Anti Gunline Tactics, with limited models

[Badrug]

Hi all,

Right now I have;
2x30 Night Goblins w/ spears,
1x25 Night Goblins w/ hand wp,
1x20 Night Goblins w/ s.bows,
1x20 Squig Herd
1x10 Squig Hopper
2x Spear Chukka
& lots of fanatics.

My opponent deploys a gunline (2xCrossbows, 2xMortar, 1xHellblaster) with 1 rank&file regiment and 3 heroes (2xWiz, 1xCapt/Priest)

Everytime my gobboz are wiped out before getting close. Despite I dont like to play Herohammer or Elitehammer, this time I will place 3 shamans for a 1000 points game to teach him a lesson.

My list will be;
3 shamans (itty ring, dispell scroll, 2xPowerStone)
2x25 NG w/musician, 2xFanatics
1x20 Squig Herd
1x8 Squig Hopper
2x Spear Chukka
1x5 Spider Rider w/musician, sbow (borrowed)

I will place 2 shamans in Herd, 'cos they are ItP and wont flee due to losses. I will fry him with shamans, while my hoppers & spider get close via cover. I dont expect to get close with gobbos, as they will probably flee from fire. All I expect is green magic, hoppers, and WM hunters spiders.

I know that the list is not balanced, fun, logical or friendly for a 1000pts game. But my opponent slaps me for 2-3 games by waiting in his gunline.

What do you tihnk?

[Grupas]

characters can't join squig herds...

also you don't have to put your units in blocks,
you can form a line and move forwards with your nightgoblins (to minimise mortar damage)

[Groznit Goregut]

Having limited models hurts. If you had more options, it would be better. Just getting more goblins would help. Or, if you had more war machines, you could build a better gunline and sit back to shoot him! The hellblaster has limited range and if you don’t get close, you can’t get shot. Rock lobbas, doom diver, and some more spear chukkas would out-shoot him and force him to come to you.

One question is how do you set up terrain? Is it the system of each picking something to put on the board? If so, then his gunline will always have an advantage. I wrote an article a couple Da Warpath Quarterlies ago that had a random system that was fair. It puts terrain in crazy places. This will keep him from always having hills in his deployment zone. It will also make crazy stuff on the table that will block line of sight. Random terrain features and lots of them will help you win games. If he refuses to do anything other than you each picking a piece of terrain, then you can just pick hills and put them in the mid-field. Hills are the best as they don’t slow your movement down, but they block line of sight. If he can’t shoot you until you cross the first half of the table, you will be doing much better.

[Badrug]

@Groznit Goregut: In Turkey, we use card decks. We place cards on the table, and flip them afterwards. So it is randomized. We will play in 48x48” table (as we have a small game), we probably use 3 cards (terrains). I plan to place 2 of them exactly between us and hope they will block LoS.

@Grupas: That rule is mentioned in Squig Hoppers. So no problem with placing heroes in Herd. Forming a line of 1x20 goblins may teach him a good lesson. Thats dirty, but a good advice.

I hate those powerplayers. They force me to play for win. I always propose my opponents to place max 2 heroes, max 3 elites (special/rare) in 1000pts games to prevent Herohammer or Elitehammer. Besides, I dont understand how people enjoy just sitting in a gun line, no tactic/strategy, only rolling for hit dices.

[Groznit Goregut]

Might I suggest you put one in each table quarter and then roll the scatter dice on it? That might help you.

[Grupas]

thnx for pointing out characters can join squig units , no more using savage orcs to shelter my characters from psychology for me now

EDIT: CHARACTERS CAN'T JOIN HERD UNITS

This post has been edited by Grupas on Oct 20 2009, 08:20 AM

[Lord_Viper]

I totally agree with Groznit: you should build yourself a war-machine oriented list and just blow him from afar. Introduce him to the beauty of the Doom Diver, and play with one (or two!) rock lobbas and watch him cry when you wipe out his mortars and x-bowmen !

Don't run into him. Also, is your army fully goblin-themed ? Can you play with orcs ? Their T4 will help a little and will make better opponents if he decides to come to you.

Finally, take notice of the good advice regarding terrains. Hope our comments help you kick that away !

[Badrug]

I am building a night+forest themed Goblin army which will be led by Skarsnik. Right now, I am finishing to paint heroes. Trolls will be next. Afterwards; fast cav, WMs, chariots will be in game. But, I have only 2 chukkas painted.

I know that is hard to play, but the upside is I learn my gobbo's strong and weak spots.

[Badrug]

Btw, no one is complaining about our terrain card deck system.

As you can see, no one can benefit advantage before flipping cards and roll for the table edge. Your only ability is to place 2-3 cards in your will. You should see Empire players' face when they see the "swamp, rocky" terrain instead of hill in their deployment zone.

So my best bet will be putting 2 cards between the players (not within the restricted zone) and hope they will block LoS.

[Charki]

You could also go for a goblin big boss riding a wolf, and charge out at his warmachines. (of course if You're ok with putting an ordinary gobbo into n.g themed list).

This post has been edited by Charki on Oct 17 2009, 02:38 PM

[Badrug]

Revenge of a Goblin is ugly as himself.

My opponent was unlucky that he set up more sensible list than previous ones.
(1 wiz, 1 cap, 2 xbow, 1 mortar, 1 hblaster, 1 swordsman, 1 outrider, 1 archer)

I changed my list a little bit as I could borrow more spidies.
(3 shamans, 2x 25 ng+2 fant, 20 herd, 1 lobber, 3x5 spidies)

The curse of gobbo: His mortar misfired and blowed out in the first turn. Huntsmen charged by spidies, won and pursiut them, so triggered fanatics, panicked from fanatics and fled to table edge. Broken spidies caused lobber crew to panic, so both fled to table edge.

The second spidies in the left flank positioned in the walls and declare charged. Brave marksmen of Hochland peppered them with xbows despite -3 penalty (-2 for hard cover, -1 for SnS)

The outriders who got closer to gobbos are wiped out by Brain Bursta. The xbows on the right flank are charged by 3rd spidies and wiped out.

The hellblaster who moved 8" in 2 turns are charged by n.goblins, wiped out. The chasers pursiut extra 9" so hit to xbows on the left flank. They wiped out the fresh enemy. The swordmen regiment with 2 heroes are blizzarded by 3 shamans, but managed to hold their nerves. Only 1/2 swordman regiment of Empire company survived.

During the whole battlefield, my opponent fired his whole ranged weapons to my herd in hope to make it go wild. My herd which had 2-3 shamans in it, managed to keep in order.

So GOBBOS FOR THE WIN!

[Groznit Goregut]

Sounds great! One problem though. Characters can't join herd units.

Still, it sounds like a great win.

[Badrug]

Everyone keeps warning me about placing charcters in Herd. Thanks for kind warning. But, that restriction is only for Hoppers.

[Groznit Goregut]

I saw that in the Rules thread after I posted. Sorry!

[Gribnit]

You could simply out-gunline his gunline.

You could make/scratch build 4 spear chukka's, 2 lobba's and 2 doom divers from sprues, ice cream sticks, matches, sticks, string and patience.

Hope for first turn and flatten his gunline. His morters are pretty innacurate and his hell blaster has 24 range? and is likely to explode, just deploy out of range and bombard him to death, he will have one of 2 options.

1 try to out shoot you, you have more war machines by a large margin and will still have greater numbers and greater magic is you so wish so chances are he will lose.

2. He will advance, this is great, his army is proberly unsuited to this and will get shot/zapped/fanaticed to death.

Its win win, but the above is, of course all dependant on whether you want to play a shooting heavy army. I love guess range weapons, mostly cos i can guess to within a inch 90% of the time. But you may not.