So you have this great model of an Oldblood riding a Carnosaur, but you just can't figure out what to gear him up with. I've taken some of the common setups to war against the shambling hordes of the Vampire Counts army. If you see a normal decimal, this is the average number of kills per round. For bigger targets, you'll see the % chance to kill it in one round. None of these numbers factor in frenzy. Also unless otherwise noted, targets are assumed to have their basic equipment and no upgrades. If they are infantry with a shield, I assume they are fighting to the front and get +1 armor. Results are in the form Blade of Realities, Blade of Revered Tzunki, and Scimitar of Sun plus maiming shield. Core: Zombies - 3.32 2.78 4.44 Skeletons - 3.25 2.78 3.70 Ghouls - 3.02 2.78 3.56 Dire Wolves - 3.29 2.78 4.44 Bat Swarms - 3.11 0.69 1.11 Corpse Cart - 85.6% 38.5% 46.0% Unsurprisingly, the 8 attack Oldblood cleaned up against the lightly armored core troops, with the exceptions being the multi wound bat swarm bases and the regenning, multi-wound corpse cart. The revered tzunki OB hit 2.78 across the normal troops, because he maxed out his rolling. Note that BoR scores better with the same hits and attacks because it substitutes the relatively unfavorable to-wound roll (2+) for a zombie leadership test which they can only pass with insane courage. Special: Grave Guard - 2.56 2.78 2.37 Black Knights (barded) - 2.41 2.78 1.78 Fell Bats - 3.17 1.39 2.22 Spirit Host - 2.89 0.69 1.11 Again the BoR cleans up against multi wound, low Ld stuff. The GG and BK give the Blade of Tzunki a rare chance to shine in an otherwise unimpressive performance. It will probably stand out better against armies with higher leadership and better armor and toughness (dwarves, I'm looking at you). Rare: Varghulf - 98.4% 24.9% 28.9% Cairn Wraiths - 2.79 1.38 2.22 Blood Knights - 2.03 2.78 1.78 Black Coach - 96.4% 19.2% 13.9% Here's why you need a Blade of Realities in your army. It makes certain things just disappear. The Ld 4 of the Varghulf was probably never an issue until now. The Black Coach is also a very expensive and powerful model, it is quite the game-changer if you can take it down. Cairn Wraiths are pretty squishy, and the multi attack OB probably would have won if they weren't multi-wound critters. Final note: Blade of Realities takes it, for the fact that charging the enemy's rare toys will cause them to almost certainly lose its soul. Second place would go to the Sun scimitar and maiming shield, for being able to shred up the core units and other nuisances. The BoRT at least stood out when attacking highly armored things (GG and Knights), but if any of them took the regeneration banner, BoR would quickly leap ahead once again. So, which army is next to feel the wrath of the Old Ones? Just a quick add on, since I don't have time to do High Elves today... Mounts: Abyssal Terror - 98.5% 44.5% 50.1% Zombie Dragon - 81.1% 20.3% 23.6% That zombie dragon is actually kind of tough to take out with its WS6 and cloud of flies which puts the OB at a 5+ to hit and the Carno at 6+. Of course, it's still Ld 4, so odds are with BoR you'll get a hit and it'll fail its Ld test. Not a sure thing like the Abyssal Terror which can still be hit on 3+. Not sure I've ever heard of anyone using one of those though.
Great work, that is indeed very interesting. And certainly makes the blade of realities a lot more tempting. I guess you also need to think about how your opponent will react to seeing it though, they are going to do all in their power to keep it away from anything valuable, even ld 10 characters with a low chance of killing them. That alone could be useful, or just annoying to the carnosaur.
AWESOME! I can hardly wait to face VC again. Should be fun to set his precious vargulf on fire/stab with soul sword.
I don't have time to do HE today, but I threw in the mounts for Vamps as a quick add-on. I'm not attempting to really do the characters, because there are so many varieties of items and abilities they can take it becomes tougher to truly predict outcomes. I figure I'll throw the mounts in there though, since they are pretty static. Also if you can think of a typical defensive build for any of the heroes in the armies, I can throw that in as well. Thanks for the feedback! I'm trying to figure out the best setup for my OB, so I figured I'd put some numbers up there so everyone could see the process. I always was leaning toward BoR, and vampires of course reinforce that, but we'll see what happens come dwarf and chaos time! Also the different elves might die more to the Sun Scim + maiming shield, because of their T3 and fairly light armor. I guess we'll find out eventually! BTW: I have access to all the army books currently for "research" purposes. I figure in doing this I'll learn a lot about all the armies I haven't faced yet as well.
I like this because it means (once we can get all armies done) that you know what's the better option to take or who to go into combat with when deciding against units. Again, great job!