AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion

[Phasteon]

12 hours ago, Kimbo said:

Okey, thanks. Would you rate this  list as competitive?  Im new to this faction

Very solid list, I‘d 100% go for Zandtos though. -3 rend on 3-4 attacks is A LOT less impactful than potentially full wound reroll (against chaos). 

You really want that rr on your mortek crawlers! Otherwise they are so unreliable for their cost.

[Sception]

On 3/26/2021 at 6:33 PM, Scurvydog said:

Yea just disappointed our new stuff is doubling down on the most pointless thing I could have come up with. OBR has now been part of Wrath of the Everchosen and got nothing there and now BR Teclis, we are not likely to see OBR take center stage anytime soon, so this was the chance to get something interesting to mix things up. Most of all I had hoped for battleline options, as my lists end up so samey as mortek and kavalos eat up so many points...

I agree that WotE and BR:T were both extremely disappointing for OBR crunch.

But in terms of not getting new stuff any time soon, I guess that depends on what you mean by soon.  Certainly not this year.  Maybe not next year, though I think a big 2022 release for OBR is certainly possible.  I'd be honestly surprised if we don't see one by the end of 2023, and I still consider that relatively soon.  Mortek archers, whether people want them or not, seem guaranteed.  And there are tons of other exciting possibilities for cool ways for GW to take our money cool models.  Yeah, we won't be the center of the 3e narrative, but there were plenty of cool releases for factions who weren't centrally involved in the Soul Wars in 2nd edition.

[Deadrixc]

Hail mighty Hekatos' (Hekatos's? Hekatosi? Hekatos?) Im fairly new to AOS and plan to get a full 2,000 points army in may. Ive done a bit of research on obr (lore,meta etc.) and fell in love with their cav! After seeing how slow and Mortek Gaurd heavy the meta is ive wanted to take my army in a very aggressive and cav focused direction. Im gonna post my list here and would love any advice you have to help shape my army in the proper direction. I should also mention that I dont intend for this list to be in any way competitive, but id like it to give another "standard" AOS player's army a run for their money

Legion: Stelliarch lords

Liege-Kavalos
General
CT: Twisted Challenge
Art: Nadir-bound mount

Arch-Kavalos Zandtos

Mortisan bone-shaper
Art: Artisans Key
Lore: Empowered Nadarite Weapons


Mortisan Soulrender
Lore: Reinforce Battle-shields

10 man unit of Kavalos Deathriders (x2)

10 man unit of Mortek guard (Swords)

6 man unit of Necropolis stalkers

Battalion: Kavalos Lance

The idea behind this army is fairly obvious. Buff the hell out of and make my Deathriders mop the floor. The first thing ill talk about is bringing Zandtos and a Liege. I personally love Zandtos' model and hes def a pet pick but losing the trait and the really good artifact by making him my general and not bringing the generic is too much of a loss imo. The boneshaper is to keep all the Deathriders in shape (haha) While the stalkers have the ability to (somewhat) keep up with the Deathriders and they provide the rend the Deathriders lack.  The soulrender and Mortek Gaurd are just what I had to do with my leftover points, maybe they can go get obj's and the lore on the render is nice to throw on a Deathrider unit but not make or break if it goes off. With my generous helping of 7 Disciplene points per turn I should be able to throw all of my liege's CA's at the Deathriders and maybe sprinkle some on the Stalkers here and there.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Deadrixc

[Phasteon]

3 hours ago, Deadrixc said:

Hail mighty Hekatos' (Hekatos's? Hekatosi? Hekatos?) Im fairly new to AOS and plan to get a full 2,000 points army in may. Ive done a bit of research on obr (lore,meta etc.) and fell in love with their cav! After seeing how slow and Mortek Gaurd heavy the meta is ive wanted to take my army in a very aggressive and cav focused direction. Im gonna post my list here and would love any advice you have to help shape my army in the proper direction. I should also mention that I dont intend for this list to be in any way competitive, but id like it to give another "standard" AOS player's army a run for their money

Legion: Stelliarch lords

Liege-Kavalos
General
CT: Twisted Challenge
Art: Nadir-bound mount

Arch-Kavalos Zandtos

Mortisan bone-shaper
Art: Artisans Key
Lore: Empowered Nadarite Weapons


Mortisan Soulrender
Lore: Reinforce Battle-shields

10 man unit of Kavalos Deathriders (x2)

10 man unit of Mortek guard (Swords)

6 man unit of Necropolis stalkers

Battalion: Kavalos Lance

The idea behind this army is fairly obvious. Buff the hell out of and make my Deathriders mop the floor. The first thing ill talk about is bringing Zandtos and a Liege. I personally love Zandtos' model and hes def a pet pick but losing the trait and the really good artifact by making him my general and not bringing the generic is too much of a loss imo. The boneshaper is to keep all the Deathriders in shape (haha) While the stalkers have the ability to (somewhat) keep up with the Deathriders and they provide the rend the Deathriders lack.  The soulrender and Mortek Gaurd are just what I had to do with my leftover points, maybe they can go get obj's and the lore on the render is nice to throw on a Deathrider unit but not make or break if it goes off. With my generous helping of 7 Disciplene points per turn I should be able to throw all of my liege's CA's at the Deathriders and maybe sprinkle some on the Stalkers here and there.

Just a few points you should consider:

1. Zandtos is Mortis Praetorians, he cant buff your Stalliarch Lords with his „still their breath“ CA. 

2. The Stalliarch Lords Trait + Artifact are really bad, like of the worst kind AOS has to offer - no real benifit by having them. 

3. The Boneshaper will never ever be able to effectively hold together your army. Too slow, just 1 heal. Probably out of range forever after turn 1. 

4. I‘d personally leave Zandtos the Boneshaper and the Soulreaper out and take Arkhan and maybe 10 more Mortek Guards instead. 

Better magic, better healing, can actually keep up with your stuff. 

Still not an optimal list, but less things „working against each other“ - that being said if you really want stalliarch lords and want to include Zandtos go ahead - just dont expect the list to perform very well as your points are spent very inefficient. 

[Sception]

Kavalos Deathriders are a great supplemental unit for OBR, but as the backbone unit of an army they have some serious flaws.  AoS is largely an objective game, you need more weight of models than your opponent to claim and hold objectives to win.  Fast, low model count armies can work, but they kind of need to be built on hyper-offensive units that can clear enemy blocks off the table entirely, think idoneth eels and sharks.  If you want a 'cavalry army', and not just an army that runs some cavalry, you really should give the idoneth another look.  Conceptually they're really cool, and while they aren't a Death army, they are basically an entire race of psychic vampires who maintain their undying existance by feeding on the souls of their victims, so they honestly might as well be.

Back to Deathriders, and 10 Deathriders are kind of a weird unit.  They're a super tanky 30 wound block that can grind out battles of attrition against light and medium infantry, and they also have good movement and some mild offensive bonuses on the charge, but critically for all their 30 wounds, they still only count as 10 models for claiming objectives.  Which means they entire time they're grinding out those fights of attrition the opposing side is scoring whatever objective you're fighting over.  Even if you win the fight in the end (and that's questionable since the offensive attributes of deathriders are decent at best), you'll have lost the game by then.

Deathriders are great for chasing off other small skirmishy flanking units, going after unoccupied objectives, blocking lines of advance or retreat, or throwing a bit of extra punch into a mortek guard engagement, but while those are very useful things to be able to do they aren't going to win you a game on their own.

Supplementing them with stalkers is a good choice, the Riders can be an anvil and the stalkers can be the hammer, but stalkers, while faster than mortek guard, still aren't fast exactly, and two hammers that can't claim objectives until the enemy is practically wiped out plus one hammer that's actually kind of fragile, that's not an army.  That's like half an army.  And a hodge podge of characters plus 10 mortek guard is not another half of an army.

 

Basically, as always, I'm saying you should take more mortek guard.  As for where to get the points, the entire point is deathriders so I'm not actually suggesting you drop them, or the stalkers they need to actually kill stuff for them.  But you probably don't need all those heroes.  Deathriders aren't super RDP hungry, at least not compared to mortek guard.  And zandtos kind of want to be in another legion.  I get the appeal of having two lieges for two deathrider units, but IMO one will do you fine.  And if you drop some heroes, then you can bulk out your mortek guard to 'actually scary, going to claim and hold some objectives, can reasonably claim to be half your army' territory.

Something like this:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
- Legion: Stalliarch Lords
Liege-Kavalos (200)
- General
- Command Trait: Twisted Challenge
- Artefact: Nadir-bound Mount
Mortisan Boneshaper (130)
10 x Kavalos Deathriders (360)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
10 x Kavalos Deathriders (360)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
40 x Mortek Guard (440)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
6 x Necropolis Stalkers (360)
Kavalos Lance (120)
Bone-tithe Shrieker (30)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 136

I still think another legion, and a more mortek, less deathrider focused build, would be stronger, but this I think maintains the strong cavalry element while being a bit sturdier and able to play the objective game more effectively.

 

That said, though, again, if you want to run a 'cavalry army', you really should give idoneth another look.  They really can skip infantry intirely and run a brutal pure cav list that sweeps enemy armies aside like, well, like a crashing wave.

[Kimbo]

So, just bought a whole new army and Katakros is the first model I painted. I wanted something "egypt themed" and went for a golden look with some blue and green colors. The ide is to paint this army up fairly quickly and this is the end result!  

[Deadrixc]

Thanks For the great advice you two! I'll defenitley go to the drawing board with your advice.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

I will be taking my Legion out for their first showing on an actual gaming table tomorrow! Weather should be nice, so a friend and I are going to play some Gardenhammer.  We're planning on a 1k point game, which means I will have almost an entirely painted force (my Liege-Kavalos is not yet complete). Very much looking forward to playing!

[Phasteon]

Guys, how do the rules of the LRL and OBR regarding battleshock interact? 

OBR rules state we dont take battleshock, Cathallar makes us take battleshock. 

Can I confidently say „****** you long ear!“ or do I lose Arkhan to a forced -10 battleshock? 

[jhamslam]

2 hours ago, Phasteon said:

Guys, how do the rules of the LRL and OBR regarding battleshock interact? 

OBR rules state we dont take battleshock, Cathallar makes us take battleshock. 

Can I confidently say „****** you long ear!“ or do I lose Arkhan to a forced -10 battleshock? 

Like it says they cannot make us take battleshock

 

[woolf]

2 hours ago, Phasteon said:

Guys, how do the rules of the LRL and OBR regarding battleshock interact? 

OBR rules state we dont take battleshock, Cathallar makes us take battleshock. 

Can I confidently say „****** you long ear!“ or do I lose Arkhan to a forced -10 battleshock? 

the lumineth ability only adds to the modifier when you make battleshock test, it does not force battleshock. so yes you are completely safe from that with OBR

[Phasteon]

8 hours ago, woolf said:

the lumineth ability only adds to the modifier when you make battleshock test, it does not force battleshock. so yes you are completely safe from that with OBR

thx for the clarification, also I completely misread the rule! I get the feeling that OBR are in general a strong pick against LRL

Edited April 4, 2021 by Phasteon

[Gristlegut]

On 4/2/2021 at 9:58 PM, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

I will be taking my Legion out for their first showing on an actual gaming table tomorrow! Weather should be nice, so a friend and I are going to play some Gardenhammer.  We're planning on a 1k point game, which means I will have almost an entirely painted force (my Liege-Kavalos is not yet complete). Very much looking forward to playing!

And? How did it go?

 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

13 minutes ago, Gristlegut said:

And? How did it go?

 

It was a fun game, but ultimately the Bonereapers lost to Sylvaneth trickery. I got his Branchwych early, but couldn't seal the deal on his Arch-Revenant General with my Liege-Kavalos, which led to him keeping a crucial objective one turn too long. Given the scenario was the Starstrike/Starfall/whatever-it's-called one where objectives are placed mid-game and one of his rolled into a place right next to his units but basically impossible for any of mine to reach, I think I did pretty well, considering.

[Sharklone]

Recently took part in a 5 week league of 20 players and ended up 4th. thought I'd do a quick write up for you ladies and gents. My list was all about catapult buffing.

Katakros, Zandtos and soul mason.

2x 20 Mortek, 5 Deathriders, 2 catapults.

Game 1 - This game was against 5 bloodthirsters. Real good dude to play against. Unfortunately for him the catapults murdered both skarbrand and an insensate rage thirster in my first turn. The mortek cleaned up another one and it was all over from there... This was a great win, but would prove to be my downfall as I scored max VP and max Auxillery points and rocketed me to the top of the table and make all my next match ups insanely tough.

Game 2 - Against more OBR! Nagash, boneshaper, harvester and 3x20 mortek. Unfortunately I couldnt get any buffs onto the catapults and they were essentially 400 wasted points and Nagash was just too much of a machine gun for me to deal with. Lost in a nail biter

Game 3 - Against FEC. Poor guy couldnt roll dice that night. The amount of 1s and 2s coming out from him was outrageous. His gheist attacking a unit of mortek with six attacks rolled 5 1's and a 2 for his first gaping maw attack, then feeding frenzied and rolled 6 2's. The rerolls were just as bad. If I didn't know any better I'd say his dice were loaded the wrong way round. Max VP and Aux again shot me to the top of the ladder and put me up against 2 of the toughest players,

Game 4 - Changehost tzeentch in knife to the heart. YUK. Before I even had a turn I'd lost a unit and a half of Mortek. The changeling had deployed on my catapults and I almost could have conceded before having a turn. But the dice are fickle, and the soul mason managed to pile in and kill the changeling freeing up one of the catapults. Katakros wiped the unit of Pinks that had teleported and charged the catapult behind him, so I struggled through. My deathriders and Zandtos were the absolute MVP's this game. charged around the board murdering everything they touched. Special shoutout to the catapults who did their full 40 wounds to the final unit of pinks sitting on the objective which wiped the unit after battleshock, allowing zandtos and his deathriders to catch the objective. Again max Aux on this putting me up against the undefeated cities list.

Game 5 - Tempest eye Gunline. Absolutely disgusting list and it had tabled everyone he had played by turn 3... I found out why during the game... He had his ranges wrong and was treating the crossbowman as if they had a 30inch range and the handgunners as if they had an 18 inch range. He was also rolling for an extra CP despite not having a hero who was under the amount of wounds needed. Lucky I knew cities and corrected him as the game went on. Unfortunate for his previous opponents. These mistakes were a pretty big deal because his CP abilities were insanely strong and he got bonuses for not moving, which he didnt have to because of the longer ranges. Benefit of the doubt whether he knew or not. He was up a significant amount going into turn 3. but OBR did as OBR does and stayed in it and ultimately got me the draw, he was fairly shocked that I managed to claw it back to a draw... and it meant he came second instead of first.

Finished with a 3-1-1 and overall 4th. Not bad for my first proper competitive list with OBR. especially as my only loss was to OBR haha. With the way the points were worked out, I had one of the toughest draws, which I didn't mind it was a good learning experience. To give a bit of perspective, the dude who came first was playing big WAAAAGH and he lost his first game to Lumineth, the loss helped alot and his draw was - Lumineth - Stormcast -Grand allicane Chaos - Trolls - Gargants.

Great fun but the competitive OBR list is shelved for a while I think. The catapults were awesome, but didn't make for the best play experience for opponents. Keen to try an all pony list but!!

 

[Shawry]

Hey all,

Thanks for all the help for my 500pt list, we've moved onto 750 pts now. Does this list sound ok for a beginner?

 

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers

 - Mortal Realm: Shyish

 - Legion: Mortis Praetorians

LEADERS

Liege-Kavalos (200)

- General

- Command Trait: Katakros' Chosen

- Artefact: Gravesand Brooch

Mortisan Boneshaper (130)

- Lore of Mortisans: Empower Nadirite Weapons

UNITS

10 x Mortek Guard (130)

- Nadirite Blade and Shield

10 x Mortek Guard (130)

- Nadirite Blade and Shield

10 x Mortek Guard (130)

- Nadirite Blade and Shield

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS

Bone-tithe Shrieker (30)

[daf]

Gang, what I hate about AoS is the amount of time I spend on figuring out the optimal list. I am playing a small tournament next Sunday. Battleplans are Scorched Earth, Places of Arcane Power, Border War. Other players have Sylvaneth, CoS, DoT, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Fyreslayers, SCE.

I am on the fence with two options and have to submit the list tomorrow:

Katakros / Soulmason / 2x20 Mortek, 1x10 Mortek / 2x5 Kavalos / 1 Crawler + Mortek Shield-corps.

OR

Katakros / Soulmason / 1x40 Mortek, 1x20 Mortek, 1x10 Mortek / 1x5 Kavalos / 1 Crawler + Mortek Shield-corps.

In short, the question is whether to have a single block of 30-40 MG and 1 Kavalos or a 20-MG block but 2 Kavalos.

I tested the former (2x20-MG list) and it did well against inexperienced LRL, strong Khorne and strong Nurgle. But the 20-big blocks are going to die easily against shooting CoS or DoT.

What are your thoughts?

Edited April 18, 2021 by daf

[Boggler]

Bonereapers in my lockdown army. I still haven't played them but my hobby game is strong.

Here is the list I am working on. No Katakros, no crawlers.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
- Legion: Stalliarch Lords
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Liege-Kavalos (200)
- General
- Command Trait: Twisted Challenge
- Artefact: Nadir-bound Mount
Mortisan Boneshaper (130)
- Artefact: Artisan's Key
- Lore of Mortisans: Empower Nadirite Weapons

Battleline
20 x Mortek Guard (260)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield

Units
2 x Morghast Harbingers (190)
- Spirit Swords
6 x Necropolis Stalkers (360)
3 x Necropolis Stalkers (180)

Behemoths
Gothizzar Harvester (200)

Battalions
Katakrosian Deathglaive (80)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Bone-tithe Shrieker (30)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 120
 

Please let me know what you think.

[Emissary]

15 hours ago, Boggler said:

Bonereapers in my lockdown army. I still haven't played them but my hobby game is strong.

Here is the list I am working on. No Katakros, no crawlers.

  Reveal hidden contents

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
- Legion: Stalliarch Lords
Mortal Realm: Hysh

Leaders
Liege-Kavalos (200)
- General
- Command Trait: Twisted Challenge
- Artefact: Nadir-bound Mount
Mortisan Boneshaper (130)
- Artefact: Artisan's Key
- Lore of Mortisans: Empower Nadirite Weapons

Battleline
20 x Mortek Guard (260)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)
- Nadirite Blade and Shield

Units
2 x Morghast Harbingers (190)
- Spirit Swords
6 x Necropolis Stalkers (360)
3 x Necropolis Stalkers (180)

Behemoths
Gothizzar Harvester (200)

Battalions
Katakrosian Deathglaive (80)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Bone-tithe Shrieker (30)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 120
 

Please let me know what you think.

I probably would trade 3 stalkers for 2 harbringers to bring them to units of 4, 3 and 3.  I love harbringers personally, but they do much better in groups of 4.  And you have just enough points to do it.  

I'd probably also trade out the Empower spell for Arcane Command.  You're only generating 4 guaranteed discipline points naturally which is on the lower end.

[TheToastman]

Hey folks, I'm getting close to completing my collection of Ossiarchs, and wanted to ask how many of a few unit types you think I should end up at for general use:

• Deathriders - I'm thinking either 20 for a 2x10 Lance, or 30 for 3x10 battleline in horse-spam or 20+10 Lance
• Stalkers - I have 6, is there any time you would go for 9 or 12 potentially in a Deathglaive?
• either flavor of Morghast - at 2 of each, don't know if I'd want more, but saw mention above of 4-man Harbingers, so figured I should ask

 

[Ulfast]

Hello Bonereapers. Im new to AoS and Im thinking to perhaps start OBR. But Im wondering of they are fun to play with and against? Why do you like them?

[Sception]

2 hours ago, Ulfast said:

Hello Bonereapers. Im new to AoS and Im thinking to perhaps start OBR. But Im wondering of they are fun to play with and against? Why do you like them?

They're solid, and tough, which makes them relatively forgiving in the hands of new players.  They are slow, though, which can make capturing objectives a hassle.  They also lack the sort of core-rule breaking shenanigans that typically set the top competitive factions apart from the rest.  They've got little in the way of teleportation, units that fight out of sequence, powerful spell casting bonuses, mortal wound spam, etc.  If your opponent just shoves his dudes forward into a big scrum in the middle of the board, you're likely to crush them.  But if they play to the objectives, dance around your slower units, and take advantage of whatever dirty tricks are available to their factions, then you might find yourself in a difficult position.

In terms of collecting the army, you generally want to start with:

• Liege Kavalos - our strongest hero and field commander outside of special characters
• Mortek Guard - our backbone battle line infantry, the more the better.  Give them swords for the rend.
• Mortek Crawler - a signature unit that clears chaff and snipes enemy support heroes.  Mortek Guard are the backbone of your army, and Mortek Crawlers deal with exactly he kinds of foes that the Guard can have issues with.
• Bone Tithe Nexus - faction terrain is free, so you might as well take it

1 Liege, 2x20 guard, a crawler, and the nexus is 920 points, with nothing else to buy with the leftover 80 points.  That can be an issue with OBR, all our stuff is expensive, and we can't even purchase an extra command point, so you can be left with a lot of unused points.  Still, that makes for a decent 1000 point list that lets you play with the absolute core foundational units that define the faction's character.

As you move on to higher points, there are a lot of options to play around with.

• More of the above.  It's a bit boring, but you can absolutely make functional, even arguably optimal OBR lists of any points value with nothing but lieges, mortek guard, and mortek crawlers.  More crawlers and especially more guard are never the wrong choice, and my most frequent comment on anybody's obr list is 'needs more mortek guard'.
• Spellcasters.  OBR lack the cheap wizards & bonuses to casting rolls that define strong magic armies in this game, but they have some decent support spells in their faction lore, and boneshapers & soulmasons are decent support heroes in their own right.  Taking a wizard also lets you use endless spells to fill leftover points gaps in your lists.  The faction endless spell 'bonetithe shrieker' is a nice option, if your opponents ever let you get it off.  In general you want to avoid Soulreapers, unless they're literally the only unit you have points left over for.  They look cool, but they don't do much.
• Kavalos Deathriders.  For cavalry they're not all that fast, and don't hit very hard for their points, but they're quite tough and tanky.  And they fill battleline requirements.  And when your overall army is slow, even a small number of kind of fast units can be a big deal, letting you go after objectives or chase off small speed bump units that might otherwise delay the advance of your main mortek guard blocks.  They don't have the numbers or killing power needed to really build an entire army around them, but a unit or two can offer a lot of versatility.
• Necropolis Stalkers or Morghast Harbingers.  Faster than Mortek Guard, killier than deathriders, and either able to fly (harbingers) or move over terrain when charging with their command ability (stalkers), these units can add some significant punch to your army.  Unfortunately, they're relatively fragile for their points, and the mortek guard that form the backbone of your army aren't exactly lacking in melee punch.  These aren't bad units, and they're great when paired with deathriders, but even combined they're still probably not deadly or numerous enough to really build an entire strategy around.  And in a mortek guard based army they compete for points with crawlers, which tend to better complement the guard's shortcoings.  Still, these are decent units and if you want to field them for the sake of the models you can get some good use out of them.
• Gothizar Harvester.  A fantastic support piece for mortek guard... if and only if you can ensure that your opponent will target the guard and not the harvester.  Smart opponents with access to decent shooting or magic damage will kill the harvester first, and that's not exactly hard to do.  If your opponents lack in ranged firepower, A harvester buried in a block of 20+ mortek guard is a nigh unmovable formation, but if they do have a lot of ranged firepower you would have been better off with another 10 mortek guard or another crawler instead.  Again though, as with the stalkers & harbingers, not a bad unit, so if you like the model go ahead.

You might also consider getting one or more of the faction's special characters, all of whom look fantastic:

• Katakros.  If you want to run mortis praetorians, then Katakros is amazing and you should absolutely pick him up on the way to 2000 points.  Even if you don't play praetorians, katakros is still an amazing model and an impressive support piece for your army.
• Zandtos.  If you're playing praetorians, then you also might want to build zandtos instead of a normal liege kavalos.  You pay a bit extra and trade access to command traits and artefacts for a pretty good additional command ability.  It's about an even tradeoff honestly, but the model looks amazing so worth considering for that at least.
• Nagash is a spellcasting juggernaut and an absolute powerhouse on the table that works with any bonereaper subfaction, but he costs like half your army and these days more and more enemy armies are able to legitimately threaten him.  Because he eats up so much of your army in a single model he tends to lead to extremely lopsided games at standard 2000 point levels - either your opponent can deal with him and you lose big, or they can't and you win big, either way the game often feels like it was over before it started.  Still, he looks amazing and can be a lot of fun, particularly for special event big games.
• Arkhan is basically a mini Nagash with a lesser version of most of Nagash's features at a far reduced points cost.  He's also far more fragile.  If you really want to push OBR spellcasting, and don't want to dedicate half your army to Nagash, then this is how you do it.  But you might want to take some Immortis Guard to protect him, and at that point he's costing you as much as Katakros.  And honestly nothing Arkhan is going to cast is going to be as impactful as the stuff Katakros does without having to risk failed casting & unbinding rolls in the first place.  So you might be better off skipping the immortis and just trying to keep him out of range & line of sight of your opponents heavy hitters.  Still, he's not terrible either way, so if you like magic and like the model, or if you absolutely must take some Immortis Guard and you want to justify that choice somehow, then by all means pick him up and try him out.

Stuff to avoid: Honestly OBR are better than many factions in terms of internal balance.  Everything above is at least reasonably playable, even if you won't be seeing all of it at top tournament tables.  But there are a few duds in the book.  These are some units to avoid:

• Vokmortian.  A fantastic model, and an interesting character in the lore, but a garbage unit.  Basically a worse Mortisan Soulmason for more points.  Avoid this one, or if you must have him because the model is so cool, see if your opponent will let you run him as a Mortisan Boneshaper instead.
• Mortisan Soulreaper.  Already mentioned, but this is a pretty bad unit.  A lot of points for a single casting attempt with no build in bonuses, and no other support abilities either, just slightly better than other wizards melee stats.  But not enough better that you really want to be putting him in melee anyway.  His only distinguishing feature is that at 120 points he's literally the cheapest unit in the army.  If you have exactly 120 points spare at the end of your list then you might throw him in, but if you have any other wizards you'd probably be better adding an endless spell or two, or even just running low on points and taking the triumph.  They do have a decent artefact option in the luminscythe, but your artifacts are mostly eaten by your subfaction choice, and even if you run a battalion the other better heroes also have good artefacts to choose from.  As with vokmortian it's a great model, so real shame here.
• Morghast Archai were already the worse morghast variant before the limit to a single ward save.  Now they're much worse.  Morghasts in general aren't the best, but if you must have some then build them as harbingers instead.  Or leave them unassembled an hope that some future book will make Archai better.
• Immortis Guard.  They look cool, and the bodyguard rule is neat, but these guys cost too many points per wound to make burning their wounds an efficient tradeoff for anything apart from maybe Nagash, Katakros, or Arkhan.  And if you field Nagash or Katakros, you probably don't have the points to spare for Immoris Guard in normal sized games.  As a unit in their own right they're nothing to write home about either.  So basically, the only time you should even think about running these is if you're also running Arkhan, and Arkhan's kind of borderline to begin with.  Otherwise if you really like this kit then just build them as stalkers instead.

Honestly it's a shame, since these are four of the coolest looking units in the range, imo.  But 4 duds out of the entire faction isn't a terrible rate by GW standards.

 

[Sception]

In terms of the practicalities of collecting bonereapers, we don't currently have a start collecting box.  The closest we have is the broken realms box with one liege/arch kavalos and 10 kavalos deathriders, which is a decent box to buy exactly one of if you're a particularly big fan of deathriders, but in more typical bonereaper armies I don't generally expect to see more than 5 of them.

A lot of our units are also pretty dang expensive.  In americabux, our cavalry hero is $50, our catapult $80, our faction terrain $60, our...

wait, the nexus is out of stock online?  So are a fair few of the various terrain pieces....

You know what, a new edition of AoS is on the horizon, it's entirely possible that the rules for faction terrain are about to change in some significant fundamental way.  As such, you might want to hold off getting that.

 

Anyway, the point is that as individual models, most of our stuff is pretty pricey, but they're also high points cost so the overall cost of the army isn't that bad, even without a discount start collecting box.  And there's one notable unit in our army that is pretty cheap to buy, at least by GW stnadards, and that's Mortek guard.  Mortek Guard are as elite as any standard battle line in the game.  They're easily as elite as, say, the Lumineth's Vanari Wardens.  And yet the Wardens cost fully twice as much money per dude!  Model for Model, Mortek Guard are cheaper than even hoardy chaff units like Chainrasps or Skeleton Warriors.

These days when GW releases new models for a semi-elite unit like Mortek Guard, you fully expect them to cost $5, $6, maybe more per model.  Mortek Guard cost us$3 per model.  By GW standards, Mortek Guard were essentially shipped on a permanent buy-one-get-one-free sale.  And if you had to pick just one kit in the faction to get a big discount on, it's absolutely the backbone battle line infantry squad that basically carries the rest of the faction on its shoulders.  Even a relatively mortek-light army, the kind I'd reflexively respond to with 'needs more mortek guard,' is probably going to run more mortek guard models than every other kind of model in the army put together.  It almost doesn't matter how overpriced you think the rest of the line is.  You only have to swallow the somewhat unreasonable $50 for a liege kavalos once.  Crawlers at $80 kind of hurts when you'll likely want two and maybe more.  If Morteks were overpriced, it would make the entire faction a pain to collect, because that's a price you'd be paying over and over again as you build up the back bone of your force with multiple boxes.  Instead, the more morteks you add to the force, the more of a discount it feels like you're enjoying, making up for the high price of the heroes and support units you only have to get maybe one or two of.

Compare to legions of nagash, the other skeleton army (at least until they get replaced by the upcoming gravelords).  $60 seems like a lot for a box of morteks compared to $35 for a box of skittles.  But that $60 gets you an absolutely usable unit.  20 mortek guard with swords and shields is a real squad that can do real work on the table.  You can field that right out of the box, as though AoS were a sensible game or something.  10 Skeleton Warriors on the other hand?  That's nothing.  20 skeleton warriors for $70 is also nothing.  30 Skeleton warriors for $105 whole americabux?  That's, you guessed it, absolutely nothing.  With skeleton warriors, you don't have an actual real unit that you can actually use until you've spent $140 on fully 40 warriors, and those 40 skeletons take up about as much of your army's points allotment as the single box of 20 morteks did for only $60.

So yeah, even without a start collecting box of our own, OBR are still one of the easiest armies to collect in age of sigmar purely because, and I'm fully convinced this is actually literally true - whoever was responsible for choosing their price point mistakenly thought the box only had 10 models in it, and nobody corrected them until it was too late.  The only undead army easier to collect is FEC, with their entire army built out of the same 3 kits, with a nice start collecting box that offers a deep discount on those 3 kits.  OBR's certainly easier to get up and running than Legions of Nagash, probably easier than gravelords will be after they replace the legions.  And compared to the nightmare that is trying to collect Nighthaunt?  The difference is like night and Day.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Sception

[Ulfast]

Thanks, this sounds very intersting both of your views. I actually like the models and it´s intersting to play an "elite" force of death as they usually are more of a horde army in most settings. It also sounds that you can do diffrent tactics, all from cavalery charge, wall of undead soldiers, medium monster army and shooting. So thats a fun mix.   

[Alaric83]

Hello guys! I wanted to dive in Ossiarchs as soon as they were announced, but I wanted to finish my other projects before (40k armies and a 2k Kharadron army).

Now that I finally have the time and budget for Ossiarchs, I'd like a very offensive and very mobile army. Ever since I got the OB battletome I had my eyes on a nearly full Katakrosian Deathglaive battalion. Not the most competitive for sure, but I absolutely love both the Necropolis Stalkers and Morghasts models. If one of those were battlelines I'd do a thematic monsters-only army.

That being said, since the Fall of the Petrifex and the Mortek Spam, things look better for a legion that fits well with what I plan to do : the Stalliarch Lords.

If that's okay I'd like to post two lists that I made for 2000 points that seem extremely fun to play, very mobile and aggressive. The opposite of my shooty, defensive, "run-from-the-enemy" Kharadrons. Again, I don't aim to win tournaments, but I'd like to give a tough challenge to my opponents. Let me know what you think of the lists, which you think is the most fun to play, and which is the most competitive.

List 1 : The Mighty Deathglaive

Liege-Kavalos
Mortisan Boneshaper w/ Artisan's Key
10 Mortek Guards
5 Deathriders
5 Deathriders
6 Necropolis Stalkers
6 Necropolis Stalkers
4 Morghast Harbingers
Katakrosian Deathglaive Battalion

List 2 : 50% Deathglaive, 50% Dreadlance, 100% in-your-face

Liege-Kavalos (Horrek)
Liege-Kavalos w/ Helm of the Ordained
Mortisan Boneshaper w/ Artisan's Key
10 Deathriders
5 Deathriders
5 Deathriders
3 Necropolis Stalkers
3 Necropolis Stalkers
2 Morghasst Harbingers
Katakrosian Deathglaive Battalion
Horrek's Dreadlance Battalion

They both play fairly similarly, by charging down the center, going after weak units, advance+charge to get where they want to be, etc.

Let me know what you think!

Also two bonus questions:

1) Are Mortek Guards good in Stalliarch Lords? Or is it more logical to go all in on Deathriders? If I'm honest, I slightly prefer the models of the Mortek Guards to go alongside hordes for Necropolis Stalkers and Morghasts, but not by much. All cavalry army also has its own appeal.

2) Is there any way to get the Helm of the Ordained artefact on the Liege-Kavalos for a Stalliarch Lords army EXCEPT by getting two lieges-Kavalos ? Not even by making another hero the Warlord ? The Stalliarch's default artifact is really unexciting.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Alaric83