Tournament help

Hi guys, as many of you will know I've put my ogres on hold until I've finished my 5000pt  Night Goblin horde (it's soooo close!)

  I've recently and recklessly entered a local tournament to get the models out and on the table. Since doing so I've realised I don't have a clue what many units in Warhammer do any more and I'm likely to wiped out with impunity.

  The tournament army lists can be found here- https://www.dropbox.com/s/vgj9n7pd6bg7lf3/Horned%20Rat%20Lists.xls

  I'm not expecting to do well, but I also don't want to be suckered in every game I play.

  Do you guys want to have a look and see what's likely to be really, really, scary?

   Any and all advice appreciated.

  One note- My list (the night goblin list) no longer has Skarsnik, he's replaced with another low-level shaman and some combat characters, including a Goblin Warboss (Ld 8, hurrah!)

Pete Dunn & Tim Joss both have solid lists and they're great players.

Wow, some of those lists look real nasty. Your Goblin list caught my eye, it's got 3 Pumpwagons in it. Can you take 3? I thought you were only allowed to take 2 duplicate rare choices.

My first impression on your list is that you don't have a lot of high strength attacks. Just the trolls really right? So I think you will have the most trouble with those high armored armies. Like all the Warriors of chaos and Empire armies. And there where quite a few really killy lords that might be a tough matchup for you.

The army that scares me the most is Dan Butlers army. The unkillable WoC lord. 3 Chariots. 2 Chimeras. And a unit of 4 skullcrashers with a banner of swiftness. That lord will literally fly next to one of your big blocks. Fire breath. Flank charge. Probably win combat. Mow them down. And quite possibly not take a single wound...

And I think you will match up well with the elves and dwarf armies.

A fellow Night Goblin player!  Rare as unicorns, we are!  Anyways, I can tell you right now you aren't running enough fanatics.  Fanatics and fully upgraded pump-wagons are you answer to high-armor AND monstrous cavalry, and without them, you're going to be toast even faster than you might think you are.  Two fully-kitted pump-wagons will kill the average Mournfang or Skull Crusher unit.

Personally, I'd only run a single big horde.  Trim the second one down, drop the nets, and get the rest of your fanatics.  Personally I'd exchange all of the smaller unit's weapons for bows, as well.  I'd also run the spider riders without bows; their job is to race behind the lines and kill war machines.

Try and fit the Terrifying Mask of Eeee! on one of the spare big bosses.  The Charmed Shield needs to go on the Cave Squig boss as well.

I've often pondered the Mask of Eeee! Do you use it? I think it would be fun and probably an amusing conversion.

  Yeah, those WoC lords are tough. I'm not expecting to stand up to some of the truly vicious armies. It's a chance to get the models out for a stroll around a table top. I've often found heavily armoured opponents tricky but squigs are just too feeble to help out. More fanatics would probably be good but these will be cunning players.

 Thanks for the pointers- I'll be slightly more careful around some of those units.

  Pumpwagons are "2 counts as 1" as far as slots go, so there could even be a fourth (it's just not painted).

One of the main concerns for a N. Goblin army is to negate as many leadership checks as possible, hence the Mask of Eeee.  It's not so that you cause terror, it's so that terror doesn't affect you.  For that matter, I usually run the fear sword on one of my other Big Bosses.

A solid way to do severe damage when faced with a nasty charge is to run one of the 20-man blocks almost directly behind your horde.  Make sure the Fanatic release range extends from the smaller block to about 2 inches in front of the horde.  Any unit that charges the horde has to stop two inches away while the fanatics are released.  The fanatics hit your horde (and kill some gobos, but you got more where they came from).  They then bounce through and stop directly in front of your horde.  The charger has to complete the charge, and with only 2 inches can't wheel appreciably (assuming he hasn't already wheeled) to avoid them.  He then takes 6d6 AP S5 hits as he stops on top of all 3 fanatics.  Not too many units can absorb those kinds of casualties before blows are even struck.

A solid way to do severe damage when faced with a nasty charge is to run one of the 20-man blocks almost directly behind your horde.  Make sure the Fanatic release range extends from the smaller block to about 2 inches in front of the horde.  Any unit that charges the horde has to stop two inches away while the fanatics are released.  The fanatics hit your horde (and kill some gobos, but you got more where they came from).  They then bounce through and stop directly in front of your horde.  The charger has to complete the charge, and with only 2 inches can't wheel appreciably (assuming he hasn't already wheeled) to avoid them.  He then takes 6d6 AP S5 hits as he stops on top of all 3 fanatics.  Not too many units can absorb those kinds of casualties before blows are even struck.

  That's just filthy!

Yeah but it is also brilliant! Will keep this in mind if I ever face an all Night Gobbo army. Sneaky little buggers that they are

A solid way to do severe damage when faced with a nasty charge is to run one of the 20-man blocks almost directly behind your horde.  Make sure the Fanatic release range extends from the smaller block to about 2 inches in front of the horde.  Any unit that charges the horde has to stop two inches away while the fanatics are released.  The fanatics hit your horde (and kill some gobos, but you got more where they came from).  They then bounce through and stop directly in front of your horde.  The charger has to complete the charge, and with only 2 inches can't wheel appreciably (assuming he hasn't already wheeled) to avoid them.  He then takes 6d6 AP S5 hits as he stops on top of all 3 fanatics.  Not too many units can absorb those kinds of casualties before blows are even struck.

   Heh, been there, done that. See ya later, uber-expensive unit of Cold One Knights + Lord.

Oh, there's plenty of dirty things you can do with those back stabbing goblins.

don't think your manger squig will be able to hit those skull crushers coming at you?  Charge them with a deep goblin unit!  (preferably one that has expended it's fanatics).  Make the charge, and then aim the mangler at the back of the now much closer goblin unit, and have the mangler bounce through them AND the skull crushers!  Your goblins won't have to take a panic test from losses because they're already locked, AND the mangler is now uncontrolled on the far side of the enemy unit! 

It's amazing how many of their best tactics start with "kill some of your own goblins first..."

Tournament done and dusted. It was great fun, with 5 really good games. Only one was a heavy defeat, one minor win, one minor loss and two draws. Even the severe defeat was really good fun with it being a fairly balanced game until turn 4 when all my dice abandoned me, followed by my troops.

 I spent the first day learning and discovering rules I'd forgotten, or never known and the second day trying to remember to use the nets upgrade I'd paid for but almost completely forgot to use.

 Surprise performers were the 20-man bowmen unit and the squig hoppers. The 3 low-level shamen worked nicely too, and I'd take them over a single shaman lord any time, now.

 The 20 man unit, with a single fanatic, a musician and shortbows did well in a couple of the games when one of the shamen gave them poisonous attacks. Even when that didn't happen they were handy as an early deployment drop, charge deflectors or as an enemy chaff killer. For less than 100pts they were great.

 The squig hoppers had good games and bad but when they're good, they're amazing. With the hero on the giant squig in there they had a fair bit of punch plus immune to panic and high-speed pursuits when the enemy broke.

  Credit too, to the infantry blocks. Turns out that there were just so many of them they could weather some heavy hits (dragon breath, unit-incinerating magic etc) and keep on going. With the general and the BSB hanging around together they made a surprisingly tough army core.

  The artillery were a bit unreliable to be considered amazing but at times they did a good job. Other times, just demoralising. If I'd realised that the doom diver ignored amour saves it might have been a little better too. Too be fair- the rock lobbas killed a bloody enormous dragon and came very close (damn you, 4+ ward!) to squishing the DE lord riding it too.

  Fanatics were a mixed bag, doing their worst against beastmen, unsurprisingly, where they were almost embarrassingly destructive but fairing more poorly against a very swift DE army.

  All up, I played the new Wood Elves (time ran out, just as I was getting to grips with them), Beastmen (time ran out just as they were getting to grips with me), High Elves, Chaos Warriors and Dark Elves.

  Thanks for your help guys, it let me avoid some shameful defeats and I even picked up the Best Sport award! This is likely due to the number of my own men I slaughtered via various means, which most opponents seemed to consider quite a friendly thing.

Congrats on the best sports!    Well done in general.

Indeed, very well done!