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The morghast problem.


Jaxler

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I am frankly boggled at how GW can justify putting morghasts at 210 points. For ten less points, look at necropolis stalkers. They pack more damage (almost double as much), pack as many wounds, and can be even more survivable for less points. I don't get why GW cannot seem to get these things to be worthwhile after all these years. It's as if they have a running joke of being the canonical good looking model with bad rules. 

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7 minutes ago, Sedraxis said:

They tend to perform fine for me. I feel flying and movement is very underrated whenever I see people comparing units.

From what I understand, they've the same movement as stalkers, with only fly vs discount fly at a lower rdp cost being their selling point. 

Edited by Jaxler
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One key aspect to remember is that Stalkers "can" have fly, but only if they make that 1 in 4 choice on that turn. Morghasts have fly all the time and don't have to "sacrifice" another boon choice to get it. So your stalker might work great using fly in an early turn when it won't make it into combat yet; or if its running away from something and thus you're hoping it won't need combat bonuses; but you won't be able to get its combat bonus and fly in the same turn. A Morghast can fly at any time so it can leap over an obstacle and right into combat with no loss of its combat effectiveness. 

 

I do agree that stalkers and morghasts do sit in a very similar spot within the army. Like a lot of things in the Ossiarch tome the differences are more subtle than large

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31 minutes ago, Jaxler said:

From what I understand, they've the same movement as stalkers, with only fly vs discount fly at a lower rdp cost being their selling point. 

9" flying and 3d6 charge is a pretty big upgrade from 6" if you ask me.

The stalkers do more damage and their CA helps by giving them rerolls to run/charge and semi-fly, but then again Morghasts debuff bravery and can have 2" range. So all in all I'd say both have their place in the army.

I'm planning to run both units in the Katakrosian Deathglaive battalion soon, it may be a nice alternative to Mortek Crawlers.

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22 hours ago, Overread said:

One key aspect to remember is that Stalkers "can" have fly, but only if they make that 1 in 4 choice on that turn. Morghasts have fly all the time and don't have to "sacrifice" another boon choice to get it. So your stalker might work great using fly in an early turn when it won't make it into combat yet; or if its running away from something and thus you're hoping it won't need combat bonuses; but you won't be able to get its combat bonus and fly in the same turn. A Morghast can fly at any time so it can leap over an obstacle and right into combat with no loss of its combat effectiveness. 

 

I do agree that stalkers and morghasts do sit in a very similar spot within the army. Like a lot of things in the Ossiarch tome the differences are more subtle than large

Actually the stalkers ability is a command ability. But I agree Morghast have their place, the speed and fly is very useful for late game objective grabbing 

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On 1/3/2020 at 2:18 PM, Jaxler said:

I am frankly boggled at how GW can justify putting morghasts at 210 points. For ten less points, look at necropolis stalkers. They pack more damage (almost double as much), pack as many wounds, and can be even more survivable for less points. I don't get why GW cannot seem to get these things to be worthwhile after all these years. It's as if they have a running joke of being the canonical good looking model with bad rules. 

I agree. I do see the subtle differences, but it's not enough. At 160 they would see some limited use, but at their current price? Nah. Sad, really.

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6 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I agree. I do see the subtle differences, but it's not enough. At 160 they would see some limited use, but at their current price? Nah. Sad, really.

If Morghasts were 160 points for 2 they would absolutely destroy everything else without contest, they'd be the most unbalanced unit in the game right now.

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Movement is such an important stat in AOS, it doesn't matter how good a unit is if it's not on a objective. 

The extra 3" move plus fly is great for getting the Morghasts to where you want them. The charge 3 D6 is great to just makes those key charges more reliable. 

Another thing to consider is Morghasts are in Grand Host of Nagash, so that will be taken in to account when they're given points. 

Edited by #SteveJames
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34 minutes ago, Sedraxis said:

If Morghasts were 160 points for 2 they would absolutely destroy everything else without contest, they'd be the most unbalanced unit in the game right now.

What would your suggestion be, then? Right now they appear in very, very few lists. There is almost no incentive to take them, from a competitive standout standpoint.

How would you encourage players to use them?

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Sometimes its less of an issue with the unit and more of an issue with other units being better at survivalist. With Bonereapers its hard to ignore the powerblock that is mortark backed up with harvesters. 

 

That said I also think that one thing AoS has against it is that it doesn't have quite as many unit divisions. It could almost do with a heavy/light armour system or somesuch. I think that would open up a lot of niches for units to fit into - a mortark guard would be really good at, easy, taking out light armours; but no where near as good as heavy armours. This you'd bring along something like the morghasts for that. 

 

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Had my first game with my bonereapers yesterday.... my 4 morghast charged some arrow boys and killed one entire model, then we're shot a lot and charged by a rogue idol... they didn't last long ^_^

Overall victory was achieved in the end, but I think spooning my dice that hard wasn't the best showing the morghast could have  had 😄

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9 hours ago, El Syf said:

Morghasts surely do more damage? Less attacks (if using halberds) but higher rend and damage.  In my experience rend is everything (obviously not applicable to nighthaunt) .And for me the models are nicer looking!

If you go the extra damage mode of stalkers they get AP 2, and 2 dmg base on 5 attacks, vs ap ap 2 and 3 dmg on 3 attacks with morghasts. Now factor in that morghasts come with 2 models vs 3 on stalkers. Stalkers get 15 3s and 3s, AP-2 2dmg attacks vs 6 3s and 3s, ap-2 3dmg attacks. 

That's 18 dmg at rend -2 3s and 3s vs 30 dmg rend -2 3s and 3s. Almost double the damage of morghasts. 

 

Also people keep talking up tje fast morghasts, but what about the 5+ fnp one? Shouldn't that version get a buff?

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The way I see it they could do with a small buff, maybe a 10 point discount but then again I think their role should be expensive in their army.

OBR and LoN have good infantry and good casters as a strength, while their elite units come with an expensive price tag. If we fill up everyone's weaknesses we'll end up with more auto includes and a 'best list' per army instead of hard choices.

This is my criticism with a lot of posts asking for buffs (or nerfs) on this forum, people want to compare everything to the strongest models not realising every faction should have weaknesses and strengths to keep the game interesting.

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1 hour ago, Sedraxis said:

This is my criticism with a lot of posts asking for buffs (or nerfs) on this forum, people want to compare everything to the strongest models not realising every faction should have weaknesses and strengths to keep the game interesting.

This is so true, I used to play a lot of strategy games on PC some had diverse faction with unique ways of playing other however were just the same faction with different skins. 

The games that were more fun were the one that had unique factions as it leant to replay ability I've played a shoot faction now I'll play a combat one. 

Having bad choices or factions that can't do everything keeps the game interesting. I play Mawtribes (BCR), Khorne and Ironjaws all are "combat factions" but they play completely differently. 

My Gore fist is fast as anything packs a real punch and plays objectives well but has almost no Mortal wound output. 

My Khorne list is very slow and reactive but it has a bucket load of mortal wounds. 

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One problem is a lot of games - both on tabletop and in the computer world - tend to have a lot of people who focus on one single stat - the damage output. Be that potential wounds caused or damage per second etc.... The issue there is anything that isn't as "killy" as the best thing in the army often ends up being weighted as underperforming. That's why I argue that the resolution isn't necessarily making things better nor worse but in making the mechanics of the game open up to be either more than just killing; or at the very least introduce tiers of units that can only be viable threats against other specific tiers.

 

Not to the point of exclusions - 40K had the issue at one time where fliers could only be countered by specific anti-air models. So if you didn't take them your opponent would win very easily. Same was true for a long while with super-heavies (esp before Gw started making knights and such and the only superheavies were from Forgeworld).

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Morghasts are in a tighter spot due to Stalkers basically filling the same role, but incredibly better in pure damage for moderate tradeoffs. 

I love the stalker models, but I think the model lineup would make more sense without them, with Immortis being just ok damage and tough as nails, and Morghasts being a hammer unit. The Stalkers are just so poorly balanced and out of place, that both Immortis and Morghasts suffer in their roles.

Morghasts with halberds has the same base output as 3 rockgut troggoths for 140 points, not counting the potential motal wounds from the Troggoth shooting rocks. There are a lot of differences between those 2 units of course, but a 210 pts hammer unit dealing overall less than a 140 point one will cause some problems.

It will be hard to balance these units, with you have some elite guys in the stalkers being a fast elite hammer and then you got Morghast who are also supposed to be an elite hammer unit, usually 1 will be best most of the time. It seems GW was trying to have Morghasts slightly faster and with fly but less output in return, but with only a 3" move difference it is not a huge margin and the -1 bravery is also rather weak.

To "fix" this more work than just points adjustments is needed, although it would be nice to get Morghasts to 180 as that opens some more builds, I actually think they should be even costlier and mcuh stronger, to move them further away from Stalkers and closer to a Behemoth role. The stalkers being incredibly poorly balanced is also an issue, as anything but their precision stance is worthless and they deal the least damage per point with the reroll stances and the most by far with precision, over twice the output between stances in fact, which must have been balanced by someone on drugs.

So what can Morghasts do right now, well they are sort of better to support some Mortek Guard, they can fly over them and potentially engage in the rear more easily and mess up pile ins. With 2" reach on halberds they can also more easily poke over them if needed, although if I am already paying 200+ points to tag along with Guards, then I want a Harvester... 

I have also tried having them tag along with Kavalos, as the potential 6" pile in of Kavalos and the big charge range of Harbingers can also help mess up enemy unit pile in potentials and also split some damage, but as their average output is about the same as a Kavalos unit, you might as well just bring more Kavalos to do the same other than rule of cool I guess.

I'd like to hear what others have been using them for. Got them nice and painted up, but frankly I just bring them for that reason until I have more painted of my army...

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I like the approximate points cost for morghasts.  On a pure aesthetic sense they look like a 100 point per model kind of unit.  So I don't want to see their points come down, but I do want to see their stat lines go up to match, and their special rules change to give them a distinct role, both from each other and from other units in the army.

IMO, make the harbingers faster yet, make the archai slower but with a better base save, give the archai the same bodyguard ability as the immortis - since that's they're role in the fluff to begin with - and restrict the immortis bodyguard ability to non-monster heroes in order to distinguish between the two units.  Give both units more attacks and wounds, and make the morghast signature ability something unique and useful, which a -1 bravery aura just isn't, especially in OBR where their few bravery-based abilities all target 'unmodified' bravery anyway.  In other threads I've floated the idea of an aura that negates immunity to battleshock, which would be useful and unique but is somewhat difficult to word.  Some sort of plain attack debuff aura might be an easier alternative.

Regardless, as they are, they're certainly quite underwhelming.  I still like their models and narrative, and their formations are kind of cool, but it's hard to justify fielding them, especially when everything else in the army is so expensive anyway, and stalkers/immortis do their jobs so much better.

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3 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

I'd like to hear what others have been using them for. Got them nice and painted up, but frankly I just bring them for that reason until I have more painted of my army...

I wanted to use 2 Morghast Archai in a Legion of Grief 1k points army against Skavens, in order to hide 4 Tomb Banshees behind (the Ghostly Howl at 10" does not require visibility) and for delivering the -1 Bravery within 6". And also just for the point of putting something on the table as tall as the Stormefiends :D However the Morghasts float in the air, so I am not sure they would hide anything :D I guess I am authorised to glue them on some mausoleums like in  @Rob Hawkins' tutorial? 🤗

...but the -1 Bravery debuff could be brought by several other cheaper units (zombies, skeletons, black knights, ), and then their 210 points is also the same price as for 6 Chainghasts who would also: have 12 wounds in total, fly (but only 6" move), save at 4+ (even ethereal), shred things in same way at 2" in melee if 5 targets within 2", plus would create a range 'threat' at 15" and be healed by grave sites.

I agree with you: I am first interesting in painting them because I like their style and their lore.

I would not encourage GW to drop them in points (they deserve a key role) but rather to align them in term of profile with other models with the "Deathlords" keyword. They are the only ones non-leader models, sitting (floating?) beside not less than Nagash and 4 Mortarchs. For example, role-wise,

  • their "spirit" weapons could feast on their victims' souls and heal them on killing something,
  • maybe they could also have abilities triggered when in range of Deathlord heroes (encouraging playing them with the Mortarchs) maybe something the same way as a Nighthaunt General can now re-allocate wounds to Hexwraiths with the Dolorous Guard battalion,
  • maybe they could have the ability to "stay in the sky", threatening the battlefield, until they decide to rush on their prey or to lift it in the air,
  • etc...

 

Edited by Uvatha
4 mortarchs instead of 3, now with Katakros, I think Olynder has no Deathlord keyword yet
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18 hours ago, #SteveJames said:

Movement is such an important stat in AOS, it doesn't matter how good a unit is if it's not on a objective. 

The extra 3" move plus fly is great for getting the Morghasts to where you want them. The charge 3 D6 is great to just makes those key charges more reliable. 

Another thing to consider is Morghasts are in Grand Host of Nagash, so that will be taken in to account when they're given points. 

Before the last point discount and the wound count buff I only used the in that one sub-faction.  Four attacks per model with Spirit Halberds seemed to be the tipping point to make them useful in the combat phase.  Even then the volume of dice is low enough to make the statistical results “swingy,” fine for anyone who doesn’t mind that kind of gambling.

I’ve tried them with Bonereapers forces in 2k+ games.  The extra wounds certainly helps with stay around longer but that job seems better handled by the Mortek Guard.  The mobility is wasted when battles aren’t at skirmish levels.  In a big enough match I’d like them running a TIE Fighter escort with Arkham, a difficult investment to fit in regular games.

Currently they don’t have a tactical roll.  I’d rather get some artillery.  It’s no accident they were included in the Feast of Bones boxset.

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1 hour ago, Uvatha said:
  • maybe they could have the ability to "stay in the sky", threatening the battlefield, until they decide to rush on their prey or to lift it in the air,.

A deep strike ability on them could give them a role actually. Looking at the new Karadron overlords with their flyer abilities, having Morghasts being able to "fly high" would be very awesome, but probably too much in combination with the current Harbinger 3d6 charges, so that should maybe be adjusted. Having that for 1 Discipline point as their ability could be fun though.

Another cool thing would be to maybe give them more synergy with the Kavaloi. Keep their statline as is, but give them a command ability to match, so impact hits for Harbingers like the Kavaloi but maybe 1d3 mortal wounds on a 4+ per morghast on the charge? Adding on top of the Stalliarch lords command ability to also include units with "fly" would be fun, so that legion would be more based on speed than only the deathriders.

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