Do Combat only characters get any use?

[Oppenheimer]

I use a variety of vampire lords, necromancers, wight kings, Liche priests and mummies on foot. That's not because I necessarily think they are the best but because I have so many from 8e where mounted versions were ineffective, that I want to keep using.

[Spiky Norman]

I field the Herald of Nurgle.

Not because he is worth the 100pts, but because there is a general lack of alternative, if you play Nurgle Daemons.

[Warboss Gorbolg]

10 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

A non general Megaboss makes a good combat character and is a fairly common sight. I also like the skullgrinder 

Related, a second Megaboss also seems to be getting some use.

[Dez]

Warchanter for sure. I also bring a Packmaster or two depending on my Skaven list...but they are super weak and I rely on it's defensive ability of being low down on the threat meter to keep it alive.

[Grailstorm]

A few of the Wanderers heroes are pretty good for boosting the damage output of a nearby unit, especially one that's defence focused, like Eternal Guard. 

The Nomad Prince will usually be a general because of his ability, but if another general is being used then he's pretty killy and has a nifty shooting attack that, if it lands, can dramatically affect the game (-1 to hit on an enemy character for the whole battle).

The Waywatcher hero is pretty good too, as is the great sword hero who used to be a Glade Lord (forget his name).

 

[TrexPushups]

I'm hoping my skullgrinder is useful. But even he is included for the hope that his blood blessing ability triggers


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[Bjarni St.]

1 hour ago, Dez said:

Warchanter for sure. I also bring a Packmaster or two depending on my Skaven list...but they are super weak and I rely on it's defensive ability of being low down on the threat meter to keep it alive.

Warchanters are buff heroes, not fighters. Same for the Packmaster.

[Veterannoob]

Only use for me is Grimwrath berzerkers and I always use 1-3.  

[Taketheskull]

I'd like to see a lot more useful combat heroes, but most current ones have to low damage output.

My personal bugbear is how lightweight the Khorne heroes are, I mean they are Khorne heroes, they should wreck face. If you want to define a Khorne hero you shouldn't come up with sentences like "his neat command ability synergizes well with other units". You need to be saying "he wrecks face!".

[Steve Rose]

I use a black orc big boss in my iron jawz. He is on a 32mm like the ard boyz so can "tag" units and is very choppy when within 10" of another orruk character. Has rend -2 as well so very effective at chopping through armour.

[Lucio]

Most of the units that fit that description belong to the "old" armies, the ones which haven't yet had a Battle Tome written. The ones off the top of my head that I use for Destruction are War Dokk, Savage Orruk Warboss and Warchanter, all of which have some influence to buff the army or meet requirements for battallions.

Points wise, the unit buffing is far more valuable than any raw damage output the model can bring, given the vulnerability of characters in general.

The solution? Let certain "Hero" type characters replace a unit's leader instead of being a seperate person.

[BlooDeck]

I like the Knight-Questor. But I'm a filthy narrative player who isn't that fussed about optimal builds. 

[TrexPushups]

Turns out my local GW store has a house rule that can only end up discouraging the use of combat characters.

They only allow you to pile in & attack X+1 times where X is the amount of units that the player with the least engaged units has in combat.

I have no idea why they decided to do that.


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[Tuluth]

The two I use, Orruk Megaboss and Black Orc Big Boss. Especially if I run something else as the general (either another Megaboss or a Brute unit leader), the Big Boss is only getting buffed himself, and depending on positioning, the Megaboss  won't be buffing anything (he only buffs Brutes if he's close enough). This leaves them to be more about killing things than anything else. Or, in the off chance you have a Big Boss with the shield, it becomes a tanky character (for Destruction) with that natural reroll  to failed saves. For the 2H version, he's 3/3/3/-2/D3.

But then, I guess that's more an example of units where the command ability isn't used at all, not ones that don't have one at all.

[Cayhn]

I like the Mighty Lord of Khorne, I always throw him at the biggest and baddest thing they got, mystic shield him and pray that he survives so I can go all Axe of Khorne on the baddie.

[Cayhn]

8 minutes ago, Cayhn said:

I like the Mighty Lord of Khorne, I always throw him at the biggest and baddest thing they got, mystic shield him and pray that he survives so I can go all Axe of Khorne on the baddie.

Just realized that he got a command ability. My bad!

[Bimli]

Being a dispossessed player I fund bugman, and grim burlockson are a good add. I have also used the dwarf lord on shield bearers and the warden king  I am probably gonna start running ungrim cause he is straight cool and aint to shabby of a character.

There is plenty of character id use for the dispossessed army

[sal4m4nd3r]

On 2/8/2017 at 11:04 PM, GRex said:

I use the Lord of Plagues as part of my Rotbringer Battalion. It's nice having a rend character in with the Blightkings. 

But do you actually use him as the general?? When I run blightguard, I always bring the harbinger as a general and the lor of plagues is just sort of.. basically an additional 100 point tax for the battalion. 

[BrocknerTheBear]

There are some combat characters that do good work but usually they work best in smaller points games where it's less likely they will be blown off the board by a hail of arrows or left behind by movement shenanigans. Once the points go up, utility and force multiplier heroes become far more important to counter other armies doing the same. It's the units in larger games that do the damage so combat chaps get left on the shelf (this is why I prefer smaller point games - I likes me some hero hammer)

[Taketheskull]

4 hours ago, sal4m4nd3r said:

But do you actually use him as the general?? When I run blightguard, I always bring the harbinger as a general and the lor of plagues is just sort of.. basically an additional 100 point tax for the battalion. 

If you give the Harbinger and the Lord of Plagues Chaos Runeblades they become noticeably hittier, and the Lord of Plagues doesn't seem to be quite the points sink he was.

[sal4m4nd3r]

1 minute ago, Taketheskull said:

If you give the Harbinger and the Lord of Plagues Chaos Runeblades they become noticeably hittier, and the Lord of Plagues doesn't seem to be quite the points sink he was.

Great point and an idea I will try! I usually give the HArbinger a beguiling gem as a -1 to hit debuff to stack with the plaguetouched warband -1 to hit debuff and possibly bloabs debuff. But as you said an extra 1-3 wounds can be pretty damaging.. especially as it is all game and not just one turn. 

 

Looking at how they gave tzeentch a nice haul of traits and artefacts.. cant wait until more subfactions get battletomes!

[Kyriakin]

I am including Lokhir Fellheart, as it means ten fewer Corsairs to paint, transport, move and die.

[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎09‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 6:41 AM, Ollie Grimwood said:

A non general Megaboss makes a good combat character and is a fairly common sight.

Yeah a Megaboss is a great example. Even in multiples they do not have diminishing returns. Just super solid damage output, especially with Battlebrew.

On ‎09‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 1:32 PM, Thomas Lyons said:

In Destruction, I've run Night Goblin Big Bosses as combat characters since buffed they can do double damage on a 6+ to wound (from a friendly command ability) and the boss' squig's bite goes to a D6 on those 6+ to wound.  Coupled with a Battlebrew, these little Big bosses can pack quite a surprising punch. 

This is a nice option. I've seen this choice spammed for cheap, glass cannons that can potentially put out pretty horrific damage....especially you're willing to stick Battlebrew on them and double swig!

On ‎09‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 5:01 PM, Dez said:

Warchanter for sure.

I'm not sure I'd count things like the Warchanter in this group tbh. That said, he is a vital piece in any Ironjawz army.

On ‎12‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 10:29 AM, Steve Rose said:

I use a black orc big boss in my iron jawz. He is on a 32mm like the ard boyz so can "tag" units and is very choppy when within 10" of another orruk character. Has rend -2 as well so very effective at chopping through armour.

Yup, the "Ardnob" is not bad at for 100 points. I've had some decent results with him. As you say the Rend 2 is pretty tasty. Worth noting he does have a Command Ability that for a time I thought had large potential in a mass Brute list. However the range is kinda prohibitive to this, so I think his best use is as a pure combat unit. That said, I have dropped him for support units (either Warchanter or Weirdnob Shaman) in more recent lists.

[The World Tree]

 Sylvaneth don't really have them, so no. In my Bloodbound I've never found much use of them because the whole army fights well and the buffs are what are needed.

[GRex]

On 2/14/2017 at 5:43 AM, sal4m4nd3r said:

But do you actually use him as the general?? When I run blightguard, I always bring the harbinger as a general and the lor of plagues is just sort of.. basically an additional 100 point tax for the battalion. 

I have, but mainly run the Glotkin. His command ability is pretty bad in my opinion but does stack with the Blightkings for an extra dice roll.