Today In Awful Warseer Tactics Part 6

What time is it?  Why, children, it's time for my soul to die a little bit more.  That means I have to dive in the proverbial waste water treatment facility known as Warseer and come back up with a prize.  Today I have a thread for you that will chill you to the marrow of your bones.  In this thread, a hideous noob asks a question about whether elite armies are bad since, you know, big blocks are sooooo good.  Forget for a moment that big blocks of shitty troops aren't that good at all, and think about how profoundly dumb this question is. 

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Dark_Mage99:  With so much focus being put on infantry and big, massed ranks, is it still possible to go for a small, elite approach and see good results? 

The only people putting "so much" focus on big massed ranks are bad players.  Big blocks have a place in certain armies, in certain lists, under certain conditions.  If you try to play big block smash outside of these circumstances you will lose.  I will laugh and laugh when the army with 3 mortars/stone throwers massacres you in 3 turns.  I'll laugh when a Purple Sun kills your entire army turn one.  Good luck, though.  Keep perpetrating the idea that big blocks are how to win 8th edition.  The truly sad thing is this is probably a young kid and all the bad local players told him to build a list with big blocks.  He will do so and when he inevitably gets his balls smashed he will ragequit the game.  So yes, to answer your question directly: small elite units are not only a viable approach, they are the best approach for most armies, and they will see the best results.

What will the Warseer community have to say???

Lord Inquisitor: A few, huge blocks of elite infantry deathstars are proving to be very powerful in 8th. How many armies can deal with a block of 30 chosen of khorne? With a BSB in range, there's extremely few opponents, be they infantry, cavalry or monster that can actually win against such a unit. Even if you flank or rearcharge, they just beat the snot out of anything that comes near. These units can also whittle down tarpit units effectively ... so you're steadfast eh? Well, 50 Strength 5 attacks (plus whatever you get from the eye of the gods) is going to whittle down your unit pretty fast. Not to mention you need to kill every last Chosen to get any victory points from them. Nasty.

I wish I played against people who were dumb enough to bring 30 Chosen of Khorne in one list.  I'd have a better win loss record.  You ask the question, "How many armies can deal with a block of 30 Chosen of Khorne?"  The answer is, "all of them."  Only a simple fool would try to attack that unit head on or even on the flank in close combat.  Don't be an idiot.  I'll shoot the fuck out of them, magic the fuck out of them, and then re-direct their charges and tarpit them until they are whittled down enough for my army to take on.  "Nasty."  Only to a person who can't possibly envision a way to defeat a block of Khorne Chosen except close combat.

Zaonite:  I play an all Knight Bretonnian list. At a minimum of 21 points a model they come very pricey but they work very well within the 8th ed system. They've gotten a big boost from magic especially. 

I can only imagine how bad you are, and the people you play with are, if you are getting very good results from your all knight Brettonian list.  Do your opponents play nothing but Khorne Chosen deathstars or something?

R Man: Generally speaking, Basic troops will loose on Combat Resolution, but will probably kill more points worth of troops. If they can hold, eventually the elite units will start loosing attacks as the big units gains the upper hand in the fight. Therefore elite armies need to break big units before that happens, making keeping the General and BSB away from the fight as much as possible, or just find a way to outright kill them. But is a dynamic I like. 

Not a terrible comment.  Big blocks will lose to MSU on resolution, assuming a frontal assault, but will win the battle of attrition barring bad steadfast leadership rolls.  That is an interesting dynamic, but it completely ignores that the key aspect of MSU is the ability to redirect charges of blocks and get flank charges off.  Are you all noticing the pattern here?  ALL WARSEER PLAYERS ALWAYS ASSUME THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE DIRECT FORWARD CHARGES BETWEEN ONE UNIT AGAINST ONE UNIT!  None of them ever presume flank charges.  None of them ever assume multi-charges.  God, they are asphixiatingly bad.

freddieyu: steadfast is only important if you lose combat....but the objective is to win combat.....so what steadfast really does if for the regular rank and file grunts pin or hold enemy powerful units in place, and while the regulars are getting massacred hopefully their own elites can then come in and save the day...truly heroic stuff... 

No, the objective is not always to win combat.  My horde of 40 Dark Elf Spearmen will NEVER win combat against a unit of 10 Swordmasters.  But they will eventually wipe them out to an elf.  All I have to do is not break after I lose the first turn's combat and I will grind them out.  Christ, now these morons have me arguing in defense of Big Blocks.  But if you expect High Elf players to charge your Big Blocks on a 1 for 1 basis you're dreaming.  Or you post on Warseer.

Lord of Divine Slaughter:  Whenever you see an elf army with horde style phalanxes, you know, you're in for an easy game.

Oh?  You don't think the firepower from 5 units of 15 strong Sea Guard won't give you difficulty?  What army are you playing?  That is a pretty nasty basis of am army core.  I assure you, unless you have a crazy amount of artillery AND magic defense that won't be an easy game.  Somehow I'm guessing you play WoC.

Darkspear: Well not every elite soldier is a warrior of chaos. Elite armies of high elves and dark elves die horrendously against the goblin and skaven slaves blocks that are a fraction of the former's point cost. I will say only resilent elite units are worth it.

Oh, the idiocy.  This is yet another player who thinks that High Elves are crap and Warriors of Chaos are a top tier army.   Why are small, elite Elven units doing a frontal charge against big blocks of Goblins or Skaven?  The answer is: because the Elf player is bad.  When you cite examples of bad play to prove that your argument is valid, you auto-lose.  It would be like me saying, "Yeah Genestealers are bad against IG since it takes them a while to get across the battlefield and the IG will shoot them up in the meantime."  If you are dumb and don't outflank them against IG they would seem really bad, wouldn't they?

Darkspear:  I have witnessed a few times where glass hammer units got pounded by horde units that cost less than half as much points. 

You again.  That's a cute example.  I just smashed that type of argument in the pretty orange text above.  You should go ahead and put your head into a chicken deboning machine.