Kremmet

Good, good. Moonhead is always the best choice!

Second list looks like more fun to play, but the lack of any demonic shooting is a let down. Small points events get pretty dull when you're not playing in all the phases.

Nothing stops you from spamming a spell unless you fail or it's a 15+ cast. Like I said before, spamming lvl 1's for Purple Sun isn't a good idea. Spamming Fire or one of the better army lores is what breaks this system.

Yeah, spamming Purple Sun with level one's is not the best plan.

Now spamming Vindictive Glare with a lvl 4 NGobbo is pretty gross, but it's still a magic missile so MR becomes much more useful. The real problem hits with stuff like Slaanesh wizards just spamming Acquiescence. It's a low cast and likely only needs two dice with a Lord level which ends in some super spam of your army does nothing let alone how completely busted the Slaanesh End Times spell is.

The magic system itself isn't unusable, but it definitely is not a balanced ruleset to out there with how magic is now.

Unfortunately, none of the regular Malifaux players I know frequent this forum so it might be a little hard to setup. I do know that GnG in Redmond has plans to start running small Malifaux events starting in the new year if you're interested in some games. I doubt they'll fully be story driven as that requires a bit too much commitment to Sparkle Motion for these guys, but you'll fully be able to get games in.

You could also likely done down on most Tuesday nights and get a game. Things get a little rough sometimes due to work obligations, but there's likely at least one person there willing to play.

I still find it weird. My DE lists have been mostly Infantry (corsairs, black guard and darkshards. Heresy by DE standards.) and I thought my DE stood its ground with them.

 

Maybe it was my Kharidyss that brought my list back into a good list.

 

Dark Elves are good no matter how you slice it, or your enemies I guess.

That's because those are all very good units.  Unless you start slamming down harpies and medusas you're not really pulling any infantry in DE that suffer from inadequacy.  High Elves mostly bring better magic items (Banner of Most Fun engage!) and access to faster heavy troops given the limitations on cold one/monster speed. 

Even if they do "legion" the elves together (which I believe would be a poor decision) it won't bring a whole lot to the HE/DE table considering how well fleshed out both factions are.  Sure you'll be able to choose between which mirror unit is best suited for the new lists you build, but the overall efficacy won't increase that much. 

Exalted Flamers really want a unit of Flamers/Tz-marked Furies to make the most of them otherwise SPD 6 really hinders their output.  

Yes, you may use casters you summon in the same phase that they are summoned in. Generally speaking it's not worth summoning casters unless you want a specific arcane item as Nagash tends to eat all the dice himself.

Yeah but it gains +1 to the save each turn doenst it..to a max benefit of 4+?..so by turn 3,assuming Nagash is within range of the bubble he will be getting a 4+ regen along with all the other units in the bubble too.Is that how it works?

 

 Edit..ahh yeah I see what you are saying about that..so units without a regen would get a 6+.I got the changing radius each turn thing mixed in with the +1 to the regen save,heh.

 

  I may change up my Core a bit then if I stick with the Mortis engine.

It also wouldn't be all that great for Nagash as he already has a 4+ ward save and the two don't mix.

Iraf: Nagash knows nine spells with one being Ryze so you'll need one more generation. I highly recommend that roll be on UD as Nagash's worth goes down noticeably per summon you don't roll.

I've seen several people build their Nagash lists with the damage in the base list and just summon in chaff, but I like to split the difference. From personal experience, an "ideal" phase for him is something like a six or eight on doubles before casket. Especially for the first two turns (when your opponent likely has a scroll) it's of paramount importance to get at least one summon off. Otherwise it doesn't matter if you summon some Black Knights to kill my warmachines on turn 4+ as your opponent is likely elbow deep in your soft UD core. Nagash does not often play like normal undead as he generally doesn't have the power or the time to recuperate losses against an even moderately attentive opponent due to his need to summon for the first few rounds. My list functions around this principle.

Nagash (6 Undeath, 1 Vamp, 2 Nehekhara) 1,000

Necromancer (Vamp) 65

3 Skeleton Chariots: standard bearer 175

3 Skeleton Chariots: standard bearer 175

30 Skeleton Archers: Master of Arrows; musician; standard bearer 210

5 Dire Wolves 40

5 Dire Wolves 40

Khemrian Warsphinx 210

Casket of Souls 135

Terrorgheist 225

Terrorgheist 225

2,500 points

The hardest thing to summon is a monster for Nagash and it also happens to be the worst dice-to-points ratio due to the model count limit so I focused on bringing a few before hand. The Warsphinx has done alright in the past, but mostly is just in the list for rule-of-cool and the fact that I don't have a pressing need for anything. Generally I don't waste magic phases trying to cast offensive spells, but if I need to I'll summon a High Liche Priest to do it for me. If Nagash fails a cast, I swap to throwing max dice at the casket (sometimes I do this against artillery lines as well).

Against combat-ready opponents I tend to focus on summoning unboosted swarms so I can get six Spirit Hosts and chaff them up for awhile, but I also have the dogs for some first turn chaff so I can focus on summoning in damage. My go-to summon is Dark Riders with the best unit being Necropolis Knights. Nagash gets to summon six of these bad boys with FC per summon and I tend to run them five wide to slam most hordes (only need 150mm wide to get all five into combat). Another common summon is the middle Ryze to get 20 GG with Great Weapons and the Banner of the Barrows. Summon a moderately armed/armored Tomb Prince to go with them and they can handle most flank/rear engagements. Most of the time this list needs to summon combat blocks to get decisive victories so I stay away from Sepulchral Stalkers, Catapults, and the like (although Stalkers do have situational use against dangerous low-I monsters).

My core consists of what I consider necessary for the list. The chariots are amazing at popping small chaff/fast cav without getting themselves killed and produce quite a volume of attacks to help extricate summoned units. The dogs are there to die, but they have the hidden benefit against smaller non-engagement armies with a long reach and ability to knock an elf or two down by charging. The archers are another nice bit of chaff deletion that secures precious points in my backfield while generally being a low priority target.

The specials in the list are a little light as I focused on monsters over blocks, but the Warsphinx can be a boon. In most of my games he's died turn one or two to shooting and even when he's made it into combat he just gets scythed down (T8 is rather useless when attached to a 5+ AS), but he is a nice model and is squishy enough to attract attention while hard enough to take a cannon or two round one for something more important (read as: anything else not core in this list).

Rares are where the power is for undead. I used to bring the Hierotitan, but found that too many of my points were going into augmenting Nagash's magic which made the games more unbalanced affairs. A lack of balance is how you lose to skilled opponents so I swapped him out after awhile. What I now have in rares is much more deadly with the double TGheist and Casket combo. Terrorgheists are absolutely obscene against most any opponent and, with Nagash's summoning capabilities, sniping out the leadership or just compartmentalizing it gives them a boost that's hard to get with standard VC/UL. The casket is, of course, a very powerful piece of kit and tends to stay hidden away giving me dice the whole game.

In my now-dozens of games with him, Nagash has only actually died once although he's come close several times. Every time this has happened it had nothing to do with cannons or other artillery, but instead some damnable 2D6 hits spell. So I caution you to be obsessive with Nagash's defense. Generally I play very aggressively and treat everything in a list as chaff if the need arises, but this is not something you should do with Nagash. The combination of his absolute need to summon (and how that alters your list choices) and huge point denial if left alive means he's somewhat of a king on the Warhammer chessboard which is not something I personally feel is true of any other piece I field (and I play a lot of armies). Anyway, it may seem obvious to say "don't get Nagash killed," but it is something that you should be thinking about at the start of every movement phase and every dispel attempt. He really is above the rest of the rabble.

Flagellants and MaA kitbash I'd say although you'll have to be careful as the flagellants are much closer to true proportions than the MaA are.

Love the altar! The witch hunter is interesting. It looks like the robe is a little flat in its highlights and I'm not sure why you're trying to draw the eye to his one flask, but the sculpt is great and the paint job's a good 'un.

There's also the bit where a phase of five or fewer natural dice leaves your opponent with basically no dispel.  You're going to have a dominant magic phase unless everything starts dying.

Also Exalted Flamers aren't much good when they can't march and shoot (they can't join the Raiders to gain Skirmish).

Love the carpet bull plan as Flying Carpet=best plan always.

Also, you know, the whole part of Nagash where he lives after losing to Walach and frees Deathclaw from the Chaos army. And where Martak was already revealed to be the new Supreme Patriarch. None of that is news as it all happens in chapter four.

Except casting the spell is entirely irrelevant as it's about creating dice.

The best way to do it is a single model takes the hit as the unit is generating dice and not every model.  Another problem with GW never actually defining what a model is.

Yep, I'm with AgentP on this one.  

So I got a chance to play the list last night.  It was Empire VS Nagash in a 2500 pts Battle for the Pass.  My opponent's list, as I remember it, was something like:
 

Upgraded Valten
Mounted lvl 4 on Light

Luthor Huss

Mounted BSB

20ish Inner Circle Knights w/ full command and great weapons

6xDemigryphs w/ full command

6xDemigryphs w/ full command

Hurricanum

This is how things looked after deployment:

My deployment from left to right was:

Warsphinx

Terrorgheist

Nagash

5xDirewolves

3xChariots

30xArchers w/ Necro

3xChariots

5xDirewolves

2xSSC

From my left, his was:

6xDemis

Hurricanum

Inner Circle with all his characters

6xDemis

Turn one saw the Empire push forward hard and the Terrorgheist being taken out by an IF Shem's (boosted version netting him ten hits and eight wounds).  In response, the Undead backed up and sent the dogs forward to chaff.  One SSC nailed the Hurricanum and killed it while the other (predictably) misfired and was unable to fire.  On the summoning side of things I brought in a unit of 20xGG w/ great weapons and the Banner of the Barrows along with six Spirit Hosts.

As shown above, turn two saw the ICK go into the summoned hosts while the demis both went into dogs.  There was an attempt at Timewarp, but Nagash handily dispelled it.  Valten being the only guy in the ICK with a magic weapon (I also dispelled an attempt at the magic weapon prayer) was rather impressive when he rolled three ones for his wound multiplier and failed to kill a host.  The hosts ended up losing a few of their number and both dog units are now yelping in Hell.  

Undead turn saw Nagash and the 'sphinx go into one demi unit while the GG rear charged the entangled ICK.  Magic saw a scrolled unit of snake knights, Smiting on the GG, and a failed attempt to summon a character (3D6=three ones).  Nagash and his kitty proceeded to slay three demis while taking no injuries of their own (to be fair, Nagash did all the work as the cat isn't exactly great at being a monster), but they stuck.  The GG slew 12 ICK while taking a bit of damage themselves.  Valten being Stubborn stopped them from fleeing.

At this point, I stopped taking pictures as we were laughing and eating, but things didn't really move from their positions from here on out.  Highlights were the GG being slain, Nagash taking exactly seven wounds from an IF Shem's and, of course, failing all seven ward saves.  This was after he summoned some snake knights who, along with the catapults, took care of the other demis before taking out Valten and friends for good.

Ended up a 1620 VP victory for Nagash.

Things I learned: 

Taking saves can suck it.  Also, the list is deceptively lacking in armor cracking.  I'm definitely not gonna swap things around now as it's not the biggest deal, but it is definitely something I need to keep in mind while playing.  While the Empire player's list wasn't exactly optimal (we discussed ways to make it more effective while staying with his theme of ALL COMBAT ALL DAY) it still showed me some glaring weaknesses the list has such as what to do about death stars.  I'm not super worried about elven 'stars, but a well placed Chaos 'star (a very real concern as I assume End Times book two will lead to a large bump in the local population) and ogre 'stars are a real problem.  I could swap some of my lore choices around on Nagash to combat this as he is a death pimp, but I think it'll come down more to what I'm summoning and when.  I might place some increased emphasis on units like Cairn Wraiths, Stalkers, and Black Knights against such foes.

Don't forget the -1 to be shot.

You know, I loved the old EG, but the new ones are ace and I especially like the idea of them with the Ranger hoods.  Now to only find a use for those great Ranger weapons.  Maybe swaps on characters for magic weapons?

Well that is poopy. I still like running Dark magic in WE, though, especially if you're using comp.

Pretty close to the WE army I was kicking around in a few practice games a bit ago.  Biggest thing I'd change is the lore on the level two.  Personally, I absolutely love Dark magic.  Almost every spell is a winner and, with Power of Darkness, you get the +1 Str of Wildform anyway plus a chance at some dice.  Granted, +T is also phenomenal and you can target more than your own unit, but spells like Word of Pain, Doombolt, and Arnzipal's strike my fancy over what beasts gets you (especially as you're so character light).

Or, if they forfeit, they can just give you the 20-0.  It's not like W-L-D gives them any more points in a forfeiture anyway.

1-200 10/10

201-400 11/9

401-600 12/8

601-800 13/7

801-1000 14/6

1001-1200 15/5

1201-1400 16/4

1401-1600 17/3

1601-1800 18/2

1801-2000 19/1

2000+ 20/0

This is the system I see most commonly although it does vascilate.

Terror was not weaker in the last edition.

1)  You didn't get BSB rerolls.
2) It worked when being charged along with charging.
3)  You had access to the more powerful Fear of 7th.

Not saying I'm going with either side in this argument, just pointing out that Terror is not more powerful in 8th.