Tropical Ghost General

LoN got hit hard with the points changes in GHB. Also the entire book has no answer to the activation wars other than it's debuff spells, but when your casters have gone up in points what can you do. The average sacrament list went up by 130pts+ and the average Nagash list by 200pts+. When I went to Blackout there was only 2 or 3 LoN players out of 96. There was 4 NH and a good handful of FEC. But it wasn't a great showing of DEATH armies. I'm really keen to see what the Grand Alliance list from the WW GT was using.

So Warhammer World GT Finals was this weekend. Pretty poor attendance of DEATH armies. Only 5 out of 65. 3 x FEC, 1 x TK and 1 x Grand Alliance. None of the 5 LoN legions or NH. 😢 This will change obviously when bonereapers drop, but I can see LoN and NH getting pushed further and further into the fringes.

Double turn is fine. Current damage output is the issue. I've started running a narrative/open evening. No army build restrictions, only rule is leave the cheesey game breaking stuff at home. It's meant people are using their dusty 'less than optimal' units, that would never see the table in a competitive sense. The result is that stuff like the double turn is powerful, but it doesn't create moments of 'feel bad' from getting hit twice fromunits that attack 4 times doing 5789 mortal wounds before dealing 998899999789 damage from their attacks (I exaggerate a bit but you get the meaning 😂). The issue of player 2 doing nothing for 2 hours on the double turn hasn't been a problem in my local scene until the activation wars started happening, when the game truly created moments of 'zero interaction' other than removing models. But I haven't seen much been mentioned about finding solutions to that in this thread. Also the game currently is already too long with lots of bloat to the rules as it is. So alternative activation would only increase the game time 10 fold. I play necromunda a lot, which has alternative activation and even with 10 models each, some games have lasted 4hrs+. Moving units one at a time slows down play a lot. It works for GW's skirmish games, but no one is going to want to go to a tournament with average game times of 4hrs per round, most are currently 2.5hrs and thats enough for each game tbh. Now other games like warcry or LOTR have very different mechanics, that allow for faster play to compensate for the additional time of alternative activations, such as no saving throws. So for those wanting an alternative activation system, what other elements of the game mechanics are you willing to drop to speed up game play? Should units not get saves. Should there be no chance to unbind magic? Also, also, the comments of player 2 waiting around for hours with nothing to do, I have to ask, how slow do you play your games, if you and your opponent can't get two player turns of actions completed in a couple of hours? There are 10 player turns in a full game, do these games last 8hrs or something? I'm getting off track. Going back to the original point. The double turn is fine if you don't run pure cheesy, meta chasing, the next hot stuff, kind of armies that have a ridiculous amount of damage potential. And if you want to run that stuff, then you'll be playing against others who are equally running filth, and when it's filth vs filth, what do you expect to happen in games, it's not chess ffs and it's a product of a company that is primarily a model manufacturer before it's a games manufacturer, and if you want proof of this, wait for the obscene levels of filth that the latest boney boys will bring to the game (as filthy rules helps sells those shiny new toys).

So thinking of starting up a S2D army. Question for the more veteran players. Is there any reason to stick to S2D army abilities over Grand Alliance? As Chaos Warriors or Marauders are generic battleline anyway, it seems that going Grand Alliance opens up the option for either potential extra CP with 'cunning deceiver' or potential +1 to hit with 'malicious conquerer' command traits for the general. And then taking 'crown of conquest' as a relic for battleshock immunity to nearby units seems relatively strong. And be being Grand Alliance, then allows for bringing in a bit of everything, such as Chimeras or Varanguard or various daemons, which then isn't an issue with the limit on allies points. So is this a way of thinking that has any merit or is it a doomed approach of thinking of how to overcome the struggles of running S2D?

Chaos Knights and Mounted Marauderare a relatively new kits Chaos warriors and Marauders on foot are much older and in need of a new sculpt. The warcry warbands won't replace marauders due to not having 10 models in each box (a real shame and missed opportunity imo). The main question for S2D is whether darkoath will be combined with them. Malign portents had 4 harbingers, and so far the other 3 have had full releases, Nighthaunt, Sacrosanct and Gloomspite. So Darkoath are highly likely to get a big model drop, but will them be separate or combined with S2D? 🤷‍♂️

*keeps quiet in mawtribes* 😂😢

@Overread my understanding was that it was a long time ally of Nagash, yet no one has heard of this new mortarch before, that's what makes me doubt that this is the same friend of Nagash that just got out of the slammer.

With regards to potential future Death releases, has anything been confirmed yet about the 'old ally' if Nagash that Lady O released from prison in the Forbidden Power expansion? Bonereapers do not seem to fit into that aspect of the lore, being newer constructs rather than older warriors.

Congratulations. How many players took part? Were realms being used?

As much as I love spooks, you'll have better success in LoG or using ghosts in LoN tbh. While we can get excellent movement, pure NH lack the current must haves to be competitive, summoning and a decent stake in the activation wars. Without either of these, we will always be in the lower tiers.

So who else is keen to know whether we'll get any ally options with the new bonereapers? I have started running a local narrative/open play night as a counter to the ridiculous arms race currently going on with the AoS meta. And last night I dusted off my Fec and took a fluffy and naff FEC list. Just basic ghouls and one blob of 6 horrors. Jebus Christmas, the horrors just mutilated whatever they touch. And it made me realise just how far behind us ghosts are. It's great to hear that we've had some good placings in tournaments recently, but it doesn't change the fact that we are going to struggle if the next slew of books follow the current trend for being gross and OP.

So played a friendly game against Gloomspite last night. Mission was scorched earth. My opponent was running a super heavy endless spell list. And in between the silly amount of mortal wounds being dealt, having negative modifiers to casting while they had positive modifiers to casting/unbinds, the large groups of grots getting auto-immunity to battleshock due to the loonshine and having so many minuses to hit (ranging from -1 up to -3, from netters, spells and spiders) I lost horrendously 😂. I honestly can't think of how to overcome the combination of: opponent being able to farm a ridiculous amount of CP (got 5 in one turn alone, had potential of getting 8 in a turn 🤮) have battleshock immunity basically army wide have a silly amount of negative to hit modifiers to overcome being hit with countless mortal wound spells and endless spells having to deal with negatives to casting, whilst dealing with them having bonuses to casting/unbinds It really was one of those games that was decided really early on, and while I could have dragged it out and potentially eked out a draw, I was on the backfoot from turn 1. It didn't help that I failed 70% of my charges (even with re-rolls) and my own attempts at CP farming, using the penumbral engine and kurdoss failed to net me a single CP for the entire game. I won the priority for turn 3 and had a group of 5 blades made the 9" charge the I could have won on objectives, but it didn't happen. I had a similar experience against Gloomspite at Blackout, and the combination of all the stuff listed above is just so difficult to have to chew through. So anyone have any ideas on how to counter those sorts of army bonuses, as it's not just Gloomspite who can do this stuff?

I play pure ghosts and hate inspiring presence and bravery. I have bravery 10 across the board but super squishy heroes compared to every other faction, so having a guaranteed chance to use inspiring presence rarely ever happens, as most good players will always target the squishy heroes first to prevent me being able to use it. And outside of penumbral engine, kurdoss and aeatherquartz brooch (all of which are super temperamental anyway), ghosts have no way of getting the extra CP required to effectively be using IP on a regular basis throughout the game . And as the army has little to no healing and absolutely zero unit resurrection, it means that I can't run hordes as a ghost player because they are so susceptible to running from battleshock as soon as they start to lose even a few models, and once they are gone, they are gone. I have had so many games where my big blobs of 40 rasps or 30 grims get hit by sheer weight of dice, and if half the unit dies (which is very easy to do in the current meta, especially as big blobs of ghosts won't get the wholly within 12" death saves or the heroes who grant them the 6+ are already dead), so the rest will just autorun from battleshock. And when you play an opponent that can auto pass their battleshock every single player turn due to a terrain piece or by having a shed ton of CP to use, it definitely creates a feeling of butt hurt and jelly belly. And I know that a 4+ or 5+ ethereal save is good, but having a 50/50 chance or 33/66 chance of making your saves against 50-60 attacks is never going to end well 😂. But I have an issue with bravery in general. My army is meant to cause lots of bravery debuffs and has multiple attacks, abilities and artefacts that rely on bravery bombing to be effective, but the most you can get is the army wide -1. GW sort of made a bandaid with LoG but it's not a proper nighthaunt army, it's like the inbred cousin of NH and LoN, it's like GW admitting that they messed up the NH book and have gone "here you go, use this shiny new thing and don't look at the crippled battletome in the corner struggling to breathe as it's on it's last legs". The NH book is so bad for bravery, there is even a command trait for a ghost general called - Terrifying Entity - it relies on your 5 or 6 wound general surviving the previous turn of combat as it only affects units within 3" in your hero phase, so already not off to a great start as the likelihood of a 5-6 wound model surviving combat in the current meta is so slim, but you then have to roll a single dice, not two dice, a single dice, and you have to equal or beat the bravery of the unit(s) within 3" to make them forcibly retreat. As the average bravery in the game is 6, it's literally the worst command trait in the game. Ghosts in the fluff are the most prominent cause of terror and fear, yet in the game they are one of the most susceptible armies to the bravery mechanic, and they even have bravery 10 FFS. I honestly believe that you could make the entire army immune to battleshock and they would still struggle to keep up with the current meta, they would be so much better and they could go back to being a horde army rather than MSU and it would be thematic and fluffy as well, but that will never happen. The GHB did add some extra generic command abilities to the game, great, but let's be honest, IP is still the best by a long way. The re-rolls to hit are something that most units already have in the game and has only been added as a patch by GW to let the older and out of date factions have a slim chance of keeping up in the current meta, they offer little or not help to any of the newer books, as they already have a shed ton of natural re-roll abilities anyway. TL:DR - I play ghosts and they have high bravery but suck serious plums with dealing with battleshock immunity in the current meta, both in being able to regularly use it and having to overcome it being regularly used by opponents. And they suck plums in general with dealing with bravery in the game.

This event is almost fully booked now, but we might be able to extend the spaces for anyone who is interested. Also it's worth clarifying that we are using the Battlehost configuration for the 1500pts. That means 3 battleline, but also up to 6 leaders and up to 400pts of allies.

It was a great event. I had lots of fun. Missions, realms and stuff were fine and overall it was a great experience. Only two issues for me. One was the general heat inside the venue, it was sweltering. Not sure what could be done to help with that, maybe free drinks 😜. The other was the best in alliance awards, which is basically going to always be going to the latest grossness at the time. Playing pure spooky bedsheets (none of that LoG garbage 😂) I'm under no illusion of getting anywhere near the top half of the overall results, and playing a weaker faction it means it's impossible to even compete for best in alliance when newer books are always going to be getting those results that puts them higher up the standings. I wouldn't expect trophies or anything, but it's nice to be able to get some recognition that you are the best at your particular faction for that event, rather than being another meta chaser or something. (disclaimer: I wasn't the top ghost player btw, I lost that accolade to my friend by a mere 6pts 😂).

So question to the group. I have the cards for FEC, but how do they play in Warcry?

100% agree. At Blackout, there was so much mortals that it becomes a bit of a arms race to see who can produce the most. Armies that have no counter to mortals just die instantly. I'm glad death units can sometimes get access to a mortal wound save, but not happy that so many other armies get either/and multiple options and at a lower roll value as well. I would be happy if they made them super sparse again.

That's why they've started changing it to be just reroll hits, to speed things up and make it less complicated, only issue is that they haven't bothered amending the older books of AoS 2.0 Lady O is a pure mortal wound assassin, but the range is short. With reaping scythe she becomes half decent in combat. Her warscroll spell is awesome but she is a priority target as soon as she hits the board. If you don't use her aggressively then your not getting her points cost back. She becomes a little bit gross in a double execution horde list as the general as well, only issue there is that SHs suck plums at decent and consistent offensive output. Yes, because of the base size. He has a smaller footprint and a natural 6+ death save, which other units don't. And his -2 rend often reduces stuff to a 6+ or no save. Again his damage is spikey but he'll often do enough to take out those smaller to midsized heroes in a single turn.

It's how all negative modifiers used to work, because 4+ is a successful hit, but then the -1 modifier turns it into a 3, which makes it fail. Same thing goes for blades re-rolls with a torment if they are at -1 to hit. Against the gloomspite my blades were -3 to hit. So they normally hit on 3s, with re-rolls of 1 and 2, but in this case they hit on 6s, and because 3s, 4s and 5s were successful hits before the -3 modifiers, I was only able to re-roll 1s and 2s. This is the huge boon that having 're-roll hits' has compared to 're-roll failed hits' has. And it's around Skaven/FEC that it started to change. Lady O is unfortunately essential. She does too many mortal wounds not to take and being a double caster is just so strong. Mr. K is the closest thing we have to a big smashy hero. I use him as a suicide attack on my opponent's general, due to getting those re-rolls. Most players take smaller heroes as their general because they want their monster heroes to get into the thick of it and as a result the big monster hero might die. So having a small(ish) base that can be teleported behind enemy lines with the dreadblade, to attempt to assassinate their general is brutal when you make that sweet 10+ charge. It's also worth having him on the board from turn 1 for his CP steal ability (which should be on a 4+ imo), because when you steal it it sets your opponent's plans back. Reik is only worth taking if you have spells that you desperately need to cast. I take the purple sun, casts on an 8+, getting a +3 helps make it more of a certainty. His fast movement helps with zipping around to offer hero support to units. He's worth using to target 4-6 wound heroes, due to his 2 damage (and potentially 2 mortals) from his scythe. He also works well at reclaiming objectives from units of 10 single wound models, due to his warscroll spell and his weapon re-rolls against 5 or more models. The biggest issue is his single cast and stupidly short range on not only his, but also the spell lore spells. Overall it's a lot of points, but what other options do we really have 🤷‍♂️? In an ideal world our named heroes would be 3+ ethereal. Or we should be exempt from the cap on how many heroes we can take in a list. If you add up the 6 most expensive hero options in most armies, they are at least 2-3 times more expensive than ours are, sometimes even more. Lady O, Mr.K, Reik, Briar Queen, KoSos and GoS = 1010pts. In comparison FEC who have one of the most limited options for models in the whole of AoS and have no named characters is: GKoZD, GKoTG, AR, Varghulf, GK and Courtier is 1540pts and something like LoN (Nagash, Vhordrai, VLoZD, Neffy, Mannfred and Arkhan is a whopping 2870pts. As heroes play such a large part of the game, not having access to big heroes is such a nerf. If you go the other way, Cairn Wraith, Tomb Banshee, Lord Ex, Dreadblade, KoS and Torment = 530pts. 6 cairn wraiths are a measly 360pts. I think lifting the hero cap would help us with getting sufficient hero support when we need it. Again it's a pipe dream that won't happen so 🤷‍♂️.

The main issue was the entire event was clearly split between the armies that have access to: re-roll hits, rather than re-roll failed hits summoning or entire unit revival first first/make you fight last mechanics (that are actually reliable unlike Soul Cage) fight twice in a row battleshock immunity healthy and easily accessible re-roll hit and wound mechanics unmodified attacks doing either extra attacks or mortal in addition to regular damage Now we have WoT, which helped turn the tides in several games, but it still wasn't enough to be able to auto-delete units in 80% of the occasions it went off. We do have Soul Cage for activation wars, but it requires the target to be within 12" of the caster and the caster to get a chance to use it in the hero phase and then also to successfully cast it and it not be auto-unbound or regular unbound. Overall not being able to engage in the activation wars is crippling and also very unenjoyable as a gaming experience. We do get some decent re-roll options with some units, but compared to stuff like plague monks or DoK or eels or lots of others, it's pretty naff and no way nearly on the same level. And when we get hit by any minus to hit modifiers it crippling. Taking grims as an example, normally hit on 4+ re-roll failed hits, with a -1 to hit, you are hitting on 5+ and not re-rolling those 4s. It's a subtle difference, but with weight of dice and attacks, it makes a huge difference not re-rolling 25% of the failed hits. Not doing mortal wounds in addition to damage is also painful. So many armies now get mortals in addition to other damage and extra hits. There was plenty of times where another 1-3 wounds would have killed the target, but the 6's for mortals didn't help to take it over the edge. To be honest, the thing that I noticed the most from this recent tournament was just how many mortals were flying about. It seemed like every action that an army took dealt out mortals. The opponent moves their models, that's D3 mortals. They charged that's a mortal wound for every 4+. When my models die on a 3+ that's 1 mortal and 6s do D3 mortals. Talking to my friend afterwards, who playing lizards at the tournament, he's going to change his list to include a shed ton of more mortal wound dealing units, because he can't compete with the amount that it being thrown around at the moment. Now we are lucky in that we get a 6+ to save it (if we are wholly within) but it's still not great tbh. I'd like to see Death in general getting a bit more survivability against mortals and against battleshock. As a grand alliance we are the terror causing endless hordes, but have so few ways to be immune to battleshock unless you have lots of CP, which has now been capped to just 1 extra per army, unless you take battalions, but LoN has guff battalions and ghost ones aren't much better, and LoG don't even have battalions. FEC are doing OK, but there's only 2 that are any good really. Overall I'm not sure that I'll be continuing with ghosts competitively until something changes drastically with the overall meta. I'm not sure what it's like elsewhere in the world, but in the UK the current state of the game is not good for Death in general and I can't see it changing until next GHB points changes in Dec/Jan. I had been working on an ogor based mixed destruction army for a few weeks and then they announced the new tyrant model and new book, so I'll probably be moving onto that tbh or to the newer Death faction book. I'll still be playing my ghosts, but not at tournaments, as they just can't compete with the new grossness and without warscroll and battletome changes, they won't be able to, points changes twice a year won't make any difference with whether an army can deal with being made to first last in combat after being attacked twice.

Yeah, a little bit, but still not much. So my list was: ++ 2k Golden Ghost Army ++ Dreadblade - General (Ruler of the Spirit Hosts), Midnight Tome - Spectral Tether Lady O - Reaping Scythe Kurdoss Reik - Soul Cage Spirit Torment Guardian of Souls - Spectral Tether 3 x Spirit Hosts 10 x Rasps 10 x Rasps 10 x Grims 10 x Harridans 5 x Blades 5 x Blades 4 x Myrmourn Penumbral Engine Purple Sun Shards 14 drops - 1980pts - 7 underworlds deployment options So stuff that I took that wasn't great was: 3 SHs, 10 harridans, regular GoS - 420pts. Out of everything they didn't do nealy enough work. The GoS at points meant I was occasionally wounding on 2s, but not often tbh, and it's not as decent as the torment for guaranteed revivals. The cast/unbind was ocassionally useful but not much. I'd swap them out for something like this instead: ++ 2k Golden Ghost Army (Adapted version) ++ Dreadblade - General (Ruler of the Spirit Hosts), Midnight Tome - Spectral Tether Lady O - Reaping Scythe Kurdoss Reik - Soul Cage Spirit Torment Spirit Torment (new) 10 x Rasps 10 x Rasps 10 x Grims 5 x Blades (new) 5 x Harridans (new) 5 x Blades 5 x Blades 4 x Myrmourn 4 x Myrmourn or 5 x Blades (new) Penumbral Engine Purple Sun (possibly swap out for pendulum, not sure tbh) Shards +1 CP or Geminids (new) 15 drops - 1970-1990pts - 7 underworlds deployment options Ultimately this tweaked version would have been more lethal when it got into combat with stuff, as my blades pretty much did most of the work during the game. Grims were great but are too expensive now to be spamming them. Having 2 torments would make double the re-roll options and allow for one to potentially be a sacrificial utility to be launched into enemy lines along with some blades, but only having one in the army meant it was very important to keep it safe and protected. I'd change the harridans to 5 instead of 10. They don't do enough damage unless super buffed which is too much CP and without gravesites to heal/revive they don't work well enough imo. But 5 are still worth taking as a tool to use, for when you have a low bravery opponent, as they only need to be within 6" to be giving out -1 to hit for stuff bravery 6 or less. The myrmourns were great, as they allowed me to get some extra -2 rend attacks in, so it would either be another blob of them or more blades. I might swap purple sun, it's too spikey for what it does, but when it does work, wowzer. Also the additional -1 bravery was useful, as combined with the harridans it meant bravery 7 or less was -1 to hit. Geminids are so good, my game against gloomspite, the arachnarok had gryph-feather charm and it's own -1 to hit, plus I got tagged by geminids, so was at -2 or -3 to hit, so hitting on 6s re-rolling 1s with everything, it hurt so much, plus the d3 mortal are great to chip away at stuff. Overall the engine would on average give out 3-4 CP a game, so it sucks that your opponent can benefit as well, but it also gave at least 2 CP, so it did cover it's costs every game.

@Chris Tomlin Just wanted to say thanks again for putting on the event. I'm glad that I could actually make it this year, unlike last year when I had to bail out last minute. Will definitely be attending next year if life permits me, though might not take my fluffy ghost list next time, didn't do very well 😂. I was wondering do you post the final results with all the TPs and kill points and sports votes and stuff at some point after the event? I came 79th and beat my friend by one place, just keen to know what it was that separated us in the end?

Will the LoN be done as separate factions for the 6 armies in the book, or as a generic overall single focus?