Ossiarch Bonereapers, hideously overpowered?

[DioRa]

3 hours ago, Frowny said:

I think the dominant lists will be 2x40 mortek guard in the petrifex army. Massively durable hoarded to march forward, and still tons of points for fast movers, buffers or kalvalos himself. People are playing 60xhearthguard in fyreslayers already and these don't seem much different while also being faster and cheaper.

I don't think the 40 sized units will be that good, many abilities require to be wholly within the spell/command ability. Not to mention you want to leave some points for other toys in your army too.

Two 40 man units is 880 pts, and then you still need a 3rd battleline. This way half your army is just 3 battleline units and then you need to take all your heroes etc.

I think we'll see 1 max 40 unit tops, but most people will probably stick to 20 size.

[chord]

I dunno compared to the points costs for stormcast units I think these costs are great compared to what a stormcast player gets for the same points. 

[Neffelo]

At a first glance the army seems strong, but I don't think they are anywhere near "Hideously overpowered"  The units and army can do a lot, but it makes you pay for it.  Putting together a list is pretty tough, you really can't fit in as much as you think you can. 

 

[Malakithe]

8 hours ago, Frowny said:

I think the dominant lists will be 2x40 mortek guard in the petrifex army. Massively durable hoarded to march forward, and still tons of points for fast movers, buffers or kalvalos himself. People are playing 60xhearthguard in fyreslayers already and these don't seem much different while also being faster and cheaper.

Doubt it. The reason Fyreslayers get away with it is HB have the combined power of battleline + elite horde infantry. They can be fast in certain situations and are one of, if not, the hardest hitting and tankiest unit in the game. So yeah people will be taking 60 of them. That is also 120W.  The Guard are just more expensive skeletons. Single wound with a good save...eh. HB would easily destroy Guard. 

Points costs will keep these guys from being 'op' or top tier

[mojojojo101]

For the same price (actually 30 less points)  as 40 Mortek Guard a LoN player could get 40 skeletons and a necromancer to give them double pile in.

Mortek Guard are tougher to kill but a trade for an extra attack each and double pile in seems pretty fair to my fairly uneducated eye.

[Neffelo]

11 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Doubt it. The reason Fyreslayers get away with it is HB have the combined power of battleline + elite horde infantry. They can be fast in certain situations and are one of, if not, the hardest hitting and tankiest unit in the game. So yeah people will be taking 60 of them. That is also 120W.  The Guard are just more expensive skeletons. Single wound with a good save...eh. HB would easily destroy Guard. 

Points costs will keep these guys from being 'op' or top tier

You can also give HGB the ability to hit first in combat and fight again as well.  OBR don't really have anything that compares to that. 

[Inquisitorsz]

So first impression after reading the warscrolls and checking out points... 

The mortek guard are strong. 130 for 10 isn't cheap, but it's not expensive considering what you get. They're probably a little bit above the curve. They could be 140-150 and still be solid. 

Stalkers are the stand out bargain for 200pts. 
They compete with stuff like pre-nerf evocators and kurnoth hunters in that point bracket. Bit less survivable but pack a much bigger punch. command ability to reroll charges is huge too. 
I was really hoping these guys would be more like 220-230 points.  

The command point system seems strong. In 2000pts without the Mortarch, you're probably getting 4-6 points. 
And you get that every turn, and they don't carry over, so you're going to be burning them every turn. 
Some of the battalions let you use abilities for free so you're getting double value there... free ability and an extra discipline point. 

Which is the other problem.... their battalions are quite good and very cheap compared to other similar ones with other armies. There's not many armies that get 80pt battalions.... even 100pt battalions are rare. There's like 6 battalions in all the chaos armies combined that cost 100 or less. 
There's plenty of factions that don't have battalions under 120 where as bonereapers have all of their battalions 120 or less. 

The cavalry seem pretty expensive, but maybe that's ok with 3 wounds and a 4+ save. 
They don't hit very hard so it looks like they'll have to really rely on buffs. 

Their terrain piece is by far the strongest one of all that have come out so far. And it's free as usual. 

Hard to say how they'll go on the tabletop but I imagine a solid horde of mortek guard backed up by various heroes and lots of stalkers should be a pretty strong and pretty easy army. 
Especially in an objective game... dislodging that much mortek guard is going to be difficult. 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Inquisitorsz

[Dead Scribe]

It seems to me the person that wrote this book is definitely the same person that had a hand in things like skaven, FEC, and slaanesh, while you can literally see the line in the power level with other books like the gitz or khorne or even the mawtribe book.

[Lord Krungharr]

Slaanesh whooped the living ****** out of everyone at a 30 player event over 2 days.  

It will be interesting to see if an army who can pretty much summon a whole other army by turn 3 will be subdued at all by these Ossiarchs.  While I doubt their points will be adjusted in the next month or two, I am wary of entering this new Death army too early on.  They are growing on me aesthetically, but can't  get them used for a 2nd hand deal.  Unlike the Ogors.

Nobody had the Fyreslayers this weekend.  So I can't vouch for those.  But they sound like they can stand against the Bonereapers.  The Chaos Dwarves of Azgorh…...cannot. 

 

[Forrix]

I haven't sat down and really drilled into Bonereapers so I'm not claiming the sky is failing  yet but I have some concerns and thoughts based off what I've gathered so far.

I suspect the craziness will come in (if it does) with their relentless discipline point generation. Instead of being a scare resource to be managed they get flooded and all their special abilities are on all the time. Kind of like Slaanesh summoning.

Yes a unit of Mortek Guard is expensive but what in this game can take an objective from a unit of 40 models with a 3+ save (buffable to 2+) with reroll saves and a 6++ and model resurrection and is immune to battleshock.

The weakness seems to be their reliance on heroes but they don't look terribly weak (decent saves for backfield casters that have healing and I think the ability to pass off wounds to nearby units?).

I'm pretty assuming everyone is going to take the 1+ save subfaction for competitive play. I think it might be like DoK where they're a strong if okay army but one subfaction pushes them into crazy town due to being so much better than the others.

[Forrix]

11 hours ago, Lord Krungharr said:

Nobody had the Fyreslayers this weekend.  So I can't vouch for those.  But they sound like they can stand against the Bonereapers.  The Chaos Dwarves of Azgorh…...cannot. 

Having played as Fyreslayers in a few tournaments my concern is anything with good ranged character killing ability (Cities I think is a very strong counter to Fyreslayers). Hermder HGB in Lords of the Lodge are crazy but if you can just kill the heroes (who are squishy when not on a magmadroth and don't fit into 60 HGB lists on magmadroths) it falls apart. Bonereapers might not be good against Fyreslayers (I don't know what their spells are) but then Cities will be so you wind up with a rock-paper-scissors situation. Good for win-loss balance but not good for compelling gameplay.

 

13 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

It seems to me the person that wrote this book is definitely the same person that had a hand in things like skaven, FEC, and slaanesh, while you can literally see the line in the power level with other books like the gitz or khorne or even the mawtribe book.

I feel like information silos are a big issue with GW. It wouldn't surprise if the team who worked on Bonereapers never even saw the Mawtribes book until it was released and visa-versa.  

[Scurvydog]

I don't see anything meta breaking here, and they are most definitely not designed in any way remotely close to Slaneesh, FeC and skaven and even DoK.

These top dog armies all are able to do a series of things that make them top armies:

1. Manipulation of the activation order in combat. The big one, the reason KoS slaneesh spam wins all in combination with - 

2. Ability to fight twice. Slaneesh takes the cake of being able to do this and force you to fight last. In general just gives the most value for 1 CP by far.

3. Easy summoning. Both Slaneesh and FeC get their summoning for basically no effort and it is really powerful.

4. High movement/board presence. Easier to play the pbjectives when stuff moves fast, and these armies can all either get around fast (like monsters flying) or run+charge, teleport (gnawholes).

5. Stackable saves/survivability. This is mostly for DoK, but also goes for Fyreslayer hearthguards and FeCs ability to bring stuff back easily.

These are all so powerful because it hinders your opponents ability to combat you greatly, and makes some engagements nearly impossible. Like engaging 1 keeper of secrets with any 1 unit will just kill you  5/6 times. You will have to deal with models coming on the board all over the place. Be unable to account for specific units being summoned etc.

Bonereapers have none of these things that make out a top tier army. They are REALLY powerful within all the more grounded aspects of the game, although this is heavily based on the Petrifex Elite legion, and armywide average save of 3+ is good. However a 10 pts Witch Elf with 5+ rerollable wound ignores is still more efficient survivability wise, as every wound is pricey for the reapers, and the cost per wound, and the effort needed to remove said wounds is what creates a total army survivability.

Reapers have very limited "healing" compared to LoN or FeC, on average you will not see many models brought back. A far cry from a LoN list bringing whole units back for 1 CP. Healing is also limited, with only Arkhan, Nagash and Katakros being able to do any real output of this, and even that will not be massive, with max 3 wounds healed for a unit.

They have a lot of points to do "command abilities", but no access to the core book abilities, only their own warscroll and allegiance ones. They have no fight twice abilities or something like that, so despite many points to play with, the impact of each is rather average, with no real standouts.

Board presence and movement is also somewhat poor, but is within what I'd say is alright and proabably a good balance, but compared to teleporting armies, Kepers moving 14", across the board runs+charges etc, they do not have a lot to work with here, other than their +3" movement for 1 CP. Remember they have no access to an auto 6 to run though and no access to the basic reroll charges either.

While saves are good, especially with the unfortunately sort of mandatory legion with +1 saves, this can all be dealth with with rend attacks. They have little mortal wound protection, other than 1 legion vs spells, but any other sources of mortal wounds will hurt them really really bad, as mentioned before, each wound is very costly.

I actually think they are in a spot where the game should be, around the level of Gloomspite Gitz for example. Some fun combos, some really good and cool stuff, such as impactful command abilities and access to a lot of tactics and strategies, but no access to any specific "I win" mechanic, like discussed above.

You can actually play within the core rules against these guys, on any aspect other than battleshock (but who does this anymore anyway). They work very much like a "traditional" army, you know how far those guys can move, how the cavalry can move etc, no shenanigans suddenly happening. All their spells are somewhat tame, mostly being buffs or debuffs, but still useful. 

Against the reapers you can use all the tools of your army reliably and plan ahead. If you charge them, you hit them in the order stated by the core rules, You also know they will not suddenly fight you out of order or in the hero phase or whatever, so less stuff to consider in your planning, so you can focus on other things. 

I hope the rant makes sense, but I think the generel point should be rather clear, that the more an army operates outside the normal rules of the core book, the more powerful they usually are. The Bonereapers only change this up slightly with their command points, but otherwise you can face them and expect everything to work within the core ruleset, they are very powerful in that regard, but do not break any game mechanics in the manner the top armies do.

 

[tripchimeras]

Feels like an army that is on the slower side and going to struggle in objective game.  Seems quite strong, but once this thing hits and people really get into it, my feeling is its not going to be slaanesh/skaven part 2.  Might be a bit closer to FEC, where it can just roll certain matchups, but once you start to figure it out its not quite so big a deal.  Honestly, not sure it ends up even being FEC, but think that is a better comparison point probably then slaanesh/skaven are.  Obviously we will have to wait and see, but feel like a lot of the super uber power things are the type of stuff that ends up getting appended with "on paper."

[Panzer]

It honestly feels like a very solid army that can easily hold its own but definitely not like one that's going to steamroll others.

[tripchimeras]

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Forrix said:

Yes a unit of Mortek Guard is expensive but what in this game can take an objective from a unit of 40 models with a 3+ save (buffable to 2+) with reroll saves and a 6++ and model resurrection and is immune to battleshock.

I think the key thing here is, you don't need to.  Which scenario matters, but the unit has low movement and can't fly.   You just chaffe it up and basically ignore it the whole game and focus on the rest of the army and the rest of the objectives.  Not like this is some simple proposition, but it isn't like with the tipy top armies of the meta right now where this is not really an option.  There is a reason fyreslayers are strong, but not OP.  Sure that deathstar unit isn't going anywhere, but opponent doesn't need to make it go anywhere.  You chaff it up, keep it at arms length, and go after every objective it isn't sitting on.  It can only be in one place at one time, and can't fly.

Edited October 28, 2019 by tripchimeras

[l1censetochill]

2 hours ago, Forrix said:

Yes a unit of Mortek Guard is expensive but what in this game can take an objective from a unit of 40 models with a 3+ save (buffable to 2+) with reroll saves and a 6++ and model resurrection and is immune to battleshock.

Just making sure I haven't missed something here - based on what I've seen/read, I'm not sure how you buff the Mortrek Guard to 2+ saves. The Petrifex Elite allegiance gives army-wide +1, but Katakros's +1 save bubble only works on Mortis Praetorians, so you can't stack them. Is there another source of +1 save I've missed?

Even if they don't stack, I agree that they'll be a very durable infantry block. But not completely invulnerable, especially against MWs or high rend shooting.

1 hour ago, Scurvydog said:

Long, detailed and thoughtful analysis

I agree with basically everything you said, particularly that the OBR power level - at least on paper - feels about where the power level of AOS should be. But compared to the top of top tier lists, I don't think they're frighteningly overpowered. Low A tier to high B tier, certainly, with some excellent matchups and some that will be challenging.

I'm interested to see how often Katakros is included in lists, as he's a very powerful support piece but also very expensive in an already-expensive army. And while it may be hit-or-miss, I do think his ability to steal enemy Command Points on a 4+ has the potential to hurt enemy lists that have the potential to be problematic matchups for OBR that are CP-dependent, like Hallowheart or (to a lesser extent) Shootcast.

Edited October 28, 2019 by l1censetochill

[Grimrock]

I'm not sure if the army is going to be top tier or not, but people thinking it's slow need to consider that any unit can get +3 movement from a 'command' point. It isn't totally free but considering they can get a half dozen or more per turn it lets them speed up any unit that needs it. With their slowest models at speed 7 they're actually one of the fastest armies in the game when it counts.

Honestly I think the army looks very skill based rather than the obvious straight-forward strength of armies like Slaanesh of FeC. If a player can keep track of all the potential command abilities, buffs and spells, and use them efficiently, then I think the army is going to be very  strong. If a player starts to forget or lose track of things then they're going to struggle. In addition list building is going to be more crucial with this army than a lot of others and there are a ton of combos you can make to really amp up the power. I think it's actually pretty cool that GW has released an army that should reward skill and careful play rather than just another mallet to bludgeon people with.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Grimrock

[decker_cky]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

I'm not sure if the army is going to be top tier or not, but people thinking it's slow need to consider that any unit can get +3 movement from a 'command' point. It isn't totally free but considering they can get a half dozen or more per turn it lets them speed up any unit that needs it. With their slowest models at speed 7 they're actually one of the fastest armies in the game when it counts.

+3 move is only a tiny increase on average compared to guaranteed 6 to run,  which you burn with other armies when it counts.  It is also less of an increase on average than run and charge, that a lot of armies have. 

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, decker_cky said:

+3 move is only a tiny increase on average compared to guaranteed 6 to run,  which you burn with other armies when it counts.  It is also less of an increase on average than run and charge, that a lot of armies have. 

Well the benefit is that they don't have to run to get that bonus movement, and they can still do things like charge or shoot while moving quickly. They also have access to run and charge through the stalliarch lords if they want to focus on a fast army rather than a purely resilient one. Like I said, I don't know if they're going to be top tier or not, but they definitely have the tools to be a strong army and a number of tricks that can make them a real threat. I'm really curious to see how this all turns out.

[JackStreicher]

If guerrilla miniature wargaming IS correct you can have X mortek guard units running around with a 3+ save rerolling failed armour saves - that is sick.

Edited October 28, 2019 by JackStreicher

[Agent of Chaos]

@Scurvydog amazing analysis! Loving this forum guys! Yes, chaos player here (obviously) but Ive been considering a second (4th or 5th, whatevs) army for a while and something small, elite and hard to kill was what I was thinking and these guys fit the bill. Love the models & love the way they operate. Only disappointing thing as it appears many are finding... its so hard to fit all the toys you want in 2K!

I am definitely going to sit back and wait, really read the battletome and carefully choose a playstyle and army. Never approached warhammer like that before so figure I owe it to myself to plan an army for a change. 

Big question around Mortek Guard with spears or swords. Gamewise its swords all day because even a unit of 20 can fight in 2 ranks on 25mm bases so spears only become necessary in those terms for 30-40 man units. However the spears look so much cooler so I'm thinking 2 x 10 with swords, 2 x 10 with spears, but they operate in pairs with the spears standing behind the swords. This way if the front line does get hit with something with lots of rend and/or mortal wounds, they end up overkilling it and you still get a hit back with the undamaged spears. If they dont kill the frontline the spears have the reach to still attack. Meanwhile a Boneshaper or Harvester accompanies each pair of units to bring back as many as it can. This covers your battleline requirements without sinking tons of points into massive units. Does this sound viable? 

 

[PlasticCraic]

10 hours ago, Forrix said:

I feel like information silos are a big issue with GW. It wouldn't surprise if the team who worked on Bonereapers never even saw the Mawtribes book until it was released and visa-versa.  

Yep.  So many people (myself included) praised GW to the hilt for stripping virtually all rerolls out of the Warclans Battletome, which looked for all the world like a deliberate design philosophy. 

Whoever gave rerollable saves to OBR clearly didn't get the memo.  

[Acid_Nine]

Honestly the Ogors seem to be the bigger problem of the two, but I would have to play more games against the new tome. They just seem like they get so much!

[whispersofblood]

I believe there are going to be about 2 great highly competitive builds, and a shed load of garbage. If you are an obsessive planner this is probably the faction for you.

[Kasper]

10 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

If guerrilla miniature wargaming IS correct you can have X mortek guard units running around with a 3+ save rerolling failed armour saves - that is sick.

If it specifically says FAILED armor saves and not just "armor saves" that's great - Obviously I would have prefered no rerolls in the future, but heavy rend will make a big impact there.