Grand Army Challenge II: Kings of War Edition

[Fritz]

While the rest of you may not have noticed, the End Times series is set to wrap up fairly soon and supposedly will be followed by 9th edition Warhammer in May or June. Being over here, I'm jonesing for some Warhammer action all the more. In the spirit of the massive battles of the End Times, I'm going to throw down the gauntlet once more. This time, however, instead of attempting to cram games into a single day and rushing to fit things into a short period of leave, I'm going to go with a slow play. Kings of War!!!

So here's the challenge. By December 2016, Steph and I will be home one or way another. Either the lovely United States Army sends us home or we're just done. In that time, I will assemble a 10,000 point list made from the Host of the Eternity King (it's the Elven End Times list) a 7000 point Kings of War Elven/Basilean list (need Basileans to get access to my Phoenixes). Expect monsters, special characters, and a special scenario which I'll roll out over time. I will paint this army as well. Combine forces as you see fit and bring it on. Only fully painted armies will be deemed worth to sit across the table. The idea will be to play games fairly leisurely: a turn or two a day, leaving the game set-up so we can come back at a later day. That way we can play a full game without having to rush (ask Jeff and Dan how long it took to just do 4 turns).

[ahrimen]

I just painted 30 boys with choppa and shield, and converted and nearly finished paintings an arachnarok spider. + 20 spider riders are on the way.

[ahrimen]

Made 10,000pt list. It actually 4, 2500pt list. I Was thinking a battle that size it might be better to have multiple command structures.
I'm very close to having it all painted. I have 20 black orks, 24 archers , 1 giant and 20 spider riders left to paint. Btw. We will have to find a big enough battle field, this army has over 500 models.

[Fritz]

I was planning on constructing a table when I got home. I'll probably have to have two to fit all this =). The bones of the list I'm working on is around 320 models. I'm not sure how much I like the idea of 4 battle standard bearers and generals running around, but I could be talked into some kind of sub-commander rule that gives something like a 6" leadership bubble. Also, I don't know if you were using Grimgor, but he's got a new supped up profile coming in End Times: Archaon. Here's the link to the leak:

http://i.imgur.com/ep2RL9z.jpg

[MorGrendel]

Yikes with only a single Ld bubble the Skaven army will last exactly 1 turn. 320 models - Ha, I would love to have that in slaves - 640 points - of course, I don't have that many (I think I can get to 150)

[Fritz]

That's a good point Jeff. How does 2 generals and 2 BSBs sound? Double the table size, double the leadership buffs?

[MorGrendel]

Sure. Might work. It does not really matter my doomwheel will just turn left smash into one of my units and cause a mass panic .

I need To find my lizard man book, there is some silly rule about units always pursuing unless a skink hero is within a certain distance .

[lilscutt]

I'm interestEd

[Fritz]

I'm starting to brain storm ideas for the scenario. Based on the last experiences with Dan and Jeff, my first thought is to eliminate most special rules for terrain. If it's a forest, it's an ordinary forest. If it's a hill, it's an ordinary hill. With 10k on the table for each side and double (at least) the normal board size, that would be way too much to remember.

Second thought is victory conditions. We went with just a straight 5 objective king of the hill last time. If we wanted at least some magical terrain this would be the place to do it. I think 5 mystical monuments would make for some good objectives. Rather than straight king of the hill, though, we could add in additional objectives as well. Each objective would be one point, but you could also get a point for, say, killing a general or a battle standard bearer.

Finally, there is the issue of the magic phase. By the letter of the rules for the list I'm using (Host of the Eternity King), we should technically be using End Times magic. However, there seemed to be a great deal of objection to it's use in general, so I'm happy to throw it out. I don't, however, think a 2D6 magic phase is enough for this scale. Last time we used 4D6 dice with otherwise normal rules. Would this suffice for everyone again? Or should we go even bigger?

[MorGrendel]

Well I never thought three trees were a "forest", perhaps the answer is larger terrain features or all types are the same. Also, rather than roll at the time of battle, simply specify ahead and reenact the EOT battle. Also, I really prefer Objective battles to Kill 'em All. In a game of attrition it makes sense for an army to hang back and not commit, BUT for an opponent it's BORING.

How about All Wizards /2 = Winds of magic dice. Or total wizard levels /4 = Winds of magic dice. 4d6 is also fine. But I'm not playing until I get a flying monster. He or she doesn't even need to do anything OP.

[boagrius]

Ok so I want in I've got about 6000 points worth of tomb kings. It a Nagash list but I'm playing him as someone other than himself. Not all painted or assembled but I'm working on it now.

[Fritz]

Find someone to buddy up with. I don't think Serban can get that absurdly high up in the points total either, so he might be a natural partner.

On another note, we have some decisions to make when it comes to End Times: Archaon and Thanquol. I've uploaded both epubs on my google docs account, so if you haven't looked yet, feel free to download them. I am all for the extra army lists such as the Legions of Chaos, Host of the Eternity King, Undead Legions, and the Grand Army of the Everchosen as well as any of the new units such as Stormfiends. However, we probably need to discuss battlescrolls and especially the new "Armies of the End Times."

I personally like the battlescrolls. However, all the battlescrolls in Archaon and Thanquol have this rule: "If your army includes this formation, then you do not have to spend a minimum of 25% of your points on Core units." All of the formations include special characters as well as some suboptimal choices. Plus, they all have some nice flavor. There's formations in those two books that can be used in just about every army we have in our group (except poor Bretonnians). That said, I could well be very biased since there are no less than 3 pure Elven formations in those books as well as another that mixes Elves and Empire. In the interest of full disclosure, the Host of Fire is the one I'm eyeing. It's something I think we all need to look at and debate.

Armies of the End Times takes the looser restrictions of the battlescrolls to a whole new level. By which I mean there are no restrictions. You can take an army of all Stormfiends or Frostheart Phoenixes if you want. No lord, hero, special, or rare limit. No core minimums. No duplicate choice maximums. It's all gone. I'm fine with the Errata that made Lord and Heroes 50%. I'm fine with formations taking away the core requirement since they force a very rigid selection units and characters. I'm not fine with just throwing out all composition requirements all together. Still, it's something we should discuss as well. We are talking about an extremely high points cost after all with people trying to throw everything they have on the table, and might not be able to meet the usual restrictions.

[boagrius]

I don't really have a problem with the new "unbound" armies. At first they seem overpowering but unless your playing with a tool who just takes a 100 cannons then it mostly allows your friend to field what models they have. Now having said that I can easily field 10000 point if I throw in my chaos army with my tomb kings but I don't think my archaon and my settera play well with each other. Well until settera comes back with chaos power (spoiler alert).

[Berserker]

I have about 430 points painted so far.. 2 giants and 2 ogres. I might get a couple more ogres painted by the time the game happens.

I'll be a merc unit for someone. I'll hold the flank ;)

[lilscutt]

So what do you guys need to get these points to 10k. Let me know!!