New player trying to decide on 1st army (Ossiarch Bonereapers questions)

[NeoSoul]

Hello!

(Disclaimer):
I couldn't find a faction specific section so I'm asking these questions in the appropriate Grand Alliance forums.  I want to get into AOS and I'm having a hard time deciding on which army to go with as many of them look unique and cool.  I watched a long video that roughly went over every faction but it was slightly outdated (not all of the 2nd edition tomes were out yet back then).  The look of the army is my most important criteria as I love to collect miniatures and want to be motivated to paint them.  However, I still want to play the game, I like strategy games and RTS (I normally do well at them) so since I'm having a hard time deciding based off looks, I'm trying to learn a bit more about the different play styles.  I'm not usually a big fan of cookie cutter builds and metas in games, I know it can change a lot but I'm trying not to totally ignore people's comments about some factions severely underperforming as I'd still probably like to be able to win games once in a while once I get decent at it.  The factions that I'm hesitating most between right now are Orruk Warclans, Slaves to Darkness, Maggotkin of Nurgle and Ossiarch Bonereapers.

This one post is about Ossiarch Bonereapers.  Here are some pros and cons I'd see with them so far:

Pros:

- There are some models that I like more than others but in general, unlike any other faction, I think that I like every single Ossiarch Bonereapers models as they're all new models, very nice and detailed.

- Tier lists and people seem to be saying that this faction is very solid for competitive play.

- The units are supposed to be very tanky.

- Elite units means that I can have fewer cooler models instead of spending countless hours painting small units that I don't like as much (in theory).

- Cool and unique aesthetics that I haven't seen in other games.

- Nagash looks amazing and fun to play with.

- Bones and armor might be easier to paint with basic techniques such as wash/dry brush for someone like me who is a novice painter (I can do an ok job but nothing spectacular and painting faces might be difficult for me).

Cons:

- They're supposed to be super slow.

- Most of the lists I looked at seem to be spamming almost nothing but a ton of Mortek Guards which is a shame because they're alright looking for infantry but they're probably my least favorite in the faction and it means I couldn't use all of the other cooler models that I'd want (Morghast Archai/Harbingers, Necropolis Stalkers, harversters and Deathriders).

- There is no Start to Collect box and apparently many of the other local players are new and only using their specific starter box as an army.  This means that I have no idea what I should buy to get started with OB and have a similar amount of points to play with those people.  It also means that I guess getting into OB would cost me quite a bit more money.

- No large really cool looking beast (like Archaon, Megaboss on Maw-krusha, etc.), it would be very cool to have some sort of large bone armored dracolich.  I guess Nagash is pretty large though and replaces that option.

 

So here are my questions:

1- Is Mortek Guards spam almost necessary (and making it so the other models can't really be used)?

2- If I have to buy everything new, is it much more expensive to start with OB since they don't have a Start to Collect box?

3- What should I look into buying first to match the Start to Collect box of other factions in terms of army points?

4- What makes Ossiarch Bonereapers fun and unique to play with in terms of game play and mechanics?  Do they have something that they're very good at?

5- Any other specific useful information you think I should know about them that could make me interested in them over an other faction?

[Overread]

A few Con Counters:

1) They are not super fast, but they are mobile and they can boost speed here and there. But it relies on planning. Their key is not so much that they are slow nor elite but that they are a bit like a well oiled machine - controlled well they work fantastic, but if you slip up (and you will) then things can unravel. But that's part of their fun.

2) Mortek Guard backed up with Harvesters is a powerful combo that creates a strong front line that deals out good damage and is hard to shut down. That said they don't have all that much tournament exposure because not long after they came out Corona hit the world.
That said before things shut down there was at least one army running almost all Deathriders that was winning events. 
Because most units in the army are strong you can take almost whatever you want and it will work well. Don't let the "meta" style tournament armies sway you.

3) Not really, Mortek Guard are pretty cheap and due to the Feast of Bones boxed set tehre's a decent number of fairly cheap Stalkers/Morghasts around. In general because they are quite elite they are not too much more expensive than other armies (if a bit

cheaper than some). So don't let the lack of a getting started box turn you away

4) YES I too want a large bone dragon construct. But don't worry there's several leaders in this army that have huge models (Nagash, Arkhan, Katakross) and there's the huge Trebuchet model as well. Harvesters aren't huge, but they are good chunky middleweight models. 

So to your questions
1) Nope not at all, its popular because its cheap, easy to build and works; but its not the only option.

2) Nope

3) Eh I'd say Mortek Guard, some Stalkers and a Harvester would be a good start

4) They are a wall that marches forward that doesn't stop. Army wise they don't generate command points; instead they've their own system that works similar, but generates more; however most units also have a command ability. Spending your points wisely on them to boost your units is part of their technical aspects toward unlocking their full potential. 

5) Because of their general good saves they are a tough army across the board. This means that you can take almost whatever you want and it will work at a basic level. You can take a lot of trebuchets; or deathriders; or mortek etc... Yes there are going to be debates on the most efficient use of points; but that's the same for any army (and often such meta-discussions remain very fixated on one or two builds until someone wins a major event with a totally different built which then becomes the "new hotness" 

[Btimmy]

3 hours ago, NeoSoul said:

Hello!

(Disclaimer):
I couldn't find a faction specific section so I'm asking these questions in the appropriate Grand Alliance forums.  I want to get into AOS and I'm having a hard time deciding on which army to go with as many of them look unique and cool.  I watched a long video that roughly went over every faction but it was slightly outdated (not all of the 2nd edition tomes were out yet back then).  The look of the army is my most important criteria as I love to collect miniatures and want to be motivated to paint them.  However, I still want to play the game, I like strategy games and RTS (I normally do well at them) so since I'm having a hard time deciding based off looks, I'm trying to learn a bit more about the different play styles.  I'm not usually a big fan of cookie cutter builds and metas in games, I know it can change a lot but I'm trying not to totally ignore people's comments about some factions severely underperforming as I'd still probably like to be able to win games once in a while once I get decent at it.  The factions that I'm hesitating most between right now are Orruk Warclans, Slaves to Darkness, Maggotkin of Nurgle and Ossiarch Bonereapers.

This one post is about Ossiarch Bonereapers.  Here are some pros and cons I'd see with them so far:

Pros:

- There are some models that I like more than others but in general, unlike any other faction, I think that I like every single Ossiarch Bonereapers models as they're all new models, very nice and detailed.

- Tier lists and people seem to be saying that this faction is very solid for competitive play.

- The units are supposed to be very tanky.

- Elite units means that I can have fewer cooler models instead of spending countless hours painting small units that I don't like as much (in theory).

- Cool and unique aesthetics that I haven't seen in other games.

- Nagash looks amazing and fun to play with.

- Bones and armor might be easier to paint with basic techniques such as wash/dry brush for someone like me who is a novice painter (I can do an ok job but nothing spectacular and painting faces might be difficult for me).

Cons:

- They're supposed to be super slow.

- Most of the lists I looked at seem to be spamming almost nothing but a ton of Mortek Guards which is a shame because they're alright looking for infantry but they're probably my least favorite in the faction and it means I couldn't use all of the other cooler models that I'd want (Morghast Archai/Harbingers, Necropolis Stalkers, harversters and Deathriders).

- There is no Start to Collect box and apparently many of the other local players are new and only using their specific starter box as an army.  This means that I have no idea what I should buy to get started with OB and have a similar amount of points to play with those people.  It also means that I guess getting into OB would cost me quite a bit more money.

- No large really cool looking beast (like Archaon, Megaboss on Maw-krusha, etc.), it would be very cool to have some sort of large bone armored dracolich.  I guess Nagash is pretty large though and replaces that option.

 

So here are my questions:

1- Is Mortek Guards spam almost necessary (and making it so the other models can't really be used)?

2- If I have to buy everything new, is it much more expensive to start with OB since they don't have a Start to Collect box?

3- What should I look into buying first to match the Start to Collect box of other factions in terms of army points?

4- What makes Ossiarch Bonereapers fun and unique to play with in terms of game play and mechanics?  Do they have something that they're very good at?

5- Any other specific useful information you think I should know about them that could make me interested in them over an other faction?

To provide some context to my responses, OBR is my main army and I've won a tournament or two with them. In response to your questions:

1. It depends on how competitive you want to be. Battleline-wise mortek guard are far far better than the deathriders, and thus no matter what the guard will be the core of every OBR army. If you were looking to avoid being very horde-y or wanting to be super elite, OBR isn't really a great fit for that competitively. Blocks of guard are on the same base size as normal skeletons (25 mm) and you will almost always be running at least 60 of them. 

2. Yes, OBR is a more expensive army to start pursuing. It is a newer army with no start collecting or deals. The Feast of bones box features very little actually competitively desirable units (just 10 of the guard, the stalkers are of dubious competitive quality). You might be able to find some deals secondhand after people start jumping ship now that OBR is far less competitive following the Petrifix Elite change. 

3.  As mentioned previous, the guard are the backbone of your army, so you want at least a few boxes of those. Mounted hero is essentially a necessity/ You can skip the soul reaper, but both the soul mender and the soul mason is solid. Katakros is great and is likely the most competitive option now. Arkan is also an okayish pick. 

4. With PE, OBR was a wall that melee armies charged into and bounced off of. Now the fantasy for OBR is slightly diluted. They can still be tanky with the ability to re roll saves. Their fantasy is probably capsulated best as a grindy, "elite" army. 

5. I would just caution you about buying into people who say that OBR is still a top army after the recent FAQ changes. Petrifix elite was the only thing that allowed an army with no tricks, teleports, or strong offensive output play with the top tables. That is now gone, so the new OBR top list is Mortis Praetorians,  Katakros, and a bunch of catapults. 

[NeoSoul]

Thank you for the answers, that was very helpful and I'll keep those things in mind.

[Sception]

re: Mortek Spam.  Every pitched battle army in Age of Sigmar needs to invest in some minimum number of 'Battle Line' units depending on the size of the game.  Many armies - usually those made in whole or in part from old warhammer fantasy factions - have a large variety of battle line options to choose from.  Cities of Sigmar armies have a large number of different battle line options to serve as the backbones of a variety of different lists.  Others have options to let some of their specialist units fill battle line requirements if they meet certain prerequisites - Flesh Eater Courts, for instance, are a very small faction with only one battle line unit by default, but depending on their subfaction and general choice several of their other units can be used as battle line, allowing for a wider variety of builds then their miniscule model range would imply.  Still other armies have some extremely cheap battle line options that allow players to satisfy battle line requirements on the cheap, freeing up the bulk of their points to build lists around a foundation of non-battle line units.  Legions of Nagash, for instance, can fill battle line slots with minimal units of dire wolves, freeing up points to build lists around Grimgast Reapers instead of Skeletons or Chainrasps.

Ossiarch Bonereapers are none of these.  They only have two options for battleline, they have no options to make other units battleline with particular choices of subfaction or general, and the two battle line options they have are not cheap enough that you can effectively minimize them  to free up points elsewhere.  Even the minimum investment of battleline will take up around a 5th of your army, and those minimum mortek units won't be able to do much for you.  Minimum kavalos units are a bit better, but also 50 points more expensive, pushing the minimum investment to over a quarter of your list.  Because your minimum battleline investment is already so much of your army, you really need to build around them rather than minimizing them to try to build around something else.

So no matter what, you're going to be building around a foundation of your battle line.  So then which one - Kavalos or Morteks?  To be clear, both are decent units, but you have to consider what the foundation of your list is there to do.  This are your main workhorse units, they need to be able to claim and hold objectives, take damage, and dish it out.  Morteks, while a bit slow, can do all of these with aplomb.  Kavalos, not so much.  They're reasonably tough and have some damage output, but they're not amazing for efficiency, and for the backbone of your list efficiency matters.

I would absolutely recommend fielding a unit or two of Kavalos.  They're good, and having a unit or two with decent speed is particularly helpful for an army that is otherwise pretty slow.  But while a unit or two of kav in your army is a good idea, a predominantly kav based army mostly isn't, for the same reasons that all or mostly cavalry armies in general tend not to do too well in AoS, and honstly didn't tend to do too well in oldhamer days, either.  Then as now there are a few exceptions, armies with either extra special rules to support a cavalry build or cavalry units that themselves are so remarkably hard hitting that you really can base a list out of crushing enemies under a cavalry charge (if you want to run something like that, look to Idoneth Deepkin eel lists).

Again, though, Ossiarch Bonereapers are not one of those rare exceptions.  So while you might fill a battleline slot or two with a couple kavalos units for utility, you're still going to take at least a couple units of the more offensively and defensively efficient mortek guard, and those units are going to be big units because they're already expensive so if you're going to take them at all then you want to take enough that they can survive some damage and fight back.  Ideally that means units of 40 - where the max unit size discount makes them even more efficient - or units of 20 supported by one or more harvesters for added survivability, at least until the harvester dies.  Either way, you're talking about several hundred points of mortek guard as the inevitable consequence of battleline requirements.

And that's not exactly a terrible thing - morteks look cool and are quite strong.  But they're also very RDP hungry.  They want the extra movement, they want their shield wall, they want the +1 attack buff from a Liege, or the -1 AP buff from petrifex if you're still running them.  And that means heroes.  So you're paying several hundred points for battleline (40 morteks + 20 morteks + 5 kavalos; or 20 morteks + 20 morteks + 5 kavalos + a harvester; or 40 morteks + 20 morteks+ 20 morteks in the shield corp formation; or more rarely 40 morteks + 5 kavalos + 5 kavalos with the kav lance formation; or 40 morteks + 40 morteks + 5 kav if you really want to go ham; etc), and since you want that investment you already had to make to be effective you need to spend several more hundreds of points on heroes to supply the needed RD points and buffs.  So maybe a liege, a mason, and a boneshaper or two.  Or katakros plus at least one of the other three if you're playing praetorians.  Or Arkhan, a liege, and a boneshaper if losing the game on the first turn to any army with decent ranged attacks sounds like a fun time.  Regardless, whatever your particular spread, you're already looking at well over half your points in a standard 2k point list.

At this point, you've got maybe, if you're lucky, 400 to 500 points left over.  That's enough for some decent support options, but that's all it'll be, support.  Maybe you take some stalkers.  Maybe you work in a harvester or battalion if you haven't already counted such against battle line investment.  Most likely, you try to fit in a pair of catapults, since the utility they offer really cannot be overstated.  if you have some points left over you probably grab an endless spell or two - the bone tithe shrieker is particularly nice.

And that's it.  Outside of nagash lists (the only real major outlier, and Nagash was hit hard enough by GHB20 nerfs that I'm not sure how much you'll see of him this season), you'll have some variety in exactly how many morteks are fielded in what configurations, whether and how many minimal kav units are tacked on, what the precise hero spread is, and what support you take with that last chunk of your list, but while the details vary the overall construction is kind of an inevitable outcome of the pitched battle rules and OBR's unit selection and special rules.

Things might be different if, say, one of the legions let you field stalkers as a battle line unit.  Or if kavalos were discounted enough - or had their damage output buffed enough - to make a kav-armies viable instead of just a unit or two in a mortek based list.  Or if the OBR range were expanded with some additional battle line options - say a ranged mortek unit, or some sort of dudes-on-monster unit similar to what ogres can field or oldhammer days tomb kings warsphinxes, or even a support unit that generated RDP, letting you get away with fewer points invested in heroes.

And such things might even happen.  OBR have received a big push from games workshop - probably the most complete new faction release outside of Stormcasts since the Nighthaunt, a lot of narrative focus, etc.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if GW planned to expand the OBR line in the future, and the current range is small enough that just a few additions could really change the build possibilities.

 

For now though, it kind of is what it is, and that is an elite infantry phalanx synergy list revolving around blocks of morteks and the heroes who buff them, with a few toys - most likely crawlers - tacked onto the edges for support.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Sception

[NeoSoul]

Thank you very much for the in depth answer!  I ended up going with IJ for a first army but I still love OBR's looks and would probably like to have a super tanky army.  I'll keep all of this in mind whenever I inevitably end up looking for a second army.  The whole reasoning about the Mortek Guards makes a lot of sense.

[Vasshpit]

1 hour ago, NeoSoul said:

I ended up going with IJ for a first army 

 Best thing I read in this whole thread!! 😉😄

[Sception]

On 8/17/2020 at 10:22 PM, NeoSoul said:

Thank you very much for the in depth answer!  I ended up going with IJ for a first army but I still love OBR's looks and would probably like to have a super tanky army.  I'll keep all of this in mind whenever I inevitably end up looking for a second army.  The whole reasoning about the Mortek Guards makes a lot of sense.

Have fun with the Iron Jaws, they're a cool aggressive army with a neat look that actually finally function pretty well these days from what I've heard.