The Empire's New Monstrous Cavalry, What counters would you employ?

I stumbled upon the new monstrous cavalry from the new empire book and found myself a bit baffled as to what I can use against that new threat.

They have an Armor save of 1+ and because they are monstrous, we can't killing blow them. So, what to take to counter them?

the casket of souls is one possibility I see, it can soften them up a bit. But with Empire there are a lot of important targets (mainly the cannons and their other old and new warmachines and chariots, including the stank). So I think our poor casket will be absolutely overloaded with vital targets.

Stalkers? they have initiative of 3, so they can be of use to circumvent armour, but they will only wound on 6es.

Our own 65 points Necro Knights? Well... at least they win in the cost department, but without being able to make use of their KB, their poorer save will probably make an end of them. Besides the gryphon has armourpiercing attacks (if I remember right, I don't have my book at hand)... Unless Magic swings the battle in our favour, I don't see our snakes winning the day.

Tomb Guard? Well, not so enthusiastic about it.

My best option I can think of right now is our 2 sphinx (sphinxes? sphinxi?) to block them for 1, 2 rounds, but In the end they'll probably lose or will have been shot to death before they can actually reach that combat.

So, I find myself at my wit's end. Without wanting to create a thread about possible cheesyness or over- or underpriced units of the new book, I would like to ask you guys what your answer to them would be. What praticable tactics are open to us?

I fully expect one opponent of mine to field at least 6 of them in the foreseeable futur :-)

our knights ar ethe one thing that will never stand a chance against the demigryphs. 30 TG halberd attacks will kill 2 demigryphs on avarage. at the same time the demigryphs haven't got much attacks (12, possibly some stomps) and won't be steadfast, so to demigryphs, TG are a great anvil. a sphinx won't do much but will at least hold them; necrosphinx is always fun because of the HKB, so your opponent might be scared of it, allowing you some controll over its movement. also: with LD 8, terror is an option(not a certainty), making sphinx charges little more interesting.

an in the current optimism around high str shooting: the bowlossus will have a fun time with these guys, he's the perfect match, especially if he gets a stake in the flank of the unit, but then again the bowlossus will always be an if-if-if kinda guy.

they are only st 5 beasts and st 4 riders. people are in agreement that taking halberds on them is pointless as it only affects the 1 attack the rider has. I say UBI with GW to smash their faces. or a colossus on the charge. either will do well against them. It's funny that they get the new 50x75 base size. ranking them up is stupid as the riders only have 1 attacks. I wish we had those bases for our snake surfers. I'd take them in a heartbeat if we could easily run 2 ranks of 4.

Might be a lot of points but what about six chariots and a bsb witj the razor standard? Str 5 impact at -3 to their nice 1+. I do longer the idea og ushabti with gw or the1 colossus with gw. On a good day they could make short work.

The don't have that many attacks or static CR, so a warsphinx would be likely to last against them. They'd be at a slight advantage, though: 12 attacks hitting on 4's and wounding on 6's is 1 wound on average, while the warsphinx only manages 7/9 wounds on average.

Ideally, pinning with a warsphinx and charging in with a GW colossi seems to be the best way in CC. If the colossus support charges, it will probably only face 4 attacks, wound it on 5's and 6's, while dishing out about 3 wounds itself.

Mass infantry with WS5 or 6 would also grind them down: 30 S3 attacks is almost 2 wounds, while 4 demigryphs would "only" manage about 8 wounds. Add another wound by a royal, and they'd lose a demigryph. Add +3 for ranks -1 for charge and you'd crumble 3 more skeletons. From there it would be uphill for the demigryphs. It would take a 150 point prince and 50 skellies to pull it off, though (400 points vs 240 points)

i think shooting them with the stalkers is the best option. No armoursave and auto hit reallyy good chances here

indeed this is quite good. I made a little quick counting in my head and mathhammer sais the stalkers will put out 2,5 wounds per shooting phase so it will be ~5wounds before you get charged unless the demigryphs charge another unit the turn direct after you apear, now the question is, is that enough. i'm not sure.

I agree. People get too hung up on needing sixes to wound more often than not with these guys. Bypassing to hit and armor save rolls really brings them back into the good side of the equation.

They only problem is how they enter play. Unless you are Veritas or can channel his spirit, there's no guarantee the Stalkers will appear when and where you need them.

I agree. People get too hung up on needing sixes to wound more often than not with these guys. Bypassing to hit and armor save rolls really brings them back into the good side of the equation.

They only problem is how they enter play. Unless you are Veritas or can channel his spirit, there's no guarantee the Stalkers will appear when and where you need them.

you could always take the hidden sands banner but that's another 175 points and will only be good in EBtS based list. also remember that there is always the risk to miscast.

But yeah they look like the best choice I can come up with right now, perhaps the catapult but it will sadly only be able to take out one gryph each turn.

I agree. People get too hung up on needing sixes to wound more often than not with these guys. Bypassing to hit and armor save rolls really brings them back into the good side of the equation.

+1 to that
evenly matched infantry close combat will often mean 4's to hit, 4's to wound, 5+ remaining armor save, which results in an kill-expectancy of 0.166667
that happens to be the same for a stalker 'shot', with the sole exception that no matter how elite the model you attack (T6, 3+AS), stalkers will perform the same (save for wardsaves). very tombkingy, very reliable output, (except that, indeed, they first have to survive their other special rules )

In that sense, stalkers are what bowshabti should have been: specialist shoorters to take on the targets our regular archers can't put a dent in. The kill-expectancy of one stalker vs demigryps(~1.166 wound/gaze) is about 4 times that of ten regular archers (~ 0.278), and that of a single bowshabti is even 2x worse (~0.138)

I'd probably try to deal with them in the same way I deal with mournfang cav: the casket of souls. If they are outside the general's bubble then they are going to be testing on Ld 8. If they are within the bubble, then you are most likely going to have several good targets to bounce to.

If you can manage to take out a few models they become much less scary. They have very little static combat res and no ranks, so if they ever wiff on their attacks, they are going to break and run.

I think when people do, that's when mine scatter; I have finite resources!

It's a unit of T4, 3W, 1+ save models. How else does one deal with such a thing? Anything that ignores their strengths, obviously. Stalkers, the Casket, the Necrosphinx in a pinch (S10 will cause a wound!), characters with the Obsidian Blade, the Lore of DEATH. All of these either ignore their armor, their multi-wounds, or external Leadership bonuses.

T3, actually, right? Don't MCav use the rider's T?

T3, actually, right? Don't MCav use the rider's T?

It's T3 alright.

What about a great sword Collosus? S.8 can make mincemeat out of any armour save.

T3, actually, right? Don't MCav use the rider's T?

yes they are T3.

you see where this is going. archers

yea

shoot them with archers since everything in our army works great against their basic troops. your archer maybe need to shoot at the warmachines but i doubt they will have range...

even a unit of chariots can easily pop one demigriph model only with impacts.

- another reason to take a gw colossus.

- purple sun doesnt work because of the demigriphs I4.

- necrosphinx/warsphinx doesnt work because the 12A wounds on 6+ wins over 5/4A wounds on 2+ and a 3+ as afterwards.

- obsidian blade is not a basic_gear for our heroes.


mournfang are way better then those chickens. they are T4, they have a little worse as and a 6+ ward, they have impacts and they rroll their 1s as, wards, to hit, to wound. cmon
and i didnt see anyone complain in previous 5 months................


so to sum up what works against KFC knights:
- archers
- gw colossus (cast a hex -1S -1T in order to increase the chances of keeping your colossus alive those 2 rounds)
- DoE (with djef casted; preferably with ramhotep to gain +1A and very important rroll to hit)
- chariots (with smiting) only against units of 3 KFC knights
- ushabti with great weapons/bows
- casket
- tomb guard with halberds
- -D3S/-D3T fixes everything
- stalkers
- bow colossi (no as hooray)

the thing that really bothers me is 7 reiksguard knights are ~ the same cost as demigriphs but are stubborn! a pain in the gluteus maximus. sure we got KB all over the corner but hey! 1+ save + Ld8 stubborn

So it is; I always thought you simply used the highest, like you would in a Characteristic Test, where you'd use the 4.

Plus, this one tells me to use the 4 except for close combat:

*shrug*

I'll take the T3 now though! Slam it with some Desiccation and Soulblight and you'll force more than enough saves to cause damage.

Mournfang are not inherently better than the new knights. The Mournfang's biggest plusses are its impact hits, M8, and 7 attacks per model. In other words, it crushes weakly armored units. Sadly, TK fits the bill.

However, it suffers from low initiative (I2), lower WS, lower LD (LD7), and costs 12 points more per model once you give it heavy armor and an ironfist. In other words, it is more susceptible to common "answers" which are LD tests (panic) and initiative tests.

Demigryph Knights are much better suited at killing premium units by hitting on 4s at worst (3s against WS3 monsters). Back to the point, our army has no answer that can fight the DK straight up. A straight up fight against 30 TG is unlikely as the DK are more maneuverable and 30 TG cost as much as 4 DK plus a Hurricanum OR a warrior priest on horse. At that point, we're going into combined arms theory, which I think is the point of Empire armies now. (Speaking of which, Hurricanum and 4 DKs against 30 TG in horde formation would result in the unit being utterly crippled. DKs kill 7, riders kill 3.5, chariot adds 3 wounds, stomp adds 3 wounds, while taking about 3 wounds back, leaving about 5 models for the TG. The math doesn't get much better with additional characters as the DK would add a Warrior Priest for Hatred, getting a very similar result that offsets the higher WS).

So back to the point... we need magic to win. Specifically Lore of Light or Death. WS10 will neutralize their attacks. Spirit Leech/Purple Sun will cripple them. Nehekara magic is pants against them unless Dessication gives them -2/-2, at which point, we can fight them with ranks.

Barring magic, take a flank and beat them through static res. Just make sure you catch them.

Had Ushabti bows been no AS, that might work. -3AS means they still save half their wounds. In 2 turns, they will be in combat.

And for all those saying the Casket will have too many juicy targets that it might not bounce to... Remember that you can take two Caskets now. Sure, the magic boost will only apply once (though in a larger area) but you'll have two Light of Deaths.

So, like many problems...don't try. It's foolish, when we have so many things that can kill at a distance.

Or Stalkers, or any monster except the crappy warsphinx...

I'm on an ushabti kick right now so I'm going to suggest using them with a couple buffs. Dessication is key though you can get away with not using it.
Now, a brick of 'shabti is expensive so you'll have few points after you've purchased them and a couple of level 4's. So what else goes in the list? Archers and warrriors. If you want a TP in the list, bring a unit of 60 warriors, if not, go with speedbumps, it works.
Don't knock it 'til you try it. Mathammer isn't everything. Alot of units/combos/ideas in the game look good on paper but once you've tried them out, they might not seem like such a good idea afterall.

nice thread so far, there are definitely some interesting ideas... and I learned that you take the rider's toughness (horray).

With toughness 3 I guess our archer's wouldn't be out of the question for popping the one or other wound on them. I guess these guys are a threat, but we seem to have more counters than I thought at first glance. Can't wait to put it all to the test :-)

Personally I would basicaly only go for magic on them or the SSC. (if I was dumb enough to use one.)

Either hex their movement, net them with light or outright Purple sun 'em.
Casket is the way to go. Really if you have two caskets and doom and darkness. - I know you can't double light 'em but you can focus one casket on something els and suck away DD and then their gryphs. You will be sucking up their DD like there was no tomorrow.

'Cause we got so much els we have to focus on, with really everything. So with the casket(s) which you would probably have anyway could wreck havoc on them or anything els. And not "waste" points going for a counter just for the gryphs.

Ouch time! The probably cost lots of points? Nasty.

Necrosphinx could slow them down but not stop them.. having a smaller base would limit the attacks against it. I like the idea of using posion attacks on them, that ignores armor right? so you get 3 posion attacks per necropolis-knight, who have a pretty juicy armor save themselves.

Don't forget those lovely little bugs, Tombswarms have 5 posion attacks per base and only need a min of 2 bases for a unit, 80 points for 10 posion attacks, entombed beneath the sands on a lovely large base to flank on ..

i hate to disappoint you, but poisoned attacks allow armour saves. they skip the 'to wound roll'.