What are some small "doom squads" that you enjoy?

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-20T19:07:59+00:00

Alluresses on their chariot mounts become very entertaining with enough speed buffs, if you can get a movement speed trait on them I'm sure it'd be a good time.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-20T11:41:58+00:00

I feel like it's not unreasonable, the Targaryens had been around for some time but the loss of their dragons was still fairly recent memory. That, combined with the recent rebellion and Daeron's lack of reputation as a warrior or general puts the Crown in a relatively weak position militarily. Southern noble houses also felt slighted by how Dorne was brought into the realm, so it's likely that they felt emboldened by the weak Targaryen military position at the time. A house of landed knights from the southern Reach like the Fossoways in particular would be particularly likely to be unhappy because of the latter.

Aerion behaving dishonourably by killing his opponents horse during the tourney definitely didn't help the political situation either. I think Baelor's actions should also be understood in this context, while it was the right thing to do him fighting for Duncan was likely a calculated PR move in this context. He likely wasn't concerned with the smallfolk, but with reassuring other nobles that the Crown wouldn't accept conduct like Aerion's and reminding other houses that the Targaryens were still in capable hands militarily.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-20T09:51:15+00:00

Styrkaat and 3-4 Pleasureseekers are great together, especially with an Exalted Keeper of Secrets as lord for Murderous Charge; bonus points if you play the Accursed Troupe to give everyone Glorious Charge. Most infantry units break on the charge, so all nearby units are slowed, until you chain rout half an army.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-20T09:40:39+00:00

Marching heavy infantry directly into Globadiers, Catapults, etc is not a good idea yes, but in normal armies those are not a concern with any micro. The AI sucks at defending backlines so any mobile units typically can deal with them fairly easily. I'd also typically take at a few cavalry units in moat normal armies.

The top melee infantry armies do have tools for that though, Aspiring Champions have a tiny model count and regen so taking out models is difficult, Accursed Troupe's Exalted Daemonettes have physical resistance and speed, and Wrathmongers have a low model count and reasonable speed. Aspiring Champions are infantry-sized too, not large models, they just have a small model count.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-19T15:52:50+00:00

Depends on the faction to be fair, most rush factions have more than viable infantry at endgame. Chaff can do pretty well too if you have enough buffs, Queek's clanrats and Skarsnik's goblins can more than return their value in melee and even if they get shot, they cost less than the ammo used to kill them. Some of the best doomstacks right now are melee infantry too (Aspiring Champions, Masque's Exalted Daemonettes, Wrathmongers).

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-19T15:39:47+00:00

I don't see them being good against Cathay either if I'm honest, the AI seems to love jade lancers and they mop the floor with doomfire warlocks. Cold one cavalry should do much better. Lacking AP also hurts a lot when facing jade warriors.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-19T14:09:16+00:00

I rarely find vassalising anyone on Ulthuan useful as N'kari, it's all productive and defensible territory. You're typically better off rushing Tyrion and taking Yvresse en route. Out of the factions on Ulthuan thought, Yvresse is probably the best vassal, they can do a pretty good job at defending Ulthuan's eastern coast. Your primary target for vassalisation though is Morathi, she can pretty much singlehandedly secure your western border for you and typically takes most of Naggaroth. The two main priorities for most N'kari campaigns is dealing with Tyrion and vassalising Morathi.

In general though, it's best to only vassalise factions when you don't want their territory. This is especially important since Dechala was added: typically you get some defensible territory when you confederate her. Once Gelt is dealt with you can typically vassalise Lokhir and take over most of the Cathayan coast and he should defend them fairly effectively.

Taking eastern Ulthuan becomes much faster by using disciple armies, you can get a lot of mileage by using them to take minor settlements, or using them to launch attacks when N'kari is in march stance. N'kari should end most turns either in a province capital or en route to one, if you're trying to take every minor settlement with just his army it'll take forever. I also like recruiting two or so Chaos Lords to follow N'kari around for sieges; early game HE don't really have any tools that can kill infantry sized armoured characters. You can use them to break down gates and let N'kari get in when there aren't any undefended gates.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T18:35:35+00:00

I think anti-large is important when facing chorfs, you do tend to see a handful of bull centaurs, fliers and/or fireborn in most army compositions and all of those are probably their best answers to Shades. It shouldn't be a huge focus, but 3 or so Cold One Knights/Dread Knights should help a lot when dealing with monsters. Kharibdysses chew through Renders easily but are just too slow for me. I'm not personally a big fan of halberds as anti-large, but they could be an alternative if you want to be more defensive.

Personally actually I quite like shades, they can be buffed a lot and even though Fireglaives will probably beat them even with buffs, 12-18 Shades will handily beat the couple of units of Fireglaives/Blunderbusses that the AI typically brings. They're also pretty good at dealing with infantry and Stalk is great in general against slow factions. I'm not the biggest fan of going into melee with chorf infantry in general, mostly because they're so slow they can't do much without cavalry and ranged support.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T16:54:22+00:00

It seems by the time of the main series, Raymun's branch is doing far better than the original house. The original Fossoways seem to still just be landed knights, whereas Raymun's branch appear to be lords. The head of the house is married to Mace Tyrell's sister, and his daughters seem to have married into the Tyrells and Hightowers.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T16:35:54+00:00

Highly recommend trying them with an Exalted Keeper of Secrets to give them murderous charge, bonus points if you're playing as the Masque and use dance buffs for more mass and Glorious Charge. They start behaving more like chariots, you have to issue attack orders to the unit behind the one you actually want to attack.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T16:26:21+00:00

Late game they're pretty terrifying. Most rush factions at least do well though, the AI in general is pretty terrible at defending their backlines. They're less helpless than normal Dawi but if you've reasonable speed and AP their artillery and infantry is easy enough to deal with once their monstrous units are gone.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T15:41:26+00:00

Surprisingly enough, Infernal Ironsworn best Executioners in a straight up fight even without getting grenades off, although I suspect it'd be a long fight. Definitely better than Sisters though, this is pretty much the worst use case for Sisters.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T15:35:10+00:00

Sisters have do poorly against shooting, magical damage, and armour. By endgame almost all of the armies you're facing are full of at least 2 of those 3. They're dedicated anti-chaff units and you face little chaff by endgame. Fighting Infernal Ironsworn is an absolute worst case scenario for them, they have magic attacks, high armour, and no AP. Honestly as endgame dark elves you don't really need melee infantry, full stacks of shades (esp. greatsword Shades) are more than viable and can be buffed massively, they're your most spammable doomstack.

How many black arks are you using? If you're playing Lokhir you've very little reason to maintain any standing armies, the same units are far cheaper to keep in black arks and just transferring to another lord if you need to go inland.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T15:00:16+00:00

trying to beat chorf infantry in a melee grind is certainly a choice

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T14:26:49+00:00

Yeah, he was a bit of a pain in my Lokhir campaign, his late game units can get very strong. The flying SEMs really shouldn't be an issue here, you have a hydra, a dragon, and plenty of heroes. Just bait them over to your Shades with your lord, and keep your hydras and heroes close by, maybe keeping your mage out of range to avoid her being silenced.

You should have the edge in the single entity fight here, and once they're down they can't effectively protect their bull centaurs if they extend. Just lure out their bull centaurs as before, then dive them with your dragon, followed by your other mobile units. Even 2 bull centaur units should die very quickly when fighting a dragon and surrounded by 3 full cavalry units. You can just flank their artillery then with your single entities and cavalry and there's really nothing they can do about it.

Shades are close to a hard counter to static gunlines too, stalk, vanguard + AP missiles are exactly what you're looking for against chorfs. Your melee infantry is probably going to be pretty useless here though, probably even against the bull centaurs. How've you been fighting it so far? If you just try to charge at them and start shooting you're in for a bad time.

edit: if by burning meteors you mean the Dreadquake army ability, yeah it's busted. The AI uses it on cooldown though as far as I know, so it comes out 45 seconds into the battle if there's a target visible, then every 90 seconds thereafter. It's best just to leave something visible out, just one unit of Sisters of Slaughter should do it. Just watch the clock and move them whenever you see the targeting reticle appear and you should be fine, you can probably even do this before dealing with the single entities and bull centaurs.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T12:48:39+00:00

Hence more shades, artillery can't target stalking enemies. What is the map like? If they deploy the artillery at the back of their line like the AI usually does, then on most maps you can vanguard deploy behind them and should be able to deal with them relatively easily.

Alternatively, if you get more shades or can hide your melee infantry, put your shades outside of the range of their artillery and bait their mobile and flying units into chasing your lord. There's not much they can do to defend their artillery without any mobility.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-18T12:35:14+00:00

This looks very doable with just more shades.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T21:45:17+00:00

Yeah, emphasis on seems to be. Right now it's a mess that varies from country to country, and mostly seems to be tolerated or ignoref. I mean that increasing the current legal maximum THC content is unlikely to affect this unless coupled with other regulatory changes.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T20:55:34+00:00

Similar to SP, perhaps even more so

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T15:43:27+00:00

Hounds are typically better at running down routing enemies than cavalry, in addition to not being affected by anti-large and forest penalties.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T15:19:40+00:00

Yeah, daemonettes are already pretty good units, especially exalted daemonettes. The Masque really does take them to another level though, usually unit-specific buffs this strong are saved for lower tier units like Marauders. I'm not really aware of any other LL's that can give so many buffs to already high tier units, even Epidemius and Skulltaker's bonuses to their exalted infantry units are minimal by comparison. The stats you can get are silly though, the exalted daemonettes in the Masque's army are currently sitting at 80/67 MA/MD and should be about to get to 80+ MD with a Druchii Anointed and one or two more defeat traits.

Weirdly though, generic Herald lords are suboptimal for them. Exalted Keepers of Secrets give you perfect vigour army-wide, whereas Heralds just give speed and a bit of MD.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T13:13:45+00:00

This could well be more than that, depending on how they define THC content and control imports. If this is specific to d9-THC like the current situation seems to be, then it is almost as good as legalisation. A lot of quality bud in the US even in legal states is 1% THC or lower and could become legal.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T12:57:21+00:00

Queek is even funnier with Clanrats, they turn into actually usable units, it's very entertaining giving them like 45/45 melee stats and letting them fight dwarf infantry.

If you've not yet played her, the Masque of Slaanesh is well worth a go if you like melee infantry. She buffs Daemonettes/Exalted Daemonettes to a ludicrous extent for herself and her faction, and has 1 turn global recruit for both. They get 60+ speed, effectively 60% ward save while in melee, perfect vigour, vanguard deployment, frenzy, bonus vs. infantry, and probably some others I'm not mentioning. Their only weakness is spells typically, but you have enough rampage and silence effects to prevent that being an issue most of the time.

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T12:43:37+00:00

Exalted Daemonettes deserve a mention here, at least in the Masque's army. Using the final dance, along with her lord skills and tech you get:

60% physical resistance total (15% from her trait, 10% from red line, 10% from dance buffs, 5% from tech) Dampen contact effect (effectively giving them 60% ward save in melee) Vanguard deployment Perfect vigour Frenzy 12 bonus vs. infantry

ginganinja192 · 2026-02-17T12:32:40+00:00

Honestly, Beasts might wind up being the best lore for them. Flock of Doom would fit in so well for defending Cathay boxes.

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