Grand Host without Nagash

[Sception]

Early anecdotal evidence from several members of this forum is showing First Cohort lists to be competitive, though the limited model, unit, and hero count makes them very vulnerable to opponents that just ignore or tie up Nagash and play to the objectives instead.  That said, the fact that First Cohort is almost by default tournament-level competitive makes it potentially inappropriate for casual games, and the fact that the best and for some opponents only real way to play against it is to just squat on objectives while taking damage and not even really fighting back till the end of the game means it can be frustrating and unfun to play against.  Even with a good match up, the fact that half of your points went into one model and half of what's left went into buffing and supporting that one model makes games against it kind of wonky.  It's not army vs. army, it's army vs. Nagash, and that can be cool for a sometimes thing, but probably isn't cool for a default bring & battle every week list.

So I'm curious to see what people's thoughts are for a Grand Host list without Nagash.  While the army doesn't have the flashy and dynamic outflanking shenanigans of Legion of Night, which I personally feel is probably the strongest and most interesting to play allegiance in the book for non-first-cohort lists, it does still have some strong elements going for it, including:

• Good artefacts.  With four good artefacts, there's really a lot to choose from.  It's a shame Legions of Nagash added so few formations, making it difficult to take more than one, but even with just one you can get a lot of mileage out of what's here.  The diadem makes your skittles a fair bit tougher.  Timeglass can start your opponent off on a bad foot by bringing one of their support heroes down to critical health before the game starts.  Terrorgheist mantle can let a VLoZD do a decent impression of a terrorgheist as well, or make your winged vamp lord also a banshee, or make a banshee into a double banshee.  It's a strong source of mortal wounds, especially with the multiple sources of bravery debuffs - not as many as LoB, but still several.  And the balefire lanturn is just very strong, similar to the classic cursed book.  The 6" range is very nice, letting a support hero debuff enemies in melee with your front lines without stepping into melee range themselves.  Any of these are great.
• SA couple good command traits.  Most I find to be pretty lackluster, but the last two in particular - re-roll charges for nearby deathrattle & morghast units, and +1 melee attacks for nearby deathrattle units - are both very solid support abilities for what is probably the best build for Grand Host outside of First Cohort lists: skeleton spam with Morghast hammers
• Can take any formations in the book.  Sadly, this doesn't mean all that much.  The Legion of Blood, Legion of Night, and, due to the tragic and completely unwarranted FAQ nerf, Deathmarch formations range from lackluster to awful imo,  The First Cohort I'm specifically trying to avoid in this thread.  The Blood Keep formation is interesting - the character is good, and it's neat to play with some of the outflanking tricks that Legion of Night get, but until the points costs of Blood Knights is brought down by like 60 points per batch I just don't see this formation as worth trying outside of Legion of Blood or dedicated Soulblight lists.  So mostly when I say "can take any formations in the book" what I mean is "can take the Lords of Sacrament."  Any Lord of Sacrament list you've seen can be run as a Grand Host list.  With all that spellcasting, missing out on the Legion of Sacrament casting bonus is a definite loss, but in exchange you don't have to make Arkhan the general, which lets you get an actual command trait, and puts your opponent in a tricky spot.  Who do they target first, Arkhan, who's raining arcane death down on their heads, or your general, who's handing out +1 attack to your skeleton blocks?
• Battleline Grave Guard.  There was a lot of hype for Grave Guard when LoN was first released, but that seems to have mostly died down now.  Yeah, they regenerate a lot better than they used to, but still don't regenerate at all when they're dead, and at more than twice the cost of regular skeletons per model after horde discounts are factored in, while not being meaningfully tougher it can be hard to get them into melee to make use of those greatswords.  But Grand Host can take them as battleline, and with the ancient stratagist command trait, you've actually got a halfway decent chance of charging them into melee the turn you summon them from a forward gravesite.  Still, it's probably better to stick to skeletons.
• Bonus Attack to Morghasts: Morghasts are our best hammer unit.  Harbingers with halberds in particular are amazing.  Swinging 4 times instead of 3 with those halberds is priceless.  I'd have a hard time saying whether I like harbingers better in here or Legion of the Night, they're amazing either way.  Honestly, this is probably the best thing Grand Host has going for itself outside of the First Cohort, so IMO Grand Host lists should run with no less than 2 morghasts per 1000 points.

 

So here's my initial take on a 2,000 point Legion of Nagash without Nagash list using some of the above:

• Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, general, vile transference ancient strategist, balefire lanturn
• Necromancer with Overwhelming Dread
• Necromancer with Fading Vigour
• 40 Skeleton Warriors with spears
• 40 Skeleton Warriors with spears
• 3x5 Dire Wolves
• 2 Morghast Harbingers with halberds
• 2 Morghast Harbingers with halberds
• Corpse Cart

With that many units, I expect to be made to go first, so the general plan is to bury one block of skeletons, deploy the second around the corpse cart and necromancers with the Vampire lord and harbingers on one flank screened by the wolves.  First turn, inspiring presence on the skeletons, the skellie/necro/cart block starts advancing, the wolves scatter for objectives.  fly the lord and harbingers up their flank to a forward gravesite & summon the other skeleton block, then try to charge with the ghasts (3d6 rerolling) and skeletons (2d6 at 9" rerolling), and hope some of that makes it in to start killing & disrupting.  Opponent starts their first turn possibly already engaged on one flank, at the very least with big skeleton blocks baring down from two angles and a dragon lord about to jump into the fray spreading a to-wound and casting debuff and healing himself or the morghasts with transference, and they have to contend with all that while the wolves are running around picking up objective points.

Granted, any legion can run the same list with basically the same tactics, but the extra attack on the harbingers and the extra chance at first turn charges from ancient strategist gives the whole thing that little extra oomph.  At least, that's the theory.  How well it would work in practice?  I don't know.  I'm open to suggestions here.  Does anyone have other suggestions for what to do with a Grand Host list that would be effective and distinctly grand-hosty while refraining from fielding the big guy himself?

[AlphaKennyThing]

I'm almost exactly the same, but took 2 units of Dire Wolves, 2 blobs of 30 skellies, 10 Grave Guard and 5 Black Knights. 

The Grave Guard are for summoning further up the field and hitting things that need a bit of extra punch. The Black Knights are used as a less fragile, slightly harder hitting fast objective grabber. If they can pinch one near a Graveyard, they'll be able to sustain themselves a bit and generally be a pain in the ******. I wholly expect them to die, but it'll serve as a distraction at the least.

[AverageBoss]

I would say that is a pretty accurate summation.

The two special rules for Grand Host specifically benefit single wound models and Morghasts the most. The command traits and artifacts further benefit specifically skeleton units. So lots of skeletons and morghasts are going to be the best things to build a list around. Having at least 1 Vampire and 2 Necromancers I feel will be standard across almost every list (in all 4 legions) other than First Cohort.

[Sception]

I've been finding two units of dire wolves better than one of black knights for the same points and jobs, though the knights can carry a banner for bravery debuffing, which could be good if I ever opt for a terrorgheist mantle.

[Honk]

If you’re not going big, I suggest going small...

120 skellis, 2x10 Black knights (harbringers)

2 necro 2 vamps mortis engine 

Regeneration  should be good, but moving this mess ;_; 

i really love the new spell lores...

[Sception]

In grand host, i would definitely not pass up the morghasts.  Otherwise, looks good.  I worry about taking a 5 wound general, but with that many skeletons weight of attacks might carry you even if you lose your commander.  120 skeletons is an awful lot to buy, paint, and move every turn, though.

[Honk]

Starting in the mid 90s I piled up round 80 skellis already...

movement could be done by just setting the last two rows up to the front...

The general might get the good old „ring of immortality“.

4 wizzards could throw some spells around, buffed and healed by the engine.

If the opponent gets mean, I‘ll just start my alpha positioning game with a 2 hour movement/pile in downtime ?

So probably more a list for a friendly game, than tournament environment

[Arentius]

An interesting 2000 Legion of Nagash list I've been toying with is as follows:

Wight king with Tomb blade and shield - Terrorghiest Mantle - Lord of nagashizzar (general)

Arkhan the black with Amaranthine orb

Tomb Banshee

Necromancer with overwhelming dread

15 Grave guard

40 skeletons with spears

40 skeletons with spears

2 Morghast Archai

Terrorghiest

comes to 1950

 

Really focuses on the mortal wound potential from shooting and Magic then mince people with an overwhelming number of attacks (supported by the wight kings Command trait / general Trait and van hels)