Mixed Death competitive/semi-competitive 2k list

[swarmofseals]

Leaders:

Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade and banner (120)

Necromancer (110)

Necrotect (100)

 

Battleline:

40 Skeleton Warriors with Ancient Spears and Crypt Shields (280)

40 Skeleton Legionnaires  with Ancient Spears and Tomb Shields (280)

4 x 5 Dire Wolves (240)

 

Behemoths:

Mortis Engine (180)

 

Other:

4 x 3 Ushabti with Ritual Blade-staves (480)

3 Vargheists (160)

 

TOTAL: 1990

 

The basic idea here is to play the objective game while presenting the opponent basically no easy targets. 

Against a relatively conventional opponent, the idea would be to send the wolves forward to slow the enemy down. The skeleton blocks will need some time to get into a forward position, and the wolves should at least give a chance at buying that time. It's 40 cheap wounds to chew through, and if they manage to do a little damage to the enemy on the way out it's just gravy. Meanwhile the skeleton blocks advance, depending somewhat on the battleplan. The goal is to control a majority of the objectives for as long as possible (duh). The Skeleton Legionnaires can be used to get to a more forward objective a bit faster thanks to the extra 3" provided by the Necrotect (that's the reason for taking them instead of a second Skeleton Warriors block). Once they get on top of an objective, they just plant there and benefit from their +1 to save. The skeleton blocks should be very hard to move, with potentially two 6+ special saves, cheap points per wound, and the banner bringing models back. They are even pretty reasonable on offense, attacking in three rows with a large volume of attacks and even attacking twice with Vanhel's.

Against deepstrike type armies we have a huge capacity for board control. Spreading the skeletons and wolves out should really deny the opponent many opportunities to capitalize on unconventional deployment.

The Ushabti guard the flanks and provide support. They are extremely efficient on offense and on defense, and while they benefit from the Necrotect they hardly crumble without it. They are a bit vulnerable to multi-damage attacks, so ideally I will keep them away from those types as much as possible. They still aren't that inefficient though even against rendy, multi damage attacks. They are also quite efficient offensively. 

The Mortis Engine and Vargheists provide some much needed mobility. The Vargheists mostly just threaten to intercept or pounce something opportunistically -- they aren't a key part of the plan, but their presence may help influence the enemy's movement. Against some opponents the Mortis Engine will be very powerful and less so against others. It's a nice fast behemoth for the battleplans that favor those. It has a lot of small effects on the game, from making magic a little easier for me and a little more difficult for my opponents to threatening a big burst of damage against MSU enemies. Its heal is also potentially powerful as it can benefit itself, all of the heroes, all of the Ushabti and any surviving Dire Wolves. 

One weakness of the list is damage concentration against heavy armor. The skeletons can rip through light armor, but the list completely lacks rend 2 and doesn't have any steady supply of mortal wounds. The offset here is that the plan doesn't really call for killing the enemy's units. Instead, we want to score points for as long as possible until the enemy finally shifts us. Still, in the rare cases that heavy damage concentration is needed I'm hoping multiple units of Ushabti and/or Vargheists can get the job done. Still, I definitely acknowledge this as a weakness.

Questions: I'm not really sure if the Skeleton Legionnaire champion or the Wight King should be the general. The champion is appealing as he is hard to kill and allows that unit to operate relatively independently of any of the characters, allowing them to stay back and hide. The Wight King command ability is quite powerful, but I imagine he'll get sniped often enough that it might be a liability, and it doesn't *really* add that much damage -- the skeletons should already be winning against light armor, and against heavy armor the extra attack won't make a huge difference.  So I'm leaning toward the champion general, but not entirely certain. 

For command traits, there are many attractive choices. Ruler of the Night is still useful, allowing forward Ushabti and Dire Wolves to more easily benefit from Deathless Minions. I also like Master of the Black Arts, which gives access to a hard-to-kill mystic shield and forward unbinder. I could even see Supernatural Horror doing good work.

For artefacts, I'd love to use the Cursed Book but there just isn't a good candidate for it. All of the heroes want to stay as far away from the enemy as possible. I'm thinking the Ring of Immortality on the Wight King is the best bet to keep his buff going for as long as possible.

One possible alternative build to consider would be to take some bow Ushabti. They aren't going to be particularly reliable damage, but their efficiency isn't terrible for a ranged unit under the new pointing schema, and they would improve the ability to concentrate damage a bit. I could see taking 5 units with 3 melee and 2 ranged or 6 with a 3/3 split even, but this would require trimming things elsewhere.

I could also consider taking a 30 strong unit of wolves which would really take the enemy some work to get through, but this would be a lot less flexible and even potentially vulnerable to battleshock. If I take a skeleton general though that wouldn't be as much of a concern as Inspiring Presence would be the only command ability anyway.

 

Strengths: Very high wound count (207) protected by special saves, high model count (119), highly distributed power (ie: no super juicy targets), good damage against hordes. Nearly all warscrolls are high on defensive efficiency, offensive efficiency or both

Moderate Factors: Several fast units, but they are generally chaff

Weaknesses: Will struggle to concentrate damage against armor, core components are quite slow. Only one behemoth and three heroes, all of whom are relatively weak.