AoS 2 - Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion

[Panzer]

You can't argue with loss of money in this hobby. We are all plastic crack addicts.  

[GeneralZero]

Just now, Panzer said:

You can't argue with loss of money in this hobby. We are all plastic crack addicts.  

At least, at the end of the day, you still have the plastic (contrary to other addiction where the stuff  -litteraly- disapear in the thin air )

[NinthMusketeer]

7 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

This is often the case if you don't know/speak your oponent. Lets say, SCE (not OP at the moment), several armies/builds just don't have the tools to face a stardrake of 4 balistas.  Same for 2 KoS etc... If you go normal builds (fun, up to half competitive) , OBR is not that much more OP than good armies (i.e. armies more than or equal to middle tier).

 

That only goes so far. If I'm an Ossiarch player running mortek guard as my main battleline (or just petrifax elite with anything), and I go up against an opponent that cannot spam rend or MWs, they lose. So what do I do? Handicap myself? Buy different battleline? What happened to just making the army I wanted to play? It creates a different unfun situation. That's why the army is going to have such a reputation, at least for now.

Edited November 15, 2019 by NinthMusketeer

[GeneralZero]

25 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

That only goes so far. If I'm an Ossiarch player running mortek guard as my main battleline (or just petrifax elite with anything), and I go up against an opponent that cannot spam rend or MWs, they lose. So what do I do? Handicap myself? Buy different battleline? What happened to just making the army I wanted to play? It creates a different unfun situation. That's why the army is going to have such a reputation, at least for now.

That is one of the reasons (see my post previous page) that I've frozen my OBR investments. Nothing more that the feast of bones. For now. I have enough (fun) to play/build/paint all my others armies (and my fresh ogors which are balanced and super fun).

[Gwendar]

@NinthMusketeer What exactly are you getting at? All armies (regardless of the list composition) have matchups they're good and bad against. OBR's happens to high shooting\MW\High rend and high damage output armies if I had to put a face to it... that isn't to say that it's unbeatable by other armies despite your claim that they auto-lose. Hell, my Seraphon player will likely have easy wins because he can simply out-objective our low model counts.. all he has to do is keep putting skinks around the objectives or teleport to less contested ones and grab it from me by staying out of combat.

Build it another way if you think Petrifex is OP and broken. Some of you need to understand the separation between a "Competitive\Tournament Petrifex" list and a more casual one. And sure, you can go back to talking about Crawlers and 2 Harvesters + 40 Mortek... but I would rather this not turn into "OBR IS OVERPOWERED" thread 2.0

Edited November 15, 2019 by Gwendar

[JackStreicher]

49 minutes ago, Panzer said:

You can't argue with loss of money in this hobby. We are all plastic crack addicts.  

Touché 

[NinthMusketeer]

26 minutes ago, Gwendar said:

@NinthMusketeer What exactly are you getting at? All armies (regardless of the list composition) have matchups they're good and bad against. OBR's happens to high shooting\MW\High rend and high damage output armies if I had to put a face to it... that isn't to say that it's unbeatable by other armies despite your claim that they auto-lose. Hell, my Seraphon player will likely have easy wins because he can simply out-objective our low model counts.. all he has to do is keep putting skinks around the objectives or teleport to less contested ones and grab it from me by staying out of combat.

Build it another way if you think Petrifex is OP and broken. Some of you need to understand the separation between a "Competitive\Tournament Petrifex" list and a more casual one. And sure, you can go back to talking about Crawlers and 2 Harvesters + 40 Mortek... but I would rather this not turn into "OBR IS OVERPOWERED" thread 2.0

You are misrepresenting my statements.

[Sception]

The other legions are not "all bad or boring".  Stalliarch Lords and Crematorians at least have fun & effective rules.  And Null Myriad aren't bad in a magic heavy meta, though admittedly they do have 'fun' issues due to their abilities being too effective against particular builds and largely irrelevant against others.   Mortis Praetorian special character command abilities would largely make up for their lacking legion traits were it not for Petrifex obsoleting the boost from Katakros.  Ivory Host is kinda bad, sure, but the biggest problem with the OBR subfactions isn't most of them being weak, its one of them being too strong.  If you flat out removed petrifex and Ivory Host, the OBR book would be getting praise for having some of the best subfaction balance out of AoS 2e books so far.  Granted that's kind of a low bar, but still.  4 is honestly enough subfactions, anyway, nobody would have even noticed the two missing if they had never been there in the first place.

In terms of the army being 'unfun' to play against, that's not the same as being 'unfair' or 'unbalanced'.  The crawler isn't at all overpowered for its points cost, but what it does do is remove 5 wound heroes, the lynchpin of the majority of armies out there, outright, from a distance, with little they can do to stop it since even a single failed save kills the entire unit.  Even worse for the cursed stele that removes models without saves at all.  Again, I'm not saying that's unbalanced, but it is a feel bad moment when it happens.  That the catapults can also wipe out swaths of chaffy troops, either based on the bravery attack or just getting multiple 5 wound shots a turn through poor-to-no save units.  There are armies that will just roll over to catapult spam, and the fact that there are even more armies that will shrug them off and steam roll them doesn't make the games on either extreme any more fun.

The other thing that can be unfun is an army that feels impossible to hurt, taking very little damage and healing up whatever manages to get through.  Armies full of 2+ and 3+ rerollable armor save troops can be just frustrating to play against for enemies without a lot of rend, even if their points costs are high enough to be fair.

Another thing that really hurts fun is taking a player's command points.  Generally your coolest abilities are activated via command points, and most armies get so few of them already.

 

So if you're playing OBR in a casual beer & pretzels setting and you're concerned about opponents who don't optimize their lists having fun, then don't play petrifex, don't spam crawlers, and save katakros for special occasion big games.

[Neinball]

14 minutes ago, Sception said:

The other thing that can be unfun is an army that feels impossible to hurt, taking very little damage and healing up whatever manages to get through.  Armies full of 2+ and 3+ rerollable armor save troops can be just frustrating to play against for enemies without a lot of rend, even if their points costs are high enough to be fair.

This is all too true. I had this experience with my Necrons in 7th. I had like a 50% win rate in my local group, but everyone claimed that my undead robots were super OP because they wouldn’t die. Went back to Tyranids and did much better in our leagues but no more complaints despite winning far more games.

[Obeisance]

Stalkers. Would you give them the falchion?

In the one game I've played, not striking first results in deaths. Somewhat fragile, even with Petrifex. The last dude can hit pretty hard if you just go with it.

I suspect this has been asked repeatedly.

[NinthMusketeer]

1 minute ago, Obeisance said:

Stalkers. Would you give them the falchion?

In the one game I've played, not striking first results in deaths. Somewhat fragile, even with Petrifex. The last dude can hit pretty hard if you just go with it.

I suspect this has been asked repeatedly.

IMO Rule of Cool overpowers any argument about effectiveness here. You should clearly be taking the falchions.

[Sception]

Rule of Cool, yes.  By the math, no.  Unfortunately a case where a weapon 'upgrade' is actually a downgrade.

[Sception]

5 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

IMO Rule of Cool overpowers any argument about effectiveness here. You should clearly be taking the falchions.

Pretty much this.  If you think they look cooler, then maybe run one per unit - whether those are units of 3 or 6 or whatever, as a neat looking squad leader.

If you don't happen to think they look way cooler than the 4swords, then definitely don't build them, as they're sadly a case where the weapon 'upgrade' is actually a downgrade, especially in the precision stance which is what they'll almost always be using.

[Arcian]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

So if you're playing OBR in a casual beer & pretzels setting and you're concerned about opponents who don't optimize their lists having fun, then don't play petrifex, don't spam crawlers, and save katakros for special occasion big games.

I'm running petrifex, mainly because i'm new and they seem like a good way to help offset that slightly. Also my local meta seems like people run both optimized lists and Rule of Cool lists. So i'll definitely run a different legion or different builds if i start to notice people playing For Fun lists are not having a good time. Most of the models i thought were cool (And.. let's be honest, i sort of bought the whole range because i love their look) also happen to be some of our "Stronger" units. Like, I absolutely LOVE how the harvester looks and will probably run at least one or two.

[Scurvydog]

It sounds like some are playing in very casual environments, which is all fine and there is something to be said about army balance, if what you are playing in a club or store or whatever is mostly kids with StD Chariot armies or Idoneth players who only uses Thralls. But at least in my gaming group, with a lot of experienced players, my Reapers even as petrifex have been killed just fine.

Tough, sure, and maybe it is because I often play against Slaanesh, skaven, DoK, Legions of Azgorh and Sylvaneth against competent players, but I don't see how this army is more "unfun" to play against than many other armies. Many armies can summon lots of models to the board, others can teleport around and armies like Skaven just chew through the reapers without issue. See what a warpfire thrower does to Mortek Guard? A lightning cannon against just about everything? super charged rattling cannons, even petrifex mortek guard will lose 2 guys for each failed 4+ save, and no reroll as that only works in the combat phase, which many seems to forget.

The reapers have a lot of units to chose from, and a lot of army composition options, if you want boring 1 sided builds, look at the Orruk warclans Ironjawz with 3 units and basically 3 heroes to chose from in total.

The reapers can do a Cavalry army, a "horde-ish" exploding dudes army, a caster focused army or hard hitting elite army, with a focus on stalkers and Morghasts for example. All will not be "meta" but all of that is certainly playable and has far more options than many other AoS factions have. The lists so far in this very thread, already shows some of this potential, while in so many other armies you see the same over and over again. But sure thanks to pretty good internal balance on warscrolls (NOT legions!) and overall good allegiance abilities, the army will perform rather decent in most situations.

If you want to see "unfun" the new Orruk warclans book disappointed me so much, I have absolutely destroyed my friends no matter what I did, you cant even make a bad list, as you have so few units to chose from anyway. They have no issue putting both +1 damage buffs on a huge unit of angry Gruntas or Ardboyz and a Mawkrusha and have them charge turn 1. If you do not play Slaanesh or maybe Fyreslayers to strike first, you will most likely just disintegrate turn 1. 

In my experience though some types of players will complain no matter what you play. I play a lot of armies in different ways, and a few certain players always complain. Bring a nighthaunt list with Kurdoss and a black coach (both faaar from meta) the second you make a 10+ charge the salt flows. Play Seraphon thunderquake and see the OG complaints of 3+ rerollable saves which ignore rend. Play Ironjawz and expect tears as your +1 damage mawkrusha moves 12"x2 and slams into what it pleases. Try playing Big Waagh instead and get +1 to all hit and wound rolls and you better have earplugs. 

I guess the answer is for everyone to play SCE and only play with Liberators, Judicators and Lord Celestants.

[Gwendar]

21 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

Play Seraphon thunderquake and see the OG complaints of 3+ rerollable saves which ignore rend

I just dislike these setups because of the abhorrent summoning it allows, but that's their niche so I'm okay with it as they couldn't compete without it. New hotness always invites waves of complaining, so all you need to do is ride it out until they move on to something else.

Again, as has been stated, if you're that concerned that they're unfun then you need to narrow it down to some things. Is it the player? Are they just running a competitive Petrifex list against your casual -insert army- list? Then yeah, it probably will be unfun for you compared to them bringing something softer. I understand the arguments here is that specific units are 'broken' but it isn't anything close to some of the stuff Slaanesh, Fyreslayers, Skaven, etc can do. Personally, getting T1\2 charged\shot\magic'd off the board or having to fight last while they fight twice is far more 'unfun' than playing Petrifex in my opinion. If your army has tools to deal with it and you just don't like using them, then I don't think you have a right to complain. If you don't have the tools, then understand that's a specific army problem and I will go back to my previous example of some armies having bad matchups and that's just how it is. Not every army can be 100% balanced between each other army.

I'll leave my side of the conversation at that before this goes further downhill.

[Souleater]

My feeling from my brief play time with OBR is that folks are a bit surprised at a Death army that doesn't survive by taking off lots of models and then putting them back again.

Even without Petrifex Elite bonuses I found the army surprisingly robust.  Good base armour values and no Battleshock means we're tough without being brittle.

 

Crematorian felt like a gimmick that didn't do much, although the Damage buff on my Leige Kavalos was nice.

I agree that both Stalliarch and Null Myriad are solid picks. 

 

The problem with Petrifex is that feels like a straight upgrade to what OBR already does. Armour buff, Bludgeon and harder to kill heroes. 

It doesn't require any change of list or play style in the way that some army's subfactions do.  It's just OBR+

I committed to OBR as part of a tale of gamers until March, but I'm looking at Nighthaunt once that's over. They look more like a 'death' army in some ways.

Maybe I just got too used to taking off double casualties with undead back in WHFB. 😂

Edit: Other than RDP we do seem like a very honest faction, that has the decency to stick to the core rules e.g. we aren't playing in the activation wars.  So it is surprising that folks aren't finding it more straightforward to deal with.

 

Also...having been on the wrong end of T1 Orruk charges...ouch...

Edited November 15, 2019 by Souleater

[Sception]

1 hour ago, Arcian said:

I'm running petrifex, mainly because i'm new and they seem like a good way to help offset that slightly. Also my local meta seems like people run both optimized lists and Rule of Cool lists. So i'll definitely run a different legion or different builds if i start to notice people playing For Fun lists are not having a good time.

This is pretty much the way to go.  Play what you want, and give your opponents time to adjust before making changes to your own list, just be open to making changes of your own if your scene isn't able to react.  Personally I lean towards starting with softballs and 'growing the beard out' as appropriate, but that's easy for me to say as the options I most like in the army aren't the obvious strong ones anyway.

When I list things that might be problems for fun, I don't mean that they definitely will be.  IME most players know it's important to have some rend and some mortal output, know 5 wound heroes are vulnerable to sniping and either look for ways to protect them or don't hang their entire game plans on them, know they need to have some anti-magic game, know they need tools to target your own heroes, etc.  Granted, some armies don't have a lot of options in these areas, but for the most part I don't think even petrifex should be a huge problem past the shock to the system of a death army with some actual armor saves.  We don't have any of the major system tilting effects that characterize the most broken aos2 factions to date - no summoning, no out of sequence combat attacks, etc.

17 minutes ago, Souleater said:

The problem with Petrifex is that feels like a straight upgrade to what OBR already does. Armour buff, Bludgeon and harder to kill heroes. 

It doesn't require any change of list or play style in the way that some army's subfactions do.  It's just OBR+

Yeah, this is a big part of the problem with petrifex.  Not only are they obviously stronger than the rest, they're obviously stronger in the generic ways that the army is already strong, so they're basically the best for any build.  Stalliarch pushes you towards cavalry lists specifically, Crematorians infantry spam & recursion, Pretorians really want you to field their named heroes, Null... well, the Myriad doesn't really encourage particular builds either, personally I'd rather their CA was something unrelated to their anti-magic trait, something that wouldn't be so heavily tilted against caster-blaster armies, would matter a bit more vs. other armies, and could give them a mechanical push towards a more thematically focused build.  Probably something caster related.  Meanwhile Petrifex might be fixed if you swapped their abilities around a bit.  CA at the start of any phase for +1 armor save for that phase only, trait that gives them +1 rend on unmodified six to wound?  Same flavor, but significantly cut back.

but that's spiraling off into wish listing and home brewing, which is another thread.

[Souleater]

I think Stalliarch letting all units run and charge is pretty underrated. 

Even for non-cavalry that's a nice boost to the distances they can cover. 

[Scurvydog]

16 minutes ago, Souleater said:

I think Stalliarch letting all units run and charge is pretty underrated. 

Even for non-cavalry that's a nice boost to the distances they can cover. 

Yea, they just really get shafted with the rest, the command ability loses a ton of value due to the battalion doing the same thing for free. The artifact is also dreadful, somehow even worse than the 4! other blades as artifact, seriously what is up with all those swords and only 1 model with 3 attacks to use them. Getting d3 more dice when charging to possibly roll a 6 on is such an abysmal effect.

Funny enough the cavalry legion will benefit stalkers the most.

[Panzer]

19 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

Yea, they just really get shafted with the rest, the command ability loses a ton of value due to the battalion doing the same thing for free.

Well not exactly free. Battalions cost points. Personally I'm not going to include any battalions in my list because I can literally cut nowhere without feeling bad about it.

[Scurvydog]

31 minutes ago, Panzer said:

Well not exactly free. Battalions cost points. Personally I'm not going to include any battalions in my list because I can literally cut nowhere without feeling bad about it.

Battalions giving 1 CP per round is also a big deal and also an artifact. Now this is the real kick in the teeth for the Stalliarch Lords, as their artifact is forced on the Liege and few lists will run with 2. Ideally when using a battalion you'd run with whatever forced on a caster and then grab the helm of the ordained artifact for the liege. 

A 12" bubble of +1 hit is crazy good for an artifact, so think of that for the battalion as well, for example the guard one gives not only 1 free use of shield wall, but also the additional +1 CP and artifact, same goes for the Deathriders one, not only do you get to retreat and charge for free, but also a free use of the CA and almost most importantly another artifact to grab that +1 hit bubble, which is going to be really good if not running with Katakros. With Katakros I would probably rarely use a Liege Kavalos, and even more rare battalions due to his point cost and needing wounds on the board.

[Koujow]

I was reading the article on Goonhammer earlier and it suggests that the bravery penalty from Praetorian can stack when multiple units are around. I know that if, for example, you had Vokmortian near an enemy, they would get -2 Bravery (-1 from Praetorian and -1 from Vokmortian's ability), but the article suggests that if another unit was also nearby, the bonus would increase to -3. Is that right? 

[Nasrod]

Petrifex Elite

Kavalos Deathriders x 5 - 180 (Blades)
Kavalos Deathriders x 15 - 480 (Spears)

Liege Kavalos - 200
*Godbone Armor

[Kavalos Lance] - 120

Soulmason - 140 (General)
*Soul Reservoir (Basically guarantees the Shrieker cast goes off. Hopefully you keep it for a turn or two to offset the -1 soulbind penalty)
*Reinforce Battleshields (Again to help weather our weakness to Mortal Wounds)

Bone-Tithe Shrieker 30

Mortek Guard x 40 - 440 (Blades)

Crawler - 200
Crawler - 200

1990/2000
4 Relentless Discipline per turn
5 Drops
139 Wounds

-Why no Helm?
Kavalos attack buff and 2 relentless discipline a turn is huge. Things hit on a 3 up already and helm + bone tithe is a waste; bone tithe is way too good to not use so it gets picked up and the Liege gets the wound negation Artifact to pair with his ridiculous +2 save to try and ensure he stays in the thick of it for a turn or two. While the 2+ save is great, at only 7 wounds he dies faster than you would expect; entire army suffers this penalty though so you still have to use him.

-Why the big blobs of battleline?
Combined savings of 110 points means the Battalion is basically free. I think any list that uses a Battallion should do the same. And since Battallions are the only way we "keep up" with our opponents' natural CP regen...you should include one in non Arkhan/Nagash/Kata lists. Even though it is a colossal points sink, both our battleline options are fantastic enough that investing in them seems worth it. 

-So why not Mortek Guard spam/battalion if they are good/better than Kavalos Chargers?
Because they are S L O W. The Liege is our best model (Attack buff synergy with Petrifex rend bonus, +2 save, 10" movement in a slow army, 2 RD a turn makes him our most efficient discipline generator in the army) and you will probably include one in any list. If you run the 3 Guard Battallion you take a 120 to 140 point hero, and the 120 point battalion, AND the cost of the 3 Guard...then you're adding a 200 point model on top of all of that? Enjoy the 800-1000+ point sink consisting of 4" movement troop blobs in an objective-driven game! If only it was 2-3 Mortek Guard instead of 3...

-I don't like Crawlers.
Neither do I as they don't encourage a "fun" game. They either whiff and do nothing or you roll hot and wipe their figureheads at no risk. Consider using Arkhan+Nightmare Predator or 6 Necropolis Stalkers for games against opponents that think the Crawlers are cheese; also makes you a 4 drop army which is much better than a 5... but double Crawler + Soulmason is absurd.

-But they don't look that great based on damage calculations.
You know what else doesn't look great? 40 Stabbas being Hand of Gork'd onto an objective next to a Loonshrine. Less facetious answer? They aren't as efficient points per wound caused compared to Stalkers or Guard, true. But they give us the right to at least show up in the shooting phase, and massively mitigate fight last shenanigans. They also give our Soulmason things to do with his extra casts in turns 1 and 2, and provide damage without costing Relentless Discipline. They're good, and I hate it, because Stalkers are the better sculpt.

[nine7six]

Is everyone building the greatblade on the guard? Any reason not to?