Stuff that everyone is wrong about except me!

Actually, I’m the wrongest person I know, so feel VERY free to disagree.

But here’s stuff I think a lot of folk do wrong. I started with the controversial stuff but ended up with a bunch of advice lots of people give, so bleh, but hopefully there’s something new in there for peeps to disagree with. :)

 

Campaigns

Don’t worry about starting with all your elites, or try too hard to squeeze them in early. Elites do not survive full campaigns! They’ll be dead from scars in roughly 5-6 out-of-action results, and you could well be retiring them after 2 unlucky scars. There’s no hurry. Focus on running the best army you can with a view to winning the next match and scoring Glory. Elites you gain in later rounds are the ones more likely to be with you in the final fight / when you can afford the best gear.

Having said that, if you have a good Elite with great skills, consider keeping them safe during a fight, or even retreating / hiding if you’re going to lose anyway. This is a campaign, not a one-off.

(On the *other* other hand, it’s kind of a dick move to just cower down the back and concede the fight: try! Get stuck in! But there’s no shame in preserving a really good elite late in a match that is going terribly wrong).

Embrace the reinforcement action. Exploration is cool and exciting and all, but – especially after a catastrophic loss of models – reinforcement can be really powerful. A big recruit can be an advantage! You get to re-tool part of your list, fix what’s not working, counter major threats, and put in more expensive models easily. Don’t go into a battle 100 ducats and more down, that’s madness. You’re giving up a possible win, you’re giving up Glory you could have earned, and frankly you’ll probably take even more losses given you’ll have fewer attacks to dish out. Seriously, you will almost certainly need to reinforce at least once in the first few of matches, and quite possibly at the end of the first. That’s ok!

You win campaigns by getting victory points and winning matches. As long as you’re not tabled / fail 2 morale checks, casualties don’t matter as much as getting points. And it’s just as good to prevent someone else scoring as it is to score yourself. A random naked idiot running into a building to stop your opponent scoring for a single turn can win the game in a way that your 200+ ducat beast-mode raidboss with a kill-a-turn out in the middle of the battlefield might not.

 

List building

…and so, go wide! More naked idiots! Work out your cheapest effective model, and plan to bring at least a couple of them. If you have fewer than 7 models at 700 ducats then you need to have a REALLY good reason. I usually bring ~9.

Work out what a model does, gear it just enough to do that job, and only add anything more if you either have a very good reason or can’t fit any more models in. If you’re paying for Strong, use Strong. If a model has +0D in the attack skill, either keep it really cheap or do something to make up for it (e.g. basic troopers with grenades, shotguns, flails, etc). Or preferably both. A Wretched has to have a weapon, so give it a knife and nothing else. If your model has +2D in their attack skill, get them gear that lets them use it!

Hits-to-kill are (very roughly, with basic weapons, spending bloods as you get them) 0 armour: 2; -1 armour: 3ish; -2 armour: 5; -3 armour 8+. There is a big jump at -3, given a game is usually 4 turns. Don’t give armour to cheap bastards: just buy more cheap bastards. Do give armour to expensive models with good attack skills, especially if they also have Tough. Note well that -2 armour only costs 25 ducats if you can spare the hand (standard armour and a shield), compared with reinforced armour at 40.

Very high value melee is easy-ish for your opponent to avoid. Knock downs, terrain, mobility – it’ll depend on the scenario, but if you have 2-3 powerful attacks and they’re all short range (melee or e.g. satchels), expect them to be battlefield-control more than killers. Smart opponents won’t let those get to the juicy targets unless things are going very poorly or you have too many to avoid / some way to force the matter. But *any* attack can kill the biggest beast if there’s enough of them. Knockdown -> bloodbath rewards volume of attacks and damage keywords (shrapnel, gas, fire) to build blood markers, and frankly a knocked down model can be enough because you’re winning on victory points, not kills, and that saps their movement. Don’t rely entirely on the big-booms, and don’t feel obliged to pack lots of them in until well into the campaign.

A 2-handed hammer (maul) with +1 to the injury result is better in most cases than the 2-handed sword with +1D to injury, and is cheaper. You’re basically bringing their armour value down a point! An extra attack is also really good (volume of attacks / take advantage of the first attack knocking them down). Maul + trench club costs 13 ducats and is a very solid pick on Strong models. Double trench club at 6 ducats is also quite excellent for the price.

Bring a bloody musical instrument! The only advantage of not bringing one is that the other player might see you’re a noob and go easy on you. Dash is the strongest but most random abilities in the game.

Models with their own built-in +1D Dash are brilliant for their independence from the tyranny of the musician. Pay close attention to any models that have it when you’re building a list. Consider deploying them to smash a flank objective.

 

Battles

PLAY THE OBJECTIVES. Don’t just look at what you can kill and how – start with how you’ll score points. Killing is good and all, but it doesn’t necessarily win the match. Right from the deployment, plan how you’re going to be getting points. Remind yourself every turn. It’s easy to get distracted by sweet murder.

Most attacks just add a blood marker, and that’s fine! They’re useful things. At the same time: almost all attacks *will* add a blood marker, so bring lots of attacks and be ready to use those bloods.

Outside of abject desperation, don’t waste blood to spoil actions unless it’ll get it down to at best +0D and preferably to -1D (Dash being the most common use, or spoiling big shots from bad shooters, like an artillery witch). Chance of success, with very simplified numbers, starts at 60%, with an extra dice *halving the chance of failure* (60% -> 80% -> 90% -> 95%), and minus-dice *halving the chance of success* (60% -> 30% -> 15% -> 7.5%). (Those last couple are especially fudged, but it does the job for being simple). So an attacker with +2D (90%) is still probably going to hit at +1D (80%) – spending a blood there will only prevent one hit in 10. Yuck.

Similar thing for Cover: that -1D is mostly worthless against very good / high-up shooters, and of course a lot of weapons ignore it altogether. Fantastic vs pick damage from worse shots, sure, but look at what you’re fighting and see if Cover is something you should be reducing your mobility to get. It can be great, but there are times it’s not worth going out of your way for. Mobility wins games.

Do use blood to kill things. Spend blood immediately on the injury roll if hitting anything up to -2 armour (noting that -1D to injuries, like Grail or martyrdom pills, counts as a bit more than 1 point of armour).

For -3 armour, do NOT spend bloods to kill. You’ll need either armour-defeating stuff to help, or knockdown - > bloodbath (remembering you only need 3 blood markers to bloodbath if they’re down). Fine to spend them as you get them to try for knockdowns though – spending one blood has a 1-in-3 chance, so likely to get it in 2 blood-spending shots, and each attempt puts the blood back on. Just don’t expect to kill ‘em doing that (less than 1-in-12).

If you bloodbath, make sure you’ve got something to help vs decent armour. A straight 3d6 is WAY too random for the effort / cost you needed to get it. Have an extra dice or preferably two, or some kind of +something to the result, or armour ignore, or whatever. -3 armour only dies 37.5% with straight 3d6. A single extra dice brings it to over 60%. Note well that some extra blood markers will do just fine there: again, any weapon can kill any target if you stack enough bloods.

(So a decent strategy vs -3 armour that you really have to kill, and when you can’t bring armour-defeating weapons to bear, is to get them to 4 blood markers, then keep spending them as you get them. If you knockdown then the next shot is a bloodbath +1 blood marker, and a likely kill. Still much more reliable if you do it in melee (+1D for injury vs downed target), or have a better weapon, or have 1 more blood).

For the rare day you do find yourself with a standing target and 6 bloods (curse you, machine armour!): if you don’t have any better attack to help, you’re actually slightly better off just spending all 6 for dice and hoping for a double 6. Either way (this or a standing bloodbath) kinda sucks with a below 50% chance. Can you just win with objectives? Are those attacks better somewhere else?

Line of sight blocker + shooter ducking out to shoot / scurrying back: get to know when to Move -> Shoot -> Dash (100% chance of attacking, but uncertain safety) vs Dash -> Shoot -> Move (100% chance of safety, but uncertain you’ll get to attack). Battles only last 4 turns or so. A general rule might be to be safe on the first turn then go all-shooty, but in general just throw in and get guaranteed shots. Time’s a-wasting. Also note (LISTBUILDING) that shooters doing this, even move-shoot-dash, are pretty survivable (60% chance of Dash / avoiding return fire) so it’s a good place to skimp on armour.

Fast independent flankers and distraction models, especially infiltrators and +1D Dash peeps (e.g. commando or nuns, or even a warwolf - ACTIVE), will tend to survive better if they’re going up a side – simply because fewer enemies will be in position to shoot / attack them. But infiltrating somewhere middle-and-annoying is perfectly valid too (e.g. flamethrower or Gula in a building - REACTIVE).

See if you can activate the instrument-model early on turn 1. People often leave it until late, with the musician’s friends first moving out with a Dash, but even at 80% you *will* fail Dash rolls. It is riskier (perhaps) but better (IMO) to move the instrument before the pack, if you have somewhere safe-ish. Move the musician, and try for a Dash to squoosh up a little bit more. Now their friends can bounce off the musician: Move into music range, then +1D Dash to go further. At least then you guarantee all your (nearby) models will get out of the deployment zone even if they fail the Dash. Obviously try to deploy with this in mind (i.e. look for a good spot to stage the music).

Otherwise!!! Order of activations should, on turn 1, generally go: all your cheap goobers first, then your best stuff (especially shooters) last. Try to outlast your opponent – they’ll need to activate their high-value models and good shooters eventually, and if they want to win they’ll probably need to move up. Then you activate your best stuff hopefully after their shooters have gone, and your shooters at the bottom of turn 1 to blast the best targets. Second turn, activate your shooters *first* for a second round of fire and hopefully get out of line of sight. See also above for reasons to GO WIDE: more models = more options in order of activation.

See if a model needs to activate now, or can wait. If you survived the charge it’s tempting / instinctive to activate the surviving model and punch back, but unless something else will charge or there’s some other scariness about, that model can just as easily wait until last. Activate something more vulnerable or killy first. I still mess this up!

Knockdowns can be absolutely game winning, especially vs melee specialists, but for others too. Look to the objectives: there are times you’re better off switching to a new target if you get a lucky knockdown, even if that means giving up the opportunity to pour on the fire. Sometimes switching targets to get bloods to spoil another model’s Dash or hope for another knockdown is the way to go. Also leaves your opponent with hard decisions next turn: sure, they could start their turn by shooting back with their expensive badass, but if they leave that other model knocked down you might stack bloods and then bloodbath – which do they activate first? Either way, though, you just halved their movement.

(But in general, if you get a lucky knockdown on a high-armour target, that’s the time to murderise them).

And enemy bloods spent on Dash or big attacks can do similar. Get a couple of bloods on a model that’ll need to Dash early in their activation, and there goes the activation (again, there are 4 good turns, usually, even in a longer scenario: losing a turn is big). Plink an artillery witch, spend the blood on her next attack roll, and sure you might be in the blast, but a miss loses the direct-hit armour-defeat, and you also get to decide what direction it’s going to push you!

Gunk them up. A (for example) cheap Wretched or Prisoner that charges a Shrine or Warwolf prevents it attacking anything else – they can’t retreat and charge on the same turn, so they’ll burn their attacks to mulch you. Also remember that a Charge must go by the shortest route (i.e. a straight line if possible) and stops if it hits another enemy model. It’s possible you could neutralise the Giant Scary Thing for an entire match with 2 Skinny Cheap Idiots if you play your cards well.

You don’t always need to kill things, basically.

Finally, try to force enemies to Dash early in their activations. Pre-measure, position well, use line of sight blockers, get knockdowns, put models in the way… even with a bonus to Dash, models will fail them sometimes. All the better if you can spoil it with bloods. This is where melee especially can really suffer.

 

The final controversy: machineguns are good

…but only on really tough models and preferably with +2D ranged skill and/or a willingness to find somewhere up high – with Strong, obviously. Dirge’s MG Executor is mah boi (even without the Devotees in these dark days of fairer rules).

Three shots can hope to delete a low-armoured model in one activation (which can win games) or take advantage of a lucky Down or Antioch-fireteam-tag to build up to / score a Bloodbath, or take multiple tries to fish for kills and knockdowns on tougher targets. It can shoot right from turn 1, leaving better-but-shorter-range weapons playing catchup. It is all singing and all dancing.

Even though, objectively, it’s probably not worth 50 ducats, and is a bit crap at +1D ranged…

(I felt more certain of this before grenade launchers got to target the ground, but I still loves me a warm MG). ⬇️

Um. But if you have a +1D shooter, you need a REALLY good reason not to get a Grenade Launcher.