Death Monster options

[mmimzie]

I was wondering what everone's thoughts on the death monsters were. I was thinking of compiling abit of a tactica on them and thier various levels of effectiveness. Monsters are power houses that tend to bring the alpha strike game pretty hard, but dred horde surface area.

 

WIth big bases and the whole model being consider the closest model it isn't too tough to get a really nice surround on monsters and pop them with large number of highly buffed attacks. On a small Khorgorath i got something like 30 zombies in range to attack it.  However, on the attack monster put out alot of profiles, sporting high rend, and high damage, with low to hit and wound rolls. 

 

Beast of the Grave: These are the summonables, They don't have technically have points so no playing them in pitched, but i listed them for completeness.

Terrorghiest: This is quite the glass cannon beast. Lean Mean alpha strike machine. He can be summoned, and with his 3d6-bravery mortal wound ranged attack make him a threat to pretty much everything. He heals each turn but it's small and only happens at the start of your turn as opposed to a vampire heal at the end of each combat round for kills. His explosion on death works well again with his scream to make him a powerful suicide charge unit. Fanged Maw 3 -2 rend attacks doing d6 damage each are also very powerful. This guy is all about taking out heavily armored stuff, and more over he's all about suicide killing enemy beast. Also, taking damage doesn't effect your big -2 rend attack which mean he can really go nuts.

Zombie Dragon: He can be Summoned like his bug but he really just scares low armor save stuff with his pestilent breath, which can be rather feast or famine, being just the one die that you throw, but against hordes of guys it can be almost guaranteed to hit.  He even further better at taking out more smaller armored guy with his claw attacks, but he gets one few bite attack than the terrorgheist. This guy is more of a long term persistent threat, and as such has a higher armor value.

 

Not Quite Beast, but bigg enough:

Mortis Engine. It's super cheap, but rather lack luster in combat. It's all about it's aoe abilities and casting bonuses. The Bound necromancer give you +1 to cast perfect for summoning or spell heavy armies. When set off it does an AoE damage + AoE heal. This work best in two conditions i've found. EIther you have an army with lots of big bads Morghast, Zombie Dragons, Torroghiest, Mortarchs, and Vargulfs. Mostly Characters and Monster where the heal can be very effective. However in these armies your Mortis engine is quite vulnerable as it's the weakiest target and it can onyl every fire in your hero phase, so it needs a turn to get into position before firing off. Or you can use it in  horde army the horde protects this mortis engine while it pulses AoE Mortal wounds, realyl good way to give you an edge against melee, but the heal will be mostly wasted. It also has a shooting attack that basically works the same way again only goes off in the hero phase so it's rather slow, no rushing in and setting off. 

 

Flesh Eaters:

ZOmbie dragon: This one is more powerful than the summoned version, but he can't be summoned. His breath attack hits more consistantly against smaller units and ahs -3 rend. He gets 3 Maw attacks. and more sword like claw attacks.  Now he work more liked the summoned terrorgheist as he has -3 rend on his breath attack almost making them mortal wounds, and has enough bits to get through. Lastly He has more of his claw attacks. If he gets in with anything he can shred them up if he's got the initative. 

Terrorghiest: Higher armor trades off for a much weaker shriek, basicly becoming a banshee in this reguard. He looses  his heal if he doesn't have a ghoul king around, but with the king the heal is better.  Otherwise his attacks remain the same meaning the zombie dragon sort of takes his place as the assassin beast. If your luck sex's to wound on your bite can do 6 mortal wounds, but it can be a bit feast of famine here.

 

Leader Beast:

Coven throne: Lot of attack profiles for cheap is the name of the game. It acts as abit of a tarpit for what you can beguile. However, with few none rending attack it won't be shredding much more than your standard troops.  It can dish out mortal wound, but you can only really expect 2 at full health. UNless stated otherwise, such as by your tournament the scrying pool can let you reroll the battle round die to see who goes first. So she could be worth bring if only brought for this. With the teleporting cloak she can move into range to beguile a dangerous target, move in close, and charge them; locking that unit down.

 

Vamp Lord on Zombie Dragon: This is the weaker of the two zombie dragon, with a vamp lord on his back. Heals d6 woulds once per game, Heals wounds for kill models at end of the combat phase.  I'd recommend the Deathlance will really add that explosive quality you want in a big mean beast. That Lance is no joke in how much damage it can do when you get the charge off. Lastly He has a shield making him our tankiest beast with a 3+ save.  This is also a great general with low hit chance models such as spirit host or skels. As a general he can take red fury, and of all the red fury options this one is by far the best as thieri s alot of nasty damage to be had here.

 

Ghoul king on Terror Ghiest: THe ghoul king really jsut gives you a mage and a decent additional attack profile. The spell works well for stacking save on your big beast letting you make your terrorghiest 4+/5++/5++ make it much tougher to take out with his self heals

Ghoul King of Zombie dragon: Make your flesh eaters better through magic.  AoE reroll to failed wounds is a pretty good buff for your army.  ALso he gives the zombie dragon heal D3 wounds per turn, but other than this not much different from the already improved zombie dragon. 

[Justinian]

One thing to add on the Flesh Eater Terrorgheist is the 6 mortal wounds on the maw with a 6 to wound. Not exactly reliable but can be huge when it goes off. Had my GKoT eat an entire unit of hexwraiths with a lucky roll and 12 mortal wounds. 

Great work on the rest of them. I've found the VLoZD to be an absolute powerhouse too. Add on the tomb blade and his healing is just too much. 

The other monster missing is the mourngul which is still technically a death monster, don't own one myself but will do shortly.

 

[mmimzie]

I'll definitly add those in tomorrow, I'm pretty torn for my list between VLoZD, Terrorghiest, or jsut a ZD. I need something that will deal with enemy super save stuff that has silly 2+ rerollable save, and the like. Which inspired me to look over the monsters, and my experience with using each in my games thus far. The morngul i do have data on that'll need to throw on here later.

 

One other VLoZD is red fury general... omgh that guy is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo silly. 

[Thanatos Ares]

I run a monster mash death list which is pretty Killy:

GKoZD

Royal Menagerie Formation

2x FEC Terrorgheists

1x FEC Zombie Dragon

3x 10 Zombies

5x Blood Knights

Vampire Lord (on horse)

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[Nico]

On the other hand if you take Red Fury, you forego Ruler of the Night, which is massive defensively. 

[Thanatos Ares]

Ruler of the Night is pretty much a given for me

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[mmimzie]

I don't know i still think ruler of the night is pretty small potaotoes when your already rocking saves. A good offence can be a great defense. To compare neferata's command ability does pretty much the same thing, and not many folks rocked her around all the time.  Both basicly reduce damage by 1/6, but ruler is all wounds and neferate's had more and less range all at the same time. 

[Thanatos Ares]

A 5+ ward save on 4 big monsters (GKoZD AND his menagerie) is pretty beastly imho

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[mmimzie]

fair enough but it's not like your gaining a 5+ save, your turning a 6+ save to a 5+ save. And it has 10". So if your doing a mission like take and hold, escalation, or border wars your not gonna have 65% of your army in that  bubble. 

Only say as it's not the beat all end all and am merely encouraging using some of the others. Red  Fury on pieces of power or whatever, is the bomb dot com. 

[WoollyMammoth]

Monsters tend to move so fast that the ambush aspect of the summoning is typically unnecessary. Having to roll a 10 is not really worth it even if you think you have a good chance. The only reason I would summon would be to summon outside my allegiance restrictions in Matched Play.

My favorite has always been the Terrorgheist:
GA:D: (320) The 5+ save is unfortunate. With 14 wounds and the ability to heal though, hes not exactly a glass cannon, more like a glass tank. The 3D6 shriek is OP though it does have potential to whiff hard. The 5+ is not a fair exchange for the 3D6 shriek IMO.

GA:D+Abhorrant: (400) Having ghouls run and charge is neat, but this scroll is nothing compared to the new FEC one.

FEC: (320) 4+ save is where its at. The shriek is much better in IMO. It is very different from a banshee which has a minimum of 2 and averages 7. This has a minimum of 7 and averages 10. Even the 3D6 averages 11, so you are getting nearly the same average without the chance of whiffing hard (but you'll never get those OP rolls of 13+). Add in the gaping maw and the ability for it to maintain D3 healing when next to a Ghoul King, and this scroll is a beast.

It goes even deeper than this though; as a Flesh-Eater, it can now get an extra attacks from the Abhorrants spell, or +1 to hit & wound from GA:D Abhorrant's command ability, etc.

FEC+Abhorrant: (400) The key to playing FEC is to not let your Abhorrant die, and the 5+ to ignore all wound spell is the best way to achieve this, while on a 4+ killing machine with 4 wounds healing D3 every hero phase. You can have this guy in the middle of the battle taking lots of heat and in most cases, shrugging it off. The command ability is nice for free summoning but is a little disappointing. 

The ridden FEC version is by far my favorite but to save some points, the non-ridden version is a great way to go.

The Zombie Dragon is very cool, having the same nasty maw that can blow units out.
GA:D: (320) weaker shooting, no heals and no Infested for a 4+ save. Not too exciting.

GA:D+VL: (440) This guy is a super tank with 3+ and the ability to heal D6 once per game. With only situational 1 wound healing however, the Tgheist typically have more healing per game. He hits hard on the charge but his spell is not great. His spell is universal making him a great anvil general for generic death lists, but he is extremely pricey. Other monsters fulfill similar roles, often better for cheaper. Hes a great soulblight option though I think the "mini" version of a lord on abyssal terror is a much better option. 

FEC: (320) Now he becomes more interesting. The breath is now very likely to cause some hurt on nearly anything, and his claws make him especially deadly in close combat. Without the ability to heal in any way, and with a seriously deteriorating potency as he takes wounds, I still don't see cause to take him over a Tgheist unless you can find some way to heal him.

FEC+Abhorrant: (400) for 80 more points, you get the healing you need on this guy, with a spell that makes him an awesome alternative to to the 5+ GA:D foot-abhorrant. He trades the survive spell from the Tghiest for more offence. I prefer survival over offence but this thing is awesome regardless.

There are also many other awesome behemoths for death; the 3 Mortarchs, the super tank Necrosphinx, the broken Forge World Mourngul and of course, Nagash.

[mmimzie]

@WoollyMammoth So can you take the GA:D  versions of these beast??? When look at the points they are listed under flesh court, but they aren't flesh court in GA:D.

Now i only care to bring this up and make this distinction because of an error i've seen in frontline game. They basicly used the price of ogre grots for moon clan grots, both of which are named grot, but in the book you have prices for each. As moon clan grots are way better than your standard grots, but standard grows are 20 points cheaper for 20 than moon clan. So can we really assume they have the same cost???

[WoollyMammoth]

@mmimzie
Its the same scroll, therefore the same point cost. The FAQ merely suggests to use the newest, but its not required. My app is currently showing the old Tgheist scroll (GA:D) listed at 320 points. Regardless I prefer the updated version in this case. You can get greedy and go with the old Tgheist scroll, but if you do you are gonna end up rolling under 7 on three dice because of karma, which is less than is even possible with the new scroll.

Grots and Grots unfortunately have the same name, but they are both 20 for 100. The keywords are tied to the scroll you are using, so the only issue is if you are attempting to claim Gutbuster allegiance with Gitmob grots, which is obviously not possible due to allegiance rules. Otherwise, having any kind of gitmob and gutbusters together in a destruction alliance is perfectly normal.

[Thanatos Ares]

3 hours ago, mmimzie said:

fair enough but it's not like your gaining a 5+ save, your turning a 6+ save to a 5+ save. And it has 10". So if your doing a mission like take and hold, escalation, or border wars your not gonna have 65% of your army in that  bubble. 

Only say as it's not the beat all end all and am merely encouraging using some of the others. Red  Fury on pieces of power or whatever, is the bomb dot com. 

My list isn't about claiming objectives, it's about the complete and utter annihilation of my opponents list lol. The menagerie ALWAYS flys within 10" of the GKoZD for the spell bubble reroll wounds. That's why the 5+ ward on top of the 4+ armour is so important (to my list at least) as the monsters do all the heavy lifting 

[Nico]

Against a 4+ to hit attack, Neferata's ability chops out a full third of the damage!

[Nico]

And a Ward save of 5+ over 6+ is twice as good.

[WoollyMammoth]

1 hour ago, Thanatos Ares said:

My list isn't about claiming objectives, it's about the complete and utter annihilation of my opponents list lol. The menagerie ALWAYS flys within 10" of the GKoZD for the spell bubble reroll wounds. That's why the 5+ ward on top of the 4+ armour is so important (to my list at least) as the monsters do all the heavy lifting 

Its not a coincidence that all 6 pitched battleplans are objective based. AoS was built as a counter to "lets just throw our models down and mash them together" mindset. You should be playing these battleplans every time, until you get bored and create custom objective based battleplans, and integrate time of war rules and other special rules.

War is never so clean. Objectives happen in real battle. You have to use terrain, claim the high ground, etc. For example, Russia used its knowledge of dealing with harsh winters to block invaders all through history. If you just table your opponent you are cheating yourself, and you will only win a minor victory - this is true even if you ignore the battleplans, you are only ever wining a minor victory.

If you want to prove yourself a master general, and win a major victory over your opponent, you must do so by dealing with the unexpected situation at hand, making the most of what you can, and claiming victory not just over your opponent, but over the battlefield as well. 

[mmimzie]

7 hours ago, Nico said:

Against a 4+ to hit attack, Neferata's ability chops out a full third of the damage!

 

7 hours ago, Nico said:

And a Ward save of 5+ over 6+ is twice as good.

Actualy i was kinda wrong neferata's is better unless your at like 2+ to hit in which case they are pretty even??? Napkin math so could be wrong. I don't know i'm not super choked up on ruler of the night in all cases. Red fury and Supernatural horror i think really have strong places in list. 

[Thanatos Ares]

Lol I'm well aware of the 6 battle plans all being objective based buddy. My monster list isn't a serious one that I would take to a tourney. However that being said as the current meta does indeed revolve around objectives coming up against a monster list forces a different tactical else to the game.

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[Thanatos Ares]

Please don't be so rude and dismissive in your comments. I'm not cheating myself or my opponent by taking a monster list.

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[mmimzie]

Did i slight you??? I do this sometimes with out realizing it. My inner ****** boils up and says hello lmao. Sorry if i offended you?? 

[Thanatos Ares]

No worries, I was tired yesterday and snappy. No harm done

Waaagh! Skullcrack iz comin fer ya

[Justinian]

Managed to get a good bargain on a necrosphinx on eBay was just wondering what people's experience was with one of them? -3 rend and halving wounds seems pretty good. 

[Sadysaneto]

No love for mourngul?

[mmimzie]

I only talked about the monsters i played with sorry. Didn't want to give false advice.

 edit: I pride myself on the quality of the info i provide ^.~

[Minkster]

15 hours ago, Sadysaneto said:

No love for mourngul?

I second this vote really it is the #1 choice if you want the best death monster in AoS at the moment while it might not have the instant alpha strike potential it is so hard for the enemy to take down and kill unlike many other monsters in this game