Top 10 at Facehammer with Deathmarch

[ianob]

15 minutes ago, deynon said:

30-40 man enemy unit? ause it depends by the opponent units with the black knights? Only if you make them being supported by everything in your army and even then you are risking quite a lot.

Maybe are my opponent, but it's almost impossible to even bring 10 all together to battle at the same time, not to talk about 15.

Your opponent cant avoid it except by castling very very heavily, at which point you give him first turn. It's really unavoidable. Practice with it to line up your charge in deployment is important, but I rarely have less than 15 in combat T1 unless there is a piece of terrain I need to snake around or I want to kill two enemy units that are spread out (recently I played Deepkin with 3x10 Thralls on the board spread out across a 36" area or so. I snaked a line of Black Knights and put 2 knights into combat with each Thrall unit and wiped them all out). It's all about how you set them up.

[deynon]

1 minute ago, ianob said:

Your opponent cant avoid it except by castling very very heavily, at which point you give him first turn. It's really unavoidable. Practice with it to line up your charge in deployment is important, but I rarely have less than 15 in combat T1 unless there is a piece of terrain I need to snake around or I want to kill two enemy units that are spread out (recently I played Deepkin with 3x10 Thralls on the board spread out across a 36" area or so. I snaked a line of Black Knights and put 2 knights into combat with each Thrall unit and wiped them all out). It's all about how you set them up.

Ehm... but if I do as you suggest I almost can't usse the 4" forward movementhaving to be totally within 12" from the Wight king. Wight king that riskto die even eearlier cause it has to be amost for sure exposed to apply such strategy and give the opponent for sure turn 1. Not a problem usually, but with such big unit it comes to be.

Taking two units together is not a problem.  Against the thralls you are bullying the weak in defence.

[ianob]

2 minutes ago, deynon said:

Ehm... but if I do as you suggest I almost can't usse the 4" forward movementhaving to be totally within 12" from the Wight king. Wight king that riskto die even eearlier cause it has to be amost for sure exposed to apply such strategy and give the opponent for sure turn 1. Not a problem usually, but with such big unit it comes to be.

Taking two units together is not a problem.  Against the thralls you are bullying the weak in defence.

Its not a problem if you deploy properly. Also you're generally in control of turn 1 with 3 drops, in my list, so the king isn't exposed any longer than he has to be. Plus the 4" move only matters on turn 1, after that it's much less relevant and he can die happy.

I suggest you try it rather than tell me it doesnt work. It does work, I've played it

[deynon]

Just now, ianob said:

Its not a problem if you deploy properly. Also you're generally in control of turn 1 with 3 drops, in my list, so the king isn't exposed any longer than he has to be. Plus the 4" move only matters on turn 1, after that it's much less relevant and he can die happy.

I suggest you try it rather than tell me it doesnt work. It does work, I've played it

I tried it often with 10 black knights, cause it I say that with 15 and wanting to bring them as you say it's quite limitd as options.

 

[ianob]

7 minutes ago, deynon said:

I tried it often with 10 black knights, cause it I say that with 15 and wanting to bring them as you say it's quite limitd as options.

 

In that case, I'd say keep trying and practice more, and make sure your drops are low so that you can take advantage of them!

Honestly I considered taking 20

[deynon]

8 hours ago, ianob said:

In that case, I'd say keep trying and practice more, and make sure your drops are low so that you can take advantage of them!

Honestly I considered taking 20

If you are talking about 2 unit fo 10 models, it's not something big. but a single unit of 20 is not maneuvrable enough.

I dont' care a lot about drops. I play Legion of Night usually, so first or second I have my weapons to keep alert my opponent.

[swarmofseals]

1 hour ago, deynon said:

If you are talking about 2 unit fo 10 models, it's not something big. but a single unit of 20 is not maneuvrable enough.

I dont' care a lot about drops. I play Legion of Night usually, so first or second I have my weapons to keep alert my opponent.

Are you talking about club/local play or GT play? I get the feeling this may be the source of the disconnect.

[deynon]

3 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

Are you talking about club/local play or GT play? I get the feeling this may be the source of the disconnect.

It's not something different. The players that I find play all 3 and even more options.

It's simply a different approach to the lists and I think also the fields we play with.  I prefer about chavalry medium and smaller units to be more manuevrable.  I'm used in good armoury opponents.

Moreover a too stretched unit can be countered quite easily making lost its weight and it's not so sure being able to chargeother than in a plain

[ianob]

I think the disconnect here is, as with most forum discussions, play experience vs “on paper”. You might feel that the unit isn’t maneuverable enough, but it’s likely you’ve not played with it enough to understand how to get the most out of it, which I would encourage you to do if you want to try this style of list. If you still think maneuverability makes big units of black knights bad then I guess you could ask my opppnents how they felt about it

But yes, clearly we’re also talking about club level vs highly competitive play. At club level play you may not need to optimise for drops or you just may not care. At competitive level though, and particularly in 2018 scenarios, drops are incredibly important. And as I said above, the main reason the knights work so well is because I almost always have drop control.

[Tropical Ghost General]

@ianob I love the idea of this (almost) pure deathrattle list. Couple of questions.

1) Having played the list, what bits would you change and why? 

2) Would it work swapping the VLoZD and taking Arkhan and another necromancer for getting guaranteed debuffs? 

3) In your opinion, which of the 4 allegiances in the LoN book best suits a mainly deathrattle list? 

[Honk]

43 minutes ago, ianob said:

 

I think the disconnect here is

 

Well, maybe some people feel different, handling large units   pun intended. 

The question is as always: is it your playstyle? are comfy enough with it, to perform under pressure against a variety of opponents?

[deynon]

1 hour ago, ianob said:

I think the disconnect here is, as with most forum discussions, play experience vs “on paper”. You might feel that the unit isn’t maneuverable enough, but it’s likely you’ve not played with it enough to understand how to get the most out of it, which I would encourage you to do if you want to try this style of list. If you still think maneuverability makes big units of black knights bad then I guess you could ask my opppnents how they felt about it

But yes, clearly we’re also talking about club level vs highly competitive play. At club level play you may not need to optimise for drops or you just may not care. At competitive level though, and particularly in 2018 scenarios, drops are incredibly important. And as I said above, the main reason the knights work so well is because I almost always have drop control.

You Re quite arrogant.

club play or high competitive play have not difference. And your list against my usual opponents would not survive cause it's too fragile. You need drop control, I don'r need it necessarily, it's a difference in game style, it's not like you are the only list options avalaibke. 

In the fields I play usually such big units can't move as you describe cause they would not be able phisically to do. 

That it works for you it's good for you. It's nice others try to develop such styke other than me and few other ones, but as I said you are the only one to have results and a lot about result are related to the rules of the tournament itself.

50 minutes ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

@ianob I love the idea of this (almost) pure deathrattle list. Couple of questions.

1) Having played the list, what bits would you change and why? 

2) Would it work swapping the VLoZD and taking Arkhan and another necromancer for getting guaranteed debuffs? 

3) In your opinion, which of the 4 allegiances in the LoN book best suits a mainly deathrattle list? 

3) grand host of Nagash and Legion of Night. Even Legion of Sacrament has really great options to value it.

44 minutes ago, Honk said:

Well, maybe some people feel different, handling large units   pun intended. 

The question is as always: is it your playstyle? are comfy enough with it, to perform under pressure against a variety of opponents?

I agree. Lately I'm developing more towards a stable base deathmarch with hit and run hexwraith and other units

[ianob]

On 9/29/2018 at 10:58 AM, deynon said:

You Re quite arrogant.

club play or high competitive play have not difference. And your list against my usual opponents would not survive cause it's too fragile.

OK  maybe the meta you are playing in is hyperdeveloped and the rest of the world just hasn’t caught up to you yet, or maybe what I said above is important here - practice is good and would get you results. But either way, if you’re on to personal attacks on a thread about AoS, I’m going to stop talking to you now. Good luck with your army!

 

On 9/29/2018 at 9:58 AM, Tropical Ghost General said:

@ianob I love the idea of this (almost) pure deathrattle list. Couple of questions.

1) Having played the list, what bits would you change and why? 

2) Would it work swapping the VLoZD and taking Arkhan and another necromancer for getting guaranteed debuffs? 

3) In your opinion, which of the 4 allegiances in the LoN book best suits a mainly deathrattle list? 

1) I don’t know if I’d change anything from this iteration. This is iteration number 10 or so of the list (it started with 120 skeletons) and I think it’s quite solid now, bar any changes in the meta.

2) The vlozd is there because he is the toughest thing we have and his job is mostly just to live long enough to resummon units and to take big monsters out of the game with the cloak. Arkhan is not only squishy but he also loses you the command trait that makes the list work. I don’t think he is an option at all here. Edit: also drop count of 3 was important to me as a lot of lists that want to alpha are 4 and changing that would be bad in some matchups.

3) All of them except Blood. GHON gets you Lord of Nagashizzar and the Diadem. Night gets you +1 save (which is massive) and flanking (which is less good than the save imho but still nice). I find it hard to say no to +1 to cast vanhels and masters teachings  for any of these things though, not to mention that the LoS command trait is so good. Movement is everything in AoS 2.0 and skeletons don’t have it otherwise, and deathmarch is unreliable past T1 (king dies fast if they want him to) and very range restricted post faq.

[swarmofseals]

7 hours ago, deynon said:

You Re quite arrogant.

club play or high competitive play have not difference.

@deynon -- another player has created a thread to highlight an interesting and off-beat list that he used to place very well in a highly competitive tournament, and you've come into that thread to repeatedly say why his list won't work or should be designed differently. When presented with evidence that contradicts your stance, you just double down and continue to insist that you are correct. If you want to make a thread about your own listbuilding preferences and about your tournament results with small units of Black Knights then please feel free to do so, but hijacking someone else's thread by repeatedly insisting that their list has no merit when there is ample evidence to the contrary is just not constructive.

[swarmofseals]

4 hours ago, ianob said:

1) I don’t know if I’d change anything from this iteration. This is iteration number 10 or so of the list (it started with 120 skeletons) and I think it’s quite solid now, bar any changes in the meta.

I'm very curious to know how you got from mass skeletons to mass Grave Guard. So far from this thread I think I've surmised the following:

• This list demonstrates that drop control can do a lot to make up for somewhat reduced unit efficiency, particularly in a metagame where early offense is prevalent
• Legions of Nagash is particularly well suited to compensate for defensive inefficiency in units that are fast and hit hard as long as they are summonable

The merit of the Black Knights in this list is obvious. They can do a lot of damage and can take up a lot of space, and they should hold the enemy back long enough that you can resummon them once they go down. The large unit may not work as well on tables that are particularly clogged with terrain, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

What's less clear to me is the role of the Grave Guard. Back when AoS2 dropped, I made the argument here that Grave Guard should be playable based on the numbers. Their offensive efficiency is competitive with Grimghast Reapers, and their defensive inefficiency matters less given the ability to resummon. The problem is speed, but this list helps compensate for that. It's also a necessity to take some for the battalion, and the battalion is a necessity to keep your drops low.  So it doesn't really surprise me that Grave Guard are playable, but I'm not sure why you'd want to take a huge unit of them instead of skeletons. What did you find in your testing that led you to go this route instead of 90 skeletons and 5 grave guard? Granted, that route only gives you 2 extra CP. Maybe that's the difference maker?

 

EDIT: Also, can you imagine any circumstances that would lead you to swap the doppel cloak for a different item (probably Ethereal Amulet, Scales of Ignax or Gryph-Feather Charm) or the Azyrbane Standard for a different item (likely the same list as above)?

[deynon]

4 hours ago, ianob said:

OK  maybe the meta you are playing in is hyperdeveloped and the rest of the world just hasn’t caught up to you yet, or maybe what I said above is important here - practice is good and would get you results. But either way, if you’re on to personal attacks on a thread about AoS, I’m going to stop talking to you now. Good luck with your army!

 

1) I don’t know if I’d change anything from this iteration. This is iteration number 10 or so of the list (it started with 120 skeletons) and I think it’s quite solid now, bar any changes in the meta.

2) The vlozd is there because he is the toughest thing we have and his job is mostly just to live long enough to resummon units and to take big monsters out of the game with the cloak. Arkhan is not only squishy but he also loses you the command trait that makes the list work. I don’t think he is an option at all here. Edit: also drop count of 3 was important to me as a lot of lists that want to alpha are 4 and changing that would be bad in some matchups.

3) All of them except Blood. GHON gets you Lord if Nagashizzar and the Diadem. Night gets you +1 save (which is massive) and flanking (which is less good than the save imho but still nice). I find it hard to say no to +1 to cast vanhels and masters teachings  for any of these things though, not to mention that the LoS command trait is so good. Movement is everything in AoS 2.0 and skeletons don’t have it otherwise, and deathmarch is unreliable past T1 (king dies fast if they want him to) and very range restricted post faq.

It's not about hyper devleoped, but you didn't asswered to any question and only simply saying: practice more.

It's not an answere, it's to skip them.

45 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

@deynon -- another player has created a thread to highlight an interesting and off-beat list that he used to place very well in a highly competitive tournament, and you've come into that thread to repeatedly say why his list won't work or should be designed differently. When presented with evidence that contradicts your stance, you just double down and continue to insist that you are correct. If you want to make a thread about your own listbuilding preferences and about your tournament results with small units of Black Knights then please feel free to do so, but hijacking someone else's thread by repeatedly insisting that their list has no merit when there is ample evidence to the contrary is just not constructive.

Cause he didn't say it was only to show off, but you presume that it's to talk about the list itself.

He didn't say how it solved some problems it could have helped some trouble his ype of list incur.

I can even explain a lot of his chooices.

Example: chosing the wight king on steed it's to impreve the range of his abilities and the area of the deathmarck ability. Cause the area improved is much beggere comparing the almost 2.5" of the largeness of the steed base.

It let you amplyfy the range in which the blakc knight cna be positioned in a stragiht line as he suggest. but to avoid to make and arched deployment to totally  stay withing that 12"from the wight king you hae to arrange the deplyment of the black knights. 

5 black knights side by side occupy almost 7", it means 10 going to occupy 14". They are at the limit of what it's the straight deployment that he proposed. It means that to make the black knights develop good to stretch the other five has to be positioned in the back of the 10 models in the way to alternate, so that using the 4" ability movement  they can stretch open and the 5 back ones doesn't slow the first line ones and can be used as a fan to spread the unit to represent what he propose.

But this has still troubles about using such type of usage. Cause it means that it has to have the space to do such a thing, the black knights are not hexwraiths, they don't fly.

Even the idea to drop first is not necessary good cause an opponent can use such thing to be sure to notice where he deply the units to deploy his ones back, so prevent that first charge in the firsst turn. Or using the strategy to use a negated side. Or simply take the unit of black knights on the two sides to prevent the most of the attacks from such a stretched method unit.

And talking about charging, he has 4"+12"+6" charge.  And he talked only about using he has to be able to charge to roll at least an 8+ on the dice. Even using a command point it means that if the opponent  deploy even only some inch backward all the strategy that he flaunted about is useless. 

And in a such high level tournament as he claim his opponents didn't notice such problems in his list.

And I event have talked about the problems in close combat.

And tthis is only a fast and without deep points of only using his claimed big unit. 

So answering: practice more is not a way to partecipate. Declaring to want to use even 20 knights  give even more doubts.

How he would have solved eventual trouble to see his wight king killed before it could even start such strategy? Cause units that can deploy and target him are easy to find and a double/triple 6+ save can't necessarily prevent the problems of a model that has only 5 wounds.

 

1 minute ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm very curious to know how you got from mass skeletons to mass Grave Guard. So far from this thread I think I've surmised the following:

• This list demonstrates that drop control can do a lot to make up for somewhat reduced unit efficiency, particularly in a metagame where early offense is prevalent
• Legions of Nagash is particularly well suited to compensate for defensive inefficiency in units that are fast and hit hard as long as they are summonable

The merit of the Black Knights in this list is obvious. They can do a lot of damage and can take up a lot of space, and they should hold the enemy back long enough that you can resummon them once they go down. The large unit may not work as well on tables that are particularly clogged with terrain, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

What's less clear to me is the role of the Grave Guard. Back when AoS2 dropped, I made the argument here that Grave Guard should be playable based on the numbers. Their offensive efficiency is competitive with Grimghast Reapers, and their defensive inefficiency matters less given the ability to resummon. The problem is speed, but this list helps compensate for that. It's also a necessity to take some for the battalion, and the battalion is a necessity to keep your drops low.  So it doesn't really surprise me that Grave Guard are playable, but I'm not sure why you'd want to take a huge unit of them instead of skeletons. What did you find in your testing that led you to go this route instead of 90 skeletons and 5 grave guard? Granted, that route only gives you 2 extra CP. Maybe that's the difference maker?

Other questions that are interesting to talk about. 

Or the answer would be again: practice more?

[ianob]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I'm very curious to know how you got from mass skeletons to mass Grave Guard. So far from this thread I think I've surmised the following:

• This list demonstrates that drop control can do a lot to make up for somewhat reduced unit efficiency, particularly in a metagame where early offense is prevalent
• Legions of Nagash is particularly well suited to compensate for defensive inefficiency in units that are fast and hit hard as long as they are summonable

The merit of the Black Knights in this list is obvious. They can do a lot of damage and can take up a lot of space, and they should hold the enemy back long enough that you can resummon them once they go down. The large unit may not work as well on tables that are particularly clogged with terrain, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

What's less clear to me is the role of the Grave Guard. Back when AoS2 dropped, I made the argument here that Grave Guard should be playable based on the numbers. Their offensive efficiency is competitive with Grimghast Reapers, and their defensive inefficiency matters less given the ability to resummon. The problem is speed, but this list helps compensate for that. It's also a necessity to take some for the battalion, and the battalion is a necessity to keep your drops low.  So it doesn't really surprise me that Grave Guard are playable, but I'm not sure why you'd want to take a huge unit of them instead of skeletons. What did you find in your testing that led you to go this route instead of 90 skeletons and 5 grave guard? Granted, that route only gives you 2 extra CP. Maybe that's the difference maker?

 

EDIT: Also, can you imagine any circumstances that would lead you to swap the doppel cloak for a different item (probably Ethereal Amulet, Scales of Ignax or Gryph-Feather Charm) or the Azyrbane Standard for a different item (likely the same list as above)?

I played on two tables at FHGT that had some pretty huge terrain pieces. Both of my opponents used them to protect key units. But the BKs arent about killing a specific thing, they're about taking out whatever and then hanging about to be a wall. The most annoying terrain pieces are Wildwoods, which often make you daisy chain around trees and lose about 2 models in combat per wood, but hey ho. 

The GG arent anything special, but they hit deceptively hard and 25mm bases are deceptively easy to get the whole unit into combat. They're overcosted and certainly missing at least an extra point of armour for their cost, but they do their job. The main reason theyre in a big unit is because they die when they get hit, so I want to frontload a lot of my damage. It also makes my command ability and vanhels (and potential stacking) highly efficient.

The reason I've moved away from skeletons is that they really dont do well in multiple big units.  They are super fragile so they evaporate without any kind of battleshock immunity which this list doesnt have CP for, and if they don't go first, they almost always lose their +1 attack for being 30+ which means that there is diminishing returns on more than one unit. Also on the first turn when you're trying to squeeze them into Deathmarch and command trait range it's hard enough with 15 BK and 30 GG, never mind 80-120 skellies. Also as you pointed out, the raft of CP in this list is another reason and the point at which this list really got good was when I realised I needed more starting CP, so that worked out nicely too. Overall I just didnt find them to do enough offensively and this list is hyper aggressive, plus I wanted something with rend so I didnt roll to Stormcast and Sylvaneth, and finally I wanted to maximise my Endless Legions CP because CP is tight in this list due to all of the buffing. Units of 10 skeletons are incredible objective holders and MSU screens too, which was another objective of this list (MSU screens vs Deepkin, Stormcast, and High Elves) so that also fit in nicely.

The VLoZD is there to survive. I wish we had a cheaper option to do it, because being 440 points he has to commit somewhere on the board quickly otherwise its too many wasted points, but given that we dont I went all in on him with the cloak. This does double duty as a control piece; I use him to "remove" units from the battle that I dont want my other units to fight. For the same reason he has VT instead of pinions, he isnt supposed to be an offensive piece. He also gives me some flying reach to nab objectives or deal with flankers, something this list lacks. The cloak could of course be something else - Scales of Ignax or Ethereal Charm are certainly contenders, but the cloak is very good in the current monster meta and also completely shuts down entire armies of deepkin which I expected to see a lot more of.

 

[Tropical Ghost General]

Superb breakdown @ianob mega helpful. Going to have to put some thought into making my own deathrattle warband now. 

[Undeadly]

Two questions; how did you deal with armies that had above average Saves or good screens for their heavy hitters? As far as I can tell, your only source of rend -2 is from the VLoZD, and you said you were using him mostly as a distraction or anvil for the rest of your army, or to help tie up and fight key enemy units.

Secondly; I feel like the added agility of Pinions is far more vital than Vile's healing; wouldn't the additonal speed of AP give you better board control?

[deynon]

@ianob such point of view is what I was talking about^^

I use the cloak in the about same manner as you, but I pointed on the coven throne instead of the VLoZD.

why have you preferred the ZD? command ability, spell, or the combat, or a mix of them? 

[ianob]

15 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

Two questions; how did you deal with armies that had above average Saves or good screens for their heavy hitters? As far as I can tell, your only source of rend -2 is from the VLoZD, and you said you were using him mostly as a distraction or anvil for the rest of your army, or to help tie up and fight key enemy units.

Secondly; I feel like the added agility of Pinions is far more vital than Vile's healing; wouldn't the additonal speed of AP give you better board control?

I don’t honestly know where the trend of “how do you deal with good saves” came from in AoS list building. All that matters is your average damage, enough hits at rend 0 are often better than less hits at rend 1 or 2. As it happens in this list the Grave Guard have rend 1 which is enough to deal with basically anything, but I’ve blown up plenty of 3+ and 2+ save unit’s with charging black knights (and skeletons, etc, in my time).  Also high save units can often be ignored, tarpitted, outnumbered on an objective too. In the current meta, with ghosts and ethereal being common enough, rend isn’t always the best thing to have when you could have more rend 0 attacks instead! In short as long as you do a lot of average damage, rend often isn’t needed (though it is very nice).

The general moves 17” due to his own command trait. That’s enough. I rarely cast pinions and often wished I had an extra poke/heal instead. VT overperforms in most lists, this one is no exception, especially since we have +1 to cast.

[Ravinsild]

7 minutes ago, ianob said:

I don’t honestly know where the trend of “how do you deal with good saves” came from in AoS list building. All that matters is your average damage, enough hits at rend 0 are often better than less hits at rend 1 or 2. As it happens in this list the Grave Guard have rend 1 which is enough to deal with basically anything, but I’ve blown up plenty of 3+ and 2+ save unit’s with charging black knights (and skeletons, etc, in my time).  Also high save units can often be ignored, tarpitted, outnumbered on an objective too. In the current meta, with ghosts and ethereal being common enough, rend isn’t always the best thing to have when you could have more rend 0 attacks instead! In short as long as you do a lot of average damage, rend often isn’t needed (though it is very nice).

The general moves 17” due to his own command trait. That’s enough. I rarely cast pinions and often wished I had an extra poke/heal instead. VT overperforms in most lists, this one is no exception, especially since we have +1 to cast.

What’s the average damage of 100 attacks at 3/3/-/2 and 3/3/-1/1 (how does one account for 6’s for 2 damage grave guard attacks?)

[swarmofseals]

7 minutes ago, ianob said:

I don’t honestly know where the trend of “how do you deal with good saves” came from in AoS list building.

I think it's a holdover from the GHB2016 era. Stormcast and Sylvaneth were both very prevalent then, and it was pretty common to see 2+ rerollable saves, some of which ignore rend 1. Meanwhile, unrendable saves and ward saves were relatively rare as Death, Nurgle, and DoK were either non-competitive or didn't exist. Even then it was a bit overstated as like you said you can tarpit them or keep them off objectives. You aren't going to kill a 2+ rerollable with mass rend 0 damage though, particularly when it can heal. 

Now the metagame is hugely different. 2+ rerollable saves are much rarer and both unrendable saves and ward saves are much more common. 

[ianob]

10 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

What’s the average damage of 100 attacks at 3/3/-/2 and 3/3/-1/1 (how does one account for 6’s for 2 damage grave guard attacks?)

3+ 3+ is a 45% hit rate for head maths (4/9) and the average damage of a 3+ attack that doubles on a 6 is 1.25 (3 is 1, 4 is 1, 5 is 1, 6 is 2 = 5/4)

So 45*1.25 = 56, rounded.

Obviously that doesn’t take into account rerolls, but the average damage of 15 BKs on the charge with both command abilities up is about 72 (it’s just under 5 per model, about 4.6) and if you get the reroll wounds triumph on top it goes to about 96 (about 6.4 per model). Knowing these numbers is important when deciding how to split your BK on the charge, based on the enemy’s save, etc. And then you do that again with vanhels (all command abilities and triumphs last until next hero phase and the end of the phase respectively so you keep the buffs)

[swarmofseals]

8 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

What’s the average damage of 100 attacks at 3/3/-/2 and 3/3/-1/1 (how does one account for 6’s for 2 damage grave guard attacks?)

100*2/3*2/3*2 = 88.89

100*2/3/2 + 100*2/3/6*2 = 55.55 (rend 1 damage)