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I agree with the others that Malekith is a very powerful character, he's certainly in the top 5. He's decent in close combat and is a powerful wizard. The best thing in my opinion is that he's got a 2+ ward save against non-magical attacks and if an enemy character does get in combat with him with a magic weapon he'll likely strike first and destroy it.

Grimgor Ironhide is just brutally powerful in my opinion and is pretty hard to kill too, the only problem is that he's got a low movement. But he's remarkably cheap for what he can do, and if points value was brought in to the equation then he'd be top in my opinion.

Thorgrim grudgebearer is also very good, his stregnth is modified to wound on a 2, ignores armour saves, and causes D3 wounds, this means, along with his pretty high weapon skill, means his going to kill something with almost every one of his attacks. And he's got 7 wounds!

On to high elf characters (bet you can't guess what armies i collect), teclis is very good, because of his magic prowess but i find that the sword is wasted on him, perhaps he should lend it to his brother sometime, as i don't think tyrion's sword isn't that good for a character of his caliber. I also think elarthion the grim is pretty good, though not up there in the top 5 characters

Ragnar4 wrote:

UNREALPwnage wrote:We are talking hero level characters, the green knight is a Lord level characted, he also dies very easy to combat res, that is why i stoped using him.

1) Archaon and Grimgor are both Lord Level characters so is teclis. They are mentioned in the first 2 posts

2) I understand that he gets removed from the table due to CRes. BUT if you have unlimited time, he will always resurrect. It may take 785 turns for him to kill archaon. But he will eventually, because he can't be killed. He comes back to life on a 6 always...

What he's saying is, we've wrapped up the discussion on lord levels, it's bee summarized that grimgor and archon for melee, malekith for both, and teclis, kairos, slaan for magic.

Now the discussion is pertaining to hero levels.

My 2 cents on the topic: Crom is awesome, he can shut down grimgor (taking away him magic axe!) For fluff, my favorite is Borgut Facebeater, though we should probably stick to LEGAL characters...hard to be powerful if you can't hit the table top.

Lokhir is an interesting pick, he's effective to be sure, but I think Konrad has him beat, I'd have to check their initiatives again, because whoever gets to swing first, will most likely win.

Lizardmen have some pretty good hero choices, their only drawbacks is points, but since we're throwing them out the window, Gor'Rok or Chakax can easily be in this discussion. Skulltaker is a hero level as well.

Anyway, just giving some more ideas for people to consider.

Caradryan. Cheapest most powerful hero in game :(

15 pt warlock engineer... Fear him!

I think that this thread under-rates Tyrion a bit at the lord level, but this may just be me.

Skarbrand? Kugath?

mannfred the hero coice is pretty beast, he can just summon hundreds of zomies to kill you.

UNREALPwnage wrote:mannfred the hero coice is pretty beast, he can just summon hundreds of zomies to kill you.

Maybe, but zombies aren't the best unit ever to have graced the warhammer battlefields.

We can always hope they do Nagash on his skeleton dragon (as in original undead book background), also what happened to the skeleton legions of nagash book??

I understand that the discussion has moved past lord level characters, but I am surprised no one mentioned Thorgrim Grudgebearer.

In a straight up fight, Thorgrim will beat Grimgor nearly every time. Granted he costs more than twice of what Grimgor costs, but Grimgor would have to hit with every attack, wound with every hit, and Thorgrim would have to fail all of his 5+ (due to S modifiers) armour saves, and 4+ Ward saves. If Grimgor doesn't kill Thorgrim on the first turn, he is dead once Thorgrim retaliates.

4 attacks (re-rerollable) hits on 4's. Wounds on 2's, does D3 wounds per hit, no armour save allowed. Grimgor has to rely on a measely 5+ ward to keep him alive from that beast.

I think Malekith is a bad matchup for Thorgrim, but Grimgor would easily die to the bearded monster.

Seon wrote:Caradryan. Cheapest most powerful hero in game :(

Thing is, he's a bit of a kamikaze character. He goes into combat with a big powerful ord level character (preferably with no ward save), his weapon will cause D3 wounds, if he actually wounds it, which is fairly unlikely. Then he dies, and the lord character gets killed by him, well actually it's actually asurmen who does the killing. Could we bend the rules and say Asurmen si the most powerful hero character....?

Lehnsherr wrote:I understand that the discussion has moved past lord level characters, but I am surprised no one mentioned Thorgrim Grudgebearer.

In a straight up fight, Thorgrim will beat Grimgor nearly every time. Granted he costs more than twice of what Grimgor costs, but Grimgor would have to hit with every attack, wound with every hit, and Thorgrim would have to fail all of his 5+ (due to S modifiers) armour saves, and 4+ Ward saves. If Grimgor doesn't kill Thorgrim on the first turn, he is dead once Thorgrim retaliates.

4 attacks (re-rerollable) hits on 4's. Wounds on 2's, does D3 wounds per hit, no armour save allowed. Grimgor has to rely on a measely 5+ ward to keep him alive from that beast.

I think Malekith is a bad matchup for Thorgrim, but Grimgor would easily die to the bearded monster.

That is a very good point. Maybe he hasn't been mentioned because there isn't too many dwarf players? I don't know.

If you wanted to address the points issue, you could include how grimgor *has* to take his retinue in a game, which adds a significant points increase. How many points is Thorgrim? If we assume twice, then grimgor + 28 black orcs would be a little under 740. In which case there's a good chance thorgrim would lose out to that unit, grimgor would still die, of course.

Though I think the points argument is irrelevant, as the rest of the arguments made here were with not taking points into consideration, so as sad as it makes me, Thorgrim > Grimgor in a straight up fight. (though he does have a good chance of landing 7 wounds in his first turn with hatred and S7 )

Actually Greenbay, Thorgrim would probably beat Grimgor and his entire retinue by himself.

He is LD 10, Stubborn, immune to fear and terror. He has 4 attacks himself, and his Thronebearers have 4 attacks. They can't be attacked mind you, but do benefit from the Hatred Thorgrim has. Alot of Black Orcs would be dying every turn, and they would be hoping that Thorgrim is rolling very poorly on his Armour and Ward save rolls in order to take him down.

His points cost? 780

There are not many characters out there that cost more than him.

That is a pretty steep cost, approaching malekith on dragon territory.

Is that the guy held up by the dudes and he standson a shield or something? I think he's the guy my cousin uses. We've actually had a grimgor vs him play out in a game before, black orcs did end up winning, but mostly due to a lucky night goblin flank charge to give net support...

Anyway, some fun sample goodness:

Grimgor + 27 black orcs with banner of butchery is around 770

thorgrim - 780

grimgor goes first, after rerolls has 6 hits (assuming 4s hit) and 5 wounds, 2 make it through
thorgrim's 8 net 5 dead orcs
the 3x3 in BSB attack with 12 S6 attacks, getting 9 hits, 6 wounds, 2 get through.

I think over the turns the orcs will win this, due to the number of wounds thorgrim will have to do, and if he blows all of his attacks on grimgor first turn (which would make sense) then that's even longer the rest live.

As I said earlier, I think the main reason he hasn't been mentioned, is he only gets 4 attacks (plus the 4 others, I believe at a S4 though) with a 780 point price tag? That seems a little steep...

Well, I am curious why there would be no challenge declared. If i was Thorgrim I'd be challenging for sure. No Black Orc attacks in the first round, and a nice dead Grimgor. If Grimgor doesn't accept Grimgor is now in the back.

He is not carried on shields. He is carried on the Throne. Massive model.

He might die due to sheer number of attacks over time, but any characters / champions in the unit will only be challenged, and subsequently destroyed giving Thorgrim a chance to win combat.

The next turn would result in a lot of dead black orcs, with very little wounds applied to the High King. 4's to hit, 3's to wound (if you are using Great Weapons). You would only get 6 Black Orc attacks on the King. 3 in base to base, 3 support. Black Orcs each only have 1 attack, so I do not see how you would get 12 attacks on the King. Even if you were horded (a rather silly thing to do with only 28 models) you get 9 attacks.

The banner of butchery is a 1 use item. So you get 1 turn of 6 attacks on front rank, and 3 attacks on support. Supporting ranks NEVER get more than 1 attack unless they are monstrous infantry. Even with 9 attacks, you are likely to only wound once after all saves have been taken.

Based on averages, you would look at 3 hits, 2 wounds, with a 6 Strength he would have a 4+ armour and 4+ ward. Likely no wounds. Again these are all averages, but even if you get 1 wound through per phase, thats still 4 phases of attacks striking last, requiring some luck on your part. The King doesn't need luck, he will be crushing your Orcs left and right. 3's to hit, 2's to wound, no armour saves. Even the Thronebearers would be tearing up Black Orcs if they (BOrcs) were using Great weapons. 3's to hit, 4's to wound, 6+ Armour save on the Orcs.

At 28 models you have 5 Ranks. You would be losing more than a rank per phase. You'd be testing your LD on a Steadfast 8, but thats hardly a sure thing. You might have 1 or 2 turns winning with static combat res, but that will quickly disapear.

The numbers just don't add up for Grimgor in this fight. If I was playing O&G against Thorgrim I'd much rather toss him a nice massive block of 60 night goblins, keep a BSB nearby and laugh as the 780 points of Thorgrim takes the entire game to earn 120 points of Night Goblins. Sending Grimgor and your expensive Black Orcs into that fight is just asking for trouble.

Based purely on average rolls (obviously we cannot do that, its random for a reason) the King would win that combat.

My numbers were from horde formation. You'll get one round of a challenge, against grimgore, no other characters in the unit, so rest of the time you're going against the unit.

I think your over estimating your severely limited number of attacks, does he have something allowing him to reroll hits every turn? or is it just the greenskin hatred he's going off of?

If it's just the hatred, then a realistic per turn death total from him and your groupies is closer to 2-4 models, that's 7 rounds of combat (8 including the turn to get rid of grimgor)

And, after looking at it, I'm not sure it's a sure thing he kills grimgor...you get 4 attacks needing 4s to hit, if you land 3 hits, and get a 1 on any of your to wounds, then there's a good chance only 1 gets past the ward save, and a 33% chance of getting the 3 on a D3.

I'd say it's about an 80% shot.

Well, he needs 4's to hit. First turn he gets to reroll those, so out of 4 attacks, he will likely hit 3 times. Of those 3 hits you will likely wound 3 times. You only need 2's to wound, so odds are 3 wounds, but a chance of only 2 wounds. Of those 2 wounds, Grimgor would fail 1 save, and possibly both. If you hit 3, he will likely save one. 2 hits causing D3 wounds per hit. Thats an average of 4 wounds on Grimgor from the King. The thronebearers also attack 4 times against Grimgor. They too would need 4's to hit, and could reroll. They would need 5's to wound, so likely they wouldn't wound Grimgor after armour and ward saves, but the chance is still there.

After the first round you are looking at 1 round of 12 attacks from the Butchery. Even if you wound twice during that round, you still have 3 wounds to go. The king has 7 wounds.

After that round of 12, you are looking at 9 attacks. 4's to hit, 3's to wound. So 4.5 hits per turn if horded. so average would be 3 wounds per turn. Armour save against great weapons would be a 4+, and ward save is 4+. After averaging those out, you have .75 wounds per turn from the black orcs. Assuming Grimgor wounded 3 times (which is above average) that still leaves you with 4 turns or more. Your horde formation would be gone after 1-2 rounds of combat. So your 3 supporting attacks from Horde would be gone quickly. At that point, you are actually averaging .25 wounds per turn. The king has 4 attacks, his thronebearers have 4 attacks. Thats 8 attacks (no longer rerollable) but you only need 3's to hit the Black orcs, and 2's to wound with the king, 4's to wound with the bearers.

Overall this just doesn't add up once your horde bonus is gone.

That's why I gave thorgrim the 80% chance to kill grimgor. It's still much more likely to happen than not. After the first round of combat using the banner, I'd imagine the best course would be a reform into 5xwhatever's left. Forcing you into a lot more rounds of combat, I believe attrition will win.

We'll say grimgor gets 2 on thorgrim then dies, leaving him with 5 wounds.

Next round, the 12 attacks result in 9 hits , needing 3s to wound, 6 wounds, 3 past armor, 1.5 past ward

if your round up, it's 2 and:
thorgrim will hit unit on 3s, so 3 hits (above average) and 3 wounds, plus his homies getting in another, for 4 total. End of combat, black orcs reform into 5x4+3

At this point, thorgrim will average 4-5 wounds a turn, which will take 5-6 turns to wipe out the unit

Thorgrim has 3 wounds left, and with the 6 attacks that's about 5-6 turns to take them out.

I still want to give the favor to the black orcs, as they get to throw more dice, meaning more average odds, one round of whiffs by thorgrim (which I see quite frequently from 4 attack models) and he takes a severe set back.

If thorgrim only takes 1 wound from the first salvo from the orcs, then the odds go in his favor.

Anyway, we're basically arguing in circle over something that will almost NEVER happen, as outside circumstances will play into how it turns out, if these two did meet on the field.

Most powerful hero character, especially for the points? Skulltaker gets my vote.

greenbay924 wrote:That's why I gave thorgrim the 80% chance to kill grimgor. It's still much more likely to happen than not. After the first round of combat using the banner, I'd imagine the best course would be a reform into 5xwhatever's left. Forcing you into a lot more rounds of combat, I believe attrition will win.

My Grimgor must be smarter than yours. Against anything beefy with hate, my Grimgor lets the unit champ take the 1st round, and would simply refuse combat after that, standing in the back and watching the rank and file slaughter the ancient dwarf high king in a few rounds of combat (I also like the armor piercing banner more than the +1 attack).

As for as need 2's to wound, you've only got about a 50% chance of wounding with all 3 hits. But really, Grimgor has a good enough PR department to know when to decline a challenge. Look what his PR did with that whole lord of the end times thing?


As for the Lord of the End Times, I've killed him with bat swarms. Once he lets the daemon out, his days are numbered.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:

greenbay924 wrote:That's why I gave thorgrim the 80% chance to kill grimgor. It's still much more likely to happen than not. After the first round of combat using the banner, I'd imagine the best course would be a reform into 5xwhatever's left. Forcing you into a lot more rounds of combat, I believe attrition will win.

My Grimgor must be smarter than yours. Against anything beefy with hate, my Grimgor lets the unit champ take the 1st round, and would simply refuse combat after that, standing in the back and watching the rank and file slaughter the ancient dwarf high king in a few rounds of combat (I also like the armor piercing banner more than the +1 attack).

As for as need 2's to wound, you've only got about a 50% chance of wounding with all 3 hits. But really, Grimgor has a good enough PR department to know when to decline a challenge. Look what his PR did with that whole lord of the end times thing?


As for the Lord of the End Times, I've killed him with bat swarms. Once he lets the daemon out, his days are numbered.

-Matt

Way to miss the point entirely. In the scenario we were going over, it's JUST thorgrim against the grimgor and his black orcs, not a challenge situation. And accepting with a champ won't change the stats above too much (also note, I didn't pay for a champ.

Grom isn't too bad. He has a Chariot, which means D6+1 S5 Impact Hits on top his 4 S6 Killing-blow attacks. Armor save's poor, but he can then bounce between either a 5+ Ward or a 4+ Regen. Against Elves, his Killing Blow also gets the advantage of being on a 5+. While in a regular game I wouldn't field him, you can get something essentially as good for much cheaper, in special character vs special character the point costs and the chance of getting 2-7 S5 hits before the enemy strikes can't be denied.

Oh yeah, where does Crom w/ Shield fit into this?

"Anyway, we're basically arguing in circle over something that will almost NEVER happen, as outside circumstances will play into how it turns out, if these two did meet on the field"

I can absolutely agree to this Greenbay

As far as the war of attrition HawaiiMatt, without Grimgor attacking, in a 6 round game assuming at least 1 turn wasted in crossing the field, if not 2... no one would win anything as neither the BOrcs or Thorgrim would die within the remaining turns of the game. Considering the discussion is about "Who is actually the most powerful special character in the game?" I would hardly consider Grimgor to be the most powerful if he is hiding behind his Orcs afraid of a wee lil stunty.

Oh yeah, where does Crom w/ Shield fit into this?

Minsc, I'd love to get his full ruleset. I know his shield cancels out the magical effects of the enemies weapon, but what does he have in terms of other special rules?

He has two different weapon combos, he either goes 2 hand weapons, or hand weapon shield, which why he goes depends on his ability. The most effective way is the shield and hand weapon, as he would nerf both grimgor and thorgrim.

He doesn't do too many crazy things, if iirc he's fairly cheap, and a hero level character.

After all the times my cousin has used him, I can't remember for the life of me what his two hand weapons combo did...

greenbay924 wrote:He has two different weapon combos, he either goes 2 hand weapons, or hand weapon shield, which why he goes depends on his ability. The most effective way is the shield and hand weapon, as he would nerf both grimgor and thorgrim.

He doesn't do too many crazy things, if iirc he's fairly cheap, and a hero level character.

After all the times my cousin has used him, I can't remember for the life of me what his two hand weapons combo did...

Crom's actually a Lord, at least as of '04 Chronicles. WS9, S & T5, I8, A5. Carries only Chaos Armor, Sword, Axe, and Shield, so no Ward (besides Parry) and only a 3+ base save.

Catch?

For HW and shield: "If Crom fights with sword and shield he gets the normal +1 to his armor save for using a hand weapon and shield. In addition, if he fights with his sword and shield in a challenge, any special rules applying to Crom's opponent's weapon are completely nullified; in other words, his opponents always count as using a single hand weapon regardless of their actual equipment. This applies to both magical and mundane equipment."

He's 230pts, and any weapon special rules you have are immediately nullfied (which is good, since most special characters with something like Killing Blow get it through special weapon rules). At that point, he whittles down on them since he gets 5 S5 attacks most often hitting on 3's. A few enemies can make it up through special rules (Ex: Grimgor can be close due to first-round re-rolls, 7 S5 attacks base, and his decent armor save), but those who rely more on some nasty weapons get stuck in a dance-of-death until their unit is (at least the intention is) wiped out around them by Crom's retinue.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and his Axe allows him to make an additional attack for every wound he makes (pre-saving throws) in a challenge if he doesn't use his shield. So against T3 (or even T4) special characters...

Minsc wrote:

greenbay924 wrote:He has two different weapon combos, he either goes 2 hand weapons, or hand weapon shield, which why he goes depends on his ability. The most effective way is the shield and hand weapon, as he would nerf both grimgor and thorgrim.

He doesn't do too many crazy things, if iirc he's fairly cheap, and a hero level character.

After all the times my cousin has used him, I can't remember for the life of me what his two hand weapons combo did...

Crom's actually a Lord, at least as of '04 Chronicles. WS9, S & T5, I8, A5. Carries only Chaos Armor, Sword, Axe, and Shield, so no Ward (besides Parry) and only a 3+ base save.

Catch?

For HW and shield: "If Crom fights with sword and shield he gets the normal +1 to his armor save for using a hand weapon and shield. In addition, if he fights with his sword and shield in a challenge, any special rules applying to Crom's opponent's weapon are completely nullified; in other words, his opponents always count as using a single hand weapon regardless of their actual equipment. This applies to both magical and mundane equipment."

He's 230pts, and any weapon special rules you have are immediately nullfied (which is good, since most special characters with something like Killing Blow get it through special weapon rules). At that point, he whittles down on them since he gets 5 S5 attacks most often hitting on 3's. A few enemies can make it up through special rules (Ex: Grimgor can be close due to first-round re-rolls, 7 S5 attacks base, and his decent armor save), but those who rely more on some nasty weapons get stuck in a dance-of-death until their unit is (at least the intention is) wiped out around them by Crom's retinue.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and his Axe allows him to make an additional attack for every wound he makes (pre-saving throws) in a challenge if he doesn't use his shield. So against T3 (or even T4) special characters...

I miss Crom...

Thanks for the full rules.

I don't think Crom can take on any of the big guys discussed so far. Malekith, Grimgor, Thorgrim will all beat him. He is powerful no doubt, but each of those characters have something beyond just a magical weapon that could beat him.

Malektih riding the dragon - Horrible matchup for Crom. No need to really get into it, he is just a deadman here.

Grimgor - 7 S 5 attacks (rerollable hits on first turn), against a guy with an armour save of 3+ (5+ after modifiers) 6+ ward save.
Crom would need 3's to hit, 4's to wound on 5 attacks. He gets no rerolls, so 3-4 hits, average of 2 wounds per turn, giving Grimgor a 3+ armour save, 5+ ward save to nullify them. In return Grimgor hits on 4's with rerolls you are looking at 5 hits. He needs 4's to wound, so an average of 2-3 wounds per turn on Crom. Crom is dead within 2 turns on average.

Thorgrim - 4 S 5 attacks (rerollable hits on first turn), 4 S 4 attacks (rerollable hits on first turn), and a 1+ armour save 4+ ward save with 7 wounds. Out of the 3, this fight would last the longest, but Crom stands a better chance of killing Grimgor than he does killing Thorgrim. Getting through 7 wounds on a 3+ armour save, 4+ Ward save would just take too long, and the 8 attacks coming back at him would eventually kill him before he could kill Thorgrim.

He wouldn't be able to use his Axe against any of these guys, as without his shield he would be dead in the water. Grimgor would have ASF giving him rerolls in every turn, and S7 so Crom would have 6+ ward save. He is likely dead on the first turn.

Same goes with Thorgrim. No armour saves against his weapon, with rerollable 4's to hit and 2's to wound. Each wound would be D3 wounds, Crom dies first turn here too without his shield.

Looking at the rulesets for those 3 characters though, it is fairly interesting to see. I think in a straight up fight Thorgrim beats Grimgor, Grimgor beats Malekith (he might die to the Dragon, but he will get Malekith on the first turn for sure) and Malekith smashes Thorgrim.

Could someone post some of Archaeon's rules (one of the few codex's I don't have). I know we shouldn't be posting rules but for the purposes of discussion it would be nice to see how the Lord of the End Times would stack up.

**Edit** Lots of math mistakes made in this post, hence the edits. Horrible day for my brain.

Konrad Von Carstein is bloody crazy in combat provided you don't fail his stupidity

Yea, 4-5 attacks causing multiple wounds is pretty deadly. Too bad he is stupid leadership 6 with no magic powers.

can we use Kholek Suneater?

Archaon Vs Kholek
Archaon 2.2
Slayer of Kings backlash -0.3
Dorghar 0.3

Kholek 1.3

Archaon has a 50/50 chance of lasting a 3rd round of combat (and striking before Kholek means he'll win, Kholek will last 3
----------------------------------
I don't know what Malekiths saves are but Kholek ignores conventional saves, make the calculations to correct me.

Kholek Vs Malekith

Malekith dunno
Dragon 1.25

Kholek to Malekith 5.8
Kholek to Dragon 7.8
-------------------------------------
Kholek Vs Thorgrim
Thorgrim 3.3
Thronebearers 0.2
Kholek 3.8
--------------------------------------
Kholek Vs Grimgor
Grimgor 3.5
Kholek 3.9

he uses a D3 wound hammer that ignore armour and a 4+ save that would likely have been ignored by all his enemies attack

also a D6 S6 unlimited range Lightning Bolt. it will give him Frenzy when you're with 12". this wasn't included in the equation because if you're ganna blast spells then I'm gonna sit back and blast spells as well.