers with Battlesmith)/Protectors with Skinks as the front line, with optional Luminark behind that. #LetMeSeeThatBounce 

[Cookiez]

Sylvaneth are one of the best defensive armies.

[Kaleb Daark]

Legion of Azgorh?

[CoffeeGrunt]

Stormcast. You have to constantly be defensive against other players accusing you of being the favoured posterboys. Runners-up are Sylvaneth and Beastclaw Raiders.

[Jome]

Thanks for all the replies and interests.

16 hours ago, Double Misfire said:

Good at taking a beating, not so great at giving it back.

@JomeDo you want to put out a lot of ranged damage while soaking up damage and waiting for stuff to come to you, or are you more of a march forward and let stuff hit you until it gets tired type?

To be honest I don't really know.  For me, I don't mind either way.  Playing a castle style army that bunkers down and shoots behind a wall of armour sounds cool to me; but I would equally enjoy a melee oriented army that attacks bounce off  of as they sweep across the battlefield.  Now I, or anyone else interested in this style of gameplay, are not looking for the all powerful army that does both: the most damage in the game, while not losing a single model do to epic armour and over the top damage.  Luckily, I don't think that army exists.  So durable units seem to be a staple for a defensive army ( unless I'm wrong about that, and there are other ways to play defensively).

[Jome]

2 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

 Runners-up are Sylvaneth and Beastclaw Raiders.

I guess I don't really know anything about these two armies, but may I ask you why you felt each make for a good defensive army?

[Double Misfire]

9 hours ago, Jome said:

Thanks for all the replies and interests.

To be honest I don't really know.  For me, I don't mind either way.  Playing a castle style army that bunkers down and shoots behind a wall of armour sounds cool to me; but I would equally enjoy a melee oriented army that attacks bounce off  of as they sweep across the battlefield.  Now I, or anyone else interested in this style of gameplay, are not looking for the all powerful army that does both: the most damage in the game, while not losing a single model do to epic armour and over the top damage.  Luckily, I don't think that army exists.  So durable units seem to be a staple for a defensive army ( unless I'm wrong about that, and there are other ways to play defensively).

Playing a melee army that attacks bounce off while they sweep round the battlefield will definitely make you more friends than a hard to shift gunline that mops up objectives after shooting two thirds of the enemy army off the board (trust me on this, I took a dwarf army with four warmachines to a tournament last weekend ).

[CoffeeGrunt]

Yeah, a melee army at least allows the other player to get involved and throw the odd hit in, but a gunline can end up like that scene in Enemy At The Gates where the Soviet conscripts rush the German line. Everything is just getting dropped without a chance to do anything meaningful.

[roberto]

12 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

Yeah, a melee army at least allows the other player to get involved and throw the odd hit in, but a gunline can end up like that scene in Enemy At The Gates where the Soviet conscripts rush the German line. Everything is just getting dropped without a chance to do anything meaningful.

As long as the gunline is painted the right colors, then I suppose it would be ok.

[NoTurtlesAllowed]

My current Stormcast Knights Excelsior list does very well and boasts solid D

[PJetski]

I think a lot of people are confusing "defensive army" and "good defenses". Tomb Kings have good defensive abilities (half damage, death save, resurrecting models, etc.) but they are not a defensive army by any means!

To get a proper defensive army you need durable melee units backed by powerful shooting units that force your opponent to come to your territory - your objective is to control the enemy charge, absorb it, and then riposte. Seraphon, Sylvaneth, and Stormcast are the premier defensive armies because they have a sturdy frontline backed with enough shooting power that your enemy can't just ignore you and take objectives or they will lose too many units before a proper fight begins.

Dispossessed and High Elves are also pretty good at playing defensively, but only if you run the legacy warscrolls.

Contrary to popular opinion, I don't consider Freeguild or Nurgle to be defensive armies because the former lacks the durable frontline and the latter lacks powerful shooting. Nurgle has good defenses but needs to play aggressively because it lacks significant ranged damage - you can't just sit back and take losses all game long and expect to win!

[CentralKarma]

I would also agree with dispossessed, with a sprinkling of Ironweld Arsenal.  A lot of Dispossessed models have the 'Shield wall' ability that lets them re roll saves if they don't move.  The dispossessed artillery battalion lets you re roll saves for artillery crew.

When I'm playing them, I normally build my list starting with artillery, and work out from there.

[Kramer]

I think the big question is are you open to mixing factions? Or would you prefer to keep it as much as possible in a single faction?

If you are willing to to mix I think the Order alliance would be the best fit. There are some amazing defensive units in there, a lot of artillery and ranged and a big selection of different magic users with different spells. Within defensive play there are still a lot of different strategies to play so I maybe the grand alliance book might be a good start? Some rules will have changed for the hard copy and I don't know if the digital version gets updated, but you'll can have a good rummage around select the type of units you need for you strategy and then you just have to narrow it down to a workable list. 

 

[flowerpot_chimp]

Have you looked at Flesh-Eater Courts? Whilst their damage output isn't as fantastic as some other also-durable armies they're pretty interesting! 

The Mustering ability that Courtiers have is more flexible and powerful than the regeneration that Deathrattle get, but because it's tied to individual heroes there's a weakness for your opponent to exploit and you to play around, and I quite enjoy thinking about their deployment/movement. They also benefit from the same fantastic Deathless Minions save that the rest of the Grand Alliance gets, and as with Deathrattle it's even better on units that regenerate models & wounds.

There's also a surprising number of builds for the faction - you can do hordes of ghouls which are very effective, big (9-12) units of crypt horrors can take punishment and (usually) dish it out, and you can do a monstermash list with lots of dragons and terrorgheists. I've not really used crypt flayers before but their double pile-in battalion doesn't look terrible. Ghouls are generic battleline as well so it's not too hard to slip in a Mourngul if you really want 

They're currently the only Death faction with a battletome so actually have a number of battalions, some of which are really helpful for defensive armies (I know they're all Bravery 10 but not having to worry about Battleshock in your own territory is neat). They've got a good start collecting box, a great theme and nice miniatures (though I am one of the rare few who actually like the GW ghoul models!)