Arrrgghhh End Times As an "official" representative of WoC, I'd like to state that we claim no responsibility for that monstrosity known as the end times. I'm vetoing the entire End Times (rules, models and FLUFF). Never happened!
Same here, no end times for me. Am just too cheap to rock out 70-ish euros for books containing two or three extra rules (that often dont make sense as well)
The only decent rules from ET are: 50% lords because a fully pimped slann and OB just barely goes beyond the original limilimit and isn't cheesy, but just creates two highly efficient units. As long as someone doesn't bring a couple of deamon princes Also combining or at least giving the chance if playing with combined chaos and undead legion is fine. Tomb kings are so sh1t the advantage they gain is something most can allow and chaos (beastmen) still have to pay for their marks. Where sh1t hits the fan is the combined elf legion. Take every special rule and give them to all units? Ugh.. On one way it promotes the usage of lesser player models such as dragon princes, swordsmasters, eternal guards, wild wood rangers and stuff like that, but executioners and white lions suddenly become horribly overpowered in the process. And they don't have to pay anything for it. The new magic rules come off as even worse than the current ones. Which is all kinds of incredible in itself.
That's the problem... it can so easily be abused. And there are far worse things than a pair of daemon princes! I don't like combined forces, because it gives certain armies an advantage while giving others nothing at all. How would lizardmen fair against a cheesed out combined Chaos list? Undead isn't bad at all, but it does spoil the flavour of the armies a bit. Agreed!! That is some dirty stuff. Definitely worse than what we have in regular 8th edition. I don't think that regular 8th edition magic is really bad, it would just take a small tweak on some of the uber spells and it would be pretty good in my estimation.
Well you could fit a Slann and OB allready in 2500, but could just not go overboard with toys. But the 50% lords is really shafting certain armies. Take Orc and Goblins for example. Orc characters are certainly not bad, but have serious equipment and initiative issues that makes it largely impossible to make a fighty character that survives a real combat lord merely sneezing at him. Now you all know the initiative issues of Scar vet or Old bloods, and now just imagine an (Orc) character with one less wound, and a 3+ AS instead of 1+, and will genrally strike last. Dealing with 1 overpowerd character is quite doable, but it quickly becomes "not fun" when there are three of them.
I'll be honest. I didn't quite catch the meaning of your post. When you say "our characters" do you then mean the LM characters or are you also an O&G player and speaking on their behalf?
I just thought of something. If one were to take a CoR unit and have more than 5 models you might as well put them all in the front rank. With spears, a champ and no cowboys and with 7 models we're looking at 17,4 S5 hits, combined with 14 S4 hits. That's 31,4 hits. I'd love to get that off onto a flank of something assuming nobody die before they strike
Well you can have Basti for +1I so you could be at 3 before Hand of Glory -- a good roll and suddenly you are even beating elves. As with most things magic just be flexible. Hand of Glory them when charging Empire knights and use other spells against Elves. Tempest becomes amazing against the pointy eared bastards and arcane unforging makes most of their generals weep delicious smelling/tasting lavender scented tears. On the topic of the End Times I felt that there were a few extra interesting things that no one ever talks about. Nagash had some interesting scenarios you can adapt to other armies as well as rules for haunted terrain and cavern fighting. I think it was Glottkin that had the rather cool city fighting rules including the old burning rules from the General's Compendium. Finall Thanquol had an interesting new take on campaigns and of course jungle fighting (iirc). People just focus on the big cheese (although I maintain the Khaine magic make us work properly) but there was a lot of other stuff no one ever mentions. Except the Archaeon scenarios -- avoid those they embody everything wrong with 8th edition.
So I'm a sucker for all things saurus, and since the first time saurus were allowed to ride cold ones I have used them and not looked back, I agree that they are oddly nerfed compared to other calvary (Mostly with the lack of magic banner or light armor). That said I think they are an awesome presence on the battlefield, I field them in units of 8-12 generally 6-8 wide to maximize attacks and have a crumple zone. One of my favorite set ups is to run them with my BSB who has the skavenpelt banner, that gives 6 attacks per model at S4 and then 6 dice spam wyssans, can you say yes please to 40 S5 attacks from 6 models?. Or I run a bastilodon behind them and send out a powered up HoG, that has them hitting at or before most things. These guys benefit greatly from a lot of different buffs and set-ups, I find that they synergize with other army builds very well and fill a void of mobility in my saurus heavy lists. It is also wonderful to see them make a 17" charge into a large group of warlocks with dread lord and then beat them bloody with only 3 CoR + BSB alive to hit back
My experience with Saurus Cav from the SCGT, for what it's worth (6 strong with Banner, no Spears): Game 1: Shot off turn one by Wood Elves. Game 2: Ran across the table to contest a table quarter, giving me a small loss. Game 3: Failed a Stupidity test turn 1, got shot down to 3 by WLCs, fought a Doomwheel for two rounds doing... nothing. Dead by turn 3. Game 4: Failed a Stupidity test turn 1, got charged by a Daemon Prince and Chariot. Dead by turn 2. Game 5: Got charged by Morbidex Twiceborn on the first turn. Dead by my turn 1. Game 6: Got wise and deployed them within 12" of the Slann. Passed Stupidity! ... Then got charged by a solo Scar-Vet cowboy, lost three, did no wounds back, failed their re-rollable LD9 break test, got run off the board. Dead by turn 2. Note: 5 of my 6 games were using the Meeting Engagement deployment, hence the turn 1 charges. Conclusion: Garbage. Utter, utter garbage. In all but one game they were a complete waste of 190 points. As noted previously, they are ideal in going in the flanks. In 4 out of the 6 games, I had them positioned right out on the flank so that they could present just such a challenge. I accepted that they would probably die, but they might YOLO to glory in the process. Nope. Turns out, being on the flank tends to mean being outside of the Leadership bubble. The one time they did do something, in game 2, they never saw combat because my opponent (wisely) did not care less about them, and focused on destroying the things that actually mattered. In all other occasions, the most I can say about them is that they slightly distracted some of my opponents units for a turn or two, but even that's not saying much when they died so quickly and easily that those units were back in the game after a turn or two. As I feared, despite their plethora of attacks, they just can't do anything with them. Maybe it would be different against more Elves, rather than the 3 Warriors players I faced, but I don't see why they'd survive 4x RBTs any better than a round of Wood Elf shooting. The only reason I took them, and the only reason I'd consider taking them again, is that SCGT comp favours mobile Fortitude, and they've got M7 with a Banner. But I would not bother going higher than 5 and spending the points better elsewhere. Even then, I'd be strongly tempted to just take several units of Skink Cohorts instead, who are only a little slower at M6. Those same points could give me two units of 12 with Musicians and Standards. My last round opponent was using them as a mini-bus for two mounted Saurus characters, which is about the only value I could see. That being said, I Bastiladon'd them round 1 down to 3 models and they spent the rest of the game hiding, so...
That ain't the half of it. I think the Saurus Cav first turn Stupidity test was the only leadership test I passed all game. My Oldblood failed three march tests. I didn't pass a single Swift Reform. I fled a Skink unit from a charge which rolled like 3 and got destroyed, panicking two nearby Skink units (total failed rally tests: 6. Both fled off the table) and in the same turn, the Bastiladon also fled, and also failed to rally, and also fled off the table.
5/6 of those games makes it obvious as to why they didn't work. I'm having a hard time seeing how they could have been positioned to do a flank charge only to get charged by all kind nastyness. I mean.. None of what you faced would've been any difference regardless of which army's cavalry you would've used. It is quite unfortunate that even after 6 games you had no luck with them. I have no idea what to say really