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Post by drakkenblut on Jul 3, 2018 19:31:35 GMT
Lanz, this is our only non caster-specific dmg buff ever. From the dawn of MK1 Trolls had Rage, Circle had Primal, Skorne had Enrage, we had nothing.
A little enthusiasm, especially because it is on our prettiest beast, that had a nonimus before, would be in order.
your Vayl1 list is pretty much the same as the one already posted. There is a big question what to do with the Feat (as you have both AA and Vayl unmoved by it) and given the short ranges where Incite is effective, I would switch the Ravagores for Typhon, leave out the Bolt thrower and maybe find a place for Stingers and Croaks.
Actually, given the Kallus2 Feat, AA animus may have a surprising place in his army. He gets to activate the fire continuous effect twice, so say AA shoots and ignites a bunch of stuff, Croaks Oil and ignite a bunch of stuff, Kallus comes front and center and feats, and everything ignited burns with boosted POW14s. Kallus casts Battle lust on his Chosen, who launch onto burning enemy units with a POW14 boosted Impact hit, and POW15 double boosted strike. Opponents turn, fires burn once more and inflict POW 14, boosted.
Now that is three boosted POW 14 and one double boosted POW 15 on every ignited target, that is avg 22,5 damage on ARM 20, the initial damage that ignited the unit and possible multiple Impact hits discounted, so this will cripple a line of 5 Khador jacks easily (one Chosen per jack), all that is left is to clean them up next turn. It can be played in PT theme, so Golab may come into play, interfering with any repairs or healing, and its animus and Overrun make a nice spell combo that can move it or Kallus twice both before and after activation.
No pressing need for a Bloodseer... nice. Maybe it can fit in a 50pt army even. The only problem is no ARM buff on the Chosen, but I suppose they can be held back, expecting the big push from the feat. Got to playtest this one when I get the Chosen next month.
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Lanz
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Post by Lanz on Jul 4, 2018 2:23:48 GMT
Lanz, this is our only non caster-specific dmg buff ever. From the dawn of MK1 Trolls had Rage, Circle had Primal, Skorne had Enrage, we had nothing. A little enthusiasm, especially because it is on our prettiest beast, that had a nonimus before, would be in order. your Vayl1 list is pretty much the same as the one already posted. There is a big question what to do with the Feat (as you have both AA and Vayl unmoved by it) and given the short ranges where Incite is effective, I would switch the Ravagores for Typhon, leave out the Bolt thrower and maybe find a place for Stingers and Croaks. Actually, given the Kallus2 Feat, AA animus may have a surprising place in his army. He gets to activate the fire continuous effect twice, so say AA shoots and ignites a bunch of stuff, Croaks Oil and ignite a bunch of stuff, Kallus comes front and center and feats, and everything ignited burns with boosted POW14s. Kallus casts Battle lust on his Chosen, who launch onto burning enemy units with a POW14 boosted Impact hit, and POW15 double boosted strike. Opponents turn, fires burn once more and inflict POW 14, boosted. Now that is three boosted POW 14 and one double boosted POW 15 on every ignited target, that is avg 22,5 damage on ARM 20, the initial damage that ignited the unit and possible multiple Impact hits discounted, so this will cripple a line of 5 Khador jacks easily (one Chosen per jack), all that is left is to clean them up next turn. It can be played in PT theme, so Golab may come into play, interfering with any repairs or healing, and its animus and Overrun make a nice spell combo that can move it or Kallus twice both before and after activation. No pressing need for a Bloodseer... nice. Maybe it can fit in a 50pt army even. The only problem is no ARM buff on the Chosen, but I suppose they can be held back, expecting the big push from the feat. Got to playtest this one when I get the Chosen next month. I'm perfectly enthusiastic. The archangel is in a lot of my lists right now and I'm very happy with its performance. There's a difference between enthusiasm and hype. But it's still a trap to build a list around it as far as I'm concerned. Melee buffs are ubiquitous, you'll ALWAYS use melee if you build a list for it. Ranged attacks are way easier to counter, elemental ones that much more so. If you want to build a shooting list on the backs of ravagores and archangels that's one thing, since those models hold up in melee well too, but if you want to run something like teraph-spam, croaks, more than one seraph, or, god-forbid, something like stinger-spam to min-max the applications of the +2 fire, you will probably get shut down hard and have no play once it happens. You have until your opponent gets close and if by then you haven't tabled them you've basically lost.
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Post by drakkenblut on Jul 4, 2018 12:48:08 GMT
Just to cover our basis, there are more beasts that could make use of AAs Animus, they are Splatter Boar and Road Hog.
Unfortunately, you would have to take Rorsh&Brine to have any Splatter Boars and Road Hogs, you would have to play out of Theme, Fury management is a problem, yadda yadda, in short not worth it. Maybe in two+ warlock battles. Still, something to keep in mind.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Jul 4, 2018 14:10:17 GMT
I agree with Lanz here, I don't think Legion can go full gunline and you need to account for melee, which is why I think a warlock like kryssa or kallus2 is the way to make the most of that animus. Not necessarily the best fit for AA in general, but for that animus.
This begs the question whether the bloodseer is a usefull addition to the AA or just an 8-point tax. AA is probably safe enough on turns where parts of/the rest of the army moves in for melee, so how important is it to extend that animus forward? I think the bloodseer should do more then just that.
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Post by drakkenblut on Jul 4, 2018 17:50:13 GMT
dirtyharrypotter, Bloodseer does do more than just thast, it was explained in the thread.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Jul 4, 2018 21:55:07 GMT
Yes I read the explanation. I just think that an army that makes the most of the bloodseer, can also keep the AA safe from retaliation. As such, a build that would need the bloodseer to extend that animus' range doesn't make the best use of the seer, which makes it a tax (sorta).
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Lanz
Junior Strategist
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Post by Lanz on Jul 4, 2018 22:13:23 GMT
The bloodseer is a bit like having a firefly in a hurricane list. The archangel doesn't need help with it's own animus but the bloodseer spares it a fury for more boosting.
The bloodseer is for buffing the rest of the list mainly. It's extremely dangerous and I would strongly recommend NOT trying to have the AA personally linger within 10 to apply the animus itself. Compromising its repo3 is a direct compromise to its survivability. So the bloodseer is indispensible for getting that buff for your other models.
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Lanz
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Post by Lanz on Jul 4, 2018 22:17:10 GMT
I agree with Lanz here, I don't think Legion can go full gunline and you need to account for melee, which is why I think a warlock like kryssa or kallus2 is the way to make the most of that animus. It's not so much that legion can't do pure gunline so much as it shouldn't. We have the distinction that a lot of our 'shooter' beasts happen to have good melee performance as well, especially with the ample buffing we have access to. It's a strength that shouldn't be ignored because it grants us a versatility that other shooting factions can't usually match. We can build for shooting without depending on shooting unless you pick the few specific models that can ONLY shoot.
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Jul 5, 2018 7:13:45 GMT
The bloodseer is for buffing the rest of the list mainly. It's extremely dangerous and I would strongly recommend NOT trying to have the AA personally linger within 10 to apply the animus itself. Compromising its repo3 is a direct compromise to its survivability. So the bloodseer is indispensible for getting that buff for your other models. While I understand there's a risk, sending a bloodseer off on it's own to apply it for im seems like a waste, so you want to make the best use of telemetry while doing that and/or send stuff along with it to make a proper speedbumb. In both cases I feel like you'd end up with a list that can keep AA safe even if it didn't repo. Just a feeling though.
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Post by gobber on Jul 5, 2018 7:48:53 GMT
Unfortunately, you would have to take Rorsh&Brine to have any Splatter Boars and Road Hogs, you would have to play out of Theme, Fury management is a problem, yadda yadda, in short not worth it. Maybe in two+ warlock battles. Still, something to keep in mind. Slight correction: there's no need to play out of theme; Rorsh can always bring any minion beasts he wants in any theme he's allowed in (which is all of them for legion)
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rivers
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Post by rivers on Jul 5, 2018 12:34:35 GMT
I agree with Lanz here, I don't think Legion can go full gunline and you need to account for melee, which is why I think a warlock like kryssa or kallus2 is the way to make the most of that animus. It's not so much that legion can't do pure gunline so much as it shouldn't. We have the distinction that a lot of our 'shooter' beasts happen to have good melee performance as well, especially with the ample buffing we have access to. It's a strength that shouldn't be ignored because it grants us a versatility that other shooting factions can't usually match. We can build for shooting without depending on shooting unless you pick the few specific models that can ONLY shoot. I also feel Lanz has the right of it here, which is again why I enjoy that Abby list - it doesn't shoot as hard as the same list under Lylyth2, but is much more flexible if the enemy can control or mitigate your guns through immunities, extreme shield guarding, terrain, or any other of the myriad tricks available to most factions. Legion's guns are in general good enough on their own that we don't NEED to go pure gunline and still get meaningful turn to turn use out of them, while still contributing at the end of the game. Also ever since the change change to his Animus and ranged attack, I don't think that Kallus2 and the Archangel's synergy is surprising at all; it's pretty much super obvious. I definitely like the idea of a PT list for Kallus2 that includes the AA and Chosen, but I'm unsure if it's sinking too many points into high value targets that benefit heavily from ARM buffs that Kallus can't bring. The extreme threat ranges might be enough, but a really long charge range is not quite as valuable as out of activation or nonlinear threats (since it is fairly easy to stagger the front line or block LOS).
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Post by dirtyharrypotter on Jul 5, 2018 12:55:19 GMT
Keep it simple: eThags, AA, typhon, ravagore, carni, witches, 2 spellmartyrs, 3 freebees in oracles and go superaggressive. Probably good fun.
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Lanz
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Post by Lanz on Jul 5, 2018 13:37:14 GMT
The bloodseer is for buffing the rest of the list mainly. It's extremely dangerous and I would strongly recommend NOT trying to have the AA personally linger within 10 to apply the animus itself. Compromising its repo3 is a direct compromise to its survivability. So the bloodseer is indispensible for getting that buff for your other models. While I understand there's a risk, sending a bloodseer off on it's own to apply it for im seems like a waste, so you want to make the best use of telemetry while doing that and/or send stuff along with it to make a proper speedbumb. In both cases I feel like you'd end up with a list that can keep AA safe even if it didn't repo. Just a feeling though. 8 points is less a risk and more of a calculated loss. Its expected to die but as t least its arm18 so its not trivially removed. You can leverage some stuff to keep it alive a bit longer, but I don't expect it to survive for more than a turn unless my opponent can't pull a 13" or better melee threat range.
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danx
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Post by danx on Jul 6, 2018 8:07:56 GMT
I don't build my list around the animus, but I was convinced to play a Carnivan and a Terpah alongside my Archangel. That's most of my points gone then though. I could have taken 3 more terpahs, but instead took a Naga and Protus, with Abby1. I also took 3 shield guards. I strongly considered ice witches instead as they are really good for shooting but the shield guards are more useful. Abby feat brings healing then reasonable tanking for 3 of my beasts, the shield guards give them a lot more change to stay alive against combined arms lists - and slight (very slight) hope against heavy shooting lists. Blightburst is surprisingly good control to help keep the beasts safe from charges/boosts. There is a weirdness were you can't wraithbaine and AA animus which often annoys me. Should may be take a mistspeaker against menoth
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Post by drakkenblut on Jul 6, 2018 12:11:52 GMT
I believe the animus and the possibilities it brings are not given the credit it deserves. The +2 to dmg is great to start with. The combo with Oil is a very good bonus. The fact that the Fire effect will stay next turn is what seals the deal. In effect, in your shooting list you have +2 to dmg inflicted per every (flaming) attack that hits, so 3Xfor AA, say 5X for the Croaks, 2X for the Seraph, 1x for Ravagore (taking the basics into account), that is 22dmg more, or 28 dmg on a Lyl2 Feat, so roughly a bonus dead heavy, just from direct shooting. Then you have the fires still burning, that is boosted POW 14 that ignore things like Kreas animus, Shields, or Carapace. Average of 4,5 damage on ARM 20 per still burning target, so on 6 burning targets averages one more heavy down, twice that on Kallus2 Feat. Compare that to "normal" fires that will die out in 1/3 cases, with four unboosted POW 12s that won't do damage to high ARM. Then there is the bonus Fury saving feature, since your beasts do not have to boost dmg on Oiled targets. This btw is reason enough to use Croaks, now AAs animus makes it a crime not to use the two in a combo. I believe this gives a significant boost to Legion, not all Warlocks can effectively use it, but those that can will find it most useful. Bloodseer will maximise the effect since there is no skornergy between Croaks and AA (without Bloodseer, the ones activating first will not benefit from the ones activating second), it will get the animus' effect deeper into enemies lines, it acts as a bump for the enemy onmthe following turn, enables the AA to use his move back after shooting, ensuring another round of shooting and removing the @main work will be in melee@ dilemma. As for Kallus2, it is not a given that he needs the AA. If his feat is used only/mainly to enable the far-striking charges, he can ignite the targets himself with his magic and/or abilities, and not worry about the fires going out or the damage the fires will inflict. If, however you want to emphasise the fires doing the work, then AA and Croaks become the cornerstone of his list. dirtyharrypotter, that list is not built on the Animus, it looks like it could be useful once in 10 games with that list. Anyone has anything to contribute? I am a bit torn on possibly using Azrael, Zuriel, Carnivean in these lists, because on the pro side, they can also ignite targets with a respectable threat range, while on the con side, it is not their primary purpose and the points may be better used for some direct damage firebreathers like Seraphs and Ravagores, maybe even Typhon.
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