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AoS 2 - Kharadron Overlords Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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3 hours ago, CaptainOkri said:

Lovely work on the skyboat!  The frigate was the biggest model I ever painted, it was definitely a lot of work... but the good kind 😛 what list are you running?

Yeah, started out good. Detail work was killing. I initially wanted to paint silver on every bolt on the hull... needless to say, that ain’t happening 😂

Without proxy’s I run my whole collection. Next to add is 15 thunderers and 30 arkanauts. And I have big conversion project for a ironclad with a collection of old skool models I have collected the past year. Today a mate will be the admiral of my collection:

1,4 K: admiral, 2x khemist, navigator, frigate, gunhauler, 2x20 arkanauts, 6 endrinriggers. 

What about you?

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57 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Yeah, started out good. Detail work was killing. I initially wanted to paint silver on every bolt on the hull... needless to say, that ain’t happening 😂

Without proxy’s I run my whole collection. Next to add is 15 thunderers and 30 arkanauts. And I have big conversion project for a ironclad with a collection of old skool models I have collected the past year. Today a mate will be the admiral of my collection:

1,4 K: admiral, 2x khemist, navigator, frigate, gunhauler, 2x20 arkanauts, 6 endrinriggers. 

What about you?

Yeah the rivets are intimidating... but painting them the same color as the hull is easily justified as an arkanaut would probably paint over them as well! And Oh my, that sounds like a big project, be sure to post pictures when you finish your guys! My list is basically everything I photographed in my previous post: 

1 admiral, 1 frigate, 1 gunhauler, 6 endrinriggers (3 of which are WIP) and 2x 10 arkanauts

Which makes 1000 points. After that I think I am taking a small break from painting more little aether addicts 😂

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10 hours ago, CaptainOkri said:

That's exactly how I started KO (and the hobby again after several years) please post some pictures once you painted some skyfarers!

Thanks, I will try!

4 hours ago, CaptainOkri said:

Yeah the rivets are intimidating... but painting them the same color as the hull is easily justified as an arkanaut would probably paint over them as well!

Heh, the ironclads(non-KO) that were made had their rivets and bolts painted over. I think it's safe to assume that our ships have them painted over too.

Edited by Sttufe
Bad wording
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46 minutes ago, DavionStar said:

Something I noticed while watching a battle report from MiniWarGaming last night made me realize how much I've been underestimating Skyhooks as a straight up weapon. -2 rend at 24" is scary.

I never really got what is so good about them, however, I have also never played an actual game.

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44 minutes ago, Sttufe said:

I never really got what is so good about them, however, I have also never played an actual game.

In isolation they’re not that amazing but 9-12 in a unit with a khemist vs monsters or hero on 3+ 3+ plus re roll all misses or even just 1s and they become devastating.  Saying that big units of arkanauts are a soft target and struggle with battleshock. Tomorrow I’m trying out an escort wing for a very different MSU style army. 

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2 hours ago, Reuben Parker said:

In isolation they’re not that amazing but 9-12 in a unit with a khemist vs monsters or hero on 3+ 3+ plus re roll all misses or even just 1s and they become devastating.  Saying that big units of arkanauts are a soft target and struggle with battleshock. Tomorrow I’m trying out an escort wing for a very different MSU style army. 

That makes a lot more sense. Post the results from the game + army comp., wish you luck!

I have been looking and a Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought crossed with a Grundstok Gunhauler would be beautiful, and I could label it the Grundstok Aether Mech🤔

Edited by Sttufe
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The 40 blob Arks Companion with 12 skyhooks and  a Khemist is something to be scared of. Not only monsters or characters but also troops, with its D3 damage.

 

Supported by the rules of Zilfin, they can easily kill large flying monsters such as MK, Alarielle, Archaon, LoC, Nagash, Mortarchs and more (against them, are 24 shoots hitting on 2+ rerolling 1s, wounding on 3+ rerolling 1s, -2 D3). From a 28" range. Other units that are not monsters/characters but are menaced by them are eels, enlighteneds, ALL the nighthaunt army...

 

I think that, until an update or new battletome, this is our most frightening unit.

Edited by Luzgurbel
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1 hour ago, Luzgurbel said:

The 40 blob Arks Companion with 12 skyhooks and  a Khemist is something to be scared of. Not only monsters or characters but also troops, with its D3 damage.

 

Supported by the rules of Zilfin, they can easily kill large flying monsters such as MK, Alarielle, Archaon, LoC, Nagash, Mortarchs and more (against them, are 24 shoots hitting on 2+ rerolling 1s, wounding on 3+ rerolling 1s, -2 D3). From a 28" range. Other units that are not monsters/characters but are menaced by them are eels, enlighteneds, ALL the nighthaunt army...

 

I think that, until an update or new battletome, this is our most frightening unit.

Hit in 3+ surely vs monsters as 4+ base then +1. However yes they have the best ranged damage output in the army when buffed. 

As I was saying in the previous post the main issue is they’re very squishy and suffer to battleshock.  There’s also the fluff issue of people care about that where it can feel wrong to have too many dudes compared to ships. 

I don’t think KO really need a big power jump it would just be nice to make cheaper / buff the less useful selections. Beyond filling out battalions or lowering drops it feels to me that several options are head and shoulders above the others. 

Khemist

skyhook spam

endrinriggers 

And if your going to take a ship the ironclad

as per my post a while ago that’s why I think Urbaz can be very good (even though you don’t see it played too much. Gives you a second relic which is needed for certain missions and better khemist)

3 khemist

30/10/10 all with skyhooks 

12 endrinriggers 

ironclad 

can be a two drop list that puts out 30 skyhooks and still has an ironclad and a rigger death ball  

I still play with all the other units as I like the variety and trying to make alternate ideas work but you can feel a step down. Tomorrow I’m taking the 3 gun crawlers out and they really shouldn’t be 160 each. 

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They aren't THAT squishy. Everything come from the skyhooks. Even if you loose like 25 arkanauts, the unit still hit at full power.

Kharadrons don't have a lot of command ability they want to use, so you will likely always have a exalted presence ready for them because your CP don't really have any other use.

Edited by ledha
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I agree. Not onyl you can spend CPs on ignoring battleshocks (which is, by far, the most useful command ability we have) but also there are many tricks to improve, or better said, avoid, battleshocks.

 

And, as ledha says above, a unit of 40 boys need to lose 28 in order to start killing your heavy weapons.

 

The sad point is that the most beautiful and iconic models, the battleships, are in a bad niche right now. Really, really sad...

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45 minutes ago, Luzgurbel said:

The sad point is that the most beautiful and iconic models, the battleships, are in a bad niche right now. Really, really sad...

A very sad thing. When I find folk to play with I'm gonna TRY to make a Gunhauler work. If only because I already have the model and want to put it together anyway. Just stick a Drill Cannon on it and hide it in the back or something. See if it's worth the points. Not likely but it won't cost me anything but time to try.

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47 minutes ago, Luzgurbel said:

The sad point is that the most beautiful and iconic models, the battleships, are in a bad niche right now. Really, really sad...

The ships don't have the firepower to justify their points.

They don't have the survivability to justify their points.

I think GW rules writers really overcosted the concept of a transport in AoS.  Even then it's not great to leave guys embarked because they virtually don't exsist while onboard a ship... 

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1 hour ago, Tittliewinks22 said:

The ships don't have the firepower to justify their points.

They don't have the survivability to justify their points.

I think GW rules writers really overcosted the concept of a transport in AoS.  Even then it's not great to leave guys embarked because they virtually don't exsist while onboard a ship... 

Having fought the good fight from a deck of a frigate last few games, can only agree. Massive shame really. Saving throw is too low, the cannon is too weak...

For me, a frigate needs a 3 up save to start, and the cannon needs longer range, albeit happy for the to hit to be worse if that's the case. Or maybe a modifier to say shooting over 18" it has a -1 to hit modifier instead. Gives you the option.

Then there's the peculiarity of having a model as part of the ship, but not the abilities: i.e. the Navigator. Why doesn't the frigate have unbinding abilities? It clearly has the model for it. 

The gameplay doesn't match the concept, which is a mystery.  Like with (far too) many GW decisions, there's a disconnect between game designers and model designers.

As a player we have to make up for that. At the moment I'm trying out having the Navigator as a bought hero embarked on the frigate as there are no rules for the frigate that reflect him being there. Anyone else tried that?

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7 hours ago, Luzgurbel said:

I think that, until an update or new battletome, this is our most frightening unit.

24 shoots hitting on 3+ rerolling 1s, wounding on 3+ rerolling 1s, -2 D3). From a 28" range (changed it too 3+ to hit, because I don't see getting it down to 2+).

Equals 15,84 + 2,64 = 18,47 hits. 12,47 + 2,03 = 14,5 wounds. Let's say it's against a 4 up like most heroes have. 12,05 *D3 damage = 14,10 damage

For 80pts less you have 20 thunderers. Not battleline, but a lot of extra special rules to help out*. 61 shots at 3+ 4+ -1 rend 1 Damage with the same Khemist and rerolling 1s for Zilflin against the same save. 

Equals 40,26+6,71 = 46,87 hits. 23,44 + 3,91 = 27,35 wounds. After save equals 18,05 damage 

Please do check my math because that isn't my strong suite.

But to recap. I do think thunderers will be better for less points, don't need the targets to be HEROES or MONSTERS. But, and it's a big but, Arkanauts performance won't drop until after 28 deaths, is battleline and a serious amount of bodies for objectives.

So both have their place but taking both will put you 880 points down. Add two Khemists, 1200 + 2x10 arkanauts = 1440. Leaves 560 points for a ship, or endrinriggers for a counter charge. 

*With this I mean re-roll battleshock, retreat and drillbill... not the weird waterfall special weapons. 

Edited by Kramer
Added Note at bottom*
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1 hour ago, Kramer said:

For 80pts less you have 20 thunderers. Not battleline, but a lot of extra special rules to help out.

I agree, I think that khemist-buffed rifle thunderers are our best unit per se, even better than Endrinriggers, who are great but essentially one shot a lot of the time.

The problem is that thunderers are not battleline, and therefore finding a combat effective battleline option is a real win.

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2 hours ago, Baron Wastelands said:

I agree, I think that khemist-buffed rifle thunderers are our best unit per se, even better than Endrinriggers, who are great but essentially one shot a lot of the time.

The problem is that thunderers are not battleline, and therefore finding a combat effective battleline option is a real win.

Absolutely and don’t forget they deteriorate quite fast. But I’ll still be testing a 20 man squad as soon as I get the squads #noproxy2019 ;) 

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1 hour ago, Black_Fortress_Immortal said:

Do people here take Fyreslayer or Dispossessed allies for their melee screen or objective-grabbers?  Any success?

Yai, i like to take a 20 man Longbeards with shield+ 2h weapon. They have 4+ reroll save, 4+ hit, 3+ wounds (reroll 1) -1 rend, 1 damage.

Never let me down. 

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Yesterday a mate played my KO against me with my Skaven. Skaven won 17-4 but it was less big than it sounds. Couple of wrong choices by the KO player, couple of lucky rolls on the Skaven side. But combined with the discussion above (20 thunderers vs. 40 Arkanauts), my conversion project (the ironclad) and the strategy of Khron (can't remember his TGA handle, sorry), i'm probably going for this list: 

Spoiler

 

160  | Khemist
  Earbuster artefact
160  | Khemist
360  | Arkanauts x 30
    Skyhooks
120  | Arkanaut x 10
   Skypikes/Volley guns
120  | Arkanaut x 10
   Skypikes/Volley guns
400  | Thunderers x 20
     All Rifles
440  | Ironclad
  Drop in Artefact
240  | Endrinriggers x 6
   2x Grapnel hook

Barak Zilflin

 

What are your thoughts? Not playing very competitive but this should at least have two sources of damage, Dropping in to deal with objectives and two screen units of 10 arkanauts and a mobile respons team in the endrin riggers.

Edited by Kramer
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So I played a game against a Gloomspite Gitz spiderfang army earlier this week. 

In case anyone was still in doubt: going up against endless spells without a wizard is super painful. The malevolent moon in particular caused a lot of damage, and the spiders just popping out of any terrain feature made them a real problem for me. 

Clawed through to a win- a rare thing for my kharadrons as I don’t think I’ve quite got the hang of them yet- but I think I might have to relent and add a wizard at some point, just to avoid being left helpless against endless spells again.

I’d still prefer to avoid adding any stormcast models though, purely out of personal preference. Has anyone ever attempted to convert any Kharadron characters into a Knight- incantor? If I pick up a start collecting I’ll have a spare one so I wondered if he might be a good candidate.

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22 minutes ago, Azamar said:

I’d still prefer to avoid adding any stormcast models though, purely out of personal preference. Has anyone ever attempted to convert any Kharadron characters into a Knight- incantor? If I pick up a start collecting I’ll have a spare one so I wondered if he might be a good candidate.

Maybe you could get a Navigator and throw some of the Incantor's bits on them. Or grab a Fyreslayer Runemaster. That model has a nice wizardy pose.

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15 hours ago, Kramer said:

24 shoots hitting on 3+ rerolling 1s, wounding on 3+ rerolling 1s, -2 D3). From a 28" range (changed it too 3+ to hit, because I don't see getting it down to 2+).

Equals 15,84 + 2,64 = 18,47 hits. 12,47 + 2,03 = 14,5 wounds. Let's say it's against a 4 up like most heroes have. 12,05 *D3 damage = 14,10 damage

 

How 14,5 wound rolls against a 6+ save (4+ going to 6+ because of the rend -2) making something like 12D3 dmg only make 14,10 damage ? You need to roll extremely bad to do 14 damages with 12D3. If you roll a 2dmg on average, it does something like this :

graph.php?q=r:336:24:2:m110&s=

Even with that, you forget that :

1) the skyhook have a better range

2) the arkanauts are more resilient and drop efficacity slower than the thunderers. Kill half of a thunderer unit, the unit loose half of its firepower. Kill half of the arkanauts, the skyhooks will still wreck you.

And the arkanaut aren't just skyhook. A unit going close to a 30/40 arkanaut unit quickly discover that the pistols can do a alarming amount of damages

Edited by ledha
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20 rifle thunderers will do 20.67 wounds on average before saves (-1 rend) when khemist buffed, to anything. 12 light skyhooks (-2 rend) will do 16 wounds on average before saves when khemist buffed, 20.67 on heroes/monsters. The points about range, effectiveness resilience, and pistols are all good. However, if the khemist is sniped the skyhooks drop in effectiveness considerably, so rely more on the khemist buff than the thunderers: thunderers do on average about 14 wounds, arkanauts 8 wounds (10.33 vs heroes monsters).

The pistols on 28 arkanauts do really help, and  will do 14 wounds on average before saves (0 rend) if all are in range, 17.33 against heroes/monsters, without a khemist buff (which they ain’t getting if we assume the skyhooks are).

With a khemist buff against 4+ saves, thunderers just short of 14 wounds. Arkanauts 13.33 with skyhooks (approx 17 vs hero/monster) plus 7 wounds from the pistols (8.67 vs hero/monster) if in range.

Without a khemist buff against 4+ saves, thunderers do 9.67 wounds, arkanauts 6.67 skyhooks (8.67 vs hero/monsters) plus pistols as above if in range.

At least that’s with doing the maths in my head after midnight 😁

The rest is swings and roundabouts, to be honest. Arkanauts have better range on the skyhooks, worse on the pistols. They keep all their skyhooks longer, but cost more points. Thunderers can fit in an ironclad, arkanauts walk, but have more wounds, although are more unweildy as a unit generally, but are battleline ... etc etc.

But hey, isn’t it great that we’re debating two strong unit builds? Personally I like thunderers for the ability to fit in an ironclad and to retreat from combat, as much as anything. Oh, and they look cooler 😉 (which is also of course part of the answer to “but why are you taking an ironclad anyway?”) But it’s also great to have a serious battleline option, as we have to take something, and it has been a common complaint that arkanauts don’t really cut it. In a unit of 40 with skyhooks, I would say they are starting to look like they do.

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That was a lot of Mathammer, I will just say I hope I never have to build a tournament 2k army😅. Anyways I have been looking at KO conversions and most of them seem to b converting KO ships into other factions units and not the other way around, does that make sense? I am honestly a little disappointed. However, this does mean that the conversions I am planning won't be "copying"😁.

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