Jump to content

Dealing with close combat


Thisendup

Recommended Posts

I have only had a couple of games in TOS so far, both against the Gibbering Hordes, but both times the Rifle Corps held their own pretty well after going into glory. I haven't used them yet but the Welsh are basically built for the purpose of drawing the enemy in and then just sort of holding them there while they pummel their foes with insults and injuries. Then you can add firepower by discarding a card and letting the Rifles shoot into the melee. Or unleash Dragoons, they seem pretty scary in melee especially on a charge.

Also, it eats a lot of Tactics Tokens but you can always just disengage. Heck some units have a built in disengage on their Glory side. If I remember correctly any movement outside of movement from an order does not generate a disengage strike.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Wayton said:

Also, it eats of Tactics Tokens but you can always just disengage. Heck some units have a built in disengage on their Glory side. If I remember correctly any movement outside of movement from an order does not generate a disengage strike.

Yep.  More specifically, it's only the movement specified in the Order descriptions that has to deal with disengaging.  No other movement has to deal with disengaging strikes.

If the unit can move itself, or someone else can cause it to move, it can just leave without worrying about getting hit.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Remember that the Cult in general is fairly fragile.  The RRC's are a huge threat to them, if you Glory them to get Point Blank then a lot of the Cult's advantage falls away.  Also, stand on their more aggressively placed portals to block the turn 1 assault if possible

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah RRC are insanely good, even in close combat after going to glory. Point Blank makes the KE Bayonets work without penalty and that's a 7:ToS-Mask: AKA 7 + Pinning Token. Throw in the ability to get two tokens in a focused effort to feed Reinforcements and/or Inspired tokens, and they have a reasonable chance of coming out on top in a lot of fights. Or saving those tokens to use their glory trait where they sack a token to move, which does not provoke a disengage strike.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, will keep in mind both batches of feedback. I'll be using the backer troops with 2 commabders, not sure what to expect on the other side since we don't mind proxying. Rereading the cult, I'm by far the most worried about the ECB, so any suggestions to dwal with them? Should I expect the Kings Hand to be absolutely wrecked in one turn?

My gut reaction is that cult doesn't have the easiest time getting reinforcement tokens, so I hope i can burst them down before they get a chance to recover, but don't know if that's a pipedream.

Titan wise idea is to go with Area gun since armor in the cukt seems mostly crap, symbol of the realm since removing tokens and Glory I expect will be important but on head I'm unsure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Titan's with 3 Assets stops a minimum of 6 damage before dying. And since their assets prevent 3 damage a hit, the enemy would need a massive 12 damage hit to kill the thing in one shot and 4 damage to flip 2 assets. At least if I am reading Titan damage right (Flip asset for 3 damage, sack for 1). Bare in mind they are having to punch through AR12, and will have shaken tokens on them.

Remember you can snipe the Madmen with Accurate models (Edmonton and the Field Intel Corps with a :ToS-Ram:) to let you spend their Shaken tokens.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Wayton said:

Fighting Horo might be one of the times to use the King's Hand's Superheavy gun instead of the area gun....

Is the superheavy usually not useful then? I see how the base attack is just a bit worse but close enough unless you are packing masks abd the Area versatility seems more useful, but against abyssinia and their ability to bring so much armor I could definitely see it having a place. Or is it better to just field grenadiers for armor hunting?

Also, ended unable to get the match I intended, so still waiting to get my nose bloodied...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My usual opponent so far has been Gibbering Hordes and a mass of critters vs a few big ones. I meant it as more an off the cuff remark based on my usual opponent. Honestly I haven't looked too much at the Abyssinian army simply because I haven't fought them (though I would love to, I might even add them as another faction later)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you saunter into the GH section and read up on the things that bother them, it sounds like grenadiers are on the list of reasons why they don't want to field the Alpha Crawler.

One of the things I look at (especially as an Aby player) is that with how wounding works, death by a thousand cuts is a thing. Sure, through some calculus people have figured out that to one-shot a titan with full gear and good armor they'd have to do something like 12 damage (this is the point I tune out, because it's not going to happen), but it's overlooking something super-important. One wound is all it takes to kill something, anything. Assets that can absorb 3 wounds still flip on a single wound. Unless you're dealing with Gory regrowing the head on a card flip, your first shot that barely cracked armor is still having an impact.

Now add in triggers or baked-in effects that strip tokens or inflict additional damage or effects (like flipping from glory) and things start looking even better. Gloried Grenadiers landing a Rocket Grenade with a (4) margin will mop up disabled assets immediately on top of being Strength 5 Piercing.

With regards to weapon loadouts, it depends on what you're fielding and expecting to fight. I can see why people would prefer an area attack over a focused attack into GH. There's more targets and anything you can do to hand out damage that doesn't let them defend is extremely handy. It also plays into that whole land a single wound, that's all you have to do idea I mentioned above. At the same time, if you know you're going to have to crack armor on Horo (Titan Commander), a ranged weapon that goes to strength 6 on a mask is extremely valuable.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welp, just finished my first match and it was against cult. Got almost tabled by turn 2. The enemy force had 4 rhinos, 2 ECB black ops, Oromatangi, Adeodatos, doomseekers and Stalking Portals.

Right if the bat, the cult are attacking and move a portal around for optimum possitioning, (card discarded was an ace, so shaken for a Rhino), a rhino in base to base with Stalking portals uses focused effort to get a second shaken token and goes to glory, then teleports and gets a third courtesy of a cult asset in front of my stuff, exploding and nailing 2 infiltrator fireteams, all 3 for intelligence corps and 1 rifle corps. On my activation y go for the inflitrators to try and kill the rhino and then step in to cover the space, but failed to kill after stripping all the shaken tokens since I had no tomes in hand, then a second Rhino comes in with a very similar trick and kills all the intelligence corps and finishing off 1 of the infiltrator fireteams.

Discussing later we noticed that the portal could not be pushed turn 1 since cards haven't been drawned yet in the upkeep phase, but there is still a cult stratagem to just create a portal anywhere on the table, so I don't see any way to avoid getting an alpha rhino in the face even if you deploy conservatively. To add missery, their penetration protection makes them stupedly hard to kill and once in glory, those 3 shaken tokens make them hell to deal with.

Best option I had was the Kings Hand (who had to move putside of the no morale action aura of the rhino...) To show symbol of the realm and shoot with the area gun, but failed the penetrate (again no tome) and failed the area (which goes over the tomes, but not the shaken), and even then, once exposed the titan, the ecb came in and destroyed all the assets with ease, leaving it as an easy kill next turn.

So how am I supposed to deal with this? I mean, titans are clearly a waste against cult since ecb utterly destroy them, but it's also the most efficient way to kill Rhinos, so seems like I'm boned no matter what.

Am I overreacting or is the combination of those two units as disgusting as it seems?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've yet to get a game, so I might be completly off the rails here.

The Alpha strike seems quite hard to do early in the first turn. I can't see an easy way for the Rhino to consistently Glory early on that first turn and teleport to somewhere useful (If you've bought the strategem then you only have 2 cards in hand) to do the action.

So I think the cult needs to start off with something else to try and get the Rhino to Glory. And then you have time to try and either kill off the Rhinos before they do there thing, or get away from the portal. I might be wrong but an ungloried Rhino with a Shaken token looks like a prime target (even if only to remove the shaken token).

Confuse from the infiltrators seems a good action to use on the Gloried Rhinos to remove those tokens, as you are on a better stat and can remove 2 shaken tokens per successful attack.

Margret belle is also a decent gloried Rhino killer once she is in glory (admittedly that's probably from killing a Rhino in the above list)

Howetizers are also a good answer to Rhinos, as they damage them even on non tome cards

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Adran said:

I've yet to get a game, so I might be completly off the rails here.

The Alpha strike seems quite hard to do early in the first turn. I can't see an easy way for the Rhino to consistently Glory early on that first turn and teleport to somewhere useful (If you've bought the strategem then you only have 2 cards in hand) to do the action.

So I think the cult needs to start off with something else to try and get the Rhino to Glory. And then you have time to try and either kill off the Rhinos before they do there thing, or get away from the portal. I might be wrong but an ungloried Rhino with a Shaken token looks like a prime target (even if only to remove the shaken token).

Confuse from the infiltrators seems a good action to use on the Gloried Rhinos to remove those tokens, as you are on a better stat and can remove 2 shaken tokens per successful attack.

Margret belle is also a decent gloried Rhino killer once she is in glory (admittedly that's probably from killing a Rhino in the above list)

Howetizers are also a good answer to Rhinos, as they damage them even on non tome cards

Well, my opponent played both his commanders with Hovering Portal which ensures a shaken token once per turn when using a portal, but I just noticed it's squad only, so doesn't combo with the Rhinos. So you are right that it's very hard to get them to glory as the first activation, second activation is a whole other story due to Flaming Corona or Femton Brams, but I get the right to an activation there to try and plug portals...

Ok, not feeling as negative about the whole thing, but it's still demoralising how hard to actually damage the Rhinos are, and not feeling too confident on the Howitzer not getting engaged turn 1. Grenadiers seemed like a good idea since they also have str 5, though their attack stat is pretty depressing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Howitzer's awesome, just not against the Cult.  This game really relies on you changing up your list depending on who you're fighting more than Malifaux I've found (if they declare Kassa, Adeodatos, or the Frenzy then you're probably playing a different list against each of them).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, retnab said:

Howitzer's awesome, just not against the Cult.  This game really relies on you changing up your list depending on who you're fighting more than Malifaux I've found (if they declare Kassa, Adeodatos, or the Frenzy then you're probably playing a different list against each of them).

My current impressions are keep the titan at home against cult and Grenadiers seem like they would be great of they are kept alive, though they seem frail. Also, is taking the sharpshooter wirth it since it gives +1 str to the ECB attacking any fireteam of the unit?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Grenadiers and RRC are the biggest threats to the Cult, though using Borderers to clog them up works well too.  The biggest thing to keep in mind is the start of each turn, that's the only time they can move a Portal Marker guaranteed or buy The Approaching Convergence / The Burning Man Descends.  If they don't buy either of those, you know the Portals are staying where they are at least on that turn.  As far as the ECB go, they're expensive so they almost definitely won't have more than 1 unit per Commander of them.  Remember that on the non-Glory side they don't have any melee attacks so if you can rush and engage them they're in trouble.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

God, I really want Grenadiers to come out!

As for the Field Intelligence corps, how are they used? They died without activating so didn't get a feel for them, but my gut tells me to spam their card discard action on the lowest wp enemy and destroy the enemy hand abd if by some chance you can get a cheeky rifle shot to finish something off and go into glory, go for it, point at where they start creating objectives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After several 1 commander games against the cult i see that getting RRC to glory turn 1 does wonders towards countering both ranged and CC threats - and having Edmonton helps with that significantly. Borderers are great tarpit, and if they have some models removed, they do great offense as well (up tot he point that i am actively trying to get them in harms way, so that they get reduced numbers). for some extra screening, motor scout can be useful as well, to block movement paths.

Did anyone use Margaret Belle already? if yes, how did she perform?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, pawlik said:

After several 1 commander games against the cult i see that getting RRC to glory turn 1 does wonders towards countering both ranged and CC threats - and having Edmonton helps with that significantly. Borderers are great tarpit, and if they have some models removed, they do great offense as well (up tot he point that i am actively trying to get them in harms way, so that they get reduced numbers). for some extra screening, motor scout can be useful as well, to block movement paths.

Did anyone use Margaret Belle already? if yes, how did she perform?

The borderers don't just become better at offense when wounded, also defense. The +2 applies to all AV which means all the stats.

Played Margaret on my first game, but frankly wasted her, but my grand impression is that she has to be very careful since she isn't anything to write about if she isn't attacking Champions. I gave her Sharp Wit but had to use my Ta tokens a lot to compensate for bad flips so didn't get use out of the redirect and also gave her Radio Transmitter, but I think Sturdy Binoculars would be a better option giving her something to do in the early game without feeling sge is being wasted by not sending her forward ASAP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

Any more input into this?

Just finished a KE vs GH 1 commander.  I was GH but it felt like a total walkover

Margaret, Dragoons, Grenadiers, 2 scouts Vs Frenzy, Speckled, Whelks, Eel, Karkinoi 

Played on Scavenge, with corner deployment. The karkinoi took a few choice hits t1 but the frenzy promptly healed that back up and the speckled crawlers were able to provide reinforcement to the whelks allowing them to survive the grenadiers (only just mind). The dragoons and grenadiers then got engaged, and belle with supporting summoned welsh attacked my back line of the frenzy. Scouts capped an objective and duplicated off an egg spawn. However by t3 the frenzy just wiped the welsh out leaving belle exposed, and the karkinoi finished up the dragoons. We called the game cause although KE was leading 4-0 VP I could easily cap all remaining objectives in 1 turn and hadn't even played "spawning moon" or "unchecked magic" to push my advantage further.

We expected the GH to die a lot easier to shooting, they got injured yes, but finishing up the fireteams to flip to glory seem nigh impossible.

There wasn't any cover either really around the central objectives, but the cost of discarding to shoot into engagements was more limiting. There were certainly misplays by KE which were more costly than the GH misplays, 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whelp, my first proposal would be to try and bump it to 2 commanders. The game has it's issues already in 2 commander games, but at 1 they just skyrocket.

Leaving that aside, the King's Empire force barely had any ranged power compared to what one would expect from them. The Motor Scouts are frankly horrible at anything that is not going after objectives, the Grenadiers are very fine on offense, not so hot on defense (though ignoring hazardous is certainly huge) and the Dragoons are a melee unit first and foremost, and only having 2 Fireteams makes them pretty easy to oneshot if you aren't careful with where they are. I'm also sort of wondering if you guys played at a custom size since I'm only counting 20 Script on the King's Empire side and probably 2-3 more with Assets on Margaret. Also, both units are relatively short range for what King's Empire can reach.

First suggestion would be to consider adding Royal Rifle Corps instead of the Dragoons in 1 Commander games, their ranged presence is top notch and once they get a kill, they become one of the most damaging melee units in the game. Aside from that, as the Gibbering Hordes player you did what you have to do, went in and went hard since King's Empire has a hard time if engaged early (shooting into combat is costly except for the Field Intelligence Corps, but that unit's stats are dumpster tier and you mostly want them for enemy hand control) and if Rifle Corps don't get into glory early they have a hard time if engaged getting there. Tell your opponent to not forget about using Ta to desingage, it's always worth considering.

Also, Margaret  is a very selfish commander and mostly is just god tier for getting objectives, so she will do that job fine, but won't really help you get more bang out of your units. Edmonton plays a more "backfield commander" role allowing your units to shoot more and get some inspiration in the mix. Yes, Margaret can get an asset to order a unit to shoot, but it requires a much higher card to go through than Edmonton's Morale action and King's Empire is not very good at hand or Ta generation (Gibbering Hordes neither to be fair) so you can't really count on having high cards to compensate for bad flips.

Hope this helps a bit.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information