AoS 2 - Grand Host of Nagash Discussion

[WinnerDave]

@lare2 Not convinced about he balewind vortex...what's the plan there?

My go to spells for Naggy are Overwhelming Dread, Fading Vigour and Amethystine Pinions. 

Hand of dust through the Spell Portal is amazing when it works, especially if you "pick" out a middle model from a strung out unit so they lose half their unit due to lack of coherency, however, Fading Vigour or Overwhelming Dread is far more reliable and depending on what your opponent is running can have a real significant impact, especially when the beautiful natural 10 pops up.  "Yes, yes you are -2 Attacks...if you make the charge, and yes it does last until my next hero phase...sorry"

 

[lare2]

1 hour ago, WinnerDave said:

@lare2 Not convinced about he balewind vortex...what's the plan there?

Without it the list's 1930... nothing major to take for 70pts. It gives the necro defending a home objective +1 to save. Not much, granted, but could make the difference when fobbing off wounds to the rasps as well. It also adds 6" to casting so every turn he should be able to throw out OD to anything threatening Naggy and DM on the reapers. All this combines to make it a better choice, in my eyes, for anything up to 70pts. Plus I'll likely get a triumph this way, which can be game winning. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by lare2

[Vitch_EGS]

So I have been on a big Chaos mood recently since the new models released plus warcry but thanks to nurgle ran out of stuff to paint.

But I remember I had these guys and as much as I hate assembling them they are so fun and quick to paint and it's gave my love for Death faction a serious boost (Somehow 3690 all in of Nagash Legions and Nighthaunt now finished..)

So I'm going to have to rock them out and thinking of going stupid old school with deathrattle so here is a list with the Twin Kings:

Wight Lord on Skeletal Dragon - Am orb and ethereal ammy

10 Black Knights

Wight King w/ Black axe (Krell)

10 Grave Guard w/ Great weapons

Wight King w/ Sword and Board 

10 Grave Guard w/ Sword and Board

Necromancer - Vile Transference - Lord of 6+

40 Spear Skeletons

10 Spear Skeletons X2

Death march Battalion

Extra CP

I think I get an extra CP and artifact with the battalion but honestly not sure but their it is an old school Bone horde. Some chaff to spread out, dragon to rip and tear and a couple of surprisingly killy blobs among the swarm.

Any thoughts?

 

 

[Honk]

14 hours ago, Vitch_EGS said:

thinking of going stupid old school with deathrattle

It is totally fluffy and will get ground to dust by anything... but maybe with good positioning.

your necromancer needs to learn an appropriate spell, Just because he’s an edgy emo doesn’t mean he gets to cast vT 👻

Think about giving the one wight king a horse to run along the black knights 

[Vitch_EGS]

4 minutes ago, Honk said:

It is totally fluffy and will get ground to dust by anything... but maybe with good positioning.

your necromancer needs to learn an appropriate spell, Just because he’s an edgy emo doesn’t mean he gets to cast vT 👻

Think about giving the one wight king a horse to run along the black knights 

Ah yeah don't know why I wrote that right enough haha good old Overwhelming dread just. And aye that's it not expecting miracles unless lucks being kind but dam it looks cool having hordes of skeletons!

I think if I didn't have the two painted kings I would for sure get one mounted, but was thinking about using them just as mobile chaff and road blocks just to keep masses off the dragon and just clog things up alot.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Vitch_EGS
Spelling

[Honk]

14 hours ago, Vitch_EGS said:

it looks cool having hordes of skeletons!

Personally think to bundle up the grave guard units into one Scary blender...

[Vitch_EGS]

28 minutes ago, Honk said:

Personally think to bundle up the grave guard units into one Scary blender...

I might do that too despite them being armed differently and just have the ones that I'm using them as at the front for my opponents sake. At least with 20 they won't be sneezed out of existence just as easy.. It let's both kings give the big blob of spears some TLC and the one unit of guard then too.

(Probly will of course with the nasty buggers armies can bring now a days)

[Honk]

20 GG with greatswords, lord of bones CA and van hels spell wil slice almost everything into fine ribbons...

the vamp lord should keep things busy and the skellis will poke at stuff. List might not be top tier, but with skill and determination the world is your oyster

[lare2]

Quick question: if I include a Guardian of Souls, does he know an extra spell from the Lores of the Death? If so, is it from Deathmages or Vampires? Cheers in advance. 

EDIT: just checked commentary and it's a no. That sucks. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by lare2

[ACBelMutie]

On 5/3/2020 at 12:39 AM, Honk said:

20 GG with greatswords, lord of bones CA and van hels spell wil slice almost everything into fine ribbons...

the vamp lord should keep things busy and the skellis will poke at stuff. List might not be top tier, but with skill and determination the world is your oyster

And then... Mortek Guards + Gothizzar Harvester appeared to block the damage

The problem of the GG is its 5+ save and poor movement. They are very nice miniatures, but they are not enough good.

Greetings

Edited May 12, 2020 by ACBelMutie

[Honk]

11 hours ago, ACBelMutie said:

And then... Mortek Guards + Gothizzar Harvester appeared to block the damage

Yes, the new cheese will certainly outstink the fluff, sadly that is to be expected... but also kinda depends on your local meta if you can field a „legacy army“ or not.
 

as you said, too fragile, too slow, too old

But I still remember when Ben Szouza (Name probably wrong, again) brought back FEC into the Top5 with a brave list and tactical acumen, before it was the cheese of the month with aos2.0

[Hyperyon]

Hi guys and gals, I have been lurking around for a while but first time posting so I hope I am doing everything right. After a long hiatus from aos I kinda wanted to get back in the game and I was hoping to receive some guidance about what my next steps should be. 

 

I have around 3k (according to battlescribe) points of Uncle Nagash:

 

Nagash 

Mortis Engine 

Arkhan 

2 Morghast with spear 

Wight king (both on foot and an horse) 

10 hexwraiths

3 Spirit hosts

And 80 skeletons (with probably other 10 somewhere) 

 

My question is: is there any chance I could make something competitivish (not tier 1 but still pretty good) without having to get 50+ Mortek guards and a Kavalos? I was actually hoping to come up with a plan and get some specific models to bring my current army in 2020 and living the dream of hand of dusting people. I was also surprised my battletome was still the most recent one despite being 2+ years old, is it pretty standard nowadays or we are due to a potential revamp in the near future?  Thanks all! 

[Honk]

On 5/14/2020 at 1:43 PM, Hyperyon said:

make something competitivish

You might want to get a Necromancer...

else it seems to be all there for some midlevel armies. Nagash with a horde, maybe lacking some fast attack support, but nonetheless fun to play

arkhan with the engine and kinda the rest sounds interesting 

[123lac]

Oof, last post May 17.

Dead battletome?

[WinnerDave]

1 hour ago, 123lac said:

Oof, last post May 17.

Dead battletome?

Pretty much, then again I like using stuff no-one else is running.  If I were starting from scratch, then I'd pick a newer, hotter BT.  Typically for me I started LoN just before OBR dropped, but I decided to see it through.  Loads of opponents were very worried when I used to use Nagash...they'd say things like "I thought Nagash could <insert thing here>" and I'd reply "Yeah, he can in an OBR army".  Now i've stopped using Nagash and started using Prince Vhordrai the army is performing quite well, but if I face a newer BT then it can feel like a one sided fight.

Were you thinking of starting LoN?

[Hyperyon]

I pulled the trigger on OBR, hopefully GHB20 won't see a massive increase in points invalidating the army. 

[Sception]

The game has kind of moved away from LoN in general, and especially from grand host since one of the main benefits was running Nagash, and Nagash got rewritten to not work so well outside of obr.  Nagash is not a sentimental god, nor an especially loyal one.  When his new toys were finished he dropped his old ones pretty fast.

LoN in general also suffered from a number of issues right from the beginning in terms of a bunch of redundant units not too many of which are actually very good, and those issues have continuee to vex them.

However, while the book is far from top tier, it's also still far from unplayable.  Skeletons are still quite threatening battleline, especially in legions of nagash.  Deathmarch is good.  Vampire lords and necromancers are good.  Dire Wolves are nice cheap fast speed bumps, objective campers, and screens for fast characters.  Corpse carts are nice caster buffs.  Grimghasts no longer dominate at their higher points cost but are still quite good.  Our spell lores are still good.  Grave Sites are still great as far as faction rules go.

The army is still decent and fun to play, even if the competitive scene has kind of left them behind.  And it wouldn't take much sprucing up to put them back on top.  You could easily imagine a revised LoN battletome with some updated rules & points costs, legion rules re-worked in the style of more recent subfactions, nagash & arkhan given full lore access like in OBR to make up for their lost copycat abilities, actual models for gravesites, more and better battalions, mortarchs and nagash able to heal themselves like in OBR, etc etc.  Unfortunately, as easy as it would be to make the legions good again, the future doesn't look great for LoN in AoS. 

The lore has largely moved away from legions.  Nighthaunt and OBR have not just center stage, but the entire stage as far as death goes lately.  And the lore for OBR is such that it's hard to imagine deathrattle continuing to exist in universe when Nagash could have ground them up en mass for more bonereapers.  Furthermore, Rumors persist of soulblight getting their own battletome in the next year or two.  If that happens, the rules for Manfred, Neferata, Vampire Lords, and other vampyric units may be rewritten to work better work better in that book, much as Nagash and Arkhan were rewritten to work better in OBR.

The addition of new Nighthaunt units to LoN is thought by many to have been a bad move, so if we do get a LoN 2.0 it's likely to remove those units.  Maybe not just them.  Other Nighthaunt units could go with.  Nagash, Arkhan, and Morghasts might leave to hang with OBR officially.  And if Soulblight gets their own book, the vampire units might leave, too.  All that would remain is deathrattle, death mages, & zombies.  And GW could still make a good battletome out of that, but, like, I'm not sure why they would bother.

 

As a silver lining, LoN, if you ignore the end times releases and the new nighthaunt stuff, all of which is living on in other books, is mostly just the oldhammer vampire counts army, and oldhammer is coming back in the form of the warhammer old world game.  Some rumers have the game set in the three emperors era, which iirc is when the vampire wars took place, so new old vampire counts could be a central faction there, potentially giving LoN armies a glorious future, just one set in the distant past.  Folks who rebased to rounds from squares probably won't be excited to rebase everything in the opposite direction, but at least it's something.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Sception

[WinnerDave]

I feel very sad for LoN. Despite three amazing games at the weekend (won 2 lost 1 because I made a stupid mistake), I don't feel the urge to try and improve my list by parting with money for more units.  I'm moving to Skaven, but will continue to play LoN until the skaven are painted and ready to go.  Then my skeleton horde will probably sit on the shelf.

[123lac]

2 hours ago, WinnerDave said:

Pretty much, then again I like using stuff no-one else is running.  If I were starting from scratch, then I'd pick a newer, hotter BT.  Typically for me I started LoN just before OBR dropped, but I decided to see it through.  Loads of opponents were very worried when I used to use Nagash...they'd say things like "I thought Nagash could <insert thing here>" and I'd reply "Yeah, he can in an OBR army".  Now i've stopped using Nagash and started using Prince Vhordrai the army is performing quite well, but if I face a newer BT then it can feel like a one sided fight.

Were you thinking of starting LoN?

I have Nagash and the start collecting skeleton horde box, which I built Arkhan from. 

I like the idea of running a mix of ghosts and skeletons together, I'm hoping there's a new LoN battle tome released in the future. 

[El Syf]

I've always been a fan of Grand Host (morghasts getting +1attack and for a time being battleline if Nagash was general), just seems the writings on the wall now. 

Most of the kits are still quite good imo other than zombies and the bats.

[Sception]

The existance and continued release of factions like Skaven, Cities of Sigmar, and Seraphon tell me it's safe to think that Legions of Nagash aren't going anywhere any time soon.  They may not be the future of AoS, but they're definitely part of the game's present, and that present will be with us for quire a while, IMO.

[WinnerDave]

8 hours ago, Sception said:

The existance and continued release of factions like Skaven, Cities of Sigmar, and Seraphon tell me it's safe to think that Legions of Nagash aren't going anywhere any time soon.  They may not be the future of AoS, but they're definitely part of the game's present, and that present will be with us for quire a while, IMO.

Nicely put.  CoS defintely gives me a glimmer of hope for LoN.  I know one YouTuber (i forget who exactly) did a wish list for LoN a couple of weeks back and wished for a CoS style book that encompasses death.

Ironically after saying "I don't feel the urge to try and improve my list by parting with money for more units." above, my brain. then decided to figure out a slight tweak to my list, which as luck would have only requires me to buy 1 unit.  And that's how they get ya

[Honk]

On 6/8/2020 at 10:35 AM, 123lac said:

Dead battletome?

Yes of course... kinda the whole theme of the bunch, till we get some cool mortal retainers for a Real soulblight army...

 

global nurgle and the obr BT have of course put a serious dent into the LoN hype from 2018

[Sception]

Any leaks or rumors on points changes for LoN in the upcoming general's handbook?  I'm not expecting much, we seem pretty static at this point, though in the OBR thread there is some rumor of morghasts going down 20 points, and if that's true there I imagine it would be here as well.  Not that it's likely to make much of a difference in the units' viability, particularly for archai who are losing the layered shrugs to mortals.  Nearly 100 points still strikes me as an awful lot to pay per morghast.  But maybe harbingers could put that discount to some good in GH or LoN?

I'm not sure what I'd be asking for if I were letting myself get my hopes up.  Decreases to grave guard and wight kings?  Maybe a decrease to VLoZD in a post-ethereal-amulet world?  Discounts to zombies, which still strike me as just worse skeletons?  Discounts to most of our elitish units - grave guard, vargheists, blood knights - on the same order as the rumored morghast discounts?   Decreases to Nagash and further decreases to the Mortarchs?  Honestly, though, what's needed there aren't points adjustments, it's warscroll and faction rule changes making morghasts durable enough to be worth what they already cost, expanding access to spell lores (arkhan gets all deathmage spells, neferata gets all soulblight spells, Mannfred picks several from either list, Nagash knows all of both), plus allowing self healing the way Arkhan and Nagash can in OBR, etc.  None of that strikes me as particularly likely though.  Again, not expecting much, we seem pretty static.

[lare2]

Heard nothing really beyond what you've seen as well relating to Morghasts... which might not even be for us. 

My hopes are low for my skellies and vamps. As you've said, they need a complete overhaul. Don't think we'll see it until we know what they have planned for LoN as a whole.