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Starting Death


LLC

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Hi All,

I am a Nurgle main that is a little bummed that everyone is hopping on the bandwagon, so I started looking at death. As people have told me they are in a weak spot. Then I come on here and see that death is getting a new tome, just like Nurgle did. 

I have a few questions: 

1) Are we thinking that death is going to be super op for a while now? (Nurgle's buffs are all pretty amazing.)

2) I mostly play aganist someone who plays seraphon. So far with nurgle I've won about 90% of our games, Im wondering if it'll be any more even with Death.

3) What excited me about death is that you can sort of mix and match everything. Is this correct??

 

Thanks for your help! More questions to come.

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Hi!

Know what you mean about people jumping onto the Nurgle bandwagon, always the way when a new fairly strong battletome comes out (especially with some of the "lovely" models).

My opinions:

42 minutes ago, LLC said:

Are we thinking that death is going to be super op for a while now? (Nurgle's buffs are all pretty amazing.)

It's a bit too soon to tell, we've got very little information on what the book contains beyond some leaked warscrolls that may or may not be correct.  The general feeling is that it's unlikely to be super overpowered, but we're hoping it will bring Death up to the same level that other Grand Alliances have.

42 minutes ago, LLC said:

I mostly play aganist someone who plays seraphon. So far with nurgle I've won about 90% of our games, Im wondering if it'll be any more even with Death.

With Death as it currently stands they're likely to have a higher win count

42 minutes ago, LLC said:

What excited me about death is that you can sort of mix and match everything. Is this correct??

Sort of.  Most armies currently fall into the Nighthaunt (ghostly models), Flesh Eater Courts or general Death.  The new battletome will allow you to field one of six allegiances but using any of the model ranges available to Death (bit like Nurgle can include Slaves to Darkness or Clan Pestilens).  What we don't know is how much freedom it will actually give you - if one allegiance grants you a a bonus to units that are Ethreal, you're likely going to want to field more Spirit Hosts than Zombies for example.  We just don't know yet.  

I'd suggest keeping an eye out on the Warhammer Community site as we're getting previews during this week on what to expect.

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1 hour ago, LLC said:

1) Are we thinking that death is going to be super op for a while now? (Nurgle's buffs are all pretty amazing.)

Literally the opposite.  Death was very strong under GH16, as a result saw massive pendulum nerfs in GH17 and the compendium revisions, and based on the timing this book had to have been written before any significant feedback from GH17, so it should be expected to be a continuation of that nerf cycle rather than a reversing of the pendulum.  Leaks so far support that expectation, as most things stay the same, and most of the individual changes made are nerfs (no mystic shield for ethereals, no bouncing mortal wounds for necromancers, etc).

The biggest change, swapping summon spells and regen banners for a hero-based regeneration system, while more interesting, more interactive, and more thematic, is also potentially a lot weaker, as the top armies going around these days already snipe our heroes out before targeting our units, which under the new system would result in no regeneration at all.

Allegiance rules haven't been seen yet, but Death and Soulblight were in GH17 only a few months ago, and are unlikely to be much changed, while the new special character based allegiances are unlikely to be significantly more powerful than the other two allegiances printed in the same book.

A new spell lore is expected though, and could make a significant difference depending on implementation.

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2) I mostly play aganist someone who plays seraphon. So far with nurgle I've won about 90% of our games, Im wondering if it'll be any more even with Death.

Before GH17 I would say no.  Currently I'd very much say yes, if anything you might be facing a bit of an uphill battle depending on what particular death & seraphon units are at play in the game.  That is unlikely to change in the new book, though it's of course too soon to say conclusively.  Seraphon are an early book, and the current death power level, as well as what little we've seen leaked from the new book, is more in that range.

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3) What excited me about death is that you can sort of mix and match everything. Is this correct??

Yes and no.  Yes you can mix and match everything, and there will be five different sets of allegiance abilities for the entire Death alliance (though four might end up requiring specific special characters as your general).  However, "everything" isn't all that much.  Death is the smallest 'Grand Alliance' by far, much smaller than the others, smaller even than some of their subfactions in terms of actual unit and model range.  And out of that already limited selection, Tomb Kings stuff mostly only plays nice with other tomb kings stuff, while Flesh Eater Courts mostly only play well with other FEC units and heroes.  Especially after the new book, which makes necromancers not work with TK or FEC at all, though to be fair they may now work with some nighthaunt stuff, which they didn't before.

And once you take out the FEC and TK stuff, "everything" for death ends up being less variety in units and especially in models than, for example, Seraphon just on their own.

If you're still looking to start death, I'd honestly recommend waiting two weeks until the new Legions of Nagash book is out, just to have all the rules in their full text before committing to purchases.

That said, if you don't want to wait, the 'Blades of the Blood Queen' boxed set is a decent start for a generalist (read: non-TK, non-FEC) Death army, and it should probably be safe to add two more boxes of skeleton warriors and one or more necromancers to that.  The box is advertized as a Neferata thing, but you can build whichever of the three mortarchs mosts appeals to you rules & narrative wise.  You can see their current scrolls to decide which has mechanics you like, we expect their rules to remain largely unchanged apart from removing arkhan's references to summoning spells and adding the new character-based unit healing mechanics.  Again, they'll each be getting new bespoke allegiance abilities for their personal armies, so you might want to wait on those before deciding which to build.

Narrative & personality wise, oldhammer wiki searches should give you a feel for them, as their histories, motivations, and personalities remain basically entirely defined by the old warhammer fluff, as there just isn't enough fluff for them in the new setting to mean much yet.  Though that at least is likely to be improved and expanded on in the new book.

A lot of people just magnetize the mortarch rider and use whatever chest plate & head they like the best on the monster they ride, so you could do that too if you wanted and then not have to commit.  But if you know you like one best, or have dreams of running all three together in huge games one day, then you might as well just pick a favorite and assemble that one.

Note that the mortarch and morghast models are balanced on rather small connections to their bases, and as a result can be fragile & floppy.  I recommend using extra supports to make them more stable - morghasts stepping on rocks or tombstones, mortarch steeds touching statues, pillars, or trees with their front claws, etc.

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