opinions on character/unit/lore builds for grand army?

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afterglow82
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Oct 02, 2014 12:28 pm

opinions on character/unit/lore builds for grand army?

#1 Post by afterglow82 »

So I'm playing with some character/unit builds, primarily for my games with one particular friend, where our armies can exceed 5/6/7,000 points and up, but also for smaller local games.

I'm looking for advice because I haven't played in years, only started collecting again last year, and i haven't used any magic items since 5th ed.

The wider cost I'm working around is based on the 8,000 point army im bringing against a friend's dark elf/skaven collection

PLEASE, PICK ME APART, AND TELL ME HOW I'M GOING TO LOSE, SO I CAN FIX WEAKNESSES!!

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Prince (on star dragon)
option 1: Giant blade, enchanted shield, dawnstone, potion of foolhardiness
(heavy armour, lion cloak)
option 2: star lance, armour of caledor, TOTS
(lion cloak)

builds that ive seen seem to favour the star lance, possibly because of it's lower cost, meaning you can get better magic armour, but to me, it's more of an advantage having the extra strength on all rounds of CC, not just charging, in case you get held up in combat.

i also like the golden crown of atrazar for my prince, but a one use item which rules out using any other magic armour seems like a waste
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With the reaver bow im torn between a noble with shadow warriors (as ive seen a few people talking about), or on the handmaiden.

I'm tempted to go with the handmaiden, with a potion of strength - 3 BS7 S5 shots at 30" could do some serious damage to the right target - but the lower BS of a noble is offset by the fact that he will probably be in short range.

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I'm thinking about sticking the wayshard on a noble with 30 spears - i also have a unit of WE wild riders that can ambush (only in my big games with my friend of course, normal rules wouldnt allow that, i know), so together this could be a strong force coming in the right place at the right time. Actually, im preferring the idea of using a lvl2 high mage in place of the noble - the spellcasting ability, combined with the ward save, i think are a better bet than the nobles mediocre fighting ability (especially considering he can have no other magic items)

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i have 2 IoB griffon nobles, assuming i took giant blade rather than star lance on my prince, then one of them carries the star lance, dragonhelm, pidgeon plucker, the other has sword of might, shield of the merwyrm, luckstone.

my remaining non-magical character allowance is spent on alith anar, (basically for the moonbow, deployed with shadow warriors in cover close to enemy lines) korhil, caradryan (BG duty) and my BSB. (yes, i liked the named characters :P )

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Now, for magic, things get a little complicated:

I have Alarielle, Loremaster and an archmage from my Lord points, as well as a lvl4 bretonnian prophetess from my allies. I also have up to (based on 8,000pts) a further 5 lvl2 mages available, for magic overkill (or i could funnel some of these points into nobles, to give a bit more punch to my infantry units)

My magic strategy is based around two things - a light council (with the number of points available for magic users, this can be ridiculously overpowered - one or two lvl1 light mages within 12" of my loremaster and potentially alarielle (given one light spell alongside the rest from Life) means i'm hitting at strength 7 without breaking a sweat. If i wanted to get serious about it i could easily devote a lvl 4 to light as well (possibly the prophetess?) to give me access to more spells from this lore

The other side of my magic tactics are based on alarielle taking either all life, or 3 Life and 1 Light (to add to light coven), and a lvl2 Life mage in one unit (probably PG, i have 50 of them, though i dont always take the full unit, for this scale battle, i could) with the banner of avelorn. Between them they should get all the important spells - and with the BoA +4 bonus when casting life spells, alongside alarielles +4 bonus (or even the mages +2 bonus) means that, with a little luck when rolling for spells, i'll be auto-casting Throne of vines, and the souped versions of earth blood, flesh to stone, and shield of thorns (unless rolling the -auto-fail '1'), and Regrowth on a 4+. So with even average luck, i'll have a T7, Regen 4+, 4+ward, regrowthing horde of PG - and i dont even feel guilty about it, because he has the potential to field 120 clanrats, and 100 corsairs, which is just as gamey :D

Obviously this carries massive risk from a successful cast of black horror or purple sun, but whats a game of warhammer without a bit of fun!? And besides, BotWD (as the PG's magic standard, as opposed to the BoA which is the BSB) in the same unit guards against black horror at least ;)

My Archmage takes High magic and carries the book of ashur (book of hoeth going to my loremaster) giving him a 6+ bonus to cast, meaning he can spam apotheosis, hand of glory, soul quench, drain magic and walk between worlds, whatever spells he rolls, so he's going in one of my remaining specials - either SM or WL, to give them the ward save.

The prophetess, if she doesnt take light, will take life, either freeing up alarielle, or in the unit WITH alarielle, allowing her to take a couple light spell, and spread the burden of Life spells, meaning they are sure to get all 7 spells between them.

this leaves me with 2-3 lvl 1-2 mages, probably 1 high, 1 shadow, and take your pick for the last one.

I'm done for now, cos it's half 5 and it's hometime for me, but PLEASE feel free to rip me to shreds - thats the reason i'm posting!!
Ladril Caledor
Posts: 246
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2014 7:11 am

Re: opinions on character/unit/lore builds for grand army?

#2 Post by Ladril Caledor »

afterglow82 wrote:
Prince (on star dragon)
option 1: Giant blade, enchanted shield, dawnstone, potion of foolhardiness
(heavy armour, lion cloak)
option 2: star lance, armour of caledor, TOTS
(lion cloak)

builds that ive seen seem to favour the star lance, possibly because of it's lower cost, meaning you can get better magic armour, but to me, it's more of an advantage having the extra strength on all rounds of CC, not just charging, in case you get held up in combat.

i also like the golden crown of atrazar for my prince, but a one use item which rules out using any other magic armour seems like a waste
I like option one more, but I would go with Dragon Armour instead of heavy armour + lion cloak. The 2+ ward against flaming attacks plus 6+ general ward is really worth the points.

If you do want a Star Lance build, I recommend Star Lance/Enchanted Shield/Talisman of Preservation/Potion of Strength, again with Dragon Armour. You get the same 2+ save (and 2+ fire ward) as the Armour of Caledor but a much better 4+ ward, plus the potion of strength is really useful if you get charged by something tough, or you don't manage to to kill a tough target in the first round on the charge.

The Golden Crown of Atrazar is a talisman, so you can still use magic armour. But I prefer to put the Crown on an archmage instead, as I think the Dawnstone or Talisman of Preservation are better options for a combat lord on a dragon.
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