Ogre Blade VS Sword of Strife

[Sisters of Deception]

My Vampire Lord combat build:
Heavy Armor, Shield(shooting may happen and it's cheap), Great Weapon
Talisman of Preservation, Trickster's Helm
Aura of Dark Majesty, Beguile, Red Fury

My opponents HATE it.
Take a Fear test at -1
Take a LD test at -4 or reroll all successful hits
Reroll ALL successful to wounds
4+/4++ save if they get through

Actually, your vampire lord would have a 3+ AS from HA (5+), shield (+1) and the helmet (+1)

I like this build. Seems like its very solid and would be hard to take down.

 

[Banat]

Actually, your vampire lord would have a 3+ AS from HA (5+), shield (+1) and the helmet (+1)

I like this build. Seems like its very solid and would be hard to take down.

Youd only get the three plus against shooting. You wouldn't get the bonus in combat since you're using a great weapon.

 

[Burnanation]

I usually put my lord on an AT, kit him out with RF, QB, Sword of Strife and send him into some rank and file. I let him chew through rank and file guys.

Against most normal troops he can turn out about 8 to 10 wounds pretty consistently (we can math hammer it out, but regardless it's pretty awesome). I am including damage caused by the AT.

There are definitely times when the ogre blade is better, and times when Strife is better. Most of the time i just roll out with Strife.

 

[Sisters of Deception]

Youd only get the three plus against shooting. You wouldn't get the bonus in combat since you're using a great weapon.

Ah, I get it now.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I'm not a fan of the sword of strife build. Great for taking down rank and file, but we have so many tools for that already. The OB blender chews through armour as well which makes him a force to be reckoned with against everything.

Here's the two builds I'll be running in my double blender build. Either will pulp most anything they come up against.

Vampire Lord (general) Talisman of Preservation; Ogre Blade; Enchanted/Charmed Shield; Red Fury; Quickblood; heavy armour; Hellsteed


Vampire Lord (caster) Obsidian Blade; Dragonhelm; Dawnstone; The Other Trickster's Shard; Red Fury; Quickblood; Beguile; level 4 Lore of Shadow; shield; heavy armour; Hellsteed

 

[estwheadn]

I just ran this in a game this weekend:

Vampire Lord: lvl 4, lore of vampires, HA, Shield, Red Fury Quick Blood, Summon Creatures, Tali of preservation, The other trickster's shard, ogre blade

With the ogre blade he did 10 wounds in one combat and 9 in the next (in the same turn btw). So he killed 19 models and made destroyed 2 units. Granted he had 30 graveguard at his back but he did most of the work. The sword of strife is better against t3 5+ armor save guys but the ogre blade is not that bad against them. 3+ re-rollable to hit with a 2+ to wound and -4 AS it is pretty likely you'll kill 9 or 10 guys. 7 or 8 being unlucky. Obviously the sword of strife will kill more. But against anything with t4 or higher and/or a good armor save, the orge blade is better which in my mind makes it a better choice since you can get your vamp into combat with anything including more elite units and mulch them up instead of making sure he gets into combat with t3 rank and file.

Btw I think the other trickster's shard is almost an auto take to negate parry saves and really get the most out of red fury

 

[PureSphinx]

I just ran this in a game this weekend:

Vampire Lord: lvl 4, lore of vampires, HA, Shield, Red Fury Quick Blood, Summon Creatures, Tali of preservation, The other trickster's shard, ogre blade

With the ogre blade he did 10 wounds in one combat and 9 in the next (in the same turn btw). So he killed 19 models and made destroyed 2 units. Granted he had 30 graveguard at his back but he did most of the work. The sword of strife is better against t3 5+ armor save guys but the ogre blade is not that bad against them. 3+ re-rollable to hit with a 2+ to wound and -4 AS it is pretty likely you'll kill 9 or 10 guys. 7 or 8 being unlucky. Obviously the sword of strife will kill more. But against anything with t4 or higher and/or a good armor save, the orge blade is better which in my mind makes it a better choice since you can get your vamp into combat with anything including more elite units and mulch them up instead of making sure he gets into combat with t3 rank and file.

Btw I think the other trickster's shard is almost an auto take to negate parry saves and really get the most out of red fury

I agree that against high T/AS opponents more strength is better than more attacks, but let's dissect the armies.

Most have a toughness less than a vampire's base Strength, and in fact few things short of monsters have higher toughness. Elves are harder to hit due to higher WS, but incredibly easy to wound at S5. That's 3/14 armies that more attacks is better against. Humans have base T3 also, making more attacks at ASF demolish them, aside from their heavy cavalry and heroes. In fact, heavy cavalry and heroes are usually the only things with better than a 4+ save, and at that point S5 at more attacks could be considered better. Instead of killing 8/9 medium armored guys , I'm killing 11/12, but against lightly armored ones (most units) I'm killing between 14 and 16 with my Ghoul King setup. If you plan on monster hunting and giving your guy to heavy cav, Ogre Blade is auto-include. If you're using him to generate CR against infantry, it's a toss up, but to me it makes sense to take more attacks.

 

[estwheadn]

I'm not sure how you are getting 14-16 kills with the sword of strife, maybe with the sword of bloodshed but even then it's unlikely even with a ghoul king. Anyway it seems like you more or less agree with what I said except you don't think that the ability to kill more than just t3 troops in droves is as much an asset as I do. I want my vampire lord to be able to kill ANYTHING that gets close turning his unit (either grave guard or black knights) into a true deathstar, rather than just an anti infantry unit. It also make you less susceptible to counter charges by non-infantry enemy units when your vampire is equipped to kill whatever the enemy throws at him

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I agree that against high T/AS opponents more strength is better than more attacks, but let's dissect the armies.

Most have a toughness less than a vampire's base Strength, and in fact few things short of monsters have higher toughness. Elves are harder to hit due to higher WS, but incredibly easy to wound at S5. That's 3/14 armies that more attacks is better against. Humans have base T3 also, making more attacks at ASF demolish them, aside from their heavy cavalry and heroes. In fact, heavy cavalry and heroes are usually the only things with better than a 4+ save, and at that point S5 at more attacks could be considered better. Instead of killing 8/9 medium armored guys , I'm killing 11/12, but against lightly armored ones (most units) I'm killing between 14 and 16 with my Ghoul King setup. If you plan on monster hunting and giving your guy to heavy cav, Ogre Blade is auto-include. If you're using him to generate CR against infantry, it's a toss up, but to me it makes sense to take more attacks.

If you want to blend infantry then take ghouls and crypt horrors. Don't waste your 500 point vampire on killing T3 models.

And I call bullshit on killing 14-16 models with your Ghoul King. Unless your dice have been in the microwave you're not getting that many consistently after misses hits, missed wounds, and parry. That's the most that you can THEORETICALLY get, but it's not actually going to happen every time. Dice come up 1. Infantry make parry saves. You'll get max wounds MAYBE once a game...if you're lucky.

More importantly, what happens when you come up against a list like one I played game 3 just this weekend:

Two nurgle demon princes (at <25% lords)
Two khorne characters on demonic steeds with 1+4++ and 1+RR
2x3 skullcrushers
4xchariots
chimera


Your S5 ghoul king isn't going to do shit against that list, potion of strength or not. You won't have the damage output and your list will just evaporate.

 

[PureSphinx]

Yeah I did mean bloodshed my bad I thought you had read my earlier post in this thread about what I put on my GK. And yeah you're right I meant to say it's a trade off about whether you want him to kill a lot of stuff in droves or ALL stuff in not as many droves (what is a drove?). I killed 15 witch elves with their CoB save using an SGK with bloodshed and OTS, and there were only 20 witches to begin with, so yeah there's that. But if you are taking a lot of heavy cav and monsters id take OB any day. For the most part it's a split.

 

[PureSphinx]

If you want to blend infantry then take ghouls and crypt horrors. Don't waste your 500 point vampire on killing T3 models.

And I call bullshit on killing 14-16 models with your Ghoul King. Unless your dice have been in the microwave you're not getting that many consistently after misses hits, missed wounds, and parry. That's the most that you can THEORETICALLY get, but it's not actually going to happen every time. Dice come up 1. Infantry make parry saves. You'll get max wounds MAYBE once a game...if you're lucky.

More importantly, what happens when you come up against a list like one I played game 3 just this weekend:

Two nurgle demon princes (at <25% lords)
Two khorne characters on demonic steeds with 1+4++ and 1+RR
2x3 skullcrushers
4xchariots
chimera


Your S5 ghoul king isn't going to do shit against that list, potion of strength or not. You won't have the damage output and your list will just evaporate.

i agree with you actually. I killed 15 witch elves after infinite hatred and them failing ward saves. Yeah it's once a game but against your witch elf star once a game is all that's needed really. And I do take ghouls they are awesome. Against your daemons I use a VL with standard ogre blade setup, but in my personal meta there are a lot of humans and elves, in fact the toughest things I face are orcs, so yeah putting out a potential 16 wounds vs 10 is better in that meta. If I fought more ogres and daemons and heavy cavalry you'd be 100% right.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

i agree with you actually. I killed 15 witch elves after infinite hatred and them failing ward saves. Yeah it's once a game but against your witch elf star once a game is all that's needed really. And I do take ghouls they are awesome. Against your daemons I use a VL with standard ogre blade setup, but in my personal meta there are a lot of humans and elves, in fact the toughest things I face are orcs, so yeah putting out a potential 16 wounds vs 10 is better in that meta. If I fought more ogres and daemons and heavy cavalry you'd be 100% right.

Okay so here's the clear difference: I am operating on the assumption of fixed-list tournaments. If you're tailoring to an opponent known ahead of time then absolutely a ghoul king is a tool that can mulch infantry. Heck...put fly on him and speed around mulching wizard bunkers and the like. That'd be awesome.

But in a fixed-list environment it's not good enough. You have to be prepared for all eventualities, and that crusher spam list is one of those eventualities. What do you do against 6 skullcrushers, for instance? You can only chaff that for so long, and S5 is going to bounce right off it.

A S7 blender lord is your best all-rounder toolkit for exactly this reason. He can push wounds through against high-T. He can push wounds through against high armour (reducing 1+ saves to 5+), which maximizes the number of extra attacks that he's getting out of red fury. And against infantry he's still killing 6-8 reliably, or 4-10 on the off-side.


I think the more important question, though, is what to do for our SECOND blender, now that this option is available to us. I'm quite liking the idea of Obsidian Blade, Other Trickster's Shard, Dragonhelm, Dawnstone. Gives us another great option for punching through characters that will also have significant strength against infantry.

 

[PureSphinx]

Okay so here's the clear difference: I am operating on the assumption of fixed-list tournaments. If you're tailoring to an opponent known ahead of time then absolutely a ghoul king is a tool that can mulch infantry. Heck...put fly on him and speed around mulching wizard bunkers and the like. That'd be awesome.

But in a fixed-list environment it's not good enough. You have to be prepared for all eventualities, and that crusher spam list is one of those eventualities. What do you do against 6 skullcrushers, for instance? You can only chaff that for so long, and S5 is going to bounce right off it.

A S7 blender lord is your best all-rounder toolkit for exactly this reason. He can push wounds through against high-T. He can push wounds through against high armour (reducing 1+ saves to 5+), which maximizes the number of extra attacks that he's getting out of red fury. And against infantry he's still killing 6-8 reliably, or 4-10 on the off-side.


I think the more important question, though, is what to do for our SECOND blender, now that this option is available to us. I'm quite liking the idea of Obsidian Blade, Other Trickster's Shard, Dragonhelm, Dawnstone. Gives us another great option for punching through characters that will also have significant strength against infantry.

I 100% agree, and the minute my playgroup starts fielding tougher stuff is the minute I go back to our catch all blender from hell.

One thing I forgot to mention though that I mentioned earlier is that I always, ALWAYS have a lore of beasts caster, so my SGK is S6 more often than not, and if I'm lucky S8 with ten attacks

 

[Eternal Salvation]

Well, I played a game the other day and tried Ogre Blade instead. It definitely helped against T5 ogre characters!
Unfortunately he still managed to crush my unit of 10 BKs around me after the first round, and I ended up crumbling

 

[Sisters of Deception]

Well, I played a game the other day and tried Ogre Blade instead. It definitely helped against T5 ogre characters!
Unfortunately he still managed to crush my unit of 10 BKs around me after the first round, and I ended up crumbling

Thats unfortunate. Sadly though a BK bus doesn't provide you with a solid amount of bodies to face ogres.
If only against Ogres I'd be taking GG with GWs. VL, Konrad and GG + GW, nothing ogres can do against them. Van hels for munching and you're set.

But on topic. Ogre blade was probably the best choice indeed. Anything thats T5 and up it fares better against in my opinion.

T3/T4 is more doable with extra attacks. I once picked bloodshed on a vamp vs skaven wich made my enemy facepalm on how easily he was cutting through plaguemonks. Scoring 14-16 wounds.

I can understand why alot of people favour the ogre blade. Yes, you'll be able to handle tougher monsters aswell but wouldn't it be better to have a hero vamp kitted out for this role ? Along with your standard blender they could do alot more harm.
I'm including a nightshroud in most of my list in a team of vamps nowadays. Put a GW on the hero with quickblood and he'll still deal a nice amount of dmg.
Not as much killing power perhaps without RF but thats where the blender comes in. ASF + re-rolls + VHDM + extra attacks + RF. I'd think they can kill pretty much anything thats thrown at them as far as monsters go.

 

[Rizzo]

Are you all playing Red Fury as infinite procs like a bone giant? My understanding is that only the first set of wounds generate additional attacks.

 

[Sisters of Deception]

Are you all playing Red Fury as infinite procs like a bone giant? My understanding is that only the first set of wounds generate additional attacks.

A vampire Lord has a base amount of 5 Attacks. Add in the +2 / +3 attack sword will push this up till 7-8 attacks.
If you're lucky and manage to wound with all 7-8 attacks, they'll generate another attack. Maximizing the amount of succesfull attacks to 14-16.

This is all nice on paper ofcourse but you have to take into account things such as bad dice rolls or saves.

ASF helps as such that it will let you re-roll to hit rolls if your Initiative is higher than the opponent. Wich is likely with our vampires.

VHDM lets you re-roll to wound wich ensures a higher chance of wounding and thus generating that extra attack.

Don't forget that for each wound you make, on a 6 up you will regain a lost wound cause of the Hunger.

But no, RF only works for the first attacks. Attacks generated through RF don't generate further attacks as mentioned in the rulebook

 

[Banat]

A vampire Lord has a base amount of 5 Attacks. Add in the +2 / +3 attack sword will push this up till 7-8 attacks.
If you're lucky and manage to wound with all 7-8 attacks, they'll generate another attack. Maximizing the amount of succesfull attacks to 14-16.

This is all nice on paper ofcourse but you have to take into account things such as bad dice rolls or saves.

ASF helps as such that it will let you re-roll to hit rolls if your Initiative is higher than the opponent. Wich is likely with our vampires.

VHDM lets you re-roll to wound wich ensures a higher chance of wounding and thus generating that extra attack.

Don't forget that for each wound you make, on a 6 up you will regain a lost wound cause of the Hunger.

But no, RF only works for the first attacks. Attacks generated through RF don't generate further attacks as mentioned in the rulebook

Red Fury also only generates extra attacks for wounds caused. As in the number of models that fail their armour/ward saves. I wonder if some people have been playing it as an extra attack for each to wound roll. Because I don't seem to be getting the same amazing results everyone else seems to talk about. I think the highest number I've gotten with the Ogre Blade was 6 wounds out of a potential 10.

 

[PureSphinx]

Red Fury also only generates extra attacks for wounds caused. As in the number of models that fail their armour/ward saves. I wonder if some people have been playing it as an extra attack for each to wound roll. Because I don't seem to be getting the same amazing results everyone else seems to talk about. I think the highest number I've gotten with the Ogre Blade was 6 wounds out of a potential 10.

It depends on what you're fighting. On my Ghoul King with Infinite Hatred against a unit of Witch Elves, I killed 15 of them after Red Fury, but I have only been Red Fury-ing the first round of attacks (so 8 in that case) and only the ones that cause unsaved wounds. It's been pointed out (I think in the "What is a blender lord?" thread) that you'll usually only get that good once a game, at most, but hey that's better than never.

 

[Banat]

That was with the sword of strife yes?

 

[PureSphinx]

That was with the sword of strife yes?

Bloodshed. Since there's no point in taking any magic armor or a ward save on a Strigoi I always take either Giant Blade or Bloodshed when I'm running him. So taking him up to 8 attacks and rolling a lucky fistful is the only reason I got that many kills.