Casket of Souls

[willadams33]

I have read alot on this forum about people putting down the Casket of Souls. I am here to champion it. At best it will win the game on its own (especially against lower Ld armies). At medium it will take out one think a turn which will help you (like a war machine or a fast Cav. unit). At worst it makes your opponent save 2-3 dispel dice per turn and/or scrolls, which allows your move important raising and movement incantations to go through and makes him cast at -1 and causes terror. I always use one with a basic Liche Priest on it (never put your Hierophant on it) and people crap themselves when they see it. The only major drawback is that is takes up a rare slot, but I can live with only one catapult.

[Palos]

I will agree to the Casket being a nasty little trick.
In my last two games(Orcs and High elves) it destroyed more than its value and remained untouched. I've had games where it did much more damage too, but the damage is not super reliable; rather random.
I feel, and many who don't even like the thing seem to agree to this, that it draws dispell dice away from the the liches other incantations.
Anything that makes your opponent indecisive is excellent. A good propaganda machine.
{goofy}
It creates fear & doubt, at least against the people I've used it. It can become a real decoy too, with opponents wanting to destroy it just for its potentail to cause harm, but the down side is that, like other missle weapons, it can foul up your own movement if you favour it too much. I
guess that falls under deployment and manouvering though...
Anywho. Huzzah for the CASKET of SOULS!

[strewart]

I find its LoS gets blocked a lot by my own army.. The first turn I begin advancing, my units block it for all except straight ahead. Especially if there is a bit of terrain around.

It is definitely powerful though, great to combine with a catapult so the liche can make it shoot twice a turn. It rarely kills much with me, the spell hardly ever gets off, but since it draws dispel dice it allows my other incantations to work, which is fantastic because that can do things like put my units into an opponents flank at exactly the right moment. My other incantations are at least as deadly as the casket itself on most turns.

[willadams33]

Two Solutions to your LOS problem.
1) Put it on high ground if you have any
2) If you don't have high ground put it right in the middle and front of your battleline and leave a decent bit of space between it and your nearest friendly unit. This will either make your opponet scatter from the center of the battlefield or fire everything he has at it, thus protecting the rest of your army. Either way the effect is positive, but always use high ground if you can.

[Palos]

Two Solutions to your LOS problem.
, but always use high ground if you can.

Yeah, a hill can be a boon, but equally and obviously, a curse. Against magic heavy armies or shooting types, that hill can be a death trap.

I reiterate and paraphrase my previous statement, that deployment and manouvers must figure into your plan with the casket. If you ending up blocking the LOS to the casket, than you didn't have a solid plan with it. Look at your army and the battle field. Decide how future turns might play out. Who will go when and where. If you screw up your own plans(with the casket), you are probably reacting to the foe rather than carrying the inititive.

[MobiusPrime]

I find its LoS gets blocked a lot by my own army.. The first turn I begin advancing, my units block it for all except straight ahead. Especially if there is a bit of terrain around.

I used to have this problem. The key to solving it is to play more defensively. Keep your army back for a few turns and use the casket to draw the enemy to you (It's the same design as taking warmachines in a dwarf list to bring the enemy close so you can kill him with ironbeards, or whatever they're called). If you put your fighting characters in archer units, you won't waste incantations, and might even draw one or two dispel dice out of your opponent to keep from getting shot, this usually leads to getting the light of death to go off. Then when the enemy closes, fall back your fighting characters to join big blocks of skeletons ready for combat.

You also want the rest of your army to stay relatively near the casket because you want to be able to utilize the priest's spell when it counts (like if everything's in combat, you may want to heal instead of cast smite on the nearby catapult).

[eirik]

I think the Casket is one of the nastiest Items/war machine in the whole game. I played 6000 points against orc. Most of the time it where dispelled, but that one time it worked it took out more than half of the orc artillery, and thinned down most of the orc units.

[MobiusPrime]

I think the Casket is one of the nastiest Items/war machine in the whole game. I played 6000 points against orc. Most of the time it where dispelled, but that one time it worked it took out more than half of the orc artillery, and thinned down most of the orc units.

This is a good point. The larger the game, the more effect the -1 to cast will have. Not to mention that if the Casket does go off, there are more units that are likely to be looking at it, also, the area of effect of the leadership of the general probably can't reach everyone to help them out against the Light of Death.

[Ereius]

Its not that simple. I personaly love it and have used it alot the problem is:

you have a model of over 300 points that can not move a good player will take it out by turn 2/3 and there is absolutly nothing you can do to prevent it. Miners + anvil in case of dwarfs and by by 300 points. The worst thing about it is that you dont lose 300 points your magic becomes ineffective completely cause you lsoe 2 2d6 incatanions. and the way i play no magic = problem.

So what we need is ways of protecting it somehow. the way i do is i have a very fast army 4 units of 3 chariots, 4 scorpions king + prince on chariot + 2 lp casket & catapult. So basicaly there is no chance im gona let flierts or fast cavalry get to it, my cahriots are fast enough to take them out. the problem is with units that come from table edge and tunneling units. i.e beasts, skaven, dwarfs.