Tournament Armies

[kyussinchains]

Coming up soon (ie. when I get round to arranging it) will be my gaming group's first ever tournament, we've all been meeting up and playing warhammer now for over 10 years, so a mini tournament seemed like a good idea to me. The basic rules are

2000 point armies
No special characters
No dogs of war
all games to last 6 turns maximum

thing is, I'm stuck on what army to use, I can make good armies using dark elves, chaos and ogres, but I really can't decide on which to use, I know the ogres are weak, but they're my new toys and I want to use them! my dark elves tend to do very well in 2000 point games. My slaanesh chaos army is rock solid too!

I also have a smallish beasts of chaos army, but I dont really stand a chance using that!

the armies I'm playing against will be:

High Elves
Tomb Kings
Empire
Vampire Counts
Lizardmen/Chaos (the guy hasnt made up his mind yet)

obviously I cant tailor my army against a specific person, so what do people think of these general army outlines?

Dark Elves:

Large-ish (12 or so) cold one knights with battle standard hyrdra banner
24 crossbowmen with sheilds and command (shooty, but then reform and fight)
2x 10-12 dark riders, one led by a tough combat oriented hero for flank/rear charges
4 bolt throwers for flank shots/channeling knight units and general 'softening up' of tougher enemy formations

Chaos:

Slaanesh Daemon prince, level 4 sorcerer for extreme combat and magical power
8 chosen knights led by an exalted champion with rapturous standard to take on the toughest units
16-20 chosen warriors to support the knights
chariot of slaanesh for flank and rear support charges
6-8 Mounted daemonettes led by another exalted champ on a steed of slaanesh to get round the flank and sides
a spawn or two for general charge blocking

Ogres:

Tyrant for sheer power
6-8 ironguts to smash up tough enemies
2x 4-6 bulls for flank and support charges
3 maneaters for charge blocking and potential flank charges
3 leadbelchers for fire support
2x30 gnoblars
Hunter for wizard hunting and knight deterring

just curious as to what you reckon? I'll be playtesting variants on the lists over the weekend

cheers

[Angelripper]

Hmm tough choice. I'd normaley would say Dark Elves cause they are the most versatile Army. But your troops seem a bit shooty Don't get me wrong the guys will kick ass especially against TK, VC and HE. But only with the Cold One Knights as main CC unit it is quite limited. I personally never saw the Dark Riders as CC troops so never used them as such. What about a Citygarrison list for your DE? They really can do the Job and all your troops are allowed. I love the fact firing at an advancing enemy and then meet him with Handweapon+Shield plus poking spears from the second rank.

Your Ogrearmy would do the job against TK and VC cause you don't need to think about fear. Hey the bigbellys are quite fearsome themselves but both skelly armies might just do a little mojo and byebye Ogres. Same at HE possible.
Against Empire, Lizzy Or Chaos they would work fine, I think, depends on the Armys that your opponents field. Empire Guns & Tin-Cans might be bad and a Khorne Army would literally kick their butts (happened to me)

So I think the Slaaneshis would be the best choise. Solid magic, and real scary groundpounders! There is a magic item that allows your exalted champ to go alongside the deamonettes? Don't remember cause my army is demonfree after to many phaseouts.

[kyussinchains]

There is a magic item that allows your exalted champ to go alongside the deamonettes? Don't remember cause my army is demonfree after to many phaseouts.

it's a specified rule that if a character is riding a daemonic mount he can accompany a unit of daemons, alternatively, you can give him the chalice of chaos, making him daemonic. I choose the steed option, no chance of losing toughness and wounds!

I'm swaying more and more to the chaos, however, the dark elves will do pretty well against the guy playing chaos, mainly because he's not very experienced, he makes some pretty elementary mistakes, and a well placed charge, accompanied by flank and rear charges can break the toughest units, I tend to give my dark elf lord the gauntlet of power anyway which ignores the huge armour saves, and the hero will get the draich of dark power to give him S6 and killing blow.

I've found dark riders to be very useful as support units, on charge they have a respectable S4 and they have a decent WS of 4 too, when they come into their own is their huge movement and shootyness too, they can nip round the back dead quick, block marches and shoot the hell out of any units, before charging into the back of a unit you're charging in the front, they may not do much damage, but negating a potential rank bonus of +3 AND providing a +2 combat result themselves effectively giving you a +5 advantage, as well as any casualties they cause is well worth it!

The ogres are probably my least versatile army, and also the one I've the least experience with, I've been playing chaos since lost and the damned and slaves to darkness, so I've got a fair handle on using them, similar with dark elves... but the ogres are a dangerous chance, I may well lose all the games thanks to not knowing my army well enough...

thanks for the advice though, appreciate it!

[Math Mathonwy]

Angelripper, why would the Dark Elves do good against VC? They can be very resilient towards shooting, depending on the choices made. O&G are almost the only army I'd hate trying to shoot to death more than the VC.

That Chaos list seems rather vulnerable to shooting and magic. Also, I'm not a fan of big blocks of Chosen warriors. They are slow and extremely expensive. Thinking my own tournament army I would probably be the most worried facing the ogres. And they're new toys!

[Frankly]

Why don't you go DE cult of slaanesh, honestly I think thats your best bet. Reasons being immune to pyche is going to help alot against both undeead factions, against high elf shooting and magic and empire shooty lists. Cults spedd and movement phase will be a major adavantages against any of those armies your facing.

Other advice, it looks like your going to be up against some magic, so get magic defences.

you could use the knights, deamonettes and warriors and hadthem in your DE list.

[kyussinchains]

well, I dont really want to use a storm of chaos army you see, I know you get the best of both worlds, but I prefer using the original armies.

I see the magic vulnerability with the slaanesh force, the main thing I'm thinking is that none of the guys in my group will have a level 4 wizard, so the only army that I'll have a disadvantage against is the tomb kings, but in 2000 points unless you take all khorne or all tzeentch, you never manage to stop all their spells.

Point taken on the chosen warriors, I just stick them in there for the rank bonus and staying power, they're great to hold up tough units that break through the line, and chosen knights excepted they're probably the only unit that can stand up to a charge from heavy cavalry. I guess I could take more knights and a second chariot, maybe another spawn.. but I think against some armies, such as tomb kings and vampires, you need the extra ranks to wipe out units quicker.

I've done really well against VC armies with shooty dark elf armies in the past, I find the secret is to concentrate missile fire and spells on one unit (typically a unit of regular skellies) and try to wipe it out, they're so slow you can usually manage this, then the flank of the two adjacent units opens up and you can charge in there. I tend to take a shooty dark elf force and combine it with shock cavalry, kind of a hammer and anvil tactic.

I'm gonna try out a few ogre things today, I dont know if I can beat everyone yet, so I'll tweak some things and see

[vladdim]

IMO your best choice is Chaos - it will have reasonably good match against any of the mentioned armies.

Ogres don't come into concideration - some of those races can massacre them with ease. Being fear-causing doesn't help thm agains VC at all and all the rest inflic shooty multiple wounds.

Dark Elves are a very nice army to play, but they have hard time vs. undead. I suppose that you've face hordish type VC - you don't have to fear them. But as expirienced VC player I can tell you that my opponents with Dark Elves find this one of their most unfavorable battle (I play Necrarch MSU, Strigoi or Flying Circus).

A fast Slaanesh force (I would include some Hounds to run in front of the Knights) with those nasty spells should be quite a problem for your opponetnts.

[Angelripper]

Angelripper, why would the Dark Elves do good against VC? They can be very resilient towards shooting, depending on the choices made. O&G are almost the only army I'd hate trying to shoot to death more than the VC.

personally experience. DE got powerfull magic and the means to use them. you can dominate the magic phase and a VC Army is doomed without magic. The DE Warrior is a llot better than a standard skelly not to mention zombies.
With Boltthrowers you can easyliy get rid of annoying units such as Black Knights, Grave Guard or the Black Coach. If the VCs general mounts a Monster hes Toast! Cold One Knights don't have to worry about fear. and the high Leadership is also wonderfull against fear terror and so on. the main problem is that undead are quite slow so you can easily flank them and there are Dark Riders perfect. And with lucky dice it's done!

[ZanidarNecrarchCount]

boo lol yer

[NarCiS]

Angelripper, please crawl back under the rock you came from. How can Dark Elves control the VCs magic phase, ever??
Maybe with a lvl 4 and 2 lvl 2s, but then it's hello ghouls and bye bye mages.

[Gaebriel]

Angelripper, please crawl back under the rock you came from. How can Dark Elves control the VCs magic phase, ever??
Maybe with a lvl 4 and 2 lvl 2s, but then it's hello ghouls and bye bye mages.

And then he should probably throw that rock into your face for an absolutely inappropriate form of remark, Sir.

And it's four level fours and three level twos, with a combination of magic items that rise magic and dispel dice and deny one of the enemies, IIRC...

[Sylass]

Ssshhht, calm down guys.

No need to get into stupid arguments...it's just a game.


Thanks.

[Angelripper]

And then he should probably throw that rock into your face for an absolutely inappropriate form of remark, Sir.

And it's four level fours and three level twos, with a combination of magic items that rise magic and dispel dice and deny one of the enemies, IIRC...

Well not everyone has learned how to behave around adults right?
As told many Battles have told me that a Magic Heavy DE Army is capable of dealing with Magic Heavy VC.
Given VC fighting Charackters are damn good but In this Edition A single Charackter even the toughest one can be beaten just by the numbers.