# Versus... Gun Line Armies (7th)



## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

Hi all,

Continuing with the Fantasy Versus... series, next on the list is gun line armies (suggested by Hudson and Inquisitor Aurelius). If you want to add your suggestions as to who Fantasy Versus should deal with next, go here for the general thread.

So, gun line armies, how do you combat these players that sit back and pound your troops to bits? They can devastate even the toughest unit of knights or cannon snipe your precious general on his expensive mount, they have a tiresome habit of whittling away your at troops so when you finally get to them it often isn't easy going.

So how do you plan to combat them? Do you have a preferred unit or tactic that works every time? Do you prefer to mob them with cheap, disposable infantry or play them at their own game and shoot them to bits?


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## Critta (Aug 6, 2008)

I've not had the chance to actually try it yet, but I can see a WoC army dealing with the main basis of a gunline pretty nicely.

Advance a cavalry army behind a screen of chaos hounds, the hounds will probably get shot down in the first turn, then your main block of cav should reach the gunline in your 2nd turn pretty much unscathed.

Some marauder cavalry or a general on a flyer to go war machine hunting and you're pretty set.

I'd also take as many slaaneshi sorcerors as possible if I could tailor my force for this and hope for titilating delusions, hellshriek or at a real pinch the one which makes a unit frenzied and take damage. 

Delusions is pretty obvious, make their units walk towards your table edge, preferably in a direction which means they don't have LOS on any of your stuff.

Hellshriek - get somewhere near/behind the enemy line (preferably within a unit of marauder horsemen and hope they fail their panic tests)

Whatever the frenzy one is called - could be useful for baiting warmachine crews or missile regiments into doing your job for you and charging into combat rather than shooting, with the solid armour saves on chaos troops this could be good or could go horribly wrong, not reccomended against dwarves with great weapons 

Also as far as setup goes, if the enemy doesn't have a big enough hill for his entire gunline, I'd hit the line at both ends at once, this way, if my opponent wants to turn his line to shoot at my outflanking units, he will be blocking his own LOS when the thin lines of troops I normally see gunlines using wheel round.


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## kungfoomasta (May 8, 2008)

put something dangerous looking outh there wuth some fast cavelry and one or the other should get to their lines after that just start the clean up.


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## zabo (Dec 19, 2008)

I use Gorgers coming from the back and harrass them with my gnoblar trappers ( skirmishers/scouts ), This will tie most of their cannons up untill my Ogres get there.


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

With my Skaven - Serious strength in numbers and hope my fuzzy rear end survives long enough. Tunneling runners helps immensely too.

With my Greenskins - Foot of Gork + Gork's Warpath. I field a crazyily strong magic force out of my goblins and I'm "usually" never short of a foot or 2. Combine that with hand of gork or Waaagh for extra moves as often as possible and you should do alright in getting across the table relatively unscathed. Giants help as missile magnets.

With my Chaos - Wulfrik. That is all.

Any army that can field fast core units. DE, WoC, DoC etc do really well. One of our guys uses a D.Elf army with 2 manticores and what feels like 100'000'000 dark riders. he's on you in turn 2.


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## Dafistofmork (Jan 9, 2009)

DE manticore is always good- hide in turn 1, turn 2 have it (as they say in my gaming store) sideways rape the enemy, jobs a good un.


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## Ascendant Valor (Jan 3, 2009)

I like how you all approach this problem; it's probably one of the most efficient means to attack this problem.

A weaker gunline army, a la Empire, can be dealt with through fast cavalry to tie them in close combat or with magic to shut them up early. As long as you can reach the enemy gunline with decent numbers, the wounds you inflict will be significant enough for you to run through them by turn 3.

A tougher gunline army, a la Dwarves, is a tough nut to crack, but anything fast and heavy will reach their lines in good order. Imagine Chaos Knights, Ogres, Dragon Ogres and Shaggoths in their teeth by turn 2, after a barrage of Magic. That will have your enemy shaking in their boots.


My preferred method is the one I've seen used most against my "gunlines". I'll preface this with the notion that I'm a High Elf player, so two units of 10 archers and two Bolt Throwers make my gunline while my Elite Infantry advance. So, maybe it's not a gunline, but they act like one.

What the guy usually does against me is quite a dick move, but effective to acquire some easy victory points. He sends fliers and/or scouts at them. A unit of harpies or WE scouts (I forget the name of either of their scout units... there are two types, right?) will usually take down these four units with little worry while the rest of his units can move without worry of my shooting. 

Remember that skirmishers are at -1 To Hit, so even up close I need to roll 4's to land the blows, and 4's to wound them. So, I can only drop 25% of their numbers.


I've actually used a dragon to throw around some Terror tests, too. Though very risky (potentially costing me a dragon), it is nice to break apart the line by any means.


Generally speaking, I can see war machines being rough against gunlines. Cannons, Stone Throwers and RBTs all do some nasty damage to weaker units, like ranged units. That's the best way to get your points worth in your war machines.

WARNING! Off Topic: I just noticed the "Post Icons" thing. Nifty!:good:


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

High Elf-Specific Strategy:
Use small units of Shadow Warriors to tie up their cannons or other long-range firepower. Heroes on Great Eagles are magical at this, especially Mages with Fire Lore for Fireball Spammage. Also, I find that if presented with either a Lord on Star Dragon and a unit of Dragon Princes, many gun liners will shoot at the Star Dragon because it's bigger and also a Dragon. Seeing as how my unit of Dragon Princes usually costs more than my Lord, I think this is an acceptable sacrifice; it's rather hard to bring down a Star Dragon anyhow. Although I do put a lot of victory points at stake with this strategy, I've only ever given the points up in two games because of some really kinky rolls.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

gun lines are generally quite weak in combat so any magic movement helps, skirmishers to block lines of sight and things like hydra's, giants that aredifficult to kill but to scary to ignore. anything that distracts the opponents guns from the 2 or 3 units that you really want to get in combat. The exception to this is Dwarf gunlines although a dedicated combat unit should still chop through them. 
I notice that no one has mentioned an Ogre Kingdoms gunline but this doesn't surprise me as they are fairly rare mainly due to the extreme side effects of leadbelchers but in the right hands the OK gunlines can be a lot more scary as its harder to stop all the units firing and everyone underestimates gnoblar sharp stuff.


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## zabo (Dec 19, 2008)

neilbatte said:


> gun lines are generally quite weak in combat so any magic movement helps, skirmishers to block lines of sight and things like hydra's, giants that aredifficult to kill but to scary to ignore. anything that distracts the opponents guns from the 2 or 3 units that you really want to get in combat. The exception to this is Dwarf gunlines although a dedicated combat unit should still chop through them.
> I notice that no one has mentioned an Ogre Kingdoms gunline but this doesn't surprise me as they are fairly rare mainly due to the extreme side effects of leadbelchers but in the right hands the OK gunlines can be a lot more scary as its harder to stop all the units firing and everyone underestimates gnoblar sharp stuff.


Yeah but our scrapluancher is seriously cool. It can even defend itself in combat lol.


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## Pertoleum (Jul 18, 2008)

for vampire counts theirs two stretgys ive found

dancing( Vanhels) your way to enemy lines, the more u dance the better potetially i can move 24" in a single turn( ghoulkin,march,dance)

also, Cairn Wraiths are great for blocking LOS, especially cause their Ethereal and and dont take damage from non magic gunlines


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## Aspiring Toaster (Nov 25, 2008)

For WE, grab Drycha, use Woodland Ambush to stick a forest peice of terrain near the gunline, and laugh maniacally as a Treeman wakes up inside it.

Only works in Pitched Battles, which I don't know if they exist anymore (I haven't really read the current rulebook yet lol )


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## Dafistofmork (Jan 9, 2009)

The only battle in warhammer is pitched battle- which can be quite frustarting at times.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

There used to be a few, such as Cleanse-ish missions, Objective grab levels, Sieges (God, memories), and Marching Orders.

Marching orders were good fun - Choose the order of your units you must deploy in order, from the inside out, top unit goes in the middle, then place units alternately either side.

This being before you've seen the battle, bare good fun.


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## zabo (Dec 19, 2008)

I usually use a lot of cheap units as screens, or scouts, so then the bulk of your force can make it to the gunlines in one piece.


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