swarmofseals

@Sception I think you are overstating it a bit. Assuming we're going with Great Wight Blades: Grave Guard provide .0807 rend 1 damage per point. Skeleton Warriors provide .108 rend 0 damage per point. Grimghast Reapers provide .0833 rend 1 damage per point against 5+ model targets and .0556 rend 1 damage per point against targets with fewer than 5 models. Against saves of -, rend 1 and 0 are the same. Against saves of 6+, rend 1 is 20% better than rend 0. Against saves of 5+, rend 1 is 25% better than rend 0. Against saves of 4+, rend 1 is 33% better than rend 0. Against saves of 3+, rend 1 is 50% better than rend 0. Against saves of 2+, rend 1 is 100% better than rend 0. So against Armor -, skeletons are clearly better on offense, and they are also slightly better against Armor 6+ and 5+. Against Armor 4+, Grave Guard are better and against 3+ and 2+ Grave Guard are VASTLY better. Grimghasts are better than Grave Guard by a little bit against units of 5+ models, while Grave Guard are vastly better against units under 5 models. It's also worth considering that Grave Guard scale a lot better with extra attacks than skeletons do. Adding an extra attack to a skeleton unit increases the rend 0 damage per point by .0358 while adding an extra attack to Grave Guard increases their rend 1 damage per point by .0397. So with +1 attack the skeletons are at .1438 rend 0 per point and Grave Guard are at .1204 rend 1 per point. That's enough to make Grave Guard better against everything except models with no save at all. Extra attacks scale similarly between Grave Guard and grimghasts, but it's possible to buff GG attacks passively while buffing grimghast attacks requires CP use (as far as I recall). So while I think Grave Guard might have a slight edge over grimghasts on offense, they become clearly better on offense if you are running Grand Host of Nagash with Lord of Nagashizzar. All that being said, I still agree that Grave Guard are hard to imagine fitting in because Grimghast Reapers are vastly better on defense and are twice as fast (with flying, too). But it's not fair to say that grimghasts dominate them in every way. If grimghasts didn't exist, then there would be a legitimate reason to take them over Skeleton Warriors if you planned to scale their attacks. The defensive difference between Grave Guard and skeletons is very large, but it matters a lot less when you can fully revive a destroyed unit. Granted this isn't 100% reliable, but it does go a long way toward making Grave Guard potentially viable. Their offense has always been great, but their defense was so bad that it didn't matter. Now the ability to bring them back means the defense is much less of an issue. @Evil Bob halberd harbingers are indeed nasty. They do about .048 rend 2 damage per point on average. Rend 2 is equivalent to rend 1 and rend 0 against a save of -. Against a save of 6+ rend 2 and rend 1 are equivalent, and both are 20% better than rend 1. Against a save of 5+, rend 2 is 20% better than rend 1 and 50% better than rend 0. Against a save of 4+, rend 2 is 25% better than rend 1 and 66% better than rend 0. Against a save of 3+, rend 2 is 33% better than rend 1 and 100% better than rend 0. Against a save of 2+, rend 2 is 50% better than rend 1 and 200% better than rend 0. So basically the skeletons do more damage per point except against 2+ save units. Grave Guard do more damage per point even against 2+ saves. Defensively they are pretty much worse than Grave Guard, performing a hair better against rend 0 but worse against anything with rend or mortal wounds, and quite a bit worse if the Ossific Diadem is in play. The main advantage that they have is, of course, greater speed. They have a better move, fly, and charge 3d6 (which is only marginally better than run and charge). But that comes at the cost of not being able to return models, return the unit if destroyed, or benefit from Vanhel's.

@Sception @ianob, I'm in this camp too. While it's nice that Death has an "above the curve" unit or two, it's annoying how much it crowds out. I've got a big block of painted GG, too. The sad thing is that GG were poised to be relevant in the new edition!

I finally have a moment and wanted to respond to these point by point. I want to be clear that my post was specifically geared toward thinking about Prince Vhordrai and what place he might have in a Legions list, not geared towards discussing any possible permutation of Legions stuff and certainly not Nagash himself as I think we already agree that putting V and Nagash in the same list is a mistake. 1. A totally fair point. I finally got my copy of the new GHB and I see what you mean about the specific battleplans. 2+3. It's not a question of which army is more defensive. It's a question of whether you can dislodge a defensive army that can get to the objectives before you do. It's possible that these armies won't show up in the meta at all, but one has to at least consider the possibility of things like: One drop Sylvaneth army that can basically guarantee the first turn (we will never be one drop) and drop their entire army on top of the objectives on turn 1. Clearly this doesn't apply to every battleplan, but there are plenty of battleplans where this approach will be very effective. Such an army can be built with an absolute buttload of dryads that are -1 to hit (-2 if their treelord stomps go off) with a 4+ (3+ in cover) save rerolling 1's, supported by behemoth wizards with crazy healing capabilities, and the ability to summon more dryads. Nagash is a real help here in that he can just eat those behemoths with Hand of Dust, but again I'm not really talking about Nagash lists. A tunnel-based vulkite spam Fyreslayers list. I'm somewhat more dubious about this kind of list, but chugging through 90+ vulkites is not an easy task. The idea here being that having an offensive powerhouse unit that can concentrate damage in a small space and pick of key support heroes regardless of lens (like V can) could be very useful in these situations. Maybe I'm underestimating how much work skeletons and grimghasts can do. 4. Yeah, I run skellies and grims plus VHD in every list too, Nagash or no XD won't get any argument from me there.... 5. I think maybe you are missing what I'm trying to articulate. It's not that an army fits into one of those niches itself, its that a particular dynamic is created by the relative composition of your list and your opponent's list. To use an analogy from Magic, one of the key skills in that game is to be able to recognize what your role is in a given matchup. If you are playing a midrange deck and your opponent is playing control, then you are in the aggro "role" for that game. Your opponent is highly favored in the long game, so you have to try to make sure that the game doesn't go long. Meanwhile, that same deck against a suicide aggro deck takes on the control role. They are going to be attacking you, and you have the stronger lategame so you are trying to make sure the game goes long. A more interesting example is in semi-mirror match between a creature based aggro deck and a burn based aggro deck. In such a matchup the burn deck will often end up taking on the control role, although it's possible that in certain combinations of opening hand either deck might end up in the control role vs the aggro role. Knowing what role you are in is absolutely critical in that if you judge incorrectly, you are likely to make play decisions that will drastically reduce your chance of winning even if they seem better at the time. If you are in a control role, trading resources for damage is a terrible idea, but trading resources for time is great. In the aggro role, the values are exactly the opposite. While I don't think things are quite this clear-cut in Warhammer, relative army composition in the context of a specific battleplan will still create role-based dynamics where either your role is to weather your opponent's attack long enough to win or your role is to push your opponent off the objectives. Other things like offensive vs. defensive efficiency and ranged firepower affect these dynamics as well, of course. Just to give some simple examples: You are playing against a Seraphon player with a very heavy investment in summoning, but your army is faster and you can reliably get an advantage in objectives on turn 1. Your opponent will likely put an extra 1000 points of models on the board in the next two turns. Consider two possibilities: your army is fast and deals a lot of damage, but is defensively inefficient OR your army is very defensively efficient and even 3000 points of Seraphon would likely take at least two turns to dislodge you. These two scenarios create vastly different role dynamics. In the first situation, you are highly incentivized to push forward and try to destroy or at least heavily limit the opponent's summoning as soon as possible. If you sit back and score while your opponent builds up, they will be able to overwhelm you quickly. In the other scenario, the onus is on your opponent to attack you as early as possible because if they wait until they have that extra advantage from the summoning, they will no longer have enough time left to realistically take back the advantage in VP. Your opponent is playing a low-drops pure alpha strike list. No matter what you are playing (unless you have fewer drops and are also an alpha strike list), the game dynamic is going to put you on the defensive and you will likely win if you can weather your opponent's initial onslaught. A smaller scale example: you currently hold an advantage in terms of objectives. You are given the choice to attack in such a way that you sacrifice some models at the cost of causing damage to your opponent. Even if the attack is relatively efficient, it may be a mistake to do so simply because the onus is on your opponent to destroy you to get you off the objectives. Simply trading models with the opponent at this point is not good for you. I hope that makes sense.

No problem, I'm following you just fine. There's a lot to respond to, but just to start I want to be clear -- when you say a "Nagash list" do you mean Legions in general, a list specifically featuring Nagash, or a Grand Host list? My post was meant to be pretty general and covers any Legions of Nagash army -- I only posted it in this specific thread because it's the one we were discussing in already. I do think it's kinda weird that there are four different threads for Legions of Nagash XD.

I'm definitely not considering using V in a Nagash list, I completely agree that such a choice would be crippling. I also agree re: double dragon lists (although fwiw I'd consider tier 2 to be perfectly playable, but I'm not sure such a list is even tier 2. It is probably at least tier 3 though, which I'd consider playable under special circumstances). I don't really love the VLoZD as a lens caddy mostly because it creates a bit of a role clash. A big advantage of the VLoZD is in its ability to get around the board relatively quickly and hit vulnerable targets, but if he's carrying the lens then you can't really afford to move him away (at least in the matchups where the lens matters). His base size is nice for creating a bigger bubble, but his points cost is just so high that you really don't want him to get stuck babysitting. Now if you aren't bringing lens then yeah, he looks a lot better. Doppel, Gryph Feather Charm, Dimensional Blade, etc. all are really tasty on a VLoZD. One thing to consider that I don't see discussed a lot is the Coven Throne. It doesn't do anything spectacularly well, but it does have a couple of attractive qualities: Arguably the best defensive general/caddy choice because she has a lot of wounds but still benefits from cover and "Look Out, Sir!". Large base size is also relevant for support artefacts/command abilities and ability to reach multiple gravesites. Can potentially provide some board control by forcing retreats with Beguile (this is a niche point I know) Good Deathly Invocation Potentially very powerful command ability Single reroll looks to be much more powerful now, at least in some builds. If you are running cogs, for example, Coven Throne has an 86.2% chance of casting it without any bonuses at all, 92.2% with +1 to cast and 97.2% chance with +2 to cast. Prince V also gets particularly stupid with Quickblood and Tactical Insight: 19.551 rend 2 damage and 10.7 rend 1 damage on average. So if you are taking a Coven Throne as your general/artefact caddy, then V might fit in well as a hammer. Still though, I think your (almost) final point is very valid -- even with all of this, I have no idea what builds V might actually fit in. If there is an alpha strike list out there, I could see V being a part of it. I have no idea if such a thing would be good though. It seems to me that competitive AOS games are likely to fall into one of three different dynamics: Your opponent is playing a list with a primary focus on destroying your army. In this case you want to either be able to destroy them before they destroy you, or be quick enough to get onto the objectives and defensively sound enough to hold on long enough to win on VP. Your opponent is playing a defensive list with a primary focus on scoring. In this case you either need to get to the objectives first or you need to have enough offensive punch to push the defensive army off. Your opponent is playing a summoning list that is intended to snowball on you. In this case you either need to either leverage your initial advantage on the table to cripple your opponent or you need to be fast and defensive enough to hold off the avalanche while scoring. Legions of Nagash are pretty well suited to fight the defensive game, but there are some opponents who can also play a defensive game but get on the objectives faster (Sylvaneth for sure, maybe Fyreslayers). So we either are going to concede a bad matchup against those kinds of lists or we need to include enough offense to push back these lists. Grimghasts and allied Nighthaunt hammers are very nice, shiny new tools but I'm not totally sold on them as being good enough. Think about it this way -- if an opponent's army is designed to be able to plausibly withstand an assault from, say, a Daughters of Khaine army or an Idoneth army (or something more gimmicky like a double Dragonlord Host if that becomes a thing), are we really going to get anywhere with Grimghasts and the like? It seems to me that the answer to this question is no. So we're likely going to need something that can either deal much more concentrated damage or can pick off lynchpin support heroes if we want to overcome that kind of defense. The question then becomes, "if we spend points on that kind of offense, will we still be able to field a strong enough defense to deal with scenario 1?" I certainly can't claim to answer that one. To sum up specifically around the question of whether Vhordrai has a role to play in a competitive list: If you are playing a primarily offensive army with the goal of destroying or crippling the enemy, then Vhordrai is almost certainly worth considering. I'm not sure such a strategy is T1/T2 for LoN though. If you are playing a primarily defensive army, you either have to concede having a poor matchup against defensive armies that are also faster or you have to have enough pressure to push them back and give you the initiative. If you are looking to do the latter, Vhordrai is almost certainly worth considering. But can you do the latter without irreparably harming your matchup against opponents that are either trying to destroy you or snowball you? That is the question I think.

@ianob I promise I'll stop picking your brain... soon. Thoughts on Vhordrai? In 1.0 he seemed to me to be better than a VLoZD in pretty much anything except maybe Legion of Blood with his generally better offense and only marginally increased cost. His breath weapon seems even more special in 2.0 with it being generally harder to snipe support heroes (not for us as we don't really shoot anyway, but it seems logical that "Look Out Sir" will lead to more people taking fragile support heroes in general), and the VLoZD looks relatively worse now that there is a greater cost associated with using his command ability (which is pretty much required for him to get even close to V on offense). That said, some of the new artefacts are very powerful on a VLoZD... but unless you are taking a battalion (and I'm not sure if any of the Death battalions are playable really) that means you aren't taking Lens of Refraction. So all that leads me to think that the Vhordrai vs VLoZD comparison generally favors Vhordrai, but I'm not sure that either one is a good choice competitively. With grimghasts providing a great hammer along with the possibility of allied myrmourns or bladegheists, are there even more efficient choices for a hammer? But none are as mobile as Vhordrai, and none feature that breath weapon which just can't be matched by anything else in Death. What do you think, and what does your experience tell you?

There are definitely magnets that are small enough and powerful enough to work. They are super cheap if you order them directly from China, too.

For most warscrolls, the entire unit is equipped the same way. Even if the command models are equipped differently on the models themselves, they count as being equipped in the same way as the rest of the unit. So your banner bearer may have a flag and a one handed sword, but if the rest of the unit is equipped with great wight blades then the banner bearer also counts as being equipped like this. The exception to this rule are the warscrolls that allow you to equip different models in the same unit with different loadouts (eg: Tzaangors, 'Ardboyz, etc.). In this case it's up to you to make sure the correct weapons are represented. As far as multiple sets of command models goes, the unit can only have one leader/champion. Most warscrolls don't put specific limits on banner bearers or musicians, but it's pretty accepted practice to only have one of each per unit. If you are planning for a specific tournament you should check with the tournament organizers. Otherwise, the only safe bet for being able to switch between multiple small units and one large unit is to magnetize.

It's pretty much peak defensive efficiency, used entirely for board control and not for damage. It's easy to string back to a corpse cart, too. It takes an average of 144/108/86.4/72 damage from rend 0/1/2/mw to destroy the unit, so it can hold back all but the punchiest units for multiple turns. In 1.0 it was one of the few units that could actually reliably stand to shooting from something like Aetherstrike Force. It was also much more resilient against a Gaunt Summoner than skeleton blobs. Basically, the way I see it most Legions lists are going to have a couple of key units that the opponent is really going to want to kill for tactical reasons -- stuff like Arkhan, the general, etc. as well as things that the opponent will need to clear in order to have a good shot at taking objectives from us (basically all of our big units). All of these targets require the opponent to concentrate their firepower, as spreading that firepower out plays right into our healing. A unit of dogs that huge can cover so much space and requires so much attention in order to take out that it can really dictate your opponent's early turns. If they ignore it then you get board control and rack up VPs, and if they focus it it ensures your other key units survive much longer than they otherwise would. And if you actually can fit such a unit into a gravesite to resummon it... well that's just demoralizing. The main problem of course is that it totally lacks punch and is thus not very useful when your opponent is faster, playing first, or playing some sort of null deployment list that allows them to set up on top of objectives. Whether or not such a unit will be useful depends a lot on the metagame, I think.

That's really helpful to know! Do you ever run 30 Dire Wolves?

@ianob one of the things that's really been on my mind since 2.0 dropped is the tension around unit size. In 1.0 we were definitely encouraged to take larger units for a bunch of reasons. I did a lot of math in one of the old threads about how much concentrated damage it would take to destroy various Death units in one go, and it was pretty clear that either minimum or maximum sized units were optimal to either maximize efficiency or maximize resilience and likelihood that a unit will stick around to be healed during your next hero phase. Now with Inspiring Presence big units are even tougher to bust, but we have an additional major consideration: gravesite resurrection. With horde bonus units it's still clearly a good idea to go big, but what has your experience been like with other types of units? Do you have problems finding enough space in your gravesites to bring back a large unit of Grimghast Reapers or Dire Wolves?

I have to admit this is kind of baffling to me. Mortis Engine is quite solid. It's not super efficient on offense or defense but it's not all that inefficient either, and the utility it brings is great. I'm currently working on a Lords of Sacrament list and feel somewhat stuck. Here's what I've got so far: Arkhan the Black (320) 2x Necromancer (220) Vampire Lord (140) 20 Grimghast Reapers (280) 12 Myrmourn Banshees (210 - allies) 3x5 Dire Wolves (180) Mortis Engine (180) Lords of Sacrament (130) Cogs, Geminids, and Spellportal (160) That's a total of 1820. The basic idea here is that you've got some efficient, mobile speedbumps with the Dire Wolves, a ton of powerful magic, and two very strong hammer units. They are both pricey and somewhat fragile, but they are both small enough (especially the banshees) to easily bring back via either of the two abilities that we have to return destroyed units. The Vampire Lord is there mostly for his command ability, which scales extremely well on the banshees' very high value attacks and isn't bad on the reapers either. I'm not really sure what to do with the last 180 points. I have a couple of things that I am anticipating as problematic: I don't have enough bubble wrap to protect against melee alpha strikes. I'd love to fit in a large block of skeletons, but I haven't been able to figure a good way of doing it. Dropping one of the endless spells and a unit of Dire Wolves would do the trick, but its very hard to cut any of those three endless spells. I'm not sure the list can do enough damage quickly enough to stop summoning lists. I'm mostly concerned about Seraphon and Nurgle here. Perhaps it's OK as long as these lists can't push me off objectives as easily (a big block would be helpful here too...), but I'm skeptical. It's worth noting that I'm planning this list under the assumption that 12 Longstrikes shooting 10 times in the first turn isn't something that is allowed to continue. If the Vampire Lord command ability gets changed at the same time, then perhaps I can see dropping him. That'd allow me to fit a skeleton blob in. Some other things I'm considering are a Guardian of Souls mostly for the +1 to wound and/or a second unit of Grimghasts. If you are curious as to why I'm not taking the full 30 Grimghasts, it's because of the physical space they take up. 30 32mm bases has a nearly 8" diameter footprint I'm a little worried that this will be too easy to zone out of a single gravesite for resummoning. Maybe I'm wrong though, in which case it'd be nice to pump them up to 30. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think that Nighthaunt will be a very easy matchup for most DoK armies. Witch Aelves/Sisters of Slaughter are just ideal for taking down medium to low save models. A full unit of Witches with witchbrew will deal an average of 25 unsaved wounds to Nighthaunt stuff in one go (and that's factoring in the 6++ as well). That's enough to delete basically any Nighthaunt unit except massive regiments with Inspiring Presence. They can return slain models to a unit, but once a unit is gone it's gone. A heavily snake based list could struggle a bit more though. I agree more with @Nico here than with @InvalidUsername, albeit with some caveats. I do think that Inferno Blades is also broken. A spell that gives +1 to hit or +1 to wound would be considered quite powerful, increasing the damage on a unit with a 5+ roll by 50%, with a 4+ roll by 33% and with a 3+ roll by 25%. So few units have 6+ rolls to hit or wound that I'm not going to really consider that situation. So such a spell would be a 25-50% damage boost. Inferno Blades is a 100% damage boost to any damage 1 weapons and a 50% damage boost to damage 2 or d3 weapons. Very few things do more damage than that. So Inferno Blades is very often a 100% damage boost, or failing that a 50% damage boost. That's absolutely crazy. I agree though that the rest are largely fine and add to matched play. That said, unless a tournament is using a clear tournament pack where each round is set on a specific realm that is announced ahead of time, I think the level of bookkeeping in a tournament setting is far too high. I think there are some problems with your logic, @InvalidUsername. For one, it's possible that there are spells that are very useful in specific situations but useless outside of those situations. Thus those spells can be situationally worth casting without being OP. They do certainly favor more magically capable armies, but that isn't inherently unbalanced. It's just another factor that must be considered when applying points values to powerful spellcasters. Relics can fit into the same situational argument that I used above. Things like the Lens of Refraction can also act as a safety valve for balance. Lens itself might go too far, but giving everyone access to certain "hoser" artefacts can help ensure that there is a major risk in using a gimmicky strategy (like, for example, Kroaknado). I also disagree with your battletome vs. non battletome argument. Yes, there are certain builds of Death and Tzeentch that have incredibly powerful spellcasting, and those armies are positioned to take advantage of new spells more readily. That said, because they already have access to powerful battletome spells the actual power increase that they get from casting a realm spell instead of a battletome spell is quite small. The improvement for a non-battletome army is much more substantial, however. The difference between casting arcane bolt and a realm spell is quite large compared to the difference between casting a battletome spell and a realm spell. There are plenty of wizards in non-battletome armies that are well positioned to take advantage of these new spells, too. Darklings Coven Sorceress, for example, can get a +2 to cast bonus easily. A DC army featuring some of these ladies (or another army allying in a DC package) will absolutely love having access to realm spells. The artefacts are an even more slam-dunk case. It's much more likely that a non-battletome army will find an upgrade in the realm artefacts than a battletome army will. I agree with you re: mixed order, to a point. That list was heavily nerfed though -- frosties +40 points each, +60 points minimum on battleline, etc. I don't know if any competitive army saw as many points increases.

The spells are not tied to the realm you choose for your army, but rather to the realm that the battle is taking place in. Both sides thus get access to the same group of spells.

I still don't think that's overpowered. 40 Skeletons and 5 CP is 530 points. Add in the Necromancer and its 640 points, and that's not counting any of the cost of the Wight King or Vampire Lord that's also necessary. For that many points many armies can construct a combo that can delete almost any unit. Just doing the actual math, 640 attacks is 160 rend 0 damage on average, spread across two combat activations. If you fail Vanhel's or it gets unbound it's only 80 rend 0 damage. That's still a lot, of course. Let's just compare with two units of Hag Narr Witch Aelves supported by 2 Hag Queens. That's 720 points, so right in the same ballpark. Even if we don't count the Hag Queens attacks at all that's 121 rend 0 damage on average. On turn 3+ it jumps to 160.74 rend 0 damage on average. If you add in Mindrazor or Catechism of Murder it gets way higher. And they have 6" move and can run and charge, and it's 60 wounds vs. the Skeletons 40, and it's every single turn, not just a one shot. That skeleton combo is so easy to disrupt. For one, if you manage to kill off the Wight King or Vampire Lord (both 5 wound characters with unremarkable defense) before they get a chance to use those command points then suddenly your opponent has started down 250 points with no obvious way to get value out of the extra CP. Alternately you can shoot the skeleton blob off the board. Yes, they can bring it back -- but this is only "easy" to do if they use a rear-positioned gravesite and hold their general back to resummon, in which case the skeletons will take a while to get back to the front (giving you ample time to get ahead on points or wipe out other elements of their army). A final option is simply to charge the skellies first with your own hammer. Skeletons are among the slowest units in the game, so you should be able to charge them before they charge you. A single unit of Witch Aelves will nearly wipe out that Skeleton unit in one combat round on average, and will more than wipe it out on turn 3+.

Ahh, OK. That's what I had thought. It was the references to Nico's comments about skeletons and such that had me confused, as I really don't see how adding a ton of attacks to a unit with no rend and very low value attacks (that is also very slow) is broken. The same is true of bringing back units for Death. I think that the latter ability is strong, for sure, but there is a ton of counterplay in that you can zone out the gravesites or kill the general to stop that ability. Of all the new summoning armies, I think Legions of Nagash is the one that is probably the least broken and has the most counterplay, although it will surely feel broken against armies that have poor offense. Allowing Longstrikes to shoot several times in the first turn or adding tons of attacks on deepstriking, high attack value units clearly is broken. I can't imagine GW will allow that to stand as it's both obviously overpowered and will lead to very stagnant and unfun games. The cleanest and best solution would to just place a blanket errata stating that ALL command abilities can only affect the same unit once per turn unless the warscroll specifically says otherwise.

Ulgu probably has the best overall list of artefacts with some great defensive and offensive options. That said, my favorite choice is the Lens of Refraction from Hysh. It can't stop debuffs like the Spellmirror but it doesn't randomly stop working and doesn't require you to roll a 5+. Against enemies that are trying to pile on spell damage (like Tzeentch) it should have a HUGE impact, and it should work really well against any kind of AOE spell damage as well (like most of the predatory endless spells). As far as the spells go, most of them are fine with plenty of useful but not broken options. The two problematic realms imo are Aqshy and Hysh. Aqshy has several spells that are quite strong, but Inferno Blades is absolutely busted. The worst offender, however, is Banishment from Hysh. That spell is both extremely powerful and extremely unfun.

@Nico @Bellfree what exactly are you guys referencing when you say "command ability spam"? Are there particular lists that folks are worried about?

I can't speak to a lot of specific experience or anything, but based just on the numbers DoK are a bit OP. Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter have absurdly good offense for their cost, and the various allegiance abilities, prayers, artefacts etc. can make their defense perfectly respectable. Most of the other warscrolls are good to great, too. If your buddies aren't playing tournament caliber lists then it's understandable why they would be frustrated. Are you talking about for competitive play or friendly play? For friendly games it'd be perfectly fine, no doubt. The reason why few people discuss the option for competitive play is that it doesn't really add much. +1 to hit on the charge is great, but DoK just doesn't really need the offensive help. For the retreat and charge ability to be relevant, your unit has to have already survived 1-2 rounds of combat without destroying the enemy unit or being destroyed and must want to disengage the current unit and engage a different unit. Given that your units hit incredibly hard and, if you go Draichi Ganeth, will be quite fragile you can imagine that this circumstance wouldn't be super common. And in order to do this you have to pay for the battalion (130 points) and take a sub-par artefact. If you want to go Draichi Ganeth, I'd consider taking a Blood Sisters focused force as those guys care more about the +1 hit bonus than most. The real issue, however, is the opportunity cost. DoK is something of a glass cannon army with incredible offense but mediocre defense. Two temple choices - Khailebron and Hagg Nar - offer bonuses that dramatically improve defense. Hagg Nar also offers a bonus that improves offense quite a bit as well, while Khailebron offers extra mobility. When your army is already really good at something, it's often better to shore up a weakness than add on top of that strength -- and Hagg Nar both shores up the weakness and adds to the strength. I think that's why most of the competitive discussion revolves around these two temples, and especially Hagg Nar.

I'm not a Seraphon player (yet), but I really don't know what to make of the Ripperdactyl thing. Strictly rules as written I have no idea why it wouldn't go infinite. Previously the rule stated that an extra attack can't ever generate another extra attack. The Ripperdactyl doesn't function like that though -- it generates extra hits, not extra attacks. Was the ruling that extra hits can't generate more extra hits in the previous Seraphon FAQ? If so, it seems telling that the ruling is not included in the current version of the FAQ. While I agree that it seems crazy, the level of offensive efficiency attained by Ripperdactyls even with "infinite" hit potential isn't unheard of. Even with the swooping down bonus and the bloat toad bonus I calculated somewhere around an average of 9 beak hits per model. I could be off on that math but I doubt it's dramatically wrong. With those stats, the offensive efficiency is about the same as Hagg Narr Witch Aelves on turn 3+ with Witchbrew (and that's counting the cost of the Hag Queen but not counting any of the Hag Queen's attacks or other abilities). EDIT: So is 4x Engine of the Gods going to pretty much be an automatic thing now?

On a completely different tack, what do you guys do for basing on your DoK armies? I like using scenic/resin bases a lot, but several of the DoK kits make this problematic. Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter have those built in rocks which are dicey to clip off (and create real problems getting the model on the base too), and Morathi has such a developed scenic base already. I really wish there was a nice rolling pin/press mat solution for making greenstuff bases with a khainite temple theme. That'd fit with the Witch Aelf bases and Morathi quite nicely.

Here's the outline of a basic competitive list that I'm considering: 3x Hag Queen (180) 2x30 Witch Aelves (540) 2x10 Witch Aelves (200) Morathi (480) Slaughter Queen on Cauldron of Blood (330) That's 1730 points, leaving me with 270. Things that I'd consider taking: Bloodwrack Shrine (220) Geminids (40) Cogs (60) Blood Sisters (140) Doomfire Warlocks (160) Morrsarr Guard (160) Khinerai Heartrenders (80) Blood Sisters are probably the least likely option unless needed for points fit. They are good, I just don't see them filling a need in this list. Morrsarr Guard provide a second unit that can get around quickly and do some heavy hitting. Doomfire Warlocks also get around quickly and can harass any vulnerable targets in the backfield while providing some extra magical support. Khinerai Heartrenders are very flexible and can threaten units all over the board. It's the kind of unit that your opponent has to think about and adjust to, which can encourage mistakes. The Bloodwrack Shrine provides a lot of value. It can do great damage to hordes, provides another spellcast, and provides the opportunity to divide your key support abilities across a couple of different targets. With just the cauldron, you have Blood Shield, Lens of Refraction, Orgy of Slaughter, Devoted Disciples, and a prayer all on the same model. That makes for a super juicy target. If you take a shrine as well you can at least move the Lens of Refraction over, thus spreading things out a bit more. The most obvious options: One unit of Morrsarr Guard, one unit of Doomfire Warlocks, or two units of Khinerai Heartrenders and then the two endless spells The Bloodwrack Shrine and geminids Alternately, I could drop 10 Witch Aelves and go with Two choices from the first list above plus geminids Bloodwrack Shrine and Blood Sisters Bloodwrack Shrine and both endless spells with points left over for a further endless spell Bloodwrack Shrine, one unit of Khinerai Heartrenders, and cogs Honestly I could see almost any of these being good, although I find the shrine and sisters combo the least attractive. Any thoughts about this choice would be helpful!

I appreciate the tension in the decision of when to change her (assuming you want to change her at some point). Getting wounded in High Oracle mode is soooo bad if you want to transform her later, so in some matchups you may want to transform early just to avoid that happening. EDIT: Spellmirror and Lens of Refraction are indeed incredible, and I particularly like the lens. Spellmirror seems very inconsistent, albeit capable of protecting against horde buster spells. Lens, on the other hand, makes it soooo much harder to snipe our key heroes with magic. It's difficult to do now with shooting thanks to "Look Out Sir!" but magic is still a problem. A hero with Lens of Refraction is the perfect protection for High Oracle Morathi (although priests with direct damage will still be a problem).

I think you are mistaken. The artefacts of the realms can be taken by anyone who declares their army is from that realm. The spells, on the other hand, are tied to the realm that the battle is taking place in. All wizards on both sides know all spells of the realm where the battle is taking place. And that assumes you are using the realm rules in Malign Sorcery -- it's not at all clear that tournaments will use these rules.

My problem with Draz remains that while he does check a couple of important boxes, the fact that he is the only thing in the army that does check those boxes and is both expensive and fragile means that while he can theoretically fill those roles, in practice he really can't. Now that his 5+ protects from neither shooting nor magic it's even more true than before. Honestly I have no idea, but given that the units are sold in lots of 10 and you have to buy the command separately I think there is a good argument to be made that you shouldn't be forced to take a leader. It's utterly ridiculous that we are even in this situation. IMO the best solution would be to just condense the fireglaives and pistol into "pyrelock firearms". There, now the leader isn't worse. I totally missed that about Ash Storm and will update my post to reflect it. With that in mind I'm comfortable calling it a solid buff. Good point about the fireborn's reach. I'm hopeful of this too as LoA just looks fantastic on the table. I'm not optimistic though, at least not compared to most recent armies. Basically every recent release (Idoneth, DoK, Nurgle, LoN in particular) have units that are more efficient than LoA gets at baseline AND have more/more powerful synergies and abilities AND have fewer gaps in the roster.