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I've always struggled with my Liche Priest hierophant in my TK lists, as he either finds himself out of range to do anything useful besides "be," or else he gets a faceful of cannon fire leading to a quick, crumbly defeat. I'm killing time now by reconfiguring my basic army list to fill the gap before the new book comes out. I was just curious as to which avenue you all would take to outfit a character who MUST survive, but whose battlefield effectiveness is limited to about 12 inches.

Assume I have 50 points available to me to spend on wargear for the Liche Priest flagged as my hierophant (my Lords points are stuck in Khalida, as I find the poison on my archers is too valuable to pass up). The other LP I usually stick with the archer units so he can always be in range to get off the extra shooting for them. That guy carries a Ruby Ring of Ruin and a dispel item. The way I see it, I have a few options....

1. A cloak that gives him the ability to move as a flyer + either a single use dispel item OR a single use extra incantation. This is the utility option that keeps him out of combat, but leaves him vulnerable to missile, war machine, and magic attacks. Plus, making full use of the cloak means that he can very easily find himself out of range to use incantations on other unitys.

2. A 4+ ward save. This is the survivability option. But it lacks a certain degree of utility, and there are not enough points left over to use on much of anything.

3. Stick him next to the Screaming Skull Catapult for the extra shooting and hope nothing comes too close to target him. This would allow me to take purely strategic items like dispel scroll, hieratic jar, and so on at the expense of both escapability and incantation options.

4. Stick him on a horse and shove him in the large heavy cav unit and just hope for the best.

5. Any ideas?

Take full command, and 2 princes.
Put him in the 2nd rank (with command and princes filling the front).
Never move him up to the front rank.

Done.

-Matt

I always take flying cape for my hierophant (yes even in 8th ed) and sometimes that item that lets you transfer wounds to another unit
Then I deploy him behind other units, fly around, and raise models that item kills.
But be careful with him, if enemy overuns your unit its dead. That is why I sometimes put him next to my units and fly around

HawaiiMatt wrote:Take full command, and 2 princes.
Put him in the 2nd rank (with command and princes filling the front).
Never move him up to the front rank.

Done.

-Matt

100 per prince
115 for the heiro
24 full command if skeletons
30 full command if tomb guard.
minimum of 339 points just to protect your Hiero? I dunno.

Ragnar4 wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:Take full command, and 2 princes.
Put him in the 2nd rank (with command and princes filling the front).
Never move him up to the front rank.

Done.

-Matt

100 per prince
115 for the heiro
24 full command if skeletons
30 full command if tomb guard.
minimum of 339 points just to protect your Hiero? I dunno.

Yeah thats overpriced and it can stii get killed

The most survivable Heiro IMO would be 2 fold.
1) he would have the 25 point 4+ ward-save so that he could potentially mitigate 50% of the times he fails his 1 in 6 "look out sir" save.
2) Mobility. Being able to get away from things that want to kill you is extremely important, either by cutting off any true LOS or getting out of range.
Mobility can be gained 2 ways, either with the cloak of dunes (not great, but still his fastest option. OR 2 units of light cav. Since the light Cav loses the "fast cav" option when he joins the unit, you have to move the one he's not in "keep it within 8 inches of his move" then leave the unmoved unit, join the moved unit, THEN move the unit he left. It's kinda silly, but it does the LOS trick far more often than you might think. It's also MUCH harder to charge.