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Alp Bomb, Mark 2


Dolomyte

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The Alp Bomb

I see it run in two variations

Dreamer

DayDream x3

Alp x3

Coppelius x1

Stitched Together x2

6 ss cache

This is what I would consider the more balanced of the alp bombs, it's much easier to defend against, but it has other things going for it to make it powerful.

the Bomb Bomb

Dreamer

Daydream x2

Alp x6

Coppelius x1

8ss Cache

This is a bit harder to deal with, but is a one trick pony, if you kill the alps, the game is over. there is nothing really left to help deal with it.

I don't think the dreamer can be beaten in a tournament unless you get lucky and either guess he will be the master your facing, or get incredibly lucky with the strategy / skill of your opponent.

Some of the alp bomb counters that I am aware of

Guild

Papa Loco - Blows up when dies, if he goes first enough damage to kill the alps but not your own models (typically)

Witchling Stalkers - also blow up

Santiago - if he is out of range, you can move him into range so he can lead storm down the alps.

Sonnia - Inferno

Executioner - dies, s2d, kills alp, heals to full.

Ressers

Slow to die stuff is sort of helpful, but its kind of a losing investment

Rotten Belles - Can lure stuff out of the bomb, or lure the alps out of the bomb to their death

Sebastion - Has a 4 damage pulse spell

Punk Zombie - Slice and Dice

Neverborn

Alps - They are an amazing alp deterrent, if you have three of them guarding your own important models, you cant bomb them

Lilith - Whirling death does not generate damage, and you can usually soulstone above the wp check to get around the slow damage

Lilith - Transposition the alps out of bomb formation, where they are much less threatening

Lelitu - Same as the belles, lure is sweet sweet damage.

Stitched - Does not die for the win, you can start popping alps and dont have to worry about dying from the damage

Bad Juju - Landslide

Arcanists

Gamin, Golem, Snowstorm - Blow up, kills alps

Ramos - Controlled Detonating constructs, summoning electrical creations

Doves - Explody goodness

Gunsmith - Leadstorm

Kaeris - Fire in various forms...

Silent One - Ice Wind (30 below trigger pops all alps), Freeze AE Nuke

Outcasts

Som'er, Skeeters, flaming pig, Pere Ravage - Pull my finger, blow up

Hamelin - Infinite rats, someone should survive the slow flip to start making attacks on the alps, right? =p

Thats what I have as counters.

The problem I see with those counters is a good deal of them are situationaly useful and often cause just as much damage to your own forces. A good deal more of them rely on your own models dying for them to still be effective, or well accept your own models will die.

You can space your army out when playing the dreamer, but I've found it does not really help against the alp bomb. As they just kill one to two targets a turn instead of all of them. I think alps with the dreamer are broken and are in need of a fix.

Add on whatever, I will edit and change my list of counters / bomb lists based on what we discuss here.

Edited by Dolomyte
Adding some stuff from other thread.
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When successfully building a list to specifically counter the alp bomb I am curious what people do? I typically find that building a list with exceptional speed is the way to go, I try to lance into his deployment zone, or as near it as I can, so that I can kill his daydreams and force him to unbury in his DZ or walk the dreamer forward alone.

To that end, the showgirls alpha strike, the family alpha strike, the kin alpha strike, all seem like very effective methods of preventing the bomb.

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Generally playing Somer I have few problems with it.

Mosquitoes have a walk of 10 and flight. If one of my models gets bombed, I just don't activate it and fly a mosquito over and pull my finger.

If the mosquitoes get bombed, I make more.

If somer gets bombed, I use a soul stone to make the Wp check and use pull my finger repeatedly which is neither a strike nor walk.

*shrug*

But I can see how other crews have lots of trouble.

Also, how does whirling death with Lilith help? It generates strikes.

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Generally playing Somer I have few problems with it.

Mosquitoes have a walk of 10 and flight. If one of my models gets bombed, I just don't activate it and fly a mosquito over and pull my finger.

If the mosquitoes get bombed, I make more.

If somer gets bombed, I use a soul stone to make the Wp check and use pull my finger repeatedly which is neither a strike nor walk.

*shrug*

But I can see how other crews have lots of trouble.

Also, how does whirling death with Lilith help? It generates strikes.

I don't know how to quote posts in another thread like I have seen some others, but http://www.wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24624

this thread, specifically this post.

A Strike Action is listed in the Rules Manual on page 39.

A Walk Action is listed in the Rules Manual on page 36.

Whirling Death is neither of those Actions and thus Lilith would not suffer any Wounds from Exhaustion.

Edit - Exhaustion lists the "Walk Action" and "Strike Action", whirling death generates strikes, not strike actions. Post Hoc, Ergo Propter hoc, A model taking a strike generated from an ability, such as the lelitu lure, would also not take a wound from exhaustion.

Edited by Dolomyte
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It is a spell so it gets around the "strike" condition?

It's not actually a spell, but even if it was it is one that generates strikes, but it is not in itself a strike action

I believe (could be wrong) that a spell with a strike symbol in it is still a strike action, but Lilith's action does not fall into this category.

Edited by psychocamel
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another thing you could do with Lilith (my choice when i am in a bind) is to transposition everything. divide up your stuff, his stuff, the alps, go nuts. if you are careful you can isolate their guys and have them face to face with Lelu, bad juju, or the mature nephillim. some heavy hitter anyway. or you could throw them off. when you take the Doppleganger, Lilith, and a totem you could potentially get 3 people moving models around the table. this could throw them off their game, mucking up their well laid plans. if nothing else, it gets messy and confusing.

just a thought. to be honest, i have yet to face any alps. or the dreamer for that matter. i just find that people sometimes forget about transposition and the mess it can make. XD

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another thing you could do with Lilith (my choice when i am in a bind) is to transposition everything. divide up your stuff, his stuff, the alps, go nuts. if you are careful you can isolate their guys and have them face to face with Lelu, bad juju, or the mature nephillim. some heavy hitter anyway. or you could throw them off. when you take the Doppleganger, Lilith, and a totem you could potentially get 3 people moving models around the table. this could throw them off their game, mucking up their well laid plans. if nothing else, it gets messy and confusing.

just a thought. to be honest, i have yet to face any alps. or the dreamer for that matter. i just find that people sometimes forget about transposition and the mess it can make. XD

Very going point, transpositioning stuff can spread the alps around, and frankly when there is only one they are not much of a threat at all. added above.

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Generally playing Somer I have few problems with it.

Mosquitoes have a walk of 10 and flight. If one of my models gets bombed, I just don't activate it and fly a mosquito over and pull my finger.

If the mosquitoes get bombed, I make more.

If somer gets bombed, I use a soul stone to make the Wp check and use pull my finger repeatedly which is neither a strike nor walk.

*shrug*

But I can see how other crews have lots of trouble.

How do you keep Somer from dying to LCB (especially taking into account the cache disparity between the two)? It's pretty easy to box him in so that Squeel won't work and then it's bye-bye Mosquitos. Perhaps I'm missing something.

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How do you keep Somer from dying to LCB (especially taking into account the cache disparity between the two)? It's pretty easy to box him in so that Squeel won't work and then it's bye-bye Mosquitos. Perhaps I'm missing something.

I would like to say that it seems I'm late to the party. I just noticed your thread lower down on the page which, I think, addresses the issues a bit better and is about the crew as a whole and not just the generic "alp bomb." Too bad it's locked.

Anyway, LCB is definitely the bigger issue for gremlins.

And if it's just a contest between LCB and Somer, LCB wins. In other words, if we start out with LCB in melee with Somer...yeah, the Neverborn player won. Not much to say there. But, LCB does need to get into combat. He has to get across the table. And I think we all know, he generally does this as the dreamer. So I tend to stall the dreamer. My mosquitoes out pace the dreamer (10" walk and flight versus 7" walk and flight) and I have more of them. So I just take 2 or 3 mosquitoes and camp them next to the dreamer on the first turn when he's generally in the middle of the board. If he tries to leave their combat range I get to make 2-3 disengaging strikes with my cb 4 versus his Df 2. Granted, he has use soul stone and the mosquitoes don't, but I have ways of ditching his hand and gaining cards myself so hopefully I have higher cards to cheat, and I have multiple strikes to stop him.

Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum. The dreamer player may decide to dump his alps in the center of the table near the mosquitoes or bring out LCB. If he wants to bring out LCB, that's fine with me, I have a ton of bayou gremlins with ranged attacks which ignore my ht 1 mosquitoes when firing into combat (thanks to Ophelia who is without question an auto-include). LCB has a low Df for a master at 4, so he makes a perfect target for massive numbers of attacks and he can potentially even be stalled by the mosquitoes. Not to mention a model like Ophelia which can actually do damage.

Now he can dump his alps there instead, but then he risks the gremlins dumping blasts into the combat or the remaining mosquitoe(s) flying up and using pull my finger, etc.

Now, obviously, the are a lot of different ways it can go depending on the game and players and terrain, etc. But that's the general idea: lock the dreamer down in the center of the board as early as possible, and keep the fight there.

Gremlins also have good ranged in general and are good at sniping daydreams, but that's sort of a side note.

Now, I'm not going to say that this is an "easy" match or that I have beaten the dreamer every game. But I will venture that Somer is, ironically, one of the better masters against the alp bomb. And I will even say that I am much more afraid of a Dreamer list which uses no Alps than I am one which spams them, when I'm running Somer. Also, I want to make it clear: I'm not trying to tell you the Dreamer is balanced (or not). Just that, if I see him across the table, I would be pleased to be running Somer.

Edited by Justin
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I don't know how to quote posts in another thread like I have seen some others, but http://www.wyrd-games.net/forum/showthread.php?t=24624

this thread, specifically this post.

Edit - Exhaustion lists the "Walk Action" and "Strike Action", whirling death generates strikes, not strike actions. Post Hoc, Ergo Propter hoc, A model taking a strike generated from an ability, such as the lelitu lure, would also not take a wound from exhaustion.

I was very happy to hear that yesterday, but I must also say that at that point the rules get very confusing and there's really need for some untangling.

Just like the entire confusion of triggers and abilities that trigger, strike actions and just strikes are rather hard to distinguish even for experienced players. Ruling made that clear, but that's yet another basic mechanic people play wrong if they don't read the ruling.

Enough of that rant.

I disagree that "slow to die" is a losing investment. Even 3 alps cost 9 points. Sacrificing 4 or 5 points to kill 6~9 points, when you can raise back your undead, is a pretty good move.

Punk Zombie's Slice and Dice is very solid 2" Rng attack with Rst: DF and reasonable casting requirement (8+:masks) and probably the best suited attack for that.

It occurred to me, now that I know Smother causes only one Wp test, that all the naturally Fast models are initially immune to Alp bomb. Even if they lose Wp duel, they won't become Slow from it. Further applications of Slow, by Alps or other Nightmares will be dangerous to them, of course, but that gives a window between Alp drop and next activation, where you can apply some serious AoE or simply strike 2 out of 3 Alps (in case of the small-scale attack).

Is that right?

Edited by Q'iq'el
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Not really if you look under General Combat Actions in the Rules Manual.

(1) Strike: The model (attacker) targets another model or piece of breakable terrain (defender) within range and performs an opposed Duel using the Combat (Cb) value of one of its Weapons against the defender’s Defense (Df) value, shown as Cb → Df. A model must have a melee Weapon to make a melee Strike or a ranged Weapon to make a ranged Strike.

This is a Strike Action. Anything else just generates Strikes. EG. Whirlwind is an Action, it has an AP cost. The strikes it generates are just that strikes.

Note: a good way to spot an Action is that it will have an AP cost.

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Fast aren't immune. They still are affected by slow .. the slow just cancels out the fast .. in the end you had an extra ap that now you don't have.

Yup, but take a good look how Feed on Dreams is worded. Models receiving Slow (an effect) suffer 1 Wd. As far as I can tell, there's a subtle difference between being affected by Slow and receiving Slow (the effect).

If the model is Fast it doesn't receive Slow. They just cancel each other out (you lose Fast in other words). To be exact, the RM on the page 34 says that the effects are "removed" from the model (i.e. no longer there - the model doesn't receive either of the effects).

Then the ability goes to tell you, that if the target is already Slow and receive it again, it still suffers 1Wd. That doesn't cover targets which are Fast and as a result don't receive Slow.

Edited by Q'iq'el
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Yup' date=' but take a good look how [b']Feed on Dreams is worded. Models receiving Slow (an effect) suffer 1 Wd. As far as I can tell, there's a subtle difference between being affected by Slow and receiving Slow (the effect).

If the model is Fast it doesn't receive Slow. They just cancel each other out (you lose Fast in other words). To be exact, the RM on the page 34 says that the effects are "removed" from the model (i.e. no longer there - the model doesn't receive either of the effects).

Then the ability goes to tell you, that if the target is already Slow and receive it again, it still suffers 1Wd. That doesn't cover targets which are Fast and as a result don't receive Slow.

I dont think this is how it works. You still *gain* slow, but as soon as you gain it you lose both fast and slow. It's implicitly allowed in this sentence:

"If a model that is fast gains slow, or vice versa, the two cancel each other out and both effects are removed"

It says gains clearly and also says they are removed, which means it has to have them in the first place for removal to occur.

So unfortunately, that wont get around gaining slow and losing wounds.

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Well, this is interesting issue. Does the Slow has to stick to be "received"?

Because the ruling about Nurses' Massive Dose clearly suggested that new effects not only don't stack with the old effects of the same name/from the same spell, but also replace them.

Accordingly, if you are Slow already, and you receive new Slow, the effects don't stack, but the old Slow is replaced by the new effect. Is it why Feed on Dreams wounds the model again?

If this is the reason, then Slow which got canceled by Fast and thus doesn't stick to the model (after all it happens immediately the model is affected by Slow) shouldn't count...

Ehh, I guess it's wishful thinking to begin with. But if by any chance this actually was the designers' intention, Alp bomb would be far easier to counter for most factions, wouldn't it?

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Well' date=' this is interesting issue. Does the [b']Slow has to stick to be "received"?

Because the ruling about Nurses' Massive Dose clearly suggested that new effects don't stack with the old effects of the same name/from the same spell, but also replace them.

Accordingly, if you are Slow already, and you receive new Slow, the effects don't stack old Slow is replaced by the new effect. Is it why Feed on Dreams wounds the model again?

If this is the reason, then Slow which got canceled by Fast and thus doesn't stick to the model (after all it happens immediately the model is affected by Slow) shouldn't count...

Ehh, I guess it's wishful thinking to begin with. But if by any chance this actually was the designers' intention, Alp bomb would be far easier to counter for most factions, wouldn't it?

Agreed, it would be much easier to deal with in most cases. But sadly I don't think this is how it functions, they've been enough threads with people going over this in the past and Marshals weighing in but never correcting the logic. So for me at least, I think it works that way.

But heck, make a post in the rules section. We've been tearing appart everything that is Alp in the last few days, may as well get this to. It's good for the wiki at least, lots of stuff to link to and proof that it works this way or that way etc.

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Yeah definitely. RM check the Rules Forum as standard, they don't always get time to check the other forums. Also remember to keep it to one question a thread. That makes it easier for people to search through and for us to codify into a FAQ.

BTW I'm on holiday so don't have all my books and can't chat with other RMs don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't answer things.

Edited by Ratty
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