650 points for Mortarch version. 650 points for the count on an abyssal terror. Let's be real; sacrificing TEN spells for a little added punch in close combat doesn't seem worth it. What do you guys think?
Count Manny vs Mortarch Manny
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I like mortarch manny's extra dice control, melee power, and combined statline flying monster mount, but yeah, in terms of gameplay power for the point, Count Manny is far superior, with his loremaster plus four spells and option to deploy on foot or steed in a unit.
Well, he does more than that. He can add or remove dice from the power pool in exchange for attacks. So, early game he drops his attacks and gains 3 power dice. Then mid game he engages and pulls 3 dice out of the pool, shifts them to attacks and thrashes his enemy in combat. All unsaved wounds then combat as dispell or power dice.
So, dark cunning is the key difference between the two. Is that worth it? Could be, it's definaterly something that could swing a magic or combat.
Let's say Manny stays out off combat though. Just gaining 3 power dice every turn after rolling master of the black arts. You are going to have twelve dice every turn. Hell, send many into combat with 6 attacks and gain those dice for your dispell phase.
So, Manny is worth it.
Edit: I started writing before Malisteen posted.
So, dark cunning is the key difference between the two. Is that worth it? Could be, it's definaterly something that could swing a magic or combat.
Let's say Manny stays out off combat though. Just gaining 3 power dice every turn after rolling master of the black arts. You are going to have twelve dice every turn. Hell, send many into combat with 6 attacks and gain those dice for your dispell phase.
So, Manny is worth it.
Edit: I started writing before Malisteen posted.
Not to mention that cannonballs will effectively deal double damage to Count Mannfred, but Mortarch Mannfred will only suffer D6 wounds (because Templates hit both the rider and the mount when they have split profiles...)
Count Mannfred has Loremaster and... Dark Acolyte! Why would he forget that... I don't know. Plus Summon Creatures of the Night, which is not that good anyways.
Count Mannfred has Loremaster and... Dark Acolyte! Why would he forget that... I don't know. Plus Summon Creatures of the Night, which is not that good anyways.
Mortarch Mannfred on the other hand comes packing Master of the Dark Arts, which will help ensure solid magic phases.
Never played with Count Mannfred, only Acolyte Manny, and even with Loremaster on just the ONE set of spells, I often found myself at a loss/ overwhelmed by options/ what to do when it came to the magic phase. Far too much time ummmming and aaaahing over possibilties. 4 spells keeps it nice and simple.
1 extra toughness, 5 extra wounds, 4 extra attacks, adding/swapping dice for attacks, Master of the Black Arts, a thunderstomp (S5 nice) and Flying. That seems worth it for another 150pts.
Never played with Count Mannfred, only Acolyte Manny, and even with Loremaster on just the ONE set of spells, I often found myself at a loss/ overwhelmed by options/ what to do when it came to the magic phase. Far too much time ummmming and aaaahing over possibilties. 4 spells keeps it nice and simple.
1 extra toughness, 5 extra wounds, 4 extra attacks, adding/swapping dice for attacks, Master of the Black Arts, a thunderstomp (S5 nice) and Flying. That seems worth it for another 150pts.
Count Mannfred is far better used with his Barded Nightmare + Black Knights/Blood Knights bodyguard. Abysal Terrors where never that appealing, until Mortarchs.
Also... what happens if we use a standard VC (With Count Mannfred, instead of Mortarch Mannfred) but with the End of Times rules?
Can he use Loremaster Death, Vampires, and have 4 spells from Lore of Undeath, mounted on a Barded Nightmare?
Because... I'd use that, haha.
Also... what happens if we use a standard VC (With Count Mannfred, instead of Mortarch Mannfred) but with the End of Times rules?
Can he use Loremaster Death, Vampires, and have 4 spells from Lore of Undeath, mounted on a Barded Nightmare?
Because... I'd use that, haha.
no. If it said he knew a certain number of spells, then yes, but it says he is just a level 4 that is a loremaster (better than four spells) of the two, so he can't choose.
Oooh... so, in general, Loremasters can't "overuse" their rule to have too many spells, while using Lore of Undeath.
They'd still have to replace all their original lores with "N" spells from Lore of Undeath (depending on their level). Only the Mortarchs and Nagash himself are allowed to combine spells from their possible lores.
Also, what would happen with Teclis? D:
Loremaster is a special rule that only a few named special characters have, with the exception of High Elf Loremasters, but their loremaster works slightly differently. Rather than knowing ALL the spells in a Lore, they know the Signature spells from all lores.
I see what you mean about having too many options for spells. I once made a list with 24 spells before I remembered you can only get 12 dice... At the same time though, if you don't mount the count version on a horse he can sit in a bunker like a necro and just cast all day, effectively taking less than half of the damage from cannons compared to Mortarch Mannfred. Mortarchs can't join units because you know they ride giant monsters and have the large target rule, so a cannon blasting the count will kill d6 zombies while a cannon blasting Mortarch manny could potentially half his HP.
The abyssal terror was solely for points comparison, if you take him off he's that much cheaper with ten more spells, so if you have maybe a periapt caddy and a casket with UL rules, suddenly 14 spells doesn't seem so overwhelming. I like options, and once I've set aside dice for invocation, his other 13 spells are situational and he is in my opinion a more reliable caster when he has set spells. It seems to me that they are both good at their own thing, but at the same time a blender lord on a zombie dragon is around the same point cost and will wreck twice as much face (at least) in CC while Count Mannfred will wreck three times as much in magic. That said, the only real upside is the re rolling of one of the winds of magic dice, but a casket and periapt can accomplish the same thing.
The abyssal terror was solely for points comparison, if you take him off he's that much cheaper with ten more spells, so if you have maybe a periapt caddy and a casket with UL rules, suddenly 14 spells doesn't seem so overwhelming. I like options, and once I've set aside dice for invocation, his other 13 spells are situational and he is in my opinion a more reliable caster when he has set spells. It seems to me that they are both good at their own thing, but at the same time a blender lord on a zombie dragon is around the same point cost and will wreck twice as much face (at least) in CC while Count Mannfred will wreck three times as much in magic. That said, the only real upside is the re rolling of one of the winds of magic dice, but a casket and periapt can accomplish the same thing.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
To a certain extent I think the casket+periapt is better than Master of the dark Arts because with MOTDA in situations where you roll poorly for the winds of magic (2+2 or 1+3 or 3+2, etc) you reroll the lower one and are likely to improve your opponents dispel pool along with your casting pool. With Casket+Periapt, your opponent is stuck with the small pool while you grow your dice pool. Add in a heirotitan and you can really abuse your opponent in the magic phase.
Casket keeps getting allot of hype, but honestly the heirotitan is better. The titan moves with your casters, it can fight, is boosting all spells by d3. It has built in dearth and light signature allowing you to forego a death necro for sniping.
On the lore master issue, they let you double up on spells you normally can't. Two raise deads? Yes please!
On the matter of to many spells, you should always have a spell priority. When you start going ummmm, ahhhhh... You need to step back and think about your battle plan and the vest steps forward. Then cast to achive those results.
On the lore master issue, they let you double up on spells you normally can't. Two raise deads? Yes please!
On the matter of to many spells, you should always have a spell priority. When you start going ummmm, ahhhhh... You need to step back and think about your battle plan and the vest steps forward. Then cast to achive those results.
Agreed. Rather than spending 600 points on two kitted necros for 4 vamps spells and 4 death spells, spend 530 for a semi kitted vampire that has lore master in both. And yeah, hierotitan may be better, but why not both? That completely eliminates the need for MotDA while also giving you a fighty monster. Turn one and two shoot out purple sun and a couple death snipes, then start doing vamps spells and death hexes, all from one guy!
Both are probably over kill, and running both is fine. But it's not that simple. So I'd like to clarify the options here. When playing vampire counts, a player has to decide if they are using vampires or necromancers or both. No vampires means you lack ability to generate combat results with blending. You have to then change up how you generate casualties, hence the popularity of six dicing purple sun and using grave guard with great weapons. With no necromancers, you have to decide how blender vs caster your vampires get. Fortunately, vampires can track on wizard levels without compromising their blender-ness. Then you basically decide how much blender you compromise for magic prowess. In my opinion, the top choices for this is black periapt and book of Arkhan. These two items are high priory because unlike defensive arcane items (ie scroll, earthing rod) they increase your adaptability and threat. Which boosts potential offensive power. Which that synergizes with offensive play styles and is a decent trade off for blenders losing some part of their kit.
Powers like MotDA and Dark Acolyte, these are wastes of the vampire's potential offensive power. They take more than they give back and make the vampire behave like a necromancer but at a higher price tag.
So, when comparing the titan vs casket. The titan supports and synergizes with the vampire's offensive nature. It moves with them, makes casting spells with few dice very reliable. It remove the need to field a necromancer for spirit leech, it rolls it's dice multiple times a turn, giving you a better curve. It also minimizes threat of miscasting. The casket on the other hand rolls one, requires protecting it from enemy, it increases chances of miscasting and it could roll bad and do very little for your phase.
See if you take all the magic boosting stuff (periapt, casket, titan, MotDA) they are running at cross propose with each other. They play in different play styles better.
Honestly, you want to really charge up magic. Run vampire lore, heirotitan and mortis engine with BT. That's sick.
Honestly, casket is best with death necros running defensive come and get me tactics with terrorgiests, tarpits and redirectors. Same reason it worked well in TKs. MotDA isn't great there though unless you are going to throw the vampire into one of the tar pits and have him grind.
Interestly though, where MotDA is very useful. Run a vampire lord in an undead legion with shadow as your general. Boosted magic phase and aggressive fronting tactics with full shadow magic would be really powerful.
Powers like MotDA and Dark Acolyte, these are wastes of the vampire's potential offensive power. They take more than they give back and make the vampire behave like a necromancer but at a higher price tag.
So, when comparing the titan vs casket. The titan supports and synergizes with the vampire's offensive nature. It moves with them, makes casting spells with few dice very reliable. It remove the need to field a necromancer for spirit leech, it rolls it's dice multiple times a turn, giving you a better curve. It also minimizes threat of miscasting. The casket on the other hand rolls one, requires protecting it from enemy, it increases chances of miscasting and it could roll bad and do very little for your phase.
See if you take all the magic boosting stuff (periapt, casket, titan, MotDA) they are running at cross propose with each other. They play in different play styles better.
Honestly, you want to really charge up magic. Run vampire lore, heirotitan and mortis engine with BT. That's sick.
Honestly, casket is best with death necros running defensive come and get me tactics with terrorgiests, tarpits and redirectors. Same reason it worked well in TKs. MotDA isn't great there though unless you are going to throw the vampire into one of the tar pits and have him grind.
Interestly though, where MotDA is very useful. Run a vampire lord in an undead legion with shadow as your general. Boosted magic phase and aggressive fronting tactics with full shadow magic would be really powerful.
Mortarch Manny with the lore of undeath is formidable. He's control of the magic dice and double the range for summoning spells is key. The difference of a 12 inch bubble and a 24 inch bubble when placing summoned units is huge, and makes casting summoning spells so much more versatile.
I disagree about the Heirotitan being better than the CoS. T10 means a lot and I'll take Light of Death over a Shem's and short range Snipe any day. The ability to take out warmachines turn 1 is amazing. The casket clears chaff far better than TK archers (always hitting on 5's is nice but they are still 5's and the strength is just 3) and the range enables it to hit targets the Titan cannot in the first few turns.
You can't always hide the Titan from warmachines and its save is only a 5+ armor. T10 on the CoS means cannons need 4's to wound it and it can stay hidden somewhere whereas the Titan will lose the ability to cast Shem's if you keep it behind a tower or the like.
If you roll low on winds, the CoS can make up for that, giving you an average of two extra dice each turn whereas the Titan needs dice to begin with in order to do its thing.
I like the Heirotitan but I feel that the Casket is superior, even in UL armies that must move forward in order to win (which is most of them).
You can't always hide the Titan from warmachines and its save is only a 5+ armor. T10 on the CoS means cannons need 4's to wound it and it can stay hidden somewhere whereas the Titan will lose the ability to cast Shem's if you keep it behind a tower or the like.
If you roll low on winds, the CoS can make up for that, giving you an average of two extra dice each turn whereas the Titan needs dice to begin with in order to do its thing.
I like the Heirotitan but I feel that the Casket is superior, even in UL armies that must move forward in order to win (which is most of them).
John Rainbow
Crypt Horror
I agree on the CoS generally being a better choice although Heirotitan has pretty obvious synergy with a Coven of Light build.