Elmir
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Posts posted by Elmir
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Personally, I'm happy we will be seeing an AoS third edition coming up... Even if second edition didn't feel like it lasted very long due to lockdowns.
That being said, I don't think AoS3 is going to help a lot to fix a lot of balance issue the game faces right now, as most of the NPE/balance issues right now are heavily tied to single warscrolls/allegiance abilities and not so much the general rules (except maybe excessive shooting).
I'm also not a big fan of Psychic awakening style books bringing a couple of pages of rules for multiple factions... This type of rules diffusion killed everybody's interest in 40k locally, and they are bringing it to AoS now. It's just not nice to drag along multiple books to field a single army.
The day GW decides to dump the battletome/expansion book as a rulessource and swaps to a way more flexible card system (to do targeted fixes to bad warscrolls/abilities, both in OP or UP sense), this game has a shot at being better balanced while still being practical. -
56 minutes ago, Okonomiyakimarine said:
@Elmir Fantastic stuff! I especially like the zombies and the skeletons. You mentioned that you paint contrast over a greyscale. Could you elaborate on that, please? Rattlecan or airbrush? What spectrum of tones (or even colors) do you use for this? Do you do extra highlights, before layering the (probably thinned down) contrast colors on top?
I used an airbrush, but it works with rattlecans too. I used it on the punga miniatures team and started with a black primer with white over the top. I then hit it with an all over black wash and a quick white drybrush to pick out the edges.
Applying contrast over that, pretty much made the models look like they were given proper highlights, even though they didn't. This doesn't work for all contrast paints though (it looks horrid with colours like apothecary white or aethermathic blue). Thinning the contrast depends on the power of the contrast paint. Some of them are very pigment dense, others less so. It's all about experimenting with that a bit.
It works better for an overall muted colour palette, where you can get away with doing very few saturated colours to offset it. I did that with my blood bowl black orc team:
You can also do a brown primer with white zenithal over it, if you want to avoid the black areas and get a warmer tone for the contrast paints.-
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Good lord. That warscroll sounds like it's hideous to face...
It's not like you can't do anything about his charge mechanic, but for a lot of monsters, this guy can just smash a keypiece by just charging it. Bit swingy.
If Nagash has been bumped to 975, surely this guy has to be very close to that amount.-
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The vengorian lord is also finished! Tried to make a smoother transition from beast to vampire through the paintjob compared to the box art.
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And the Cursed City box is complete! Amazing models, just such a shame about how the release was handled...
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2 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
Ah nah not for me, after all the models are also a suggestion and we could be instead playing with cans of beans and shot glasses for armies.
Just feels silly. That's definitely not Mannfred no, it fights like Mannfred and looks like Mannfred but it's actually my unique vampire, WomanFred!
With all of his jumping out of combat, you could call him Mannfrog, the mortarch of Fright....
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25 minutes ago, Verminlord said:
I'm gonna have to disagree. It does not take a "ton" of damage or effort to clear 40 wounds with no save. Lot of people are going to be real disappointed with their zombies when they get wiped in a turn before they can do anything back.
The fact is you have to spend way too many points for zombies to be anything more than a distraction and if you're supporting them and they get killed you're left with a huge waste of support points. There are just better things to spend points on.
Skeletons don't need support at all to do their job well. They are way more efficient. I'm also not sure why you would compare cheap skeleton horde anvils to elite cav blood knights...Per point... There is literally no difference that 5+ save makes when zombies are 2/3 of the cost that skeletons are. In fact, rend only makes killing an equal amount of points of skellies more efficient compared to zombies.
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1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I wonder if battleshock will get an overhaul in AoS 3. It's hard to say if we would benefit or be hurt by Inspiring Presence going away, for example. If it sticks around and CP becomes more plentiful, they might as well get rid of battleshock all together.
This why I'm really curious to see what happens with both CP generation, what generals do and what generic CAs still remain.
Insane bravery going away is something I'm a strong proponent of... It already makes the battleshock phase a nothing burger, even with limited amounts of CP.
And now, they really seem to suggest you get more CP... If CP generation is somehow tied to your general still being alive (and that is a strong hunch I'm getting, as they seem to get inspiration from Ossiarch RDP), I could see Vyrkos getting kinda insane.-
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2 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
So, to me the difference is: Zombies want to charge, skeletons want to be charged. Both are valuable roles.
I don't want to charge even with zombies... I would much rather have them shamble out of 3" into combat due to their 6" move, giving me a lot more control over target selection instead of being forced to have to strike last before their abilities are "useful".
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Just now, Aren73 said:
I gave them the vampire to double their damage output and their heals. Sure, we can take the vampire away, now the zombies with Necro are cheaper than skellies with necro by 25 points (woo?).
Zombie damage and heals are halved...they still come out worse.
People are blinded by the omg-MWs-on-6s-models-get-back-on-2s thing but the maths is generally in favour of skellies.
And once again, this is just for tanking. Zombies have better damage, I am not and will not argue against that.Then try to argue for the fact that getting a worse tanking unit in skeletons is somehow the smarter choice compared to just getting the tankier, faster and harder hitting Blood knights instead? If a tanky unit is what you are after...
Skeletons lose out in damage and flexibilty/tricks compared to zombies for your battle line, and with the mega fast blood knights being one of the tankiest units in the game, they kind of also lose out against those too in that department. I just don't see a place for the humble skelly in this book. -
Just now, Aren73 said:
In most situations. Dude...I even gave the zombies 115 more points.
That's just one of many scenarios where Skellies are better at tanking than zombies.
It's not all scenarios, definitely not, but in the majority of scenarios skellies tank better.And yes, zombies do much better damage. But I'm not taking skellies for damage, I have grave guard to do that for me.
Grave guard are better at damage than zombies.no, you are giving zombies the handicap of needing a 140 vampire for their tanking and that is BOLLOCKS, either you compare their tanking (have fun doing that after a battleround where they add their damage to their numbers if they strike first btw, because they it would matter)
So no, some people here are still having a hard time swallowing that bitter pill that the humble old skeleton... is just plain not that good anymore and is outshined by the way more versatile zombie. -
I'm actually quite curious how the interaction will be between those models getting ressed vs how many will count for the inevitable battleshock that follows.
The wording of the AoS3 battleshock will matter a lot on having to take those resurrected casualties into account or not for your final battleshock test.-
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13 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
Nope, I didn't miss it
30 Skeletons with a Necromancer (380) are cheaper than 40 Zombies with a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord (495).
The skeletons still do better...In this one very particular situation... tanking stuff... And we have an army that has plain ol' better units to tank damage than these guys.
The fact that zombies are just plain easier to manipulate to strike first with their pile-in shenanigans, gain ablative wounds when they do pull off the "insane" buff (which btw, isn't even at full potential when talking about Vyrkos builds) and all round scale better because of lower points per model, they are the better all rounders by a long shot.-
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2 hours ago, Aren73 said:
@Elmir See my previous comparison of zombies to skeletons:
I'm not comparing damage here, or speed or anything else. I do think that overall Zombies are a better unit than Skeletons. But Skeletons do seem to be more durable. You can't rely too much on those MWs on 6s from zombies for their damage output - you're hardly going to get more than 20 in combat, which equates to just under 4 MW (and their other attacks basically do nothing). 4 Zombies coming back isn't all that much and they're not going to kill anything significant with those 4 MWs.
Zombies do really ramp up with extra attacks and activations (+1 A from Vampire Lord and Vanhels from Necro gets them to a much nicer 16 MW). However they NEED that support.
Skeletons on the other hand need no support to be decently durable. If your enemy can wipe out 30 skeletons in a single activation then what the hell, he'll probably kill all the zombies too, or all but 5 or something. And then as soon as the skeletons activate they get half their dead back.
Zombies are a trap. They look really good with all their MWs on 6s and coming back after killing something. To really get that going; however, you need a block of 40 of them, a vampire lord and a Necromancer AND you need your opponent not to send something at them that just wipes the unit.
A max unit of zombies with Necromancer and vampire lord support is 495 pts. For that much you can take 9 Vargheists.
9 Vargheists (not buffed) can kill 26 zombies on average. What do the remaining 14 do? 5 MW followed by another 5 MW - they've killed 2 Vargheists, maybe a 3rd one if you're lucky.
The same 9 Vargheists going into Skeletons only kills 21 skeletons. The 9 skeletons activate, 11 get back up. 20 skeletons go into the Vargheists and don't do much - but, more of them survived. If you have a Necromancer to Vanhels them then the rest of them get back up too - effectively the Vargheists did nothing.
Guys you are overestimating the Zombies, they need a lot of help to get them to be ridiculous.
Skeletons are more survivable (see above) than zombies even if the zombies are supported a bit. Zombies win out when they go up against units that aren't doing much damage in the first place. Whereas Skeletons can take a hit that kills 20 of them and they can still come back from it easily. Once your block of zombies is reduced to 10 models they're practically out of the game unless you do A LOT of work to try and heal them.Ironically, you seem to miss that those skeletons are also getting necro support in that comparison vs the vargheists.
You also don't need zombies to be ridiculous all the time. The point is that you can GET them to be ridiculous while regular skeletons just plain can't. A unit who's ability requires it to get close to massacred before it's semi useful, is just plain not as good... not in an army that already doesn't lack tanky units in the form of blood knights who are, even without support, one of the tankiest units in the game.... and if you give them support, can become downright obnoxious while still being fast.
Skeleton usefulness is VERY circumstantial while zombies have got a lot more going for them in general... Even if there are some fringe cases where the enemy can spend a ton of attack power to destroy a 230p unit. They are our new skinks... another unit that needs a bit of support to get there, but (like you said) can become insane when you do.-
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2 minutes ago, Sete said:
So what bloodline is best for a skellie army?
Legion of Blood is the way to go?
looks like it... Ignoring modifiers is good, but you'll still have to get more graveguard compared to normal skellies I think if you want to be very competitive.
normal skellies were the absolute best choice compared to zombies in the previous book and it seems they took the nerfbat straight to the teeth because of that. But Legion of Blood would still be the army you'd take to make them work better. You'll also be able to try bravery debuffs.
If AoS3 changes up the battleshock phase more (or hopefully removes insane bravery flat out), this could work better. With current insane bravery, the battleshock phase seems almost skippable.-
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15 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
Durability of Skeletons vs Grave Guard:
First, all the things that are the same:
They both are Deathrattle and Summonable so both benefit from pretty much all the same buffs. All of the healing, all of the summoning and all of the damage buffs. They both have banners that do exactly the same thing. They both have the same baseline save and wounds char.
Grave Guard:
Have 1 better save if they have shields. That's it for their durability.
Skeletons:
Reanimate losses suffered in that phase on a 4+ when they activate. Necromancer's Vanhel's can enhance this with a double activation so that's an indirect buff to their durability - but a potent one.
Thoughts and comparison
Skeletons are straight up more durable. They're way cheaper and the 4+ reanimate really discourages chip damage. The grave guard definitely are more killy (like so, so much more) so there is the argument that they are free to activate first and kill their opponent. But skeletons you can take 3 units of 30 and not hurt too much for it. Or use the points difference to add in a corpse cart for -1 to wound and a Necromancer. IMO skeletons come out on top.The problem is that both those units fill a very different role (obviously) and skeletons have 1 major problem... They need to compare to that other battleline unit, the zombie... Who has:
- a less restrictive regeneration mechanic (no need to strike last and can even take a unit above starting size)
- has no 5+ save.... but are 2/3 the points cost of skellies, so that's a really moot point.
- A lot better offensive output.
- Seemingly better synergy with a lot of abilities found in the book.
- the option to do MWs to make them able to take on even heavily armoured threats (and looking at the rumours for AoS3: that's going to be a lot more common than it is now).
- That amazing 6" pile in, making charges a moot point and REALLY adding to board control options to avoid getting sucked into combat with them.
So I think the real problem for skellies isn't the comparison to Grave guard (whose offensive output is some of the most insane in the game, especially considering the allegiance abilities this army has), but the comparison to the other basic battle line unit that outperforms it in pretty much every aspect...
The only upside skellies have:
- can take per 10 if you are just looking at fulfilling your battle line tax.
It really sucks, but I'm afraid skellies are shelf sitters until the next book comes up.-
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1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
This talk about allying in Nighthaunt reminds, though:
At the moment, we can still ally in that Nighthaunt Hexwraith battalion (Emerald Host?) which provides a bodyguard ability to the general.
It's not like our generals are fragile (mostly 3+ saves and a bunch of wounds) or really all that important anymore, but it does serve a crucial function in the army: Allowing you to proxy your Black Knights as a unit with a decent warscroll.
That's only going to be an option for about 2 months though.
That being said, I don't see any point in running any NH after that. The SGL books locks out any non-SGL summonable units from their army rules... Can't use invocation on them, can't use endless legion on them. The books are well and truly operating on their own now LoN is scrapped.-
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1 minute ago, Sception said:
I mean, it's considered pretty terrible in nighthaunt lists, who do get some amount of synergy with it. Even if it were a native army choice and its healing worked on SG units, it would still be a bad choice better left on the display shelf.
We're expecting a new nighthaunt battletome in the not-too-distant future. Since the coach is kind of universally acknowledged as bad in its current form, one would hope for it to see some significant improvements which might make it more viable as an ally choice as well. Until then, I would instead recommend asking your opponents if they'd let you use it as a proxy for a mortis engine or coven throne. I doubt it would be a problem in casual local games at least.
Must have not played NH for a while. At it's current 220p, I almost never leave home without it.
That being siad, it's not like it makes NH a good faction.
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After initially being annoyed that all the stuff that used to be good, is now bad and vice versa (and a few warscrolls that are just plain not worth taking), there's one thing I really appreciate:
This seems to be the first book with subfactions that doesn't try to lock you in for your command trait and artifact. This book is a design win compared to others for that reason.-
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Deathtriders fly out! Finished the first 5 out of 20 hexwraith proxies that can be 3D printed from Fleshcraft Studios:
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OOF, spanish skeleton warscroll leaked.
Skellies are down to 1A per model, no unit size bonusses to that, but they gained an ability to come back on a 4+ when selected to fight.
I won't miss having to roll 120 attacks twice, but this is very poor output now and they do get massively outshined by zombies now it seems, who can be tanky and killy.-
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Vampires only give +1A to summonable units now... no more hypercharged blood knights afaik, they are stuck at 3A.
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1 minute ago, Sception said:
40% win rate. "needed nerfing." 😛
LoN got the nerf they needed, in the form of three years of power creep.
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I'll still have fun with it in casual & narrative games, and I am still legitimately excited about the new models* but this is definitely feeling more like a vanity project/display shelf army.
* heck, with the smaller skelly max I might just pick up a box of them to throw in with the cursed city lot, since that's already a full unit. I wasn't actually planning on buying any of them before the leak, at least not right now.
For me, it's the exact opposite. I had a unit of 40 skellies and another unit of 20 that I felt like I should really expand to 40 to be useful.
Well... That problem fixed itself!
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Oh boy... This book is full of stealth nerfs all over the place.
Like I imagined, vampire lord is now only M6 with fly, his save went up by 1point BUT: his command ability is now reduced from 15" to wholly within 12" and can only be used on summonable units instead of any units.
And no points adjustments... Sad, but the humble foot vampire is really no longer worth it to field in a competitive setting.
Discussing the quality of rules in AoS
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted
Well... Black knights already had a few eyebrown raising decisions in the upgrade.
Everything with the old shield rule, just had a flat +1 to their save. They seemed to completely forget about that with black knights. If they had that, the warscroll could find itself in the middle ground between those two, with a little points tweak.
But as things stand right now, this warscroll would have to insanely cheap to even consider it.