8th Edition 750 Points: What Magic makes sense?

[Darthweasel]

So a buddy took on the DoC as a painting project to try out some strategies before painting his "real" army, the High Elfs. As a result, he is keeping his DoC army small and we have been playing a series of 750 point games. Beings as how I despise the hobby aspects of the game...the only thing worse than building a list is assembling the models. Painting is drudgery but I get it done...anyway, I tend to Battlescribe my lists and, since I don't spend hours in the books, I seldom remember what the magic items do.

 

As a result, in something like 6 games I have taken 1 magic item...an Ogre Blade. And I am thinking I should change that.

 

His typical list is a Herald, Lvl 1, in a block of daemonettes giving them ASF, a skillcannon and 3 Skullcrushers (Bloodcrushers? I play WoC and always mix up the names). Occasionally he mixes in Bloodletters. When we play 1250 points he mixes in a D-Prince.

 

So far I have used WoC, Brets, Goblins only, Orcs only, and beastmen. As you may gather, I like to rotate who I play...I will be bringing Dwarf and High Elf armies in the near future. I like a variety of playstyles so mix it up.

 

A combination of things have led to some weird results: unit of 5 Chaos Knights whiffed 70% of their attacks, got whittled down and his Herald + 1 daemonette ran off my last 2 knights...or having his 'Nettes pinned down with Knights of the Realm, getting the flank charge with Grail Knights and having a combined zero hits in the two rounds of combat before all my guys ran off the table...that was awesome...or almost the entire the goblin army running off the table after his first shot of the game. It was pretty funny.

 

Anyway, seeings as how it is highly unlikely I will spend more than 5 minutes building a list for games at this points level, and with the understanding I will only be playing 8th edition rules (we rejected the end times character percentage increase, the extra lore abilities, etc), are there any items that should be considered staples for the following:

 

WoC

O&G

Beastmen

High Elves

Bretonnians

 

for a small game? Typical lists:

 

WoC

small block of Warriors, block of Knights, exalted to lead them.

 

O&G

Block of savage orcs and boar riders, maybe goblins with fanatic(s), Mangler Squig, doom diver catapult, occasionally squig hoppers (varies more than any other list)

 

Beastmen

Gor, Minotaurs

 

High Elf

Have not built one yet but I tend more towards swordmasters than White Lions. Big proponent of putting out large numbers of attacks.

 

Bretonians

Work in progress; the Knights of the Realm, Knights Errant, Grail KNight, Paladin on Pegasus combo did a combined 8 wounds while getting tabled. Admittedly, he rolled better (it was turn 3 before he failed to hit on a single attack, I had zero hits in 2 rounds from my Grail Knights...). Not a big fan of Men at Arms, particularly WS2 v WS5 ASF...does not end well...

 

Appreciate your thougts