Rating the Hawk Rider Doomstack

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[@archstanton3171]

I really think in regards to disaster battles that we probably have seen it all. Some variety feels really refreshing.

[@ZombieMaster64]

You should see the order tide that attacked me yesterday as Grimgor. I tought I had seen all but leaving Thorgrim be was the biggest mistake xd.

[@rmilleriv1]

Bro that’s exactly what he is talking about lol wtf

[@fanaticpharaoh6689]

It scares me how much cheese I have consumed.

[@dragonball7122]

It will not be disaster battle against anything. Even full range unit army. Two unit abilities can wipe out full Heath range unit no matter what range unit it is except single large. And legend use their abilities wrong focus on lord. It is most inefficient way to use the doom stack. They abilities are good against infantry. And their normal shot are not bad against single large. This doom-stack take out enemies ranger super fast and they can’t do anything after they ranger are out just seat there wait you shot them to death

[@mattward4916]

Never thought I’d see the phrase “hawkrider doomstack” ever said but here we are

[@wilcohillebrand1458]

it's the latest fashion

[@viscount4699]

Still not better than the Ultrasmurfs, though.

[@MoronicChunk1]

I mean I can just "say" anything lol. Skavenslave Doomstack is real.

[@sindieltaylor2147]

Every time I hear the name Matt Ward I want to headbutt magma.

[@unknowguy9642]

Next time bloated corpse doomstack

[@uselesscasul3164]

Oh, another thing. With the Sisters, you can get them at tier 2, and they’re super cheap. I found this absolutely devastating in the early game.

[@geomotrix]

Yeah was looking at that thinking this doomstack is nowhere near its full potential yet, need only one glade captain and its for the hawk rider fear trait too

[@TheRedAzuki]

@@dramaexterminatus most of that is in reload time which is fake due to animations sadly :(. My. Orion had 3000 missle for a bit due to reloading being like 2.2, didn't do that much tho

[@alittledeath2817]

@@TheRedAzuki Are you sure? Orion's javelin throw has like 3 second animation and I don't think it compares to hawk riders

[@uselesscasul3164]

@@dramaexterminatus temple of Anath Reima gives 10% factionwide, and you just need the ritual completed to build it.

[@ch33seweasel42]

Early game I don't think you can get too much better, but he's spot on about late game and certain factions being problematic.

[@NekoCutieSasha]

Personally using this doomstack I find using a single volley at a time is much more efficient than using multiple volleys at once

[@oplon9games]

True, 1 volley is enough to wipe almost 80 % off any tightly packed cavalary and 40/50% off normal infantry. So i use this stack to force army losses

[@twanhoekman4726]

yeah same thing, kite them a bit and 1 volley can kill the majority of 2 units. you get 3 volleys per hawk rider so you can kill around 80% of a 4 stack army. the hawk rider volleys are wasted on lords.

[@Crucial_End]

Its possible that whoever sent this doomstack uses the same tactic. I think for future doomstack tests it would benefit a lot to include a brief tactical descriprion in the email

[@jonathanbradford3155]

Idk why it always seems to do more damage that way but it does...

[@SGz_Eliminated]

Perhaps there's some kind of damage saturation mechanic at play. As far as I'm aware there isn't any deliberate damage saturation mechanic in the game but it might be accidental like a unit can only proc a certain amount of explosion instances per tick. Would be interesting to see a side by side of six volleys sequentially and 6 volleys at once to see if there's a difference.

[@Serk221]

In my tests, the volleys are much more effective agains infantry, like one volley gets half of the HP of many infantry or archers, probably because its explosion dmg. I think tat using them against big dinos with armor is not the best idea. My problem with the volleys against guns or archers is when there are less than half of the unist, that they dont do enough dmg to them any more, and killing them is difficult.

[@Totaluser1]

When its a full unit each arrow of kurnos can potentially hit more than just 1 model and does a lot of HP damage, after that the models are more spread out so it will do less Aoe damage than the first volley

[@Bl4ckDr4co]

I agree, it's definitely a mistake from legend to use volley against single entities.

[@Someone-lg6di]

Main reason he used them against monsters is due to arrows use against big stuff

[@clusterfuck7375]

yes but here hes against lizardman and saurus are spread and skins are a waste of space so you should only use the volleys of the big things, remember to adapt bois.

[@geomotrix]

@@clusterfuck7375 yeah but with the insane missile strength you can get your hawk riders too its still more valuable against infantry imo, and cycle charging single entities is devastating once you have the right techs/buffs from lords

[@katarin341]

Coming Soon: Stormvermin Doomstack

[@Olav_Hansen]

Except melee infantry is never good as a doomstack

[@baudsp]

@@Olav_Hansen Ungrim all slayers army was a good doomstack, but that was before CA nerfed Ungrim's skill that made slayers immortal

[@HuangGengran]

skaven slave Doomstack !

[@ryanmcfall1127]

if you had enough mutations, especially the ones that heal, you might actually get a doomstack

[@SMthegamer1]

@@ryanmcfall1127 I've been giving my Stormvermin regeneration and perfect vigour as a start.

[@linhz9888]

"ratling gun hawk riders" LMAO

[@Oliolli3]

*Okoii furiously taking notes*

[@renejaensch8723]

"AC-130 inbound!"

[@villepaavolainen1375]

Hellstorm gyrocopters, Gelt would approve

[@Tank1711]

I mean, there's a mod for dwarfs with crank guns.. basically ratting guns

[@Tank1711]

@@villepaavolainen1375 there's a mod for minigun gyrocopters 🤣

[@Okoii]

Good shit. For tier 3 units with such a bad rep historically i think they perform absurdly well.

[@justoguevara4391]

I learned this doomstack from your video

[@BraindeadCRY]

To be fair, they deserved their bad rep pre volley of kurnous. This update really turned a turd into a diamond

[@ethanedwards7756]

Have you tried legends warp bomb brood mother build?

[@Panteni87]

@@BraindeadCRY IDK... i consistently get 200+ kills with a single unit, they were just very micro-intensive (as all cavalry in this game). Even without using the eye of kurnous

[@black0raven]

I never thought I would say this....but yes Legend...you didn't use this doomstack right. you don't use the hawks to snipe these big engines...you use your lord and your dragons for that. you use the hawkriders to blow up blobbed up army like you would use a flame storm and force army losses.

[@yarugatyger1603]

A doomstack shouldn't need this kind of thinking a doomstack should just go in a wreck without a strategy.

[@benjaminwilliams2715]

@@yarugatyger1603Every doomstack needs some form of strategy, the reason its a doom stack is because its able to deal with almost any situation, not because its brainless easy. The Skaven doomstack is heavy on weapons teams which need proper setup to use.

[@ProjectpvpProduction]

@@benjaminwilliams2715 nahhh honestly this "doomstack" is actually garbage. Compared to the treeman stack. It's literally laughable. The treeman stack I've taken on 3 full stacks of end game skaven with virtually no damage taken.

[@miauw1999]

@@ProjectpvpProduction I mean it's not the best doomstack but "actual garbage" is a bit of a fetch isnt it...

[@handleonafridge6828]

@@ProjectpvpProduction one word, practicality. That’s all you need to know for an early game doom stack

[@SuperPupkinvasya]

Actually this doomstack struggle mostly against single entities armies e.g. vamprire coasts with a lot of necrofex colossus. And against empire its easy as handgunners took only two volleys to break

[@Bl4ckDr4co]

Dragons: *has three uses of dragon breath each* Legend: *sends dragons into melee against remaining infantry* Volley should have been used against infantry too. The reason this army is good is because you take out so much of their army they take the losses penalty quickly. You shred infantry, not single entity units.

[@raycapo9728]

Totally agree, I would say legend is the noob this time xD

[@floppywere7022]

Yea I assumed he used the units the wrong way around? Dragon breath shreads the single unit entities while the hawk riders take out the infantry and... Maybe artillery?

[@the_mad_fool]

@@floppywere7022 Yup. Two volleys are often enough to completely delete an artillery unit, and can do so from artillery ranges too. Though I find the absolute best use of the volleys is for monstrous infantry and cavalry. Because the damage is quite high but the penetration is poor, large mass infantry can often come out relatively intact by dint of sheer numbers, while single entities are either too small a target or too tanky for the volley to damage them efficiently. Cavalry and monstrous infantry are a great middle ground, where they don't have enough models to just soak the casualties and they're not resilient enough to survive the arrows. Oh and Dark Elves. Due to their low model counts and relative squishiness, using volleys on Dark Elves feels like cheating.

[@floppywere7022]

@@the_mad_fool ahh yeah smart. That'd be a much more efficient method, thanks! I really do want to do a hawk rider doom stack, sieges just feel weird with it XD

[@bodhisfattva7462]

@@floppywere7022 hell if you are worried about arty the dragons would break that in melee ez ez then fly away while the riders just kite the army away from them. and then use breath later on whatever.

[@Legion_1234]

Ratling gun hawk riders which scream "GET SOME BABY" when shooting. And the vietnam memes start all over again. The dream

[@iowadrummer7]

*CCR intensifies*

[@shalax7881]

One Volley of Kurnous will cut a ranged unit's health in half. It absolutely does destroy ranged focus armies if you spread the volleys out

[@tetsudo6934]

Ok, someone has to do it.. BUT LEGEND, IT'S NOT HIDING ! IT'S NOT HIDING LEGEND !

[@jessehendriks2877]

The way to deal with missile heavy armies like dwarves is to bring only hawkriders and a lord, by using volley of kurnous against their missile units. Once those are gone it's pretty much free picking since they can't actually fight back. The only issue I have found is when the enemy brings loads of units, since you just simply run out of ammo, so just like an archer army. Artillery also isn't really an issue, since you can just outmaneauvre pretty much anything. Other missile units, infantry that simply can't touch you, and artillery. You're also using the volleys of kurnous on targets that honestly, to that kind of army, aren't a threat. What's a bastilidon going to do against a hawk flying in the sky? Volley of kurnous shines at taking down large amounts of models of infantry and horse sized targets, and causing routs. And yes, it's not really capable of handling multiple stacks at once, but neither is a sisters of averlorn stack. Treemen can more easily handle multiple stacks, but over time it does cause atrition, what you do not have with a hawk rider army. Give me lightning strike and a (full) hawkrider army and I can take out the entire chaos invasion in a single turn and barely take any damage coming out the other side. Treemen just don't have that luxury.

[@sedanwheel4146]

Yeah me and my friend beat attacking two betonian armies and two attaking marineburg armies with one hawkriders doomstack. Once you get rid of the meele infantry wirh the volleys you can just rape charge the remaing units to rout them instantly, even bretonian cavalry. Also, although we play on very hard the marineburg armies were endgame level with demigriph knights a total of 8 gun units and around 5 units of hellstorm rockets, we didn't use control large army though.

[@drazarkabalblade9486]

The idea of shooting the bastiladons was, I think, that if they are still alive in the end they are MUCH harder to deal with: dwellers from below isn't much against them and dragons aren't effective. Also monsters are worth a lot of balance of power, so with them dead, it was much easier to force army casualties.

[@brendanmurphy214]

@@drazarkabalblade9486 Yes, but that's what the dragons are for. Forest Dragons are stronger against single units, and Legend had the full 9 dragon breath charges. Monsters were not a problem, at all. Not to mention you could always just use the Lord to shoot them, since her single target arrow has a huge damage bonus against large and shreds armor.

[@toggle3927]

Sounds EXACTLY like the TikTaq'To doomstack, and the problems you have dealing with SEM heavy factions. AI just can't handle mass fliers with 90% of the factions, so you're a literal god most of the time. Just avoid Rite of Primeval Glory stacks and you're fine.

[@drazarkabalblade9486]

@@brendanmurphy214, To be honest, I saw dragons struggle against other monsters instead. With that I don't mean they lose ( though they can if it's not a 1v1 ), it's that they get hammered. Considering you have to fight multiple times ( or multiple stacks ), any damage you get it's damage you have to heal or hp you don't have when fighting the next target. Also, the Sisters'arrow IS good against monsters, but in terms of damage to the balance of power, you are better off using her to kill as many squads as you can. 1 or 2 squads are worth more than a monster. As I said, the fact that he didn't use the glade captains or ariel especially may be a detriment, since they could have done more, is to be considered... but it doesn't change too much the real problem that this army has: is lack of ammo. The enemy WILL have so many bodies that you risk to have to send your riders in melee, which is risky or outright suicide. They get smashed with as much as a breeze.

[@uselesscasul3164]

Volley of Kurnous is useless against foot lords, since it just knocks them down. I wasted so much damage potential making that mistake

[@xXTheKingEmothXx]

Yea, just shoot them with regular shots.

[@uselesscasul3164]

@@xXTheKingEmothXx and Malus is a real pain. With his ridiculous ward save, I wasted too many volleys sniping him.

[@xXTheKingEmothXx]

@@uselesscasul3164 If he's on his Chariot or Dragon it only takes a few to kill him, but hes also not a threat to Hawk Riders so I just ignored him.

[@uselesscasul3164]

@@hallo-mt5tx I know. Using this against Brettonia felt like a warcrime!

[@deni140492deni]

The heroes/lord version takes 1/4 of single entities life.

[@tomasz9429]

When CA releases a new Skaven hero, Legend should get to be the VA for it... As for unit ideas, how about a Hell Pit Abomination artillery piece launching rat ogres?

[@thenamelessgod2308]

Hawkriders with Ratling guns*

[@InfiniteDeckhand]

Storm vermin with assault rifles when?

[@gryfon1831]

Brood Horror-Ratling Gun platform

[@JokinMichel]

Legend: "When do I get my Hawk Ratlingguns?" Somebody at CA: "Guy has a point..."

[@lucastardjopawiro3698]

I feel like the volleys are better against infantry/cav. 2 volley will ususally take out an unit

[@Seraphita2k]

thats essencialy what is wrong with this video. hawkrider have limited ammo that does good dmg singel target. you use the volley to massifly destroy enemy infantry and than just break the rest with fly charges and army lose. i won against 3 armys of darkelfes with high tier units just with my flying doomgstack, having only alariel, 1 agent, the lord and 17 hawkriders in tow.

[@Nick46289]

Yes. Because they deal AoE damage. Meaning, they deal more damage against multiple targets. Basically, against stegadon a single 'green thing' will deal 100 damage (I pulled that number out of my ass, I don't know the actual value), but if it hits, like... 5 archers at the same time, it will deal 500 damage. Basically, you are correct. But the fact that these things can STILL be used to great effect against single entities is what makes this doomstack insane. The versatility is one of the most important qualities when spamming a unit.

[@floppywere7022]

Yea, I feel like the dragons in that doomstack were for killing the single units with their breath. While the hawk riders took out the infantry and missile units.

[@grzybbak1088]

-We need more barbarians. -Did someone say HAWK RIDAAAAAAH!

[@mikeostrow6617]

You doof. The volleys obliterate infantry, not single targets. They're just ok at killing single targets

[@rojovision]

Hawk Riders might not be the best doomstack, but they might be one of the earliest to attain.

[@humus1610]

Yup, this might not be the ultimate doomstack. Mostly because it struggles versus more than 1 army due to ammo constraints. But Hot DAMN this is the easiest to get and easiest to use .... Bit of a shame to see Legend mishandle it so much though. Just click one volley on each enemy regiment ... preferably after bunching them all up a bit ... ignore the lords and single entities, you can pew pew those with the 'rooted + take extra range damage' skill and regular shooting.

[@newborn6]

HE sisters probably easier to obtain as doom stack.

[@Doraemonlam]

@@newborn6 I think hawk rider is tier 2 for this faction starting settlemt. only comparable one is Alith Anar's shadow walker/warrior.

[@the_mad_fool]

Oh hey, another episode of "Misusing your doomstacks."

[@2D_SVD]

It seems like the idea here is to send in dragons to make the enemy blob around them and then use the volleys. Not sure tho

[@Totaluser1]

Seems like a quick way to end up with 4 dead dragons

[@iamdanyboy1]

@@Totaluser1 No. Volleys annihilate any unit in 2 volleys at most, some in 1 volley. It's actually worse vs single entity units. Better to just shoot single entities with arrows instead.

[@2D_SVD]

@@Totaluser1 that's why we have life magic in here. Also I think dragons have quite a lot of mass in them, so they can push through infantry. But most importantly, when the riders land their volleys, it creates some empty space due to small units dying/getting knocked back. That's the time to pull the dragons out. Theoreticaally. Lmao.

[@warhammerguy]

I use the dragons to make them blob up so i can use magic. It is more efficient to use volleys in blobs, but not that efficient.

[@iamdanyboy1]

@@warhammerguy I don't know what you guys have been playing but my games I use my stack of 7 hawk riders only in sister's army + sisters to knock out two entire stacks of armies easy. . Like easy. If its a 3 rd stack or any straddlers with high leadership like Dark elves, I use the great stag unit i started with to finish the job. If it still doesnt hold there is always magic and Ariel.

[@dragonball7122]

And that’s why the person send this also got dragon in it, because they are for enemies single large army. Or lord. Not the ability of the Hawk Rider

[@over9000lord]

Funnily enough, volley of Kurnos seems to be the only spell/ability that scales adequately with unit scale (spell itself being dependent on unit size)

[@richardsorge7280]

This video is how NOT to use volley of Kurnous 101

[@bodhisfattva7462]

ya he used the army 100% backwards but still won with ease. he should have won with 0 losses in 1/4 of the time if he used the abilities on the correct units or even just used the dragons like dragons not flying treemen.

[@uselesscasul3164]

Guns devastate this army, but it normally only takes one or two volleys to break them, and then the enemy army is screwed. I found that using the vanguard deployment to take them out at the start makes it very effective.

[@Omenowl]

I modified this to include treemen and hawk riders. The hawk riders help take out their infantry and artillery while the treemen take out the big monsters. Life spell singer. I am still trying to refine it. I have fought really well against dark elves so far.

[@saurosthewise7371]

@@Omenowl the issue with bringing other units is your loss of burst damage from riders. I've run it with sisters, Ariel, and 18 riders and that tends to decimate nearly all armies I see.

[@uselesscasul3164]

@@saurosthewise7371 that’s my current version. It works pretty well, and the hawk riders are actually decent in melee when you drop all 18 on a single unit.

[@Nick46289]

You can also just charge the ranged units. Hawkriders are a cavalry unit with high melee damage, they can perform really well against weak melee fighters. That will require a bit of micro, however. And don't charge the enemy ranged units until they are properly isolated. This is mostly useful against dwarves who are resistant to magic damage, so the volley doesn't quite do enough damage to annihilate their ranged units.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

how on earth do guns get in range? no archers should live past second 10 of any engagement with this army.

[@acheron16]

Volley of Kurnous sucks versus single units, or at least wasted. Meanwhile 1-2 volleys destroys an entire unit.

[@asbog1]

the real strength of the eagle riders is hitting every unit in the army at once with a volley and causing an insta break but that might not work on legendary

[@nicolinrucker5181]

The thing about Hawk Riders vs a bunch of ranged units, is that if you micro well you can keep the riders on top of the ranged unit and unless it has 360 degree firing it'll be moving to try to get a bead on the riders so they never actually shoot. I've used like, four hawk riders to tie up 8-9 DE Dark Riders, Darkshards, and Shades. So that can help a lot. Also, for the Sisters Hawk Riders are T2. They have a unique building in the Witchwood. Also Also, three volleys kills basically any low armor multi entity model. If you can get the Volleys onto some clumped infantry you can generate some REALLY silly results.

[@NileRoan]

I use the hawkrider 'doomstack' as an early game easy to access option for Sisters, and use the volleys on infantry first. If you hit a troop of infantry from the side you knock out 50-70% of their units in one volley. Sisters are capable of taking out the single entity units with extreme ease, so it feels like a waste to use volleys on them barring special circumstances. The hawkriders are also surprisingly strong in melee, especially if you flock a unit of troops with them.

[@sillyboy9314]

Hawk rider's arrows absolutely destroy infantry, their vanguard allows you to hit them as they order and you hit stacked units and it murders

[@danielw.8356]

I think you used the hawk rider ability wrong....you focused way to much on big units. Their ability wipes regular squads far more easily.

[@Muck006]

Missile doomstacks are dependant upon their ammunition (which is why any "auto-refill of ammo" buffs makes them far more viable) in battles against opponents who dont break easily, have loads of hit points/resists or simply against several armies. With a regular single entity doomstack you have a lot of possibility to get this "refill" through HEALING MAGIC and thus it is far more accessible for far more factions. Only 2 factions have the ammo refill (Ikit Claw [all armies] and Eltharion [just his army]), lots more have life magic.

[@samhuang3551]

It is good because you can get it really early if you capture the Arnheim, and you can recruit them there if you get the settlement at tier 2. For me, the point of the hawk rider stack is it can help you take all the forest quick and survive until you get whatever doomstack you like.

[@jtojagicc]

hear me out: kroxigors carrying warp lightning cannons in each hand

[@shadowjezzter]

Call forth the bombardment! “Charlie’s attacking, send forth the riders!” Also this army doesn’t need anything except the hawk riders, just need a tanky person on the ground, are a stealthy one.

[@ruukinen]

Tried that. Gets fucked by High Elf dragon spam. Needs something that tar pits flying units.

[@nestor5780]

@@ruukinen Could this be the only time transformation of Kadon is worth a shit? I mean, sisters straight up give beast lore lords/heroes +3 recruitment rank

[@Horvath_Gabor]

I mainly use their ability, combined with vanguard deployment, to instantly delete the opponent's artillery and dangerous ranged units. It's best not to hit them in one massive salvo, but use half of the Hawk Riders first, wait a couple of seconds for the target units to regroup, and then hit them with the other half. After the ranged threats are dealt with, just plink at the remaining units until the cool down is over while your lord/foot hero hides is a shrub somewhere, then rinse and repeat.

[@ericmcdonald7813]

I would agree with Legend here on this. I've been playing a Twilight Sister campaign with a friend as Drycha and I've found that the statement of "3 Vollies kill ANYTHING" pertains to Infantry units only. Against any army that can draw out the fight and make the hawks run out of ammo is a huge weakness for them. What I usually do is split my hawks into groups of 3 and use their vollies sparingly in a priority order: 1. Any ranged unit 2. Any NON-foot lord 3. Any fast unit 4. Any unit designed to bog you down 5. Any blobs that form 6. Melee infantry 7. Artillery I rate artillery so low because 90% of the time artillery just cannot hit hawks because their animations bounce them around so much and when they run out of ammo hawks can easily melee them.

[@fiendishrabbit8259]

The lack of AP of hawkriders is why you bring multiple Glade Captains (on eagles). A pair of glade captains can hammer down any monster or lord, so you can save your arrows of kournos for artillery. Hawk rider arrows of kournous just straight up delete artillery and weaponteams.

[@FelixGryph]

I feel like using the Volley against formations is better than against single entities, and using their base ammo against single entities is more efficient. Like, if you're up against a dwarf army, if you use 1-2 volleys for each of their ranged units, you'll really quickly trim down the options the enemy has to fight you.

[@wisp6826]

It's cool, you can get it early and it's fun to use. If you need to fight multiple armies you can attack them, use up all you have, withdraw, let them attack you, use up everything again and withdraw again. I like this army. It's very fun to play.

[@lordmuhehe4605]

You think Legend cares about fun? He suggests using only skeleton armies for vampires while killing with magic, which is the slowest, grindiest way to play and I would rather shoot myself than to play that way.

[@wisp6826]

@@lordmuhehe4605 it depends what gives fun to a particular player. Legend loves cheese. He plays that way and he is having fun. I do cheese sometimes, but I also like to rp a lot in my games. When I Confederate Chrace I like to give them their lions, infantry and chariots. It would be shit on higher difficulty level. That is why I play on h/h or vh/vh. Let people play the way they want. Unless it's ranked multiplayer. In that case shut up and play meta.

[@TPKPatchy]

I beat the entire legendary chaos invasion force on legendary with 8 hawk riders with Naestra and Arahan.

[@renynx8515]

an big advantage is that you can build this "doomstack" at your tier 3 capital with the special building, if you rush it you need maybe 20 turns and at that point in the game hawkrider f*** up most armies soooo.....

[@sadrien]

T2 as sisters. By turn 25 I was able to beat the quest battle for the dragon and conquer Athel Loren.

[@Ereinion25]

I've been mixing the treemans and hawkriders. So a stack with lord, few heros, about 5 hawkriders , the rest treemans. Very very effective so far. The hawkriders help with damaging or sniping lords & heros, plus harassing annoying skirmish / ranged units. Plus also helps splitting up enemy armies if needed. Feel like it gives a few more tactical options, and the 10-12 treemans are sufficient anyway. I only play on hard though, so not sure how it holds up in legendary difficulty

[@cablom200]

You should use volley against infantry. Against the empire you have no problem because you can easly destroy every missile units with just 1 or 2 volleys.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

ya he used the units 100% wrong...only time i might use volly on a single entity would be to help get a steam tank down fast cause they are annoying but i would still try to use it on them when they had other infantry around them. It also doesnt help that he uses dragons like they are flying treemen which they are not.

[@CharterForGaming]

I've been playing hawkrider doomstacks since the Wood elves were released, pure hawkriders plus flying mounts, then summon a manticore to keep the leadership up, zerg down the important targets whilst moving around the manticore, and summoning a new one when neccesary

[@bjorn-falkoandreas9472]

I am currently quite happy with a treeman/hawk rider mix. The hawks are sent away to deal with AP artillery and anything AP ranged which could be a problem. I have yet to meet a necrofex doomstack, but this combination works quite well with the mixed AI armies. But the regular damage is low, there is not enough ammo and they love to murder each other. Their one trick is to delete things thrice with tech. And by "delete" I mean 4 of them make a big dent into soft targets I want gone. And they suck in melee. You still need trees and life magic. I have never used them against single-target stuff. Didn't think it would work.

[@minerva9104]

I’ve been playing with this doomstack against high elves a decent amount and I can say that ranged heavy armies and dragons or phoenixes aren’t a huge problem. Volley of Kurnous hugely outranges archers and you’re usually best off hitting every enemy missile with two volleys for an opening salvo, essentially deleting them. After that, dragons can’t catch them and can just be normally focused down with standard ranged fire and a glade captain on great eagle and a dragon or two can do a plenty good job holding phoenixes in place while you murder them from afar. Obviously a dragon or Phoenix spam will shred this army but you usually don’t see many in AI armies. I wouldn’t say it’s the best doomstack in an outright fight for wood elves but I’d argue it’s the most cost effective, and more importantly it’s the coolest.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

you are correct sir... legend used this army 100% wrong...volley is an AE ATTACK you dont use it on single entities if you have half a brain. Dragons+ hero support are for killing the single entities...just imagine him using a brood horrors stack and using unstable vs single entities only...on purpose!!! then attacking the infantry and archers then complain that the stack isnt as good as "x" stack.

[@kentohamaoka4063]

The Tomb kings are also very reasonable with Wood Elves, even when hundreds of miles away. Also, The strength of the Hawk Riders are not only the missiles, they have like 80 charge bonus and over 60 WS with quite a lot of AP. you can melt a unit of heavy cav just on the charge. The intention of the doomstack is to decimate the enemy infantry, and the Hawk Riders can do that just at the start of the battle, then swarm the single entities with dragons and shots from above. Easy peasy.

[@KeijoAmbersson]

Currently running a Hard Sisters campaign. Early game - midgame hawk boys are fantastic. But compared to full waywatcher stack the damage output is not there, even with extra volleys of kurnous. And it is also way weaker than treeman stack with life wizard. For Sisters, I found a mix of 6 dragons and 9 waywatchers is really nice. Dragons get vanguard deployment under Sisters, so they eat enemy artillery. They also get some nice of missile resistance and ward save. Waywatchers kill everything that could hurt the dragons, and they kill it fast. 5 remaining spots are Sisters, Ariel, Life mage for arcane conduit and extra heals, glade captain for movement and waystalker to buff the waywatchers. Ariel seems to get 400-500 kills and over 30k damage dealt in every battle, so this may be the real doomy thing in this stack :)

[@AutoClicker.8]

I call and raise you with Tree lord doomgroup, no armies, just lords. Havent played this uppdate yet, but just recruiting tree lords is usually how I play WE early to late-mid game

[@marcdavies7046]

The Hawkrider volleys are pretty effective against missile infantry and artillery. I did a campaign where the Sisters had 16 Hawkriders in their army; with the upgrade Skill so that each Hawl has 3 shots of Kurnos, that's 48 total. You will delete a hell of a lot of units like that. Is it as tough as a Treeman doomstack? No, never. But I'd say on a map without cover, the Hawkriders would probably have the advantage. It is nice to have the flexibility. If I have 3 late game armies as Wood Elves, 1 Sister Hawkrider stack and 2 Treemen stacks will give you more tools than 3 Treemen stacks. Plus, as has been pointed out by others, the Sisters can recruit Hawkriders out of their level 2 temple. That's _much_ earlier than the Treemen. Overall I'd rate the Hawkriders 8.5 or even 9 out of 10, and will certainly be going for 16 Hawkriders again next time I play the Sisters.

[@jonathanbradford3155]

I used this army against a reikland army with 4 steam tanks, 2 luminarchs, and 2 other guns that I don’t remember what they were and I devestated it. With the arrows of kurnos you can easily nuke any good ranged before it can do any major damage to you. The only faction I think this would consistently struggle against is High Elves just because of the pure volume of arrows

[@dunderjones]

I also prefer the treeman army, but I will say one thing you cant do with trees is fly them in circles over the enemy army and spin them into a big ball for AoEs while the rest of your army is hidden. I mean I guess at that point you can do the same with a life mage on an eagle and dwellers the blob, but hawk rider stirring was a favorite tactic during garrison fights to slow enemy armies down. Flying circles around the AI taking potshots and nuking nice blobs. Feels good

[@carlchristianlindalen9311]

You're forgetting something. Volley wrecks their morale. Charge in for a hit and run to break them (Glade captains "Death from above" helps a bit) Let them rout out of whatever cluster they're in to isolate them. Either mop them up, ignore their stunted remains, or chase them off the map. If you can cluster the enemy into a melee ball around some dragons or your lord, the volleys wreck entire army sections, and whatever doesnt flee the furrball will do so after a cycle charge follow up. Missile back lines don't last long against Hawkriders cycle charging and pincering them. Hawkriders are extremely fast, and "decent" in melee. They are glass cannons, but their charge can really get up there and will make short work of an already destabilized or fragile unit. They are flying skirmish artillerty shock cavalry. When you combine all those categories into your gameplan and how you use them, you get interesting results.

[@catsndogs98]

Legend gotten so good at the game he’s now fighting against the viewers, effortlessly parrying what we are going to say before we say it

[@KimmoHintikka]

I think point missing from this evaluation is that you can get hawkrider doomstack super early. I'm rolling around with Hawkrider stack around turn 35. Allows me to steamroll dark elves early on. Late game I roll around 2 armies marching together one of treemen one with hawkriders + dragons for lightning striking.

[@Tdawnify]

So CA is releasing a Skaven unit only available in campaign if you confederate Clan Moulder as Clan Skryre or vice versa. The unit itself works quite similiar to the Deck Droppers of the Vampire Coast: The Ratbat Ratling Gunners; mutated winged ratogres genetically enhanced by bats carrying ratling gunners.

[@TaletellerII]

I find this works best when you just have Ariel tank everything, eviscerate the blob around her with her magic while also healing herself with Soulstealer, while the Hawk Riders Volley of Kurnous around her and actually just shoot large tagets with their regular ammo, since they have pretty high missile damage. Alternatively, use the Volleys to take out gunners and the like before they even get close, three volleys delete most infantry units. Definitely more micro intensive and squishy than treemen though.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

legend just has no clue how to use this stack and it was obvious from the first 20 sec of the vid. he did 0 research into how the units are supposed to be used. i mean what idiot flys dragons into elite infantry and expect them to do well? THAT IS WHAT VOLLEY IS FOR DUMMY! he blew this vid 100% imo. 1/10 just cause he won the fight but my dog could have won this fight.

[@Nick46289]

5:45 Currently on turn 150 of my L/VH/L campaign. Currently fighting High Elves and the Empire at the same time (have successfully annihilated Dwarves, which were _extremely annoying_ due to magic resist and general tankiness and Bretonnia, which had flying cav - easily the scariest faction I had to go up against). Also, there's the vampire coast and lizardmen, but they are more of an annoyance than a threat. As long as I use LS nothing they bring can do anything to me (even phoenixes, which HE just _love_ to spam), simply due to the fact that Hawk riders are F A S T. They are a skirmish unit. They can run circles around most flying things the enemy can bring. You need that LS though. Reason: ammo. Ammo is limited. And their melee stats are... well... they will beat a dedicated low tier ranged unit, but that's about it. Also, volley works better against multiple units. The green 'arrows' have AoE damage, I'm pretty sure. You CAN snipe with them, but that's not the optimal use of them, as far as I'm concerned. Their missiles, while fully upgraded deal about 190 damage every 10 seconds (mostly due to reload time reduction though, unfortunately). And while most of that isn't, in fact, armor piercing, it does the job just fine.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

legend blew this vid 100% half assed it and mailed it in...1/10 as he won the fight but he used every unit in this fight 100% backwards.

[@adamshory1967]

I've been playing with Hawkrider doomstacks. It's incredible. They are only tier 3, they are cheap and they can basically assassinate any ranged or flying units immediately. I haven't had any trouble killing armies twice as expensive, and that includes Reikland. The issue I see here is that you are casting Volley multiple times on the same unit which seems to greatly reduce the total damage. That said, I play on Very Hard so I could see it being pretty difficult to micro on legendary given that you can't pause. Also, I can confirm that if you cast Volley as described above, it will nearly delete any unit in 3 casts.

[@CarlosDiaz-je1bg]

I think it should just be the lord and Ariel with 18 hawk riders. Ariel can do healing and you want to maximize the number or volley of kournos that you get to use. Then just focus you ability usage at killing anything with a ranged attack. Melee can be completely ignored. Once the ranged threats are dead its like shooting fish in a barrel. Most of the time you can ignore half to 75% of an army.

[@JakubZN]

I found that throwing 4-6 hawkriders into treemen doomstack works better (I had such army by accident due to emergency). Hawk riders delete artillery, gunners or any fast shooting units (e.g. outriders) from range and treemen do the actual heavy fighting. That way the weakness of treemen doomstack that is its slowness is covered without making it weaker. Hawk riders are also pretty good at running down units running from melee with treemen. I just have them hovering above when the battle is joined and throw them at stuff that routs.

[@Dan-vo7vc]

1) The two glade captains have arrows of Kurnous, too. 2) Don't use Volley on lords. 3) if you've specced the Sisters and glade captain correctly, sending the the hawk riders into melee is extremely effective.

[@이가람-s3w]

Defeated 3.5 skaven armies ambushing w/ legd lords and units ranging 2~5 including rattling/snipers, and won with ease. Hide a hero (waystalker) and snipe ranged units with volley of krunous (2 will eliminate them) or arrows in case of single enities. Sisters give charge and melee bonus which enables erasing any troops fallen behind.

[@jakeasmah8953]

I think the idea of the volleys is to wipe out archer units so that then you have free range of the skies. Killing any lords or large units falls to the hawk riders or the dragons. Also, the sisters of twilight dunk on any infantry and wipe them in a few shots effectively and then can deal with any lords. It was more like the match was played badly. Also, healing is important because if you keep the life mage with them they are infinitely tanky in desperate situations.

[@rockandrolljew89]

I feel like you're supposed to focus the hawk riders on lords and single/small number units, and using the dragon breathes to soften the big infantry clumps. Thats my biggest issue about testing doomstacks like this; how you use an army can make a huge difference in its effectiveness (as evidenced by every saving your disaster battle you do)

[@drazarkabalblade9486]

I think the advantage of this doomstack is how easy is to obtain and keep. Sure, it may struggle against massive armies where you are bound to remain without ammo, but with one of these you can push hard and fast against an enemy that still can't field the same amount of ( frankly bullshit ) stacks in the end. Also maybe 2 glade captains and The Sisters are good because you can get many "Nets", which makes even monsters much easier pickings for your ammo. Ariel herself can TANK ENTIRE ARMIES in the meantime, using dwellers and lifestealing to crush the enemy units that mass against her. If she gets in trouble, BAM, a swig from her wine, and can easily rout enemies with aimed damage and the use of her terror skill. So maybe that was something that would have changed your opinion? After all, even if Ariel would get hammered, she is easy as piss to heal back to full, especially with another healer.

[@MrP9327]

I think if anything it's a good early to mid game Doomstack for them as you can get Hawk Riders really quick at the Witchwood and use them till you can shift towards Treemen in terms of paying for them and having the appropriate buildings.

[@Grails_Knight]

I think Treemen aren't too great with the sisters, they just don't fit well with their Playstyle and they Buff Hawk Riders and Missile inftantry by a Lot. I personally go for half Hawk riders and half Waywatchers for the sisters, Treemen for the rest.

[@alexanderc9462]

It's nice to she's fairly standard battles fought with other peoples idea of what a doomstack is. Hope to see some alternate HE stacks.

[@mrgermanvono35]

If u use vanguard and rush to take out artillery and missile units the army is basically dead. Thats what I do. One volley per unit decimates any enemy missile troop or artillery. And if you isolate the missiles from other units just engage hawk riders in melee. They're very good on the charge and hold their own. Plus the glad captain gives them fear. And if you have units like Ariel and other big entities to engage the army, hawk riders can destroy units from the back and take out single entities just fine with their regular shot. And even if you don't have the sisters or Ariel in your army they still perform just as well if you spec the lord/hero right.

[@Dancan799]

The ability could likely kill a melee unit in three or at least break them but yeah not single entity. I tend to only have the summon dragon and send him into melee so they all clump up then fire the arrow at as many different clumped units to cause massive damage to try to get the army loss quickly. You can spam heal the dragon with wine A uni of zoats is good to have too for the healing and siege attacker

[@timbawden2577]

With the sisters as commander, the hawks are also insane in melee even on legendary. They shred flying monsters since they have anti large from tech tree and armour piercing as a base

[@johnlogan2396]

CA just announced next DLC: The terradon diver catapult. It utilizes bastiladons to give the general bastiladon line a bit of a buff.

[@LGMalz06]

If you put 1-2 volleys on a decently tightly grouped unit (cav or infantry) it will basically decimate them... You basically launch 2 volleys at each ranged unit to remove any capacity for retaliation. The volleys explosive damage isn't maximized against single entities. Artillery gets tricky... if they hit the crew it's devastating, if they hit the pieces it doesn't seem that effective. The hawk riders are accurate enough to focus down single entities and can avoid return fire if they're opponent is able. So you used like 6-7 volleys on a life slann, but you would have gotten far more overall damage value by halving 6-7 multi-entity units. I haven't tried against HElves yet, but I did run this into a weapons team-heavy Ikkit Claw and beat the snot out of him.

[@chiefbigsad7995]

Legends Fantasy Units: steamtanks but no cannon or steam, instead, rattling gun and warpfire. hawk riders with rattling guns. luminark but its a warplightning cannon. dread saurian, but it has a unit of ratling guns on its back. and last but not least. Hellstorm Rocket Batteries that fire doomrockets.

[@ChewysDynasty]

This is like RTW Parthia on crack. Hawk Riders = Horse Archers. Dragons = Cataphracts

[@BellumCarroll]

I want to see a Drycha malevolent treeman doomstack, with all the techs & skills point for them. Slowly working on it myself, looks nasty.

[@SirDubington]

its best after confederating durthu into your army, one life branchwrait and all trees, maybe a couple units of dragons or whatever just to take care of artillery

[@BellumCarroll]

@@SirDubington I'm actually really loving a unit of great wolves with the treeman stack. They're so good at running down units after treeman break them and taking out missile units. Plus they can group up slow armies while you cast spells hidden on the edge of Forests - herd them like sheepdogs 😁

[@CrzyLion]

62 AP damage, 79 charge bonus on the hawk riders, can be increased in an aoe effect by the perfected twilight horn or whatever its called "not going to send them in melee because that would be a waste of their lives" sure you didnt need them this fight, however i feel like thats where hawk riders shine, first they take down half the army then they charge the remainders from all sides-> good amount of burst damage and leadership penalties. also, shield of thorns cast in an aoe is pretty nice on them too because they have a lot of base weapon strength.

[@darth0tator]

yeah, I think Legend has a little bias against melee use, but I think that's actually understandable, you would have to charge in, destroy and get back up again, because they just die in any kind of prolonged combat. and then you might have to wait a turn for them to regain their full strength...while treemen can just be healed I liked having them in my archer based armies to run down routing enemies or going after artillery and of course the volley is nice to have

[@josephcowie342]

The Sisters of Twilight Hawk Rider Doomstack devastates lower-tier enemy armies, especially factions like Dark Elves where formations are very tight (not so good against Beastmen or Skaven, where formations tend to be looser so the AoE doesn't hit as many models at once). They're very cheap for the Sisters, and you can get them right from the start since the Witchwood's unique building lets you start recruiting them at tier 2. I feel like that makes them a good intermediate doomstack, something to pick up and use while you're waiting for Treemen, or else to run with on lower difficulties. It definitely falls off later though, when the enemy starts bringing tougher units and bigger/more armies, because if you can't shatter all their most dangerous units with your Volleys of Kurnous then you're pretty much screwed.

[@hakanchristensen6475]

with lightning strike you can decimate almost any army with this doomstack.. (using it currently), just obliterate ranged units with talons and you are free to go.. also use ariel to both tank and deal tons of dmg. also use naestrahan as a flying ballista she gets tons of kills herself! love it.. one thing that kills this is a focused flyer killer... but never seen one yet :O

[@senshibat8920]

As an Ariel Areal option and relife emergency reinforcement.. tis great to have vertical envelopment on your battlefield.

[@hockey66191]

Terradon's launching Stegadon's has me wondering. I wonder if the ability to mod the rock drop into a summon is possible. Making the hawk-riders shoot like Ratling guns probably would not be too hard, someone was able to make a Helblaster that launched nukes after all.

[@carter342000]

I'm playing my first ever WE campaign, and have tried out both the Hawk Rider and the Treeman doomstack. I do think Treeman is a bit better, but Hawk Riders did do a damn good job in the mid game. Main issue was lack of ammo, lack of good magic support and no siege attacker until you get dragons, which can take a while. Life is obviously great, but Beast is shit in single player and Shadow is a bit meh. If you run out of ammo before you are able to get rid of all the threats to your dragons, you know that you are going to take a lot of damage I imagine the hawk riders would be a great late game support army for a treeman stack though. Let the AI crowd around the treeman, and then use the hawk riders to whittle down dangerous ranged and monstrous units before targeting the swarm

[@Owlr4ider]

This is the sort of doomstack that can beat a single enemy stack thanks to the sniping ability, however against multiple stacks it will fall flat as once that ability runs out the overall damage output of the doomstack is rather low and the survivability isn't the greatest either.

[@MrPhillipscrewdriver]

Does prey of aeith or whatever the thing that’s stops them moving and decreases missile resistance increase the damage? I don’t know if they count as missiles, but I have to imagine it increases accuracy

[@brendanmurphy214]

Yes, yes it does. PoAR the lord, then right click. You don't even need Volleys to kill lords in less than 5 seconds. Legend misplayed this, honestly.

[@valky5318]

Thing is, you missed some synergies here. Prey of Anath Raema for example (sisters have it) to reduce missile resistance, sisters also reduce armor, a shadow wizard will lower it even more -> greater volley efficiency. You can take your time for these setups too. Also single shot units like captains or sisters are probably best for dealing with big targets.

[@sorkvild1473]

Legend three weeks ago: Treeman are shit! Legend now: Yea, this is brilliant, but Treeman is what I love

[@C1umsyJester]

The thing I find with hawk riders is if they run out of ammunition they’re useless in a lot of situations. But because you can get the hawk riders at tier 2 it’s an op early doom stack, then swapping to a tree man build in the later game

[@JohnDoe-jv7gl]

Idk, I've actually found (especially during sieges) that you can sorta replicate the stunlocking of hippogryph knights when you clump them together and charge isolated units. They're definitely more squishy, but when they're together the damage gets spread out among all the units.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

if you dont shoot volley at single entities like a moron then you get the enemy to retreat way before you are out of ammo...

[@Jbbles]

priorty targets should be art, archers, highest value low armoured infantry. single entities can be taken care of by normal ammo and cycle charged to finish them off. *edit, that's my experience from romping over riekland. the dwarves have been the biggest pain so far. It's weakness is high armour infantry when it comes to dealing damage and clan skryre for obvious reasons

[@dragonball7122]

Because it have exploded dmg. The abilities are more effective to take out enemies range unit or canons. And you got a lot of them. You can basically wipe out all enemies ranger and canon at first then just shot them from above. They can’t do anything then just get wipe out. Legend you still didn’t know how to use this doom stack

[@Galdenberry_Lamphuck]

As a luxury they are great at blowing away infantry and then retreating. They can shred light infantry in large squadrons. Maybe 2 to 1 you can use them to snipe swordsmen and archers. 4 to 1 and they can even eat spear men.

[@Kekzmann]

Id call this more like a Midgame Doomstack, since you can get it quite early in the game with the special building on T2 (not including the dragons). Because when only facing units of the same Tier, like T2-3, this is pretty damn good. But i think a Necrofex doomstack or smth alike would delete it, simply because its a T5 Doomstack and thus has just way better stats. Also lategame armies in general. But the cost performance value is great on this one.

[@bodhisfattva7462]

it helps if you use the units and abilities correctly...you dont use an ae ability to kill single entities. legend did no research on how this stack was to be used...also you will never see a single necrofex when playing the wood elves unless something went crazy with your campaign.

[@loganphillips1597]

I know this video is a week old and you've heard this a thousand times, but this build is pretty much a hard counter to ranged/infantry focused armies. The sheer dps the volleys do to those ai blobs can cause armies to rout in the first two minutes of battle.

[@Stasenko58]

The thing about this doomstack is that you can start recruiting for it turn 3 of campaign or something, and you can get the cost of hawkriders to 0. Getting treeman doomstack is a long road.

[@piersmaurya9512]

How about treeman doom stacks ? Works pretty well with Drycha. And as Legends said in the video with up to 50% missile resistance, 35% physical resistance, 152 armor, 60ish MD and lore of life for healing they can resist almost anything.

[@karatekan2182]

The volleys are better against infantry than single entities. It's more like you hit every missile unit once, run away, wait till it recharges than come at them again. Dragons are probably there to take out the single entities Also Ariel is basically a doomstack to herself, let them blob up on her, cast a soulstealer, than volleys and the entire army goes away.

[@wolfsruhm]

i was thinking of maybe a waywatcher instead of the second captain for the Kurnos buff, but then i remembered, you do not get a flying mount for them, any mount even iirc, so they are a bit of a liabiltity in a flying army perhabs Also maybe a glade Lord would work better as general with the hawkriders, sicne you can get the Kurnos trait on them, and a little bit of extra range is always nice