Business Gorillas posted:

*in chaos dwarf*

Shut the gently caress up, liberal

Business Gorillas posted:

*in chaos dwarf*

Shut the gently caress up, liberal

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Dwarf Language sounds inherently silly so you'd be like "Gloomi A boomi azimazimlaoomi, dumgi!"

grassy gnoll posted:

I've got about five or so months of S2D under my belt, so I'm curious about your lessons learned compared to what I was seeing in your writeup.

I will say, if you had the seasonal magic nuke, I'd give you odds on beating the Bloodthirster with your wizard, even with the 5+ spell ignore. My favorite thing in S2D is the 3d6 cast roll.

smug jeebus posted:

https://www.instagram.com/p/C1fVeDft9un/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=NTYzOWQzNmJjMA%3D%3D

Bryan Ansell died. Had no idea the guy was almost 80. Bummer.

Genghis Cohen posted:

What the seasonal magic nuke? I was aware of the season rules but we didn't use them. Partly because it would be another thing to remember, and partly because my opponent struggles more with that sort of rules cruft than I do, and as he doesn't have any wizards, it would have been a negative play experience for him as I explained "oh and I can do this and this and now you've lost". The main takeaways I saw were the extra casting dice (but increased miscast risk) and the rather good Hoarfrost buff spell.

So takeaways from the game:

- perhaps it would have been better if we had used those rules, but I don't feel I got much out of my wizards. I had 4 casts in my 1000pt list and 2 in the 1500 (I went up to 2 sorcerer lords but my 1k list was Cabalists). This was partly the matchup. Khorne has some abilities to make my casting more risky, especially if I targeted spells at his units (so I didn't even try Binding Damnation once). But I also didn't really position my Sorcerer Lords well. I could get spells off on the first turn, but especially once charges went in my Sorcerers were out of position in the next turn. Perhaps I need to take some risks by deploying aggressively and running them forward so that they're closer to the line of contact once charges go in.

- another match up point, if my opponent had any wizards I'd have been glad of mine just to try and unwind spells. As it was, he had 3 Prayers per turn which AFAIK I can't do anything about, they just work or don't. This seemed more effective than my spells, although TBF we forgot about the rule where he takes MWs if rolling a 1, which might well have happened once or twice.

- I really need to get better at staggering important charges. Fights between two hard units are so heavily affected by getting to fight first. Again, if I'd remembered the Lord on Karkadrak's strike first effect, and even more if I'd ever been in position to make it work with the chaos knights, that could have helped.

- Playing the long objective game, and not just seeking to get every unit into combat, might have been better, since my opponent was also mostly melee, and the other before his Blood Tithed summons came into play, the better it would have been. I need to remember there's often no pressing need to charge and attack enemy melee models unless they are a priority threat, or to take Objectives. And if the former I could consider screening out instead of charging in (especially if other charges taking place that turn). Of course this changes dramatically if I'm facing a shooting-focussed army.

- we both struggled badly with our battletome-sourced Battle Tactics. I thought mine were bad and his were even worse. We did borrow the current-season tactics from a friend, but with the exception of a magic-oriented one I managed, they were also quite difficult. This seems like something which would really repay planning before the game - e.g. "I can default to this Round 1, this Round 2, these ones (killing X enemies) I may have an opportunity for anywhere in Rounds 2-4, this one might still be feasible in Round 5 and I need to keep X unit alive to try it. I can see lots of places where I'd need to position units better to possibly achieve a Battle Tactic in the next turn.

- grand strategies are similarly challenging. Just need to filter them based on list and minimise their dependency on match-ups.

- reinforced units seem to work really well given the mechanics for picking units to fight and piling in. I will definitely be taking the 20 chaos warriors halberd brick again. Also considering a brick of 10 knights (I only own 5 Chosen so far).

Going to try to paint my next 5 knights and Gorebeast Chariot by the next time we play, maybe the lord on daemonic mount as well, to have a more mobile force.

jassi007 posted:

1955 to 2023 is 68 years.

GreenBuckanneer posted:

it's weird to me that there are two separate dwarf armies for a game

GreenBuckanneer posted:

it's weird to me that there are two separate dwarf armies for a game

Winklebottom posted:

2024 Store Anniversary model



That sure is a dwarf

IncredibleIgloo posted:

-Steampunk Dwarfs, forget their names, the airship ones.

GreenBuckanneer posted:

it's weird to me that there are two separate dwarf armies for a game

grassy gnoll posted:

How do you feel about three, likely soon to be four types of elf army?

Eediot Jedi posted:

I can't help but feel that giant notch in his giant axe is a bit of a liability.

E: it's literally a key hole but he's holding the key but it's way too long to fit in the axe without sticking out what the hell is going on

Eediot Jedi posted:

I can't help but feel that giant notch in his giant axe is a bit of a liability.

E: it's literally a key hole but he's holding the key but it's way too long to fit in the axe without sticking out what the hell is going on

Grizzled Patriarch posted:

The store anniversary models are always just resculpts rather than new units, and I had actually forgotten how stiff and weird the old Runesmiter sculpt is. I guess they could have theoretically done a unit champion instead, but honestly Fyreslayers just need an almost complete overhaul at this point.

Winklebottom posted:

2024 Store Anniversary model



That sure is a dwarf

S.J. posted:

I think I've said it before, dunno if it was here, but the basic fyreslayer infantry poses are absolutely god awful. They really do need a resculpt imo. No sense of weight or movement at all, which is a rare miss in the AoS line imo.

grassy gnoll posted:

Apologies if any of this isn't news to you.

Merciless Blizzard is one of the seasonal spells and an absolute nuke if you can cast it successfully, which as S2D, you absolutely can. Ordinarily a 12 casting value is pretty hard to hit, but not only can you cast on 3d6, your Sorc Lords are doing so without modifiers, so you can stack primal dice on top of that casting roll until you run out or blow yourself up. Blizzard drops 4d6 mortals on a unit, with a 12" range. You do have to get pretty close, and there is the risk of d3 unwardable mortals against you if you roll 1s on the damage roll, but it's a great way to remove pretty much anything you care to name. Don't drop primal dice on a casting roll if you've got any ones showing, and make sure your Sorc Lord is 3" behind some kind of screen if possible. It'd depend on who was going first, but in the photo you posted, I'd like my odds if it were my wizard against that Bloodthirster.

Now, despite all those words about an incredible direct damage spell, S2D wizards are primarily buff pieces, and they're exceptional at it. I've been running Cabalists, and while your mileage may vary, I've found it's not worth it to keep all your wizards in a heap so they all get to 3d6 cast. It's not like you're lacking wizards as a Cabalist player anyway, so you may as well distribute them among your frontline units to hand out buffs. Hoarfrost is particularly good on nearly anything in S2D, but I've been putting it on my Knights to get them back into an acceptable to-hit value, or on my Chosen to drive their rend through the roof. Demonic Power from your Sorc Lords is never a bad idea, and is generically good all around on anything that's about to either charge in or get charged - a 20-block of Warriors hitting and wounding on 2s is going to be able to survive most charges and hit back very, very hard. Demonic Speed would be a great one to put on your Karkadrak Lord if he's got Knight escorts - a 18" charge bubble is enough to get your mounted guys across the table and hold something in place long enough to get a big hammer in position for the next turn, and can really throw a wrench into the plans of armies that rely on specific pacing and bubble work.

Also worth noting that most of these big buffs are keyed to end on your subsequent hero phase - setting up a deathstar of buffed Warriors on something important is a powerful disincentive for your opponent to take a double turn, since you'll still be just as dangerous, and you'll have the chance to double them right back.

Downside is all those buffs are pretty short range, as you noticed. Plan where your unit that needs a buff is going, and then give them a Sorc Lord buddy, or stick a foot Lord in if you're Cabalists; same for mounted or Karka Lords for cavalry. Let the movement of the wizard act as a leash for the actual power piece, and you'll get a lot more efficacy out of your casters. The great thing about buff wizards is that they interact with your opponent vastly less, so not only are you free from counters like the Khorne spell ignore, the worst thing that happens if you don't get your buffs off is that you're playing with a fair army list.

(Varanguard tend to keep to themselves, but you can at least start them near a wizard and fire 'em off after you stack a couple of buffs on them.)

Part of Khorne's deal is Just Saying No to Magic, so you were a little hampered in your utility there. Prayers are really good, not only for their actual effects, but as you note not being able to stop them is really huge. Flip side is apart from Smite, they overall tend to have a shorter range, and S2D's prayer options are limited. If you want to give it a whirl, I recommend the Slaanesh War Shrine, which gives you the 3d6 charge spell on all Slaanesh units, even the foot troops. Slaanesh troops can also run and charge, and get a plus one to both run and charge rolls, so you can really slingshot some guys across the board if you want. There's also the Idolator Lord command trait, which turns your general into a priest and makes all your cultists marked. Generally it's used for specific plays around the cultists (if you meet anyone running Khorne-marked Splintered Fang, refuse to play them), but there is the potential to Smite out critical Khorne priests if you roll hot. I wouldn't make it a core strategy, but it's not a terrible idea if you're going to be up against Khorne a lot.

Positioning for S2D is absolutely huge, even beyond the normal levels of the game. Your army is pretty slow and doesn't have much in the way of movement shenanigans, so you need to be very cognizant of how far your guys can move and charge, compared to your opponent. You don't want to get distracted from your plan, which should largely revolve around standing on the primaries with your durable units, then ruining someone's day with your hammers. The choicest S2D play is making them go around your Warriors or get tied up by them, then crushing their expensive stuff with a timely charge that levels a unit, leaving you free to charge again the next time you're up. It is absolutely a reasonable thing to outright ignore your opponent's mobile units and let the Warriors soak up whatever they do, or feed a cultist unit or Furies or what have you into a strong enemy unit to keep them from pinning you down until you're where you want to be.

On that note, get some cultists, or more probably proxies you can use for cultists since those kits tend to be sold out and vastly too expensive. Corvus Cabal, Untamed Beasts, or Furies are excellent screening units that give you back some mobility, very much in the style of Infinity warbands. Furies in particular can be super annoying to your opponent, since they can pop out of combat and run away twelve inches, only to do it again next turn.

It's tremendously tempting as S2D to set up for a really big turn 2 hit, since that's typically when you can start to bring some uncommonly nasty damage out. Fight the urge unless it'll win you the game right then and there. Your priority is to stand on circles first, then play your battle tactics, then harm your opponent.

Battle Tactics are kind of a weird mechanic as they currently stand, and I'm hoping they either ditch or fix the system for fourth edition. There's a lot of variability in the quality of tactics between books, and the current season's tactics are kind of a pain. In general, the best tactics and grand strategies are the ones that A) don't interact with your opponent and B) don't require rolling for anything. That's a boring and stupid system! In that regard, I think S2D and Khorne are relatively evenly-matched. There's never going to be a perfect flowchart for your tactics that you can apply to each game, but there's a couple general guides to follow. You should keep "automatic" tactics for the first and fifth turns, since you're not going to be doing much at those points - you haven't made contact first turn, and by turn five one or both of the armies are mostly dead, so your options are dramatically curtailed. Definitely keep a general plan for how you're going to accomplish tactics when you're list building, and it's worth taking a look at the mission plan before you start and coming up with a couple of overarching priority lists. Write 'em down if you have to - you never want to be picking up the list of tactics each time you're up and having to decide on the spur of the moment.

Here's my quick ranking of the S2D book tactics, best to worst.

Lust for Power - you're probably getting this one somewhat reliably, since you want your heroes to do things. Becomes super-easy mode if you're Cabalists and you can take an Exalted Hero with Chaotic Conduit just for the two VP, which is a worthwhile expenditure of points.
Run Them Down - You want to do this at some point anyway. Easier if you're going first that turn, since you'll have command points to reroll charges.
March of Ruin - Difficulty varies somewhat with the mission map, but in general anything you want to give a banner to wants to be up in someone's business. Bump this up a notch if you're playing a map with deployment zones that touch.
In Thrall to Chaos - Relies on lifting an enemy unit. Paradoxically easier versus elite armies - a skaven player could lift a couple dozen clanrats out of a unit that's toed on to your objective even if you hit it with a huge wallop and stay on the point, while you could sneeze at a Stormcast unit and wipe them out to a man.
Iconoclasts - Depends entirely on your opponent bringing priests and totems, which are largely going to be found in other Chaos armies. Another easy one versus Stormcast if you can kill their Translocate priest, and shockingly difficult versus skaven or Nurgle or the like.
Champions of Chaos - Did you fail to kill the enemy support heroes? Have you not yet killed their major solo hammers they're going to protect at all costs? Do you want to feed your crucial buff pieces into a shredder for two VP? Well, here you go.

You're going to have to rely on the seasonal tactics to get five out of five complete, unfortunately. Magical Dominance is an easy get as long as you're not playing against a Seraphon army that includes Kroak - deploy your wizard outside of 30" of your opponent's wizards if present, cast with your 3d6 action, profit. I'd keep Intimidate the Invaders as a turn five if possible - you'll generally be able to accomplish this by default. Magical Mayhem is easy in direct proportion to your target selection for Merciless Blizzard, and difficult in all other circumstances. Led into the Maelstrom is something you generally want to do, but you'll also have to keep at least one of your charge targets alive. This is good for Warriors and bad for the rest of your army. Surround and Destroy is easy depending on how many disposable cultist units you have that can go touch table edges, and not something you want to do if you're running mainly Warriors and expensive hammers. You never want to be able to pull off Reprisal, Endless Expropriation is dependent entirely on your opponent, and S2D almost never wants to retreat to accomplish Bait and Trap.

Grand Strategies are generally "are you winning? Then please, win more" checks, and I also hope they get fixed for 4.0. Probably not in the cards, unfortunately. S2D is in a pretty good place for Grand Strats this season, though. If you play Host of the Everchosen, almost your entire army can be Battleline and thus Overshadow becomes pretty easy. If you're good at keeping your wizard general alive, take Spellcasting Savant, or if you roll like me and routinely kill your wizards, take Slaughter of Sorcery. Out of the army book, Dominating Presence is the best choice, since if you're going to win you'll probably occupy a goodly amount of territory. You can force Follow the Path to Glory by buying one Undivided wizard to sit in the corner and cast Chaotic Conduit, but this is both boring and bad, and Demon Princes are bad, so don't do it. Do not attempt the other two book GSes.

Chaos likes big units in most contexts. 20 Nurgle-marked Warriors is a serious roadblock for almost anything in the game that fights remotely fair, and they can generally stay alive long enough to punch back with some force. Likewise hammer units hit harder the bigger they are. It's not universal - very few cultists want to be reinforced, and I would strongly consider not running reinforced Knights unless you're going all in on making them your big hammer, with all the buffs and maneuvering and support pieces that'll entail. Conversely, I would have to have a very compelling reason not to take a ten-man unit of Chosen, expensive as they are, since they're one of the killing-est units in the game and they don't mind staying in a fight with anything they don't lift.

In your first game, you moved forward too quickly and set your opponent up for his charges, as you noted. Hanging back to just capture the two objectives in your territory and making him come to you, especially since he's playing Khorne, would work a good deal to your advantage. One thing to keep in mind with screening is the pile-in move. Keep your punchy units, and especially glass cannons, two-and-a-half or so inches behind your screening units. That way, very few things can reach over your screens to hit your damage-dealers and reduce their efficacy, while you can still activate the unit and reach over your screens or move into the gaps when the skirmishers die to strike back after the opponent's unit fights.

Part of the other problem you had in your first game is that AoS doesn't work at 1000 points. GW still doesn't know how to onboard people, and they let folks do intro games where your most expensive unit was a modest set of Chaos Knights, versus a 310-point demon that's made for much larger tables. To put it in Infinity terms, it'd be a little like if you ran the Avatar in a 150-point game.

In your second game, putting the big brick of Warriors on the objectives was solid play. You've spotted the problem with the Karka Lord and a pack of Knights - you have to get both charges off to make the hit really work. Thanks to the musician being the studliest horn player in the entire game, assume the Knights will always have a better charge than the mounted Lords. Roll his charge first, then see if they can follow him in.

Additionally, you've also picked up on some of the issues with Knights. For 220 points, you're getting 15 wounds that attack on a 4+ and save on a 3+. They die surprisingly easy, since you're probably not Nurgle-marking them unless you're treating them as screens. If nothing else, their real weakness is that 4+ to hit - the jump from 4+ to 3+ is huge, far more than 3+ to 2+, since you're going from a fifty-fifty chance to not suck to landing a hit two out of three times. They can definitely do some work, but I personally wouldn't rely on them for damage output. They're far better as a mobile screen or a means to harass and distract your opponent.

You mentioned rallying your Warriors - you can kinda get some work out of this in Host of the Everchosen, but it's overall not going to help you a lot. You want your Warriors to either be murdering something if they get the chance, or standing on points keeping somebody else from tagging them, and either way you won't be able to rally. It gets to be a smarter play if you're sticking to the 20-stack units, but just something to think on.

Still, notice how well you did on VP this game, entirely because you planted yourself on the objectives and made your opponent do the work. That's the core of S2D strategy, and it's good that you've picked up that insight this early.

You've noticed the efficacy of fight first, but one of the other things to consider is that two of your best hammers in S2D (Varanguard and Chosen) can activate again in the same round once per battle. You've also got a spell that can make your opponent fight last, which is even better than strike first on your guys, since everybody gets a bite at the apple before your opponent's unit. I'd suggest you proxy some Knights as Varanguard to give 'em a spin, and definitely consider Chosen. I have to have a very strong reason to leave a ten-man unit of Chosen out of my army no matter who I'm fighting on what map.

Genghis Cohen posted:

Thanks for all the tips. Much to think about. I can see I could get much more mileage out of Wizards in other match-ups and if I position them better and make use of the Draw on Power heroic action, as well as the season rules. I have a 2k game this weekend, hopefully, so I will use Cabalists again and see if I can make more out of it. Host of the Everchosen only gets me the Rally and one Ensorcelled Banner, which I can get via a Battalion anyway, so probably worth it. I only have 5 Chosen models, but I'm definitely seeing how a unit of 10, and unit(s) of 20 Warriors, have some big advantages.

Here's my planned 2k list for this week - I appreciate some elements definitely aren't competitive, but we're not a tournament-playing group or anything and it's what I own/have painted:

Chaos Warband (bonus: Slayers)
- Lord on Karkadrak, Undivided (General, Death Dealer, Spell: Daemonic Speed)
- 5 Chaos Knights, Mark of Khorne
- 5 Chaos Knights, Mark of Khorne
- 10 Chaos Warriors, Undivided
- 10 Chaos Warriors, Undivided
- 5 Chosen, Khorne (Enhancement: Banner of Rage)
- Gorebeast Chariot, Khorne

Warlord Battalion (bonus: extra Banner Enhancement)
- Chaos Lord, Undivided (Spell: Binding Damnation)
- Chaos Sorcerer Lord, Tzeentch (Spells: Chaotic Conduit, Warp Reality, Hoarfrost; Enhancement: Infernal Puppet)
- Exalted Hero, Undivided (Spell: Hoarfrost)
- 20 Chaos Warriors, Tzeentch (Enhancement: Blasted Standard)

Other permutations I considered were combining the Knights into one big unit, and probably giving them the Blasted Standard. But I figured their mobility and the extra attacks from mark of Khorne were too important. And most importantly combining the 2x10 warriors into 20. They're all assembled with 'murderous weapons' though and I would definitely want to count them as halberds if running a big unit (it might be worth doing so even at 10 models).

I also started the Exalted Hero with the Flaming Weapon spell just because it's easy to cast and I like the idea of him being a big drat hero since his Daemon-Prince-manifesting adventrue the other day. But the unit buffs are probably better (any of those Wizards would be useful with Mystic Shield and for the Sorcerer Daemonic Power is probably the best choice in most situations).

GhastlyBizness posted:

grassy gnoll posted:

Having a list that isn't absurdly netlisted to hell and back is both a great way to actually learn your faction, as well as playing a game that both sides can enjoy, so there's absolutely no pressure there.

Same as before, none of this is meant to teach you how to suck eggs, so much as making sure all the bases are covered.

Tell me about your plans for the two packs of knights. The Karka Lord will only be able to affect one of them with his spell and his drag-into-combat ability, so if you want a really big punch and you're gonna take ten knights anyway, you might lump 'em all together. If you want to keep them separate, I might mark one of them Nurgle to use as a blocker or Slaanesh to get some extra mobility out of a harassment piece.

If you want to put a banner on your Chosen, I'd very strongly recommend you give them the Slaanesh enhancements. The Slaanesh banner gives them the same effect as the Khorne mark, plus mobility for landing crucial charges and the run and charge option if you can find the command points for it. +1 wound is nice, but Chosen benefit most from bonuses to hit as opposed to wound.

Gorebeasts have a pretty obvious application for removing screens, but they're also 100 points - don't be afraid to throw one at an enemy hammer to slow it down for a turn.

Walk me through your plan for the Tzeentch-marked units.

GhastlyBizness posted:

It’s wild, you always hear stuff from GW designers about the need for visual hierarchy or distinction, with e.g. basic stormcast being relatively plain so veterans/heroes can stand out by more elaborate detail, but then that seems to have been thrown out the window entirely for FS.