Your strongest and most favorite end game stacks for races?

Deep_echo_sound

I will type only maximum simplicity stacks, that are very strong late vs "shades and dragons" (Strong range and melee A.P. or monstrous fast and strong melee A.P.)
Campaign only! And stack that "strong all around" - practically unbeatable, so can kill everything that you can encounter in campaign at any point. And ambush and map resistant. (So, mass artillery, mostly, is not an option.)
The empire - only demigryph knights (halberds).
Dwarf - no such stacks, sadly!!
Greenskins - only arachnarok spiders.
Vampire counts - can be either blood knights (but I do not like their head and helmets) or hexwraiths.
Warriors of chaos - dragon ogre shaggoths.
Beastmen - minotaurs (great weapons).
Wood elves - waywatchers (but have so-so head models, just like blood knights).
Bretonnia - only royal hippogryph knights.
Norsca - war mammoths.
High elves - sisters of Avelorn and star dragons.
Lizardmen - feral carnosaurs or ancient stegadons (both are not optimal because of rampage or low stats vs large).
Dark elves - shades (greatswords) or black dragons.
Skaven - hell pit abominations (but still poor compared to other factions' top monsters).
Tomb kings - hierotitans (but somewhat weak to mass range A.P.) and necrosphinxs.
Vampire coast - death shriek terrorgheists.

Just a reminder. Why, for example, not warplock jezzails for scaven? When ambushed by strong and fast - they die. Vs 20 dragons - they die. Vs close to 20 shades (huge dps and invisibility untill too late) - they die. Same for doomwheels or plagueclaw catapults, which can kill thousands of chosen in usual battles but will die vs dragons and fast and strong monsters.

Maybe you have some kind of super-stacks that can be strongest all around, and fear no ambushes, for any factions?

Bereaver

One of the more fun super stacks for me is Fay Enchantress + 10 Grail Guardians + 5 Royal Hyppogryph Knighs + 4 Royal Pegasus Knights. Go around and laugh while elite Chaos armies full of Chosen with Halberds and Dragon Ogres evaporate trying helplessly to put a dent in your 90+ MD Grail Guardian frontline.
Or unorthodox one - Noctilus wih 10 Polearm Depth Guard (they get 90+ MD) supported by
4 mortars and Queen Bess, rest are Mournghoul Haunters. Kill enemy archers before the battle begins and enjoy your Depth Guard grinding everything.

Or my favorite one - single Mannfred Von Carstein with 5 Varghulfs, 2 Mortis Engines, 2 Terrorgheists and the rest is Grave Guard. You wait till the lines clash, cast Wind of Death and win. If not enough, you cast another Wind of Death. Actually, the super stack here is Mannfred himself with anything, guy is packing a serious spellpower.

Freden

I think you pretty much covered it all in your post, you did ask for peoples favourites too but judging from what kind of armies you posted you do not us to post our favourite "normal" late game armies, but rather want us to post our favourite steamrolling killer armies, right?

AnothaGit

No Necrofex Collossi for VampCoast?

I think that is the most singular OP stack i tried. I prefer mixing units.

Oh i did run Kholek with a dragon ogre stack (both types). Whenever somebody went into ambush mode we marched up to the spot and pounded them to pulp regardless of battle type.

Deep_echo_sound

Freden said:

I think you pretty much covered it all in your post, you did ask for peoples favourites too but judging from what kind of armies you posted you do not us to post our favourite "normal" late game armies, but rather want us to post our favourite steamrolling killer armies, right?

Just interested how people play very strong and late stacks. Generally no restrictions. Maybe someone who reads this topic will want to "roleplay" other gamer's army.

AnothaGit said:

No Necrofex Collossi for VampCoast?

I think that is the most singular OP stack i tried. I prefer mixing units.

Oh i did run Kholek with a dragon ogre stack (both types). Whenever somebody went into ambush mode we marched up to the spot and pounded them to pulp regardless of battle type.

Well, some youtuber advertised "necrofex colossi spam" as the stongest stack in the game. But, personally, I do not like line-fire units (mostly gunpowder). Before I start to play any race, I test in manual battle end game type stacks I can get for that faction. Vs mass star dragons and, may be, shades and waywatchers... And I find that bone giants, cygors, necrofex colossi can not "blob" effectively. In 4 by 5 formation, for example, only first raw is firing. Same goes for warplock jezzails, as their arcs are very limited. So, useless when bunching. When first raw fights in melee second and all other are just standing and doing nothing. (Vs small troops.) And when in line - dragons will win 1 vs 1 for sure.
And, I think, death shriek terrorgheists are just better. Still, on the weak side, like a hell pit abominations, but better at fighting in blobs, which is great for mass buffs and auras to cower all army at once, and they do not fear forests and hilly terrain, etc. So, better overall vs dragon-like monsters, as they are themselves.
That's why I like arc-fire A.P. very much. Like shades or sisters of Avelorn.
When in 3 raws, 2nd and 3rd just "machine gunning" anything that hit the first raw. Small, big, flying - everything just melt no matter what. Sadly, warplock jezzails and ratling gun weapons team can't do the same... Just as none of dwarf range.


Of course, in campaign with skills and techs any units will become very powerful. So anyone is free to share their compositions.

Deep_echo_sound

And to make it very simple. I really hate when my range units are obstructed from firing. And gunpowder units are the worst in this...

Still owning vampire coast DLC, but actually never played any of their campaigns for this single reason.

So, first, for arc-fire A.P. range - it is few lines that cover each other.

And second. I find that grouping in tight formation (some other youtuber calls this a "death star") large single entities is the best way to play. As it cover with auras buffs and spells, heals (before last patch) the whole your army at once. And this is an easy way to win vs anything melee. And vortexes and other powerful area damage spells are useless vs single monsters.
Game generally have no effective spells and effects to fight high hit points monsters.

Fraxinus

In regards to Chaos Warriors, unfortunately an all-shaggoth stack is weak to massed range fire. An enemy army with a lot of AP ranged power and anti-large infantry (like a 20-stack army of Lothern Sea Guard) could handle them pretty well.

My ideal Chaos Warriors stack is honestly half Chosen, half Chaos Knights, with an Exalted Hero on a Manticore with a couple feral Manticores to back him up.

The Chosen can beat pretty much any other melee infantry in the game, the Chaos Knights can run down ranged units, the Hero and his Manticore entourage can catch skirmish cavalry or alpha-strike artillery.

MonochromaticSpider

@Deep_echo_sound I have the opposite experience. Pirate terrorgheists are so slow at killing anything while having spaced out blobs of 3-4 necrofexes is ridiculously effective.

Cav? Not for long. Infantry? Not for long. Big entities? Takes slightly more effort but they still die. The only real issue they have is dealing with small single entities, like Tyrion on horse or various foot characters, but in those cases the weight of numbers is quite decisive, and an overcast invocation works wonders in keeping them alive until everything else is routing and the rest of the herd is freed up.

Deep_echo_sound

Retested. 1 on 1 or 20 vs 20 (in 5 groups by 4). They still lost to star dragons or dragon ogre shaggoths badly.
Maybe you know some kind of formations that you can share? In screenshot or whatever.

Bereaver

Deep_echo_sound said:

Retested. 1 on 1 or 20 vs 20 (in 5 groups by 4). They still lost to star dragons or dragon ogre shaggoths badly.
Maybe you know some kind of formations that you can share? In screenshot or whatever.

You're supposed to heal your Necrofex Colossi with Invocation of Nehek.

19 Necrofex Colossi is in my opinion the best all-round stack. 20 Shaggoths will certainly suffer against antilarge blobs, while Necrofex Colossi can deal with everything.

Crossil

Deep_echo_sound

Bereaver

Deep_echo_sound said:

It is quite bad. In campaign you're now forced to waste several turns replenishing these Shaggoths.

Deep_echo_sound

Well. This is no tech, spell, micro control and cycle charge, that I will do in reality. Just attack order. Vs super hard counter when staying still surrounded by them.
Decisive victory just in quick test will be easy heroic victory in campaign with all effects, pause, charge and mass abuse, etc.
Well, that's all just small thing to prove. I am really interested how people use necrofex colossi vs monsters. Maybe, then, it will be next campaign in September.

MonochromaticSpider

Deep_echo_sound said:

Retested. 1 on 1 or 20 vs 20 (in 5 groups by 4). They still lost to star dragons or dragon ogre shaggoths badly.
Maybe you know some kind of formations that you can share? In screenshot or whatever.

I've never actually seen the AI do 19 shaggoths. Same with star dragons. But I suspect that applying just a little bit of micro with give you much better results. I don't know if they'd win against 19 shaggoths but they'd certainly not get crushed like they're nothing. And they'll do much better (as in, suffering less) versus shades and sisters and waywatchers, though again it does require a tiny bit of micro to ensure that you utilize their ranged attacks as much as possible.

The general idea is that one blob takes point (and maybe it gets wiped out), but then the rest can shoot at whatever is attacking that blob. And due to both invocation and that zombie summon cast at half health, the sacrificial blob should stick around long enough that quite a few of the attackers are cut down to size.

That being said, I do agree that mass shaggoths is effective. In my chaos campaign games, I have never experienced anything it couldn't handle, though some times that composition handled problems less efficiently that I would have liked. AP archers hiding on walls are aggravating. Flying creatures of all kinds are a pest, particularly flying shooters and flying spellcasters. Jezzails behind a rat ogre / vermin blob are horrendous, and dealing with wood elves is frustrating. The things you want to kill will run away and while you can murder all the stuff that isn't running away, you're getting killed by arrows if you waste time doing that.

Your "test only versus lolstacks" approach does not capture such nuances, however. Personally, my best and most enjoyable chaos doomstack ended up being about half shaggoths, half feral manticore with exalted hero and spellcaster on mantis and lord on chaos dragon.

They key to that approach is that while individual manticores are weak, the whole flock of birds plus two heroes plus a lord-buffed dragon is absolutely devastating. And manticores, being relatively small, have much less pathfinding issues than, say, a flock of star dragons. If you lose a few manticores, so what? They are one turn recruitment and you can recruit anywhere. Meanwhile, 8-12 shaggoths are such a strong ground force that you are extremely unlikely to have any actual problems in that department. To top it off, your entire force is hellish fast and mobile, sieges are a joy, and fools manning the walls are pretty much food for your birdies.

1010

Crossil said:

Perfect

Tr3iz

Deep_echo_sound said:

Retested. 1 on 1 or 20 vs 20 (in 5 groups by 4). They still lost to star dragons or dragon ogre shaggoths badly.
Maybe you know some kind of formations that you can share? In screenshot or whatever.

Try an arrow or V formation on the colossi. They don't have to cover "half" the frontline, just a patch to which to draw the enemy.

Firkraag888

I have a different theory then most on this thread.

Sisters of averlon or Waywatchers delete units really fast. I think faster then any other units are capable of. They are the highest damaging units in the game and can quickly and easily shift there targets when needed in seconds.

Because of this i think the strongest end game stack would consist of heros with ward save magic items holding the line while these two archer units wipe everything out.

You agree?

Deep_echo_sound

That's good. The ultimate range high elves stack is "punitive" princess on star dragon, light mage on elven steed, 2 "resistant" handmaidens of the everqueen on barded ithilmar steeds, and 16 sisters of Avelorn.
Bite enemy with handmaidens, net them and shoot. Princess on dragon just stay at place, fly over sisters of Avelorn to give them range attack speed aura.

1010

Deep_echo_sound said:

That's good. The ultimate range high elves stack is "punitive" princess on star dragon, light mage on elven steed, 2 "resistant" handmaidens of the everqueen on barded ithilmar steeds, and 16 sisters of Avelorn.
Bite enemy with handmaidens, net them and shoot. Princess on dragon just stay at place, fly over sisters of Avelorn to give them range attack speed aura.

Not princess, Alith Anar gives better buffs

Deep_echo_sound

1010 said:

Not princess, Alith Anar gives better buffs

This was about range stack that any high elf faction can build and multiple times.
Besides, I do not think Alith Anar is stronger than "punitive" princess. Her bonuses are absolutely beautiful. And some of Alith's bonuses are faction wide, so they help these princesses too.
Plus, as the bonus, - the strongest in the game dragon mount is something.

BetoBot

Bereaver said:

One of the more fun super stacks for me is Fay Enchantress + 10 Grail Guardians + 5 Royal Hyppogryph Knighs + 4 Royal Pegasus Knights. Go around and laugh while elite Chaos armies full of Chosen with Halberds and Dragon Ogres evaporate trying helplessly to put a dent in your 90+ MD Grail Guardian frontline.
Or unorthodox one - Noctilus wih 10 Polearm Depth Guard (they get 90+ MD) supported by
4 mortars and Queen Bess, rest are Mournghoul Haunters. Kill enemy archers before the battle begins and enjoy your Depth Guard grinding everything.

Or my favorite one - single Mannfred Von Carstein with 5 Varghulfs, 2 Mortis Engines, 2 Terrorgheists and the rest is Grave Guard. You wait till the lines clash, cast Wind of Death and win. If not enough, you cast another Wind of Death. Actually, the super stack here is Mannfred himself with anything, guy is packing a serious spellpower.

Mannfred is a beast..