Phasteon

Well, I‘m very conflicted because I really like to run strong, competitive lists but I hate armies that don‘t match the lore. So I always tend to really like the army I play but not be 100% happy about how it performs. There are always workarounds but its kind of exhausting sometimes. Especially when you then face someone who just takes those 4 archregents and his lackey, the general (because of trait or sth), and tryhards his way to victory. I really know that feel, I tend to dodge those games most of the time though. Regarding the topic: I think balance in general is fine, most games are really fun and close - also I play like 4-5 armies and always perform pretty well, so it can‘t just be because „I play the best army“ It‘s about how good you know the armies/rules in general and how you play into it.

Really? There are people spending that much time and money just to be competitive at a game they don‘t like and nobody outside the hobby cares about? And even within the hobby most people dont care about tournaments (or tournament winners in particular). Strange folks.

But each of those units was/is kinda dominating. Also powercreep imo does not mean „something that was never there before“ but „bigger better faster stronger“. Best example for powercreep are the LRL. So many rules, so many things other armies already do but better. Not hating them, but they really got a lot of stuff/rules.

Sure, It sounds like a lot of „keeping track of“ rather than just removing models. If I kill 20 grots i want the other 20 to run not just cower in fear or sth. Infantry is the best unit type at the moment because they have the most wounds/ bodycount / attacks / buffs impact them the most too - their main drawback - battleshock- can be offset by spending 1 CP or often just being within range X of sth. This needs to change. Your battleshock would still not remove those 60 grots from my objective but make them fight worse (huzzaa!!) Also the spread out rule seems like a good idea at first glance but only really relevant on larger units of 30+ models and I dont know how practical those rules were on them. Its not that I dislike your idea in general, I just dont think it tackles one of the main balance issues the game has enough. We dont have a „units spread out too much“ problem (which is kinda fixed by that wholly within buff thing) , we have a infantry never runs if played correctly problem.

i already clarified. strange ruling though that does not sound very fun (or even remotely impactful) to me.

edit: nvm i misread it I dont know about that though, I like the rules as they are - they just need to fix battleshock immunity across the board and basically LRL sentinels MW hero sniping - in other cases look out sir works out. Scoring is also pretty much fine for the most part. Infantry should maybe go up in points to make cavalry/ monsters more relevant but i dont think we need a complete rules overhaul. Except „ignore battleshock“ its fine if a single army like OBR got this as a shtick but grots that are immune because their brave commander tells them? nonono!

to be fair: End Times Nagash went exactly like that - Nagash achieving every single goal in his rise to godhood, no matter if dwarfs, skaven, humans, elves or tomb kings stood against him - everyone was razed with ease by Nagash and his Mortarchs. I‘ve read it as both - Nagash/Arkhan and Tomb Kings/Settra fan and the book felt bland too, though there were cool moments as well. I expect BR Teclis to be pretty much the same in regards of predictable outcome - the main problem is that the book is pretty expensive for so little content.

Now that I think about it - even dealing them on wound rolls would solve the problem as you first need to hit. Take sentinels as best example, their MW output on long range Heroes would go from ~7 MWs to like what? 2?3? Because they would need 5s to hit most of the time or use their quartz to actually hit stuff instead of +1 save which would leave them open for retaliation = more drawback.

I‘d go with the rest here and say MWs in general are fine, but rend is underused imo. +damage/rend/MWs on hit should go away as they slow down the game by seperate rolling, but everything dealing MWs on 6s should instead increase the wound roll/rend/damage. You would have so many variations. example given: „6s to wound have a rend of -3“ to represent precision strikes “6s to wound deal double damage“ your generic critical hit - imagine that on sth like retributors “6s to wound have -1 rend and deal 1 additional damage“ beheading strike of executioners 3+/3+/- blade for example Giving LRL weapons an additional rend or even -2 would be enough for sunmetal weapons, especially on 5+ to wound (buffed) - would also fix the frustration problem as archers would now have to deal with -hit (eg look out sir).

What good lich leaves his home without a phylactery to conserve his soul?? I did not read BR:Teclis myself and I highly doubt its as poorly written as people say – but I doubt even more that Arkhan is gone for good, as much as Nagash won‘t be gone forever. Gravelords are coming (ofc lords. can‘t wait for new Fyreslayers aka Magmic Battlelords) so they needed to do sth with the story regarding death. so that vampires can now have their time to shine – which they can‘t when Nagash holds the leash. (Or Arkhan as his Lt.) After some bloodbathing and blooddrinking including a big hangover Nagash + Arkhan will be back like „WTF did you do to my home!?!? Oh you little blooddrinking sh*ts will clean up that mess or else“ Just my prediction though. If not, Arkhan will (un)live on in my heart and lists <3

thx for the clarification, also I completely misread the rule! I get the feeling that OBR are in general a strong pick against LRL

Guys, how do the rules of the LRL and OBR regarding battleshock interact? OBR rules state we dont take battleshock, Cathallar makes us take battleshock. Can I confidently say „****** you long ear!“ or do I lose Arkhan to a forced -10 battleshock?

New OBR units: - Mortek Archers (battleline) - Killy Construct (Monster) - Casket of Souls 2.0 (Artillery / Magic buffer, MW output)

Just a few points you should consider: 1. Zandtos is Mortis Praetorians, he cant buff your Stalliarch Lords with his „still their breath“ CA. 2. The Stalliarch Lords Trait + Artifact are really bad, like of the worst kind AOS has to offer - no real benifit by having them. 3. The Boneshaper will never ever be able to effectively hold together your army. Too slow, just 1 heal. Probably out of range forever after turn 1. 4. I‘d personally leave Zandtos the Boneshaper and the Soulreaper out and take Arkhan and maybe 10 more Mortek Guards instead. Better magic, better healing, can actually keep up with your stuff. Still not an optimal list, but less things „working against each other“ - that being said if you really want stalliarch lords and want to include Zandtos go ahead - just dont expect the list to perform very well as your points are spent very inefficient.

Very solid list, I‘d 100% go for Zandtos though. -3 rend on 3-4 attacks is A LOT less impactful than potentially full wound reroll (against chaos). You really want that rr on your mortek crawlers! Otherwise they are so unreliable for their cost.

What would be nice additions to OBR anyway? - Archers. We‘ve seen the model in the new Underworlds Warband and its pretty obvious what a unit like that would look like ruleswise. Would really help with range pressure. - What about a unit of „half skeletal - half shadow“ assassin/skirmishers with some kind of teleport outside 9“ mechanic to threaten backline targets / weak characters / grab unprotected objectives. - Chariots were mentioned and could also fill a nice role of „beefier monstrous cavalry“. Probably sth around 6-8 wounds, lots of different attacke between mounts and charioteers and some nice special rules. - A unit of „lesser Mortisan acolytes“ that can rebuild models/ cast spells/ and maybe have some range missiles. - More missile attacks in general. EVERY named wizard has some kind of ranged attack. Let Arkhan please throw some kind of Dark Energy bolt to weaken targets. - Rework the Spell Lore. Most of the time the spells feel so useless.. yeah reinforce weapons / shields need to always be up but lets be real here... shields effectively gives +1 to the deathless save against MW only and weapons does sth every LRL unit can get by design... using 2 spellcasts on our expensive mages feels a bit too taxing.. there are some nice shenanigans you can pull off with protection of Nagash - no hate on that. But Arcane Command, Mortal Contract and Drain Vitality just feel so lacking. I think regarding our weaknesses in general „low range threat / no shenanigans, very straightforward gameplay“ our spell lore is a big reason for that. In general I still rate the battletome as pretty well designed but there are definately many things that could be improved in the future. One last note: Morghasts. I dont know what, but they need some sort of help.. They also feel very lacking.

This wouldnt be so bad as the stalliarch rules are pretty good actually and make big deathrider units and stalkers VERY fast and dangerous - getting a benefit from the command ability to potentially save some RDP is ok - BUT - hooooly moly are the command trait and artifact bad - worse ones in the whole tome by far and probably in whole Aos. +D3 chances to deal a MW on a 6, so basically additional 0,5 MWs ?? I mean... why not just deal MWs on a 5+ instead.. its an artifact and the liege would still only cause about 2-3 MWs on the charge. Sad

Dont get me wrong, I also feel the army is lacking in the „pressure“ department without crawlers but to be fair, dont the objectives force the enemy towards our army anyway? But I think crawlers are more of a „psychological“ weapon, because the average dmg output of the crawler against 4+ Save is between 0-5 points of damage .. I think 200 points for that is a bit steep. I have to admit though, I dont play at tournaments / against tournament players so I cant really judge the „true“ competitiveness of a unit - just compared to my „local meta“ where we max out our lists at the moment, but also try weird things more often than not. What I wanted to say anyway, I‘d really like Mortek Archers, not just for the aesthetics but also for some reliable range threat a la Auralon Sentinels.. I‘d imagine the bows being like 2 shots, 18-24“ range, 3+/4+ maybe -1 rend, 1 damage and the nadirite rule (20 guys pumping out 40 shots with exploding 5s (buffed) would be awesome) 160-180 points for 10 Edit: Oh, and of course some fancy OBR style command ability like ignore cover or look out, sir.. And about the shots, maybe 4+/4+ to start as between shrieker, katakros and endless duty things could get out of hand pretty quickly with that unit 😄

Are they slow though? We can move +3“ on demand and potentially run and charge.. And even the other legions - i have no problem getting 10-11“ movement with my mortek guard t1 - my deathriders just recently won a game by killing a unit in the right corner of the enemy side then zooming to the left side of MY side killing another unit of gtabbing another objective within 2 turns. They can potentially move 22“ !! I wouldnt call OBR a fast army, but no way are they slow compared to most armies of the game that completely rely on their base move. I prefer Harbingers to Crawlers as they can assassinate weak buff characters hiding thx to fly, and they are pretty fast too especially with 3d6 charge

That would be awesome, i‘m a bit disappointed by the Mortek Crawlers because of how unreliable their damage is - would have preferred more rend, less damage - degrading rend. Whats your opinion on them? I know that can win a game by good rolling, but chances are high they do nothing all game and to be fair, there are easier ways of taking out units with bad saves...

If you use Brokk as Endrinmaster, yes. Love the model and the rules arent bad either, but I wouldnt call him competitive.

Why would you think you can customize him? He is probalby a unique character, no?

You might actually be right on this one. I‘m pretty sure though on the disembarking part as it „counts as their movement“ - but I‘d really like a FAQ about that, because I can see how its the grey area you mentioned.

Yes, as the rules state that you dont count towards holding objectives from inside the ship. You NEED to stay outside the ship to hold.

holy moly that looks clean af, nice job man!