Heroes-only armies viable? How?

[funkmonster7]

Basically, people tend to talk about Isabella running with a posse of Vampires. How exactly does this work? I have a few questions regarding this:

1. Heroes have single models per "unit", which means they cover a small area. Doesn't an army with 10+ heroes in it mean that they'll get surrounded and overwhelmed easily?
2. How should I skill those Vampires and Isabella herself? All melee deathtroopers? Should they be mounted or on foot?
3. What other lords/races are capable of such an army?
4. What are the battlefield weaknesses of a heroes-only army?
5. Are heroes-only armies viable late game or are they just an early-mid game gimmick?

[OwlRaider]

1. 10+ is still not 20. All you really need for a proper front line is 3-4 infantry units, sometimes you may want more but generally 3-4 are enough. The rest can be 16-17 heroes if you want, or get a few cav/monsters in there as well for some flanking action.
2. You want to focus on the magic side of things as the idea is generally to have the AI beat up on your front line while you spam Wind of Death your heroes killing everything. The more casters you have the more winds of magic you get to play with(Arcane Conduit and stuff) so as long as your front line holds your heroes and lord can kill everything with their magic.
3. Any faction with access to good lores of magic can do it, though typically getting a high hero capacity is pretty difficult. What makes Isabella so good at it is the +3 hero capacity for Vampires(also makes them better but that's secondary) and vast access to the lore of vampires which has the above mentioned spell Wind of Death which is the strongest wind spell in the game. Still you can do the exact same thing with any other faction, you just need the 3 main elements: solid holding front line, high hero capacity and a lore of magic with a good wind spell(fire, shadow, etc come to mind).
4. If you were to go for a true hero only army(lord+19 heroes) than indeed swarming would be its biggest weakness, as would good anti large/anti infantry units depending if your heroes are mounted or on foot. However when you add a solid front line and preferably some cavalry/monsters to protect your flank there aren't any particular weaknesses in field battles. Of course sieges are a different story...
5. This kind of army is actually at its weakest in the early game as Skeleton Warriors aren't particularly powerful front line units and vampires really need some levels to get going. Once you got Grave Guards and decently leveled vampires this army starts to shine and since Wind of Death is so powerful it can easily take out even the strongest enemy infantry(say Chosen).

[Wh♂♂par]

The thing with Vampires is, they leech life passively, can get quite some Arcane Conduits going and a single Wind of Death is a blob's worst nightmare. All while your single entity units laugh at the damage. They heal when casting spells, they get buffed by Isabella tremendously and can buff themselves even further, while a good cast of Curse of Years makes most units miss for the entire duration.

I'd also say, that Norsca is destined for this. Mammoth lord and what do their Shamans get again? Manticores? Other than that, poster above summed it up.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Vampires, Norsca, HE, WE, and Dorfs can all make hero-only armies viable in mid-and-late game. It's just easiest to set up with vampires because of the reasons outlined above. The same applies to HE, since they have very good anti-blob mages and competent hybrid-caster heroes. All other factions are quite dependent on gear to be able to pull off hero armies.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Basically, people tend to talk about Isabella running with a posse of Vampires. How exactly does this work? I have a few questions regarding this:

1. Heroes have single models per "unit", which means they cover a small area. Doesn't an army with 10+ heroes in it mean that they'll get surrounded and overwhelmed easily?
2. How should I skill those Vampires and Isabella herself? All melee deathtroopers? Should they be mounted or on foot?
3. What other lords/races are capable of such an army?
4. What are the battlefield weaknesses of a heroes-only army?
5. Are heroes-only armies viable late game or are they just an early-mid game gimmick?

1. That's exactly what you want.
That way you can give cover to your own units. It also makes attacks on your units harder, because of the huge and now overlapping splash attacks that interrupts enemy models attacks.

2. For the vampires, get the first 5 levels all in yellow. I go for 3x defense, 1x attack and then the special skill that gives you a healing ability.

After that, I go magic so that I can get the last skill in the magic line (I never remember the names :/ - the one the gives you the WoM ability).

From there on yellow again and the corruption passive.


3. All lords can lead a Vampire/Wight King army - except Strigoi Ghoul Kings (no invocation of nehek upgraded).


Lizards have very strong heroes with their monster mounts. They work, too.
Maybe Vampirates with Mornghouls (or however they are called)

Most factions lack reliable healing though, sth you would want for heroe only armies.


4. Missile troops. Especially gunpowder units.

If fast enough, take them out asap. If not, just avoid fire till your group is in the enemy infantry. Then they are surrounded which prevents the enemy missile troops from effective firing/hitting. (And if they do, they hit their own).

Then you don't need to care too much. Is the infantry toast, missile troops tend to flee easily. Otherwise, magic. Winds of Death is your friend.


5. They are the strongest doomstack in the game. I would beat 19 star dragons with them probably. (Except for their breath cause it's against single model ^^). Unlike general doomstacks however

You pay way, way less upkeep (especially with research/bloodline unlocks)

You can replenish during battles so you do not need campaign replenishment -> attrition means nothing

If one of them dies, he is back after 3 turns. So your stack will never need to recruit new troops.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by OwlRaider:

1. 10+ is still not 20. All you really need for a proper front line is 3-4 infantry units, sometimes you may want more but generally 3-4 are enough. The rest can be 16-17 heroes if you want, or get a few cav/monsters in there as well for some flanking action.
2. You want to focus on the magic side of things as the idea is generally to have the AI beat up on your front line while you spam Wind of Death your heroes killing everything. The more casters you have the more winds of magic you get to play with(Arcane Conduit and stuff) so as long as your front line holds your heroes and lord can kill everything with their magic.
3. Any faction with access to good lores of magic can do it, though typically getting a high hero capacity is pretty difficult. What makes Isabella so good at it is the +3 hero capacity for Vampires(also makes them better but that's secondary) and vast access to the lore of vampires which has the above mentioned spell Wind of Death which is the strongest wind spell in the game. Still you can do the exact same thing with any other faction, you just need the 3 main elements: solid holding front line, high hero capacity and a lore of magic with a good wind spell(fire, shadow, etc come to mind).
4. If you were to go for a true hero only army(lord+19 heroes) than indeed swarming would be its biggest weakness, as would good anti large/anti infantry units depending if your heroes are mounted or on foot. However when you add a solid front line and preferably some cavalry/monsters to protect your flank there aren't any particular weaknesses in field battles. Of course sieges are a different story...
5. This kind of army is actually at its weakest in the early game as Skeleton Warriors aren't particularly powerful front line units and vampires really need some levels to get going. Once you got Grave Guards and decently leveled vampires this army starts to shine and since Wind of Death is so powerful it can easily take out even the strongest enemy infantry(say Chosen).

You are playing a heroe army vastly different than I do. :P
To the point of not playing a heroe army at all ^^ just a regular army with heroes.

Try heroe only. 5 Vampires with Isabella are enough to kill everything the game throws at you for the first 50+ turns

[OwlRaider]

Originally posted by Zane87:

Originally posted by OwlRaider:

1. 10+ is still not 20. All you really need for a proper front line is 3-4 infantry units, sometimes you may want more but generally 3-4 are enough. The rest can be 16-17 heroes if you want, or get a few cav/monsters in there as well for some flanking action.
2. You want to focus on the magic side of things as the idea is generally to have the AI beat up on your front line while you spam Wind of Death your heroes killing everything. The more casters you have the more winds of magic you get to play with(Arcane Conduit and stuff) so as long as your front line holds your heroes and lord can kill everything with their magic.
3. Any faction with access to good lores of magic can do it, though typically getting a high hero capacity is pretty difficult. What makes Isabella so good at it is the +3 hero capacity for Vampires(also makes them better but that's secondary) and vast access to the lore of vampires which has the above mentioned spell Wind of Death which is the strongest wind spell in the game. Still you can do the exact same thing with any other faction, you just need the 3 main elements: solid holding front line, high hero capacity and a lore of magic with a good wind spell(fire, shadow, etc come to mind).
4. If you were to go for a true hero only army(lord+19 heroes) than indeed swarming would be its biggest weakness, as would good anti large/anti infantry units depending if your heroes are mounted or on foot. However when you add a solid front line and preferably some cavalry/monsters to protect your flank there aren't any particular weaknesses in field battles. Of course sieges are a different story...
5. This kind of army is actually at its weakest in the early game as Skeleton Warriors aren't particularly powerful front line units and vampires really need some levels to get going. Once you got Grave Guards and decently leveled vampires this army starts to shine and since Wind of Death is so powerful it can easily take out even the strongest enemy infantry(say Chosen).

You are playing a heroe army vastly different than I do. :P
To the point of not playing a heroe army at all ^^ just a regular army with heroes.

Try heroe only. 5 Vampires with Isabella are enough to kill everything the game throws at you for the first 50+ turns

That's certainly true, it seemed to me that the OP was referring to the meta build for Isabella campaigns which is what I was talking about. The meta build for her is to have lord, 12-15 heroes, 3-4 front line units(first Skeleton Warriors than Grave Guards) and possibly 2 cavalry/monsters to cover your flank. Is this the only way to play? Of course not. However this is the meta build and unless I'm mistaken that's what the OP was asking about.

[Ruinae Retroque Rursus]

Where's the love for Lizardmen here?

Stack Pompous, -4 leadership to enemy armies in region, and if you were REALLY careful you could rout armies immediately with -80 leadership. :P

If you can't be bothered with that, then just plonk 'em all on Stegadon mounts and go smashing.

[Cacomistle]

Vamp heros with Isabella getike 80 md. If you stand them all close together, they have low surface area where they can be attacked. Basic infantry and cav is gonna be basically unable to damage them because only 4-5 have surface area to attack.

Then you get several up to arcane conduit and globally you can recruit necromancer lords with knowledgeable then disband them and keep the buffs.

So now you've got like 200 winds of magic and a bunch of 80/70 or something like that hereos with like 600 weapon strength. Then you wipe out half their infantry and cavalry with wind of death and other aoe spells (very easy as they will clump hard on you). You can slam cast curse of years to lower their melee attack. Get items like helm of discord and glittering robe to further lower their melee attack. Soulblight can lower armor and weapon strength.

And basically what you get is a bunch of infantry with only enough surface area for 4-5 to hit who all have like a 10 percent chance to hit for reduced weapon damage.

Then the only threat remaining is characters like Archaeon. When a powerful single entity goes in, just use that hex from the shadow lore and isabellas hex, then goon them. Be careful your vamp heros don't get isolated though.

Also I've only tries this with vamps and Brettonia. But it works arguably better with Brettonia. At least 38 percent physical resist on everything from guardian and blessings. And Fey Enchantress will mortis engine down their whole army. Plus she's got 90 percent ward save with full items near a paladin. Early game her, 2 lords, and the starting damsel just barely managed to solo the skavenblight garrison with a small stack in it. If I had items for Fey or 2 paladins, wouldn't have been close.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by OwlRaider:

Originally posted by Zane87:

You are playing a heroe army vastly different than I do. :P
To the point of not playing a heroe army at all ^^ just a regular army with heroes.

Try heroe only. 5 Vampires with Isabella are enough to kill everything the game throws at you for the first 50+ turns

That's certainly true, it seemed to me that the OP was referring to the meta build for Isabella campaigns which is what I was talking about. The meta build for her is to have lord, 12-15 heroes, 3-4 front line units(first Skeleton Warriors than Grave Guards) and possibly 2 cavalry/monsters to cover your flank. Is this the only way to play? Of course not. However this is the meta build and unless I'm mistaken that's what the OP was asking about.

Was it, though?
Because (correct me if I'm wrong) the meta build was always her flying Circus which basically was all/nearly all Vamp units because of the insane buff they get from her.

Plus any kind of non- heroe in those build makes the whole thing kinda weaker.

What you want is, as me and Cacomistle (much better) described, all grouped up in one place where they can Blob the enemies, get protection from missile fire and give themselves defence against enemy melee attacks.


Any kind of non single-model unit, apart from flyers, defeats the purpose because the way AI works

[OwlRaider]

I guess you can call both builds meta. The one I mentioned is easier for new players as the skelly/grave guard front line is much easier to use for anchoring the AI for your WoD, the flying Circus requires a bit more micro but can obviously be more effective when done right.

[Cacomistle]

I honestly just keep them on foot. It requires very little micro. Its just spellcasting and walking them close to each other. I've tried putting isabella on a hellsteed before for example, and she ends up dying twice as fast because now there's more surface area to hit her and steeds are tall enough for ranged units to shoot over infantry.

Both work, but as the above post is considering micro, I would say very little is required to get the full foot vampires to work. Its basically just cast raise dead when you're walking in to cover ranged fire, make sure your vamps are close to each other, and spam spells.

[Angarvin]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

1. Heroes have single models per "unit", which means they cover a small area. Doesn't an army with 10+ heroes in it mean that they'll get surrounded and overwhelmed easily?

1. heroes have a lot of disruptive aoe and when bunched up they control the crowd surrounding them much better than any other unit would. also they occupy a small space which means that there simply is going to be a line to hit them. for example if 6 of your heroes get enveloped by 2 units of 120 models then at any given moment heroes will only be engaged by maximum of ~30 models which is nothing.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

2. How should I skill those Vampires and Isabella herself? All melee deathtroopers? Should they be mounted or on foot?

2. you deffinitly want undying will and conduit with winds of magic reserve passive since those stack and there is no limit to wind of magic as in you can have 500+ of winds in reserve and simply never stop casting.
the more important thing however are not skills but items. make sure that you have 1 of each possible buffs and debuffs in your hero stack (at least 1 helm of discord, 1 sword of torment, 1 screaming banner, 1 armor with glittering scales etc. etc.) - this will elevate your heroes to ridiculous stats and destroy surrouding them units. when playing like this it's absolutely normal for your stack to fight units that have litteraly 0 MA and MD while having 150+ MA themselves.

taking heroes with disciplined trait is preferable since those stack with each other.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

3. What other lords/races are capable of such an army?

3. my favourite alternative would be priests of sigmar. they have active skills that provide ward save to units around them and having ~6 priests will allow you to turn that into a permanent buff simply by taking turns with priests activating this ability. obviously you want to keep stacking ward save for them with items like armor of fortune/gambler etc. they also have a aoe nuke that hits everything around them and at the same time gives friendly troops 90% magic ummunity which means that there is no or next to no friendly fire from this - with this ability you WANT to get enveloped as much as you can since that's when you do the most damage.

- WE branch wraiths are a good option.
- HE loremasters are imo the best option in the entire game (make sure to hire the ones with conductor trait). they can function with any lord but imo teclis is the best option.
- DE witch hags are excellent as long as you have a bunch of potion satchels from dilemmas.
- Skaven priests perform well but you'll have to constantly summon clan rats to relieve some tention (which is not a problem really. you get stupid amounts of mana with massed priests). i'd also advice taking at least 1 engineer with you for death frenzy buff and lightning spam.
- kemmler and wight kings are a great but slower alternative to isabella and vampires. they have foe seeker which means they never go below green on vigour, they have a ton of MD and armor so they don't really take damage that much and even then kemmler can top them off easily.
- alarielle and hand maidens work wonders. they are as much melee as they are ranged.
- VC can into hero stacks but it's harder to achieve because of how hero limit works with VC and also i really don't see a reason to do that when you can get 100% ward save with your lord which is rather stupid. i didn't even play the finall battle in my saltspite campaign - i simply left to cook dinner and when came back she was done chopping everything up, sitting pretty on a victory screen.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

4. What are the battlefield weaknesses of a heroes-only army?

4. if you mount your heroes then it's massed AP ranged and if you don't then it's big scary AP monsters with a lot of mass - unmounted heroes have very low mass and will simply get knocked down while taking damage.

the big benefit with unmounted heroes comes in during sieges since they can get on the wall and deal with any heroes and ranged units easily and then procced to the control point. being on a wall also helps with enveloping or big monsters if it becomes an issue at any point.

the big downside of heroes only army is bad results in auto-resolve as in you'll have to manually fight every other if not every single battle.

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

5. Are heroes-only armies viable late game or are they just an early-mid game gimmick?

5. they are more viable in late game than in early game since early on you don't have the much needed hero skills and crucial items.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by OwlRaider:

I guess you can call both builds meta. The one I mentioned is easier for new players as the skelly/grave guard front line is much easier to use for anchoring the AI for your WoD, the flying Circus requires a bit more micro but can obviously be more effective when done right.

Absolutely true. It is much more micro intensive and you need a bit more experience for it to work.

Oh well, guess I forgot how my first times VC were ^^ (I think I played more VC than most other factions - combined xD)

[Zane87]

Originally posted by Cacomistle:

I honestly just keep them on foot. It requires very little micro. Its just spellcasting and walking them close to each other. I've tried putting isabella on a hellsteed before for example, and she ends up dying twice as fast because now there's more surface area to hit her and steeds are tall enough for ranged units to shoot over infantry.

Both work, but as the above post is considering micro, I would say very little is required to get the full foot vampires to work. Its basically just cast raise dead when you're walking in to cover ranged fire, make sure your vamps are close to each other, and spam spells.

True. On foot or on horse is also okay (depending on the enemy, against large ragdoll monsters horses might be better).

I basically always avoid the hellsteeds. Hit box is too big, you can't defend well with them.

[Mandras]

Originally posted by aidenpons:

Where's the love for Lizardmen here?

Stack Pompous, -4 leadership to enemy armies in region, and if you were REALLY careful you could rout armies immediately with -80 leadership. :P

If you can't be bothered with that, then just plonk 'em all on Stegadon mounts and go smashing.

Humble and Pompous are the only traits I use. Humble Skinks and reserve Lords stacked together to recruit high level Pompous carnosaur-riding Scar Veterans out of the gate.

Beastmen can also pull this off with Nurgle's Foul Stink on heroes and lords. Malagor in particular can absolutely zero out enemy morale with a few of these guys around.