AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion

[Emissary]

Played a 2,000 point Knife to the Heart mission against my buddy's Gloomspite Gitz last night.  Thought I'd put up a battle report.

His army:
Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (general, had an ability that let him use a free command point, not sure if it was an artifact or general's trait, I never got the other one.)
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig
Loonboss
Fungoid Cave- Shaman (teleport spell)
10 Boingrot Bounderz
10 Spider Riders
3 Fellwater Troggoths
Colossal Squig
Squig Gobba
20 Shootas
20 Stabbas
5 Loonsmasha Fanatics
Squig Herd
Scuttletide

My army (Petrifex Elite):
Arkhan the Black
Liege Kavalos (general and artifact)
20 Mortek Guard (swords)
20 Mortek Guard (swords)
5 Kavalos Deathriders (swords)
3 Immortis Guard
3 Immortis Guard
2 Morghast Archai
Aegis Immortal Battalion
Nightmare Predator
 

I won the roll and started the setup.  I ended up deploying with one unit of Mortek Guard on my objective, the morghasts, liege kavalos and kavalos deathriders running long ways on the weird L-shaped deployment to get his objective, and then my other mortek guard, both sets of Immortis and Arkhan closer to his objective to grind their way there and to head off the heart of his army.

He set up both sets of goblins, loonboss on foot and shaman in the middle near his objective.  The troggoths and Squig Gobba were opposing my cavalry and both mounted loonbosses, the colossal squig, boingrotz, squig herd and spiders opposing the core of my army.

Lastly, my Nexus was about dead center of the table.

Since I finished setting up first, I chose him to go first:

I'll do the battle report here soon plus some observations.

[Gwendar]

8 minutes ago, Heijoshin said:

you can't then pile into another unit more than 3" away.

Yes, you can. The rules give 2 criteria for piling in:



So the idea is to stack the CA, wipe the unit out with mortals and then get the extra pile in distance and hit another unit which is exceptionally good at clearing smaller screens (Skinks, Marauders, etc) and then piling into whatever they were screening (probably a bigger unit that doesn't want to get hit by 10-15 Deathriders).

Edited November 7, 2019 by Gwendar

[Heijoshin]

4 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

Yes, you can. The rules give 2 criteria for piling in:



So the idea is to stack the CA, wipe the unit out with mortals and then get the extra pile in distance and hit another unit which is exceptionally good at clearing smaller screens (Skinks, Marauders, etc) and then piling into whatever they were screening (probably a bigger unit that doesn't want to get hit by 10-15 Deathriders).

Sure, I'm not saying that they can't charge in general. I'm saying they wouldnt be allowed to pile another unit from say 15" away. 

[XReN]

1 minute ago, Heijoshin said:

Sure, I'm not saying that they can't charge in general. I'm saying they wouldnt be allowed to pile another unit from say 15" away. 

U wot?

They are eligible to pile in if they charged, don't you get it? Other criteria doesn't matter in this case

Edited November 7, 2019 by XReN

[Gwendar]

4 minutes ago, Heijoshin said:

Sure, I'm not saying that they can't charge in general. I'm saying they wouldnt be allowed to pile another unit from say 15" away. 

What @XReN said. It doesn't matter how far away the unit is; if they charged, they can pile in to the closest unit. If that unit 15" away is the closest one, then that's where they go.

Now, if you're implying that they kill a unit with another one 6" away but you want to pile in to one 15" away then that can't happen as they need to move towards the closest model.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Gwendar

[Heijoshin]

1 minute ago, XReN said:

U wot?

They are eligible to pile in if they charged, don't you get it? Other criteria doesn't matter in this case

Like I said, there are other abilities which specifically state that a unit can pile in from further away I.e. sisters of slaughter and bloodthirster of unfettered fury. This does not state that. This states more distance when they move. If GW wanted to allow this ability to allow you to pile in from further it would state so.

[XReN]

1 minute ago, Heijoshin said:

If GW wanted to allow this ability to allow you to pile in from further it would state so.

It is stated in the rules for Piling In, in a part that was quoted and highlighted TWICE here

[Gwendar]

10 minutes ago, Heijoshin said:

Like I said, there are other abilities which specifically state that a unit can pile in from further away I.e. sisters of slaughter and bloodthirster of unfettered fury. This does not state that. This states more distance when they move. If GW wanted to allow this ability to allow you to pile in from further it would state so.

This really is a separate thing altogether and you shouldn't keep comparing them. The SoS ability lets them effectively get 6" away (IE not making a charge) and still pile in as it overrides the need for them to be within 3" to pile in.

Deathrider CA defaults to the core rule for piling in, allowing them to pile in to a unit regardless because they charged a unit.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Gwendar

[relic456]

Yeah the rules are pretty clear.  If you charged, you get to pile in (as per the quoted rules). You usually get to pile in 3", but the CA lets you increase that. If you had enough RDP, you could pile in as far as your RDP allow.

To further @Gwendar's point, the abilities that clarify you can pile in from further away from normal are there to allow you to avoid charging if you so choose.

Edited November 7, 2019 by relic456

[Emissary]

Would put these together:

Played a 2,000 point Knife to the Heart mission against my buddy's Gloomspite Gitz last night.  Thought I'd put up a battle report.

His army:
Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (general, had an ability that let him use a free command point, not sure if it was an artifact or general's trait, I never got the other one.)
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig
Loonboss
Fungoid Cave- Shaman (teleport spell)
10 Boingrot Bounderz
10 Spider Riders
3 Fellwater Troggoths
Colossal Squig
Squig Gobba
20 Shootas
20 Stabbas
5 Loonsmasha Fanatics
Squig Herd
Scuttletide

My army (Petrifex Elite):
Arkhan the Black
Liege Kavalos (general and artifact)
20 Mortek Guard (swords)
20 Mortek Guard (swords)
5 Kavalos Deathriders (swords)
3 Immortis Guard
3 Immortis Guard
2 Morghast Archai
Aegis Immortal Battalion
Nightmare Predator
 

I won the roll and started the setup.  I ended up deploying with one unit of Mortek Guard on my objective, the morghasts, liege kavalos and kavalos deathriders running long ways on the weird L-shaped deployment to get his objective, and then my other mortek guard, both sets of Immortis and Arkhan closer to his objective to grind their way there and to head off the heart of his army.

He set up both sets of goblins, loonboss on foot and shaman in the middle near his objective.  The troggoths and Squig Gobba were opposing my cavalry and both mounted loonbosses, the colossal squig, boingrotz, squig herd and spiders opposing the core of my army.

Lastly, my Nexus was about dead center of the table.

Since I finished setting up first, I chose him to go first:

Round 1

I rolled for my Relentless Discipline, got two 6s and ended up with 6.  His spellcasting didn't work .   His colossal squig decided to move 19" towards my immortis guard.  The rest of his army moved foward.  The squid gobba killed 3 mortek guard with shooting.   The CS charged in and managed to do 8 wounds to one of my immortis guard units (I rolled really poorly).  The last guard managed to do one mortal wound back on his shield. 

On my turn Arkhan improved the blades of the forward mortek guard, did 4 wounds to the colossal squig by making it age and then failed to cast the nightmare predator (because of course he did).  Finally he brought the 3 mortek guard back to life.  3 RD points were spent to add extra movement to the liege kavalos, deathriders and archai.  The mortek guard moved up to go after his general and the other immortis guard moved to assist their brothers.   Arkhan decided to sit centrally.  The immortis guard charged in against the colossal squig and did 6 more wounds to it while the large unit took 3 back.  The mortek guard charged in against his general on the mangler squigs and a few tagged his spider riders, got an extra -1 rend and shieldwall and proceeded to do 16 wounds to his general, of which 6 were saved on 6s.  They also killed a spider rider.  The riders and general killed 8 back.  Finally, the deathriders and liege kavalos charged the troggoths.  The general killed one troggoth and 2 fanatics that appeared when he moved close while taking 1 wound in return.  The deathriders finished off the troggoths and did 5 wounds to the squig gobba when 2 got into range when piling in.  The gobba and stabbas which were now in range did 2 wounds back.

Round 2

I won the roll to go first and decided to go.  After rolling my 8 dice I got one extra and had 5 RD points.  Arkhan healed the deathriders and immortis guard fully.  He also brough 3 mortek guard back.  The Nexus did one mortal wound to his general on the mangler squigs (last turn it made the shaman ignorant).  Then Arkhan finished off the general with an arcane bolt.  It exploded but only managed to kill 3 squigs in the squig herd.  He then did 1 wound to the colossal squig with curse of years and then cast the nightmare predator on the CS which promptly rolled a 1 when trying to hit its prey (this thing is starting off...well).  I didn't have much movement, but the morghasts moved up to be near Arkhan, who then promptly left their safety to charge the spider riders.    In melee the 3 immortis guard finished off the colossal squig which exploded and did a wound back to them but didn't wound the lone guy.  The spider riders then did 2 wounds to Arkhan and killed 5 more of the shield walled mortek guard.  Arkhan killed 3 riders and healed himself fully.  The mortek guard also killed 3 riders and the rest fled from battleshock.  On the other side of the table the liege kavalos gave himself and the deathriders +1 attack,  took 2 more wounds from the fanatics and finished them off along with some stabbas.  Finally, the deathriders killed many more stabbas but only did 2 wounds to the gobba and it was alive with one hp.

On his turn the shaman did a scuttletide which did 3 wounds to the Archai.  The shootas shot at Arkhan but didn't wound him through his armor.  The gobba also failed to do any damage to the deathriders.   The stabbas managed to kill a deathrider, but lost several more from the deathriders and liege kavalos but weren't wiped out and wouldn't break because of the shrine.  My opponent was annoyed by this.  The deathriders also finished off the gobba.  On the other side, the boingrotz bounders and loonboss on the giant cave squig charged the mortek guard and arkhan.  They managed to do 3 wounds to Arkhan and kill about half the mortek guard from mortal wounds.  Arkhan struck back and killed the loonboss and healed back 2 wounds while the shield walled mortek guard didn't lose any models to the regular attacks and killed 1 bounder back.  Finally the cave squigs from the exploded colossal squig and cave squig unit charged both sets of immortis guard, did nothing in their attack and were wiped out for their trouble.  Things were looking bleak for the gitz.

Round 3

The Ossiarchs again got to go and generated 5 RD points again.  Arkhan rose some mortecks back, healed the immortis guard, morghasts and the liege kavalos and then dispelled the scuttleswarm.  He then did one wound to the boingrotz with curse of years and then got the nightmare predator who did 4 wounds to the last loonboss (his prey), 3 wounds to the shaman next to him but it rolled that 1 when attacking the shootas.  In melee the liege kavalos and deathriders again failed to finish off the stabbas (2 left) and they couldn't break so stayed there.  The morghasts charged the last 2 characters and stabbas.  One morghast finished off the loonboss while the other took out the shaman.  The shootas did nothing in return.  The 3 immortis guard moved up to get into range of Arkhan to protect him.  He took 5 wounds from the boingrotz.  1 was canceled in the transfer, the immortis guard too 3 and Arkhan took one.  He then killed some boingrotz and for the third time healed back to full.  The mortek guard then killed several more boingrotz who then broke and fled.  

On my opponent's turn he just had the 2 stabbas and the shootas.  The shootas shot at the morghasts but failed to do anything.  The stabbas were killed and he failed the roll for them to come back while the morghasts killed 9 shootas.  With this he still held the one objective (enough shootas) but the game was effectively over so we called it there.

[Heijoshin]

1 hour ago, XReN said:

It is stated in the rules for Piling In, in a part that was quoted and highlighted TWICE here

 

59 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

This really is a separate thing altogether and you shouldn't keep comparing them. The SoS ability lets them effectively get 6" away (IE not making a charge) and still pile in as it overrides the need for them to be within 3" to pile in.

Deathrider CA defaults to the core rule for piling in, allowing them to pile in to a unit regardless because they charged a unit.

 

37 minutes ago, relic456 said:

Yeah the rules are pretty clear.  If you charged, you get to pile in (as per the quoted rules). You usually get to pile in 3", but the CA lets you increase that. If you had enough RDP, you could pile in as far as your RDP allow.

To further @Gwendar's point, the abilities that clarify you can pile in from further away from normal are there to allow you to avoid charging if you so choose.

Then I'm definitely wrong and confusing these two things entirely. I guess this will get clarified soon enough! 

[Arcian]

7 minutes ago, Emissary said:

*snip*

A glorious battle! I wonder if we would make use of those goblin bones...

Looks like Arkhan really helped a lot with his ability to regen your mortek guards!

[Emissary]

Some thoughts:

1) I know it's cliche' at this point, but the army (especially Petrifex) is hideously resilient.  When everything has a 3+ or better save, plus the 6+ plus your basic infantry are rerolling those saves (not just failed saves) the amount of stuff that bounced off them was amazing.  By the end of the game, my other friends watching the game were discussing how they would deal with it.  When I was talking with a buddy that I'm playing this coming wednesday, he mentioned he plans on bringing the army that does the most mortal wounds against me.  

2) I know healing has been talked about.  I don't think it's necessary but it's absolutely helpful.  It was the reason why I hadn't lost a unit by the end of the game.  A normal attrition game from your opponent won't work with their saves, natural immunity to battleshock and then healing vast swathes of their army.  You have to hit them hard and at once rather than down the line and my opponent was starting to learn it as they went.  I think you can do the army with it and without fairly well.

3) As for offense, the army has it, but it's reliant on the RD points to really get going (more on RD in a minute).  Having 20 line troops with a 3+ rerollable save and 2 attacks with a -2 is almost dirty.  The 16 wounds they did to his general should finish off most monsters in one turn.  The knights are great also and will find a stable home in my list.  For the Immortis Guard, they did okay, but a big factor was my poor dice rolling for them which wasn't their fault.

4) The army is also very fast when it wants to be.  With a single RD point your morteks can move 7" and then charge 2d6+1".  The deathriders can go 15".  They aren't slow at all if you don't need them to be.  They just can't teleport or ignore terrain easily.

5) The main factor to the army is the Relentless Discipline points.  You really have to manage them since you rely on them, but cannot carry them over so have to use them.  Someone before stated they took a 100 point unit, made it the power of a 90 point unit and then costed it at 130 points or something like that.  It really felt like a 100 point unit was still at 100 point unit or at least a 90 point unit, but the power took off with the stacking buffs you add.  Mortek Guard are good on their own, they really good with shieldwall or -1 rend.  They're stupidly good with both and they're out of this world if you throw in +1 attack from Endless Duty.  

The thing is that you don't have many and don't have nearly as much as you think at the beginning of the round and you have to plan it out.  A lot of complaints or theorycrafting with them (like spending all your points for some mighty charge with your deathriders) sounds good, but it leaves everything else you have without those points when they'll need it.  I can absolutely see taking Katakros+wizard/battalion+liege kavalos/Zandtros as an option to generate a guaranteed 8 at turn as being a thing and I plan on doing it.

6) Arkhan with his healing everything around him, plus his healing in the combat phase plus a unit or two of immortis guard (with or without the battalion) is incredibly tanky.  It was hilarious to see the lengths my opponent was going and my other friends were saying in how to take him down and at the end of the game he was unwounded.  Nagash and the 2 mortarchs are going to be extremely hard to kill on their own, and that's before you throw in help.  I didn't even have the heart to mention to them about the spell that lets Arkhan teleport away in their calculations on taking him down.

7) Lastly, the spell lore is okay at best.  There wasn't anything I felt like I had to cast and very little offense in it.  You're already getting a lot of buffs from the RD so it doesn't feel necessary for a list, but helpful.  I can certainly see going with Katakros and no wizards and doing okay unless you need to dispel opponent spells.  Most people talk about the empower weapons spell, but I'm thinking the mortal wound protection spell is better because that's the real way to hurt the army.  If I only bring one wizard, the empower shields spell is my first pick by a wide margin right now.

In conclusion I don't think the army is broken nor do I think it's underpowered.  It's really good and should really affect the meta.  It was only one game, but I was really happy with it.

Edit: Also, I don't think the army cares about going second if it needs to.  It's tough enough to let them go first and if you do, it should give you a better degree of planning out your RD points for offense the next turn without having to worry about saving some for defense.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Emissary

[Arcian]

11 minutes ago, Emissary said:

Lastly, the spell lore is okay at best. 

How do you feel about the spell lore that hurts the target if they attack one of our units? I can't remember its name at the moment, at work without my book

[Emissary]

16 minutes ago, Arcian said:

How do you feel about the spell lore that hurts the target if they attack one of our units? I can't remember its name at the moment, at work without my book

Highly situational (as many of the spell lore are).  It's stackable, but it doesn't do anything when you cast it and then only works on a 3+.  You want to use it on something that can hit you in many phases so it can activate a lot, but those units are rare.  I'd rather get an immediate benefit in damage or get a buff for my trouble.  Not something that may or may not work after they hurt me first.

I'd also like to add that the unit that was talked about most was the Mortek Guard.  The 3+ rerollable saves plus 2 attacks with exploding 6s and rend easily got the most attention and discussion.  I joked that you could get a unit of 40 of them and there was some laughter about that.   They're an incredible unit honestly because they're tough, they make great use of the 5 best RD buffs (-1 rend, +1 to hit, +3 move, reroll saves, +1 attack) and they make the best use of both good spells (enhance weapons and shields).

I can absolutely see the following list doing really, really well:

Petrifex Elite
Katakros
Zandtos
Soulmason general with artifact and enhance shields
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
5 Kavalos Deathriders
Mortek Shield Corps Battalion
Nightmare Predator or Bone-Tithe Shrieker

 

You have a ton of buffs and RD points to play with (9+7 rolls, plus a free shield wall every turn with is effectively +2).  It would be really hard to grind through all that.
 

Edited November 7, 2019 by Emissary

[Spears]

Got my first game in against the new boney boys yesterday, lost as Nighthaunt. Few thoughts from the game:

I hadn't heard much about the debuffs, at one point my bladegheists were at -2 to hit having to reroll 6s  to hit and then reroll 6s to save. Only one of the abilites was a spell. It seems like this would be hugely effective against any army with one big deathstar blob. Only one of these being a spell meant its super reliable too.

The healing is great, just dumping unconditional flat 3 wound heals at 24 inch range seemed really reliable. 

The catapult is scary as hell but susceptible to being shut down. Obr don't really have the bodies to screen if they also want to get out into the field.

Katakros shutting down the aetherquartz brooch in the enemy turn feels pretty potent. 

Rd points felt fairly generous, it certainly didn't feel like any of the available buffs werent being used to conserve them. The lack of the charge re roll is absolutely going to cost Obr players some games though.

Overall I felt massively outgunned, almost all of the OBR abilities and attacks going off were considerably more potent  than the NH ones. That said my opponent was playing a hero and cav heavy list, so I did feel that with better placement I could have been in the game on objectives. I think a swarm of mortek guard would have just completely shut me out of the game.  Straight up battle shock immunity contributes to this, it feels like gw are aware that infantry swarms seem to outweigh other choices as evidenced in the mawtribes scoring ability, but at the same time completely negate one of the few downsides to running infantry bricks.

As a faction they seemed super strong but in part that's looking through the lens of a faction with a number of similar but worse design elements, decent saves, healing without summoning. That said playing against them also felt like an honest game of warhammer, there was magic, shooting and cc but very little of it broke the core rules or felt  uninteractive.

 

[Izikail]

16 hours ago, Emissary said:

Highly situational (as many of the spell lore are).  It's stackable, but it doesn't do anything when you cast it and then only works on a 3+.  You want to use it on something that can hit you in many phases so it can activate a lot, but those units are rare.  I'd rather get an immediate benefit in damage or get a buff for my trouble.  Not something that may or may not work after they hurt me first.

I'd also like to add that the unit that was talked about most was the Mortek Guard.  The 3+ rerollable saves plus 2 attacks with exploding 6s and rend easily got the most attention and discussion.  I joked that you could get a unit of 40 of them and there was some laughter about that.   They're an incredible unit honestly because they're tough, they make great use of the 5 best RD buffs (-1 rend, +1 to hit, +3 move, reroll saves, +1 attack) and they make the best use of both good spells (enhance weapons and shields).

I can absolutely see the following list doing really, really well:

Petrifex Elite
Katakros
Zandtos
Soulmason general with artifact and enhance shields
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
5 Kavalos Deathriders
Mortek Shield Corps Battalion
Nightmare Predator or Bone-Tithe Shrieker

 

You have a ton of buffs and RD points to play with (9+7 rolls, plus a free shield wall every turn with is effectively +2).  It would be really hard to grind through all that.
 

Your RD calculations i a little of, katakros only gives 3 extra when he is the general, its easy to fix, but thought you should know

[Kugane]

Using immortis to protect arkhan also impacts his mobility a lot. Being limited to immortis movement is quite bad XD.

[Emissary]

14 minutes ago, Izikail said:

Your RD calculations i a little of, katakros only gives 3 extra when he is the general, its easy to fix, but thought you should know

Yeah, he should always be the general because he can't use both of his command abilities otherwise as another reason.    My mistake on that.

[Emissary]

1 hour ago, Kugane said:

Using immortis to protect arkhan also impacts his mobility a lot. Being limited to immortis movement is quite bad XD.

Well, there are ways to mitigate it.  With 1 RD point you can increase their move to 8" and they can still run.   Plus the battalion makes morghast archai protectors also.

[Sception]

Also Arkhan's need for the immortis diminishes quickly after the first turn, because by that point he should have protection of nagash up.  It's often enough for him to simply deploy near an immortis unit even if he doesn't plan to stay near them after the game starts.

And really, arkhan's pretty content to hang out behind your lines casting buffs until the battle's good & stuck in, so it may be a few turns before he even wants to jump out to position for a charge or whatever.

[GeneralZero]

19 hours ago, Emissary said:

the blades of the forward mortek guard, did 4 wounds to the colossal squig by making it age and then failed to cast the nightmare predator (because of course he did).  Finally he brought the 3 mortek guard back to life.  3 RD points were spent to add extra movement to the liege kavalos, deathriders and archai.  The mortek guard moved up to go after his general and the other immortis guard moved to assist their brothers.   Arkhan decided to sit centrally.  The immortis guard charged in against the colossal squig and did 6 more wounds to it while the large unit took 3 back.  The

this.

I was thinking about something that nobody talked about when comparing morghast to , lets say, stalkers. Morghast can baby sit a HB, plus, they can stay behind your lines and then, with their big charge (3D6) and FLY, position BEHIND the enemyline or charge something behind the first enemy line. If I'm not missing something, I think that stalkers and other units can't do this kind of shenanigans. It is a bit of suicide missile eventually but it seems to me to be a nice tactical option.

[Scurvydog]

20 hours ago, Emissary said:

Petrifex Elite
Katakros
Zandtos
Soulmason general with artifact and enhance shields
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
20 Mortek Guard
5 Kavalos Deathriders
Mortek Shield Corps Battalion
Nightmare Predator or Bone-Tithe Shrieker

With all those points the battalion will be a bit wasted, especially with nobody to use the extra artifact either, at the very least Zandtos should just be a regular Kavalos Liege, as his command ability only works on Mortis Praetorians, you can get far more use from a regular Liege with a useful artifact.

This is my problem with Zandtos, no matter what I do he never seems worth it, even without Katakros for Mortis Praetorians the forced artifact is a -3 rend one, and that is only really useful on a Liege... maybe on a soul reaper but eh...

[Nuradin]

4 hours ago, Spears said:

I hadn't heard much about the debuffs, at one point my bladegheists were at -2 to hit having to reroll 6s  to hit and then reroll 6s to save. Only one of the abilites was a spell. It seems like this would be hugely effective against any army with one big deathstar blob. Only one of these being a spell meant its super reliable too

Do you have what abilities caused these debuffs? i recon one is endless spell and the other terrain piece? But what else? 

 

Also, on a different note. Shield Wall, does that also affect deathless warriors save?

[Arcian]

1 minute ago, Nuradin said:

Do you have what abilities caused these debuffs? i recon one is endless spell and the other terrain piece? But what else? 

 

Also, on a different note. Shield Wall, does that also affect deathless warriors save?

Reroll to hit 6s could be the spell Drain Vitality? I imagine it would be pretty useful against armies that have stuff like "on an unmodified 6, do X"