Playstyle of Flesh Eaters

[Daydreamer]

Hello together,

i am new to Age of Sigmar and currently in the phase of chosing my army. I like the skaven and the flesh eaters but i don´t know their playstyle (e.g. are those more hord armies etc.). A while ago i also played Warhammer 40K and the playstyle of the Skitarii was very cool.

Maybe you can give me some hints about the playstyls of the flesh eater and skaven?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

[deynon]

There isn't exactly a "style" about FEC. There are different solutions. They are great about ambushes, sinergize to keep their units at maximum and pressing with their mole. They don't use have much models with rend, but they have the scariest monsters to shred the opponents

[Thanatos Ares]

Flesh Eater Courts (FEC) can run either horde style lists with units that can regenerate damage at an alarming rate or they can go monster heavy which can terrify your opponent. The only access they have to high rend damage (-2/-3) is on the monsters themselves.

But an even mix between lil guys and big monsters is a very balanced army indeed


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[Dez]

Skaven are pretty versatile, there are many ways you can play them and they are competitive. You have lots of bodies for objectives, excellent range, great heroes and firepower that all works in synergy. I'm also a big fan of their fluff and modeling and painting.

[wayniac]

What I find of FEC playstyle (disclaimer: not very good and disappointed with the army) is they are mostly a horde of ineffective goons buffed by characters that can easily be sniped out via shooting/magic.  They have a replenishing mechanic that's done by the characters, and can field some tanky monsters but in my experience have trouble actually dishing out wounds due to very little Rend, and have big scary monsters that are also your general so have a huge target on them but can eat through units and most other things.  There is summoning but due to Matched Play (read: points) being the default style, I rarely if ever find it worth it to set aside points.

YMMV, but this is my experience.  I've played them a few games now and I'm not liking the army at all, it's way too fragile and I find when I actually get stuck in, I can't do anything while I get whittled down due to having low saves; the replenishing is great but typically my characters have long been sniped out before I can get into combat so the replenish goes away and I'm left with basically fodder.  I'm likely doing something very wrong, but that's been my experience with them.  They were my first army as well.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Funny that. The best player at our local runs Ghouls, and is very rarely beaten. YMMV indeed.

[wayniac]

2 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

Funny that. The best player at our local runs Ghouls, and is very rarely beaten. YMMV indeed.

Yeah, I have no idea.  Every time I play, it's like oh ghouls, die like flies, horrors die easily, flayers die easily, general on beastie has a huge target, courtiers get shot off the board.  I mean clearly I suck I just can't figure out why.  Although I haven't tried Ghoul Patrol yet.

[Daydreamer]

Thanks for all your replies! so what i have read now you need to learn the way the FEC works and they do not stick to a specific playstyle, correct?

[TerrorPenguin]

Well, they have as much of a play style as the other armies. You have limited choices, they're never going to be an elite or shooting army. They have no named characters.

But yeah you can be flexible within that, I would say you can pick from a list like this:

Movement shenanigans via command abilities or ghoul patrol

Hordes of ghouls to tar pit or claim objectives, or just to get an obscene number of attacks.

Crypt Horrors as elite infantry / ogres. Do a tonne of damage and keep coming back.

Positioning is important as the buffs are area of effect, but they are fairly forgiving (18" rerolls near ghoul king, 10" for the courtiers).

Battleshock is rarely a factor

The terrorgheist is horrible

[ElectricPaladin]

I actually disagree with many of my esteemed fellow nobles above. I think that the Flesh Eaters are strongly defined by several key traits:

• Several key heroes with the ability to recover wounds.
• A couple of key units are buffed by proximity to a Ghoul King.
• All units have the ability to recover models.
• Between command abilities and battalions, it's very easy to bring units and heroes in off the board edges.
• In the context of Death, they may summon some Death models (without breaking allegiance, if that ever means anything).
• As a Death army (assuming you use the allegiance ability) they resist mortal wounds.

 

If you put it all together, I think that a good Flesh Eater force is going to try to maximize one or more of these playstyles:

1. Grind - your army is both more durable than your opponents and capable of recovering wounds/casualties, meaning that you rush to engage on your terms and then just... stay there for as long as you need.
2. Horde - you can field large and hard to shift blocks of troops that are effective through sheer weight of numbers.
3. Guerrilla - using summoning and board-edge deployment, keep your opponent guessing about where your army is. Engage in the midfield, then bring units in from unexpected vectors and use them to seize objectives your opponent thought was safe.

 

While it's possible to do a monster mash army, an elite army of ogre-like ghouls (or flying ogres?!), and maybe even win some games with these odd lists, these aren't where the Flesh Eaters really shine.

[Daydreamer]

Many thanks for your reply! ? That was / is what i was looking for. I will defently try the FEC (getting the start collecting this weekend ?) 

[deynon]

2 hours ago, TerrorPenguin said:

Well, they have as much of a play style as the other armies. You have limited choices, they're never going to be an elite or shooting army. They have no named characters.

But yeah you can be flexible within that, I would say you can pick from a list like this:

Movement shenanigans via command abilities or ghoul patrol

Hordes of ghouls to tar pit or claim objectives, or just to get an obscene number of attacks.

Crypt Horrors as elite infantry / ogres. Do a tonne of damage and keep coming back.

Positioning is important as the buffs are area of effect, but they are fairly forgiving (18" rerolls near ghoul king, 10" for the courtiers).

Battleshock is rarely a factor

The terrorgheist is horrible

Terrorgheist is horrible? It's a killing machine. It has never died once to me and have killed everything. Why should be horrible? 

[ElectricPaladin]

7 minutes ago, deynon said:

Terrorgheist is horrible? It's a killing machine. It has never died once to me and have killed everything. Why should be horrible? 

Maybe he means horrible as in horrible for your opponents to deal with? Or maybe he thinks it's overpowered and horrible to bring to the table?

[Seas]

I like the FEC, the fluff, the playstyle.

Wanna give u some lists for the startup, that i played often and with success

List 1

The Ghouls and Horrors gets an nice healing, u get 1d6 for every ghoul unit, and 6d6 from the Ghast(on 2+ u get one new ghoul) and from the Vargulf u get also 6d6 ( on 2+ u get one new ghoul and at 5+ u get one Horror). With all that ur army lives rly long, and u can bring in an other Vargulf for extra healing). Use the spell from your Zombie Dragon for the Horrors (reroll all Hit-rolls and all Wound-rolls for the Horrors) and the spell from the Ghoul King also on the Horrors and the spell form the Necromancer.

U get 25 atk rerolling hit and wound rolls and pile in and atk twice, rly nice dmg.

I played 6 Horrors and i lost 4 in a turn, and i roll for my Varghulf 6d6 and 4 dices are 5+ so i bring back 4 horrors, me opponent get big eyes 

Leaders
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon (400)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
- Artefact: Cursed Book
Crypt Ghast Courtier (80)
Varghulf Courtier (160)
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Abhorrant Ghoul King (100)
Crypt Haunter Courtier (120)   <-- You can delete this, and grab the 160 pts for summoning an other Vargulf later (so u can bring back ghouls and Horrors)
Necromancer (120)

Units
Crypt Ghouls x 20 (200)
Crypt Ghouls x 20 (200)
Crypt Ghouls x 20 (200)
Crypt Horrors x 6 (280)

Behemoths

War Machines

Battalions
Ghoul Patrol (100)

Scenery

Total: 1960/2000

 

List 2

Terrorgheist (with cursed book)  and Mourngul for hard hitting (attack the same unit) an attacking unit must substract -2 from hit ,(if the bravery from that unit is 7 or higher) and -3 to hit (if the bravery is 6 or under). U can put the command ability from the VL on ur Terrorgheist or on the 30x Ghouls. If u used it on the Ghouls and used the spell from the Necromancer than u have a unit with 121 Attacks and can pile in and attack twice.

Leaders
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (400)
- Artefact: Cursed Book
Crypt Ghast Courtier (80)
Vampire Lord (140)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
Necromancer (120)
- Artefact: Sword of Unholy Power  <--- For summoning the Mourngul (for an nasty touch )

Units
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Ghouls x 20 (200)
Crypt Ghouls x 20 (200)

Behemoths
Mourngul (400)  <--- Summoning, so dont put im on the list

War Machines

Battalions
Ghoul Patrol (100)

Scenery

Total: 1940/2000

 

Look at the face from ur opponent when u bring back horros or summoning a Mourngul 

Have fun with your FEC u will love it, trust me

 

 

[deynon]

1 minute ago, ElectricPaladin said:

Maybe he means horrible as in horrible for your opponents to deal with? Or maybe he thinks it's overpowered and horrible to bring to the table?

I only know every my opponent has a grudgeto the bone with my GKoTG, so much they created a bounty for him

[TerrorPenguin]

 

1 hour ago, ElectricPaladin said:

Maybe he means horrible as in horrible for your opponents to deal with? Or maybe he thinks it's overpowered and horrible to bring to the table?

Yes basically it's horrible for your opponents to deal with - i built mine as a zombie dragon then played the terrorgheist the other day, horrendous

[ElectricPaladin]

3 hours ago, TerrorPenguin said:

Yes basically it's horrible for your opponents to deal with - i built mine as a zombie dragon then played the terrorgheist the other day, horrendous

I agree! Though I will assert that it's also quite balanced. But, yes, my favorite leader is my ghoul king on terrorgheist with the Ruler of the Night trait so I can put a double 5+ vs wounds on any unit I want to absolutely positively make sure my opponent won't be able to get rid of.

[wayniac]

On my GKoTG I like to take the Red Fury or whatever it is, the one that lets you make an additional set of attacks.  I find that he has a huge target on his head just by being on a large monster, so I like to make sure he alphas and rips something to pieces.  Of course last game I did that it was against Drycha and I missed like half of them and didn't roll enough to trigger the second round of attacks... but in theory it would be amazing.

[ElectricPaladin]

Just for fun, I decided to put together a two thousand point list for Grind, Horde, and Guerrilla styles. I wonder what you all will think of them.

 

First, Guerrilla.

Quote

Leaders
Abhorrant Ghoul King (100)
- General
- Trait: Master of the Black Arts
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Crypt Ghast Courtier (80)
- Artefact: Cursed Book
Crypt Haunter Courtier (120)
Crypt Infernal Courtier (140)

Units
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Horrors x 6 (280)
Crypt Flayers x 3 (160)

Battalions
Ghoul Patrol (100)

Scenery

Total: 1880/2000

The core of the list is three big self-regenerating units of ghouls that can jump in off the board edge on your second turn, grabbing objectives. The ghast courtier has a Cursed Book so that you can put him near some guns you'd like to make less accurate (though I recommend also summoning in some bats or something, because -1 to hit isn't really all that good). Speaking of summoning, you've got 120 points to play with, which gives you a few options for counterchargers and objective grabbers. The flayers have a similar job, using their superior speed to get up in your opponents' face in unexpected ways. The six-strong unit of horrors is basically there to keep your king alive - they're badass enough that your opponent can't afford to ignore them, so they should draw fire, and with a courtier nearby, they're going to be quite hard to kill off.

 

Quote

Leaders
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Terrorgheist (400)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Abhorrant Ghoul King (100)
- Artefact: Black Amulet
Abhorrant Ghoul King (100)
Varghulf Courtier (160)
Crypt Ghast Courtier (80)

Units
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Ghouls x 30 (300)
Crypt Horrors x 3 (140)

Behemoths

War Machines

Battalions
Royal Family (60)

Scenery

Total: 1940/2000

With this list, I tried to make a good example of something grindier. The Royal Family battalion buffs unit regeneration. You've got a courtier for your ghouls and a varghulf courtier as well, so that's plenty of models returned every turn. Advance as a block, get into combat, and watch your opponent weep as he tries to chew through those units.

 

[AlexanderHemedinger]

On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 9:15 AM, CoffeeGrunt said:

Funny that. The best player at our local runs Ghouls, and is very rarely beaten. YMMV indeed.

I can also say that I've tabled all my opponents. I've shared my list numerous times. They can be very deadly!

[AlexanderHemedinger]

On Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 9:18 AM, wayniac said:

Yeah, I have no idea.  Every time I play, it's like oh ghouls, die like flies, horrors die easily, flayers die easily, general on beastie has a huge target, courtiers get shot off the board.  I mean clearly I suck I just can't figure out why.  Although I haven't tried Ghoul Patrol yet.

Ghoul patrol is key. You also need to play them in a style to avoid your heroes in range of shooting. Keep trying, test my list if you want to lose friends - haha!

[AlexanderHemedinger]

Leaders
Vampire Lord (140)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Necromancer (120)
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120)
Crypt Ghast Courtier (80)
Abhorrant Ghoul King (100)
Abhorrant Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon (400)
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality

Units
Crypt Ghouls x 40 (400)
Crypt Ghouls x 40 (400)
Crypt Ghouls x 10 (100)

Behemoths

War Machines

Battalions
Ghoul Patrol (100)

Scenery

Total: 1960/2000

 

Try this list it's super annoying with the ability to have ghouls with 5 attacks, attack twice, reroll 1's, 3's to hit - 3's to wound. And if hero is nearby (vampire lord ) now you have 5+ ignore wounds and mortal. And if the witch king is nearby they get a 6+ save too. The formation with courtier brings back ghouls to continously keep them replenished. For the most part this is all if you cast all abilities off. Either way it's brutal as you'll kill quite a bit. Have fun. 

 

(Note- Aborghant ghoul king on foot is the death book. Gw allows this but some tournament organizers may not.) 

[Grimnaud]

25 minutes ago, AlexanderHemedinger said:

(Note- Aborghant ghoul king on foot is the death book. Gw allows this but some tournament organizers may not.) 

I kept wondering how you managed to get 3+/3+ hit and wound. Playing that list won't necessarily loose you friends. Pulling that trick might.

For my two cents, @ElectricPaladin sums it up nicely. Grind and board control are the FEC's two biggest strengths.

 

[Creech]

How do you get the +1/+1 on the ghouls if the vampire lord is your general? the strigoi ghoul king then cannot use his command ability?