Just lost to yeoman archer spam...

[isador]

So guys, I could use some advice.

I just lost a match as the vampire counts vs brettonnia, where my opponent had an army that was JUST yeoman archers and flying heroes. My army was mostly grave guard and skeleton spearmen, who had no hope of catching these yeoman, so I was forced to just... sit there and get shot at. Indefinitely. He had a spellcaster of Life so, there wasn't any point wasting power points to harass with spelles either. By the time he ran out of ammo my army was already disintegrating. Not crumbling! Disintegrating.

The only unit I have that can outrun mounted archers are Fell Bats and those are gratious amounts of suck against everything that's not a ranged unit. In fact, I -had- bats, but to counter the amount of yeoman he had would require so many bats it would cripple my army against ANY NORMAL FORCE.

So what are you supposed to do against this kind of cheese? Just suck it up and hope your next opponent doesn't do this? I swear half these kind of crap strategies would be invalidated if your opponent couldn't see what faction you were picking.

[Sibo]

Another reason to put capture points in multiplayer like it was in Shogun 2.

[Kayeka]

Weeeeelllll, you had Lore of Vampires, so couldn't you keep your guys alive with Incantation of Nehek? I mean, I don't think Yeoman Archers do all that much damage. Maybe summon some zombies right on top of them to hold them down while your cav dashes in?

Just spitballing here, since I don't really do mutliplayer.

[isador]

They do surprising amounts of damage in bulk, and once they killed off my cheap units (bats. which his paladins on pegasi were keeping at bay, and skeletons, and some Crypt Ghouls) my units that were actually missile resistant (Grave Guard w/ shields) started crumbling because they were hopelessly outnumbered.

Also I'm one of those few people that was running a Ghoul King on a terrorgheist :< So i got the lore of death rather than the lore of vamps. I actually did some calculations, and the sad sad part was that even if you use the slowdown spell in that lore, AND throw the Dance Macabre (which gives your units movement speed) on your own units, yeoman will still outrun infantry.

And yeah, I might've been able to catch them with cav, if i somehow tied them down first... If I had any. I wasn't running a roster with any cavalry, was relying on monsters for that job. Bad decision it seems but it works well in non-cheese situations.

[Kayeka]

Whelp, seems you just got your rock papered, then.

[ChibiFenrir]

all I can say was thier chesse pick was acutally a good counter to the army you had, what you needed was more flying units, vargaist, fellbats and you needed fast cav like dire wolves. and using monsters as cav is a very bad idea, as most cav used in mutiplayer have bonus vs larger.

[Wyvern]

When I play vs Brettonia i basically just run hordes of grave guard with some blood knights, they cant do anything with mounted yeomen, their DPS is pitiful against anything with armor+silver shields. Just sit it out and then win. Did a test game with vladdie daddie+2 blood knights+2 wight kings+2 spears+1 skeleton+5 gg against the army you described(did some guesswork on spells and had the ror, so +/- a mounted yeoman) and I came out with all my skeletons dead and the gg badly beaten up, but the army still in good enough shape to beat off the yeomen in melee.

[isador]

Actually, only Blood Knights have a bonus vs large if you're playing as the vampire counts. All the other ones just do standard damage. Granted cavalry would've been a better pick than Terrorgheists in this perticular match, I had no way of knowing that beforehand.

Also keep in mind, I had three swarms of fellbats and it wasn't even nearly enough. If they engaged they got shot in the rear by the unengaged yeoman, and murdered by the enemy paladins. One of the big issues with Fell Bats is that they're great against ranged units but terrible against everything else, so the large the swarm you purchase, the less good it'll do you if you end up facing someone that actually brought a normal army with armored infantry and cavalry.

Dire Wolves are in the same boat in that they suck against melee units (though a little less than fell bats), but on top of that, direwolves cannot actually catch light skirmish cavalry (not counting marauder horsemasters or spider riders who actually have armor) because their speed is -equal- to that of skirmish cavalry. So what you end up with is, the skirmish cavalry will run circles around your wolves while shooting backwards at them, meaning your wolves get weaker and weaker and never actually catch up.

[isador]

Wyvern makes a good point! Maybe I should've brought more chaff. I only had some skeleton spearmen to soak up damage and out of my grave guard half were using great weapons.

Maybe I should load up on more skeletons vs brettonia in the future, just in case. So i'll have bodies with shields to soak up missile fire.

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by isador:

Wyvern makes a good point! Maybe I should've brought more chaff. I only had some skeleton spearmen to soak up damage and out of my grave guard half were using great weapons.

Maybe I should load up on more skeletons vs brettonia in the future, just in case. So i'll have bodies with shields to soak up missile fire.

I would suggest massing normal grave guard, the only unit brettonia has that can deal with them somewhat efficiently is foot squires, and even there, grave guard will trade fairly well because of their huge melee defense. Otherwise they have to use questing knights or cycle charge cav, but that's what your own blood knights+heros are there for. You can also run vampire with fate of bjuna to counter that. Regardless great weapons are not at all necessary vs brettonia.

[LuNi]

DIrewolfs would have been great against that Bretonnian army.

[Raider Deci]

He picked a good units to fight you with, using your factions weakness to its maximum. He cant compete with foot-soldiers so why even bother.

Yeomen are weak though and their arrows wont last forever, but a stronger hunnic/mongolian-type army would be leave the VC helpless :(

[WE ARE OUT OF EGGS]

Just form a ring and let the archers fire at the shields.

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Originally posted by Sibo:

Another reason to put capture points in multiplayer like it was in Shogun 2.

How would that have helped though?

[Wyvern]

Originally posted by TheMightyMulletMan:

Originally posted by Sibo:

Another reason to put capture points in multiplayer like it was in Shogun 2.

How would that have helped though?

March your army to cap, sit there, they either engage you and lose in CQC, or try to kite while you cap out. That said, given the comp OP described, I think it might not have helped, he had too many squishy units. Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea though, since a lot of builds do rely on careful micro+kiting rather than a full frontal engagement and caps would forcibly restrict the roster of viable builds.

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Originally posted by Wyvern:

Originally posted by TheMightyMulletMan:

How would that have helped though?

March your army to cap, sit there, they either engage you and lose in CQC, or try to kite while you cap out. That said, given the comp OP described, I think it might not have helped, he had too many squishy units. Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea though, since a lot of builds do rely on careful micro+kiting rather than a full frontal engagement and caps would forcibly restrict the roster of viable builds.

Not to mention this game is quite different. Every faction race is quite different in both playstyle and compesition. The Wood Elves for example have an entire army focused on kiting and it would be quite natural to see them so in the field.