2250 tourney list, all mounted

[beiltan2003]

So heres my list, i was going for an all mounted DE army, looking for advice as im sure it could use some... id dont mind if you have suggestions that would majorly change the list, but if possible keep everyone as mounted as possible.

So here goes:

Lord: Dreadlord on cold one w/ sea dragon cloak, Armor of eternal servitutde, hydra blade, and potion of strength 279


Heroes: Master on cold one w/ heavy armor and sea dragon cloak, BSB w/ hydra banner 206

Sorceress lv 2 on dark steed w/ dispel scroll and darkstar cloak 197


Core: 5 Dark riders w/ musician and repeater xbows 117

5 Dark riders w/ musician and repeater xbows 117

5 Dark riders w/ musician and repeater xbows 117

7 harpies 77

Special: 6 cold one knights w/ champ and SB (joined by master and dreadlord) 194

6 cold one knights w/champ and SB 194

5 cold one kights w/ champ and SB 182

7 Shades w/GW + assasin w/ rune of khain and 2 hand weapons 247

Rare: Hydra 175

Hydra 175


so whats theverdict, i feel like i dont have enough magic but i cant find the points anywhere, i thought about taking out a unit of 5 cold ones but then i feel like im missing hitting power (i was planning on running hydra + small cold one unit x2, then run themasters unit alone)... dreadlord unit is a HUGE point sink i know but has the potential to do 8 S 7 attacks, 13 S 6 attacks, and 12 S4 attacks... which should bust the heck out of even big block units.... is it overkill?

Some other things id considered... getting rid of shades, assasin/GW makes them good in cc and a nice surprise especially as people will probably dismiss the skirmishers while staring at the hydras...
considered giving the assassin the flying cloak but need a foot unit in order to buy him...so he goes if shades do

considered putting master in chariot, doesnt use special spot but then id have to drop the banner and the super killer unit becomes not so killer... but it does give the army a little more oomph

considered adding a black dragon into the list... doable if i drop a unit of cold ones, then would make noble more combat oreinted, loose the banner and give the dreadlord pendant of kaleth and a lance...

could drop a hydra for 2 bolt throwers but those are 25 points more and kinda dont fit the mounted theme...

anyway... advice? suggestions? feel free to tear the list apart

[beiltan2003]

just calculated it out... could drop shades and hydra banner, put master in chariot w/ pendant of kaleth, add a 2nd chariot, and add a sorceress lv 2 on steed w/nothing..... is that better/worse?

[notabot187]

I'm not sure how you are getting the numbers for the DL. Esp the 13 S6 attacks.

Your magic is worthless, even at 1k, let alone 2250. Take a scroll caddy and a ring of hotek if you aren't serious about magic, don't bother if you are just bringing 5 dice.

I personally don't like the list at all, since you are spending way too many points on unit and character upgrades compared to their effectiveness. CoKs are nearly effective run as 5 with no upgrades and characters as they are run with all the trimmings. The champs are especially inefficient. The cost for +1 attack isn't very good. The hydra banner will get you places, but it is an obvious and common trick, expect its unit to be shot and magic missiled to death.

Don't drop the shades. They are really important, esp in army with min shooting like this. But your assassin isn't good at all. CC build on a unit that is mixed purposed? Give him man bane and rending stars. He can fire up to S7 shots that hit on 2s, because the manbane and rending stars stack and he is BS9. Shades are good enough with GW to generate enough kills against things they should be in combat against that the extra choppy assassin isn't needed. Heck with just 3 attacks and manbane at ASF, he contributes enough with just that (stronger than many heroes)

[Intrepid]

DROP THE ASSASSIN! The Shades are the only unit in your list that can hide an assassin at all--your opponent will be forewarned!

I like the dragon idea; it fits your theme. Notabot is right about magic. With the low model count of this list, you'll have serious problems against the magically capable. Do consider the Ring of Hotek and a scroll caddy at a minimum. Null talismans are your friend!

[beiltan2003]

I honestly hadnt heard of that manbane rending trick before but i like it, i think i could pull it off by dropping some champs. The reason i had given the CoK the command and standards is that id have to be breaking static blocks occaisionally and that +1 means 1 less model i need to kill to wint he combat. yous till think itd be worth it to drop all the standards and champs (except maybe from my big block if i can give one the ring of hotek or some shards)....

do i have too many points into heros? if so what should i drop and what would i add with those points?

for the attacks i was getting Dreadlord: base 4, + 3 from hydra blade (ideally), + 1 from rune of kain at st 7 if the strenght potion is used... then the unit would have a noble (3 +1 attacks) a champion (2+1 attacks) and 3 more guys (6 wide gets max into combat vs 5 wide... so that gives me 1+1 x 3 more attacks) which equals 8 st 7, 13 St 6, and then the cold ones, so 12 S4's...

so you guys would advocate taking the sorcerss to lvl 1 making her a scroll caddy and then using the extra points for ring of hotek and shards?

What if i dropped the shades or a unit of cold one knights and added another sorceress and a chariot?

ideally with the list i would just try to ignore things that i couldnt take (big death star blocks, steam tanks etc) and with all my speed id pounce on what i could. Id try to team a hydra and a unit of 5 coK up to work as a team then let the big unit of CoK with the heros run on its own...

[super sorcerer]

b"h
On tournaments, if you take only one wizard then you should give it 2 scrolls and the ring of hotek (perhaps on a champion of cold ones) so you will have enough anti-magic for the first round or two until you can kill some mages.
Personaly, if I go mounted I would go for a dragon against death stars. If your opponent will expose the flank of his deathstar to your dragon he might loose that unit (and then you would probably win by massacre). If your opponent will try to never expose the flanks of his deathstar to the dragon it will realy limit their movement, making it easier to evade them.
About how many sorceresses you should use, it simply depend on which lists do you expect to play against.

[notabot187]

I honestly hadnt heard of that manbane rending trick before but i like it, i think i could pull it off by dropping some champs. The reason i had given the CoK the command and standards is that id have to be breaking static blocks occaisionally and that +1 means 1 less model i need to kill to wint he combat. yous till think itd be worth it to drop all the standards and champs (except maybe from my big block if i can give one the ring of hotek or some shards)....

do i have too many points into heros? if so what should i drop and what would i add with those points?

for the attacks i was getting Dreadlord: base 4, + 3 from hydra blade (ideally), + 1 from rune of kain at st 7 if the strenght potion is used... then the unit would have a noble (3 +1 attacks) a champion (2+1 attacks) and 3 more guys (6 wide gets max into combat vs 5 wide... so that gives me 1+1 x 3 more attacks) which equals 8 st 7, 13 St 6, and then the cold ones, so 12 S4's...

so you guys would advocate taking the sorcerss to lvl 1 making her a scroll caddy and then using the extra points for ring of hotek and shards?

What if i dropped the shades or a unit of cold one knights and added another sorceress and a chariot?

ideally with the list i would just try to ignore things that i couldnt take (big death star blocks, steam tanks etc) and with all my speed id pounce on what i could. Id try to team a hydra and a unit of 5 coK up to work as a team then let the big unit of CoK with the heros run on its own...

Null talismens are meh, they don't work against spells that dont target, like undead magic, most of gut magic, a number of utiltiy spells that can still screw you, and pretty much all defensive spells that can mess you up. Heck it doesn't even work against dark magics number 6 spell, since you just place the template.

As for the whole standard thing, small units of CoKs aren't hard to kill. You lose their unit cost and if its in CC when it died, give up 100 points for the banner. So adding a bunch of points to a unit isn't a good idea. CoKs aren't chaos knights, blood knights, or even bretonian deathstar knight units. They are a very fragile hammer unit meant for specific roles. Sure you can make the super unit of death, but since you made it so small it won't survive anything hitting back. You didn't even make it as lethal as it could be. I only ever take Standards if i plan on using a magic banner. Do you know what is better than +1 to combat? another +1 (war banner), or another +d3(standard of slaughter), or giving the unit ASF (hag graef).

About champs: they are too expensive for that additonal attack. They cost as much as the Std bearer, but that +1 attack doesn't always make +1 CR... I only ever take champs if they are holding some magic trinket like a null stone, ring of hotek, or something else.

Do you wish to know the ultimate version of the CoK unit of doom? Its dreadlord as above, hydra banner, champ (maybe give him death piercer for laughs, he will end up with 4 attacks) std of hag graef or slaughter (personal taste) and run them 6 wide. Give them cauldron of blood back up for +1 attack or KB. They will slaughter everything, including occasionally blowing through a full unit of daemons in 1 turn, even nurngle. Or they get blown up by a spell, or go stupid and die to getting shot and magiced.

The important thing to know about running a CoK army, is that every unit with cold ones is stupid, and will fail 1 out of 6 stupidity tests (the Ld 10 with DL helps a bit here, but its not that big an improvement) Its not a big deal if you've kept the units cheap, as when they hit, they hit hard. If you lose some to stupidy, oh well, you have other units. When your army is nothing but unreliable stupid units, and you spent a large amount of points on each unit, the stakes for each stupidity test go up.

[super sorcerer]

b"h

and will fail 1 out of 6 stupidity tests (the Ld 10 with DL helps a bit here, but its not that big an improvement)

It becomes 1 out of 12 instead of 1 out of 6, how cutting chances by half is not a big improvement?

When your army is nothing but unreliable stupid units, and you spent a large amount of points on each unit, the stakes for each stupidity test go up.

Did you know that the animosity test of orcs&goblins also fail 1 out of 6 times? It didn't stop my orcs&goblins most of the times. All you have to do is to preapare yourself for the posibility that not all of your unit will act this turn.

[beiltan2003]

so i guess i thought the point of posting army lists was for you guys to help me improve my list rather than just rag on my army, ... So i dont have enought magic, the deathstar unit is too small etc... HOW DO I MAKE IT BETTER???

so far removing the command and changing the assasin are about all that ive gotten from this thread aside from some just vauge not specific suggestions...

are there other units i should be taking? have i spent points in places i shouldnt? How do i make the mounted list work better?

[notabot187]

b"h

It becomes 1 out of 12 instead of 1 out of 6, how cutting chances by half is not a big improvement?


Did you know that the animosity test of orcs&goblins also fail 1 out of 6 times? It didn't stop my orcs&goblins most of the times. All you have to do is to preapare yourself for the posibility that not all of your unit will act this turn.

O&G are an army that has cheap units that have large model counts. It also has quite a few unit. There is a big difference between having a 30 strong goblin or orc unit pick their nose than a 5-6 strong CoK unit that costs twice as much (if you include the command and characters, its gets to be like that) When you play O&G, you expect to have them be a bit dumb, GW designed them to be a ragtag comedy horde list. When you play DE, you are expecting an army that is one of the elite armies that win with finesse and brutatlity. Not an army that goes dumb and costs you games.

@beiltan2003:

Do you just want a better list? I can easily do that. Do you want magic character heavy, or combat character heavy? Do you want 1 hydra or 2? How about dragons or manticores?

As for the spending points where you shouldn't.... that is what we were talking about, no?

Here, I will just make a list that I consider to be optimal for what I *think* you are trying to do. If im wrong, just let me know. I can make more.

This list is strong magic, but not overwhelming, its still all mounted, but with a bit less of the trying to be brettonians.

Supreme sorceress: focus familiar, scroll, dark pegasus, lvl 4 ~ 360
sorceress: dark steed, lifetaker, tome of furion ~ 192
Master: BSB, full mundane armor, cold one, lance ~ 214
Master: general, blood armor, shield, cold one, pendant of khaeleth, lance, SDC

5 dark riders: music, rxb ~ 117
5 dark riders: music, rxb ~ 117
5 dark riders: music, rxb ~ 117

5 CoKs: music, std, banner of hag graef (asf banner) ~ 194
5 Coks: music, std, banner of slaughter ~ 194
5 shades: GW ~ 90
assassin (goes in shades) manbane and rending stars ~ 145

war hydra ~ 175
war hydra ~ 175

This list violates some of the advice I've given, particullary on the CoKs units. I went for two strong units, rather than 1 strong and 2 ok ones. I went with strong magic so you have good offensive ranged potential, and good enough defense. I went with 2 hydra, as this is meant to be a tourney list.

They masters are each in their own units. The bsb goes in the ASF unit, so even if they get charged by something dangerous, they will go first. Most of the time you don't see ASF on cold ones, so it can be a surprise if your events play with magic item secrecy. The general goes in the Std of slaughter unit. His job with his 1+ starting, but gets better save and rediculous ward save is to be a challange monkey against oppossing characters. Most characters that can get past a 1+ save, can't get past the ward. His unit on the charge can deliver some pain, not to mention some free extra CR. Don't expect this unit to last overly long when they fail to break a unit though.

Hydras are important for their flame template. Mounted lists have a hard time breaking up big formations and skirmers in woods. Fire breath does a neat job on those.

I left the shades in since they are perfect for taking out support units. The assassin can take out chartiots and monsters with his stars of doom, and the shades have good BS WS, and GW to take out war machine, light cav, and archer units. Together there isnt' much that they can't reasonably counter short of main block units or elite heavy cav.

A much as it hurts, I couldn't find room for the harpies. Honestly I don't think they are really needed in mounted list, since their purpose is to give you extra speed and war machine hunting. A problem that I think a mounted list already has handled (the slowest unit is a scouting one that can take most support units on by themselves)

This is a bit more character heavy than I would have liked, and low model count, but mounted armies often end that way.