Satyrical Sophist

From GMG review Gors 70/200 Chaos gargant 170 Tzaangor Shaman 160. Razorgors 50 Tuskgor chariots 60 or 200 for 4 Tzaangor enlightened on discs to 160. Doomblast dirgehorn 50 Ravenwing direflock 30 Wildfire bull is 80.

40 points is a bit of a big drop for skyfires. Not sure the shaman drop would make sense, enlightened needed a price increase, and if you reduce the shaman points then you basically make 9 Enlightened and a shaman only 40 points more than it was. Don't know if I am off base with this, but I kind of assume that those are probably the only two unit point changes, otherwise I'm inclined to believe they'd have mentioned two points drops to go with a point nerf. Maybe battalions and spells though

Thanks for the response, very interesting. Were you factoring in speed boost with shaman for centigor? I'm pretty impressed that those units all have a potential place, given they can be seen as similar. I agree that marauder horsemen are the worst option, but I'd give them a little * for having access to shooting in a low shooting list. If you don't mind, how do Gor start to look at their new point value of 70 for 10? Still waiting on if they are going to have a horde discount.

Haha, maybe. One thing I'm curious about is meeting engagements, since units can only be taken at minimum size normally (or double that in the main body). The double size gor units get a lot of attacks before taking a wound, and are fast enough to catch up easier. Edit. They might also be getting their horde bonus changed as well, since it either gets reduced or their is no horde discount.

Gors down to 70 points, Enlightened up to 160. That change anything for Gors? Tempted to see about the numbers again

Heh, I know the hag is 380, but it tore through 400 points (Shaggoth, centigor screen and 3 dragon ogors).

I like that tactic as well. It's mostly worked for me, though a troggoth hag just tore through it like butter.

People have been talking about big blocks of seekers and hellstriders, how are they finding them? Also spears or whips, and anyone done any comparisons to centigor? Or marauder horsemen come to think of it.

Really don't like this idea. AoS is balanced based on having set unit numbers, so you can't do what you describe with blood letters. You want to have that 20+ bonus? Get a big unit, otherwise accept that you lose the bonus quickly. As for equipment options, even more disagree. I have an 40k Ork army, and the boys mobs don't have any special weapon options because they aren't worth the points. It also feels like you are "wasting points" to pick them up. This leaves you with super uniform looking units, and feels incredibly "gamey" to me. To use your grand hammer example, liberators probably wouldn't ever use them, since they are used as minimum size units as meat shields and battle line chaff. Hell they probably wouldn't use a prime if that cost points. So instead of a more varied unit, you get just 5 grunts standing there. Maybe a change to get units in increments of 5 more often? Though for a lot of things they'd want to keep the minimum unit size at least 10.

So I was thinking of the recent argument about Gors. What would be quite interesting is if we had some kind of benchmarks for comparison. I'm pretty casual, so would love some feedback on this. An example might be, how well does the unit charge and hit.... 40 plague monks. Assuming that the unit is in close ranks, how much frontage (plus a bit of the sideage I guess) does that have? Assume it's more or less a compact 10x4. That way you have about 12 inch front and beginning of sides right? So that's about 9 or 10 32s getting in if it's 1" range. Assuming you want to maximise number fighting. Any more than that and you are really having to stretch out your unit, and looking a long slogging combat. Another thing would be surrounded a monster and trying to kill it before it gets to attack back (assuming Locus or BigFlamingBull shenanigans if it's Gristlegore.) That's one where I'd kind of feel like actually having a base down and trying to work out how many models you could get in if you charged etc. Slamming into a breakable screen (clan rats being basically daisy chained for example). I quite like my centigors for delaying actions, clipping the very rear of a unit and trying to stay out of combat as much as possible, but needing to be either wiped out or retreated from for example. What kind of comparison benchmarks would be useful?

I think the coolest fix would be allowing a brayherd unit to fight immediately afterwards if he kills an enemy hero. That way its a gamble, if the beastlord can do it then its super cool, if he fails then you suffer.

Honestly I quite like the beast lord. He basically lives for Gavespawn though. Give him the Gnarl blade and he kills most foot heroes pretty reliably, and has a good chance of spawndom. Seems really weird to object to him based on the mandatory artifact for one of the Great frays. I mean the Great Bray Shaman is at odds with Blade of the Desecrator since he wants to stay out of combat, but the blade makes you chase hordes. Blade of the Desecrator is just a bad artifact. Quite a lot of the mandatory artifacts or command traits are, it's one of the toggles they have for balancing them.

What's the rumour say about the bird goats?

People talk about there being loads of surviving old world characters. Some gods survived, and some chaos/undead did. Who else survived? I'm genuinely asking.

I'll try and take a comparison picture when I get a chance. What do you want, Ungor next to ghoul? Anything else?

I'm working on converting ghouls into Ungor, I have a plan but hoping to have some built up by this weekend, been a bit busy recently.

It's entirely possible that gits would be fine with the moon active all the time.

You were talking about character sniping. In order to take a hit from the moon you need to roll a 1. So on average each turn a character is under the moon is 1/3 of a mortal wound. The moon is on average on the battle field for three turns. So on average they might expect to take 1 wound in the whole game from the moon... Assuming that they are chasing the moon. The moon that starts in one quarter of the board ...so positioning. Can only effect stuff in either it's quarter, or if it's in the centre of the board. Almost like a range... I have seen games where the moon did absolutely nothing. Turn 2 rolling a 1 and it staying off the board. It's a terribly unreliable effect. There is a higher chance that the moon will have no effect than a slaughter priest will kill themselves early in the game.

Gavespawn is played mainly for the command ability and has a bunch of cool perks. Heroes turning into a chaos spawn when they die (usually) is handy, since they can do a bit more damage, or screen, or just block the opponent. The artifact is a powerful one, particularly on a Beastlord. He can kill a lot of the heroes in one on one combat. Going back to the command ability, it's an impressive buff, and very easy to trigger by summoning in a spawn off the table edge, or with a hero spawn. Edit due to accidentally submitting early ea

I've run 10 man Tzaangor a fair bit. I actually like them a fair bit. Generally you get one nice damaging charge, then they are a pain to kill. It's a lot of work to chop through them all

I just assumed that was what the second unit of Bestigor were for :P.

Probably misreading this, but 30 Bestigor for 60 clan rats works out in your favour doesn't it? Or are you assuming you'll only get to hit 20 or 40.

Oh absolutely. As I said, I don't know how you'd make them work at 2 wounds each. But at 60 points I think they'd get pretty close to auto take. I always want a shaman and a sac outlet at the herdstone. At the moment that ends up being ungors. If warhounds dropped to 60 I would definitely use them. They would basically work as a sac outlet and a turn one screen. You can daisy chain them along your front line leading to the herdstone. You have like 3 feet of screen.

I think at 60 points they'd be too good. I know I'd sacrifice little else. The big thing with warhounds for me is that they are the only unit of 60x35 bases with one wound. I don't know how you'd repoint them at 2 wounds each, but I think they could really do with it.

They are a pain in the ass. The method I got to work was glueing the arms together at the hand/wrist joint, letting it almost dry, then pushing the arms onto the body. There should still be some flex, then you can glue the arms to the body. Well, what you have there comes to 800/820 points depending on what you build stuff as. You have 66 wounds in those 820 points, but only 31 bodies which is pretty light. It honestly depends a bit on what you/your buddy feels like playing with. Bray Shaman Bray Shaman Bestigor (Battle Line with Bray Shaman General) Ungor (Have to run these as non-raiders to make battle line) Centigor. Bullgor Ghorgon/Cygor. The Bray Shamans are really good. I tend to only run one but mainly because I haven't painted another up. One works really well baby sitting a herdstone (which I recommend picking up), along with some ungor for sacrificing to generate summoning points. The second is a cheap hero who makes a big chunk of your army faster, and has some powerful spells. Bestigor are just plain very good. Ungor are a really nice fast chaff unit. As I said the first unit tends to stay with the herd stone (I usually go with a herdstone near an objective if I can), but late on the survivors can go very fast (Up to 16 on max/cp run) to screen or steal an objective. Centigor I love. They are absurdly fast and reasonably tough. Bullgor can definitely do work. They are very very inconsistent though. I've had them just tear through units, or whiff completely. They benefit a great deal from anything that boosts attack numbers, or increases accuracy. I think they also play well in some of the god armies, like Slaanesh or Khorne. Equipment wise I went with great axes. There are arguments for other weapon load outs though. The shield and single axe boosts the save in combat and is more reliable (3 attacks at two damage) with less rend. I'd be slightly leery about going for double axes though, since the Khorne battalion (which is very good for these guys and if you are running them in khorne you need to get) gives an easy way to get reroll 1s to hit, and if you are running them in Slaanesh there are a lot of ways to get reroll 1s as well. I'm interested in the generals handbook for these guys, because I feel they could probably use a small point drop. I've not played with a Cygor, but I've seen them do well. The Ghorgon is basically like the Bullgor's bigger weirder brother. The last game I played with him he killed Mannfred, Mortarch of Night almost in one combat phase (finishing him off immediately afterwards), then failed to put a dent in zombies until they dragged him down. The game before that he stabbed a Bastilladon to death in one turn and held an objective for the rest of the game. The game before that he failed to hurt a unit of dryads. He is a monster and a cool unit. As for what to do next? You have a load of choices. It also depends a bit on what you/your buddy wants to branch into. Remember that you'll be spending a long time painting stuff, and if you don't like the models, I'd advise going for something else. The Tzaangor are an option. Tzaangor on foot are a tough unit compared to a lot of BoC stuff, and start out pretty punchy. Tzaangor Enlightened on Discs are an absolutely brutal unit right now. They are very likely to get a price increase in the next General's handbook (Or the Tzeentch Battle Tome if that is first), but thats pretty deserved. Honestly they should be at least 160, maybe even 200. They are very good though, and can tear through anything, while also being stupidly fast (16 inch base upto 19 with bray shaman) and flying. The Tzaangor shaman is quite pricy. He boosts the other Tzaangor, but the foot Tzaangor need it more than the discs. If you are running endless spells (Like the big bull) he also gets to cast one super powered spell a game, which is really good for forcing it through. Skyfires I haven't played much with, though they represent some of the armies only shooting. They are apparently deceptively good in close combat, and some people have been getting good results with them. They may also be getting a points adjustment in the generals handbook. If you want to stay pure beasts of chaos, or branch into Tzeentch then Tzaangor are a good choice. If you want to potentially try playing a god army with BoC base then you want to avoid Tzaangor (Unless that god is Tzeentch). In that case you still have a lot of choices. One of the easier options would be another SC box. That'd get you another 10 ungor and Bestigor, plus another big monster. The Ungor and Bestigor would take your points up to around 1000 and add more bodies. The monster could be assembled as the other monster option, so you'd have a ghorgon and a cygor for example. You would end up with 3 bray shamans total, which might be too much, but possibly not. He is a flexible option. There are a lot of choices in this army, and its pretty well internally balanced. If you like the model for something, you should get a use out of it. There are only a few things to warn about. Warhounds are a bit disappointing rules wise, and people have mixed feelings on the models. I love them and have some painted, but it wouldn't surprise me if they got a rework at some point, potentially with the new Dark oath release. Be careful going too monster heavy. They can be very powerful, but tend to be more fragile than the same points worth of units. They also struggle to hold objectives.