KoW Tactics against flyers

[JMGraham]

Hey Sherbert - I was doing some reading on the Mantic forums, and it seems that, played correctly, the list that you took against me was actually a pretty good hard counter to my list. It seems like the trick is to keep your units in close support of one another as you advance. Have sacrificial units up front, and make sure that the rear units are close enough to prevent me from charging over the heads of the chaff. You're going to lose whatever I charge, but then you charge, negate my thunderous charge through countercharging, and grind me out while you move units into flanking support. If I lose one of my hammer units it's really painful, given I have so few units.

 

For the sake of discussion with others, I'm playing an Elf army with:

 

10-strong unit of heavy cav

Horde (6) of Drakon Riders with Pathfinder

Horde (6) of Drakon Riders with an extra pip of crushing strength

Dragon rider with 6+ defense

20 Hunters (dryads) with Regen and Elite

Horde (40) of Seaguard - mixed shooting and spears with +1 to shoot (for a 4+ Ra)

Bolt Thrower

Green lady (a flying Heal (8) model)

 

The slow stuff anchors against a piece of terrain while the fast stuff swings out and overwhelms one side of the enemy line, putting all sorts of nasty hard-hitting fliers into position for flanks and the like. Elite and hard-hitting, but the loss of any unit really hurts.

 

Sherbert had one of the biggest mixed-army masses of Kingdom of Men humanity that I had seen. A horde, some shooting, plenty of regiments, some cav, a canon, etc. It was Sherbert's first game, and my 4th or 5th, so we're definitely trying to figure this stuff out.

[Brother Glacius]

This highlights the issue I pointed out to them during beta test, but alas it was too late to make a change. Large Inf and Large Cav horde option is just too good. You get all the benefits of a horde, but with the frontage and smaller footprint of a regiment. If your horde of fliers was actually 6 models wide, it would be a whole lot harder to use them.

[JMGraham]

Agreed, especially when you take into account the fact that those large infantry/cav are also pushing some combo of thunderous charge and crushing strength. That makes that small frontage pack an even bigger punch. Theres gotta be a solid game play solution to it though, right? All the talk on the Mantic forum is about how balanced armies are a better choice across the board.

[Brother Glacius]

Load up on phalanx helps. Also, fast cav units that can reach out and hit them first to remove TC helps. But the truth is, most flier units are the fastest in the game. Shooting isn't really an option due to horde level nerve stats. Perhaps massed WM fire could do something, but they hit too rarely to be a solid counter. Perhaps some shambling units within your line for flank counters could help too.

[ClassicFlava]

terrain can also be used against flyers to good effect as most of them have TC and not CS.  Agreed tho that fighty flyers are hard to deal with.  Once they do charge just make sure you are positoned for a counter charge.  

[JMGraham]

terrain can also be used against flyers to good effect as most of them have TC and not CS.  Agreed tho that fighty flyers are hard to deal with.  Once they do charge just make sure you are positoned for a counter charge.

 

I tried to mitigate this by giving one of my Drakon units pathfinder (the caterpillar thing) and one the potion of strength ( for a total of +2 crushing strength).

 

Hmm, maybe the problem is that I'm a jerk and need to make nicer lists.

 

Wraiths are the worst, though. The. Worst.

[smashthedean]

Yeah, I've been having fun with Wraiths in my Undead army :)

[Sherbert]

im sure with a little bit of tweaking I could make that list work better, also im sure it would have gone better if I hadnt just walked into you. 

 

I did notice how powerful hordes were compared to little units which was a little off putting. With all the talk of how important movement is I thought it would be better for medium sized units.