Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion - 3rd edition

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

32 minutes ago, Sception said:

I kind of hope that's not the case, though, as imo OBR in general should be a pretty slow and landbound faction, more anvil than hammer if you catch my drift.

I strongly agree with your post, especially the sentence quoted above. I think as players we often want to have all possible toys in every army, but that leads to weaker faction identities overall. OBR should definitely be the embodiment of the phrase "death and taxes": Slow, methodical and grinding.

I hope when we get Mortek archers eventually, they also reflect this idea by being relatively short range (18" or something) and not primarily being a huge damage dealers, but having some other role that more supports the melee play style.

As for the rumour engines: I think the wing is some kind of Morghast related model. I hope it is a hero, because I think that would help give the two Morghast troops a bit more use if done right. The talon stepping on the plaguebearer skull, however, I don't actually think is an OBR unit. I think that's some kind of Chaos or 40k thing.

[ScionOfOssia]

22 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I strongly agree with your post, especially the sentence quoted above. I think as players we often want to have all possible toys in every army, but that leads to weaker faction identities overall. OBR should definitely be the embodiment of the phrase "death and taxes": Slow, methodical and grinding.

I hope when we get Mortek archers eventually, they also reflect this idea by being relatively short range (18" or something) and not primarily being a huge damage dealers, but having some other role that more supports the melee play style.

As for the rumour engines: I think the wing is some kind of Morghast related model. I hope it is a hero, because I think that would help give the two Morghast troops a bit more use if done right. The talon stepping on the plaguebearer skull, however, I don't actually think is an OBR unit. I think that's some kind of Chaos or 40k thing.

I feel like the OBR should have either medium range shooting with 2 shots per model on a 5/10 model unit that doesn’t deal much damage but debuffs enemies or long range sniping abilities but with low model counts (Like a Morghast/Stalker with a Greatbow). Good quality shooting but low volume. 

[rattila]

A little bit off topic, but what would you think of à formation with:

- one ossifector (general, -1 to hit / wound for missile weapon, artefact +1 to wound, spell -1 to hit and -1 to save of one ennemy)

- two gothizzar harvester 

-1x3 immortis guard

all in null myriad or petrifex elite.

The idea is to have a good hammer unit with at least one gothizzar fully buffed with +1 to hit (all out attack), +1 to wound (artefact), -3/-4 rend (-1/-2, -1 for thé ability of the ossifector, -1 for thé spell). The block itself is protected from magic on 2+ and from shooting attacks with the aura of the general, who is himself protected thanks to the immortis guard. Having 2 gothizzar make sure at least one can wreck havoc.
 

Seems like a little deathstar, anyone have already tried something like that?

[Sception]

I'm not sure on two harvesters, or harvesters without mortek guard.  I'm probably just too hung up on their prior support role, despite how massively downgraded their current healing ability has become, but using them purely as beat sticks feels off to me.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

Was tinkering with maybe getting back to my Bonereapers recently, but they just feel so bad without Katakros or Arkhan. From what I've seen of the meta, pretty much everyone is still building around at least one of them, and I'd really rather not. Not sure how to fix that in the current battletome, though, shortly of nerfing both of them from orbit and then dropping costs on the entire rest of the book to compensate.

[Sception]

I mean, they're both pretty expensive, and we have other good units and heroes to get instead.  If you're going to and hoping to win tournaments then yeah I think you should be building around one of our mortarchs, but if you're mostly playing pick up games in a local scene or just hoping to win more games than you lose at events then non-mortarch OBR can still make good use of a liege or mortisan boss plus an extra 200 or 300 points of dudes.  The extra unit or two you could fit in would certainly make your relentless discipline more reliable.  Typical OBR lists with Arkhan or Katakros will often start losing bonus command points after a single unit goes down - though admittedly it takes a lot of effort to bring a single unit down with katakros around.

Still, I think you could make a decent go of it with something like:

Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers
- Legion: Mortis Praetorians
- Mortal Realm: Shyish
- Grand Strategy: Overshadow
- Triumphs: Inspired
Liege-Kavalos (180)*
- General
- Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian
- Artefact: Lode of Saturation
Mortisan Boneshaper (140)*
- Lore of Ossian Sorcery: Drain Vitality
Mortisan Ossifector (120)*
- Lore of Ossian Sorcery: Empower Nadirite Weapons
30 x Mortek Guard (390)*
- Nadirite Spear and Shield
- Reinforced x 2
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (190)*
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
5 x Kavalos Deathriders (190)*
- Nadirite Blade and Shield
4 x Morghast Archai (440)*
- Spirit Halberds
- Reinforced x 1
Gothizzar Harvester (160)*
- Weapon: Soulcrusher Bludgeons
Mortek Crawler (180)*
Bone-Tithe Nexus
*Ossiarch Cohort

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 123
Drops: 1

 

 

And there's a lot of fenangling you could do with even just the enhancements on the heroes.  Like, I made the liege the general and gave him the artifact for that super difficult to kill jammer liege set up because it seems like a particularly solid tactical option, but both the mortisans have very good signature artefacts.  You could give one of them an artifact and go for a more supportive command trait on the liege - say diversionary tactics or aura of sterility - though you'd have to play more conservatively with it then.

 

Or you could swap it out for yet another mortisan, maybe a Soulmason with dark acolyte, and use the points saved to pick up a cheap endless spell like a malevolent maelstrom or suffocating gravetide.  You also might swap the more aggressive reinforced archai for a more defensive unit of immortis guard to help keep the soulmason healthy.  If you do that, then instead of the endless spell you might swap the ossifector for another bone-shaper.  If you do swap the liege for another mortisan, then maybe swap subfactions to Null Myriad for the magic protection.

 

There are options to tinker with is the point.

 

Regardless, you get a huge and intimidating Mortek Block with character and harvester support to overwhelm the middle. multiple kav units plus maybe a liege to claim objectives, score some tactics, & block enemy advances.  A big monstrous infantry hammer unit to break enemy formations (the anti-CA ability of morghasts is particularly disruptive these days).  Even a catapult to keep the opponent honest, and all as a one-drop.

 

And, I mean, aesthetically, that's a lot of visual variety, plus enough dudes to look like an actual army, which you don't often get from lists with Arkhan or especially Katakros.

 

....

 

Again, this sort of army isn't as strong as lists you could build with one of the mortarchs, but imo it's perfectly playable, especially if you aren't making serious runs at tournament top tables.  I'd happily run an army like this myself, if my biz were painted anyway.

[ScionOfOssia]

I’d personally suggest switching from MP to NM for this build, trading a unit of Deathriders for a Soulmason, and giving one of the Mortisans Hoarfrost because the Spears can basically have their downside when compared to blades completely negated by Hoarfrost. But overall, it’s a fairly solid “No Mortarch” build. 

[Sception]

2 hours ago, ScionOfOssia said:

I’d personally suggest switching from MP to NM for this build, trading a unit of Deathriders for a Soulmason, and giving one of the Mortisans Hoarfrost because the Spears can basically have their downside when compared to blades completely negated by Hoarfrost. But overall, it’s a fairly solid “No Mortarch” build. 

If you trade deathriders for a soulmason instead of trading the liege that does come with a couple of drawbacks.  First, you drop below minimum battleline, so you'll need to either find room for another battleline elsewhere (maybe trade the crawler), or else split the 30 morteks into 20 and 10 (in which case drop the spears for swords).  Alternatively, you could make one of the mortisans the general instead of the liege, and trade the archai for either immortis or stalkers.  Probably immortis to help shield that soulmason from getting sniped out by early shooting.

You'll also add a drop, going from 1 to 2, since the above list is already maxing out hero slots on the ossiarch cohort.

...

Going for null myriad with the soulmason with hoarfrost is definitely a strong choice, particularly with the big spear block, but I'd be inclined to swap out the liege instead of one of the kav units, to keep the single drop and not have to mess with the other units.

But I'm no expert, so I could easily be wrong there.

The main thing is that there's reasonable options to tinker and play with even if you don't want to field any mortarchs.  Doing so might not be optimal, but I do think it's viable.

 

[ScionOfOssia]

8 minutes ago, Sception said:

If you trade deathriders for a soulmason instead of trading the liege that does come with a couple of drawbacks.  First, you drop below minimum battleline, so you'll need to either find room for another battleline elsewhere (maybe trade the crawler), or else split the 30 morteks into 20 and 10 (in which case drop the spears for swords).  Alternatively, you could make one of the mortisans the general instead of the liege, and trade the archai for either immortis or stalkers.  Probably immortis to help shield that soulmason from getting sniped out by early shooting.

You'll also add a drop, going from 1 to 2, since the above list is already maxing out hero slots on the ossiarch cohort.

...

Going for null myriad with the soulmason with hoarfrost is definitely a strong choice, particularly with the big spear block, but I'd be inclined to swap out the liege instead of one of the kav units, to keep the single drop and not have to mess with the other units.

But I'm no expert, so I could easily be wrong there.

The main thing is that there's reasonable options to tinker and play with even if you don't want to field any mortarchs.  Doing so might not be optimal, but I do think it's viable.

 

Yeah, forgot about the battleline restriction- I’m too used to seeing Morghast with Arkhan who makes them battleline. 
 

But your point stands- We do have options, they’re just not as optimal as our Mortarchs. 

[Sception]

19 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

Yeah, forgot about the battleline restriction- I’m too used to seeing Morghast with Arkhan who makes them battleline.

Yup.  Yet another reason why the mortarchs tend to be the way to go.  I heard somebody was doing well with an Arkhan list featuring two reinforced units of Archai.  That's something I'd like to try out, though it doesn't leave room for much else.

[Sception]

Test models done for my revised obr color scheme.  Keeps the blackened bone outer skin & bleached white bone trim from my previous scheme, but with a variety of bone colors for the internal body structure to add a bit of variety.  green glowy magic bits & black-to-green cloth bits to fit with my nighthaunt.

Purple nadirite armor & weapons with gold seals of office are the biggest break away from my prior 'green and green alone' scheme, chosen for the royal connotations for Nagash's most favored faction, and also to emulate some of my favorite obr artwork:

Thankfully I never made much progress with the old scheme, so there's not too much to repaint.  Unfortunately, one of the few things I did paint in the old scheme is my precious Arkhan conversion, and just painting overtop won't be an option, at least not on arkhan himself, as that model suffered a varnish frosting disaster that I painted over once already.  I'll have to strip paint from at least parts of that model, & I'm not looking forward to it.

[rattila]

Alternatively, as arkhan is out of the normal line of command, its ok if he isnt painted the same, for me. Maybe juste have some touch of your new color, maybe by adding something on the base (ground decor, some spare mortek guard parts - like shield, banners, helmet…) can do the trick to integrate him in the army.

[Sception]

Fair suggestions, but tbh I've kind of been itching for an excuse to mess with Arkhan some anyway.  I've felt for a while that my paint job didn't quite do justice to my conversion work on that one.

[Sception]

From Warcom's article about the new named Lahmian Vampire:

"The Mad King Rises also contains plenty more for Death armies, including six Regiments of Renown – one for each Mortarch! Check back in the new year for more coverage."

Arkhan's back, tell your friends.

[ScionOfOssia]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

From Warcom's article about the new named Lahmian Vampire:

"The Mad King Rises also contains plenty more for Death armies, including six Regiments of Renown – one for each Mortarch! Check back in the new year for more coverage."

Arkhan's back, tell your friends.

Arkhan The Back

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

New Arkhan model, yes or no?

[ScionOfOssia]

Nah, his current model is still extremely good

[Sception]

Almost certainly not.  Possible, but very unlikely.  For one the current model is in plastic and still holds up.  For two, it's a multi-kit with Mannfred and Neferata, so unlikely to change until they do as well.  I expect that will happen eventually, but I don't expect so now.

It's possible, I just don't expect it.  That said, a more classically minded Arkhan model putting him back on his old flying four skeleton-horse chariot packaged with both round and square bases to run in either AoS or TOW would be incredibly cool, and such a model could be mounted on the same oval base as the current arkhan allowing people to keep using their existing arkhan model.

Still, though, almost certainly not happening right now.

...

As a big fan of each of the mortarchs, I really hope these Regiments of Renown stay matched play legal in 4th edition, as I would like to have the time to collect, paint, and play with each of them.  Probably not going to happen, but still.  This certainly increases the priority on my Arkhan repaint, I was going to save that till the summer (and maybe test some stripping and repainting methods on my soulmason first), but now....

I did finish the first unit in my new OBR paint scheme:

Spoiler

I'm pretty happy with them overall, though I do wonder with the overall brighter scheme whether canon-compliant black soulgems would be a better fit than the glowy necron green gems I used here.  My room mate says the green gems pop nicely from across the table and I'm just overthinking things, but I'm not so sure.  Maybe I should do some more test models....

[Sception]

I'm still waffling on green vs. black gems for my OBR.  Here's the Mortek Guard unit command with the current green gems, and a quick photoshop for how they might look with black gems.  Opinions?

Spoiler

 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

On 12/18/2023 at 10:35 AM, Sception said:

I'm still waffling on green vs. black gems for my OBR.  Here's the Mortek Guard unit command with the current green gems, and a quick photoshop for how they might look with black gems.  Opinions?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The green pops, I like it. No need to re-paint.

On 12/4/2023 at 1:22 PM, Sception said:

Yup.  Yet another reason why the mortarchs tend to be the way to go.  I heard somebody was doing well with an Arkhan list featuring two reinforced units of Archai.  That's something I'd like to try out, though it doesn't leave room for much else.

A little late in responding to this, but interesting to hear about the variance in options. Would certainly like more, but I guess there's still some at least.

More Archai would be cool, although I am wary of the conditional nature of their 5+ ward, especially with them at a mere 6 wounds each on 4+ otherwise.

On 12/18/2023 at 9:50 AM, Sception said:

From Warcom's article about the new named Lahmian Vampire:

"The Mad King Rises also contains plenty more for Death armies, including six Regiments of Renown – one for each Mortarch! Check back in the new year for more coverage."

Arkhan's back, tell your friends.

I'm not sure the Regiments of Renown are going to include the Mortarchs themselves--they might just be themed around them. The regiments will be an awfully big chunk of points if they include a Mortarch + other troops for something that is supposed to slot into another army.

As an aside, anyone else hoping OBR get some kind of new non-hero unit in one or both of our RoR boxes? It could be how we finally get Mortek Archers/the Liege Mortek/etc.

[Sception]

13 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

I'm not sure the Regiments of Renown are going to include the Mortarchs themselves--they might just be themed around them.

That's possible, actually.  Shoot.  Hadn't thought of that.

As for new stuff, I'm trying not to get too hopeful.  We've seen some obrish rumour engines, but those could just be a warcry warband.

We'll see though.  I'm hype for the next dawnbringer book regardless.

[Flippy]

On 12/18/2023 at 4:35 PM, Sception said:

I'm still waffling on green vs. black gems for my OBR.  Here's the Mortek Guard unit command with the current green gems, and a quick photoshop for how they might look with black gems.  Opinions?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Green gems is the way.

 

[Sception]

No new morghast in the LVO preview.  Which imo means it's probably not coming in Dawnbringers 4, and that fits with the OBR role in the narrative previews we've seen being pretty minimal.  In turn, that means it's probably one of those long haul rumor engines that doesn't show up for like a year or three.

Hopefully I'm wrong and we see it in a warcom article in the next week or two, but we're running out of time before dawnbringers 4 is out, and they were already pushing dawnbringers 5 in the lvo preview, so the chances of any new AoS undead releases that we haven't already seen are getting pretty slim.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

On 1/19/2024 at 1:10 AM, Sception said:

No new morghast in the LVO preview.  Which imo means it's probably not coming in Dawnbringers 4, and that fits with the OBR role in the narrative previews we've seen being pretty minimal.  In turn, that means it's probably one of those long haul rumor engines that doesn't show up for like a year or three.

Hopefully I'm wrong and we see it in a warcom article in the next week or two, but we're running out of time before dawnbringers 4 is out, and they were already pushing dawnbringers 5 in the lvo preview, so the chances of any new AoS undead releases that we haven't already seen are getting pretty slim.

Unfortunate, but I came away with the same conclusions about Death units.

[Sception]

The long anticipated nerf to Null Myriad has finally come.  As of the new battlescroll the subfaction's spell ignore has been dropped from a 2+ all the way down to a 4+.  Ouch!  As a bit of a consolation it now always applies, instead of require your units to be wholly within some range of a mortisan or archan, which is something at least.

You hate to see it, but then again honestly it was expected much sooner - I was shocked when the Myriad survived the previous battlescroll untouched, so you can't say we didn't have a good run of it.

That said, I was hoping for ~less~ of a nerf, maybe going from 2+ to 3+ instead of all the way down to 4+, so yeah, it does still hurt.  Oh, well!

As for points changes, Archai and immortis are both up 10 points.  Frankly I think they were fine where they were and would have rather seen Harbingers and stalkers come down a bit more, but whatever, I don't think they're unplayable at 230.  Nagash is down a whopping 40 points, so still unplayably overpriced, probably needs at least two more such discounts before he sees much play in OBR armies, though I've been wrong about him before.  Zandtos is down 10, which probably puts him into a playable range for praetoris armies, which will likely be more common now with the myriad's nerf.  Or rather it would put him into playable range if we weren't still stuck in andtor.

Crawler's down 10, still probably too expensive for what it does, but it can't get much cheaper with how huge it is or people will start fielding them purely for the amount of space they zone out on the table, and that would be embarrassing.  Honestly, the crawler, like the harvester, needs fixes other than points adjustments.

Vokmortian's down another 20 points to 120.  That's honestly a steal for a double cast loremaster, even if all his other rules don't actually ever do anything.  Or rather, much like Zandtos, 120 would be a steal if were weren't still stuck in andtor.  Even 40 points more for a soulmason is still worth paying to have your double cast loremaster also be a locus.  On the other hand, even as a locus, a soulreaper being only 10 points less than vokmortian is bad comedy.  I'm kind of surprised they didn't drop the soulreaper's cost again too.  Oh, well.

 

No huge complaints for me.  Again, sad to see the myriad nerf, but it was long coming.  Love it or lump it, the bone times are over.  Thankfully they nerfed the frogs even harder, so they shouldn't be running rampant even with myriad out of the meta.

Edited March 6 by Sception