Theorycrafting a competitive-ish Frostheart Phoenix list

[swarmofseals]

While I really shouldn't be allowing myself to dabble in such frivolity, what with so much Sylvaneth and Tomb Kings to paint, I can't help but think about building a list around one of my favorite warscrolls, the Frostheart Phoenix. I'm a bit of a bird nerd and hate the GW model, but there are some fantastic alternatives out there (lets just say I have SEVERAL Gamezone Wind Riders in storage). I also think the warscroll is very strong, featuring good speed and defense along with respectable offense and even a little utility.

The question, however, is how to build one (or preferably more) into a list that works in the context of today's metagame. I'm not expecting to develop a tier 1 list here, and I certainly don't expect to develop good matchups against Rukk, Aetherstrike, Skyfires, and Mixed Destro but managing to be something other than totally hopeless against all of those lists would be fantastic. 

There is basically no reason that I can think of to take an allegiance other than Order, so our choices are pretty wide open.

Frostheart Phoenixes are already decent against Skyfires, Raptors,  and Thundertusks albeit not great. Their 4++ definitely makes the mortal wounds less scary. That said, they are going to get shredded by Savage Arrowboyz. 

Frosties greatly benefit from a heavy magic phase, but with certain limitations. The magic has to be cast relatively close to them (12"). This puts us in a bit of a vise in a couple of ways. First, most casters are very vulnerable to long ranged shooting. This can be mitigated to some extent by LoS blocking terrain. However, the casters that are small enough to benefit from said terrain are likely to be slow and thus unable to keep up with the Phoenixes. This problem may be solvable by using the Frosties as counterpunchers in an otherwise heavily ranged list which encourages the enemy to extend into a forward position, but I'm not sure that is really possible against other heavy ranged lists. Can you think of any multi-spell casters that are both fast and resilient enough to work in tandem with the phoenixes? The Sylvaneth Gnarlroot battalion would be fantastic for this except for the fact that it'd be super awful without the Sylvaneth allegiance. Is it better to just forget about this? A mounted Jade Wizard seems like a possibility, although that's only one spell. Healing Phoenixes seems good though. The Fay Enchantress casts two spells and has a very nice move characteristic, but again she's a 5 wound hero and worse yet her abilities are very specific to brets/free peoples. I suppose she could be useful if one found a way to work at least one unit of melee brets into the list. Damsel on Pegasus could work as well. Some other options for fast casters include: Malekith, Sorceress on Black Dragon, Morathi, Doomfire Warlocks and Sisters of the Thorn. Morathi is nice with two spells and a fast move, but she's very vulnerable to shooting and doesn't bring anything particularly interesting to the table in terms of spell effects. The Sorc on Black Dragon has a lot more wounds but does cost quite a bit and only has one spell. Malekith is tough, hits hard and casts two spells but his cost is astronomical. Both of the "unit casters" are interesting, providing speed and more wounds per point than the characters. They are still quite expensive though. Sisters' spell is very powerful though, and it synergizes well with a phoenix. The Phoenix's speed allows you to get it into melee pretty easily, which can force your opponent to attack it and eat a ton of mortal wounds from the Sisters' spell. Of course, shooting a unit of Sisters off the table is not exactly difficult.

Are there any reliable ways of projecting hit debuffs that would work well? The Dark Aelf Sorceress and Skink Starpriest seem interesting, albeit in a skeptical-of-5-wound-heroes kind of way. Teclis would be great if it weren't for the combination of lack of mobility and fragility. 

Beyond that, I have to wonder about what the most cost effective options against both mortal wounds and massed bulk shooting are. Does order have anything that really stands out in terms of raw points per wound and/or raw points per effective wound against non-rendy shooting? 

In terms of ranged options, a lot of GA: Order's long ranged shooting is crewed artillery. I'm a bit skeptical of this against Skyfires, Kurnoths, Raptors, and Thundertusks. One option that could perhaps be interesting is the Bastiladon. Kurnoth Hunters are of course always an option, as they really don't need the Sylvaneth allegiance to be good. 

Thoughts?

[Aezeal]

Thoughts? My first thought after reading this is that the GW model looks nice. (And that what I've seen of those Gamezone things look like warhawkriders and not phoenices).

[Chumphammer]

Heya,

Only just getting back into AoS myself but been playing with my old high elves.

So I played this 1000pt list for 7 games and only lost once (to the guy who won the tournament with stormcast)

Annointed on Frostheart (General) 
Master of Defense/Phoenix stone

Loremaster

2 x 10 Glade Guard

2 x 10 Phoenix guard with command.

Seemed to work well with the loremaster giving the frostheart rerolls/+1 AS and then the pheonix guard holding objective/dealing damage.

The GG with arcane bodkins really helps for the 1 off volley vs high armour

 

The current 2k list I am looking at is:

Annointed on Frostheart (General) 
Master of Defense/Phoenix stone

Annointed on Flamespyre

Loremaster

Celestial mage on life

2 x 10 Glade Guard

10 Spearmen

2 x 10 Phoenix guard with command.

2 x Bolt throwers

Bastilidon

With the aim being spearmen hold an objective, PG and GG same as before, bolt throwers to weaken monsters while the pheonix go have fun.

Mage to help heal when he can as it really helps and the loremaster hand of glory on the bastilidon 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[swarmofseals]

3 hours ago, Aezeal said:

Thoughts? My first thought after reading this is that the GW model looks nice. (And that what I've seen of those Gamezone things look like warhawkriders and not phoenices).

The Wind Riders are significantly larger than warhawks, but you are correct that the aren't quite as large as the GW phoenix kit. My main complaints with the GW kit are that the pose is boring, the snowflakes look terrible and the helmet looks derpy as hell. All three of the wind riders have better poses, are sculpted more expressively, and look more like actual birds. I think the challenge in making it look like a phoenix will mostly come from the painting.