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As the title says, is a death army using nothing but skeleton warriors, grave guard, black knights, wight kings and maaaybe a zombie dragon/terrorgheist viable? I've never played AoS but have a ton of skeletons and Knights/mounted wights from my 8th fantasy days, and kinda wanted to try it again. No zombies or vampires or any of that fleshy/ghostly stuff, just bones and more bones.

Don't know about viability, but I'm sure it would be fun.
I would add in some Skeleton Archers and maybe 1 or 2 Screaming Skull Catapults.
Morghast are another possibility, fast and heavy hitters.
Arkhan could be a cool center piece.
Necromancers could be modelled as skeletons and would be a good addition.

I hadn't even considered tomb kings stuff, or the newer end times units. Yeah having Arkhan the Black wouldn't break fluff and mortarch mounts are technically just bones stuffed into a monster shaped frame. I do want to keep my skeletons Sylvanish though, so skeleton longbowmen and medieval trebuchets instead of screaming skulls and Egyptian style naked skeleton bowmen.

Sooo basicly Legion of Death warscroll battalion?

it has alot of resilience in it(aka not hard to kill but you can bring back soo many skellys per turn) and can cover distance fast but not mutch else to it.
you dont have any heavy hitters, mages or cheesy heros so it is best used as a casual list i guess.


but if you drop the bonerattle exlustivity then it can be better as you can toss in the morghast, a necro and a dragon variation as a behemoth choise.

running a death subfaction is generaly a bad choise outside of casual gameplay as each subfaction lacks so many vital options that the only option is to mix and match subfactions.

not shure about arkhan. you only get 1 dice roll from curse of years in pitched and that kinda imo makes him pointless as that spell is one of the selling points for him.

FrozenDwarf wrote:

not shure about arkhan. you only get 1 dice roll from curse of years in pitched and that kinda imo makes him pointless as that spell is one of the selling points for him.

Was this FAQed? Because I can't find anything on it. It's not a bonus attack, so wouldn't fall under the Rule of One without FAQ. And even FAQed and counting as bonus attack, you would get two rolls, the initial and one follow up.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

FrozenDwarf wrote:

not shure about arkhan. you only get 1 dice roll from curse of years in pitched and that kinda imo makes him pointless as that spell is one of the selling points for him.

Was this FAQed? Because I can't find anything on it. It's not a bonus attack, so wouldn't fall under the Rule of One without FAQ. And even FAQed and counting as bonus attack, you would get two rolls, the initial and one follow up.

3rd rules says: any extra attacks, hit rolls or wound rolls gained by the use of an ability cannot themselfs generate extra attacks, hit rolls or wound rolls.

that to me says only 1 dice roll. the example unit in the text has the exact same mecanism as curse of years to my knowlage.

still if an FAQ says you would get 1 more roll, it wont make any difference compared to full potensinal of the ability.
vamp lord on zombi dragon has the same issue sadly.

Honestly not really, sure you have numbers but those numbers wont mean much in the light of no saves.

You would get slaughtered against an army like KBB, who just pump out like 90 attacks from a single unit of 20 guys.

Range would also eat you alive, Elves would be nasty, tar you up with phoenix guard, and drill you down with archers.

I think it would look awesome, but no idea on AoS rules.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Honestly not really, sure you have numbers but those numbers wont mean much in the light of no saves.

You would get slaughtered against an army like KBB, who just pump out like 90 attacks from a single unit of 20 guys.

Range would also eat you alive, Elves would be nasty, tar you up with phoenix guard, and drill you down with archers.

there are saves but they are hard to get. you have the 6+ for 10" whitin a hero and you can get another 6+ save from the wight king that has 18" range when the banner is planted.
plus the default skeleton warriors brings back d6 units in the hero fase if they have a standard bearer.

alpha dmg units is a big issue yes, but i think it is for majority of the lists out there.
long range armys would be a very big issue yes. only death wizzards can use summons, and they dont have any of the sub factions keywords in their profile, so they cant be taken in a pure bonerattle army.


and that brings us back to the problem of death. a sub faction of death alliance is not viable outside of small casual games due to very, very limited models. (death grand alliance was after all made from only 1 single WHF army and that is its major problem...)

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Honestly not really, sure you have numbers but those numbers wont mean much in the light of no saves.

You would get slaughtered against an army like KBB, who just pump out like 90 attacks from a single unit of 20 guys.

Range would also eat you alive, Elves would be nasty, tar you up with phoenix guard, and drill you down with archers.

Skeletons may have crappy saves, but the Death battle trait gives them the ability to ignore wounds on a 6 if they are near any death hero, and can be improved to a 5+ when near a general with the appropriate command trait. Then their banners let them bring back d6 models in the hero phase. With proper buff management, you are pretty much playing an undying horde. It's not invincible however, so you should still be playing for the objectives.

Also, the warscrolls are free to download on the GW website or the iOS/Android app, go check them out for yourself. If playing matched play, you can use www.scrollbuilder.com to help you build your list. Give it a try

True they do get a feel no pain equivalent, but again, how many 5's and or 6's can you roll when yor opponent is hitting you with a 90 attack on the charge and like 40 there after before range is coming into effect. That also assumes your hero does not get nuked.

Becuase though that hero is giving them a buff, death has no range so my heros buffing my guys behind the lines won't get obliterated by ranged, your hero is going to get gunned and bowed down first then you loose that 6+ fnp

I think the army is cool, but a pure foot sloging army with no range does not stand much of a chance.

Do you routinely get hit with 90 attacks?

I run a zombie horde death army. Usually 120 zombies. I have fielded 150. Its so much fun I can even make it through 2 turns without snickering to myself and getting excited!

Skeletons are the same way, slightly different aesthetic but basic premis is the same. Necromancers vanhels danse macabre spell is very powerful on large blocks of skeletons. Vampire lord's command ability is even more devastating. I know you said you dont like the vampires, but in game/tactically.. he is one of the strongest support characters in the game. And he can just shadow the large blobs of skellies conferring a 5+ ward save.

For speed look to the tomb kings skeleton chariots.

 Backspacehacker wrote:


I think the army is cool, but a pure foot sloging army with no range does not stand much of a chance.

thats current death for ya.
unless you nab the archers from a faction that no longer exists, nor is beeing made, only the heros/behemoths has range attacks in death.
tomb kings gave the stuff that death was lacking to help the situation a little bit, but ofc they had to be removed....


hopefully OPs wish to use a bonerattle army was just for use in casual gaming.

For any deathrattle army you'll want a Necromancer as their spell is so good for them, so straight away you'll be looking at breaking theme. I think you could make a fun army certainly, but you'll either want to use deathrattle units from the Tomb Kings or wait for an expanded range (or collect a small force only) because at 2000 points you'll probably find the options too few to make the army exciting to play and collect.

Wel here is the super secret squirrel way to get tomb king archers, buy elf archers put skulls on as heads BOOM!

Thanks for all the suggestions and comments. This is definitely coming from a casual play standpoint, though being able to put up a fight would make actually playing the game more enjoyable. It sounds like a big problem is no wizards in a skeleton army, and magic seems to be pretty important. I guess if necessary I can throw some necromancers in there, and just skull them up a bit.

I think I'm just going to slowly go about painting and putting together a skeleton horde while waiting for an update instead of frantically getting something table ready and regretting all the work in a bad list. Painting up a zillion skeletons will take awhile anyway, and given the way GW is pumping out updates as fast as they can there should be something new eventually.