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najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
Catapults will most certainly making an appearance in my legion. Just wonder how would others go about using Skelly archers though? my other army is dark elves whose ranged units have the option for full command, magic banners and shields so I just tend to use them as core infantry and swift reform them as necessary. Not quite sure on the best way to use simple dedicated missile units. I'm trying to assemble enough bits to make 30, using TK arms on VC bodies. I know they're slightly out of proportion but I think I may just get away with it.

How you lot go about using them. A single large unit, 2x15 or MSU 3x10? I suppose if they're all together it makes it less likely the unit can be destroyed before it's healed.
You could cut the hand off and swap there to minimize the out of proportion more.
 

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
I haven't been able to find it anywhere, but does Raze Dead allow us to use the points for upgrades? I have been under the impression that it just allows for base models and any extra points would be lost.
Says in rules for summoned units they can include any options for upgrades.
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
I haven't been able to find it anywhere, but does Raze Dead allow us to use the points for upgrades? I have been under the impression that it just allows for base models and any extra points would be lost.

P.14 of Nagash Book II in the "Summoning Spells" box: "Summoned units can be upgraded to include any options listed in their army list entries, but must adhere to their minimum unit sizes as normal."
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
Fantastic. I get a headache every time I try to read those books. It probably doesn't help that this is the first book with a storyline that I am reading and have little knowledge of the events leading up to (outside of VC army books).

So that means that I can summon a unit of skeletons, then a Master Necro level 4 with master of the dead that has VC lore and boost them further... The combinations seem endless!
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
Can you play this army without your opponent's consent? If not, then I would say it's not 8.5 edition just yet.
 

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
The rules are really clearly updates in most sections. The army list, the entries for the morghasts, the lore of undeath, and the end times character allowances all say this is an update to the Warhammer rules and can be used in all your games.

Detractors point out that the How to use this book section and the word 'can' in the others means that the whole thing is optional. Its like GW wanted them to be official and then took a small step back from using the word official, but say it in every way you can other than that. I don't know, what do the rest of you who read the book think?
 
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Dakaar

Zombie
Jan 14, 2013
49
Its clearly stated that undead legions are 100% official in normal play, but even if not this whole 'consent' thing is a ludicrous argument anyway.

Your opponent can refuse to play an army even if its a current upto date army book. You cant force them to play, the whole game is by consent!
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
I think some of you are getting bent out of shape.

I'm simply saying that if you show up to the tables in a PUG with an Undead Legions list, would it be considered legit.

If so, can I get a page reference where it says this can be used in standard play?
 

Seneschal

Liche
True Blood
May 15, 2008
5,520
(quits WH due to health isues)
(sells books and armies)
(is then told about the Nagash "stuff"...)

Oh, man...

What I can contribute is that str 3 shots aren't all that great. I played TK's for several years and it can be tough getting through heavy armor saves. Of course, an elf heavy meta might make them a good choice.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
as for most other forces, plain archers are mainly a tool to clear chaff, preventing small harassing or interdicting units from stymieing the advance of your battle line. In this, skeleton archers are... tolerable. Not exactly good. Of course, Khalida can turn a large block of skeletons into a deadly poisonous hail, but even then armor saves can blunt the impact. Which in turn invites the use of supporting ranged options like banshees, stalkers, skull catapults, the casket, and terrorgheists, but while a ranged primary undead legions list is certainly an option, I doubt it will be the strongest strategy available.

As for the question of 'official legality in regular games', the answer is at best blurry. NagashII clearly states that chapter 1 is intended for use in 'any' game of warhammer, but that's just the Undeath lore, plus some scenario specific terrain rules (underground terrain, haunted battlefields). As far as I could find, there is no statement saying that the Undead Legions list is for 'end times' or 'nagash campaign' games only, but neither is there any statement specifically endorsing it for regular games. It's all frustratingly vague ('you can use this list in your games of Warhammer' doesn't quite clearly permit them in regular games, while 'the list is intended to represent the combined forces of undead in these dark times' doesn't quite clearly restrict them to campaign games, etc).

Even were it clearly stated to be allowed, that doesn't mean it might not become generally for pick up games anyway, as escalation was for 40k in some groups I played in. Nor would the lack of official authorization prevent it from becoming generally accepted in some areas, as with the home brew chaos dwarf list in some of those same groups before FW reintroduced their own version.

I recommend sticking primarily to one force, and only investing heavily in a mixed force only after you have a playable 'pure' army, and even then only if you fully intend to collect both as separate armies. Maybe GW intends to recombine the undead long term, or maybe they don't, but I wouldn't wager a lot of money one way or the other at this point.

Otherwise, just talk to your regular gaming community about it. See who'd be willing to let you proxy legion lists in a few games to get a feel for whether you guys think its balanced or not.

Unfortunately, GW doesn't really do 'official' anymore than they do 'balanced', so it really is up to individual gaming communities to decide. I agree that's an unsatisfying answer, but it's the only one there is right now.
 

Von Calyptra

Black Knight
Mar 3, 2011
378
Boston, MA
Yeah, I noticed that vagueness too. My personal feeling is that this a campaign book, and that the rules contained within in it are specifically for use in that campaign. But it doesn't explicitly say one way or the other.

Apart from trying to answer that question, though, I've barely looked at the rules. I'm much more interested in reading the story.
 

UndeadSi87

Skeleton
Jul 15, 2011
64
As far as I'm concerned with reading the book, and the impression I continually get...these are legit rules free to use when and where you see fit. like some of the posters above said..if your opponent doesn't want to play it...you can't force em..also there not very exciting and clearly don't fancy a challange :P.

If I'm honest this won't change my armies to much, other than the odd unit here and there, to fit the 'Theme' of my current armies, for example my Undead brettonian army just gained a load of TK Skeleton Horseman..just because it means I can have core mounted unit in my VC army. this doesn't change the fact I stil luse my black knights etc. i'll take a screaming skull catapult and skelton archers in an army aswell..purely because I'll use a cannon and zombie handgunners as a stand in..i mean in all this time...the like 5/600 years of Vampire wars they must have resurrected some black poweder weapons lol. Again its al Fluffy.

i'll be playing as Undead Legion next tuesday, i'll let you know how it goes and what my opponent thought of the list because he's more than happy to take it on.
 

Minam

Zombie
Dec 22, 2013
13
What I like of course is the new characters ! Especially Arkhan. However no ward save (almost no save at all) means I will loose him for sure haha.
Mixing VC and TK is awesome. I am considering purchasing the mantic sekeltons archers and catapult to fit with the rest of my army. Also the story book is realy huge... But the guy who has done the french translation could have done a better job, that's a shame...
There is one more thing I dislike though. There are only a new lore, 4 new characters and 2 more units in that book... That's all. No magic items, no new power.

Now I am wondering. What's the point of playing pure VC ?
 

Archamedius

Grave Guard
Jul 25, 2014
265
What I like of course is the new characters ! Especially Arkhan. However no ward save (almost no save at all) means I will loose him for sure haha.
Mixing VC and TK is awesome. I am considering purchasing the mantic sekeltons archers and catapult to fit with the rest of my army. Also the story book is realy huge... But the guy who has done the french translation could have done a better job, that's a shame...
There is one more thing I dislike though. There are only a new lore, 4 new characters and 2 more units in that book... That's all. No magic items, no new power.

Now I am wondering. What's the point of playing pure VC ?

I honestly think it will take a large tournament or circuit (swedish comp/ETC/Adepticon/Etc.) to allow Undead Legions before it become's "official".

As for a reason to play pure VC, There is none IMO. Just play UL with all VC units if you don't have any TK. You at least gain the benefit of not having the army crumble when your General dies which takes the giant bullseye on his back and makes it a tiny bit smaller.
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
Honestly, the only thing IMO that's really useful for VC is the Casket of Souls.

2x Terrors and a Casket gives you a lot of "scream" potential + extra D3 PD per turn. That can be huge with Peripat.

Also, TK's sig Incantation of Desert Winds + our VDM makes for some RIDICULOUS movement potential.
 

Seneschal

Liche
True Blood
May 15, 2008
5,520
Yeah the problem with using TK archers to clear chaff is that you need a lot of them to be successful. They always hit on 5's due to their special rule but it's not all that great. Your hit/miss ratio with a unit of ten (using ten as an example since most chaff clearing shooty units are that size) will mean that you land about two-three shots before you deal with toughness and armor saves.
Tough chaff; Razorgors, solo Beasts of Nurgle, eagles, cheap chariots etc
armored chaff; Dark Riders, Reavers, Marauder Horsemen, pistoliers, Beasts of Nurgle (ward save)

All this means you need to take them in bigger numbers and khemri archers aren't that cheap in my opinion. The Casket is the way to go to clear chaff if there aren't more obvious targets.
 

HERO

Wight King
Mar 25, 2009
434
This gets much better. I'll expand on this a bit more.

-Casket of Souls is pretty much an auto-take since +D3 PD is very welcome, plus the fact you get a board-wide scream.
-The fact you can have bubble Invocation of Desert Winds as a base spell and VDM in the same army is hilarious. You can move your entire legion into his battlelines on T1.
-You can get the Necrotect to give Constructs Regen, then combine that with the Mortis Engine for more Regen.
-In fact, Necrotect can give any unit Hatred that you choose for dirt cheap.
-Now add in Tome Prince and Kings giving My Will Be Done! to Grave Guard. WS5-6 with Banner of Barrows means you hit most things on 2s and wound on 2s.
-Golden Death Mask causes Terror, and units cannot use the General's Inspiring Presence or their BSB's re-roll. Must be nice with the Screaming Banner from VC mixed with a Vampire with Aura of Dark Majesty for -1 Ld.
-Lore of Vampires and Lore of Nehekhara mixed together gives you all kinds of funnies. Incantation of Cursed Blades with Hellish Vigor? Sure, I'll re-roll wounds with KB or HKB on 5+. Righteous Smiting with Vanhels for an extra attack + re-rolls? Add Staff of Damnation and you have +2 attacks. Oh, what about Rod of Flaming Death + Incantation of Vengeance? The entire unit will take a DT test + a S4 hit on every model if it moves at -D3 move. Not to mention Invocation of Nehek + LoV attribute is just a stronger healing mechanic than TK's.

I can go on, but you get the point by now. The fact you can Desert Sands + VDM + TK gaining the ability to march within 12" of the General enough makes this hilarious.
 

Cereal

Zombie
Sep 4, 2014
1
So I am totally new to the WHFB scene (coming from 40k) and jumped on VC right away and luckily got very interested in Nagash stuff thus far. Having said that I have the book and played a game utilizing some of the new rules.

I am pretty sure it states that Undead Legions are to be played like any other WHFB Army and are to be treated as such. Same approach of if someone doesn't want to play with you then you cannot force them to do so, nor really should you if they are going to "limit" your fun.

In the game I played (small 2.4k game with many proxies) I went for an all-out summoning build with a MN lvl4 Lore of Undeath, 2 lvl2 necros with lore of vamps and 1 lvl2 vamp with lore of undeath. Unfortunately I never got any crazy amount of powerdice, but the shining moment was when I summoned 12 zombies in front of my opponents lighting cannon (skaven thing?) and then summoned another 28 zombies in front of his unengaged Rat abomination (my opponent was more concerned with stopping my IoN rather than stopping my summons). Summoning things out of nowhere to slow/tarpit seems incredible for my un-experienced self.

In retrospect, I am not sure if summoning zomfodder was better than just summoning some TK Skeleton Archers, as i do not care if they die, they block the targets i need to, and then also get to shoot (albeit poorly) but is this strategy better or rather something geared more on a meta level? Overall though loving the Undead Legions list and my wallet is now crying as I attempt to purchase 2 armies worth of models + the big guys.
 

Banat

Varghulf
Jul 13, 2014
790
I've bought a TK battalion and I intend to buy Sepulchral Stalkers and probably a Stegadon as a War Sphinx since my TK are Resatran, so use jungle auxillaries, chariots pulled by cold ones etc. I'll be kitting the skeletons in the battalion out as archers. That's 40 archers, 4x RYZE, should be all I need really.

Casket of Souls will need to be Gothicised though, possibly using parts from Garden of Morr.
 

michael

Zombie
Jul 14, 2014
35
I'm pretty sure the whole book and all its rules are basically like the winds of magic expansion. Making this the End of the world expansion/campaign that uses the core book for its rules and highlights any differences.
Like a rule such as " all wizards can take the undead lore" seem like a very important difference!
Before playing a game, surely both players would know before hand yup we are playing an end of the world game. How pissed would you be if you made a standard list, expecting a standard game and some dude shows up with 1200 points of lords in his list??
Ignoring whether taking 1200 points of lords is a good or bad idea or not, the rules of the End of the world change the rules of the official rule book in a big way. GW wouldn't make those rule "official in the core game" because they are not in the business of offering free reference material(typically) and they haven't released all the rules free to read as a supplement to the official rule book. To be honest i haven't got the book in front of me to run off any quotes, will need to have a closer read tonight.

all that aside the combinations offered by this book are epic! and I cant wait to start exploiting different play styles!
 

michael

Zombie
Jul 14, 2014
35
quote from GW web site "Armies of the End Times can also field more Lords - up to 50% - and the brand new spell lore - The Lore of Undeath - allows every wizard, mage and sorcerer to wield the fell magic unleashed by Nagash."

That quote does not say now all armies can.... it says "Armies of the End Times can"

So its quite clear the new rules only apply to games where both players (or tournament organizers) agree to play a "End of Times" game.
 

najo

Mortarch of the Dark Soul
True Blood
Dec 23, 2012
2,046
Oregon
The reason there is confusion is the book speaks in absolutes. It is not written in the same time as storm of magic. It comes off very this is now the way it is and the only word missing is the word official.

I have it on good word that GW staff are telling retailers and other industry people these rules are official. They might even have a white dwarf article staying it so.

I think the best approach right now is allow lore of undeath, allow undead legion, and allow morghasts in vampire counts. Then use BRB army composition.
 

Infernal Skull

Wight King
Apr 21, 2012
442
Exact quote from the book: "Choosing an Army: This section updates the rules for how to pick an army for games of Warhammer. Just as the lore of Undeath is available to any wizard, all armies use these rules for choosing an army."

It then goes on to lay out all the rules for choosing an army. It covers everything including taking a General, the Minimum Three Units rule, and Unit Categories, including that Lord and Hero categories are both up to 50% now.

Pretty clear that these are the rules now. (ie: official)
 

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