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Death Wishlisting


El Syf

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Soulblight for sure.

They were always the beating heart in death for me.

Second only to the likes of Nagash and his motarchs, the lords and ladies pulling the strings and commanding the legions of the undead in the supreme necromancers absence. Subjugated, but no less hungry for their own rise to power... even if their schemes and personal motives may be on the whims of death himself.

They gave death a face. Nagash is great, his world ending schemes and machinations are the bomb, but it was always the vampire lords that gave death its relate-able "humanity". They played so well off the order factions, feeling at home worming their way into the political matters of the world the was. Always dug the idea of a race/ faction looking sublime and inhumanly perfect. Gorgeous courtesans, and elegance to put an elf too shame... but peel back the finery and you get to see how twisted they actually are deep down. Everything I love about Slaneesh, but without the loincloths and crab claws lol.

I adored the likes of Abhorash, and given the limited yet enticing lore he had, he seems like the perfect candidate to step into the light for Age of Sigmar.

It's a crime that they don't have a bit more to play with. Blood Knights are the most laughably expensive kit ever, and the quality just isn't there for their range anymore. Their updating would give Death even more fleshing out then LoN already did, being a much needed elite option, or just the few warriors striding amongst the clattering hordes. As much as I love them, I just can't bring myself to jump in. When you have to kitbash your entire army, its just not worth it for someone learning the hobby lol.

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Death have a great range already, even the older stuff like Blood Knights. Half of it just needs rules that make it worth putting it on the table. Notably the Mortarchs (even though Arkhan sees play, Neferata has just one trick, and Mannfred sucks - they needed changes really) , Morghasts (need either 60 points reduction or a big statline increase, I'd prefer the latter but it wont happen), Black Knights outside of spamming command abilities in Deathmarch need a reduction, Blood Knights (they'd still be barely playable at 80 points less), Wight Kings (which would be playable at 60 points less). 

So many of our units are SERIOUSLY badly pointed.

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50 minutes ago, ianob said:

So many of our units are SERIOUSLY badly pointed.

And then people complain about spamming the same lists all the time...

on the other side, we started a Path to Glory campaign and at least I had some interesting new options. My buddy plays Nurgle and had nothing (and 250 points less).

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Grims take up the spot of where Grave Guard should be. The issue is if GW increases Grims cost it would ****** over Nighthaunt players as they would steal the spot for whatever new points spot they are at. The real issue is Grims being able to be taken as non-allies. If GW swapped them to the allies spot then it would balance them out. Also if Grave Guard had a hefty points drop that would help too since they fill the same role except Grims are just better at everything.

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16 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Grims take up the spot of where Grave Guard should be. The issue is if GW increases Grims cost it would ****** over Nighthaunt players as they would steal the spot for whatever new points spot they are at. The real issue is Grims being able to be taken as non-allies. If GW swapped them to the allies spot then it would balance them out. Also if Grave Guard had a hefty points drop that would help too since they fill the same role except Grims are just better at everything.

Grave Guard are a little overcosted but also very good. Not that they're better than grims or even on their level, but they do have a use case and are playable at their points cost. They could do with being 70/360, past that and they'd be overpowered (at least unless Death get allegiance ability nerfs).

Also, Grimghasts aren't particularly overpowered honestly. They only output damage on par with their points cost when they have their reroll. -1 to hit hurts them more than other, similar units. 4+ save is nothing special against units with no rend anyway. Plenty of other common units in the game compete with Grimghasts for cost efficiency - Morsarr Guard (who also dont need to go up in points), Witches (who's supporting heroes and abilities are the problem, rather than their points value), Sequitors and Evocators. They're all on a level. Other units in lower tier armies need buffs, Grims are costed just fine.

 

27 minutes ago, Honk said:

And then people complain about spamming the same lists all the time...

on the other side, we started a Path to Glory campaign and at least I had some interesting new options. My buddy plays Nurgle and had nothing (and 250 points less).

Reviewing Death lists is super boring right now. Oh look, the general changed, a support hero changes, there's some dogs skeletons and dire wolves in various irrelevent configurations, go diversity. 

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4 minutes ago, ianob said:

Reviewing Death lists is super boring right now. Oh look, the general changed, a support hero changes, there's some dogs skeletons and dire wolves in various irrelevent configurations, go diversity. 

Yeah this is how I feel about LoN right now. And its more like...Chains, Chains, Grims, Dogs, Heroes lol

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1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

this is how I feel about LoN right now.

That’s why we tried out a Path of glory campaign. But it ended with me having 250 points more than him. And the rules state, that you could choose your units, maybe I should have went for pure Bloodknights.

I started to make a new list which hopefully randomizes units for a fun and crazy campaign. 

BC43BDFD-94B6-4295-B818-A340DD9F5E16.jpeg

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3 hours ago, ianob said:

Grave Guard are a little overcosted but also very good. Not that they're better than grims or even on their level, but they do have a use case and are playable at their points cost. They could do with being 70/360, past that and they'd be overpowered (at least unless Death get allegiance ability nerfs).

Also, Grimghasts aren't particularly overpowered honestly. They only output damage on par with their points cost when they have their reroll. -1 to hit hurts them more than other, similar units. 4+ save is nothing special against units with no rend anyway. Plenty of other common units in the game compete with Grimghasts for cost efficiency - Morsarr Guard (who also dont need to go up in points), Witches (who's supporting heroes and abilities are the problem, rather than their points value), Sequitors and Evocators. They're all on a level. Other units in lower tier armies need buffs, Grims are costed just fine.

If you think grave guard deserve to be the same price as grimghasts, I just don't know what units you're looking at.  Twice as fast?  Fly?  Better save - and ethereal to boot?  Roughly equivalent attacks?  Sure, bigger bases, but not enough bigger to be a bother, especially with reach.  Sure, the guard have access to more buffs *in theory*, but in practice nobody runs wight kings or lord of nagashizzar, vampire lord and necromancer buffs work just as well for either, and there are no easily accessible deathrattle only buffs that compare to the signature spell from a guardian of souls with mortality glass.

IMO, you can either think grimghasts are fair at their current price, OR you can think that grave guard need to be cheaper than 140 per 10.  You can't honestly believe both at the same time.  You can't honestly look at both units, pretend they're the same price, and say to yourself "I would totally have a hard time choosing between this unit of ghosts that's pretty good and that unit of skeletons that's basically the same except half as fast, doesn't fly, has worse saves, and is highly vulnerable to rend, with maybe slightly better attacks and slightly smaller bases - both advantages more than undercut by having only half the melee reach."

And it's not just the grimghasts comparison that shows the problems with grave guard.  People have been rightly calling them out as painfully subpar since the compendium days based purely on the comparison to skeletons.  How can you look at 30 grave guard for your suggested price of 360 points and honestly say they're worth 80 points more than 40 skeletons, which are battleline, near about as durable, with worse attacks sure but making significantly more of them even before you factor reach in?  You think wight kings should cost 60 points - I'd put them at 80, but either way - do you really think 30 grave guard are worth a whole wight king and change more than 40 skeletons, especially when those skeletons are also filling battle line slots?

I have a hard time seeing grave guard as worth a penny over 120 for 10.  300, maybe 320 at most, for 30.  Half again as much as skeletons, but certainly not double, and tangibly less than the tangibly superior grimghasts.  I mean, sure, you might see grand host lists dropping skeletons for grave guard at that price since they'd both be battle line, but I'd call that a feature, not a bug.  A meaningful reason to run grand host other than just to have nagash in it, making non-nagash grand host lists something other than just 'a legion of sacrament list, but with worse casters.'

 

As for grimghasts, I agree they're not unreasonable at the current price, but even apart from the comparison to grave guard, I do think they should be allies in a legions list, not native units.  It does significant thematic and functional harm to nighthaunts as an independent faction when their best units are better fielded by other armies.  Pulling the nighthaunt units from the legions might render them non-viable for a season if it doesn't come with the needed points adjustments to their other elites, but if it did that might sufficiently highlight how badly needed those adjustments really are, making them more likely to come in following seasons.  Thematically, death is all about the long game, so I'd personally be willing to wait that out.

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@ianob has the right idea, while i'm always in the camp of getting new stuff for my armies, the existing stuff is in need of changes. I'd like plastic bloodknighst for a start but aside from the models the rules for them need some reworking, they don't feel like the uber cavalry they should be despite their points cost. Wight kings also feel overcosted for what they can do, Vamps are objectively better in every way with options for flying, healing and spellcasting at just 20pts more. Vargheists need a little tweaking as well, I love the buggers but they never seem to live up to there cost to me unless they get into some fodder infantry or a non combat hero. Black knights could use some tweaks but idk whether that should be a price change or rules change. Everyone is of the opinion that morghasts need some love, hell I wouldn't mind more freaks of bone and magic in the same vein as morghasts. As for named heroes, arkhan is basically a must take for me, but neffi and mannfred are nowhere near worth there points. Nagash is too big of a risk to take imo give his cost but I've done really well with vordhai. I wouldn't mind getting a new LoN mortarch that's a departure from our mounted trio, maybe an infantry vamp mortarch or a good spellcaster one like arkhan that isn't mounted so you aren't paying for a monstrous mount. Nagash seems to like the idea of keeping 9 dark lords/mortarchs and so far we only have 4, so come on GW. I would like to see changes that would support more non summonable units so that we don't feel quite so obligated to run 40 stack skeletons and dirt cheap wolf packs all the time, as fun as it is to drop a bucket of dice on my enemies, moving all those models is a pain, I'd just like to have some heavier infantry with some reliable punching once in a while. 

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18 minutes ago, Sception said:

I have a hard time seeing grave guard as worth a penny over 120 for 10.  300, maybe 320 at most, for 30.  Half again as much as skeletons, but certainly not double, and tangibly less than the tangibly superior grimghasts.  I mean, sure, you might see grand host lists dropping skeletons for grave guard at that price since they'd both be battle line, but I'd call that a feature, not a bug.  A meaningful reason to run grand host other than just to have nagash in it, making non-nagash grand host lists something other than just 'a legion of sacrament list, but with worse casters.'

 

This is too true, with the exception of maybe blood, the legions lack any identity to them. The others can be broken down into 'arkhan with punchy skeletons', 'arkhan with better magic' and 'sure i can ambush but i want my units on my side anyways 'cause slightly better skeletons' Doesn't help that arkhan is the only decent mortarch for LoN...

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24 minutes ago, Sception said:

Things

There are a ton of reasons to use Grave Guard and Death players do not give them near enough credit. Confining my comments to 2H-equipped Grave Guard:

 

They do 11% more damage than Grimghasts on average if Grims have their reroll.

They do 70% more damage than Grimghasts on average if the Grims dont have their reroll, a very relevant stat with so many monsters around in the meta.

They lose less damage output than grims when given -1 or -2 to hit (which is highly common in the meta now)

It's easier to fit 30 1" reach 25mm based models into combat than it is to fit 30 2" reach 32mm based models in combat, and in many situations you can fit a LOT more in combat (when you get into very restricted space areas, such as fighting around/near a big rock/house/deepkin boat etc very often you can only fit in a few Grims where you can fit a whole line of Grave Guard). 25mm bases is a HUGE advantage. Huge. It's hard to overstate what a massive difference it makes and is one of the key reasons that Grave Guard do so well.

It's easier to fit 30 Grave Guard onto a gravesite that your opponent has restricted than it is to fit 30 Grimghasts. At high levels of play your Gravesites are almost always restricted and this becomes very important.

Sometimes Battleline - this IS an important advantage, not an incidental one

And situational but less relevant differences of course such as benefitting from Deathrattle-only abilities like the LoN trait + cover (with shields vs rend 0 they have a 2+ in cover in LoN!), Ossific Diadem which means they're better vs mortals than Grimghasts, etc.

***

 

Now for sure, no argument, 8" move fly alone would be enough reason to consider Grimghasts over the above stuff, and that's before you even get to 4+ unrendable save, 2" reach for attacking over screens, etc.  So I'm not in any way saying that Grave Guard are better, but I'm saying they have a use case and a lot of advantages that stack up. 4" move is ALWAYS going to be horrible and forces you into playing Deathmarch/Sacrament to compensate for it. They definitely need a points reduction, but the lack of granularity in AoS points (to date) means that reducing them to "under Grims" would likely be too far under Grims, and overpower them in my opinion. They certainly shouldn't be significantly cheaper than Grims for a 30 man unit. Maybe they could make them 60 per 5 with no max unit discount so running them at smaller numbers would be more feasible, though.

And look, I wouldnt be arguing in favour of Death getting more advantages if I just wanted a new broken thing to take to tournaments. but I think balance is good for everybody. I would hazard that most people saying that Grave Guard aren't good have never even proxied them to try.

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14 minutes ago, ianob said:

There are a ton of reasons to use Grave Guard and Death players do not give them near enough credit. Confining my comments to 2H-equipped Grave Guard:

 

They do 11% more damage than Grimghasts on average if Grims have their reroll.

They do 70% more damage than Grimghasts on average if the Grims dont have their reroll, a very relevant stat with so many monsters around in the meta.

They lose less damage output than grims when given -1 or -2 to hit (which is highly common in the meta now)

It's easier to fit 30 1" reach 25mm based models into combat than it is to fit 30 2" reach 32mm based models in combat, and in many situations you can fit a LOT more in combat (when you get into very restricted space areas, such as fighting around/near a big rock/house/deepkin boat etc very often you can only fit in a few Grims where you can fit a whole line of Grave Guard). 25mm bases is a HUGE advantage. Huge. It's hard to overstate what a massive difference it makes and is one of the key reasons that Grave Guard do so well.

It's easier to fit 30 Grave Guard onto a gravesite that your opponent has restricted than it is to fit 30 Grimghasts. At high levels of play your Gravesites are almost always restricted and this becomes very important.

Sometimes Battleline - this IS an important advantage, not an incidental one

And situational but less relevant differences of course such as benefitting from Deathrattle-only abilities like the LoN trait + cover (with shields vs rend 0 they have a 2+ in cover in LoN!), Ossific Diadem which means they're better vs mortals than Grimghasts, etc.

***

 

Now for sure, no argument, 8" move fly alone would be enough reason to consider Grimghasts over the above stuff, and that's before you even get to 4+ unrendable save, 2" reach for attacking over screens, etc.  So I'm not in any way saying that Grave Guard are better, but I'm saying they have a use case and a lot of advantages that stack up. 4" move is ALWAYS going to be horrible and forces you into playing Deathmarch/Sacrament to compensate for it. They definitely need a points reduction, but the lack of granularity in AoS points (to date) means that reducing them to "under Grims" would likely be too far under Grims, and overpower them in my opinion. They certainly shouldn't be significantly cheaper than Grims for a 30 man unit. Maybe they could make them 60 per 5 with no max unit discount so running them at smaller numbers would be more feasible, though.

And look, I wouldnt be arguing in favour of Death getting more advantages if I just wanted a new broken thing to take to tournaments. but I think balance is good for everybody. I would hazard that most people saying that Grave Guard aren't good have never even proxied them to try.

I used to run grave guard as backline screening to deal with ambushing,teleporting units since most units with that kinda mobility don't tend to like rend. GG have their uses but competitively fall short. While i don't personally use grims, i find big 40 stack skeletons to be more useful due to shear number of attacks. I've taken GG out of my recent lists in favour of more magic boosting like corpse carts for my overly long hero phases lately and just find myself proxying my GG as more skeles for the grinder. To be honest there are definitely other units i'd like to see rebalanced before GG. Maybe if having rend became more useful in the meta people would start using them again over grims due to more potential attacks.

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1 hour ago, ianob said:

misc stuff, se quotes below

"They do 11% more damage than Grimghasts on average if Grims have their reroll.
They do 70% more damage than Grimghasts on average if the Grims dont have their reroll, a very relevant stat with so many monsters around in the meta.They lose less damage output than grims when given -1 or -2 to hit (which is highly common in the meta now)"

But they lose more damage output than grims when given -1 to wound, which is not that uncommon either.  And the advantages grave guard have in damage output aren't enough to overcome the significant difficulty getting them into combat in the first place, between their low speed and durability.

 

"It's easier to fit 30 1" reach 25mm based models into combat than it is to fit 30 2" reach 32mm based models in combat."

Not in my experience.  At least, not when the 32mm base unit also has double the move speed and can fly.  Grave guard are often trailing into fights on long charges, and are fragile enough that they get crumped before they can consolidate their position in subsequent rounds, unless you get a lucky double turn.

 

"Sometimes Battleline - this IS an important advantage, not an incidental one."

Is it, though?  Later on you say the slow speed of Grave Guard *forces* you to run Legion of Sacrament or Deathmarch if you want to run them effectively.  If that's true (and I agree with you that it would be true if they were the same price as grimghasts), then battleline in grand host wouldn't matter, because you're not running grand host if you're running sacrament, and if you're running deathmarch then the 3 required units of skeleton warriors already covers your battleline requirements.

 

"And situational but less relevant differences of course such as benefitting from Deathrattle-only abilities like the LoN trait + cover (with shields vs rend 0 they have a 2+ in cover in LoN!), Ossific Diadem which means they're better vs mortals than Grimghasts, etc.  4" move is ALWAYS going to be horrible and forces you into playing Deathmarch/Sacrament to compensate for it."

Even many of the hypothetical deathrattle buffs are mutually exclusive - you can't run ossific diadem and the save bonus from Legion of Night in the same list.  If you're playing sacrament, then you don't get either.  Being battleline in Grand Host of Nagash can't be a mark in their favor if they're unfieldable outside of sacrament/deathmarch.  These buffs cannot be stacked with each other, most of them aren't run regardless - even for units that are considered viable on their own like skeletons, and none of them on their own come close to making up the speed and durability advantages grimghasts have over grave guard.  The buffs that were most commonly run even before grimghasts were a thing - vamp lord CA and Van Hels - affect grimghasts just as well, and the most notable buff making the rounds that doesn't affect both is the mortality glass spell, which works on grimghasts, not grave guard, dramatically increasing their maneuverability advantage and further undercutting any advantage graveguard had in fitting models into combat.

Also, I thought you were confining your conversation to great weapon grave guard, but if we're going to consider LoN shields in cover, the more saves you stack on a unit the more you incentivize your opponent to point rend at them, and even one point of rend drops those grave guard to a save no better than grimghasts, while still being restricted to static covered positions in your territory, where the points you've invested in their offensive abilities (which now are no better than grimghasts either) are likely going to waste.  There's a reason why you initially confined the discussion to great weapon graveguard.  Even at their best, the shields are still worse than the great weapon version, let alone grimghasts.

 

"They definitely need a points reduction, but the lack of granularity in AoS points (to date) means that reducing them to "under Grims" would likely be too far under Grims, and overpower them in my opinion. They certainly shouldn't be significantly cheaper than Grims for a 30 man unit. Maybe they could make them 60 per 5 with no max unit discount so running them at smaller numbers would be more feasible, though."

Entirely apart from everything else, grave guard shouldn't be 5 model min to begin with.  The box size is 10.  They're small, individually fragile, visually regimented models.  They should be a larger block unit, not a throw away sacrificial drop to skip out on battleline or lowball battalion prerequisites.  If either of these units should be min 5 with no max size discount, it's the larger, less regimented ghosts.

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6 hours ago, ianob said:

Reviewing Death lists is super boring right now. Oh look, the general changed, a support hero changes, there's some dogs skeletons and dire wolves in various irrelevent configurations, go diversity. 

Isn’t all too often the truth of many armies?  Keywords and few options force it for newer armies while we have other issues.

They should try killing two birds with one stone.  More Warscroll Battalions.  More mobility for Fell Bats, let Bat Swarms effect shooting with proximity  the targeted unit, make Black Knights more punchy on the charge, something zombie-zombie for deathwalkers, etc.  If anything it could work for experimenting on future warscroll changes.

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@Sception I dunno what else to tell you then, man. If you’re determined to debunk every argument in their favour with hypotheticals and what ifs, we’re just going to go in circles. I guess that, putting real life ahead of theorycraft, I finished 10th at Facehammer with 30 of them, won a highly competitive one-dayer with them, and didn’t lose a single game in practice against a team including two UK masters players. 

They work, they’re good, try them!

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5 hours ago, Evil Bob said:

Isn’t all too often the truth of many armies?  Keywords and few options force it for newer armies while we have other issues.

They should try killing two birds with one stone.  More Warscroll Battalions.  More mobility for Fell Bats, let Bat Swarms effect shooting with proximity  the targeted unit, make Black Knights more punchy on the charge, something zombie-zombie for deathwalkers, etc.  If anything it could work for experimenting on future warscroll changes.

Many of us seem to forget that zombies are a thing with all this bone being thrown around. We need more rotting corpse units!

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14 hours ago, ianob said:

I finished 10th at Facehammer with 30 of them.

If the best Death player on these boards can only manage tenth place at Facehammer with them, then I rest my case.  😛

Definitelly looking forward to the podcast on how the event went down.  In the mean time, all right, then.  I'll give them another push.  It's not like I want them to be bad as they are.

 

Though I absolutely stand by my position that they should be min unit size 10.  That's not even a game balance question, it's a straight forward matter of figure aesthetic, narrative role, and box size.  5 grave guard on their own just looks and feels wrong.

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12 hours ago, Evil Bob said:

something zombie-zombie for deathwalkers

Don’t need to push zombers...

.60cal with cart and necro took down a Bloodthirster in one round. it was a good charge and only 10 actually fighting first go and around 20 in van hels second.

Tight positioning of support heroes and gravesites meant all losses compensated next hero phase... all for 510 points most solid board control block ever (30dogs aside)

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Even if zombies are better than I or many give credit for, I'd still like to see the models updated and the model line expanded.  There's a lot of conceptual room left untapped there, from just zombies of other things - zombie ogres, zombie giants, zombie vultures/raven swarms, zombie monsters apart from the dragon - to chimeric zombie monstrosities stitched together from multiple creatures frankenstein style.

Flesh golemesque creatures, necromantic centaurs created from human and horse corpses, freaky silent hill type creatures half flesh and half clockwork scaffolding.  All sorts of horrific necromantic abominations.

Zombies are another unit I'd like to see get their batch size increased to their box size.  Tiny zombie units feel like they're missing the point, and a 20 model batch would allow for a bigger horde discount, better incentivizing those huge and cinematic zombie mobs.

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22 minutes ago, Sception said:

Even if zombies are better than I or many give credit for

They are great for casual play, not world domination great...

26 minutes ago, Sception said:

zombie ogres, zombie giants

Some fattys sure...

27 minutes ago, Sception said:

Flesh golemesque creatures

Brilliant idea, sir, brilliant... Abominations from the Fleshpits of Kemmler

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I agree on making Grave Guard 120/300 for 10/30. They compare pretty fairly to Bestigors imo, and thats where they sit.

I see many here wanting the return of Skeleton Archers. I on the other hand would much more prefer Skeleton Crossbows made a return.

Also, plastic vampires.

As far as balance tweaks, make Nagash and Arkhans casting bonuses only apply to their native spells and lore of Necromancy spells. It makes no sense for him to get the bonus to cast things completely outside his specialization (realm spells), or things that even Tzeentch apparently does not fully understand yet (Endless spells). Also, rewrite hand of dust to be some thing like "roll a D6 for each wound the target model has remaining. For each 4+ the target loses one of its remaining wounds. There is no way to avoid or reduce this damage".

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