Armies Best Phases Compendium

[Mr.Blonde]

Reps to Reiko. I just love ideas like this, and I've seen some great stuff so far too, thus I feel inclined to participate. I'll weigh in for the Beastmen.

MOVEMENT Great
MAGIC Average
COMBAT Good
SHOOTING Horrible

MOVEMENT One of the fastest , if not THE fastest, armies in the game, with the lowest movement rate in the army being 5, and the average being 6, Beastmen start off on a good hoof (see what I did there) towards being at the top of the movement food chain. In addition, our Centigor are M8, our Cygor, Razorgor and Gorgon are M7, we have not one but two flying units and have Chariots as both core AND special. And to finally round things out, our lore's main spell allows us to move a further D6+1'' inthe magic phase as well, we have an item wich does the same but affects all my units within a whopping 36'', and 3 of our core units can ambush, potentially showing up right in our enemie's deployment zone!

Magic Not much to gush about here. We have a few decent tricks up our furry sleeves, most noteworthy is probably the Cygor. A walking, wizard eating, stone throwing monster, able to chuck a monolith onto a scorcerers head and splat him, in addition, any casters within 24'' take Ld. tests, and upon failing treat all failed spells as miscasts, a great magic denial beast. We can also bring herd stones, wich give all of our Bray shamans within 6'' of it, an extra power dice, not too shabby. Other than this, our lore of the wild is rather dissapointing, although one spell allows us to bring in an extra monster at no cost, and we also get the Lores of beasts,shadow, and death to work with a well. Not much else though.

COMBAT Overall, good. Minotaurs, S6 great wepon Bestigors, and Gorgons and Giants are our obvious heavy hitters, but the fact that were so fast is what really helps, allowing us to pick and choose our fights. our Gors are a bit pricey for their stats, but WS4 I3 T4, coupled with an extra hand weapon can be potent in big blocks. Combine that with our 'Primal Fury' rule wich gives us 'Hatred' upon passing a Ld. test in combat, and 'Hatred' as well as 'Frenzy' if we roll snake eyes, and our humble core can surprise even the best of 'em (getting 'Hatred' every turn is nasty prospect for the enemy). What keeps Beastmen from being great in combat IMHO, os lack of atacks. Our troops simply aren't scrappy enough, none of our core does more than one attack per model base, and at 8 pts. a Gor, thats a little underwhelming to say the least. Our characters pack a pretty decent punch though, and really bolster the line (or kick them into place).

SHOOTING Scraping the bottom of the S*** barrel with this phase. Not including spells, and one shooty magic item, we have 3 units that can shoot. One fires BS3 short bows, one is thrown wepons, and finally there is the stone throwing Cygor mentioned earlier. Needless to say, the Beastmen aren't the shooting man's army (wich is a good thing in my opinion). There is little else to say other than, it's our weak phase. We do get some okay shooting denial however in the form of the afore mentioned blitzy nature of the Beastmen, but also in a handy little item called the 'Chalice of dark rain'. Only useable once, this item can ruin your opponent's shooting phase,(especially those all important early game ones) by causing a global -1 to hit modifier on BS, and only allowing war machines to fire ona 4+ for a turn. Decently priced as well, for such a clutch item.

Well that about does 'er. If this thread weren't just on phases per se, I would add that Durability/Survivablility, would be another key touch point to consider, as passive stats like armor, Ld. and toughness can play just as important role as active ones. Oh well, food for thought for another tactica I suppose. Thanks amillion for the posts guys, keep 'em coming.

[Reiko]

Its been a while since I have checked in on this. Thanks for everyone who has added army updates. Rep added!

[Reiko]

All we need is Ogres and we can close this out, clean it up and move it to completed. Anyone care to weigh in on the new AB for Ogres.

[BrockSamson]

Might I be so bold as to add to/edit the Skaven? I would add an entry to magic about cheap, effective warp lightning warlocks, that spell can hurt with a condenser, and a level 1 with that item is only 80 points.

Also, shooting is GREAT, and should be stated as such. Who cares about move or fire when you have debatably the best shooting phase in the game. Skaven are one of the only armies that can win at range and avoid combat to accomplish victory. Also, gutter runners are amazing and not even mentioned.

I would downgrade combat to average, maybe even poor. There really aren't any tough as nails point bargains in their list. The core is quite mundane. Their rat ogres and monk/furnace unit are probably the two scariest, but lack defense and lose their effectiveness when beaten in combat (frenzy). Hell Pits can tear it up, but almost every list has some sort of monster.

[rothgar13]

I'm going to have to disagree with some of what was said in the Beastmen review. The fact that Cygors and Lore of the Wild are mentioned in multiple points in the review is telling in that it's not avoiding the pitfalls of the book. If I were to offer up an evaluation, it'd look like this:

Movement: Good
Magic: Great
Shooting: Horrible
Combat: Good

Let's delve into the specifics, here.

Movement: Basic troops at M5 are nice, as is having Minotaurs move at M6 should you choose to build your army around them. Toss in Harpies flying about the place, cheap Skirmishing troops in Ungor Raiders for flexibility, and Razorgors hurtling along at M7, and you can see Beastmen are fairly good at this. The previous review notes that we have some units that are faster than these (notably Centigors and the Cygor/Ghorgon/Jabberslythe, and it mentions Lore of the Wild to supplement it) - the reason why I'm not including them in my analysis is because they are quite frankly terrible units and the worst Lore of magic in the game, and should not be fielded in the competitive context, at least not often.

Magic: This is where Beastmen do their damage, to be honest with you - and it's all thanks to two nasty items in the Jagged Dagger and the Shard of the Herdstone. The Dagger allows you to get dice off of the kills of the Shaman that carries it, which seems useless at first... until you consider that our Great Bray-Shaman sports a statline similar to our Hero-level fighting character. Load up on the combat magic items, take Lore of Beasts, and you'll get plenty out of this item. That said, the real awesome is with the Herdstone - getting extra dice for keeping Shamans around it does 2 things for us (aside from what it says on the cover). The first is that it gives us access to a signature spell (I highly recommend Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma from the Lore of Shadows for this purpose, because it's the easiest to cast and has the longest range; the best way to keep these guys safe is to have them be WAY out of your opponent's grasp) that we can throw out there 2-3 times a phase, because we have 2-3 guys who know it. Next, it also gives you the ability to bring a ton of useful items to the battle without compromising the allowances of your main characters. All in all, our signature phase, and something we do as good as any army. Just avoid our armybook Lore at any costs - it STINKS.

Shooting: Yeah... we're pretty bad at this. The most reliable shooting the typical Beastmen army offers is BS3 Shortbow shots from Ungor Raiders, who tend to move a lot (so 5's to hit at best).

Combat: Thanks to Primal Fury, Beastmen only need a steady Leadership value (generously provided by characters) in order to excel at grinding combats, thanks to their usually above-average Toughness and Weapon Skill. The Strength on a Gor doesn't seem impressive by default, but the Beast Banner magic item fixes that in a hurry (also worth pointing out - no reason to ever take Shields, always take the extra hand weapon). Bestigors pack one hell of a punch, Minotaurs (when properly supported) can run through just about anything, and even Ungors are more combat-capable than your average tarpit. I'm rating this as "good" instead of "great" because of the reliance on character support (which is one of the main things that makes the undesirable units not worth taking - they don't play nice with our characters).

[leebrown19]

Vampire Counts updated for 8th.
Movement: Good
Magic: Good
Shooting: Horrible
Combat: Good

Movement: Good. Despite having to be within 12" of the general to march and our basic infantry M4, we have loads of options when it comes to fielding a fast moving army. M9 Dire Wolves with vanguard, Varghiests (fast as hell but Frenzied,) Black Knights, Fell Bats, Terroghiests and the Black Coach, you can be in your opponents face Turn 1. Depending on where your general is positioned, in a knight bus or with the foot sloggers; you can be slowed down in the following turn if you don't play it right. But all goes to plan you can be in combat anyway, and with Vanhel's Danse Macabre (also contained in the Book of Arkham) we can potentially move all units within 12" helping us reorganise our battle line.

Magic: Good. It is possible to be very dominant in this phase, with very affordable lvl 4's, and with the Mortis Engine even our low level wizards will be very effective. The downside... rolling twice on the Miscast table, very nasty indeed and with the added repercussions if we miscast on our general it's best to let the +2 to cast do its thing and tone down on the 6 dice spells. As for our lore, its pretty good; the ability to heal our units, raise entirely new units helping us dictate the movement phase. Curse of Years helps you limit the damage your opponent can do in his own phase and we have some very good support spells in the form of Vanhel's and Hellish Vigour (more on those later.)

Shooting: Terrible. Our screams can be very, very nasty with the right target, otherwise they'll bounce off and have poor range to boot*. It's fun and a nice addition since in the past this was a "non-phase", but beyond a double 6 Terroghiest scream on some super elites, or a strangling Mage it's rarely going to change the course of a game.

Combat: Good. Vamp Lords kitted out for combat are very nice indeed, with the Sword of Ogre Strength (common build,) Quickblood & Red Fury you can be putting out 4-8 ASF S7 attacks! Grave Guard are killy as ever; with ‘fear bombing’, Banner of the Barrows, Hellish Vigour and Vanhel's there are numerous ways to get the best out of those Killing Blow great weapons. Black Knights likewise are a force to be reckoned with. Varghiest can also put out some damage but are very, very fragile, the definition of ‘glass cannon.’ Though not getting as much attention with the new toys in the book a powered up Coach or a Varghulf can really do the trick. Also there's the Blood Knights if you're that way inclined! Other than that Zombies are a sure way to get your other units crumbled if you don't leave home with enough or don't pick your fights properly. Skeletons can't fight their way out of a paper bag either. Ghouls can be effective at higher points. Mostly our core act as tar pits leaving our specials to do the killing, as such we have some really good staying power, Crpyt Horros are paticulary tough (and a little killy,) especially with boosted regen from the Mortis Engine which in itself is a good grinder.

*Personally in my last 5 or 6 games I don't think I've rolled less than a 8 on 2D6 for the Terrorghiest or Mortis Engine! I did have this as Poor to begin with but short range + temperamental, you can get by just fine without it.

Cheers,
Lee

[Reiko]

Was just wondering if any of the players who have played a recently updated army (TK, VC, Empire, O&G, Ogres) could post an update on this here.

Thanks

[rothgar13]

I play O&G, and I fight against both Ogres and VC a lot. I can do some reviews of those if no one who actually plays them does.

[zhambah]

I'm going to have to disagree with a couple points on the daemons list

Cpt Sarathai said that daemons don't have access to the core lores, we do, infact we have loremaster ability for 25pts. this is ridiculously cheap, also we have access what is effectively a 6+ caster... not the mention kairos. Our magic is excellent in lower point games and great in higher point games

Shooting, flamers are the most powerful shooters in the game, they are rare, so we can only have so many, but they also handle themselves in combat as well, chaff units cant take them down, so you need to send something decent take them out, which means that something decent isn't killing other things, also with m6 they wont get caught by most things. every general worth their salt knows how dangerous flamers can be.

In my opinion Daemons of Chaos should go something along the lines of
Movement: Good
Magic: Great
Shooting: Average
Combat: Great

The problem with organizing daemons this way, is that they way the book is organised, we can be great in all aspects (except shooting), depending on which god you choose. a quick example is core:
Bloodletters: Great Combat
Pink Horrors: Great Magic
Plaguebearers: Great... weight :p
Daemonettes : Great Movement

My judgments are based on a typical competitive daemons list.

[Reiko]

I know since 40k 6th ed came out Fantasy has taken a backshelf to many gamers, myself included somewhat. However, fantasy is still were my heart is. If anyone is still active with any of the new updated armies, ie: VC, Ogres, now O&G and wants to throw an update on the thread that would be awesome.