# Versus... Monsters



## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Another in the new 8th ed Versus Series this time we are looking at Monsters.

The request thread, with links to all the Versus... threads done so far can be found here.


Monsters come in all shapes and sizes... most of them big and gribbly. While 8th ed has seen some reduction in the use of monsters as cannons and stone throwers are now far nastier and infantry units can use steadfast to resist them its also given monsters thunderstomp... meaning that when a monster hits something it does far more damage then it used to.
BUT WAIT... the clouds are gathering and the weather looks to be changing. A Storm of Magic is on its way, bringing with it a whole new legion of monsters, putting monsters back into WFB in a huge way...

So, from the lesser-spotted DE Hydra to the rare great Dragon, from wizards using transformation of Kadon to Hellpit abominations or from the basic old Slavegiant to the brand spanking new tomb kitty (TK Sphinxes) there are many different monsters out there that can rip whole units apart and leave your army cowering in terror as they rampage through your lines...


So how do you deal with monsters (other then just firing artillery at them)? Do you tarpit them with huge units of cheap infantry, rip them apart with strong units, send in monsters of your own for colossal deathmatches or do you just use magic to tip them down great holes in the ground or turn them to solid gold... 
Whatever tactics you have used, or had used against your own monsters would be gratefully received. Fellow heretics, your community needs you...


* the magic of GUO, KoS and LoC probably needs its own thread. If anyone wants a "Versus... Greater Daemons" thread please add it to the request thread (link at the top) and I'll create it.


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## kickboxerdog (Jun 2, 2011)

my fav tatic is to build a bretonnian lord mounted on a pegasus or hyppogryph, give him the virtue of heroism( heroic killing blow) with heartwood lance( +2 strenght on the charge and get to re-roll to wound) and that still leaves me points to add more.

i use this build to hunt lone characters or monsters and i have had brill success with it , ive only been killed once in this build and that was from a vampire.


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## effigy22 (Jun 29, 2008)

Majority of big mosters have a low initiative so Pit of Shades / Purple Sun is always a good bet if your using empire.

With my Daemon army - well thats what a bloodthirster is for in 8th isnt it?


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## Arli (Mar 4, 2010)

Chameleons! Chameleons! Skinks! Oh, and more Chameleons.

Dropped a giant in a game last weekend with one round of shooting from 6 chameleons. Regen monsters are a little harder. I have yet to face a hellpit abomination, but I would use something like ruby ring to take away the regen, then hit it with my chameleons.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

to the above poster; ruby ring would only take away their regen for the MAGIC PHASE. Shooting is an entirely diff phase.

From a beastman point of view there's limited ways to counter. 

Shooting: a traditional way to take on monsters, beastmen are lacking in any shooting of note (s3 bs 3 short range does not a 'shooting threat make'). We do have access to the "Amber spear" and with the 'hag-tree fetish' are re-rolling to wound. Yes, that's more magic than shooting, but it sort of fits here.

*Magic*: 

*Death* lore lets us target low ld monsters out of the General's bubble, ore even hope for the best with other spells (2d6- S/ T)
 *Shadow*: Miasma and pit of shades. Withering and other de-buffs help a lot
 *Beasts:* Transformation, though hard to get off, is a great counter to most monsters. Not many monsters can survive the Mountain Chimera. Primal Fury means a crap ton of re-rollable hits. Savage beasts of horrors makes most Heroes/ lords down-right monster killers. Wyssan's wildform can make a solid block of gors that won't yield the wounds the monster needs to win with CR. 
 * Wild*: uhm. yeah.

*In combat:* the simplest monster killer we have are waves of lone razorgors. S6 on the charge, can't be stomped, fear causing (not that important) and high T. I've seen 2 of these pigs take out Big Bad Orcs on even bigger Wyverns. Sacrificing 110 points total to take out their bad mamamajamas is a good deal.
Bestigors are good at taking down most monsters, but their price tag makes me wince when losing so many.
Razorgor Chariots can handle their own vs monsters. In truth, they ARE beastment monsters. An armor save (something ALL OUR F****ing monsters LACK) high T, S6/5 razorgos that DO GET PRIMAL FURY (when on chariot) and other attacks from the crew. Impact hits make this guy worth it. 
Wyssan'd Gors w AHW make for a mean surprise for most monsters. 

* Monster v Monster:* truth be told, most of our monsters are rubbish and would be hacked apart vs 90% of other monsters.

Cygor is a lame duck in CC, 
Ghorgon is good, but has no saves vs anything, so if one bad round, he's toast and most monsters are 50-35% less than him.
Jabberslythe is a good suicide machine, but still far too expensive. and has no save.

ideally, I'd bait the monster away from combat with chaff/ razorgors and then work on the main army. If they're playing defensive with their monsters, well, it's a rough battle.

And to hell with the HPA. That thing is just absurd. I can't wait to use it on skaven players and see how they feel.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

As a Warriors of Chaos player, my options when dealing with enemy monsters are somewhat limited. Thunderstomp does obnoxious things to my units of Warriors...but I've found that typically I have so few units that I can put a hero in each of them. With either a great weapon or a magic weapon that bumps them up to a comparable strength, an Exalted Hero is enough to dispatch more or less whatever comes my way. 

The other option Warriors of Chaos have available is magic. Between the Lore of Death, Nurgle, and Tzeentch, there's usually SOMETHING that you can scare up that can put the hurt on a monster. Fire and Slaanesh aren't quite as useful in that regard, but there are still spells in both that are able to greatly reduce the effectiveness of monsters. 

I guess a final option available that I've never played with is to throw a large unit of Marauders with great weapons at a monster. I play Warriors of Chaos for the wall of iron-clad badasses, and not the running naked barbarians that tag along for the ride... 90% of the time, there isn't a model in my army that isn't wearing Chaos Armor. That being said, I don't see why 20 Marauders with greataxes can't bring your average monster down. Particularly if they have the Mark of Khorne or Slaanesh-- the former for obvious reasons, and the latter because Marauders have questionable leadership and aren't likely to win combat with a monster unless they outright kill it... Slaanesh will keep them in the fight a little better by putting a stop to problems from Fear and Terror.


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Hit regen monsters with fire, and the rest with poison. Lore of Heavens works a treat as well; S6 is a bitch against 7th edition monsters, and against these newfangled T8 8th ed. monsters, poison. A fair number of monsters have mediocre to poor initiative; Lore of Shadows does well also.


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## Atreyu (May 30, 2011)

What I've learned is that monsters go one of two ways. They either have high initiative and no save so poison and high strength attacks on multitudes work. Or they have ok to good armour but terrible initiative meaning shadows or other monsters. The perfect monster is the o&g spider. Has good initiative good armour faster than most monsters that don't fly and they can do much more. Those guys r the ones where you bombard with everything you could possibly have.


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## Majere613 (Oct 14, 2008)

With my WoC, I've had a fair amount of success with big Fireballs against War Hydras and Abominations. 3D6 S4 hits is usually enough to get past T5 and drop the blighters in a single shot. A charge from a decent unit of Chaos Knights is also usually enough to see off most monsters (though I had that go badly wrong against an Abom that got very lucky, I rolled terribly, then it Fed. Disaster)

I actually still use Flail Marauders, and my Horde of them is usually good for most monsters in a turn. If they regenerate, Flaming Sword of Rhuin on the Marauders is gold dust. Striking at I4, with a sackload of WS4, S5 Flaming Attacks and +1 to Wound is usally doom for most gribblies.

With a Tomb Kings army incoming, I'm also working on monster and chariot killing Lords. A Manticore-riding Lord of Khorne with the Giant Blade and Crimson Armour of Dargan is S8 and immune to Killing Blow, giving him a decent chance of dropping those T8 Sphinxes. For general monster-killing, the Hellfire Sword is expensive but effective, doing d3+1 wounds per unsaved wound, and being Flaming for that pesky regeneration.

Finally, there's always the Hellcannon option. If the monster model is fairly big, it's not that unlikely that you can land the hole on one, and that's a s10 D6 wound hit. A very dice-dependant option to be sure, but satisfying to pull off.

As for non-Woc monster killing, pretty much everyone else just shoots them. You lot don't know you're born, with your cannons, bolt throwers, warp-lighting etc.

Mutter.


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## blackspine (Jun 9, 2010)

Majere613 said:


> As for non-Woc monster killing, pretty much everyone else just shoots them. You lot don't know you're born, with your cannons, bolt throwers, warp-lighting etc.
> 
> Mutter.


I feel your pain.

Although the best shooting we have is throwing axes. Go go beastmen shooting.

Trust me, anytime raiders shoot, hit and kill anything, it's like winning the lottery.

Oddly, they did down a few Khorne knights one game. Talk about crazy luck.


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## Stephen_Newman (Jul 14, 2009)

I would say a great way is using weapons that inflict multiple wounds. Weapons such as the Tenderiser found in the Ogre Kingdoms list are great since there are quite a few monsters (giants being a prime example) that have absolutely no armour save. Nearly all armies have access to such a weapon as well.


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## Ratvan (Jun 20, 2011)

50 Big Un's with choppa's


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Stephen_Newman said:


> I would say a great way is using weapons that inflict multiple wounds. Weapons such as the Tenderiser found in the Ogre Kingdoms list are great since there are quite a few monsters (giants being a prime example) that have absolutely no armour save. Nearly all armies have access to such a weapon as well.


Certainly the way I go with my ogres: tenderiser tyrant with wyrdstone (5++) and 1-2 re-rolls on saves (and I would normally try to get regen on the unit, or mebbe +1T if against something S5 like a hydra). At times its beautiful... but at others its a dreadful fail. Luckily with it being a great weapon monster armour isn't such an issue (although regen can be a pita). Kinda wish I could add a banner of eternal flame onto my bulls to get past regen as well... but that would need a BSB.


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## elmir (Apr 14, 2011)

I have a very specific problem... or rather monster. 

A mate of mine is starting tomb kings and from what I heard from him, that means I'll be up against T8 (?) monsters. I don't really see how I'm going to tackle that with my skaven. Even the jezzails will be wounding on 6+ if that's the case.


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## Tanarri (Jun 23, 2011)

elmir said:


> A mate of mine is starting tomb kings and from what I heard from him, that means I'll be up against T8 (?) monsters. I don't really see how I'm going to tackle that with my skaven. Even the jezzails will be wounding on 6+ if that's the case.


Warp Lightning Cannon, Doomwheel Hope for strength 8 or 10 bolts. 
Poison wind globadiers, and poison wind mortars always wound on a 4+ 
Wither will reduce its toughness by 1 for the rest of the game.
Assassin/gutter runners with poison weapons. Dont over look the auto wound on a 6 to hit. It is alot more powerful then you might think.

Not that it will help against the tk monster but against monsters in general: The warpfire thrower will get rid of regen saves and it is str 5. 
Your own monster from the hellpit(though I have never actually ran it)
Rat ogres lots of str 5 attacks 
and my favorite answer to most things is Plague Priest w/ flail or censor on a plague furnace pushed by a horde of plague monks (Since I have started using it it really is my star unit)


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

As a Dark Elf player myself, I find that there are two reliable ways to get rid of a monster.

1. Magic. For a Dark Elf player, you're usually using either Dark magic or Shadow magic. The latter is better for taking out monsters, though. Debuffing a monster will make it weak enough for regular infantry to out-kill it, to say nothing of elites. In addition, Penumbral Pendulum and Pit of Shades are quite good for killing them.

2. Monsters/Characters: My own Hydras can double-team a monster quite sufficiently. With this many S5 attacks, I can kill monsters quite quickly. In addition, my CoK bus usually includes a character that can rip apart monsters quite quickly. Speaking of that, small units of CoK are very effective for dealing with monsters. A 6-man unit with musician makes both effective flankers and monster-hunters.

As for Tomb Kings, if you're playing Skaven, you don't need to worry. It only has a 5+ armor save, which means that S3 or S4 can do pretty well against it. Your unit is probably less expensive than the Necrosphinx, and kill it better than it can kill you.

As for my Lizardmen, I find that Temple-Guard can usually handle a monster by themselves. Skinks can also poison monsters quite well and divert them away from anything vulnerable.


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## Alexious (Apr 13, 2009)

As I requested this thread, I will give some basic advice on how to deal with Monsters.


The Basics that you or your Monster opponent may forget....

1). Monster placement and movement. 

Monsters are large and rather difficult to hide (eg behind a hill or building). Make sure you discuss with your opponent what terrain blocks sight/cannonballs before you begin the game.

2). Monsters have some strange rules: make sure you either know them, or ask to read their entries. Things like stupidity and frenzy can have a huge effect on the game (eg the DE manticore- it does not always do what it says on the tin).


3). Flying around... a lot of monsters rely on flying. If you can stop them being able to you'll often buy yourself an extra turn or 2.

4). Know your fear and terror rules; while they are weaker then 7th ed they can still give some nasty surprises. 

5). Look Out Sir... or rather what look out sir. Enemy generals on monsters will normally have an 18" inspiring presence, but will never have Look Out Sir. So snipe them with cannons/spells... taking out the character means the monster is less of a threat (or none) and weakens the enemy army a a whole. Rmember that cannonballs hit everything on a base so 1 hit on a dragon's base would hit both the dragon and rider.



6). Placement of troops. A lot is said about deployment. Take a monster into consideration when you deploy. Monsters will go for two things in general...

A) Warmachines to eat them quickly before you can fire for 2 or 3 turns. 
B) Opportune Flank Attackers/Magic delivery.

A. Protect your war machines with models/units capable of beating/tarpitting the monster. Remember that monsters with flying can fly over your units... but not if its base does not fit between your guarding unit and the warmachine.

B). Try to deny flanking opportunities. Keep units facing the monsters or have units that could countercharge in response. Try to avoid letting a unit be charged by an enemy infantry unit and a monster simultaneously: losing steadfast and being smacked around by a monster is a bad combo.


Lexi.

Heavily edited for legibility...if I have to read something multiple times to extract meaning then beginners don't stand a chance
T/S


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