How do you handle shooting?

[wayniac]

It's been my experience (although I have played only a handful of games) that shooting is grossly strong in AoS currently, with no real way short of using huge buildings to block LOS to stop being shot at, even when in combat.  As someone who prefers melee armies (I currently play FEC, I am considering a Nurgle Daemon + Mortal army) I find that nothing really stops my units being devastated from range, to the point where I am strongly thinking of picking a faction that can use shooting of its own simply because it's that good.  I had a game recently where two units of 3 Kurnoth Hunters with bows stood at the literal edge of their deployment zone and sniped all of my Courtiers, and proceeded to nearly kill my Ghoul King as well as easily deal with the units I managed to get into combat with them.

What, if any, are ways that melee-centric armies can deal with shooting?  Even if you get across the board, shooting units get two sets of attacks against you, and being in combat with them means practically nothing.  Terrain helps but if the entire board is covered in huge buildings either you set it up specifically to give yourself an advantage or spend half the game cowering being terrain to avoid being shot.

I'm really at a loss for how to handle it.

[Riyathe]

I agree shooting is in a strong place at the moment. Look at the lists winning most tournaments and tabling opponents in a turn or two.. Savage ork arrow boy gunlines, celestial hurricanum kurnoth hunter gunline, Clan Skryre mortal wound spam. There are a couple of other decent lists though that dont revolve around shooting, Stormcasts Skyborn Slayers / Warrior Brotherhood etc.

Play to objectives, try and layer your defences and try and play to gunlines weaknesses as much as possible is my only advice. With AOS the lack of range on most shooting, the speed that you can get into combat..ironjawz, beastclaw raiders etc and the fact you can double turn if your lucky or various ways of teleporting/ coming onto the board at various places mean gunlines arent a piece of cake better than everything list though. my 2 cents

[Gotrek]

Have you tried using the flayers for speed to engage them faster? King on terrorgheist with the cloak of mist and shadow could get up in their face turn 1 possibly (max threat range of 38"). Other than that use summoning. You set them up within 3 Of the board edge and 9 away from the archers so it might work to throw out the minimum battleline and max leaders and keep the rest for summoning and just overrun their backfield.

[wayniac]

2 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

Have you tried using the flayers for speed to engage them faster? King on terrorgheist with the cloak of mist and shadow could get up in their face turn 1 possibly (max threat range of 38"). Other than that use summoning. You set them up within 3 Of the board edge and 9 away from the archers so it might work to throw out the minimum battleline and max leaders and keep the rest for summoning and just overrun their backfield.

I may have to try this.  I tend to prefer Horrors but I need to experiment with Flayers (and buy some more...).  I admit though I've never really looked at summoning though.

[Nico]

Quote

I agree shooting is in a strong place at the moment. Look at the lists winning most tournaments and tabling opponents in a turn or two.. Savage ork arrow boy gunlines, celestial hurricanum kurnoth hunter gunline, Clan Skryre mortal wound spam. There are a couple of other decent lists though that dont revolve around shooting, Stormcasts Skyborn Slayers / Warrior Brotherhood etc.

To be fair Clan Skryre still hasn't won an event as much as it typically gets 4 horrific 2 turn major victories out of 6. You need a hard counter to deal with the Kunning Rukk which usually involves - more shooting to snipe the Warboss....

There really aren't enough debuffs to shooting and the ones there are are often dependent on being near the pew pew units (Neferata), which is so much worse than protecting units near to you or they are in the pew pew Grand Alliance (Order) i.e. Fulminators, Tempestors.

If you pick up a Balewind on the weekend, then the Daemonsmith's spell does -2 to shooting hit rolls will put an end to the Kunning Rukk - hit on 6s and no exploding attacks.

As FEC, I would make sure you get first turn (or deploy on the backline if they will take first turn), take 12 Crypt Horrors and a GKoTG behind them and a Varghulf Courtier (both with Rings of Immortality). The GKOTG puts another 5+ ward save on the Crypt Horrors and someone else puts mystic shield on them. Move forward and kill.

Alternatively you could take 2 GKoTGs and a Catapult and give both of them the Cloak of Mists, then do an alpha strike into the pew pew. The Catapult synergises with the short range mortal wounds from the TGs.

Alpha Strikes can beat most gunlines - as I found at The Warlords where I faced 6 gunlines....

[CoffeeGrunt]

6 minutes ago, Nico said:

As FEC, I would make sure you get first turn (or deploy on the backline if they will take first turn), take 12 Crypt Horrors and a GKoTG behind them and a Varghulf Courtier (both with Rings of Immortality).

Can two Heroes take the same Artifact?

[wayniac]

1 minute ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

Can two Heroes take the same Artifact?

Yes, just each hero can only have 1.  Found this out myself recently

I admit that I am probably just inexperienced (also I played Sylvaneth early on so got aquainted with how nasty they are, and fought a Bastilodon my first AOS game).  So I have several things I want to try, just the power of shooting is making me consider fighting fire with fire even if I really have my heart set on a thematic Nurgle army instead...

[CoffeeGrunt]

I've been unable to really deal with Kurnoth Hunters. They're the perfect package of durability, firepower and mobility via tree-flitting, which is a bit irritating given that I play an army with slow units and no ranged.

Those bows are like artillery though, just insane. If you find a way to deal with them, let me know!

[ElectricPaladin]

Ghoul patrol warscroll battalion > shooting.

Also, if you are playing Flesh Eaters and losing units, it probably means that you need to bring more courtiers. Which is not to say that you aren't bringing enough courtiers - YMMV (Your Meta May Vary).

[chord]

Try a meatshield.  I have done that to protect my Stormcast Paladins.  Liberators in front as the paladins make their way towards where they need to be. 

[TerrorPenguin]

Thing is a lot of this won't help as most people seem to play engaged units can shoot, so even if they are engaged they are still shooting at the ghoul king across the board whilst then fighting back to your deespstrikers.

Yes they will kill them off quicker, but they've still got a couple of turns to do some serious damage. 

[Sadysaneto]

wes cutta their hands, take dem shootas, then wes shova dem shootas into their throats.

Then we smash their facez.

[ElectricPaladin]

1 minute ago, TerrorPenguin said:

Thing is a lot of this won't help as most people seem to play engaged units can shoot, so even if they are engaged they are still shooting at the ghoul king across the board whilst then fighting back to your deespstrikers.

Sure.  Buuut... while your opponent is divided, you can win on objectives. At least that's the idea.

[Sleboda]

48 minutes ago, TerrorPenguin said:

...most people seem to play engaged units can shoot ...

Why wouldn't they? 

[wayniac]

5 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Why wouldn't they? 

It's a common house rule I see that says if you are engaged you can't shoot (I've also seen it as you can't shoot at other units, but you can shoot at the unit engaging you), specifically to tone down how strong shooting is.

I'm honestly at the point of thinking the generic rule should be that models in melee range of an enemy cannot shoot in the shooting phase; that's how it works in other similar games.  So if you spread out your shooting units, some models can still get to fire but not the entire unit, but the small units like Kurnoth Hunters can be tied up and kept out of shooting.

[Sleboda]

Ah.  House rule.  I was interpreting the quote like TerrorPenguin was under the impression that the rules don't allow it and allowing it would be the house rule.

 

I was just thinking "Why wouldn't  people play with the rule that's on the rule set?"

 

Got it now.

[TerrorPenguin]

My post was unclear, apologies

[Fireymonkeyboy]

Engaging them doesn't stop them shooting, but it does make it easier for your melee units to kill them.

Slow, melee, relatively low durability mobs are going to struggle against shooting.  A whole army of them will really struggle against a gunline.  One solution would be to add in mobility, range, or durability enhancements.

Skew armies are always going to be in a rochambeau environment.  You need to either unskew, and play combined arms, or find tactics that minimize your disadvantages.

FMB

[CoffeeGrunt]

Can't play Combined Arms if your army has no access to Ranged.

The bit that irks me is that you can do a lot of strategy in terms of protecting units from melee by screening them with troops, and with the right distance can leave it open to piling in on your terms, etc, etc. However, against shooting there is literally nothing you can do to mitigate its effectiveness unless you get close.

[MightyQwan]

I played a Dwarven gun line last night. 2500 points he had 2 organ guns, 1 flame cannon and 2 Dwarven cannon along with Iron Drakes and Thunderers. He had them screened with 2 x 30 man units of warriors.

I used my Stonehorn and Thundertusk in the centre with strong cavalry on the flanks. 4 mournfang to one side and 3 gore Gruntas to the opposite side.

My Stonehorn managed to charge first turn (thanks to ravager command trait and the Stonelord's command ability to re roll failed charges). This drew all of his fire killing 1 stonehorn and wounding the second, and allowed me the time required to flank him with the cavalry on turn 2. It was over after that.

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[MOMUS]

I find shooting to be powerful too.

Combat attacks can only be used in combat, but shooting is bizarre. Into combat, out of combat and out of one combat into another. A lack of generic modifiers also makes it more valuable from previous editions.

 

[Siegfried VII]

Nerfing the shooting is wrong in my opinion as all the shooting units are costed with specific capabilities in mind.

Take Judicators as an example. They cost about 32pts per model as opposed to 20pts per model that liberators do. 

Sisters of the watch cost 24pts a model (1 wound with 5+ save) etc...

 

Also shooting happens only in your turn and not the one of your opponents and the combat capabilities of most shooting units are almost non-existent.

 

As for Flesh Eater Courts there are solutions. A friend of mine uses a unit of 12 Horrors backed by a Ghoul King on Terrorgheist with the command trait of granting 5+ "ward save" on them paired with his spell that gives another "ward save" and perhaps another wizard to give mystic shield.

 

With this format I can guarantee you that you will get across the table and blood will flow freely from your opponent's army...

[AlexHarrison]

Can the shooting unit shoot the enemy unit it is in combat with? If so it seems pretty strong

[CoffeeGrunt]

49 minutes ago, AlexHarrison said:

Can the shooting unit shoot the enemy unit it is in combat with? If so it seems pretty strong

Yup, or any other unit within range and LoS.

[Aeonotakist]

Shooting looks horrible since most people are playing a mixed army good at nothing. Actually if I run a Skyborne list locally people will also call that OP or deepstrike OP.

As far as I see, shooting can be dealt with fairly easily by most deepstrike list, Sayl Chaos and FEC. It will not be guaranteed to win using these lists against shooting based on what the shooting list includes. But they have more than 60% chance to win most shooting list.