its not that im a new player especialy, but im not as good as id like to be (who isnt). and another thing is i dont have a lot of mage knight figures, working on a limited budgit. and what ive noticed is that when a post is up and it asks "how would you beat this army" (42up's most recent post is what brought this to mind, but it happens with a lot of oher posts) people create armies specificaly designed to beat that army, but in tournaments you dont know what armies youll be playing against, so how can you design armies to beat the armies youll be playing? i just think that it would help me out, and probably a lot of other "newbies" if people would give strategies based on armies not just designed to beat the one other army. if that makes sense.

well, i doubt thatll ever happen, so ill just post a specific question right now: i play KI swarm and swarm/charge, and i have trouble mostly with ML/MB armies and orc swarm/charge armies with orc captain. I'd liked to be enlightened on some strategies on how to beat these two (three if you count ML and MB as two different types) archetypes with ki swarm and s/c.

the orc swarm/charge is self-explanatory as to what is in it. but the ML/MB army is generaly as follows (sometimes includes and is not limited to):

Magus, Technomancer*
Elite Surok Apprentice*
Scorpem Gunner***
Soul Stealer*
Skeleton*
Skeleton*
War Hatchetkrugg***
Shaman*
Gobo**
Gobo*
Gobo*
Gobo*

the army i most recently played is:

Heavy Lancer***
Heavy Lancer**
Heavy Cavalier***
Heavy Cavalier**
Standard Bearer*

E@A***
E@A***
E@A***
Elven Recruit*
Infantry Captain**

Shade**

if you recomend changing my army, or recomend figures that are better than what i have (which im sure there are) ill take note on it, but i cant make any promises, since making promises costs money in this situation.

so if you could give me some tips on how to beat these, especialy the second army, that would be great. thanx

-hairy james

The problem with swarm or even swarm/charge armies, is that they are brutally efficient, yet still have bad match ups. Also there is very little you can do to improve these bad match ups with out taking out swarm figs (making it less of a swarm) and adding in counters to certain strategies. Also some options that are normally good choices to fix bad match ups dont work in swarm armies(adding F/L to deal with other swarms, makes the army diluted and unfocused)

The best approach I have seen in a while to improve a swarm/charge army is Wkura's "Tank" army, where he cut the swarm part and added in a EGM and a more stable Harrasser than a pair of shades( a Fell Reaper***).

It may be the best option out there for a 300 pt swarm/charge style army, or it could be improved more. Thats up to people who play that style to decide.

good luck!

that doesnt realy help me much, since i dont have the money to buy f/l figs. i was more looking for a sound strategy on how ki should go about attempting to beat ml/mb and/or orc swarm/charge. such as: terrain placement, figure placement, order of operations for engaging the enemy, order of operations once enemy has been engaged, should i push to charge, should spend all my actions charging or just two and spend the other one sending the e@a formation into the mix, should i go after the technos to alleviate ml, should i go after the shamans to hurt the healers, should i attempt to go straight for magus, when i have all my chargers pushed what should my course of action be with the e@a formation, etc. you know, general things like. please. thanx

Do a quick search for my posts, you're looking for one called:

Swarm: The double edged sword

That'll help you alot.

Capture
eliminates range, eliminates recursion, capture the first piece that makes base or charge it for a capture, with mounteds this gives you alot of options-everything from a good los blocker to a double point threat and the great shakeoff damage.
Theres nothing worse for your opponent than you sitting in your starting area with many of your opponents captured people staring back across the field.