Thread could also be titled "Overrread rambles about Bonereapers" but that doesn't sound quite as catchy. Crazyterran came up with a better name though





Anyway I've got great plans to start this new Death army and even though we don't even have a pre-order date for them yet (save for the release being within October) I'm still very eager to get some plans together and make a beginning on them!



Thus far I've already picked up two boxes of Morghasts which have been featured several times in the photos for the Bonereapers and which are said to be in the book itself by GW. In addition to use also seeing Nagash on the back page photo (but no confirmation how he fits in) and Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament who has not just been seen in the same photo, but also had part of his page of rules in the Battletome leaked (so he's 100% confirmed).

I have to say that I've enjoyed putting together the Morghasts, a bit fiddly around the chest region to get started, but they are quite pleasing to put together. They fit together well and solid and I'm eager to convert them a bit to a standing pose instead of their "soul lifted flight" pose. I might also magnetize them, but thus far I'm leaving them only part built without arms, head and chestplate until such time as the actual rules come out and we can see how they fare.


After that the other part of the army starting I've been pondering on is how to paint them up. There's loads of options here and my thoughts might well change upon seeing more art by others and also in the book itself. Right now though I'm thinking of:

Bone armour - painting this in the standard yellowed bone colour that we see on most of the current product photos for the Bonereapers. However I'm not closed to the idea of using a coloured bone as well (Mannfreds scheme linked below is a strong influence on perhaps considering black bone as well)
Internal Skulls - I wanted to paint these in a powerful glowing/bright colour to denote the lifeforce within them, but I don't want to go with the standard green. I was going to copy the same sort of reddish heat that GW uses for Mannfred https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Deathlords-Mortarchs-Mannfred However I wasn't quite a fan of the very reddish hue that they've gone for.

Then I saw SunStorm's eyes here http://i.imgur.com/oVEES3G.jpg and I liked it! It might just be that blazing internal heat that I'm after, though I might have to use one of the red contrast paints instead of Bloodletter Glaze (although I think I actually have a pot of that, but I don't want to end up committing to a scheme and running out of paint).
Base with Averland Sunset, then Yriel yellow and then use bloodletter glaze as a wash around the eye

Eyes - I don't want to copycat the red glow so I'm trying to think of another good colour to go with the theme. Right now I'm thinking a purple colour might work well - it stands out against the head of the internal body. Another option could be to go with a much more ruby/vibrant red.
Armour plating segments - right now I'm thinking a copper/bronze colour for them. To me that gives a much more ancient feel to the armour whilst giving it a metallic aspect. A forging of bone and metal from an ancient age.
Bone Armour - GW painters interestingly highlight some of the armour of the bone with a grey bone colour, as seen here https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ImmortisOnWhite-WC1.jpg Right now I'm thinking on doing the same. For big things it really helps break up the model rather than having so much basic bone colour on show. On very big models it also gives a different colour to work into the creation. I'm not sure what colour to go for, I want to avoid black but a dark brown might suit.
Regular weapons - steel, simple and effective colour for weapons, nothing fancy here
Soul Weapons - totally unsure here as I'm not sure the greenish pallet that GW uses would work with a "fire soul" based set of internal skulls. I could mirror it with a red soul based approach. This would also bleed onto souls on the models too such as are shown on several
Clothing tatters - a lighter brown leather colour.
Decoration/guilt - Gold.

Any thoughts on the colour choices or alternative ideas or even just your own ideas on your starting for a Reaper army are most welcome!

Glad to see I wasn't the only person glad to have an excuse to buy Morghasts in anticipation of the Ossiarchs release!

Loved building and painting mine, I'll post some up here once I'm off work. I think I've got my paint scheme just about nailed down for the army.

Just a nice and simple white primer with Skeleton Horde Contrast paint for the bones. On the flesh tatters for their wings, I used Guilliman Flesh, but feel like I want something more bloody and red for other models. All of the spooky ghost parts inside, weapon handles and spectral smoke trails off their wings, I just used Aethermatic Blue contrast. Blades for their weapons I used Naggaroth Nightshade, giving the whole weapon a ghostly look. Aethermatic Blue is quickly becoming my favorite contrast, it flows and pools so well on it's own and looks lovely for ghosty parts, using it on my Spite Revenants in Sylvaneth too.

Armor plates were the hardest/longest part. I started with Leadbelcher all over them, then two layers of Spirit Stone red technical paint, followed up by a layer or two of Blood for the Blood God technical at the top parts/recesses of the armor, so it was darker as it got away from the edge/lips.

Over all, it hit my prefer balance of looking good (IMO) and being easy to paint. I'll have to decide on other colours to add in for things like banners and robes and so on once I've got the models in hand.

I look forward to seeing them!

And yep not the only one to jump for some Morghasts. I'd be tempted to get a Mortatch too, but I think I'll save my coins as best I can since I'd like to establish a nice legion force. I'm also very interested to see if the cavalry option gets battleline as if they do I can see me wanting to go quite cavalry heavy (I really like the sculpts).

Plus those huge walking artillery platforms!

I want all the new models, lol. One other thing I haven't decided, is how I want to base the models. It seems it'll be fairly low model count, so I may splurge a little and buy some fancy-ass pre-built bases... I hate making bases, but I can't just skip them since models look so much better. Painting a pre-built base is fine by me though.

I'm expecting a few Dual Kits. One for the base Skeletons, holding Spears or Swords. The Four-armed Four-Sword models as a dual kit with the four-armed halberd and shield guys. Another for the Artillery potentially, then there's the body-snatching monster with different weapon choices potentially?

I could see the Cavalry being Battle Line if you take the horse-mounted character as a General, like with Deepkin and their Akhelian Eels and Ahkelian King. Or, it could be the Flesh-Eaters route, where a sub-faction adds Battle Line choices.

I'm of two minds as to if the walking artillery has an alternate build. On the one hand its a big kit, but on the other its quite a specific one. There's already two ammo types that we can see - one is an urn the other skulls.

The big harvester appears to have scythes or a massive wrecking ball and has a few different head options

The infantry also have the two handed sword variation, however thus far GW hasn't really said if that's just a leader model or if its an optional weapon attachment or if the whole unit can go with a greatsword approach.

Right, forgot about the two-handed sword in the basic squads. I'd expect something like Stormcast Squads. You got your basic weapon dudes, and you can include up to X number of Special Weapons + options on the leader.

Edit:
Morghast Pics down below. Not the best, not the most technical, mainly contrast for a quick, decent paint job.

I'm also making room to get an army of these guys.

Looking at the creepy smiles of the line troops, I had a thought that I think I will go with. Since these are supposed to contain the souls of great warriors, why not paint their faces akin to Chinese Opera masks? With the colors and designs indicating what kinds of people they were in life?

The Chinese opera mask idea is interesting. Could be a way to denote squads as well.

I bought more Morghasts. Always liked their look but never really had much use for them as they were just outlier models with an army I wasn't interested in painting (back when they were strictly skellies and ghosts for Nagash).

The Harvester and the boss man with entourage really jumped out at me too. Plus I like really heavy armored models.

Hopefully we get some more concrete info on these guys soon!

What units are in their armybook?

So far we have the Mortarch, 1 character, an artillery piece, a monster, basic infantry, four armed dudes with variety of weapons, and a cavalry unit confirmed. As well as Morghasts.

They showed a pic a few weeks ago that showed a variety of more characters that have gone unmentioned.

Anything beyond that is speculation.

What is the monster?

What are the morghast, are they also constructs now?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What is the monster?

What are the morghast, are they also constructs now?

 Niiai wrote:
What is the monster?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/07/a-bone-to-pickgw-homepage-post-2/

Morghast's are a large, hero-tier unit that come in groups of two. They're big, they're fast, and can be built as one of two unit options, Archai or Harbringers, each having two weapon options between Halberds and Dual Swords.

They've existed in Death before Ossiarchs came out, falling under Legions of Nagash and Deathlords(?). They've been confirmed to be in the Ossiarch Bonereaper's army, so that's why people are picking them up in anticipation of the Ossiarch release.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-CA/Morghast-Archai-2018

The Monster is a big creepy construct with grabby hands or smashing fists, that goes around snatching corpses up for evil deeds.

Rules wise, we know next to nothing about the army.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/07/a-bone-to-pickgw-homepage-post-2/

Some things can be found in this link, and there's another Community post from NOVA teasers with more units shown in them.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/07/lords-of-the-ossiarch-bonereapers-revealedgw-homepage-post-2/

Horse Lord previously seen in a big spread picture talked about in this link. Dual kit with a Generic Horse lord and a Unique named character version of the lord. No rules mentioned for the lord itself, but, a bit important piece stuck on at the very end of the article.

"We’ll have more Ossiarch Bonereapers previews for you soon, so watch this space. In the meantime, if you really can’t wait to start your army, Nagash, Arkhan the Black and Morghasts can all be included in an Ossirarch Bonereapers force – so get yours today! "

GW really knows how to get me to buy new models

Aye I saw that too! Though I'm having to be really strict with myself right now and hold off on spending. Not just because I now want the Tome in my hands and some prices and models released before I make choices, but cause I want to hold most of it off until the end of the month as my local is having an anniversary event so I figure I can get Reapers and free stuff in one go

Thread could've been Overread Rattles about Ossiarchs

*rattle rattle*

Ogors and Bonereapers boxed set.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/20/coming-soon-the-feast-of-bones-begins/

Looks like to me, since Morghasts are on a 60mm base, that the 4-armed dudes are on 50mm, the hero in on a 40mm and the line troops are 32mm. Rough eyeballing of the sizes, though/

Aye its an interesting set to say the least!
It's also got me hungry to find ogor fans to try and trade away my half for their half of reapers!

There's three people in my local group that want Ogors, and I've got two of them splitting boxes with me already. The third was already claimed by another guy getting Reapers. I'm probably sending 1 set of Morghasts over to him though, since I don't think I need 600 pts of Morghasts

I'll likely only get one box, then split that with an ogor player for double the content. Whilst they are likely free I don't want to burden myself with too many morghasts.

In addition I want to hold off spending too much too fast - harvesters, cavalry and crawlers are yet to come and I want to make sure I've got money to grab them! Though I'm sure I'll get some more motek guard off ebay whilst the duel sets run the prices down

I feel like getting 20 Mortek Guard and 6 of the Large Bodies is a solid start, without going too overboard. If this has the same value points wise as Carrion Empire you're looking at 700-some-odd points. 200 for Morghasts, maybe 200 for the Stalkers/Immortis Guard, 120 or so on the Character and 200 for 10 Mortek? Just my guesses/estimates however.

In a new article just posted today, it confirmed my assumption/theory that the 4-armed dudes and the bigger guys with spears, the Necropolis Stalkers and Immortis Guard, come in a dual kit.

As well, the Mortek Guard can be loaded up with Spears or Swords, and they mention that swords are better for small squads... perhaps they're taken in 5-man groups? Either way, the boxed set comes with options for every unit, except for the special character. No monopose in sight.

On the fence about one or two boxes of FoB.

I am interested in both armies, and I could sell the spare heroes.

I picked up four Morghast already, if I hadn't picked those up separately it would be a no brainer. OTOH I don't have any Ogors...the latter seems like a good core to start them off.

Gah. Sensible me thinks I should just pick up the one FOB and get that done first. Sadly, I think he's right.

I'm thinking that the contents of two boxes is going to be enough for me to make a solid start. After that I might grab some of the moteck guard and stalkers on ebay depending on the prices and depending on what comes out later; as well as their rules.

Motek guard I'm sure will sell pretty fast on ebay from broken up kits whilst the Feast of Bones is still on sale; since they've two weapon variations and even in an "elite" army they are still troops so having blocks of 20 or 30 are likely going to be advantageous to have.

*rattle rattle*

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/22/faction-focus-ossiarch-bonereapersgw-homepage-post-1/

Rules info about how Ossiarchs work to some extent, and some bits of Warscrolls revealed for Mortek guard and Necropolis Stalkers.

What I'm getting out of the frankly vaguely worded parts of this article, is that some squads of Ossiarchs contain a Hekatos, their equivalent of a squad sergeant. This Hekatos gives a 6" Wholly Within 6+ FNP, while their proper Heroes give the 6+ FNP at 12" Wholly Within.

And yet to be explained much more, Ossiarchs don't get to use the standard Command Abilities. They have their own set, and a bunch are found on the units Warscrolls themselves, and are used by Heroes and Hekatos. They also generate "Relentless Discipline points" in a different way, and don't get Command Abilities.

Oh no, what shall an army do without the Command Ability to make something skip taking Battleshock? Well, Ossiarchs never take Battleshock tests, ever. Pretty awesome.

The two Warscrolls they showed look pretty cool too, and I'm eager to see how they're costed and set up in terms of model counts.

People should be happy...the more I see and hear, the more they sound like Tomb Kings transitioned into AoS. Too bad the Sepulchral Stalkers/NecroKnights and Warsphynx didn’t make a triumphant return. They would have been good additions. Maybe not the Knights, but the Sphynx and Stalkers.

They strike me as a slow advancing wall of death. Boosted defensive and restoration stats/abilities so that they can weather the punishment. Likely with fewer fast moving units (unless you go all cavalry which might be akin to going for a glass cannon army); so they have to rely on establishing and carrying out a plan as they might not be able to swiftly redeploy and respond to a changing situation.

In addition they appear to have a command point system unique to them that is likely going to be a bit like warmachine in terms of how bad allocation might break them and good allocation cause them to really work well.


Finally with 4 inch movement on basic warriors I'm thinking the Forbidden Powers Endless Spells will be popular - particularly the bridge and boat.

They look very nice, I was shocked how they outright ignore battleshock.

I'm never a big fan of horde units which can ignore battleshock unless it's a specific unit nearby which can be troubleshot in getting rid of, ala Tyranid Synapse, kill the big bugs and the small ones follow.

GORGEOUS rank and file models, absolutely 10/10 and they'll look stunning. Their rules have me worried however.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
They look very nice, I was shocked how they outright ignore battleshock.

I'm never a big fan of horde units which can ignore battleshock unless it's a specific unit nearby which can be troubleshot in getting rid of, ala Tyranid Synapse, kill the big bugs and the small ones follow.

GORGEOUS rank and file models, absolutely 10/10 and they'll look stunning. Their rules have me worried however.

Thing is they aren't really a hoard unit, plus their basic warriors only move 4 inches a turn. Thus far we've also not heard much of abilities within the army letting them get movement boosters either and we've not seen the cavalry stats. Sure they'll be faster, but they could be even more expensive or more fragile. So an army which is tough, can repair and rebuild and ignore battleshock, but is very slow. A steady tide of death and destruction.

I think it works, if you give a unit that only has 4 inches movement battleshock then you can really set the whole army back a turn in movement and they've far less chance to recover.

Granted you can use things like the two Forbidden Powers endless spells (bridge and boat) to boost speed, but that's a spell and comes with risk in casting and also requires more points investment to get that boost rather than letting you put down more models.



Don't forget Gotrek came out recently and he's kind of the same. Tough as nails and hits hard, but only has 4 inches of movement (and he can't be spell sped up) and he's not broken the meta much if at all because he's only one unit at a very high cost. Reapers are similar, only instead of one unit its the whole army that's slow and steady.

 Overread wrote:

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
They look very nice, I was shocked how they outright ignore battleshock.

I'm never a big fan of horde units which can ignore battleshock unless it's a specific unit nearby which can be troubleshot in getting rid of, ala Tyranid Synapse, kill the big bugs and the small ones follow.

GORGEOUS rank and file models, absolutely 10/10 and they'll look stunning. Their rules have me worried however.

Thing is they aren't really a hoard unit, plus their basic warriors only move 4 inches a turn. Thus far we've also not heard much of abilities within the army letting them get movement boosters either and we've not seen the cavalry stats. Sure they'll be faster, but they could be even more expensive or more fragile. So an army which is tough, can repair and rebuild and ignore battleshock, but is very slow. A steady tide of death and destruction.

I think it works, if you give a unit that only has 4 inches movement battleshock then you can really set the whole army back a turn in movement and they've far less chance to recover.

Granted you can use things like the two Forbidden Powers endless spells (bridge and boat) to boost speed, but that's a spell and comes with risk in casting and also requires more points investment to get that boost rather than letting you put down more models.



Don't forget Gotrek came out recently and he's kind of the same. Tough as nails and hits hard, but only has 4 inches of movement (and he can't be spell sped up) and he's not broken the meta much if at all because he's only one unit at a very high cost. Reapers are similar, only instead of one unit its the whole army that's slow and steady.

Yes, it's more of a concern I have over an outright "This is bad!!!11!", but I'm just concerned at the precedent this shows, also how this models in particular are outright immune compared to regular skeletons or indeed a lot of other units where it would make sense completely. The low speed as mentioned can be circumnavigated and other options to remedy it, Im worried we'll be facing a overbloat of rules to continue the train of new books just absolutely blowing older ones out of the water. Also with the rules revealed and new potential command point expenditure for effects, I am nearly positive we'll see one to boost movement somewhere there.

Again this is just me having concerns, I love AoS but a lot of players in my local meta have been turnt away by power creep since AoS 2.0 came out. I mean personally I'm just gonna throw like 15 Fanatics at them and see whose left standing (it probably... won't... be the fanatics.)

I like the rules. Reminds me of playing Khador in Warmachine (and Skorne to a lesser degree). Slow and steady, thick armor, hit hard, big war machines, have to come up with movement shenanigans to get them anywhere,

It feels comfortable so far.

I think for reapers the case will be that they will have access to some speed boosting (and they've got cavalry too); however it might be that the only way they can do it is with points (endless spells) and with in game abilities that are likely limited in application.

So the reality is that they might be able to boost speed on one or two units to secure a point, but won't be able to boost their whole army.

This would be important since otherwise they'd have a hard time securing objectives early enough in the game to be able to compete with objective scores into the mid and late game.
It also means that if the opponent bunches up and goes for a kill and charges at the enemy, then the Reaper player can, in theory, speed a few units in to block and start killing and then simply march the rest up behind - basically an attack column style of war. Though in that case its more the opponent playing into the Ossiarchs strengths.

Part of the game is always learning an enemies general weaknesses and strengths and doing your best to avoid playing into them.

Did a bit of mathhammer on the Necropolis Stalkers with their different weapons and stances against a 5+ save target and then a 4+ save target.

Results favored the Precision Aspect for both weapons overall, against all targets. If there's a way to grant rerolls of any kind in the army and give it to the stalkers, it'll only make the choice that much more clear. Looking like the choice will be between Precision or Blade-Parry. However, the difference was only by a wound at most, usually getting in to percentages of a wound, so it's not that big of a difference yet. Rerolls on top of Precision would make it so much better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/24/ossiarch-bonereapers-the-sub-factionsgw-homepage-post-1/

Well hot damn, those are a bunch of solid Sub-Faction traits.

Dread Legion, Petrifex Elite, Stalliarch Lords, Ivory Host and Null Myriad... All look so awesome. Only one I'm meh on is the Crematorians. I'll be hard pressed to pick just one trait to stick to

From the previews, these things look ridiculously OP even by GW standards. Like ridiculously good.

Just wait until you see the points costs before you start crying OP.

Really like the Petrifex color scheme. Is that a black/grey base they have going on?

Ivory Host make me think of Tyranids for some reason. Kinda plain.

Null Myriad look like machines.

Crematorians look like a pain in the butt to paint.

TBH if I was going to do this army I'd do like tarnished gold, ivory bone, and a turquoise i.e. Tomb Kings colors.

Right now I want the crematorian scheme, but reversing the white and black bone. Give them amethyst eyes and I'm very tempted to make the white bone more like the Ivory colour they've used.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Don't forget they are slow (and if you go with subgroup that gets to move faster you're not getting some of the other defensive bonuses). To my mind the are a walking hammer. Steady, relentless and hit hard when they hit.

Tackling them is likely a case of tarpitting them; miss directing the opponent to strike a spot harder than they might when its not that important to you; flanking and skirting around them or even just stepping back and firing off ranged attacks/spells at them.

Meanwhile if they bring mobility boosters from endless spells then you've got a chance that they fail to cast or lose control for a turn etc... on the predatory ones. So you've still got benefits and ways to counter and tackle them.



They are certainly not an army you want to just blindly charge into.

I'm going with a simple Skeleton Horde contrast for the bone, Aethermatic Blue for spirit bits and red plate armor. For cloth I'm feeling a nice dark blue or a purpleish pink colour Undecided on weapons, but I've been liking how Naggaroth Nightshade straight on to white primer's been looking. Examples of this are on the first page, one of my posts has a spoiler with pics.

Luckily enough not too similar to any existing scheme so I can feel free to pick whatever trait I want for different builds

Eh I'd never tie anyone down to sub-groups based on paint scheme. Considering that most are one or two abilities in the book and that's it the rest is identical I don't see a point. If someone puts a cematorian army down and plays them as petrifax I'm 100% ok with that. I don't think people need to buy 6 or 7 full armies just to vary the sub-army rules to vary their builds.

I'm in the same boat as you, I care not for colour schemes tied to rules, I'd prefer seeing any painted army on the table. But, I want to avoid official colour schemes now in any game, due to there being a big mess in the 40k Community and tournament scene over Colour Schemes being tied to rules now, in official GW publications. Just to future proof myself, all my armies are 'custom chapters/factions' that sometimes use special characters from the army.

It looks like Katakros can be under any subfaction, but his command ability is best if he's in his proper Subfaction. All Ossiarchs get +1 to hit, and it doesn't say just in combat phase... Artillery line maybe? But if he's Mortis Praetorian, the 18" bubble also gives +1 armor saves.

Maybe a hint that special characters aren't forced to be under some subfactions?

Anybody want to fathom a guess as to when they'll see inevitable WarCry rules? I'm hoping around Christmas/ before the end of the year.

What better way to get your new toys on the table for a spin, right?

Smaller scale skirmishes gives me an excuse to try painting groups in all the various color schemes and see what I really like... or just come up with my own.

Presumably in the next warcry supplement which is essentially the 'faction rules update'.

Not sure what I'll do for the armor and shields. Part of me wants to do basic gunmetal (that and a basic bone will make painting fast), but another part of me wants to do brown/grey leather to match ancient Chinese armor (as I'm doing the faces as opera masks).

I'll probably run Stalliarch Lords for the boost in speed. Should pair nicely with having my leader hero use Cao Cao's mask.

Contrast has some nice brown leather colours you could use, right out of the bottle on to white primer works fine, edge highlights/drybrush would be an easy extra step to make it look better. Maybe going for a more reddish brown colour would help it pop out more from the skeleton bone colour, unless you're making yours more on the white side as opposed to Skeleton Horde contrast or a Sepia coat look. Other than gunmetal or leather for the armor, had you considered gold or a burnished bronze or coppery sort of metal, or a blue-ish looking steel? Google seems to pull up a lot of gold, copper or blue steel for ancient Chinese armor.

One other thing I liked about the subfactions, they don't really seem to benefit one type of unit over all, they have big benefits for all models shown in the army. Recent Sylvaneth and even Idoneth Deepkin subfactions sort of dictate how you want to build your army while these ones look to be an icing on top of the army you already built.

Edit/Update

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/25/rules-preview-new-endless-spells-and-scenerygw-homepage-post-3/

New mechanic for endless spells, Soul-Linking. Wonder if it will be added to other endless spells.

The spells shown for Ossiarchs seem quite powerful, especially the +1 to hit aura against enemies within 12" of it, and the D3/D6 mortal wound in 3" on a roll of 2+

Soul linking is interesting, I like it.

 Thadin wrote:
Contrast has some nice brown leather colours you could use, right out of the bottle on to white primer works fine, edge highlights/drybrush would be an easy extra step to make it look better. Maybe going for a more reddish brown colour would help it pop out more from the skeleton bone colour, unless you're making yours more on the white side as opposed to Skeleton Horde contrast or a Sepia coat look. Other than gunmetal or leather for the armor, had you considered gold or a burnished bronze or coppery sort of metal, or a blue-ish looking steel? Google seems to pull up a lot of gold, copper or blue steel for ancient Chinese armor.

One other thing I liked about the subfactions, they don't really seem to benefit one type of unit over all, they have big benefits for all models shown in the army. Recent Sylvaneth and even Idoneth Deepkin subfactions sort of dictate how you want to build your army while these ones look to be an icing on top of the army you already built.

I was going for more Han Dynasty era armor, much of which was leather and iron. Although, all the pictures I find show red trim. Perhaps a dirty metal (leadbelcher with thinned brown contrast) with red trim?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Soul linking is interesting, I like it.

The main problem with most Endless Spells is how inherently unreliable they are - just as likely to damage yourself as the enemy in some cases! When you're paying points for that, it's just not good enough. The only truly usable ones are the ones that can't be highjacked so easily such as the bridge and a few others.

Soul Linking completely removed that downside. Whether these spells are actually any good will depend on the rest of their rules and of course their point cost. But in principle they could be pretty good. It does make me a little bitter, as having (optional?) soul linking be a wider mechanic on a lot of Endless Spells would make so many more of them at least a little viable.

The line of sight guy I'm not sold on - if it increased range too that would be something, but line of sight alone is very rarely an issue for spells in my experience. Too niche to spend points on before the battle.

Definetly, the bird looks like a dud unless there's some very powerful spell damage dealing spell Ossiarchs get... But, the other two look like they could be powerful in the 40-60 point range. Maybe the +1 to Hit aura against enemies would be more.

These days the only Endless spells I pay for are Cogs, or Faction specific endless spells that cannot hurt me.

The bird has more! Check the GW site as the warscroll is up. Basically each turn you roll a dice if there are any dead destruction/order/chaos models within range and the bird then on a 1-2 heals its soul-linked mage; 3-4 deals mortal wounds to all models in a range around it (excluding ossiarchs) or on a 5-6 it does both.

It went from "meh" to "OOOH!" for me and its only around 20 points!

This army is everything I wanted from a new death faction:

Highly elite this time (and they even drove the point home by not giving you battle line manipulation and no allies to make up for low bodycount). Absolutely perfect... Also means you have to play without any cheap screen units, so a very obvious downside to them.

Strong magic still.

slow, but steady advance.

Very different mechanisms through the new "not command points" command points system, but one that can become really rewarding.

One of the most interesting warscrolls for a character I've seen in a long time with Katakross. Ignore him at your own peril it seems, but if you engage him, you're in for a nasty surprise.

Artillery that actually seems to be good!




I had a feeling I was going to get some of these guys, but the rules I'm seeing combined with their looks (who are very much a love it or hate it sort of deal), I'm all in on this release too!

Got a look at the battletome. Not a thorough read through, but enough to get the jist. Petrifax elite are as OP as they seemed from the preview, and the army as a whole is going to crush opponents who lack significant rend and/or MW output. It has the tools to bring lists OP enough for tourney play, though again MW spam is their downfall. However, IMO it is also a very easy army to lose with both in listbuilding and on the field. Not a good one for new players. Overall I like it, it's about as well balanced as one can expect from GW and loaded with a ton of theme options. Unit choice is slim but a good selection of battalions and sub-factions make up for it. Every unit is useful, and none of them can simply be spammed to win.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Got a look at the battletome. Not a thorough read through, but enough to get the jist. Petrifax elite are as OP as they seemed from the preview, and the army as a whole is going to crush opponents who lack significant rend and/or MW output. It has the tools to bring lists OP enough for tourney play, though again MW spam is their downfall. However, IMO it is also a very easy army to lose with both in listbuilding and on the field. Not a good one for new players. Overall I like it, it's about as well balanced as one can expect from GW and loaded with a ton of theme options. Unit choice is slim but a good selection of battalions and sub-factions make up for it. Every unit is useful, and none of them can simply be spammed to win.

I’m a new player (to AoS) and I’m picking it up... if I lose some, oh well. I have always loved death and this is exactly the kind of army I wanted. Durable, hard to kill, can fish out damage. Perfect for me.

One spends more time looking at their army than they do playing it, and more time playing it than they do winning. If that's the one which inspires you, play it, and don't let wins or losses get in the way. Ultimately if you enjoy using the army everything else will fall into place one way or another.

I think Ossiarchs, once they are properly out, will be an army that generates a lot of talk about how to use them. Not just army builds but actually might encourage chatter about the actual game itself. Even if its going to be about timing and using abilities and such.

GW has tapped a little into the warmachine territory I think with the Ossiarchs. Plus I think that their heavy hitting but very slow nature is going to make them possibly more delicate to use than, say, your typical glass cannon army. A glass cannon army (eg daughters) is, whilst careful to use, essentially a powerhouse that just needs to get its charges off first.

Reapers I think will suffer because they will put few models on the table; can't take allies for cheap chaff and they are majority slow moving. A player will have to be smart to use them; sure if they get into combat they will deal out a lot of damage; but a huge Skaven hoard could more easily (for example) tarpit all those reapers behind a wall of clanrats whilst securing objectives and at least contesting them.

They aren't that slow; a generic command ability gives +3" movement to a unti and their discipline mechanic both gives them plenty of not-cp to use.

Does the book have anything for Path to Glory? Skirmish? WarCry?

Was there anything in the book about Katakros and retinue being separable from the base?

I fear the cost of trying to get all the little guys from bits sellers.

Path to Glory is in there, though TBH I didn't give it much of a look since I make my own charts now anyways.

Any verbiage in the book that enables Ossiarchs to use generic command abilities? My instincts were that they did not have access to them, since they don't have command points. Battleshock immunity isn't relevant to them obviously, but no access to an auto 6" advance and/or re-rollable charges seems notable.

So Bonereapers can't take any allies at all. If it's not in the tome, there's no way to get it (except mercenaries I guess).

I'm fearful it will likely work the same the other way around too - so no Mortek Crawlers for my Legion of Nagash army. If that's the case, it's completely killed any hype for this release for me. Not in the position to start a whole full army, but I was really excited to try a few of the units as allies.

 Stux wrote:
So Bonereapers can't take any allies at all. If it's not in the tome, there's no way to get it (except mercenaries I guess).

Mercenary Companies are under 'Narrative Play Games' in the General's Handbook so it will be up to the individuals if they want to use them in Matched Play.

Amusingly enough, if people want to start an army with a Warscroll Battalion?

There's a really good, simple option:
The riders. The Kavalos and 2x units of riders is a battalion--and it does allow for the named rider too.

With Nagash and the Mortarchs being able to join up you'd think that there'd be some cross compatibility with either Nighthaunts or the Legions.

Maybe it'll get FAQ'ed in?

 obsidiankatana wrote:
Any verbiage in the book that enables Ossiarchs to use generic command abilities? My instincts were that they did not have access to them, since they don't have command points. Battleshock immunity isn't relevant to them obviously, but no access to an auto 6" advance and/or re-rollable charges seems notable.

It specifically calls out that they cannot. Which I am very happy to see, since I was concerned about their potential to spam generic command abilities like re-rolls and realm-specific ones. They have their own command ability that increases movement by 3" which more than compensates for the lack of auto-6 run.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
With Nagash and the Mortarchs being able to join up you'd think that there'd be some cross compatibility with either Nighthaunts or the Legions.

Maybe it'll get FAQ'ed in?

Yeah, it's still very possible at this stage. But the outlook isn't good for getting it at launch.

 highlord tamburlaine wrote:
With Nagash and the Mortarchs being able to join up you'd think that there'd be some cross compatibility with either Nighthaunts or the Legions.

Maybe it'll get FAQ'ed in?

Not "the" Mortarchs.
A Mortarch. It allows for Arkhan the Black, who apparently is running/"gifted" a Legion of Ossiarchs. Otherwise, they're Katakros'.

I really like this concept, getting back on topic:

The new e-short “A Tithe of Bones” is out today. Gives a good glimpse at how the sausage is made, so to speak, in what goes on after a tithe is paid. I particularly liked how the Soulmasons could sort of cut/copy/paste souls once they are reaped and make it something useful to the OBR. In one instance, they took a chaos lord fanatically loyal to Tzeentch and replaced Tzeentch with Nagash. There are alot of other, smaller and grisly details that made this e-short worth the money to to me.

hard pass on these,. not because there is anything wrong with them, they just dont fit my personal tastes of undead without actual bodies gimme spirits all day and all night long please these guys look tough as all get out and matching with ogors, yeah thats some scary stuff.

 nels1031 wrote:
The new e-short “A Tithe of Bones” is out today. Gives a good glimpse at how the sausage is made, so to speak, in what goes on after a tithe is paid. I particularly liked how the Soulmasons could sort of cut/copy/paste souls once they are reaped and make it something useful to the OBR. In one instance, they took a chaos lord fanatically loyal to Tzeentch and replaced Tzeentch with Nagash. There are alot of other, smaller and grisly details that made this e-short worth the money to to me.

I tend to hold off getting the shorts for AoS; mostly because BL has a good track record for AoS of putting them into collected editions every few months. Even if they do mess with them and put the same story into several different collected editions.

Looks like a friend and myself will be splitting Feast of Bones, and I'll be getting the Ossiarchs.

I'll be honest, I've been considering jumping into AoS for a while, but for perhaps the wrong reasons.

I started playing Fantasy back in 2003(Ish) with the the Empire vs. Orcs starter set, and it quickly became my favorite miniatures game by far. My main jam was Tomb Kings, and I played fantasy probably at least once a week for 10 years. When they blew up the old world, it sucked because they seemed to replace it with this incredibly incomplete product. When they squatted Tomb Kings shortly thereafter, it killed any enthusiasm I may have had for the game (Hey! Here's this new game you can play with any of your Warhammer Fantasy miniatures as long as they aren't Brettonians or Tomb Kings!)

I've heard from multiple people that things have greatly changed since those early days, but I'm still skeptical. That being said, I still have a soft spot for fantasy, and I feel like that the setting for Age of Sigmar has some potential, at least. That has driven a desire to give the game a fair shake now that it's been out in the wild with a few years to develop.

To be honest, I'm not anticipating it being a GREAT game, so I am approaching this with some biases, but I'm going to give it a real 'college try'. One full year (2020) of play culminating in a large tournament (maybe Nova), with a faction that was completely designed for the system (the Ossiarch Bonereapers).

I do plan to have fun with the army as these are my favorite AoS releases to date and I intend to COMPETELY resurrect the Tomb Kings with them, with a lot of conversions and kit-bashes to get the feel right, complete with Settra himself (counts-as Katakros). I've got over 10,000 points of WHFB Tomb Kings, so bits aren't even close to a problem.

I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by AoS, even if I'm skeptical I will be. My Ossiarch army (which I'm calling Project: Resurrection starting now!) is going be a lot of fun to build and paint, regardless!

It depends how you qualify what is or isn't a "great" game, and what you look for that makes a game great. I play a variety of others (40k, Adeptus Titanicus, Infinity, BMG, and for a while (but no longer) Guild Ball, Malifaux, and Warmachine) and AoS still ranks as the game I enjoy playing the most, not counting any sort of fleet-based/ship-based naval-style game (Titanicus is a lot of fun, Firestorm Armada is still hands-down my favorite game, but Spartan games is dead and no community here, and BFG was, lets be honest, broken.)

AOS definitely doesn't have the granular front/flank/rear positioning dilemma that Fantasy has. While positioning is still critical in AoS, it's much more dynamic and fluid.

You'll give it the college try, so that's good. The only recommendation that I can recommend to really maximize how you approach AoS is regarding the double turn.

Don't think of it as a way the game breaks itself, but understand that it's an element of the game that requires thinking and playing around.

Giving your opponent first turn to ensure that you don't get double-turned, as an example (also why people often try to minimize the amount of 'drops' that their army has, because finishing deployment first gives you choice, without the potential for a seize).

Additionally, if you win and never take the double turn, it guarantees that your opponent can't then double-turn you.

Just food for thought. I think the Ossiarchs are probably a tougher army to learn AoS with. It's a small number-count army that isn't fast and doesn't have ways to reposition quickly. The Relentless Discipline mechanic is also greatly nuanced and (I think) compared to many other army mechanics (a lot of wholly within buffs with short ranges as well) that will probably give this army a bit of a steeper learning curve. But I think it also has the potential to be one of the most rewarding to play because of it.

Ossiarch Bonereapers: Tactics From A Pro by Russ Veal (one of the playtesters) on Warhammer Community.

 DV8 wrote:
It depends how you qualify what is or isn't a "great" game, and what you look for that makes a game great. I play a variety of others (40k, Adeptus Titanicus, Infinity, BMG, and for a while (but no longer) Guild Ball, Malifaux, and Warmachine) and AoS still ranks as the game I enjoy playing the most, not counting any sort of fleet-based/ship-based naval-style game (Titanicus is a lot of fun, Firestorm Armada is still hands-down my favorite game, but Spartan games is dead and no community here, and BFG was, lets be honest, broken.)

AOS definitely doesn't have the granular front/flank/rear positioning dilemma that Fantasy has. While positioning is still critical in AoS, it's much more dynamic and fluid.

You'll give it the college try, so that's good. The only recommendation that I can recommend to really maximize how you approach AoS is regarding the double turn.

Don't think of it as a way the game breaks itself, but understand that it's an element of the game that requires thinking and playing around.

Giving your opponent first turn to ensure that you don't get double-turned, as an example (also why people often try to minimize the amount of 'drops' that their army has, because finishing deployment first gives you choice, without the potential for a seize).

Additionally, if you win and never take the double turn, it guarantees that your opponent can't then double-turn you.

Just food for thought. I think the Ossiarchs are probably a tougher army to learn AoS with. It's a small number-count army that isn't fast and doesn't have ways to reposition quickly. The Relentless Discipline mechanic is also greatly nuanced and (I think) compared to many other army mechanics (a lot of wholly within buffs with short ranges as well) that will probably give this army a bit of a steeper learning curve. But I think it also has the potential to be one of the most rewarding to play because of it.

Thanks for the input!

As far as what a 'great' game is, for me at least: it's a game that is actually fun and rewarding to play, win or lose. Games should almost always be close and its best if they're not decided until late-or-end-game.

The dreaded double-turn actually doesn't bother me that much as I've played plenty of games with priority so a double turn is just something you get used to dealing with as a possibility.

But yeah, I'm going to really do my best to make this as fair an experience as possible, and I'm genuinely going to try and enjoy it!

I don't know much about the other artillery pieces but the Ossiarch one looks a little busted. Does anyone know the point cost ? Failing a save and having 5 models die looks a bit harsh, or sniping Heroes with it too. I mean with a little luck you can snipe Katakros in two turns with two of these.

Unlike 40k, where first turn often decides games, I find AoS is a very momentum-based but swingy game. Objectives are the only things that matter, and a lot of the scenarios have objectives that are worth points equal to the turn they're scored on or are worth progressively more the longer you hold them.

Almost no army can really turn-1 alpha strike you, and killing doesn't matter if you win on points, so taking the right objectives at the right time can really swing the tide of an early game that might have been solidly in your opponent's favor.

I very rarely see blow-outs outside of poor matchups or a severe mis-match in player skills.

Artillery looks like it'll work wonders against low-leadership armies, low armor saves or people who like to put their heroes out in the open... But before people rush out buying the Crawlers you've got to consider your meta. Teleporting armies will give them a hard time, and if your group has a fair few Sylvaneth players you'll want to steer clear of expensive shooting.

Anecdotal, but I played a tournament recently and ran in to a CoS army with a boatload of artillery and the first-turn double shooting battalion... And his Artillery didn't fire a single shot until Round 3, but by then I had most of them tied up in melee combat. Sylvaneth will make your Crawlers VERY sad indeed.

GW will be doing a review of the battletome tomorrow on Twitch (12 pm EDT / 4 pm GMT) followed by Ossiarch Bonreapers tactics and then a game versus Slaanesh.

 Aaranis wrote:
I don't know much about the other artillery pieces but the Ossiarch one looks a little busted. Does anyone know the point cost ? Failing a save and having 5 models die looks a bit harsh, or sniping Heroes with it too. I mean with a little luck you can snipe Katakros in two turns with two of these.

It's 200 points and it is powerful, its possibly the only thing in the army that right now feels "cheap" in points for what you get. However at the same time it can't shoot closer than 6 inches (I think) and it can only use its 2 most powerful hits once per game and there's damage to the crawler having an effect on both of them too. I think its likely fair considering its the only non-magical ranged attack the faction has access too.


Also I've been sorting out a bit of a shopping list for this weekend and the big drop of pre-orders. Right now I'm thinking something along the lines of:

1 Arch-Kavalos Zandtos
2 Kavalos Deathriders
1 Mortek Crawler
1 Gothizzar Harvester
1 Mortisan Boneshaper
1 Mortisan Soulreaper

Possibly also adding the Tithe Nexus to the order.

This is on top of:

6 morghasts (I've still not decided on weapons)
10 Mortek Guard
3 Stalkers
Vokmortian

Sadly its looking increasingly like I won't find a trading partner to swap my ogors for reapers and the trading price for ogors is somewhat less than for the reapers so I can't basically double my mortek and stalkers (which is most of what I'd hoped for - the added morghasts would have been a boon). Still that would give me a decent working core plus a nice chunk of variety.

I think the catapult is overpowered at its current cost, or at the very least not goof for the game, because of it's character-snipe ability. 2d6+chart modifier if the value beats the wounds characteristic the target model is slain. At full health its -3, then goes to -1, +0, +1, and finally +3 (gets better the more damage it has). Having your hero deleted from 36" away is not fun to play against.

For anyone wondering, the other shot is pretty much an anti-Skaven ability. Roll for each model in the target unit and add an amount from the damage chart (starts at +2 as I recall, and goes down) each dice that beats the unmodified bravery deals a MW. So it will eliminate 2/3 of a clanrat unit or half a plague monk unit.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I think the catapult is overpowered at its current cost, or at the very least not goof for the game, because of it's character-snipe ability. 2d6+chart modifier if the value beats the wounds characteristic the target model is slain. At full health its -3, then goes to -1, +0, +1, and finally +3 (gets better the more damage it has). Having your hero deleted from 36" away is not fun to play against.

For anyone wondering, the other shot is pretty much an anti-Skaven ability. Roll for each model in the target unit and add an amount from the damage chart (starts at +2 as I recall, and goes down) each dice that beats the unmodified bravery deals a MW. So it will eliminate 2/3 of a clanrat unit or half a plague monk unit.

Discussion of the weapons strength vs hordes feels like an exercise in absurdity. Hordes are very strong and make for one-sided games unless you have a dedicated anti-horde weapon. Ossiarchs get this one and can't Ally in other ones. Weak hordes are meant to be chaff and distractions and so don't care if the crawler targets them over something meaningful. Strong hordes are much less likely to keel over to bravery shenanigans.

Now discussion of it's strength vs heroes is worth digging into. I can see the turn 1 snipe of a 5 wound character as unfun, however, it's 2d6-3 which is average roll of 4, requiring the Attacker to roll 9+ on 2d6 to achieve a kill. Which as we know from the 9" deep striking rule, is what's considered a long bomb. I think what gets me about it is circumventing the attack sequence for it. Most other instagib abilities require a laundry list to work (fight in combat, roll hit, roll wound, roll save, if wound is taken, roll a dice to determine if insta-gib happens, etc etc) so why is this one different?? I have no problem with the weapon being capable of what it can (which is niche and unlikely) as long as it follows the rules of everything else in the game. And if the problem is "you could give it more attacks" then just change the unit or CA keywords to disinclude the Crawler. I also wouldn't have a problem with CAs or traits granting it + or rerolls to hit or wound because that's one useful ability being spent on buffing the crawler rather than buffing the meat and potatoes of the list, on the off chance that it can snipe a character. Side-note that isnt *really* relevant, but many characters either have > 5 wounds or a way to gain more wounds via command trait so many characters will ignore the rules of the crawler completely (anything with 9 wounds or more is immune) or become so difficult to slay via Crawler that the chances of it occuring will be 10% of games your character will die on the first turn. Which seems like a waste of 200 points to me. 200 points can buy many elite units at minimum size, a medium sized unit of regular dudes or one quite powerful non-unique hero model that can pack an artefact of power.

The necrotic skulls rule for sniping at heros/monsters seems fine to me because it follows all the regular rules for gameplay. - to hit, + to saves, reroll of save throws, FNP saves against wounds suffered that pass save throws, reserves and redeployment are all things that armies usually have access to and serve to mitigate the effect of strong shooting/artillery.

It doesn't need to use the Stele ability to snipe a Character, sure it might be easier, but the regular attacks do well enough. As Nighthaunt most of my Heroes are 5W (barring the 6W Knight of Shrouds on Steed, and all three named Characters, which have 7W), and if he targets one of mine he just needs to hit on a 3+ reroll 1s to Hit with 3/4 attacks, to wound on 3+ and me to fail my 4+ to have a dead 100-140 pts Hero (I don't rely on the FNP tbh), which easily wracks my whole synergy considering how important they are in my army.

In practice I guess I'll have to deploy in a way as to hide my Characteres, and considering they don't really have screens I can see myself coming from Reserves with my Bladegheists and a Hero to reroll charges and mow them down.

Also don't forget its anti-hero attack is a one time affair. It basically makes taking out the trebuchet being an all or nothing tactic. Either your opponent can and does commit to killing it in one turn; or they ignore it and weather the damage from its regular and anti-hoard attack (remembering that the anti-hoard is also only one attack).

So after seeing the new book myself, I am mostly relieved my concerns I had earlier in this thread were somewhat unfounded, the army hits hard and is priced accordingly... Except that catapult I'm not too keen on that, the anti horde and anti hero parts make me concerned only due to it's price. But hopefully won't be too bad.

The army will hit hard and grind you down, but my Goblins won't fight fair either

I agree with NinthMusketeer, the cursed Stele isn't game breaking, but it shouldn't really be in the game. It's not just it's threat to support heroes - which the regular ammo is a significant threat to - but the ability to pop banners, musicians or break unit coherencey from across the board.

I just don't think that kind of ability should be in the game.

In theory breaking unit coherencey was more of an issue when aura buffs were "any unit within Xinches". The shift toward "any unit fully within Xinches" and the fact that a lot of armies make use of aura buffs from leaders is steadily pushing people away from long string lines of units.

Also its not the only unit snipe ability in the game; in fact I'd argue that specific unit snipe abilities are not totally a bad thing as they do encourage formation use on the table.



Now I'd temper that with two points:
1) If tighter unit formations are encouraged then they should give suitable bonus toward protecting units. We won't ever get back to the old rank and file system, but we could get some forward protections

3) Some models are odd to model visually within a unit. I'm thinking of units which have banners and such. 3 or 4 banners in a 30 man unit looks strange. I'd welcome a return to the old system where if your banner/musician unit is taken out another unit can step in to pick them up.
Sniping would still have power, heckwith the way Ossiarchs use command abilities its actually very powerful against their troop blocks if you snipe out the troop leader

Honestly the Crawler is no more powerful than SCE Longstrikes, who can teleport and shoot twice. Because of their ability to split shots, and the absurdly powerful Headshot rule, they absolutely ruin characters (and I believe they also hit on 2's, wound on 3's, with potentials for rerolls?)

Nagash's Spellportal + Hand of Dust outright slaying a model on a 50/50?

The Crawler fills a much needed gap in the OB army, which lacks (in many builds) numbers and volume (good luck fighting a Skaven, Goblin, or IJ horde) and allows the army to reach out and do damage while it maneuvers its infantry into position.

200 points "feels" cheap, but when you actually try to write an army list with OB, it becomes an issue where you actually have to think "maybe this 200 points is better spent on 3 Stalkers, or another unit of 5 Kavalos..." I think in the context of the OB list, the Crawler is actually fairly priced, given how highly costed everything else is in the army.

The guys at my shop have the book and I've read you can give the Crawlers a 2+ FNP with the right conditions (Batallion + another unit I think) that's pretty ugly !

They bounce the wounds to another unit though, rather than just ignoring them.

So Reapers just beat triple (with a 4th appearing) keeper slaanesh on the Warhammer Twitch. Interesting battle, there were some odd dice rolls that let the Reapers hold one side longer than expected; however they played out very much how people thought. A steady slow advance and once in combat they just soak up the wounds - a harvester and guard was a monster of a block to tackle.

Also the crawler was a very powerful unit in the game.

Well there's your answer to slaanesh. Its not broken, you're just playing the wrong army!

 auticus wrote:
Well there's your answer to slaanesh. Its not broken, you're just playing the wrong army!

Is it bad that I collect both Slaanesh and Ossiarchs (though ossiarchs appearing does mean I still don't own any keepers)

Bonereapers are a n a nice spot against Slaanesh, because their main infantry are both tough enough to withstand offense and 1 wound so they don't yield depravity. Combined with the ability to recover slain models they can afford to simply attrition Slaanesh to death, something very few armies can do.

Bonereapers already need an Errata, and it's an obvious one at that. Vokmortain Master of the Bone Tithes cannot take spells from the Ossiarch spell lore, he lacks the appropriate keyword

In fairness I can see how that slipped the net - his warscroll titles are long enough already and the Tome is very specific that it needs to be Mortician not just a wizard or such as it is with many other tomes. Makes one think that originally they had two or three spell lore groups; or perhaps do so in theory on paper for future releases.

Busy weekend of building and painting up Feast of Bones. I was surprised at how small the models are, and I'm actually quite happy that they're not huge hulking Stormcast-sized skeletons when it comes to the basic troops. Even the Necropolis Stalkers are rather small when compared to something like Kurnoth Hunters with the stalkers unable to match their height just barely.

Appropriately sized, nicely detailed and they weren't a pain in the behind to build and plenty of fun to build. Can't wait for the next batch of models to arrive so I can paint them too

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-112860-62045_Thadin%20Bonereapers.html

Pleased with the turn out, excited to see what a lot more time, effort and skill would look like on the models.

Really nice work there, loving the bright vibrant scheme on them! The armour plating really works well on them being painted in colour too.


Myself I've made a huge mistake and ordered a huge load of Reapers to bury myself in

Thankfully I've got about a week before I get buried under the mountain when the pre-order stuff ships. Still the nice thing is that being a high point cost army that's fairly cheap (in comparison to many others) to buy means that I think they will be an ideal "inbetween armies" army.

Glad to see I'm not the only one churning through painting these guys. The again I cheated and used the contrast bone which sped things up immensely.

I really like them. I wish the book had a bit more in terms of colors and demarcations of the various subfactions though. There isn't much in there surprisingly.

Still most excited for the Harvester!

My Bonereapers so far are almost entirely Contrast Paints. Blood Angels Red then Fleshtearers red beneath the ridges. Skeleton Horde contrast all over the bones, except where where I'm using Apothecary White with Nuln Oil over it on some armor pieces and the tops of shields. Aethertmatic Blue for spooky parts and blades.

Only non-Contrast I use is white for the armor rivets, green for the very center of the eyes, and various metallics.

Love Contrast, best thing to happen to me in terms of painting.

 Thadin wrote:
Busy weekend of building and painting up Feast of Bones. I was surprised at how small the models are, and I'm actually quite happy that they're not huge hulking Stormcast-sized skeletons when it comes to the basic troops. Even the Necropolis Stalkers are rather small when compared to something like Kurnoth Hunters with the stalkers unable to match their height just barely.

Appropriately sized, nicely detailed and they weren't a pain in the behind to build and plenty of fun to build. Can't wait for the next batch of models to arrive so I can paint them too

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-112860-62045_Thadin%20Bonereapers.html

Pleased with the turn out, excited to see what a lot more time, effort and skill would look like on the models.

I too was really pleased to find their scale so reasonable. It's good to see GW remembering that the 'big guys' are only big if there are normals to compare them to.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I too was really pleased to find their scale so reasonable. It's good to see GW remembering that the 'big guys' are only big if there are normals to compare them to.

Agreed, I was also happy that they went for a normal human sized model, but still with formidable stats.


Orruks getting bigger as they get stronger is a good thing, but that needn't happen for every race. Especially not for one that is supposed to be an unnatural one.


Also, there is a very pleasant size difference between the mortek guard/cavalry vs stalkers/immortis guard vs Morghasts.

The Petrifex Elite lore about building giants out of fossils makes me want even bigger models though!

Of course in my wishful thinking I would love to see a Mortarch that was a Morghast but I doubt that'll happen.

Question- Does the Liege Immortis that hangs out on Katakros' base have any special rules?
All the rest of his crew his special abilities, but the Immortis just seems to add a pile of attacks to combat. Is that all he does?

the opening pages of the Battletome has some pictures of a boneyard and there's a big skeletal bird/dragon on one side. Now that I want! Seriously if you're the Lord of Building cool stuff from bones build a massive dragon! (esp as you can't even ally in zombie dragons - probably because you don't want all those bits messing up the battlefield as they fall apart)

The secret is that bonereapers actually do have allies--they just get hacked up and processed into more bonereapers by the time the battle starts.

Well I've seen the Kavalos Deathriders today and was pleasantly surprised that they're actually horse-sized. For some reason I thought they'd be bulkier but it seems a unit of 15 with Spears is actually viable to engage with multiple ranks.

Is the mounted hero the same size as the kavalos? He seems to be on a larger base, as well as on a larger beast.

The Kavalos Deathriders come on 60 mm oval bases while Arch-Kavalos Zandtos comes on a 80 mm round base

Having now read the book cover to cover, I love them.
I can see a ton of crem or petrefex armies being built over the other options.

Crem will specifically give slaanesh a hard time as it’s going to be endless waves of exploding skellies that just keep coming back.

Elites are going to be a decent stable option against most armies as it takes a stable basic troop and ramps it up even more.
The bonus for their general is even better if you don’t plan on running anyone unique to lead them.

I will be facing a couple of Ogor armies, plus boar heavy Ironjaws, so a lot of impact hits.

I am hoping that Crematorian will help hit back rather than seeing models just vanishing

Orruk and Ogor armies overall are low on MWs. Petrifax elite would serve you better, especially because casualties in the charge phase don't trigger Crematorians' ability anyways. Having a Harvester behind your mortek guard will bring half of them back immediately.

D'oh. Missed the melee part.

Too used to Azyrite Halo.

I should say I speak from a min-max perspective. Were I playing bonermen I would absolutely be running Crematorians for the fun & theme.

Ossiarch Bonereapers Eratta and Designers' Commentary are up on Warhammer Community (the Ogor ones as well...).

Hm, does that nerf the Gothizzar Harvester in any meaningful way? It's not hard to keep models within 3" of it like Mortek Guard and since technically each attack and wound happens by a model by model basis, you could do the 4+ to bring it back and keep placing it within 3" to reuse it for the ability. So you would have to fail a lot of 4+ from the Gothizzar's ability before a unit would be out of range.

It stops double Harvester shenanigans. The wording means you only roll once regardless of how many harvesters in range.

Honestly most of those changes are just clarifications of what we expected. Harvester is cut back to only one per corpse; deathriders can't use their ability multiple times; Vokmortian can take spells and they've cleared up the issue with the main leaders health divisions.



Kinda amusing in the FAQ on the terrain in that GW basically nudges it onto the event organiser to work out what to do

I would have been ok with double harvesters getting 2 chances to bring 1 model back but good changes all around.

 Eldarain wrote:
I would have been ok with double harvesters getting 2 chances to bring 1 model back but good changes all around.

Eh, it's really unfair against armies that don't have any real ranged ability. You can just wrap the Harvesters in the block of Mortek Guard and there's really nothing you can do about it.

Necessary change imo.

100% sensible FAQ imo.

Glad to see any silly Harvester and kavalos deathrider shenanigans being resolved.

The Ossiarch bonereapers seem to be strong enough to deal with many enemies without these 2 crutches.

Yup, that errata was entirely needed. Otherwise the situation was statistically infinite respawns.

I for one am also glad that Vokmortain is now a real bonereaper wizard. Though, the way they fixed him seems a little weird, instead of giving him the Mortisian Keyword needed to get spells, GW instead added an exception to their Spell Lore for him. But hey, at least he works properly now.

I'm not satisfied with GW's answer when it came to the Bone-Tithe Nexus however. Just another house rule I'll have to hammer out with my local play group, since we don't have a club to game at and whoever's hosting at their home sets the table(s) up beforehand.

It is simply because Vokmortian isn't a mortisan--they are those involved in the creation & maintenance of ossiarchs, which Vokmortian is not.

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not satisfied with GW's answer when it came to the Bone-Tithe Nexus however. Just another house rule I'll have to hammer out with my local play group, since we don't have a club to game at and whoever's hosting at their home sets the table(s) up beforehand.

And a Tournament Organizer would ignore whatever answer they gave in the FAQ if it didn't suit their needs, so basically the answer GW gave is what was going to happen anyway.

Barring a few exceptions the Nexus basically wants to be in the same place in most games - right in the middle. The only time it doesn't is if all the objectives are weighted to one side of the table or its an abnormal table shape.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not satisfied with GW's answer when it came to the Bone-Tithe Nexus however. Just another house rule I'll have to hammer out with my local play group, since we don't have a club to game at and whoever's hosting at their home sets the table(s) up beforehand.

And a Tournament Organizer would ignore whatever answer they gave in the FAQ if it didn't suit their needs, so basically the answer GW gave is what was going to happen anyway.

Giving an official answer, even a sub-par one, does a huge service to TOs since it means they are not responsible. By putting the responsibility entirely on TOs the current situation opens them up to criticism* that would be much reduced if GW had given a proper answer. Also, even when a rule is ignored or modified a GW ruling can reveal the intent of how it is supposed to work and provide a guideline in that way.

*Mostly butthurt whining.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:

 Thadin wrote:
I'm not satisfied with GW's answer when it came to the Bone-Tithe Nexus however. Just another house rule I'll have to hammer out with my local play group, since we don't have a club to game at and whoever's hosting at their home sets the table(s) up beforehand.

And a Tournament Organizer would ignore whatever answer they gave in the FAQ if it didn't suit their needs, so basically the answer GW gave is what was going to happen anyway.

Giving an official answer, even a sub-par one, does a huge service to TOs since it means they are not responsible. By putting the responsibility entirely on TOs the current situation opens them up to criticism* that would be much reduced if GW had given a proper answer. Also, even when a rule is ignored or modified a GW ruling can reveal the intent of how it is supposed to work and provide a guideline in that way.

*Mostly butthurt whining.

GW did give us rules for setting up the Bone-Tithe Nexus and those can be found on page 84 of the battletome. Any changes to those rules are up to the organizer. The closest you'll get as an answer from GW will in a rules pack from Warhammer World.

You know as well as I do that those rules are meaningless in a tournament setting since the tables are set up ahead of time.

I wish they'd just put a point cost on faction terrains, or just that they'd have never released them in the first place (I'm not sure about the grammar of this sentence sorry). At least so far the previous terrains were reasonably sized, but the Nexus is just too much, it's enormous and can affect both players. Giving a -1 to Hit on a 4+ should cost more than 0 pts, especially when the terrain is not restricted to the OBR side of the table.

The faction terrain right now is simply GW taking an allegiance ability and giving it a model and a limited range/influence on the tabletop. The Herdstone gains aura every turn and easily reaches across much of the board by the end (and that's without accounting for the fact that the enemy will be charging over the board toward you in most games).

The ossiarch terrain piece is different. For one it gets to go down wherever it wants bar objectives. It is also controlled by a specific player--all the others may only benefit a certain army but are neutral. It also has no rule relation to the army it is from; nothing about it is more beneficial to an ossiarch army than it would be to any other army, there's no thematic or mechanical tie-in with the rules (compare to say, the Ogor mawpot where a massive aoe heal is clearly more useful to an army with multi-wound models). Finally, it is notably more powerful than any of the other terrain pieces.

Overall it is going to be another contributor to making ossiarch armies very unfun to play against. IMO, it is very poorly designed for that reason (though the model is awesome).