AoS 2 - Kharadron Overlords Discussion

[sloane_paints_stuff]

2 hours ago, Lucky Snake Eyes said:

Hey all,

I'm a death/chaos player looking to pick up KO down the line. The main reason I haven't yet is because of how expensive they are (no battleline in start collecting and expensive frigates/ironclad) But I do want to try building up an army over time for them. Any recommendations on where to start and what order to get things in? 

Battleforce is definitely the way to go, i'd get one of them, 1-2 start collecting boxes, a khemist and 2 boxes of arkanauts. Then you can get an ironclad/riggers or another frigate depending on how you wanna go with the build. It's not as cheap as some other factions but certainly cheaper than some other too. Not to mention the coolest so there's that

[sloane_paints_stuff]

16 hours ago, Badlander86 said:

I dunno how I feel about my KO anymore. I don't like being pressured not to play ships or to triple up on Arkanaut Company with Skyhooks. I don't think that was the original design concept for what KO was supposed to be. When I see things like the Skaven 160pts Plagueclaw being able to hit and wound on 3+ with a -2 rend, and Barrage of Disease, I look at my Ironclad and think why was GW so gunshy about giving KO something similar for a 420pts model.  It's bothered me a lot recently as I get more games in against newer players or returning WHFB players playing their lists and I can't seem to edge out. I roll ******, yes but the law of averages doesn't seem to ever be in my favor.

 

 

Yea there were some design flaws in them for sure. But I wouldn't give up! It's not unheard of for a faction to have a certain meta build at a time. Tzeentch had a time where all you played were skyfires and GW probably didnt intend for that hence the handbook changes. They want us to use a balanced list of ships so i'm hopeful we'll see some changes in times to come

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

10 minutes ago, sloane_paints_stuff said:

Battleforce is definitely the way to go, i'd get one of them, 1-2 start collecting boxes, a khemist and 2 boxes of arkanauts. Then you can get an ironclad/riggers or another frigate depending on how you wanna go with the build. It's not as cheap as some other factions but certainly cheaper than some other too. Not to mention the coolest so there's that

They have a battleforce box?

[sloane_paints_stuff]

1 minute ago, Lucky Snake Eyes said:

They have a battleforce box?

They are from last year, there are still some floating around if you look on ebay, maybe even the gw site still has them?

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

7 minutes ago, sloane_paints_stuff said:

They are from last year, there are still some floating around if you look on ebay, maybe even the gw site still has them?

eBay is overpriced usually, my hobby shop might be able to work some magic and see if any of his distributors have one lying around.

[Marcoangelo33]

Question for you fine admirals.  

Can the opposing army use a command point to stop the Aethershock Earbuster battleshock? 

[Drofnum]

20 minutes ago, Marcoangelo33 said:

Question for you fine admirals.  

Can the opposing army use a command point to stop the Aethershock Earbuster battleshock? 

No, inspiring presence is used in the battleshock phase.  The Earbuster takes place in the shooting phase.

[stato]

30 minutes ago, Marcoangelo33 said:

Question for you fine admirals.  

Can the opposing army use a command point to stop the Aethershock Earbuster battleshock? 

 

10 minutes ago, Drofnum said:

No, inspiring presence is used in the battleshock phase.  The Earbuster takes place in the shooting phase.

 

Straight up paying to pass the test, no.  But some command abilities or other abilities can apply, it depends on the specific wording, it needs to reference battleshock tests not the battleshock phase.

[Drofnum]

4 hours ago, stato said:

 

 

Straight up paying to pass the test, no.  But some command abilities or other abilities can apply, it depends on the specific wording, it needs to reference battleshock tests not the battleshock phase.

True, I did forget about other abilities and just assumed he was talking about Inspiring Presence.  

[erasercrumbs]

I'm really hoping they see some significant changes in the next GHB. Right now people want to like them but they're so flawed I would never recommend them.

[mikethefish]

On 11/19/2018 at 8:24 PM, sloane_paints_stuff said:

I also think it would surprise a lot of people to have the arkanauts come to them in combat. It could also make use of the admirals CA if you went that way and from memory there a lot of untapped melee boosts from the other skyports that might even be better than mhornar in this scenario..?

I still think Mhornar would be a good option for this, since they are giving out Battleshock debuffs

[PUFNSTUF]

I'm curious what Tom's list on warhammer weekly is that he alluded to.

[BWG Cannonball]

Hey there fellow Dawi!

I'm proud to say I had my article posted up on Honest Wargamer about the KO.  I posted a link if anyone is interested and I hope it helps anyone looking for list options.

 

https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-list-rundowns/cannonballs-class-on-sky-dwarven-demolition/

[Kramer]

14 minutes ago, BWG Cannonball said:

Hey there fellow Dawi!

I'm proud to say I had my article posted up on Honest Wargamer about the KO.  I posted a link if anyone is interested and I hope it helps anyone looking for list options.

 

https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-list-rundowns/cannonballs-class-on-sky-dwarven-demolition/

Great article, well done! 👍

[The Art of Caesura]

Ahoy fellow Duardin!

I hope the giant dwarf in red and white brings you all loads of Kharadron-related presents in a few weeks time! I posted some of these in the gallery, but thought they would be more relevant here. Man, I had a lot of fun with this model, hope you enjoy my  Barak Mhornar Brokk.

I took another several thousand pictures (including WiPs) over on my blog in case you just can't get enough  http://the-art-of-caesura.blogspot.com/

Edited December 14, 2018 by The Art of Caesura

[Realmhead]

That is a flippin' awesome Brokk.

Hey all, I'm looking into starting a free city army with a kharadron contingent. Short story long, Looking through the rules and this thread, I was wondering at the (seeming) dislike of skywardens. To me they seem like a decent melee unit with some reliable mortal wounds, in contrast to endrinriggers ranged role, the talk here seems to favor endrinriggers for melee duty anyway.

I get why endrinriggers are popular, cuz they can heal valuable ships. To sum up, I guess I'm asking, "are skywardens bad?"

[Slippy]

Hi Realmhead,

Skywardens are okay..ish I guess?

Endrinriggers outclass them in melee as well due to the saws. KO are about Khemists and the saw is one of the best targets. Also, for some reason, the points on Skywardens were increased in the last GHB, making them just as expensive as Riggers even though people almost never took them when they were cheaper in the first place. 

KO are in this weird place where they have a very small selection of units, but with a lot of redundancy despite the very small selection. 

The low number of posts in this thread seems to imply people have similar feelings to me. I feel like I am playing a small army, of which half the units are basically no-go. An army that during the game doesn't partake in a big part of the game / get any of the new goodies, are mediocre at the thing they're supposed to be good at and seem to have, as far as my limited experience has shown, very little tactical flexibility. Nothing to soak a charge or hold an objective for example (and before you say 'the ships!'.. those tend to melt before any charge).

All in all I have painted a whole bunch of dwarves but they're kind of boring to play. They remind me of the old Dark Eldar but at least those were very mobile and hit hard.

 

But maybe people feel very different from me.. I hope so. 

Edited December 17, 2018 by Slippy

[Furuzzolo]

16 hours ago, Slippy said:

All in all I have painted a whole bunch of dwarves but they're kind of boring to play. They remind me of the old Dark Eldar but at least those were very mobile and hit hard.

Hi! I mainly play Dispossessed but i love to field my KO here and there!

I find them fun to play, I just avoid bringing ships (sadly) and battalions. Riggers+ Khemist are a solid glasscannon, Companies with 6x skyhooks hit hard from a 24" and Brokk is kinda fun to bring, too.

Maybe I'm not a good judge comparing armies but Dispossessed have very few tricks to bring so the silver bullets KO can dish out (no trading with some people, the earbuster that force a battleshock, some charge reroll, skyports special rules etc etc) are superfun to plan and play; plus KO are very tricky and "chess" like, you cannot fail to measure/anticipate/estimate an enemy charge without losing 20 arkanaut, every setup error could cost you the game, positioning is key (like Dispossessed, tho).

If i could wishlist for the new year:

-Grundstock melee shock-troop (maybe flamethrower ? )

-Reworked battalions

-Command abilities..... I cry in every hero phase.

[Beliman]

3 hours ago, Furuzzolo said:

If i could wishlist for the new year:

-Grundstock melee shock-troop (maybe flamethrower ? )

-Reworked battalions

-Command abilities..... I cry in every hero phase.

-Re-worked ships!! 

I completly aggree, but plis, I want to use 2 or even 3 ships in 1000 points game!

[sloane_paints_stuff]

Had my first game using KO couple weeks ago to test vs Stormcast. Very shooty list consisting of 4 units of Raptors and a ballista. Also had some evocators, liberators and a prime and deep striked most of it. This is going to be stuff you most likely already know but here's a quick recap.

I ran:

Mhornar

2 khemists, 1 with earbuster, trait I cant remember

Ironclad with last word on gatling

Frigate

9 riggers with 2 grapnels

15 thunders, all with rifles

3 x 10 ark co (6 hooks, 3 gatling) 

The game was very shooting phase orientated. I got turn 1 and cleared out 2 units of 5 liberators, 1 from buffed thunderers, 1 from buffed riggers. Then it was all down hill from there. His shooting units showed up and out-shot my shooting, 5 evocators schooled the 9 riggers in close combat (had to charge them to tie them up and attempt an objective grab) and the ships basically deployed and sunk. He had magic and it hurt a lot. 

Key takeaways: 

Frigate is only good when they don't know what it does. He thought it would do damage (did 2 wounds before sinking) so focused on that and said if he'd known wouldve targeted thunderers instead. 

We have 1 chance to do damage, which is why Mhornar is so good. Get as much as possible into range and hope your guns dont miss. As soon as they get a turn and return fire/counter charge its all over. No mw protection meant his comet just erased the arkanuats, 1-6 mortal wounds then the rest ran away. 

Grapnels very situational, we can't go near a unit at all at any point in the move so I'd ditch them for drills or more saws.

Ironclad is clutch. Still not worth it's points but did actually put in work. With the d3 mw footnote, the ironclad survived the turn 3 celestant prime charge and hit back killing it and protecting the back line. 

What i'd change:

Replace thunders with more ark co. They didnt put much work in at all despite the khemist buffing them. a 30 man unit of Ark co wouldve done a lot better (I just dont have them yet) 

Ditch the frigate. It might be good in the battalion to one drop it all but still not that worth it, especially considering it could be another 6 riggers for same cost.

I actually think an admiral and a navigator would be better than the 2nd khemists if it could fit. 2nd khemist buffed riggers once then they flew off and he did nothing more than buff 3 hooks, which ran away anyway haha. The admiral battleshock immune ca would actually be clutch if running more ark co, and the navigator unbind would also be nice because mws really hurt

Ditch grapnels, 12" move is quite enough and they're too situational on terrain to be reliable now we cant fly over things

Relying on shooting isnt good enough so I think some close combat will help. Thinking Brokk and frens

Positives

Fun to use for sure, I had to think very tactically and apply all I knew about deployment shenanigans to get the upper edge. Almost won on objectives till I was tabled on turn 4 lol

Guns make them scared. He kept his heroes very close to units and behind things so never got them too involved and over committed to things like the boats because of potential threat.

They look amazing!

Thanks for reading  

[Nick907]

Somebody mentioned a flamethrower melee unit and I wanted to say that it could be a cool idea.  If the unit's actual melee attack was just a punch,  but it came with a devastating 4" ranged attack it would be a fun mechanic. You wouldn't be able to charge with it, you can only use it in your shooting phase so it'd have less output then melee, and it would make the ships more valuable since you'd want to unload these models as close to combat as possible.
If they are similar to the Grundstock Thunderers, they could retreat 4" away in the opponent's combat phase.  Maybe give them a stand and shoot? 

Call them the "Grundstock Firehairers" 

[WatcherintheWater]

Has anyone tried a full on Endrinrigger spam list? Something like:

2x Khemists

3x10 Company

3x9 Endrinriggers

1x6 Endrinriggers.

I thought of it when I saw a Deepkin list that was basically all eels and heroes. Would be boring to paint, but I think it could do pretty well with Urbaz or you could drop 6 Endrinriggers for a Frigate and go Zilphin for some deep strike. Might even work as tempests eye with a lot of 16" moves turn 1.

 

[Ironbreaker]

I REALLY want to play Overlords but they are just so expensive to collect. I don't understand why GW made them so hard to buy when other factions are so easy.

[Kramer]

On 12/17/2018 at 1:00 AM, Slippy said:

All in all I have painted a whole bunch of dwarves but they're kind of boring to play. They remind me of the old Dark Eldar but at least those were very mobile and hit hard.

 

But maybe people feel very different from me.. I hope so. 

I do! I do have the advantage of playing different armies so I can switch around. 

In a friendly setting, we mostly play on the edge of narrative, it’s the most tactical and challenging army I have. 

Your point of having few options is absolutely valid. But.... in my mind not so relevant. Even if you look at things like stormcast, with the most options I think, competitive lists almost all field the same couple of units. 

Yes, sadly KO doesn’t play as advertised but if you look past that and don’t have Grand Tournament ambitions, I find them very rewarding! 

(By comparison, my DoK are much more competitive but people either go snake heavy or witch heavy and that’s the most competitive army at this moment. They are still amazing fun as well but in either build the basic playstyle is run forward and go beserk in combat. )

[Luzgurbel]

I have an issue regarding the Company.

 

The sprue only has 1 skyhook, but you can equip up to 3. How do people get the other 2? I mean, is quite ridicoulous that you can have 3 per 10 man unit and the sprue only has 1...