Is Death the WORST faction in AoS?

[El Antiguo Guardián]

Hello mates.

Today I want to discuss about this topic. 

In this video you will find my opinion, but I want to talk with the community about it:

 

 

[Btimmy]

Nice video! I think destruction is actually the worse at the moment. Both FEC and OBR can get wins at a competitive level, whereas the most competitive army for destruction are Mawtribes (BCR) or Ironjaws. Both of these armies aren't very strong. 

[Sception]

Before watching the video - my general impression if we're talking about grand alliances, collections of factions, Death is still a bit already of Destruction in terms of selection of factions and the upper strength among the factions available, but both are still well, well behind chaos and order.   At least Death has some really narrative significance in AoS 2e, which we didn't have in 1e, and which Destruction still doesn't have. 

All that said, I'm not sure the Grand Alliances really matter so much any more.  People mostly don't run Grand Alliance armies in matched play, pretty much every army that's run has a discrete battle tome, and only interact with other factions in their alliance via an even more limited set of available allies, and even then allies not having access to faction rules means people don't generally even run those.  Idoneth Deepkin being an 'Order' army doesn't really mean anything when narratively they aren't friends with them and on the table they're only ever fielded on their own, never combined with other Order armies.  Deepkin eel lists being top tier does mean anything to or do anything for Sylvaneth armies struggling far behind.  Skaven or Slaanesh being strong doens't help Khorne or Nurgle.

But those are just my initial thoughts.  Am watching the video now and will see how it affects my opinion.

...

It is definitely the case that we have very few battletomes, and half of them are from the very earliest days of 2e and have since been significantly left behind by changes in battletome design.  It's hard to remember a time when Legions of Nagash, outside of Nagash himself, was considered one of the stronger armies in the game in terms of spellcasting specifically.

I'm still happier as player of multiple Death factions than I think I would be as a more Destruction oriented player, though.

Edited August 19, 2020 by Sception

[El Antiguo Guardián]

4 hours ago, Sception said:

Before watching the video - my general impression if we're talking about grand alliances, collections of factions, Death is still a bit already of Destruction in terms of selection of factions and the upper strength among the factions available, but both are still well, well behind chaos and order.   At least Death has some really narrative significance in AoS 2e, which we didn't have in 1e, and which Destruction still doesn't have. 

All that said, I'm not sure the Grand Alliances really matter so much any more.  People mostly don't run Grand Alliance armies in matched play, pretty much every army that's run has a discrete battle tome, and only interact with other factions in their alliance via an even more limited set of available allies, and even then allies not having access to faction rules means people don't generally even run those.  Idoneth Deepkin being an 'Order' army doesn't really mean anything when narratively they aren't friends with them and on the table they're only ever fielded on their own, never combined with other Order armies.  Deepkin eel lists being top tier does mean anything to or do anything for Sylvaneth armies struggling far behind.  Skaven or Slaanesh being strong doens't help Khorne or Nurgle.

But those are just my initial thoughts.  Am watching the video now and will see how it affects my opinion.

...

It is definitely the case that we have very few battletomes, and half of them are from the very earliest days of 2e and have since been significantly left behind by changes in battletome design.  It's hard to remember a time when Legions of Nagash, outside of Nagash himself, was considered one of the stronger armies in the game in terms of spellcasting specifically.

I'm still happier as player of multiple Death factions than I think I would be as a more Destruction oriented player, though.

Hello!!

 

I was talking about the 4 battletomes that we have, but now that you say it, if I wrotte DEATH, pleople will thought about GAM and as you say Grand Alliance armies doesn´t really matter any more.

Yes, the problem is that we have very few battletomes and 2 of them are old: one is still from AoS 1.0 (oriented to 2.0, but the army list is broken) and the other one (NH) needs the updates that other 2.0. armies have. And in AoS the meta changes too fast. So we have Fec (they are good but not tier 1) and OBR (they get nerfed, but they´re a good army, probably tier 1 as other ones).

Destruction have 2 armies that are at the level of OBR (Orruks and mawtribes) but they are boring and similar... and death (is only the... haha) have more different ways for playing it´s armies.

4 hours ago, Btimmy said:

Nice video! I think destruction is actually the worse at the moment. Both FEC and OBR can get wins at a competitive level, whereas the most competitive army for destruction are Mawtribes (BCR) or Ironjaws. Both of these armies aren't very strong. 

Hello again!!

 

Umm probably that are opinions... FEC and OBR are good but I think that Big Waagh! and Beastclaw armies are better than FEC, probably at the level of OBR or similar. But yes, that 2 alliances are the candidates for this bad price.

[Malakithe]

I would say its tied with Destruction as worst. Reasoning is there is only one real faction for Death currently which is OBR which is similar to how Warclans is the only real faction for Destruction.

[Skreech Verminking]

Are we talking about The grand allegiance, or just all death allegiances combined?

[El Antiguo Guardián]

16 hours ago, Malakithe said:

I would say its tied with Destruction as worst. Reasoning is there is only one real faction for Death currently which is OBR which is similar to how Warclans is the only real faction for Destruction.

Well... I think that beastclaw are also at a good tier level, better than Fec. What do you think?

14 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Are we talking about The grand allegiance, or just all death allegiances combined?

About the amount of death armies on the top tiers. Maybe the title can confuse, I´m sorry.

 

[Gdead909]

Nah beastclaw and FEC are right on par with each other

 

both factions are running monster trucks around the table

[Kadeton]

7 hours ago, Gdead909 said:

Nah beastclaw and FEC are right on par with each other

both factions are running monster trucks around the table

Yeah, pretty much. The difference is that the BCR's monster trucks are better.

[Gdead909]

I don’t think so man. GKTG is one of the best monsters in the game

[Tropical Ghost General]

1 hour ago, Gdead909 said:

GKTG is one of the best monsters in the game

But BCR have might means right for objectives, which is how you win games

 

[Gdead909]

Cool man I am not gonna argue with you when you have your mind made up

[Honk]

Last weekend I destroyed a Mawtribe player with my FEC feast day, after that I ground out a minor victory with my Chaosdwarves...

so I guess a lot is player dependent as he was a poor noob, with maybe 10 games and I‘m not even a tournament player .

the lament to the downfall of Death kinda falls short, petrifex was broken, but obr is still strong. FEC was broken back at the start of AoS 2.0 the same goes for LoNagash. 

at the Kill-your-granny WaaC-level the tricks of FEC and OBR are known and countered, the new scenarios are biased against elite armies like GkoTg / flayer spam and an ogor list has an advantage against you, when his 3 ogors take the objective from your 5 flayers.

but that’s cut throat gaming, where 60 lumineth (enter swearing here) are a thing. Then OBR struggles, FEC hangs on with the pinky and Nagash and his legions moan about the glory days of AoS 1.5.

The wheel of cheese turns, if your dead set on winning the big Tournaments, the paint will never be dry on your minis. GDubs is counting on your money 

[El Syf]

35 minutes ago, Honk said:

 Nagash and his legions moan about the glory days of AoS 1.5.

 

What I imagine all us LoN plays sing repeatedly. 😂

[Honk]

7 hours ago, El Syf said:

What I imagine all us LoN plays sing repeatedly. 😂

QfT

[Honk]

I still lament open play AoS 0.5 when Nagash could summon all my models onto the table turn two 

[Btimmy]

People who think PE was broken are people who couldn't think of any other strategy than "run up with my dudes and try to smash." PE lists, same as all OBR lists were extremely vulnerable to shooting, mortals, and out of combat fighting, which the other top lists have in droves. Couple this weakness with OBR's complete lack of offensive spell casting and mortal wound output and the only thing allowing them to play with the top tables was their rock solid defense. They have no tricks, limited mobility, and an extremely simple game plan. PE was a legion that buffed both their offensive and defensive powers. Without it, OBR is pillow fisted and still vulnerable to all of the weaknesses it had before. Furthermore, the PE nerf is going to only hurt OBR list diversity. Katakros and Mortis Praetorians is going to be the list going forward. Gone are the varied days of Nagash being playable. 

[Saxon]

6 hours ago, Btimmy said:

People who think PE was broken are people who couldn't think of any other strategy than "run up with my dudes and try to smash." PE lists, same as all OBR lists were extremely vulnerable to shooting, mortals, and out of combat fighting, which the other top lists have in droves. Couple this weakness with OBR's complete lack of offensive spell casting and mortal wound output and the only thing allowing them to play with the top tables was their rock solid defense. They have no tricks, limited mobility, and an extremely simple game plan. PE was a legion that buffed both their offensive and defensive powers. Without it, OBR is pillow fisted and still vulnerable to all of the weaknesses it had before. Furthermore, the PE nerf is going to only hurt OBR list diversity. Katakros and Mortis Praetorians is going to be the list going forward. Gone are the varied days of Nagash being playable. 

PE are not a fun match up for a lot of armies. A lot of commentary is that they just weren't fun to play against. I certainly didn't enjoy a game against OBR. The OBR player knew what you had to do to avoid their cheese and it was wash rinse and repeat for most games against them. Yawn, 

[Btimmy]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

PE are not a fun match up for a lot of armies. A lot of commentary is that they just weren't fun to play against. I certainly didn't enjoy a game against OBR. The OBR player knew what you had to do to avoid their cheese and it was wash rinse and repeat for most games against them. Yawn, 

Balancing the game for "fun match-up" is an impossibility. I certainly don't have fun playing against the all bow kurnoth hunter list that my friend plays often but that doesn't make it overpowered or needed to be changed. Furthermore, the change to PE has not changed literally anything about the way OBR is played. If your army struggled against them before, it will still struggle against them if you try to run up and smash. 

[Honk]

9 hours ago, Btimmy said:

Gone are the varied days of Nagash being playable. 

And that’s the real shame... especially for LoN lists

[Michealmas]

From what I've found, OBR were godly for a week but otherwise are onetrick ponies, FeC are like the minimum bar for entry they are good against the other bad armies but otherwise get hammered by anything remotely strong, LoN is probably the worst army in AoS and Nighthaunt are just really niche and not very good.

[Nasrod]

Unpopular opinion: Bonereapers is a bad battletome. Petrifex Elite in the same book where Vokmortian is 180 points. Null Myriad and Ivory Host are some of the worst faction designs I've ever seen. Null Myriad is so eye roll inducing; in any world it becomes necessary, you have fundamentally overpushed magic. In any world where it isn't, you're merely griefing your friend who likes Tzeentch. Which sounds hilarious until you push him into becoming part of the problem and joining the meta list of "Horrors and Flamers shoot all the things."

Ivory Host is just...yikes.

GHB 2020 decided Necropolis Stalkers deserved a larger points reduction than Morghast.

Vokmortian is still 180 points. 

The way you fix Bonereapers is allowing very mutable battleline unlocks between subfactions and General choice. Until they do, there isn't enough points to encourage players to diversify outside the established core of 2 Guard blobs + 2 Crawlers. 

Katakros becoming the new way to grant +1 save is only further cementing the problem regarding low list diversity. It won't go away at this point until the book gets rewritten, or if a points adjustment does something to make a unit more effecient than Mortek Guard. 

Love the models. Love the concept. Just wish I could have a chance at claiming objectices without tying up about 1200 points of every list I make to the same core units...

[El Antiguo Guardián]

On 10/6/2020 at 2:08 AM, Nasrod said:

Unpopular opinion: Bonereapers is a bad battletome. Petrifex Elite in the same book where Vokmortian is 180 points. Null Myriad and Ivory Host are some of the worst faction designs I've ever seen. Null Myriad is so eye roll inducing; in any world it becomes necessary, you have fundamentally overpushed magic. In any world where it isn't, you're merely griefing your friend who likes Tzeentch. Which sounds hilarious until you push him into becoming part of the problem and joining the meta list of "Horrors and Flamers shoot all the things."

Ivory Host is just...yikes.

GHB 2020 decided Necropolis Stalkers deserved a larger points reduction than Morghast.

Vokmortian is still 180 points. 

The way you fix Bonereapers is allowing very mutable battleline unlocks between subfactions and General choice. Until they do, there isn't enough points to encourage players to diversify outside the established core of 2 Guard blobs + 2 Crawlers. 

Katakros becoming the new way to grant +1 save is only further cementing the problem regarding low list diversity. It won't go away at this point until the book gets rewritten, or if a points adjustment does something to make a unit more effecient than Mortek Guard. 

Love the models. Love the concept. Just wish I could have a chance at claiming objectices without tying up about 1200 points of every list I make to the same core units...

I have the same feelings with the Bonereapers. I don´t know why they drop the stalkers, why morghast are so expensive (they have lots of critical rolls each turn), why Katakros is the only way for having 3+, and looots of things... 

In my opinion we need more units/options and some changes. The concept is amazing and the discipline points is a great addition, but...

[Sception]

2020 dropped stalkers and morghasts by the same amount of points - which happens to be about the most points that they adjust things by at a time, which is about the best that could be hoped for when they're functionally working blind thanks to COVID knocking out the competitive scene at the time.

Otherwise, I find OBR to be a particularly *well* written tome when compared to other new AoS factions from Games Workshop.  Yeah there are some dud units - morghasts, vokmortian, reaper, immortis - but near about every other unit has seen at least some competitive play, and that's remarkably strong internal balance for a brand new GW faction.  Idoneth or Nighthaunt would kill for OBR's internal balance.  The faction is strong enough to have a regular competitive presence - not relative duds like Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth, Stormcast, or Beastmen - but also without being an OP nightmare out of the gate like Daughters or FEC or Slaanesh were.  Subfaction balance was terrible and remains not great, sure, but that's par for the course in AoS, and not great is still a dramatic improvement over terrible.  As it stands, Praetoreans, Post-Nerf Petrifex, and Stalliarch all making strong cases for themselves, and even Null Myriad looking somewhat playable between Tzeentch and Kroak and Teclis.  I didn't like the nerf they chose for Petrifex, but I can't say it didn't significantly improve things.

Katakros is great and commonly used, but at 500 points is absolutely not a must take and competitive lists support that, even post petrifex nerf.  You see plenty of lists both with and without him, which is exactly where you would want the big important faction boss to be.  He's certainly way better in that regard than Alarielle, who's just a terrible disappointment to everyone, or the Loon King who hasn't had a single day off to spend with his family since his book was released because goblins basically /never/ take the field without him.

And yeah, morteks and crawlers are pretty ubiquitous, but given how few units we have I don't see that as a problem.  Honestly, if anything is going to be over-represented in OBR lists, wouldn't you want it to be the cool, elite, and surprisingly affordable (by GW standards anyway) core infantry and our big dramatic artillery centerpiece?  Those are the two units that most clearly define OBR as a distinct faction within Grand Alliance Death.

So yeah, from where I'm sitting "OBR is bad, actually" is an unpopular opinion because it's just wrong  😋.  At least when it comes to the rules writing.  There are definitely some kinks, some rules that weren't fully thought  out, some points costs that needed a bit more play testing, and it would be nice if kav based armies could work rather than just being a good support unit for infantry mortek armies, and options for alternate battleline units somewhere in the book would have been a good call, and it's sad and frustrating to see Morghasts copy-pasted forward with the same bad rules from the old vamp count compendium yet again.  But overall I'd still call this one of GW's best efforts in AoS to date. 

[Sception]

That said, even if I think OBR is pretty good, actually, that's still only one solid faction out of only four factions in the alliance, and that's not exactly a great showing.  Legions of Nagash is an aging and ramshackle book in need of significant renovations that probably aren't coming since the narrative has left them behind.

Nighthaunt have an overall fantastic range but lots of mechanical problems -  including how much of their range is co-opted by the Legions with their radically different faction rules, making it difficult to give those units rules and points costs that are balanced in both books; several conceptually redundant units in the 'semi-elite melee ghost infantry' category. too much reliance on too fragile heroes, deep strike and double charge rules both combining to make the faction far too reliant on long bomb charge rolls, the factions basic core hoard infantry chaff being ludicrously expensive to purchase, etc.  The line is great, but the faction needs a serious rethink.

And then there's FEC, which is like the inverse of Nighthaunt, with rules that ahttps://navinet.navimedix.com/sign-in?ReturnUrl=/re somewhat fun and functional in practice, at least after several rounds of errata, but a range that simply is not up to the task of supporting an entire faction.  FEC also have a fantastic narrative theme in being disgusting cannibal monsters who see themselves as courtly royals and noble knights, but that theme isn't at all conveyed in the models.  The horrid monsters bit is there, but not the delusions,  since the range are oldhammer holdovers that predate that characterization.  they need new models & new units to convey the theme - horrors pretending to ride toy horses made from head horses heads on pikes, courtiers carrying tattered banners of scrap cloth, ghoul kings with magnificent robes of flayed flesh and resplendent crowns cobbled together from bits of broken bone and broken glass.  The faction desperately needs more units to 'flesh' out their range, but the units they already have don't convey their cool theme either, so it's really just a lot of unmet potential, no matter how workable their rules are regardless.  And even their rules and play on the tabletop, the saving grace of the FEC currently, involves dealing with the hassle of a big pile of errata.  FEC also have almost zero narrative presence in the overall game lore and even in within the death alliance, in part due to a lack of named characters.

 

I think both Nighthaunt and FEC could be spectacular factions, but Nighthaunt needs a new book and in particular needs many of their warscrolls to be significantly rethought and rewritten from the ground up which GW almost never bothers to do, and even on top of that the chainrasps need a significant price reduction, which GW *never* does, so while they have the model range of a great faction I don't expect they have any chance of becoming one any time soon.  FEC *could* be a truely great faction with just one big push.  Give us like 3 to new units with new model kits to round out the rage, actual plastic kits for the courtiers, actually work the delusions / think they're noble knights theme into the models themselves, and give them a new book that adds this new stuff while keeping what's great about the existing rules & incorporating the errata, and FEC could be one of the most fun, cool, and interesting factions in the game.  But it needs that big release wave to get there, and looking at other non-stormcast AoS factions and their follow up books with few to no new models to speak of, including FEC themselves, that just doesn't seem likely either.

LoN, well...  I've got another thread going for where I think they *could* go, and there have been some promising rumour engines, but I don't want to get my hopes up, because outright squatting the entire faction is still a distinct possibility.

 

So yeah, even thinking OBR is good, things still don't look great for Death as a whole.