Games Workshop - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Ossiarch Bonereapers Mortek Guard

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Legion Ability: The Dread Legion – Units within 12″ get -1 Bravery. Not so great on its own but combine it with other leadership reducing abilities such as Sinister Terrain or Morghast Archai and hope you run up against Ogors rather than Skaven hordes! Every little bit helps. B Grave-Sand Boneplate: At the end of combat, roll a die for each enemy unit within 3″ of the bearer, on a 4+ deal 1 mortal wound. A decent way to chip at HERO units if they need to just lose that last point but you won’t be in many situations where it’ll pay off. Petrifex Elite used to be the big boogey man of Age of Sigmar. Oh, how we long for the simple days where +1 save was the worst an army could do to you. Now only rerolling 1s to save in melee, there’s arguably no great reason to take them in competitive play. The extra rend, wounds, and artefact are nice, but you’re comparing these competitively against the +1 to hit and save and five RDP with Katakros in Mortis Praetorians, or the excellent movement shenanigans of Stalliarch Lords. That being said, Petrifex Elite aren’t bad, and you can probably still make a very viable competitive list out of them. We just haven’t seen one perform well yet. Stalliarch Lords

The Ossiarch Bonereapers were a bit of a surprise to the Age of Sigmar community. Teased with some vague trailers about a General professing his admiration of Nagash and his mission to collect a “Tithe of Bones”, people weren’t sure what to expect. Was this a new character with a new army? Or we’re they updating Legions of Nagash? The answer was closer to the former with a bit of the latter. Ossiarch Bonereapers aren’t here to replace the Legions of Nagash or Nighthaunts, but it does fill a different niche that Death hadn’t really filled just yet. You can reduce your deployments (through warscroll battalions) so that you can try to choose who takes the first turn and remove the option of an early double turn for the shooting army. The army therefore starts out strong and declines in power as you lose key pieces (canny opponents will take out your Relentless Discipline generators as soon as possible). Big Waaagh! and Ogor Mawtribes both bring high-speed combat punch and, in the case of the Big Waaagh!, additional bodies to screen out the board. Boulderhead is the most popular Mawtribe for its ability to maximise the output of the army’s Behemoths.Brand new battle tactics and grand strategies for matched play to let you to be the tactical supremacist on the field. Both Nagash and Arkhan know all the spell lores from this book when in a Bonereapers army but Nagash no longer simply knows every Death Wizard’s spells on the field.

Steve: Looking at some of the examples you’ve given above, can you see any common play styles or particular archetypes within the armies? Whenever a Crematorian is slain in melee, roll d6, adding one if a hero or monster was slain: on a 5+, one enemy unit within 3” suffers a mortal wound

The Bone Trim

Artefact: Nadir-Bound Mount – Adds D3 dice to the Kavalos’ Unstoppable Charge ability, which lets you roll a die for each number you rolled on a die when you made the charge. For each 6, deal a mortal wound. So, basically, half a Mortal Wound if you roll 3 on the D3 and also charge. Hrmmm… D

Overall the Bonereapers are a very strong new force. Like many new Age of Sigmar armies the unit selection is pretty limited, and its unlikely there will be too much support beyond this initial wave, but the limited model selection belies an underlying complexity to the army. To be frank, it plays unlike any other army before it. It turns the command point system completely on its head, turning every unit into a HERO, which opens up a very wide variety of tactical options. The relics, artefacts and spells are generally very powerful across the board, further supplementing these forces. Properly supported it’s going to be very hard to table this army, or even take down some of the sturdier Heroes like Katakros himself. Steve: Are there any armies that can offer up a counter-punch to the armies you have mentioned above? Once cast, you can keep it ready until the start of any phase, and unleash it to cause mortal wounds. Being able to cause up to 8D3 mortal wounds before combat starts is frankly incredible. Kavalos Deathriders Overall though Ossiarch Bonereapers remain relatively strong. They have above average baseline stats and while they have their own system of “Command Points”, separate from the main system they can be a powerful asset. They are a powerful terminator army that you can slowly push up the field and hold your ground against many other armies. Ossiarch Bonereaper victory usually comes from a slow and delibrate push to victory, outlasting your opponent and destroying them before they wear you down. 3.0 Changes Core RulesAmazing Battleline troops. You have some of the most powerful battle line troops in the game that just refuse to die.