# The Sum of Their Parts - Which armies work best in multi-player games?



## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

So, this weekend I'm having a two-on-two game of warhammer, Bretonnians and High Elves vs. Ogres and Dark Elves, and It got me to thinking about multiplayer tactics. Warhammer is designed for, and usually played as a 1v1 game, but multi-player battles are a lot of fun, and makes for a rather more social engagement. 

Usually a good vs. evil game goes down well, and for fluff reasons its hard to see some armies allied to eachother (high and dark elves? Bretonnians and Ogres? nah). But most fluff reasons can be worked around with a sufficient amount of story-telling gymnastics.

So outside of that, what armies do you think complement each other best? A combo to make up for an armies weak-points? or one that re-enforces each others strength? What tactics would you use for your combo? Have your say!

[and could a mod please edit the spelling mistake in the headline - must remember to proofread:headbutt:]
Done - squeek


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

I think the best combo would probably be Dwarf and Bretonian as they are opposite tactics wise. Darkelf and skaven also go together well as the swarms sheild the glass hammer.


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## squeek (Jun 8, 2008)

maddermax said:


> [and could a mod please edit the spelling mistake in the headline - must remember to proofread:headbutt:]


Done.

Dwarfs and High Elves would work nicely, magic heavy with ASF and magic resistant with gunlines and implacable defensive units.


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## xacatecas (Jul 4, 2008)

DE + 7th lizards when its out, how many monsters can you field


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

If powergaming I'd not suggest trying a magicy army with Dwarves as support since they wont help out at all with spells.
Brets and Dwarves is an awsome combo: Dwarven shooting backed up with lots of busses full of kniggits which will wreck havoc in decimated units 

Id imagine that Dark Elves and WoC could work very good too. DE gives the pair shooting and more control in the movementphase so Chaos Warriors can get to wreck real havoc in CC. Both armies can also be highly magic oriented with good spells to support that part too


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## maddermax (May 12, 2008)

Bretonnians I think nearly always work well as a supporting army (though I may be slightly biased in my opinions:grin. Quite simply, brets make great hammers and flankers, with their great cavalry and the lance formation. Having fast moving units with good rank bonus and characters, and pretty decent magical defence, they can fit in with most armies.

Use hard infantry units, dwarves, undead or whatever to hold enemies in place, while your lances slice through from the flanks. Or Guard the flanks and hold off enemies at a distance, while gunline armies do their bloody work. Or be the hard core of an assault force, supported by "finesse" armies. 


As for other combos, I think VC and skaven (especially clan skryer) would work wonders. Have a VC army dedicated to spamming zombies, to hold enemies in place, and for skaven have large numbers of jezzails, lightning cannons, warpfire throwers, ratling guns, all their little toys. Because of the skaven "life is cheap" rule, which lets them shoot into combat, they can simply blast enemies apart while they're stuck in combat with endlessly regenerating zombie hoards.


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## Othiem (Apr 20, 2008)

Related question, how do people handle the magic phase in team games? This is especially important if one team is dwarves or only brought a scroll caddy. If each team generates their own two dispell dice, but the opposing team only has one side casting since the other is dwarf, the dwarf's partner will be virtually unable to cast anything, as they are up against two separate armies magic defense. 

This also causes problems in a 2v1 game, does the guy that's on the 1 team generate 4 dice, or the 2 team generate only 2 dice.

The solution we most often use is to kinda fudge the numbers till it feels about right, treating each side in the battle as a single unit. However, a more fair and consistent way would be nice.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

More often than not, I play team games that each army itself generates the base amount of dice/2 (minimum of one).

So Dwarves get 2, instead of 4 in the dispel pool (although a second dwarf puts the total back up to 4).


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## jigplums (Dec 15, 2006)

played a few games in a campaign with my ogres and my brother using dwarves. they were brutal together and slaughterer everyone we came up against


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## MaidenManiac (Oct 2, 2008)

We have played some big battles 5v5 here so 5 "good" 2k armies vs 5 "evil" 2k armies. Putting 5 tables together and then fight off! We have always made it so that each separate army generates its own power and dispel dice.

You can do it any way you like, just make damn sure that all players agree on forehand


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

There's two combos that I know work well: High Elves and Wood Elves or High Elves and Dwarves.

HE/WE: The HE can sit back and play defensively while the WE run around and harass/marchblock the enemy. Alternatively, the HE can march forward with cavalry while being supported by bows and magic from the WE.

HE/D: The HE can stack up on magic and special troops while the D play a gunline. The downside to this is that the HE have to play offensively, but that's a tactic that all HE players must learn at some point.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

A high elf should always play offensively, IMHO. The ASF is a highly sought addition (so much so that many chaos players are ready to risk a slightly above average Hero to suffer stupidity, just so that they can get ASF.

ASF is expensive - so your troops are as well - look at how Men compare, and how cheap they are in comparison. Make the most of your movement. Get the charge over infantry. Close them down so that they can fight in the second turn., or 4th if your opponent flees. High Elves are probably the strongest combat units, as they can both hold after the charge, and do damage on the charge - whereas with Wood Elves and Dark Elves you're relying on the charge breaking a unit.

But otherwise, those are good points.


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## The Shadow Veil (Jul 26, 2008)

Two points; first, I almost always play high elves and play them defensively, they're great at it for precisely the reason that they have asf, do a ton of damage with spells and shooting, then when they finally charge you you strike first and mince them. Thats just my prefernence of playing stlye though, I know they are good on the offensive too. Also, dwarfs+brets does work well, but if the dwarfs are a combat army you must always ensure that the brets don't race ahead and leave the stunties behind, your opposition can just take out one army at a time, two forces against one.


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## Grik (Jul 28, 2008)

xacatecas said:


> DE + 7th lizards when its out, how many monsters can you field


Never happen fluff wise. Lizardmen would gladly kill the Dark Elves for their continued raiding of their temple cities. Hell Lizardmen will gladly kill anyone who steps on Lustria. :laugh:

But that being said that list could be sick with a bunch of monstrous creatures running around.


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## Ascendant Valor (Jan 3, 2009)

I know the fluff would almost NEVER work out in a rational way, but Warriors of Chaos and High Elves.


My thinking:

The High Elves offer up some nasty infantry, but they have low Toughness. They have good dispell abilities (with drain magic, the +1 to dispell, and so on) as well as buffing abilities, and a decent Shooting Phase with RBTs. The High Elf Characters are decent, with Teclis being the best character for such a pairing. The Combat heroes are comparatively a joke... see next point.

Warriors of Chaos also have some nasty infantry, but also have the nasty Character choices that the High Elves don't have. They can be trusted to do every last bit of dirty work needed in the Combat Phase. Also, the Chaos Magic Phase is ridiculous, involving every last bit of offensive magic needed. Another key point is that the Warriors of Chaos can offer up the numbers to the coalition force with its Marauders.

Both armies have decent movement capabilities to boot. With the Chaos' High AS and the Elves ASF, giving or taking charges is less of an issue (but is almost always beneficial anyway), though making the charges is swung in the coalition's favor because of the decent movement.

Hence, you'd create a force with decent numbers and scary stats; these would be bolstered by a powerful magic phase and an awe-inspiring Combat Phase. The shooting phase would be nil compared to a gunline force, but the other phases would hopefully make up for that. Otherwise, hook Chaos up with a Hellcannon or two and just about all phases should be sound. The magic phase would have Chaos doing the damage while the High Elves do the buffing in preparation for the ensuing close combat.

Downsides: Though they complement eachother in many cases, the Elves are still T3 and expensive and Chaos can just be shot to death. Other armies can still muster up a stronger magic phase, too. Close Combat should still be in the coalition's favor in most cases.

But imagine Archaon and Teclis working together... Poor Galrauch wouldn't know what to do with himself.


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## neilbatte (Jan 2, 2008)

Undead and Dark elf is a really scary combo as it combines multiple locking units with highly mobile hammer units. I faced this the other day and it was a total tactical nightmare especially when you factor in fear, flank charges and the sheer damage the elves throw out on the charge. The magic phase wasn't funny either with 2 magic heavy armies generating masses of dice with buffs to.
Undead and Chaos or Deamons would be quite hard to as both armies can do the damage that the undead struggle with while getting the ranks and fear.


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## zabo (Dec 19, 2008)

Two races VERY opposite from each other, Or two daemons, yeah lets go with that.


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