Thoughts on the next units

[RuneBrush]

Heyho all!

Currently contemplating expanding my undead up to the full 2k level and wondered what everybodies thoughts were

My current "core" army is as follows:

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Allegiance: Grand Host of Nagash
Neferata Mortarch Of Blood (400)
Vampire Lord (140)
Necromancer (110)
40 x Skeleton Warriors (280) - Ancient Spears
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80) - Ancient Blades
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80) - Ancient Blades

Total: 1090 / 2000
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 81

In addition to this, I've also got the following:

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Vampire Lord (140)
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120)
10 x Grave Guard (160) - Great Wight Blades
9 x Spirit Hosts (360)

Total: 780

The second vampire is still a work in progress, but most importantly does have wings 

I feel that my core list works pretty well.  It's pretty resilient and chucks out a decent amount of magic, however it doesn't have what I'd consider "teeth" and most damage is caused by simply outlasting the enemy.

I think the second Vampire Lord needs adding regardless.  Beyond that my gut feeling is to bump the unit of Grave Guard up to 20 and include either a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon or 4 Morghast Archai.  The VLoZD has the benefit that it's another magic wielder with Deathly Invocation (and a shooting attack!), the downside is that it's not an easy model to transport (on the train) and depreciates once it starts taking damage, it's also putting over 50% of the army in heroes which I'm always very cautious about.  The Morghast provide a higher number of wounds and a reliable -2 rend with high damage, they also have an extra ignore damage roll so more tanky.  Biggest downside I see is they have less tabletop presence and are a bit slower.

There are other options of course, a second maxed out unit of skeletons would be very solid especially if combined with an extra Necromancer.

So what's people's thoughts?  I'm trying to stick to a more "Skeletal minion" style army than one filled with the recently dead.

[smucreo]

It really depends on what your allegiance choices are going to be imo, if you want teeth and are going to play Grand Host go for Morghast since they hit harder than the VLoZD there, plus Nef and the two vamp lords should suffice as hero choices. If you are not sure or would like to be switching allegiances (specially if you want to go Blood) I'd say go for VloZD, since it can shine in Sacrament and Blood lists. Both have their merit really so I understand the doubt, but for me it's a matter of what allegiance is my list going to be most of the time? 

Since you like the skeletal theme Grand Host seems like the allegiance you'll probably stick to, which in turn makes Morghasts more likely to see play in optimal scenarios.

One thing I'd recommend for the VLoZD, if you are worried about transportation magnetize the wings, it does wonders.

 

[Dracothjay]

I thought including mortachs in GHoN isn’t allowed unless you field nagash as general?

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, smucreo said:

It really depends on what your allegiance choices are going to be imo, if you want teeth and are going to play Grand Host go for Morghast since they hit harder than the VLoZD there, plus Nef and the two vamp lords should suffice as hero choices. If you are not sure or would like to be switching allegiances (specially if you want to go Blood) I'd say go for VloZD, since it can shine in Sacrament and Blood lists. Both have their merit really so I understand the doubt, but for me it's a matter of what allegiance is my list going to be most of the time? 

Since you like the skeletal theme Grand Host seems like the allegiance you'll probably stick to, which in turn makes Morghasts more likely to see play in optimal scenarios.

One thing I'd recommend for the VLoZD, if you are worried about transportation magnetize the wings, it does wonders.

Thanks!  Currently I've only played with Grand Host as I really like the Gravesand Hourglass for helping to take out that troublesome synergy piece in an opponents army.   That's not to say that I won't run one of the others in the future but at the current point in time will just go with Grand Host.

Good thinking on magnetising the wings too - hadn't thought of beyond magnetising the rider!

1 hour ago, Dracothjay said:

I thought including mortachs in GHoN isn’t allowed unless you field nagash as general?

They're allowed in a regular GHoN list, but only count as Battleline if Nagash is the general.

[smucreo]

Yeah I undervalued Timeglass immensely when the book was first released, but Ossific Diadem hasn't done much for me even on super skeleton heavy lists, while Timeglass has been of some worth versus things like skink lists, where their heroes are squishy and a couple of wounds put them in range of a single arcane bolt at any given point.

One question, how's Nef been? I plan on running her eventually since my local meta has lots of lists that rely on buffs to hit (like Nighthaunt with Knight of Shrouds and Khorne lists trying to get those 6+), so a couple of debuffs here and there on top of the Overwhelming Dread could be useful to have if needed.

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, smucreo said:

One question, how's Nef been? I plan on running her eventually since my local meta has lots of lists that rely on buffs to hit (like Nighthaunt with Knight of Shrouds and Khorne lists trying to get those 6+), so a couple of debuffs here and there on top of the Overwhelming Dread could be useful to have if needed.

I've found her fantastic, a really good centre to the army.  Her -1 to hit command ability is worth it's weight in gold and really hurts things like Putrid Blightkings with their silly exploding attacks.  Her spell is also pretty good too, fly plus the ethereal rule.  On a unit of 40 skeletons it means that a -1 rend attack will allow them to take a 6+ armour save.

She's a bit of a weird model to get to grips with though, she can potentially kick out a good amount of melee damage, but can't take much damage in return.  Ideal targets are things like 5 wound 4+ or worse armour heroes which will give her 3 wounds back per combat phase.  I've tended to play her in a support roll for the first few turns, making sure that as much as possible is -1 to hit, then the last couple of turns use her decent move with fly to push her into the enemy and attack anything left on it's own.  But it does depend upon the game and scenery - she has a pretty big base if you're using scatter terrain

[Honk]

While the VLoZD is an allrounder and a good No2 I do think a bunch of morghast are just as viable and fit in all kind of lists...

with the amount of VL in your list somebody can even heal them with vile transference 

and 4 harbringers with halberds are in the thick of it double time and dish out like crazy