Tropical Ghost General

Haha. That's another way to describe my rambles and moans. OK, so below is my interpretation of the 18 missions and how we fair in them, etc... I maybe completely wrong in my interpretations but am happy to be corrected. 1 - Blood & Glory (BRB): A straight forward smash and hold type of mission. Needing to wait until turn 3 before claiming objectives is good, as we can underworld units off the board and charge in and swarm the enemy objectives. As points aren't scored, we can truly ambush on this mission, which works in our favour. Only downside you'll face is if your opponent has used their units to screen you effectively. I would say this is a good mission for us. 2 - Escalation (BRB): Again, this is a fairy straight forward, smash, grab and hold. Not scoring points until turn 2, takes the pressure off doing an alpha strike or needing first turn. The shenanigans with different units needing to deploy different distances away also works in our favour, as we can underworlds most non battleline and all behemoths, so they can sit on objectives really quickly. Issues with this is that most large monsters can cover 24" without sweating. Focusing on 2 objectives but sacrificing a dummy unit to secure a 3rd can make your opponent split his force. If you are 7 points ahead by end of battleround 3, you have won the game. So sending chaff onto a 3rd objective can win it early on. I would say this is a good mission for us. 3 - Border War (BRB): More tactical than the first two missions, baiting your opponent is the best way to secure victory. Unless your opponent has left a massive gap at the back deployment, aiming for the back objective is often not worth it. I normally sacrifice a unit of 10 grims or 20 rasps to charge their castle on the back objective, because it forces them to deal with the threat, it's not a super threat but enough that it needs attention. Big blobs of rasps or grims sitting on the objectives in turn 1 and 2 will pretty much win the game, as you'll be up 10-2 by end of battleround 2. I would say this is a good mission for us. 4 - Three Places Of Power (BRB): This one is difficult for us to do. We struggle to deal with big monster heroes and we have none ourselves. Having a 14 wound monster with doppelganger cloak sit on an objective the entire game will win it for you, especially as the points increase the longer your on the objective. As our heroes are so squishy, the only thing we can do is use fast moving heroes (like Reik or dreadblades) to sit on objectives early turn 1 and bubble wrap the hell out of them, so only shooting attacks are able to get through. This mission is not in our favour though. I would say this is a bad mission for us, really bad. 5 - Gifts From The Heavens (BRB): This is an odd one and the points scoring can make the game swing wildly either way. Using chaff to sit on our objective is key, as you'll need everything else to be focusing on your opponents attacks on your own objective and your attacks on their objective. As objectives are secured by most bodies within 6", you can use superior numbers to claim last minute victory. Big units of rasps or grims with lots of healing/reviving can make this an easy mission depending on your opponent. I would say this is a neutral mission for us. 6 - Take And Hold (BRB): This is basically a straight up fight to the death. Any missions with just two objectives means there is very limited focus for you and your opponent. It's highly unlikely that you'll be able to underworlds onto their rear objective. Lower model count armies will struggle against us but they'll more than likely be more aggressive as well. Double bubble wrap our own objective and create as many endless waves of attacks as possible. Our fly ability, even when piling in, makes it a lot easier to secure the opponent's objective, especially as the models can be from different units. I would say this is a neutral mission for us. 7 - Knife To The Heart (GHB18): Another smash and grab type mission. Really similar conditions to Take And Hold, except there is more room to underworlds behind your opponent. Any missions with a single focus aren't great for us in my opinion. I would say this is a neutral mission for us. 8 - Total Conquest (GHB18): A pain in the bum to set up, a lot of players I know veto this one just because of the deployment set up ?. Having multiple objectives is good for us as it splits the opponents focus. As this is about scoring the most points, be careful not to take am objective unless you are certain you can hold it, as you score bonus points for reclaiming previously held objectives. Using dummy/sacrificial units can lead to giving more points away. Luckily big blobs of rasps or grims can be hard to shift. Whether we do well on this mission is massively down to who you'll be facing on the board. I would say this is a neutral mission for us. 9 - Duality Of Death (GHB18): Basically a more difficult version of Three Places Of Power, as there are only two objectives rather than 3. Points increase the longer the objectives are sat on, so again it favours behemoth heroes, which we don't have. I once play this against Sylvaneth, they set woods on the objective, sat a tree lord in the woods, I couldn't do anything to it, as I had no -2 rend in the list at the time, was a very quick game. I would say this is a bad mission for us. 10 - Battle For The Pass (GHB18): Basically this is Border War but with different deployment. Having multiple objectives that anyone can hold, lots of room to underworlds (18" from table edge to objective ?) makes it easy to split your opponent's focus. I would say this is a good mission for us. 11 - Starstrike (GHB18): A tweaked version of Gifts From The Heavens. Due to the random nature of where the objectives could land, our fast moving units helps a lot with this mission. It's one of those missions that can decided in turn 3 when the objectives land on the board, as they can all be 100% in your favour. I tend to gamble when playing this mission and aim to control an entire side of the board. If the objectives land centrally they aren't too far away, if they land next to me I've won, if they land furthest away from me, I've lost. I would say this is a neurtal mission for us. 12 - Scorched Earth (GHB18): This mission relies on spreading our and that isn't good for us, as the objectives can be burnt on player turn, it means having limited spread out spooks are a very soft target to attack. I tend to burn one of the far objectives with a tiny chaff unit to limit the amount objectives that I have to defend. If my opponent doesn't do the same, then I underworlds units onto the weakest held objective. Bubble wrap your own as much as possible. And this is an auto win game for lizards players, due to their teleporting shenanigans, yes Stormcast also teleport/deepstrike but they have smaller unit sizes to claim objectives. Taking a dreadblade as a general can make this an auto win mission for us as well. I would say this is a good mission for us (unless playing lizards). 13 - Total Commitment (GHB18): Having no reserves for this mission makes this bad for us. Using a dreadblade general can overcome that but overall having one of the main faction mechanics disabled isn't helpful. Other than that it's a straight up smash and grab, with greater rewards for grabbing. Using dummy units to split focus can help to secure victory though. I would say this is a bad mission for us. 14 - Focal Points (GHB18): This mission is great for us. More objectives, means even more split focus from your opponent. Underworlding chaff units as dummy attacks and misleading your opponent is very easy for us on this mission. It can get easy to get a guaranteed victory by end of turn 3 on the mission, depending on your opponent that is. I would say this is a good mission for us. 15 - Better Part Of Valour (GHB18): This mission is a bit silly in my opinion. The points available for holding objectives means games can end with both players having 30+ victory points. It's another smash, grab and hold type mission. Having the spread out our forces isn't great though and this mission will massively depend on your opponent, if you have power of numbers great, but if they can move fast and hit hard, that's not so great. I would say this is a neutral mission for us. 16 - Shifting Objectives (GHB18): I really like this mission due to the random aspect of it. Due to the deployment type, and the fact that everything is focused in a very narrow corridor, I wouldn't say it's a great mission for us as a faction. Sure we can blob in the objectives, but it also means the opponent only has a single area to focus down on. I would say this is a bad mission for us. 17 - Arcane Places Of Power (GHB18): Just like Three Places Of Power and Duality Of Death, this mission is won by large monsters, which we don't have. If the black coach had the hero keyword than maybe we would be able to stand a chance, but this is another mission that is weighed heavily against us as a faction. I would say this is a bad mission for us. 18 - The Relocation Orb (GHB18): Due to wizards or heroes counting as 20 models, this mission again favours large behemoths. The skewed nature of the 2nd player getting more points, means that the game can be over by end of turn 3. I love the random aspect of the orb moving around the board, but again it's a single focus point for your opponent. I would say this is a bad mission for us. Wowser, that took longer than I thought to write out ?. @Future as you mentioned that you are relatively new to the game, I've tried to keep it all fairly basic, as there is a lot of ground to cover. Certain factions benefit certain missions more than others, so who you are facing has a massive outcome on whether the mission will be in your favour or not. We have some interesting tactical shenanigans that we can pull to do really well on a fair few missions, but generally when there is a single point of focus, we struggle as most of the time our opponents can either out magic us, out shoot us, out melee us or out last us. We do really well when there are multiple points of focus, as we are a hit and run ambush army, so being able to split your opponent's force is key to victory for us as a faction. Coincidentally, adding up all the good, neutral and bad missions, it's an even 6/6/6 split ?. The BRB missions are generally better for us and the last 6 in the GHB18 are generally bad for us.

No sneakiness this time. The 1k games I have on Wednesday are the beginning of many extensive tests with the spooks. I'm playing the games with as little buffs and bonuses as possible, so no cogs, etc... Reason for this is to get some game time in running units as vanilla as possible, to see how they stand up to the rigors of battle. I have to take this approach with units as I find it a lot easier to see where the faults are, than playing them at max awesome and being able to identify just how they are awesome, if that makes sense. So this week's games are testing lots of 10 man units, as it will help me to determine optimum unit size. I'm also testing the warscroll synergy of chainghasts/bladegheists, trying to see if they are a better option than torments, whether the only missile attack in the book is worth using, seeing if the unit of blades gets better support from 2x2 or 1x4, etc... Obviously any conclusions I'll post up for sharezeees.

This is the best way to be. I also agree that if we don't get that one spell or 10+ charge the whole game is so much more difficult. 4 out of 5 wins for me have been to getting 10+ charges in games. Ain't that the truth. I've stopped playing legions in 2.0 because it's too easy. It saddens me that GW put so much time into making the best looking army (without a doubt) yet have made it a lot more difficult to be able to get balanced games with. The vast majority of my loses have been where the opponents army completely out classed me or was able to bring something to the table with no way to counter it. On the plus side, less spook players makes the army more exclusive so less chances of mirror matches. Well done. Couldn't have been that easy. DoK are fortunate in that they have lots of best forms, there aren't really any bad units, and their book is solid. A friend works at a GW store and he tends to play the really strong/broken armies, and he picked DoK because of how gross they are. Against Tzeentch let them have first turn, their spells are 18", so it gives you the chance of the double turn. I would have tabled my Tzeentch opponent in turn 2 last week had I not failed 6 charges (with 1 re-roll), whilst cogs was activate, needing rolls between 4 and 6 ?. Being out in the open to mortal wounds hurts, a lot. Try and keep 2 heroes in range of units with Tzeentch so you can get death saves as well. Looking forward to hearing the results.

@Vasshpit I'm actually playing some games on Wednesday using chainghasts. Experimenting using them to soften up targets before my bladegheists attack, running the two types together to see how well they synergise. I'll post how the games go. I'm experimenting with running 2x2 and 1x4 to see which works best.

He's so good. I'm at a stage where I might have to break my purest roots and start bring in allies. Sounds like it was loads of fun, had a bunch of friends go up and they all had a great time. The blades 1" is annoying AF. I've been a big advocate for maxing out unit sizes for extra longevity but the two issues I'm finding is 1) The unit is too big to benefit from buffs and abilities, especially as everything is wholly within, so as combat happens and piling in spreads the unit out, v their losing all the buffs and bonuses, or models aren't attacking, just so that buffs can be kept. 2) Is the commitment to big units doesn't leave much points for other things. It also makes it easier for your opponent as they can really focus down on a big unit at a time, until it's all gone, whereas smaller units forces decisions about splitting attacks, yet smaller units have way less longevity on the board. It's trying to find that fine balancing act of optimum unit size for point cost, damage output, effectiveness and threat.

That would be great but I think a bit too gross if it could be modified, as it's possible to get +3 with Death riders. The 3d6 charge would be great though I reckon. Makes the elite units more viable, because I'm looking at the points costs, range of attacks, amount of attacks and grims are better nearly everytime ?. In an attempt to get some more problem solving happening, what general issues are other players finding with the faction when playing games?

Agree, but it's about new books vs old with most of the really bad factions. As the inevitable power creep happens as well, it's not great to have a new book that isn't the hot stuff out the gate. Well done on that win. That was ballsy going to a big tournament like that without having much play time under your belt. How did you find the whole event? But without allies, our healing is pretty wack as it is. Maybe we need some multi wound thing, like morghasts. I may even ally in some morghasts in the next few games.

The meta percentage shows the popularity of spooks at competitive events. And while the fact that poor players can make up those numbers, the same can be said for every faction. SCE, DoK, Deepkin are also all new armies, but they are performing consistently better at events than spooks. And outside of the comp scene there are a lot of spook players, as they are in the main boxset. I love spooks, but the army is very different in AoS 2.0 to how it was in AoS 1.0 and I'm not sure if it's better or not tbh. The battletome is weak and has lots of flaws, an example of this would be the command traits for general, in particular - Terrifying Entity - It states that for each unit in 3" roll a single dice and if the roll is equal to or higher than the units bravery characteristic they have to make a retreat move. So how does this work against bravery 7+, it doesn't. Now if we could bravery bomb, which we can only do with endless spells, it might be effective or useful. Sure we can add the -1 from Aura of dread, but most low bravery units can also use the bravery characteristics of nearby heroes or other similar buffs. So even if you take one of the lowest bravery scores in the game, a 4, it's a 50/50 chance that you'll do anything with the ability. Why they didn't make it roll 2d6 or something like that I don't know, but it's just one of many examples throughout the book where the abilities and functions of units don't work very well when on the tabletop. At blood and glory a lot of LoN players were using spooks, especially grims, and due to how LoN got the top 3 and generally dominated at the tournament, it's pretty obvious that a nerf will be coming to grims in the future. So without grimghasts, where does that leave us as a competitive presence in the tournament scene? Personally I have started writing lists without any grims in them, because While I may be negative with my comments on bedsheets, I am at least trying to solve some of the problems that we face as a faction, rather than not accept them. We are a mid-tier army, we are near the top of the mid-tier armies, but we are no way a top tier army. Very good players can make even mediocre units work, but that doesn't mean that everyone can, I certainly couldn't make those 3 winning lists work on the tabletop. Now I've said these points over and over, and apart from anecdotal evidence, I've yet to have been proved wrong on this. We are a horde army, that's a fact. Using lots of small units doesn't work as none of them have enough damage or staying power. We play the attrition game, but are not the best at it by a long shot, try playing against Nurgle or LoN and seeing who survives and revives better. We have no summoning ability. We have no big monsters that can go toe-to-toe with stuff like a VLoZD or maw krusha, adn certainly no big monsters that can take relics. None of our heroes are particularly killy. Lord O can be an effective mortal wound assassin, but she's expensive in points cost for what she can do. None of our units do multiple damage except myrmourns and they are very fragile. The only non hero units that have multiple wounds are hexwraiths and SHs, neither are great choices, hexwraiths become decent in the death riders battalion but are too expensive outside of it and SHs are lauded as the must have choice, but they really are not great not that mortal are unmodified 6s. All of our heroes can be one shotted off the board without too much effort, which leaves our units very exposed. GW rules teams have put too much point cost on unrendable save, they always have and always will. We have magic but are weak at it. Our spell lore is not good either. We need debuffs and instead we have spells like reaper scythe, which is never worth it. We have the most pointless faction specific endless spells. One of which heals D3 or kills D3, yet it doesn't revive D3 though, so useless for almost everything that we have. We have a lot of attacks and abilities that rely on bravery related elements, yet no way of bravery bombing outside of endless spells. I can take harridans in Legion of Blood as an ally and get a -3/-4 bravery with ease. That makes there ability worth while. The majority of our battalions rely on a single spell to go off or a single hero to still be on the tabletop, both of these things are incredibly easy to navigate around and nullify the battalion ability. We are incredibly weak to mortal wound spam, especially if our heroes get sniped first. All ghosts are better in LoN than they are in their own book. Without cogs we struggle to do what we need to do. Now as I've also stated before, time and time again, I love ghosts, but I'm realistic with what we have. I'm playing lots of games and running lots of different combos and formations, testing and trying things out. I somehow have managed to amass over 6k of these bedsheets ?, but I know the limitations that we have as an army. A few of us on this forum have bounced ideas around as simple fixes to help things out. And it's not major changes either, stuff like... Give named characters a 3+ save. Make one of the endless spells a buffing spell, like SCE have or BoC have, rather than 3 rubbish predatory spells that never get used. Allow the hero in shroudguard to benefit from the 5+ death save as well as the bladegheists. Lower the cost of The Condemned battalion by 30pts or so as well. Have a method to bravery bomb or failing that, have a built in 2d6+3 to bravery rolls, so that the bravery related attacks have a chance to do something. Or have a spell in the spell lore that lowers bravery by half, making 10s to 5s, etc... There is a lot of bravery 8+ currently in the meta, meaning the majority of what we have is useless against almost everything. Make Reikenor cast 2 spells a turn, yet still deny 1. He's meant to be a super wizard FFS. Increase his cost if need be, but make him a decent wizard. Make bladegheists, myrmourns and harridans 2 wounds each. Give them a points increase if need be, but give the army some actual elite units. Now all of those points listed would be great in a dream world scenario, but it will never happen. So all that we can do, is try and figure out how to play with what we have got, which is what I do, but I find repeatedly that a lot of players reference odd single victories in competitions or in personal games. I've started working on a nighthaunt specific table of competition results, to get a much more in-depth picture of how we are doing as an army, and it's not great. I'm also finding that there is this delusional optimism amongst many spook players, and I've never experienced it with any other faction or army, and that's in both AoS and 40k. To have negative opinions on things gets chastised and denied by a lot of ghost players, yet without proving any evidence to back it up, with the majority of comments going along the lines of "Well it works for me, so therefore...", now this attitude is not helpful to a community, as it prevents any real discussions taking place on how to fix the problems, replacing discussions with denials that the problems even exist. If I took the same approach, I'd be constantly saying that grimghasts are rubbish and taking 30 is pointless, don't bother with grimghasts, but that's because I've recently discovered from the results at Blood & Glory, that I have a really competitive local meta, where all the players know how to very quickly dismantled 2 x 30 grims in a turn or two. So for me grimghasts aren't the best choice, but that doesn't mean that they aren't the best choice for 95% of every other player out there, and my opinion doesn't magically change the maths behind how much of hammer 30 grims are, because they are gross, they really are. A classic example of this delusional optimism is going onto something like fb group and stating that SHs are not very good, because the maths shows that they are not the best choice of the options we have available, yes they have a 1/6 chance of doing mortal wounds, but other than those mortal wounds, they hit on 4s, wound on 5s, with 0 rend. That is not a good choice, to revive a dead model requires a 5+ as well. Yet even with this information, these hard facts, you'll get a torrent of denials of why they are the best thing in the book. It's really odd and as I stated above, I've never experienced it in any other faction group. Now the whole reason for that rant was to highlight that it's not healthy for the community, it's not helping anyone to overcome the issues that players are facing on a regular basis. So many ghost players have switched over to LoN, because it's a much better book and way more forgiving to mistakes in gameplay. Basically, there are have a few good results, but the majority of tournament results have been in the mid to bottom half of the table. So how can we improve on this? I think we need to identify where we have issues. One I've recently found is that we struggle when trying to deal with big monsters with relics. The solution I've found is to stick the Chamon relic 'Gildanbane' on a Lord Ex. As the relic negates enemy relic abilities within 3". Also the Lord ex makes enemy heroes have -1 to hit when within 3". Also, out of all of our heroes, due to the extra 5+ against mortal wounds, the Lord Ex is the tankiest hero we have, and you want him to survive long enough that your 30 grims can charge a doppelganger cloacked monster on a 10+ and get the free attack and wipe it off the board, Also at 80pts, it's relatively cheap to make happen. It's by identifying the issues that solutions can be found, not by denying that there are any problems.

We have had a few good results I agree, but if you look at the overall data from all the tournaments since 2.0, and it's not great tbh. I love the spooks, but I'm also realistic with the data that comes from these events.

OK. So latest tournament news for those who are interested. The Blood & Glory GT results are in. 166 players took part, 8 were bedsheet generals. 5 games over 2 days. Placings were 60th, 74th, 92nd, 104th, 113th, 127th, 147th & 163rd. Meta attendance of 4.8% and a win rate of 40%. Well done to those that took part and a shame that no one could get a 4-1 or 5-0, but as I've said on other posts, we are a mid tier army with a weak book. Also it turns out that my friend who absolutely smashed by death stalkers list came 24th out if 166. Others in my group came 28th, 32nd and 48th. I think it's fair to say I have a mildly competitive local meta ?.

I'm having to look at other options to grims, they aren't effective against the majority of my opponents any more. Sucks major plums. ?

More instances of bedsheets doing better in LoN at Blood and Glory. So I haven't seen the full results, but it looks like LoN took top 3 at Blood and Glory this weekend. All lists using a unit of either 20 or 30 grims. The top list used 2 units of 6 spirit hosts. Then buffed them with a necromancers spell 'vanhels danse macabre' to make them attack twice in the combat phase. And then further buffed them with a Vamp lord on dragon to give the unit re-roll failed hit rolls until next hero phase. So that 36 attacks, twice, re-rolling failed hits to create a shed ton of mortal wounds. Just another case of bedsheets being better in LoN than they are in their own book ?. Hats off to the winner (Russ) for some well thought out list building and combo shenanigans.

So I've just found out that the majority of my local gaming group got 4-1's at Blood and Glory. The rest getting 3-2's. And one person getting 1 draw, 4 loses. No wonder I've been having difficulty playing with my spooks against them, they're all decent tournament players ?.

As stand alone models not great. As a general for a list built entirely around the teleporting mechanic, they are alright

Element games ones ?

@MeridarchGekkota To be honest it depends massively on your local meta and budget. While board at work today I figured out that I have got: - 6440pts of built and painted models. - 2530pts of heroes. - 3330pts in units (including doing horde bonuses wherever possible). - 580pts in behemoths. I also have 340pts of unbuilt heroes left over from soul wars, plus the 2 of the 500th store bladegheists ?. I also don't own any harridans (yet) and not enough hexwraiths, myrmourns or Black Coaches either. The general units that are super easy 'plug and play' types are grimghasts (grims), chainrasps (rasps). Best heroes are spirit torments (ST), guardian of souls (GoS) , Knight of Shrouds on ethereal steed (KoSos) and Reikenor (Riek). Also an ally of a Vampire Lord (VL) is a general staple of most armies. Taking cogs endless spell is also the norm for most players. Other units like myrmourn banshees (myrmourns) , bladegheist revenants (blades), dreadscythe harridans (harridans) are all units that require a little more finesse to play. Then hexwraiths (hexs) and spirit hosts (SHs) are not the best choices when compared with other options in the book. Our only behemoth options are black coach (BC) which is temperamental and the mourngul (old wispy hair) which currently isn't doing enough for it's points. Getting the warscroll cards is super handy. Getting 2 x soul wars can be a great starting block for any army. Getting movement trays helps to speed up game play if you play larger horde units. The anniversary GoS is awesome in both sculpt and warscroll. Best advice is go with rule of cool, use proxies to try stuff out, and most importantly play lots of games against lots of opponents, whether large or small, and you'll learn very quickly what works and doesn't work for you.

The battletome

It's the small size of the units of the blades that surprised me. Everytime I've ran less than 15 they get one shotted off the table, even when in the battalion. In all honesty, the 3 lists that have done well at major comps (Blackout, GW GT Final & Cali Comp), all of the lists have been wildly different, none of them have followed the conventional 'rules' behind successful list building. That last one has no cogs, 7 drops (which is quite high), and just 10 grims. I also don't think that any of those lists are particularly easy to use for the average player and I suspect that their was a fair amount of luck involved with which missions and realms were played. It's great to see ghosts doing well at comps though, makes me feel hopeful and sad at the same time.

Beautiful model, bad rules for the points. Play it in fun games but not competitive. The spell lore in LoN is in 2 parts. Deathmages (Necromancers) and Vampires (Vamp Lord, etc). The mortarchs and Nagash (praise be) can take spells from either lore. All other wizards can only take spells from the spell lore that the keywords on their warscrolls let them. Also Nagash and Arkhan have an ability that let's them know the spells of all other DEATH wizards. I believe it was FAQ'd that endless spells don't count, because you need to pay the points for them, so if two death players face each other, one brings Nagash, one brings endless spells, the Nagash player can't use the endless spells as they haven't paid the points to use them. If you use GoS in LoN it can't use any of the spells from the spell lore. Also allies don't get access to spell lore, from either the main faction battletome or the ally unit's battletome. Also allies don't get access to artefacts or allegiance abilities (so no death saves). Firstly the realm spells can only be used if playing in that realm. Realms are normally picked at random before the game begins. So the GoS can't choose the Shyish spell as a spell for any old game. Also you can't ally in Necromancers, I wish you could, but Nighthaunt allies are Soulblight & Deathlords only. Necromancers are deathmages so can't be allied, unless you are playing narrative or open play games, just not in matched play. As I've been saying more and more recently, you have to play as many games against as many opponents as possible to figure out what units work for you. In my local meta, it's fairly competitive, lots of behemoth heroes with doppelganger cloaks, etc...so there are only a small handful of units in the book that I can use if I want to survive longer than a single turn. Everyone's local meta is different, so advising on lists is purely speculative and the opinions you'll get will generally vary wildly, and may not be useful to you and your play style. In my opinion you have some good starting blocks but it's missing some key elements. Listen to this podcast for more help on list building http://podcast.justplaygames.uk/how-to-build-a-tournament-winning-list

In 1k most list will be 3 or 4 drop. Occasionally it will be 1 but rarely. You want to either aim for first turn and minimise your drops or sack off getting first turn altogether and have a more well rounded army. If it was me I'd either go: 1k Low Drops GoS (spectral tether - for self healing) VL 40 Chainrasps 30 Grims Cogs & Swords (endless spells) 1k Many Drops GoS (spectral tether - for self healing) GoS (shademist - for unit buffing) (also give artefact gildanbane for negating doppelganger cloaks). VL 30 Grims 10 Chainrasps 10 Chainrasps Cogs (endless spell) I should add, those are lists that work for play style and are based on my opinion, which isn't the best tbh ?. One of the new missions require heroes with artefacts or wizards, others require heroes to hold objectives, having more is better. Having 2 regular GoS's will help to keep healing going should one die, it allows you to play one aggressively as well, so that the grims are wounding on 2's in his buff bubble. The rasps are minimum size for holding objectives and to act as a screen. The VL should go with the grims and one of the GoS's, and use that castle as your big hammer unit.

The VL won't give the reaper the Death Save of 6++, as allies can't take allegiance abilities. So be careful as a straight up 4+ isn't going to make them survive very long. Also, the SHs aren't an offensive unit, occasionally they may work against chaff, but they lack any punch. You'd be better off running the torment with the grims and VL with the SHs. Still keep the VL in range to buff the grims, but without any heroes to help them those grims will die quickly and it's your only hammer unit. Lady O is a mortal wound assassin, she needs to dive in quickly and get out again just as quick.

OK. So there isn't much difference between the lists except that one helps to buff your rasps and gives you the extra CP and relic from having a battalion. The dreadblade isn't a great unit, the only time that it becomes viable is if it's your general and you use it to teleport itself and other units around the board, but you have to build a list around this mechanic, which yours doesn't seem to be, as you want units that are self reliant, for example, teleporting a unit of harridans over to tie up a unit or take an objective. Both lists have lots of objective holders/tarpits units, but neither have much in the way of hammer units. The 20 grims are about it, when they die you aren't left with much punch. Glaivewraiths are only good at sitting on backfield objectives or being bodies on the board that allow other units to deepstrike in. The slow speed and lack of rend make them ineffective at securing already held objectives and the general unit cost makes them unable to be able to take out large squads or smaller heroes (normally bubble wrapped by those large squads). Reik is a solid choice but Lady O is really situational as to whether she'll do effective or not. Against freeguild it should be a good choice but beware of the volume of fire from shooting, -1 to hit doesn't make much difference of your opponent is rolling a bucket load of dice. All our heroes are super susceptible to getting nuked in a turn of magic or shooting and a 4++ isn't going to help against 30 saving throws or a ton of mortals being thrown at you. As you can't pass off the wounds to nearby fodder, like necromancers can, all your heroes will die very quickly with focused attacks. Ask your opponent what range the shooting is before deployment, assess what your movement speed is and how quickly you can engage those target unit, is it going to take 2 turns to reach them, if so can you survive a turn of shooting, etc... The palisade is great at blocking line of site, so is gravetide. Use these and the terrain to figure out how to focus on your opponent. SHs what to bubble wrap Lady O. They are not great units, 0 rend, mortals on unmodified 6s now makes them only good as tarpit or screening units. Your general (if not Lady O) can heal them back more effectively than she can using Ruler of the Spirit Hosts, but then you are putting 2 heroes to buff 6 SHs, which is wasting resources. It will have to be one of those play and see situations as to whether you decide to make the SHs super buffed or not. Last thing I'll mention is always play for the mission. Generally we have great movement and can get on objectives quickly, and once on them we are better than average at holding them, we are not the best by a long shot, but we are alright at it. Play the mission, no matter how tempting it is to go over and smash face ?.

For 1k, drop the torment and 30 rasps and take 30 grims instead, less drops, same number of bodies and better damage output. The VL will heal consistently better than the torment as well.

Yeah, one with a scythe, whip and a scary mask, the other with just his hands held out (yawn). One is to represent soul grasp the other is to represent the reaper scythe (which is the better choice), but it's a bit like on of those cases of WYSIWYG but I doubt anyone will care if you have the wrong dude on the wagon, rule of cool in it. Go with the top list. I have suggestions for days, but ultimately you need to play games and figure out what is working your for. Personally I think the only help with lists that anyone can really give is when you are up against a particular problem, such as a big monster with doppelganger cloak, or if you keep losing on objectives or a certain mission. Otherwise it's all speculation and what works for me may not work for you. There is a really good podcast I listen to and they've just done an episode on list building, well worth a listen. http://podcast.justplaygames.uk/how-to-build-a-tournament-winning-list

Nah, it's one per player and it stacks. On another note, have finished the conversion build part of my BC. Didn't like the over hang or 'santa and his flying reindeer' look of the original sculpt. Also added the spare rider holding a lantern and hour glass to add something extra to the mix. Not fully stuck together yet as I need to paint in sub assembly.