Sception

Thankfuly I never got around to rebasing most of my old undead. When & if this old world game ever comes out, I'll have skittles aplenty for oldhammer and ossiarchs for AoS.

I wonder if a mortal society ruled by vampires and worshipping nagash could negotiate a more sustainable tithe.

My preferred vision has for a while been: Flesh Eater Courts: add a couple units, have some plot development that puts mannfred here in charge of the ghouls as the abhorrant mortarch, witj Nagash gaining reliable control over them through him. aesthetic for new stuff stays mostly the same but adds a bit more in weaponry and scraps of clothing & armor, share bat units with soulblight and dire wolves with fleshcraft. Nighthaunt: more or less as is Soulblight: add some mortal cultists/attendants/blood donors, new plastic vamps & blood knights with a bit more of that mortarchy aesthetic. Blood fountain terrain, faction rules emphasizing spies, manipulators, assassins Neferata stays here, mannfred gone. Fleshcraft Academies: arkhan, deathmages, & deadwalkers rolled together into a new faction themed around experimental necromantic chimeras & undead arcane war engines. Almost skryresque but sinew and spirit instead of wires & electricity. Conceptually, the wild innovators of death tasked with inventing novel concepts that can then be ritualized for implementation by the less creative, more systematic undead, and for countering Nagash's more unpredictable foes. Mechanically Death's version of skaven, big hordes of cheap chaff to tarpit enemy units while weird monsters and bizarre war machines do the actual killing, with necromantic casters & engineers "bravely" leading from the rear. Deathrattle: in my original vision deathrattle stuck around as the basic defensive forces of the undead, the legions which occupied and held the territory that the others took. The faction would be expanded with concepts nicked from the tomb kings emphasizing a defensive game - catapults, the existing skeleton sprues recut with larger shields and maybe a ranged option. Add in a new deathrattle mortarch. Maybe krell, maybe khalida (I really like the idea of Nagash bring khalida back as a foil/counter to neferata to keep her scheming in check, only to for them to have left their hatred in the old world and become a harley & ivy type duo scheming and troublemaking together). If not them then maybe someone new. Legions of Death: nagash, all the mortarchs, and morghasts expanded out into their own faction with smaller, flightless versions of morghasts as the core as a stand alone "deathlords" faction. This book would also include "legion" rules: Grand Host of Nagash essentially an alternate ruleset for grand alliance death; Legion of night: deathlords plus FEC; Legion of grief: deathlords plus nighthaunt; etc etc. Then came OBS, which in many ways was both the stand alone deathlords/morghasts faction I imagined and the defensive deathrattle faction expanded with ideas nicked from tomb kings that I hoped for, and yet is neither. Unlike my imagined deathlords, the OBR has exactly zero interaction with other death factions. No "OBR + X" replacement for the existing "legions of", not even any allies. To the contrary, their rules seem to be expressly designed to make any intra allegiance integration as difficult as possible. Further, they're also not an elite force of large base infantry that can look the stormcasts of sigmar or chosen of chaos in the eye as they fight them, but are in fact another small base horde infantry army, more elite than other death armies sure but still grounded in large blocks of 25mm infantry buffed by support characters not far removed from ghouls or zombies or skeletons or chainrasps. Unlike my hoped for deathrattle expansion, OBR seems to replace rather than supplement the existing line of skeletal warriors and grave guard. Which is a shame because the plastic skeletons look great already, and if morteks were only half again as large they could have all existed together under the death banner without stepping on each others' toes. As it is, I'm just not sure I see a place for deathrattle, conceptually or mechanically, going forward at all. Don't get me wrong, as a faction in and of itself I love the OBR. I love their fluff, I love how they look and how they play (despite my unbroken losing streak stubbornly trying to play them without petrifex or crawlers), they're easily my favorite new faction since AoS's initial release. But I'm not sure I like what they do to or mean for the larger grand alliance of death as a whole.

Really doubt it. Way too soon, and the current book, while a bit rickety, still mostly holds together. Maybe a Soulblight book though. I *do* think we'll see an LoN update in the future, if nothing else then just a cleanup for 3e with maybe a grave sites terrain kit. But that's all guesswork and wish listing. For the moment the only real answer is "it isn't currently anywhere on the horizon."

Had a second battle with the same list against the same chaos player but playing a radically different list - a skryre force with one warlock engineer and the entire rest of their points in a single unit of acolytes. Another 'objectives in 4 corners' game, this time the one on where you win if you ever control all four objectives, and played on a 4x4 table. Not much to report about this battle though, as the acolytes increased move and ability to run & shoot ensured that they would get to fire off a shot before I could engage, and between character buffs and the one big unit with -2 rend and d3+1 damage they pretty easily wiped out a unit a turn. I tried to chase objectives & stay out of range, but it wasn't to be. I'm still not too put out, 500 is again an awkward points value and my list is far from optimized. This game was slightly more frustrating as my units didn't actually do anything, not helped at all by much worse dice luck leading to no successful spells cast. It was also a game where it was more clearly apparent that I've been deliberately avoiding some of the stronger options available to the OBR. Even petrifex bonuses probably wouldn't have stopped my units from evaporating like they did, but a catapult in particular would have been able to smash the acolyte unit from far outside its range. Alternatively, I might have done better with a kavalos unit instead of the immortis, who might have been able to charge from outside the acolytes move/run/shoot distance. As it was my only real hope was a double turn, and as the opponent under-dropped me and made me go first that just wasn't going to happen. ... Another thing worth pointing out, something maybe actually relevant to formats other than 500 point games, is that the relentless discipline rules preventing OBR from using generic command abilities hurts a lot more in games using the realms rules. My last game was largely decided by the realm of shadow command ability letting my opponent teleport their units around willy nilly while I was stuck with normal movement, while this game was played in the realm of light, so even if I had gotten the double turn and managed to charge with one of my units before getting blown apart, the skaven player would have been able to activate the CA to fight first with their unit, and I wouldn't have been able to counter by using the CA myself. Not every realm has a strong CA, but enough do that fighting without them is very noticeable.

The general shape of the ossiarch cartouches is generic enough to probably not be an issue, especially squashed & widened a bit to better fit into a square die face. What you do want to do is come up with a unique symbol for the center of it. Honestly, something close to the standard 6 pips arranged in two vertical rows of three would look cool while also being immediately recognizable as a six, so there'd be no confusion over whether the special character represented a six or a one. Maybe instead of circular pips more flattened lines such that the overall effect might vaguely suggest a rib cage. Quick mock up in paint: Simple, clear OBR aesthetic, easily readable as a 6, shaped to fit a square die face, doesn't directly copy any of the published GW symbols.

All the schemes are great. I esprcially like the white & purple with green blades & gold accents.

Played a 500 point game for the local store's new slow grow league. League rules at 500 points: minimum 1 leader, 1 battleline, no behemoths or artillery, play on half tables, use pitched battle plans and realm rules My list: Null Myriad Soul Mason with arcane command and Null Myriad trait and artefact 10 Mortek Guard, sword & board 3 Immortis Guard Bone-tithe Shrieker Opponent's List: Mixed Chaos Plague Priest 10 plague monks 5 skryre acolytes 10 gutter runners 5 chaos warriors 1 doom flayer Scenario was... I forget the name. Total Destruction, maybe? The one with objectives in each corner, score a point at the end of your turn for each objective you control, and an extra point for each that you took from your opponent that turn. Because of the half tables, we decided to halve the distances of the objectives to the table edges, so they wouldn't end up all crammed together in the center of the battle. This had significant game repercussions down the line, but neither of us realized it at the time so no harm intended. Realm was Shadow (rolled randomly from every realm except beasts, since neither of us had any monsters with us). realm trait limited LOS to 18". I went first. With multiple objectives to grab and defend, I split my force, putting 10 morteks on one objective and the mason & immortis on the other. Tried to keep them in range of each other, the los limit from the realm rules made it iffy. First turn I captured my two objectives, moving my units as far forward as they could while still doing so. Successful spellcasting got the shrieker out among other buffs that didn't matter. Chaos turn one used the Ulgu trait to teleport his gutter runners behind my morteks, claiming their objective and both of his. At this point it became suddenly clear that between the chaos team outnumbering me 2 to 1 in both models and units, the ulgu teleportation CA (which I couldn't use thanks to ossiarch rules), and the shortened distance between objectives and the board edges that we had agreed to earlier meaning that any unit that teleported could immediately be in range to claim any objective I wasn't actively sitting on, it was then impossible for me to win. The board right after the gutter runners teleported, and right before the rest of the skaven forces on the left ran back out of reasonable charge range of my immortis. Note that the line of dice in the back is a board edge. Even if my morteks turned back to stomp on the gutter runners and re-take that objective (which they did handily in the following turn), I didn't have enough units to both sit on my objectives and chase his. If I just sat for the rest of the game he'd win on the VP advantage he already had, and if I went after him he'd just pull back, throw up a couple sacrificial roadblocks, and teleport his spare units behind me to claim any objective I moved away from. Which is how the rest of the game went. The road blocks in question were the doom flayer, which the immortis & mason frustratingly took two rounds to kill despite help from the shrieker, and the chaos warriors, which the Morteks did an impressive job of taking out even unassisted, but again it took them two rounds to do which didn't help matters. So major loss, but I'm not too upset over it. 500 is a wonky points value for ossiarchs, and the combination of scenario roll, realm roll, and the adjustments we made to the scenario to fit the smaller table size kind of decided the game from the get go. The units I ran all pretty much did what they were supposed to do, so that was nice. Sadly, the opponent had no wizards, so Null Myriad rules kind of went to waste. I love their fluff, but even setting aside that they're obviously worse than the obviously best legion which I refuse to use on principle, even just on their own the Myriad's rules are very all or nothing, which isn't ideal. I'll give them a few more goes, but may end up switching over to crematorians.

The spell refers to "shields" and "nadirite battle-shields". Mortek Guard and Kavalos Deathriders have "shields". Immortis Guard, Liege Kavalos, and Arch-Kavalos Zandtos have "nadirite battle-shields". Those are the units that can benefit from the spell. This answer doesn't change that, it only clarifies that when the spell refers to "shields" it means the specific equipment named "shields", not just any shield at all. Katakros is equipped with "the Shield Immortis", which conceptually is 'a shield', but is not the specific equipment item named "shields" and so does not qualify to be targeted by the spell according to this answer. Nothing has changed.

It would be unfortunate, but with the petrifex outlier out of the way, future points updates could fix it in time. As is, though? Look at this thread. Practically every list is petrifex, apart from ones that acknowledge up front that they're only avoiding petrifex to be contrarian or softball their opponents. Multiple comments on games of 'without petrifex I would never have had a chance'. In discussions elsewhere we have players of other factions complaining that their games against obr are unfun because the army is too hard to hurt, thanks in large part to petrifex. With the current track we're on, and no changes to petrifex, we're staring down the barrel of points hikes accross the faction, despite non-petrifex legions struggling already, and if that happens it will only make things worse. Petrifex is a problem.

That's exactly the problem, and exactly why petrifex needs a nerf. If obr units are overpriced for every legion except petrifex, but can't get a points decrease because it would make the unit too strong in petrifex, then the petrifex rules as written are a barrier standing in the way of the faction as a whole being fun and balanced.

With every passing day it becomes more and more clear that Petrifex is best by so much that it breaks the whole faction. Simply put, petrifex versions of units are so much better than the other legion or non legion versions of those same units that they cannot justifiably be played at the same points cost. For each and every unit, either the petrifex version is underpriced by 20 points or more, or else the non petrifex version is overpriced by the same amount. They need a nerf. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't see one in the first faq. Then again, I'm surprised they made it through testing as is to begin with.

He's also better in a praetorian army, where you can use his wound reroll ca on other units, not just himself. Not super relevant right now when petrifex is best by a country mile, but if petrifex gets the nerf bat in the future, then praetorians may get more popular.

I like 20s. Beefy enough to make relatively efficient use of buffs while being cheap enough to have a few units to work with. Massive blocks of 40 really are tempting, though, as getting a big horde discount on what is already our most offensively and defensively points efficient unit is really something worth considering, and properly supported (couple boneshapers, shrieker, harvester, maybe a liege) a massive wall of 2x40 morteks can steam roll entire enemy armies. On the other end of the spectrum, 10 morteks for 130 points is our cheapest battle line and is still a functional little unit, much hittier and tougher to budge then its small size would suggest. Especially in (sigh) petrifex. If our non-battleline units were more points efficient then taking minimal mortek battleline would probably be the way to go, but since they are in many ways our best and strongest unit, you might as well beef them up a bit, imo. Honestly, they're a great unit at any size. I'm not sure there's a bad way to run them.

Eh, wait for the FAQ. If Nagash & Arkhan in LoN armies get full access to even just the deathmages lore the way they get full access to the mortisan lore in OBR armies then that goes a long way to making up for losing access to other wizards' spells.

FAQ may change things, but as written my understanding is that, yes, he interrupts after each model within 3" is slain. This is because, while it is convention to roll dice and remove models in batches where the order doesn't matter in order to save time, in actuality the rules have each individual wound allocated and fully resolved one at a time. So if Skarbrand attacks the unit and does 24 mortal wounds, each wound is resolved one at a time - allocating a wound to a model, rolling any mortal negation abilities one at a time, applying the wound if negation fails, and removing a model if you reach their wounds characteristic, at which point bone harvest triggers and potentially returns a model before moving on to allocating the next wound. It's important to note that the area within which bone harvest functions is only 3". If you're suffering such a massive allocation of wounds at one time, it's entirely possible that you will run out of models within 3" of the harvester before you run out of wounds to allocate, and if that happens you will be unable to use bone harvest on any of the remaining wounds, as the models slain by those wounds won't be within range of the ability.

What about the death save, +3 move ca, and petrifex -1 rend ca?

Im away from book, but my recollection is "has hekatos keyword or fully within 6" of a mortek hekatos or fully within 12" on a bonereaper hero". Just having a hekatos in the unit wasn't enough. But again, im away from book, so could be wrong.

In smaller units, yeah, if you take one or nore greatblades the first should go on the champion. In larger units you might want to keep the champion in the middle of the unit inatead of the front, for the various wholly within 6" of a mortek hekatos abilities, in which case the greatblades should be on regular troopers who you can keep in front.

Stalliarch flee & charge ca is for mounted models only - kavalos, liege, soulmason, arkhan, nagash. Doesn't work for zandtos because he has the pretorian keyword. The run & charge legion trait works for anyone except the pretorian named characters.

Reasons to field them: better than spears, helps narrow the gap between spears and swords. Fractionally better than swords without the nadirite buff spell, which won't be up on all your units all the time Look cool, if you think they look cool Reasons not to field them: Have to roll their attacks separately, which is a hassle Look bad, if you think they look bad Only comfortably fit on one of the unit's bodies, resulting in either awkward assembly or a chorus line effect in your front rank if you field multiples. Honestly, the arm fit for morteks is kind of bad in general.

It loses some value, but not as much as you might (or I did) think. Battalion ability has limited range from the hero, only applies to the two units in the battalion. A cav army is going to run more than the 2 kavalos units in the lance, but isnt going to run two lances, because you won't want two lieges. Stalliarch lets you retreat & charge with units outside of the lance, or lance units not in range of the liege, while the battalion lets you retreat and charge with lance units in ramge of the hero without spending rd points. Compare to shield corps. Everyone likes that battalion and it just lets one unit a turn do something they could have done anyway, just without spending a point. Same deal. While the lance is still good for staliarchs, and staliarchs will definitely want to run it, I don't deny that it does more for other legions, and that doesn't feel right. But the combination is still good. While I won't defend their command trait or artifact, the legion trait and command ability really are quite good, and they're good in ways that meaningfully change how the army builds and plays, which is what subfaction rules should do.

This is pretty much the way to go. Play what you want, and give your opponents time to adjust before making changes to your own list, just be open to making changes of your own if your scene isn't able to react. Personally I lean towards starting with softballs and 'growing the beard out' as appropriate, but that's easy for me to say as the options I most like in the army aren't the obvious strong ones anyway. When I list things that might be problems for fun, I don't mean that they definitely will be. IME most players know it's important to have some rend and some mortal output, know 5 wound heroes are vulnerable to sniping and either look for ways to protect them or don't hang their entire game plans on them, know they need to have some anti-magic game, know they need tools to target your own heroes, etc. Granted, some armies don't have a lot of options in these areas, but for the most part I don't think even petrifex should be a huge problem past the shock to the system of a death army with some actual armor saves. We don't have any of the major system tilting effects that characterize the most broken aos2 factions to date - no summoning, no out of sequence combat attacks, etc. Yeah, this is a big part of the problem with petrifex. Not only are they obviously stronger than the rest, they're obviously stronger in the generic ways that the army is already strong, so they're basically the best for any build. Stalliarch pushes you towards cavalry lists specifically, Crematorians infantry spam & recursion, Pretorians really want you to field their named heroes, Null... well, the Myriad doesn't really encourage particular builds either, personally I'd rather their CA was something unrelated to their anti-magic trait, something that wouldn't be so heavily tilted against caster-blaster armies, would matter a bit more vs. other armies, and could give them a mechanical push towards a more thematically focused build. Probably something caster related. Meanwhile Petrifex might be fixed if you swapped their abilities around a bit. CA at the start of any phase for +1 armor save for that phase only, trait that gives them +1 rend on unmodified six to wound? Same flavor, but significantly cut back. but that's spiraling off into wish listing and home brewing, which is another thread.

Pretty much this. If you think they look cooler, then maybe run one per unit - whether those are units of 3 or 6 or whatever, as a neat looking squad leader. If you don't happen to think they look way cooler than the 4swords, then definitely don't build them, as they're sadly a case where the weapon 'upgrade' is actually a downgrade, especially in the precision stance which is what they'll almost always be using.

Rule of Cool, yes. By the math, no. Unfortunately a case where a weapon 'upgrade' is actually a downgrade.