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Whats the 'Worst' Warscroll and why?


Ben

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Liberators are bad but they're a 5 star unit compared to Castigators.

Max 3 damage and 6 wounds on a 4+ for 80 points. God awful.

Castigators are without a doubt the worst unit in the game, somehow even worse than the 1.0 Troglodon. Even at 60 per 3 they wouldn't be worth using.

Eternity Warden is a top contender for "most useless warscroll" because Saurus Guard serve the same purpose but are better at it, but at least it's not objectively bad like the Castigators.

Many of the Underworld warbands are probably in consideration for worst warscroll 

Edited by PJetski
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I feel there is way too many units with very similar stats making choices in some battletones redundant. I think the fixed hit and wounds are fine but would of worked better on a D10 system  giving a little wider scope.

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On 3/21/2020 at 1:25 PM, dmorley21 said:

The worst warscroll that I've ever used is easily Nighthaunt's Glaivewrath Stalkers.

What's even worse that Glaivewrath Stalkers are everywere, in so many released boxes since Soul Wars. It's useless plastic.

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Really interesting topic.  I guess you could put Sharks in the mix, because it's one of the few warscrolls where GW has been bold enough to points-drop a cool but underpowered unit into usefulness, rather than making them wait for a new book.  

On the Destruction side, it's mainly missed opportunities moreso than truly bad units:

- Ironguts still lack a proper Warscroll ability.  Their "Down to the Ironguts" ability was almost a meme, regularly held up as a shining example of terrible rules that would never make it to print in a modern Battletome.  Awkward.

- Brutes are squeezed out between Ardboyz and Gore Gruntas.  Taking away the Klaw and rend -2 simultaneously removed a lot of their character and usefulness.  Similarly their Duff Up Da Big Thing rule is pretty weak now, especially since this unit already hits on 3s and already has access to multiple +1s to Hit.  

Overall they just lack "something" to make them into the combat blender they need to be, in order for them to have a true role.  What you are left with is a unit that is painfully slow and cripplingly vulnerable to Battleshock, so why would you bother when they only have the same attack profile as your other Battleline?  

But neither of those is truly bad - in fact they're quite good, just short of what they could have been.  It's Gnoblars that have to be in with a shout for worst unit in the game.

They are unapologetic trash, with zero combat output, terrible durability (1 wound on a 6+ save) and abysmal bravery.  Absolute garbage in every aspect. 

But you know what?  You still see them in lists, and rightly so.  Every army can use some disposable trash, especially when it's cheap trash (5 points per wound) and just as importantly, comes on 25mm bases.  Screening and capping Objectives is what they bring, so even the humble Gnoblar has an important role. 

And that role is wearing a Deathstar to the face, so your proper units can hit back harder.

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Sorceress on black dragon is a bad warscroll.  I am still unsure as to what possessed GW to cost her the same as the current dreadlord who is barely useable for his 300 points cost. Keeper of secrets is only 60 points more for reference. 

 To fix it would be as easy as a giving her a 4+ save baseline (3+ for the dreadlord), OR a second cast even. But for her points she probably deserves both or a significant reduction to 260 points or less 5+ save on a dragon is a joke and her wounds disappear faster than dust being blasted by a jet turbine. Her only saving grace is flying but she is too fragile to be used offensively so its mostly fancy overcosted flying which could be filled by a sorceress with thermalrider for 90 points.  I do still make her work by being a large distraction in my covens force but she's only there to magnet shooting for a turn. 

 

Also based on what I have seen from the beasts tome basically the entire tome barring tzaangors, bestigors and shamans is beyond repair. Bullgors make me cry and the ghorgon could be 100 points flat and I still can't see why anyone would take it. 

Edited by TheCovenLord
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2 hours ago, TheCovenLord said:

Sorceress on black dragon is a bad warscroll.  I am still unsure as to what possessed GW to cost her the same as the current dreadlord who is barely useable for his 300 points cost. Keeper of secrets is only 60 points more for reference. 

 To fix it would be as easy as a giving her a 4+ save baseline (3+ for the dreadlord), OR a second cast even. But for her points she probably deserves both or a significant reduction to 260 points or less 5+ save on a dragon is a joke and her wounds disappear faster than dust being blasted by a jet turbine. Her only saving grace is flying but she is too fragile to be used offensively so its mostly fancy overcosted flying which could be filled by a sorceress with thermalrider for 90 points.  I do still make her work by being a large distraction in my covens force but she's only there to magnet shooting for a turn. 

 

Also based on what I have seen from the beasts tome basically the entire tome barring tzaangors, bestigors and shamans is beyond repair. Bullgors make me cry and the ghorgon could be 100 points flat and I still can't see why anyone would take it. 

Here's a fun game - how low can we drop the sorceress on black dragon before she becomes playable?  Also note, the dreadlord on black dragon is definitely overcosted... and I say that having "3" of them (Prince Imirik, how far you have fallen...).

At 300 points she is clearly overpriced.  A 5+ save leaves her too weak to try to get her mount attacks into melee, at 6" range you are basically in melee already to try to use the breath attack, and even if you threw her into combat she would do 9.5 damage per round on average (until she starts taking damage and getting bracketed - also amusingly enough, she brackets slower and takes less of a blow from being bracketed than the dreadlord does...).  Also, to play into the comparison and show just how terrible it is, the dreadlord is also rocking only about 10.5 damage before buffs too...

First things first, there is literally no way that she is better than bringing a hurricanum.  Heck, she isn't better than bringing the 2nd hurricanum.  So clearly she needs to cost less than that, which is putting 280 points as her absolute maximum.  Is she better than a Luminark?  Ehh... sure, she's better in melee than one.  But I still think a 6+ shrug aura (and rocking a 4+ save) is going to make the luminark more durable, and a wizard should be brought for their spells, not their mount.  So I would say that a luminark should be more expensive than her, which brings us down to 270 points.

Would you bring her on her own for 250 points?  What is she giving us over 2 sorceress's on foot?  Well, she does give us a model that can take a bit more damage and move a bit further.  Whether that is worth losing a 2nd spellcast is definitely debatable (I would argue not).  But I would say that 250 points is a good point to start her at, and then consider dropping it more later.

While we are talking about casters on monsters though, we should probably mention the Battlemage on Griffon.  You know, that unit that is so terrible that everyone forgot it even existed?  Seriously, it also costs 300 points.  Like, when would you EVER take it?  It is a 1 cast mage, with a 5+ save, and can only really do damage either with its 1 spell or by diving into melee.  Now, amusingly enough, it actually does MORE damage in melee than either the sorceress OR the dreadlord on black dragon (which I think just says really bad things about the dreadlord), but there is still no way you are EVER taking this thing before you take a hurricanum or a luminark.  Also, as a mage, I think the most important thing you can do is cast better, and the sorceress's at least can sacrifice models for a +2 to cast, which the battlemage on griffon... can fight in Ghur?  Also, at least the sorceress's have command abilities they can use too, unlike the battlemage.  This is DEFINITELY a unit that could afford to drop like, 60 points, and still probably be unplayable then.

Lastly, weighing into this argument, for a mere 320 points you can grab a Lord-Arcanum on Taurelion.  What do those 20 points more give you?  Well, it gives you a unit that doesn't get bracketed as it takes damage.  It gives you a unit that is flying around with a 3+ save.  And most importantly, it gives you a unit that can cast 2 spells a turn.  You know, that last one there alone is so big, it really points out just how bad it is to be rocking 300 point wizards with 1 spell a turn.  Oh, and he is widely considered to be such a terrible warscroll, that once again, I'm pretty sure that most people forgot he even existed (also, I have NEVER seen ANYONE ever use this model... ever.  Not in person, not on battle reports, this model might as well not exist, and it is from one of the most "popular" factions out there too...).

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This conversation hurts me a lot.  I own a sorceress on BD, Lord-Arcanum on Taurelon, and I really want to grab the Battlemage Griffon (mainly for the looks, but I'll probably play him at some point).  I mean, you're all absolutely correct, but still it hurts.

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4 hours ago, willange said:

This conversation hurts me a lot.  I own a sorceress on BD, Lord-Arcanum on Taurelon, and I really want to grab the Battlemage Griffon (mainly for the looks, but I'll probably play him at some point).  I mean, you're all absolutely correct, but still it hurts.

I hear you. I have 3 sorceresses on BD's at this point. I have only ever used all 3 once in a fluff match. I was really hoping she would be significantly stronger when Cities dropped and she only got a little better but her points jacked up an unreasonable amount. Sad to be honest love the minis.

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Don't yall dare compare the dragon sorceress to the griffon mage! Sorceress has a unique spell that combined with vitriolic spray simply reads 'deal max mortal wounds', she has both a standard sorceress command ability (which is great) and her unique ability (that actually can give black guard an edge over phoenix guard!) and she can keep up with said black guard huge threat range! And she did well in those strange drakespawn based tournament lists we never thought would be good!

I'm not saying she's good, she isn't, but griffon battlemage has literaly none of these things going for him and zero resons to take him over the foot version. They don't deserve to be placed in their own category while he's obviously on his own, unique level of bad :D

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On 3/24/2020 at 3:35 AM, readercolin said:

(also, I have NEVER seen ANYONE ever use this model... ever.  Not in person, not on battle reports, this model might as well not exist, and it is from one of the most "popular" factions out there too...).

I do. Yet it‘s mostly dead points since all the buffs are too specific and the damage is really meh.

But it looks cool!

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the fact that no one has mentioned the Sepulchral Guard yet blows my mind and makes me think you're all noob poseurs who don't actually play the game but just pretend to so you sound cool when hanging around bus stops.

Let's see... a 7 model, 7 wound unit with a 6+ save, so will get blown away probably before you get to do anything with it.

which is just as well as those 7 models have 5 different, all fairly rubbish, weapon profiles between them. so should you get to use them they'll take up a load of time to almost certainly achieve the square root of ****** all.

of course with their pretty useless keywords it's never been really clear what army you're supposed to field them in anyway.

the absolute kicker at the end of all this is that they're actually great models, certainly skull & scapulas above any of the other Deathrattle/Skeleton models available and you wouldn't even need to do too tinkering with the war scroll to make them good but as it is I guess they never will be.

 

 

aos-warscroll-the-sepulchral-guard-en.pdf

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I always got the feeling that GW wanted teh Underworld warbands to have AoS rules to make them cross compatible products, and so that Underworld becomes a partial gateway product for new gamers. But that they didn't actually want them to be powerful/highly useful because they operate somewhat differently to regular units in the game. So honestly I'd expect and sort of want all the Underworld Warbands to have varying levels of power from Ok to fairly poor. Mostly because I see them as flavour focused on a side game rather than something ideally suited to the core AoS game. 

Of course I think it also leaves them open to being used as "counts as". I can see loads of people using the new DoK models as regular models not as their character selves. 

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On 3/21/2020 at 11:55 PM, Forrix said:

Spoilpox Scrivener: He provides a minor damage buff to plaguebearers (the unit not the keyword) who pretty much can't do damage even fully buffed due to having 1 base attack with a 1 inch reach no rend, one damage on a 32mm base. Probably the epitome of worthless as I would seriously consider a command point to be worth more points wise. 

Yeah and the doot doot plaguebearer guy. They don't buff the plaguebearers in any way that plays to their strengths. They're really nice models too, but I've never seen them played. 

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I am limited to the armies I have played with/against so take mine with a grain of salt. I am also excluding grand allegiance warscrolls since they aren't meant to be competitive. 

1- Liberators - These guys are particularly tragic since they are essentially the poster child of AOS. Many people end up with them because they were in the original AOS starter. You could double their attacks and drop their cost and they would still stink.

2- Ylthari - I know a-lot of the underworld crossover warscrolls are painful, but this one is the worst of all. She is like adding a worse Branchwych to a worse unit of Tree Revenants and then paying a 20pt tax. On top of not filling a battleline slot. 

3-Kurnoth Hunters with Bows - Awesome model, but eclipsed by nearly every shooting unit in the game. However a few people have build entire armies around them and have had some success. 

 

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I noticed today that if I was about to change a single rule, it would be Realm Magic Lore. Instead of giving access to all wizzards to the spells of the lore the battle takes place in, I would give this Lore to any Army that is from the selected Realm and allow any wizzard to pick an additional spell from this lore. Really, this bugs me more than any single bad warscroll around.

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8 hours ago, dekay said:

Don't yall dare compare the dragon sorceress to the griffon mage! Sorceress has a unique spell that combined with vitriolic spray simply reads 'deal max mortal wounds', she has both a standard sorceress command ability (which is great) and her unique ability (that actually can give black guard an edge over phoenix guard!) and she can keep up with said black guard huge threat range! And she did well in those strange drakespawn based tournament lists we never thought would be good!

I'm not saying she's good, she isn't, but griffon battlemage has literaly none of these things going for him and zero resons to take him over the foot version. They don't deserve to be placed in their own category while he's obviously on his own, unique level of bad :D

Do you have a link to the lists? I would absolutely love to up my game, especially if I can add in a nice looking model for better reasons. 

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