DEATH Faction Review (All Death Indexes reviewed) - Warhammer Weekly 07312024

[@ed8869]

Vince talking to himself (and his growing youtube audience) is all we need!!

[@brucelim8574]

The most dedicated man in Warhammer 🤘👊

[@NapGod]

I want to get my proverbial "you dont know how to play warhammer anymore" game done so I can find out how to play 4th before Nashcon.

[@victorflorincopindean63]

I have to give a shoutout to the Varghulf, he managed to oneshot Bastian Carthalos with savage beyond reason even without the crit mortals. Then he got hit back by another infantry he was in combat with, survived and just healed and ran. Could do work as a back field skirmisher or hero assassin. He's also a noble deed point machine.

[@CleanDry]

A couple things I've run into with FEC so far: - Archregent's spell only gives movement for the first unit set up, gorewarden's ability requires him to set up first, so the combo is not quite as useful anymore - Cardinal's rousing oration is in any hero phase, so it overcharges your passive noble deed generation way up

[@JackRovat]

Thank you vince for your analysis of FEC, you confirmed most of my first impressions. You skipped almost all the courtiers, in your experience does 1 marrowscroll work? I have 200 points left and I am debating between 3 more morbheg or another courtier

[@SomersetDrinker]

I’m gonna defend the vampire lord here. Although I am somewhat disappointed in the lack of support he gives to the rest of the army, he is probably the best low point assassin hero in the game. He can teleport within 3” of an enemy hero, he’s anti hero so -2 rend, 2 hit crit, 2+ wound in bacchanal of blood and if you take shard of night and cast fading vigour he’s not going down anytime soon (even against some of the bigger heroes in the game).

[@PatRick-ru7qe]

Vince: "These Nighthaunt units are unkillable anyway" - Me: "Hold my 4+/5+" 🥲

[@Mattiasbak]

I have never had a game in which I haven't discombobulated my opponent with my inability to roll 4+

[@NIcolasbobbitt]

Ya I lose every game I play with the ghosts. But I also don’t play the hex wraiths cause I don’t have any. Also only play Krule boyz. Which might be one of the reasons I always lose. Haha

[@VinceVenturella]

I don't mean you won't lose models, you will (usually a lot less), but then they will all easily come back. :)

[@lukevassh7740]

Also with FEC I'm trying to figure a way to effectively run max Varghulf courtier simply because I want to. 🤘

[@itsjustj6205]

I hit the like button and now I serve Nagash

[@bastiandeininger6654]

Nagash is all, all is Nagash

[@MrJadeskies]

I find nagash as essential in a night haunt list, 2 drop list with boat boi, 10 hex wraiths with 30 wounds, 4+ ethereal, 5+ ward and -1 to wound being teleported into the back line with 7” charge, once lifted Nagash puts them back as a whole unit. Nagash gets 90% of his spells off and spreads 5+ ward to everything, bonus cup game for free kills, plenty of casts to not only get off all of your manifestations but also no fear of running out of dispells. Once you put 10 hex horses back on the table you basically got a 320 point discount on Nagash and he gets all but the ethereal rules from night haunt and since you usually don’t need to discorporate you have plenty of cp for all our defense.

[@mordy2v]

Askurgan trueblades are kind of a fun unit that has a fight last and are infantry that can take advantage of the vampire specific buffs. Not sure if great but unique

[@thrills120]

Hey Vince! Appreciate the videos and amount of time and effort you put into these reviews. There were a few things in your Soulblight section that I feel like I should mention. For example, I feel like the necromancer is a very strong almost auto include for many builds. Allowing a reinforced unit of graveguard or black knights to fight twice on a 3+ is really powerful and basically covers the necromancers cost and some. Not to mention that he’ll give the GG a 5+++ while tagging along and the fact that you’ll struggle to include a non-unique hero without him. Doing the d3 MWs on a 2+ vs casts within 18” is really pretty good and will force your opponent to think twice before casting with low health wizards. You said the Coven throne was good but the amazing thing is combo-ing it with mannfredd so you can re-deploy two units into combat every turn! I’d suggest the Terrorgheist isn’t a straight up pass. Pairing it with Luka Vai gives it a melee profile with 4 to 6 attacks each doing 6MW on 6s to hit. That’s a lot of potential MWs. Also, being able to strike first (and maybe turn off commands) when he charges makes him an amazing “go first unit” who can immediately delete low to medium point characters or half a unit before your other units attack. (I might be wrong but with some finagling couldn’t he also charge fly over a unit and delete those pesky low health wizards in the back line.) Then fight first on the counter charge where you just happen to roll straight 6s on 6d6 and do 36MW. 🤯 That’s it!

[@eclipsingshadows5421]

Can’t wait to see how broken Nighthaunt is. Got to learn how to beat it as Chaos!

[@TerrierHalo]

Well if it’s Thursday morning and I’ve been on the road all Wednesday I’m making breakfast and hitting like.

[@HaydenHaws]

Got into AoS 4th ed because Nighthaunt look dope, playing my first game tomorrow, so I guess I’ll take advantage of the cheese while I can! Now I’m bracing for the Nerf hammer to sweep my legs out from under me😅

[@timclose7661]

Vince I think you gotta give a bit more love for the necro in sbgl he gives fight twice to summonable but they have to fight last the second time, with the amount of fight last the army has access too it means you can put fight last on the unit you have chosen to give the fight twice too giving them a double fight on the target before they get to swing back

[@johnhildenbrand2642]

Lol, Nighthaunt has to have been written by one of the rules guys 12 year old kids, who got his shit pushed in last edition. No way an actual adult ever read those scrolls/rules, playtested it and went "yep, that's balanced." This is literally the "I'm putting in the cheat codes so I can be fastest, strongest, hardest/impossible (depending on army) to kill, best board control and then, just in case I decide to hammer a fifth to the head and lose my mind as I'm playing, I'm giving myself a Lady O get out of jail free card so that any work you actually do is immediately erased..."it's going to get brutalized in the balance pass, and it deserves it, I would hate to see a model range this cool end up getting the kind of hate that Aeldari have gotten for most of 10th, where even when they finally aren't a problem people still shit on them.

[@cyberhawk94]

You rated the Cardinal low as youd usually rather just give a courtier the priest artefact. However, you also called nearly every courtier a skip outside the marrowscroll. Im just curious what the lists you were building looked like to be Ush+AA+2 Courtiers?

[@VinceVenturella]

Vargulf and the Marrscroll.

[@traiantulbure3819]

The lack of enthusiasm for SBGL was tangible 😆 Death seems to be one of the less popular alliances, particularly with streamers and I don’t get it… to me it’s easily the coolest, but then again loads of people like destruction and I really don’t (other than gitz, they rock). I’m aware it’s all subjective, but I get the feeling death is generally less popular and I’m not sure why?

[@kellyhoesing2573]

A lot of folks hate recursion based armies

[@traiantulbure3819]

@@kellyhoesing2573 I get that they can sometimes provide a NPE for opponents, but I would have thought the general themes of the undead, necromancy, vampires etc I would would appeal to more people, but maybe I’m just biased. I actually really dislike playing a horde style army, but I manage to find enough within nighthaunt and SBGL to satisfy my playstyle and the aesthetics/ themes I like, as both are important to me. I’m just surprised that more people don’t seem to share my enthusiasm for the creatures of the night 💀

[@briochepanda]

Broadly speaking its 4 flavours of skellingtons and zambies and some people just fancy more variety. Destruction arguably falls into a similar pitfall of mostly shirtless angry bois of varying size and greeness. That and anyone coming from 40k might have a touch of skull fatigue 😂 TL;DR death is cool, but not everyone vibes on Halloween 24/7.

[@VinceVenturella]

I hope i still gave them a fair shake.

[@blasmeister]

FECchat: Think you're underrating Abhorrant Cardinal - you're getting more than 3 deed points per battle round off the ability alone and with many of the good chants on 5s having 2 active priests seems just fine. Dream scenario is setting the throne up next to a place of power and he surfs between the 2 while bringing back a unit each turn. Also as mentioned by others Carrion Call no longer works well with Gorewarden unless you want to get a charge off with the warden itself specifically. Horrors do seem a bit weak compared to knights but they have a niche interaction with the charnel feast spell, being infantry, that could be strong anvil with a 6 block, and the Haunter gives +1 to hit on top of the chain activation.

[@CleanDry]

@@blasmeister Oh dear, that throne-place of power surfing sure is silly, hadnt thought of that 🙈 whats the plan for first turn?

[@blasmeister]

@@CleanDry I don't think you can set up inside terrain anymore so you either set up within range of the PoP or you just walk up to the throne on 1, get in, grab your points and get out again next to the PoP to activate it next turn(s) then repeat. Sadly you'd be unable to benefit from the protection of the throne while also being in PoP range so watch out for shooting.

[@CleanDry]

Ah right, thats also a bit funky, good point. Also interested in your thoughts on turn 1 battle tactics? I'm playing around with the idea of 3 drop with actually going heavy on the flanks, since we cant really go cheap there. Rotate back to position with gorewarden or deranged.

[@The_ZerGhoul]

I haven't gotten the chance to play a 4th edition game yet. I can just say that when I saw them start revealing how units were going to be stronger counter vs some specific types and all of it seemed to had to do with getting extra rend, it looked like Nighthaunt was going to be basically dodge the "intended counter bonuses" if they were to retain their immunity to rend. Then, GW said that they were going to make models look reflect better their saves characteristics. So I thought ghosts would go to a 5+ save but they're still on a 4+ (like a lot of heavily armored units in the game, then ignoring rend, since most things that aren't chaff have at least rend 1, a flying piece of rag = roughly matches the most heavily armored units in the game). I don't play that army so I figured that maybe a 5+ save would make them too weak for a melee army and that's why they kept the 4+ but I'm not sure this argument holds when melee centric armies like Ironjawz hit on 4s now. I'll be curious to see if GW finds a way to balance the fact that Ignore rend basically ignores their 4th edition counter mechanic or if they'll simply approach this with points increase.

[@6packproductions710]

OBR main here that just played in his first GT a couple weekends ago, going 2-3. I'd agree that the army plays very fair, honest warhammer. Throw out a few buffs, push forward, get into combat. That being said, I wanted to provide some observations: 1. Cavalry are carrying the faction. Deathriders are great, though the companion mechanic probably holds them back enough from being a problem. 2. Everything else in the army could go down 10% or so in points without issue. Even Katakros, who probably would see zero play if not for the 18" aura on relentless discipline. 3. Speaking of Kat, his command ability is quite good, but it means the army basically just has 3 CP per game while running him. Makes countercharging almost a moot point. 4. This is a death army with a very small amount of healing and recursion. Most of the army has a 4+ save. It isn't THAT tanky unless you invest multiple CP with Kat + AoD. 5. Mortek Guard have anti charge rend in an army that can just give everyone anti charge. Also, anti charge overall is a joke of an ability since it's reactive. If the unit with it is a threat, your opponent can just not charge or commit enough to the charge to remove/neuter your unit with the extra rend.

[@mrigank3855]

Getting a bunch of games under my belt, its quickly devolving into Manifestations + Bodies. A lot of damage is coming just from free manifestations, some of which have better fighting stats than some actual units you pay points for in your army. I dont know why they gave them combat stats.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yeah, the manifesations are annoying, short answer.

[@Pchopper099]

I wish GW showed the amount of love they give Death armies to other armies like Ironjawz

[@grungivaldigurnisson5115]

Nagash + 4 terrorgheists let's goooo

[@BrettsMinis]

Hey Vince, mid show quick question since there was a bit of discussion about warcry models (don’t know if you talk about this later in the vid) in your opinion, what are the chances the warcry kits will get removed from main AoS since GW seems to be separating their game systems even more now?

[@VinceVenturella]

I would say decently there, 50/50?

[@manga3040]

I love the new FEC models but I am so bummed they did not give the basic ghouls a glow up the same way they did clan rats.

[@Hedonite]

Im not a fan of the gigantic vlozd nerf but we all saw it coming lol.

[@vincentbloser7950]

Regarding NH: Apart from some points adjustments, I don't think a huge nerf is necessary. The strength of this faction is that it is quite straightforward without huges synergies. As such it is not complicated to adapt and perform well in a new environment. The same thing happened at the release of the battletome in v3 and at the end of the version everything was cheaper than before because the meta had adapted. The main contenders are: -Reikenor -Bladegheists -Hexwraiths Either those are costed properly and everything else is either not efficient enough or overpriced or they are underpriced. Olynder seems interesting but 300 pts seems a bit overcosted for her abilities (yes the repop is good when your opponent doesn't know how to play around; but let's be real I haven't had a lot of opponents chipping away at the health of my whole army; usualy they focus on one unit and get rid of it) The cairn wraith + grimghasts seems interesting (with the bonus from your general's honor guard you can reach -3 rend vs infantry and the cairn wraith allows you to do 3 attacks instead of 2). The executioner lord stands apart as a "lone operative" give him the trait that only allows hits on 4+ and the soulfire ring and you have yourself a pretty durable piece. The crossboos reinforced have something to play. For 200pts you can play okay in the shooting phase and their ability allows them to ignore -1 to hit and shoot at "not visible targets". Like when you shoot during your opponent's turn or on a hero close to his friends. They give you a very interesting tactical opportunity.

[@VinceVenturella]

The subfaction should be changed, it's way too good, beyond that, I am mostly fine with points.

[@shadeling6717]

Is anyone surprised we haven't seen a roadmap or even the reveal for SCE and Skaven which is almost for sure to be the first 2 books of 4ed. I might relisten to the Night Haunt section but my main questions were pretty much answered. Is the Blackcoach actually good now and the Blade geist vs Harridan part. Harridans were one of the models that got my into Night Haunts and i've been using them even during the early times when i put them on the table and people would ask "what is that?".

[@liamdurr]

I'm assuming that's gonna happen after the Hel Crown event concludes

[@VinceVenturella]

Yeah, they are waiting to see who wins the event, it will be soon.

[@alexandruraullobontiu4052]

Really cool analysis, Vince! I really enjoy the videos! If you're reading this by any chance and have the possibility to drop a line here, could you please let me know if one could use an endless spell as a unit for the purpose of Guarded Heroes ability? I really don't understand when the endless spell is a unit, the "for the purpose of combat range" part of the explanation baffles me

[@VinceVenturella]

I don't think so, but I will need to really check into that.

[@Kimtanashino]

Just get rekt by OBR today, they are insane : they don't have shooting but they are so good in almost everything else.

[@ArnoNymus-i6h]

Concerning the influence of drops: that’s my biggest gripe with AoS since they introduced that rule. I really hate that few drops guarantee the choice. It should just be a bonus to the roll off. In 4th they did a good job of culling stuff that eliminates chance and let the dice tell a story. 10th 40K is the counterpart and IMO not fun with maxed lists… if I want no chance (in a dice! game) I’d rather play chess (with GW minis as pieces😂). And skipping those important rolls feels very much 40K-ish…

[@benstaffordson7163]

Our thoughts on OBR seem to largely align. Nagash has some play, probably. Mortek feel expensive. Kavalos feel good - but is that because they're actually too strong, or just bad options? Immortis guard seem... fine. Ish. Stalkers indeed didn't hit the vibes, as I expected. I'm still furious at losing their 1/3 special weapon. Morghast, as you said, are just so, so expensive. Nagash to revive a unit of morghast kinda makes it okay? Or kavalos. Or both. Honestly, and I'm no amazing sigmar player, I'm left pretty meh on 4.0. KO just feels bad - skip, skip, skip, take the only 3 datasheets that are good. OBR feels about the same - overpriced, underperforming, not a bonus hero (the regiment system sucks), auto-take the 2-3 good units. Nagash machine-gunning manifestations IS hilarious. Once. Then it's just bad.

[@Kalo9418]

how many ghouls are you taking? Or better yet, how much is enough?

[@VinceVenturella]

I take 80 in my lists.

[@halffin64]

my fledgling sbgl army is looking :/ I don't love how the drops things kinda bones bad heroes even more

[@Hedonite]

Mannfred is kinda a star here to help with the drop issue. He has a big base as well which helps with our healing. Let me know if you want some help with what to buy/list stuff :)

[@Jclark83]

Very late comment but do you think dropping first just gives you a you win draws to choose priority turn one and then its a roll off would make list building much more interesting and the game would still play the same

[@VinceVenturella]

I don't think its a win instantly, but I think it puts you in a much stronger position.

[@Jclark83]

@VinceVenturella sorry I didn't type that clearly. I meant would you prefer it if having lowest drops changed to auto choosing who starts turn 1 to its still a roll off like turn 2 onwards but the player that dropped first would win a drawn dice roll round 1. A bit like of they had gone top of say 2 going into 3.

[@chubbychalupa4175]

Question: is it as powerful to be a 1 drop as it is to be a 2? Thinking about an Archaon list and debating if I go the extra drop for the Sorcerer lord Also have fun and good luck at Gen Con!

[@VinceVenturella]

1 means you will basically always have the choice, 2 drops means you will go first about 60% of the time.

[@lukevassh7740]

Safe travels, duder.

[@robertmoffitt1336]

Warhammer Wednesday 🍻

[@RuffStuff420]

Nighthaunt is strong, I won't argue, but it is not the best, sorry, you're wrong on this one Vince. Our best saves are a 50/50, and sure, no rend, awesome. But a 4+ save, even when it is invulnerable, is SUPER swingy. I have had games where I have saved stuff like mad, but then again I have had games where I saved next to nothing. And even if you got a relatively average rolling game, all that means to me is that one unit is gonna make crazy saves one turn, and get wiped out the next. Deathstalkers is okay. We can already charge again while in combat to re-up our debuffs, and our base movements are already good enough to get into combat turn one. And you think ethereal is super OP right? So why do we need to run and retreat? Vanishing Phantasms on the other hand is just handing us battle tactics on a silver platter. ANY army that can put out mass attacks can table us solely due to the 50:50 nature of our best saves. Scriptor Mortis has done 58 mortals for me in 5 games. Most of them to the toughest units in the game. Hard to play with? Hell no, sorry, he's an auto include for me at this point. 100% agreed on Hex Wraiths, but the models are so hideously aweful......

[@VinceVenturella]

Tht stats so far (which are suspect and low) show I am right, my 5 games against them that never went past round 3 say I am right, the experieneces of the all the TOs around the world discussing their experiences watching them play say I am right. Yes, the saves are 50/50, but that is WAY better than most armies. Saves went down on average, (often a LOT because of the inability to do any kind of save stacking), and you rarely have CP for AOD, so a 4+ is actually as good as if not better than most people are getting. PLaying against this army with most other armies feels like they are playing a different game.

[@BDWANNEMACHER]

Oh no, I am late