new death battletome announced!

[Aginor]

AARRR I had a very in-depth post about the mathematics of DI vs. standard concerning Black Knights almost finished and then my damn phone browser crashed... Grrr...

Short version:

I am also a Deathrattle player so I am focussing on those a bit. I agree with @Mikeymajq that the idea of heroes buffing their skeletal hordes is something that fits. Deathrattle models are meant to be squishy but run around in hordes that just drown you in bones.

What I miss is that the problem facing a Deathrattle army IMO should be that you have to hack yourself a way through all those skeletons to get to their hero and then kill him. Only the Necromancer has a rule reflecting such a thing and it seems it won't work for mortal wounds anymore in the future, which is a pity because that means that units causing ranged mortal wounds (or other sniper units like a Knight Venator), and especially those that don't require line of sight (Dracoth, Celestant Prime, Kroak or so) will just kill those heroes.

Maybe we will get our 5+ Deathless Minions back, that might help against the mortal wound threat. Or maybe some trait, allegiance ability, bataillon bonus, artefact or spell.

I also think @angrycontra is right, it is pretty likely that one of the things mentioned above will buff those Deathly Invocation (short: DI) rolls, and that's something very interesting. I will talk about it in a moment, but first I want to talk a bit about Black Knights:

 

If I did the rough math in my head correctly they are now much better than they were. The changes to their lances' attacks characteristic and hit roll mean they jump from a lousy 1.5 wounds per round to a much more acceptable 3.6 wounds, with 9 wounds or so on a charge not being unrealistic.

As for their regeneration: DI has the disadvantage that they do not regenerate at all if they are not close to some Death hero. But... to be honest I never did that anyway, since I want to get the Deathless Minions buff. So it is pretty likely that at least one hero will be there. In my games I would even say two is more likely.

 

Now let's compare the old vs. new regeneration with one Death hero close by:

- If the Black Knights got only one wound then DI is stricty better than the old standard since the standard does nothing.
- At two wounds the standard will 100% return one model, the chance for DI returning a model is 66%
- At three wounds there will be 100% one model returned but the wounded model will not be healed . With DI the wound will 100% be healed but there is only a 33% chance to actually get the missing model back
- At more than three wounds on the Black Knights the standard is always better than DI

Soo... yeah the standard is a bit better. But with a buff of that ability by just 1 like suggested above, or two Death heroes in range it looks much better.
When there are two Death heroes doing their DI on the Black Knights then it will always be better than the standard if there are less than three models missing.

 

For Skeletons and Grave Guard it looks different. Two heroes nearby is strictly better than the old standard (and I almost always have at least one Wight King and one Necromancer and/ore my Vampire near those big Skeleton groups.

 

So if you look at the list I played last week:

Allegiance: Death

Leaders
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
Wight King with Black Axe (120)
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Vampiric Sword & Shield & Chalice
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Necromancer (110)
Necromancer (110)

Battleline
5 x Black Knights (120)
- Deathrattle Battleline
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)
- Ancient Spear & Shield
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)
- Ancient Spear & Shield
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)
- Ancient Spear & Shield

Total: 1460 / 1500
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 104
 

 

The groups of ten Skeletons are just chaff units to stand in the way and prevent the heroes from getting sniped too easily.
If we don't need that Standard on the Wight King anymore it means he can keep up with the Skeletons, except maybe if they make a REALLY good charge and I think with a bit of conga line it will work anyway.

The way I charged my opponent's army I had the Vampire within 6" of the Black Knights, and two of the Skeleton units (one big one small), I had one Wight King (the one with the axe) near two units of Skeletons, and the Necromancers were also quite near. I think I would have had at least three times DI on each summonable unit, perhaps four times on the big one.
With the changes to the Mortarchs and - hopefully- some spells I also think that the Mortarchs (especially Arkhan who is just bad right now) will be considerably more worth it. So for a 2K list based on the above I'd just add Arkhan and some more Black Knights or some bataillon maybe (like Legion of Death) and have fun seeing my enemies drown in bones.

If they now make the Necromancers or Wight Kings 10-20 points cheaper I think that would still be an OK army against many opponents. Winning tournaments? Probably not, the heroes will be too easily snipable if GW doesn't do anything against that. But not the end of the world either.

Did I hope for something better? Hell yeah. But I think some of the changes look more promising on second glance.

[Sception]

Deathly invocation does not restore models if it restores wounds.  If one black knight is wounded, an application of deathly invocation just heals one wound and nothing else, regargless of the roll.  So if a black knight unit has suffered three wounds, the old banner would always restore exactly two, while a single application of deathly invocation will always restore exactly one.

I want to be clear that my objection to the new system is not the thematic aspect of character dependence, but rather the crippling mechanical failing of it in a game where the heroes almost always die first.

Especially when we're also seeing several of our heroes become more vulnerable than they were - no mortal protection for necros or black axe kings.  Black axe kings no longer protected from single damage attacks.  Ethereal heroes no longer gain cover or mystic shield.  All heroes lose the benefit they previously gained from a wight king bsb.

I'm cool with character dependence conceptually, but our army was already dependent on characters for buffs, and already far too vulnerable to sniping as a result.  If GW wanted us to be even more character dependent, fine with me, but it needs to come with more protect-abke characters, not less.

Because, again, opponents already killy the heroes first against undead, so shifting unit healing to heroes is tantamount to remivung it entirely.  Because by the time the opponent is killing your units, the heroes are already gone.

Unless AoS gets a hero protecting rule like 40k, somwthing I've felt the game h as needed since day one.  If that happens this entire system turns around instantly.

 

[Aginor]

59 minutes ago, Sception said:

Deathly invocation does not restore models if it restores wounds.  If one black knight is wounded, an application of deathly invocation just heals one wound and nothing else, regargless of the roll. 

Yes it does return slain models. I quote directly from  Nagash's warscroll and I checked it is the same on the others:

(replace X with the number that changes from unit to unit. Nagahs has 5 a Necromancer has 2 for example)

Deathly Invocation:
At the start of your hero phase, pick up to X different friendly SUMMONABLE units (***on the battlefield / within 6" of this model*** depending on Nagash or others). You can heal D3 wounds that have been allocated to each unit you picked (roll separately for each unit). If no wounds are currently allocated to a unit you picked, you may instead return a number of slain models to it that have a combined Wounds characteristic equal to or less than the roll of a D3.

I agreee with the rest of your points though.

[Aginor]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

Black axe kings no longer protected from single damage attacks.

What do you mean with that? The text was hardly changed, the only difference is mortal wounds aren't mentioned anymore and a slight change of wording.

EDIT: Ah OK my bad I got that wrong, I see how you can interpret it the way you write. I am not sure that's what is intended though.

[Sception]

Deathly invocation restores d3 wounds.  If there are no wounded models, it instead restores d3 wounds worth of models.

If one model in the unit is wounded, then it restores wounds and does not restore models.  Its one or the other per application.  You cant split the d3 up to partially restore wounds and partially restore models.  The "instead" wording ensures that.

Black axe wight kung healing is per attack, so has no effect on single damage attacks.  Thats the obvious intent of the new wording, even though that isnt how damage allocation actually works in AoS.

[Aginor]

Even if it isn't splittable  (and I am not as sure as you are) you can still restore Black Knights then if you have two heroes nearby. Which is pretty likely.

As for the Axe: Yeah AoS doesn't work that way which is why I would wait for a FAQ on that.

[Yeled]

When a necromancer or other hero uses DI, can that hero select the same unit multiple times? There is nothing in the rule that explicitly says the units must be different units. For contrast, the Deluge of Nurgle spell on Rotigus' warscroll explicitly says the units must be different.

I think a single hero might be able to heal/revive the same summonable unit multiple times.

[Aginor]

 

12 minutes ago, Yeled said:

When a necromancer or other hero uses DI, can that hero select the same unit multiple times? There is nothing in the rule that explicitly says the units must be different units.

Yes there is. He can't. It says different right there, I quoted it:

 

1 hour ago, Aginor said:

, pick up to X different friendly SUMMONABLE units

 

[Yeled]

1 minute ago, Aginor said:

 

Yes there is. He can't. It says different right there, I quoted it:

 

 

Ah, I missed it. Too bad. I thought I was on to something.

[Aginor]

Yeah, sadly not. That was one of the first things I checked as well.

[Mikeymajq]

But if you have two heroes in range for one unit they probably both have range to the same 2nd unit too so I foresee that you'll mostly will be hitting the same units with DI anyway

I'm a bit sad about my wight king. He will mostly just be there to use DI now. And only because I feel I need more heroes to do so. Otherwise I'd just switch him out for a necromancer.

 

Pros:

+ We have control over the ressurecting now, meaning we can trigger it mutliple times on a unit if we need to instead of it being a passive. 

+on single wound models DI is way better. Grave guard will love this.

+frees up the banners to do their new -1 bravery debuff

+can DI some units that didn't have the ability to do so before

+ it can also heal wounds. I don't know how many times my black knights banner has died after being the only model left and suffering one wound. And you have to keep allocating the next wounds onto him. Thus ending their ressurecting.  

+ all leaders can target at least 2 units each with this, so it quickly adds up.

Cons:

- we are more vulnerable to hero sniping. This is probably the biggest weakness now.

- it appears we have a limited number of units so far that have the Summonable keyword

-multiwound units will have a harder time ressing models, due to no spill-over or ressing models with wounds missing.

- some heroes only have a 6" range for DI (granted, unless changed the save-after-the-save bubble is also 6")

- can't use it to heal our leaders or big monsters. Granted that would have been silly...  Getting Xd3 wounds back on like a zombie dragon, or a mortarch would be broken as hell. 

[Sception]

Hero sniping was already our biggest weakness, this move greatly exacerbated it, and comes with multiple minor, but cumulative, nerfs to the surviveability of several of our key support heros.

The only way I can see this working is if GW planned to introduce some global 'look out sir' character shield rule a la 40k, and if they do that, then yes, the system becomes very strong, despite the hassles it causes for multiwound units.  But if they planned to do so I don't see why they would have left a similar rule on the necromancer, so I'm not hopeful on that front.

[WillofNagash]

Looks like the units that won the most from this so far are:

Spirit Host

Grave Guard

Black Knights

Maybe a winner:

Wight King with Black Axe: I for one love the 6+ can kill any model rule. It’s really great for the psychological warfare part. Creates a threat that the other player needs to calculate. My buddy will think twice about running archaon into a wight king.

[Sception]

Wight king w black axe effectively lost his fancy armor, and only has damage one if the insta kill doesnt go off.  Its a gimmick piece now that will die without meaningfully contributing in the majority of games.  I'd rate it one of the biggest losers of these changes.

I don't believe grave guard benefit in practice.  The opponent already wanted to target heroes first.  If they just do what they were already going to do anyway, then grave guard dont have any healing at all.  And grave guard are slow, so its not like they can force the enemy to deal with them first by running into combat like black knights.

I'd call spirit hosts a neutral change.  What they gain in summonable, they lose in mystic shield.

Black knights are, overall, a change for the positive, even with their two wounds being awkward for deathly invocation.  Even with theor offensive output more than doubled, lack of rend still makes them a pretty poor sources of damage, though.

[Aginor]

Yeah against Elite armies the Black Knights are still meh.

I really hope we get Bataillon abilities like the one from Legion of Death, that could help a bit making Guard and Skeletons a bit faster.

But it still leaves the main problem of too squishy heroes. Any magic or shooting heavy army will just kill the heroes and that's it.

[lare2]

56 minutes ago, Sception said:

And grave guard are slow, so its not like they can force the enemy to deal with them first by running into combat like black knights.

With the battalion they can charge a unit up to 14-20 inches away in 1 turn. Skellies can be pretty nippy when they want to be. 

[lare2]

4 minutes ago, lare2 said:

With the battalion they can charge a unit up to 14-20 inches away in 1 turn. Skellies can be pretty nippy when they want to be. 

The same goes for normal skellies and black knights... you're looking at a threat range of 22-28 inches. Fast skellies can really catch people out. 

[Sception]

With 20 grave guard and min everything else, thats already over 900 points.  Really limits room for other threats or heroes to invoke with, and if you go second the opponent can snipe the wight king to kill the extra movement.

 

Certainly an option, though.

Provided the formation still exists in the new book.

[Aginor]

Another thing that might really influence balance is summoning. Real summoning that is, not DI.

If there are some new Death summoning spells that maybe work a bit more reliably or maybe make you spend only half of the reinfircement points or maybe let Skellies be set up within 6" of the enemy instead of 9" (fluff: imagine them crawling out of the ground right next to the enemy, attacking opponents legs already while still half buried, that kind of thing) that could make a difference.

Or an ability that if you kill enemy models you can add Skeletons to a nearby unit. And if you kill a hero you can set up a Wight King at that position for free.

So many possibilities and I just refuse to believe that GW didn't consider any of them.

[Aginor]

Hmmm I have fun speculating right now.

What if there is trait for a Deathrattle general that says all Deathrattle heroes can transfer wounds to Summonable units nearby? Basically the ability the Nacromancer had. I would like that I think.

Especially if it comes together with a point cost reduction. The reasons why Wight Kings  (both variants) were so costly was their special abilities. Those that are gone now. So make them 20 points cheaper each and the impact of the nerfs would be mitigated a bit at least.

[Sharrankar]

First of all, hello everyone! I'm new here, but I've been following this forum for quite a long time already.
I have something to add to the whole "fake leaks" jazz - look at the warscroll for KoS. All of it's abilities are given a little fluffy description, in italics - while all the other scrolls don't have anything like this. I know, I know, they are old scrolls, why would they have fluff bits on them - but then why put this only on the new scroll? 
And also the quality topic - why literally all of the scrolls are in such a terrible quality? lol 

I'm clinging to every bit of hope I have that Death won't be nerfed into oblivion (and again, I know that there's still a lot to be seen and this kinda reassures me a bit, with the possibility of an army-wide rules mitigating some of the changes)

[5kaven5lave]

1 hour ago, Aginor said:

Hmmm I have fun speculating right now.

What if there is trait for a Deathrattle general that says all Deathrattle heroes can transfer wounds to Summonable units nearby? Basically the ability the Nacromancer had. I would like that I think.

Especially if it comes together with a point cost reduction. The reasons why Wight Kings  (both variants) were so costly was their special abilities. Those that are gone now. So make them 20 points cheaper each and the impact of the nerfs would be mitigated a bit at least.

I think that’s a pretty cool idea, let’s hope that’s in if nothing else. 

[Sception]

They gave wight kings a new ability.  Their points ate probably staying the same, but if they're changing, they're going *up*.

If all death characters were getting the necros look outbsir as an allegiance ability, the necro wouldnt stll have it.

[Black_Nexus]

I know people who asked the GW staff at LVO about the leaks, and unlike before where they'd just kind of ignore your questions if the leaks were real, they straight up told people they were false warscrolls.

 

[AverageBoss]

The oddest thing to me about these scrolls is the unridden TG and ZD. Neither have a keyword indicating what allegiance they belong to. Simply Death, Monster, and their name. I can't think of anything else in the game like that. Chaos Monsters have the Monsters of Chaos keyword and allegiance.