Any well working cavalry army out there?

[Hannibal]

Hi all,

 

just wanted to know wether there is a well working all cavalry army out there. I´ve never seen one, though I´ve seen plenty of cavalry units in mixed armies. But to be honest, they all didn´t work that well. IMO the lack body count as well as damage output the turn after their charge. But I do not know every single cavalry unit out there.

 

The reason I ask this question: I´ve never run a cavalry army and I thought this might be a good project.

 

So what´s your opinion on this topic? Can it be done?

[Kramer]

Do you consider the beastclaw raider side of mawtribes cavalry? 

[Frowny]

Does cavalry imply horses are other riders ok? There are many good cavalry armies but your choices are limited with true horses.

Ironjawz, ogors, idoneth, slaanesh, khorne, nurgle and tzeentch all have riders which see competitive play. Even moonclan grots can do a good squig cavalry army.

For true cavalry with horses, your best bet is

Slaves to darkness (knights and marauder horsemen)

Cities of sigmar tempests eye ( pistoliers are quite good)

Legion of blood (blood knights)

 

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Frowny

[Sputnik]

Funnily enough Honest Wargamer did a show today on lists mostly made up of Bloodcrushers, which are apparently very effective for board control and damage from the charge. 

The other list that springs to mind is just the contents of 3 Beastclaw Raider start collecting boxes which gets you just under 2k points of fully legal cavalry goodness. 

Seraphon is another viable option with the new battletome, depending on if your definition of cavalry includes little lizards riding big lizards. Which it should do!

[Overread]

Ossiarch Bonereapres can do cavalry pretty well! I believe a cavalry force even placed rather well in a competitive environment a while back.

 

Deathriders count as battleline, meanwhile there's a generic hero on mount and a unique hero on mount. If you want you can do a full force something like 

Arch-Kavalos Zandtos 220
Liege-Kavalos 200

15 Kavalos Deathriders 480
15 Kavalos Deathriders 480
15 Kavalos Deathriders 480

1860 points. 

Of course you might change things up a bit, swapping in some harvesters or other leaders instead of full 15 deathrider units, depends how "pure" you want to stick to the cavalry. 

 

OR

Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament 330
Liege-Kavalos 200

15 Kavalos Deathriders 480
15 Kavalos Deathriders 480
15 Kavalos Deathriders 480

2000 points. 

Which is a perfect cavalry list! 

[whiskeytango]

It seems like a Coalesced Sunclaw list could be pretty effective. Thats a lot of attacks.

[Kramer]

Thought of another one. 
beastclaw raiders if money is a consideration. 
 

archaon with varanguard if money isn’t a problem 😍

[Lucur]

Cities of Sigmar with some Demigryph Knights for the heavy lifting and Pistoliers to skirnish around should be okay. The Choice of mounted heroes is a bit lacking, as far as horses go...

[DantePQ]

Deepkin are the best all cavalery army in the game and they play like all cavalery army. 

[Baron Klatz]

Yeah, Deepkin, Beastclaws, Varanguard are tops with Seraphon, Ossiarch and Cities of Sigmar in close second.

However don't underestimate using unique AoS designs making you win in fantastical style even if doesn't always win the battle.

A prime example is the recent tweet Kraken Studios shared with their Luminaria army with cogwheel cavalry (pistoliers).

"My Cog City Luminaria army. Fully converted and scratch built. Custom designed cavalry to represent a mad engineering guild that travels the realm of Ulgu in a giant Cog City testing out dark experimental war engines. "

On 3/21/2020 at 12:38 AM, Kramer said:

archaon with varanguard if money isn’t a problem

That's definitely a winner. Plus they updated the "Knights of the Empty Throne" sub-faction with a recent faq which helps if Grand Marshall Archaon is pushing your wallet a little too hard.

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Baron Klatz said:

That's definitely a winner. Plus they updated the "Knights of the Empty Throne" sub-faction with a recent faq which helps if Grand Marshall Archaon is pushing your wallet a little too hard

He is the most cash to point efficient unit in a varanguard list though 😅

Varanguard 300 pts for 80 

Archie 800 pts for 130

the empty throne is a good shout btw! 

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

On 3/20/2020 at 12:16 PM, Hannibal said:

just wanted to know wether there is a well working all cavalry army out there. I´ve never seen one, though I´ve seen plenty of cavalry units in mixed armies. But to be honest, they all didn´t work that well. IMO the lack body count as well as damage output the turn after their charge. But I do not know every single cavalry unit out there.

Since I started playing I’ve wanted a “classic cavalry” army list given my passion for the Mongol Empire and its history.  Which to my doesn’t have to be 100% cavalry but a list where the cavalry provides the primary utility of the army,  so greatly appreciate the thread.

Tried Swifthawk Agents with Ellyrian Reavers, High Wardens and Sky Cutters backed by some infantry to hold objectives (and meet battleline requirements I believe).  In theory loved the Ellyrian special ability to Shoot and move given alignment with Mongol tactics but in practice a 4’x6’ shrinks way too fast in most games to Mae it a truly viable tactic.  In practice it almost always came down to the High Wardens and Swordmasters to do the army’s work so nice try but ultimately a failure from running a true cav-centric list.  Then they got squatted so...

As others have mentioned the closest I’ve truly come is running Braggoth’s Beast Hammer in BCR.  Won a small friendly round robin tournament with it last year.  Both Mournfang and Gore Gruntas functioned effectively as classic Heavy Cav (not as much movement but hit like a hammer once they’re stuck in, living up to battalion name) so it really comes down whether by Cav you simply mean “mounted” or are more specifically looking for the functionality/utility of say, historical cavalry as from my perspective Stonehorns and Thundertusks are effectively more equivalent to modern tanks than historical cavalry.

I spent a lot of time recently trying to make an OBR based list that appealed to me, including variations on what @Overread has but personally just couldn’t get into it.  Others mileage of course may vary.

I have not personally run a Gloomspite Squig list but the manager of my FLGS has and sings it’s praises but from conversations the greatest fun comes from some of the elements that would make it very “non-traditional” from a functional perspective.  His wife runs an IDK eels list and she really enjoys that.  Not sure where that one sits on the spectrum though.

Cant speak to Varaguard.

In the end I guess I’d say if what you are primarily looking for is the mounted aesthetic of cavalry you have plenty of options.  But in my experience if you are looking for the feel and experience equivalent to historical cavalry (whether light or heavy) that is a lot trickier 

[Hannibal]

Thanks all for your great advice.

 

In fact speaking of cavalry I meant "mounted" ie it could be any kind of mounted force. That being said based on your answers a lot of options came to mind. Thanks you!

[TMS]

I've played Soulblight pretty much exclusively since summer 2018 and have had decent success. The allegiance makes blood knights into battleline, giving you a true cavalry army. I can recommend them as a niche pick.

[Baron Klatz]

Just now, TMS said:

I've played Soulblight pretty much exclusively since summer 2018 and have had decent success. The allegiance makes blood knights into battleline, giving you a true cavalry army. I can recommend them as a niche pick.

I hadn't much experience with them besides hearing how effective they are.

Seeing as they can be taken as mercenaries do you think they'd complimented any other cavalry lists like say CoS pistoliers needing a hammer and going with a Shyish city theme or riding alongside a Fyreslayer magmadroth Lofnir lodge to help pad it out with more cavalry options(and a pretty wicked fires/ashes of the dead theme)?

 

[PlasticCraic]

Boing Boing

Spoiler

Allegiance: Gloomspite Gitz
Mortal Realm: Ulgu

Leaders
Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (280)
- General
- Command Trait: Fight Another Day
- Artefact: Doppelganger Cloak
Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (280)
- Artefact: Sword of Judgement
Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)
- Moon-cutta

Battleline
5 x Squig Hoppers (90)
5 x Squig Hoppers (90)
5 x Squig Hoppers (90)

Units
15 x Boingrot Bounderz (300)
15 x Boingrot Bounderz (300)
15 x Boingrot Bounderz (300)

Battalions
Squig Rider Stampede (140)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 150

 

[TMS]

@Baron Klatz, I think blood knights at 200p for 5 are fairly priced but they really like the command abilities available in LoN to get some re-rolls. They're better than the typical cavalry at grinding past the charging turn and a hidden quality is that they get a 2+ save while in cover against enemies with no rend. Try them out!

[Baron Klatz]

Ooh, tanky cavalry taking and using cover is a interesting thing to build around.

A cavalry list that actually goes for tough terrain and lots of scenery instead of open fields like the Blood Knights make an anvil with the cover and then using NightHaunt, Boingrots or Deepkin cavalry that can fly around all the obstacles catching the enemy off guard.

[Painbringer]

Knights of the Empty Throne (from the Wrath of the Everchosen book) may be what you are looking for. I am building a list with Varanguard, Marauder Horsemen and Chaos Knights. 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

Although not a purely cav army, I have had good success locally with a Slaves to Darkness army focused around the Ruinbringer Warband warscroll battalion.  I have a few variants of the list, but the on-charge mortal wounds from that are quite nice, and I find the mounted Chaos heroes I use (Lord on Karkadrak and Sorcerer on Manticore) to be pretty effective. I know from the griping in the StD thread I've seen that most Chaos units are considered overpriced in points, though, so I doubt it would place well at a serious tournament.