Aren73

May 15, 2021

Yeah...I talked about previously that in their lore, Avengorii are meant to be monster hunters.

From their rules, they are chaff hunters that get hunted by monsters.

I don't know, maybe this is intentional from GW to make them seem delusional?

I do wish they were a bit better, for sure.

May 15, 2021

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

Maybe that's what GW want to go with 3.0? Better saves in turn for less lethality and more controled mw? I can't wait for 3.0!!!!

Could well be - make the game less about wiping away large units in a single blow and also reducing maximum unit size because you no longer need so many bodies (that's why zombies are 40 and not 60)

May 15, 2021

1 minute ago, Boar said:

If rumored changes to mystic shield (+1 sav), and charge reaction (again +1sv) are true that could give another point for Skellies in some situations, as the more armor you have the more valuable is another point, as some posters shown earlier.

If that's true then 100% save modifiers will be capped at +/-1. Otherwise it would be so easy to have multiple 2+ save units.

4 minutes ago, Elmir said:

I could see Vyrkos getting kinda insane.

Same, can't wait, the Coven Throne is already amazing with the trait that lets it use a CA without paying. If we get more CP then a whole chunk of the army could be rolling with +1 Hit, wound and save. Makes Blood Knight, Coven Throne armies nuts.

May 15, 2021

20 minutes ago, Grimoriano said:

They solve it in a faq(2019), if 20 were killed and you resurrect 10, in the battleshock phase you add 20 to the roll. But in the same case with dance macabre, you roll 20 dice to resurrect the first time to get 10 of them back, and the second time roll again 20!, so with dance, you recover 100% of them, but sure, add 20 to the roll and the battleshock, or pay 1 cp to save all the unit

This the one?

May 15, 2021

1 minute ago, Grimoriano said:

To me both are very goods, and have their own space in my army.

Yeah, I agree.

My whole thing was just to show that zombies aren't always the best option. Sometimes they are, other times they're not, they are not better i every scenerio, not even in the greater majority of scenarios, I see it as a healthy 50:50 or 60:40 (though not sure which way the advantage is there...yet).

May 15, 2021

I find it funny how heated the skellies vs zombies thing got.

If nothing else, it's showing that they are comparable in durability, each is better in different scenarios. If nothing else it's proof that skellies aren't terrible, they have their place - it's just not as a damage dealing unit.

If you want to go with a zombie themed army you go for it, I'll be taking the unit choice that doesn't force me to build around it.

May 15, 2021

4 minutes ago, Elmir said:

Then try to argue for the fact that getting a worse tanking unit in skeletons is somehow the smarter choice compared to just getting the tankier, faster and harder hitting Blood knights instead? If a tanky unit is what you are after...

Skeletons lose out in damage and flexibilty/tricks compared to zombies for your battle line, and with the mega fast blood knights being one of the tankiest units in the game, they kind of also lose out against those too in that department. I just don't see a place for the humble skelly in this book.

Because I want bodies on objectives and not 5-10 blood knights sitting there camping.

I want my blood knight pushing up, onto enemy objectives, taking them and then being unkillable. But on home objectives, or mid objectives I want the skeletons.

Zombies have a place, they're better at damage and they can really get going when you stack the buffs, but they need at least two layers of buffs before they're scary.
Look, I'm with you that Zombies are cool, you can really do some fun stuff with them. But they're not the be all and end all, sometimes skellies are just better.

May 15, 2021

4 minutes ago, Elmir said:

no, you are giving zombies the handicap of needing a 140 vampire for their tanking and that is BOLLOCKS, either you compare their tanking (have fun doing that after a battleround where they add their damage to their numbers if they strike first btw, because they it would matter)

So no, some people here are still having a hard time swallowing that bitter pill that the humble old skeleton... is just plain not that good anymore and is outshined by the way more versatile zombie.

I gave them the vampire to double their damage output and their heals. Sure, we can take the vampire away, now the zombies with Necro are cheaper than skellies with necro by 25 points (woo?).
Zombie damage and heals are halved...they still come out worse.

People are blinded by the omg-MWs-on-6s-models-get-back-on-2s thing but the maths is generally in favour of skellies.

And once again, this is just for tanking. Zombies have better damage, I am not and will not argue against that.

EDIT: Also I literally did the maths for a whole range of scenarios and even put up the graphs. It's not just one oddball scenario that skellies tank better, it's a whole range.

May 15, 2021

1 minute ago, Elmir said:

In this one very particular situation... tanking stuff... And we have an army that has plain ol' better units to tank damage than these guys.

The fact that zombies are just plain easier to manipulate to strike first with their pile-in shenanigans, gain ablative wounds when they do pull off the "insane" buff (which btw, isn't even at full potential when talking about Vyrkos builds) and all round scale better because of lower points per model, they are the better all rounders by a long shot.

In most situations. Dude...I even gave the zombies 115 more points.
That's just one of many scenarios where Skellies are better at tanking than zombies.
It's not all scenarios, definitely not, but in the majority of scenarios skellies tank better.

And yes, zombies do much better damage. But I'm not taking skellies for damage, I have grave guard to do that for me.

Grave guard are better at damage than zombies.

May 15, 2021

13 minutes ago, Doko said:

Yes.....but now do the same numbers if the damage is from magic,shooting or leadership or skeletons attack first.or if the unit is deleted full

So yes

Zombies are better in every situations if full supported

Without support and the 4++ active then skeletons are very little better

Without support and the 4++ dont active zombies are as double better

So yes, in perfect scenario and situations skeletons are marginally better tanking than zombies

But in realistic games zombies gonna be better tanking than skeletons

Also zombies outdamage skeletons in any situation

Magic is the same as -2 Rend. Against shooting skeletons come out on top - neither unit heals and skeletons have a better save. Against leadership Skeletons AGAIN do better because in almost every scenario you end up killing more zombies, meaning they suffer more from battleshock. If skeletons do attack first (why would you ever pick them to attack first??) then yes, they don't do nearly as well.

In my previous post I showed that a max unit of skellies and Necromancer (380) survive better than a max unit of zombies and Necromancer and Vampire Lord (495), just how much "full support" are you going to sink into zombies before they become as amazing as you think they are?

Unless you're up against tiny amounts of damage, skeletons will survive better. In fact, unless you kill the unit you are guaranteed 50% of the unit remains and that's without any support!

30 Skeletons are only 255 pts.
Unless you kill them in one blow, at least 15 are guaranteed to remain.
Rend - takes 55 wounds to kill them
Rend -1 takes 43 wounds to kill them
Rend -2 takes 37 wounds to kill them

As an objective blocking unit they are nuts

May 15, 2021

8 minutes ago, Elmir said:

Ironically, you seem to miss that those skeletons are also getting necro support in that comparison vs the vargheists.

You also don't need zombies to be ridiculous all the time. The point is that you can GET them to be ridiculous while regular skeletons just plain can't. A unit who's ability requires it to get close to massacred before it's semi useful, is just plain not as good... not in an army that already doesn't lack tanky units in the form of blood knights who are, even without support, one of the tankiest units in the game.... and if you give them support, can become downright obnoxious while still being fast.

Skeleton usefulness is VERY circumstantial while zombies have got a lot more going for them in general... Even if there are some fringe cases where the enemy can spend a ton of attack power to destroy a 230p unit. They are our new skinks... another unit that needs a bit of support to get there, but (like you said) can become insane when you do.

Nope, I didn't miss it

30 Skeletons with a Necromancer (380) are cheaper than 40 Zombies with a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord (495).

The skeletons still do better...

May 15, 2021

Ok I mathsed some crunches and crunched some maths.

Comparison of a unit of 40 Zombies and 30 Skeletons, neither is supported, taking damage. Healing is taken into account

3 Damage profiles (no rend, 1 rend, 2 rend). 1st Graph shows the amount of models dead from each unit at the end of the combat phase, the 2nd graph shows the amount of models remaining after the end of the combat phase.

I didn't count in battleshock because it can be ignored and it's a massive difference if you do or you don't so...yeah. I do realise that if you don't ignore battleshock then it changes things, I know.

This shows to me that:

1. Skeletons are generally better than Zombies when neither is supported
2. Skeletons fare notably better against Rend - and Rend -1
3. Against Rend -2 the two units become quite similar
4. Zombies always do better against very small amounts of chip damage - because they can heal above starting size
5. Skeletons always do better against large amounts of damage - until they die and then they're not doing anything anymore

May 15, 2021

@Elmir See my previous comparison of zombies to skeletons:

45 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

How do we feel on the durability of a max unit of skeletons vs a max unit of zombies?

Skeletons have the 5+ save and can reroll 1s on deathless minions roll. They automatically come back on a 4+ for every model slain in the phase when they're chosen to fight.

Synergies: Vanhel's activates them twice, so you get to roll that 4+ twice. Very nice. That's...about it for abilities that increase their durability that also don't work on Zombies

Zombies: no save, larger unit of 40, if they kill models you roll a 2+ to get a zombie added to the unit for every model killed.

Synergies: Vanhel's double activation helps, Corpse Carts +1 to save, anything that makes zombies more killy (especially more attacks and the like) helps out their durability.

My take: Skeletons are more survivable seemingly, the save and reroll 1s on deathless minions helps a ton. It's not too hard to get them a +1 save either. I think the 4+ Reanimation Protocols is pretty good, the Necromancer makes it possible for all of the casualties to get back up. They are good to just grab and have many units of them without worrying about buffs.

Zombies by themselves are less survivable. However, I think you can get them to be more survivable if you stack buffs on them which isn't difficult to do but is expensive.

To sum up, skeletons are baseline more survivable but if you make a Zombie horde deathstar unit then you can get that one unit to be more survivable and more of a damage threat too, but it takes at least a corpse cart and a Necromancer, ideally a Coven Throne too.

I'm not comparing damage here, or speed or anything else. I do think that overall Zombies are a better unit than Skeletons. But Skeletons do seem to be more durable. You can't rely too much on those MWs on 6s from zombies for their damage output - you're hardly going to get more than 20 in combat, which equates to just under 4 MW (and their other attacks basically do nothing). 4 Zombies coming back isn't all that much and they're not going to kill anything significant with those 4 MWs.

Zombies do really ramp up with extra attacks and activations (+1 A from Vampire Lord and Vanhels from Necro gets them to a much nicer 16 MW). However they NEED that support.

Skeletons on the other hand need no support to be decently durable. If your enemy can wipe out 30 skeletons in a single activation then what the hell, he'll probably kill all the zombies too, or all but 5 or something. And then as soon as the skeletons activate they get half their dead back.

Zombies are a trap. They look really good with all their MWs on 6s and coming back after killing something. To really get that going; however, you need a block of 40 of them, a vampire lord and a Necromancer AND you need your opponent not to send something at them that just wipes the unit.

A max unit of zombies with Necromancer and vampire lord support is 495 pts. For that much you can take 9 Vargheists.
9 Vargheists (not buffed) can kill 26 zombies on average. What do the remaining 14 do? 5 MW followed by another 5 MW - they've killed 2 Vargheists, maybe a 3rd one if you're lucky.

The same 9 Vargheists going into Skeletons only kills 21 skeletons. The 9 skeletons activate, 11 get back up. 20 skeletons go into the Vargheists and don't do much - but, more of them survived. If you have a Necromancer to Vanhels them then the rest of them get back up too - effectively the Vargheists did nothing.

Guys you are overestimating the Zombies, they need a lot of help to get them to be ridiculous.
Skeletons are more survivable (see above) than zombies even if the zombies are supported a bit. Zombies win out when they go up against units that aren't doing much damage in the first place. Whereas Skeletons can take a hit that kills 20 of them and they can still come back from it easily. Once your block of zombies is reduced to 10 models they're practically out of the game unless you do A LOT of work to try and heal them.

May 15, 2021

Durability of Skeletons vs Grave Guard:

First, all the things that are the same:
They both are Deathrattle and Summonable so both benefit from pretty much all the same buffs. All of the healing, all of the summoning and all of the damage buffs. They both have banners that do exactly the same thing. They both have the same baseline save and wounds char.

Grave Guard:
Have 1 better save if they have shields. That's it for their durability.

Skeletons:
Reanimate losses suffered in that phase on a 4+ when they activate. Necromancer's Vanhel's can enhance this with a double activation so that's an indirect buff to their durability - but a potent one.

Thoughts and comparison
Skeletons are straight up more durable. They're way cheaper and the 4+ reanimate really discourages chip damage. The grave guard definitely are more killy (like so, so much more) so there is the argument that they are free to activate first and kill their opponent. But skeletons you can take 3 units of 30 and not hurt too much for it. Or use the points difference to add in a corpse cart for -1 to wound and a Necromancer. IMO skeletons come out on top.

May 15, 2021

How do we feel on the durability of a max unit of skeletons vs a max unit of zombies?

Skeletons have the 5+ save and can reroll 1s on deathless minions roll. They automatically come back on a 4+ for every model slain in the phase when they're chosen to fight.

Synergies: Vanhel's activates them twice, so you get to roll that 4+ twice. Very nice. That's...about it for abilities that increase their durability that also don't work on Zombies

Zombies: no save, larger unit of 40, if they kill models you roll a 2+ to get a zombie added to the unit for every model killed.

Synergies: Vanhel's double activation helps, Corpse Carts +1 to save, anything that makes zombies more killy (especially more attacks and the like) helps out their durability.

My take: Skeletons are more survivable seemingly, the save and reroll 1s on deathless minions helps a ton. It's not too hard to get them a +1 save either. I think the 4+ Reanimation Protocols is pretty good, the Necromancer makes it possible for all of the casualties to get back up. They are good to just grab and have many units of them without worrying about buffs.

Zombies by themselves are less survivable. However, I think you can get them to be more survivable if you stack buffs on them which isn't difficult to do but is expensive.

To sum up, skeletons are baseline more survivable but if you make a Zombie horde deathstar unit then you can get that one unit to be more survivable and more of a damage threat too, but it takes at least a corpse cart and a Necromancer, ideally a Coven Throne too.

May 15, 2021

@Raptor_Jesues - Oh absolutely! This is just to explain a rules interaction.

May 15, 2021

The Stolen Vitality trait does not heal.

Our healing abilities like Invigorating Aura "heal wounds allocated". Stolen Vitality doesn't do that.

The Wounds Characteristic of a unit is entirely different from wounds allocated to a unit.

Wounds allocated is like a counter, next to the model. You can only allocate as many wounds as the wounds characteristic but wounds allocated doesn't change the wounds characteristic and changing the wounds characteristic doesn't change the allocated wounds.

A Blood Knight that has 2 wounds allocated at a wounds char. of 3, still has 2 wounds allocated at a wounds char of 4.

A Blood Knight that has 3 wounds allocated at a wounds char. of 4, still has 3 wounds allocated at a wounds char of 3.

Yes, Blood Knights can die when they lose Stolen Vitality.

May 15, 2021

19 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

would you reckon that Belladama's exploding 6 spell stacks with the vargheists ability? Because i was considering putting out the coven throne (se exponsive, yikes) for her and some more vargheists

I don't think so.

Both rules give them "2 hits instead of 1" when you roll a 6.

That's technically not an extra hit per 6, it just transforms a normal hit to two hits, twice.

It's a bit like giving a unit the rule "this model's save roll is a 4+" twice. It doesn't do anything to have it repeated.

May 15, 2021

7 hours ago, FeralMulan said:

https://www.goonhammer.com/soulblight-gravelords-battetome-the-goonhammer-review/

Review Article is up for any that care ❤️

It certainly seems very positive to the point of going over the top.

Kind of smacks me of some people who were doing cartwheels no matter what GW showed them and trying to make out like the Black Knight changes are good.

To be clear, this review isn't that bad but still.

The main issue with the book is its creativity, it does very few fun and lore-focused things. Yet that's mentioned as a passing note at the end and even put in a positive light like "I'm glad they didn't change much from LoN".

This review feels less sincere and more like they had an agenda to push like "too many people are negative about the book, let's counteract that".

Side note, it feels like people's mindset is now that 90% of a book is there to make the faction competitive and 10% is a veneer of flavour to make it fun. That's a bit miserable.

May 14, 2021

40 minutes ago, Ghoooouls said:

They've already taken the damage, they would stay on 1 wound. Just because their characteristic returns to 3 doesn't mean they take an extra damage from nothing.

They get attacked, you allocate the damage and one is left on 1 wound, then at the end of the turn their characteristic returns to 3... so? They already took the damage, where does the extra 1 damage come from to kill him off?

Edit: will probably get FAQ to clear it up but seems fairly obvious to me, you don't keep track of how many wounds you've inflicted in that way, like imagine an ability where you change a models wound characteristic to 1... say my vampire lord got hit with 1 mortal wound, then next turn they cast a theoretical spell that changed his wound characteristic to 1, he wouldn't just die because he took damage in the past. He'd already allocated that damage, there is no carryover in that respect.

Don't you count wounds taken in AoS and not wounds remaining?

So you have some blood knights, who have a characteristic of 4 wounds, one of them has taken 3 wounds.

Then they revert to characteristic of 3 wounds.

Now you have some blood knights, who have a characteristic of 3 wounds, one of them has taken 3 wounds.

The one that has taken 3 wounds has no wounds left and dies.

May 14, 2021

Could somebody give me a quick rundown of what the Anvil of Death is?

Could it mean more flavourful Vampire Lords?

May 14, 2021

1 minute ago, BaylorCorvette said:

I would put the chance of us getting ANYTHING new within the next 1-2 years at less than 5%.

Sad vampire lord noises...

May 14, 2021

14 minutes ago, Sception said:

No specific terrain, instead we still have grave sites, but they're not as good as before. No endless spells either.

I really don't want to start getting my hopes up for another wave soon like Lumineth got, It just seems unlikely with /how many/ new kits we just got. But there are some extremely noticeable gaps here. No mounted vamp lord, no modeled terrain, no endless spells being only the most noticeable ones.

Then again, maybe they decided that free faction terrain and unique endless spells for every faction was a bad idea and those just aren't going to be things in battletomes going forward, who knows.

...

If we do get a surprise second book early LRL style, I hope that it's far enough out for them to have heard the feedback on some of the worse units in this book and take the time to fix them. I'd really like wight kings, black knights, and skeletons in particular to not be, you know... bad.

Ah don't...don't get my hopes up.

I would LOVE a second release wave at this point. I wouldn't even mind paying for the book twice. Especially if they give Vampire Lords more options.

Did the LRL book mention the missing units in the lore? That could be a sign

May 14, 2021

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

I mean, I've been in quarantine for a while. 220 is a fair bit cheaper. I guess I could see throwing that in on a whim.

Points seem kind of tight in the gravelords, though, so I'm still skeptical.

I wonder how it compares to a Vengorian lord. The coach might actually out-damage them, perhaps. And may even be more durable. But Vengorians have more synergy. They are 60 points more though...

May 14, 2021

32 minutes ago, umpac said:

Only the Scythe deals MWs on 6s and the abilities are pretty mediocre and random. You also need to wait for level 3-5 before they kick in. The Coach is bad in NH and hardly better in SGL, we have much much better options. If you already have one and like the model, which you should because its godlike, then go for it. Other than "rule of cool" there is no reason to take it.

It's also on the Relic Bearer's. Which isn't much but it's an extra average 1.5 MWs more

13 minutes ago, Sception said:

I mean, it's considered pretty terrible in nighthaunt lists, who do get some amount of synergy with it. Even if it were a native army choice and its healing worked on SG units, it would still be a bad choice better left on the display shelf.

We're expecting a new nighthaunt battletome in the not-too-distant future. Since the coach is kind of universally acknowledged as bad in its current form, one would hope for it to see some significant improvements which might make it more viable as an ally choice as well. Until then, I would instead recommend asking your opponents if they'd let you use it as a proxy for a mortis engine or coven throne. I doubt it would be a problem in casual local games at least.

That's a shame...I love the model, it's the one thing I kept before selling my NH army (they just didn't vibe with me as much as LoN did).

Still, on average we're looking at maybe 3MW from its attacks, d3 from its charge and another d3 from the final power (which yes, you may never get, it's a gamble but let me have this ). 3+2d3 isn't necessarily a bad MW output and the unit isn't all that expensive.

But you're probably right...dammit I was hoping that would be my very-thematic-but-also-viable list.

As for proxying it for a Coven throne, nah. I like to play more or less WYSIWYG. I want the model to represent its rules, it feels more immersive, it makes it more fun for me. I'm not a big fan of "use cool model and slap your chosen warscroll on it". I do however have a Coven Throne that I may well put to use.

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Posts posted by Aren73