Err.... How exactly do we deal with Heavies that have greater threat ranges than us?

[Trygle]

For Circle we can get beasts that can strike from around 14"inches, Mortenebra can give a Cryx jack a free move making for a 15-17" threat range.
Trollbloods can have (one of the Doomshapers) the lethal combination of High Arm and long threat ranges around 14-16".

...Is there anything we can do? Or should I just start playing with more terrain on the table?

[Marchant06]

Abuse terrain, specifically forests. When placing terrain position a forest in a way that you can advance and charge through?

Also and angelius with slipstream is what? 7+3+2+reach= 14? That's not half bad.

[SneaklePete]

My last game vs. eDoomy was with eThagrosh. Game ended in a turn 2 shredder assassination, I abused some pretty large impassable terrain(PP Khador cannon, about 5x5") to throw 3 shredders into a safe position turn 1, with his brick on the opposite side. Turn 2 MD, feat, rabid, run, Dragon Storm to get three into his back and another 3 into the front gap left from his charging Axer. Didn't even get a chance to charge with Mulg.

It's hard to compete with 24.5" of threat that can turn on a dime.

[alchahest]

this is a situation where things like legionnaires shine. creating a tarpit ahead of your money heavies is a great way to discourage charges (and spacing properly means tramples are out, too). Then, with the vengeance move (if they did charge the tarpit even though it is not a brilliant plan) you can create a charge lane for the big hitter beast to get a charge on his overextended charging model. kill the heavy, then the legionnaires can activate and re-assemble the tarpit ahead of your heavy.

[drachenfels]

^ that.
basically place sacrificial stuff in front of your heavies. one of 2 things will happen
A) the enemy will hold back and not charge in fear of getting counter charged by your heavy
B) the enemy will go into the infantry to try and just get as much through as possible, in which case you counter charge and destroy them.

Ive found that this game is all about entrapment. basically set a death trap. place bait that tne enemy is lured into for you to kill them with the trap, or if they play cautious just push the trap closer and closer slowly tempting them even more. Eventually if they dont take the bait you should be close enough to just throw the trap right on top of them and straight up charge their heavy.

[Omnus]

eDoomy vs pVayl. slipstream + leash + scythean is already 16 inch threat any turn, plus rampager can move the earthborn or axer into kill range. severely hampering edoomy

Mortenebra...I like a kallus jam and clean up with scytheans. Or Bethayne. Two units of Hex Hunter spam + feat just wipes out cryx jacks. Just make sure to get some eruptions on the models that can repair.

Or just play saeryn, use feat, kill their **** afterwards

with circle, snipe out thier tech models to prevent movement craziness. Against Kromac play a low or no infantry list like saeryn so it is very hard to warpath. Mohsar is another common tournament pick vs hordes because his feat actually has a use. Tarpit the druids if he has them, and pick off anything with hunter's mark. pVayl also loves rampager against circle because it's generally the stalker she want to have closer, not some character beast like Mulg or Molik.

Just remember...

If you play Legion. Circle is just like a spider. It is more scared of you, than you are of it. : )

[Trygle]

Haha I forgot about tarpitting with Legionnaires.

Doh.

I need to pick up Vayl though, Her, Bethayne and Kallus are the only warlocks left to complete the Thag's posse.

[sourclams]

Remember that eDoomy has no fear whatsoever of trampling over screening infantry. Mulg/EBDT/Mauler are all Fury5 and Wild Aggression guarantees 5-6 fully boosted melee attacks. Even if you do get lucky and take out an aspect, they simply regen after the trample. They can also pop a whelp to eat and heal that way.

And unless you can knock down Mulg, his protective fit is going to kill/aspect wipe/slam an assassinating model that tries to get at Doomy.

However, Saeryn's feat completely nullifies the troll battlegroup. So charge the center of the table, feat, sit safe for a turn, and then go for the heavies. Don't let Doomy alpha feat you, however, because even if he foregoes a damage animus anything less than a Spiny-Growth'd heavy is going to die.

[drachenfels]

Remember that eDoomy has no fear whatsoever of trampling over screening infantry. Mulg/EBDT/Mauler are all Fury5 and Wild Aggression guarantees 5-6 fully boosted melee attacks. Snacking means even if you do get lucky and take out an aspect, they simply regen after the trample.

propper spacing of the screening unit infront of the heavy should easy prevent any possible trample past to hit beast.

[alchahest]

you need somewhere to land after a trample. and losing initial attacks to trample means you're not swinging at full strength at your heavy. (though wild agression puts it close)

so long as you don't leave room enough for a heavy base between your tarpit and your heavy, you're laughing.

[vaildin]

actually, the way trample works, they would do any snacking before the free strikes happen.

[Obeisance]

a) Block the charge path.
b) Block the trample landing zone.
c) Trade beasts. We have them in abundance.

[vaildin]

I disagree with c. We may enjoy running a lot of heavies, but I find that I often have equal or fewer heavies then my opponent. Especially if those heavies are jacks instead of beasts. But our heavies are so expensive, I often find that my opponent has more then me, plus at least as many units, and some support. When your continually outnumbered, trading is bad.

[sourclams]

propper spacing of the screening unit infront of the heavy should easy prevent any possible trample past to hit beast.

Goad can make that very difficult; you end up needing a lot of infantry, or you have your infantry compressed into a pretty tight area (which Goad can still circumvent). It's very difficult to block off access to every important model in your army across a 9+" front (base width +2" Goad +2" Reach on Mulg), and even spending a Fury to Goad, Mulg gets 5 attacks (4 Fury + Affinity) at P&S19+, which is enough to kill any ARM20 heavy.

actually, the way trample works, they would do any snacking before the free strikes happen.

You're right, I was thinking the whelp spawn+spot heal. Good catch.

[Northern Ronin]

Forcing movement with high power range threat, melee tarpits to screen the advance, medium bases to stop tramples as needed, and of course, Saeryns Feat. Otherwise it comes down to getting a hardish to kill beast to put in front (Spineied Carni / Buffed Angel), and do a trade, depending on the caster you have and the options open at the time. Also, things like Breath Stealer, Terrain, Admonition, etc.

[sourclams]

I disagree with c. We may enjoy running a lot of heavies, but I find that I often have equal or fewer heavies then my opponent. Especially if those heavies are jacks instead of beasts. But our heavies are so expensive, I often find that my opponent has more then me, plus at least as many units, and some support. When your continually outnumbered, trading is bad.

A Dire Troll list probably wouldn't outnumber you; Mulg+EBDT+Mauler is 31 points, but as Dire bricks tend to quietly rock out at ARM22-23 and a single Rage-d Dire under Doomy/pMadrak can easily kill 2 Legion heavies, you still definitely don't want to lose the first beast.

[vaildin]

That's pretty much what I'm talking about. I've found that I can't afford to trade heavies with anyone. It always seems like I'm on the losing end of the trade.

[SteakAndSpirits]

Bring Ravagores.

...Is there anything we can do? Or should I just start playing with more terrain on the table?

You're paying the Pathfinder and Eyeless Sight tax on just about everything. If there isn't something on the table for you to somehow 'earn that back' you're in for an uphill fight.

-s&s

[agent red]

Either Vayl can go a long way towards making the opponents threat range into kind of a moot point if they don't have a way to mitigate admonition or dark sentinel tricks. Abby can also just throw up a blight field in front of her herd and park an over buffed angel in it, in my experience that tends to be a fairly efficient roadblock.

[katadder]

thaggy brick. ravagore, scythean, carnie, all on spiny growth with any enemy having to move inside thaggys str debuff.
doesnt work so well on trolls but circle are not usually that hard hitters.

[Lanz]

I find it rare that anything out-threats a slip-streamed angel, but that aside, usually the tactics employed for extreme threat ranges can only be applied to one model at a time, in which case it becomes a heavy exchange (they charge, kill your heavy, you counter-charge, kill their heavy), except Legion tends to bring more heavies and the enemy is likely to run out of muscle first.

That aside, the stuff mentioned above; infantry screens, terrain abuse, ranged threats. All stuff we do well. Attrition too, in some cases. My beasts under pThagrosh laugh at most other beast charges, and eVayl lets you dance around your targets with Refuge and Admonition.

[SteakAndSpirits]

I find it rare that anything out-threats a slip-streamed angel, but that aside, usually the tactics employed for extreme threat ranges can only be applied to one model at a time, in which case it becomes a heavy exchange (they charge, kill your heavy, you counter-charge, kill their heavy), except Legion tends to bring more heavies and the enemy is likely to run out of muscle first.

A problem you'll run into in a 'Heavy Exchange' is that Legion will almost always be paying more, pound for pound, than the heavy the opponent is trading.

Be mindful of that. Trading two heavies is not a fair trade, by default. In fact, it's a trade that my primary opponent is frequently glad to make with me.

-s&s

[Lanz]

A problem you'll run into in a 'Heavy Exchange' is that Legion will almost always be paying more, pound for pound, than the heavy the opponent is trading.

Be mindful of that. Trading two heavies is not a fair trade, by default. In fact, it's a trade that my primary opponent is frequently glad to make with me.

-s&s

In a generic case, yes, but in these extreme threat range cases, they are often characters, beasts of a similar point value, or just overall limited in quantity. It's very rare that an entire list will be composed of models that out-threat legion in ample enough numbers to just throw them away.

You have to look at the opponent's list and make a judgement call, though. If that extreme-threat is something they're hinging on to win, and only one or two models can do it, it might be worth baiting them into burning up those assets in exchange for heavies that you know you don't need in order to win.

[Xnath]

Enraged Skorne bronzeback on xerxis feat turn with train wreck is fun to watch.. That is the faction I struggle against. Their beasts are cheap and really good.

[sourclams]

Yes but Xerxis is typically running that BB in a secondary role, behind his infantry wall. As such its threat range would be 7.5" unless you fed it a lot of infantry to allow favorable beatbacks. The issue there is not being out-threated, it's clawing your way through all the intervening armor.

[Ap0th]

I find it rare that anything out-threats a slip-streamed angel

That can be true in some cases, but armies with extreme threat ranges will still outpace it. The Angel's threat range is going to be 13" outside of a leash move. eDoomy can put mulg or an earthborn out at 14". Circle lists (principally eKaya or Kromac) with a Gnarlhorn and/or black clad can put a Feral, Stalker or even Ghetorix effectively out at 16" without using any teleportation to get there.

Also, the threat from a single long range angel, I find to be a little underwhelming outside of assassination runs on medium+ based casters. On average dice, assuming a boosted to hit tail strike and a charge, you're probably not going to drop mulg or an earthborn and that's assuming they're not getting a def and armor boost from a wall + KSB aura. There's a similar issue with trying to drop circle heavies in a single activation. You could potentially drop a stalker in a single go, and you may drop a feral if the circle player forgot to warp for armor, but if he did, the boosted to-hits you'll need to crack the def means you're probably not going to kill it. If there's any sort of armor boosting effect like inviolable resolve out there on a circle beast, you're just not going to be able to do it.

The point of that, is, that, yes, you'll damage the heavy, but your beast is almost certainly gone if it's outpaced your army and its the only thing threating that far. This means your angel is likely right in the front lines of the opponents army and is going to bite it in the next turn.

Anyway, back on topic. I find this whole thread slightly ironic as the underlying question is the same one every other army asks when we face legion. We just always have to deal with that alpha strike, you don't have to that often. The answer is generally the same, though. Like others have said, use a cheap infantry buffer in front of your key units. With proper spacing, trampling will be difficult and AOEs will have less of a chance of doing mass damage.