Fitting a Zombie Dragon with Nagash

[jjb070707]

Good afternoon,

I have a strange but possibly good idea. Basically, Nagash is is a powerhouse, but playing him often puts you behind on objective based scenarios and maps. 

What if we were to combine the shock powerhouse of a VLoZD with Nagash, giving him a powerful command point based buff, a second power hero to hold places of power, and a difficult choice to make as an opponent, if you focus Nagash you get eaten by the dragon, if you split fire they both heal, and if you focus the dragon Nagash has a free two turns and basically wipes out your army. 

The core of the list is still:

40 Skeletons

1 Necromancer

2x5 Direwolves

Nagash 

(1310)

but from here we reach a crossroads. Current trends indicate 30 grimghast, another necromancer, and some endless spells are in order, as well as banking some CPs.

What I propose instead 

Vampire Lord on Zombie dragon

(1750)

with either 

blood knights;  

spellportal+pendulum+5 dire wolves+1cp ;

5 direwolves+reikenor;

1 vampire lord +spellportal+pendulum (or 2 command points) ; 

 

The rationale here is to possibly move away from endless spell reliance, in which many opponents are starting to play around, and just go for 1 block of skeletons to contest an objective while delivering overwhelming firepower so to speak on the other side. If nothing exists on the opponents board on turn 2 or 3 while staying relatively even with them on objectives you can pull ahead much like @ianob discusses (that guy rocks). 

Any way you round out the army, the vampire lord on zombie dragon contributes a really tough choice in terms of target selection, fast, on-demand damage, a powerful buff to the strongest character in the game, and for the price of control of a second objective early, you gain likely enough punch to remove a good chunk of opposition.

 

Just seed for a discussion, I recognize that this type of list would falter to some things more easily than a traditional Nagash list, but I think it would gain enough ground in close matches or unfavorable ones to be worth it. It's just theorycraft, I don't even own a Nagash.... I just REALLY want to paint one I think.

Thanks,

Joe

[ianob]

Thanks for the compliment, haha!

This is actually a pretty common build, generally using Vhordrai, and in my opinion is pretty weak. 800 points in one model sucks; 1240-1280 in two models sucks even more.

Also, don’t overestimate the punch of things like VLoZD. Most good sized units will just take the hits and laugh. Units like Witch Elves, Plaguebearers, Skeletons, etc will take the hits and laugh then kill you. Monsters aren’t efficient at killing units.

[lolwut]

I also have been toying with running a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. Currently i'm doing this with Arkhan, not Nagash. You do lose out on Nagash's strong magic, but you get a relic and command trait you can pick. 
In a general sense, with LoN, I don't see any point at all in using endless spells for damage. We're already attrition based, and bursting mortal wounds isn't our forte. Targeted removal is much better, as with dust / years.

My list without nagash is: 

Legions of Nagash

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon

Arkhan

Wight King

40x Skeletons

30x Grave Guards

5x Dire Wolves

Cogs

Spellportal

With some points leftover, that i'm pondering investing in improved casting or more chaff. Possibly the cheaper Nighthaunt, Chaingasts, for their deep strike to hold objectives.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@lolwut & @jjb070707 if you are running VLoZD, then give it the ethereal save realm artefact. Have it in a Legion of Blood list and give it Aura of Dark Majesty command trait and  have it cast mystic shield on itself. You then have a 14 wound monster that gets +1 attack with it's weapon, with a 3+ save, re-rolling 1s, (followed by a death save), that's -1 to hit in combat, that can also heal D6 wounds. 

You can run it in Grand Host with the Aura of Ages command trait, which also gives -1 to hit in combat but requires a 4+.

[lolwut]

Eh, it will still get insta-gibbed by mortal wounds. If you're going for durability, Legion of Sacrament has a better minus to hit relic that applies to shooting. -1 @8" or less, and -2 beyond that.  A 3+ save in this game isn't worth completely re-gaming your list to take advantage of relics... but did you mean 2+? He already has a 3+ save. The VLoZD is simply not durable enough to wade into melee and really honestly expect to live very long. His melee has to be targeted, which isn't super difficult because we have a large amount of screening units. 

In reality he isn't strong enough to build a list around, but is a solid component. 

[Tropical Ghost General]

48 minutes ago, lolwut said:

did you mean 2+? 

Nah, 3+ ethereal save with a relic, re-rolling 1s with mystic shield is strong. His shooting breath can help to get through chaff screening units as well. 

I'm not sure a VLoZD with Nagash would work as well, but they do hit hard and are pretty durable and can team up with Arkhan. 

[Sception]

it's strong, but there are a lot of sources of mortal wounds out there, as well as several units like skeletons who rely on sheer number of attacks rather than rend and thus will largely ignore the ethereal amulet anyway.  I've been running a VLoZD with ethereal amulet, and while he's reasonably tough you still need to be reserved in terms of where and when you commit it, and keep screening units around to prevent enemy units from ganging up on it, and have some sort of distraction/disruption available to tie up ranged mortal throwers like warp lightning cannons & thundertusks.

[Honk]

Fought with 30 ghouls against a GUO last night...got him down to 8hp, before he started healing again, stupid nurgle.

so yes, death by statistic can be a thing, but our vamp heals 1hp if he kills stuff. Like to give him vile transference too...and suddenly 2-3hp of damage can be ignored, while wading through the enemy.

But as Sception said, MW throwers and such will kill or cripple him pretty fast, if he is not protected. So as usual his demise should achieve something, f.e. leeping your opponent busy and scoring up 

[Mephisto]

I've actually been kicking around the idea of Doppleganger Cloak on VLoZD. It gives you some cheeky activation tricks. That doesn't invalidate any of the above points about how you're putting 1240 into two characters. 1350 by the time you buy one necromancer. VLoZD is, indeed, one of the best point-for-point hammers (don't let that lull you into thinking he doesn't need support) in hero form but a unit of Grimghast Reapers costs you 360, gets you 30 wounds, and 30 boots on the ground that come with with ethereal for free. They're not as mobile but 8" flying, is still 8" flying. They have synergy with your Allegiance Abilities and can wear the best buff in the game, Vanhel's Danse Macabre. Heck, for 60 points more, the cost of a pack of dogs, you can buy a unit of GGR and a Vampire Lord w/ Wings to support them or fly around and scoop objectives. 

Using a VLoZD, like so many decisions in list building, comes down to "how will you use him?" As a hero hunter and counter-puncher/charger, he's awesome. I'd even use him to blow up some of the low model count battlelines in the game. His use on the battleplans that allow only heroes to capture can't go understated either. But the next question after "how will you use him" is "can someone do that job better or cheaper?"

I am more prone to running a VLoZD w/ a second VLoZD or Vhordrai than with Nagash himself but I just described my friend's Legion of Night list. The prospect of running a VLoZD with Nefarata is quite intriguing to me too but that's an entirely different list...

All of that said, I've done it. Sometimes you just feel like having a big awesome dragon plus Nagash. Is it the best thing you can be doing? No. Is it fun as hell? Absolutely and the Doppleganger Cloak amuses me.