So....What Do We Do Against Massed Skyfires?

[stickybluetoffee]

So can Death offer any counter? Unless they get lucky enough to bring in some Morghast Harbingers and get a lucky 9" charge on 3D6 I don't see anything getting close enough to take them on.

[Turragor]

Those fimir warriors are ridiculous (points and abilities)!

[Gauche]

Death doesn't have counters to any of the top lists from what I understand. Even though TK won a large tournament recently I don't think they're a top army and they don't have the tools to beat a dedicated gunline. Death is just in a bad place overall and really needs some help in the next GHB as well as more options.

That being said I'm no expert on the Alliance but I do shadow their forum frequently and have never seen a list that even gave me pause. Which is a bummer.

[Gaz Taylor]

1 hour ago, Turragor said:

Those fimir warriors are ridiculous (points and abilities)!

Yup. Again really surprised nobody is really running them in big numbers. I know some people have said cost but seeing what people are dropping on Skyfires or the Kharadron Overlords, I don't see that as an issue.

One scary list would be the following...

Allegiance: Destruction
Moonclan Grot Shaman (60)
Moonclan Grot Shaman (60)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
12 x Fimir Warriors (480)

Total: 1980/2000

It would suffer in three places of power but you could tweak the list to have some more cheap heros in but I think it would be a interesting match up against some of the 'power' lists. Issue would be speed, so again needs more heros to help with Destruction moves.

[Soup Dragon]

OK, so I played Joe Purcell with his 27 Skyfires tonight with my mixed Destruction list (2 frostlords, 1 Ttusk beastriders, 3 x 10 Savage orruks and 30 savage arrowboys in kunnin rukk). We played Border War.

I think I deployed better than him so he couldn't get more than a few Skyfires into my important stuff turn 1, so I gave him first turn. He stayed put and didn't come at me. I then moved forward very aggressively, shot off his marauder screen, double turned him and got both frostlords into skyfires. It was all looking great at this point. Then in combat phase he used his destiny dice to make saves, so I only got two units down to 4 models he then used destiny dice to pass his battleshocks, then in his hero phase used destiny dice to cast Fold reality and rolled a 6 to return one unit to full strength!! Other unit partial unit of skyfires died in next combat phase.

He then double turned me back resulting in loss of both Frostlords and some Orruks and most of Arrowboys. Next turn I managed to shoot/attack/battleshock off a second unit of Skyfires. I was ahead on points at start of turn 4 but he positioned his remaining skyfires 3" away from my 8 remaining orruks. Once he charged in he would auto win 'cos I wouldn't be able to catch him on points. BUT, he rolled snake eyes!! So I won on scenario points!

Always awesome to play Joe. The Skyfire list is massively strong, but not unbeatable. We had a really tactical game. I think there is too much hate against it at present. People will come up with reliable counters to it and then it will no longer be a tournament winner list. We all just have to keep working on the counter. Always remember it's about the scenario - not killing the enemy

[Gaz Taylor]

Nice report and going off Twitter you have a new army to do whatever you want with 

So to sum the game up, if Joe hadn't have been Tzeentch Allegiance, you wouldn't have had as much trouble off him. This is very interesting as it means if you can force a Disciples of Tzeentch player to manage their Destiny Dice badly, you stand a greater chance of winning. 

[Gauche]

Thanks for the Battle Report, I think getting the double turn is almost mandatory to avoid a loss. I run a much shooting heavier Kunnin' Rukk so if they deploy badly (which shouldn't happen and I don't count on player error when TheoryHammerin'ing) you can alpha a unit away but I would only attempt this against 18 Skyfires.

27 is a whole other ball game and I'm surprised both the Frostlords were even able to make it in. I think against 18 Skyfires, it's doable for Destruction but for 27 it's not unless the Scenario is very favored for us or there's player error/dice. Luckily the variant will probably be less popular since it's very expensive in real-world cost and it's almost certain to get nerfed out of use which puts people off.

To talk about the Fimir Warriors, they have decent resiliency but I don't think they do enough damage. The Rend is great and their profile is great but 1 Damage each isn't so great. It would take like two of them to kill one Skyfire and their shooting resilience isn't absolute, it's just better than what we have. I'm not convinced they're he answer, especially with 3 Wounds each. : /

[Gaz Taylor]

2 minutes ago, Gauche said:

To talk about the Fimir Warriors, they have decent resiliency but I don't think they do enough damage. The Rend is great and their profile is great but 1 Damage each isn't so great. It would take like two of them to kill one Skyfire and their shooting resilience isn't absolute, it's just better than what we have. I'm not convinced they're he answer, especially with 3 Wounds each. : /

I think like you have said, it's the number of Skyfires which is the issue. I think against the average number, lots of Fimir is scary and I think against most armies, lots of Fimir is scary. I suspect the Skyfire lists we've been seeing will disappear as Kharadron Overlords become more popular.

[Gauche]

Just now, Gaz Taylor said:

I think like you have said, it's the number of Skyfires which is the issue. I think against the average number, lots of Fimir is scary and I think against most armies, lots of Fimir is scary. I suspect the Skyfire lists we've been seeing will disappear as Kharadron Overlords become more popular.

Why? What do Kharadron do outside of the Khemist Spam list? Which also gives Destruction a very hard time in many matchups. I'm not convinced that list is going to get that popular either just because of the bits necessary, at least you can buy Skyfires straight up.

[Gaz Taylor]

1 minute ago, Gauche said:

Why? What do Kharadron do outside of the Khemist Spam list? Which also gives Destruction a very hard time in many matchups. I'm not convinced that list is going to get that popular either just because of the bits necessary, at least you can buy Skyfires straight up.

I think the threat of the Khemist spam list will get some players rethinking their lists. Also the flexibility of the Kharadron's is quite scary.

From a Destruction point of view, it's the same boat as the Skyfires but the Kharadrons don't take punches very well. 

[Gauche]

Just now, Gaz Taylor said:

I think the threat of the Khemist spam list will get some players rethinking their lists. Also the flexibility of the Kharadron's is quite scary.

From a Destruction point of view, it's the same boat as the Skyfires but the Kharadrons don't take punches very well. 

I agree, I feel like the Khemist Spam lists I've dojo'd do poorly against my variant of Kunnin' Rukk. They can eat the whole Arrowboys unit almost and then three Thundertusks is enough to wipe the Thunderer unit. The army has nothing once that dies, especially with healing on my side. It's also quite bad in Scenario for the most part.

I wish there was a way to get an early Scenario lead more often because these new style gunlines, Skyfires, Khemists Spam, Aetherstike, are just terrible at taking ground. But their whole plan is table you by Turn 2-3 and then just get a Major without contention.

Death seems the best positioned to counter that plan, they have take huge, high Bravery units with recursion and just sit on Objectives with their 5++/6++, the problem is it's so hard to keep their Heroes alive.

[Tzaangor Management]

Forgive my profile pic and username, I do come in peace and there are only three Skyfires in my (small) army at present! I popped into the Destruction forum, as I'm thinking about an Ironjawz army next and stumbled onto this thread and was interested in what the solutions might be. I'm by no means an expert, but have been reading threads and watching streams of games a lot and two things stuck out:

6 hours ago, Gauche said:

Death doesn't have counters to any of the top lists from what I understand. Even though TK won a large tournament recently I don't think they're a top army and they don't have the tools to beat a dedicated gunline. Death is just in a bad place overall and really needs some help in the next GHB as well as more options.

That being said I'm no expert on the Alliance but I do shadow their forum frequently and have never seen a list that even gave me pause. Which is a bummer.

The Nagash list at SCGT wasn't a million miles away from winning against a Skyfire heavy list on the stream. Granted with that much focused fire you need a bit of luck and to not make any mistakes, so you are immediately at a disadvantage, but I have a feeling that death might almost be the best able to deal with the Skyfires lists.  I think the answer has to be target saturation and taking away their big strength: Focussed fire killing key targets.

4 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Yup. Again really surprised nobody is really running them in big numbers. I know some people have said cost but seeing what people are dropping on Skyfires or the Kharadron Overlords, I don't see that as an issue.

One scary list would be the following...

Allegiance: Destruction
Moonclan Grot Shaman (60)
Moonclan Grot Shaman (60)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
10 x Savage Orruks (100)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
9 x Fimir Warriors (360)
12 x Fimir Warriors (480)

Total: 1980/2000

It would suffer in three places of power but you could tweak the list to have some more cheap heros in but I think it would be a interesting match up against some of the 'power' lists. Issue would be speed, so again needs more heros to help with Destruction moves.

Something like this could work, as you don't really care if the shaman dies and what do you shoot otherwise?

The second thing I would tentatively highlight, and which I think I'm probably on much firmer ground with, unlike my tactical insight, is that I think Skyfires should, and probably will, get a point increase with GHB 2. I would however expect the original Skyfires, namely Thundertusks and Savage Orruk Arrer Boys, to receive the same treatment. It wasn't so long ago that Mixed Destruction was, rightly or wrongly, the bete noire of the competitive world. I thought it worth mentioning, as I suspect that the old order will not re-establish itself with GHB2 and we might all be looking at the Overlords wondering how we're going to shoot their Skyships down with our overcosted missile troops...

 

[Gauche]

I think the Nagash list matched up decently with what Skyfires do but it isn't a good enough army to win an event with, that's just my opinion though. Every Tier 1 list has holes, anyone familiar with CCG lingo will know that T1 is basically the in vacuum best while T2 has issues against this and that but typically can take down 1-2 of the Tier 1 strategies with some silver bullet stuff. AoS has the same system from what I've seen.

Every Allegiance and most sub-Allegiances can probably counter Skyfires, counter Kunnin' Rukk, counter Aetherstrike and so on. The trick is being able to do that without being weak to the field. Take a look at the SCE Mirrorshield spam armies, they get punched in the mouth by Thundertusks and other non-shooting Mortal Wounds, or at least shooting with no Hit roll. That's why it's very unlikely you'll see such a strategy win a major event, you can't avoid those things for 5-6 Round of increasingly hard opposition.

I hope my original post isn't misunderstood, Skyfire has many, many weaknesses. I'm just trying to find what Destruction can do against them while still beating everything else. I really enjoy that kind of list building and playing on that level. I don't think anything is so oppressive in AoS that it cannot lose, then the game would be solved and I'd stop playing.

[ChippyRick]

18 hours ago, Fungrim said:

Did it just get hot in here?

It just felt like the right thing to do

To be fair, the stats for them are pretty solid, docent potential range damage and good in a fight. With the speed they should be able to use both options to reach out and hit units like Skyfires. Will be testing it soon.

[ChippyRick]

9 hours ago, Soup Dragon said:

OK, so I played Joe Purcell with his 27 Skyfires tonight with my mixed Destruction list (2 frostlords, 1 Ttusk beastriders, 3 x 10 Savage orruks and 30 savage arrowboys in kunnin rukk). We played Border War.

I think I deployed better than him so he couldn't get more than a few Skyfires into my important stuff turn 1, so I gave him first turn. He stayed put and didn't come at me. I then moved forward very aggressively, shot off his marauder screen, double turned him and got both frostlords into skyfires. It was all looking great at this point. Then in combat phase he used his destiny dice to make saves, so I only got two units down to 4 models he then used destiny dice to pass his battleshocks, then in his hero phase used destiny dice to cast Fold reality and rolled a 6 to return one unit to full strength!! Other unit partial unit of skyfires died in next combat phase.

He then double turned me back resulting in loss of both Frostlords and some Orruks and most of Arrowboys. Next turn I managed to shoot/attack/battleshock off a second unit of Skyfires. I was ahead on points at start of turn 4 but he positioned his remaining skyfires 3" away from my 8 remaining orruks. Once he charged in he would auto win 'cos I wouldn't be able to catch him on points. BUT, he rolled snake eyes!! So I won on scenario points!

Always awesome to play Joe. The Skyfire list is massively strong, but not unbeatable. We had a really tactical game. I think there is too much hate against it at present. People will come up with reliable counters to it and then it will no longer be a tournament winner list. We all just have to keep working on the counter. Always remember it's about the scenario - not killing the enemy

Great read, and well played bud. As always, some sensible decisions starting the game out sets you up and makes for a good game. Also followed the twitter action, was good to see how it went. Playing for the double turn to max your damage is a good idea, makes the tzeentch have to work to get back into the game, ans this is where it can lead to players making the wrong decisions. Especially as mentioned already, using the destiny dice correctly is a big thing, getting them to make mistakes with this can really help.

Be good to see you play that game match up a few ore times bud

[ChippyRick]

11 hours ago, Gauche said:

Death doesn't have counters to any of the top lists from what I understand. Even though TK won a large tournament recently I don't think they're a top army and they don't have the tools to beat a dedicated gunline. Death is just in a bad place overall and really needs some help in the next GHB as well as more options.

That being said I'm no expert on the Alliance but I do shadow their forum frequently and have never seen a list that even gave me pause. Which is a bummer.

I think death is fine, i just dont think there are many people using or have some of the units/option that can make decent death lists in the current meta.

I played Death at scgt this year, played on the stream game 1 vs Sylvaneth and won that. Played game 3 on table 1 vs Tzeentch list with LoC, Horrors, Tzanngor and Skyfires plus stuff (Mark Wildman was the gent). Was a very close game, could have easily won it with some extra luck (didnt win a turn roll all game after being double turned between 1 and 2). My list wasnt the best death list by a long shot but it fits how i play and can catch players out.

Now i know this isnt a Death thread, but its exactly that comment i made above about my army which is needed. Taking some lists with something slightly different, something that can effect the other lists your seeing more, or even lists that play the scenarios and almost stop the current good lists from being as effective. That is what i will be trying with my next destruction list which has 2 Magma Dragons. Touch, hard hitting and solid range output against both big units and tough units, so great for the current top armies that dont like rend/mortal wounds and also that have large units where the shooting attack and damage profile of the combat attacks are 2/3.

[Sangfroid]

This type of list would do well against skyfire and in fact any gunline shooty spam (excluding Stardrake + aetherstrike but in that match up you would just have to hope you can win the scenario) 

high wound models mean the skyfires etc.. have to either get good D3 rolls or commit more shots to wipe each unit out (because the ogors even after losing 2 models are a 5+ rerolling 6 for battleshock and the IG a 6+) 

[Turragor]

2 minutes ago, Sangfroid said:

This type of list would do well against skyfire and in fact any gunline shooty spam (excluding Stardrake + aetherstrike but in that match up you would just have to hope you can win the scenario) 

high wound models mean the skyfires etc.. have to either get good D3 rolls or commit more shots to wipe each unit out (because the ogors even after losing 2 models are a 5+ rerolling 6 for battleshock and the IG a 6+) 

Thats a kind of slow army?

Would you not consider pure beastclaw composition with mournfangs in place of ogors (minimum unit sizes) and hunters as the heroes?

[Nico]

One possibility is to spam blocks of 40-60 Moonclan and Gitmob Grots. They are comedy Bravery 6 if they aren't in combat and Fanatics block the initial ultra lame melee damage. Moonclan get a 4+ save vs Pew Pew and losing a Grot per mortal wound is a good trade. While Grots don't do pheonomenal damage, they can certainly squash Tzeentch stuff. The problem then would be dealing with other opposition. 

[Sangfroid]

@Turragor not too slow really with good postioning most of the army is 6" +d6 +2 turn one (11/12" say) if the enemy is coming forward then depending on the scenario they may not be scoring if they do then you should still get T2 charges in. Its not optimised (maybe leadbelchers would be an excellent addition) but the concept of MSU high wound models does counter gunline's particularly ones that have random damage out out (D3 etc..) 

[Chris Tomlin]

Morning,

Great thread guys...gutted I'm so busy at work this week and cant really post on the forum much  

I'm unfortunately yet to play against Skyfires (I have played the Changehost build though!) but I suspect, coming from an Ironjawz point of view, it would depend on the rest of the build. If the Skyfires are open and you are able to double turn them, there is the possibility of a win (unlikely scenario tbh). However if they have Horrors and reinforcement points to block up your chargers with Blues/Brimstones then it's going to be a very hard slog I think. I'd certainly like to give it a go.

14 hours ago, Gauche said:

I'm also unconvinced by any Ironjawz build but I'd have to see it played, even with their speed they're going to lose so many important models before they can actually get to the Skyfires and Ironjawz aren't setting the world on fire competitively right now. Hopefully they get much needed point reductions in the next GHB but as I said, not counting on anything but the present.

As the person who has played the most competitive tournament games with Ironjawz in the UK (and probably the world! ), I wholeheartedly agree with your summary @Gauche!!

I also like your general attitude of discussing things at face value and not factoring player error etc. Makes for a more rounded forum discussion for sure. However, in a tournament setting there will of course be elements of this that slip in and allow a better player with a worse list to beat a weaker player with a better list. That's not really relevant to the conversation at hand though I guess.

6 hours ago, Tzaangor Management said:

The Nagash list at SCGT wasn't a million miles away from winning against a Skyfire heavy list on the stream.

Hhmmm...yeh, but @Average Joe, the Skyfire player, did state afterwards that he should've just alpha striked Nagash, as the chances are he would've been able to bring him down.

Re Fimir, yeh they are really strong and probably underpointed. I was genuinely surprised when @Paul Buckler used them against me. Definitely underused.

Oh and Kharadon, I think people are getting a little overexcited! I'm not sure they impact the meta as much as people think/want them to!

[Nico]

Quote

Oh and Kharadon, I think people are getting a little overexcited! I'm not sure they impact the meta as much as people think/want them to!

Good post.

I agree about Kharadron. If Khemists do stack (TOs should either ban it specifically or ban the same ability from stacking), then the 20 Mortars plus 6 Khemists is going to impact the meta in a very bad way. It's about as fun as playing against the Brotherhood of the Great Bolts.

[Tzaangor Management]

 

6 hours ago, Gauche said:

Every Allegiance and most sub-Allegiances can probably counter Skyfires, counter Kunnin' Rukk, counter Aetherstrike and so on. The trick is being able to do that without being weak to the field. Take a look at the SCE Mirrorshield spam armies, they get punched in the mouth by Thundertusks and other non-shooting Mortal Wounds, or at least shooting with no Hit roll. That's why it's very unlikely you'll see such a strategy win a major event, you can't avoid those things for 5-6 Round of increasingly hard opposition.

I hope my original post isn't misunderstood, Skyfire has many, many weaknesses. I'm just trying to find what Destruction can do against them while still beating everything else. I really enjoy that kind of list building and playing on that level. I don't think anything is so oppressive in AoS that it cannot lose, then the game would be solved and I'd stop playing.

 

1 hour ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Hhmmm...yeh, but @Average Joe, the Skyfire player, did state afterwards that he should've just alpha striked Nagash, as the chances are he would've been able to bring him down.

Re Fimir, yeh they are really strong and probably underpointed. I was genuinely surprised when @Paul Buckler used them against me. Definitely underused.

Oh and Kharadon, I think people are getting a little overexcited! I'm not sure they impact the meta as much as people think/want them to!

I do agree with both and think that my initial post - written at the end of a night shift in a taxi home, high on enthusiasm for bed, back-to-back with the discovery of an interesting thread - was, perhaps unsurprisingly, slightly garbled. What I was attempting to say was that the Nagash list wasn't a million miles away, but I think that MSU is the way to go. Specifically with Death, possibly using small block of Zombies, back up by Necormancers as a starting point. You don't care if you lose individual units of zombies and can merge them on the point of a shambling charge, while the necromancers have reasonable survivability with wound bouncing, which helps remove some of the Skyfires strength. Not perfect and certainly not destruction, but the end of a half finished thought.

Also agree that there are counters to Skyfires in general, but given that they are top of the pile, you have to counter them first, before moving onto lists B, C and D. However I will concede that I am perhaps missing that this thought does not need airing, or is already assumed in the context of the current discussion.

You do obviously become more vulnerable to Khorne fielding an MSU army, so possibly the high wound MSU put forward by @Turragor is a good starting point?

[Gauche]

The problem with a lot of the proposed solutions, to me, are that even if they do counter Skyfires I don't see them doing well against many other things at a tournament, which are typically 3-6 rounds. If you hit one Skyfire player, which is reasonably likely, that's great but you have to be able to win those other games.

Adding something like a giant block of Fimir Warriors fundamentally changes an army, you cannot just sprinkle something like that in. Ignore the fact that the unit may or may not be an answer, are they enough of an answer to completely change an army? I don't know. I think units like that are an excellent argument for having sideboards at major events but that is outside the scope of this topic.

Adding Monsters, running Moonclan, MSU Ogors, etc. are all well and good but they haven't been shown to do well against the field. That's not me trying to put down anyone's army of choice, it just doesn't meet the criteria of what I was looking for. I'm sure it's still valuable discussion though.

At this point I'm not convinced there's anything meaningful that Destruction can do in a fixed tournament setting against Skyfire spam. Personally I would play hard for Scenario and hope for the best. Is that a little disheartening? Sure but we all know they are the #1 item on the upcoming chopping block so at least it's likely to get fixed. I can deal with a few months of a boogie man in the meta.

[Chris Tomlin]

3 hours ago, Tzaangor Management said:

I do agree with both and think that my initial post - written at the end of a night shift in a taxi home, high on enthusiasm for bed, back-to-back with the discovery of an interesting thread - was, perhaps unsurprisingly, slightly garbled.

I gotcha man. It is definitely an interesting thread, that much is true.

19 minutes ago, Gauche said:

The problem with a lot of the proposed solutions, to me, are that even if they do counter Skyfires I don't see them doing well against many other things at a tournament, which are typically 3-6 rounds. If you hit one Skyfire player, which is reasonably likely, that's great but you have to be able to win those other games.

Agree completely. It just propagates the fear of a paper/scissors/rock style meta I think.

19 minutes ago, Gauche said:

I think units like that are an excellent argument for having sideboards at major events but that is outside the scope of this topic.

When AoS came out, I loved sideboards, used them at my events and were adamant they'd remain a thing...but they didn't stick at all (I too have moved away from them at my events). I'm not really sure why it is, I guess it just felt like more work all round. Personally I think the two list method is more elegant and achieves the same kind of thing. I wouldn't be adverse to seeing that return. May serve as a deterrent to some of the extreme builds if people could pack a hard counter in their pocket? Not sure.

19 minutes ago, Gauche said:

Adding Monsters, running Moonclan, MSU Ogors, etc. are all well and good but they haven't been shown to do well against the field. That's not me trying to put down anyone's army of choice, it just doesn't meet the criteria of what I was looking for. I'm sure it's still valuable discussion though.

Excuse my ignorance, but out of interest, what list do you run and where are you based? Here in the UK, the Beastclaw Monsters + Kunnin' Rukk build is considered the strongest Destruction list I would say. A few people did well with this at the SCGT a couple of weekends ago, though I also know it came undone to Tzeentch at times as well (kinda proving the whole point of this topic!!).

19 minutes ago, Gauche said:

At this point I'm not convinced there's anything meaningful that Destruction can do in a fixed tournament setting against Skyfire spam. Personally I would play hard for Scenario and hope for the best. Is that a little disheartening?

Agree. Is that a little disheartening? Nah. The meta is constantly shifting, there's always going to be something causing problems I would imagine....But that's cool, right? As you said, solving the puzzle is part of the fun of wargaming. I wouldn't say this puzzle is unsolvable either; playing to the battleplan as you say may yield results, though I appreciate is not the answer you wanted!!

19 minutes ago, Gauche said:

 we all know they are the #1 item on the upcoming chopping block so at least it's likely to get fixed.

Know. Hope. We all hope.