Lets Chat: Legions of Nagash

[Malakithe]

13 hours ago, Drofnum said:

You say it like that isnt a huge advantage to a slow army...

Right? Lol how many factions would kill for that. Do you know how nuts Ironjawz would be if they had something like those trees?

[Killax]

6 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Actually from what I can see, it is not once per game.

Seems like a really tempting option to me.

Oh that makes it all the better! I think you are right, have closed the Artefact lists. Thing that really goes through my mind again is that I see quite some lists instantly focus on Named Characters and I am again uncertain if this is the way to go for most of the Legions. Just some thoughts;

Grand Host of Nagash can play: 2x VL, 2x Necro, 3x2 Morghast Harbinger (or 1x6), 3x 40 Skeleton Warriors, which gives a ton of anvils and a big hammer.
Legion of Blood can play: 1x VLoZD, 1x VL, 2x Neco, 2x5 Blood Knights, 1x 40 Skeleton Warriors, 1x 30 Dire Wolves, Corpse cart with Unholy.
Legion of Sacrement can play: Arkhan, 2x VL, 2x Neco, Corpse cart with Unholy, 3x 40 Skeleton Warriors, Mortis Engine, Bat Swarms.
Legion of Night can play: 2x VL, 2x Necro, 3x 40 Skeleton Warriors, 2x Terrorgheist, Cairn Wraith.

So all I can say now is I'm personally super into running 120 Sekeleton Warriors, it's a hassle for the hobby aspect but presents a wall of bone unlike before with some amazing shocktroops available to all. The fun stuff really is that you can't crush 40 Skeletons in one go, which I feel is the strongest aspect of pretty much all Legions.

I do also like Direwolves but most of the time the 40 point difference between them and Skeleton Warriors comes back to haunt me... I do guess the Legion of Blood can quite easily upgrade/sidegrade into just more Blood Knights with added Dire Wolves.

4 hours ago, Sception said:

I don't know.  9" is far from a guaranteed charge.  How many units are you taking, that you feel confident at least some of them will make it?

Certainly a good point, keeping in mind that Morghast Harbingers can charge 3d6" and those near the general can re-roll their failed charges which makes things better. Not ****** more consistent, just better.

2 hours ago, smucreo said:

Hey all, thanks for your comments on the list. I'm aware it's 5 wolves, I just forgot to change it on the excel hahah I see you are all suggesting vortex, what would you change in the list to include them? Keep in mind I'm also not LoS but Grand Host allegiance. And would you use it on the Necromancer with the debuffs?

EDIT: Maybe remove one unit of skeletons and put 15 more dogs and vortex in their place?  I'd have a battleline of 40 skeletons that I can summon forward with the fast vamp lord and 2 units of 10 wolves to catch up fast.

It's certainly a good option if you want to have the Vortex in there  Does it still include a Corpse Cart with Unholy thingy?

[smucreo]

@Killax No, it's the one I posted yesterday! I'll link an image with both lists for comparison:

I'd be playing with Grand Host allegiance, not Legion of Sacrament.

[Aginor]

@Killax

Even if you go a bit more hero heavy, you can run 90 Skeletons (40+40+10) and then some Black Knights to strike quickly....
It won't be easy for an opponent to do that many wounds, especially since they have their save-after-save and regenerate.

[RuneBrush]

4 minutes ago, Killax said:

So all I can say now is I'm personally super into running 120 Sekeleton Warriors, it's a hassle for the hobby aspect but presents a wall of bone unlike before with some amazing shocktroops available to all. The fun stuff really is that you can't crush 40 Skeletons in one go, which I feel is the strongest aspect of pretty much all Legions.

My immediate response to you is "movement trays"   Part of me would quite like to up my current skeleton count having seen how good hordes of Grots are

[Malakithe]

14 minutes ago, Aginor said:

@Killax

Even if you go a bit more hero heavy, you can run 90 Skeletons (40+40+10) and then some Black Knights to strike quickly....
It won't be easy for an opponent to do that many wounds, especially since they have their save-after-save and regenerate.

I think I posted a quick starter list like that.

 

35 minutes ago, Killax said:

Oh that makes it all the better! I think you are right, have closed the Artefact lists. Thing that really goes through my mind again is that I see quite some lists instantly focus on Named Characters and I am again uncertain if this is the way to go for most of the Legions. Just some thoughts;

Legion of Sacrement can play: Arkhan, 2x VL, 2x Neco, Corpse cart with Unholy, 3x 40 Skeleton Warriors, Mortis Engine, Bat Swarms.

So all I can say now is I'm personally super into running 120 Sekeleton Warriors, it's a hassle for the hobby aspect but presents a wall of bone unlike before with some amazing shocktroops available to all. The fun stuff really is that you can't crush 40 Skeletons in one go, which I feel is the strongest aspect of pretty much all Legions.

I do also like Direwolves but most of the time the 40 point difference between them and Skeleton Warriors comes back to haunt me... I do guess the Legion of Blood can quite easily upgrade/sidegrade into just more Blood Knights with added Dire Wolves.

Certainly a good point, keeping in mind that Morghast Harbingers can charge 3d6" and those near the general can re-roll their failed charges which makes things better. Not ****** more consistent, just better.

It's certainly a good option if you want to have the Vortex in there  Does it still include a Corpse Cart with Unholy thingy?

3x40 skellies in any list will be hard to do i think. Im going to play around with a Sacrament build.

[Aginor]

I think the main problem with 3x40 Skellies is moving them. They take up a lot of space.

[Killax]

10 minutes ago, Aginor said:

@Killax

Even if you go a bit more hero heavy, you can run 90 Skeletons (40+40+10) and then some Black Knights to strike quickly....
It won't be easy for an opponent to do that many wounds, especially since they have their save-after-save and regenerate.

I do really like that aspect for the Legion of Sacrement. Otherwise I think that I just like the 40 man trucks so much. Again this is working with them being summoned from the grave so they should be where we need them to be. I completely agree with you that these types of forces are incredibly hard to remove. I do like the Vampire Lord on Zombie dragon and get the fandom for it but other than in Legion of Blood I'd be more inclined to focus on numbers. Because the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, whilst amazing, is also 440 points running around with a big target on it's head because most armies did prepair for that type of offense.

E.g. Bloodletter heavy forces severly prefer dealing with that 440 points as 280 points of Skeletons, because they bite hard but the attrition 4d3 heals generate from the Heroes is a lot. Likewise stuff like Irondrakes or Stormcast ranged offenses like that VLoZD because it's so hard to hide (except for Legion of Night). 

As someone who doesn't play Legions (uh... yet... I guess  ) of Nagash I think the strongest aspects of them all still come in the Summonning units. While they don't have super fancy Rend and you will have to account for that aspect too, they have tons of attacks that eventually bring down the biggest stuff given the time and reach...
Deadly Invocation gives them the time... Summonning gives them the reach...

9 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

My immediate response to you is "movement trays"   Part of me would quite like to up my current skeleton count having seen how good hordes of Grots are

Oh yeah totally! I know Kromlech has some nice 32mm movement trays, don't know if they have them in much smaller sizes, do guess so! But yeah, absolutely, these hordes want movement trays!

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Killax said:

Oh yeah totally! I know Kromlech has some nice 32mm movement trays, don't know if they have them in much smaller sizes, do guess so! But yeah, absolutely, these hordes want movement trays!

Fairly sure I've seen they do.  I've recently picked up some 3d-printed movement trays (I'm in the UK) and have been really impressed, very sturdy and the hole through the bottom means I can magnetise the tray plus models onto a baking sheet for transportation and easy setup.

[choocheelo]

any thouts about 4k of 5k list?

some tzeench + nurgle want to fight with me:)

[5kaven5lave]

Guys, sorry for the basic questions but...:

Does Arkhan need to be general in a Sacrament list?

Taking the battalion gives 2 sets of artifacts in total but neither can be given to Arkhan, is that correct?

Cheers. 

[Killax]

Just now, RuneBrush said:

Fairly sure I've seen they do.  I've recently picked up some 3d-printed movement trays (I'm in the UK) and have been really impressed, very sturdy and the hole through the bottom means I can magnetise the tray plus models onto a baking sheet for transportation and easy setup.

Ah yes, found them allready: https://bitsofwar.com/home/608-round-base-skirmish-tray-25mm.html

I think that any movement tray will work out for sure! The more we go into GH2017's vibe for discounts on Hordes the more reason I see to get them. The prime reason why I have some for 32mm allready is also 40K. As I play Chaos/CSM/Chaos Daemons there too they will always come in handy.

It's a bit of an additional expense but I certainly think it makes live way easier, especially with the summons because they work so much akin to 40K deep strikes. Having said that, I don't even think you need to really be able to have 120 Skeleton Warriors on Traits but something like 60 is very handy, as I think the front or back onit (depending on turn) is very flexible in model placement.

Better put, sometimes, especially with the lists that focus on foot Heroes, you want to be able to wrap them in a bone-wall so attempts to assassinate these cheaper heroes by melee combat will be virtually impossible. 

Just now, choocheelo said:

any thouts about 4k of 5k list?

some tzeench + nurgle want to fight with me:)

Wow! Well I can't give much advice on that other than asking the question if you have 200+ Skeleton Warriors. As above, I see this as such a core strenght of Legions of Nagash. Nagash himself at this level can be played on top of it all offcourse  

[Aginor]

Just now, 5kaven5lave said:

Guys, sorry for the basic questions but...:

Does Arkhan need to be general in a Sacrament list?

Taking the battalion gives 2 sets of artifacts in total but neither can be given to Arkhan, is that correct?

Cheers. 

As far as I understood it:

A Sacrament list can be played with any general, BUT
- if you want to have a Mortarch it has to be Arkhan
- if Arkhan is on the table he has to be the general.

[lare2]

5 minutes ago, Aginor said:

A Sacrament list can be played with any general, BUT
- if you want to have a Mortarch it has to be Arkhan
- if Arkhan is on the table he has to be the general.

Agreed. The way I see it though, this means you can include another Mortarch if you want but Arkhan must be played in this instance and he must still be the general... not that I intend to run two.

[Killax]

4 minutes ago, 5kaven5lave said:

Guys, sorry for the basic questions but...:

Does Arkhan need to be general in a Sacrament list?

Taking the battalion gives 2 sets of artifacts in total but neither can be given to Arkhan, is that correct?

Cheers. 

As below, he doesn't need to be, but he has to if he's part of the army. Artefacts can't be given to Named Characters, this is correct also, same applies for the Command Traits.
It's because of this I'm not really sold on any of the Named Characters or Battalions. What is really neat for Legion of Sacrement is that Arkhan is cheap. Though having said that thaking more Vampire Lords (on foot/Flying) with a Corpse cart with Unholy stone leads to a ton of magical offense too, plus it leaves way more room to focus on the actual Summonable unit strenght.

2 minutes ago, Aginor said:

As far as I understood it:

A Sacrament list can be played with any general, BUT
- if you want to have a Mortarch it has to be Arkhan
- if Arkhan is on the table he has to be the general.

 Yep!

[choocheelo]

5 minutes ago, Killax said:

Wow! Well I can't give much advice on that other than asking the question if you have 200+ Skeleton Warriors. As above, I see this as such a core strenght of Legions of Nagash. Nagash himself at this level can be played on top of it all offcourse  

nope.. only 80

but 8 arhai.. and some other stuff like 12 spirit hosts mortis and coven.. 

[Aginor]

2 minutes ago, lare2 said:

Agreed. The way I see it though, this means you can include another Mortarch if you want but Arkhan must be played in this instance and he must still be the general... not that I intend to run two.

Oh, I actually missed that! You are right it seems like you could actually play more than one Mortarch in a sacrament list.  But I don't see a good reason to do that either.

[Xasz]

50 minutes ago, Killax said:

So all I can say now is I'm personally super into running 120 Sekeleton Warriors, it's a hassle for the hobby aspect but presents a wall of bone unlike before with some amazing shocktroops available to all. The fun stuff really is that you can't crush 40 Skeletons in one go, which I feel is the strongest aspect of pretty much all Legions.

If you try to paint them to medium or high tabletop standard, you'll burn out within a week. Been there, done that.

I'm currently resorting to paint them the same way you would ghosts.  

Looks good and gets the job done within a reasonable amount of time.

[RuneBrush]

2 minutes ago, Xasz said:

If you try to paint them to medium or high tabletop standard, you'll burn out within a week. Been there, done that.

I'm currently resorting to paint them the same way you would ghosts.  

Looks good and gets the job done within a reasonable amount of time.

One of the reasons that I'm happy I've got an airbrush   Got the bone done on 60 of them in a day to a reasonable standard.  Picking out the details is the bit that took the time!

[Aginor]

4 minutes ago, Xasz said:

If you try to paint them to medium or high tabletop standard, you'll burn out within a week. Been there, done that.

I'm currently resorting to paint them the same way you would ghosts.  

Looks good and gets the job done within a reasonable amount of time.

My advice is don't paint them in bigger groups than 10 or 15 maximum.

I used Army Painter bone color primer and then just shaded them sepia and painted the details. Works nicely.

[Grimnaud]

Priming white ( or zenithal undershading if you’re fancy) and a couple of layers of seraphim Sepia works wonders on Skeletons. After that you can shade and highlight further of course, but it’ll get you to tabletop quickly.

[Jamopower]

Yeah, skeletons are about the easiest thing to paint as they go. I did these:

by painting the bone, metal and basic cloth colour over airbrushed zenithal black and white undercoat, then shaded with inks and picked out the details. Took about 2,5 hours for these and 5 wights.

[Malakithe]

I dont think you'll need to worry about painting that many skellies since 3×40 wont even fit in a 2k for the Sacrament battalion. Might in the others though.

[Killax]

39 minutes ago, Xasz said:

If you try to paint them to medium or high tabletop standard, you'll burn out within a week. Been there, done that.

I'm currently resorting to paint them the same way you would ghosts.  

Looks good and gets the job done within a reasonable amount of time.

I don't agree ******, the key to doing a ton of stuff that is functionally the same model is to make it interesting for yourself. You can do this by converting some models, using whole different ranges and even go on to tombstone bases with models comming out of them. Mixing them up is essential to keep some interest. But as others have said, if there is a model to do quick and get a great result it would be a Skeleton model. Same really for Zombies or using Fenris Wolves as Direwolves. It can be done relatively quick with getting an amazing result.

33 minutes ago, Grimnaud said:

Priming white ( or zenithal undershading if you’re fancy) and a couple of layers of seraphim Sepia works wonders on Skeletons. After that you can shade and highlight further of course, but it’ll get you to tabletop quickly.

Absolutely, plus as @RuneBrush also said, an airbrush also cuts into time, because the beauty of the skeleton is that while it's smooth it also has the depth that thake washes really well. A base coat, zenithal higlight, wash and finishing highlight can look incredibly cool.

24 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Yeah, skeletons are about the easiest thing to paint as they go. I did these:

by painting the bone, metal and basic cloth colour over airbrushed zenithal black and white undercoat, then shaded with inks and picked out the details. Took about 2,5 hours for these and 5 wights.

Love it! 

Yeah as before, I feel that 120 Skeleton warriors can give you a drastic edge. Now having said that, mixing things up with 2x40 and for example 30/60 Dire Wolves/Zombies is a great option also.

What I commonly see with horde armies like this (same in 40K) is that whilst it's a drag to do that many models it does get rewarded. I'm currently still in the progress of finishing 90 Bloodletters. It's less as 120 Skeletons but I believe the competitive offense (especially with Legions of Nagash) can be compairable.

Based on what we see here is also why I slightly prefer Grand Host of Nagash, Legion of Sacrement and Legion of Night over Legion of Blood. The latter does considerably cut into model counts though and certainly can work without those 120 Skeleton Warriors... Though even there I feel the deal you obtain on 40 of them is just better as the deal you get for Blood Knights, though the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon in Blood Legion is a combat beast, that's totally a thing.

The strongest combinations from those 3 legions are:
- Running a unit of 4 to 6 Morghast Harbingers in Grand Host of Nagash pretty much allows you to present a unit that deletes stuff. Especially when increasing their attack numbers or numbers with different spell buffs.
- Running that 4 foot heroes for Legion of Sacrement with a Corpse Cart with Unholy stick allows for every Wizard that's there to have +2 on spells. To me this pretty much ensures at least half your spells will succeed if not all. It just adds up too much without chances of failure really.
- Lastly running Legion of Night continues to exite me because it's such a massive cut into drop counts. I don't know if Age of Sigmar has any rules for 0 drop armies but theoretically Legion of Night can do that...

4 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

I dont think you'll need to worry about painting that many skellies since 3×40 wont even fit in a 2k for the Sacrament battalion. Might in the others though.

The Battalions don't even excite me much to be honest...

If you want to cut into drops, summon them.

[RuneBrush]

13 minutes ago, Killax said:

- Lastly running Legion of Night continues to exite me because it's such a massive cut into drop counts. I don't know if Age of Sigmar has any rules for 0 drop armies but theoretically Legion of Night can do that...

I thought the rule for Legion of Night (as with summonables) was "instead of setting up" - so it still counts as a drop during the setup phase?