Today, supplementing the usual battle reports I produce once a week, I have decided to try to delve into an issue that might be present to some more recent players into Warmachine/Hordes, and Skorne in particular if you've followed a buyers pattern similar to mine. Heavy Infantry. If you don't have any Multi-Wound Infantry, how do you deal with Multi-Wound Infantry? Specifically, High ARM Multi-Wound infantry.
These are a unit type I've had particular problems with in a lot of my games, and at low points levels, they are typically more efficient than large blobs of infantry. They are more survivable, meaner, and with a lot of UAs and solos that increase their hitting capacity/survivability it becomes a train wreck. One of my Orboros matches vs. eBaldur was completely obstructed by poor positioning of my Nihilators, my Gladiator, and the high ARM of his Skinwalkers. My many matches against Menoth are difficult against Bastions, as he still easily has full units when he should be down 4 or 5 men in the Unit.
Sadly, as I am yet to own Cataphracts of any kind, I have no strategy that involves fighting fire with fire. This is one of the simpler strategies. You have ARM 18 Weapon Masters? Well, I have ARM 20 9 inch Walking threat range Weapon Masters.
But for those of us not yet running Xerxis and his wall of Cetrati, I'll break down some of my thoughts on how we can deal with this problem unit type.
1. Shoot it off the table. This is more of a Cygnar/Legion strategy at it's core, but we have uses for it, and ways to do it. Cannoneers have healthy POW 15 guns, sure it turns into Blast Damage for everyone not in that central unit, but it can be a good way to disrupt shield walls if you aim it right. Couple it with a Cyclops Raider, you can shoot them before they even get near the center line. Couple this with a max Squad of Reivers + UA and a series of CRAs, there are going to be some dead infantry on the table. Use the Mini-Feat turn 1 along with the Cannoneer, and you will at least soften them up before they get to your melee center.
2. Continuous Effects: Yes, this is typically for light infantry, as it will lead to them dying in droves, but anything helps when they have 8 boxes to chew through and your Bronzeback, no matter how many he pushes around, can only be in threat range of a well spaced 5 man unit for so long. Venator Slingers are a good idea here, as they can lay down some early turn Corrosions, and can be easily tossed away due to their cheap 6 points for a max unit, letting us get in some shots and cause a road bump in the center line after laying down some more light damage to soften up Multi-Wound Meat Mountains. Incindiarii could also fulfill this role well, but due to still having to roll at dice mins 6 means that it is less reliable.
Now, combining these above 2 would be incredibly taxing on points, costing you around 28 points for a lot of whittling down effects, leaving your core less versatile than it otherwise would be, so this is something to consider more lightly than the other options, though when focused well, can create good effects on the battle field. I'll be looking to try Venator Reivers soon with eHexeris. It seems like a good way to harm D-Warded Black Spotted Bastions in CRAs. Groups of 3 Reivers CRAing at something, for dice - 4, if aiming needing only 4's to hit, inflicts a good bit of damage, gives out about 3 Damage per Bastion on average. This, gives you more points to build a center around, and is a good way to weaken Bastions or other Heavy Infantry before they become a problem, and if the Venators survive, they can be useful in taking down 'jacks also if they survive the coming onslaught.
With the above strategy being more difficult to implement points wise and not in Skorne's mentality of "Kill, Crush, Destroy" we have to consider other options if we have no Heavy Infantry of our own.
If we throw our beasts at Heavy Infantry poorly, they're doomed. Weapon Masters, and durable infantry are a death trap for beasts consigning them to uselessness, or death.
So, the other option I give is
3. Find a way for the positioning to render these units useless. Against some armies, this isn't that good of an idea, Circle comes to mind, but against slower Heavy Infantry, we can try to take advantage of Skorne's capacity for surprising movement to change our place on the battlefield and force them to choose bad targets/not move very far. This is more of a vague and personal way of analyzing the problem, but we do have some tools to ensure that we can divert their attention. Molik Karn can do good Hit and run strikes on these Multi-Wound Reach Units, with the benefit of things like Rush/Abuse to get into Melee, killing one or two, and then Side Stepping back, and using Fate Walker to get out of easy reach. Followed by having the rest be forced to deal with a tarpit unit, so they'd be forced to take Free Strikes if they diverted their attention could be clever. However, Molik is the easy response to give to these questions. The Archidon provides a similar role with Flight and the Lightning Strike Animus allowing for it to be a good way to kite heavy infantry, and maneuver as needed, and also to force the infantry to choose what threats to consider.
In the maneuverability department, I'd also say that other than pMorghoul with the delicious spell Admonition, I support that Mordikaar is for all of our "I'll move where I want" casters. With Ghostly, and a defensive feat that allows you to Push targets out of melee threat, and revive models to move into good positions to take down big targets. All this makes him great at avoiding danger, heavily influencing the enemy to make their big meaty infantry not as dangerous.
A way I'd find to deal with this all on a strategic level would be a sort of reinforced flank maneuver depending on your force composition. Particularly this works if you go second and your opponent tosses his Heavy infantry on a flank.
My final piece of advice would be to save your heavy or light beasts until the infantry are already engaged in melee, say with Nihilators, and then take advantage of their relative proximity to implement these other strategies by picking off ones at the sides, kiting them in, or even shooting them before they become engaged, or any that had just become unengaged, and so on.
Eventually, we'll cave and get Cetrati, but for lists that don't include those the Meat Mountain is a particular way of doing Armor Skew that we need to think about and how to deal with. When killing a players models is so intensely difficult that we can't take much damage without fear of never reciprocating said damage then things become difficult for us Pain Givers because we love inflicting damage.
If you have any ideas, toss them down in the comments, and play well, play hard, and play Skorne.
No comments:
Post a Comment