I am having a ton of success with Units that have 360 degree line of sight and at least str 5. Fanatics are amazing if the come close. Always take 3 bolt throwers. Itchy nuisance with powerstone lowering thier toughness. Also the spell vindictive glare is easy to use on them. Cheaper Cav characters running solo for 360 degree Line of sight. Walapas one hit wonder. Cave squig characters. Multi wound weapons.
I've found spells like Viletide absolutely incredible for dealing with monsters. With the Hagtree Fetish it's an average of 5 wounds with only ward saves to be taken. With Dragons being large targets, they cannot hide.
100% Beastmen with double mage viletides, 1x with Hagtree on Tuskgor Chariot and Hunters Bow that can add to the damage threats and other with the Dagger is a mage setup that can kill dragons, and also threaten almost anything else. Very versatile. Can even run a 3rd cheap one with the mantle spell and dragon slaying sword for good measure if they try to rush into combat
I've got a Bretonnian Duke as a monster hunter with the Virtue of Knightly Temper and the Dragon Slaying Sword. Mounted on a Royal Pegasus he's got the speed an manoeuverability to charge any monster and we've even got some points to spare on a healing potion or the Falcon Horn of Fredemund to stop dragons from flying. Aside from that, with a base Strength of 5 he's no slouch in dealing with other units too. And lastly, we can give him either the Questing Vow or Grail Vow to ignore the effects of Terror. Or a Potion of Foolhardiness for a cheaper one-off.
That's a good shout. For some reason I remembered Knightly Temper as being for non-magic weapons only but turns out that was just Heroism (and for Temper back in 6th)! Could consider Sword of Might as a backup second magic weapon to increase his versatility. Also being a Duke he comes with the Grail Vow for free!
A royal peg Duke with virtue of heroism with paymaster's coin (and just a lance) seems more cost effective for this same role? Also has killing blow, so more versatile
2+5+5+ high damage, High toughness/wound, high mobility Lords that can be put in 1k point armies seems so daunting. A lot of peoples "Counters" involve almost equal points as the Dragon and a lot of dominoes and luck needing to align.
As a DE player, I want to try Miasmic Mirage to slow down a dragon and other threats. Level 4, black staff (rolling three dice) let's it go off 70% of the time. You also have a once a game reroll if you fail to cast. Getting this off on turn two and three would help a lot. Casting Value 11+ Range 15" Until your next Start of Turn sub-phase, the target enemy unit suffers a -2 modifier to its Movement characteristic (to a minimum of 1) and cannot march or charge. If this spell is cast, the effects of any other Hex previously cast on the target unit immediately expire.
You cant use hekartis blessing to reroll a miscast as it says"reroll failed casting roll". So only if you dont make the casting value. As miscast is always a miscast
You can get the TK to have 4+/4+/5+ (where you can't even get rid of the regen thanks to one of the items). Crazy durable. GW should make only the armor save count + either ward or regen, whichever is best. That would already tone it down a little bit.
Wood Elf lvl 4 mage mounted on Warhawk/Great Eagle, equipped with Dragon Slaying Sword, Lore Familiar, picking Illusion for Spectral Doppleganger. Roll in, pop spell, roll 2D6 auto hits, roll at least one six, hope they fail the 5+ ward and DEAD!
A Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur with the Blade of Revered Tzunki supported by a near-by squad of Temple Guard. Charge the Oldblood in and if it dies to the enemy commander on giant dragon, lock the think in endless challenges with the Temple Guard. Even with the Temple Guard, you spend less on a squad of 10 of those guys and a Oldblood on Carnosaur than they do on the dragon. With Tomb Kings a necrosphinx and some bow Ushabti seem really good. Soften the dragon up with the Ushabti and then charge with the necrosphinx maybe with a necrotect and a Lich Priest in healing range.
Nice video, I would be interested in a game with Empire vs. a monster list. My take so far would be big blocks and 3 cannons + some magic, what do you guys think of a gryphon?
just following up the discussion of virtue of heroism on brets. The rules as written there is a strong argument that it also gives the peg killing and monster killing blow (due to how mounts now work). If that was the case then that would be very powerful
I am very much interested in continuing this particular discussion. I just reread through the rules, I don't quite see this point of view. but I would like to see this point of view. any help please?
@@monkeySkullsbecause the virtue refers to 'the model'. Usually rules which give bonuses (like the paymaster's coin) refer to 'the bearer', meaning the mount isn't included. Or, they explicitly state 'rider only'.
O&G really struggle against those. We lack acess to monster hunter outside of dragonslaying sword... that is rather meh, and we have little in really high S attacks. Vindictive glare helps if you can get it. Warmachine spam to, but it is highly unreliable and easy to avoid.If ogre blade was 5 points cheaper there would be good combo of 2+/5+r Black or warboss on a wyvern with ogre blade and trollhide trousers but as is I struggle against dragonspammers.
Good content guys, also consider that charges are only legal if they can fit their base, cheap skirmishes are great at covering a large area to limit where they can actually land.
Or the Empire Mace of Helstrom and that spell, as it’s S10 -5 D6 wounds. Usually can only make a single attack a turn but with the spell you get loads as usual.
Im playing escalation. Currently at 750pts. So havent fought any dragons yet. But man. I can see how broken it is. The issue is how fantasticly the stat boosts and items combos off of eachother. My wood elf lord has T3 W3 and without magic items or mounts he can get a 5+ save. I can get wardsaves and magical armour. But. Those will still only work a few times before he runs out of wounds. But. Place him on a dragon? Now he has NINE wounds. In a way the same ward save becomes 3 times as good. Not at preventing combat res, but at keeping him alive And that is ofc not mentioning the toughness. I miss the Sky Arrow of Naoler from 5th edition. That could make a massive dent in flying creatures. Also? I wouldnt want exact copies but something that existed back then was Heart of Woe and Black Gem of Gnar. A kamikaze bomb and an item that placed yoy and the opponent in statis until you rolled something good on a die. Honestly? A nerfed Black Gem wouldnt be terrible. 25 pts. Put it on a champ. You and the opponents character are in stasis for your and your opponents turn. A simpler version to counterplay would be more affordable monster slaying. Or better yet. Items that are better at killing monsters without having Slayer. A sword thats has something weak like -1 AP. But against Monster Cav get -2AP +1S and does 2W. And vs Monsters add no wardsaves. Cant be used by charcters on monster mounts. Something like that. So there is mord direct counterplay. Brettonia atleast has its horn that prevents enemies from flying. I would bring it 100% to a tournament. Sometimes its a waste. But often it would help immensly. Especially since it doesnt stop YOUR lord.
Yeah the horn is an auto include for all competitive bretonnian armies. If running a Bret Exiles list the exiles vow allows you to reroll leadership tests so you can get the horn off much more reliably.
I think that cannons and/or catapaults vs Dragons seem fine too me. Atleast in the 2 games we had in the weekend, not a huge depth in games with Empire in the old world to talk about, but enough for me to say i like the power of cannons. We also had 3 games with Brets with 2 catapults and massed 90 peasant archers, over the last few weeks. I've been playing empire with 3 cannons and 2 engineers as a staple core of the armylist, plus 4 units of handgunners, with all the champions and Engineers having H.Rifles. All the while, defending the lines with MSU units of archers and H.Cavalry. Shooting in massed amounts is the key to any workable shooting phase to having any effect. Against heavy shooting list with 3 cannons, My mate felt his dragon was playing dodgeball the first turn and he felt the pressure of having to get into combat to save his dragon. Really, I think that its the upcoming double dragon lists that will show up sooner or later, because then a shooting list like mine for example, cant focus down the one large target. P.S. A bloody great Vid, guys P.S.S .. gosh, my spelling :)
Your comments about trying to field anti-dragon units that have a dual purpose I think for some will result in the opposite being true. For example, High Elves I am looking at doing an Archmage on a Dragon. Illusion magic, Monster Slaying Sword. For the same points as your dragon I get a level 4 wizard (with two control spells), A monster killer (spectral doppelgänger), a terror causer, and Vaul's Unmaking to remove magic items. Dragon/monster builds that factor in additional utility outside the combat phase I think will slowly become more common and more scary.
*no monstrous mounts* THE END :D sad but probably makes for a more engaging game experience. That or reduce the layering of wounds, toughness, armor, ward, regen, output AND speed.
It seems like they did this weird calculation for monsters that they kind of give you the wounds the monster itself would have minus 2. Which is terrible for the smaller monsters that would say have 3 wounds for a demigryph or 2 for a Pegasus giving the hero 1 or 0 extra wounds, but for a star dragon it gives a ton of wounds
Excellent point. Too much difference between those mounts. The smaller Monstrous Creatures are in a really tough spot esp considering they suffer from all the limitations of the Lumbering rule as well as giving minimal wounds/toughness to their riders.
@ldfanaticswhile I agree with you to an extend, I find the whole *everyone on event x is gonna bring a dragon* gamey to begin with. Also there is usually a difference/distinction in wording between *the bearer gains x* and *the model gains x* . Not only on this occasion.
If Brets and Tomb Kings always build with Dragonslaying in mind every game, Dragon Players will face one of them every tournament and it will help adjust the meta. Dwarfs, Empire can also take 3 warmachines for 350 points and pound it every turn. Always having a Scenario that low Unit strength armies struggle to win. Also 1999 point games make many of the Armies that take a Lord on a Dragon unable to take a level 4 wizard to protect them from spells.
If you do the maths on shooting it with cannons you will quickly see that this is not going to be a way of killing it, especially with Dwarf ones. You can't pound it every turn anyway as it will be in combat. More realistically you can chip a few wounds off it and then the big question is how many wounds do you have to do to it before its owner changes their plans due to the risk of it then getting killed in combat. My guess is quite a lot as there isn't that much in a Dwarf army that is at all likely to harm it and it probably planned to avoid what little there is in the first place which shouldn't be too hard as they're all Movement 3. I guess Dwarf and Empire cannons did their bit in previous editions to stop people taking lords on dragons and they need other factions to do it for them this time round!
For spectral doppleganger. Most hilarious combo I found is night gobbo shaman with Wozzob one hit wunda and lore familiar. I mean it is pricey and he is mostly useless (i took level two and brought itchy niusence for some utility) but man he just erased entire unit of elite dwarfs by himself. There are a lot of ifs but if it works it is amazingly fun. 2d6 S10 Ap-3 hits will massacre most things. And than he has his own attack as well XD. But since he cannot have mount getting this guy where he needs to is an issue. I could see it killing a dragon no problem if he can get there cast the spell and not be dispelled. Maybe with flying carpet but than I need big shaman so a lot of points for one time thing but still fun.
@@NewyDad8076Only one sadly. One hit wunda as name suggests is one use only item :) But its 15 points so with lore famiaiar it fits into 50p magic item allowance of small night gobbo shaman.
@@MathiasKure-i5oFior really demented build I wonder if multiple attacks would trigger on axe of the last WAAAGH!!!? Altho it would not work as our brave gobbo would die before striking. But I do not think so as it modyfies attack characteristic
I am confused. Monster slayer triggers on creatures with troop type monster. Dragons have troop type behemoth. Does this rule work on them? The dragon slaying sword does not trigger against high elf dragons from my reading of the rules.
this ruling came up in a recent official Warhammer tournament. I believe it was in Sweden. they did rule that behemoths are affected by the monster slayer rule
Great discussion. I have not actually played so can only comment on the sums. Your 33% chance for Monster Slayer is slightly wrong. That's the "expected value" but there's a chance you will get multiple Killing Blows in the same volley which wastes some. This makes the true chance is a little less, 29%. Against the Tomb Scorpion hitting on 5s, no rerolls it's down to 14% so your pack of 6 almost averages one dragon per turn, if they survive etc etc :)!
The 33%ish chance was for a lord with the DSS, 4 attacks and pay master coin/hatred athen getting through a 5+++ ward. But hey I got a B in maths. So I could be way off haha. Cheers for the TK scorpion rundown.
@@NewyDad8076 Yes you did a good job of explaining what it was. It's just a little bit wrong. To show that imagine if he had 12 attacks you would get 100% of killing the Dragon. We know this is wrong as you might not roll any 6s to wound. Alternatively we might get more than one 6 which wastes some successes. Together these lower the chance of one Lord killing one dragon in one turn. The actual chance is 1-(1-p)^n instead of np. The np "expected value" is right if each attack was against a different dragon, lord forbid. Either answer is close enough for a rule of thumb in this case and it gets more so in cases where the chance of killing the dragon is even lower - the Scorpion is 14.8 vs 14.0. Anyhow I'm not sure why I went down this rabbit hole, I guess I'd done the maths so got carried away!
@@jonathanpickles2946 "The np "expected value" is right if each attack was against a different dragon, lord forbid." It was worth you going down the rabbit hole just for this!
Think there are some mitigation tactics, but I still feel mounted characters are really skewing the game and would need some significant rules alteration to get the game in a better place. Coming from other games, having a whole group of units that are mostly unkillable aside from some luck on Monster Slayer just doesnt make much sense. The discussions around mitigation are I think just mostly attempts to keep the game playable in that state.
Page 195. "Therefore, after moving, unless it charged, marched or fled, a Lumbering model may pivot about its centre to change its facing by up to 90°." 👍
What the fuck 8th ed didnt have combined profiles for monsters and chariot with characters. And templates and cannons hit both the monster and the riders wich made it very risky to use those units
So happy to see people finally discuss this. People are hyping up Dragons a little too hard when there's so many ways to handle them, and they're really expensive. I think it's the most balanced monsters have ever felt in the game.
The big monster needed a buff because shooting would just delete them, so I'm glad they are viable and even a strong unit. They are definitely costly and I don't know that the same points spent on another elite unit might be more efficient use of the points. Cannons still work, you just might need an extra shot.
The saves can be a little hard to get through without specialty builds but when people start losing 5-600 point models to cheap monster slaying builds I think they wont be as much of an auto include as what we are seeing at the moment. We are still in early days so I think give it a bit of time and this will settle down a touch.
It's not unreasonable to try to beat them on combat resolution, even if you can't kill. If a dragon has 6 attacks at WS6 S6 AP-2 and the rider has about 4-6 attacks at a similar profile, then you're not actually looking at too many dead models if the dragon is attacking a typical heavy infantry unit that's, say, WS4 T4 Sv4+ or better, especially if you give it a ward or regen save. At first glance it looks like the dragon will run away with combat res, because almost no heavy infantry unit can do damage to a well build dragon rider, but the dragon rider doesn't have rank bonuses, standards, battle standards, magic item bonuses or musicians to break ties. Lots of armies can easily create units with a base bonus to combat res of 5-6+, and any dragon that can reliably do more damage than that per turn is not built defensively enough to be unkillable. I know that there's been a lot of complaints out there about linehammer and how units arrayed in long lines will beat units formed into traditional ranks, but the way I'm seeing this game's meta unfold there's a developing triangle where dragons beat lines, lines beat ranks, and ranks beat dragons. It will be interesting to see where all of this stands in a couple years from now.
With this I think it is important to consider Unit Strength. If you can get a unit into a combat with a dragon and win combat (you send in a challenge hero with max damage prevention or they whiff their attacks) you can easily outnumber a dragon 2-1 with cheap core units. Causing a break instead of a fall back in good order. Multiple monster lists could be even more powerful due to this ability to quickly gang up on other dragons.
@@Jewus19 they can, but usually a defensively kitted dragon is not going to win the combat against a unit stacked up with combat resolution bonuses. Moreover, if the large unit loses, then it will break and flee if it doesn’t give ground, but if the dragon loses it will break and flee if it doesn’t give ground. as an example let’s use 30 empire greatswords against a meta defensive chaos lord on dragon. Let’s give them a captain with the griffon banner and a full command with the war banner. Total unit cost is 495pts, not cheap, but also a generally useful unit even in absence of any dragons to fight. Turn one of combat you challenge the dragon, it kill the champion and loses combat by at least one because it’s max combat res. Is +7 and your min is +8. Assuming it doesn’t break and flee it’ll fight another round of combat. In each of these subsequent turns, even if it kills your whole fighting rank before you swing, it’ll only have a 49.5% chance to win on combat resolution because having a musician will break a tie in favor of the greatswords. If the greatswords have any kind of magical benefits, like a 5++, the greatswords are going to consistently pull ahead. Lots of armies can do this. Dwarves have ironbreakers, chaos have chosen warriors, empire has greatswords, orcs and skaven have multiple horde units that do it, &c
@@treydudley7966well turn 2 the bsb dies including his griffon banner plus whatever else is killed. I really hope they remove 1 layer of save via errata at least.
@@Jewus19 you should put the bsb on the corner of the unit so that when frontage is maximized the model is not in base-to-base contact with an enemy monster. the bsb can still be challenged out, and if accepted the unit would likely lose combat by 1. So in this situation it’s probably better to either have the bsb refuse the challenge. You’ll probably lose on combat res. But if you bring in smaller supporting units or flanking units you can sacrifice their champions to keep the dragon locked down. I’m not trying to give specific instructions for how to beat the dragon for each army, I’m just trying to show that you can tie up their 600pts of dragon with less than 600pts of your own. Obviously some armies are going to have to bite the bullet and bring their own monsters, or are going to need more magic support from a wizard. The circumstances that make this work can change a lot, but it is doable if you don’t want to or cannot take a dragon. I think the only place that this gets really out of hand is when an opponent brings 2 dragons in too small of a game. 2 dragon armies do not belong in a 2k points game.
a cannon HIT (on a 2+5+5+T6 Dragon, after the artillery dice are rolled and the dragon lies underneath the path) has a 0,185 chance of getting through the wound, armor (armorbane not included here), ward and regen roll. So in 5 cannon HITS one single cannonball gets to roll for damage on average. This in my opinion disqualifies cannons from being part of a *how to slay the dragon* video, you better shoot these elsewhere. I would go allin on ingoring the dragon as best as you can and mayyyybe get away with more vps than your opponent.
I think its just people and their decade long prejudice this edition actually seems somewhat balanced after a few games. However first thing that happend where mates complaining when i wanted to just try a game.. omg lets play at 1999 unit limits are so broken omg... lets not bring this not that... guys we didnt even play a game yet calm down and learn to form your own opinion again. You can also see which edition someone comes from. 8th: they complain about skirmisher and momsters because omg my siege engines dont auto kill them t1 and they maybe kill my one death star unit i wanted to put 80% of my points in. 6th: What you mean characters outside of units and all this movement is scary... afraid of 6 canons because omg surely that are 8th ed canons... no no they arent. I believe the real scary stuff people still sleep through thanks to their edition change concerns. You briefly mentioned the duke on royal peg... now after a few games that guy scares me. He basically needs nothing in items if you dont want to and just the ideal or heroism virtue but you can kit him out if you want. Now that guy costs half of your monster. He hangs around some peg knights, he isnt large target so quite protected from shooting, he has 360, he will get the charge on whatever he wants and he can easily make his points back killing chav lets not even talk base size. The lore of the lady also ha ssolid buff spells for him as signatures. If you want to spend dragon points (actually still less) you get a baron with the other virtue right besides him. There is nearly no comittment for a very good chance to just kill whatever monster you brought but even the ideal version can handle quite a few non character monsters.
