Con@ line - Tomb King Horse Archers

[noneshallpass!]

Okay, so I might want to use the conga (or is it congo?) tactic with my skeleton horsearchers to stop big monsters in this 2400p tournnament I'm going to. If I'm gona be bad, I don't want to cheat while doing it. So let's get this straight.

If I put the champion up front with the rest in a single file behing it against, say a treeman, he can only kill the chamion on the first turn on combat am I right? This is how I have understood it. Did I make a mistake? If it's something big with a crew like a spider or a stegadon, I guess the crew might kill some normal horse archers after the beast is finished with the champ.. If it's a character on a monster, there will be a chalenge of course, and no need for the conga line I guess.

[Mozzamanx]

This is correct. The champion is considered a separate target in combat and wounds against him will not carry across to the rest of the unit. If he is the only model in contact, he will die many times over but the rest of his unit will not suffer any harm.
A typical situation will see you charging and the Champion cut down. You will then lose another 0-4 from ranks, banners etc. and so you should probably take a unit of 6 to ensure you have at least one survivor.

Note that this only works because all the attacks are resolved against him. If the enemy can attack across different Initiatives (IE- there is a character) then the fastest model can kill the Champion while the others kill the unit.

[noneshallpass!]

I did not know this could work on a block inf or cavalery as well. Is there a new rule when it comes to fighting in initiative in 8th? I think an old rulebook stated something in the lines of "you do not need to roll all the dice at once while attacking" or something like that..

I would have thought it posible to use some attacks on the champ, and then the rest on the rank'n'file when it is killed. If this is the case, I might find room for a 6th rider.

[Mozzamanx]

You roll all the attacks for each Initiative step at once, before moving down to the next. All of your ASF, then all I10, then I9 etc. You have to nominate your target before you roll and so if you've done it properly, the enemy unit will have to declare all of its attacks into the Champion because he is the only model in contact. After that, you would move down to the next Initiative step but generally a unit will all attack at once. This means the unit will not have any attacks left to declare into the rest of the unit unless there are characters involved. You are then left with the rest of your unit untouchable (And a very dead Champion).
Of course you will still lose some to Unstable, but that can be planned very reliably and you should be fine.

[Blkc57]

This strategy seems worthless to me. How does it slow down a unit? Lets say your opponent hits you with a ranked up unit, he challenges with a decent fighting champ or a character and kills you plus he scores overkill, the combat res alone with ranks + banner and the aforementioned overkill wipes your undead unit with the crumble (at max you can get 1 from champs wound, 5 from overkill, 3 from ranks, 2 from banners and other 1 from death crumble, so 12 total). You use it to stop a monster, well ok then the monster directs its attacks against your champ kills it, but then like all monsters it gets a thunderstomp which goes into your unit and wipes it good (heres its 1 for champ kill then up to 6 for thunderstomp and another 7 again for crumble so at max 14 total). Like I said I'm not sure how this works if you take into account overkill from challenges and thunderstomp from monsters to effectively hold something for very long. A skeletal horsemen is rather expensive and if you are sacrificing up to 10 just to stall for one turn it seems a waste.

[noneshallpass!]

Stomp and thunderstomp is only working on infantry, warbeasts and swarms.
If put my line in front of a monster and let it charge, it will not manage to overrun when it finish the unit in my turn. This could be important, even if a sacrificed unit positioned at a nice angle might make the enemy not overrun. If I manage to resurect the champion with magic, the unit will stay on for another round, and this could go on and on.

This is a little situational yes, but at times this tactic could be of great value.

[T10]

This strategy seems worthless to me. How does it slow down a unit?

From the looks of it, though, it can be used with some effect under the right conditions: As cavalry the unit is immune to stomp attacks (which are distributed as shooting, which bypasses the champion cork at the front) and a champion isn't obligated to accept challenges so he's hard to press for overkill bonus. Throw a banner into the unit and it's good against quite a few single-profile monster units.

It isn't an automatic success: A conga-line unit of cavalry has significant length and if flanked it is a house of cards coming tumbling down. In fact, there are lot of things that can go wrong.

Also, it looks silly.

-T10

[Mozzamanx]

This strategy seems worthless to me. How does it slow down a unit?

There are 2 main advantages to this method:
- Champions can decline a Challenge without penalty
- Cavalry are immune to Thunderstomp

You can be extremely confident with charging them and know exactly how many are going to die. Each unit adds another turn to flank or delay a unit from a fight.

[Tykinkuula]

Not to mention if you happen to cast a boosted nehekharan augment spell anywhere nearby (because seriously, you aren't going to target any spesifically ot this unit, are you?) the champion pops right back up. It has potential to be extremely effective.

[EldarWonderland]

Or you could just play without using ridiculous tactics like this. If it's really that important for you to win then choose WoC deathstars instead.


Just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done.

Personally, I would prefer to lose and play a good game than lower myself to this sort of nonsense.

[ihavetoomuchminis]

Reading this thread will keep me far from tournaments for another year.

[noneshallpass!]

I need some nonsense to deal with the nonsense. I do not view this worse than the deathstar everyone seem to bring. I want to win with nice moves, not shuffeling huge blocks of inantery forward and trow boosts and curses. It's not more complicated than that.