Dark Aelf (Shadowblades)

[someone2040]

7 hours ago, Sarkazim said:

- The +1 Damage weapon has actually caused a minor rules issue because of the way the Poison is worded.  The Artefact changes the weapon damage from a 1 to 2.  Being overyly specific, Black Lotus Venom changes the damage the weapons inflict, and not the damage of the weapon itself.  So the two interpretations are that the Black Lotus Venom+Artefact can be treated as 'D3(+1 Artefact) Damage rather than 1', or 'D3 Damage rather than 1'(+1 Artefact).  The first one is the more common one, and most players will let me play that way, but usually not until AFTER their first game against my army.  Since AoS is meant to be a stress less game for me, I just found it easier to pick one of the other ones.

Hmm, I didn't really think about that nuance.

My gut feeling is that perhaps the latter is more 'correct'. That's because the Relic Blade does not add 1 to the damage inflicted by a single weapon, but adds it to the characteristic. Similarly the Black Lotus Blade doesn't change the characteristic to D3, just inflicts that much against Heroes. Whether or not one could argue that by inflicting D3 against heroes you are effectively changing your Characteristic to that, I'm unsure.

But overall, if your group are happy to allow you to do D3+1, the Relic Blade is the better choice.

[Twitch of Izalith]

Hey, nice to see someone being persistent with what they want to play rather than what its best to play! That's quite a brave army choice! 

I really like the dark rider models too. I bought 4 boxes total for my army - I have built 5 and now I can't decide if I will build another 2 units of 5 and build one kit as warlocks or if I will just paint 2 five man units of each. I want some warlocks so I can run a pure daughters of Khaine list if I want to. 

Don't discount the hydra - he won't do much damage but it takes a while to kill him so he is a decent blocker. 

Have you thought about some drakespawn knights to keep the cavalry theme going but add some variety? They are slightly over costed I think and should really get a -1 rend with the lances but they are nice models.

I wish the assassins were a bit more lethal too! You read the little sidebar in the GA Order book where the assassin one shots a chaos lord but then have to watch him bounce off  everything when you actually use him in the game! He does ok against 5 wound characters with 5+ saves though i suppose.

Good luck with the army though - would love to see a pic of those 60 riders if you feel like posting one

[someone2040]

The Assassins honestly feel like they're missing something. In older Warhammer, they basically re-rolled misses,  always going first, auto-wounded on hit rolls of 6, re-roll wound rolls of 1 and then got their special poisons on top of that. And then they could still take magic items.

I feel like some of that is unfortunately missing from the Assassin scroll, and it shows when the Skaven Assassin is basically better overall (and costs more).

 

Personally I'd like to see them have different poison options (So Black Lotus just being one option for an Assassin), as well as perhaps something like

Critical Strike - Any wound roll of 6 or more has a rend of -3 instead of -.

Then you could have some fun with various poisons, some examples could be Manbane (+1 to wound rolls), Dark Venom (Critical Strikes deal mortal wounds instead of normal damage), etc.

Anyway, that's just a bit of wishlisting I guess, but it is unfortunate I think that a lot of cool characters (Witch Hunters, Assassins, etc) are fairly mundane and poor in AoS.

[Sarkazim]

@Twitch of Izalith:

Thank You.  This has become more of a progress track of AoS and myself.  I was originally torn between Shadowblades and Draconis.  Night haunt was in there, but since two of the three choices happened to be Dark Elves, I took them out as an option for my first army.  When it came down to the Models, I really just don't like the look of the current mounts.  That along with Shadowblades being the more unlikely choice are what tipped me over.  While I'm glad that I have allies, I have grown used to just handing my opponent a single sheet with my two warscrolls.  If he had any questions about my army, he had it all. 

-----

I also agree that the Assassins need something else, but it's weird because I'm only looking at it from a Shadowblades point of view, and from a general Order perspective it makes sense.  I just look at the other two Assassins (That I'm aware of.) in the game and would be happy to have something similar.

Skaven Assassins are a mere 20 points more.  They get a 4+ save, 2 Weapon options for different roles, but even the flat D3 -1 Rend, is better against units than mine.  Fewer attacks s true, but that is offset by the re-rolls vs. Heroes and throwing Stars.  They might have the ability to Retreat and still assault, but i might be thinking of something else.  Goblin Skulkers appear weaker, which makes sense.  They're also cheaper, can take up to 9(?) in a single selection, which in my mind makes it easier to spread the attacks as well as keep the Attacks relevant to the remaining number of Wounds.  I believe that there is also some shenaniganery where they can get bonuses pretty easy, but don't play them.  They are scary because they can inflict Mortal Wounds.  

BOTH of these units get to benefit from having a General on the table, whereas they just removed that from Shadowblades.  The only advantage that the Dark Elf has is that we aren't restricted to our race.  Skaven has to hide in a Skaven unit.  Skulkers have to be in a Goblin unit.  Dark Elf Assassins can hide in any Order unit.  With such a broad selection, there are probably plenty of combos where they would be better when taken a second part of a diverse force.  Like the Hurricanum.  

I'd be happy with anything the others have.  A 4+ save, a Rend, or even just Mortal Wounds, a damage D3 weapon, or even some sort or ranged weapon would be a happy change.  I think a throwing attack with the lotus poison would at least be entertaing, and give some purpose to the Heroes that a bubble wrapped extremely tight.  Or something creative like 'When taken in a Shadowblades force' they get some other perk.

Wishful thinking aside, just going to run them as is.  Now that I KNOW they still count toward my Drop Count, having more Null drops makes the Deployment game much more interesting.

[chord]

I think keeping then the same points but adding -1 rend would be the best thing for GW to do.

Do you have any pics or battle reports?

[Sarkazim]

@chord @Twitch of Izalith

No pics anymore / yet.  I was using Photobucket before my hiatus, and it looks like they're too much of a hassle to use, so I'm looking for an alternative right now.  Not much progress has been made.  When started having some time available for actual hobby stuff, I went back to 40k first since 8th was all the news.  I only dusted the army off this week and got my hands on the GHB17.  They're all still riderless, with the base color and 1st highlight on them, about 1/3 of them have the 2nd Highlight on them.  I'm going the mindnumbingly boring painting route and chain painting the army.  So 1 color, 60 horses, then next.

If you want an idea of what comes to my mind when I play just watch 'The Two Towers'.  When Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas address the Riders of Rohan and there is that scene where they sweep around, and then surround them with the spears.  It's kinda like that.  Except the riders are Evil Elves with automatic Crossbows that don't care about taking prisoners alive before they surround you with spears.

EDIT: I'm going to head down after work today and see if I can get a pickup game in running the Dragon.  I'll try and snap a photo after deployment.  It won't be anything fancy as the army is very much WIP, but you'll get an idea of the scope of the project.

 

[Sarkazim]

Had re-match today against the Stormcast player.  We played 1.5k again (3 Assassins, 50 Dark Riders) and it did NOT go down well for him.  He got some great advice here, and had a radically different list.  We played 'Scorched Earth', and he deployed his Retributors and Vandus on the line.  I got first turn, the shooting was about as effective as it could've been, killing 3 Retributors, but managing to put 5 wounds on Vandus.  All 3 units of Dark Riders then managed to get a 10"+ Charge (after the re-roll).  The 2 units on the Retributors, and 1 unit on Vandus.  The middle unit which had all 3 Assassins were close enough to drop them on Vandus, and it took all 3 to remove the final 2 wounds on Vandus.  His turn 2, was pretty much a Gamers worst Nightmare.  None of his units in Reserve bothered to show up and relieve his forces.  His Venator rolled a 1 on his Super Shot to take out my General, and the Battleshock Casualties were pretty brutal on his end, whereas the 15 man units saved me.  I later remembered the re-roll, but it didn't matter.  When I won Priority on Turn 2 we both just shook hands.

@someone2040 - I ran the 1 Assassin as the General and gave him the +1 Attack, and he let me run the +1 Dam Relic as 'D3+1'.  With 7 Attacks, he inflicted ZERO wounds.  Assassin 2 managed to get 1 attack through, but only did 1 of 2 wounds on the D3.  The 3rd Assassin  managed to get 2 Attacks through, but with only 1 wound left, it was overkill.  While this was bad luck on my part (or the one good thing on his!), it was still a 1 shot deal.  That guy had a BIG target painted on his head since all 3 Assassins were now in his lines and the one unit protecting his other characters was eliminated.  I still feel in my gut that the -1 Rend is still a better choice, since it has higher odds of getting attacks through than the Damage +1?  

We have a re-rematch setup for tomorrow.  He purchased some stuff to get him up to 2k, so we might have a larger game if he gets the models assembled in time.  It might not happen, since there were quite a few other AoS players in today trying to get either some Skirmish or Path to Glory games in.

Edit: We're going to play 1.5k.  I'll try to get some pics.

 

[Kaleun]

Congratulations! For Skirmish the Dark Riders might be potentially very good. Like so on 30 renown:

Allegiance: Order
Black Ark Fleetmaster (8)
1 x Dark Riders (5)
1 x Dark Riders (5)
1 x Dark Riders (5)
1 x Dark Riders (5)
1 x Darkshards (2)

Total: 30 / 50

 

[Twitch of Izalith]

Thanks for reminding me about Skirmish! I bought that book on release and haven't even had a game yet!

[Kaleun]

Skirmish is always super funny and doesnt need much time :-)

[Sarkazim]

Heh, maybe I should've been a bit more clear.  HE was playing Skirmish/PtG, which would prevent him from assembling models, preventing us from doing 2k today.  I'm not currently playing Skirmish because of the limitations of my army/collection.  (Again, not buying something I don't really want to).

Going to alter my list somewhat today vs. Stormcast though.  

Quote

Allegiance: Order
Assassin - General - Trait: Legendary Fighter - Artefact: Relic Blade
2 x Assassin 
50 x Dark Riders (10/10/10/10/10)
Total: 1440 

In the game yesterday, I really was losing a ton of the potential melee attacks because of the size of the units.  Only 1 unit really got to put it's full weight in, and that was because my opponent had engaged multiple opponents.  It's also to lessen the De-Buff effects.  One of the units got -1 to hit, and that REALLY slowed the effectiveness of that whole unit down.  I'm still a fan of keeping the Drop Count low, and wound tracking manageable, which is why I'm not going the full MSU route just yet.
 

[Sarkazim]

So the game today went much better from an actual playing perspective.  1.5k again.

We ended up playing the 'Fallen Star' scenario or whatever it's called.  
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8Fxc5HKFvuadjq4n1
(Pic Test, hope it works)The pic cut off, but in the lower right corner sits the Venator.  If you can see it, you can see that I have pretty decent board coverage, and the mobility to get anywhere with ease.  Still in the old habit from 40k of spreading out when there are no longer Template weapons.  It looks cool, despite being tactically Impractical.

I was expecting to go second with the added drop count, but even with spreading the Riders out to units of 10, I managed to finish deploying first.  This unfortunately put most of the Riders out of range of his stuff.  As the objectives aren't known, I just moved everything into position to setup for turn 2.  Same went for him, he did some minor maneuvering, but really just played it defensive.  

Turn 2 saw the first objective land on the left side right in the middle of where the bulk of my force was.  I won the initiative, and moved to secure it.  1 unit went after the Liberators, the other went after the Prosecutors.  The Prosecutors survived the shooting, and I failed the charge against them.  The Liberators lost 2 to shooting, then got charged.  As a bit of a distraction, I decided to drop one of the Assassins as a distraction, and <gasp> he actually did his job.  Granted the Hero was only 1 with 5 wounds, but 2 attacks got through and I managed to land 5 on the 2d3.  That unit of riders took a LOT of heat from the Judicators.  The Prosecutors went after the Assassin (who managed to survive the shooting and melee attacks with 1 wound remaing).  The 'Vandus' Hero also jumped in.  I popped out the 2 remaining Assassins and tried to gank him first.  Again, only 4 wounds done with 2 Assassins.  The general then died, but his attacks weren't against the Riders, which probably helped me.  He did drop his Retributors down on my one isolated unit, but failed the charge.  I score 1 VP.

Turn 3 saw the last two objectives also land in the same section of the board.  So now the whole game is on the one side of the board.  I win the Init again, and focus on consolidating my position.  Rough call, but I don't think the 1 unit would've made it through the Retributors, so I sent a second unit to help out.  I tried desperately to free up the units in the middle so they could get the charge especially while I still had 2 Assassins alive.  After a botched attempt to kill the Liberators, I just put 1 more wound on 'Vandus' and killed the Prosecutors.  I could've charged the lone Assassin but he was already a lost cause because I could only use one or the other.  I needed the other one to go first and kill 'Vandus'.  The 2 units dealing with the Retributors did their job, killing 2 on shooting, then leaving 1 wound after melee finishing him off with Battleshock.  With 'Vandus' dead, and Assassins down, he dropped a Meteor and got 11".  Well that wiped out the lone Assassin, and took out a few horses.  Bad luck on Battleshock meant I took a bit of a bigger hit than I was expecting.  He also realized that 2 of his units were no longer contributing to the battle (I pretty much ignored them),  he got GREAT advance rolls and they were setup for the next turn.  I score 3 VP.  

**In hindsight, If I had retreated with the one unit, I would've been able to secure the objectives pretty easy to make it more difficult for him to win.

Turn 4.  He wins the roll and takes a heavy toll on my army, I'm blown off of 2 of the objectives.    I'm almost at less than 1/2 strength.  Very little happens in the way of causing any casualties.  I did a few wounds, but most of what he had left were heroes, and I didn't put a dent in the second unit of Liberators that were the biggest threat.  The 2 units dealing with the Retributors rolled low on their Advance rolls, so I didn't quite get in range to secure the 3rd objective. I manage to hold onto the 1 objective for a VP.  It's now 5-0.

Turn 5. I win the Initiative, and just hold on to the objectives.  We just theorized the best situation for him, and it would've landed me 2 points, making it impossible for him to win.  We shook hands and called it.

 

[Twitch of Izalith]

All those cav look awesome on the table! even just balck with no riders - that army will look great when you get it all fully built and painted!

I have 10 Dark riders, 10 Warlocks and 10 drakespawn but seeing all those cavalry makes me want more!

The riders must be great for playing for objectives. I wish they had the feigned flight rule so you could retreat and still shoot. I suppose I could try the same sort of thing which chaos marauder horsemen!

[Sarkazim]

@Twitch of Izalith:
Thank You.  Visually, you can now see why I like the army.  To my knowledge, the only other CAV armies that would come close to this impressive would be the Spiderfang or Freeguild.  There are definitely more, but most of those will have a hard time breaking a 40 model count, let alone 50.  I currently own 60.  Moving up to 2k, I can field them if I stay at 2-3 Assassins.  3 Assassins / 60 Riders / 10 Drakespawn Knights comes to an even 2k, and would give me 70 Cav on the field.  As I get more games in and love the Dark Shields on my Riders, I can't imagine how tough those Knights are with a 4+/Re-rolling 1s and 2s in Combat.  Add in Mystic Shield, and they because a tough nut to crack.

After Battle thoughts:
I couldn't get the game off my mind as I processed what I learned as I tried different things.  Losing that +1 Bravery bonus for having 15 model units and going down to 10 wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I mean I lost casualties, but I still have the Order Re-roll.  I had a few rolls where I re-rolled a 5,6 back into a 5,6 but I saw the long term average and the casualty loss was acceptable (at least from Battleshock).  The smaller 10 man units were able to not step on each others toes as much, and get more attacks in.)

I think I'm even more set on getting the Hydras, but can also easily see myself building a small Serpentis force as well.  I like the idea of spending the same amount of $$ to buy 10 Drakespawn Knights to ally in instead of 10 more Dark Riders.  With the Dragonlord I already own, and the 2 Hydras, I'm really just one chariot away from an Ebondrake Warhost at that point.  So that option is on the table for the future.  The other thought I had was a Sorceress on Black Dragon.  That'll give my my Caster, and Behemoth, but I'm less inclined to jump ahead to that because all of those eggs would be in one VERY large basket.

I'm also debating splitting the Artefact from the General.  Forcing my opponent to deal with a 6 attack buffed guy or a 7 attack unbuffed guy.

(@someone2040)
The Assassin issue STILL troubled me, and I finally broke down and went to some simple Mathhammer.   This time extending the comparison to Dark Riders, as a starting point.  It's literally impossible to include the 'Tactical' effectiveness of the two, which I now feel is the biggest factor in my disappointment with the Assassins.  The Assassins are extremely dependent on the gamble of managing to get into the correct position in order to be effective on their target.  Dark Riders are not.  I found that the shooting alone on the Dark Riders was on par with the Assassins against Heroes with a 3+ Save.  Against anything with 4+ or worse save, the Assassins definitely out performed the Dark Riders but it wasn't as consistent.  The Dark Riders will most likely get a turn of shooting in prior to the Assassins coming out that I finally see where the Assassins will shine.  They're there to FINISH off the heroes with minimal effort, not outright kill them.  Something I will explore in future games.

The problem I'm having is with 2+/3+ saves (Heroes or not).  2+ saves are something that I'm just currently working around and ignoring at the moment since I have no Mortal Wound options or Magic.  So Heroes with a 3+ are currently the toughest problem I face, and where I need the Assassins to shine.  So I went back and crunched the Relic / Obstinate blades, but removed the damage aspect just to see how many d3 rolls I'm getting as opposed to actual output.

It was after all this effort, that I actually SAW where the Relic blade is failing me, and that's with the group playing it as the 'D3+1'.  With the standard 6 Attacks I only had an 80% chance to get a single damage roll for a potential 2-4 wounds total.  Upping it to 7 Attacks through the Trait, averaged out to just getting over that 1 roll every time, but we're still looking at 2-4 wounds in the best case scenario.  A standard Assassin would get the same result for the 1-3 wound result.  So by Comparison, 3 plain Assassins should be able to take out a 3+ Hero as easily as one of them having the Relic blade.  I chose 3 Assassins, because I looked at an equal point cost for 10 Dark Riders which cost the same.  The Dark Riders had their ability to inflict 0 wounds to less than half of the Assassins, with a 50% of doing 2+ wounds.  

The Obstinate Blade revealed a small advantage, but only when I took the final damage result out of the equation and just looked at the potential.  On 6 attacks I had cut down the chance of getting 0 wounds to equal that of the Dark Riders.  The upper end damage wasn't as great for sure, but with 7 Attacks I was consistently getting 2d3 Damage through for a potential 2-6 damage, as opposed to the 2-4 from the Relic.   As I look into using them as finishers instead of pure removal, this might be the way Assassins were meant to work since we lack the umpf of the other Assassins.

I'm not disputing your calculations, just opening up the discussion to what I found.  Would love to hear your thoughts, or something I missed. This was purely against 3+ Heroes.  The Relic Assassin outperformed against virtually all the heroes with a 4+ or worse save, but they aren't an issue as the Dark Riders are more reliable at dealing with them long before the Assassin would ever come into play.  Sadly, after a few games and other AoS players chiming in, we've decided to go back to the stricter interpretation.  So it's a flat D3 against heroes, and 2 Damage against units.  I found the same issue with 3+ units, in that I'd be consistently doing 2 wounds with the Assassin on 6 or 7 attacks, which isn't a very efficient use of the Assassin, even with the relic.

It'll pretty much be a fun discussion until we get a FAQ on it, so I'm fine to drop it if we're just going to whip an already dying horse.
 

[chord]

Great looking army!!  Sounds like a fun game

[someone2040]

Hey mate,  on holidays atm so hard to type on my phone. 

I think in terms of long run average  damage output,  the +1dmg is better. The problem i guess is you're not there hitting for 6 turns for them to fail the armour save. That's where the rend will be better if you need to chip off a few wounds. 

I guess in the end it depends on the role of the assassin. If the role is to one shot a light to medium armored hero or unit,  the +1dmg is likely the better pick. 

If you need to tackle higher armoured opponents, then the rend will bee useful. 

[Sarkazim]

That's what I was wondering.  Based on my experience, I've only run the numbers as being able to attack once each game because that's all they normally ever get.  I know that shouldn't be a factor when comparing them, but I feel they're supposed to be treated as a 'Shock' unit.  It's only recently that a few Assassins have ever been able to attack more than once because my opponent simply isn't threatened by them, especially if there aren't any heroes around for them to kill.  Those Assassins are never my General with the Artefact, so it doesn't matter.

Enjoy the rest of your Holiday.

[Sarkazim]

Quick Update.

I've been looking at ways to get the army back up to 2k, and I don't really want to get more Dark Riders.  I'm planning on going up to 5 Assassins now, so would only need 1 more box of Dark Riders to add to the 60 I already own.  Despite being the best option that will do the least amount of damage on my wallet, I really think I should take advantage of the Allies rules.  What HAS been nice, is that 5 Assassin and 50 Riders comes out to an even 1600 points, which gives me the full options for Allies.  While limited on what allies I can take, I think these were the best options.  So unless I missed something, here goes.

2 x Hydras: As above, I feel this is the strongest option.  The 2 Behemoths will give me a not so defeatist attitude for 'Duality of Death', and give my army a solid obstruction instead of just running away and getting chased.  I feel that with the Hydras being the slowest unit in the list they won't be an immediate threat with all the Dark Riders.  It'll simply be a matter of using the Dark Riders to put pressure on anti-Hydra stuff.  With a 30" threat range, the Dark Riders are more than capable, despite not being scary.  I've ordered 1 Hydra already because I like the model, and can proxy my Dragonlord as a second Hydra.

10 x Drakespawn Knights (+Assassin): This was close call for second, and I will still consider doing it if I go with a second Hydra.  Main reason I went away from this is that I wouldn't be breaking out of my comfort zone by adding this unit.  This is really just swapping in a tough unit for the 20 man Dark Rider unit that I've been used to.  I'm already a fan of the Dark Shields and these guys will be pretty hard to kill.  I don't think their damage output would be worth the investment, but could be effective if I could get the timing right with them and the Dark Riders to where they would be charging more often than not.

3 x Venator / Castellant: There were a ton of Stormcast options, and I haven't really gotten to looking at the units, so any suggestions there are welcome.  I stuck with the Leaders for now because of 'Duality of Death'.  3 Venators would be a welcome addition with their long range and additional damage potential.  Easy enough to fit in, and mobile enough to keep up.  Castellants seem like an odd choice, but I saw the Gryph Hounds ability as a potential combo with the Dark Riders, but feel it's also too situational for those units that would pop up close enough.  Might still consider a unit of them for some sort of Dark Aelf conversion on them.

The biggest hurt with these is that they will occupy Hero slots, so I'd have to cut Assassins to put them in.  Not necessarily a bad thing because I'd be back to fielding the 60 Dark Riders.  Really just another gut feeling, but it's enough to keep me away from getting them.  The cost of getting those 3 models is also the same as getting 2 x Hydras so that was also a point.

Celestant Prime: 1 model that oddly enough I felt like would work very well in the army.  He's off the board and would come in late game wherever I needed him, is still fast enough to get around, but the big thing I saw was his Bravery penalty.  Combo that with 'Sow Terror and Confusion' and it's looking pretty great.  I have a painted Ynnari Avatar from 40k which I think fits in quite nicely with my army.  Might proxy it in for fun and see how it goes.

That's where I'm at for now.  Will be busy for the next two weeks which is good as I wait for my Hydra to arrive and have time to assemble it.

 

[Kramer]

On 10/7/2017 at 4:26 PM, Sarkazim said:

Quick Update.

I've been looking at ways to get the army back up to 2k, and I don't really want to get more Dark Riders.  I'm planning on going up to 5 Assassins now, so would only need 1 more box of Dark Riders to add to the 60 I already own.  Despite being the best option that will do the least amount of damage on my wallet, I really think I should take advantage of the Allies rules.  What HAS been nice, is that 5 Assassin and 50 Riders comes out to an even 1600 points, which gives me the full options for Allies.  While limited on what allies I can take, I think these were the best options.  So unless I missed something, here goes.

2 x Hydras: As above, I feel this is the strongest option.  The 2 Behemoths will give me a not so defeatist attitude for 'Duality of Death', and give my army a solid obstruction instead of just running away and getting chased.  I feel that with the Hydras being the slowest unit in the list they won't be an immediate threat with all the Dark Riders.  It'll simply be a matter of using the Dark Riders to put pressure on anti-Hydra stuff.  With a 30" threat range, the Dark Riders are more than capable, despite not being scary.  I've ordered 1 Hydra already because I like the model, and can proxy my Dragonlord as a second Hydra.

10 x Drakespawn Knights (+Assassin): This was close call for second, and I will still consider doing it if I go with a second Hydra.  Main reason I went away from this is that I wouldn't be breaking out of my comfort zone by adding this unit.  This is really just swapping in a tough unit for the 20 man Dark Rider unit that I've been used to.  I'm already a fan of the Dark Shields and these guys will be pretty hard to kill.  I don't think their damage output would be worth the investment, but could be effective if I could get the timing right with them and the Dark Riders to where they would be charging more often than not.

3 x Venator / Castellant: There were a ton of Stormcast options, and I haven't really gotten to looking at the units, so any suggestions there are welcome.  I stuck with the Leaders for now because of 'Duality of Death'.  3 Venators would be a welcome addition with their long range and additional damage potential.  Easy enough to fit in, and mobile enough to keep up.  Castellants seem like an odd choice, but I saw the Gryph Hounds ability as a potential combo with the Dark Riders, but feel it's also too situational for those units that would pop up close enough.  Might still consider a unit of them for some sort of Dark Aelf conversion on them.

The biggest hurt with these is that they will occupy Hero slots, so I'd have to cut Assassins to put them in.  Not necessarily a bad thing because I'd be back to fielding the 60 Dark Riders.  Really just another gut feeling, but it's enough to keep me away from getting them.  The cost of getting those 3 models is also the same as getting 2 x Hydras so that was also a point.

Celestant Prime: 1 model that oddly enough I felt like would work very well in the army.  He's off the board and would come in late game wherever I needed him, is still fast enough to get around, but the big thing I saw was his Bravery penalty.  Combo that with 'Sow Terror and Confusion' and it's looking pretty great.  I have a painted Ynnari Avatar from 40k which I think fits in quite nicely with my army.  Might proxy it in for fun and see how it goes.

That's where I'm at for now.  Will be busy for the next two weeks which is good as I wait for my Hydra to arrive and have time to assemble it.

 

Seem like good options. Had a look at the Ynnari Avatar and it looks like a very cool proxy. I'm looking forward to hear how the two hydra's function. 

[Sarkazim]

Got the two Hydras built and ready to play.  I even felt the urge to name them Tucker and Dale, just two Hydras out for a relaxing weekend and everyone is just trying to kill them.  Haven't seen any game time as we're in the middle of a Firestorm Campaign, so the average game size right now is about 1000-1400 based on the cards.  They are READY to go though.  Also managed to land a box of 40k Eldar Harlequins, so I've got something to make my Assassins out of so that they match my Solitaire-general Conversion, and I end up with the rest of them looking like the current Assassin model (that I can't seem to find right now).  At least they'll be different and share the same 'performer' theme of the general.

Played a Firestorm game vs. Death and got my tail end handed to me.  First, he managed to get 1500 to my 1200 points.  So I was up against Mannfred AND a Mourngul.  We played Open War and got the 4 Corner Deployment with the other player starting within 24" of the middle.  I landed in the middle, so that killed my Mobility Advantage right there.  Hidden Treasure was the Scenario, which he managed to reveal his first turn, in the corner where the bulk of his slowest units were, so I couldn't even Isolate a portion of his army without facing the whole army.  On top of that, even with the point difference, I had 95 Wounds on the table to his ~75.  So he got a Ruse card.  With needing to be in control of the objective at the end of T5, surrounded by 30 Skeletons, it was an uphill battle.

The only good thing to happen was I managed to kill Mannfred outright before he killed a single model.  I got EXTREMELY lucky and he failed a 4" charge with the Re-roll.  From what I learned from the previous games, the Dark Riders managed to put 7 wounds on him with his Mystic Shield up from the Shooting.  This was rough as the Mourngul was covering 2 of the units, so the hit penalty really saved him there, but still effective enough that I feel I'm doing it right.  It took all 3 Assassins to finish him off, but they were alive at the end of the game.  The unfortunate downside was that his Ruse card gave +1 to Wound rolls for the rest of the army if the General died.   So the Mourngul when atomic by getting the extra damage on 5's.

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Going forward, it's becoming easier to figure out how many Assassins I need to stack into units to be able to handle threats.  As I'm only running 3 right now, they all go together.  I pretty much need to assess what enemy characters are going to be coming at me, find out his points, then pair up Assassins accordingly.  Mannfred was 420 points, so that basically meant that I need to put all 240 of my Assassins together to finish him off.  Against the 100-200 point characters, I'm pretty confident I can pair off the Assassins to cover more ground without have to be too overkill.  It's just a simple math - point comparison, but it does operate under the Assumption that the points are balanced across the board.

We did have a spectator though I was able to have a good conversation about my army and how it works.  We got into it about the Stacking of 'Sow Terror and Confusion' stacking prior to the game and he stayed and watched.  After seeing the game, he also felt it might be necessary to stack that ability in order for my army to any kind of hope.  He was able to offer a different perspective supporting my case, which is rare.  The insight has given me quite a bit to think about, so I might be ready to have a discussion on it while I wait for an answer/faq. 

I haven't decided if I'm going to post it here or in the rules section.  I'm leaning toward posting it here, since it's relevant to my army, to keep all of my progress in one place, and to attempt to avoid the rules trolls who don't care about balance, only specifics.  We'll see.

 

[stratigo]

When using points, do NOT give the rise to the player with more points. That is in no way a good idea and you should  bonk your group for deciding to do that

[Sarkazim]

11 hours ago, stratigo said:

When using points, do NOT give the *ruse to the player with more points. That is in no way a good idea and you should  bonk your group for deciding to do that

This makes no sense to me.  You want to take a mechanic that is not tied to points, and try to apply it based on it's points?  

The Open War cards are designed for Open Play, not pitched Battles (which are based on points).  The Ruse and Sudden Death Cards have nothing to do with points and aren't even applied until after both armies have finished deploying.  They're there to address a discrepancy in the difference in Wounds, not in points.  That's like saying the person who has finished deploying first shouldn't automatically go first because he has more points.

In your defense, we did choose to play by points to keep things simple, and maybe we were trying to do a 'Round Peg in a Square Hole' scenario by using an Open Play gaming aid in a Pitched battle scenario.  The Pitched Battle scenarios also make no mention or suggestion of modifying the Open War decks to accommodate playing with them.  It's not that complicated.  Nothing changed.  If we had equal points, I would've had more wounds.  If I had more points, I would've had more wounds.  It just happened that this time I had less points, but still had more wounds.  It's simply an alternate balancing mechanic to make players think about running fodder/spam lists.  Even with the ruse, I don't think he had the ability to do enough damage to table me.

The other interesting problem is using the pitched battle profiles in Firestorm events.  What's the point of having a points balancing system, when the campaign is going to give one side a points advantage anyways? 

 

[stratigo]

8 hours ago, Sarkazim said:

This makes no sense to me.  You want to take a mechanic that is not tied to points, and try to apply it based on it's points?  

The Open War cards are designed for Open Play, not pitched Battles (which are based on points).  The Ruse and Sudden Death Cards have nothing to do with points and aren't even applied until after both armies have finished deploying.  They're there to address a discrepancy in the difference in Wounds, not in points.  That's like saying the person who has finished deploying first shouldn't automatically go first because he has more points.

In your defense, we did choose to play by points to keep things simple, and maybe we were trying to do a 'Round Peg in a Square Hole' scenario by using an Open Play gaming aid in a Pitched battle scenario.  The Pitched Battle scenarios also make no mention or suggestion of modifying the Open War decks to accommodate playing with them.  It's not that complicated.  Nothing changed.  If we had equal points, I would've had more wounds.  If I had more points, I would've had more wounds.  It just happened that this time I had less points, but still had more wounds.  It's simply an alternate balancing mechanic to make players think about running fodder/spam lists.  Even with the ruse, I don't think he had the ability to do enough damage to table me.

The other interesting problem is using the pitched battle profiles in Firestorm events.  What's the point of having a points balancing system, when the campaign is going to give one side a points advantage anyways? 

 

Age of sigmar is hilariously, awfully, ridiculously unbalanced trying to use wounds for any sort of metric. It makes completely ridiculous games. 40k added power for a reason, but wounds is such a poor metric, it's hard to express that right.

 

You really need the points for AoS to be balanced and thus fun for people to play.

[chord]

Good battle report.  The mourngal is tough regardless of the army you are using.

 

[Sarkazim]

14 hours ago, stratigo said:

Age of sigmar is hilariously, awfully, ridiculously unbalanced trying to use wounds for any sort of metric. It makes completely ridiculous games. 40k added power for a reason, but wounds is such a poor metric, it's hard to express that right.

You really need the points for AoS to be balanced and thus fun for people to play.

Not disagreeing with you on the balance issue, but it applies no matter which format you choose.  

I was just commenting that the Open War cards are for Open Play, it says so right in the GHB17.  Sure they work in Matched play as well, but trying to limit the mechanic in a mixed environment just doesn't make any sense.  Same goes for the Firestorm campaign.  It's built around not having even armies fighting each other.  There are 8 players in our campaign (2 man teams).  The person with the higher points isn't always winning and it's been really interesting to see the map change hands.
 

13 hours ago, chord said:

Good battle report.  The mourngal is tough regardless of the army you are using.

Yeah, I have one for my Nighthaunt Army.  He actually put the Mourngul in a corner on his own.  Once he revealed the Objective on Turn 1, he Turtled up.  I had the opportunity on Turn 1 to eliminate it and committed my entire force to killing it.  Only ended up taking 2 wounds after shooting, charging, and then his inevitable heal.  I want to be clear.  I managed to put over 20 wounds on the thing.  He made some impressive save rolls with that 5++.  Once Mannfred jumped in, it became a different focus as I knew that if I didn't kill the Mourngul, I wasn't going to be able to.  The only advantage I had on Mannfred was that he was a Hero, so the Assassins had the potential to do more.  By potential, I mean it took all 3 of them again, and this time they got some unsaved hits through, but I rolled all 1-2's on that D3 damage.

Wasn't enough to get through his wall of skeles, with a unit of Black Knights and Hex Wraiths sitting behind them.