Ossiarch Bonereapers Discussion - 3rd edition

[ScionOfOssia]

“If we weren’t still in Andtor” about sums up my thoughts on this GHB. 

[Sception]

New OBR!  WHOOO!!!!

Preview coming at adepticon.  This almost assuredly won't be a direct release for Age of Sigmar, surely if OBR were getting a direct AoS release it would have been tied to Dawnbringers 4?  I suppose anything's possible, but this is overwhelmingly more likely to be a Warcry release.  It's probably not an Underworlds release, because those typically have pre-molded bases, where this looks to have a normal base with normal basing applied.

That said, warcry is a cool game and obr are a fun faction in it, and it'll be nice for them to gain an option for some faster fighters that aren't as expensive as cavalry or morghasts.

Otherwise, I'm a sucker for OBR aesthetics so I generally like this guy, but it is probably my least favorite ossiarch so far.  the wide bone shield plates on the back of its neck and front of its forlegs feel like they should have been proper armor plates, and that's before we get to the overall bodyplan of 'just a dog/cat' being a bit dull.  Yeah, the ossiarchs have 'just dudes' and 'just horses', but their narrative concept allows for wild monstrosities with atypical numbers of limbs, human-like faces on bestial bodies & vice versa, multiple separate faces & personas integrated into a single creature, weird blends of ghostly spirit and boney corporeal form, etc.  This design isn't bad at all, but it is a bit tame when you consider the weirder possibilities implied by the stalkers, crawler, and harvester.

Still, I'm definitely excited for new ossiarchs no matter the form, and as I've only recently been getting into warcry with models already painted for AoS, this could be the first warband I paint specifically for the skirmish game.

[rattila]

17 minutes ago, Sception said:

New OBR!  WHOOO!!!!

Preview coming at adepticon.  This almost assuredly won't be a direct release for Age of Sigmar, surely if OBR were getting a direct AoS release it would have been tied to Dawnbringers 4?  I suppose anything's possible, but this is overwhelmingly more likely to be a Warcry release.  It's probably not an Underworlds release, because those typically have pre-molded bases, where this looks to have a normal base with normal basing applied.

That said, warcry is a cool game and obr are a fun faction in it, and it'll be nice for them to gain an option for some faster fighters that aren't as expensive as cavalry or morghasts.

Otherwise, I'm a sucker for OBR aesthetics so I generally like this guy, but it is probably my least favorite ossiarch so far.  the wide bone shield plates on the back of its neck and front of its forlegs feel like they should have been proper armor plates, and that's before we get to the overall bodyplan of 'just a dog/cat' being a bit dull.  Yeah, the ossiarchs have 'just dudes' and 'just horses', but their narrative concept allows for wild monstrosities with atypical numbers of limbs, human-like faces on bestial bodies & vice versa, multiple separate faces & personas integrated into a single creature, weird blends of ghostly spirit and boney corporeal form, etc.  This design isn't bad at all, but it is a bit tame when you consider the weirder possibilities implied by the stalkers, crawler, and harvester.

Still, I'm definitely excited for new ossiarchs no matter the form, and as I've only recently been getting into warcry with models already painted for AoS, this could be the first warband I paint specifically for the skirmish game.

Same here. Surely an extra pair of legs would not have been too much. Or two more. 
Cant wait to see how many are they per unit! Maybe they have some sort of alpha-dog.

[Sception]

I would have replaced the head & neck with like a regular mortek guy's face, sunk a bit into the boney shoulders like a suit of high-collared armor.  Then put some mantis-folded limbs on the back with curved nadirite blades in place of forearms pointed forward as the weapons.  The human-like mortek face emphasises that there's an actual (composit ossiarch) person in there, not just a beast.  Have their fluff be that they were mortek soldiers who demonstrated excessive aggression/insufficient discipline and the mortisans decided 'if you're going to fight like a dog, then you might as well just be one'.  Then subvert the usual 'Nagash is a ****** who likes punishing people and the undead suffer under his tyranny' narrative by having these dog guys be super happy with the new bodies that came with their 'demotion' and revel in the unrestrained violence of their new battlefield role.

But that's just me.  Again, these guys are still cool as they are, and we don't have their fluff yet so there may be an interesting twist in there.  Plus, if it's a bespoke warcry warband as I expect then it won't be a whole unit of these dog guys, just one or two of them plus a bunch of other, potentially more interesting stuff in there we haven't seen yet, likely including that thing with the morghast wing - which could just be a new morghast, but I think might be something smaller that just has morghast-style wings.

Of course, the downside is that, while a warcry warband would be playable in aos, they'd all be crammed together into a single unit that wouldn't really work as well as bespoke rules for separate specific units.  And while we might see separate units in the future, the wait could be a long, long time.  After all, we still don't have those mortek archers implied by the underworlds guy.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

They have done a Warcry release of multiple units across a single box with the Hunters of Huachi and their pet Terawings being distinct warscrolls (ignoring the two Hunter warscrolls as just weapon swaps that aren't relevant for this purpose). So there's a bit more hope there.

[rattila]

We’ll see in a few days how many of those are in the box. Cant wait to see if we will have some kind of light cavalry with units of 3-5 or just a token beast. 
Honestly, with the lore of the ossiarch, i can see those bonecats be more than beasts (like, with the rune Beast for Warcry). People tend to see those as demoted ossiarch (like the horses thing of the kavalos), but maybe they are just directly build that way as specialized hunters, which open the possibility of having a team of those in Warcry and so a unit on AoS

[Sception]

Dogs are ok, I like the chickens, the beefy guards half way between mortek & immortis look like they're the stormcast scale soldiers that I imagined mortek guard would be before they actually released and turned out to be the short kings they are.  The centaur is closer to the kind of weird bone amalgamation I always want to see out of this faction, and spine whips are always great, so of course I like him.  Fluff wise, failures demoted into bestial forms and sent as expendable vanguard and scouts into the deadliest territories of the realms, such as the gnarlwood, works well imo.

In Warcry this box should open up a whole new way to play OBR with a bunch of smaller, faster moving options.  In AoS... I would love to eventually be units in their own right.  As a warband unit, I think putting them all in a single unit probably undercuts them a fair bit.  The chickens can't fly because the rest of the box doesn't, the hounds and centaur can't be fast because they're tied to the infantry dudes.  The guards & centaur can't be particularly tough because they're the same unit as a couple chickens.  I'm not saying the unit can't be good unit in AoS, but they can't be a good representation of what the individual models look like, the way they probably will be in Warcry.

Sadly this de-confirms the long hoped for morghast hero, as that rumor engine turns out to be an ossiarch chicken wing.  I gave up hope of that after it wasn't in dawnbringers 4, so I'm already over my disappointment, but I imagine some will be feeling that pretty shortly.

Edited March 21 by Sception

[rattila]

Well, that warband is awesome. I like everything in it.

But clearly for AoS it should be different units... but hey the Wildercorps arent, they have dogs, guyz and arbalester in one warscroll. That being said, we have a horse, 2 guys on foot, 3 hounds, 2 birds.

The birds at least should be on another warscroll, just like the terrawings of the huanchi's hunters. 

A shame that we dont have at least one bow. Maybe is there an option for the chief (they are head options for the hounds, so...)

[Faerromagnetic]

Hey there! I'm probably going to buy OBR minis to start my collection, is this a good idea? Is there like a cheaper box or starter set I can try out?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

25 minutes ago, Faerromagnetic said:

Hey there! I'm probably going to buy OBR minis to start my collection, is this a good idea? Is there like a cheaper box or starter set I can try out?

Hi, welcome to AoS!

There Ossiarchs have what is called a "Vanguard" box, which is a faction starter set that comes with a discount. 

They have also had a few other bundles over the years, which you can find by searching for "Ossiarch Battleforce". Those are bigger limited run collection Games Workshop puts out for different factions every year around Christmas. 

Be aware that we are currently only a few months away from the next edition of the game (4th edition) which will update the rules for all factions. That means nobody can currently give you any advice on what models are good/fun to use/worth buying. But on the plus side, you won't have to buy a battletome (army rulebook) to play

[rattila]

As always, warscroll change, miniature stay (well, whoops ? But ossiarch, being a pure AoS army, should stay for a long time), so for me the first criteria is always: do I like how it looks? 
 

That being said, its probable safe to avoid buying Arkhan because its a box shared for two armies (and GW does not want to do that anymore so its just a matter of time before the box will not be sold) and because he is dead in the fluff (like, nagash will probably make him come back, but who knows what he will look like). However, the miniature itself (the dread abyssal) is great so if you like it, there will be a way to play it. Its the same base as katakros so you can count as, altough karakros is such a wonderful miniature itself…

 

As my VDD says, dont buy paper right now.

[Sception]

10 hours ago, Faerromagnetic said:

Hey there! I'm probably going to buy OBR minis to start my collection, is this a good idea? Is there like a cheaper box or starter set I can try out?

The first thing to be aware of is that 4th edition Age of Sigmar is set to launch this summer, and when it does all the current rules, including all faction rules, will be replaced.  As such, there's really no point picking up the current OBR battletome.  If you pick up some OBR models and want to play with them in the mean time, look for a website called Wahapedia.

If you want to catch up on OBR history and lore, search for wiki articles and youtube lore videos.  In addition to articles and videos about the bonereapers specifically, you should also look for background on Nagash and Arkhan the black, on the Malign Portents (Nagash prepares a ritual that results in the Necroquake, which dominated 2nd edition and led to the emergence of the Nighthaunt and later OBR factions) the Soul Wars and the Seige of Sorrow (the campaign where Olynder the Nighthaunt mortarch laid siege to the Sigmarite city of Lethis to free the soul of Katakros), on the Wrath of the Everchosen (Katakros & Olynder take the fortress of Gothizzar, break into the 8 points, claim and fortify the Death Gate there, and briefly seige the Varanspire - Archaon's fortress - before they're repelled and forced back to the new OBR fortress around the Death Gate, where Katakros remains today), and on Broken Realms: Teclis (Lumineth attack Ossiarch positions in Shyish, Nagash counters by sending Arkhan and his Null Myriad to invade Hysh, Arkhan is outmaneuvered and slain at the realms edge, which drives Nagash into a blind rage which Teclis is eventually able to use to destroy the death god's body and temporarily banish his spirit).  That should bring you more or less up to date on OBR lore.  Which, yeah, means they haven't been terribly active in 3e since Nagash and Arkhan were taken off the field, with Katakros mostly playing a holding pattern to defend their 2e gains.

...

It's worth pointing out that Age of Sigmar, at least in its current form, is primarily balanced around 2,000 point games, and doesn't scale up or down especially well.  Larger games tend to take forever to move, position, and measure each individual model, by comparison big games of Old World play much faster despite the far more complicated ruleset, so there's not too much reason to build a collection beyond 2,000 points other than just to have options to swap out with each other.  Smaller games run into balance problems as its just not possible to incorporate answers to everything you might run into, because the double-turn mechanic becomes difficult or even impossible to play around (you can't double up screens if you can't fit screens at all, you can't counter-punch with your second wave after losing the first if the first wave was your entire army, etc), and because the official board size for smaller games tends to put armies in charge range of each other from deployment, which means games can be effectively over before there's even a chance of a double happening.

I'm not saying 'don't play small games' - of course you'll play small games as you build up your forces, just don't put too much weight on them.  They're for learning the rules, they're not real competitive experiences.

4e is trying to change that with a separate format specifically for small introductory games with modifications to both the game rules and the rules of the units involved in an attempt to balance them out.  This will be called 'Spearhead', and instead of building your army out of whatever units you want you specifically use the models in your faction's "Vanguard" or "Spearhead" box.

These boxes are meant to be a starting point for new players, getting you a hero, a couple basic units, and something cool at generally a pretty decent discount compared to buying those units separately.  The Ossiarch box comes with a Mortisan Soulreaper, 20 Mortek Guard, 5 Kavalos Deathriders, and a Gothizzar Harvester.  It's not worth getting too hung up on their current rules since they're being rewritten from the ground up in a few months, but a brief summary with eyes on the future:

• Soulreaper: extremely cool model, bad in game.  The rules are completely changing in 4e so maybe it will become good?  That said, don't get your hopes up, as the Soulreaper's core concept - small infantry wizard who fights in close combat - is kind of fundamentally bad.  Small wizards are good because they can contribute to the battle without risking themselves in combat.  Small melee heroes are mostly bad actually, heroes who support your troops from behind the front lines via spells or command buffs tend to be more what you want from small heroes.  As such, the Mortisan Boneshaper (small wizard who also heals your units), ossifactor (small wizard who buffs your big stuff), or soulmason (small wizard who doubles down on being super good at magic) tend edge the Soulmason out of lists.  When small combat heroes are good it's because they can chip in some extra damage while being real cheap and expendable - which they manage specifically because they don't pay extra for luxuries like spellcasting.  GW might square this circle in 4e, and I hope they do, but I wouldn't count on it, and the odds are that outside of Spearhead games this model will be a pretty piece for your display shelf.  Or if it does see the table it'll be because you have points spare for another hero but just barely not enough points for a better hero than this.
   
• Mortek Guard: kind of fallen by the wayside in 3e due to the stacking buffs they relied on in 2e getting limited - shifting focus to our larger infantry units, and also due to changes to their key support piece, the harvester.  But these are supposed to be our core backbone unit, the basic concept of strong and tough infantry with access to buffs and healing is pretty solid, so while you don't see them too much right now odds are good that they'll be good again in 4e.
   
• Kavalos Deathriders: fast and tough, an odd case of heavy cavalry that are somehow more anvil than hammer.  That might change in 4e, but I don't really expect it to as the army has other units that more naturally fill the hammer role and I think the devs have been more or less happy with how deathriders have played out so far.  OBR on the whole are slow, so the faster stuff we do have matters a lot.  I can't imagine a world where you wouldn't be happy to have at least some of these in your collection.
   
• Gothizzar Harvester: part beat stick, part healing support - mostly for mortek guard.  It's rules have gone through heavy revision - in 2e it was much more about healing mortek guard, in 3e with mortek guard a bit weaker and the harvester's healing much weaker its been more about the beatstick.  Hard to say how good it will be in 4e, but healing in general is strong so I'd say the odds are in its favor.

So the Vanguard may or may not be the units you really what for 2k games of 4e, but between the discount and the separate spearhead format it's still maybe the best way to go if you want to start buying and painting stuff now in preparation for 4e instead of waiting for the full release.

..................

Alternatively, you might want to wait for the full release of 4e's rules to buy any physical models, and in the mean time go through the bother of buying and setting up 'Tabletop Simulator' (TTS) on your computer.  This is a program that lets you simulate a tabletop to play any sort of board or tabletop game online, and it can be used to play full sized games of Age of Sigmar while you're still building up your physical army.  This is arguably the smartest way to go, letting you try units before you buy them to be sure you're getting an army you enjoy playing - though the fact that balance adjustments are made in the game faster than a person can reasonably buy, build up, and paint a whole army from scratch means pre-playing only goes so far.  You might decide to build around a key unit based on playing with them in february only for a march balance patch to hike their points cost way up or errata away some key rules interaction of their warscroll that knocks the ground out from under you.

Which is frustrating, but it's just the nature of the game.

..............................

Of course, you could go the far opposite direction, ignore the rules altogether and just buy and paint the models you like, and how they play on the table just is what it is.  This is more what I do, but I don't have much free time for games, so the hobby to me is mostly building and painting and games are a once in a blue moon thing more about showing off my work than actually trying to win.  And if you follow this path, then you don't need anyone else's advice OR to wait for the new rules to come out, you just need to look at what's available then buy and paint the specific models you think look cool (preferably one box at a time, big piles of unfinished stuff will drain motivation something fierce.

................

A final option is to not worry about the AoS game until 4e is out and in the mean time play warcry instead, a small scale skirmish game in the same universe with rules for most of the same models.  These games are fast and fun and use up to about a dozen individual models instead of several entire units.  Much easier to get a painted team together while making progress towards your eventual AoS army, and you can spend time learning this other side game instead of learning a version of AoS that's about to get replaced anyway.  A specific Warcry warband for OBR is coming out soon, but you don't have to wait since there are rules for the existing obr units.  In fact, since you want to expand into AoS I'd recommend you /don't/ start with the coming warcry warband, as the AoS rules for warcry warbands tend to be a bit of an afterthought and they might not even be matched play legal in 4e.  Instead I'd recommend picking up a box of mortek guard, a box of stalkers/immortis, and either a boneshaper or a soulmason, whichever you think looks cool.  Your chosen mortisan, a mortek guard hekatos (unit champ), a pair of stalkers or immortis guard, and as many mortek guard with shields and swords or spears as you can fit in your remaining points makes for a solid warcry warband - not optimal, but plenty good to play with, and all of that stuff should prove playable in an eventual full size AoS army.  Just as there's Wahapedia for AoS rules, you can find the Warcry rules on a site called Warcrier, though if you do get into the game you should eventually show your support by picking up the core rulesbook at least.

................

 

So yeah, that's my advice.  Choose one of:

1. Just get the vanguard box and start painting that in preparation for Spearhead in AoS 4e, and if you want to get in some small demo games in the mean time get the rules from wahapedia
   
   - or -
    
2. Buy TTS and go through the bother of setting it up to play age of sigmar - lots of google searches and resource hunting and download involved, it's going to take a whiel - so that when 4e comes out you can play test full size 2k point games online until you know exactly the real world models you want to buy, and in the mean time play some online games of AoS using rules from wahapedia just to make sure you've got the system set up.
   
   - or -
    
3. Just buy and paint whatever OBR models you think look cool, one box at a time, and don't worry about how they'll play in game since the game stuff is constantly changing anyway
   
   - or -
    
4. Check out Warcrier, maybe pick up the Warcry core rulebook, and find or start a local group of players for warcry, buying and painting obr models for that and building up the start of an AoS collection in the process, starting with some small infantry, big infantry, and a small hero.

 

And on top of whichever you choose, search up some OBR lore videos on youtube to listen to while you hobby, to fill you with appreciation for the faction's personality and history.

Edited April 5 by Sception

[Faerromagnetic]

The spearhead stuff sounds like exactly what I wanna try, I'll probs wait until 4e then.

[Sception]

If you wanna try spearhead than you're probably safe to pick up the vanguard and get it painted in the mean time so you're ready to go with spearhead from day one.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

23 hours ago, Sception said:

Soulreaper: extremely cool model, bad in game.  The rules are completely changing in 4e so maybe it will become good?  That said, don't get your hopes up, as the Soulreaper's core concept - small infantry wizard who fights in close combat - is kind of fundamentally bad.  Small wizards are good because they can contribute to the battle without risking themselves in combat.  Small melee heroes are mostly bad actually, heroes who support your troops from behind the front lines via spells or command buffs tend to be more what you want from small heroes.

Much of this post is decent to great advice, but I wanted to home in on the bolded text here. The concept has historically been fundamentally bad because it was bad under the basic assumptions we've had from first ed onwards. There are lots of ways they could change things to make it better with a full rules overhaul. Will they? Hard to say, and I personally doubt they'll shift things too drastically on that front. But I could definitely see a world where they do, and already came up with half a dozen or so ways they could do it while typing out this post.

[Faerromagnetic]

I'm mostly going to be collecting them anyway, for the sake of painting and displaying them! So if the model looks kinda cool, and I can display them, maybe play casually sometimes, I don't think I'll stress out that much on how they are in the meta.

[rattila]

Luckily, all OBR models look cool. I have a special soft spot for the goofyness of the soulmason (with chicken-legged throne) and the harvester (with the ******-mortek). Katakros is absolutely stunning and as a miniature and really embody well the master strategist that he is in lore.

[Sception]

4 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

There are lots of ways they could change things to make it better with a full rules overhaul

Of course.  Definitely crossing my fingers, but I'm not going so far as holding my breath.  😛

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

5 hours ago, Sception said:

Of course.  Definitely crossing my fingers, but I'm not going so far as holding my breath.  😛

Yeah, I don't recommend anyone hold their breath until AoS 4 comes out. Sounds like a good way to really exemplify the Death Grand Alliance, and not in like, a fun hobby way!