An effective army without character buffs?

[Kirby]

Are there any army builds that could be considered effective without character buffs?

Im  much more interested in fielding an vast army than a collection of superheroes, but it seems that without numerous supporting characters and center pieces most armies are a little lackluster.   

Can you think of a effective  list led by the one obligatory non-buffing character - e.g. SE Knight-Questor?

I dont want to strip the game of depth.  So units buffing units would be fine - see, SE evocators.   As are allegiances, factions and battalions.

Any ideas?  

Am i missing the obvious - a 400 clanrat build?

Edited April 7, 2021 by Kirby

[idn0971]

The only armies that could potentially do what you want that I can do is lumineth with a vanari focus and a Loreseeker as general, maybe in syar or zaitrec, idoneth if you are good with using the turtle and just don't use the akhelian kings command ability, or kharadron overlords 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

You can certainly build a Cities of Sigmar list full of normal dudes and with only a handful of heroes who are also pretty normal dudes. It would definitely not look like a collection of superheroes. I am not sure that is what you want, though.

[yukishiro1]

OBR is the most obvious example. You can absolutely run the army just with a Liege-Kavalos if you want to, and it's not terrible. He does have a buff, but it comes from the same pool of RDP you use for everything else, and he can just use it on himself if you're really opposed to using it on a different unit. Meanwhile, the rest of the army is very self-sufficient, primarily because it can spend RDP without being in range of a character. The inability to spend CP except near a character makes other armies essentially unplayable without characters interspersed throughout the army. 

[dekay]

Idoneth cavalry lists require minimal character support (and you need a general anyway - Volturnos could reasonably be the only character you use.). Apart from that, just mass akhelians, sharks and turtles. Not really a horde army as every thing is pretty elite, but you really won't overinvest in characters.

CoS Tempest's Eye two-drop cavalry list - you need exactly two characters: a griffon general and a mage on hurricanum. Everything else is just all the pistoliers, outriders and gunhaulers you can get.

Gloomspite Troggoth list: All troggoths, all the time. You will need a trogboss, of course, maybe a hag, but everything else can be unit based. It's not the strongest thing to play but it's fun.

And, as above, OBR can do quite fine as well, they have extremely solid unit core.

I would really advise against using a non-buffing character only. Command points are a resource you're expected to use. By simply letting them accumulate you gain nothing, basically handicapping your army. It's not as extreme as saying 'i want to play without using my movement phase' but it's up there. Keeping it minimal? Cool. Not using it at all? Don't expect to win much. 

[idn0971]

Frankly the game is not designed to play the way you seem to want to play it. Armies rely on buffs and abilities from their heroes to function and many of the alliegence abilities that effect units are delivered through heroes via command abilities. In addition many buffs come from spells, command traits, and artifacts, almost all of which are only accessible to heroes. You can build an army with only one hero but it will be inherently worse than any army that doesn't have that restriction.

[idn0971]

OBR doesn't really work though because in order to gain a good amount RDP you need heroes even if the units are buffing themselves

[dekay]

8 minutes ago, idn0971 said:

OBR doesn't really work though because in order to gain a good amount RDP you need heroes even if the units are buffing themselves

You can, technically, generate 5 a turn with a single liege kavalos and battalions if you're determined (and that's before single use items and fishing for 6s). Not saying it's in any way an optimal way to build a list, but if someone truly hates characters, OBR lose less than many other factions.

[Marcvs]

define "effective"

disclaimer: I am pretty confident that this battalion (hence this army) will disappear with the next stormcast battletome / next GHB / next edition

that being said:

I have played a few tournaments (on TTS) and done "decently" (2-1 or 5-2 in a league). It has only one 100-pts hero, who generally only survives for a turn or so, but the battalion provides for battleshock immunity anyway solving a big problem of a leaderless army. It has autolose situations (Places of Arcane Power) and matchups, but I had quite a lot of fun playing it

Spoiler

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Celestial Vindicators
Lord-Celestant (100)
- General
- Command Trait: Single-minded Fury
- Artefact: Stormrage Blade
30 x Liberators (480)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 6x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandhammers
5 x Judicators (140)
- Skybolt Bows
- 1x Shockbolt Bows
5 x Judicators (140)
- Boltstorm Crossbows
- 1x Thunderbolt Crossbows
5 x Decimators (170)
- 2x Starsoul Maces
20 x Protectors (680)
- 8x Starsoul Maces
Skyborne Slayers (180)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 170

 

[Kirby]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

It has only one 100-pts hero, who generally only survives for a turn or so,

This is the root of my problem.

I play COS.  During my last game vs LRL i fielded 3 sorceresses - 2 on foot, 1 on dragon.    I didn’t need the dragon, but i knew 14 wounds would  keep her alive for a turn or two. The other two were redundancy.  

COS are a high drop army.  So without the possibility of first turn, my 5 wound sorceresses were sniped away without achieving anything in the game. This isnt the first time.

2 hours ago, Kirby said:

Im  much more interested in fielding an vast army than a collection of superheroes, but it seems that without numerous supporting characters and center pieces most armies are a little lackluster.   

Let me rephrase this... “i want an army that doesnt require expensive  (points) centerpiece models in order to maintain basic functionality.  My 5 wound heroes just survive long enough.” 

Shield and hide just doesnt cut it against some armies with high quality magic or missile character sniping.  

During my game, i happened to recall rules for Free Guild, a precursor to my COS, in GHB 2017. 

They only had access to two heroes: General on Griffon and General on Foot, both of whom are still available.    I never played with them, but their usp seems to be their battle traits that encourage interaction between units not heroes.   In particular, Freeguild Great Companies. See below.  Sniping characters doesnt remove tactical nuance.  

 

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

You can certainly build a Cities of Sigmar list full of normal dudes and with only a handful of heroes who are also pretty normal dudes. It would definitely not look like a collection of superheroes. I am not sure that is what you want, though.

Longbeards are actually a good example of what i mean. They have an ability to buff fellow Dispossessed.  Likewise Sisters of Thorns can cast magic to buff fellow Wanderers.   

 

My initial question was whether there are factions that can prosper through this kind of inter unit interaction.   I dont know other factions as well as my cities.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Kirby

[Kirby]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

Skyborne Slayers

This is a nice example.   Thanks for sharing.

While perhaps not the most effective subfaction for this battalion, i see that Hammers of Sigmar can use both their subfaction ability and their command ability without proximity to a hero.  This is the only SE subfaction to do so.

2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

OBR is the most obvious example. You can absolutely run the army just with a Liege-Kavalos ... the rest of the army is very self-sufficient, primarily because it can spend RDP without being in range of a character. The inability to spend CP except near a character makes other armies essentially unplayable without characters interspersed throughout the army. 

Youve hit the nail on the head here.  If i cant protect my characters my cos can fall apart quickly. 

I dont have any experience  with OBR, but this self sufficiency is what im after.  I’ll look into this more. Thanks

[Marcvs]

5 minutes ago, Kirby said:

While perhaps not the most effective subfaction for this battalion, i see that Hammers of Sigmar can use both their subfaction ability and their command ability without proximity to a hero.  This is the only SE subfaction to do so.

unfortunately, you still need at least one hero alive to use the Hammers command ability (which, as I said, it's not likely in this army). In comparison Celestial Vindicators still gives you rerolling 1s to hit when you charge to all your units even without heroes which is much more useful

[Lord Krungharr]

How about the Legion of Azgorh?  Fireglaives for battleline and shooting, K'daai Fireborn for the shock assault tarpit, Magma Cannons for sniping and MW dealing, and Skullcrackers (towing the Magma Cannons) for horde mowing.  Daemonsmith general; and their heroes pretty much suck anyways!

Or OR Ogor Mawtribes:  4 Frostlords on Stonehorns, 2x2 Mournfangs, 3 Gluttons.  The Frostlords don't buff anything, Boulderhead buffs all of them.  EEEEEEZY PEEEEEZY.  But not a horde.

[baiardo]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

 

disclaimer: I am pretty confident that this battalion (hence this army) will disappear with the next stormcast battletome / next GHB / next edition

Why you said that?😢

[Marcvs]

8 minutes ago, baiardo said:

Why you said that?😢

because it's an old battalion, with outdated rules (5" deepstrike, no keyword system) and it's been already outside of the battletome for 3 years, so I mainly don't want people investing into it just to have it disappear in a couple of months

[PraetorDragoon]

I'm not sure, but I believe the Sons of Behemat mega gargants aren doing much buffing.

[baiardo]

4 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

because it's an old battalion, with outdated rules (5" deepstrike, no keyword system) and it's been already outside of the battletome for 3 years, so I mainly don't want people investing into it just to have it disappear in a couple of months

too late, I started SE with this battalion XD

[Ganigumo]

Kharadron overlords, they don't really have many buff abilities outside of the admiral and those are all aimed at the ships, although they have a fair number of circumstantial buffs like their footnotes and aether gold (although the book is a bit frustrating in general, like how their only "melee" unit needs to jump through hoops to get aether gold, but the arkanauts always get one).

Beasts of chaos probably fit what you want at the moment (although they're a bit weak). They don't have a lot of strong synergies or command abilities (the beastlord needs to slay a model to even activate his) and they can throw tons of bodies and monsters on the table. 

Beastclaw raiders as well, although its an all monster list, not really a horde of soldiers

[Lord Krungharr]

Actually, an Ogors army with a Slaughtermaster with a bunch of Ironguts and maybe some Mournfangs would be pretty solid.   Maybe even use Thunderbellies just to get faster Mournfangs on the flanks.  Toss in a Hunter with Frost Sabres for a deepstrike surprise for a weak hero snack.

[dirkdragonslayer]

Troggherd Gloomspite can be done decently with minimal heroes. You only really need a single Troggboss to make Troggoths battleline, maybe a Fungoid Shaman so you can play around with magic.  It sort of betrays the requirement of "No character buffs" since the Troggboss's buff is pretty important for Rockguts, but it does reduce it to the minimum of a single hero and a horde of trolls.

You won't win any tournaments but it will be a fun army.

[Joseph Mackay]

7 hours ago, Kirby said:

Are there any army builds that could be considered effective without character buffs?

Im  much more interested in fielding an vast army than a collection of superheroes, but it seems that without numerous supporting characters and center pieces most armies are a little lackluster.   

Can you think of a effective  list led by the one obligatory non-buffing character - e.g. SE Knight-Questor?

I dont want to strip the game of depth.  So units buffing units would be fine - see, SE evocators.   As are allegiances, factions and battalions.

Any ideas?  

Am i missing the obvious - a 400 clanrat build?

Ogors don’t rely on heroes buffing them

[idn0971]

43 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

Ogors don’t rely on heroes buffing them

They very much do at least the gutbuster half. To do well you have to buff the foot ogors with spells and command abilities from the subfaction of your choice and the slaughtermaster.

[yukishiro1]

8 hours ago, idn0971 said:

OBR doesn't really work though because in order to gain a good amount RDP you need heroes even if the units are buffing themselves

But you don't actually need much RDP in an OBR army, and heroes don't actually generate all that much. The 2 a turn from the Kavalos + the random rolls + a bat gives you 3-5 a turn, and that's plenty. People spend it willy-nilly on stuff like boosting the movement of everything in their army by 3" when they really don't need to, not so much because they have to but because they have oodles of the stuff if they take Katakros + a liege. It's true though that if you only take a single Liege, you do need to protect him or else you start to run into RDP shortage issues. 

Being immune to morale means not having to spend points on passing battleshock, so you don't actually strictly speaking need any RDP at all to make the amry function, though it obviously helps.  

More generally, although OBR armies aren't huge in terms of model count, they do seem to very much hit what the OP is looking for in terms of an army made up of a number of largeish units of models, but that can each be self-sufficient and don't totally depend on a hero to babysit them to make them function in basic ways. 

[Joseph Mackay]

1 hour ago, idn0971 said:

They very much do at least the gutbuster half. To do well you have to buff the foot ogors with spells and command abilities from the subfaction of your choice and the slaughtermaster.

I don’t really use wizards, I’ve been running 3 Tyrants as my heroes with Gutbusters and I’ve not particularly found any issues. What I meant was that unlike other armies, Ogors aren’t designed around buffing units into deathstars and are mostly independent of each other 

[LuminethMage]

6 hours ago, Kirby said:

This is a nice example.   Thanks for sharing.

While perhaps not the most effective subfaction for this battalion, i see that Hammers of Sigmar can use both their subfaction ability and their command ability without proximity to a hero.  This is the only SE subfaction to do so.

Youve hit the nail on the head here.  If i cant protect my characters my cos can fall apart quickly. 

I dont have any experience  with OBR, but this self sufficiency is what im after.  I’ll look into this more. Thanks

Lumineth have a spell to snipe the Hekathos (unit champion) though, and then the units can't use their RDP. : ) . 

Just saying. cough.... . More of a joke though, it's one spell (in the "Mountain Lore"). And OBR are immune to all the CP shenanigans and bravery stuff too, so the generally suffer less from some of the control abilities of the Lumineth. Not sure they have a lot of protection against MW though. 

I have a feeling that in your next game there won't be as many Sentinels around to snipe your heroes, so it might be less of a problem ^^