King Mekhet

Not sure if it's too late, but I strongly recommend Wargames Factory as a replacement for those awful TK skeletons. They're $20 for 30, with discounts for buying in bulk. I believe that I got 90 for $70 CAD shipped to my door. I also bits ordered 40 TK shields for $16 online, and even still it came in cheaper than GW skeletons. And if you think assembling 40 is bad, I have 80 in my current VC list (2x40), with 30 more to raise up with Lore of Undeath. Urrrrghhhhh. Currently have 60/110 assembled. Shoot me now.

As would he, I'm sure, with 1,400 extra points granted to him by the comp :P

Remember that ethereal moves CANNOT PASS THROUGH UNITS. Only Hex Wraiths can do that. Ethereal also doesn't give them fast cav, so they have to wheel/etc. as normal. Malekith is good, but he is ONE THOUSAND points. Just like Nagash. You are GOING to suffer damage from them. You are GOING to take losses before you drag them down. And you should! You wouldn't complain about not being able to kill half your opponent's bloody army without taking any losses under normal circumstances. All of the ET special characters have weaknesses that can be exploited. Nagash is undead, only has a 4+4++, and relies on a successful magic phase to earn his keep. KFA is only T5 3+4++ and due to the nature of his army is probably running around unsupported. Malekith's ward only protects him against NON magical attacks, so against a vast array of threats he has no protection. Glottkin is I1, so dies to 5/6 purple suns or pit of shades. All of them are solo characters, who cannot refuse challenges if unsupported in combat. KFA made an appearance at a recent tournament we held up here in Canada, and he died in all 3 games. In fact, he died in 5/8 games the Empire player played with him, until he ultimately ditched him for 2 steam tanks and a unit of demigryphs which he felt offered him more flexibility. I personally would rather take 2 Vampire Lords, each level 4, over Nagash (roughly the same points, roughly the same comp hit). Moreover, for the purposes of the team event so long as ONE of your 4 players has access to those tools you're fine.

Weak. My Vampire Lord alone is -78 :P

For what it's worth, I'm hoping that OFCC keeps the higher point cap that distinguished it from other tournaments (in addition to other things). 2,800 is a really fun points level that you don't get to play very often. 2400 or 2500 wouldn't encourage anyone to do anything but tweak their regular tournament lists to hit the Swedish limit (especially since lots of players are practicing nasty Swedish lists for the Masters circuit). In regard to Swedish, I've seen this handled really well in a couple ways: 1) is to just bump the starting value up from 300 to 350; 2) is to give people something like a 300 point allowance to spend on Storm of Magic / Monstrous Arcanum monsters that don't factor into comp. That's both too little to get some of the really broken monsters (emperor dragons and flying k'daii destroyers) while still encouraging people to take some big gribblies.

Is it true that Gottacon is going back on allowing legions lists? If so that's extraordinarily disappointing

I, for one, and super, super stoked about this rules update. 50/50 Lords and Heroes opens up a whack of new and interesting builds. I felt that some of the armies were starting to get a bit stale as you were just seeing the same options over and over again. Now we'll start seeing generals riding dragons, skaven pushing two bells, demons bringing bloodthirsters. TK might actually bring a tomb KING now now that it's not eating into the wizard allowance. Vampires...well I'll admit my bias and say that I'm super excited to bust out both my vampires at the same time (because hero vampires are garbage). It'll be an adjustment, but I think it'll be a good one in the end. Edit: Also, has anybody else been following the epic whine-fest on the WargamersUSA boards? Hilarious. This is what happens when comp gamers get it into their heads that they play this game competitively. How can you call yourself a competitive gamer if you don't know how to deal with filth coming at you across the table?

So...now that 50%/50% lords and heroes is in the official GW FAQ does the "no End Times rules" still apply re: lords and heroes? Or should we just take Swedish as it is (as updated by the time lists are due) and roll with it. I for one would much prefer the extra bit of wiggle room in lords allowance.

Writing a couple sentences takes all of 30 seconds. I submit that if you're not willing to take a few seconds to write about how cool someone was then they probably weren't actually as good of an opponent as you were saying. Remember you can just check nothing and give them a "3". It's only exceptional games you give people points for. As for why this matters? Because if an event claims to be geared towards sportsmanship then it shouldn't have a wishy-washy way of scoring and rewarding it. And I'm personally of the opinion that the 1-5 system is quite inherently flawed in that respect.

See this is exactly what I have the trouble with. What's the point in having a numbering system if you're supposed to give everyone a "3"? All that does is create ambiguity, whereby people might have a game that by rights should be a "3" and they give the person a "2" or "4" instead. I'm not saying that people should be scored entirely based on whether they brought their tape measurers. However the number system is misleading, and a checkbox system could make it more clear that if people are deviating from giving out a "3" there SHOULD BE A REASON! For instance, if instead of giving someone a 1-5, it is assumed that the game was an enjoyable, fun, and friendly game in the spirit of OFCC. Then provide a box for someone to describe an opponnent who gave an EXCEPTIONAL game, or an opponent who gave an UNPLEASANT game. Then include these with a little box asking the person to elaborate on why. What this does is remove ANY uncertainty about how the system is to be rated. Because just coming up against a bunch of generous people giving everybody 4's and 5's shouldn't be determinative of your sports score. Neither should coming up against some salty baby who is a sore loser and takes it out on you with sports scores. Tabling someone doesn't always mean that you are a jerk playing with a mean list...sometimes you just down right outplay someone and they get tabled because that's the fate the dice gods gave them. So, for instance, the sportsmanship scoresheet could look like this: Now of course there's a little more room for nuance in there, but that's basically what I'm pushing at. Rather than just tell people "was your opponent a 1-5," and expect them to honour whatever arbitrary meaning you've given to those numbers, you spell out in clear and unambiguous terms what it is you are asking. Instead of a "4" you ask them to say what made the opponent awesome. That makes them think about it. Instead of giving a "2" you make them think about what made them bad, and actually write that out on the scoresheet. This SHOULD NOT deter people from giving legitimate sportsmanship scores exactly as they do now. However, what it SHOULD accomplish is deter people from being unfairly generous, or unfairly punishing, opponents who don't really deserve it. It also makes the whole system a bit more transparent. You know more than "this person got a 2," but you know explicitly "this person got a sub-standard sports mark because XYZ."

Isn't the purpose of sportsmanship scores to promote sportsmanship? How is this goal advanced by not telling anybody how they were rated?

If you're worried about flat sports scores then add in some bonus points for "going above and beyond." Things that you think is more "in the spirit of OFCC. E.g.: - opponent explained their moves as (s)he made them - opponent cheered on my army's successes as well as his/her own - etc. That way, even if the scores are flat, at least their being so indicates that the objective of "advancing the spirit of OFCC" is being met. In addition, at the VERY END there should be a way to call out bad opponents, provided that you justify that decision. People who give bad games should be docked sportsmanship, but they should at least be given a reason why. This should also NOT be done right on the heels of the game, so that salty losers don't take it out on the victor. Let people cool down, and if they're still upset about the game then there's more chance the grievance is legitimate. I know that I for one have been angry about games at the time, but not once id had a chance to cool off and get over it.

Flat sportsmanship scores are pretty useless IMHO. They're too subjective to be useful, and low scores don't even give a person any idea what they're doing wrong. Were you penalized for bending rules? For lawyering too hard? For bringing a cunty list? For not letting someone take back mistakes? Were you just a dick? Or, like so often happens, we're you just up against some baby who doesn't get the difference between "sportsmanship" and "letting me win." Instead of numbers there should just be a checkbox system. Opponent was fun to play. Opponent played fair. Opponent knew his rule book well. Opponent was friendly. Opponent was a BAD opponent. Opponent was too much of a rules lawyer. Opponent was my favorite opponent of the tournament. Not only would this be more fair, it would also give people feedback that would help them become more fun to play. Much better than just getting a bad sports score and having no clue why.

Oh, I didn't pick up that he's going in an UL list. In that case he's actually kind of cool. You can tag-team him with a brick of chariots and, so long as there are 5 non-champion models in that unit, it'll eat cannonballs for him. Pretty cool. I'd still make him the BSB though, just for that extra combat res. If you're counting on breaking folks on the charge you want all the help you can get. I also quite enjoy that UL can run an all-chariot list: VL on a coven throne Vamp BSB on a coven throne Level 2 necromancer on a corpse cart 3x6 chariots 2x mortis engines Chariot smash!

Yeah, but you can always just adjust the starting value up from 300 accordingly. A few builds will get over-comped, but that's not the end of the world. Most of those lists aren't fun to play against anyways :P Some people also just prefer no-holds-barred play. My army comps out at a respectable 9.9 on Swedish, but I'd still rather play against uncomped armies. I feel that mine is the strongest list I can bring, once my playstyle is factored in, and I don't really want others to be handicapped just because the comp drafters think their build is "too powerful." That said, I *DO* have a problem with unoriginal builds, and to the extent that Swedish discourages that I'm all for it. I really don't get why people have such an issue with special characters? Other than a very select few exceptions they're overcosted and underpowered as a rule, and almost none of them have any protection to speak of. And the exceptions that are worth it generally are so because of how they affect the rest of the army (Epidemius for nurgle builds, Tetto for the Slann's magic phase, Throgg for core trolls, Hellebron and Alarielle because they let you turn their units into deathstars).

Some thoughts: 1) I personally hate zombies. All they can do is tarpit, and even then they want to eat up a lot of power dice on Invocation...far more than I'm willing to spare on them. And if you're not raising zombies left right and centre you're not getting your points' worth out of them. Id far rather have TK skeletons. For +1 point you get better WS, you lose ASL, you get 6+6++, and (best of all) you can take a champion. That makes this actually a halfway worthwhile unit. You can put TK/TP in them to become a decent grinding unit. You can make them a bunker for your vampire lord. Or you can just take a unit of 40+ as an anvil/tarpit, which will hold up a unit for far longer than a unit of zombies will without magic support. If you DO want to take zombies, then be prepared to buy another 80+ of them. If not, then paint the ones you have for Raise Dead (the best spell in the Lore of Vampires by a mile). Oh, and I'm pretty sure the poster above is dead-wrong on the Master of the Dead only raising VC skeletons above starting level. The upgrade specifies "units of skeleton warriors," which both armies have. You can't raise skeleton archers, nor any other skeleton from the TK book, but you CAN raise the 4 point skeleton warriors. 2) Black Knights are worthless except as a delivery system for a vampire lord. Without him they're just really overpriced Grave Guard with weapons that only work on the turn they charge. 3) Not a huge fan of hex wraiths. They're great against new opponents, but veterans know better than to come to the table without magic missiles / attacks for dealing with ethereals. They're a bit more mobile if your general is mounted on a zombie dragon or BK bus (i.e. is mobile enough to catch up and has lots of room in his march bubble). 4) skeleton warriors need 40+ models. Pick up a few boxes of Wargames Factory skeletons to round out the difference. They're cheap as chips and amazing. 5) direwolves are amazing chaff. Pick up 10-15. 6) Vargheists are best run in units of 4 or 6, and always 2 ranks deep to take advantage of monstrous ranks. Vargheists are easily my favourite unit in the whole book, as they really reward smart play. They generally earn me 2-3 times their points back against 80% of matchups (they don't like skinks/WE, or armies with lots of armour). However, if you try to use them like any old combat block you'll find that they're way too fragile and expensive for what you get out of them. 7) Get a terrorgheist and a vampire lord. Every armybook has an auto-include or two, and these are the VC ones. Vampire Lord gets red fury + quickblood + ogre blade, and whatever else you feel like kitting him out with. I strongly recommend a 4++ ward save.

In this instance the internet is right. Coven thrones are just way too damned expensive for what you get. If you're trying to make one useful then the best way to do it is on a hero-level vampire, so at least when it inevitably gets cannoned off the board you're not also losing your general and crumbling your entire army. The build I like is this: He strikes at S6 and with the CT's bound spell off he hits almost as hard as a vampire lord does. He's still close to 500 points, meaning that you can very nearly buy a whole hord of GW GG with BotB just by dropping him, but he still hits decently hard if you can get the charge off and the CT has ethereal movement IIRC. Alternatively you can give him a lance for S7 on the charge, but then he's only S5 after and that's pretty balls. Also, remember that he doesn't give up any of his points until both mount and rider are dead.

Awesome, can't wait! Would it be possible to allow Undead Legions armies this year, assuming that they follow the standard 25-25 lord/her allowances? I'd be totally stoked to bust out my shiny new Nagash book for some actual tournament games.

Lol at the Chaos Dwarf hate. Kdai'a Destroyers are bent, and they can gunline up as hard as dwarfs can, but outside that their army is mid-tier at best. Swedish Comp is a great idea, since it actually gives some direction beyond "bring a list that would rate as a 3 on a subjective scale that we won't tell you anything about." Dropping the points level to 2400 is kind of crap, though. 2,400 point lists preclude a lot of fun and interesting things you can do with a great many books, and would make this event "just another Swedish Comp tournament." Why not keep it at 2,800 and bump the starting point from 300 to (2,800/2,400*300)=350. That way you still get the benefits of comp at a level that allows some more room for creativity.

I was just joking, the Troglodon is an awful, awful monster. It's got a whole bunch of rules that do a whole bunch of things...but none of them well. The channel you can get off a skink priest in a unit of (core) skink skirmishers for less. The predatory fighter perk is kind of cool, but it doesn't justify the monster at all. The spit is underwhelming, and S5 is also laughably bad on such an expensive monster. The trouble with monster lists is cannons, steadfast, poison, and crap initiative. With so many points consolidated into a small number of woulds (the already auto-include) cannons will get points out of you very efficiently. Not being able to break steadfast makes them far too easy to hold up with infantry blocks, or grind down with elite infantry. Poison, especially shots, eats these things for lunch since their primary defensive characteristic is their high toughness and poisoned shooting is readily available in two armies now (WE and skink-heavy lizardmen). And finally, their crap initiative means that anything killy will tear them apart before they get their attacks. Now, of course, notice that many of these choices are comped heavily at OFCC. The armies that can take cannons are limited in how many they can take. Lizardmen are limited in how many skinks they can face. Steadfast is a problem, but more of a speedbump than anything. So if ever there were a time to take this list and be competitive with it, it'd be at an event like OFCC. Now is this list too HARD to bring to a soft event like this? ...I honestly don't know. But I would think that you'll see more armies here that will struggle to take on a list like that than you would at another tournament. Something to think about.

That sounds awesome. Always saddens me that people run the dinosaur army without any dinosaurs. Needs more troglodon, though ;)

Perhaps the effect is disproportionate to the casting cost, but it is still unarguably how the spell operates as written. Why nerf Curse with a houserule when there is a myriad of other things that need it more? Also I don't think it's as bad as you're saying. The TK spell Usirian's Incantation of Vengeance casts on a 10/13 for 18"/36" and debuffs movement in addition to the DT effects. Also note that Curse only operates when you march, charge, flee, or pursue, but NOT make a normal move, whereas Vengeance works when you move at all (and it explicitly states that open terrain is included in "terrain"). You get ward saves and regen against it as well, and it's only causing a single to anything except chariots. It's comparable to Curse of Years from the Lore of Vampires, which casts on a 12+ (which is RiP and gets stronger every turn).

It's hardly an overpowered spell. Even with the RAW interpretation it's just final trans that only does one wound and allows ward/regen saves, and only affects you if you march/charge/flee. It's no purple sun.

Perhaps I'm just being dense, but isn't "build a list to put up a good fight" still building a list to win? Or, at least a list that CAN win? I'm starting to get a sense that what people are getting at isn't so much "don't build to win" but "don't build a list that wins in a way that is un-fun, or which has elements that people will simply not be able to deal with." So you can bring a demon prince so long as he's not kitted out to be unkillable. You can bring demigryphs so long as you're not spamming 1+ armour. Bring magic a strong magic phase so long as its not overwhelmingly so. At least, this is the sense that I'm getting? Because "don't build to win" doesn't make much sense to me: either you're building a list that CAN win, or building a list that CAN'T. If the goal is to "build a balanced list that you think is fun to play against" then that's an entirely different thing. Edit: Thanks for the examples, though. This really helps to give me a target of what I should be shooting at. :)

I play warhammer practically weekly, and I can honestly say that I have no idea what a '3' looks like, or how I'd even go about deciding that. This is because, quite frankly, I don't know what you folks mean when you talk about "WAAC lists." Or, more specifically, what it means for a list to NOT be "WAAC." To me "WAAC" has always been more a function of the player than the list itself. These are people who build and play to win, but do so in a way that is decidedly un-fun for their opponent. Leadership bomb lists, for instance. Or skirmish-trap lists that lock you in place with double-fleeing MSU so that your army does functionally nothing the whole game while they take you apart bit by bit. Or tough-as-nails WoC armies that hit you harder and faster than you can respond. It isn't the list that's a problem, it's the effect. But I don't actually like those lists, because I think they're all one-dimensional. They're "skew armies," that win games by loading up on one element of the game at the expense of others. They'll overwhelm some opponents, but against other prepared opponents they'll dismantle you with laughable ease. And that's the issue I'm having, here. I build lists that I feel are balanced and well-rounded, but I do so because I think that's more competitive. So when someone says "don't bring a WAAC list" I think...well does this apply to me? It's a list designed to win games? Should I build one designed to lose? What's being asked of me here? If someone posted a list and said "Look, here. This is a '3'," then I'd know what to deal with. But as it stands I really have no idea what an OFCC '3' shoud look like, having never played in this tournament before. My goal is to come out and have fun games, and I don't want to jeopardize that, but I also think that my standard list offers a fun game...