New Death player needing help!

[Kimbo]

Hi all! 

 

Im close to pick my army for AoS.  Ì have always loved the deathrattle since i started looking into sigmar..

 

- Are Deathrattle armies doing fine? Is it atleast viable,

 

- Should they use allies to be effective?or are they good on Thier own? 

 

- the do's and dont's that a new player should be aware of? (Regarding list building, units, formations and tactics! 

 

- any tip on a good list for 1k that i can advance to a 2k later?

 

Best regards, Kimbo  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dracothjay]

As far as deathrattle are as a stand alone army, they aren't that competitive. As the aesthetic side though, they look cool as hell. 

My honest opinion is follow the mixed death armies. Build your army around skeletons so you can keep that deathrattle feel, but there's so much to be gained the grand alliance death. 

I love arkhan, morghast archai or harbingers , tonnes if skeletons and some nasty monsters. Majority of what I've just listed are all skeleton based which suites your desire, maybe throw in a zombie dragon or terrorgheist for good measure?

[Kimbo]

8 hours ago, Dracothjay said:

As far as deathrattle are as a stand alone army, they aren't that competitive. As the aesthetic side though, they look cool as hell. 

My honest opinion is follow the mixed death armies. Build your army around skeletons so you can keep that deathrattle feel, but there's so much to be gained the grand alliance death. 

I love arkhan, morghast archai or harbingers , tonnes if skeletons and some nasty monsters. Majority of what I've just listed are all skeleton based which suites your desire, maybe throw in a zombie dragon or terrorgheist for good measure?

Okey! I feel like its Kinda overwhelming with all the units...I dont know...If you (or anyone els) would start of flesh with death today on a 1k list that can be build forward a 2k list. How would it look? 

I would love any help regarding this..you people with experience..how well do death fair in tournaments and such? Im trying to get into that scene in my country! 

The general do's and dont's with death regarding units? What works and what is Kinda...meh?

 

Cheers! 

[Dracothjay]

Death are (from what I took away from recent statistics) sitting around the middle of the ladder in terms of tournaments. Funnily enough, there were more mixed death players rather than FEC or any other sub faction.

my 1k list is:

 mannfred Von Carstein- general 

Vampire lord - flying horror - cursed book

5 dire wolves

5 dire wolves

3 vargheist

3 vargheist

this list is super fast, has a good magic phase as mannfred can cast two spells and unbind two spells, and the VL spell is great for stripping enemy units that have 2 attacks down to 1 attack each.

the cursed book on my VL also allows a bit more survivability as I have a low wound count, and what I mean by survivability is a lot of things hit on a 4+,. Cursed book subtracts -1 to enemy unit hit rolls within a 3” radius.

the vargheist Shield my hero’s and when the time comes they all charge a key enemy unit together. There’s a lot of damage output, most of my army has rend and damage 2 at least, bar my wolves.

the wolves roll is to lock down objectives whilst I push forward with the rest.

what I can see my army struggling with is armies that have more wounds than me, armies that can shoot at a decent range and armies that are just as fast as me, if my enemy got a double turn and I’ve already pushed as far as I can up the board with my army then that leaves me exposed and disadvantaged.

This is my playstyle though. SUPER aggressive and ‘do as much damage off the first charge’ kind of style. 

Your playstyle might be different. 

[Kimbo]

17 minutes ago, Dracothjay said:

Death are (from what I took away from recent statistics) sitting around the middle of the ladder in terms of tournaments. Funnily enough, there were more mixed death players rather than FEC or any other sub faction.

my 1k list is:

 mannfred Von Carstein- general 

Vampire lord - flying horror - cursed book

5 dire wolves

5 dire wolves

3 vargheist

3 vargheist

this list is super fast, has a good magic phase as mannfred can cast two spells and unbind two spells, and the VL spell is great for stripping enemy units that have 2 attacks down to 1 attack each.

the cursed book on my VL also allows a bit more survivability as I have a low wound count, and what I mean by survivability is a lot of things hit on a 4+,. Cursed book subtracts -1 to enemy unit hit rolls within a 3” radius.

the vargheist Shield my hero’s and when the time comes they all charge a key enemy unit together. There’s a lot of damage output, most of my army has rend and damage 2 at least, bar my wolves.

the wolves roll is to lock down objectives whilst I push forward with the rest.

what I can see my army struggling with is armies that have more wounds than me, armies that can shoot at a decent range and armies that are just as fast as me, if my enemy got a double turn and I’ve already pushed as far as I can up the board with my army then that leaves me exposed and disadvantaged.

This is my playstyle though. SUPER aggressive and ‘do as much damage off the first charge’ kind of style. 

Your playstyle might be different. 

Looks cool! But i Was more looking for something with   a deathrattle theme (skeletons) as the Core as well talked about earlier! 

 

 

[Spiny Norman]

TBH right now Death in general isn't very competitive. Nighthaunt has moment where it shines, but a NH themed army must be the most boring thing in our rooster.

But I guess GW has Death's weakness spotted and there's presumably a new Battletome on the way in the near future, so if you're starting now, you should be good by the time it comes out.

 

Get the Deathrattle SC box.

add more skeletons

add a wright king

add grave guard

add morghast

maybe add a Zombiedragon or mourngul

maybe add blackknights for objective grabbing

maybe add dire wolves for the same purpose#

 

should get you prepared and looks rly badass.

[Squirrelmaster]

I'd start with on unit of 40 skeletons, a necromancer, and a wight king with banner. Maybe swap the wight for a vampire, but I think a wight would be more useful scaling up.

For 1000pts I'd consider deathrattle allegiance, taking the necromancer as an ally, so that I could run black knights as my second battleline and summon in whatever else I wanted. Spirit hosts would be my prefered summon, but I'd probably want some other models for enemies with "to hit" penalties — morghast archai seem like a decent alternative, or vargheists.

Looking toward to a 2000pt army, I'd probably want either a mortarch or a vampire lord on zombie dragon. Smaller generals don't work so well in larger games. If I went mortarch, I'd try and magnetise so I could swap them around, but I think Neferata would be my favourite. I'd probably fill my remaining battleline with small dire wolf units — maxing out skeletons could work but I'd get bored of running that many. As for the rest of the army, I think the mortis engine would be a good addition, beyond that it's really a matter of personal choice. I like spirit hosts and I can see morghasts working well.

Personally I'd also add some ushabti, they work really well with Neferata — but they are out-of-production models on their way to obsolescence. Make of that what you will.

[Jgregs]

Deathrattle looks so good and can be powerful in game terms but you will mostly win by boring your opponents to death.

I love all the models in the range but they are very fidly to assemble and painting 80+ skeletons is not fun.

In game you will need to move all those skeletons and roll bucket loads of dice for attacks and saves.

Having said that if you really want to do it I suggest the following:

40 man skeleton units with spears

White King with infernal standard. you will need to convert one but its not hard to do

necromancer for his spell.

Also watch these two videos: They will give you an idea of what you are in for.

 

 

 

[AverageBoss]

If you are wanting to start Death, and want to focus on a skeletal theme, I would recommend the new holiday box:

Paired the Skeleton Horde starter box (the black knights can be built as hex wraiths if you wish), and possibly a Zombie Dragon (you do get better value out of the FEC starter box though, and everything besides the ghouls are dual kits), would give you lots of skeletal stuff to play with.

That being said. Death as a whole is not considered very competitive atm.  They honestly have trouble breaking top 20 at big events. Part of this comes from that all this used to be 1 army that they split into 7 separate micro armies. It is an army you play for fun and looks more than anything else atm. Hopefully, GW will do some work on them in the near future.

[Redking]

I'm currently working on a Legion of Death Battalion for 1000 points.  I don't know if it will be very competitive, but it certainly looks cool.

Wight King w/Infernal Standard

Necromancer (ally)

40x Skeletons w/spear

15x Grave Guard w/great weapon

5x Black Knight

If you get a Start Collecting, 1-2 Death Rattle Ally boxes, and 3 boxes of skeletons, you have a solid core.  It will even give you some extra Knights to make Hexwraiths, which are better.

[xspire]

18 hours ago, Squirrelmaster said:

I'd start with on unit of 40 skeletons, a necromancer, and a wight king with banner. Maybe swap the wight for a vampire, but I think a wight would be more useful scaling up.

For 1000pts I'd consider deathrattle allegiance, taking the necromancer as an ally, so that I could run black knights as my second battleline and summon in whatever else I wanted. Spirit hosts would be my prefered summon, but I'd probably want some other models for enemies with "to hit" penalties — morghast archai seem like a decent alternative, or vargheists.

This is some pretty good advice. Death is really flexible. The only advice I can add to this thread is don't waste your money on Grave guard. You don't want to be buying/playing GG really, especially if you're just getting into death.

[Vitch_EGS]

Im really considering going death for my first age of sigmar army as well. Was a big toss up between a deathrattle beginning force and ironjawz but finding some old vampire count stuff settled it. So 1000pts looks alot like everyone elses.

 

Considering using a Wight king with banner and allied necro. Should i make the Wight king a wizard too with that artefact or trait  for some mystic sheilds or no need?

40 Skeletons with spears

10 Skeletons to sit back with the necro

10 Grave guard with great weapons

5 Black knights. 

Then just legion of death but not sure if I should sack this and have another 5 Black knights. Going for the battalion lets me save them for a bit of nighthaunt later as hex wraiths.

Means I'd only need to get the barrows boxset and 2 boxes of skeletons. The new boxset looks good too but I'd have no idea what mortarch I'd use.

[smucreo]

Hey! I was in the same position as you a couple of weeks ago. Luckily people in this forum are very helpful. Let me share one of the lists I had in mind:

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) (GENERAL)

- Mannfred (420)

- Necromancer (110)

-Mortis Engine (180)

- 40 skellies (280)

- 10 skellies (80)

- 10 skellies (80)

- 5 hexwraiths (160)

- Morghast Archai (220)

1970/2000

This list has 60 skeletons and builds from the start collecting, so that's cool haha Hexwraiths are probably not that good but you can substitute them later on if needed with other units, they are there because you get them from the SC box.

My preferred list though replaces the 2 units of 10 skeletons for 2 units of 5 direwolves, which give me 70 points to summon more direwolves if needed and gives more speed to my army, and later on I'll probably remove the hexwraiths from the list to have points available to summon morghast harbingers (220 points).

If you were to build this list there are a few options you could go for for 1k points games, so feel free to ask.

[Vitch_EGS]

The list looks good. So far all I am going to rebase is 20 skeletons with swords and sheilds, necromancer, wraith and  5 black knight. The 20 skeletons I'll keep as the 10 man objective and necro babysitters and make sure to go spears for the big squad. I have 20 spear skeletons but they are the really retro variety so gonna let them retire.

What specific sets would you recommend picking up to work towards a list similar to that? (Got a real hate for getting stuff I wont use even if savings are badass)

 I'd probly keep the skeletons over wolves just because I like the look. I do want to aim at being mainly deathrattle/nighthaunt themed. Keep the spirit and bones theme strong. Means Morghast would fit nicely too but feared apart from them it dosnt give me many heavy hitters and too many attrition style units.

 

[smucreo]

Well, I guess it depends on many factors. Do you want to build a 1k list that can transition into a 2k one? Do you want to be competitive? If you want to go for a 2k list eventually you should buy stuff that you can use later, so build your 1k list according to that. If you already have skeletons, for example, you could stay full Deathrattle (with a Necromancer as allies) for the 1k list and then go for some Nighthaunt. I don't think Black Knights and Grave Guard are that good though, so unless you actively want to use them the boxes might not be that good, but otherwise a barrows box + a couple of skeleton boxes might be good to compliment the 20 guys you already have.

For my list I go GA:Death as allegiance, and I use the SC Skeleton Horde box and compliment it with a Necromancer and 3 boxes of skeletons, using Neferata as a general. I spread the skeletons in two units of 30 and 10. Admittedly, there are other generals like Wight Kings that are way more efficient at those point ranges, but since my list for 2k doesn't use them I decided against buying one. As I said it depends on what your end goal is, you may find other boxes to be better for what you want, but this is how I went for it.

I hope this gives you some insight on what I thought about when making my list and deciding what to buy.

 

EDIT: Just realized there is another list you could go for: 30 skeletons, 10 hexwraiths, wight king, necromancer and 10 grave guard for a 1000 point list and you would have to buy 10 skeletons, 5 black knights and the necromancer and the barrows box to be set for 1000 points (950 to be more specific if you go for Hexwraiths, if I'm not mistaken, if you go Black Knights you should be able to fit another 10 skeletons and have a battline of 40 skeletons and 10 black knights or 10 graveguard, but you'd have to buy 20 extra skellies). Hexwraiths are better but break your allegiance, which you have to consider.

Not sure if it's a good list though, it just came to mind when thinking what you could get from boxes, as I said I'm not a big fan of BK so adjust it how you want.  I'm sure you can use the tormented spirits box too at some point, look into it. 

[Vitch_EGS]

Cheers for all the help boss, really appreciate it! You've given me some real food for thought and I think I will definitely use your advice and spend more time planning the 2k list instead of the 1k list.  I think the idea for the hexwraiths is interesting because I remember not enjoying black knights to be honest back when AoS first released. But the 5 I have will just give me a bit of options if I'm looking to mix it up a bit.

I understand what you mean too about the Grave Guard. Everywhere I read up on them I'm hearing the same thing you are saying that they are a bit bert. So they again will probably just be used for a side Deathrattle force unless I get the skeleton horde... oh ok now I'm starting to get it! In the late game do you have any advice about Mortarchs? Torn between Manfred (As much as the filthy traitor annoys me lore wise) and Nefereta. Should they always be your general if you rock them or is the Vamp on Dragon still more useful and if they aint gonna be general are they still good to include?

Due to the amazing banners as well is it not more useful to have black knights and hexwraiths always msu to be reviving as much as possible?

[AverageBoss]

I feel you get MUCH more mileage out of Neferata and Manfred having them as your generals.

You play Neferata if you want a more defensive playstyle with plenty of tarpits (like multiple skeleton hordes).

You play Manfred if you want a more offensive style with some more elite units (Morgahsts, Blood Knights, Varghiests).

[Vitch_EGS]

Ok so messing around with the warscroll builder I got an idea for a 2k list now following the advice everyone gave. Its definitely not deathrattle in this level but it will still have that decent bone/spirit visuals that I am aiming for.  Heres the list:

Neferata (General)

Vamp on Dragon (Cursed book)

Necromancer

30 Skeletons with spears and shields

30 Skeletons with spears and shields

10 Hexwraiths

2 Morghast Archai

Gives me two big bullseye targets which aint even easy to hit while making everything else hard to hit. Wont have much for my backfield bar a sneaky necro lurking about making the skeleton blobs burst into dance. Neferatas spell sounds like it would just make the Vamp on Dragon even more tanky to get stuck in and make everyone a bit more bert.

[smucreo]

If this is for 2k remember you need 3 battleline units, so you need to fit one more unit for that list to be legal. I'd go for wolves, but that's just me haha 

[AverageBoss]

6 minutes ago, Vitch_EGS said:

Ok so messing around with the warscroll builder I got an idea for a 2k list now following the advice everyone gave. Its definitely not deathrattle in this level but it will still have that decent bone/spirit visuals that I am aiming for.  Heres the list:

Neferata (General)

Vamp on Dragon (Cursed book)

Necromancer

30 Skeletons with spears and shields

30 Skeletons with spears and shields

10 Hexwraiths

2 Morghast Archai

Gives me two big bullseye targets which aint even easy to hit while making everything else hard to hit. Wont have much for my backfield bar a sneaky necro lurking about making the skeleton blobs burst into dance. Neferatas spell sounds like it would just make the Vamp on Dragon even more tanky to get stuck in and make everyone a bit more bert.

You only have 2 battleline in that list. You need 3 for 2K points. Also worth noting that the last set of 10 in a skeleton unit (bumping them to 40 man), are half points (cost 40 instead of 80).

[Vitch_EGS]

Ah yeah I just thought that because they say battleline in their specific factions I was sorted. In order to fix I could knock the Hexwraiths to 5, add a small pack of hounds and bump both skeleton squads to 40?

Really digging this I got to say. Hounds will be the only stand out thing theme wise but they can be the dirty Necros or something

 And for 1k lists then I can see a few to use out of the models, and to make it either pure Deathrattle and Nighthaunt wouldn't take too much extra.

Thanks again for all the great help!

[AverageBoss]

Knocking the Hexwraiths down to 5, you list could look like this:

Allegiance: Death
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
- General
Necromancer (110)
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Vampiric Sword & Shield & Chalice
- Artefact: Cursed Book
2 x Morghast Archai (220)
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)
- Ancient Blade & Shield
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spear & Shield
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spear & Shield
5 x Hexwraiths (160)

Reinforcement Points (0)

Total: 1970 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400

Completely keeps your theme. The 10 man unit could babysit your backfield objectives against non-teleporting armies.

[Vitch_EGS]

Oh yeah didn't even think of adding another small skeleton squad and means the models I have get more wisiwig use. (Other ten can go 5/5 into the big blobs to save some cash, hell I need that many the retro easy assemble spear skeletons just had their retirement delayed)

Now I need to do the fun bit of getting this in the most efficient way money wise. I could go for the new box set and hide the grave guard among the spear blobs to begin with (would have great weapons so not too naff looking..). That would take me including stuff I have to:

Boss woman, Morghasts and 70 Skeletons. (20 Actual current spears skeletons, 20 Old spears skeletons, 20 Sword skeletons, and the 10 Grave guard)

Just leaves me to then get 2 more boxes of skeletons, a Vamp on dragon and hexwraiths with the added bonus of then owning a Wight king for options at 1k (Already got the Black knights too). I could then replace 10 sword skeletons and the Grave guard asap, and the old skeletons eventually. 

[AverageBoss]

34 minutes ago, Vitch_EGS said:

Oh yeah didn't even think of adding another small skeleton squad and means the models I have get more wisiwig use. (Other ten can go 5/5 into the big blobs to save some cash, hell I need that many the retro easy assemble spear skeletons just had their retirement delayed)

Now I need to do the fun bit of getting this in the most efficient way money wise. I could go for the new box set and hide the grave guard among the spear blobs to begin with (would have great weapons so not too naff looking..). That would take me including stuff I have to:

Boss woman, Morghasts and 70 Skeletons. (20 Actual current spears skeletons, 20 Old spears skeletons, 20 Sword skeletons, and the 10 Grave guard)

Just leaves me to then get 2 more boxes of skeletons, a Vamp on dragon and hexwraiths with the added bonus of then owning a Wight king for options at 1k (Already got the Black knights too). I could then replace 10 sword skeletons and the Grave guard asap, and the old skeletons eventually. 

If you and your playgroup are fine with non-GW models, mantic sells a great looking set of 40 skeletons for 50 USD.

Getting the holiday box I linked above could also work. Mix the Grave Guard into your regular skeleton units. Give the Wight King a staff to make him a skeletal Necromancer. At that point you are utilizing the entire box.

Any other GW models you need could be gotten for 20%ish off from various 3rd party sellers.

[Vitch_EGS]

Yeah cheers man that's what I'm going to do I think. Going to grab the holiday box, Nighthaunt ally set, 2 boxes of Skeletons and and Vamp on Dragon. Have a Necromancer all painted and all but will happily use the Wight king for 1000 pt Legion of Death games the extra bits of Nighthaunt will be nice for the future too.

Cheers again for all the help, seriously relived to have a plan set in stone now. Had been driving myself insane trying to think what to get before just getting the nerve and asking on here hehe.