Jump to content

Death(rattle) Battleline units?


Spiky Norman

Recommended Posts

Now that the General's Handbook have been spoiled, I was looking at creating some Matched Play lists, but I am in doubt on what to do about battleline units.

I am primarily interested in Deathrattle, but going for Allegiance: Deathrattle does not seem feasible. So I am wondering if taking just 3 units of Skeleton Warriors is a good choice?

I have read other comments saying that 10 skeleton warriors are too small a unit, and that you need to take them in groups of 20. But if you need 3 battleline units, 60 skeletons seems a little excessive.

What do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They're decent for the cost for holding objectives, but very weak in small numbers. Better than Zombies as they have a save.

It's painful to think Derpcast can take 3 units of JUDICATORS as Battleline units.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the battleline units are too limiting across most of the alliances. Unfortunately I foresee a lot of people taking minimum 3x10 units to meet the requirement but have nothing to do with the theme of their army. I think they might have missed the ball on that one.

One thing Death can do I assume is 3 units of 10 Zombies and then combine them into one useful unit of 30 with their special rule.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Battle line are bad as long as you look at them as though they are a tax. If you calculate thier average damage and tankiness vs other units. You'll see they are some of the most cost effective units.

I'm currently getting my 200 zombie army together and have played smaller games. The army is bonkers good. Half the zombies are summoned so if zombies don't work for a situation I can switch it up. 

Ghouls and skels are also very competitive, and will do thier jobs well enough. 

Alliegence other than your grand alliance isn't worth it as you will loose access to your grand alliance bonuses. New bonuses are on the way for the sub-factions, but as of right now I'd stick with your grand. Skels as mentioned want to be in units of 20 so as to get attack bonus. 

 

Ghouls also want units of 20 for bonus.

 

Zombies are massively deadly in units of 30 with buffs and reinforcements. Or can be used as alittle wall.

 

One problem with our core is that it's all kind of slow compared to many of the fast none core units we have. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm currently looking at TK chariots as my go-to battleline unit. It's not that skeletons are bad, but they are either 10-man objective campers or 30-man investments. Going to build a unit or two of large blocks as well, but it does slow down the army.

 

Or just go for a Deathlords army. Morghasts as battleline <3

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Nico said:

They're decent for the cost for holding objectives, but very weak in small numbers. Better than Zombies as they have a save.

It's painful to think Derpcast can take 3 units of JUDICATORS as Battleline units.

Or that Beastclaw Raiders can run Stonehorns and Thundertusks as battleline...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Spiky Norman said:

Now that the General's Handbook have been spoiled, I was looking at creating some Matched Play lists, but I am in doubt on what to do about battleline units.

I am primarily interested in Deathrattle, but going for Allegiance: Deathrattle does not seem feasible. So I am wondering if taking just 3 units of Skeleton Warriors is a good choice?

I have read other comments saying that 10 skeleton warriors are too small a unit, and that you need to take them in groups of 20. But if you need 3 battleline units, 60 skeletons seems a little excessive.

What do you think?

If you're going pure Death rattle, you should also take into account Black Knights become Battle line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Skeletons actually want 40, to maintain 3 attacks over 30. Krell is also deathrattle and can give +1 attack. Grave guard are also awesome. Lots of deathrattle in Tomb Kings too. No reason to take deathrattle yet, but I don't think they will keep us waiting a long time for allegiance stuff.

60 battleline is going to be more like standard than excessive in match play, if not low. A ton of armies are easily going to want 60-90 battleline models

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, AdHocGames said:

If you're going pure Death rattle, you should also take into account Black Knights become Battle line.

If you alliegance death rattle going by the rules you'd loose your allegiance bonus for being death. 

1 hour ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Skeletons actually want 40, to maintain 3 attacks over 30. /snip

This

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup had trouble putting a list together since I wanted to keep the 40 skeletons then the idea struck me to sperate my 20 zombies into 10 and join them together at the start of the match. 

Zombies and skeletons are amazing. When you got 20+ of skeletons and zombies you can drown the enemy in corpses. I do agree you would want 40 skeletons. I am running mannfred so they can re roll their hit and wound rolls. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can get 3 units of Skeleton Horsemen (Tomb Kings) as Battleline units for any Death list - for 100 each. These are tougher and more useful than regular Skellies. I might use my Hexwraith models as these to fit my ghostly theme.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few things here as well. We know each subfaction is going to be super flushed out and odds are we'll be highly ensentivized to use them over the grand alliance. SO the grand alliance stuff is just to hold us over. As such maybe we might want to build toward that??? Though we have no idea on the time frame of all this. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mmimzie said:

A few things here as well. We know each subfaction is going to be super flushed out and odds are we'll be highly ensentivized to use them over the grand alliance. SO the grand alliance stuff is just to hold us over. As such maybe we might want to build toward that??? Though we have no idea on the time frame of all this. 

That's a good point. As you mentioned though, the problem is the time frame. If Deathrattle is being fleshed out next year, that's not much help. I very much expect us to get a lot more fleshed out subfactions, eventually. We're just even less used to splitting our armies up than other players are. Our GA is so small, and our sub-factions so limited that going mono is nearly pointless.

 

That being said, I just bought 30 skeletons...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, Darth Alec said:

That's a good point. As you mentioned though, the problem is the time frame. If Deathrattle is being fleshed out next year, that's not much help. I very much expect us to get a lot more fleshed out subfactions, eventually. We're just even less used to splitting our armies up than other players are. Our GA is so small, and our sub-factions so limited that going mono is nearly pointless.

 

That being said, I just bought 30 skeletons...

It's okay I bought 200 models for zombies, and u started painting some, and now in pissed becauae I think @WoollyMammoth gave me a better idea for. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Nico
Horsemen kind of suck, and you cant even buy them anymore. Archers would be nice but they require TK only.  You can use black knights as skeletal horsemen I guess, almost identical - not a bad idea.

-

Battleline is the 'core tax' and it sucks but you have to limit matched play to make it a war game with troops fighting each other and not just a monster mash which was what SCGT was and Open play will continue to be. Undead is a horde army, moreso than 8th even. In 8th you could get away with 20 skeletons with a hero leading them, and tip it off with some wolves. Even so, VC had the taxiest of all the taxes in 8th IMO being genuinely forced to take things you really didn't have any use for. Skeletons and zombies were only a tarpit and ghouls were over-costed but you took them just because they could cause more than 0 wounds. 

All core is now viable as something that can be a hammer or anvil as needed, but, worse than 8th that means you cant just throw in 10 skeletons to pay the tax, you want 3 hardy units that can have worth. For DEATH that means at least 30 zombies, skeletons or ghouls per unit. This is actually nice in terms of variety; if you get bored of skeletons you can move on to zombies or ghouls. In contrast, skaven lists are going to want 90-120 clanrats - and that's it for their core options!

In terms of playing, don't stress yourself out. Buy a box of (20) zombies, dip them a few times in a shotglass of watered flesh paint, toss some fleshshade on them and you got some painted battleline. Drop them as two units of 10 and combine to a unit of 20. If you don't like that idea, the quickest way to effective core is one unit of 20 ghouls. You'll probably want to mix in a proxy courtier and ghoul king but in terms of sheer # of models to make, its the easiest route.

The allegiance options offer a really interesting alternative to be able to work around the tax. This is really nice, never have we had any alternative before. Sure you have to make a super thematic list and leave some of your favorite models at home, but it gives you the opportunity to circumvent a painful assembly-line paint fest to fill out a horde army, an opportunity many armies would have killed for in the past. When the allegiance traits start to show up this will really be a fun option. We don't know if we have to wait a year, or if within the next month the app will fill up with traits for every allegiance!


 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been trying to point up a Deathrattle army and the biggest thing I thought was the need for more Skellies.  Not so much a Battline tax as a main core to the army.  3x30 is a great start.

I'll currently be running 30/10/10 due to only having 50 painted.  

My list at the mo

Wight King with Infernal Standard.
30 Skeletons
10 Skeletons
10 Skeletons
30 Grave Guard
20 Black Knights
Legion of Death
Necromancer
20 Grave Guard

I'm struggling with the 80/120 gap between units.  it makes it tough to get close to 2000 and stay optimal.  

A less points efficient unit might leave you right on 2000, but swapping them out for a 'better' unit could cost 50% extra on that last war scroll.  

I'm also thinking about dropping the extra 20 Grave Guard into a summoning pool.  Maybe an 2nd Necro.  It leaves me room to summon 220 points.  That gets me 2 banshees and a wraith

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...