Neil Arthur Hotep
-
Posts
4,878 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
109
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Store
Downloads
Blogs
Events
Posts posted by Neil Arthur Hotep
-
-
I am trying to build a list around a big Grave Guard block, because for me that's these guys, which are still some of my favourite models:
I am working from the assumption that bonuses to hit, wound and save will be capped at +1 in the near future and that Mystic Shield will give +1 to saves.
There are a lot of choices to make:
20 or 30 Grave Guard?
Grave Guard only have 1" reach so getting lots of them into combat can by tricky. It might be worth considering taking just 20 and adding a screen instead of the last 10.
Shields or Great Weapons?
Great Weapons deal about 30% more damage, but shields give +1 to saves. That is a big improvement from a 5+. I think when building around Grave Guard, making sure that their save is at least a 4+ is important. But that does not necessarily mean shields are better, since you can also get that 4+ through command abilities and probably Mystic Shield and that rumoured charge reaction.
Here's a damage comparison for 20 guys:
Save Great Weapons Shields 2+ 13.33 10.37 3+ 17.78 13.33 4+ 22.22 16.3 5+ 26.67 19.26 6+ 31.11 22.22 - 31.11 22.22 To me, this shows that Great Weapons don't especially need offensive buffs. They can generally wipe units of equal size without them. Shields do need some kind of buff, though, mostly to deal with low saves. Both perform well against 3+ and 2+ because of their mortals.
Here's the same comparison, but in Vyrkos:
Save Great Weapons Shields 2+ 16.3 11.85 3+ 22.22 15.56 4+ 28.15 19.26 5+ 34.07 22.96 6+ 40 26.67 - 40 26.67 I think the +1 to wound from Vyrkos allegiance is arguably already enough of a boost to Shields to acceptable hammer levels.
That gives us a first use case: 20 or 30 Grave Guard with Shields in Vyrkos are a good all round hammer that does not need extra support. They do need some character nearby for the +1 to wound, though, but it can be a cheap one like a Necromancer or Kritza.
What allegiance?
If you are building around Grave Guard, there are really only two choices: Vyrkos or Legion of Blood.
In Vyrkos, you do not need to give your Grave Guard +1 to wound. Mystic Shield also goes off easier because of the cast bonuses.
In Legion of Blood, Deathrattle units take no negatives to hit or wounds, which is good but match up dependent. What makes Legion of Blood really interesting are their command traits and artefacts: Reroll charges helps with the low speed of Grave Guard and 6" pile ins will get more of them into combat. Legion of Blood also has a generally good + 1 to saves artefact.
Which support hero?
Grave Guard are 420 (blaze it) points for 30. I think supporting them with morr than one hero makes them uneconomical. So what support options are there?
Necromancer
The humble Necromancer gives us Vanhel's Danse Macabre, which is always great! He can also cast debuff spells from the Lore of Deathmages to blunt enemy charges. He is slow, though, so he's only good if you are planning to march your Grave Guard up thr board normally, not gravesite-deepstrike them.
Vampire Lord
The Vampire Lord provides a reliable +1 attacks via his command ability. This is just about the strongest offensive buff on Grave Guard, about equivalent to +1 to hit and wound. Extremely good with Shields in Vyrkos: you get +1 to wound and saves, and can still layer an offensive buff on top. 20 Grave Guard with Vampire Lord support don't break the bank, either, at 420 points.
Vengorian Lord
Pricy at 280 points, but lets you stack two defensive buffs with rend reduction and +1 to save. He can also be built very defensively himself, sitting on a natural 3+ ignore rend -1 save and 10 wounds. You can give him the Chamon or Shyish realm artefact for even more defense (reroll 1s, ignore another level of rend).I
Since he's mobile with his 12" flying move, he can support Grave Guard even if you deep strike them. He sometimes gets run+charge and can sitationally heal d6 with his CA. Use him to charge stuff that would otherwise threaten your Grave Guard and let them finish it off later.
I like this guy in Vyrkos with Great Weapons. He provides rend negation, mystic shield and healing. Vyrkos Grave Guard are already murder machines without any offensive buffs, so they complement each other well. 700 points all in all for the Vengorian and 30 Grave Guard, but they are a big threat.
Incidentally Vyrkos allows you to run a VLoZd that captures for 14 mode!s, so your opponent will have to deal with two big threats fairly imminently. My personal build-around pick if you really want to go all in on Grave Guard.
Coven Throne
310 points, but gives you all your buffs at once with it's CA. That means it pairs best with Great Blades in Legion of Blood. There, it can also provide reroll charges to them and get itself on a 3+ save with through the Soulbound Garments artefact.
Might be a sleeper hit if the mechanics of AoS 3 make debuff immunity and extra battleshock casualties more relevant.
-
5
-
-
41 minutes ago, AlphaKennyThing said:
My 15 Black Knights are sad. I hope they're priced accordingly points wise so I can still get some use out of them.
In my opinion they should be basically mounted Grave Guard, I was hoping they'd get a little buff.
I have been looking into how to ge any use out of them, but it's just tough.
They do slightky better damage than dire wolves both on the charge and off, but it's just not really worth losing out on 5 bodies and 10 wounds for.
Best use case I can come up with is to take one unit of 5 in Legion of Blood to fill battleline. The one upside they have is that you can resurrect three of their models (so their full command group) with Endless Legions. They also keep their 1d3 mortals on the charge regardless of unit size.
But yeah, currently they are not good. Best use is to proxy them as Dire Wolves in friendly games.
-
6 minutes ago, Nightseer2012 said:
Oh, just noticed on Neferata, her Hunger is replaced with Mortarch of Blood. Heals D6 instead of D3 when she kills in combat. Helps her survivability a lot.
She is so defensive with her spell giving ethereal, her CA giving -1 to hit and her 3+ save which can probably be a 2+ rerolling if you really want to.
-
2
-
-
29 minutes ago, Sception said:
Wight king also needs changes, and trading out the rr1s CA is the first thing. Give them something that specifically synergizes with deathrattle, particularly the grave guard they make battleline.
In an ideal world, it would be run and charge, or a 4" move. Would match the flavour, too.
EDIT: Black Knights would have been fine with their old warscroll, just with the shield replaced with a 4+ save. They would then still deal good damage on the charge, but with no rend. That would mean they have a different niche from Blood Knights. If Wight Kings got run+charge, that would make Deathmarch viable again, too, because then you could still run your Black Knights 24"+.
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, Whitefang said:
Generally speaking, Greenskinz don’t usually use “C” for pronunciation, so maybe replace that with another letter.
Warclans may have new members! I doubt IJ will like these new lads!
Swamp maybe not the place for gitmob though, sadly
Time to watch Lotr and Hobbit again ! Visually speaking Hobbit maybe a little bit more modern
White orks, then? Kruulboyz? Sounds allright.
-
1
-
-
5 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
But eh the book isn't as dire as it seemed on day 1 of leaks. All the battleline units are interesting. I never thought that I would ever be interested in the battleline units in a Vampire Counts book but here we are - they're fun!
I do wish that the same effort went into making Vampire Lords interesting but hey, perhaps the Anvil of Death in the White Dwarf will fix it
Have I made my character arc from salt man to positivity man? Who knows, I should probably ask @warhammernerd
Yeah, I feel kind of similar. I am noticing more and more changes I like in the new book. I like how Gravesite deepstrikes work now. Not needing to bring a hero along and getting Deathless Minions from Gravesites is pretty cool! It means you are free to just spread your graves around near a bunch of different objectives and deepstrike/resurrect your guys there as needed. I think the threat of a bunch of zombies, skeletons or even grave guard suddenly contesting an objective in the opponent's back field turn 3 or 4 is kinda fun.
I still don't love how badly the list building in this book flows, though. At the moment, all my lists feel like collections of units that only sorta go together. Maybe that is because the generic battalions of AoS 3 have not yet arrived, though. And there is also always that uncertainty about what buffs will stack in a months or two in the background.
Anyway, it looks like playing all of my old models in this book is decent (even if it's a slow, plodding, high-drops list). I still have to figure out a list I am excited about for the new models, though. I don't think I have it in me to paint more than 5 Blood Knights after my Black Knights were just invalidated (RIP in peace, sweet Nehekaran princes).
-
17 minutes ago, Sception said:
preorders up in the US.
...
Got everything I wanted this time around:
- battletome - regular
- warscroll cards
- venga lord
- 1x skittles (+ 10 CC skittles I already have for a single max unit)
- 1x zombies (+ 20 CC zombies I already have for a single max unit)
- 1x blood knights
- 1x fell bats (abysmal value in dollars for points, but they look cool)
- WD 464 for SG anvil of apotheosis rules, plus grabbed 461 for the FEC and OBR anvil of apotheosis rules
Pretty damn pricey in all honesty, but not as bad as it could have been, & I've been saving up for this.
I will say that GW decreasing the unit caps on skeletons and zombies got me to buy more than I otherwise would have. If the caps were still 40 and 60, I wouldn't have been able to justify the extra boxes to get full units, in which case I would have stuck to my current models and put off upgrading altogether.
Wait, shoot, I forgot to order cav bases to rebase my black knights... oh, well. Too late now. Will tack that onto the wight king order whenever that goes up.
I'm happy for you! Personally, I decided to only pick up the Battletome for now and finish working on my Tomb Kings guys I already have and the Cursed City models.
I'll probably go all in when Vyrkos roll around, though.
-
24 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
Could well be - make the game less about wiping away large units in a single blow and also reducing maximum unit size because you no longer need so many bodies (that's why zombies are 40 and not 60)
I said this before somewhere else, but I expect max unit size to go down (30 for hordes, 20 for elites) and horde bonuses to disappear across the board in AoS 3. Possibly points to go up, too. All our stuff definitely got more expensive relative to before.
-
1
-
-
11 minutes ago, Boar said:
If rumored changes to mystic shield (+1 sav), and charge reaction (again +1sv) are true that could give another point for Skellies in some situations, as the more armor you have the more valuable is another point, as some posters shown earlier.
Could also shift the balance in favour of Great Weapons on Grave Guard, since the shield is another save bonus. If you can reliably replace tha with mystic shield or the charge reaction, the extra damage might win out after all.
-
1
-
-
3 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
If nothing else it's proof that skellies aren't terrible, they have their place - it's just not as a damage dealing unit.
Honestly, that was not their job in LoN either. Piling three buffs on them to give them 400 attacks was always a bad strategy. Maybe that's why I feel pretty comfortable with the new skeletons: Even in my old list, Warriors were just there to capture and tarpit, any damage was incidental.
-
1
-
-
14 minutes ago, Grimoriano said:
They solve it in a faq(2019), if 20 were killed and you resurrect 10, in the battleshock phase you add 20 to the roll. But in the same case with dance macabre, you roll 20 dice to resurrect the first time to get 10 of them back, and the second time roll again 20!, so with dance, you recover 100% of them, but sure, add 20 to the roll and the battleshock, or pay 1 cp to save all the unit
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.
-
1
-
-
8 minutes ago, Elmir said:
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".
The thing is, striking last is not even bad with skeletons since their healing is done before they attack.
-
40 minutes ago, Elmir said:
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 don't know, I think skeletons can do some cool stuff. I mean, I like Zombies floating around in the mid field with their large threat range, gumming up the board and capturing with their huge body count. But even with mortals on hit, their damage is bad unless supported. Around 4 damage for 20, which I use as a benchmark unit size because of their low reach.
Skeletons, meanwhile, I like for sitting squarely on an objective in a tight pack. Minimize the opponent's area of attack, get charged and then regenerate to surround him. Regeneration is before they attack or pile in, so you will generally be able to bring at least 15 skeletons in to attack if even one of them survives. They also do no damage, also around 4 or 5 against a 4+ save unsupported. But the difference is, your opponent will grind down zombies. They will get ground down by skeletons if they can't kill them on the initial attack.
So, to me the difference is: Zombies want to charge, skeletons want to be charged. Both are valuable roles.
-
1
-
-
2 minutes ago, Aren73 said:
As an objective blocking unit they are nuts
Glad people are coming around on the humble skeleton. I think they are actually pretty decent! One block of 30 in every list will probably be a staple for me. Probably not more than that though, they are just too immobile.
-
1
-
-
5 minutes ago, Doko said:
Yes.....but now do the same numbers if the damage is from magic,shooting or leadership or skeletons attack first.or if the unit is deleted full
You're overthinking it. What skeletons are is a battleline unit that holds on objective and is hard to shift in melee. For 255 points at 30 bodies, you could do a lot worse than a 5+/6++ (from Gravesites now even, don't need a Necromancer) and 4+ model return. Set them up in a tight block and don't pile them in and that objective is secure for a while.
Killing 30 of them in one go is harder than you think. Do some calcs some time. It requires effort to do in melee. Sure, they are vulnerable to magic and shooting or hero phase fighting, but your opponent will then have to bring those tools in if they want to capture that objective. And still: They are just a cheap battleline unit. They don't have to survive everything. You even get a chance to get 15 back for free if they die.
-
1
-
-
12 minutes ago, Doko said:
If we take grave guard as example and as example 12 wounds done to us
Shields die 6
2 hands die 8
So shields are as 25% better
Damage output
Shields 3,3 mw and 8,8 damage
2 hands 3,3 mw and 16,6damage
So 2 hands do around 66% extra damage
As you said if the extra damage gonna be lost due to overkill of course shields are better. But then we can bring multiple msu 2 hands units and the damage wont be overkill.
I think your damage clacs are off. Great Weapons are on 4+ to wound and you are ignoring the mortals, which are a substantial part of the damage output.
Against 4+, 10 shield grave guard do 8.15 wounds vs. great weapons at 11.11. That's 36% more damage. Not even close to double.
I don't like the idea of MSU Grave Guard, either, because small units die even faster and their damage output decays harder. Lose 10 Grave Guard out of 30 and your output is still good. Lose 10 out of 20, not so much.
-
3 minutes ago, Nightseer2012 said:
What about a Vrykos Vengorian Lord w/ Driven by Deathsteanch? Deep strike the Gravegaurd, move up to support with Vengorian general w/ DbDs, both the Grave Guard and the Vengorian Lord get a reroll on charges?
I think that's a cool idea. I think that puts your odds of making the 9" charge at about 50%. The command trait faces stiff competition in Vyrkos, though. Both Hunter's Snare and Pack Alpha are very good.
-
35 minutes ago, Doko said:
Its 100% the oposite for any min\maxing dude, nobody gonna get the shield as never.
Shield 16% better survivality
2 hand 100% more damage
The diference is as.........no chance of getting shields
No, I agree with @Verminlord.
+ 1 to saves is huge. It's not a 16% defense increase, a move from 5+ to 4+ is more like a 50% defense increase (depending how you look at it, see my post on saves a few posts above). And you can get to 3+ potentially, or at least 4+ ignore rend -1 if save bonus stacking goes away.
Great Blades do higher damage, but it will frequently be overkill. If you plan on buffing the Grave Guard anyway, you will over buff them and waste damage with Great Blades. You can easily get the sword and shield grave guard to a point where they kill one model with a 4+ save for each grave guard in combat. How much more killing power do you need?
While deep striking from Gravesites has become a lot easier, I would still play Grave Guard with the assumption that they will have to absorb a charge before counter punching due to their low move and no charge bonuses. I think minimizing losses on them so that our limited healing can keep them topped up and so that we avoid extra losses to battleshock will be key.
I am currently toying with the idea of shield grave guard plus a Vengorian Lord in Vyrkos. The Vengorian Lord can be ignoring up to rend 2 with the Chamon realm artefact or rerolling 1s to save with Shyish. He's mobile enough join quickly join up with a deep striking Grave Guard block. In Vyrkos, shield Grave Guard still hit hard enough to take out most anything, and since the Vengorian Lord is OK in combat, too, together their damage should be enough in most situations and the whole group should be very hard to shift between their high saves, rend reduction and the Vengorian healing (d3 invocation, 3 invigorating aura, possible d6 from the command ability).
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, Raptor_Jesues said:
nah, ill just take 20 bloodknights as my battleline
I mean, you could if you want to be an absolute chad.
-
1 hour ago, Aren73 said:
How do we feel on the durability of a max unit of skeletons vs a max unit of zombies?
1 hour ago, Aren73 said:Durability of Skeletons vs Grave Guard:
Something you neglect in your posts is the compounding effect of saves. The higher a save, the more you get out of it. Moving a save from 4+ to 3+ is a lot more impactful than moving it from 6+ to 5+.
Assuming no rend, think about how many extra wounds an opponent needs to put through to pin a wound on you for any given save. For a 6+ save, one in 6 hits will be prevented. So your opponent needs 1.16 times the hits to take off one wound compared to save '-'. But if you are on a 4+ save, for example, you need double the amount of hits to go through. So the effective wound gain accelerates the higher your save gets.
Here's how that looks over the spectrum of saves (sorry about the formating, I am on mobile)
- Save > Effective wounds
- '-' > x1
- 6+ > x1.16
- 5+ > x1.5
- 4+ > x2
- 3+ > x3
- 2+ > x6
- 2+ rerolling > x36
This is why pushing a VLoZD or Vengorian Lord to +2 is so strong. At that point, you may well be able to heal all the damage they take every turn from The Hunger alone. Especially if you give them reroll saves, which is easy because they can cast Mystic Shield on themselves.
With that out of the way, where does that leave us re: Zombies, Skeletons and Grave Guard?
It means a few things: We should value +1 to saves higher on high base saves. Same for the Vengorian Lord's rend reduction (which is slightly worse than a save increase overall). This also goes for healing: Every wound healed on a 4+ save is worth twice as much as a wound healed on save '-'.
40 zombies on save '-' have 40 effective wounds. At 6+, it's like 47.
30 skeletons on a 5+ save have 45 effective wounds and heal way easier than zombies. At 4+ that's 60.
30 Grave Guard on save 4+ have 60 effective wounds. At 3+ it's 90.
That is why I personally like the new Skeletons over Zombies. For a unit that just sits on an objective, I think they do what I want better. They are hard to grind down with their mid-level save and strong regeneration. Sure, dedicated hammers will smash them. But Zombies will even get smashed by or ground down by other trash units. They just die with their '-' save. Skeletons might deal no damage now, but as someone who played big skeleton blobs before, they already didn't deal any damage before, you just rolled more dice for it.
Zombies seem kinda good with support, but at least I personally don't want to support my trash units if I could be supporting actually good units instead. Zombies are cheap, but they are no longer cheap if you attach a Necromancer and Vampire Lord to them.
I think it's actually probably the best to grab 40 zombies, 30 skeletons and 10 dire wolves for battleline in a lot ot lists. Those units all have distinct, valuable functions.
-
6
-
1
-
52 minutes ago, Whitefang said:
You guys are just why the sky is gonna turn dark!
Oh, so the ending of Cursed City is AoS canon, then?
-
2 minutes ago, Darkhan said:
Cheese it while you can!;D
How appropriate for the Rat Prince.
-
Just now, BaylorCorvette said:
Likely to be FAQd/Errata.
Goes without saying.
-
So, I just realized how janky Kritza is. When I skimmed his warscroll at first, I read it as "When Kritza dies, he comes back on a 4+." But it's actually "When Kritza dies, from this point foreward, you get a new Kritza every round on 4+." And if those new Kritzas die, you get more chances in the following turns.
What is going on with this book? The jank is really off the charts this time.
EDIT: To be clear, you have a chance to have several Kritzas on the field at one time this way.
-
1
-
Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation
in Death
Posted
Counterpoint: You can always try to charge two units at once with a big cavalry squad. Since you can buff a big unit more easily, they can be overall more deadly on a per-model basis that way.