What nasty combos have you thought up based on the leaked rules

[Jgregs]

2 hours ago, Sception said:

At least one of the legions has a banner artefact.

I just recently converted up a wight king with infernal standard and was pretty bummed when I saw that it was no longer an option.

Since i'm such a wysiwyg nerd I have to give my king some kind of standard. From the battle tome images it looks like there are a few options.

Terrorgheist Mantle: It technically says its a "raged cloak" but could well be represented by a banner painted up like an animal pelt. it gives the bearer the terrorgheist scream in the shooting phase.

Shroud of darkness: again described as a mantle but could well be represented by a banner. basically gives the bearer protection from shooting attacks.

Azyrbane standard: subtract 1 form wound rolls for enemy units within 6 inches. reroll casting roles for enemy wizards within 6.

There might be one other in there somewhere.

If you want to run your wight king with infernal standard with the same rules as before you can give him the Ossific Diadem. that is described in the book as a crown of black bone but has pretty much the same rules as the the infernal standard.

For my 1000 point death rattle army I'm going to go with the terrorghiest mantle. should do well when I finally get up the board and my skelies -1 bravery debuff  comes into effect from their new banners.

[Nullius]

I run Neferata, so there isn’t much to work with compared to the other Battalions, but Naferata’s legion does have an artifact with the dreaded reroll armor-saves of 1 property. So if you run her formation and use the spell that adds 5” (or even 10”) on neferata she can. potentially move 30 inches and still charge. The dragon could move a potential 27 inches and be very survivable rerolling ones with a 3+ save.  And if the blood throne thing manages to be within 9” of an enemy hero that dies, the VLOZD could pull a whopping +2 to ALL it’s melee weapons (and +1 to all of neferata’s attacks). If a front line of skellies or zombies can be intact for a turn or two then this battalion can charge whatever it wants. It’s a gimmick list, but it’s not terrible.

[Mortarch]

Question...

Summoning rule no longer clearly states that a unit cant move once summoned... Only says the action takes place at "end of the movement phase".

I'm sure it will be FAQ'd, but it seems like [Summon Unit] -> [Move Unit up to 6" towards enemy] -> [Summon Next Unit]

[Jamopower]

If it's at the end of movement phase, then the time for movement has already ended.

[Bademeister]

15 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

If it's at the end of movement phase, then the time for movement has already ended.

Are you sure? As long as you are in your movement phase you should be allowed to move all your units. The only thing is, that you have to move these summoned units last

In the old version for summoned units it was cleary written, that they can't move after summoning. In this case it is different

[RuneBrush]

Don't really think this needs FAQ'ing.  Each phase has a start, "middle", and end - the main rules clearly state that you start your movement phase by picking units and moving models.  This means that unless you restart your movement phase you cannot pick a unit to move that has been setup at the end of the phase - you can't have two starts.  If a summoned unit were able to move the ability would likely have a "and immediately make a move" or something similar.   The old rules did use to state they couldn't move as you set them up in the Hero phase so clarification was needed.

[Jamopower]

Yes, the movement actually has to end for the phase to end, if you are moving after the end, then the phase hasn't really ended and thus you can't have been at the end of the phase.

[Mortarch]

In terms of the spirit of it, and given the history of the rule, I agree with you.

However if this is to be "The Last Action" in the phase, then that assumes all summoning occurs simultaneously and equally tied as last action, ending the phase and no movement can occur for summoned units.. this isn't how it's written.

The wording implies sequential rather than simultaneous choosing. As soon as you choose the second unit to summon then what occurred before that selected wasn't in the "End" of the phase, but in the middle, and as such no reason why a movement couldn't occur.

It may just be me splitting hairs looking for an extra death bonus...

If anything from AoS to date has shown us, is that if there's more than one way to interpret it then it will be, and it will need an FAQ to pin down the "correct" interpretation.

M

[Bademeister]

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

Don't really think this needs FAQ'ing.  Each phase has a start, "middle", and end - the main rules clearly state that you start your movement phase by picking units and moving models.  This means that unless you restart your movement phase you cannot pick a unit to move that has been setup at the end of the phase - you can't have two starts.  If a summoned unit were able to move the ability would likely have a "and immediately make a move" or something similar.   The old rules did use to state they couldn't move as you set them up in the Hero phase so clarification was needed.

You start your movement phase by chosing one of your units. after picking that unit and after moving it, you pick your second unit. But in this moment you aren't in the beginning of your movement phase. So you don't restart your phase but you are still able to pick units for movement.

Where is it written when the end of your movementphase begins? How is the End of a Phase declared? For example: Melee Phase. all of your opponents Units already attacked. There was one unit in range of 3'' but could attack, because they could pile in for any circumstances. After your last attack this circumstances are gone (because you killed a unit in front of or you piled that way in, that an other unit gets into melee range). In this moment your opponent can still make attack action thus you are at the end of combat.

[RuneBrush]

3 minutes ago, Bademeister said:

You start your movement phase by chosing one of your units. after picking that unit and after moving it, you pick your second unit. But in this moment you aren't in the beginning of your movement phase. So you don't restart your phase but you are still able to pick units for movement.

No, but you're still following how the movement rule works, it doesn't need a reset for that reason.

3 minutes ago, Bademeister said:

Where is it written when the end of your movementphase begins? How is the End of a Phase declared? For example: Melee Phase. all of your opponents Units already attacked. There was one unit in range of 3'' but could attack, because they could pile in for any circumstances. After your last attack this circumstances are gone (because you killed a unit in front of or you piled that way in, that an other unit gets into melee range). In this moment your opponent can still make attack action thus you are at the end of combat.

I think they're relying on us to understand what "end" means - when everything described within the rules for a phase have been completed.

I'm guessing you mean "There was one unit in range of 3" but couldn't attack, because they couldn't pile in" (not being facetious, but it doesn't make sense otherwise).  If you activate a unit to attack, but it can't pile in (so may be out of range of it's weapons) then it can't attack that round, even if the obstruction disappears (assuming there are no special rules in play).  Once all units have been activated for melee then it's the end of the combat phase and you can trigger any abilities that say "end of combat phase".

[Sception]

Endless Legions.

This command ability has been largely disregarded by pitched battle players, including myself, due to its situational nature, it's use of reserve points, and the risk of losing those points outright if your general dies before you get to activate the ability.  In general, it seems outright worse than just taking those same points, buying another unit, and simply deploying them via the normal grave site method.  That way, you get your extra, forward deployed unit even if the enemy hasn't killed another identical unit first, and even if the enemy has already killed your general, so long as you have at least one hero left.

However, Endless Legions does have one thing in its favor - the unit is summoned back in the hero phase, instead of at the end of the movement phase.  That means the unit is there in time to be buffed with spells and other abilities (though obviously not command abilities, since you used one to summon them).  And since there's no restriction on the units actions, it's free to move in the same turn, resulting in a guaranteed or near guaranteed charge for any summonable unit.  An extra downside is that your general needs to be within 9" of the gravesite you want to use at the start of your turn, since the command ability is used before movement.

It's the kind of gimmick trick that's unlikely to work on a given opponent more than once, but try shoving a maxed out unit of spirit hosts or 20 grave guard (perhaps using the skeleton formation for increased movement to make them feel like an immediate threat) in your opponents face while surropticiously moving your general within range of a well positioned gravesite, with enough points in reserve to summon the unit.  If the opponent opts to focus down your hammer, fearing your ability to regenerate them with overlapping gravesites if they don't finish the job, then on your next turn you can summon in the replacement unit at full strength in easy or automatic charge range and still have time to throw vanhels on them.

 

Again, this isn't really a serious competitive strategy, it's far to easy to snipe your general leaving all your reserve points wasted.  Legion of Sacrament might be able to save them with the Master's Teachings, but that requires such a rube goldberg situation to even try to activate, and then still fails half the time, that sniping the general before you can activate endless legions will still probably lose the game.  In general, the LoN reserve point abilities just aren't worth using.  But in that one game where the opponent doesn't realize this is a thing, having a vanhelsed unit of 6+ spirit hosts or 20+ grave guard appear out of nowhere in easy or automatic charge range in the middle of the game will be a fun surprise.

[Killax]

My thake on the returning of destroyed units remains pretty much the same, it can be good during the later stages of the game for Objective purposes. So using a small Dire Wolf unit for that particular purpose is certainly an optional plan.

Strongest combos in my book still all come from the horde block (Zombies/Skeletons/Dire Wolves) plus Flying hammer. There are a ton of flying hammers in Legions of Nagash  As before, I think that using the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon for this purpose is optional but also very risky, by large because it will always present itself as a good target for your opponent to fixate onto.

Now split Vampire Lord from Zombie Dragon and run a Terrorgheist in addition or indeed 4+ Morghasts and your opponent will need to deal with the hammer but ideally would focos on the Vampire to thake out all the (magical) support. 

In general Legions of Nagash is currently amongst one of the most tactical deep armies despite the options not being that wide in functionality. Luckily though there is enough of a model range to cater to a particular visual preforance. My preforance remains to go to the newer lines which indeed are the Skeleton Warriors, Morghasts and Terrorgheists.

[Sception]

the problem with late game endless legions is that your general probably won't still be there to use it, even if your opponent doesn't realize killing them is a priority to prevent you from using reserve points, so any reserve points you still have in the pot will go wasted.  Regular gravesite summoning is better for that, which can be done with any leader.

[Jamopower]

The regular summoning not coming from the reinforcement points unfortunately undermines the value of the endless legions quite much, but with the vortex there are still some options. 120 points extra gives you the option for returning 10 direwolves etc. and the option on using the vortex.

[TheKingInYellow]

I'm thinking a Legion of Night Vampire, outflanked, using Spirit Gale in combination with the Chiropteric Cloak has a chance to be fun.  It has to either make the 9" charge on the turn it comes on or must potentially survive a round of shooting, but it can pretty much pick it's target unit, and for the cost of mortal wound it will likely heal back will be causing MWs on any rolls of 1 against it, and about 50% of the time causing MW on a roll of 1 or 2 against it.

[Killax]

We can also turn this topic into: Pick a model, name the combo  

[WoollyMammoth]

@Sception
Awesome catch on the  Endless Legions. That is really cool. You can save a little points in order to shove a dead unit back in your opponents face!!

[deynon]

On 7/2/2018 at 7:58 PM, Jgregs said:

Im thinking of running  a white king  as my general for a grand host of nagash death rattle army.

He will have the lord of Nagashizzar command trait which gives +1 to attacks to nearby death rattle units on top of his lord of bones command ability which also gives +1 attacks to a unit.

Then I was thinking of giving him the terrorgheist mantle artifact which gives him the terrorgheist scream in the shooting phase. This should mesh well with the -1 bravery that death standards now give.

You missed one thing talking about "Lord of Nagashizzar".

It has an ironic effect:

You can't give bonus to the mount of the Hero with the command trait, but that command trait gives a bonus to all the melee attacks of a DEATHRATTLE unit... so the BLACK KNIGHTS see also their horses having an attack bonus^^

[inflitionz]

Legion of Sacrament: Mastery of Death command trait + Deathmarch Battalion is an 11inch move on skeletons, 3 sets of 40 moving at that speed is rather scary. However not sure you can use both? 

[deynon]

2 minutes ago, inflitionz said:

Legion of Sacrament: Mastery of Death command trait + Deathmarch Battalion is an 11inch move on skeletons, 3 sets of 40 moving at that speed is rather scary. However not sure you can use both? 

Why shoudn't you? The important part is to keep the general and the WK in the rang to influence those units. You have 6" radius from the general and 9" radius from the WK.

[inflitionz]

1 minute ago, deynon said:

Why shoudn't you? The important part is to keep the general and the WK in the rang to influence those units. You have 6" radius from the general and 9" radius from the WK.

So just make your general the WK in the formation and pretty reliable bubble of speed for Skeletons and GG 

[deynon]

6 minutes ago, inflitionz said:

So just make your general the WK in the formation and pretty reliable bubble of speed for Skeletons and GG 

It's quite crazy as a think such decision. In less point games could be a good choice, but don't forget that it's quite easy to kill the WK with only5 wounds.  I would not suggest such a risky decision.

[Malakithe]

Yeah Wight Kings make for terrible generals in any list thats over 1k. 

One of Deaths main tactics is attrition. We need to out play and out last our opponents. Having a 5w model as a general wont do anything but get killed outright from a t1 alpha strike and there is literally nothing you can do about that. Cloak of Shadows or Gold Bracers will barely might help the WK live to turn 2.  

[Nullius]

13 hours ago, Killax said:

We can also turn this topic into: Pick a model, name the combo  

I like VLOZD as a general, in Legion of Blood, with the extra-movement warlord trait, the legion of blood artifact that lets you reroll ones on saves, and the amethystine wings spell that let’s you add 5” to movement. Then you have a hammer that can chill behind your main battle line with mystic shield up for the dreaded 2+ rerollable save, and when the opportunity arises, he can pop off the spell and make a massive 21” or even  26” move, and summon a unit on a hard to reach gravesite or charge a target of opportunity.  On a side-note, why is “blood-boil” still a spell? Sometimes I really think GW needs to hire a mathematician so someone can explain to them some probability and statistics. Blood boil is mathematically worse, with a casting value of 6 and an expected damage value of 1 mortal wound. Arcane bolt has casting value of 5 and an expected damage value of 2 mortal wounds. So Blood Boil is 50% harder to cast, and does less damage. Does anyone else find that frustrating? 

[Sception]

6 hours ago, Nullius said:

So Blood Boil is 50% harder to cast, and does less damage. Does anyone else find that frustrating? 

The minimum value of both spells is one.  The expected value of arcane bolt is two, and the expected value of blood boil...  well, it varries depending on the target.  The expected damage of blood boil is the sum of n divided by 2 to the power n, for all values of n ranging from 1 to the total number of remaining wounds on the most damaged model in the target unit.  Well, plus a little bit at the end, equal to your last n/2^n again, since the series stops there.

For a hypothetical infinite wound target, blood boil's expected damage would converge to 2, but in practical application the actual expected damage will be a bit less than that.  1 vs a target with only 1 wound, 1.5 vs a target with 2 wounds remaining, 1.75 vs a target with three wounds remaining, and so on, adding half of the remaining distance to 2 with each extra wound on the target.

For a target with 5 wounds remaining, the expected damage is 1.9375.

All a long winded way of saying that, for blood boil's ideal targets, heroes and monsters with 5 or more wounds, it makes more sense to round up to two when talking about the spells expected damage, rather than down to one.

And the potential damage is a lot higher, obviously. Arcane bolt never does more than 3 damage, while blood boil has a 1/8 chance of doing 4 or more damage.  Obviously thats not much, wont happen in every game, but in a dice game sometimes you pay for potential as much as average.

 

AND with the rules of one, you can't cast arcane bolt more than once anyway.  It's not arcane bolt that threatens to make blood boil redundant, but the other vampire lore spells, like orb with its >2 expected damage (provided you can get at least 2 units in the line of fire).  Or transference, with expected damage and healing of two.

That said, in a list with multiple vampires and/or deathlords, where the good vamp lore spells also start running into the rules of one, I think blood boil will still have a place.