My Exploration of the Skies - Kharadon Overlords

[Auretious Taak]

So I figured I'd crack a thread to work through ideas and strategya nd tactics and general list building with Kharadon Overlords and to explore the army as I learn them better and get more games of AoS in. I am a competitively minded player and I like ripping things apart and finding innovative and at times controversial ways to play armies and a lot of the time in the past I have played deliberately not fully optimised armies to challenge myself and see what I need to do to win under more pressing situations. I'll probably do that a bit here too. 

A bit about myself for context: I haven't played fantasy since 6th edition. Not true, I played a half dozen games of 7th at my local games workshop as at the time that was the only place I could get games and my night goblins (actual pure night goblins, not night goblins as per battle of skull pass boxed armies which were actually common goblin armies i.e. a mix of all forms of goblin available at the time, I'm sorry but Night Goblins never, ever, ever had spear chuckas  or forest goblins in their ranks! Pure Night Goblins have always been awesome) tabled everyone for very few losses, and that disheartened me enough to go back to 40k - I haven't played 40k since 5th ed whee I played ultra competitively and authored over on 3plusplus.net - 8th ed 40k is awesome but I've not been inspired to get games and my main opponents competitively live 2 hours or so away and due to being a stable hand (fun fact, I came within 30 cm's of being double barrelled by a horse i.e. kicked with both feet, to the face at eye level (I'm 6'9" tall) last week, a bit more then 30cm's more and I'd probably be dead right now - horses, race horses especially are somewhat insane,a nd this was emphasised by one of the trackr iders telling me that was nothing, she had a horse bite her on the shoulder last year and lift her bodily off the ground!!!) with split shifts morning and afternoon 13 days straight per fortnight it makes gaming difficult, and I've gotten into AoS recently at the behest of a mate who manages the local GW who suggested I play against him and well Sqwarfs (Kharadon Overlords is a mouthful and I hate, I HATE calling them KO because all I can think of is Mortal Kombat and the dwarfs being KO'ed every time someone references them and well, ****** that noise! I like calling them Pirate Dwarfs but Sqwarfs i.e. Sky Dwarfs is actually pretty awesome too, and no, I'm not gonna refer to them as Duardin - one of the sky ports worships the old gods so if they do that they totally refer to themselves as Dwarfs, well Dwarves, but whatever!) appealed the most. Sqwarfs are funky. I bought an Ironclad because it's sweet as and preliminary readings showed the clown car lists and whilst 1 ironclad is funky I drafted an initial list with 2 despite most people stating how the air ships are overcosted. I've been fiddling since.

So, Sqwarfs.

I saw a clown car list of 1 ironclad, 3 aetherkhemists an admiral 30 arkanauts with 3 light sky hooks to each unit of 10 and then 9 endrinriggers and 9 skywardens, and whilst it's funky I fiddled and adjusted based on things I saw and liked. I like Ironclads, I like the models so am going from there and wanted 2 in my army because why not, I've seen lists with a frigate and an ironclad but not 2 ironclads and the points aren't that great a difference between them for the increased damage output so I figured I'd mix and match and go nuts.

Barak Zilfin, Clan Iron-Taak army, 2,000points

Arkanaut Admiral (general) = 140pts

Aetherkhemist = 140pts

Aetherkhemist = 140pts

Navigator = 100pts

3*10 Arkanaut Company w/3 Light Skyhooks = 3*120 = 360pts

3 Endrinriggers, 1 Grapnel = 120pts

3 Endrinriggers, 1 Grapnel = 120pts

Ironclad w/Aetherspheric Endrins = 440pts

Ironclad = 440pts

Total = 2000 pts.

Whilst the original list I wrote had an Iron Sky Command for access to a Last Word for the non-deep striking Ironclad and a second artifact for one of the Heroes, I then read the GH17 and it was an easy thing to drop the Battalion worth 80 points and keep the 2 aether khemists at an increase of 80 points. The Navigator and Admiral go on the non-deep striking Ironclad and help to give it increased movement and the ability to run and shoot in that first turn. Using the Fleet master command ability you can 1 drop deploy somewhere and then redeploy after the opposing army has and go nuts with a well placed deep strike and mobile force of Sqwarfs. I know the Navigator isn't the best for his points, but an extra D3 movement on the Ironclad combined with the run and shoot that the admiral confers to the Ironclad and you suddenly have a considerably fast behemoth pushing up field. If the Navigator is truly underwhelming we could easily replace him with 3 skywardens (with a drill cannon and grapnel launcher) at an even 100 points trade.


Now whilst Zilfin is awesome and all, and the deep strike and back up movement shenanigans is awesome, it's not the only approach I've been fiddling with. There are players out there like GlanceOnASix who have had a lot of success recently with large numbers of bubble/balloon boys (endrinnriggers and skywardens) and the GW GT just saw Gary Percival top out at 8th with a list that looked like this:

Gary Percival's 8th Place GT Sqwarfs:

khemist - earburster - general - fleetmaster

khemist

khemist

3 x 10 arknaughts - 3 skyhooks  

9 riggers - 3 grapnels

9 wardens - 3 drill cannons, 3 volley

3 wardens drill cannon,  volley

ironclad, volley cannon, last word on the torpedoes

I had some thoughts on The Last Word before seeing this list and will get there in a tick but looking at the list, and looking at a comment Gary made about 3 Khemists being a bit too much and possibly replacing them with more riggers due to too many buffs for the alpha strike and not enough targets well we could adjust that and mess with the list a bit as well.  You could run Urbaz instead of Zilfinn as the Sky Port of choice and whilst you wouldn't have the extra move from There's Always a Breeze if you Look For It, you would gain an extra artifact, re-roll battleshock tests if in the enemies territory and be able to capitalise on the mobility and number of bubble boys you have. Dropping an Alchemist could yield a list like this:

Barak Urbaz, Clan Iron-Taak army, 2,000points

Aether Khemist, Aethershock Earbuster140

Aether Khemist, Gimlet Lens 140

Iron Clad, The Last Word 440

10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120
10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120
10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120

6 sky wardens, 2 drill cannons, 2 volley guns – 200

18 endrinnriggers, 6 grapnels – 720

2000pts

24 Bubble Boys is pretty cool, but we could mess with it a little more, reverse engineer it a bit so to speak and down grade to the far worse Frigate either using Zilfin or Urbaz to get an extra 6 bubble boys:

Barak Zilfin/Urbaz, Clan Iron-Taak army, 2,000points

Aether Khemist 140

Aether Khemist 140

Frigate 280

10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120
10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120
10 company 3 Lightskyhook 120

18 sky wardens, 6 volley guns, 6 grapnels – 600

12 endrinnriggers, 4 grapnels – 480

2000pts

As Zilfin, taking the aetherspheric endrins would give you a 3 drop list that drops 85%'ish of your army wherever you want 9.1" away from the enemy, whereas with Urbaz you'd get more flexibility in the Khemists and be able to buff 4 units, and with 4 to 10 units of bubble boys deploying depending how you want to roll, you could be buffing your main combat force as a whole to open up. I find Frigates, at least on paper, seem underwhelming for their damage out put vs the more expensive Ironclad,a nd Last Wording a Light Sky Hook on a Frigate seems a bit of a waste. Prudency Chutes might actually be a far better option because of the frigate's lower durability vs the ironclad and considering it will be packing 42 models, it seems like a very reliable way of not losing 7 models thanks to the frigate being destroyed.

Before I finish up for now, I wanted to ask the community (asides from your thoughts on my thoughts and list nutting out) about their thoughts on The Last Word and weapon choice. Gary Percival used his Last Word on the Torpedoes and I read a few threads where people were doing this over the Volley Cannon and it feels to me like the torpedoes get the choice because they do have a 24" range but that they also do D3 damage as opposed to 1. But for myself, I'm more inclined to plonk the Last Word on the aether carbines. With the Flag Ship rules you get an extra 2 shots off these carbines each turn giving between 6 and 10 shots that hit on a 3, wound on a 4 with -1 rend and 1 damage. Whereas the Torpedoes are between 2 and 4 shots and whilst they have more range, the ironclads are deceptively fast especially with a Zilfin list. Combined with the Master the Skies rule and vs flyers you are hitting them with a whole heap of hurt. But I am curious to know what peoples thoughts are on where The Last Word should be placed and why.
 

That's it for now, please do comment and get some discussion going - don't hold back, rip the thoughts to pieces, only ind oing so can we get to the heart of any issues and evolve our game play and generalship to newer levels.

Have a grand day,

Auretious Taak.