How to beat MoK Marauder Horde in 8th

[Cruor Vault]

I have been doing the math on a 50 man unit of Marauders with MoK, FC, Great Weapons.

Can anyone figure out how to beat this unit? Without having to spend 600-900ots doing it?

[UltramarineFan]

Right I had to start again with this post coz I got it wrong so it messed everything up but basically I think that 30 warriors with MoK and double hand weapons could do it.

[Foreigner]

Step 1: Read/Learn the supporting Attacks rule

Step 2: ..........

Step 3: Profit?

[Cruor Vault]

I guess...

The numbers still are not that good. Looks like that 30 Man unit of Chaos Warriors is going to be down to 10 or less after the fight, and should cost nearly half again what the Marauders do. Not really a worthwhile expenditure of resources.

Any less expensive ways?

[UltramarineFan]

As far as I can tell there aren't any less expensive ways, the best solution I can come up with is to field a huge horde of your own(as cheap as possible, cheaper than the marauders is the idea) and just keep them locked in combat till the end of time.

[Lord Azaghul]

100 NG with FC spears and nets.

2 Dwarf Cannons.
2 Dwarf stone throwers
1 Block of dwarves

ANYTHING that hits it in the flank

[addamsfamily36]

Hmmm

do you mean how to beat them in combat or jsut in the game?

Using magic, Flames of the phoenix pulled off once or twice - risky i know - but yeh mauraders save is rubbish. mage plus equipment so looking at 185 pts

You could get alot of shooting for the equivalent points cost.

combat hmmm

Unit of high elves with spears.

[Foreigner]

A warspear stegadon could do it.

In theory a Hydra could do it.

Roll well and any stegadon could do it.

[Winter12]

Just use a cheap throwaway unit to the front (a couple of inches away) and move another, ranked unit to the flank. The Horde of Marauders has the choice of charging or standing there. If they charge, they destroy the throwaway unit, then get charged in the flank. If they don't charge they get charged in the flank. Lose/lose.

[Fizyx]

I was under the impression that the models in the rear flanks get at most 1 attack, even with Frenzy.

Yeah, the unit of Chaos Warriors cost more, but they will have more attacks, hitting you on 3's, wounding you on threes and you get no saves. Add in the small parry bonus, and the Chaos Warriors will win every time.

The only issue I have is that a unit of 50 Marauders with Great Weapons, Command and MoK is still under 300 points. That is incredible.

[BrPrometheus]

I think the biggest thing you need to consider is that while you may have 3 full attacking ranks 10 wide against smaler units you will not get to attack with all of the models in those first three rows. I haven't run al of the numbers but I think a smaller frontage but with deep wounds may be able to do well.

The second thing that comes to mind is the fact that at 5 points a model you have no armor and t3 and so you will loose some to shooting on the way in much more likely than other troop types.

I would look at the massed bretonian peaant archers. I do not have the bretonian book in front of me but I believ they are 4 points a peice and so I can get 75 archers for 300 points.

Lets figure in 3 rounds of shooting and then a stand and shoot reaction.

Round 1: Long Range 75 shots 25 hits 12 dead
Round 2: Long Range 75 shots 25 hits 12 dead
Round 3: 1/2 Long Range 1/2 short range 30 shots short 15 hits 8 dead, 35 shots long 12 hits 6 dead
Round 4: Stand and shoot for 30 archers: 10 hit 5 dead

1st round of combat: 18 attacks, 9 hits, 5 dead.

Total killed before merauders strike back: 47.


Game over. Archers win handily as I was playing them as two blocks of 30 and a block of 15.
The only real question is did I have my points cost on the archers correct at 4.

[BrPrometheus]

Just about any good archery unit can do it in 4 turns.

30 high elf archers 330 points

Round 1: Long Range 30 shots, 15 hits, 7 dead
Round 2: Long Range 30 shots, 15 hits, 8 dead
Round 3: Short Range 30 shots, 20 hits, 10 dead
Round 4: Stand and shoot 30 shots, 15 hits, 7 dead

ASF 24 attacks, 18 hits 9 dead.

Merauders remaining to hit back: 9

18 atacks, 9 hits, 8 dead

Merauders: combat res: 9+1 charge+1 banner
High elves combat res: 9+1outnumber +1 rank

Merauders win by 1 for musician highelves test on stubborn for outnumber.

Next round of combat only 9 merauders left so 11 in the front rank and 6 in the back rank can attack:
17 attacks, 13 hits, 6 dead

6 attacks back, 3 hits, 3 dead.

Merauders now loose combat by 3, loose frenzy I believe and will be vaped in the next turn. And basically to accomplish this you just need to set up at 30" instead of 24" if you are going to go first and slightly behind that if you are going to go second.

[Lord Azaghul]

slight correction to your shooting.

Only the first 2 ranks fire, if you have more ranks and you 'volley fire' only half of the following ranks (rounding up) would fire.
So 50 bowmen, 10 wide would have 35 shots.
But your points is made, bigger units aren't always better.

[Nikephoros]

2 hydra? 350 points.

[Lord Azaghul]

Thanks to the new supporting attack rules AND the new Regen Rules, the hydra(s) won’t be too to kill.
Doesn’t mean that they won’t kill a ton a fast cav though!

[quinn]

I love the fact that you guys are assuming you're going to get 3 rounds of clear, unobstructed shooting. How do you figure that? More terrain, being able to march with a Leadership 9 re-rollable test (assuming the WoC General isn't an idiot and keeps his General and BSB close enough) and an average charge of 11" equals 2 rounds plus a stand -and-shoot at the most! You'll still do damage, but I know that I'll be fielding more than one of these units and quite probably three of them.

We have crunched the numbers and right now the most cost effective unit that stands a chance is Night Goblins with Nets. A bit surprising to me, but they have the best chance at a comparable cost.

One more thing, I would definitely expect to see these Khorne Hordes bolstered by Warshrines. The WoC rare choices aren't really that good in my opinion and other than Hellcannons, I'd expect to see 2 or 3 Warshrines pumping up these guys.

[Winter12]

I quite like the 6 Treekin option. They kill about 10 the first round of combat, then 8.75 the next two rounds. That's 27 dead Marauders over three rounds of combat and they'll have lost two models by this point (with another on 1-2 wounds). That's three break tests for the Marauders (probably will pass assuming General & BSB nearby). Another 13.75 kills over the next two rounds and losing the 3rd Treekin model but who cares because by that point ther's only 9 Marauders left and I imagine they'lll be running next turn. It's also worth noting that I assumed the Marauders passed their fear test every round after the first, because if they fail, they last far less time.

Yes, the Treekin cost a few more points (Just shy of 400), but I as we were assuming that the Marauders had both Leadership & BSB support the entire time that seemed reasonable. Plus, I still have a useful unit left. Takes a few turns but they got there in the end.

6 rounds of combat is a long time for a combat to be going on with no support from either side but the Wood Elf player is going to find it a lot easier to throw units in due to the size of the Marauder unit (especially on 25mm bases). Whereas the Chaos player has to find the Treekin unit sitting happily in the middle fighting only 6 Marauders wide (the Treekin unit is only 120mm wide).

I haven't crunched the number but I'm sure Ogres would give a good account of themselves too.

[Tacoo]

Would using Doom and darrkness (-3 ld), following by flank charging with a unit of horsemen with terror from dreadnight spell work?

What about Melkoths Miasma, reduce Inative, then throw a amped up pit of shades?.

Plus there is always get lucky with infernal gateway, curse of the leper, Treson of tzeentch, pandemonium, take your pick of lores, eather you can kill enough so it dont matter, or assault it with a unit buffed to hell in back.

as for melee, im still reletavily new, but would a single tricked out lord/hero work, on a small base he will take very few return attacks, and with a decent word might only take a wound. could tie up the unit for a long turn, and possibly beat it in combat alot since there barly getting any attacks back.

[addamsfamily36]

You know, i'm still voting on high elf mage with flames of the phoenix on this one.

taking the seer staff means can choose the spell.

so a level two at around 165-185 points could do it.

[slxiii]

how about nearly any unit that charges it in the rear? a pair of stone throwers? archers, as others have said.
As far as the LOS with the archers goes, the archers will be volley firing anyways, so it doesnt make too much difference.
Also, assuming you'll have cover also assumes you'll be moving through/around terrain, further slowing you down or causing additional casualties.

Don't think of this unit as a "nothing can beat this with a front charge" unit, because that is a flaw in tactics on your part. Think of it as a reasonably strong unit that can be defeated with the most simple tactics/support. Units do not exist in a void where they attack only one other unit at a time.

[Herald of Nurgle]

You know, i'm still voting on high elf mage with flames of the phoenix on this one.

taking the seer staff means can choose the spell.

so a level two at around 165-185 points could do it.
Not even High Magic. There's a few choices in the basic Lores:
Lore of Life: The Dwellers Below (18+). Every model in unit takes a Strength Test or is slain. 50% of the unit dies.
Lore of Metal: Final Transmutation (15+), Roll a die for each model in unit, on a 5+ they are removed. The unit suffers from Stupidity next turn as do all enemies in 12". Lol
Lore of Fire: Fulminating Flame Cage (11+), Unit takes D6 Str 4 hits. If they move in any way, every model takes a Str 4 hit and then spell ends.

My personal favorite would be to just Thirteenth Spell them. Sooo many Clanrats...

[quinn]

I don't think that anyone thinks that 'nothing can beat this unit' at all. Obviously if you throw a lot of resources at it you can beat it. A lot of us think that for the points, it's a great unit. I'd rather have people spending time and energy worrying about this unit than killing the units that I really rely on.

One important thing that was just mentioned about terrain. It doesn't slow you down anymore, it just potentially kills you. There is no more difficult terrain, just dangerous.

[slxiii]

One important thing that was just mentioned about terrain. It doesn't slow you down anymore, it just potentially kills you. There is no more difficult terrain, just dangerous.

Yes, which is why terrain will either slow you down or kill you. You can walk through it and die, or take your time and walk around it, losing time. Since most units in this edition will be very large, you don't want to lose a quarter of a unit by spending too many turns walking through terrain.

[quinn]

Well, the dangerous terrain really hasn't had much or any impact in the games I've played/watched so far. At least not to big blocks of troops. We certainly haven't rolled every type yet so that may change, but with fairly easy reforms and what I've seen so far it certainly isn't going to be a war-stopper for me.

[Jwolf]

Hellstorm Rockets and Mortars are horrible on units like this. Salamanders are also amazing for killing horde units.

Basically I think that many armies will have no need to fight against units like this. Fielding 3 of them won't see any of them in combat against anything that is scared of them.

Here's a Chaos Lord idea I was working on, with the plan of killing Elf super units. It works fine against these guys, too.

Chaos Lord of Tzeentch. Gold Sigil Sword, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Helm of Many Eyes, Stream of Corruption, Daemonic Mount. Turn 1, I charge and kill the champion (with big overkill), doing an additional 3 wounds from breath into the unit. I can reasonably expect to win this round, ending Frenzy. After round 1 I face 12 attacks, 6 hits, 3 wounds, 33% chance of taking a wound each round (11% if you fail fear). I do 6 wounds a round from the Lord and Mount, winning every round, 27.78% chance to break the unit each round (16.67 if LD9 general is near, a lot less if BSB near as well). On average, you will all die to the Lord before you kill him, and you will lose steadfast after a mere 7 rounds. ;)

[Hatsgames]

I was under the impression that the models in the rear flanks get at most 1 attack, even with Frenzy.

Yeah, the unit of Chaos Warriors cost more, but they will have more attacks, hitting you on 3's, wounding you on threes and you get no saves. Add in the small parry bonus, and the Chaos Warriors will win every time.

The only issue I have is that a unit of 50 Marauders with Great Weapons, Command and MoK is still under 300 points. That is incredible.



Nah, Check out Who Can Strike? on page 48. It'll help explain that supporting attacks are exceptions to normal attacks. Those dudes on the flanks can still get whatever attacks they have in their profile+gear+special rules.

As far as big blocks go...they can be intimidating, but are perfectly manageable.

Even as cheap as those marauder blocks can be, it would be foolish to overdose on them. There are tons of ways to take down hordes, and a lot of them can involve unit combos that cost less than 300pts.

I know that I'm preaching to the choir here by now...y'all have probably done the crazy math on what shooting and magic can do to a block of toughness 3 guys without armor...yikes.
Stone throwers, flame-template attacks, and multi-shot artillery will whittle any of those blocks down in a turn or to easy...not to mention that point-per-point you can get 2 or 3 shooty'death things per horde of marauders.
Magic can be devastating to a block of marauders...panic tests, unit engulfing strength 4 attacks, vortex templates, the works!

Dropping a five wide unit with more ranks than them is entertaining as well. if they sport 5 ranks at 10 wide, you can drop a unit 5 wide with more than 5 ranks. If my math hasn't failed me;

5x 20mm bases will contact 6 wide on the horde...that’s 25 attacks from the marauders. you strike first, each army has its own ways of dealing with strength 5 so put some of those tricks in there!

5x 25mm bases are not as lucky...7 wide for a total of 29 attacks. Good news!!! most large base infantry are harder than the small based infantry, look to your unit's resilience!

Next, and my favorite, redirection! Its easy to keep a horde unit spinning in circles with a few cheap and fast units of cavalry, beasts, or skirmishers. Even in the new rules, its a pain in the neck for a player to work around a 5 man fast-cavalry unit that 'has a death wish'
This age old tactic will continue to be used successfully to keep annoying units outta the way until I want to deal with them.

Use terrain to your advantage. Remember that buildings aid those with a superior stat line. Specifically initiative and attacks become paramount. Since most of the field stands above initiative(last) one advantage is probable. The other is easily found.

Finally I guess a reminder on the proper application of force and influence. If your hitting the block of 300 points with 600+ you should achieve victory. This is not universally true in fantasy as there are plenty of things other than 'killin folk' that you pay for in a unit. BUT- if you apply killing force to a single point of your opponents army it will break.
If you for instance are...well a chariot heavy force with supporting blocks. each of those chariots is over 100pts, and the blocks I run usually hang around 350-400. A block with a pair of chariots the way I run em' can decimate a horde unit on the charge. Sure I'm talking 600pts or so, but I'm also blowing clean through the unit and taking a valuable table position amongst the enemy.

I hope that these ideas help and/or spark some more synapses,
Have fun!

[slxiii]

Hellstorm Rockets and Mortars are horrible on units like this. Salamanders are also amazing for killing horde units.

Basically I think that many armies will have no need to fight against units like this. Fielding 3 of them won't see any of them in combat against anything that is scared of them.

Here's a Chaos Lord idea I was working on, with the plan of killing Elf super units. It works fine against these guys, too.

Chaos Lord of Tzeentch. Gold Sigil Sword, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Helm of Many Eyes, Stream of Corruption, Daemonic Mount. Turn 1, I charge and kill the champion (with big overkill), doing an additional 3 wounds from breath into the unit. I can reasonably expect to win this round, ending Frenzy. After round 1 I face 12 attacks, 6 hits, 3 wounds, 33% chance of taking a wound each round (11% if you fail fear). I do 6 wounds a round from the Lord and Mount, winning every round, 27.78% chance to break the unit each round (16.67 if LD9 general is near, a lot less if BSB near as well). On average, you will all die to the Lord before you kill him, and you will lose steadfast after a mere 7 rounds. ;)


I'm not sure how you'll get additional wounds into the unit during a challenge, perhaps i'm missing something.

In the end though, you are using a lord choice to charge a core choice, far out of range to support the army... and you expect to kill them within 7 rounds. I think you would be far better off having a lord designed to support the rest of your army.
There's also the very high possibility that your opponent has some kind of unit near his other unit, and he flank charges your lord and kills him.

[Jwolf]

Hard to get a charge against a single model in the front of a 10 wide block, and I have an army, too.

The breath weapon hits the unit for 2d6. Rereading, this may be attacks that would fall under the challenge, so I'd hold my breath to round 2. Odds are still very good that I do enough overkill to remove frenzy (I have +1 res for the charge, the unit has static 4, so I need to do 4 wounds between the 5 rerollable hit on 3s wound on 2s, the 2 hit on 4s wound on 2s, and the automatic hit wounding on 2s).

A Chaos Lord that gets stuck into a unit that he can keep beating on for turns in the center of the battle is doing an exactly perfect thing to support his army. He can't be shot there, and less magic can target him there as well. The hardest thing for a WoC general to do is keep killing things and not getting blasted by cannons, spells, and other nonsense. Granted, this is less of an issue against a Khorne WoC army, but I have found that it is often very good to have one of these monsters tied into the first available unit and let the rest of the army benefit from his leadership while he happily carves up some hapless (and now, thankfully stubborn) enemies.

[Majorcrash]

[QUOTE=BrPrometheus;84266
The second thing that comes to mind is the fact that at 5 points a model you have no armor and t3 and so you will loose some to shooting on the way in much more likely than other troop types.


.[/QUOTE]

Not to sure about the math, but I can say that Mauraders with mark of nurgle are about impossible to kill with just shooting. My empire crossbow and handguns, much less archers are barely hiting and by the time I lose the extra -1 for range he's in my face. So far only steamtank and cannons have had much affect. I also tried a horde blcok of swordsman and Then spearmen. Same result. Even if i get the charge thier higher Int spells doom for my troops

[Xas]

besides the already mentioned points (tempaltes, magic, sallies marching & firing into the flanks) the marauder horde also adds a weakness to WoC armies they usually do not posses:

they have a very low power-density.

on a per-points basis they will do much damage to an oponent but if you choose the tools on a per-model (or per-square-inch) basis it is easy to beat them.


as I'm a lizardmen player I can only talk about them but a normal sized (25-30+slan) unit of temple guard 5 wide will be happy to engage them even without the slan's buffs (I realy like the +3T spell or the whole buff-heaven that the lore of light is). beeing hit only on 4s, wound on 3s and still deflecting 1/3 of the damage realy helps witter the storm.

yes, you are takeing up ~1/3 of your army to fight ~1/10 of his army on a per-points basis but you are also practically takeing up ~1/3 of the total battle space that is realistically available if you take tactics into account.
useing 1/3 of my points to secure 1/3 of the field doesnt sound that bad anymore.

[quinn]

A bunch of interesting observations and I've had a few of my own the last couple weeks. My initial thought of running 2-3 big blocks of Marauders has definitely changed quite a bit. Right now I'm running just one big block of these guys with 2 18 man units of Warriors and a unit of trolls. It's more flexible and seems to work a bit better.
Magic and War-machines seem to be the bane of big blocks of Infantry right now, there is some nasty stuff out there. I've added 2 Hellcannons to my force right now (although assembly and painting them is turning into a major chore) and they've done really well. Overall, my WoC army has been undergoing drastic changes, from Cav heavy to Infantry heavy...looking forward to Ardboyz and seeing how well it does.

[tgtony]

One word...Skaven

[carrotcolossus]

Would using Doom and darrkness (-3 ld), following by flank charging with a unit of horsemen with terror from dreadnight spell work?


Wouldn't work because Frenzy means they are Immune to Psychology.

[Duke Rich]

Here's a Chaos Lord idea I was working on, with the plan of killing Elf super units. It works fine against these guys, too.

Chaos Lord of Tzeentch. Gold Sigil Sword, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation, Helm of Many Eyes, Stream of Corruption, Daemonic Mount. Turn 1, I charge and kill the champion (with big overkill), doing an additional 3 wounds from breath into the unit. I can reasonably expect to win this round, ending Frenzy. After round 1 I face 12 attacks, 6 hits, 3 wounds, 33% chance of taking a wound each round (11% if you fail fear). I do 6 wounds a round from the Lord and Mount, winning every round, 27.78% chance to break the unit each round (16.67 if LD9 general is near, a lot less if BSB near as well). On average, you will all die to the Lord before you kill him, and you will lose steadfast after a mere 7 rounds. ;)

Unit of 50 Spearmen, or 15 Swordmasters will be able to take him, don't forget HE's will be attacking before you and (possibly) getting re-rolls, also, if the person you're playing has a mage with lore of life popping the 2 spells for +4 Toughness will no doubt mean you're gonna do nothing.

As for the MoK Marauder horde, why not throw your own marauder horde at it? With MoN instead, more survivable, and then get some Marauder horsemen in on the flank, they'll no doubt lose combat due to the flank charge, lose their Frenzy, then just won't be as good, you'll no doubt have a combat that'll be going on for the rest of the game as well :D

[Jwolf]

That Lord build goes before the Swordmasters, as he has ASF and higher Initiative. Swordmasters hit on 4 and wound on 4, and he two 3+ saves against each wound (assuming he has no blessings that make this worse). A maximized unit of 15 Swordmasters will have13 attacks, hit with 6.5, wound with 3.25, and get a wound through once every 3 rounds of combat - if there are any alive at that point.

Having played several dozen games against Lore of Life, I can assure you that the Swordmasters will not have even +2 toughness unless it is cast irresitably, and will never have +4 toughness in my turn, at the very least. And unless they have the Book of Hoeth (or Teclis), IF castings will inevitably benefit me, due to Puppet and the deadliness of the miscast table. Not to mention that my Lord benefits quite a lot from the Lord of Life, what with the incidental healing he will receive and the occasional +2 toughness. And Dwellers is fantastic against Elves...

[gcsmith]

apart from having to aparntly chose lore in your army list for each wizard - not to sure about this rule.
Teclis would be probably the best counter for this unit. for HE anyway. if you manage to chuck 6 dice for flames then its almost garunteed to irresistable cast, and given teclis doubles dnt miscast and he will ignore the 1st double 6 each turn im quite safe.

[Geist]

Can we get the entire army list? So far all we are doing is this.
Hey look at that painting isnt it aweseome, but wait what is this one tiny blemish, lets focus on this one tiny lil thing and nothing else, many that tiny lil blemish sure is annoying man I hate that tiny lil blemish. This thread is so focused on one unit out of an entire army that the big picture can not be seen. As anyone who plays these games knows, you must have the ability to look at the big picture and not just one aspect.

[HawaiiMatt]

Not to sure about the math, but I can say that Mauraders with mark of nurgle are about impossible to kill with just shooting. My empire crossbow and handguns, much less archers are barely hiting and by the time I lose the extra -1 for range he's in my face. So far only steamtank and cannons have had much affect. I also tried a horde blcok of swordsman and Then spearmen. Same result. Even if i get the charge thier higher Int spells doom for my troops

Flagellants. Take 30, because it's always a good idea to take 30.
If you see a 10 wide marauder horde, reform to be 14 wide(maximizes contact).
Then run right at the marauders.
Martyr on the 1st round.
You'll have 28 attacks from the front rank, 14 from the 2nd rank and 2 from the 3rd rank.
So, you're throwing 44 S5 attacks, re-rolling to hit(and possibly re-rolling to wound).
You've got a good shot at killing them all before they even swing.

Next question,
If I take a warrior priest, and stick him in with 29 knight with great weapons; how do you kill that horde?
It's like the marauder horde, only moves faster, gets horse attacks, re-rolls to hit, and has a 2+ armor save(and a magic banner).

The thing to remember with marauders is that they are on 25mm bases. If you are going to go toe to toe against them with 20mm infantry; go 14 wide and take advantage of your narrow bases.

-Matt