Editing Warhammer/Tactics/8th Edition/Legion of Azgorh (section)

== Flame, Smoke and Ash Tactics ==

You have some straightforward tactical options, and some unusual bits you may want to add. You have dwarfs, strong artillery, monstrous cavalry, monsters/daemons and cheap infantry. Potentially with no synergy, but to find one, you'll have to look deeper. So, below you'd find some tactical bits and pieces.

*'''Hobgoblins and Khans - worth using?''': Using them as small flanking units makes sense in small games (up to 2.5k) with opponents not wise to the tactic. They don't have much damage output and their equipment depends on who you'll play against, they do still serve as a solid tarpit or charge bait. Basically how that works is you set up two or more units of Hobgoblins ahead of the rest of your army, your opponent will choose to charge, and you choose to flee with the units of Hobgoblins they first charge into, and then redirect into. After that they stumble forward with their failed charge and either get shot by your guns (ideally allowing you to fire the Blunderbusses or Fireglaives twice, once with no reprisal and the other in a Stand and Shoot reaction). You can also put them in front of monstrous units like the K'daai, however be warned this will slow the unit down.
**Never get the Banner of Slavery for your BSB, (a) you don't need it with LD9/10 and re-rolls, (b) your Castellan cannot take any other magic items and (c) Hobgoblins cannot choose flee as charge reaction if they are immune to psychology, completely negating the reason you're taking them in the first place.
**If you give them bows you'll get short range shooters dealing damage on same basis as night goblins. They're mediocre, though you can try to get good value from them. You can use magic to buff them like Flaming Sword, which does significantly increase their damage output and make them a half-decent threat but to really make it worth it, you need to include a shitload of Hobgoblins in the unit. We're talking 40-60 of them, and by that point you cannot use them as cheap charge bait anymore.
***Never forget that if you combine a Deathshrieker a Hobgoblins, you can effectively fire into combat with only a minimal cost. Simply aim past the unit and let the special rule carry it into the back of the enemy unit (ideally). If it hurts your Hobgoblins then that's hardly any skin off your nose, they're cheap enough you won't normally care. Even if you don't try to cheese your opponent by shooting into combat, a Steadfast Horde will ideally keep your enemies away from your big guns while they work on the rest of the enemy army.
**As for Khans, there's two uses for them: Khans on wolves are famous among many discussions as re-directors and lone characters/war-machine hunters, and a Khan with an extra hand weapon in a unit of Chaos Dwarfs is effectively +3 S4 attacks, which will boost your average damage output from 0.444 (the model he replaces) to 1.777 wounds before saves, and that's a decent investment however you look at it. Just don't expect them to be more than chaff munchers, keep them cheap, and you'll be fine.
**Finally, don't worry about animosity, welcome it! Where O&G animosity may cause troubles, yours has 16.6% chance to impact you in good way and only 16.6% of giving you bad results which you can easily avoid. Keep them more than 6" away from any Chaos Dwarf and Bull Centaur units to trigger animosity but within 12" from your General and BSB. On a D6 roll of 1 you have to take a panic test on LD9 or LD10 with re-rolls, should be no problem. 2-5 has no effect but on a 6 you get +1 on to hits rolls (shooting and CC) for the turn and only take D3 wounds for it, a no-brainer.

*'''Artillery &  Iron Daemon Trains''': Hashut sent his blessing on you in this category. This is very straightforward, but unfortunately involves a little list-tailoring. Many of your warmachines have very distinct advantages against specific targets, so lets go over them:
**Against '''Sorcerers, Warmachines, and Monsters''' you want to use Dreadquake Mortars. Yes you can fire them at infantry blocks, however the Dreadquakes are expensive and using them in this manner isn't points efficient, unless you're shooting at a super elite unit like Phoenix Guard. Among the machines, this is arguably the best one to put a Daemonsmith on to make sure its slow isn't wasted. Even stunning Warmachines is enough to make its points back since they're all Move or Fire.
**Against '''Core Infantry''' with T3/4+ saves or worse, you'll want the Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher. Do not even try the demo rocket, even with a Daemonsmith re-roll it is more often than not a waste of a shot. As listed in the Hobgoblin tactics above, you can also try to shoot in combat with it. Intentionally miss near the unit you want to hit, then use the special move to hit the unit you intended. Only try this with Hobgoblins though, unless your Infernal Guard are 100% going to be wiped out in the following round of combat.
**Against '''Elite Infantry''' (or Ogres and Warriors of Chaos) you want the Hellcannon. Daemonsmith's re-rolls make it more reliable than when it's set up in WoC army, and it wrecks elite units with high Strength shots, on top of being very hard to kill by traditional Warmachine hunters. If you're lucky its combat stats might even allow it to save a different Warmachine that's being hunted if it's right near them. That being said it costs a shitload so you probably won't have more than one near it. Also consider using Death Magic alongside it, forcing elite units to take a panic test at -4 Ld for even a single casualty will typically break most units that don't have some way of ignoring the test.
**Against '''Steadfast Hordes''' and '''Deathstar Busses''' and/or if you plan to lower Leadership with debuffs like Doom and Darkness then you'll want to consider the Magma Cannon. Those Skavenslave trains will melt under the template, as will Ogre Gutbuses and Minotaur Buses. This is particularly useful if you don't plan on bringing enough troops to counteract their Steadfast, and let's face it, you'll probably never be able to. Against units with more than one wound (so the aforementioned buses) combine it with Ash Storm to make everything flammable, then let loose. Do note that after doing this once against an opponent they'll probably never try those Deathstars against you a second time, which in itself is a victory since you won't have to worry about defending against them. Also note that while the Hellcannon can also force Ld checks, the Magma Cannon is 60 points cheaper. For this reason you might want to keep the Magma cannon cheap, it'll allow you to invest in other Warmachines, and even just giving your enemy a second target can dramatically increase its lifespan, since your opponent isn't likely to shoot at it instead of an Iron Daemon of K'daai Destroyer for example.
**Finally, the cream of the crop is the '''Iron Daemon'''. This is the only unit that has no defined role, and that's because it's good against pretty much everything except chaff. The Steam Cannonade is ridiculous in how much damage it dumps out onto elite units and monsters, and there's relatively low risk since even a disastrous misfire just gets rid of the cannons and the wounds it does to the model aren't likely to kill it. Even without its guns it'll be grinding over infantry and remain extremely hard to kill, and you're almost always going to want to bring it, if only because they can take down a Dragon in a single salvo.
***The Skullcracker upgrade is a bit of a waste. Improving your Impact Hits and Thunderstomps to 2D6 is not as much a boost over the guns as you might hope, especially for what you pay, and it can be completely ruined by getting charged by the wrong target.
**Now a final warning to all the Warmachine types: '''beware of the Hellbound upgrade''' - it binds a daemon in your war machine and that means lore of light or Luminark may do a bu-bu to it. 

*'''Monsters and Monstrous Cavalry for fun''': Most Chaos Dwarf Monstrous units have issues, pretty big ones in fact so we'll go over them here. 
**'''K'daai Fireborn''' start us off and their issue is quite simple: they are going to die. Their Toughness test can be brutal, so never take many smaller units of them and if your opponent has a way of lowering Toughness, such as with the Withering, heavily consider skipping them as you'll be burning through your models and points. Losing hundreds of points without them being taken out by enemy actions really hurts and you'll want to do everything you can to prevent it. To this end, consider them when you know your opponent will force a fight, such as when you'll be up against Greenskins or Undead, at least there you're virtually guaranteed to see combat.
***If you do still want to use them, carefully consider how many points you're going to sink into them. A unit of 6 will likely survive to see some form of combat, however that costs 330 points, and the '''K'daai Destroyer''' does not have this issue, it's 5 points cheaper, and it will outperform the Fireborn every day of the week. Its only disadvantage is it's in Rare and not Special.
**'''Bull Centaur Renders''' compete with Fireborn, they have the same slot, swapped S and T, and they can break. That being said they're also not bad, but if you want to take them you typically have to start building your army around them. Your Core infantry are expensive, your Warmachines are expensive, and you're not going to be winning the game with just the Renders so you will need the guns, which leaves these guys to do the rest of the heavy lifting. This runs into the awkward problem that they're a quick unit in a slow army, and since they can't do automatic hits like the K'daai can (and they can break), they trade poorly if they pull ahead of the main force. They're bulky and they cost too much to be Warmachine hunters, they do not have the stats to break the enemy's lines, so you're going to use them mostly as blocking tools for enemy Cav. If your opponent doesn't bring Cav for them to beat up, then taking them might end up being a complete waste of points because they do trade efficiently at all against Infantry (Elite or otherwise), not even with their stomps helping them out. A final note on them: With a Taur'uk they can be made into decent enough Monster Hunters, so long as the unit itself has great weapons and if you only take one unit of them you can keep them relatively cheap enough and field a [[distraction carnifex]] for your opponent to focus on instead until they can make the charge. 
**'''Chaos Siege Giants''' are the bullied kid in the Legion of Azgorh. They cost 50 points less than a K'daai Destroyer, but they take up the same slot and you lose out on so much. Only take them in themed games or if you're using special scenarios that include buildings, otherwise give them a hard pass.

*'''Case for Castellans''': First of all, you don't have good fighting lords. Unfortunately you're going to be facing CC geared characters sooner or later, not to mention you need a Battle Standard, so you're going to have to look at the Castellan. They're relatively expensive and not likely to make their points back on their own, so treat them as support characters. Their presence in a unit makes your infantry Stubborn, and if your worried about them getting challenged, just put a Hobgoblin Khan in there. They're cheap and together with the unit Champion, will hold off the enemy character for at least 2 rounds before your Castellan has to worry (which should give you at least a full turn of magic, or shooting with the rest of your guns). All he needs to finish his loadout is a Shield, Fireglaive or Great Weapon. This isn't to say holding the line is all he can do, and there are two other uses for him:
**'''Incoming fire from the sky''': Give him Arabyan Carpet, Shield of Ptolos, and either Fireglaive or Great Weapon and use him as a shooting regiment, wizard or war-machine lone hunter.
**'''Must obliterate this scum''': Give him the Black Hammer of Hashut for 2+ to S, and to outright kill outright flammable models, Potion of Speed to boost his Initiative from 3 to 6, and some defensive equipment. As you can see it works perfectly with Ashstorm.

*'''Battlefield Bunkers for Sorcerer-Prophets''': This is rather straightforward, your Sorcerers are expensive and need to be protected, however to make the most of them they also need to be supporting your units with magic, the Ld 10 boost from your General, and providing re-rolls to your artillery. To this end you should leave a unit of Infernal Guard or a solid block of Hobbos, so you'll be able to protect your magicians and Dreadquakes efficiently against any ambushers, scouts etc. Add an extra Castellan built to hold enemies and deal some damage. After dealing with pesky ambushing scum, you may have a chance to use them as a second wave. Close Combat is generally an inefficient way of using them, against other types of damage (especially shooting) they should be using their Look Out Sir they get by being near the Warmachines.
**This being said, sometimes close combat is inevitable, so let's discuss that. As a CC Lord, a Sorcerer Prophet will lose a fight against solid Generals, but he has the tools to avoid them (Ash Storm). SP are very durable, the T5 (or even T6) means they are great against medium opponents (such as most heroes capable of reaching them), and he's virtually guaranteed to survive long enough to be rescued, or even break whatever flying unit/backline ambusher crept up on him. It would not be a bad idea to give him a cheap weapon if you're really worried about this sort of thing, such as the Sword of Swift Slaying to avoid a few wounds from smaller units, or even just the Arabyan Carpet so he can run away since, to make the most from all of his various buffs, he's likely not going to be in a unit anyway.
**It's stated above but it should be restated here, avoid putting your Sorcerer-Prophet on a monster. Yes they can do a hell of a lot of damage in melee (especially against T3/T4 troops), however you're wasting their Daemonsmith buff, the monster costs as much if not more than your Warmachines, and they are cannon magnets. As soon as you field them you can expect every gun to point in their direction, and if you move up to try and use the mount in melee you're likely to strand your general in the open, far from help, and then not only have you lost your monster, you've also lost your General, your level 4 Wizard, and an Engineer for your artillery.