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Malekith will strike first, and can potentially destroy all of kholek's magic items before he can strike, can you add that to the factor? Also, I don't have my Dark Elves book, but malekith gets a 2+ ward from either magical or non magical attacks (I think it's magical) and he cannot suffer more than one wound from a single attack, so d3/6 wound attacks only do 1.

As far as his output is concerned, I think he has 5 attacks are WS9 S5? So, what ever that comes out to...

I can't remember Kholek's stat line, but I do remember he is pretty scary from what I saw.

I also believe thorgrim's should be higher...the strength of his attacks are increased high enough to wound his enemies on 2s, plus his weapon does d3 as well. He should hit Kholek on 3s with first turn hatred, so good chance of 3-4 hits, turning into 3-4 wounds, then multiplied...

Vlad von Carstein is pretty badass too, 4+ ward save, returns to life on a 2+ and can restore his own wounds. He can re-roll failed wound rolls as long as the enemy pass a Ld test on a -3. -1 leadership for anything within 6" and +1 combat res, I think that's pretty awesome

Malekith gets 2+ ward from non magical thats why he destroys magic weapons so hes near impossible to kill after.

Kholek is pretty hard but malekith will destroy his weapon so he sits on a 2+ ward save and his dragon will get his attacks 2d6 breath attacks and thunderstomp.

Well, technically he won't get thunderstomp against kholek...as he's a dragon ogre and shaggoth and all.

Yeah my bad but malekith will do a couple wounds and render his attacks useless, and then the dragon gets 6+2d6 strength 6 attacks, or he could fly around out of his arc totally destroying him with magic ><.

What's Kholeks I, W and A?

His I will determine who would win between him and Thorgrim I think. Whomever hits first would likely win the combat as they both multiply wounds and ignore normal armour. Thorgrim does have a 4+ ward, and a boatload of wounds but multiple wounds (D3) would take him down pretty quick provided Kholek has the number of attacks to do so. I know Kholek wouldn't likely survive a round of combat with Thorgrim hitting him though.

His wounds would determine whether or not Grimgor would kill him in 1 turn as well. He wouldn't get an armour save, and Grimgor would get rerolls assuming an I of 5 or less. He would get rerolls on first turn for sure.

Malekith cheats. The only reason that Grimgor can beat Malekith is that he has ASF and can reroll on the first turn. Malekith wouldn't survive the 7 attacks with just 3 wounds and literally no save against them.

Malekith will strike first, and can potentially destroy all of kholek's magic items before he can strike

This is not technically correct. Malekith can only destroy 1 magic item per round. Problem is of course that Malekith's armour prevents wound multiplication. So you'd need to make sure you wound 3 times in 1 round, or you have a boatload of magic items. Thorgrim has a ton of magic items but with a small number of attacks, no wound multiplication, and the Dragon, he stands almost no chance against Malekith.

I dont think anyone can beat malekith unless hes lucky as you said grimgor maybe but meh who needs to get in combat malekith can fly and is a wizard.

Its definately not a maybe... run the numbers and the chance Grimgor kills Malekith in straight up combat is very high.

Low end of average is 5.5 hits per turn. That translates to 4.5 wounds on the first turn of combat. Malekith gets no save and has only 3 wounds.

If you are talking about strategy then the discussion about who is actually the most powerful close combat character becomes moot. Throw strategy out, put both guys straight up and see. The reason many consider Malekith to be so powerful though is just what you said. He has a dragon, can fly around, and is a nasty wizard on top of being nasty in combat. You pretty much need to be playing a 4k game (3750) to field him though. Thorgrim also needs a large battle to make it to the table, 3200 points. Grimgor however can be fielded in a 1500 game. Out of the 3, for his points cost, you get the most bang for your buck.

Lehnsherr wrote:
If you are talking about strategy then the discussion about who is actually the most powerful close combat character becomes moot. Throw strategy out, put both guys straight up and see. The reason many consider Malekith to be so powerful though is just what you said. He has a dragon, can fly around, and is a nasty wizard on top of being nasty in combat. You pretty much need to be playing a 4k game (3750) to field him though. Thorgrim also needs a large battle to make it to the table, 3200 points. Grimgor however can be fielded in a 1500 game. Out of the 3, for his points cost, you get the most bang for your buck.

This is by far the best post in the thread.


I personally have to say its Malekith (because to be powerful you have to be good in more than 1 phase). However if your looking for a pure challenge situation, then Grimgor has the advantage.

Grimgor Ironhide can dish out 7 S7 attacks with ASF.

That's... pretty powerful. Archaon can beat that, but he has the potential to hit himself.

IMHO, it's one of these two, or the Witch King.

Lehnsherr wrote:Its definately not a maybe... run the numbers and the chance Grimgor kills Malekith in straight up combat is very high.

Low end of average is 5.5 hits per turn. That translates to 4.5 wounds on the first turn of combat. Malekith gets no save and has only 3 wounds.

If you are talking about strategy then the discussion about who is actually the most powerful close combat character becomes moot. Throw strategy out, put both guys straight up and see. The reason many consider Malekith to be so powerful though is just what you said. He has a dragon, can fly around, and is a nasty wizard on top of being nasty in combat. You pretty much need to be playing a 4k game (3750) to field him though. Thorgrim also needs a large battle to make it to the table, 3200 points. Grimgor however can be fielded in a 1500 game. Out of the 3, for his points cost, you get the most bang for your buck.

It says in the title most powerful special character in the game where did you find only close combat from? Hence why kairos has been mentioned and teclis......

As the thread progressed it broke down into who is the most powerful in magic, and who is the most powerful in combat.

Its impossible to say who would win in a fight of Teclis vs. Grimgor. Teclis would need to roll for winds of magic, get his spells off, depends on the lore you pick, and so on and so on.

So you can't really argue who is more powerful in terms of a Wizard vs. a CC character. Thats generally why Malekith is considered number 1, because he can compete in both phases.

So comparing Malekith the wizard vs Grimgor the fighter is like comparing Kairos/Teclis to Grimgor.... too many variables to even have a discussion. At least when we stick to one phase we can determine who beats who heads up. Granted this would never happen in game, but the theoretical discussion is still possible. So we compare Malekith in CC vs. Grimgor in CC.

Once you move past a given phase, you have gone into strategy and the whole discussion falls apart. A single level 1 wizard with a dispel scroll if timed correctly can be the "Most powerful character" in any given game.

All in all against most, maybe not grimgor although his dragon would probably kill him, i think malekith is the strongest.

Grimgor though is the best for his points by far as we said where comparing him to 700+ point lords but his movement blows etc so it is going to be hard to actually come to an answer.

Grimgor>Malekith>thorgrim>grimgor

how good is Malekith at actually killing things in Melee? sounds like he just uses magic. and who chooses which magic item he destroys?

also, if Thorgrim has hatred then he would beat Kholek in melee.

and Kholeks stats are in the back of the BRB, all he has is a hammer that ignores armour and causes D3 wounds, a 2+Sv and a lightning bolt that does D6 S6 hits (with unlimted range) or gives himself Frenzy if you roll a 1 before the hits connect.

Malekith can still fly around and destroy them with magic, and agains an enemy such as techlis he would be in combat by the end of 2. No named caster could stand up to him. In combat he can still dish out some major damage because of his dragon and magic armor. Plus if he hits a normal unit he is going to slaughter allot of dudes.

Grimgor is by far the best for the points, but you need to remember that if you field grimgor you are required to field a black ork unit. Also Grimgor can only join said unit of black orks. He may fit in at 1500 but wont be competitive there because of that one issue. When grimgor is put into a sturdy unit his total cost is around 720. This includes the black ork bodyguard unit and grimgor's point cost. Depending on the player this can be even more and up to 1000 points. At this point you are looking at a game equivlent to the size of the game you would be playing when you fielded Malekith.

I would still take Malekith over this unit because of all the fun stuff he can do in magic and combat phase. If he can kill grimgore that unit wont have a chance, and he and his dragon will slaughter the unit.

Sure Grimgor is the best deal for 375, but there are so many other requierments to make him worth it. So overall i give the edge to Malekith because he can dominate every single phase (except shooting).


For heroes i would say Konrad or Mannfred form the VC army or Malus with an unleashed deamon as the best. For non named characters a Wight King is defiently best. For 75 pts you are getting a S4 T5 W3 A3 hero with LD9 that has magical killing blow attacks with heavy armor and shield. You could always give him the Sword of Kings and Nightshroud to reduce the enemy's initivive to 1 and take away always stikes first. He also will killing blow on a 5 and a 6. For 120 points that is one hell of a deal.

Actually, since Grimgor's bodyguard is a Special and can take up to 50% of the army's total point cost (or, in a 1500pt game, a 700pt bodyguard unit), he can still be fit into a 1.6K point game. The thing is that you're putting down 50-75% of your army, so the rest of your army is probably going to suffer. Say you take 29 BOrcs, Full Command (to prevent the typical "Unit Champion Challenges Grimgor" tactic), Shields, and the Spirit Totem. 869 points, so a little over 50% of the army down at 1.5K, but not impossible to field. Said unit can be boosted by a block of Boyz (not Big 'Uns) 30-36 big, one-to-two Night Goblin Units, then a few Heroes (possibly even a BSB) at the point level.

The catch is less that Grimgor can't be fielded in certain point levels (he can easily be fitted with a competent unit in 1.5K points, as I don't think anyone will argue 29 BOrcs & Grimgor is a poor-quality unit), and more that they won't often make up their points (How many armies can you think of that, at 1.5K points, will fit two units each approx. 430pts? That can be tackled one after the other by Grimgor and Co?).

And I think, one-on-one, that if you're doing non-named "characters" a Dark Elf Assassin is going to win most of the time for points-for-effect.

Grimgor's catch has always been "Can he make up his points?", not "Is he powerful enough?" He, on his own, is the cost of a regiment (a decently sized one), and must be bought with at least a small regiment alongside him (small regiments much less an effective tactic this edition due to Steadfast). Still, there is the fact that Grimgor can be a wonderful flank runner either on his own or in a small regiment (Regiment because then he can get a 4+4D6" charge once / game, on his own as Charge + Flank + Active CR = often enough to last at least the first round or three, needing only five kills / round to win routinely). Or, with new "Look out sir!" rules, run him alongside a regiment on his own as a smaller frontage "Chariot".

Beyond Grimgor's main catch, the worst thing about him is he's a very blunt character: He has no shooting, magic, or particularly underhanded tactics he can be used in. He's at his best when he's thrown into combat, and with M4 he often times can't catch other dedicated combat Lords (and if he can, they're often tooled for defense). It means he isn't watered down in what he does best, but if he can't be forced into what he does best he doesn't really do anything at all.

The most powerful special character in WHFB? A pygmy chieftain.





OK, in all seriousness my vote in on Malekith. Never once have I beaten him, and in the book he is always just badass.

He does have the best back story of all of them. I have also never seen him die. He is the oldest character with the exception of the Slann and deamons IIRC.

uhh, judging by these two articles:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Malekith,_the_Witch_King
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Lore_of_Dark_Magic
and his stat in the back of the Rulebook, Malekith doesn't seem that strong. I don't see why you think he'd be so powerful. Kholk can use his lightning even if you use Dark Magic, he is more than capable of ripping apart the Dragon without his Magic Hammer, hit 3+, wounds 2+ with 8 attacks (with Frenzy) and a with a flurry of attacks plus thunderstop he could easily remove Malekiths puny 3 wounds.

Melee Results, Kholek with no magic items
Malekith to Kholek 0.5
Dragon to Kholek 1.2
Khholek to Malekith 0.5
Kholek to Dragon 4.4
Kholek Thunderstomp on Malekith 0.5

I mean really, if Malekith can only destroy one Magic item a turn then there's a half chance something is going to get splattered by his hammer. and is his magic capability really that powerful? especially compared to say, about 2 or three D6 S6 lightning bolts before you get into range of anything, wait who am I kidding, the Malekith people think it's fine to just fly around and blast magic why can't I stand a mile away with lightning eh? of course, that only fun if the other guy thinks he's clever, which they probably do. of course, I'm missing something.

and for those of you who never got the BRB and just use the Island of Blood rulebook or something...
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
8 8 3 8 6 8 1 7 9

so yeah, about that Thorgrim thing. Thorgrim may have a 4+ Ward Save but Kholek has twice the number of attacks (with Frenzy) and a better Weapon Skill but lower Initiative, but like I said if it's only Melee and we ignore shooting attacks then Thorgrim will win.

The dragon gets 5 strength 6 attacks then 2d6 strength 6 breath attacks b4 kholek so howd you work out he would do 1.2 wounds ??

How can you thunderstomp something that's still on a dragon? Judging by the statistics you put down, it would take you two rounds to kill the dragon, plus maybe around another 4-5 turns to kill malekith (2+ ward to non magic attacks, so 18 wounds kills him). You don't think in what amounts to 6-7 rounds of combat, that malekith won't remove your 8 wounds? With little ease (casting word of pain) you'll be WS 1, so 3s to hit and 5s to wound nets 1 wound a turn from malekith, maybe two from the first round from hatred. The dragon in the first round will also net 3 (from attacks) plus 7 (average on 2D6) hits on kholek in the first round, resulting in 5 wounds. So that first round of combat, you'll take 6 wounds, next round they finish him off before he gets to swing again.

That's why people pick malekith over kholek...

malekith is the overall best
Grimgore is the strongest Close combat character
techlis/kiros/slann for magic
Vlad for durability
Green knight for survivability

Cost efficiency goes to Grimgore or the Green Knight

I put Thunderstomp in there becasue like I said, if Kholek still has his hammer he could rip the Dragon in two, I put it there just in case

so now I'll add
Dragon Breath 2.3
Lightning to Dragon 1.5
Lightning to Malekith 2.9

on a big table I could use that like what? 2 or 3 times?
but wait a minute, would the lighning attack count as magical or mundane? I mean, it isn't a spell but it clearly isn't a weapon...

If its not a spell, and its not a magical item, then its a unique ranged attack.

It would have to tell you outright that its a spell or he gets it from a magical item for it to be otherwise, which if I remember correctly, it does not.

greenbay924 wrote:Malekith will strike first, and can potentially destroy all of kholek's magic items before he can strike, can you add that to the factor? Also, I don't have my Dark Elves book, but malekith gets a 2+ ward from either magical or non magical attacks (I think it's magical) and he cannot suffer more than one wound from a single attack, so d3/6 wound attacks only do 1.

As far as his output is concerned, I think he has 5 attacks are WS9 S5? So, what ever that comes out to...

I can't remember Kholek's stat line, but I do remember he is pretty scary from what I saw.

Malekith only has a 25% chance of taking out the starcrusher. +4 to destroy something, then randomize between the starcrusher and the armor of the storm. Malekith needs to get the starcrusher mace or he is going to lose his puny 3 wounds to Kholek's 7 S8 attacks(not even counting the d3 wounds, because that does not work for Malekith).

EDIT: Malekith also has to land a hit on Kholek. They are of equal WS. If Malekith fluffs his attacks, then the destroyer does not work.

Malekith has four attacks. So, that's 4 to hit with re-rolls and then a 4 to destroy kholek's hammer. So, on average, he'll hit three times and then destroy kholek's hammer, one and a half times, though one is all he needs. True malekith may only have 4 S5 attacks, but he now has a 2+ ward and a big dragon with, if you want it, 12 S6 attacks and 2D6 S4 attacks. Pretty nasty if you ask me. And lets not forget that he may weaken Kholek with magic, or lower kholek's WS and therefore hit on 3s, before the inital fight.

Wooo go malekith! This discussion has made me convince myself to include malekith in my army at some point

Malekith's dragons breath weapon is only S4 (not S6). The dragons stomp is S6, which he can't use against other monsters.

My choice for all arounder is Galrauch. Seriously, once a game, make a breathe attack that causes models hit to take a toughness test or die without a save of any kind.
So if you don't do 6 wounds before init 6, you'll be taking 2D6 toughness tests, and you'll die if you fail any.
On average, that kills Grimgor, Malekith and his dragon, or just about anyone else brought up here.

Gal, still has his other 2 breath weapons, for the next two rounds of combat...

At 616, he's just cheap enough to squeeze into a 2500 point game, AND he's a level 4 caster, with +5 to cast.

You would want to keep a BSB nearby, so he doesn't thump himself.

-Matt

Eldar Own wrote:Malekith has four attacks. So, that's 4 to hit with re-rolls and then a 4 to destroy kholek's hammer. So, on average, he'll hit three times and then destroy kholek's hammer, one and a half times, though one is all he needs.

You only roll once for the Destroyer, reguardless of how many hits Malekith causes. Then you have to randomise, you don't pick which item is destroyed. 25% to take out the Starcrusher.

Lets discuss the best hero choice now, im going to say Konrad, Mannfred, or Malus.

Chakax, 4 S7 attacks, opponents strike last, and lose their magic weapon. T5 4+ armor 5+ ward is decent, and will down either of the fighting heroes you listed.
But, he's stupidly expensive.

Caradryan on the other hand, is cheap, has 3 S5 D3 wounding attacks that always strike first, and comes with 4+ ward and MR 3. Should you kill him, he does D6 wounds with no armor save. At 175 points, I don't think he can be beat.

Shadowblade is pretty good, if you can time the potion of strength right. Drink it on your opponents turn when they charge, and you get 3 BS10 S8 rending star shots, followed up with 4 S7 killing blow attacks. But, at 300 points, he's a little steep for a one hit wonder.

Blue Scribe for 81 points? Hard to beat that.

-Matt