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Striding above the lesser rats as they charge screaming into battle is a monster the skaven fear more than any other. Verminlords are the truest incarnation of the Horned Rat, be they ascended champions rewarded for excellence, shards of the Horned Rat given form and function, or the hideous Lord Skreech Verminking, an abomination formed from the essence of the entire original Council of Thirteen. These entities lead the skaven, from the front and from the shadows, and of their number none are fouler than the Verminlord Corruptor. A Nurgle Daemon Unlike Any Other The Verminlord Corruptor is the centrepiece model of a Clan Pestilens army. As the only unit in the book with a command ability, if they're in the list they'll be the general. Before Pestilens recoeved alleigance abilities this guy didn't see much use, he was an awkward out of place model that simply cost too much. Now, with a point reduction and command traits and artifacts that bring him into line with the rest of the army this chittering monstrosity makes for a formidable leader indeed. Disease Strides the Battlefield The Corruptor is best played thematically. He stalks behind a line of plague monks, casting his command ability on them while casting mystic shield to preserve nearby Plague Furnaces and unleashes his unique Plague spell on anything close, or anything close to his nearby expendable and targetable swarm. He only fights in close combat when victory is assured, and given his game changing command ability is willing to expend every last rat to preserve his own well-being. Equipped with the Blistervious, the Living Cyst and bearing the Master of Rot and Ruin trait this potent support general will stay alive on the back field, casting prayers and spells to support his minions and dealing with any enterprising assassins foolish enough to come close. Points to Remember 12 wounds and a 4+ save is not that durable. If the Corruptor tries to trade blows with anything bigger than a support hero, he will lose. The idea of this mighty creature cutting down hated Allariele the Everqueen is pleasant, until her beetle takes him out in literally one round of combat. Prayers used by a Corruptor who has Master of Rot and Ruin or the Liber Bubonicus cannot trigger Great Plagues. Can't fathom why, but rules as written he doesn't. Don't try it. We might be scum skaven players, but we aren't cheats. His unique spell can be chained through your own troops to reach the enemy. Not always smart, but always funny when it goes off and causes the enemy even more casualties. Parting Shots (With a Prehensile Tail) I've begun the hard task of repainting my corruptor, shown here in his original, if somewhat rough glory, and halfway through his new paint job with lovely crystalline horns.

When I first started playing tournaments I would usually finish on a comfortable 4 or 5 Major Defeats. This was happening to me because I wasn't just a new player, I was a bad player. Losing doesn't make you bad, but losing consistently and not taking steps to improve does. My first step to improving was to read my warscrolls. Not just read, but really dig in and memorize them (Clan Pestilens has about 6 warscrolls, so no excuse not to really). From there I constructed a small phase by phase flow chart to remind me of all the small rules that I would sometimes forget that culd have shifted the balance of a game, and as soon as i made this chart i went from an average of 1 Major Victory to 3 Major Victories almost overnight. This can be applied to any army, but I've posted below the flowchart I was following for the NZ Masters tournament last year (Adapted for AoS2) where until Round 4, i was one of the favorites to win the event (Fate is fickle, ****** you Tzeentch). Pestilens Turn Progression Hero Phase · Choose whether to spend command abilities (not advised in the first battle round, save them for turn 2 charges). · Use all prayers of all priests (If first battle round things won’t be in range of Pestilent Breath, however you can still do it targeting nowhere to potentially get The Neverplgaue great plague). · Cast spells with the Verminlord Corruptor. · Choose whether or not to use one-use only effects in the Plague Monk and Plague Priest warscrolls, ideally the Plague Monk tome that deals mortal wounds or the enemy debuffs from the scroll. · Check if any enemies are within range of proximity-based damage (Plague Furnace, Plague Censer Bearers). Movement · Plagueclaw Catapults can move without a penalty to its shooting. · Move Plague Monks and Censer Bearers forward, however if they cannot possibly make a successful charge stay out of enemy charge range or bubblewrap with Plague Monks that have the Rabid Fever prayer active. Shooting · Prioritise infantry blocks with good saves as the Plagueclaw target, or soften up targets about to be charged by your Plague Monks. · Verminlord has a shooting attack, it isn’t awful against low save units. Charge/Combat · Command points can be spent to reroll failed charges, so roll charges before spending the points. · Charge in groups of 2 or 3 units, avoid sending you entire army in in a single phase. Battleshock · Remember that Pestilens allegiance gives you 2 bravery for every 10 monks in a unit, not 1. · If you wish to use Inspiring Presence it has to be done before any battleshock rolls are made. If you play Pestilens, I recommend taking this and adapting it to the list you run. If you don't play Pestilens (Normies leave reeee) I recommend constructing one for your own army regardless of how good a player you are. It only takes one lapse of memory to lose a game.

Today we're going to talk about the strategies available to the enterprising Clan Pestilens player and the tricks and tools of the disease trade. Some of these aren't exactly unique to Pestilens, but all of them are useful to them. The Prayers of a Righteous Rat Did you know you can cast the damage prayer on the Plague Priest scroll without an actual target? It targets an area, not a unit. Interesting info, but not really useful right? Wrong. Spam this turn 1 with no valid target and go for a great plague, and select the Neverplague. The only excuse to not be spamming plague breath on empty spaces is of there's actual targets available or you already have the Neverplague. Weather the Storm So the enemy is unpacking his Beastclaw/Khorne/Daughters of Khaine. Our rats don't have a chance against such famous combat geared armies right? Wrong, they're as good as dead already. When the enemy is running an all charging minimum shooting list there is but one answer. Lines of single file plague monks across the edge of the deployment. Ideally 2 or 3 groups of 10, 6" gaps between them to stop the enemy squeezing past. Behind this line, 6" back (for safety) is a gigantic blob of plague monks. The first line will gey hit like an avalanche and they will almost certainly die. The enemy is now within range of a fully buffed, fully packed Plague Monk swarm. Chuck on some prayers of Wither on the enemy, move forward into range and charge (taking the Congregation of Filth will prevent double 1 rolls). Doesn't matter what they're running, they're dead. Conga Line of Death Never move your rats around in squares, this isn't fantasy battle. Squeeze as much use out of the rat squads as possible, form a long line and hold an objective while also screening for a priest and keeping an enemy tied up in a dud fight. Form circles around objectives, wrap monks around furnaces to prevent units with 1" range weapons bringing the furnace to battle. It's not dirty, it's alternative tactics. Discretion is the Better Part of Murder Retreat, it's the golden move no one ever uses to their advantage. Charge an enemy, then retreat around the side of them the next turn. Your enemy is likely to know he can't actually beat plague monks in a fight and won't charge them, so if you're already holding an objective don't charge off it. There isn't always a nees to fight. Know when to fight, and when to wait. Below are some pictures of silly rat movements that would win me the game. Doesn't matter if it looks stupid, as long as you win.

Todays post is all about matchups, and how Pestilens fares in them. Now because of the nature of the army, matchups are more important than I would like to be honest, so it helps to know them. These are based primarily off experience, I haven't faced all the armies (popular ones at least) in the game so some of these will be experience and some will be educated comparisons. I'll grade them in advantage, major and minor. Blades of Khorne - Minor Advantage to Blades of Khorne A combat based army, and a good one. Ordinarily Pestilens will blenderize anything that fancies itself a combat favoring army but these guys are a little different. They have a massive range of options, we have 6 models all up. The build paths open to them let them be MORE than a combat army, something Pestilens can't actually do. Essentially it boils down to who hits who first. This is one the few matchups were Plagueclaws are actually good due to the favoribility of Bloodletter Bombs and Bloodreaver Hordes. Overall you want to be the one who gets the first charge off and make sure your units have the Furnace prayer that lets them fight one dead, you'll need it. Disciples of Tzeentch - Major Advantage to Disciples of Tzeentch Lol don't even get me started, the weakness of Clan Pestilens is no ability to deal with long range and movement shenanigans. Run up, charge to get closer to objectives and pray you can last longer than they can throw spells. Skyfires are the devil, Horrors are just annoying and the Gaunt Summoner will quite literally light you on fire and roast marshmellows on the corpse. The best strategy when facing Tzeentch with Pestilens is to either avoid it or whine about balance in chat groups. Take an Arch Warlock with a Balewind and try play them at their own game, but ultimately this one is a little skewed. Sylvaneth - Minor Advantage to Clan Pestilens This one used to feel on par with Disciples of Tzeentch until playing them a bit more, and of course the meta no longer favoring Kurnoth with bows. The trick is to take the field before they take the field, by any means necessary. Run in the first movement phase, charge anything within reach if you went second, do anything you can to get in their face. They put wildwoods in front of you? ****** em, run straight through it. Charge through it ideally. If you think the Dangerous Terrain effect is something to be afraid of, you are a coward or too considerate of your rat's lives, and neither of these traits are found in good Pestilens players. Get on top of 2 or so objectives and refuse to leave like a disenfranchised family member on Christmas, and god willing victory shall be yours. In a perfect world they'll run lots of Revenants over dryads and you drown them in dice, asking your opponent with a smug smile if he'd like to use Martial Memories to reroll one of the failed 30 saves. Kharadron Overlords - Neutral This is a weird one. Kharadron Overlords are dwarves, but only in the sense that they're short. They aren't slow, they aren't sturdy and their beards are a solid source of iron intake. Kharadron are like life, they come at you hard and fast. This is sometimes a good thing, sometimes terrible. So basically, what it comes down to is if the Overlord player invested in weight of shots (good for you) or they invested in high damage weapons like Drill Cannons (You're screwed). With weight of shots they can't actually kill enough rats for it to matter before they're on the recieving end of a plague monk charge, and oddly despite those boats being in the sky we can still smack them back down. Surround the boat and they can't deploy it's contents, which is even better. However with the Drill Cannons and so on we lose our Plague Furnaces on turn 2, Corruptor turn 3, and the game shortly after. Their weakness is the terrible range of pretty much all shooting that isn;t on a Thunderer or Ironclad, ours is they actually have guns. Play the objectives and bait them into range. Flesh Eater Courts - Major Advantage to Clan Pestilens This one is fun. They have no shooting, and they want to be in close combat. Naysayers would say "but Aiden, they can bring back their troops and we can't!". To that i say, ever seen Ghouls put out 40 wounds + several mortal wounds before saves are made? Probably not. Yeah Ghouls can regnerate lost troops, but only when a nearby Courtier does it for them. A wee, little Courtier with a weak save and fewer wounds. Slash him down to size with prayer spam. Flesh Eater Courts are an infantry spam buff army, just like Clan Pestilens, we just happen to be WAY better at it than they are. Butcher what they throw at you and take the field, if their characters get wise deal with them by throwing a Plague Furnace their way. Ironjaws - Minor Advantage to Clan Pestilens Ironjaws are a semi-elite army that don't put out massive damage but make up for it by being relatively tricky to kill. This is the matchup where discretion is the better part of valor for Pestilens. Try and go around them to get to objectives, don't hesitate to retreat if it means snaking behind them to get where you need to go. Multiwound infantry means no half measures, if you engage them engage them with all possible force and sweep them aside. Time spent fighting them is time wasted and that's what they want. Use prayers to make sure your monks can easily wound and trigger dice roll of 6 or more effects, don't waste time trying to d3 mortal wounds them to death it takes way too long. Bonesplitterz - Major Advantage to Bonesplitterz Interestingly this is an easy game really if they don't take Kunnun Rukk. Jokes on you however, they pretty much always do. Theyre surprisinly resilient and tying them up in combat doesn't stop them shooting you. And dear god will they shoot you, again and again and again. It's like facing the easier to batch paint version of Free Peoples. Try and kill the leaders to stop the batallions workind and take a Plaguesmog with Vexlers Shroud on the Furnace so it's -2 to hit. Thats basically all the counterplay there is here. Stormcast Eternals - Minor Advantage to Pestilens The boys in gold, a very diverse force with a lot of options. If we assess Stormcast at their base weaknesses, which is having to deal with weight of numbers and mortal wounds, we have a clear and easy advantage. If they play Vanguard and keep running away and shooting us it's a bit harder. If they play Aetherstrike it's an uphill footslog through the shittiest parts of Chernobyl. Play the game to the objectives, take the table to prevent Borne by the Storm and Lightning Chariot and do your best to retain your high numbers. Fireslayers - Major Advantage to Fireslayers If they're smart and take a bucketload of Vulkites you'll drown in them. If you can get around that or maybe pepper them with Plagueclaws it will be ok and you'll pull an objective victory. Magmadroths are terrible, 20 plague monks will wipe one out easily. They can't get their axes into range (unless under runic effect) without coming into charge range so bear that in mind. They're hard to shift, and they'll outlast you ten times out of ten. Avoid getting bogged down and charge the less defensive stuff like Auric Bezerkers and Hearthguard, and for the love of god stay away from the Grimrath Bezerker. Seraphon - Minor Advantage to Seraphon Our mortal foes, the artist formerly known as Lizardmen. Their strengths are defense against rend, their weakness is mortal wounds, so you might think, where is their advantage. Lords of Space and TIme. They can retreat across the table without it even being a retreat, dump a line of Saurus Guard in our way, and abuse long range magic which we can;t really unbind, as well as unbinding any few attempts we make at casting. Also the Verminlord is a Chaos Daemon which they specifically do well against. Comment what more you'd like to see, fellow Pestilens player.

Alrght up next on my overview of the Skaven Pestilens overview, we're lloking at the Command Traits available as well as Artifacts Skaven Pestilens characters have the option of taking. No need for fanfare, lets get stuck in. Command Traits Malevolent - The general gets to reroll wound rolls of 1. Not great, if you're putting your hopes on a Verminlord Corruptor to face down the enemy army and sweep it aside you're in the wrong army, Clan Verminus has it's dens further down the street. Only ever going to come into effect on a Plague Furnace, and there are better options. NEXT. Diseased - I like the thematic nature of this one. Basically, you roll a dice in the hero phase and on a 5+ someone within 3 inches of the general gets smacked with d3 mortal wounds. Not terrible, just remember to actually do it if you chose it. Master of Rot and Ruin - Hello hello, this is the one you want. If they're a Plague Priest, reroll to prayers. If not, they get to the Pestilent Prayers rule from the Plague Priest scroll. Neat ona Verminlord, and cool on a Plague Furnace too. Hard to go wrong with this one. Fanatical Leader- Add 1 to the attacks characteristic of all the general's melee weapons. Jesus, the Verminlord already hits 10 damn times adding 1 more isn't going to suddenly make him a Warbringer. Funny on a Furnace, useless everywhere else. Verminous Valor - You'd be hard pressed to find a more thematic ability in the entire game. On a dice roll of 4+, the general hands off any normal or mortal wounds suffered onto a hapless group of rats nearby. This is fantastic ona furnace because it's always surrounded by rats anyway. Architect of Death - Pestilens shooting missile units near the general get to reroll their wound rolls of 1. Obviously designed for the Plagueclaw Catapults, unless the Verminlord's tail has finally become a weapon to surpass Metal Gear. Artifacts of Clan Pestilens The Fumigatous - In the combat phase, someone within 6 inches of the bearer takes a mortal wound on a dice roll of 3+. Not bad on the Corruptor, his Plaguemaster ability is triggered by all damage he deals regardless of the source. Not quite an auto take, but not worthless. Brooding Blade - You pick one of the weapons of your general, and any model that took a wound from that weapon but didn't die takes d3 mortal wounds at the end of combat on a dice roll of 6. If you're a clever cookie who splits his attacks between multiple units this isn't half bad. Billious Bell - In your hero phase roll a D6 for all enemies within 12 inches of the holder, on a 4+ they subtract 1 from their bravery. Pretty cool on a Plague Furnace given they're usually in the thick of things. Blistervious, the Living Cyst - Jesus this one is fun. Gives a small buff, reroll 1s to hit and move 2 extra inches, not bad. If you're within 12 inches of a pestilens character in yoursecond or later hero phase however, it jumps to them. Give it to a dud character, then have it jump to the Verminlord who already is running about with his Vexler's Shroud. Godspeed you rabies infested murder monster. The Liber Bubonicus - Well well, the only artifact with massive lore behind it. Plaguemaster Skrolk's old book lets it's bearer be a Plague Priest if they ain't one, and pray twice if they are. This plus Master of Rot and Ruin on a generic Plague Priest makes for a nasty little rat with a chip on his shoulder, and probably the funniest general this army can field in casual or 1k games, The Vexler's Shroud - Enemies subtract 1 from hit rolls when targeting the bearer in the shooting phase. Simple, clean and always useful. That's it for the Pestilens Traits and Artifacts. Next I'll do a unit analysis of the HQ characters, and follow it with the rest.

Hey folks! I'm starting a new video series on exploring some of the more advanced functions of basic AOS mechanics. In my first video, I look into the "Pile In" mechanic. I'd love to hear any feedback you have on the insights or what other topics you'd love for me to explore in the future. Enjoy!

In this last article, we discuss how you can maximise your deployment in Age of Sigmar. I discuss what the threat range is, how you can adapt to your opponents drops, how to deal with teleport army and a lot more. Read the article here:https://aos-tactics.com/2017/01/22/maximising-your-deployment/ Have a great day!!!

Hi, I'm Jason, and I really like Battalions. I mean, really like them. For me, Battalions define Age of Sigmar -- more than the drastically simplified ruleset, more than the destruction of the Old World, and more than the radical reinvention of organized play. I was never a tournament player in 8th edition, I can't paint to save my life, and for the majority of the last decade I've been a broke grad student living on ramen and sleep deprivation. Sure, in good old WFB, you could make your army list lore-friendly... If you wanted to lose every game you played. Because guess what? Every game was a competitive game, because that's how the rules worked. There was no incentive outside of self-satisfaction for taking the narrative into account when you built your list. In Age of Sigmar, though, with the death of the Old World and the sudden freedom of army composition, Games Workshop gave us something special. Battalions are narrative list-making made viable. They give you an actual reason to build an army that makes sense -- not just because it will win games (it still probably won't), but because it ties into the wider Warhammer Universe. I know, some people don't care about that, and for you there's matched play, and the tournament scene. For me though, the lore matters. The lore was something I could follow, when I couldn't afford miniatures and had no-one to play with, and if I'm going to spend my time and energy building, converting, painting, and collecting these pointless little plastic soldiers, I want to be a part of that. Right then, enough rambling. This blog is about battalions, and using them as the central structure around which to build an army list. That list might be for tournaments (but probably not). That list might be for open or narrative play (most likely), or it might be something that makes the loremaster in you smile. We'll talk about composition, we'll talk about tactics, and yes, we'll talk about points. Ready to get started? Next time, we're going to be making a quick hop to July of 2015, and the pair of Warscrolls that started this whole mess for me...

Lets preface with this: I don't know what I'm talking about. I never played a single game of AoS. I only read the rules, read some warscrolls, did some faulty math in my head. It's probably all just a pile of throggoth dung. On a rare chance it's not, it's probably been said by a million people before, but I haven't read it, so I'm claiming it genuine. I'm a troggoth, that's what I do. If by any weird occurrence of fate you misread my ramblings and somehow get any useful information from it, please remember that this is a discussion on a competitive level, and in your casual games you should let your opponent balance your now superior skill with a few extra Nagashes. If a wargame is to be any good, it has to have some rock-paper-scissors business going on. In the core of it, a unit has to be more effective against some enemies than others - that's what stimulates tactical play. Otherwise it's all just "throw your dice and see who wins". In a typical wargame, you would have something like "cavalry beats archers, archers beat infantry, infantry beats cavalry" or whatnot. You know, something that makes actual sense. Not in AoS. AoS came out, and what was immediately apparent, is that (Rend discarded), a unit's strength is not at all relative to the opponent - the hit and wound rolls are not affected by what you are targeting at all!!! Probably a huge part of why people think it's a simplistic game with no real thinking involved. I mean, if the point values of whatever comp you're using are proper, a unit can stand against any other unit of the same value and have roughly 50% chance of wiping them out before they get wiped out in turn. So let's pile up our models in the middle of the table, and let a hundred dice rolls decide who the superior commander is... Obviously, there are other stats that come into play (movement being the most evident one), but when push comes to shove, it's all about those combat rolls. So is AoS really a game deprived of any tactical thinking? Far from it. The rock-paper-scissors dance is just hidden on a different level. Let's have a look, but before that, let's establish some basic terms. Glossary: DPM - average damage per model. It's basically the number of attacks, times chance to hit, times chance to wound, times damage. Abilities like "reroll 1 to hit" also taken into account. DPP - average damage per point. In short, DPM divided by the point value of a model, in whatever comp you are using. WPD - average number of wounds taken by the unit per single damage point. Basically chance to save, with abilities like "reroll saves of 1" taken into account. EWPM - effective wounds per model. WPD times number of wounds. EWPU - effective wounds per unit. EWPM times number of models in unit. EWPP - effective wounds per point. EWPM divided by the point value of a model, in whatever comp you are using. The Scissors, or "I will hurt you plenty": Consider Bloodreavers (warscroll for reference). No save, 1 attack, DPM of around 0.25 depending on equipment. Those guys are so pathetic, their point value in your comp probably oscillates around zero. The only interesting thing here is the ability that gives them an extra attack when within 12" of a TOTEM. But now... since those guys are worth next to nothing in your comp, let's make an experiment and take lots of them. I mean like 3 units, 20 models each. And let's find that TOTEM. Since we want to be fluffy even when we're melting faces at a tournament, let's take the Bloodsecrator (sorry can't find warscroll links for the starter set models) dude. And behold - his special ability can give our Bloodreavers another attack - that's triple their original weak-****** DPM, and we're nowhere near done. Now let's look at batallions - there's one there that fits our 3 units of Bloodreavers nicely, and, with the Bloodpriest and Bloodstoker included, it will give our fellas another attack. Now let's add a general - Aspiring Champion for his command ability and another attack. It's 5 attacks per model at this point (500% of the original DPM), and we can still improve on this by getting a few Wrathmongers to stand behind our dudes and give them another +1 attack. Or, you can expand your army to the whole Grand Alliance: Chaos, and look for what other (now overpowered) buffs you can give them, but let's stop here for now. We've just created an army that has 3 units of very cheap (in your comp) models, that with proper positioning will get 5 attacks each. Since the models have relatively small bases (and bodies for those purists out there who actually measure model to model), you can get large amounts of them into their 1" range - if you get all 20 of them into range, you're getting around 25 damage from them (20 models times their now buffed to 1.25 DPM). That's enough to wipe out a unit of comparable EWPU in one turn of combat. In 2 turns of combat, they take down Nagash. And that's just one of the 3 cheap-****** units we got there, with plenty of points left for more exciting stuff. That's the scissors of AoS, stacking buffs that increase DPM on a unit until it can wipe virtually anything that stands in their path in one combat turn. To create a force like this, you're looking for abilities that increase number of attacks, chance to hit / wound, give rerolls, give extra damage etc, and you are looking for models that are either relatively small (size/base wise) and cheap in your comp, or for models that play especially well with your available buffs (like units that have 1 attack but good hit/wound rolls and more than 1 damage per attack - those play very well with the +attack buffs). So, with a force like this, you've already won AoS. Or did you? The Rock, or "Give me everything you've got": Well... how do you counter a unit that can make 100+ attack rolls? It's quite simple really, you just make them meaningless. Consider Concussors (warscroll). 3+ save, and a reroll of 1's. Give them Arcane Shield, or the buff from Lord Castellant, and their WPD soars up to ("down to" actually, but you get my drift) 0.027(7). It means that only every 1 in 36 damage will actually cause a wound. It means that the 20 Bloodreaver scissor with their 5 attacks each will only score an average of 0,69 wounds per combat phase. That means they need like 6 combat phases to even kill 1 model (and remember they only need 2 to kill Nagash himself). Slap another +1 to save roll on them, an they become immune. Rock crushes scissors. Now this seems quite simple, as we only have one unit (quite expensive in your comp probably, but w/e), and one hero. We do, however, have to take into account the wildcard of Rend (even the Bloodreavers have a weapon option that will give them 1 point), and be aware that most armor buffs will target a specific unit, while DPM buffs often target multiple. So, preparing a solid rock, that can hold around 3 enemy scissor units might be a serious investment in points. But then... watching your enemy roll 100 dice not to score a single wound - priceless. For a solid rock setup, you're looking for warscrolls that have good save roll, and... well... Wizards. Be on a lookout for any battalions and heroes that can otherwise increase your armor save roll, or give rerolls. "Ward" saves (additional save rolls you can make apart from the normal one) also help. Remember, that here the number of models is not really important. If you manage to get in combat with the unit you want to block, and they cannot kill you, you've already eliminated them from the fight unless they can get 2 turns in a row (they need to retreat to disengage, and need another turn to charge something else, without you charging them again). Having the threat neutralized, it's a simple matter of scoring enough wounds to get them out of the game - in case of Bloodreavers, just breathe in their direction and they will topple by the score, in other cases you can pepper them with arrows, or just choose rock units that have decent attack capability of their own. By now, you probably know where this is going... The Paper, or "Resistance is futile": Ok, I failed at that one. How do you kill that which cannot die? In AoS the answer is quite simple - mortal wounds. Now I admit, I didn't do much research here and I'm kinda guessing what can be done. You're looking for units that reliably deal mortal wounds, or units that have a certain chance of dealing mortal wounds that can be increased. One example I can give you is Retributors (warscroll) - they deal mortal wounds on a hit roll of 6+ - give them a buff or 2 to hit roll, like the one Lord-Celestant (warscroll) provides, and see the rock crumble. 5 Retributors with +1 to hit roll will, on average, deal 6.66 mortal wounds per combat phase - that's not even counting the Starsoul Mace and extra attack from Prime. Problem here is, warscrolls that can deal mortal wounds will be quite expensive in any comp, and while those mortal wounds are excellent against the 2+/reroll rock dudes, they are kinda worthless against the zerg rush of Bloodreavers - the "mortal" on the wounds is meaningless when there's no save to be bypassed. Thrus, scissors will cut through paper. So what's this all about really: In AoS, if the comp you're using is anywhere near balanced, units of similar value will be similar in power against each other, no matter the actual statline - this is a natural consequence of non-relative rolls that AoS introduced. To gain advantage at the list building stage, you need to consider how some battalions / units can reinforce others, and find the most effective combinations. For that, you need to consider what unit a particular buff will be most effective on. Just to give you a few examples: +attack buffs are most effective on units that have good hit/wound rolls and high damage. On top of that, they are most effective on units that have low attack stat (+1 attack on a 1 attack unit will double it's combat effectiveness, while on a unit with 2 attacks - only increase it by 50%). Furthermore, units with multiple weapons will benefit more, as it's usually +1 attack to each weapon used. +hit and + wound roll buffs are most effective on units with weak rolls - if a unit hits on 6+, giving them +1 to roll will double their damage potential, while on a unit that hits on 3+ - only increase it by 25% "reroll 1's" buffs are most effective on units with good rolls (a unit with 2+ save will improve it's WPD from 0.16(6) to 0,027(7) - that's 600% improvement!). And so on, and so forth. On top of that, stacking buffs is usually more effective than spreading them over several units. Does that mean that for your army to be relevant, you have to fall into one of the above categories? No. It can be only part of your army. Or you can ignore it altogether, and instead focus on thwarting your enemy's setup. Remember that you are committing points to one of those schemes. Your enemy spends those same points on either his own scheme, or just extra bodies. If your scheme is countered, the extra commitment in points is wasted (minus what the enemy spent on his counter) - immediately putting you at a disadvantage. The advantage that can be gained by combining buffs is so significant, however, that I can imagine highly competitive games revolving entirely around creating and countering those combinations. A successful list will be able to shift from one scheme to another, and effectively counter enemy's scheme - by putting rocks in the way of scissors, eliminating relevant heroes early on, etc. The more I look into it, the more I see there's actually a game under all those pretzels. Took me long enough... What's to take from this: 1. You create advantage, when put buffs on units that benefit from them in a significant way. I gave examples of how Scissors, Rock and Paper combinations can be created, but it's likely there's also a Lizard and a Spock somewhere in there - I just can't see it yet. 2. An army that will exploit the first point will almost uniformly be stronger than an army that doesn't. 3. Different areas of buffing will counter each other. 4. There are other ways to counter buffs, but that's a topic for another post entirely. I'll leave you with "hunter-seeker units".