What makes death competitive besides TK and Mournghouls?

[wayniac]

Talking to some friends, it's clear Death is right now the likely least played, and probably least competitive faction as they haven't really gotten anything new, and the game continues to pass them by.  So I'm curious, what exactly does death have besides Tomb Kings (which aren't available for most people) and Mournghouls?  It seems more and more that Death, perhaps more than any other Grand Alliance, needs to draw from all of its subfactions (which makes sense, seeing as it was one faction that got split into many) to have a viable army.

So let's talk, what makes a strong death army that doesn't rely on Tomb Kings or Mournghoul spam?  Is there anything?  It seems some of the units are fairly good, but then get screwed by having synergy only with their own subfaction.  For example, I had a brief idea to do a Deathrattle + Nighthaunt, the idea being it's the forgotten souls of the mortal realms that didn't get chosen by Sigmar to become Stormcast, so a lot of skeletons/wights/ghosts that want to wreak vengeance on the living.  But from an actual gameplay standpoint, it seems with Death you can't really focus on anything (even Flesh-Eater Courts tend to want having a Necromancer or Vampire Lord for buffs).

Thoughts/opinions?

[RuneBrush]

3 minutes ago, wayniac said:

So I'm curious, what exactly does death have besides Tomb Kings (which aren't available for most people) and Mournghouls?

Units that take a lot of effort to remove due to replacing slain models each Hero phase is one of the big unique items they have to offer with some set ups from where I'm sitting.

24 minutes ago, wayniac said:

Talking to some friends, it's clear Death is right now the likely least played, and probably least competitive faction as they haven't really gotten anything new, and the game continues to pass them by.

Appreciate that they may be one of the least competitive in your circle of friends, but I think that there are some competitive builds out there for Death.  Granted they may not be "tier 1" but I think they can still punch above their weight.  I attended the Seeds of Hope event last year (first event run using matched points) and to be honest, Death had the best victory rate and basically won the narrative during the event.

Now I'm not going to pretend that they're better than the latest release, but I think to say they're the least competitive is a tad harsh - especially when you look through this forum and see people creating new armies and talking about wins in games.  Not going to lie - they are being a little left behind with the new battletomes being brought out, however many armies are currently in a similar situation which I hope will be resolved at time goes on.

[wayniac]

What was used though?  Most death armies I see either use Tomb Kings or Mournghouls, hence the original premise of the post as what does Death have if you don't use those things.  So far every game I played with my FEC (granted not at 2k points, my GW doesn't like 2k points), being able to replenish units every hero phase falls apart when heroes get sniped out the first or second turn because they can't hide from some strong shooting armies.  Maybe it's because I mainly play Sylvaneth who seem can just walk right over Death with no trouble whatsoever.

[RuneBrush]

4 minutes ago, wayniac said:

What was used though?  Most death armies I see either use Tomb Kings or Mournghouls, hence the original premise of the post as what does Death have if you don't use those things.  So far every game I played with my FEC (granted not at 2k points, my GW doesn't like 2k points), being able to replenish units every hero phase falls apart when heroes get sniped out the first or second turn because they can't hide from some strong shooting armies.  Maybe it's because I mainly play Sylvaneth who seem can just walk right over Death with no trouble whatsoever.

Not a clue what the lists were at that event and I accept that the meta has changed somewhat from then too.  The only army I spotted had a Terrorgheist and load of Spirit Hosts (so basically a lot of anti-rend in it).  Super small but quite elite.

I completely get where you're coming from, but don't think Death is on it's own when it comes to certain units almost being mandatory in order to be competitive.  Chaos has Stormfiends (warpfire cannon) and Sayl as two units that seem to commonly appear for example.  If my opponent has a heavy gunline force, I really struggle with my Bloodbound too as I need to get across the board before I can do any damage, and most of my abilities only activate in the combat phase.

Although FEC can't regenerate without heros, most Deathrattle can which adds in a slightly different perspective if you're fielding them.  I'll be honest and say that I don't really know the FEC Battletome and haven't faced it as an opponent yet.

[Ollie Grimwood]

My experience of get hammered by a Death army (limited granted) was that their extreme durability was key. My opponent used a large amount of Spirit Hosts and the other ethereal stuff. He used their ability to fly to get into beneficial positions in combat and grind down my units due to their ignore rend save and Alliance ability. The ability Deathrattle battleline units have to regenerate models is something he was intending to use to guard objectives but I never threatened them (he told me after the game). As way of a caveat he did have a Mournghul but it killed the grand total of 120pts worth of stuff.

 

I don't think Mournghuls and TKs are the only competitive parts of Death but they are the easiest to use and in the case of the Big M very reasonable to purchase.

 

 

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[LJ26]

@wayniac by mourngul spam do you mean 1 per army? And do you have anything against using 1 unit that is obviously really good? It's Definitely not necessary and easily killable or manageable by a good player. 

To answer your op 40 skeletons with spears can kill mostly anything in 1 turn that isn't 2+ armor saves. It takes skill on the players part to get the right charge. The vampire lord on abyssal terror and necromancer are necessary in my opinion for their spells. The vamp Lord doubles movement which is Huge when facing shooty armies. Necromancer is obvious. 6 units of 10 zombies gives you board control and merge at the right time to do the most damage, they are also great chaff, screens, etc. The vampire lord on zombie dragon with red fury and Cloak will 1 shot almost all heroes and plow through most units. Archai are there for rend. Never used the Mortis engine but seeing as sylvaneth have low bravery I would take 1, maybe 2. To play death competitively you have to go grand alliance and for the most part forgo fluffy stuff or get creative and come up with a reason why they are all working together. Bloodhound,  iron jaws, FEC, and generally all armies that rely on close combat have a hard time with gun line armies. If FEC aren't for you maybe its time to hang it up and try you some beastclaw. 

[wayniac]

People keep suggesting BCR, I hate how those models look   You are like the fourth person when I mention I am not a fan of huge hordes/drowning the enemy in dice that have said that to me (try Beastclaws).  Just find it a bit amusing.  Maybe it's a sign after all.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Mmm, I personally haven't had the VLoZD ever perform that admirably for me. Perhaps it's my dice rolls, but he runs up against most comparable Heroes and gets his butt handed to him.

Personally I consider Tomb Kings to be the Deathrattle army we should have received. Between Tomb Kings and Deathrattle you can field a pretty formidable list of spooky skeletons. I just convert or kitbash models to fit descriptions of the Tomb Kings units and away we go.

[Thanatos Ares]

I find a mix of vamps & FEC works really well. I currently use VLoZD (general) with a GKoZD & GKoT as support. Then for battleline either ghouls or skeles or zombies (if I'm min/max-ing)


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[LJ26]

@CoffeeGrunt I had always heard vlozd was good but he always sucked for me until I actually used his rerolls on himself with red fury, has been wrecking **** for me.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Mm, but then you're investing everything in that one model, which is great for killing another unit, but doesn't help for winning the battle most of the time.

[LJ26]

Very very true, that's why I stopped using him for settra with a Tomb herald lol

[Nico]

Ward Save.

[Maddok]

Look at some of the lists at the Masters. Morghasts still get heavy use, with the Harbingers being perfect for summoning due to their ability to make the 9 inch charge on 3 dice, and the archai being perfect heavy unit busters.

 

The death bubble is utterly fantastic, while their other items are pretty strong as well.

 

Blood knights are expensive but hit very hard and grow back, while big blocks of regenerating crypt horrors with inspiring presence and the 5+ death save won't be going anywhere.

 

Dire wolves are a bargain for their price, and great to summon to grab objectives, while spirit hosts make great walls to cast behind.

[swarmofseals]

I think maybe it makes sense to break things down into "tournament competitive" and "casual competitive". In the tournament competitive sense, death has a lot of stuff stacked against it right now. If you look at the top performing tournament lists, they have a few common characteristics:

1. Alpha striking - many top tier tournament lists either deploy on top of you or use mechanics that dramatically increase movement. These lists are typically designed to do a huge amount of focused damage
2. Mortal wound spam - Other lists are great at spamming mortal wounds, often at range with things like thundertusks
3. Synergy builds - While this isn't as common at tier 1, there are a lot of relatively popular lists that rely on stacking buffs from heroes

Basically all three of these things really counter Death hard. Death's resilience shines in long, grindy fights. The extra ward save and banners returning models to the table makes a huge difference over a period of a couple of turns. Top tournaments lists are designed to focus damage very well, however, so most armies don't have problems just straight-up deleting whole units at once. When that happens, your banners don't do anything at all. Ethereal units are another example that are greatly disadvantaged by the prevalence of mortal wounds. Things like Spirit Hosts are great against big rendy hits but boy are they awful against mortal wounds. 

Death are also highly benefited by synergy. Necromancers and Vampire Lords make death units actually quite scary in close combat, and the FEC heroes are critical for replenishing their losses. Unfortunately, the prevalence of ranged and ranged mortal wounds in particular means that most opponents can just snipe your heroes and there is nothing you can do to stop it. The same goes for close combat heroes like the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. He's absolutely terrifying on paper, until you realize he just gets picked off by thundertusks, gets dropped on by retributors, vaporized by stormfiends, etc.

The synergy thing cuts the other way too against death because Death has little to no ability to snipe opposing heroes. Other than the modest range options in the TK line, there really isn't much. So when Death faces an opposing synergy army, they have a lot more trouble getting rid of the buffers while the opponent can often take out Death's buffers easily. 

One last factor against Death is that it lacks many highly efficient options. Most other GAs have some units that are just clearly great for their points cost -- things like Kurnoth Hunters, Skyfires/Enlightened, etc. Death has the mourngul and necropolis knights, and that's it. That'd be fine, honestly, except for that you specified not-mourngul and not-TK . Death has some other options that are decent, but they really are outclassed by what the other factions can field. Skeletons with spears are nice and all, but they aren't as efficient as grots (just as a single example)

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When you consider casual-competitive, I think death does a lot better. One thing to consider about Death armies is that they tend to produce somewhat more extreme results on the tabletop than other factions. Because of the way that they replenish units, there is very pronounced tipping point effect. If you put enough pressure on a Death army, it will snap like a twig. Anything less than that though and it will feel like punching a steel wall. If the enemy doesn't do enough focused damage to completely overwhelm your replenishment, your forces will look like they are in good shape at the end of the game while your opponent is a tattered mess. In a casual-competitive environment, opponents are much less likely to field enough force and much less likely to use their force skillfully enough to push the Death player past that tipping point. 

I think this reason is the main reason why we see such divergent opinions about Death. To people playing in a high-caliber tournament environment, Death looks hopeless because just about everything pushes past that tipping point easily both due to design and player skill. Meanwhile, in lower power and lower skill environments, Death can even seem overpowered.

For those of you familiar with Magic: The Gathering, I think an apt analogy can be made to the archetype "The Rock" in that game. Death is a lot like The Rock -- they are both midrange strategies focused on attrition. In practice, The Rock tends to be decent or even great when everyone else is playing "fair" strategies. In other words, The Rock excels against opponents that are just playing the game the normal way, summoning creatures, attacking, blocking etc. The problem is that The Rock is pretty hopeless against opponents that are playing "unfair" strategies -- super fast combo strategies or super slow lategame strategies that abuse powerful synergies. Those of you who are long time MTG players will see that my description here is a little flawed, but it's pretty close. Anyway, in practice The Rock is rarely a good choice for a high level tournament because there's usually enough people doing unfair things. Meanwhile, in a casual setting The Rock overperforms and seems overpowered because most people are playing fair in casual games (even "casual competitive"). 

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Personally, I think that GW needs to make some significant changes to their overall design for Death. Here's what I'd do:

1. Uncouple banners from unit restoration and move it more onto heroes like with FEC, either through special abilities or magic. Death summoning should be usable to either create new units or replenish/heal existing units.

2. Give death access to more tools for protecting their heroes. The new Tzeentch spell is a great design, although I might make it so that it does not work in melee. Giving necromancers and other buffing heroes a tool like this would be both flavorful and really help Death.

3. Give Death some more efficient options. I'd tone the Mourngul down a bit, but bring some other things up. Personally, I think necropolis knights are fantastic and I'd love to see a new death kit that copies the idea -- grave guard riding zombie vipers or something like that. It's a really unique unit, it looks fantastic, and assuming tomb kings will get phased out entirely sooner or later reintroducing NK as a normal death unit would really throw TK players a bone (*rimshot*) as it would make transitioning to a regular Death army easier. NK might even need a small buff in this context, as the banners and buff synergies from Settra are what makes them great (and they'd be losing both of those). Chariots could also be reintroduced, which would be nice for TK players as well.

4. Give Death a bit more ranged, but not much. I'd mostly keep it short ranged. Difficulty sniping heroes is a very valid and legitimate weakness for an army to have. 

[wayniac]

I think that the end result is that you really need to pick Death things from the entire Alliance; which makes it hard for people like me who like to have a themed army based around one faction (this is to a lesser extent true in other factions, but more so in death).  For example, I have pure FEC.  I like the backstory of the Courts, and don't want to have to shoehorn in "court wizards" (necromancers), "visiting dignitaries" (vampires) or "silent legions of soldiers" (skeletons), or a "noble cloud giant" (Mournghoul) because I like the idea of an insane ghoul king and his deranged court of monsters that think they are noblemen.  I did, however, once consider adding some Morghasts as "angelic messengers" so there's that I suppose.

I'm not against it, but I like to have themed lists, and Death seems to get the short end of the stick in regards to actually being able to make a list based around only one of the subgroups, which I suppose makes sense because they were all the same (and I remember when it was just Warhammer Armies: Undead, before the split into Vampire Counts and later Tomb Kings), so the army is more or less designed to complement each other.

I would honestly say Death needs less emphasis on characters doing the buffing, and more either baseline (think Ghoul Patrol but for everyone) with characters buffing, or something.  Right now the biggest issue I have is that characters are trivially easy to snipe with magic, ranged, or both, and Death armies are built around A) Being able to summon freely to replenish their ranks, and B) Characters restoring units.  The first part is essentially crippled (IMHO) by Matched Play requiring reserve points, the second is usually nullified by the lax LOS rules and prevalence of shooting being able to snipe out characters unless they spend the entire game hiding behind cover (and I have had people argue if they have a flying shooter e.g. a Knight-Venator, that even cover doesn't matter because it can fly, or the shooters can launch arrows into the air at an angle and still hit).  

Although I have to say this talk has got me thinking of a mostly deathrattle/nighthaunt army like I said above, led by a vampire lord (basically idea is this prince or w/e returned home to find his land obliterated and made a pact with the devil i.e. nagash in this case to get revenge, so the army is made up of the dead and spirits of this old kingdom).  It would allow for more flexibility than my pure FEC, and even tie into it a bit if I wanted.

[Bradifer]

2 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

-Snip-

 

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

-snip 2-

Very well said to both of you.

Interesting points and well thought out design philosophies.

Death as an alliance has weak sub-factions, and a more closely related alliance than the others.

Order just has a bunch of random good guys w/ complete factions within each (see Sylvaneth, Seraphon, Stormcast) etc.. While death must work together stringing its multiple ~50% complete sub-factions, while using weak battleline units and hopinh hero synergy gets there.

----------

Either way I really hope Death gets an overhaul as an alliance or some new battletomes/units.

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

12 hours ago, wayniac said:

For example, I have pure FEC.  I like the backstory of the Courts, and don't want to have to shoehorn in "court wizards" (necromancers), "visiting dignitaries" (vampires) or "silent legions of soldiers" (skeletons), or a "noble cloud giant" (Mournghoul) because I like the idea of an insane ghoul king and his deranged court of monsters that think they are noblemen.  I did, however, once consider adding some Morghasts as "angelic messengers" so there's that I suppose.

This sounds absolutely awesome to me and exactly how armies should be built! The conversions and theming of your army is the spirit of warhammer. 

[Teletomas]

Hi all, thought I'd come out of hiding with a suggestion for ranged attack for death. I'm a total noob, so shut me down if I'm all wrong here:

How about Arkhan's Curse of Years spell coupled with his command trait (+6" to spells range -out of range for most ranged enemies). If you're lucky he can take out that whole ranged unit that would've been pestering your slow skellies or something worse!

Spam curse of years in safe distance for a while, when your opponent tires of this and sends for him (won't last long), you buff Arkhan up with Vanhels Dance Macabre -he's got the 'skeleton' in his war scroll -, and surprise surprise he's actually a monster in combat with 28 attacks or 34 buffed by Vamp lord as well.

He's 100 pts cheaper than neferata and 120 less than Mannfred. Also, he can help deep strike easily with his +3 to summoning. Harbingers for instance.

 

[Bradifer]

I think it would be neat if they created ranged weaponry/machines of war.

I'm not sure the exact idea of a screaming skull catapult, but I like the idea of a trebuchet/catapult that launches skeleton parts or zombies filled with explosive liquid (ranged corpse explosion).

The artillery could kill a nearby skeleton/zombie every time it fires. Additionally you could get like 2 attacks or higher movement speed by putting the group of zombies/skeletons to work on the machine. 

Doesn't have to be great, but feels odd the entire alliance simply doesn't understand how to shoot at enemies.

Other ranged ideas:

• Undead archers
• Thrown/launched jars/bottles of acid/poison
• Bone Spear a'la Diablo 2
• Artillery that launches 'Shades' at enemy units by transforming a zombie etc... into an evil spirit that blankets enemies in darkness (-1 to hit, or other.)
• Make banshee scream useful, maybe less bravery based
• Frost Blast from Frost Wyrm or something like a cold-ish bone dragon
• Spirit Drain or Life Drain attack via weapon/staff rather than spell (See Alarielle or Spirit of Durthu)
• Weapon/staff that uses raw power of nagash for 'darkness' or 'spirit' attack
• A Fear spell that slows, roots, or moved enemies in another direction
• Obsidian Statue from Warcraft 3 - A status that can shoot, or transforms when it's forced into melee (aka being looked at Weeping Angels style)

Any other ideas for Death ranged attacks?

[deynon]

Sicerely I play the FEC terrogheist but cause I like it. Based on the potential damage it's stronger than the FEC DZ, but the FEC DZ is more solid as damage.

My general is the GKoTG cause I want to summon the horrors.

But tournaments... if we talk about them first we should talk about the points we play at. Cause it change a lot the options you have. 

At 1000 points maybe even a unit of Blood knights would be an eyesore as points. But at 1500/2000 it becomes quite interesting and can allow even two of them.

Changing the points change the options avalaible, event he personalization of the rules change it. So before we should talk about the rules of the tournaments and the point system of the tournament itself.

The Tk are not so strong. Death as mix is much stronger.

Moreover often you forget talking about one thing: you don't play about vaporizing the opponent, but to take the objective so it's the foundamental part. Sincerly if I have 20 zombies on an objective even an elite unit can't move them if  it's not in a certain amount of models and in that case there are repsonses too. Death lists are synergic but they are quite immortal. We have to use them. 

I see often TK and FEC armies, but i kknock them out quite easily with mix FEC; they are charateristic, but they don't have "weight".

[Squirrelmaster]

On 02/02/2017 at 10:22 AM, Teletomas said:

Hi all, thought I'd come out of hiding with a suggestion for ranged attack for death. I'm a total noob, so shut me down if I'm all wrong here:

How about Arkhan's Curse of Years spell coupled with his command trait (+6" to spells range -out of range for most ranged enemies). If you're lucky he can take out that whole ranged unit that would've been pestering your slow skellies or something worse!

Spam curse of years in safe distance for a while, when your opponent tires of this and sends for him (won't last long), you buff Arkhan up with Vanhels Dance Macabre -he's got the 'skeleton' in his war scroll -, and surprise surprise he's actually a monster in combat with 28 attacks or 34 buffed by Vamp lord as well.

He's 100 pts cheaper than neferata and 120 less than Mannfred. Also, he can help deep strike easily with his +3 to summoning. Harbingers for instance.

Bear in mind, even with his command trait you will be out of range turn 1 (assuming you go first and the armies are "more than 24 inches apart", which is the most common deployment rule).

So you're relying on the enemy going first and moving towards you, or else you have to move towards them.

If you're within 24", an enemy with (for example) 20" range and 4" movement can still shuffle forward and shoot you, coupled with the existence of cannons, stone throwers, etc. means you can't really rely on a "hang back and shoot" approach.

Moreover, Arkhan is one guy. Yeah, if you get lucky, he can delete a whole unit in one go, but that still doesn't really compete with all the armies putting out 100+ shots per turn, reliably taking out multiple characters or smaller units. Especially since one of the biggest strengths of shooting is the ability to pick out enemy characters — you can target Curse of Years against a lone character, but it tends to be a bit of a waste to do so.

You can't exactly "spam" CoY when you can only cast it once per turn.

[Teletomas]

17 hours ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Bear in mind, even with his command trait you will be out of range turn 1 (assuming you go first and the armies are "more than 24 inches apart", which is the most common deployment rule).

So you're relying on the enemy going first and moving towards you, or else you have to move towards them.

If you're within 24", an enemy with (for example) 20" range and 4" movement can still shuffle forward and shoot you, coupled with the existence of cannons, stone throwers, etc. means you can't really rely on a "hang back and shoot" approach.

Moreover, Arkhan is one guy. Yeah, if you get lucky, he can delete a whole unit in one go, but that still doesn't really compete with all the armies putting out 100+ shots per turn, reliably taking out multiple characters or smaller units. Especially since one of the biggest strengths of shooting is the ability to pick out enemy characters — you can target Curse of Years against a lone character, but it tends to be a bit of a waste to do so.

You can't exactly "spam" CoY when you can only cast it once per turn.

Good points! Thanks 

[swarmofseals]

On 2/2/2017 at 0:46 PM, deynon said:

 

I see often TK and FEC armies, but i kknock them out quite easily with mix FEC; they are charateristic, but they don't have "weight".

Are your TK opponents playing Settra lists?

[deynon]

Just now, swarmofseals said:

Are your TK opponents playing Settra lists?

50-50. Some are trying other options.  I should ask them directly cause I don't play exclusevely against them so I should ask about their own ratio.