2000 pts vs skaven

Played against Skaven today with my standard list, and got crushed.  2000 point lists for both of us.

I had:
1 slaughtermaster (level 4 heavens), fencers/glittering scale, greedy fist
1 bruiser, BSB, heavy armor, dragonhelm, ironfist, sword of striking
1 butcher, level 1, ironfist, dispel scroll
7 ironguts, full command, standard of discipline
5 ogres, full command
3 mournfang, ironfists, heavy armor, bellower, dragonhide banner
6 leadbelchers, bellower
2 sabretusks
1 ironblaster

He had:
2 cannons
2 doomwheels
a warlord with a fellblade in a bunch of clanrats
2 level 2 wizards and a warlord BSB in a bunch of clanrats
doomrocket, flamethrower, poison cloud launcher
2 groups of 50 slaves

What should I be looking to change in order to put up a better fight the next time he plays this list?  He felt bad because he feels that fielding 2 cannons and 2 doomwheels is cheesy.  I don't think it is cheesy, but it is definitely tough.  I definitely want to pull out all the stops to beat it next time.

Definitely a second ironblaster if he is running two WLCs and two doomwheels. Sniper maneaters might work better then leadbelchers on his wizards and warlords. Maybe some gnoblars to tie up a unit of clanrats while you flank them and redirect his slaves with the sabretusks.

How did the match go down? I have a skaven book so I might be able to shed some light on a few things for you (like legality issues, list comp, special unit info, etc). Alternatively the "know your enemy"thread has some info too.

-GL

Lets see if I can remember how this went...

6'x4' map.  Hills on the corner and a hill on the center right with a few small forests interspersed throughout, but nothing that was really inhibiting.  I had a sabretusk on each side of the map, then from left to right, I had my ironblaster, my ironguts with my slaughtermaster and bsb, my ogres with my butcher, my leadbelchers, and my mournfang.

From left to right on his side (from my perspective): 2 WLC on the corner hill, 1 doomwheel, a 5x10 slave bus, his character bunker of clanrats, which had 2 engineers (warp lighting and cracks call on one, plus the channeling backpack, and scorch and the winds spell (never used) on the other), and a character as the bsb with the thornmail (whatever armor bounces back hits whenever he gets his armor save), then the second 5x10 slave bus.  The warpfire thrower and doom rocket were with the character bunker.  Over on the right side he had his second doomwheel and then a second unit of clanrats with a warlord on a big ogrey thing that gave him another wound.  That was the warlord with the fellblade.  Also a poison cloud launcher.

He got the first turn.  Doomwheels and fellblade unit move as far forward as they can.  Magic was 12 to 6 (ouch).  I let the warp lightning and scorch cast, but then he fails on the cracks call, so magic is done without me throwing any dispel dice.  I took 5 wounds to my ironguts from the warp lightning, and nothing from the scorch.  The doomrocket overshoots and hits nothing. Right doomwheel restrains from shooting their own guys, while the left one miscasts and takes 2 wounds.  WLC take out 4 of my leadbelchers with the first shot and roll a dud on the second shot.  Poison cloud launcher deals a wound to rightmost sabretusk.

On my turn, I march both sabretusks forward (left one toward the WLCs, and the right one to get it into a flanking position.  I charge the mournfang into the clanrats (just barely rolled the 9 I needed to get in).  I move the ironguts and ogres forward 6 (wary of getting a doomwheel to the face).  For magic, I got 5 to 3.  Spent all 5 on a Comet about 6 inches in front of his character bunker.  For shooting, my leadbelchers do nothing, and my ironblaster takes out the left doomwheel.  For close combat, my mournfang do 8 impact hits for 5 wounds.  Then the fellblade takes out 2 of the mournfang, leaving me with just the standard bearer.  I put my 7 attacks into RnF (did not realize that the warlord spent all 100 points on the weapon, should have hit him instead), followed by the breath weapon.  I take out another 5 or so clanrats.

On his turn two, he starts moving the slaves forward with the character bunker behind.  There is not enough room to charge through the slaves to hit the character bunker with my ironguts, and no other unit is close enough to try.  Doomwheel moves forward and winds up 2 inches from my ogre unit.  Rolls a 1 on the comet, so it now has 2 counters.  Low magic dice, throws 6 at cracks call, and I use my dispel scroll.  For the shooting phase, his poison cloud launcher misses, first WLC rolls low and misses, second deals 4 wounds to my ironblaster.  Doomwheel kills 2 ogres.  Close combat, my last mournfang deals a single wound to the warlord before dying.

My turn two, I charge the left sabretusk into the near WLC.  I move the ironguts over to prevent the slave from charging my ironblaster, and move it so that it can shoot the fellblade warlord.  Ogre unit charges the doomwheel (better to give impact hits than to receive them)  Right sabretusk plays hide and seek with poison cloud launcher.  Comet falls, taking out warpfire thrower, killing about 21 slaves total, and then only 4 clanrats (sigh).  Butcher gives the ogres +1 str, and remaining dice go toward a second comet.  For shooting, my ironblaster takes out the fellblade warlord, and my leadbelchers kill 2 clanrats.  For close combat, my left sabretusk deals 3 wounds to the first WLC, my ogres deal 2 wounds to the doomwheel, but I lose one in the process.

His turn three, the two slave buses charge my ironguts, and his character bunker clanrats move up a bit, and his other clanrats start moving toward the last 2 leadbelchers.  Magic phase, the comet falls, takes out another 15 slaves, and another 4 clanrats (double sigh).  Cracks call is cast with IF, takes out 2 ironguts, and deals a wound to each of his wizards on the miscast.  Scorch deals a single wound to the ironguts (but they are in combat, so no panic).  Shooting, the doomwheel finishes off my ogres, wlc takes out another irongut.  Close combat, ironguts take out a bunch of slaves but no break, and the sabretusk whiffs all three.

My turn three, no real movement, magic is a bust, ironblaster takes out doomwheel and causes the nearby clanrats to flee.  Sabretusk whiffs all three again, takes a wound, and runs.  Everything goes downhill from there, and the next couple of rounds go the same, with more cracks calling taking out more ironguts, and losing the last wound from the ironblaster.

Dice rolling certainly played its part (as did not knowing about the fellblade).  Sabretusk failed completely in killing a single cannon, mournfang died immediately, ogres didn't really do anything, ironguts got tarpitted, leadbelchers got taken out immediately.  Magic was ok.

First things first, with the warlord with fellblade(100pt item by the way) was he rolling to see if he got wounded at the end of each of his turns? His warlord is toughness 4, with 3 wounds, and probably a 3+ armor save(HA, Shield and mounted) so fairly easy to kill. He has a 1 in 3 chance of suffering a wound each turn with no armor saves allowed so he can easily kill himself. Try redirecting him, sniping him, or completely crushing the unit with a few of your own. If it was mounted on something that gave him +1 wound then that would be a great pox rat. The pox rats attacks do not benefit from the fellblade.

The BSB's armor only confers a 4+ AS and the bounce back is only a strength for hit that still as to roll to wound, and you roll your saves.

One of the engineers would have to be carrying the doomrocket, it's one use only. Remember on his roll for it's distance three or more 1's equals a misfire.

His list seems legal, his rare choices are just under 25% of his total list. He only has clanrats and slaves so it's a very weak core without any stormvermin.  You're looking at Toughness 3 on the clanrats with only a 5+ AS and 6+ parry(with shields) so that's easy to chew through. The slaves are once again T3 with a 6+AS/6+parry(only with shields and HW+Shields for the parry). Where they shine though is with "strength in numbers" which is why the bus formation is so popular. He gets to adds his additional ranks in the unit to his Ld roll (max of 10 Ld). If you can redirect the units away from each so they can't benefit from the warlords Ld then hammer them with some IG's or MFC they should flee rather quickly. Note: keep your main units out of combat with his slaves because all of his WM's CAN fire at you still.

Best things to do to thoroughly crush him are:

-run a hellheart into his bunker of engineers and set it off
-take two ironblasters and target his WLC's and Doomwheels
-run some Maneaters, make them take on the WLC's or snipe his characters
-redirect his slaves with sabretusks or tarpit them with gnoblar trappers until later
-run a unit of buffed ogres w/ IF(or ironguts if you have the points) into his warlords unit while flanking with a unit of MFC

Just remember to prioritize your targets and load of with a lot of high damage, roll specific things since you are  tailoring a list. Try using a greedy fist to eat his fellblade. I would drop the leadies though for sure. Take LotGM on the SM and try a firebelly instead of the butcher. All suggestions though.

-GL

Also, someone will correct me if I'm wrong, when hit with a warpstone weapon and the unsaved wounds multiple they do not pass to other models if I remember correctly. If 5 ogres of a unit of 10 are hit and all 5 are also wounded(no armor saves), when they go to roll for the multiple wounds and, for the sake of making things easier, all rolls for D6 multiple wounds on each of the 5 ogres were a 3 or higher then it would just kill those 5 ogres and would not pass on to the other 5 in the unit since they were never hit and/or wounded to begin with.

Not sure if that made a difference in the game or not.

-GL

Sorry for the double post, easier to do this and for someone else to quote me later on if I am in fact wrong on this.

Based on what you've described, I believe he played his list right.  Doomrocket only shot once, and he was rolling the fellblade "eat me" dice.

I definitely will try the majority of your suggestions next time.  Firebelly with the hellheart should do wonders, and LotGM is really good (though I've found Heavens works wonders against High Elves).

I think you are correct on the warpstone weapons.  The multiple wounds are per model, not per unit.  Makes skaven really scary against ogres, but I bet something like lizardmen wouldn't care as much.

Would it be better to use a sabretusk as a WLC hunter, or as slave bait?

Also, should I split my characters up, or try to hide them in a big group?

Sabres would be better for slave bait, ironblasters should target the doomwheels (you definitely don't want to charge them) and maneaters or MFC should make short work of the WLCs. I'd split up the characters into two groups, firebelly w/ hellheart running towards the engineers bunker and but the SM and BSB with ironguts to set up a flank charge with another unit (mfc or me) on his warlords bunker.

If you shut down a magic phase and successfully bait his slaves/set up charges it should be easier. The hard part is dealing with those four WMs.

-GL

How do you think this list would do?

One slaughtermaster: level 4, dispel scroll, fencer’s blades, glittering scales, dragongem, ironcurse icon
One firebelly: additional hand weapon, hellheart
One bruiser: BSB, sword of striking, other trickster’s shard, dragonhelm, heavy armor, ironfist
One ironblaster
One ironblaster
One sabretusk:
One sabretusk:
One unit ironguts (4 models): gutlord, bellower, standard of discipline w/ lookout:
One unit ironguts (5 models):gutlord, bellower, banner w/ lookout:
One unit gnoblar trappers (14 models):
One unit maneaters (5 models): bellower, brace of pistols, heavy armor, sniper, poison, gleaming pennant

1999 points total.  SM and BSB go in 4 model group of ironguts, firebelly goes in 5 model group.

Also, assuming the list is workable, how would you try to deploy?

Hmm...two unitsof IGs doesnt leave you many ogres on the the table. If one of those units was regular ogre bulls that would insure you're not always striking last...but your call.

As for deploying it depends on your opponent. Keep the ironblasters back but within range of hitting whatever they need to. You'd want to keep a sabretusk close to each IG unit until you figure out where his slaves are headed. Maybe keep the trappers ahead and centralized to be able to line them up with his generals unit so you can flank with your generals IGs. When the maneaters are done WM hunting they can turn their attention to his generals unit and charge in if possible. Remember that after the ironblasters blow stuff up they can still be used as chariots and could charge the slave blocks until another unit finished of whatever they were doing and come to its aid.

The firebellys unit should run towards the engineers and when it gets close pop the hellheart in their magic phase, in your shooting phase use his breath weapon then charge in. With the sabre close by hopefully the slaves will be out of the way.

Try to get strength buffs on the ogres for the turn you charge then toughness and regen.

I'm trying to think if there is a better way to setup the maneaters or if four would be better.
But it's late where I'm at and I'll get back to that later.

-GL

Also, someone will correct me if I'm wrong, when hit with a warpstone weapon and the unsaved wounds multiple they do not pass to other models if I remember correctly. If 5 ogres of a unit of 10 are hit and all 5 are also wounded(no armor saves), when they go to roll for the multiple wounds and, for the sake of making things easier, all rolls for D6 multiple wounds on each of the 5 ogres were a 3 or higher then it would just kill those 5 ogres and would not pass on to the other 5 in the unit since they were never hit and/or wounded to begin with.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly how this works.