LoN object holders

[Bohemond]

Hi everyone.

What LoN units work best as objective holders? I am still to put together a proper LoN army, as soon as my other projects are done, so my options are still wide open for me. In the meantime I can spend time theorising forth a dream-list.

A big blob og Skeleton Warriors or Zombies seem like the obvious choice, I get it. But we also have Grave Guards, Dire Wolves, Black Knights (perhaps a stretch) or perhaps something else. I imagine that GGs can fulfill this role with their shields, Mystic Shield and perhaps the Bait, that should be a decent defence against non-rend attacks I think. The reason I am specifically interested in GGs is because I want to use big units of SWs as my aggressive force, but man I need something that is not SWs to paint too! I am trying to avoid hobby-exhaustion here, ha ha!

Thanks for your time and answers.

[Dracothjay]

Honestly, I know you want GG to work in your list so bad, but I find the best objective holders are either your normal skeletons and dire wolves. I especially put faith in dire wolves. A unit of 10 is great and come with a base save like the GG. 

Black knights I’d say a more of a tarpit unit if you take 10 of them, but I don’t see 5 holding an objective to good, especially if it’s an objective in enemy territory. 

But, in a large quantity I think GG could work, but what GG can do skeleton warriors can do better in my honest opinion, obviously if you max out on skellies vs a maxed out GG unit.

go with what you like mate, gotta follow your aesthetic dreams too remember!!!

[Bohemond]

4 hours ago, Dracothjay said:

Honestly, I know you want GG to work in your list so bad [...].

go with what you like mate, gotta follow your aesthetic dreams too remember!!!

Yeah, that's no lie.  Your reply made me think. And I guess, for me, this is actually more of a hobby vs. game question. Perhaps my question should be totally refraced to something like: I really like the GG models, are there any positive experiences from fielding them?

If I go back to my original question, I guess cost effectiveness, as much as survivability, is important for potential objective holders. Perhaps this is what makes Dire Wolves so good.

[Dracothjay]

Honestly, GG are great. They truly are, very blendy and in a unit of 20+ (ideally 30) they become a massive threat you can ignore, especially with how many models we can revive now through our new rules.

80 points for 5 is so steep for me. And I have seen and heard great success with grave guard, but I choose skeleton warriors all the time.  

A plus for the GG is that the models look crazy good ?

[Bradifer]

My go-to objective holders are Skeletons and Dire Wolves.

I think zombies have no purpose at this point.

40 Skeletons cost 280. 40 Zombies cost 240. Skeletons hit significantly harder and have 2" reach (spears). They also have a save.

Zombies purpose (for me) was to bring 3-6 blocks of 10 and cover your battleline, then merge them later dependent on the mission objectives.

Hexwraiths and Black Knights are also decent objective holders. A bit more expensive, but they're fast and can do damage in combat (unlike zombies or wolves.)

Hexwraiths can even fly and ethereal makes them really tanky. BK's are cheaper so they lose come abilities, but you get points.

Easy to regenerate 2 health models.

Spirit hosts are decent objective holders, but they're much slower then everyone but skeletons/zombies. They're efficient once in combat, but they are hard to regenerate requiring a 5 or 6. You're more likely to just heal injured hosts. This unit is particularly awful vs. models with -1 to hit (Treelords, lots of others).

Haven't touched Blood Knights.

[MayItBe]

15 hours ago, Bradifer said:

Zombies purpose (for me) was to bring 3-6 blocks of 10 and cover your battleline, then merge them later dependent on the mission objectives.

According to the new warscroll you cannot merge now.

[Honk]

1 hour ago, MayItBe said:

According to the new warscroll you cannot merge now.

Yes, that’s why they are not a thing anymore.

You could and it was great, now wolves or skellis are just better.

[themortalgod]

On 4/3/2018 at 4:50 AM, Honk said:

Yes, that’s why they are not a thing anymore.

You could and it was great, now wolves or skellis are just better.

I think their one use now is if you run them in blobs of 60. You are basically sacrificing killing power for the most efficient cost per wound.  In full size units Zombies and Wolves are 5.3pts per wound and Skeletons are 7pts per wound. The difference for Zombies though is that compared to wolves they have no armor save but are far easier to bring back to life so you end up with effectively more wounds over the course of the game pushing the cost per wound lower. The massive unit also means they have more bravery so you suffer less from battleshock. 

Also zombies in a massive unit do more damage that wolves. 5 wolves get 10 attacks at 4+/4 doing 2.5 wounds on average.  10 Zombies get 10 attacks at 3+/5+ doing about 2.2 wounds on average. However, you can pack zombies more that twice as densely so the number of models that actually get to swing comes in at about a 2x compared to wolves meaning they are a bigger threat.

Overall, I think Skeletons are still a better choice in most situations where you need big units and dogs are far better in small units. But there is a use case for Zombies if you want to make an army built around dominating space while being incredibly difficult wipe out or dislodge.

I tried one game a when the book first dropped with Arkhan + 4 Necromancers + 2 Corpse Carts behind a wall of zombies and was able to pull out a decent victory. being able to bring back like 9D3 zombies per turn (rerolling thanks to Corpse Cart) meant that they just never die. I also had a surprising number of zombies come back to life from "The Newly Dead" which also helped.  

[Honk]

So here we have it, zombies overkill still is feasible...and I guess they are 2+\3+ with van hels ?