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I been thinking of getting back into Hordes. I haven't played since Primal because been playing other games but considering getting back into it. Metamorphasis just came out so was thinking that might be cool. The Hydra like everblight beast looks cool. Is 2.0 going to totally change things should I wait till 2.0 comes out?

My old 500 pt army from primal was Vayl, 2 Seraph, Carnivean, Nephlim Soldier, The Forsaken, 2 Shredder. That probably isn't any good a few sets later. What do you suggest to improve it?

That's still a decent list. I think that Vayl got nerfed some. Saeryn is the new OMG warlock for Legion. I'd look to pick up some warrior models to go to 750 pts - Raptors (cav) would be good too. Depending on your play style, Swordsmen, Archers (and UA), and Striders could all work.

2.0 is going to change everything it seems, PP has said that WM 2.0 and Hordes 1.0 will not be compatible. The models will still work, and it sounds like the game will still generally play the same. The models will still be the same, you'll just need new cards.

The Blighted Swordsmen are just powerful intantry all around, plus they are fearless.

Striders can be great, but only if you like hit and run type tactics. The new Deathstalker is great against other solos. Rapid Shot and Stealth make her a hard enemy target to deal with on the first 1-2 turns.

You already have the best warbeasts, just think about the Angelius if you want.. I would suggest maybe a Shepherd, and at least two units of your choice.

Angelius > Carnivean
Archers > Swordsmen
Raptors (legion calvary) > OMFG (yup they really are)

Feral Bone Grinders are nice and so is having a harrier if you get Saeryn.

You're still mostly competative, I use Vayl occasionaly still

Angelius < Carnivean in toughness, animus, slams, utility & damage output.

Why does saeyrn need a Harrier?


Anyway, all the old primal stuff is just a good or gets better with the new stuff

Angelius has a 12" threat range and with thrust does a decent job killing warcasters if you can get her hit, toss in a seraph to slipstream now you got 14" and your flying over interveining models...

One of Saeryns spells is mageblight, you move the harrier in base contact with a whole bunch of enemy warriors and mageblight, cleans up whole mess very fast, works great on units with stealth too.

The Angelius is just as powerful as a Carnivean on a charge, or regular attack. Thrust cuts ARM in half so that's 3D6+5 on most heavy beasts/jacks. Avenging Angel works well with infantry, and I believe it allows another Thrust attack. Thrust only gives you +2 STR when hitting a warcaster, unless they have a med/large base. So if it's P+S 16 just like the Carni on most casters/locks.

As far as Saeryn.. I believe you are talking Blight Bringer. The AOE only works if the models end their activation inside the AOE. Flying a Harrier over a bunch of them wont set off the POW12 attacks. You could do this with any model. A solo, a Strider that got stuck in melee range, Shredder, or a large base model. The Harrier's animus is great, but Saeryn is RAT7 and she just needs to hit in order for the deathspur to get it's effects. Not alot gets past RAT 7 on 3D6 if you have to boost.

Silverwarrior88 wrote:The Angelius is just as powerful as a Carnivean on a charge, or regular attack. Thrust cuts ARM in half so that's 3D6+5 on most heavy beasts/jacks.

True, but dealing with heavies is all the Angelius is great at. On the charge he might do 6-7 points more than the Carni but every attack after that he does 2 less and gets far less attacks. He only has one initial attack to the Carni's 3. Here's a quick question. Can the Angelius deal with a devastator? If you answered yes, you'd be wrong

Silverwarrior88 wrote: Avenging Angel works well with infantry, and I believe it allows another Thrust attack.

Nope. Thrust is a special attack and you can only do those on your activation.

The Angelius is faster and that's it's thing but he can't beat a warcaster camping focus like carnivean can. He can't take a hit and he can't slam which is super useful.

And Sazzlefrats- slipstream makes everything better

Angelius = Scalpel
Carnivean = Sledgehammer

Holy crap dietrich I had that post exactly typed up. Then I realized that the same crappy statement "Archers > Swordsmen" applies.
For what? There are plenty of lists where archers just wont keep up, or will be saturated by greater ranged threats (seraphs). Legion has precious few examples where you can flat out say X > Y, because just about everything is good and fills a role perfectly. The odd men out are the poor spawning vessel, catapult, raek, and teraph... Which do fill roles that other units in legion do not, albeit not very well and usually not roles that legion is all that interested in filling anyways.

@ Bat, I never said the Angelius was better. For the most part, everything plays a role. It all depends on how you play and what you are playing against. The Carnivean is better in the over-all aspect of the game, but lets face it. Angelius moves 1" more and ignores models in it's way, plus reach gives it a total of 3" more then the Carnivean's threat range. But when it comes down to breaking teeth, the Carnivean has 3 total attacks, all as strong as the Angelius. It's animus is just as good, but limited to only doing damage to a Warbeast.

If you think a Carnivean can destroy a Dev on a charge, then you would also be wrong. It's a dice game. When it boils down to it, you cant count on the numbers. I've rolled triple 1's twice in a row, then turned around and hit box cars for the next 3 turns.

Everything has it's place in the Legion army... I do agree with Moz about the Teraph and Raek though. But then again if you think about them, they play their role perfectly.... Just not the same way Legion plays all together.

It can slam the dev...thereby dealing with it

I was originally responding to the OP who only has primal stuff and the poster who said Angelius was > a Carnivean.... I was just nitpicking your post

If some want to beleive the carnivean is better than the angelius and make up a set of situations to prove that case, who can argue that kind of circular logic.

BTW the angelius has wings, it flys over the devastator, goes for the caster kill, and never has to deal with it :p

I generally use the angelius 2/3 and the carnvean 1/3 of the time, at 750 games, sometimes I'll run both. Its caster dependant. With Vayl, you go with wings, everytime, avoiding freestrikes is fantastic.

Moz: Archers > Swordsmen is a crappy statement? What is an example of where archers can't keep up where swordsmen can? Threat range for archers is 18, that outranges even a seraph, with CRA you can do more damage that a seraph as well. Seraph and Archers... its a nice complimentary combo. Threat range for swordsmen almost half that, and swordsmen and archers have effectively the same durability.

I did not mistake that Saeryn doesn't require warbeasts for blightbringer (course I didnt say you had to use a warbeast) I use the harrier because its freakn fast. If we had a 7move solo that was cheaper I'd use it. Though sometimes I'll use my raptors, thy are faster and with 5" coherency, no one else is at risk unless you want them to be in the thick of it. Then again, raptors don't have wings...

Actually raptors with Vayl are amazing, work perfect with her feat.

at 31pts a model, the Harrier is a waste of points just for Blightbringer... I'd rather go Rapid with my Shredder, charge over terrain for 11", get my boosted attack and damage roll, the cast Blightbringer on him for another POW12 damage roll on everything 5" around him.. And he's only 23 points.

Add in the fact that the animus of the Shredder comes into play alot more then the Harrier's. True Strike is great, but all the locks for Legion are well off as far as their MAT and RAT go, with the exception of Vayl, and she's a deffensive lock anyway.

About the Archers>Swordsmen... the answer is Archers is to range = Swordsmen are to melee. Archers have CRA and a volley that has an amazing RAT when they do it, and everyone under the template suffer a POW10 roll... On the other hand, Swordsmen are a amazing melee unit and for the points are better point/model wise. They roll 3D6 always, and are MAT7. It all depends on what you want to do with them.

Of course I could sit and argue that Striders are better then both with their UA.. Since my unit as the chance of pumping out 16 POW10 shots from 12" away on RAT8, RAT10 for Deacon, have CRA, Stealth, Advance Deployment, Pathfinder, and gain an extra +2 DEF in terrain, a DEF of 15, and then move 7" after they shoot... But that's personal opinon...

Moz said it best when he said that mostly everything fills it's role in Legion, and the few things that dont, most people wouldn't want them anyway.

Well... typically I'll try to hit the harrier with the shredder animus, now its def16. Sometimes thats enough to render it unhittable, and maybe I can reuse the model the next turn. Either way with that kind of defense it'll usually suck up a ton of resources to get rid of that threat. I suppose I could just run an extra shredder, but I love wings.

I need to pick up the strider UA, it looks like its a must have (cause striders by themselves are just expensive archers)

But swordsmen, I don't know, you can avoid mellee so easily by having archers that I can't ever see using them again.

Sazzlefrats wrote:If some want to beleive the carnivean is better than the angelius and make up a set of situations to prove that case, who can argue that kind of circular logic.

Sure, first and easiest: The target is 12.1" - 17" away, bam the carnivean is better due to breath weapon on the assault action. Pow 14 spray > Pow 10 single shot.

Second: Target is def 13 armor 18 (fairly common), med-large base size:
Angel charges (1 foc), boosts hit (1 foc): damage is 3d6 + 5, buys 2 more attacks hitting on 7s, average 1 hit: damage is 2d6 - 4.
Total: 3d6+5 (av 16), 2d6-4 (av 3): (av 19)
Carnivean charges (1 foc), boosts hit (1 foc): damage is 3d6, 2 more initial swings on 8s, average 1 hit: damage is 2d6 - 2. Buys 2 swings with claws, average 1 hit: 2d6-2.
Total: 3d6 (av 11), 2d6-2 (av 5), 2d6-2 (av 5): (av 21) win
Going by averages isn't necessarily fair since individual rolls can vary greatly, in these cases the edge goes to the model rolling more dice: Carnivean.

Third: Target is def 10 armor 20 (khador heavy)
Angel charges (1 foc): damage is 3d6 + 4, buys 1, boost damage: 3d6 -6, buys 1, 2d6 -6.
Total: 3d6+4 (av 15), 3d6-6 (av 5), 2d6-6 (av1): (av 21)
Carnivean charges (1 foc): 3d6 - 2, 2 initial attacks boost each dmg, 3d6 - 4 x 2. buy 1 attack 2d6 -4.
Total: 3d6 - 2 (av 9), 3d6 - 4 (av 7), 3d6 - 4 (av 7), 2d6 - 4 (av 3): (av 26) win
Need to slam? Carnivean > angelius.

I guess I can keep coming up with these wild and crazy (circular?) scenarios, but really the only place where the angel is better is with melee threat range 12" > 9.5" of carnivean, and wings: both good things, but certainly not final.

Casters that will further enhance the bonuses of the carnivean over the angel: Rhyas (rapport, crit decap), Thagrosh (death shroud, draconic blessing), Lylith (feat), eLylith (pin cushion, feat), Vayl (chiller, incite, dark sentinel: agree that edge goes to angel here though for wings + cat&mouse), eThagrosh (feat, glory of everblight).

Moz: Archers > Swordsmen is a crappy statement? What is an example of where archers can't keep up where swordsmen can? Threat range for archers is 18, that outranges even a seraph, with CRA you can do more damage that a seraph as well. Seraph and Archers... its a nice complimentary combo. Threat range for swordsmen almost half that, and swordsmen and archers have effectively the same durability.

Of course it's a crappy statement. They do different things entirely. Swordsmen move into armies, take objectives, butcher things. Archers sit behind the army picking on key targets. Screwdriver > Hammer is a poor statement.

That's what I'm talking about.

Maths!

Avoid melee? How?. I'm SPD7, that means I run at you for 14". You either shot at me, then get charged within a turn, or you run away too and give up shooting. Either way, I will engage you sooner or later.

If Archers get charged, or just engaged, they suck. P+S 9 wont do much to med-heavy infantry, and their MAT is only 5, so light infantry avoids them with ease unless you roll 9's or 10's.

As far as Striders, they are NOT Archers. Archers have a high DEF with CRA and a Volley. Striders have way more to benifit from then the Archers. Striders have a higher RAT, and now with the Officer and Musician UA, they gain Rapid-Shot and Bushwack. I would never take a full unit of Archers over a unit of Striders and thier UA when the Striders only cost 15-20 points more then a unit if Archers and it's harder to kill them

Moz next time I'm in NY, we'll play. I'll slam, knockdown, or throw your carnivean every turn that it might get a charge off. I wasn't kidding, and your math proves why everyone fears a standing carnivean. Thats why I can't take one every game, it'll get slammed, knocked down or thrown. I will never ever argue that a carnviean will do less damage IF someone gives him a target. I will argue its a lot easier for an opponent to trip up a carnivean than an angelius, and a smart opponent will do that every game. That's the "thrust" of my arguement.

Silverwarrior, yeap thats what I used to do with my swordsmen, run them up to tie up my opponent in combat and hope for the best until my otherstuff caught up and hopefully finished the job. Then I started taking archers and I started winning a whole lot more games because I lost a lot less models and had more stuff in the later game to finish the job. I think my personal play style works better with the shooting game than the mellee aspect. And when I get the strider UA, I'm sure it'll be better than archers.

Generally against top tier players I have problems with Trolls and Cryx, but everything else folds pretty easily, khador I end up killing most everything but the warcaster so it becomes a win on attrition.

Without a doubt. Give the Striders a second look. I thought they were over-priced at first glance, but at 110pts for 8, they are worth it.

Again, everything in Legion is SPD6, if not 7. You shouldn't have problems with the Swordsmen not being supported, and the fact alone that they don't need support from a lock or other units is the reason people play them. Yes Archers are great RNG unit, and they do their job effectively, but they sometimes need something to help play "clean up" if they get sucked in.