DrewGo

I think the issue is that you are completely dismissive of anyone who suggests they want to try something different from your suggestions. You claim to be trying to offer advice and be helpful, but your tone is condescending, and your advice is just the same thing over and over again. "Bring Hearthguard. Everything else is worthless." You dismiss out of hand anyone who disagrees with you, even if they present evidence to support thier opinion. FWIW I am not bothered by your posts, but it's also not surprising to me that you are rubbing people the wrong way. Try being open to discussion. I know you play competitively, but unless you're some big AoS tournament champion, we're all just a buncha schlubs chatting about the rules for fake battles with some naked mohawk dwarves.

I'm dumb. Realizing now you mean the Blood of the Berzerker ability that lets him attack twice with strike last. I see no reason the extra attacks from runes and lord of the lodge wouldn't apply because the ability specifically says "after it has already attacked" it can declare it is going berzerk.

What rule multiplies number of attacks? Enhanced rune of Fury adds 1 attack to melee weapons. Lord of the lodge does the same. They don't multiply. So if you were to get the enhanced rune, or use the heroic action to get it, and also pop Lord of the Lodge your Runefather gets +2 attacks that turn.

Good point. I mostly play in a PtG league, so Monsters and Battalions are harder to come by and I didn't think of Hunters of the Heartland.

Personally I think you take the Magmadroth with Runesmiter. Obviously SC Dragons are really good, but I think the new droth profile is going to do some serious work. Plus the obvious benefit of getting buffed by your runes. The 3 extra mortals on a stomp trait is really good. That's 4 guaranteed mortals every turn with a possibility of 6 before it even fights. New shooting profile can do serious damage to big units as well. Then you take a Runemaster and honestly I think a Battlesmith might be worth taking even if he probably does still get shot off the board. The possibility if rallying back a bunch of HGB is too tasty to not give yourself a chance.

This is not what I said. I said 7 Vulkites are doing 7 wounds on a charge even if they're NOT buffed by a hero. If you're attacking a block of 30 models there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to get a full unit to attack by honeycombing, which adds 9 more attacks, and 3 more wounds on average on a +4 save. Moreover, killing Vulkites actually isn't as bad because they all get to attack again, which means 10 more wounds. Again, that is before accounting for what rune is active, and before accounting for the potential buffs from heroes (runefather giving extra attacks, Flamekeeper boosting damage output). With -1 rend, you're looking at 13-14 wounds, doubled if they all die. If that big unit is 30 models with a +4 save, you just killed 26-28 models with a 10 model, 170 point unit. Sure you lost the unit, but I can't imagine a scenario where that's not a positive trade in your favor. Using base stats, 15 HGB with axes are averaging 17 wounds to a +4 save unit. If you have the -1 rend rune active it jumps to 22 wounds. Obviously this is better, but you're still not doing enough to kill the unit of 30 wounds, and 15 HGB are almost 3x the number of points as 10 Vulkites, comparing the damage output of a 480 point unit and a 170 point unit is really silly without taking that into account. In terms of average damage output per point against a +4 save unit, before hero and rune buffs and without dying, Vulkites (in Vostarg) do 0.076 wounds per point on a charge, and 0.026 wounds per point if they didn't charge. HGB do 0.035 wounds per point either way. HGB are a better unit than Vulkites, but it absolutely is not because they do more damage per point. The reason HGB are better is because they have the 4+ ward and bodyguard ability. I get that the 1" reach can be a limiting factor for the Vulkites, but it's not so limiting that they become "bad." It just means you probably don't want to run huge blocks of 30 Vulkites.

I don't understand your harsh criticism of the Vulkites build. First you keep acting like the 1" reach on a 32mm base means it's impossible to attack with them. This is just rarely a huge issue. 2-3 at worst can't get attacks in unless you're really stuck because of terrain or you're attacking a hero on a small base. You're almost always still getting 7 models with 3 attacks each that hit and wound on a +2 on a charge and that's without any buffs from any heros or runes. No CP needed either. Even without rend attacking a +4 save unit you're looking at an average of 7 wounds. Pushing 10 if you have the rend or MW rune active. Second you keep talking about the Battlesmith/Flamekeeper getting magicked or shot off the board. If your opponent has good shooting or spells they're always going to try to take out your good heroes. Does that mess up the possibility of buffing the Vulkites with a Flamekeeper or rallying them back with a Battlesmith? Sure! But how much shooting did the opponent just throw out to kill a couple of heroes? Odds are, they won't split thier attacks and will overkill the heroes, which isn't an efficient way to spend your shooting. And now you have unharmed units or Vulkites charging you, which, as I just mentioned can still hit very hard even without any hero buffs! Moreover, you only need to spend 1190-1360 points to bring 70-80 Vulkites, leaving you plenty of room to take several Flamekeepers and multiple battlesmiths. Can they still be shot off the board? Sure! But there's more of them to shoots and more opportunities to get the buffs. Again, I'll add the disclaimer that I don't think this is some OP tournament crushing list, but I do think it can be fun and still pretty good.

This is what I like about the Vulkites list. Other than the Rally back, their main bonuses don't come from heroes at all. You don't even have to spend a command point. 3 attacks, +2 to hit/wound, attack on death is coming at you. You wanna spend your shooting/spells killing my Flamekeeper/Battlesmith? Be my guest.

First, thanks for taking the time to calculate all of this. Really appreciated. Second, This Vulkite+Flamekeeper+Battlesmith heavy list is something I am really interested in seeing. Vulkites getting 3 attacks each (4 if you use a Runefather's Leader ability), +2 to hit/wound on a charge, fighting again when they die with that improved profile, powering a Flamekeeper, then half of whatever's left getting brought back by the Battlesmith? Combine that with either the -1 Rend or MWs on 6s from the Runes and it's a nasty combo. Obviously there's lots of things that have to go right to pull that combo off, but if you're brining 80 of them you'll probably have plenty of opportunities to do it.

I know this is an incredibly unpopular opinion, but I actually think the points increase for Hearthguard is almost fair given the new Royal Retinue ability. The whole strategy with HGB was always having a nearby hero to give them the 4+ ward. This issue before was none of our foot Heroes were all that great. None with great saves, none with a ton of wounds. So you were probably taking AHG to act as their bodyguards to help make them more survivable and keep them from getting shot off the board. Obviously the HGB combo with a Hermdar general and a Battlesmith getting Warrior Indominate and +1 save made big blocks of HGB insanely hard to kill. But you still ran into issues if your Heroes got sniped. Obviously that's an issue for tons of armies, but the way to defeat HGB was obvious. Snipe the heroes. So you were kinda forced to bring Aurics as protection, even if they didn't fit into your strategy, and even pre-nerf they weren't great. Now with the Royal Retinue ability you give HGB the ability to be the bodyguards. The Runefather or Runeson still gets to make a save roll, then on the damage that does get through, you transfer it to the HGB on a 3+ which is better than the old ability, and now HGB get to make their ward saves. This makes taking AHG as bodyguards redundant, so you don't need em. It's way harder to snipe the dedicated hero for the HGB, and since it's a melee hero anyway you want them to be charging into battle with the HGB and dishing out crazy damage. Battlesmith lost the +1 to save, but gained the +4 rally ability which is extremely powerful. The additional save was obviously super useful, but the +4 ward always did more work, especially with how many armies can dish out mortals these days. Losing Warrior Indominate hurts, but the new Runefather ability to give a big block of HGB an additional attack makes them hit WAY harder. Especially if you combo it with a good melee rune, which of course you will. I think taking Greyfyrd for the extra wounds on foot heroes and extra artifacts can combo extremely well for HGB blocks. I'm not even convinced spamming Greyfyrd HGB is an unplayable list. A Runeson with the Axe of Grimnir is doing massive damage now, and only costs 80 points. Obviously not all of them can have that artifact, but the artifacts are really good now, and you're not trapped into taking a specific one (lets face it Tyrant Slayer wasn't any good). The extra wound goes a long way towards keeping our heroes on the board to buff our troops. Here's how I see Fyreslayers now: - Not as tanky as before, but a far cry from a squishy horde army. Still very tough, and much easy to bring back, which is something the army never had before. - Lots of combos to make them hit much harder than before. - More viable list building options. (Lofnir, Greyfyrd, Vostarg all seem very playable) - Require more strategic play than pressing the HGB easy button. Look, I'm not fooling myself here. I don't expect Fyreslayers to be dominating tournaments. But I also think the naysayers are all focusing on the good stuff we lost and not looking at the new possibilities. This new tome is adding a lot more options to this army that used to have basically one really good unit and basically nothing else. I'm not sure any of the new combos will be as strong as HGB spam used to be, but I don't think it's a realistic view to say this army was just nerfed into oblivion either. I think competitive lists will absolutely emerge as we all have time to try out different things.