Scurvydog

Yea I had to chime in on that thread as well, maybe too headstrong, but can't help becoming a bit annoyed at all the salt from players. Why on earth should these guys be more unfun to play against than all kinds of other good armies. They can't fight first or force you to fight last, they can't fight twice or do so out of turn or anything like that. Except for battleshock, which is a bit of a joke anyway at this point, they work as you'd expect within the core rules. That means you can counter things, predict movements and make a plan against them, with little surprises, but if your plan is to just try to grind them down in brawl, then expect bad things to happen if you are not equipped for that. From my experience the usual suspects are doing that just fine too though, Ironjawz, Fyreslayers, FeC, Slaanesh etc can easily fight them head on, thanks to high damage and/or rend and/or mortal wound output. Crafty opponents will be able to make their plans work reliably, but the ones expecting to turn up and just move models forwards and win, without even researching their opponents new tome a bit, will most likley lose, which is fitting in that case.

Someone explain to me why the sky is falling due to 4+ save 1 wound infantry for 13 points, who CAN get reroll saves by using a CP? We already have sequitors for example, who are the same cost per wound and can reroll saves at any point they chose. Mortek guard can go to a 3+ save, but so can many other armies. Eels with 3+ unrendable saves to screen the entire army? Witch aelves with 5++ rerollable? Hearthguard berzerkers who can fight twice, get 3+ saves and 4++? Saurus guards can get 2+ saves and rerolls form a priest. Plenty of "unkillable" infantry going around. Just sounds like a case of bringing the right tool for the job. I played against our resident Slaanesh player a few times, and he blended petrifex mortek guard just fine, with mortal wound output and keepers fighting first 2 times wich results in 8 attacks (due to sash) with rend 2 and 5 damage, possibly 5 mortal wounds, possibly exploding hits. Just see the battle reports in the Reaper sub forum here as well, you will see examples of how the high mortal wound output and also activation wars giving the reapers issues. They are super strong as petrifex elite, without that legion their power drastically drops, so I guess they a pidgeon holed and assumed to be petrifex in any competetive context. But even as petrifex they are just a tough force, with a very mediocre at best damage output, which requires layers of buffs to really take of. They will still just fall over to a Lords of the lodge battalion, first hitting Slaanesh forces and all the other "meta" combos out there right now. Anyone actually thinking they will be sweeping all the podium places at tournaments?

Yea Petrifex getting both the +1 save AND the -1 rend command makes it super crazy. If the Ivory host had the rend increase, or if the Praetorians and Petrifex traded command abilities (keepting petrifex very defensive minded), things might be somewhat different. Might finally pick up a Nagash model though, he seems sort of balanced for his points at least, and alos works a little different in the bonereapers than in a standard LoN list.

I would only ever consider spears in a 30+ size unit, in 20 man units or less, swords will in most situations always win out, especially once casualties start setting in, yes at absolute peak 20 man full unit, all spears might just do a tiny bit more against low saves, but against 4+ and especially rerolls swords are much better all around. For example imagine fighting sequitors using their save rerolls, 20 Mortek with swords and a hekatos, we assume only 10 are within 1" so will dish out 21 attacks (for ease we assume no greatblades for exploding hits). The reult of this is an average of 3.89 damage. Now we imagine this was 20 mortek with spears and all of them can attack, this is then 41 attacks, which on average should result in 4.27 damage. So spears have a very slight edge when the unit is completely fresh, but once you lose just 5 guys, the spears will drop to 3.23 damage, while the sword are still 3.89, maybe even better with a better pile in later on. Againstn o save rerolls it looks better for spears, and petrifex +1 rend for them is a huge increase in output, and this is felt if all can attack. We just have to remember this is an anvil unit, they will take casualities and should be expected to be grinded down. If you get charged and lose 10 out of the 20 guys, the swords will greatly help when doing a counter punch, so just comparing them at full strength will not reflect actual in game usefulness over an entire battle. I'd still say for Mortek Guard if in doubt use swords unless running 30+ units of mortek guard. For Kavalos swords all the time, even when charging the swords still beat spears, unless you run 10+ units and have some guys really out of position despite access to a 6" pile in.

@NuradinCorax white and Seraphim sepia is really close I think, there is an article using that technique on warhammer community here: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/28/from-the-mind-of-mengel-mortek-guardgw-homepage-post-2/ I used some elements for inspiration, but for the bone both methods should do well. My experience from coating outside with corax white is similar living in Scandinavia, as it often ends up either drying midair or pooling if too close instead. So far wraithbone seems a bit better to work with, but I also have a garage to coat in now so that obviously helps a bit with the issue as well.

Pretty simple really. Wraithbone basecoat, skeleton horde contrast all over, then wyldwood contrast on feet, knees etc. Then a light drybrush of ushabti bone. Lastly extreme highlights with wraithbone is optional, I will only be doing that on larger models. The white bone is simply apothecary white contrast, with ceramite white highlights. I think the apothecary white is one of the most interesting paints in the contrast range, while all the variations of brown are super effective.

A nice feeling when the first 10 min unit is complete. It seems like the project is really kicked of at that point. Next up the stalkers and the huge terrain piece... that will take a while!

With all those points the battalion will be a bit wasted, especially with nobody to use the extra artifact either, at the very least Zandtos should just be a regular Kavalos Liege, as his command ability only works on Mortis Praetorians, you can get far more use from a regular Liege with a useful artifact. This is my problem with Zandtos, no matter what I do he never seems worth it, even without Katakros for Mortis Praetorians the forced artifact is a -3 rend one, and that is only really useful on a Liege... maybe on a soul reaper but eh...

Double post

I feel the entire army is balanced around this legion basically and overcosted for all other legions. having access to +1 save, so basically 3+ saves or even better across the army and access to +1 rend in melee at will is extremely powerful, who else can boast of performance like a unit of stalkers for 200 points, 15 attacks with 3+/3+/rend -2/2dmg with access to rend 3 at any time and 3+ saves? The second we go outside of petrifex all those falls of drastically, but people perceive the army as the strongest legion now. My entire gaming group already thinks of the bonereapers as the 3+ save army, despite most not having played with or against the army at all. This has also been expressed here with the false method to analyse a units efficiency, by just including their command abilities as baseline ability and commander abilities and legion abilties all at once. But people taking this biased method to look at a unit just thinks oh this 200 point unit will have +1 save, +1 hit, +1 attack, +1 rend, +3 move, reroll charges. That is already 4 discipline points to make that happen, and Katakros within 12" (for +1 attack CA) in the list (or a liege with helm of the ordained), Praetorians - Everything is terrible, only the CA is marginally useful. Katakros makes it playable, but 0 reason to do this over petrifex anyway. Petrifex - Best of the best Null Myriad - Situational, very cheesy in a few matchups, useless in others. Stalliarch lords - This one strikes a good balance of what a legion should be I think. The trait and artifact are really bad though and the kavalos battalion basically kills this legion. Again far better to run the battalion to retreat/charge for free and have 3+ saves and the option for +1 rend. Crematorium - About in line with Stalliarch lords, this will always do "something" but does not play much into the strengths of the army (not dying in the first place). The CA is dreadful, the trait is horrible and the artifact is very meh at best (what is up with all the weapons, we only got a max of 3 attacks on a hero to use them!). Ivory host - These guys had a nice idea behind them at some point I think, but are terrible sadly. +1 hit is also available from other sources, simply using the shrieker can bring everyone nearby to 2+ hit as is. Points wise I quickly run into a wall building lists. Getting enough heroes for discipline points gets expensive fast and most battalions are very specialized and/or relatively costly. Still the selection is good, but many units will struggle badly outside the more competetive choices.

The shrieker is definately a good idea here. I have found list building really tight with the reapers and have trouble getting room for the endless spells, but usually there is at least one of them I'd like to bring, they are pretty cool and also creates quite a bit of board control and pressure on your opponents movement. I'm not sure besides the theme of course how much Crematorium will help you, but if running those a harvester might be worthwhile instead of stalkers, but that of course is some more investments right now. Of course especially with this generalist list petrifex elite would be a far stronger sub faction, but we might all get bored of that sooner or later.

I think it is absolutely viable to run without healing, it is not a core part of the reapers at all like it is with LoN. It is more like a happy coincidence and after effect than something to build for I think. If you want to focus on healing however Arkhan is your guy, the 6" range on the boneshaper is somewhat limited but nice to have. Harvesters should be brought for doing damage and then healing, it is a 200 point monster and needs to be bringing the pain to be worth it. As for spears vs swords, swords are stronger in the most situations by far, and as petrifex getting them to rend 2 on an important charge makes them even more reliable. Especially for the riders, even in a unit of 10 you can get +3" pile in too, so getting them all into range is even easier and the swords still do more damage than spears even on the charge. For Mortek MU is 100% swords. For 20 it is a bit so so, from what I can see spears are only ahead in a 20 man unit when nearly all can fight and even then, as soon as you begin losing a couple of guys swords will just rise in value. If I ever run 30-40 man blobs then yea spears for sure, but I don't really see myself doing that.

At best I think we might see some campaign book like Forbidden power, making an entirely new sub allegiance combining some various death forces in a defenders of Lethis kind of allegiance (only useful for narrative purposes). On the other hand the Bonereapers would probably just grab the old skeletons and make something more useful out of them. I would imagine the reapers considers the work of regular necromancers crude and inefficient waste of resources.

If charging they have to end up within 0,5" yes, in that case it just gives them some placement options, but placing them behind some mortek can protect them from charges and allow them to pile in and attack if the guards are attacked, which is a great strategy when in a defensive position. If they are not engaged, they can always fly over the guards in your own turn to counter attack. These are tactical options only available to the Morghasts in this army and can be really effective.

I agree with those pointing at the Gitz, I do not play them myself but have a friend who does and they provide for interesting games and entertainment just about every time. They can be strong have and have a LOT of options and very importantly a wide range of cool interesting models, with at least a semi decent internal balance in the book. Compare that to the Orruk warclans book and Ironjawz, who got 3 non hero units and they could not even balance and diversify those 3... I do not really like the minimum effort for a faction approach, but it does seem GW is trying to correct this a bit, like consolidating the Ogors in one book and Skaven, instead of all those mini factions we had just about a year ago. In my opinion the perfect book would combine the elements of various books sort of like this: Allegiance abilities: Ironjawz - at least this part the new book got right, the allegiance abilities are both flavorful and impactful regardless of army composition. With situational elements (smashin and bashin) and command abilities that really gives you strategic options and differentiates how the army act on the table compared to others. I could throw in the Sylvaneth as well here, they have a very unique mechanic, although all those woods are a logistical nightmare Sub factions: Fyreslayers - The Gitz book completely lack these which is a shame, but the Fyreslayers are a good example of the direction sub factions should be heading I think. If we ignore some of the other internal balance issues in the book (Vostarg + lords of the lodge), the fyreslayer lodges by themselves are very interesting, bringing character and flavor, while also having significant gameplay impact, to help diversify an otherwise small model range. My favourite might be Greyfyrd putting the heroes on foot at the fore, and allowing multiple of them to fight at once as a unit, which is very cool and unique. The new bonereapers also has some interesting factions, although internal balance is again here poor, with 1 being above all in sheer power, same for DoK and Hagg Narr. Warscrolls: Gitz easily takes the cake here, such a fun model range and many many choices. You can build a list of focused and as diverse as you wish. Internal balance is relatively good. Running some thematic armies iwll usually lead to the best results though. On the flipside of this you can find the Stormcasts who also has a huge and new model range, but horrible internal balance, with IDK being in the same... boat.

I guess a case for the soul reaper, however feeble it might be, is if you absolutely want to run Katakros in his own legion and you are forced to pick someone to use the rend -3 weapons. Can't imagine anyone using a Liege kavalos when using Katakros, so who else would be using the -3 rend weapon... well it's still super bad I guess and pointless when rolling mortal wounds. Why are the Praetorians so darn bad... As stalkers can just choose to get 1 more rend and damage, this brings them much higher in direct output. against a 4+ save stalkers dish out an average of 11.11 damage, while morghasts with halberds dish out 6.67 damage. Even with +1 attack that ends up being 13.3 vs 8.9. In just about all situations Stalkers will dish out more damage by around 30%, they can also be more flexible and sacrifice some damage to reroll saves in a pinch, which can make all the difference from holding or losing an objective or reroll hits against a super slippery loonboss. Stalkers can also reroll charges with they command ability but they are slower than morghasts so I will say that closes the gap on that front. Morghasts do have -1 bravery aura (yay...) and either a mortal wound shrug or 3d6 charge, which is nice and also using halberds (never use swords) they have 2" reach, which you can do more tricks with, like having them fight behind some mortek guards for example. I wouldn't follow the trend of saying Stalkers are plain better all the time, they are entirely carried by the +1 rend and damage stance most of the time, as in average the others will deal less damage than stalkers and even the immortis guards.

This is my line up with and without katakros and the models I have on the way. This is a very balanced aproach and what I thought was most fun to get just to own the models but also somewhat effective: Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers - Legion: Petrifex Elite Leaders Katakros, Mortarch of the Necropolis (500) Mortisan Soulmason (140) Battleline 20 x Mortek Guard (260) - Nadirite Blade and Shield 10 x Mortek Guard (130) - Nadirite Blade and Shield 10 x Kavalos Deathriders (360) - Nadirite Blade and Shield Units 3 x Necropolis Stalkers (200) Behemoths Gothizzar Harvester (200) Mortek Crawler (200) Total: 1990 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 119 Without Katakros: Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers - Legion: Petrifex Elite Leaders Liege-Kavalos (200) - General - Trait: Mighty Archaeossian - Artefact: Helm of the Ordained Mortisan Soulmason (140) - Artefact: Godbone Armour - Lore of Mortisans: Drain Vitality Mortisan Boneshaper (130) - Lore of Mortisans: Arcane Command Battleline 20 x Mortek Guard (260) - Nadirite Blade and Shield 10 x Mortek Guard (130) - Nadirite Blade and Shield 5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180) - Nadirite Blade and Shield 5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180) - Nadirite Blade and Shield Units 3 x Necropolis Stalkers (200) Behemoths Gothizzar Harvester (200) Mortek Crawler (200) Battalions Kavalos Lance (120) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Nightmare Predator (40) Total: 1980 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 111 These lists are very similar. The one with Katakros will have 1 more discipline point per turn by default, however the second list is very close, as it can use the deathriders for more tricks and also 1 free use of their ability, there is also 1 more unit on the table to roll a d6 for, so about equal I'd say. By having a battalion the Liege can get helm of the ordained for a mini Katakros +1 hit bubble within 12", this is really nice on a very mobile model. The list wihtout Katakros has a bit more magic power as well, with some more options, and the boneshaper can heal a bit, while of course not as well as Katakros, but you get another nice spell to cast/choose. It is nice that Katakros can automatically dish out -1 to hit though and also deny CP from the opponent, but if ignored he has about 0 combat ability, but you can chose to advance him and try to get him into threats in later turns. I might give the Katakros list the edge, and if Petrifex Elite did not exist, then I would chose Katakros and his legion every time (if I wanted to play to win). Having access to +1 save legion and +1 hit 12" bubble artifact, makes Katakros command ability far less special though. If you prefer a list without Katakros, I think the second list at least shows how to reasonably cover some of those bases.

I am one of the few apparently who likes the mortid praetorian look, so mostly used that with just a slight shift in tone. Finished my morghasts and soon done with my first unit of 10 mortek guard, then I will move on to the huge terrain piece. That will take a while to finish 😉

Our battleline units are pretty good though, so at least it is not a tax to bring them, but of course I would not have been against even more diversity in builds. The best part about this army is the amount of options they have. Many AoS armies these days are very thematic and a bit one note in that regard, but the bonereapers function a bit more like classic armies, having access to tough but slow troops, fast and decenly hard hitting cavalry, artellery, elite big guys and a bunch of varied hero options. I recommend reading the community article showing of 3 very different army lists, including a crematorium list with Arkhan the black leading a bunch of mortek guard infantry backed up by harvesters to exlode on death and regen again. A cavalry focused list and another focused on a shieldwall guarding a bunch of catapults is also shown. Some things will be objetively stronger than others, but there are options for many lists and themes if you want to pursue them. I do think you will like the army the most if the idea of somewhat more classic medieval warfare appeals to you, but with a significant death twist on top and a monster or two. The infantry behaves a lot like you would expect trained soldiers to do back then, forming shield walls and holding the line. While the cavalry is very fast and packs a hard punch when charging, while also being able to dig in pretty deep on the charge (with +3" to pile in). Even the wizards are more supportive characters than mortal wounds spamming powerhouses and commanders are important for actually commanding. Karakros embodies this, by standing there on his rock, by default hardly moving or fighting at all, but simply improving everything else and hindering the opponent. The army fits the lore well and the mentality of Nagash, it is a patient army, deliberate, methodical, imposing and impervious to fear, but also somewhat predictable and "easy" to counter plan against, as they do not have many really nasty surprise tricks.

Yes well the slaanesh army at least, in 1k af Kos is even harder to deal with than in 2k. Loosing to stabbas hordes was actually good fun though, I lost 14 wounds worth total but still could not win any objectives, so was well played by my opponent and interesting. My thoughts are positive however, as I said even being the top of the middle is a good place to be, and a good balance goal for all armies, so I am happy that this army seems to sit there. This might change if someone discovers the golden combo. I think the army needs the +1 save though to be there, but I will gladly eat my words if we see lists outside petrifex doing well in the competitive scene. If you have someone you dislike who plays tzeentch tough, you can make that person weep by bringing null myriad, you nasty person you.

Played 2 meeting engagement games over the weekend, sadly I lost both both was pretty good fun. My list: Petrifex elite liege kavalos (general + artefact) and 3 stalkers in spearhead Boneshaper and 20 mortek guard main body 2 morghast archai rearguard Game 1 was against gitz. Started good by turn 2 my stalkers wiped a sneaky unit of 20 stabbas (hand of gorked to backline) with the liege tagging along. After that it went downhill fast. I did not lose much, but my opponent had his loonshrine pretty central (meeting engagements are on smaller tables) and an ability to try to regin dead untis at 50% strength in his hero phase also. In the end my mortek guard held as rocks, but got bogged down in constant floods of grots, unable to just get close enough to the objective I needed and 1 stupid loonboss with -2 to be hit basically tanked my stalkers and liege, actually over 2 rounds killing 2 stalkers by some miracle. I got the kill objective every time, but lost on main objective from simply being filled with grots. My second game was against slaanesh (oh boy) with a keeper, chariot hero, masque, 2x20 marauders and 10 demonettes. Went as expected and was forced to commit wo the center objective (in rearguard action) with no way to get around him in time. His KoS stood behind a wall of marauders, using his 2" reach and forcing my to strike last. The big battle came down to my stalkers and morghast striking last. my Mortek killing a good bunch of screening demonettes, then the keeper killed all the stalkers, then struck again on killed 1 morghast. The morghast whiffed and got killed by 20 marauders. My mortek held fast, but then his turn came and I was out of discipline points, the keeper then killed them too. For some reason my opponent and onlookers complained about how overpowered my units were, with 3+ saves and rerolls, 6+ minion save etc. while my army just got hacked to pieces by nearly 1 model... My main impressions so far: As I expected we wont be on par with the "big boys" no strike first or double combat abilities should keep as well out of the regular podium factions. We have some fun stuff though, but I feel the reapers are just a good army running petrifex, but I fear just about "ok-ish" with anything else. Tough units alone dont win games, and with a mediocre output and a stark lack of bodies to capture objectives and block+hold them. You can have 10 guys with 1+ rerollable saves and damage ignores, but that wont get that unit of 40 clanrats of the objective, as they got there first thanks to movement shenanigans. Basically if the opponent could just put enough guys on an objective, it would take too long for me to remove them usually, even in a winning fight. Facing rend 2 units will just crumble the army, with no way to influence the combat order, while others can. With a liege and boneshaper on the board at most, I only ever got a max of 4 points, and never had enough for the entire battleround, especially as adding movement was so crucial. The liege adding 2 was absolutely required in a 1k game even. He did not die in any of the game, nobody bothered to attack him with 9 wounds, 2+ save and ignoring the first wound per phase, but his output was easily ignored as well anyway. The terrain piece is pretty cool. It got me 2 of my very limited points vs slaanesh round 1 due to sniping 1 demonette with 1 MW, giving me the only kill scored that turn Otherwise I never managed the 4+ rolls I tried on the KoS for -1 hit. But I like having it, and being able to place it anywhere before other terrain allows you to place it for example super central. So far I stick to my analysis I posted in the ridiculous thread in general about Bonereapers being "hideously overpowered". They lack just about all the core tools that places the top armies at the top currently. They are very strong against all the "mid tier" armies if running petrifex, but the other legions will just be at best a very middle of the pack army or lower. I might be wrong but that is what I expect to see in upcoming events at least. The mortal wound output, movement shenanigans, objective grabbing, and combat phase manipulating ailities are not present in this book to compete at the absolute top (and I actually think that is the level of army ideal for having actual fun games).

As for spears vs swords I think there is a case to be made with the greatblades in a spear unit. Nothing states the one getting the greatblade cant be the Hekatos with +1 attack, so in a unit of 20 with spears, it is a better deal than with swords to have a hekatos and another guy up front with the blades. They value falls drastically with a sword unit though.

My first 1k all purpose list will be like this: Petrifex elite: Liege Kavalos - general Boneshaper 20 x Mortek Guards 5 x Kavalos Deathriders 3 x Stalkers Shrieker endless spell The idea is for the shaper to mainly maintain the shriker and then advance with the army to backup heal as needed. even with -1 to cat with the shrieker up, he might get a spell of once in a while, here I am thinking keeping it simple with the spell giving 1d3 discipline points (people seem to forget this exists when discussing point generation). Bonus is this will also look pretty cool to play with and against, with a bit of everything and visually interesting. A variation of this could be to skip the endless spell and get a mason instead for more casts and dispells, and possibly morghasts instead of stalkers for more mobility, or a harvester for more support and a bit less damage than stalkers. This is made with meeting engagements in mind, so having relatively fast units can be very important, for example if a rearguards shows up at the end of turn 2, it needs to be fast to have an impact, so kavalos and stalkers/morghasts in spearhead and rearguard can be useful.

Thanks for clearing up the box battalion thing, nice to know, totally missed that. I am not sure it is 120 points worth, I always seem to lose none or all of my dudes in a unit I guess you could still take it as petrifex and just miss out on Volk himself, no big deal, his own legion gives him nothing of note anyway. I guess the best value is to stay near morghasts and hope 1 and not 2 dies and lines up with your hero phase, but that is not all that likely, he is not really able to keep up as well and the 8" range is very risky. Bonereapers are funny with battalions, they are both high and low value due to discipline points. Unlike all other armies who has few sources of CP, that is not the case for Reapers. For the price of the the more expensive battalions you can just about get a wizard who also generated 1 point. Then it provides an artifact of course and this is good if you have someone to use it. But it is a tougher choice than usual with 1 hero vs battalion effect + 1 artifact. There are not a lot of super artifacts, but a few really good ones, so 1 battalion is not bad, but I don't think I will ever use a battalion + Katakros, he generates 4 points just by himself and I think points are needed for support wizards and just bodies.

So far none of the battalions from any dual boxes, like the battalions from looncurse, have been usable in matched play, so I do not expect the one from feast of bones to be either unfortunately. Maybe you can get away with it until the next GHB. As for other battalions I expect I will build towards the morteks or kavalos ones, as the rest take some specific investments and I like to generalize a bit with my army purchases to begin with. He will more need dispells. Katakros as the general is already 1+3 and a battalion gives 1. He has 7 units in total wich on 6 rolls should also give at least 1 per turn average, so 5-7 per turn would be quite normal and perfectly fine. It is a bit niche but probably fun.