114 replies to this topic

[Reaperbryan]

Discuss factions, builds, and how to crush your foes mightily in this thread!

[joshuaslater]

I haven't played my Darkspawn yet with the new cards/rules. Anyone have any insight as to the feel of my army with the changes?

How do I need to consider my force with the pain cage in mind?

What mix should I use besides my usual "Load up on flying spellcasters, broken fodder, Isiri warriors and some monsters and go out there and beat'em up" tactic?

I probably won't get to play these guys until next month, so any input is appreciated.

Cheers.

[shakhak]

Thought I would post the troops that I have been playing with.

-Javolith
-Any Elite of your Choice
-4 Broken Fodder
-2 Demon Warriors
This makes for a brutal melee troop. I've been taking the clawed demon as the elite, but anything would work.(A pain mage could even make the troop more deadly) I use the Demon Warriors to assist the elite on strong targets, or use them to break down the front line. I let the fodder hang back until the second round of combat that way I should have some pain tokens so they can stay on their feet. The demon warriors hardly degrade as their damaged so once their in combat they are like a wall and with a little fodder support it's a wall of death.

-Rauthuros/Guros
-4-7 Incubus Warriors
-3-4 Demon Imps
I love this flyer troop. Typical strategy is to gang up on whatever you charge. 2 IW on each target, that way if you hit the model twice it's stats really start to go down before your other normal attacks. The imps are here to give the IWs a bonus for their combats. Getting the charge here is important, but unless your opponent has a flyer troop or a meety flying solo it's pretty much a done deal.
I also take a mage on of the ground troops and try to get of Dibilitating Pain, Fireball, Scare, any kind of AoE so that it weakens one or two models... Sitting the flyers up for finishing off the entire troop.

-Witch Queen
-Pain Mage
-Warriors
-Archers
Put enough warriors in the troop so you have one to put in front of each archer and mage. So if you have 2 archers, buy up 4 warriors. This troop will be your glass cannon. Your warriors are the speed bumps. Always put your warriors in front of the mages/archers, when you activate, move the warriors out and away(1 movement) blast spells then shoot arrows, then move the warriors back in front of the others.
Load up with spells of your choice, I am a big fan of the new Ice Storm, nothing like a solid 4 points of damage from the Queen. Take Counterspell with both mages to create a spell free zone that covers 1/4 the board. Also take bolt, for those spells that you don't really care if the enemy gets off anyway, like if he wants to ice shard a Broken fodder that you can use tokens to keep alive. Let him take the blow and you take the opportunity to toss a bolt at the mage.
So you know, this is my favorite troop. With Magic, Archery, and some melee combined on one card you can rip enemies apart well before they get the chance to heal or retreat.
Taking the Spectral Minion Spell and giving it to the Witch Queen instead of bringing warriors was also recommended.

[mjstarks]

Hey everyone,

I'm a total noob at Warlord (just got figs in the past two weeks), but have a decent amount of experience in other table-top games. I'm guess I'm too used to playing Bretonnians in Warhammer, but I've been trying the Darkspawn against my friend with the Crusaders, and I just got destroyed. I mean, it was awful. I took down two models in our 1000 pt game. Some was awful rolling, but that only goes so far. I like the Darkspawn because they seem to be a decent varied force and the sculpts are great.

Here's what I got in terms of figs:

Soultender
Aundine
Witch Queen
Javolith
Ashakia
4 Incubi Warriors
9 Paintenders
3 Isiri Archers
5 Broken Fodder


I guess the two things I could use help on are a) general strategy and b) what kind of force should I build with this and are there more figs that are "needed" to be effective. I've noticed my two issues against the Crusaders are a) their high DV makes it hard to damage them enough to where my foot soldiers can be effective and b) in melee, they're almost auto-killing my troops with their elite units.

I'm probably not using the Pain Cage well and I've only recently started trying to swarm with paintenders and the fodder. I readily admit I'm not that knowledgable and any help that can be given would be great.

[Storminator]

Get more archers, and load the Queen up with spells. Concentrate fire on models you can kill quickly (3 trackers, frex) and gather up some Pain Tokens before melee begins. Both Fodder and Warriors are cheap to bring back, so use the Cage on them.

A few more Soultenders, now that they're Adepts, can really wreak some havoc.

PS

[mjstarks]

Get more archers, and load the Queen up with spells. Concentrate fire on models you can kill quickly (3 trackers, frex) and gather up some Pain Tokens before melee begins. Both Fodder and Warriors are cheap to bring back, so use the Cage on them.

A few more Soultenders, now that they're Adepts, can really wreak some havoc.

PS

Alright...

One of my general strategies in the past in miniatures was to try to hit the stronger units first, at least damage them a bit. With Darkspawn, should I focus more on removing the foot soldiers, getting the tokens for the pain cage, then go for a war of attrition with the stronger opposing units?

Thanks for the advice so far; the Soultenders definitely appear to be viable as a unit.

[mattmcl]

I played my first ever game last night. My DS starter kit versus my buddy's Crusader starter kit. It was brutal until I cast Chain Lightning. Get yourself two level 3 chain lightning spells, and nail 'em, one turn after the other. That leaves all the grunts pretty much at the level of isiri warriors.

[Qwyksilver]

Definitely try to get some of the softer targets with the lower tracks early, particularly with Ranged attacks (spells or Archery) early, so you can build a decent supply of Pain Tokens up, and try to capitalize before you opponent gets into melee range. Probably the most important targets to aim for are EVERY enemy level 2+ Mage on the table. You want to use Witch Queen to her full effect, and those level 2 Mages with Counterspell will really screw that up for you.

Once in melee range, use the Broken Fodder and Darkspawn Warriors to tie up your opponent's bigger models. You're going to lose some, but they will have chances to hit, and with Pain Cage, you can bring those back. Often to the total frustration of your opponent In one playtest session, I probably killed the same 4 Models, at least 3-5 times. Because I would wipe them out, but they would Pain Cage back to their last track and keep me tied up. Then elsewhere on the board, I'd have a 4 track model die (which will revive 2 Broken Fodder). So I could kill them without rolling, but they wouldn't go away. It became a challenge to try and kill enough stuff quickly, and try to force Storm to burn through his Tokens without losing some of my other Models elsewhere.

Soultenders and your other Demons make great shredders once you have models tied up with your grunts.

[joshuaslater]

It's always about concentrating missiles, magic, and then charging the troop you unloaded on. Divide and conquer. Kill the weak first for tokens. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[mjstarks]

Thanks for all the help; much appreciated.

[mjstarks]

Well, meeting some friends for another game tonite. Let's hope it goes well.

[underling]

It's been a long, long, looooong time since I've posted / read anything here at Reaper. Work, living situation, life, etc... you know how it is. And to make a long story short, I don't have a whole lot of money to spend right now, unfortunately. I have all of the Dark Spawn models except the Incubus and Imp (which I will probably refer to at some point as "the new models"). What I normally do is just buy a handful of models, and whatever models I make use of is "good for me"; anything extra just collects dust. I can't afford to do that currently, so I ask of you fellow Dark Spawn players, how many Incubus and conversely, how many imps can I realistically field in a 750, 1000, 1500, and 2000 pt army? I'd love to get back into the swing of things, but that probably won't happen until I move out of Florida and into North Carolina, so we'll see how that turns out.

[mooseyjoe]

if or when you do get to NC, be sure to shoot me a note.



I go to school in greenville, and live in raleigh, so I know many of the active players in the state. In the area around Nc there are quite a few people who love to play.

[underling]

Reaper does an excellent job of providing us with cool looking minis, but seeing / using the same sculpts tends to get boring after awhile. Fortunately for us, Reaper also makes many other fantasy minis that can be used as proxies quite nicely. I've compiled a list of some good candidates for proxification (call Webster, I've found a new word!) for your own personal amusement. I've only briefly skimmed the DHL 3100s but if anyone is interested, I'll edit this post and add others later. Keep in mind that if you plan on using a lot of proxies, things may become very confusing since all sense of character recognition is gone... so try and keep things at a minimum and be sure to tell your enemies and allies what everything is supposed to represent BEFORE the game starts.

Audine:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3106_G

Nasithe:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3110_G

Witch Queen + Broken Fodder:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3126_G
or
Witch Queen + assorted goodies:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3187_G

Warriors:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3127_G

The big stompy demon whose name escapes me (Rathuros or something? Anyway, this mini probably isn't scaled properly so you'll have to mount him on a bigger base):
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3167_G

Ashakia:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3173_G
or
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3184_G

Vysa:
http://www.reapermin...ry/3100s/3193_G

[rgtriplec]

I have to agree with the archer/magic early theory. I have to say the Queen, Rathuros, Guros, Ashakia and the Pain Mage are devestating in combinations of three or more. The only other things you need are archers and fodder. The archers are on par with any in the game and Fodder are the best warriors in the game. If I buy two Shieldmaidens you can get 7 Fodder. They hit at 6 and can't be shaken so you can fire into combat with your archers. Pick off as many grunts as possible early.

I personally think you picked the strongest army with the best faction ablility. I have played them with Dwarfs and Reven and they are just demoralizing. You may lose the first couple rounds of combat, except for the archer/magic stuff but Darkspawn gets stronger as the game goes on because of the pain cage and with fodder being twenty points they never die.