How will we handle Death Magic

Hi,

I think that one of the thing that we will have to pair correctly against us are the armies with death lores.
Which of our armies can handle death?

I would say

-Brets
-VC
-Dwarves
-O&G, Empire, as long as it is VC with the big cav unit (If they come near enough, I am also near enough for double banishment)

The one that should not go against Death lore (lots of points to loose)
-Skavens
-Demons? (seems ok with "only" 2*4 beasts?)
-O&G, Empire against any elves with lvl4 in death lore
-High Elves (but if needed, he can keep dragoons away)

What's your opinion?

I can handle death magic. Maybe not Dark elves 2x Ld 10 0, but a normal lvl4 or 2 lvl 1/2 I can

Actually the only think really vulnerable is the wheel. (even the hellpit has Ld8 and regen and the cannon is quite far away of his magician)


In order (my opinion):

- Highelves (with the flying, you can always be out of range or arc of the spells)
- Skavens
- VC (character are okey protected and just some horrors are vulnerable but regrowth really quick)
- O&G (just the sun, but it's hard to take the points of trolls with it)
- Brets (with only one scroll, he might loose some characters)
- Empire (u have to let him the less magic phases in range of ur characters, but with shielding+scroll+3MR ur not that bad)
- Demons (with no scroll--> might be hard)

Apart : dwarf : can handle it, but it's a gamble --> one sun is game ending

Actually we're not that fine against death lore :p

Besides some snipering capabilities death lore is as devastating due to LD -3 and Purple sun, which ignores MR.

O&G can have big trouble against that and dwarves as well but outcome is depending on the spelleater rune.

Our Skaven can work against death, but that is much dependant on their capability to keep the general+BSB out of 24 inches to the death mage and thus depending on the enemies list.

For the rest I mainly agree with your assessment but would argue that in the end, the lore alone is not enough for a good assessment but you have to consider the whole list.

Of course, I agree, as I said already with VC.

The thing for dwarves is that the list seems well suited to play against elves (devastating catapults, miners, rangers) which seems to be the main armies that play death lore (DE, HE) with some VC and demons.

But even against elves they might have trouble.

DE - the Pendant and Dagger death L4 can be quite hard on the dwarves. If the spelleater rune fails for the sun, they can lose very big.

HE - all the WMs have runes and are hence magical attacks, hence the banner unit is save and can try to go all in. That gets especially dangerous in comination with death magic, that can blow away the anvil quickly. Also the Hoeth+death combo can be risky as hell - again it comes down to a 50:50 on the spelleater rune.

WE - well, they cannot have death magic, hence we are probably not talking about them?

I am not saying dwarves cannot be paired that way, I am just saying it is an extremely large variance we are looking at in those matchups.

The thing is that High and Dark Elves seems to have difficulty handling the 35 minors/35 rangers with trowing axes/ rune of challenge. So they will have to deploy in a defensive way that will prevent them to come quickly in position for the sun (with 5 inches moves if Paul is so scared he wants to slow them down with the anvil).

For the Lions, remember they are 25, so after some crossbows/ trowing axes, they can be killed by a big dwarf unit in my opinion. So no pushing like crazy or they can have some surprises!

In all cases, Paul will tell us what he feels about it.

The Lions will konga and let the magic do the rest - that is what i mean by pushing.
With the amount of redirectors they now have, they can protect their flanks imo. It only takes one sun through the anvil to basicaly end the game for the dwarves.

For the DE - a BSB pendant bearer can stop one unit alone (at some risk, but nonetheless doable) and you can be sure he will go for the rune of challenge one, to make the rest of his units secure if the chance arises. The other unit can be redirected or a large spear unit can try to bind it. Costly, but if he gets the anvil this way, he will make a major breakthrough.

Again - I am not saying that it is impossible or very bad to pair our dwarves against these armies - I am just saying the risk as well as the probable reward are both quite high.
I was just answering to your suggestion, that dwarves could somewhat without any restrictions/doubt handle death magic, where I disagree.  

For a regular lvl4: 9,25% chance he doesnt get the sun + only 4 dices to cast and many dices to dispel+( not in range from the beggining + slowing down the caster) + spell destroyed on 4+.

Not an auto loose, even if it's true that it can be a real disaster if it goes wrong.

@sevic:

I think I can manage death lore. I will have to do some games to see if it is ok.
The brettonian has RM2 + 6+ ward= 4+ ward iwith the prophetess, and trebuchet will put lots of pressure on the lions/big spear unit.

Yeah but if we have well paired 7 armies, and the round comes to a 4+ on the spellleater rune, it's not good.

Sevic just nails it.

When I think about it, it is not only a 4+, but a combination of things: 4dices max to cast, Paul is at +3DD, so depending on winds of magic, you will be dispelling with a a lot of dices, and it's only 13,5% chance to get irresistible force, there is the 4+, you need also the good artillery dice roll (incident, 2, 4 are not enough if the ranger are well deployed) and besides this there will be only 4 turns were this spell will be in range (slowing down).

So I think if you take everything into account, it is maximum 25% chance something wrong happens, but it is sure that if it happens, it is reaaaally bad, as you said.
Paul will have to train a bit on theses pairings.

You forget the sacrificial dagger, the book of Hoeth and the chance that the anvil blows up itself.

Right.
So real test will tell.

Concerning O&G I agree with Buchi: Snipering isn't the problem, but I can't let the -3ld pass on the savages and the sun can potentially kill 5 trolls or even more with some fancy bouncing...

As you said, it depends on the rest of the army, but in genral it is not a very good matchup.


Pulps

About Brets, I need to playtest a bit but it's true it would have been easier with two scrolls (damn it!)
Basically I just stay far from him, and shoot and magic the hell out of him. He can arm my characters but most of them are quite cheap so he won't take so much points. The purple sun can be an issue but coming in range for the spell also means coming in range for a charge, which is not good for him.

Magic is never such an issue for Brets, so I guess it should be okay. The only thing is, it might prevent me from pushing  

I have made computation of outcome of a spirit leach.

Here are some probability results. Modifier is difference of LD. negative is when the target has more LD.
I have made a computer program to compute, so if you want one particualar result, feel free to ask.
++



Ward 5+:
-1  Modifier:  0 LP=77.092% 1 LP=12.62%   2 LP=6.9959% 3 LP=2.7435% 4 LP=0.5487%
+0 Modifier:  0 LP=64.586% 1 LP=16.712% 2 LP=10.745% 3 LP=5.5784% 4 LP=2.0119% 5 LP=0.3658%
+1 Modifier:  0 LP=49.307% 1 LP=20.85%   2 LP=14.723% 3 LP=9.023%   4 LP=4.3896% 5 LP=1.4632% 6 LP=0.24387%
+2 Modifier:  0 LP=44.213% 1 LP=12.043% 2 LP=18.808% 3 LP=12.823% 4 LP=7.4785% 5 LP=3.4141% 6 LP=1.0567%   7 LP=0.16258%


Ward 4+:
-1  Modifier: 0 LP=80.729% 1 LP= 12.5%    2 LP=5.2083% 3 LP=1.3889% 4 LP=0.17361%
+0 Modifier: 0 LP=69.531% 1 LP=17.448% 2 LP=8.8542% 3 LP=3.2986% 4 LP=0.78125% 5 LP=0.086806%
+1 Modifier: 0 LP=55.599% 1 LP=22.656% 2 LP=13.151% 3 LP=6.0764% 4 LP=2.0399%   5 LP=0.43403% 6 LP=0.043403%
+2 Modifier: 0 LP=48.633% 1 LP=18.294% 2 LP=17.904% 3 LP=9.6137% 4 LP=4.0582%   5 LP=1.237%     6 LP=0.23872%    7 LP=0.021701%

So spirit leach is not that bad after all

Well the probabilities are one thing, but still that is a huge gamble and I am not so sure, that you will want to risk a game based on one dice roll.

More importantly I can only repeat and emphasize that the snipering is not the worst part of death magic - purple sun and for many armies -3 LD is far far worse.

That's true, but this means that for instance if you have no ward at all and suffer a spirit leach without modifier on a 3LP character, in terms of proba, you will loose it on a roll of 1 on a D6.

So when you have to choose between Charybde and Scylla, it can be usefull to know this kind of things. (In the last turns for instance).

I really think that VC is our army that handle best the Death Lore (you can recover between sniper spells with magic ) and -3 LD is not an issue (only if followed with snip, but then dispel the snip:) ) and once your locked in close, then nothing more happens.

Short question:

Does the -3LD work for the spirit leech? Thought you take the highest LD in the unit without any modifers?

@Krokgar: as you said, without modifiers, -3Ld is a modifier

that's true, so -3LD is not an issue at all for the VC.

Dim wrote:that's true, so -3LD is not an issue at all for the VC.

So in that case, the swissarmylist of the VC is realy the best to opose Death Lore. Since there isn't a therrogheist in the list, which is weak to the sniperdamage, you will go well with them against death lore =)

Sadly enough most teams field several death magic lists at once...  

HE can handle them quite well by keeping the dragons away.

I think I can handle the death roaster as well using demygryphs as a infantry repelent + amyntok net + speed of the light to handle purple sun.
Moreover, i can make the mage have some look out sir with my 3 canons. I still have to test, but I am picturing it not that bad.

Me too, death is not such a problem.

The combo death + hellcanon is a problem though (here, the virtue of disdain is really a genious idea of Cocofreeze! This guy is such a freak in building good armylists !  )
Because I have to dispel the -3 Ld every turn, leaving space for purple sun and sniping spells (but here, if I stay away, I shouldn't have too many purple sun to handle).

I want to test against Chaos + Chaos dwarves, but it should be fine.

Dark Elves are a pain in the ass because of the 4 bolt throwers, I have to test if it's better to stay back and shoot and rush him  

HE is a bad matchups, because of the lions. I will just stay back and shoot, which should yield a draw or small victory for him.


But the thing is, the guy won't always have all the good spells, so it leaves space for uncertainty. Sometimes it won't be possible to have purple sun + -3LD, and then the result is very different !