I've realized there really isn't a tactica for one of our coolest and one of the most competitive builds here, which is the OB/SC CO bus delivering system. And as everyone knows, it's awesome. I'd like to know what are your experiences with it. How do you kit your characters in it and what do you take for a caster and what lores on the side? I've ran a bunch of games with it lately and I've been whacking my Old Blood general with great weapon ,Dawnstone, Armor of Destiny or great weapon ,Steghelm, and Talisman of Preservation. Both kits make him tough as nails. Lately, I've preferred the latter so that a Scar Vet can have the Armor of Destiny. Haven't had the chance to use Piranha Blade since I've mostly been running against armies with not so many multiwound units, but after following Adam Dalys reports, I cannot wait to go against ogres etc or use it in a tournament. Daly uses Old Blood with Piranha blade, Dawnstone, Charmed Shield, Potion of Strength for the rerollable +1 AS and S7 D3 wounds madness. Sounds like a nice build. What i feel is a must is the Ironcurse Icon, for just 5 points; it has payed itself back over and over and over again. I haven't faced a death caster yet, but i feel the Obsidian Amulet would be a great pick to boost the ward saves of our characters versus spells. I've also used the Skavenpelt Banner once, against WoC, and the bus just moved down everything and loved it, giving everyone in base contact +1, 17 attacks more. The must-overrun if wiped out aspect of it is a genuine risk though, though the predatory fighter ruling kind of is a risk as well. Not sure if its worth the points for that reason. If you feel you are going against Regen units, banner of eternal flame helps a lot, but the risk is if there's anything with a +2 ward save against flaming, your going to have a bad time. Of course you can pop him out of the unit, unless its too late already and you are in a fight. A BSB in general is a must. It becomes more important with a cavalry bus due to the stupid nature of our horsies. As for Scarvets in general, just any heavy armor item will do with great weapon, Armor of Destiny, Armor of Fortune, Gamber's Armour to give them the 1+ save and ward save is a plus. I feel great weapons are necessary for tearing up the regular high Armour Saves that we are facing and to churn up that CR. Of course Tetto is a must, though the ETC comp says no named characters which makes this build a lot less effective. A Skink with scroll and heavens/beasts is necessary as well. I'm not sure which lore I like more here. maybe I'm swaying towards beasts. The bus can take on pretty much anything. However, some white lions and anything with Killing Blow scares me. And all the big spells, especially purple sun can be... funny so far I've managed to dodge them quite well, one game i got splattered by several pits though. What are your experiences?
The only bus I've attempted was 7 CoR with a skavenpelt bsb and light slann with power scroll. Force through either speed of light or timewarp and watch the carnage. That's not really a bus though. Considering that 5 CoR = 1 Cowboy, when is it more worthwhile to buy the cav instead of another cowboy? I probably wouldn't do it until I already had three mounted characters.
**EDIT** Since this is supposed to be a Tactica I'll let the more experienced players contribute as not to make an ill-adviced post. I will, however, add this youtube link https://www.youtube.com/user/JustMeDaly/videos The uploader has been mentioned before on the board and shows various games with his bus. It's only meant as inspiration and not the be-all end-all list.
Tried today a 3-Game tournament Game 1 - Skaven - 2 Warpfire canons - 2 Doom wheel ..oh Game 2 - Orcs & Goblins - 2 Rocklobbers - 2 Doom divers - 2+12 Trolls ..oh Game 3 - Empire - 3 Cannons ...oh .....so...I dont know how it works....chops through Skaven slaves as lightsabers through butter though...I can tell you that -.-
Seriously, check out Daley 's batreps, the Tetto vanguard is key, plus watch how he uses his terradons to redirect, protect and avoid combat. Used this against a dwarf gunline, got into the guns with most of the bus and all of the characters and that was it, carnage.
So.. nothing has really been posted in this thread. I was hoping for something more, but I'll just post what I'm usually taking: (the following was used with 2500pts armies in mind) The Cheap Bus: 3 Saurus Scar Veterans and 6-7 Cold One Riders. Will at minimum need a Musician, perhaps a Champion for incoming challenges. The Scar Vets should be doing enough damage to not need a banner, at least the way I see it. SV1: Armour of Destiny, Great Weapon. SV2: Stegadon Helmet, Light Armour, Great Weapon (can take luckstone for extra defence). SV3: Dragonhelm, Light Armour, Dawnstone, Great Weapon. All have +1 armour save and S7 (14 attacks ~ 2 extra from Predatory Fighter). They also all come with either a ward, higher toughness or rerollable armour. With 6 CORs and just the musician we're looking at roughly 640pts for a heavy hitting bus and you can still easily fit in a skink priest and Slann. The Medium Bus: 1 Oldblood, 2 Scar Veterans and 6-7 Cold One Riders. Will at minimum need a Musician, perhaps a Champion for incoming challenges. The Characters should be doing enough damage to not need a banner, at least the way I see it. OB: Piranha Blade, Potion of Strenght, Dawnstone, Light Armour, Charmed Shield, Great Weapon. SV1: Stegadon Helmet, Light Armour, Great Weapon (can take luckstone for extra defence). SV2: Armour of Destiny, Great Weapon. OB will be really great at chopping up anything multiple wounds, combined with S8 for one turn he'll tear appart skullcrushers, mournfangs and the like as if they were never there. He should get roughly 3 attacks through the To Wound phase (and Armour Save of 1+ will be modified to "7+" due to Armour Piercing and S8) so on average he'll do 6 wounds. The bus still have 8 S7 attacks at ASL. Tetto'Eko and a scroll priest can be taken with this setup. The Expensive Bus: 2 Oldbloods, 2 Scar Veterans and 6-7 Cold One Riders. Will at minimum need a Musician, perhaps a Champion for incoming challenges. The Characters should be doing enough damage to not need a banner, at least the way I see it. OB1: Piranha Blade, Potion of Strenght, Dawnstone, Light Armour, Charmed Shield, Great Weapon. OB2: Glittering Scales, Talisman of Preservation, Great Weapon. SV1: Stegadon Helmet, Light Armour, Great Weapon (can take luckstone for extra defence). SV2: Armour of Destiny, Great Weapon. Same a the medium bus, just boosted with 5 additional S7 attacks from the extra OB. Generally speaking Tetto'Eko works well with this army. You can force any of these busses down most armies throat and they'll chop must of them up good. Caution against ridiculous stuff suchs as White Lions, WoC Nurgle Chosen Warriors and other heavy elite units should be considered. The bus always hit last, but it has the armour along with various bonuses to make up for it and a lot of high strenght attacks to beat most units. The actual CORs are there mainly to soak up damage and take challenges (if a champion is present). When taking a second OB the Crown of Command may be a decent choice although with all the high strenght attacks it shouldn't be a problem to stay around - unlike most other cavalry units the bus will keep hitting with the same strenght (except for the potion guy). Oh and always go for great weapon when possible, even against elfs. Modify heavy cavalry armour as much as possible - no need to go cheap and save a couple of points by going halbards. We're slower than a snail anyway in terms of iniative. Again, this is just what I've been trying out, some more effective than others. They're a point dump alright, but not necessarily a death star in the sense that with the exception of the last/expension build you won't be looking at half your army in one unit. The Cheap Bus is less than 650pts and the Medium Bus is less than 800pts. In fact, even with the Medium Bus you can afford; Tetto'Eko, a scroll priest, 625pts of core, 30 templeguards w/full command, 2 x 5 cameleon skinks and 2 salamanders w/ snacks and points left for more CORs, cameleon skinks or something like that. So you are not entirely looked down in terms of what you can get outside the bus. Alternatively there's also Daly's army which consist of flyers to redirect and generally a lot of skinks. Hopefully more will contribute since this is an interesting way of making an army isntead of the usual death slann + skink cloud, or whatever, althouhg admittedly it might not be equally as competitive it should do good against most I reckon.
If you give one of the characters the crown of command, you can ignore traditional ranking, and instead take lance formation. This give you a small deadly frontage for a reduced amount of points. This gives many advantages. 1) Cheaper bus 2) Opponent must allocate attacks on 1+ armour save toughness 5 characters 3) More manoeuvrable 4) Still leadership 8 cold blooded A budget lance of 3 scar vets with 1+ saves leading 6 riders will cost approximately 550 points. Obviously you can pimp this a lot, but I think it is quite a good trouble shooting unit by itself. Ray
Interesting. Would you run Crown of Command guy in the front rank, or keep him in the second and stick a Champion alongside the other two Vets? Its actually really not a bad idea... Edit: Found the problem. Without magic gear, you can't run Great Weapons on your Vets and get a 1+. You can solve this by getting Spears and settling for S6 attacks instead, but its worth bearing in mind as you will be more dependent on getting the charge.
I would love to comment on practice with the Bus. However, I haven't had a chance to test it more recently (since watching JustDaly's batreps and shamelessly stealing many ideas!). I would like to point out something here on character builds: If planning for all-around style play, and building anything from a medium bus and up, a player should really consider both the Other Trickster's Shard and the Flaming Banner. Ideally, your bus has an answer for as many situations as possible, without giving up the reliability of the 1+ armour save, or the higher strength or ward saves. I personally believe that planning to face Armor AND Wards (meaning OTS in every army) is a key to any really competitive all around build. For the big bus, a very good second OB build (stolen shamelessly from JustDaly - it's genius!): Oldblood, Cold One, Great Weapon, Stegadon Helm, Talisman of Preservation, Other Trickster's Shard. So not only do you fit in the OTS, you put it on 1 of your models with the best ward save, so that he's not affected by it! - And you can position this guy next to the 1st OB, (Piranha Blade guy) who gains the benefit for his attacks without being negatively affected! The big question is whether or not to take the Flaming Banner, as it is a double-edged sword. I go with yes, since you can take the BSB out of the unit if facing a flaming ward target. The painful drawback/decision for me is whether to give the BSB a Great Weapon and leave him stuck with a 2+ AS, or go Spear/Shield for a 1+ and Str 6 on rounds that he charges. Definitely leaning towards the latter at this point!
MR on the bus is pretty key. I also think only 6 or 7 cold one riders is cutting it too short. If you're going to bring a COR bus i think you really have to go all out. You'll want at least 3 ranks, 2 old bloods 2 or 3 scar vets, and definitely want some MR. Flaming banner is hit or miss i think.
Having played it last tournament I found some things to remember with the bus: 1. Its there to provide look out sir for your characters. you need plenty of bodies for that, dont go cheap 2. Remember that cannons and boltthrowers penetrate ranks. I made the huge mistake of putting them 3 wide against an empire army, after 1 turn there was no Look out sir and my one scar vet was dead. Next turn: oldblood and bsb scar dead. You really need to evaluate what formation is best from game-set-and-go, as turn one is all that can be needed. 3. Crown of Command is nice because it gives you the opportunity of charging out your oldblood on his own to hold up and potentially out-grind most things. I had a game where an OnG player blocked my bus to prevent it from smashing his Big'un horde with characters (heavily thined out from 4 turns of skink shooting) There wasnt room for the bus, but there was room for oldi! *SMACK* 4. Dont forget your support attacks just because you are enjoying yourself so much for swinging out 13+PF S7 attacks those 3 S4 also does something.
The whole 3-wide thingy isn't something I've considered so far. I'll have to try it out, and with more CORs for those rank penetrating cannon balls and bolt throwers. This is, however, also why Tetto'Eko is important, because it minimizes the amount of lazer balls shot at us.
Sadly I play ETC environment ....no Special Chars -.- ...so sad there isnt a Generic Version of Tetto...
But then you can't go double Oldblood... Perhaps not a big problem, as you can then bring more Scar-Vets.
Another trick that is REALLY nasty is if you can get "Savage Beasts of Horus" off. We are in a nearly unique position to be able to cast this at a unit that is in the thick of combat with no risk to the slan, this is because we can cast through our skinks. If you take a budget bus of three min costing scar vets, and get this on them on the turn they charge, they will put out 21 strength 8 attacks WS 5 attacks. Ray
Savage Beasts is pretty nice to get off on the CoC bus, however... You can only cast Magic Missiles and Direct Damage through Skinks