AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion

[smartazjb0y]

11 minutes ago, Captain Badruk said:

Can someone post the us prices again please? I'm stupid and didn't screen shot them!

 

[ArgyBargy]

A list with 4 crawlers. Yes or no?

[MetaMaxy]

23 minutes ago, ArgyBargy said:

A list with 4 crawlers. Yes or no?

I think yes? I mean the Crawlers are scary good on paper. I dont see why them, a ton of guard, and a soulmason as an HQ couldn't be a competitive list

[MetaMaxy]

 

Petrifix Elite

Nagash 880

2x Crawler 400

10x Guard 130

10x Guard 130

20x Guard 260

1x Soulmason 140

Shrieker 20

Predator 40

Total:  2000 points

 

Im having to drop 20 Guards for the 2 endless spells and an extra Crawler. The Crawlers seem scary good along with the endless spells. Only thing is im un-sure if it's wise to drop so many of the Guards. I do feel like the extra Catapult could help crush quite a few enemy models before they get in range of my Guards though. Any advise?

Edited November 1, 2019 by MetaMaxy

[XReN]

15 hours ago, Gwendar said:

I've been considering something similar, but I really feel you would need at least 1x20\30 of Mortek. I haven't decided if the Crawler has been worth it though... it can be quite a threat to some of the armies I play having that kind of range and killing power on support heroes (even with the normal 3 shots) would be quite beneficial.

At the same time though... having the 6 Stalkers as a hammer and a Deathrider unit for mobility is absolutely needed and you start running out of points quickly. I dunno, perhaps I'm just putting too much value on the Crawler (hopefully so, then I don't have to buy one and worry about how I'm going to transport it + the terrain in the same case...).

I think I may try this list without Deathriders for the start as I'll have 40 of mortek guard to go 20/10/10 shield corps.

I'm sceptical about the Crawler, so I'll let Arkhan and his magic do the long range killing for now.

 

[XReN]

7 hours ago, jabbadewonga said:

What are peoples' opinions on a handful of generic heroes?

Something like:

Soul Mason - 140
Boneshaper - 130
Leige-Kavalos - 200

20x Mortek spears - 230
20x Mortek swords - 230
5x death riders - 180

stalkers - 200
Harvester - 200
Crawler - 200

Double up on one of the latter to hit 1910?  Or drop the boneshaper for Akhan and up the leige-kavalos to zandros and have 40 points left? Totally fresh to the game, but the boney bois have me so hyped!

Mortek Guard are 130 per 10, so it will be 260 per 20

So for the rest of the list you may double up on stalkers, or take 2nd crawler or take 3 Immortis to protect wizards

Edited November 1, 2019 by XReN

[DioRa]

I'm still quite on the fence of Swords vs Spears on Mortek Guard and Kavalos deathriders.

While it can be agreed that large units of Mortek Guard will have more use for the spears, but I simply don't think the big 40 man units will be efficient enough to benefit from all those wholly within buffs. Which steers my choices to at least units of 20 minimum, and then swords become more attractive than spears. Though spears looks cooler...

As for the Deathriders, spears will always look better on charging cavalry. And being able to get 4+ exploding hits on the charge with spears makes it also a bit more attractive to go with them.

But my philosophy has always been that rend is king in AoS. If you have an option with rend then it tends to be always the more superior choice than one without rend.

Are the rest of you too having hard time deciding on this aspect too?

[El Syf]

17 minutes ago, DioRa said:

I'm still quite on the fence of Swords vs Spears on Mortek Guard and Kavalos deathriders.

While it can be agreed that large units of Mortek Guard will have more use for the spears, but I simply don't think the big 40 man units will be efficient enough to benefit from all those wholly within buffs. Which steers my choices to at least units of 20 minimum, and then swords become more attractive than spears. Though spears looks cooler...

As for the Deathriders, spears will always look better on charging cavalry. And being able to get 4+ exploding hits on the charge with spears makes it also a bit more attractive to go with them.

But my philosophy has always been that rend is king in AoS. If you have an option with rend then it tends to be always the more superior choice than one without rend.

Are the rest of you too having hard time deciding on this aspect too?

I agree 100% rend is always better than reach in my book, unless you're playing nighthaunt.

[Souleater]

@DioRa same here. 

Rend is valuable but only of your models are in melee range to use it.

Opponent will often try to either bottleneck your advance or engage your unit to minimize retaliation.  Spears would reduce the effectiveness of such tactics. It isn't just about the raw numbers.

I'm tempted just to go with two units of twenty. One with each weapon type just to make them easier to differentiate on the tabletop.

As an side, I am disappointed by their weapon upgrade. Apart from picking out the unit leader, it doesn't seem that useful. I would rather have the cleaner and faster dice rolling.

[DioRa]

6 minutes ago, Souleater said:

As an side, I am disappointed by their weapon upgrade. Apart from picking out the unit leader, it doesn't seem that useful. I would rather have the cleaner and faster dice rolling.

We had a brief discussion on this bit earlier in the thread. And I think the concensus is that the special weapon is simply not worth it for +1 to wound, not even on the unit leader. Simply because it's not a nadrite weapon and losing out on explosive hits is a big deal.

As for clean dice rolling, I guess the unit leader in a spear block would also use a spear rather than a sword.

[NoMaDhOoK]

18 minutes ago, Souleater said:

@DioRa same here. 

Rend is valuable but only of your models are in melee range to use it.

Opponent will often try to either bottleneck your advance or engage your unit to minimize retaliation.  Spears would reduce the effectiveness of such tactics. It isn't just about the raw numbers.

I'm tempted just to go with two units of twenty. One with each weapon type just to make them easier to differentiate on the tabletop.

As an side, I am disappointed by their weapon upgrade. Apart from picking out the unit leader, it doesn't seem that useful. I would rather have the cleaner and faster dice rolling.

True. But since mortek guard are 25mm bases, you can fight in 2 ranks with 1" reach weapons (swords). So 20 size units will probably benefit more from the extra rend. 

Though I will probably go 1 of each for variety as well 

Edited November 1, 2019 by NoMaDhOoK

[Souleater]

Oh, I wouldn't give the Hektos the upgrade.  Just model him with the weapon to identify him more clearly. 

Obviously I would inform my opponent of this before playing.

[GeneralZero]

1 hour ago, Souleater said:

Oh, I wouldn't give the Hektos the upgrade.  Just model him with the weapon to identify him more clearly. 

what do you mean by upgrade?

can the Hekatos be the one with the  best weapon (the upgrade?) ?

Edited November 1, 2019 by GeneralZero

[Koujow]

I had a rather insane idea this morning that is probably not viable at all, but I think a Mortis Praetorian army could create a decently strong Bravery bomb army. I didn't build a list yet, but the Praetorians give a -1 to Bravery. Give a Liege Kavalos the Scroll of Command for a -2. Vokmortian, the Bone Tithe Shrieker and Morghast Archai give another -1 each. All together, you would give up to -6 Bravery to units within 6" (melee) and up to -3 to units within 12". Even the highest bravery units would run on 3+. 

Of course, tons of armies have a lot of ways to ignore Bravery. So the army would need to focus fire any units that give Bravery bonuses/immunity and try to avoid terrain features like the moon shrine. Obviously other OBR armies would be difficult. But in cases where that isn't possible, I actually think the OBR units are strong enough on their own to put up a strong fight. Each of those units that I mention have strong abilities independent of the bravery bombing. 

If possible, adding Katakros to eat CP and your opponent could potentially be starved for CP. 

[Scurvydog]

As for spears vs swords I think there is a case to be made with the greatblades in a spear unit. Nothing states the one getting the greatblade cant be the Hekatos with +1 attack, so in a unit of 20 with spears, it is a better deal than with swords to have a hekatos and another guy up front with the blades. 

They value falls drastically with a sword unit though.

[Sception]

55 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

what do you mean by upgrade?

The soulcleaver greatblade.  They're saying to model the unit leader eith onr to make them easier to spot visually, but to count them as using the same weapon as the unit to make them easier to roll.

By my math the greatblade is *slightly* better damage output per hit than the swords, but only by very little (0.44444 damage per attack vs 0.4167), and that advantage disappears if you cast the nadirite buff spell on them.  So in a sword unit I'd favor ease of rolling and skip the greatblades.

In a big spear unit the greatblades have more of a place, since it lets you mix some rend into the unit.  Concentrate your greatblades in the front of the unit, give one of them to the squad leader, and you'll have some rend attacks to threaten armor while still having reach to maximize attacks from the rest of the unit.

Then again, spears themselves are only good if the unit is both large and blocked up.  A lot of the time a big infantry unit wants to string out to cover ground, bubble wrap more vulnerable targets, or tie up multiple enemy units with a single charge - especially since, if you have a block of 40 morteks, then your opponent probably has more units than you.  If you're doing that then you likely aren't getting many extra attacks anyway.

Personally, long term I'd like to own 80 morteks, half with swords and no greatblades to field in two units of 20, half with spears and 4 greatblades to field in one big block, but that's more of a long term goal.  In the short term I'll be starting with the swords I think,

Edited November 1, 2019 by Sception

[XReN]

17 minutes ago, Koujow said:

I had a rather insane idea this morning that is probably not viable at all, but I think a Mortis Praetorian army could create a decently strong Bravery bomb army. I didn't build a list yet, but the Praetorians give a -1 to Bravery. Give a Liege Kavalos the Scroll of Command for a -2. Vokmortian, the Bone Tithe Shrieker and Morghast Archai give another -1 each. All together, you would give up to -6 Bravery to units within 6" (melee) and up to -3 to units within 12". Even the highest bravery units would run on 3+. 

Of course, tons of armies have a lot of ways to ignore Bravery. So the army would need to focus fire any units that give Bravery bonuses/immunity and try to avoid terrain features like the moon shrine. Obviously other OBR armies would be difficult. But in cases where that isn't possible, I actually think the OBR units are strong enough on their own to put up a strong fight. Each of those units that I mention have strong abilities independent of the bravery bombing. 

If possible, adding Katakros to eat CP and your opponent could potentially be starved for CP. 

There isn't much to do with all this bravery modifiers, if you actually want to try it than I'd recommend throwing Vokmortian and Pretorians off the cliff and getting a cheap and powerfull horrorghast endless spell. Than bringing 6 mercenary Crypt Flayers to give your opponent a headache

[Emissary]

I did some math on spears vs swords on Kavalos Deathriders on the charge.  These are against a target with a 4+ save.

Swords on the charge: 4.1667 wounds
Spears on the charge: 3.75 wounds

With the spell that buffs the extra hits:

Swords on the charge: 5 wounds
Spears on the charge: 4.375 wounds

Hence, the doing extra hits on a 5+ for spears on the charge isn't better than the innate -1 rend on swords.  Unless you're going with like 15 Kavalos Deathriders, I'd really recommend just going with swords with them unless you like the spear look.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Emissary

[Captain Badruk]

12 hours ago, christophe said:

I will go for a super fluffy uneffective Pratorian list, with big daddy, 2 crawlers, 40 spear guards, some cavalry and sarchophagius guy (in one or 2 years when he got a proper release  but I hate his head, so I will switch it, probably for a Corvus Cabal raven skulls !!

I will have an extra copy of the character if you're interested

[JackStreicher]

2 hours ago, Souleater said:

Oh, I wouldn't give the Hektos the upgrade.  Just model him with the weapon to identify him more clearly. 

Obviously I would inform my opponent of this before playing.

I‘d also go for the rule of cool: If you tell your opponent that all your morteks have swords though the models are a mix then there should not be an issue at all (as long as there won‘t be confusing situations)

[DioRa]

1 hour ago, Koujow said:

I had a rather insane idea this morning that is probably not viable at all, but I think a Mortis Praetorian army could create a decently strong Bravery bomb army. I didn't build a list yet, but the Praetorians give a -1 to Bravery. Give a Liege Kavalos the Scroll of Command for a -2. Vokmortian, the Bone Tithe Shrieker and Morghast Archai give another -1 each. All together, you would give up to -6 Bravery to units within 6" (melee) and up to -3 to units within 12". Even the highest bravery units would run on 3+. 

Of course, tons of armies have a lot of ways to ignore Bravery. So the army would need to focus fire any units that give Bravery bonuses/immunity and try to avoid terrain features like the moon shrine. Obviously other OBR armies would be difficult. But in cases where that isn't possible, I actually think the OBR units are strong enough on their own to put up a strong fight. Each of those units that I mention have strong abilities independent of the bravery bombing. 

If possible, adding Katakros to eat CP and your opponent could potentially be starved for CP. 

Add a horrorghast endless spell for another -2 ld. Yes we can really easily bomb the leadership.  But like you say a lot of armies ignore it, and the horde armies will make sure their important big blocks will be immune as well to it.

What I'm disappointed with the most is that the mortek crawler special shot works on unmodified bravery! Wouldn't it be nice if it instead combod with all our leadership debuffs, be a valid tactic. Zero synergy!

[Koujow]

14 minutes ago, DioRa said:

What I'm disappointed with the most is that the mortek crawler special shot works on unmodified bravery! Wouldn't it be nice if it instead combod with all our leadership debuffs, be a valid tactic. Zero synergy!

I can only imagine that if it was modified bravery, then an army with low bravery (most horde armies, I guess) could have entire units deleted pretty easily. 

[DioRa]

14 minutes ago, Koujow said:

I can only imagine that if it was modified bravery, then an army with low bravery (most horde armies, I guess) could have entire units deleted pretty easily. 

Technically even armies with high leadership could be removed easily, as we can easily modify leadership to such extremes as -8. So even bravery 10 would be a mere 2 at that point.

[Gwendar]

7 hours ago, XReN said:

I think I may try this list without Deathriders for the start as I'll have 40 of mortek guard to go 20/10/10 shield corps.

I'm sceptical about the Crawler, so I'll let Arkhan and his magic do the long range killing for now.

I don't think Deathriders are 100%  needed for anything other than Mobility; not like they'll be doing a lot of damage as they seem quite... meh. However, in the battalion with their CA being used for free OPT for 1 unit then it can boost their damage a bit, so long as it stays stackable and isn't FAQ'd to not stack on the same unit.  Also, don't you need Vokmortian in that Shield Corps battalion anyway? Is it really worth 180 points for a 2-spell caster as his other abilities are subpar?

Issue I'm seeing no matter how you go is that it's difficult to get at least 6 Stalkers and a Crawler and Arkhan and still having at least 30-40 bodies under a battalion. The closest I can get with Shield Corps is still 50 points over. I think the only way I can fathom running this is via the below which is 2k on the nose:
 

Spoiler

Petrifex

Arkhan
Liege Kavalos
Soul-Mason

30 Mortek
5 Deathriders
5 Deathriders

3 Stalkers

1 Crawler

Kavalos Lance

Bone-Tithe Shrieker

 

Edited November 1, 2019 by Gwendar

[relic456]

9 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

  Also, don't you need Vokmortian in that Shield Corps battalion anyway?

The line item is Vokmortion OR 1 Boneshaper OR 1 Soulreaper OR 1 Soul Mason