I am fairly new, so wondering if there are any units you find yourself relying/working really well for you in games. Could you also explain why it has been so good for you, eg, cheap pointswise, good for mortal wounds, etc. It would be nice to get for me (and other players) to build up a picture of what works for others and how they make units work for them.
what units do you rely on?
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I can't speak for all, but I think the consensus is that Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon & Mournguls are both hard hitting and survivable, as well as being highly mobile and self-healing.
Morghast Archai are very reliable, rend -2 damage 3, they simply kill things.
Spirit Hosts / Hexwraiths are nice at tarpitting enemies reliant on rend.
Zombies/Dire Wolves are good at tarpitting enemies that deal low amounts of high quality wounds (like mortal wounds).
I don't play Flesh Eater Court, but I hear Crypt Horrors are pretty fighty.
I don't play Tomb Kings Either.
Morghast Archai are very reliable, rend -2 damage 3, they simply kill things.
Spirit Hosts / Hexwraiths are nice at tarpitting enemies reliant on rend.
Zombies/Dire Wolves are good at tarpitting enemies that deal low amounts of high quality wounds (like mortal wounds).
I don't play Flesh Eater Court, but I hear Crypt Horrors are pretty fighty.
I don't play Tomb Kings Either.
I don't there's anything that's just plain garbage. I've done just as good with Flesh Eaters as I have with Zombies as I have with Carsteins as I have with Tomb Kings. I think it just depends on what your flavor is and then using things that synergize well with it.
You need to separate the levels of goodness. I'd say 3.
First level: There are some models that, objectively, brings to the table a lot, and their "price" in points is low for their real efficacy.
Mourngul is an example, and so are the Necropolis Knights (Tomb Kings), or the ghoul king on terrorgheist.
Second level: Almost every unit got its niche, and can give truly good results, if employed in the best way. In this place, fall a lot of units: zombies, dire wolves, skeleton horsemen, skeleton archers, hexwraiths and so on.
You need to employ them wisely, and they'll serve you well. Employ them unwisely, and they will be wasted points.
Third level: they're almost unsalvageable. No matter the tactics you are employing, those units cost too much for what they do, and they do it in a bad way. Tomb swarms is an example, they're just terribad.
First level: There are some models that, objectively, brings to the table a lot, and their "price" in points is low for their real efficacy.
Mourngul is an example, and so are the Necropolis Knights (Tomb Kings), or the ghoul king on terrorgheist.
Second level: Almost every unit got its niche, and can give truly good results, if employed in the best way. In this place, fall a lot of units: zombies, dire wolves, skeleton horsemen, skeleton archers, hexwraiths and so on.
You need to employ them wisely, and they'll serve you well. Employ them unwisely, and they will be wasted points.
Third level: they're almost unsalvageable. No matter the tactics you are employing, those units cost too much for what they do, and they do it in a bad way. Tomb swarms is an example, they're just terribad.
What level do you reckon the various mortarchs fall into? I hear people think they are not great, which is a shame as I love the models!
I would be interested in how any points changes that get made will effect which level things are
I would be interested in how any points changes that get made will effect which level things are
I think General's Handbook 2 might need to take a look at monster point values across the board. Many of them just die to elite units like Retributors, Kurnoth Hunters, Stormfiends, Morghasts etc..
They also get bad, very quickly. Sometimes being down only 6 wounds and now suddenly their stats have toggled down in effectiveness significantly.
Personally I prefer behemoths/monsters and I would obviously want them to be stronger, but as it stands many of them are very squishy and often not that hard to limit their effectiveness because of ranged spam, and huge base sizes.
They also get bad, very quickly. Sometimes being down only 6 wounds and now suddenly their stats have toggled down in effectiveness significantly.
Personally I prefer behemoths/monsters and I would obviously want them to be stronger, but as it stands many of them are very squishy and often not that hard to limit their effectiveness because of ranged spam, and huge base sizes.
Well, yes, monsters tend to become less strong with wounds taken (a mechanic I like, BTW), but it's not always so. The hitting power of a Frostlord on Stornehorn is almost the same even with low wounds, while Daemons do indeed suffer.
They are a good choice, but they're not broken tier.
Arkhan: 340 pts, In CC it basically relies on the Ebon Claws, and they will lose power with wounds taken (and cannot heal!). Arkhan is truly powerful in buffing your overall casting, and this can be useful: 24" range and the +2 to cast can be solid if you're fielding 3 casters (for example: Arkhan itself, a vampire lord and a Necromancer).
Mannfred: 460 pts, really costly nd "only" save 4+. But it's a brute melee monster, that ignores the first wound and can heal itself. Its magic furtherly increases its combat prowess, and the command ability is a nice buff with a large range. Mannfred will focus the enemy's attention, no doubt about it.
Neferata: 440 pts, almost the same as Mannfred. In CC it's similar, but her abilities are more situational. The dark mist spell can be truly useful (ignore rend!), nd the command ability is probably the best one.
They all are good (and are all highly mobile, which is a very valuable asset), but you obviously need to build your army around them, as each one offers different goodies.
Up until recently, I'd have argued that Settra the Imperishable and Necropolis Knights were the two most powerful units available to the Undead, both extremely strong and flexible, and both hideously underpriced in points for what they bring to the table, especially in combination with each other. And from what I hear this was borne out on the tournament scene, with 'Settra plus 2x6 Necroknights' being a rather obnoxiously common undead core.
Previews from the generals handbook 2 show that both of these units are getting dramatically more expensive, shifting them from 'outright broken' to 'slightly overpriced, but still powerful enough individually to be worth it if you don't run too much and keep the fat trimmed in the rest of your list.'
You'll no longer be able to field enough necropolis knights to overrun the entire table, so you'll have to choose your targets, weight a flank, and use other cheaper units to tie up the rest of the opposing army while your necroknights pick apart one target at a time.
Settra is harder to justify, as he's kind of fragile for his new points cost, but nothing else in the faction buffs like he does, so there's still some justification.
Otherwise, necromancers are amazing, large skeleton warrior blocks are very good, all of our monsters and monster-riding heroes are pretty strong, heralds are great if you're running multiwound deathrattle units (like chariots and necroknights), wight kings with black axes are solid generals in low points games, as are tomb kings with shields, especially if you're also running one or more heralds. Zombies aren't strong, but they let you skimp on battle line points and still mob up into a single usable larger block, which frees up a lot of flexibility in list construction. Spirit hosts are very good. Liche priests are alright. Screaming Skull catapults don't deal a lot of damage, but the bravery penalty is very nice with screams. Chariots are good if you're running tomb heralds. Corpse carts are great if you're running both zombies and some casters. Banshees are nice if you can inflict bravery debuffs. If you aren't running a named general like settra, ruler of the night and red thirst are both really strong options, as is the tomb blade for keeping a monster-riding melee hero in top form.
The only undead units I've run in AoS that I didn't like at all were Black Knights (their offense is just super disappointing, whoever wrote their rules seems to have thought they were mounted skeletons, when they're supposed to be mounted wights), the black coach (it's not awful, but it doesn't really contribute much either), the tomb-king-on-chariot (he's a tax for the chariot formation and not much else), and the casket of souls (way too short ranged for an immobile piece, doesn't hit very hard at that, and the casting boost only affects liche priests instead of all death casters like the mortis engine or corpse cart).
Most other stuff I've tried is... alright. Not bad exactly, but not especially impressive either. Like, I wouldn't exactly call morghasts bad, but even at the new increased points costs I'd take a trio of necroknights over a pair of morghasts every day. Same with most the other stuff I haven't mentioned. Grave & Tomb guard are alright for elite infantry, but they don't really fight all that much harder than the same points of regular skeleton warriors, which are battleline. Archers can be nice for the flexibility to apply wounds at range, but their punch-per-point is rather low. Etc.
Again, I haven't played much with or against Flesh Eaters, so I can't really identify any particular winners or losers there.
Previews from the generals handbook 2 show that both of these units are getting dramatically more expensive, shifting them from 'outright broken' to 'slightly overpriced, but still powerful enough individually to be worth it if you don't run too much and keep the fat trimmed in the rest of your list.'
You'll no longer be able to field enough necropolis knights to overrun the entire table, so you'll have to choose your targets, weight a flank, and use other cheaper units to tie up the rest of the opposing army while your necroknights pick apart one target at a time.
Settra is harder to justify, as he's kind of fragile for his new points cost, but nothing else in the faction buffs like he does, so there's still some justification.
Otherwise, necromancers are amazing, large skeleton warrior blocks are very good, all of our monsters and monster-riding heroes are pretty strong, heralds are great if you're running multiwound deathrattle units (like chariots and necroknights), wight kings with black axes are solid generals in low points games, as are tomb kings with shields, especially if you're also running one or more heralds. Zombies aren't strong, but they let you skimp on battle line points and still mob up into a single usable larger block, which frees up a lot of flexibility in list construction. Spirit hosts are very good. Liche priests are alright. Screaming Skull catapults don't deal a lot of damage, but the bravery penalty is very nice with screams. Chariots are good if you're running tomb heralds. Corpse carts are great if you're running both zombies and some casters. Banshees are nice if you can inflict bravery debuffs. If you aren't running a named general like settra, ruler of the night and red thirst are both really strong options, as is the tomb blade for keeping a monster-riding melee hero in top form.
The only undead units I've run in AoS that I didn't like at all were Black Knights (their offense is just super disappointing, whoever wrote their rules seems to have thought they were mounted skeletons, when they're supposed to be mounted wights), the black coach (it's not awful, but it doesn't really contribute much either), the tomb-king-on-chariot (he's a tax for the chariot formation and not much else), and the casket of souls (way too short ranged for an immobile piece, doesn't hit very hard at that, and the casting boost only affects liche priests instead of all death casters like the mortis engine or corpse cart).
Most other stuff I've tried is... alright. Not bad exactly, but not especially impressive either. Like, I wouldn't exactly call morghasts bad, but even at the new increased points costs I'd take a trio of necroknights over a pair of morghasts every day. Same with most the other stuff I haven't mentioned. Grave & Tomb guard are alright for elite infantry, but they don't really fight all that much harder than the same points of regular skeleton warriors, which are battleline. Archers can be nice for the flexibility to apply wounds at range, but their punch-per-point is rather low. Etc.
Again, I haven't played much with or against Flesh Eaters, so I can't really identify any particular winners or losers there.
Early on I used my Necrosphinx in combination with Vlad which is nice, or GG with Vlad works well if you can get into combat. I've used Blood Knights in combination with a Vampire Lord on Terror's spell to double movement. A Terrorgheist has always been my best friend, and its incredibly good with the Abhorrent on top. More recently I've depended on hordes of ghouls and have had both good and bad experiences - good when they hit first with a billion attacks and things die, bad when they get blown out hard from popular horde obliteraters like Drycha or a Gaunt Summoner, or simply taking the bad end of a Khorne beating stick at full velocity.
40 skeletons are badasses
It's a lot of fun when Spirit Hosts start to massacre, but it gets less fun real fast when they are stuck with a -1 to hit debuff.
Neferata is a bad b. I've had her eat 1000 points without a wound on her. Nobody takes her because of the named char bs, but I've never regretted it.
40 skeletons are badasses
It's a lot of fun when Spirit Hosts start to massacre, but it gets less fun real fast when they are stuck with a -1 to hit debuff.
Neferata is a bad b. I've had her eat 1000 points without a wound on her. Nobody takes her because of the named char bs, but I've never regretted it.
Aranei
Ghoul
I use Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, Mournghul, Heinrich Kemmler, Zombies or Skeletons (more of the former than the latter), Screaming Skull Catapults (better this than no shooting - softening an enemy monster or killing outright a hero is an important ability, and Bravery debuff combines with scream attacks and Mournghul aura). I usually leave 60, 80, 120 or 160 pts for reinforcements pool - summoning zombies or cairn wraiths (60-120 pts) or skeltons/banshees (80-160 pts) can help capturing an objective, or just surprise an opponent.
I think Conesus is that vampire lord on Zombie Dragon hard hitting. As well as highly mobile. Early on I used Necrosphinx in combination with Vlad which is nice .well if you can get into the compact.
I generally use a vampire on zombie dragon, fantastic now that itcan actually work, for a mobile threat.
Skeleton warriors are my go to mainstay. Cheap and brural when in mass numbers. Have had 30 eat a bloodthirster.
Spirit hosts for my will not move unit. Terrain and Mystic Shield, that armor sace stays for days.
Skeleton warriors are my go to mainstay. Cheap and brural when in mass numbers. Have had 30 eat a bloodthirster.
Spirit hosts for my will not move unit. Terrain and Mystic Shield, that armor sace stays for days.
In addition to what has already been said I tried out a royal warsphinx in my last game with GHII points and although it had it's cost increased and it's not as effective as it were, it's still a beast. Command ability to buff wound rolls, works well with liche priest's spell and grave guards. It also deals out good dmg especially with red fury and it's got good defence due to stone shaping spell and halved wounds. suffered only 4 wounds from a unit of 30 Glade Guards with -3 rend attack. other than that i find the necrotect to be ok if you're playing Ushabti, deathrattle and catapults. Also the Sepulchral Stalkers are great ambushers to take out pesky enemy characters or warmachines