JeffyBaby Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 With ReaperCon less than three months away, it is time to start considering my army for the tournament. This is primarily due to my idealist vision that I will fully assemble and paint the army now rather than the more realistic night before. But I digress. A couple months ago, I played Stubbdog with a highly proxied Necropolis horde army. The basic premise to the army design was to have at least 50 Skeletal Swordsmen. For some reason, this concept has really taken hold and I cannot shake it. So far, I've come up with three prominent army lists revolving around 50 Skeletal Swordsmen, and I need the collective knowledge of the internet to help me decide which one becomes reality. If you do not like any of the three, please offer me your own suggestion, as long as it contains at least 50 Skeletons. Option 1 Necropolis - 1000 points Troop 1 Sir Gauren the Wrathful Skeletal Swordman x 11 Crypt Bat Troop 2 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 3 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 4 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 5 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 6 Skeletal Giant Troop 7 Skeletal Giant Luck Stone Totem of Battle Railors follow the Giants around healing them with Necromantic Surge, and everything else is a MAV 5 cleaver with the Totem. Option 2 Necropolis - 998 points Troop 1 Sir Gauren the Wrathful Skeletal Swordman x 12 Musician Troop 2 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 3 Railor of the Unbodied Skeletal Swordman x 10 Troop 4 Eikar, Crypt Bat Skeletal Swordman x 6 Troop 5 Eikar, Crypt Bat Skeletal Swordman x 6 Troop 6 Eikar, Crypt Bat Skeletal Swordman x 6 Troop 7 Bone Horror Luck Stone Totem of Battle This option has a bit more speed to it, but I sacrifice the redundancy of the healers. Option 3 Mercs - 997 points Troop 1 Deckard Nightveil, Death Priest Olivia, Priestess of Shadarzaddi Familiar Skeletal Swordsman x10 Troop 2 Deckard Nightveil, Death Priest Skeletal Swordsman x10 Troop 3 Deckard Nightveil, Death Priest Skeletal Swordsman x10 Troop 4 Deckard Nightveil, Death Priest Skeletal Swordsman x10 Troop 5 Deckard Nightveil, Death Priest Skeletal Swordsman x10 Troop 6 Raseri, Raging Barbarian Luck Stone Totem of Battle And now for something completely different. Death Priests cast Smite, giving me MAV 6 cleavers. Olivia casts Iron Skin on Raseri, giving him a chance against opposing bigs. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shakandara Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 In direct response, I personally like the idea of Deckard and the Smite. If you are out to play aggressively with the list, he's the way to go. Off topic slightly, since you will be playing this list in a tournament of 90-minute timed games, do your opponents the kindness of knowing your list inside and out, backwards and forwards. Disregarding for the moment the time involved in declaring and moving nearly 60 models, you would also be declaring attacks and resolving dice rolls for that many models, at least at the beginning of the game. If you are not quick, decisive, and completely familiar with the stat lines for your troops, a horde army can quickly grind a tournament game to a snail's pace, possibly even preventing it from finishing in the alloted time. I flirted with the idea of a horde list a few years back for a tournament army (bondslave-heavy O'lords), but after playtesting it once, I abandoned it because it was just too time-consuming to play. At Rcon in 2010, I faced a Darkspawn horde list, and we did not make it to turn 5 in our game, even though my opponent was well-prepared with his list. I don't mean to dissuade you from playing a horde list; just be conscientious of your preparation to play it. ~v Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffyBaby Posted February 26, 2012 Author Share Posted February 26, 2012 A good point regarding the time per gameplay. I think that will come out during some playtesting in the next couple months. I'll definitely take it into consideration when making a final decision on the army I bring to ReaperCon. Luckily I have a couple other armies I can fall back on if the horde list doesn't work out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffyBaby Posted March 3, 2012 Author Share Posted March 3, 2012 I took the 50 skeleton Merc army for a test drive last night. First game was against Steve with a beetle heavy Bloodstone Gnome army. It wasn't a very favorable match-up since most of my army was immune to poison. Also, in the first couple turns I kept getting cleaves, trading skeletons for beetles straight-up. In the end we called it when Steve had one beetle left that was about to be swarmed by a dozen skeletons. Total game time was about 75 minutes including deployment. Second game Steve brought out the worm missle list he played against Jason's Reptus a couple weeks ago. For deployment, I turtled up my troops. Deckard in the center, surrounded by skeletons. First turn we both moved up to the center in formation (me turtled; him with scraggers in front, then the Naklaks, worms burrowed just behind the line). I kept one troop back near the Totem for guard duty. One of the worms was just forward of the main battle line. Even though Steve outnumbered me in troops by 2:1, I got the first three activations in Turn 2. First activation I exhumed the forward worm and swarmed it. The next two activations I jumped some scraggers. The dice weren't with me and the trades went in Steve's favor (about 12 skeletons dead to 8 scraggers). This also opened up a couple Deckards to his worms. I think Steve made every tough check in turn 2. No matter what I threw at his Naklaks, they just wouldn't go down. Turn 3, the dice started turning in my favor. By the end of Turn 3, Steve was left with two wounded worms, and I had my unengaged guard troop, plus a couple orphan skeletons. The guard troop swarmed the worms, and that's all she wrote. Total game time was about an hour. The Merc list helps keep the horde army efficient in gameplay (there are only 4 datacards). The Necro lists would definitely increase the game time. They have more datacards, more spell options, more tactical options, and a faction doctrine that gives Tough to all the skeletons. They might perform better in tournament scenarios, but I'll have to playtest them to see if they work under a time constraint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stubbdog Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Obviously its always easier to make suggestions AFTER a game is played. Just looks like a couple of favorable matchups for Jeff this go round. Steve probably would have faired much better had he: 1. traded a worm for Szerda and some zealots. Then she could blow up another worm right next to the turtled skellies and take out a whole troop with one shot. Or use blood net spell to envelope the turtle and again take out bunches at a time. Or just use Blood Storm to do the same thing (just dont include Deckard in the AOE so that he cannot try to counter it. 2. traded sgraggers for pulgers and used their pike to take out lots of skellies before they can use their swing (and with spiked gt a second swing on other skellies) so you would be hopefully trading 2 skellies for every one pulger. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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