Our Buss and the change in the metta

[Aedin]

So I have noticed since the 50% lords has come out that a lot of players are now throwing either an anvil to mitigate our blender lord or are outright killing him.

I am thinking of changing the buss to drop +1 movement and lances and adding -1 armor save banner. This would negate a lot of characters like a dwarf or empire lord with 2up from sticking around and killing the lord with multi wound attacks for example. It would also make a baby blender bsb more effective IMO.

Thoughts on this?

 

[The Sun King]

What would you gain from dropping lances?

 

[Asmodeus]

What would you gain from dropping lances?

Slightly more points that can be used on other things. Or more BK in the bus.

 

[The Sun King]

+2 strength is just nothing to sneeze at IMHO

 

[Mr. West]

So I have noticed since the 50% lords has come out that a lot of players are now throwing either an anvil to mitigate our blender lord or are outright killing him.

Really ? Sure, the metagame has changed in certain regards due to the increase in allowance for lord level characters to 50%, but I haven't seen anyone in particular trying to counter a 'blender' lord build.
Nor have I seen an increase in death stars. If anything, the contrary has been the case. Interesting how differently the game is played in different 'metas'.

I am thinking of changing the buss to drop +1 movement and lances and adding -1 armor save banner. This would negate a lot of characters like a dwarf or empire lord with 2up from sticking around and killing the lord with multi wound attacks for example.

IMHO skeleton buss is the new (old) black.
But in regards to the knight bus, as Sun King pointed out already, foregoing the lances defeats the knights bus purpose.

It would also make a baby blender bsb more effective IMO.

Why would it ?
And why would you waste points on a 'baby blender BSB' in any case ?

 

[Grok]

I would think that most blender lords have at least strength 7 which should be enough to counter even 1+ save characters that aren't say chaos lords. The armor piercing depending on your meta and build may be more useful, but dropping the lances seems like a mistake. I personally prefer the skeleton unit build though.

 

[The Sun King]

Actually, I think that the blenderlordbus has become even better. Personally I play with two blender lords in my Skeleton Horsemen bus.

 

[Aedin]

The buss is just a delivery system. It hardly ever does anything at all and if cannons are not present is ran 2 wide with 2 characters a blender lord and baby blender. The banner negates wounds from crumble so my flank protectors hold longer "zombies" and it rerolls frenzy forced charged on vargheists to keep them under control. The vargheists are ran in dart formation with a command upgrade "war machine and wizard hunters or organ gun screen".

Any time the buss is ran wide the opponent simply anvils the lord and attacks the buss. They dont even run a star to do it. an example of a game is when an empire buss charged my buss with cavalry hammers 3 wide 9 models total. He has a 1up 4up lord thrown at my lord. I do 3 wounds with the lord. He attacks the baby vamp doing the 2 wounds and the other character does 3 wounds to the buss. All said and done the buss is now down a baby vamp and 7 knights giving him the chance to counter in his next phase becouse that buss isnt goiing anywhere. 6 griffin knights in his next turn and game over.

Or how about a dwarf lord when your charging you need 5s to hit him and is left with a 6 up armor. With rerolls I pull off 3 hits 3 wounds he gets 1 6 so two more attacks 2 hit 2 wound the lord still lives and 2 wounds make it through with multiple wounds. then anything with a 1up saves on 5+ which is just enough mitigation to do the deed. This is why I am thinking razor standard.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I actually agree with the OP on this one. I've definitely been noticing that people have a lot more tools to straight grind-out the blender bus these days. WoC players with a demon prince AND multiple 3++ characters. DE players with just a whack of 1+ save masters. LM armies have traded scar vet cowboys for old bloods, who are fucking MEAN. I've seen Skaven and HE players run buses that I don't want my 1300 point vampire deathstar anywhere near.


The one thing that you NEED is the nightshroud. 100% mandatory these days, to defang those sorts of units. It's also very important to keep him in the back rank so that you can make way with him as you need.

I too toyed around with razor standard. Especially if you have two blenders, that extra -1 to saves is a big deal given how much 1+ is out there. I'm thinking I might try and round it back into the list. Tough though, as it's an extra 30 points you need to shave from elsewhere.

 

[Grok]

The buss is just a delivery system. It hardly ever does anything at all and if cannons are not present is ran 2 wide with 2 characters a blender lord and baby blender. The banner negates wounds from crumble so my flank protectors hold longer "zombies" and it rerolls frenzy forced charged on vargheists to keep them under control. The vargheists are ran in dart formation with a command upgrade "war machine and wizard hunters or organ gun screen".

Any time the buss is ran wide the opponent simply anvils the lord and attacks the buss. They dont even run a star to do it. an example of a game is when an empire buss charged my buss with cavalry hammers 3 wide 9 models total. He has a 1up 4up lord thrown at my lord. I do 3 wounds with the lord. He attacks the baby vamp doing the 2 wounds and the other character does 3 wounds to the buss. All said and done the buss is now down a baby vamp and 7 knights giving him the chance to counter in his next phase becouse that buss isnt goiing anywhere. 6 griffin knights in his next turn and game over.

Or how about a dwarf lord when your charging you need 5s to hit him and is left with a 6 up armor. With rerolls I pull off 3 hits 3 wounds he gets 1 6 so two more attacks 2 hit 2 wound the lord still lives and 2 wounds make it through with multiple wounds. then anything with a 1up saves on 5+ which is just enough mitigation to do the deed. This is why I am thinking razor standard.

While I don't have the full details seems like there were a few missteps in utilization, rather then construction in these examples. 1st and easiest, the dwarf thing, why get in combat if its dicey? Armor piercing isn't going to change this match up as you negate the non characters saves without it, and a 6 up save for the dwarf is terrible, the loss in maneuverability to negate a 6+ isn't worth it. In this instance, when in doubt don't get in combat, simple, chaff, avoid, kill warmachines .

With the empire one few potential issues I see, why did your blender lord not hit his unit? Even with his lord in base contact you should still be able to target the unit. If he challenged you should have accepted with a champion to allow the blender lord to well blend . In this instance 5 attacks from blender lord, presuming you have quickblood, ogre blade, and red fury you will hit say 4 times, wound say 3 times, reduce his save to a 5+ he saves maybe 1, 2 knights die, with red fury you kill another 1, 3 knights down (and this is with pretty bad rolls). Your baby vampire, kills 2, red furies kills another 1. 4 knights down, 5 left plus the lord? Seems unlikely to loose all that. It also seems like potentially you got out maneuvered since he charged you. A charge during your turn would allow for buffs, which then puts the combat even more in your favor. In this instance, how is armour piercing going to change much? A +1 movement would be much better as its the charge, not the killing power which seems to have worked against you.

Also, against the empire player, seems like would have worked better to reform to having ranks, as you could break his smaller knight bus's steadfast.

Also, as the Sun King has pointed out, the potential for a double blender lord, especially in a Black Knight Bus build, seems tough to pass up, and would do you much better.

Again, I don't know all the details but these seem like solutions to these problems.

 

[Grok]

I actually agree with the OP on this one. I've definitely been noticing that people have a lot more tools to straight grind-out the blender bus these days. WoC players with a demon prince AND multiple 3++ characters. DE players with just a whack of 1+ save masters. LM armies have traded scar vet cowboys for old bloods, who are fucking MEAN. I've seen Skaven and HE players run buses that I don't want my 1300 point vampire deathstar anywhere near.


The one thing that you NEED is the nightshroud. 100% mandatory these days, to defang those sorts of units. It's also very important to keep him in the back rank so that you can make way with him as you need.

I too toyed around with razor standard. Especially if you have two blenders, that extra -1 to saves is a big deal given how much 1+ is out there. I'm thinking I might try and round it back into the list. Tough though, as it's an extra 30 points you need to shave from elsewhere.

Nightshroud is deff a must, but the armor piercing won't effect your vampire lords because they have magic weapon right?

Seems like the counters aren't necessarily due to better saves, but better counters. They are better due to their maneuverability, and chances to charge you.

 

[Aedin]

There are not going to be ranks as the buss has 8 models and 2 characters.

The rest of the army consists of 2 spirit swarm 2 vargheist units 5 units of 30 zombies 2 terrorgheist 3 units of wolves. 2500pt list.

More details on the cav charges they required an 8 and 9 on the dice. So statistically one should had failed but didn't.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Nightshroud is deff a must, but the armor piercing won't effect your vampire lords because they have magic weapon right?

Seems like the counters aren't necessarily due to better saves, but better counters. They are better due to their maneuverability, and chances to charge you.

People always think this for some reason, but it's not actually true. It is only a) flaming and b) poison that don't affect magic items (unless the item explicitly says otherwise). Armour piercing affects magic weapons just fine.


As for how necessary it is, really what you're looking to stop is skew rolls. I've had opponents stop 4 of my VL's 5 attacks with their 1+ modified to 5+ armour saves, stopping red fury in its tracks. AP cuts the odds of that occurring by more than half, and altogether for 2+ saves. A big deal.

Not sure if it's worth the -1 movement. However I'm not altogether convinced that it isn't, either. I usually deploy my double blender bus in the middle of the table, where I'm rarely pushing the full 16" anyways.

 

[Grok]

There are not going to be ranks as the buss has 8 models and 2 characters.

The rest of the army consists of 2 spirit swarm 2 vargheist units 5 units of 30 zombies 2 terrorgheist 3 units of wolves. 2500pt list.

More details on the cav charges they required an 8 and 9 on the dice. So statistically one should had failed but didn't.

See here is the problem I see 8 and 9s for swift charges are not super difficult roughly average. In the empire player's eyes its always worth the gamble to take that charge. Looking at it from their perspective, while you see a 50% failure rate, they see a roughly 50/50 shot to end the game right there, without having to risk too much, seems an obvious trade off.

 

[The Sun King]

@Aedin if the bus is just a delivery system then why cut the movement banner? Seems to work against that concept. Not saying that it doesn't work, I just don't follow the logic.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

@Aedin if the bus is just a delivery system then why cut the movement banner? Seems to work against that concept. Not saying that it doesn't work, I just don't follow the logic.

Because passed armour saves stop Red Fury dead. I've experienced that myself. People make a whack of 5+ saves, and your vampires end up doing like 2 wounds and get ground out. Razor standard can be a big help. Shame it's so damned expensive.

 

[Aedin]

Yup and that 1 turn of survived combat is all a proper tooled character needs to end the game right there and then. Im trying to avoid the next turn combat and kill them while I have the ASF.

 

[LordTobiothan]

Im not aware of any non juggernaut units with a 1+ armor save.

Seeing as your blender should only ever be hitting units, i dont see the use in the AP. If you are fighting tooled up lords, forget changing the list just concede and figure out how to not get in your worst case scenario game after game before jumping in another one.

Yes we have one of the strongest characters in the game. But they are your army. You cant chance only killing your opponents general in a fight, while he can commit his lord to killing your entire army (that lord of yours).

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Im not aware of any non juggernaut units with a 1+ armor save.

Seeing as your blender should only ever be hitting units, i dont see the use in the AP. If you are fighting tooled up lords, forget changing the list just concede and figure out how to not get in your worst case scenario game after game before jumping in another one.

Yes we have one of the strongest characters in the game. But they are your army. You cant chance only killing your opponents general in a fight, while he can commit his lord to killing your entire army (that lord of yours).

Demigryphs. Empire knights. Steam tanks. Cold one knights.

Also solo characters, like peg masters/dreadlords, WoC disc/demon steed characters, scar vet/old blood cowboys. In addition to character walls (bret lances with 1+ save pallies and lords across the front, brolock buses with masters...same story. WoC bricks with 1+ 3++ demon steed characters filling the front rank. Similar story with Saurus CoK/temple guard/saurus bricks with cowboys filling the front ranks).

Part of this is the fault of comp, part the fault of 50% lords and heroes, but LOTS of armies are shifting towards character-heavy builds that take advantage of cheap, tanky characters to enhance the units they're in. Base-contact effects make things even worse.

As far as characters go, vampire lords are not particularly resilient. WS7, T5, 2+4++, 3W. Average, but no 1+3++ chaos lord. 1+5++ -1 to hit nurgle prince. No T6 4W 1+ rerollable 4++ old blood. Our primary defense is that nothing mean is standing by the time the vampire lord(s) is/are finished attacking. When your enemy is on 5+5+3++ the chances of that becomes much more difficult to accomplish.

 

[Grok]

While I understand those +5 saves can lose you the game , isn't it more common to lose due to failed charges or getting out maneuvered? The +1 movement banner counters this. if you think it would help why not give it a try report back in the difference.

 

[Grok]

Pirate makes a great point character builds like this I have foud much more commons. I disagree that the razor standard is the way to counter it, but I totally agree the threat is there. My strategies, due to using skeletons is to avoid, redirect, and chip away while grabbing easy points. Fyi cold one Knights only have a +2 save.

 

[LordTobiothan]

@Pirate Robot Ninja of Death you should really just throw a zombie wall in a character walls face and eat the rest of the army.

I dont think ive ever lost a game where my general has survived, and that is due to him being the greater majority of my points and being able to kill other opponents points much faster then their big defensive characters can chew through my worthless crap.

Which means the only thing scaring my vampire and making him even think of adding more armor pen are the units that will lose me the game regardless of whether i have the banner or not.

We win the kill the crap game. Not the slug it out game.

 

[The Sun King]

I think we can do both, honestly. It really depends on the army build you're going for. Razor Standard seems a bit pricey and circumstantial, but try it out, it might be just what you need to have an edge (pun intended).

 

[Aedin]

I think Pirate Robot Ninja of Death hit the nail right on the head with his last post.

I think I will give it a try. Since the tournament I am prepping for is closed list I am thinking of dual blender ASF with razor standard and bating my opponent into charging me. If the lords can eliminate the threat before it can attack I am good to go charge or no charge.

Flying multiple wounding chaos will still be a problem. But having two lords might allow the tools I need.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

I think we can do both, honestly. It really depends on the army build you're going for. Razor Standard seems a bit pricey and circumstantial, but try it out, it might be just what you need to have an edge (pun intended).

It's definitely pricey, and as others have mentioned means giving up M8. That's definitely a sacrifice.

Issue is that armour saves stop vampire lords dead when they're passed, and 5+ or worse 5+ rerollable saves are passed more often than I would like. I haven't tested it extensively, but it's definitely something I'm toying around with.

Presently, my idea is to sacrifice lances off the bus in exchange for upgrading the Swiftness banner to Razor standard. Given that I still run the BK bus in lance formation the lances aren't a huge benefit.