Lets Chat: Legions of Nagash

[BURF1]

2 minutes ago, grungolah said:

Just got the book, and the first thing that popped out at me was in the Soulblight allegiance.   The Black Knights become battleline for Soulblight allegiance, but do not have the keyword.  Do they GET the keyword?    I no longer have access to the old warscroll to see if this is an old or new question.

 

You're reading the wrong line, Blood Knights are battleline for soulblight

[grungolah]

Thanks guys, it was a lot easier to read in GHB17, already edited the question but couldn't figure out how to delete it.

[Elmir]

Has anybody attempted to make a wraith fleet list made with the LoN book?

Afaik, you could if it only included models from: 
Deathmages
Soulblight
Deathrattle
Nighthaunt
 

[Drofnum]

28 minutes ago, Elmir said:

Has anybody attempted to make a wraith fleet list made with the LoN book?

Afaik, you could if it only included models from: 
Deathmages
Soulblight
Deathrattle
Nighthaunt
 

You wouldnt really gain anything new since you have to take Death Allegiance in order to use the Wraith Fleet allegiance.

[swarmofseals]

ignore

[Elmir]

That's true... you'd be sacrificing reliability and limiting your choice for units but you would be able to do one hell of a mean bravery bomb I guess! Slapping a few banshees down from the wraithfleet (and only them) and having most of the other stuff on the board would be a pretty nifty combo I guess. Especially when deathmages are allowed for their further -1 bravery debuff.  I suppose you can get to -4 bravery debuff with this combo... -5 if you are lucky with a locus of Shyish roll.

And it's also worth remembering that you could combine  the "aristocracy of blood"  command trait with wraithfleet deepstrike to get a re-roll for that 9" you have to bridge when diving in.  If you slap it on a coven throne, maybe she can reroll her arrival dice through the new scrying pool.  The dice would have to go your way a bit, but you could be looking at some funky turn 1 charges in a possibly weaker flank through this setup with a -3 bravery debuff to add fuel to the fire...

Also, you are wrong Drofnum, there is no need to default to death GA allegiance, since you can still give all your units an additional legion of X keyword and just tag the wraithfleet rules along for the ride.  Storm of fire specifically mentions that you can still use whatever allegiance abilities you want, as long as your whole army has the keyword. This new book actually adds keywords to all the warscrolls from the 4 mentioned factions in a wraithfleet. 

[Ashtyn]

9 minutes ago, Elmir said:

That's true... you'd be sacrificing reliability and limiting your choice for units but you would be able to do one hell of a mean bravery bomb I guess! Slapping a few banshees down from the wraithfleet (and only them) and having most of the other stuff on the board would be a pretty nifty combo I guess. Especially when deathmages are allowed for their further -1 bravery debuff.  I suppose you can get to -4 bravery debuff with this combo... -5 if you are lucky with a locus of Shyish roll.

And it's also worth remembering that you could combine  the "aristocracy of blood"  command trait with wraithfleet deepstrike to get a re-roll for that 9" you have to bridge when diving in.  If you slap it on a coven throne, maybe she can reroll her arrival dice through the new scrying pool.  The dice would have to go your way a bit, but you could be looking at some funky turn 1 charges in a possibly weaker flank through this setup with a -3 bravery debuff to add fuel to the fire...

Also, you are wrong Drofnum, there is no need to default to death GA allegiance, since you can still give all your units an additional legion of X keyword and just tag the wraithfleet rules along for the ride.  Storm of fire specifically mentions that you can still use whatever allegiance abilities you want, as long as your whole army has the keyword. This new book actually adds keywords to all the warscrolls from the 4 mentioned factions in a wraithfleet. 

The blood allegiance allows you to get -4 or -5 to bravery.

-2 from banners

-1 from morghasts

-1/-2 from spells

the army also has the bonus of buffing your vamps and has very good defensive artefacts and solid command traits.

obivously you could run wraith fleet on top for non competitive games. 

But I do think blood can do a mean fear bomb! 

[WoollyMammoth]

1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm not arguing against taking the balewind, per se, but I'm not quite sure that I see your argument either. Most battleplans either have 18"or 24" neutral zones between deployment. If it's an 18" scenario, your opponent will be in range unless they deploy >6" off the line. In a 24" scenario they just have to deploy a fraction of an inch off the line to be out of range. With the balewind though they can just deploy 3" farther back and still be out of range of most of the spells. Surely you will catch some people out who don't know that a balewind can do this but it's not going to help you against experienced players. It does give you a slight positioning advantage, of course, but I'm just not seeing how it guarantees that you will get any spells off the first turn except from the guy actually on the vortex. 

Let's look at a couple of scenarios based on different opponents:

• Alpha strike: opponents with this type of list will want to go first and will certainly be in range of your spells in your hero phase.
• "Fair" lists: Difficult to predict, probably varies from list to list. In this case it doesn't really matter though as the first turn is likely to be used for positioning as neither army can do a whole lot on turn 1. If you have a reasonably fast list they will probably need to go first to hope to get on the objectives first -- if they let you set up on the objectives (either through gravesites or through fast units) and dig in they will be in serious trouble.
• Gunlines/Spell-lines: They will want to give you the first turn so that they can try to double turn you. I have to think that most of these lists can deploy their key shooters and characters plenty far back though. Skyfires have a 40" threat radius; Longstrikes have 30"; Savage Arrowboys are at 28" (with Hand of Gork/Mork). They can all just deploy 27.5" back and still be able to reach you on their turn. 

I'm not really seeing the same extreme advantage here. One noteworthy exception is a situation in which a 3" bump will allow you to reach a forward Gravesite that you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. That could actually force your opponent into making some difficult decisions.

OK, all that being said, I do still agree with you that taking a balewind is something that we really should consider (regardless of Lord of Sacrament or not).  I think the 3" bump will make a difference for positioning in some situations but more importantly there are a number of lists where getting off a turn 1 Overwhelming Dread will be incredibly crucial, and the only way for it to be in range on turn 1 is with a balewind.

These are some good arguments, and bring up some interesting ideas.

Most players do not deploy back from the 12". Some might deploy 10" instead of 12". You do not have to tell your opponent that you are going to summon a balewind, only that you have reserve points, which is perfectly common in death. So your opponent would have to see this coming and deploy back like 6" from the board edge  to make sure that they are out of range of your spells. The reason why this is fairly uncommon is because most armies have things they want to get across the table, and these things don't want to deploy back so far. Of course, you are not required to balewind the VLord - you could do it with the Necro with Dread and then give some nasty shooting unit a -1 to hit and then zap a hero with Arcane Bolt. Worst case you spend 100 points to get one thing off where you would have gotten nothing. You could also skip the balewind and use Endless Legions to bring back a dead unit on an objective.

- Alpha strike lists still want you to go first and then alpha you into a double turn. (Some lists have almost nothing on the table even). 
- This thing you call "fair" lists sounds like bad list building. Every good list should have a first turn threat.
- Yes a few specific lists have all the range in the world, but this is not the norm. Most lists are going to struggle with distances. Mass skyfires are an issue but have not been doing super well lately since people are specifically building against this list and against shooting. Most magic lists are capped at 18" and want to get mid range. Longstrikes often like to be up around 10" to make sure they are in range to shoot anything that they want. Savage orks are going to be a bit freaked out to stay way back in case they fail the spell, and even so you can jump up on the balewind with Spectral Grasp to limit their threat to about 22" (chances are the mass unit is near something).

Just in general, from my experience, most of the time you are going to have something within 27", whereas you will never have something within 24" of you unless you are playing a 18" deployment mission (which you cannot rely on, and even so a balewind is better) or if you have like 60 bloodletters or 30 Liberators in your face, in which case you can simply save the points and use them to re-summon some dead wolves in your opponents backline to steal an objective. 

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

Oh i know i has nothing to with durability. Its a one trick pony. Your opponents first turn that necro is gone. Then your out a source of DI, DM extender, and 2 spells(with battalion). All for what? A chance to cast Dread on a single unit and pop d3 MW?

I wold take a balewind with a VLord to cast Orb on your opponent and cause hopefully multiple D6 mortals, possibly twice, and also bump up some other wizards to be in range. If your opponent goes first, and you have any unit on the board near the necromancers, they are not likely going to die very quickly because they are 4++/5+/6+++.  If you are worried about your Dread caster, you can make him Arkhan or give him the Shroud of Darkness. If your opponent is going first, you can probably hold off on the balewind and save some summoning points. If you look at it only as a way to cast Dread then it doesn't seem so appealing, but that is not how I'm proposing to use it.

1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

Against a Tier 1 long ranged gunline list (Kunnin' Rukk, Aetherstrike for example) you basically lose the game if they double turn you on turn 1 into turn 2. They can wipe out all of your objective holders, which means you have no chance. I did extensive math on this a little bit upthread from here, and suffice to say that getting a -1 hit penalty on the key shooting unit changes the math substantially. They go from being able to wipe your board with a double turn to being able to only take out one block (assuming your composition is correct). If they fail to get the double turn, they go from being able to likely wipe out a block to not being able to do that.  These are basically the differences between not being able to score enough and being able to stay on the objectives for enough turns to win despite them wrecking your army.

Wow we can do this just with dread? that is interesting.

[Killax]

1 hour ago, Elmir said:

Has anybody attempted to make a wraith fleet list made with the LoN book?

Don't think it's worth it. Giving up the Grand Host/Legion Allegiance abilities is just too massive. The fact of the matter is that Legions of Nagash is such a great book when you pick one of the four main highlighted allegiances (Grand Host of Nagash, Legion of Blood, Legion of Sacrement or Legion of Night). Skipping that and going for any other allegiance before you have really grinded down which Legion you like the most is really missing out on all the fun.

Like I said the first day the leaks came in, with Legion of Nagash Death is finally capable to present itself to a competitive scene and have a very solid chance against a lot of armies. Whilst LoN might not have Kroaknado or the equivelant of double LoC and a whole army behind it these are the outlines of the game that are actually bad for the game. Good design shouldn't lead to that.

So in reality I'd say if you want to drop down will all kinds of things, Wraith Fleet style, consider Legion of Night.

[swarmofseals]

22 minutes ago, Elmir said:

That's true... you'd be sacrificing reliability and limiting your choice for units but you would be able to do one hell of a mean bravery bomb I guess! Slapping a few banshees down from the wraithfleet...

Unfortunately the Wraithfleet bravery debuff only applies in the Battleshock Phase, so it's not helpful to Tomb Banshees.

9 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Most players do not deploy back from the 12". Some might deploy 10" instead of 12". You do not have to tell your opponent that you are going to summon a balewind, only that you have reserve points, which is perfectly common in death. So your opponent would have to see this coming and deploy back like 6" from the board edge  to make sure that they are out of range of your spells. The reason why this is fairly uncommon is because most armies have things they want to get across the table, and these things don't want to deploy back so far. 

- Alpha strike lists still want you to go first and then alpha you into a double turn. (Some lists have almost nothing on the table even). 
- This thing you call "fair" lists sounds like bad list building. Every good list should have a first turn threat.
- Yes a few specific lists have all the range in the world, but this is not the norm. Most lists are going to struggle with distances. Mass skyfires are an issue but have not been doing super well lately since people are specifically building against this list and against shooting. Most magic lists are capped at 18" and want to get mid range. Longstrikes often like to be up around 10" to make sure they are in range to shoot anything that they want. Savage orks are going to be a bit freaked out to stay way back in case they fail the spell, and even so you can jump up on the balewind with Spectral Grasp to limit their threat to about 22" (chances are the mass unit is near something).

Wow we can do this just with dread? that is interesting.

I'm not sure reinforcement points will be common in Death lists anymore. None of the summon spells actually work anymore, so the options for actually using reinforcement points are very limited -- limited enough that they will probably never be used for that purpose in competitive play. Also none of our units cost 100 points, and there is no combination that adds up to 100 points... so if we leave 100 points in reserve it will be pretty obvious to any reasonably knowledgeable player what we are up to. This goes double if the list is actually successful. If there is a Tier 1 Death list out there it will become as known as Changehost/Skyfire spam/Aetherstrike/Vanguard/Warrior Kinband/etc. In that case opponents will know exactly what you are doing and unless there is a very specific reason to deploy within 3" of the line they will deploy their key units back.  

You're correct about alpha strike list, at least in theory. In practice they may choose to go first against us as we can otherwise take the objectives first. Even though Murderhost is an alpha list it still really wants to get to the objectives first. Same with Warrior Kinband. 

Re: "fair" lists -- it may be "bad" listbuilding, but most lists that people play are not broken top tier tournament lists. It's not that a fair list doesn't have turn one threats -- I'm sure plenty of fair lists can shoot or cast at you on turn 1 or can get on objectives turn one. But they aren't threatening to table you on turn 1/2. I'm not worried about getting shot at on turn 1 or 2. I am worried about having no horde blocks left to take objectives with on turn 1 or 2, and fair lists are not going to accomplish that unless they get extremely lucky.

The few specific lists that have all the range in the world are exactly the lists that people fret about the most. When people talk about getting wiped out by a double turn on turn 1/2, these are the lists that they are talking about. If you are planning on competing at the top tables of a major tournament you will need to have a way to win these matches. When we talk about "mandatory" things that you must take to be competitive, I'm pretty sure we are talking about opponents running lists that are this hard. 

Not sure what you mean by skyfires lists not doing well. 2 of the top 10 at LVO had 1-2 large blocks of skyfires. Granted it's not the old 27 skyfires type lists -- those may be a thing of the past. Rukk can afford to stay 27.5" back. If they take the second turn they will have targets to shoot at even if you fail your spell unless you literally move nothing forward, in which case you are ceding the objectives to them.  Longstrikes can *easily* afford to set up 27.5" back. I agree with you that lots of players may do things differently now, but they aren't used to playing against the plan we are currently debating. If you knew you could shut down the opponent's magic almost completely just by slightly limiting your target selection, you'd do it. 

Regarding Overwhelming Dread, I drilled down pretty far on the math a page or two ago. I calculated the expected damage output of various top tier lists and how likely it would be that they could destroy our horde blocks entirely in a single turn. It turns out that most of these lists can easily destroy a skeleton block (regardless of buffs) in a single turn and have good odds to destroy 3 full blocks on a double turn. Dire Wolves fare much, much better. Most of these lists are within 10% of destroying a full block of wolves in one turn, but that means that even slightly below average dice will cause them to fail. A double turn would basically guaranteed destroy a block of wolves but they would need hot dice to destroy two. Several lists (such as Kunnin Rukk and Aetherstrike Force) perform much worse if you manage to tag their big shooting block with -1 to hit -- enough worse that they will need a lot of luck to destroy a wolf block in one turn. They will still get a single block on a double turn but will be extremely unlikely to get two. 

 

[Black_Fortress_Immortal]

Very fun list.  With doubling the resolution of Amethystine Pinions, you're able to get +10" movement on a VLoZD and with Battalion bonus, that's 28" fly.  Very fast.

Allegiance: Legion of Blood

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
- General
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Soulbound Garments 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Shadeglass Decanter 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Bloodseeker Palanquin (320)
- Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike

Battleline
10 x Dire Wolves (120)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)

Units
2 x Bat Swarms (80)

Battalions
Court of Nulahmia (70)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 101
 

[WoollyMammoth]

12 minutes ago, Black_Fortress_Immortal said:

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
- General
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
 

Nef cannot generate two spells

[Black_Fortress_Immortal]

Just now, WoollyMammoth said:

Nef cannot generate two spells

Going off of Warscroll Builder.  So we'll get rid of one.

[Malakithe]

2 hours ago, Black_Fortress_Immortal said:

Very fun list.  With doubling the resolution of Amethystine Pinions, you're able to get +10" movement on a VLoZD and with Battalion bonus, that's 28" fly.  Very fast.

Allegiance: Legion of Blood

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
- General
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Soulbound Garments 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Shadeglass Decanter 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Bloodseeker Palanquin (320)
- Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike

Battleline
10 x Dire Wolves (120)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)

Units
2 x Bat Swarms (80)

Battalions
Court of Nulahmia (70)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 101
 

Wow that looks intense lol

[smucreo]

3 hours ago, Black_Fortress_Immortal said:

Very fun list.  With doubling the resolution of Amethystine Pinions, you're able to get +10" movement on a VLoZD and with Battalion bonus, that's 28" fly.  Very fast.

Allegiance: Legion of Blood

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
- General
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Soulbound Garments 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Deathlance
- Artefact: Shadeglass Decanter 
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Bloodseeker Palanquin (320)
- Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike

Battleline
10 x Dire Wolves (120)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)
5 x Dire Wolves (60)

Units
2 x Bat Swarms (80)

Battalions
Court of Nulahmia (70)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 101
 

Scary. Don't know how competitive but scary nonetheless. I may even try it soon haha I've been theorycrafting a Legion of Blood list too, although mine is a bit more balanced with 2 units of 40 skellies in it (and 2 vamp lords to summon them forward).

 

[TheWilddog]

Noticed Big Papa Nagash went Temporarily Out Of Stock Online on the US website.  Looks like this Battletome sold some models.

[ReynakZhen]

Not sure if mentioned before, but, did anyone notice that both morghast variants have the same weapon options? so you could equip halberds to the Harbinger morghasts with the 18" charge threat range. Seems pretty good IMO.

[Jamopower]

I've been thinking about a list along these ways, the details need bit of fine tuning and don't know about the artefacts or spells yet:

Legion of Blood:

Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400) - Lore of the Deathmages : Overwhelming Dread

Bloodseeker Palanquin (320)

Vampire Lord (140)

2x Tomb Banshee (2x80)

Units

40 x Skeleton Warriors (280) -Spears

10 x Dire Wolves (120)

5 x Dire Wolves (60)

5 x Blood Knights (260)

6 x Spirit Hosts (240)

Total: 1980 / 2000

 

Should be quite fun on the battlefield and have plenty of tricks in the sleeves with the bravery debuffs, banshee screams, summoning, the ability for bloodseeker palanquin to make the  knights totally bonkers, etc. Not a real contender for any tough competitive meta, but shouldn't be totally worthless in tournaments neither.

[smucreo]

What +1 to hit are available to Death in Legions of Nagash? 

[Grimnaud]

1 hour ago, smucreo said:

What +1 to hit are available to Death in Legions of Nagash? 

Prince Vhordrai can cast Quickblood, which Nagash or Arkhan can steal from him, but it only affects the caster. Zombies gets better with numbers, and skeletons get a buff within 18" of a death hero. Other than that the VLoZD's command ability allows a unit to reroll failed hit rolls.

[Killax]

3 hours ago, TheWilddog said:

Noticed Big Papa Nagash went Temporarily Out Of Stock Online on the US website.  Looks like this Battletome sold some models.

Yeah on the EU websites a lot of stock is gone.

As before, this Legion of Nagash Battletome resolved all the issues Death previously had. In addition to that there are/where a lot of Death players who wanted to play the army but simply didn't saw the competitive viability.

When you look at the growth of this topic you'll also see a lot of pessimistic responces initially, fear of it not being relevant even now. But the fun part is, Legions of Nagash is very relevent. To the point where opponents who ignored it will consider re-doing their builds for either faster units or have more responces to magical offenses.

I'd say the allstars are allready logical and known too, which is why I'm also contenplating a second Bloodsecrator for my Khorne armies again (knowing it doesn't stack, knowing it's not difficult to kill him, not even for Legions of Nagash). The allstars in my opinion are:

Grand Host of Nagash; 
- Nagash himself (creates a new subgame, wouldn't recommend it for just starting out but certainly would try it out for the more experienced Death players)
- Morghast Harbingers
- Deathrattle units (making 9" charges)

Legion of Blood:
- Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon and Prince Vorhdai
- Vampire Lords (in general)

Legion of Sacrement:
- Arkhan and his Battalion
- Vampire Lords + Nercomancers (all cheap)

Legion of Night:
- Vampre Lords + Necromancers (all cheap)
- Terrorgheists or Morghast Harbingers (Ambushing)

ALL:
- All flipping units with Summonable Keyword  

Long story short, the book is great. Easily better as quite some of the older Battalions, including Khorne. I do think that both Tzeentch and Seraphon ask meaner questions but at the same time I always feel that there is more change in store for them. Legions of Nagash, much like Maggotkin of Nurgle, seems to have been thought through much better for Matched play and this is a great thing. 

The only focus I feel that is still lingering on the TGA forums is the one that focusses heavily on Named Characters, while I don't think they are bad I do believe the competitive experiences of the army come better to light when those arn't your forced generals. This is just about the only cap Legions of Nagash have to work with.

[kozokus]

Thé knights of shroud van do it

[smucreo]

I think Legion of Night with a basic set-up of 2 units of Morghast Harbingers, two vamp lords and a summonable unit on gravesites can be really unpredictable, specially with a set-up close to this:

Where red represents the range of the ambushes, and the gravesites are the bubbles (I considered 9" inch range from each site, which effectively means it's an 18" bubble). You put the Morghast and one vamp lord in ambush and the other lord on the center of the two gravesites. This way your ambushing vampire lord (who can come from either side or through the back in two places) or your regular vampire lord (who can choose either central gravesite) can summon your summonable unit upfront. Probably worth doing with things like skeletons. With this you have an army which can appear from a lot of places and it's not restricted to appearing in one way, which will keep your opponent guessing until you decide to appear with Morghast, but by then you will be charging them already. 

I did this in a rush but I think it represents quite well what I mean. Oh, and thanks for the answers on the +1 to hit guys  

[Xasz]

17 minutes ago, Killax said:

But the fun part is, Legions of Nagash is very relevent. To the point where opponents who ignored it will consider re-doing their builds for either faster units or have more responces to magical offenses

Speculation.

You have no hard evidence or sample size for this.

For casual gaming, every new book is a blessing regardless of strength. How well LoN will perform in a competitive setting remains to be seen. @swarmofseals and @WoollyMammoth made some quality posts around here and still, it is unclear how the scene/meta will react (if at all). Yet, their posts are much more valuable and give a lot of insight then just stating personal opinions over and over again. 

Either way, I'm happy I bought the book. Vampire Counts was one of my first armies back in WHFB and until now they did not much except gathering dust.  Super interested how LoN will perform in upcoming tournaments, the first couple battle reports within a local vacuum sound promising at least. (thanks for posting them)

[Grimnaud]

30 minutes ago, Killax said:

Legion of Blood:
- Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon and Prince Vorhdai
- Vampire Lords (in general)

My problem with the VLoZD is how swingy his attacks are. Hitting on a 4+ can go horribly wrong at exactly the wrong time, as can d6 damage. I've run a lot of Zombie Dragons and Terrorgheists in FEC, and while they can be absolutely brilliant, they can also flop so hard you can feel the ground shake. To make up for that you either end up using the VLoZD's command ability on himself, or Prince Vorhdai's spell on himself. And Vorhdai doesn't benefit from the extra attacks from Legion of Blood.