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I just got my new White Dwarf, and noticed that there is a booklet with new WOC units.

What is the general consensus on this? Did it unbalance WOC with a bunch of cheese?

Firstborn wrote:
Did it unbalance WOC with a bunch of cheese?

I enjoy how frequently this is the first question asked about a new release.

 Eldarain wrote:

Firstborn wrote:
Did it unbalance WOC with a bunch of cheese?

I enjoy how frequently this is the first question asked about a new release.

Because, people want to know if it'll be a good choice to switch to WoC and start spamming whatever it is that's the most gouda.

BronzeJon wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:

Firstborn wrote:
Did it unbalance WOC with a bunch of cheese?

I enjoy how frequently this is the first question asked about a new release.

Because, people want to know if it'll be a good choice to switch to WoC and start spamming whatever it is that's the most gouda.

Sadly probably more accurate than not.

I am more curious to understand if GW purposely made the new units Uber in order to sell lot's of the new kits.
I would speculate this is the case.

Firstborn wrote:
I am more curious to understand if GW purposely made the new units Uber in order to sell lot's of the new kits.
I would speculate this is the case.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

 Eldarain wrote:

Firstborn wrote:
I am more curious to understand if GW purposely made the new units Uber in order to sell lot's of the new kits.
I would speculate this is the case.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

Anyway, since nobody seems to be interested in discussing the units, I will:

The new Slaanesh cavalry, the Hellstriders, are fairly meh. They are fast cav and can be outfitted to have ASF weapons, but they lack options and durability. I could see them working in concert with a Slaanesh lord on a Steed as well, to give them a bit of a bunker instead of vanguarding off on his own, but they still fall comfortably into "harassment cavalry" turf, and are not powerhouses.

The new Khorne guys are very straightforward as well. The guys on top are Chaos Knights with a Khorne mark, and have the same loadout of enscrolled weapons. They do have 2 wounds now, which is nice. The Juggers underneath are just Juggers, bringing MR1 and their own fighting power to the mix. What makes these guys better than your run of the mill Knights though, is the new rules to MC, which let you use the T of the mount. So you're looking at 2-wound models that are T5 and have a 1+ save. They are spendy on points though. As far as being worth the points, that's subjective and yet to be determined

 curran12 wrote:
Anyway, since nobody seems to be interested in discussing the units, I will:

The new Slaanesh cavalry, the Hellstriders, are fairly meh. They are fast cav and can be outfitted to have ASF weapons, but they lack options and durability. I could see them working in concert with a Slaanesh lord on a Steed as well, to give them a bit of a bunker instead of vanguarding off on his own, but they still fall comfortably into "harassment cavalry" turf, and are not powerhouses.

The new Khorne guys are very straightforward as well. The guys on top are Chaos Knights with a Khorne mark, and have the same loadout of enscrolled weapons. They do have 2 wounds now, which is nice. The Juggers underneath are just Juggers, bringing MR1 and their own fighting power to the mix. What makes these guys better than your run of the mill Knights though, is the new rules to MC, which let you use the T of the mount. So you're looking at 2-wound models that are T5 and have a 1+ save. They are spendy on points though. As far as being worth the points, that's subjective and yet to be determined

Going to get some Hellstiders only because I am doing a Slaanesh themed army plus it could be good to use them to outflank my wifes archers or Ellisian Reavers (or however they are spelt).

It's interesting you should mention the new toughness rules for the riders, in the games report the shrine gave them a +1T but they were counting it as being T5 with the buff. Shirly it should have been T6 or is the buff on the rider not the mount?

The white dwarf game was played well before the FAQ. The toughness buff under the new rules would have been 6.

The new releases further cemented the army's style of "Move your stuff straight forward until they hit melee then roll".

Models still look absolutely terrible and until now, our local store has sold 1 box of Khorne Riders in total.

Daston wrote:

It's interesting you should mention the new toughness rules for the riders, in the games report the shrine gave them a +1T but they were counting it as being T5 with the buff. Shirly it should have been T6 or is the buff on the rider not the mount?

I was of the understanding that only the rider takes the buff now, and as such would have got to T5 anyway.

It is nice to see the Jugger in the WoC book are still only T4, so any BSB would be an easy option, rather than the T5 knights

I think skullcrushers are very good, but not OP, due to being a rare choice and only having two wounds. What they have definitely done is make the army faster on average. Chaos knights were too expensive for what they could accomplish on their own, but I think these guys have pushed things over the top. Their existence will make the game even harder on pure gunlines than it already was and that, in my view, is all to the good. I note also that combat-avoidance wood elves, which used to do fine against WoC most of the time, are probably dreadfully unhappy with this change.

Now, I'm no WOC Player, and I may be missing something here, but I don't think the new Skullcrushers are that good. Yes, they are fairly killy, but they're 60 points each, a very hefty price tag. On top of that, they're a rare choice, so you can't really spam them or anything of the sort and, as far as I'm concerned, taking them would eat into your Hellcannon budget...

What does everyone else think?

I think the Skullcrushers are pretty tough.

Are they better than a Hellcannon though? I think that would probably depend on your list, but the Hellcannon is probably more useful for most people.

Chaos Knights fulfill the same role and you can take more of them.

The Fast Cav don't look like anything special or fearsome.

Can someone compare them stats-wise to demigryph knights which are similarly costed? I'm unfamiliar with WOC.

Personally, I think they've only released these units to give Khorne and Slaanesh mounted lords cavalry that keeps up with, and doesn't outrun, them.

If that's the case though, I'm surprised they didn't do a new unit of tzeentch micro sorcerers on discs, or nurgle boys on palanquins. I can see nurgle having an awesome unit of plague chariots, seems they missed a trick there.

BlackSheeped wrote:
Can someone compare them stats-wise to demigryph knights which are similarly costed? I'm unfamiliar with WOC.

Demigryphs have 3 s5 armor piercing attacks plus 1 lance attack (s4 or s6 on the charge), a 1+ save, t4, ws4, I4 (the knights attack at i3). They have 3 wounds each.

Skullcrushers have 2 s5 ws5 attacks each, plus frenzy for a third while it lasts. They also have a 1+ save and come with the mark of khorne for free. Then the juggernauts each have two ws5 s5 attacks at i2. The whole model is t5 1+ save.

I give a slight output edge to the skullcrushers, with an extra attack, higher ws, and mostly higher initiative, plus magical attacks on the knights. However, demigryphs have access to flaming (which by the most common rule interpretation, skullcrushers with their ensorcelled weapons do not) and also have an extra wound for an equally slight durability edge. Also, frenzy is the usual gift and curse, causing you to kill things with great reckless abandon and then tool off in a random direction to muddle about for a turn (if your opponent is smart about setting up overruns).

One note: I'm on the "mark of khorne does not give mounts an extra attack" side of that great debate, but if your club or tournament plays it differently, you should factor that in, as an extra s5 attack per model is no joke.

Overall, for the points, skullcrushers are a bit better in my opinion, but will suffer heavily from high-strength shooting or magic and are hurt much more by every wound they lose, plus are slightly worse against very hard targets due to only being s5 without armor piercing. The advantages and disadvantages are situational, and in my view these are both rock-hard units and a near must-take in any capable version of their respective armies. Hope it helps.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kitch102 wrote:
Personally, I think they've only released these units to give Khorne and Slaanesh mounted lords cavalry that keeps up with, and doesn't outrun, them.

If that's the case though, I'm surprised they didn't do a new unit of tzeentch micro sorcerers on discs, or nurgle boys on palanquins. I can see nurgle having an awesome unit of plague chariots, seems they missed a trick there.

That kind of thing may still appear in the real book when it drops (next spring?).

The thing is, the utility of placing lords in either of these units is questionable. You still need 5 models to be able to look out, and a slaanesh chaos lord on a steed of slaanesh won't even get to look out in hellstriders anyway due to different unit type. And even with crushers, are you really going to take 5 of them? Furthermore, a chaos lord is clearly the worse choice in 8th with its heavy emphasis on magic and magic defense, especially since he raises the cost of a unit of crushers into the 6-800 point range, and that unit has frenzy and will spend a fair bit of time chewing on chaff and then overrunning the wrong way. I think the unit is quite capable on its own, but I'm not sold on putting characters in any of them.

curran12 wrote:The new Khorne guys are very straightforward as well. The guys on top are Chaos Knights with a Khorne mark, and have the same loadout of enscrolled weapons. They do have 2 wounds now, which is nice. The Juggers underneath are just Juggers, bringing MR1 and their own fighting power to the mix. What makes these guys better than your run of the mill Knights though, is the new rules to MC, which let you use the T of the mount. So you're looking at 2-wound models that are T5 and have a 1+ save. They are spendy on points though. As far as being worth the points, that's subjective and yet to be determined

It's not really subjective at all, or at least people are crazy IMO to think they are too expensive. Chaos Knights are rather widely considered a good solid choice, and these guys are better versions who come out with more for less.

For 240pts you get 6 naked Chaos Knights. For 240pts you get 4 naked Skullcrushers. The Skullcrushers have +1T, +1W, free Mark of Khorne for rider, Stomp, Jugs attacks, and Magic Resistance. The Knights only benefit is being Special rather than Rare. When you look at that from the persepctive of the whole unit, the Skullcrushers collectively have -6 S4 attacks, +12 S5 attacks, +4 S5 Stomps, +2 wounds (on top of the Toughness boost, not to mention their attacking potential only decreases with every second wound rather than each single wound). I also forgot to mention +1M, though they take up a slightly wider footprint.

It seems to me that unless you have more important plans for your Rares, these guys fit in very nicely.

Firstborn wrote:
I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.

Meh, if there was some kind of corporate directive then there'd be a consistent rules instead of a general idea that mostly works out. And I always think back to Posessed in the CSM book - shiny new release with gorgeous models, and rules so underwhelming that people didn't even take them in friendly lists.

And then in WHFB more recently the Demigryphs and other monstrous creatures have come out underpriced, but then the Arachnorok is downright underwhelming.

I think it makes more sense to put it down to a tendency of GW rules designers to give new shiny toys a little more stuff than they should, than any directive to make new models more powerful.

Having used the Skullcrushers in a number of games already, I'll start off by saying they are extremely durable and pack a lot of power.

With this in mind... they're frenzied. If and when they get into combat they can utterly wreck everyone, but naturally anyone who knows what they're doing tends to bait them left and right and make them useless for most of them game.

So basically, if you can get them into combat early on you'll do very well. If not... well... it's generally a waste of points.

Overall the update did one thing. It gave an alternative to hell cannons. Though due to hell cannons being fairly destructive I personally dont like skullcrushers, unless its a fairly large point game and I can fit some in after 2 hellcannons are down. Since WoC are fairly slow, hellcannons make your opponent move to you. Without them it can take an extra turn or 2 to start killing stuff.

Malleus wrote:


One note: I'm on the "mark of khorne does not give mounts an extra attack" side of that great debate, but if your club or tournament plays it differently, you should factor that in, as an extra s5 attack per model is no joke.

Just a quick point on this - did you see the new FAQ clarification?

"Page 115 – Magic Banners, Banner of Rage.
Add “If given to a unit of cavalry, both the riders and their
mounts count as affected elements for the purposes of the Extra
Attack special rule.”"

I don't see how this is any different from the unit having Frenzy based on the unit having Mark of Khorne naturally. So they should definitely get the extra attack.

MoK is given to models. Both Riders and Mounts are a single model, thus both benifit.


And Skullcrushers can get flaming attacks by buying the Flaming Banner. Their attacks are magical, not made with magic weapons. Big difference.

I thought they do have encsorcelled weapons? They can't have inate magical attacks, can they?

 Grey Templar wrote:
MoK is given to models. Both Riders and Mounts are a single model, thus both benifit.

I don't understand. It's one model, so it gets two attacks? If it is a single model, it (not they, not both) should benefit from a single attack.

And Skullcrushers can get flaming attacks by buying the Flaming Banner. Their attacks are magical, not made with magic weapons. Big difference.

"Ensorcelled weapons count as magical weapons." p. 48, bottom of right-hand column.

 Mike der Ritter wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
MoK is given to models. Both Riders and Mounts are a single model, thus both benifit.

I don't understand. It's one model, so it gets two attacks? If it is a single model, it (not they, not both) should benefit from a single attack.

And Skullcrushers can get flaming attacks by buying the Flaming Banner. Their attacks are magical, not made with magic weapons. Big difference.

"Ensorcelled weapons count as magical weapons." p. 48, bottom of right-hand column.

It has two profiles to the one model, so you look at the rider, does he have frenzy? In this case yes, as the model has frenzy and he is part of the model then look at the mount, does it have frenzy? Again, yes as the whole model has frenzy and he is part of the model.

Doesn't matter, a model can have a magic weapon and flaming and benefit from both, there is no restriction on that. You may be thinking of Poisoned Attacks, which does have such a limitation.

Pretty sure they cant.

Pg 69 of the main rule book under the Flaming Attacks Special Rule:

Unless otherwise stated, a model with this special rule has both Flaming shooting and close combat attacks (though any spells cast by the model are unaffected, as are any attacks made with magic weapons they might be wielding)

Thus, Knights with Ensorcelled weapons cannot have Flaming attacks. Otherwise I'd be running a Chaos Lord with Daemonsword and Dragonhelm in a unit with the Flaming Banner

Precisely.

 Buttlerthepug wrote:
Pretty sure they cant.

Pg 69 of the main rule book under the Flaming Attacks Special Rule:

Unless otherwise stated, a model with this special rule has both Flaming shooting and close combat attacks (though any spells cast by the model are unaffected, as are any attacks made with magic weapons they might be wielding

Thus, Knights with Ensorcelled weapons cannot have Flaming attacks. Otherwise I'd be running a Chaos Lord with Daemonsword and Dragonhelm in a unit with the Flaming Banner

Huh, musn't have seen where the parenthesis ended.
Oh well.