Dogs of War

I have been reworked things to take advantage of the WPS system. The comp system is available here: http://atlantis.sverok.net/WPS/RT_WPS_Comp.pdf

I tried to keep the things I love in the list while making it competitive. I kept the dragon lord (a modest -600 points for a very nice dragon) and have 5 power dice and 4 dispel. There was some ambiguity as how to count the Slayer Pirates ROR, so I have them factored in the comp system the same way as the regular dwarf unit as per the ROR note on the Dogs of War comp page.



My goal was a comp score over 20, so in order to get that and a dragon I had to add command to my heavy cav, so I went with Volands ROR, drop the ogres and replace them with norse marauders on foot and a drop a wizard to have a pegasus riding captain. I could have easily had a giant in there, but his points are not comp rewarded. The giant and the dragon lord would have given me two terror causers and I would only have to eat the 600 for the dragon. In the end I thought that was just wrong and did not go there. I find giants to be too fragile anyway and not fast enough to work in tandem with the dragon like a couple of cav units and a captain on pegasus could. It is a little magic light, it has some solid core blocks to hold down the line with a small cannon, and some fast moving aggressive flyers and cav to hammer the point home. Just shy of 100 models and a comp score of 20.32.

Looks good but getting rid of the dragon and it's -600 on the comp score would help there.

How well does this army play?

I love the dragon model and the hammer that it gives the army. I already have a comp score of over 20, so I am pretty happy. When you look at other dragons out there, this one is a very light comp slap for what you get. It is the same as a sun dragon, great taurus, wyvern.

I have not had a chance to play this list yet. I played a very similar list below at a local tournament and came out 2-1 with the one loss against a demon army whose comp score would be negative. He had at least -2500 (I can't remember the exact names of all the abilities purchased) in negative unit selection modifiers and another -1500 in magic modifiers. His starting value is only 3,000 and his 2 units of horrors are not going to get him that many points back. Other then that revolting game, it went well. I got to best Swiss's beautiful chaos dwarfs so can put forward a battle report one of these days.

You beat swiss's Chaos Dwarfs, that's not right.

I play Chaos Dwarfs myself (as well as Slayers, Empire and regular Dwarfs) but I won't hold it against you that you beat them.

(06-27-2009 12:34 AM)BilboBaggins Wrote: [ -> ]You beat swiss's Chaos Dwarfs, that's not right.

I play Chaos Dwarfs myself (as well as Slayers, Empire and regular Dwarfs) but I won't hold it against you that you beat them.

To be fair my (evil or dark) Dogs of War army was crawling with chaos dwarf models playing the part of the numerous dwarves. I just see it as a turf battle in the dark lands. I got him by 600 points. My dragon hit the sides of big units and his lord on taurus wiped out small units and cheap things. I played much more aggressive with my monster and it made a huge difference. It was the only game where the dragon lord was still alive at the end. The way Swiss equips his bull centaurs is very compelling (w standard and war banner) and make them very potent shock troops. I lost quite a few things to them and was never able to wipe them out (Dogs of War heavy cavalry charge wiffage did not help). Swiss did take best painted at the tourney.

Sounds like you and Swiss had a typical fun game. The games he did live updates on Rites of War were interesting and all involved had fun.

I don't much like WPS comp system, but at least we're not getting hammered just for taking our native RoR anymore. Also, the Paymaster "bonus" is pretty paltry given how weak the army is, and how much of a penalty he represents - if he weren't required, I'd gladly give up the +200 "bonus".

Anyhow, given the WPS Comp-based restrictions, both of your lists look pretty decent.

Well until someone comes up with a Comp System that works well with all armies we have to deal with WPS systems. I do like the Comp systems but they have to work with all armies including some of the forgotten ones like Cult of Ulric and the SOC lists.

WPS is not perfect, but I think it is a good stating point and a solid alternative to peer reviewed systems.

Does score the following:

Skaven Hell Pit
Kislev
Cult of Ulric
Dogs of War
Chaos Dwarves

There was one that the store I played in called the Komp system (Swedish I think) that had all the SOC lists in the system.

The WPS comp system is Swedish too. Yes, we are everywhere!

So if I can grab the SOC bonus/penalty from Komp I wonder how it could be adapted for WPS.

(06-28-2009 03:20 PM)Maul Wrote: [ -> ]WPS is not perfect, but I think it is a good stating point and a solid alternative to peer reviewed systems.

Actually, WPS is a truly horrible starting point, due to its high level of complexity and excessively fine levels of gradation.

Of all the things I've seen so far, the ETC / EWC system appears to be the best.

(06-28-2009 05:42 PM)JohnHwangDW Wrote: [ -> ]Actually, WPS is a truly horrible starting point, due to its high level of complexity and excessively fine levels of gradation.

Of all the things I've seen so far, the ETC / EWC system appears to be the best.

I haven't seen that one.

I was thinking of making one to use for all without all the special sheets for each army.

i was going to punish monsters/tanks the same.
Punish too much shooting and shooting above S3 and S4 more.
Punish too many war machines.

The main thing you were allowed more of punishable units for each 1000 points. It is was >2 for 1000 then it was >3 for the next 1000.

And Daemons always score 0. Not really.

No?

The Warhammer Forum
European Warhammer Championship

From what I gather, it's a pretty big event, a major international independent tournament of national teams against one another.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=18

I like that they use Tiers in a meaningful way for handicapping and scoring. For example, Top Tiers like Daemons build against 2000 pts, whereas Bottom Tiers like Dogs of War would have 2500 pts. Where the standard 2250 game would have DoC roll Dogs of War in short order, the points score difference means that it's not as much of a given.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic....18&t=54054

The object of points is that two armies of the same points value can play an even game. EWC says that some armies are underpointed and others overpointed. Orcs and Goblins in the 2500 point tier? I've seen too many very good O&G armies to believe that one.

Limiting use of items, magic casting and dispelling makes more sense to me.

In 40k points are close enough. In WFB, not so much.

O&G have Animosity, suffer from Psychology, are breakable, and other Ld issues. Their lack of reliability is that is why I'm assuming they're ranked in the bottom tier in terms of pure competitiveness.

That may be their feeling but that hasn't been my experience in game play.

I have to agree that the ETC is probably the most balanced system out there. Dogs of War are sitting pretty on 2500pts. Still I find that some armies, VC overwhelm most armies very quickly if they have picked their magic well and there is very little Dogs of War have to deal with a bloodthirster that has rerolled to hit and to wound S7 flaming attacks.
In regards to other systems, I must admit I have developed a personal loathing for composition systems that relay on the opinion of other people.

Even with a 500 pt advantage, it's by no means a given that Dogs of War would win against VC or DoC. What the extra points does is to let the Dogs of War player squeeze in a couple extra flank guards, and upgrade a couple basic units into RoR with better stats and Ld, maybe squeeze in an extra rank or dispel scroll. Little stuff that can help.

During GW's Orcfest (or whatever it was called) earlier this year I had the experience of them getting 10% larger force. It wasn't pretty, Slayers did OK but Chaos Dwarfs had problems.

But I was sneaky. Since Chaos Dwarfs have Greenskins in their armies GW staffers allowed the Choas Dwarfs get the extra 10% too.

Locally, we were concerned that beginning to develop a comp system based on the opinion of players with experience levels all over the map. That is why we started with the WPS system. I can not say that it is the best. I find my Chaos Dwarves (warmachine penalties, great taurus penalties, and more then one unit of blunderbusses get penalties) do badly under it and that my Dogs of War and High Elves come out pretty good. I tried an experiment to see if I could get to single digit comp (under 2,000 raw points), but even with 9 power dice equivalents, 11 dispel dice equivalents, dragons, bearmen and slayer pirates, I could not get under 11.

With

The store I play (GW Franklin Mills, Philadelphia, PA) we really haven't needed a Comp system, there is enough people teaching the youngsters about fun that there are few power gamers. I haven't seen a Daemon army there and only one guy building Vamps. OK the 1500 High Elf army with a dragon was silly but containable.

Now I was talking to one of the employees there and he has to work at the GW Echelon Village (Echelon, NJ) today, its about 20 minutes away from Franklin Mills. I haven't been to the Jersey store since they moved there and he was telling me that they mainly have power gamers there (4-5 Daemon Armies). He was saying the same thing I believe, all lists can be broken if you really try. Hmmm, I wonder how 18 Doomies would do against Daemons?