And this is it! The final post in the series updating Tally Comp for the main 16 armies. Today, we focus on the two Undead armies, Warriors of Chaos and Wood Elves.
Tomb Kings
-Tomb Kings start on a Comp Score of +2
-2 High Queen Khalida
-1 Arkhan the Black
-1 per 10 (or part of 10) Skeleton Archers in the army after 50
-1 per unit of 4+ Necropolis Knights
-1 per Casket of Souls
-1 for the 2nd Screaming Skull Catapult
+1 for a Tomb Herald Battle Standard Bearer
+1 for the first unit of 20+ Skeleton Warriors (not Archers)
+1 for the first unit of Skeleton Horsemen (not Horse Archers)
+1 per unit of Tomb Swarms
+1 per unit of Ushabti
+1 per unit of Sepulchral Stalkers
+1 per Warsphynx
+1 per unit of 20+ Tomb Guard
+1 per Necrolith Colossus
+1 Prince Apophas
+1 The Herald Nekaph
Commentary
There were no Tomb Kings at Raze and Ruin, so we couldn't use that as our starting point. However, whenever you use comp and an army isn't used at all, you have to think that there is too much comp on them. So, the first thing to do was give them a general bonus for taking Tomb Kings. I don't think anyone will think that this is over the top, and will possibly encourage them on their own as opposed to part of an Undead Legion (more on that later!)
I did tighten up some of their negative options in light of this bonus, including adding in a shot cap for Skeleton Archers. However, there are now plenty of options for bonus units to counter this. I still think we can do more to encourage them, but until they see some use it's difficult to know where they are in the grand scheme of things.
Vampire Counts
-1 for the first Red Fury, -2 for each subsequent Red Fury
-1 per Quickblood
-1 per Ethereal character after the 1st
-1 per unit of Dire Wolves after the first 3 units
-1 per unit of Crypt Horrors
-1 per unit of 9+ Black Knights
-1 per unit of Hexwraiths
-1 per unit of 1 Spirit Host after the 1st
-1 per Terrorgheist
-1 Count Mannfred
+2 per Zombie Dragon
+2 per Abyssal Terror
+1 per Coven Throne
+1 for the first unit of 40+ Skeleton Warriors
+1 per unit of Bat Swarms
+1 per Corpse Cart
+1 per unit of 15+ Grave Guard
+1 per unit of 5+ Vargheists
+1 per Varghulf
+1 per Black Coach
+1 per unit of Blood Knights
+2 for Vlad and Isabella Von Carstein in the same army
+2 for Heinrich Kemmler and Krell in the same army
Commentary
The first thing here was to fix the Bat Swarm mistake from the last edition of the pack! After that, we wanted to discourage multiple Blender Vampire Lords. We didn't want to just put comp on each subsequent Vampire Lord, as there are some fun things you can do now with 50% Lord points. However, we though that being harsh on each Red Fury after the first should solve that. We also lightened some of the Ethereal comp, giving negatives to each after the first seems much fairer to the infantry builds that are likely to use them.
I'm still worried that each Terrorgheist is only -1, part of me thinks that each after the first should be -2. But we can see how that plays out.
I did add a bonus option in Core for VC here - whilst we all know VC Core is terrible, having a big unit of Skeletons is the most deserving of a bonus, as they are neither cheap (like Zombies), good fighters (like Ghouls) or fast (like Dire Wolves).
Warriors of Chaos
- Mono God Armies. If your army consists solely of units/characters with the same Mark of Chaos, you may apply the below bonuses. Note that anything that does not have a Mark of Chaos, or an option for one, can all be included in such an army without costing it this bonus.
+1 Mark of Nurgle
+1 Mark of Slaanesh
+1 Mark of Tzeentch
+2 Mark of Khorne
-1 per character with a 3+ ward save, with an additional -1 should that character also have the Third Eye of Tzeentch or a 2+ Armour Save or better
-1 per Daemonic Mount
-1 per Disc of Tzeentch
-1 per Gorebeast/Chaos Chariot after the 3rd
-1 per Chimera with the Regeneration special rule
-1 per unit of Skullcrushers of Khorne
-1 per Hellcannon
-1 Throgg the Troll King
-1 per unit of Chaos Trolls taken as a Core choice
-1 per Daemon Prince, with additional penalties for the following options taken:
-1 for Level 3 or Level 4 magic user
-1 for Mark of Nurgle
-1 for Daemonic Flight
-1 for a 2+ Armour Save or better
+1 per Manticore
+1 for the first unit of 20+ Marauders
+1 per unit of 15+ Chaos Warriors
+1 per unit of Dragon Ogres
+1 per unit of 6+ Chaos Ogres
+1 for the first unit of 12+ Forsaken
+1 per Warshrine
+1 per unit of 15+ Chosen
+1 per Giant
+1 per Shaggoth
+2 per Slaughterbrute
+2 per Mutalith Vortex Beast
+1 Archaon
+1 Kholek Suneater
+1 Sigvald the Magnificent
+1 Valkia the Bloody
Commentary
Warriors were quite an interesting army to work on. If anything, we felt that there were elements to the list that were over-comped. However, as Warriors can very easily get an army that is very potent, we couldn't relax the comp on their really good stuff at all - in fact some of it got harsher.
What we did was offer them more options for bonus points. Mono God armies now get their own bonuses, and the general penalty for the Mark of Nurgle is gone. Now only a Nurgle Daemon Prince gives a penalty, and this can be offset by going Mono Nurgle.
Forsaken, Chosen and Warshrines all make their way into the positive comp section, but only if taken in sizable units. I have also left bonus points available for each unit of Chaos Warriors, as only 1 person took more than 1 unit anyway.
Wood Elves
- Enchanted Arrows:
Add up the number of models with Enchanted Arrows in the army. Models with Trueflight Arrows or Hagbane Tips count double for this. If this number is above 60, you score -1 for each 10 (or part of 10) above 60.
-1 per Spellweaver on the Lore of Shadow
-1 Moonstone of the Hidden Ways
-1 for each character mounted on an Elven Steed after the 2nd
-1 per Waystalker after the 2nd
-1 per Glade Rider unit after the 3rd
-1 per unit of 9+ Sisters of the Thorn
-1 per unit of Wild Riders after the 1st
-1 for 7+ Waywatcher models, increased to -2 for 15+ Waywatcher models
-1 for each unit with the Scout special rule after the 1st
+1 per Unicorn
+1 per Great Stag
+1 for the first unit of 20+ Eternal Guard
+1 for the first unit of Dryads
+1 per unit of 15+ Wildwood Rangers
+1 per unit of 10+ Wardancers
+1 per unit of 6+ Treekin
+1 per Treeman (including Durthu and Treeman Ancients) after the 1st
+1 per unit of 3+ Great Eagles
+1 per Branchwraith (up to +2)
+1 Araloth
+1 Drycha
+2 Orion
Commentary
Wood Elves won Raze and Ruin, and there were lots of other Wood Elf armies with very similar builds, so that was a sign of comp that wasn't quite right. The three main areas where Wood Elves seemed to "get away with it" as one person said were the Enchanted Arrows, large numbers of Scouts and lots of Wild Riders.
The last of these was the easiest to fix. Now one unit is fine, but 2 or more causes penalties. Same with the Scouts, though the number was harder to settle on. We've set it as after the 1st for now, but I'd like to hear back from Wood Elf players as to what they think about this.
The hardest part of the comp to get right was the Enchanted Arrows. Before, you could just go up to the number of Trueflight or Hagbane arrows, then get something else. Now, you can have up to 30 of those no problem, but then any more Enchanted Arrows will start costing you points.
I am worried that there aren't enough bonus choices, as the only ones I remember seeing were the Branchwraiths. However, the options are there to make a high scoring list, we will just have to wait and see if someone can make one that is any good!
There you go, all 16 armies have been updated.
Now, for those asking about the Legions armies from the End Times books - yes, we will be doing a Tally Comp style set of positives and negatives for these armies. However, we really need to give them some time to settle in to the tournament scene so we can assess their power level. I am hoping that in a couple of weeks, after Blood and Glory, we will be able to start piecing together the correct set of values. For now, you can simply use the positives and negatives from the individual armies as a guide.
If you have any feedback about these updates, please get in touch. As I said last time, I don't play every army so can't know them all as well as I would like. If you spot anything you think is a glaring oversight, or you think that something is drastically harsh, then I'd love to hear about it. You can use the comment feature of this blog, you can post in the Tally Comp thread on TWF or you can contact me on Twitter or by email.
Hope to see you soon!
Personally, the warrior comp still doesn't feel right to me. It's very restrictive, especially compared to some other armies.
ReplyDeleteHow about -1 for each Daemonic/disk mount after the first. Or -1 for each Daemonic mount taken on a hero level character. That lets you take your powerful but expensive general but limits people taking multiple really hard to kill characters.
Also, I would recommend a slight change to the 3+ ward/ third eye section. I'd make it- -1 for a 3+ ward, -1 if they also have a 1+ or better and then a separate -1 for the third eye. As it stands at the moment, any mounted character with a shield automatically gets penalised if they have a 3+ ward and there's no extra penalty for taking the third eye at that point.
If you want to see more themed lists, I'd love some positive comp around all marauder core etc or no one in your army having better than a 4+ armour save. At the moment a lot of warriors positive comp choices are in the rare section so it can be hard to get points back.