Emissary

Exactly. They're quite good, have a great command ability and generate 2 RD points on their own.

I did some math on spears vs swords on Kavalos Deathriders on the charge. These are against a target with a 4+ save. Swords on the charge: 4.1667 wounds Spears on the charge: 3.75 wounds With the spell that buffs the extra hits: Swords on the charge: 5 wounds Spears on the charge: 4.375 wounds Hence, the doing extra hits on a 5+ for spears on the charge isn't better than the innate -1 rend on swords. Unless you're going with like 15 Kavalos Deathriders, I'd really recommend just going with swords with them unless you like the spear look.

You can, but it's a great value to mess with your opponent for only 20 points. It has to be planned for and dealt with when out

What was the contents of the OBR list?

It's because it has a large diameter (~14"), effects all enemies within the diameter and happens every phase. You can kill models in the hero, shooting, charge, combat and battleshock phases and again in their melee and battleshock phases. Having the potential to do mortal wounds to all models in that circle 2/3 of the time can be a lot of wounds. Plus there can be a lot of healing for Nagash or Arkhan. Overall for a 20 point spell it is awesome.

No allies

I ran the numbers with Spirit Blades only using the criteria above. Here's the results against a 4+ save Spirit Swords Only Necropolis Stalkers (Reroll Saves) Necropolis Stalkers 4.444444 Necropolis Stalkers -1 Rend 5.555556 Necropolis Stalkers +1 Attack 5.333333 Necropolis Stalkers +1 to Hit 5.555556 Necropolis Stalkers +2 to Hit 5.555556 Necropolis Stalkers All (+1 to Hit) 8.333333 Necropolis Stalkers All (+2 to Hit) 8.333333 Spirit Swords Only Necropolis Stalkers (+1 Damage and -1 Rend) Necropolis Stalkers 11.11111111 Necropolis Stalkers -1 Rend 13.33333333 Necropolis Stalkers +1 Attack 13.33333333 Necropolis Stalkers +1 to Hit 13.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers +2 to Hit 13.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers All (+1 to Hit) 20 Necropolis Stalkers All (+2 to Hit) 20 Also, I had a slight error in the data above where only had the spirit swords rend at -2 instead of -3 in the All +1 to hit data for offense, so here's the updated table. I also updated it in the earlier post: 2 Spirit Swords and 1 Dread Falchion Necropolis Stalkers (+1 Damage and -1 Rend) Necropolis Stalkers 10.40740741 Necropolis Stalkers -1 Rend 11.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers +1 Attack 12.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers +1 to Hit 13.25925926 Necropolis Stalkers +2 to Hit 14.25925926 Necropolis Stalkers All (+1 to Hit) 18.66666667 Necropolis Stalkers All (+2 to Hit) 20 Spirits swords only are worse in defensive stance and better in precision stance unless you have full buffs.

Correct. The extra attack calculated above does not include a second round of halberd attacks. If it did it would just be double the values in the initial set.

Okay, I ran the damage numbers for Immortis Guard vs Stalkers. Here are the results: -1 rend comes from the Petrifex Elite command ability, +1 attack from Endless Duty, +1 to hit from either Katakros command ability or Bone Tithe Shrieker, +2 to hit from both Katakros and Shrieker These were run against a target with a 4+ save. Immortis Guard Immortis Guard 6.444444 Immortis Guard -1 Rend 7.666667 Immortis Guard +1 Attack 9.666667 Immortis Guard +1 to Hit 7.888889 Immortis Guard +2 to Hit 8.222222 Immortis Guard All (+1 to Hit) 14.16667 Immortis Guard All (+2 to Hit) 14.83333 Immortis Guard (Command Ability to pile in again) Immortis Guard 8.444444444 Immortis Guard -1 Rend 10 Immortis Guard +1 Attack 12.66666667 Immortis Guard +1 to Hit 10.22222222 Immortis Guard +2 to Hit 10.88888889 Immortis Guard All (+1 to Hit) 18.33333333 Immortis Guard All (+2 to Hit) 19.66666667 Necropolis Stalkers (Reroll Saves) Necropolis Stalkers 4.62963 Necropolis Stalkers -1 Rend 5.703704 Necropolis Stalkers +1 Attack 5.777778 Necropolis Stalkers +1 to Hit 5.925926 Necropolis Stalkers +2 to Hit 6.481481 Necropolis Stalkers All (+1 to Hit) 9.111111 Necropolis Stalkers All (+2 to Hit) 10 Necropolis Stalkers (+1 Damage and -1 Rend) Necropolis Stalkers 10.40740741 Necropolis Stalkers -1 Rend 11.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers +1 Attack 12.88888889 Necropolis Stalkers +1 to Hit 13.25925926 Necropolis Stalkers +2 to Hit 14.25925926 Necropolis Stalkers All (+1 to Hit) 18.66666667 Necropolis Stalkers All (+2 to Hit) 20 The main thing here is with the +1 attack Endless Duty ability it gives each stalker and extra attack with the halberd plus another 1-2 with the shield. Meanwhile each Stalker only gets one extra attack period. Also the shields can generate mortal wounds which do not stop the damage sequence. So increasing those attacks has a major effect. It is very command point intensive, though.

And the liege kavalos and zandros.

You may want to go with a soul Mason over the soulreaper. I think he's better as his spell is better and he can cast and dispel more.

It's because it is the original warscroll from the death allegiance good from a long time ago. They uploaded the wrong PDF.

Here's the first sample list I've created to show how everything looks great, but is really going to have to tempered against what you can actually bring at one time: Petrifex Elite Liege Kavalos 20 Mortek Guard 20 Mortek Guard 20 Mortek Guard Soul Mason Mortisan Boneshaper Mortek Crawler 6 Immortis Guard Shield Core Battalion Bone-Tithe Shrieker 2000 points exactly You'll notice that there is no named character, only 1 model that can bring models back or heal (though the 2nd artifact will probably be the one that lets the boneshaper heal or ressurect a 2nd time on a 4+) and only one crawler. The Immortis Guard can be exchanged for Necropolis Stalkers, but I'm leaning towards the Guard because they make better use of Endless Duty an can get a bunch of mortal wounds off attacking twice with 3 shield attacks. Balancing the RD generation against the healing/resurrecting ability with the units will be a tough balancing act.

Everything is damn expensive though. I've been trying to come up with an initial list and it's hard due to the points cost. It adds up extremely quick.

He's decent, but the Arch-Revenant is really good and shows up in a lot of lists. I think Vok will be less so. They just said that it was the first chance to get the tyrant, but who knows when it will be released separately. At least for that model there were already the older ones that can be used.

I don't know if anyone has really tried to build an army list yet, but I've been fooling around with it and the points costs are an issue and is the limiting factor in the army IMO right now. You aren't going to be hording anyone and just running them over.

Probably, but the only model you won't get to get for OBR is Vokmortian and he isn't nearly as necessary or useful for the army like the Arch-Revenant is.

Also, I can't believe the cost of those endless spells. 20 for the bird?? 30 for the column?? Talk about auto-includes.

He only brings models killed within 3" and all models in units 3" away. So once the models beyond 3" of him in that 40 man unit start dying he can't help. I don't think they're that bad. Few things for them: 1) Having 2 different melee weapons will help with the Endless duty command ability on Katakros and the mounted lords. with that ability they'll go from 2 attacks with the halberd and 2 with the shield to 3 with each. Plus the extra attacks can help getting a few more mortal wounds. 2) They're a weird middle ground between the 2 good stances of the Stalkers a 3+ save is very similar to a rerollable 4+ (or 2+ compared to a 3+) and having 2 damage 2 attacks and 2 damage 1 attacks is similar to the weapons. The halberds can also do mortal wounds on a 6 to hit which isn't to be discounted. The stalkers can do either defense or offense better (haven't done the math yet but can't be both at the same time), but the stalkers won't get the buff to defense against anything striking first and on their turn and won't be as good in offense and defense in the same turn. The stalkers risk being bad at offense or defense each turn and great at the other while the guard are very good at both. 3) The command ability looks bad at first until you realize that with all the bonuses to hit the army has it can still do some damage. It's not a great command ability, but being able to boost your shield attacks from 2-3 to 4-6 hitting on 2s and wounding on 3s (no rend and 1 damage) can help against some hordes. I'm not saying they're better than stalkers, have to get that out on the table. But at the moment I don't think they're terrible and absolutely have their place.

So for everyone who was worried about Vokmortian being too easy to kill, if the Immortis Guard are within 3" of him, they'll take any mortal wound or wound allocated to him (or any other character) on a 2+. If you take the battalion that's 2 units of Immortis Guard and 1 Morghast Archai, the Archai get that ability and any roll of a 5+ just negates the wound.

Yeah, I posted the below in the Ossiarch thread in the Death Forum. The bird is really good: From the article earlier I was afraid that the Soulstealer Carrion was pointless also, but after seeing the warscroll card it looks amazing. First, when cast it is place anywhere on the battlefield the caster can see and have a huge move that only you can pick on later turns so it's really easy to get into prime position. Then, when an enemy model dies within 6" of it (assuming it isn't a death model) in any phase it has a 2 in 3 chance to heal the caster (good on large multiwound models) and a 2 in 3 chance to do 1 mortal wound to every enemy unit within 6" at the end of the phase. That can happen quite often as you can easily slay models in the hero, shooting, combat and battleshock phases (models lost to battleshock count as slain), plus on their combat and battleshock phases as well. And it may do more if the army has any ability to do damage in the movement or charging phase (like the Kavalos Deathriders command ability). That's an absolute amazing amount of healing and, especially, damage it can pump out. When both armies are clashing it can do upwards of 4+ mortal wounds to all enemy units within a 14" bubble (including all those individual heroes) if you roll decently on your turn and can do more on their turn and will demand to be dispelled taking a spellcast from them. Of course the death immunity to it doesn't make it perfect and it may cost a crapton of points, but it still looks amazing from reading it. Plus it allows Arkhan or Nagash to see anything for their spellcasting when they're machine-gunning arcane bolt.

Should be expected since it has the new army and another popular army getting a book.

From the article earlier I was afraid that the Soulstealer Carrion was pointless also, but after seeing the warscroll card it looks amazing. First, when cast it is place anywhere on the battlefield the caster can see and have a huge move that only you can pick on later turns so it's really easy to get into prime position. Then, when an enemy model dies within 6" of it (assuming it isn't a death model) in any phase it has a 2 in 3 chance to heal the caster (good on large multiwound models) and a 2 in 3 chance to do 1 mortal wound to every enemy unit within 6" at the end of the phase. That can happen quite often as you can easily slay models in the hero, shooting, combat and battleshock phases (models lost to battleshock count as slain), plus on their combat and battleshock phases as well. And it may do more if the army has any ability to do damage in the movement or charging phase (like the Kavalos Deathriders command ability). That's an absolute amazing amount of healing and, especially, damage it can pump out. When both armies are clashing it can do upwards of 4+ mortal wounds to all enemy units within a 14" bubble (including all those individual heroes) if you roll decently on your turn and can do more on their turn and will demand to be dispelled taking a spellcast from them. Of course the death immunity to it doesn't make it perfect and it may cost a crapton of points, but it still looks amazing from reading it. Plus it allows Arkhan or Nagash to see anything for their spellcasting when they're machine-gunning arcane bolt. The predator can also do a lot of wounds (affecting all enemy units within 3" is great) and the shrieker has 2 great auras and can move to keep it in position. All three endless spells are quite good. I'm also surprised we've seen 3 different -1 bravery auras already. You can't exactly make a strategy around it due to all the immunity out there, but it does make the Praetorians and Vokmortian a little more appealing because it can make their bravery reduction auras into something worth worrying about instead of something without any real bite at all.

It just depends on what they need to do at the time. If you can strike with them before they will get attacked, then activating the precision aspect may be the way to go if they can kill or really maul their target. If they are going to get hit first, go defensive, strike back for some damage then wear on them the next turn. It's not perfect, but it's a lot of utility on them which is nice to have. I do agree they look good, but not stupidly powerful.

Um, necropolis stalkers can choose the party aspect at the start of the combat phase to reroll their saving throws. Not as dangerous then, but quite tanky