King Mekhet

Are you sure it's the "US Masters"? Looks to me like all the top players are Canadian ;)

The WD is not a ruling; it's just one guy's opinion. Until it's in an official FAQ it's open to interpretation, and the person in WD's interpretation is wrong based on the clear RAW. Curse makes the unit treat ALL terrain as DT, and "open ground" is a type of terrain.

Trouble is that I have no idea what you (or the ratings committee) thinks is a WAAC list. If there were example lists posted for each army that had received a '3' rating then we might have some idea, but as it stands many of us here are shooting in the dark. Moreover, I have extreme issues with conflating a "fluff list" with something that isn't "WAAC." A big block of witch elves with the cauldron, paired with a big block of executioners and dark riders, is a "fluffy Khainite list." It's also hard as coffin nails. Mono nurgle demons or warriors is a "fluff list," but is hard as nails. An all-mounted Empire army is a fluff list, but it hits like a ton of bricks. Some armies don't even really HAVE "fluff" choices. What does a "fluffy" VC list look like? A fluffy TK list? Does that just mean taking [big bad swear word]ty choices? Does a giant in a WoC netlist make it fluffy? I really have no idea. The pass-fail system makes that fair, in that people with no past experience with the event and the kind of lists people bring aren't getting essentially arbitrarily penalized. We're told if our lists are too hard, and that's that.

Wood Elves are a bad matchup for woodies because you'll never, ever catch them. They'll run around you, blocking your hordes with double-fleeing eagles, and deleting the majority of a horde a turn with withering+weight of fire+magic missiles. It's what they do to any CC-only army. All you can do is hope the WE player screws up and lets you catch him, otherwise it's curtains.

Big fan of the comp change. Though I'm absolutely behind the spirit of the old system, dividing battlescore by comp was pretty punitive...especially when there's not very much guidance on what a '3' rated list should look like.

Oh of course not - that's exactly my point. No matter how the rule was intended to work this is 100% unarguably the way it is written to work. So if we're having a thread about official rulings this ought to be one of those covered.

Strength of Khaine: Friendly models with the Murderous Prowess special rule in the units within 6" of the Cauldron of Blood re-roll failed To Wound rolls. Murderous Prowess: Models with this special rule (but not their mounts) re-roll all To Wound rolls of a 1 when making close combat attacks. That right there is the only thing restricting MP from applying to mounts. If you look at the entry on special rules for (as an example) cold one knights: Special Rules: - Always Strikes First (Riders only) - Fear - Hatred (High Elves)(Riders only) - Murderous Prowess - Stupidity - Thick-skinned The whole model has MP, therefore if it's within 6" of the cauldron the whole model gets SoK. Now the mount doesn't get the BENEFIT of MP, but it still has the rule...which means it still gets SoK, by RAW.

As Kremmet pointed out, this is the common-sense interpretation but NOT the RAW interpretation. RAW is that the whole model has Murderous Prowess, but that only the rider actually benefits. Strength of Khaine applies to any model with Murderous Prowess...meaning that it technically bypasses that restriction. Now the common-sense interpretation is to read into this rule "rerolls all to-wound rolls instead of only rolls of a 1." This would carry over the restrictions on MP, meaning that it wouldn't apply to mounts (including chariots), crossbows, impact hits, spells, or anything else. But that's not how the rule is actually worded. The way it's actually worded is that Strength of Khaine does not replace MP, but is a supplemental rule given to any model with the rule. That means that mounts get it, even though they don't benefit from MP normally. It also means that crossbows get it, since Strength of Khaine is not limited to CC attacks. If you really want to push your luck, it applies on damage spells as well. Now I'd also argue that pressing this issue in a friendly game makes you a bit of an [big bad swear word], but that doesn't diminish the fact that I fully believe this position to be 100% supported by the text of the rule. That leaves room for disagreement, which is what official rulings are there to prevent.

1) The Tomb Kings rule "My Will Be Done" allows a unit containing a Tomb Prince or Tomb King to use that models UNMODIFIED weapon skill instead of their own. Does this then mean that the unit is unaffected by spells or effects that modify weaponskill (since these would alter the unit's weaponskill, which they ignore in favour of the unmodified weaponskill of the TK/TP)? 2) Lore of Light: the spell Net of Amyntok requires a unit that "casts spells" to pass a strength test or be "unable to perform that action." If a unit contains one or more wizards, does this require that unit to pass one test PER spell (and thus take the damage for every fail), or test one time per PHASE (and only take the damage once). 3) Must the dwarf flame cannon place it's flame template directly along the trajectory of fire, or does it scatter the "cannonball" marker then place the template facing away from that marker on any angle it wishes (don't have the exact rules on me, but it potentially reads ambiguously). 4) Does the Dark Elf Cauldron of Blood affect ONLY close combat rolls to wound (arguably it allows ALL models with the Murderous Prowess rule to reroll ALL failed rolls to wound, including crossbows or chariot impact hits).

The best options in the book, by far, are these: Demon prince, on nurgle (WS9, so anything WS4 or less hits him on 6's while characters hit him on 5s), with a 1+ save (immunity to most small-arms fire), a dragonbane gem (near immunity to fire...and metal magic), wings (really tough to block him from being where he wants to be), and soul feeder + sword of striking (between hitting on 2+ and stomps he will regenerate wounds faster than pretty much anything can get through his defenses). Give him 4 levels of magic on death for extra fun. Character (hero or lord) with a 4++, mark of tzeentch (now a 3++) and third eye of tzeentch (now a 3++ where you reroll 1s...so very nearly a 2++). Combine this with a 1+ save versus shooting and a demonic steed for 3 wounds (on a hero) and immunity to killing blow and you've got yourself an "unkillable" hero Chariots as core (because they're just as fast as warriors, but cheap, flexible, T5, and hit like trucks) Skullcrushers (hit hard, extremely durable, fast) Chimera (very high damage output, solid defense with T5 4+4++, very fast with fly) So now that you know what the powerful options are...don't take them. Well...maybe take 1 or two, but not all of them. Certainly not a demon prince. I like to say that people who take all of these are just "only playing to prove that the internet is right," because really...what else are you doing? Everyone knows that list can win games, so why are you bothering? Make something of your own! Make it cool! Own it! Don't just run what everyone else already knows is great. Running bricks of foot warriors is cool, for instance. Running chaos knights is cool as well. Gorebeast chariots are hella mean. Doing a mono-god list that ISN'T Nurgle. Heck, run a giant! Pretty much any deviation from the "norm" of warriors is going to win you a lot more friends than running the "same old" list that we've all seen a thousand times. Because not only does that list always look the same, it always PLAYS the same. Booooooooooooooring. Warriors are probably still the strongest book on the scene at the moment. The only thing they have going against them is that their playstyle is fairly one-dimensional, and everybody has played it enough times to know the dance off by heart.

No surprise, I'm being flaky again and changing my mind :P I went to assemble my terrorgheist yesterday and was totally uninspired by the model. So I did what I always do with a model I'm not a fan of, and start hacking away at it to see if something inspires me. And I was! I've decided to use the zombie dragon head and body, and heavily convert it using some necroknight bits and green stuff into a giant Cobra Dragon thingy. I'll post some pictures to my PLog once I get it in some semblance of a shape. Going to try and tackle the Hood tonight with plasticard and greenstuff. Whilst going through my bits I also had some inspiration for a coven throne using a spare Warsphinx howdah that I picked up. As a result I think I'm going to go aaaaaaaaaaaallll the way back to my second list (coven throne + terrorgheist + vargs + crypt horrors). I don't need the hex wraiths if I'm only protecting a single lord, and frankly I'm extremely unimpressed with the hex wraiths as is. They're just too bloody fragile. So the final list (barring tweaks) will be this: Still deciding on lore for the casters. Either the priest/vampire will be death/death or vampires/shadow. The level 2 on shadow I've found a bit underwhelming, though that might just be without the periapt. Either way, this list lets me bring all the models I want to build. From hereon out I'm going to try and stick with this list in mind for OFCC and put my work into modelling. I'll update this thread as I update my painting log (hopefully there'll be some pictures of my WiP cobra dragon tonight!)

The fragility of the two hero vampires made me uncomfortable, so instead I went back to the vampire lord and toned down his blendiness a bit to make him more survivable. Hero vampire trades red fury out for a bit of survivability as well. Makes me quite a bit more comfortable to run the two of them on their own now. I decided to drop the terrorgheist from this list to soften it up a bit, and am running a few more hex wraiths instead. Dropped the spirit host (noooooo) for fellbats to make the ethereal more manageable. New wood elves gives this list nightmares, as does anything with lots of magic missiles, but we'll see how things go. I'm going to run a 2,500 version of this list next Wednesday (sans master necro, and with a terrorgheist instead of the second unit of hex wraiths essentially) to see whether I like it. Right now the biggest problem I have is dealing with Combat Res. Lost my vampire lord the other day because he rolled 4 1's to wound (against clan rats, of all things), and blew up from SCR (lost combat by 2, had already taken a wound). Grr. It happened because I was too afraid to run him and his lady around on their own, only charging him out of safety at the last moment. So hopefully this list solves some of these problems. I also just need to get a little more ballsy with the two of them...nothing ventured nothing gained, right? Most of this is growing pains, transitioning from a very static TK playstyle. But I'm learning...slowly...:P Edit: On a separate note, my only concern about this list is that...while it would certainly be a fun list to play *with*, does it look un-fun to play against?

Oops. Blast, I actually didn't catch that. Saw "this penalty is cumulative..." and my beardy mind took over. The pains of learning a new book. Hmmm. I can switch one vamp over to Red Fury by dropping a Varg but only -1 LD isn't going to be breaking much. I'm going to be much more reliant on D&D if that's the case, which I don't like. As for squishiness, it's definitely a concern of mine. 2+ rerollable is strong, while I was hoping that the Nightshroud+Beguile combo would protect the other one (or both, when running them together). The other option is dragonhelm + dawnstone on one and enchanted shield + tal of pres on the other, for 2+RR and 2+4++. Makes them both tanky, though without Red Fury not very killy. I could also give them BOTH Red Fury, though I'm kind of liking the -1LD in conjunction with Death. We'll have to test it out over a few games. As for the lack of a Blender Lord, it's definitely giving up a good tool. However I really like the flying vampires angle, and I'm trying hard to make it work. I disliked the risk of my general flying around on his own, though perhaps I should give my list another shot first. Or perhaps swap RF out for Beguile + AoDM on my old build. ...choices...

So I have 3 practice games in now with the flying vampire lord, and I must say that I'm not overly impressed with him. He's too expensive and too vulnerable to want to risk running around on his own, and I've recently been thoroughly convinced that I indeed cannot charge two characters out of the same unit (ruining my plan of charging them out from behind the safety of a crypt horror wall). I've also found that they have difficulties breaking anything, since all my mobile vampire units (including the vargheists) are incapable of breaking steadfast. As a result I've switched over to the idea of running them both as hero-level vampires instead (since I love the models I have for them, and want to make them work somehow). Instead of running them with Red Fury I've given them both Aura of Dark Majesty to help them break steadfast units. Additionally I've switched them from Shadow to Death, since I found the former had too many high-cost spells to really be of use on a level 2. Lords 260pts Vizier Neferkare (General) Master Necro Black Periapt Heroes 269pts King Mekhet Vampire Aura of Dark Majesty, Heavy Armour, Hellsteed, Sword of Might, Dawnstone, Enchanted Shield, Level 2 (Death) 264pts Queen Ahi Vampire AoDM, HA, Shield, Lance, Night Shroud, Dragonbane Gem, Level 2 (Death) 90pts Priest Skraul Khaddie Necro Level 1 (Vampires), Dispel Scroll Minimum Core 220pts Skeletons 1 skeletons x37 FC 220pts Skeletons 2 skeletons x37 FC 105pts Skeleton Bunker skeletons x15 Champ, Standard of Discipline 80pts 4x5 Dogs Direwolves x10 none Special 488pts Royal Guard Grave Guard x34 Great Weapons, Full Command, Banner of the Barrows 150pts Hex Wraiths Hex Wraiths x5 none 194pts Vargs 1 Vargheists x4 Champ 194pts Vargs 2 Vargheists x4 Champ Rare 225pts Terrorgheist Terrorgheist x1 none Total: 2799 The version of the list I'm running right now at 2,500 has crypt horrors instead of the grave guard, but is otherwise pretty much the same. I really like the mobile vampires with the vargheists, it's just a matter of making them more effective and less risky. I think this list hits the right balance.

Yeah that's why I finally just broke down and switched. I was so bloody frustrated with this book it just wasn't fun for me anymore. For reference here's the list I was running: 2500 points Hierophant - Level 4, Nehek, dispel scroll Banishment Mage - level 4, Light, powerstone Level 1 - light, forbidden rod Level 1 - light 20 archers, champ mus 3 chariots, std mus 3 chariots, std mus 5 horse archers 5 horse archers Ramhotep 33 tomb guard, FC, halberds, razor standard 5 snakes, std mus Catapult Casket Casket Light helped the snakes blend and the tomb guard hit first. I also used Timewarp for surprise charges (people forget about the double movement). Double casket mostly for redundancy (magic phase fails when they die). Chariots split into two units for extra threat range, splitting fire to clear chaff, and because I found people were more likely to play chicken against them instead of just chaff them and charge in. The list was strong but incredibly un-fun. I've tried hard to make something that was less static (running death instead of light, for instance) but none of it really worked well. I wish TK had access to shadow. And a march bubble like VC have. With those two things I could build a list that I'd really enjoy. Instead I just went and built that list in VC.

Until they realize we can't march, and all that jealousy fades away :P I agree though that in an infantry vs. infantry matchup where you're able to mitigate the rate at which your skeletons bleed combat res (i.e. a royal in the unit, and a buff or two) the sphinx can tip the scales in your favour. But it's extremely risky. A countercharge you didn't see against your skeletons and both units are toast. A good phase of buffs/debuffs and both units are toast. And against units that can't be thunderstomped the sphinxes have issues (read ogres). If it wasn't for cannons then sphinxes would be solid. But between cannons and poison the scales are tipped away from them. An event like OFCC that comps cannons and poisons makes them viable, but in an all-comers environment you're going to run up against matchups where they're effectively dead points.

Thanks! Which is that though, the Coven Throne list? If that list were rated around a 3.0 it'd probably be my preference. That or the following one without a terrorgheist but with the MN and three vamps.

Haha, thanks guys! It's really going to come down on how well the crypt horrors come along. I'm planning to get them done in time for Wet Coast but that's a bit aggressive. We'll see how things come along. I built a list that squeezes another shadow vamp into the GG list which I like a bit more. Problem is it cuts the master necro and black periapt which I don't like quite as much, but them's the breaks: GG are expensive. In the end it's going to come down to time, since running the Grave Guard means I have 500 points of models already painted. I'll choose between those two lists and see how things go from there. Anways, as I said before I think the GG list is too hard for OFCC so here's my ammended version. It includes almost all the models I want except the fellbats. It's definitely been hit with the nerfbat. No rare choices, LD8 general and no vamp lord. I like my magic phase though, and the grave guard will make up for losing the vampire hopefully. This uses all my existing character models so that's a big plus as well.

There's no such thing as a "better" lore for an armybook, because the answer depends on how you've built the list and decide to run it. You need to look at your lore choice in the context of your army as a whole, and pick something that's going to add tools to your army's toolkit to dismantle the sorts of opponents you're likely to face. For instance, shadow goes really well on an army full of shooting and waywatchers. Tank their toughness with Withering and your waywatchers go from wounding on 6s to maybe wounding on 3s. You can use Miasma to slow down that big fast unit you don't have time to shoot at, or to tank the ballistic skill of stuff that's shooting at your fragile little elves. When they get into combat you can mind razor. Trolls, Ogres, or warmachines ruining your day? Try Pit of Shades! If you're not running lots of waywatchers then maybe Shadow isn't the best choice though, since how now are you going to deal with armour? So what about metal? Helps you hit, helps them not hit, lowers their armour saves, turns hordes into gold. Wicked. High is just a wicked lore as well. Arcane unforging defangs all sorts of threats. Fiery Convocation will ruin your opponent's day AND their next magic phase. Not to mention that the lore attribute is just awesome. Dark is really good as well, though. One signature gives you more dice AND makes your sisters of the thorn bunker have S4 AP javelins. Doombolt is good enough on its own, but even better when it chains with a half dozen previous spells that have built up a big collection of vengeance tokens. Plus it has a lot of the tools that shadow has (amazing debuffs, etc). Big units? Run life. Hit with more arrows? Heavens. Acorn+Moonstone+Death Snipes / purple suns is always a funny one. Beasts to make your wild riders and warhawks hit harder. Every lore has SOME utility...you just need to decide what utility your list needs. Edit: Also, never underestimate the power of running a couple different lores. Dual level 4s may be a bit much, but a secondary level 2 caster gives you extra flexibility and can caddy a dispel scroll to boot.

If by "shine" you mean "evaporate," then maybe... The reason people don't do TK monster mash list is, as others have said, Rock-Paper-Scissors syndrome. They're great against high-S, low-A models. Skullcrushers for instance, or steam tanks, or demon princes. They're even better against elite infantry, so your executioners, your white lions, etc. Unfortunately, they also have sooooo many bad matchups. Cheap, low-S infantry for instance are still hitting them on 6's but will always be steadfast, will never break, and you only need to get a few 6's through before wounds+SCR is just popping them. In addition lists with lots of cannons, lots of BS-based shooting, or lots of cannons make them just evaporate. They're so slow you get several full turns to shoot at them, and it only takes a few 6's to do it. Furthermore a sphinx with 3 wounds left is just going to die in combat, since you're bound to roll 6's eventually. On top of all that, they can't break steadfast so will rarely actually score you any points. They can grind things down sure, but even if you hit with all their attacks and roll a 6 for thunderstomp they're still testing to break on LD10 rerollable. You have to grind them down to a man, and your enemy is statistically likely to roll a few 6's by that point. Where sphinxes REALLY shine is denying a flank. For 200 points they're a very reliable tarpit that can hold down one of your flanks for a turn or two. That gives you isolate and dismantle the rest of your opponents army, while trapping the rest behind a sphinx. And unlike the rest of your tarpits (i.e. skeletons), they don't bleed combat res. 1-2 sphinxes is going to do that job really well for you. Issue is that 1-2 sphinxes will just get cannoned/poisoned/magicked off the board turn 2 against a vast majority of opponents. So quick that you may as well be playing 200/400 points short. Since Tomb Kings are essentially playing short as it is (since everything save the casket is overcosted) that's an unacceptable handicap to many. So instead we "cannon-proof" our lists by taking mostly infantry blocks, monstrous cav, and chariots (that are easier to raise). Also not being able to march makes aggressive Tomb Kings lists very problematic. Between chaff and movement debuffs you can quite easily prevent them from doing much of anything. That or make you walk across the table under a hail of trebuchet rocks and comets (yeah...I didn't win that game). If your opponent came out to roll dice then you'll be fine, but against skilled opponents playing to win it's just a slow, agonizing exercise in moving models a few inches then taking them off the table. To combat that you need to bring enough ranged threats to force your opponent to at least meet you half way, but then you're just doing the same thing you complained about and in no time you end up with an army that's little more than a pretty looking wall that sits in front of a magical artillery nightmare that just melts your opponents as they walk towards you. ...which is why I play Vampires now instead of Tomb Kings... That said, if you're looking to run the monster mash list, OFCC is the place to do it. Limits on skinks makes Lizards not as scary. Ditto limits on cannons. It's a shame you can't run double-box, since that's what I'd do for a magic-light monster mash list, but I guess someone at the TO committee had a bad experience against it :P

Not related to the list, but I updated my Painting Log on Warseer for those interested.

Someone also just pointed out to me that, while my army is certainly themed artistically, the "Khemrian" theme won't come across on paper since we're not allowed to submit them with names or descriptive information. It just looks like a mishmash of choices, arguably there for competitive reasons. So I did up a list swapping the crypt horrors for grave guard to get more of an "all skeleton" theme. Disappointed to lose the two casters on shadow, but them's the breaks. Thoughts on this list? It appears a little more "thematic" on paper, but honestly it looks like a much harder list to me objectively. On the plus side I have 33 fully painted Tomb Guard to throw in here who are pretty gorgeous, if I must say so myself. So tough to say. This list would certainly be closer to painted, and wouldn't require that I finish my fully scratch-built "mummy" crypt horrors.

Does this mean that single cold ones (11 points), unicorns (16 points), sabre tusks (21 points), or a Dogs of War cannon all add to an army's fortitude? That seems a bit...silly/gamey. Maybe put a minimum point threshold on this? edit: on second thought, I guess bonus points for killing fortitude offsets this somewhat.

Just realized that without the Terrorgheist I only have 5 fortitude. Dropped champions off the vargheists in favour of making my caster vamp a BSB. Having run Tomb Kings for almost two years now I have faith that I'll be able to protect that wizard bunker, and with M6 she'll be able to relocate as necessary. That gives me 6 fortitude, letting me lose both skeleton units, my bunker, or my general before things start getting hairy. I also just noticed that I could add 3 fortitude to my army by dropping the fell bats for 2 single cold ones and a single sabretusk. That's a bit silly...

To be frank, I think vampires without S7+RF are dead points. A fully kitted vampire lord costs as much as 5 skullcrushers. S7+RF is what lets the vampire compete against a killy unit like that. If they're not killing 6/7 models each a turn (8-10 is actually pretty unlikely against anything save infantry) then they're not earning enough points to justify their price tag. The vamps are also the only reliable anti-armour tool in the army (in the 7 games I've played with this army, I've seen the terrorgheist live past turn 2 in one of them). EDIT: I meant "in my army." Basically, without the blender build on my vamp this army is actually surprisingly easy to defang (...heh...). The vargheists tend to bounce off anything that either hits before them or has decent survivability (trolls, 1+ saves, etc). The coven throne is a single cannonball away from death, and isn't that killy outside the charge. Once those three units are gone I really don't have much in my army that can kill stuff. If anything is going to get cut it's probably the terrorgheist. When it's allowed to operate unmolested it's amazing (and I imagine quite frustrating for my opponent), but too many armies have too many tools of dealing with it. I'm not willing to part with the blender lord, but the terrorgheist I could live without. I also get really annoyed trying to find landing pads for it that don't open up charges to its ridonculously ginormous base. 95% of the reason I'm taking it is simply to draw attention (both from a modelling perspective and fire-magnet purposes). So attempt number three: Terrorgheist + Coven Throne gets traded for 8 hex wraiths + a Master Necro. Not as exciting, but 8 hex wraiths aren't as scary as a terrorgheist and they also give me something to deal with trolls (which I realized in my game last night I'm quite lacking). Queen is back on a hellsteed (meaning I can use the model I'm making for Wet Coast, and don't need to build a coven throne). I actually like this list a lot more. Fewer eggs in my VL's basket, and the MN will be central enough to support the skeletons. I'm not a huge fan of the terrorgheist anyways, so dropping it isn't a big deal. I was starting to look forward to scratch-building a coven throne, but it's going to be difficult enough to get this army done in time for September without a huge project like that and honestly it's just sooooooooooooooo many points for what it does. I also have a GREAT model for my caster vamp, so I'm excited to see that one in play as well. For fluff reasons I want to give her beguile but I just couldn't find points for it. So what do you guys think of this? No black knight bus, no terrorgheist, no grave guard, skeletons instead of zombies (and without Master of the Dead), crypt horrors without a mortis engine, and two easily targetable vampires. The only thing particularly "netlisty" is the vampire build.