Sception

Can't say for sure, but I personally expect all of the Legions of Nagash will be able to take Bonereapers as allies. Most of the other factions too, I suspect. More factions able to allie in Bonereapers mean more players picking up a box or two to try them out and maybe expanding into a whole army later. But we'll see. Best not to count chickens before they're hatched.

I'm no expert on competitive play, but significant point hikes have hit nearly every element of what was the typical Nagash list (nagash, necromancers, dire wolves, grimghasts, mirrors), seemingly for no other reason than that they were part of that list (mirrors were never used in any other list after their initial nerf, yet still got hit with the Nagash Tax). As such, that particular list seems to be in a pretty untenable place right now, and I haven't heard of any alternative Nagash list rising to take its place, especially with some of the newer factions having greater ability to handle the big guy regardless. If your format uses the full realm rules & spells Nagash can still be intimidating in and of himself. 950 is too much, but a list could make up the difference if you had some underpriced staples to buy you some slack. Problem is, from where I'm sitting Grand Host simply doesn't have any underpriced staples. There are units arguably worth their points, but nothing with the kind of extra efficiency that would let you field the big guy at 2k points with enough supporting strength to still be functional across a variety of missions. .. Hopeful future possibilities: Nagash seems to be part of the new bonereaper faction, & if that's true, or if some of the bonereaper units get added to legion lists the way some of the nighthaunt stuff did, then you might see a new Nagash list emerge out of that. The main thing to look for is a staple block unit. Something similar to the pre-price-hike grimghasts in that it is 1. versatile (not much room for units after nearly 1000 points of nagash, so what units you do field need to be all purpose) and 2. underpriced (Nagash is impressive but unarguably inefficient at current points - your main block unit is going to be the biggest remaining chunk of points & as such needs to be where you make up that difference). ... Long Shot Possibilities: Nagash, Arkhan, and Morghasts look to appear in the new book. From what I could see of arkhan he looked identical to his current warscroll, though that's hard to say for sure as the leaks weren't in English and, dumb american that I am, I don't speak anything else. But still, based on what little I could tell from Arkhan, it looks like any Legions units that make their way into the bonereapers book will simply be copy & pasted. However, while it's unlikely, it is still technically possible that the warscroll and/or points values of Nagash or Morghasts might change dramatically, and such changes might retroactively apply to the same units in grand host lists. If so, that could certainly make a new Nagash list possible even without a new version of the old Grimghasts, maybe even a workable First Cohort. That would be cool. ... On a more sobering note: While there are a number of ways that the bonereaper list *could* bring Nagash back to the competitive scene, I wouldn't hold my breath for any of them. After all, we are still only a couple months removed from a points revision where the devs pretty clearly signaled that they wanted Nagash off of tournament tables altogether, and I doubt they'll have turned around on that opinion so quickly.

The negative reactions I've seen have almost entirely revolved around the models themselves, rather than complaints about misplaced expectations. Not liking the noses. Not liking the grins. Not liking the proportions, especially on the big monster. Not liking the hamster wheel on the catapult. Not liking all the gribbly bumply bits. The faction aesthetic overall is very cartoonish, it reminds many of late 80s / early 90s era children's toys (masters of the universe, inhumanoids, skeleton warriors, etc). And while the studio painting style, color scheme, and photography all serve to highlight & exacerbate those aspects where an alternative style might diminishing them, it seems pretty clear that a lot of that cartoonishness is baked into the models themselves. Personally I love all that stuff, but reaction has been mixed and I don't think that should be very surprising given that cartoony models almost always see mixed reactions, and these are about the cartooniest AoS models we've seen, especially for the undead.

I'd pit the chances at about 5%. That said, if the bonereapers sell well, we might see future expansions to & subfactions of the ossiarch range similar to how stormcasts have seen multiple release waves, which might bring more shooty stuff later. Not soon though, and reaction to the bonreapers so far has been decidedly mixed, which means they might not sell well enough for GW to be intetested in expanding them at all. Definitely too soon to bank on anyway.

I agree, the announcement wasnt early. The preview might have been, but imo that was a reaction to the leaks, which weren't under gw control.

i wouldnt be shocked to see a november preorder of sisters with actual rlease running into december either. But even if the sisters models themselves are in nivember, there are 5 saturdays in november this year, enough for two weaks each of bonereapers & sisters with a whole week left over to give sisters either a two week preorder or a three week release window. So yeah, I'd still expect osdiarch preorders on the 26th of october, with actual models arriving the 2nd and 9th of november. If they show up before then, great, but we still have cities, orks, 40k psyker expansion, and major releases for both craftworld and webway eldar before then, and only a week left in September. that's an awful lot to cram into october if you think the bonereaper models are actually hitting shelves in the same month.

I expect pre-orders on halloween weekend, which puts the actual release into the first couple weeks of November.

Iirc, morghasts have gone down in points twice since the first ghb. GW keeps dropping their points looking for when they'll be ok, but honestly imo that's the wrong solution. Morghasts, whether you're looking at their lore or their models, are huge, powerful creatures, Nagash's personal handiwork forged from the broken souls of the divine servants of slain rival gods. They embody and radiate Nagash's own necromantic power. Honestly, they should weigh in at or over 100 points apiece. I wouldn't want to see further point drops. Instead I want to see their stats raised to match the stature & points costs they already have. Better saves, more wounds, more attacks, maybe a new aura, something more impressive than a bravery debuff. if they're being reprinted in the bonereapers book, that would be an opportunity to rewrite their scroll. That's what I want to see, though I'm not holding out much hope for it.

I mean, he's been legal in generic death. Not that you would want to run that, and not that he'd be any good in it if you did, what with the lack of faction spells, but still.

Unlikely, but my fingers are crossed, for the morghasts especially.

Personally I like it all, but my favorite that we've seen close ups of so far are the mortarch (of course) and the scythe wizard. Too soon to say definitively on the potato images of the leaked stuff, but based on those images I'll also really love the bone mage, the cav hero, and the bishop in the walking chair. What I'm probably going to end up doing is running old tomb kings stuff in a counts as fashion - tomb guard as the infantry, sscs as the catapult, etc, and replace old models with new ones bit by bit in the order of which ones I like the most. Since we've seen multiple casters and know Arkhan at least is definitely part of this army, hopefully there will be a functional casty heavy build leaning on morghasts for the elites such that I can get the handful of smaller hero models that love and otherwise mostly use models I already have while I slowly add new stuff to my collection.

I actually kind of like that look, but would be better if the weapon side was either holding a larger weapon (I really like the dual wielding greatswords stalkers), or if they were holding two different weapons. The halberds those models are carrying look too short for the extra arm to be meaningfully helping.

Yes. Everyone thinks the LoN battalions suck. There have been multiple threads about it. Deathmarch is almost sorta kinda workable, but yeah in general they're bad. Too big to fit into an army, too inflexible to just be your army, too expensive in units, too expensive on top of the already expensive units, not the best benefits. Some neat ideas, but really not very good.

Maybe it's the color scheme, or maybe it's just that the image I started with had one of the nose-less faces. 🤔

Black Knights are relatively fast and have a decent amount of wounds. Offensively they have tons of attacks, but with underwhelming 'to hit' & 'to wound' values and no rend at all. They can be somewhat threatening on the charge to hordey chaff units with poor armor saves based on quantity of attacks & damage alone, especially if you throw a vanhels on them, but a respectable armor save will stone wall them. That said, they're reasonably quick, especially in the deathmarch formation, and especially especially in a sacrament army with the extra movement command ability, and if you land a couple debuffs on the enemy units then the opponent can have as hard a time clearing them as you do clearing the enemy, especially with recursion. Though their recursion is a lot less reliable under the current rules than single wound infantry units. if there's an injured model in the unit, then an invocation can only heal that one wound, any leftover from the d3 roll is lost. If there isn't an injured model, then if you roll a 3 then a single two wound model comes back and the third point is wasted, while if you roll a one that's the worst possible outcome as the entire invocation is wasted without restoring anything at all. If you roll well black knight recursion is fine, but if you roll poorly then it's much worse than skeleton or grave guard or chainrasp or grimghast recursion. That said endless legions works just fine on them. They aren't an awful unit if you build around them, but they're not especially good out of the box. They're certainly better than they were back when they only had a single lance attack per model. At this point the main thing they're lacking as mounted wights is that point of rend. With that they'd be a decent if uninspired cavalry unit. Without it they're less like mounted wights and more like mounted skeleton warriors, which could be fine I guess, but if that's what they're supposed to be then they should probably cost a bit less and fill battleline requirements. That said, they *look* like mounted wights, so that's really what they should be on the table.

I'll probably do dark grey bone for the bodies, ghostly green trim, eyes, & teeth, green gems, dark green cloth, black with green highlights for the armor plates. I slapped together a mockup that i mostly like:

You say that like the idea of a gorilla with a backpack isnt also a pretty inherently silly idea. 😛

I doubt it. They're just too over the top. I mean, that big monster with the massive upper torso & arms and the itty bitty kegs with a separate face & arms in the crotch? That's just inherently goofy as heck. Again, I love it, but that was always going to be a pretty divisive model. I'm honestly surprised and impressed that such a fun, goofy concept made it all the way through development.

I think it's because these guys are very goofy and toyetic. As in they look self consciously like kids toys - he man villains, inhumanoids, etc. Goofy grins, four-faced, four armed guys that look like they'd have some button on the back to make the arms wiggle & faces spin. Weird proportions. Wacky, chunky weapons. I can absolutely see where more serious minded players wouldn't like it, though for me it all just looks better and better.

small skeleton units should always be sword & board. Max size blobs will do more damage with spears... in theory. In practice your big horde units are often strung out to stay in range of buffs or to bubble wrap your heroes or whatever in which case they can't pile up to take advantage of the increased reach anyway. So if you prefer sword & board loadout on skittles that'll be fine. Otherwise you're off to a solid start. I would still recomend a vamp lord, necromancer, & some dire wolves before messing with more elite units or monstrous heroes.

As mentioned previously, my recommended start is separate purchases of: 1) vampire lord, specifically one of these two: since flying or steed are the better than plain infantry for the extra maneuverability. If you prefer winged, but like one of the infantry models more than the winged guy, look into purchasing 40k tyranid gargoyle or dark eldar scourge bat wings off the secondary market (I use hoardobits.com in the us, if you live elsewhere you might have other options, if not try ebay). Alternatively, if you purchase & assemble a Mortis Engine as your big centerpiece unit (see item 5 below), you'll have leftover coven throne bits, including reclining vampire ladies. Sticking one of their upper torsos on the legs of a dark eldar scourge & adding scourge bat wings can make for a cool winged vampire lord model. Alternatively alternatively, if you want to take a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon as your big centerpiece unit, you can skip this initial vamp lord entirely, though long term you'll probably still want one so it wouldn't be a waste. 2. One or more necromancers. The regular necromancer model is great. With a Legion of Sacrament army you probably want to be able to field at least two. You can get multiples of the regular model, but if you want two that look different from each other you might instead look to secondary market bits sellers for the Mortis Engine or Corpse Cart drivers, which can be converted into separate necromancers on foot pretty easily. Alternatively you could try looking for the Empire Battle Wizards. They used to come in a box of two with a bunch of different bits and options, several of which would make for great necromancers. Later they were repackaged in a "collegiate arcane" box of four. Now... now I can't find them on GW's store page at all, so you might be stuck looking for secondary sellers anyway. Or they might just be getting repackaged for the upcoming free peoples / cities of sigmar / whatever it's called battle tome coming out in the next month or two. Regardless, these are the models I'm talking about: Again, the boxes come with bunches of options, you can definitely make multiple necromantic looking guys. It's honestly a great source of conversion bits regardless. 3. Pick a Horde type, and get a max sized unit of them. The options here are skeleton warriors (4 boxes), chainrasps (4 boxes) or zombies (3 boxes). They differ in function - skeletons are the more offensive, chainrasps the fastest and toughest option, and zombies the weakest but most numerous, and the synergize well with corspe carts which also can buff your wizards with their lodestone bell. While their functionality differs, their overall effectiveness is close enough that you should feel free to choose your horde type based on aesthetic preferences. If you want the ghostly chainrasps, you might be able to get them cheaper in sets of 20 from the soul wars box on the secondary market. Regardless, this horde unit will be the most expensive chunk of your initial army purchase, and the part that takes the longest to assemble & paint, so it's reasonable to break the work into multiple chunks. Grab one to two boxes of your horde, move on to the next thing, and come back for the rest after maybe. There's really no sugar coating this, though. Legions of Nagash is a horde army, and that means a lot of models, and that means a lot of money and time. If you want something else, try a monster heavy Flesh Eaters list or waiting for the seemingly more elite Bonereapers. 3 b - if you picked zombies as your horde, you'll also want to buy a corpse cart to go with them. It's not too hard to magnetize so you can swap out the bell or the balefire, but if you don't want to bother with that just build it with the bell. 4. Pick up 2x5 dire wolves. Dire Wolves saw a points increase recently, but they're still a great option for filling battle line requirements, grabbing unoccupied objectives, harrassing small enemy units, screening your faster moving units and heroes from charges, etc. Some people even take them in big units, buff them up, and use them as a primary horde unit. I'm not much for that, but point is you want at least 10 and may want more. The official models conveniently come in a box of 10 for an affordable price: But a lot of players don't like how they look, and their connection to their bases is both obnoxiously large and surprisingly fragile, so you might want to consider alternative models. Fenrisian Wolves are a decent alternative: But they will be more than twice as expensive, as the box costs more, only comes with 5 models instead of 10, and you'd have to buy the correct 60mm oval bases separately, since the box comes with 40mm rounds, which is what the 40k unit uses. 5. Finally get yourself one big cool centerpiece model. Mortis Engine is the fluffiest for Sacrament, but a Terrorgheist or a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon might be more effective. Each of these kits is large and troublesome to assemble and paint. You'll want to work in smaller assemblages and take your time. If you're new to the hobby entirely, and not just new to Death in particular, then you definitely want to save this one until after you've finished assembling and painting the previous items in order to get some hobby experience under your belt. There is no good starter box combining these things into a more affordable pile, so you're kind of stuck just getting this stuff separately, which is expensive and hasslesome, but the army you end up with should look good and be reasonably playable. Not top tier - again the Legions really aren't top tier right now, but functional and give you a proper feel for what the army is about. From there I'd recommend picking up some thematically appropriate terrain to go with your army - the Sigmarite Mausoleum is cool - before expanding into higher points. When you are ready to expand, a second unit of your primary horde is probably the next thing to pick up, followed by something more elite. Maybe a dragon or terrorgheist if you didn't grab one already, maybe some Morghasts with halberds. But that's way down the line, no sense worrying about it now.

I don't recommend any of the start collecting boxes for a new legions player. Too much big stuff, not enough horde, not the right units for any legion. The 'blades of the blood queen' box was a good way to start a grand host army specifically, but i don't think that box is available anymore.

I don't personally recommend Arkhan for Sacrament lists. Certainly not at 1000 points, because in a Legion of Sacrament army he has to be your general if you take him. Sacrament has come decent command abilities, and you can't take one of them if Arkhan is your general. Also, Arkhan's very fragile for his points cost, especially with some actually decent shooting making its way around the Age of Sigmar tables again. This is problematic enough for a 300+ point model in a thousand point list to begin with, but it's way more of a problem when he has to be your general, especially in the Legions of Nagash where the Endless Legions command ability is so important to how the army functions. So for Sacrament armies, I much prefer either a dragon lord (much tougher, especially with shroud of darkness or ethereal amulet) or a winged or mounted vampire lord (equivalently tough to arkhan with a shroud while being much cheaper and much easier to hide behind los blocking terrain while advancing) or just a plain old necromancer (as tough or tougher than arkhan while wearing a shroud and within range of summonable units, again being much cheaper, again easier to hide behind terrain - though their lower movement speed means they can't bounce from hiding spot to hiding spot as easily as a vampire). If you play Arkhan's Legion then you will *eventually* want to pick up Arkhan as a sort of capstone for your list, but I'd mostly only play him in larger, more narratively driven games, not so much regular bring & battle pick up games. I'd treat him more as a fun event pies rather than a regular part of your army. Now, I do sometimes field Arkhan in more regular games myself, but I run Grand Host of Nagash, where Arkhan doesn't need to be the general. You can take him as a strong caster / minor monster while still having a generic general with a real command ability and a defensive artifact. The ability to run Arkhan, Mannfred, or Neferata while still having a generic general is a big part of why I run Grand Host in the first place, for the record I think that, competitively, Sacrament is stronger in general. LoN armies are very caster dependent, but our wizards really aren't all that efficient compared to other recent books. The caster bonus from Sacrament goes a long way towards making up the difference. Night's also pretty decent - the outflanking gimmick is both pretty good and really changes up how the army feels and plays, letting you pull some almost Nighthauntish tricks.

My wish list for unseen bonreapers stuff includes: Generic fighty hero Big, non-flying monster that could reasonably double as new warshpinx rules - this could potentially be a dual kit with the catapult, if it has a variant build with warriors in a howda in place of the seige engine. Ranged attack variants of the stalkers, and maybe the cavalry as well (giving counts as rules options for bowshabti and old stalkers) 1-2 additional named characters for more personality/variety/drama Morghasts with new & improved warscrolls as a native part of the faction, updating the Legion of Nagash warscrolls in the process Morghast hero, possibly as one of the previously mentioned named characters actually good endless spells signature faction terrain apart from the necropolis fortifications in the reveal video. That stuff looks cool, but also super expensive, and way too big for every game use. Legion of the Necropolis variant faction rules combining bonereapers and, at the very least, deathrattle factions in a single allegiance with legion style faction rules.

I do recommend starting any of the legions with a vampire lord, necromancer, 2x5 dire wolves, and one max unit of horde infantry (40 skeletons, 40 chainrasps, or 60 zombies). Exception is grief, who don't get vamp lords in faction, so I would grab a knight of shrouds or dreadblade harrow instead. As mentioned in the previous post, choice of which horde unit for sacrament is up in the air. Zombies are theoretically the natural fit, as both zombies and your casters can be buffed by a lodestone corpse cart, but even with that buff I personally find them to be somewhat lackluster compared to tge other two options. Maybe if their minimum unit size were 20, alliwing fir a bigger max unit discount... as it is there are some who like them, but I'd lean towards skeletons or chainrasps myself, based on model preference. After that foundation, the next thing I'd grab would be another necrimancer or two (maybe buy the emoire wizard box to use as extra necros for midel variety), maybe a harder hitting hammer unit (grimghasts, great weapon grave guard, halberd morghasts, or the like), then look to a larger centerpiece like a terrorgheist, vamp lord on zombie dragon, or mortis engine (not the best death behemoth, but very fluffy for sacrament). After that, a second big block of your main horde, and finally arkhan as a capstone. I'd save arkhan until you already have a large army to go with him as, while he's cool in a narrative sense, and not a terrible unit, he is super fragile for the points, and if you firld him he must be the general in a sacrament army, which isn't ideal. Alternatuvely to most of that, if you lije skeletons you could build around the Deathmarch battalion. it's kind of pricey fir what it does, but works well with the extra movement command ability that sacrament has. For thus sort of army, you'll want to start by deciding whether you want to focus on infantry or cavalry, as that determines whether you'll want the regular wight king model or a mounted one - which you'll probably have to convert (try sticking a grave guard champion's head on the plastic mounted empire general, and just painting the horse fhistly or zombyish). After that, get a necromancer, the minimum units for deathmarch (3x10 skeletons, 10 grave guard, 5 black knights), then push your main offensive unit to a larger size (either 30 grave guard or 20 bkack knights), push one of your skeleton units up to maximum size, then start thinking about larger centerpieces, more necromancers, more max horde units, maybe some dire wolves, maybe arkhan as before. Some example 1000 point lists: First up, here's what I would default recommend for a starting sacrament player. Several casters, fluffy mortis engine, most of the way towards the sacrament formation if you want to run it later (it isn't great for its points, but it's cool in narrative games). Choice of ghosts or skittles as horde. Allegiance: Legion of SacramentMortal Realm: ShyishVampire Lord (140)- General- Mount: Flying Horror- Trait: Peerless Commander - Artefact: Shroud of Darkness - Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine OrbNecromancer (130)- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming DreadNecromancer (130)- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour5 x Dire Wolves (70)5 x Dire Wolves (70) either:.....40 x Chainrasp Horde (280) or: .....40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)Mortis Engine (180)Total: 1000 / 1000Extra Command Points: 0Allies: 0 / 200Wounds: 87 next a variant on the previous list with a terrorgheist instead of the mortis & a necro. Slightly less thamatic for sacrament, but a bit stronger imo. Alternatively, you could trade the winged vamp lord and terrorgheist for a vamp lord on zombie dragon, which would then be my standard 1k grand host list. Allegiance: Legion of SacramentMortal Realm: ShyishVampire Lord (140)- General- Mount: Flying Horror- Trait: Peerless Commander - Artefact: Shroud of Darkness - Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine OrbNecromancer (130)- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dreadeither:.....40 x Chainrasp Horde (280) or: .....40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)5 x Dire Wolves (70)5 x Dire Wolves (70)Terrorgheist (300)Total: 990 / 2000Extra Command Points: 0Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 84 Next, a list with zombies, which again should be the default horde choice for sacrament if their rules & models weren't a bit meh. Still, gives you an excuse to fit a corpse cart in, and between the cart, engine, and faction bonus your casting will be very strong, even with only two wizards in thus list. Allegiance: Legion of SacramentMortal Realm: ShyishVampire Lord (140)- General- Mount: Flying Horror- Trait: Peerless Commander - Artefact: Shroud of Darkness - Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine OrbNecromancer (130)- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread60 x Zombies (320)5 x Dire Wolves (70)5 x Dire Wolves (70)1 x Corpse Cart (80) - Unholy LodestoneMortis Engine (180)Total: 990 / 1000Extra Command Points: 0Allies: 0 / 200Wounds: 108 Finally, here's a list building toward a cav heavy Deathmarch battalion. Can't really fit it all at 1000 points, but should be a playable start that gets you most of the way there. Allegiance: Legion of SacramentMortal Realm: ShyishWight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120)- General- Mount: Steed- Trait: Peerless Commander - Artefact: Shroud of Darkness Necromancer (130)- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread40 x Skeleton Warriors (280)- Ancient Spears10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)- Ancient Blades10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)- Ancient Blades10 x Black Knights (240)Total: 980 / 1000Extra Command Points: 1Allies: 0 / 200Wounds: 90