I am thinking of changing from SA to BH for an upcoming 8 man team tournament. Typically, I will play with 2x Gortachs but with the meta heavy towards VC with 2 horrors, VS with their multiwound shooting and demon, HBE with seaguard and Warriors with flying dragon/herald magic missiles, I don't know if their unarmoured wounds is the way to go.
Additionally, we can likely expect lots of single model units (horrors, dreadmills, dragons etc) so without gortachs to kill those, what else do BH have that is fast enough and strong enough... how about centaurs?
Here's the first test list:
530 - Beast Lord, General, Razortusk Chariot, Shield, Heavy Armour (Basalt Infusion), Beast Axe (Fatal Folly), Talisman of Shielding
480 - Soothsayer, Wizard Master, Druidism, Seed of the Dark Forest, Inscribing Burin
360 - Beast Chieftain, Greater Totem Bearer, Shield, Battle Standard Bearer, Heavy Armour (Wild Form), Hand Weapon (Hero's Heart)
290 - Centaur Chieftain, Throwing Weapons, Light Armour (Destiny's Call), Paired Weapons 320 - 3 Raiding Chariots
282 - 24 Wildhorn Herd, Shield, Standard Bearer, Musician, Champion
104 - 8 Feral Hounds
104 - 8 Feral Hounds
95 - 10 Mongrel Raiders
495 - 15 Centaurs, Great Weapon, Standard Bearer (Flaming Standard), Musician
486 - 14 Centaurs, Great Weapon, Standard Bearer (Banner of Speed), Champion
482 - 22 Longhorn Herd, Halberd, Standard Bearer, Musician, Champion (Totem Bearer (Black Wing))
160 - 10 Longhorn Herd, Ambush, Halberd
160 - 10 Longhorn Herd, Ambush, Halberd
152 - 6 Gargoyles
4500
I played against Lawrence you took a basically 1-off-everything approach with the new ID. His descriptions, not mine! However, I can agree - the new ID is pretty ridiculous. You compare Gortach vs Titan, Centaur vs Taurkh and the ID troops are clearly head and shoulders better. Good thing BH have the best shooting/magic to make up for the combat lack...
530 - Prophet: General, Master, Pyro, Ashuruk, Tablet of Zer, Obsidian stone
300 - Vizier: BSB, Shield, Flintlock, Ring of Desic, Gauntlets of Mad, Flaming Banner
391 - Infernal Warriors (20): FCMD, GW, Aether Icon
320 - Citadel Guard (15):Mus
385 - Citadel Guard (15): Mus, Flintlocks
160 - Shackled Slaves (20): Mus, Shields
648 - Immortals (23): FCMD, Pride of Zal, GW
220 - Taur Enf (5):Mus, Shield
300 - Lolmassu
190 - Vassal Cav(5):Mus
110 - Vassal sling
160 - Gunnery Team: Naptha, Cluster Munit
180 - Gunnery Team: Rockets, Ether Cloud
245 - Artillery: Titan Mortar, Ether
360 - Citizen Giant: Big Brother, Stupid Shield
Spoils of war/frontline clash. ID went first.
Strategy was:
1. Stay back out of range for first turn shooting, the army is fast enough to move up after, however I will push ahead 1 unit to try for an early charge on a gunnery team.
2. Centaurs on both flanks aren't scared of much so should push up without issue.
3. Longhorns are likely going to need to fight his immortals in the middle and I suspect druidism can help them do it alone, if I can't line up a flank charge to help.
4. Spoils is to my advantage here, I have enough fast scoring I should be able to grab 1 or 2 objectives early.
Most of the list I've used many times before (chariot lord, raiding chariots, gargoyles, hounds, ambushing longhorns). The testing components are:
I've used 1 unit of GW centaurs to good success. However, that was in support of 2 Gortachs. Now that I have 2 units, are they punchy enough to do the work alone?
The medium sized unit of longhorns are somewhat of an anvil, but don't have alot of bodies to lose. Are they (and their Chieftain) tough enough to hold the middle. I've tried big units before but they were also terribly unsuccessful. Is the smaller unit the right price-point where they can hold just long enough for the centaurs to help.
After deployment. Centaurs on the left vanguard up to push his tarukhs. Centaurs on right start drunk. Everything in the middle is huddled behind the Seed of the Dark Forest, and the general is out of LoS of rocket battery. The only shooters in range for T1 are the rocket battery, bolt thrower and titan cannon. I push up a unit of dogs into the ruins. The hard cover should keep them safe enough from light shooting, but I hope to 1.) pull his fire magic towards them (and off other targets), 2.) maybe his flame gunnery team misfires and 3.) if he fails to kill them all, I will throw a quick charge at the flame gunnery team as it can't flee.
T1 ID
On the left, the tauruks turn around and move away. Everything else mostly moves up, but he stays out of charge ranges. Magic puts 3 wounds on the longhorn unit but otherwise whiffs and the hounds are left unscathed. Unfortunately, the flame team doesn't misfire and finishes them off. The artillery fails to hit this round.
T1 BH
The remaining unit of hounds throws a charge at the vassal cavalry flank, hoping they will flee out of BSB range. They run, and go 12", landing out of BSB range. Centaurs on the left push as far as they can go (speed banner helps here). Centaurs on the right move up to threaten the giant, but stay at a long distance to the supporting warriors beside him. The wildherds also creep up but stay at a long distance to the giant. The middle board moves up into the Seed of the Dark Forest. The general remains out of LoS of the rockets. The gargoyles move up into the ruin to threaten a long charge, similar to the hounds from last turn. Magic also whiffs for the BH, and doesn't get off any spells.
T2 ID
Unfortunately the vassal cavalry rally on their own leadership, and chaff the left centaurs. The ID player debates pushing hard in the middle, but elects to hold back for another turn and shoot. Magic gets off the DT spell but is otherwise dispelled, meaning the gargoyles are safe. The flame battery tries to kill them but whiffs. The rocket launcher shoots at the centaurs on the left. The titan cannon failed to hit for a second time.
T2 BH
The centaurs on the left charge and kill the vassal cavalry in front of them. Because of clever placement, the centaurs were forced to corner clip so only the Chieftain was in B2B. This was not a problem for him, who killed all 4. This luckily avoided an awkward restraint roll, and they turned to the center.
The gargoyles charge the flame battery, hoping to kill it and get an over-run into his wizard behind. Unfortunately, they prefer to roll an entire batch of 2's and fail to do anything.
The chariots charge on a 7 against his wizard's unit but fail to make it, and take 2 hits in return on stand and shoot. I wasn't confident they would win against the citadel guard, I was just wanted something to tie him up to limit magic missiles.
Both units of ambushers arrive on the board, and get ready to kill warmachines.
The right centaurs elected not to charge anything this turn, and instead moved up to sit on top of the right most spoils. By doing so, they left medium charges to the giant (9) and warriors (7). A little risky doing this without magic support, but I hoped only 1 would make it in, and I needed to be aggressive to give the ambushers room behind them.
The longhorn also moved up to sit on their objective in the middle. Magic was more effective and healed back 4 longhorns and put on stoneskin on them. Unfortunately, the DT spell came down and killed all 4 longhorns back, put a wound on the BSB, put a wound on the general, 2 on the chariots and 4 mongrel raiders behind them. The stoneskin is huge, and gives me confidence the longhorns can hold the middle for a while. This is great... as I haven't done a great job of setting up counter-chargers so they are on their own...
T3 ID
Lots of charges this turn. The wizard and citadel guard flank the unlucky gargoyles, and kill them. His immortal warriors take the bait and charge the longhorns. The Chieftan kills his champ in a challenge, and the longhorns and immortals trade 5-6 wounds on each other.
On the right, both giant and warriors charge the centaurs but the BH are lucky today, and only the giant makes it in. Even worse for ID, the slaves fail their leadership roll and are useless to chaff this turn. The centaurs are the ideal match-up here and take 3 wounds but do 6 in return. The giant is bounced off the board so the centaurs luckily hold pursuit. Shooting sees a lucky bolt thrower shot through the flank of the ambushing longhorns, killing 4 of them and panicking them, saving himself from a charge next turn!
T3 BH
Even more charges! The left centaurs charge and kill the chaffing taurukhs. The remaining ambushing longhorn kills the titan cannon. On the right, the centaurs ignore the warriors and charge across the field against his citadel guard. They flee, but don't go far enough and are caught. The wildhorns show a bit of bravery and cross paths with the centaurs, to charge the flank of the warriors, who also flee.
The damaged chariots charge through the ruin to get into the flank of the immortals but only do 2 wounds. The general charges the wizard and his citadel guard on a 7, but like the chariots last turn... also fails and takes a wound from stand and shoot in return.
Fortunately, druidism is successful again and gets off stoneskin as well as a blooded horn totem. With its help the longhorns grind down the immortals, doing 8 wounds for another 5 in return. The Chieftan challenges his Vizier and does 2 and takes none in return. The immortals run, and the remaining chariot pivots to get into the flank of his wizard's unit. At this point, we called it with the BH having 2 objectives and full combat units and many of ID chased down.
Thoughts:
Some of these new maps are really annoying for ruins. This particular ruin caused a lot of grief for the chariots who are much slower than I remember. It may have been better to simply ignore the rocket battery (staying in the forest) with the general, as he was out-of-position all game.
The centaurs did as I hoped. The left unit with Chieftan was mobile at pushing a weak flank. The right unit without support got a bit of luck against enemy chargers, and did well to kill a giant in return, and take advantage of their movement the following turn to open up the board.
The longhorns were also a good surprise however immortals (always wound on 4+) are likely their ideal target as higher strength is no help, and striking before their great weapons was helpful. The small unit definitely got whittled down fast but druidism as always is a huge help for combat units and kept them in the fight.
For ID, we felt another combat unit was required to help with zoning. The artillery and lammasu wasn't a big factor in the game. Dropping some points there and adding a unit of incarnates would likely be a big help against a push combat army like BH.