8th Ed. Cold One Riders

Has anyone been using them in the new book?

Ive been thinking about a unit of 6 with Command and Spears.

It would be a great unit to kill monsters and chaff and opposing knights (as long as you get the charge)

and it would be at a reasonable price...

 

They are ok, the problem Is that 2+ armoursave Is not that hot so they tend to die rather easy, a local player have been rather succesfull with a bigger unit with a lot of characters In it (something along, two Oldbloods and two Svarvets) Try them out and tell us what you think.

 

As Tor said


At one wound a model and a 2+ they will get removed as casualties even from str4 opposition with alarming regularity. They also aren't the cheapest of units so that can be costly,

Against t3, they have little or no static Combat res so will struggle to win combats and the unit will always be steadfast too. They can remove chaff but we have units that are cheaper but can still do that easily too.

Also, in all comers lists, given the prevalence of WoC and Empire 1+ saves, you are seeing more metal mages even if just level ones. Given that lizards aren't really weak to metal, CoC are perfect searing doom targets in an army that little else to aim at and they are a quite large amount of points so a juicy target.

I believe there is mileage in the character bus build, but don't reckon it is the best build and haven't had the guts to run it at tournaments myself. With tettoeko, double old blood, double scar vet and 8 CoC, you could get a good vanguard followed by early combat, would it work? Not sure

 

In my opinion It´s one of the more competative lists In the book. Thats even without Tetto. You need atleast mr2 preferably mr 3 of the previously named reason. A cheap low lvl metal mage Is one of the best investments In this game.

 

(Cold one Tacticia article)
http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/cold-one-cavalry-tactica.10320/

 

The only reason I hesitate to field CoC is the few nasty run ins with lore of metal I've had

 

I've yet to run them either but it feels like they jsut dont have teh grinding power to stick around. If we were able to take halberds on them I think it would be a much easier choice, but with the potential to only have str5 on the charge, (and for an extra 2.5ss per model!) they dont have the hitting power to knock units out. I like the idea of the bus and am gonna try it out... but I'm gonna be proxying the models

 

Yea onlu a 2+ armor save, 4 attacks per base, 2 of wich are st 5 on the charge, and generate extra attacks on a roll of a 6, toughness 4, and cause fear.

yep just terrible.

 

Kinda what I thought too....

Thanks guys

 

This so much. I have 16 of these guys on the way with two Saurus Vets on Cold One already. I often play against Warriors of Chaos who have lots of heavy armor, and Dwarfs. So I hope to use these as a 5 wide, 3+change deep fast unit to smash into a flank. If you get them the Magic Banner that gives armor piercing these you can chew through even 1+ armor save.

 

I find the more I use them, the less I like them. They can potentially be quite deadly, but I find my Krox and Stegs always seem to do everything better.

But with that said, I suspect GW are planning to beef up cavalry (and monsters) next edition. Plus I love all things Saurus so I'll use them either way.

 

Well tactics are important when fielding calvery in general,
you can't expect to just charge the front of a horde of anything and win,
the key is using combined arms tactics, first softing up the unit with ranged attacks,
before you charge it with multiple units or a buffed unit,
and of cource calvery works best if you charge instead of taking the charge.
even better if you can get a flank charge while another unit holds the front.

 

Yeah, that's called cherry picking

2+ armour save is good... until you realise that the meta has shifted to lots of 1+ armour, so most people are already bringing the "big guns." Mass S4 attack's aren't uncommon, and they will cause COC a real problem. You can forget about S5+ entirely. Sad to say, T4 2+ just isn't good enough in today's game, especially when you have low initiative and a high points cost, and that's the biggest problem with them. They're one of the most expensive heavy cavalry units in the game before you even add the ludicrously priced Spears (beaten only by "super heavy" cavalry like Chaos Knights, Grail Knights and Blood Knights which are all in a league of their own), but in no way have the stats or Special Rules or game influence to suggest it. Compare them to Dark Elf Cold One Knights at the same cost, who come with Lances and ASF and Murderess Prowess and Weapon Skill 5. Or Dragon Princes, who are both cheaper and faster and have 2 S5 ASF attacks and pack a 2++ vs the most common anti-armour spell (Searing Doom). I mean come on. Its mind boggling just how badly Vetock screwed them up.

Speaking of which, you need 4 attacks because their Weapon Skill is so low that you'll miss with half against anything that's WS4 or higher. So an ideal target would be WS3 or lower, S3 or lower (so none die first), and T3 5+ AS or lower (so your S4 attacks will actually do something). That's, what, Goblins, State Troops, Peasants and other equally low quality Core. Even if you fork out for the Spears, you're then going to be looking for slightly tougher things to make them worth their while - maybe T4 and 4+ armour - which will undoubtedly have better strength to kill them first.

Then there's Stupidity and M7, which means that you can't always rely on them doing anything, or getting into the optimal flank.

And they can't even take a magical banner to either account for some of their weaknesses (Gleaming Pennant, Standard of Discipline, and Banner of Swiftness would all be worth while) or give them a niche role (Banner of Eternal Flame and go Monster/Troll hunting - of course, its not like the army isn't replete with Flaming attacks anyway).

Understand that I don't expect cavalry to go into the front of things and simply roll over them - that's a terrible game design that Monstrous Cavalry need to lose ASAP. But I simply don't see any meaningful contribution that they can make at their current cost and which other units in the book don't do better. That's a lot of units competing in the 100-200 point bracket in the book, and Ripperdactyls, Kroxigor and Stegadons all fulfill largely the same role except actually well. Hell, if Ripperdactyls didn't exist you might argue that CoC are the best means of getting mobility and Swiftstride into your lists. Granted, they all need additional support to a greater or lesser extent as well, but not nearly to the same degree or the same detriment (cost) as Saurus Cav. Scar-Vet delivery systems is probably the best that you can hope for but, ultimately, if its 150 points of Cold One Cavalry or 150 points of another Scar-Veteran, which is going to do more?

Its a damn shame, as I think they are a really cool idea and a solid opportunity. Moved to Core or dropped to 24 points + 2 for spears, and they might have been worthwhile. And I really hope that GW haven't priced them for 9th edition where cavalry will dominate, as there's little infantry regiments in this game as it is at the moment.

 

I realize you had "or" included there, but honestly, I think mine would hit the table fairly often (instead of collecting dust) if they were: Core, 29 points base, +3 points for spears.
They wouldn't be auto-include, but as part of core they would be a much more attractive use of points. 2 points for spears is too low because it'd be an automatic add, 3 points per model feels about right. If units getting spawnings isn't going to happen(and it probably shouldn't, any return should probably be heros only), this is a reasonable way to add some flexibility to core options of the LM army.

EDIT: Since CoC no longer can take magic banners, core is where they should be. Why they cannot currently take magic banners is baffling.

 

Yeah, I pegged them at their current price in Core just so its not an easy choice; both from a fluff and game perspective as we wouldn't want the humble Saurus Warrior to be overlooked. Basically it should force some hard decisions, which is not at all what our Core currently does (insert x Saurus Warriors and y Skinks here).

 

The same can be said of anything though, and the only advantage COC have over Kroxigor or Stegs is slightly faster movement, which is more than made up for by a wider frontage (harder to move around) and stupidity.

 

The Stupidity of Cold One Calvery is mostly a Red Hering.
Especialy when you start looking at every other Stupid unit in warhammer.
I suspect that CoC have the greatest chance to pass the stupid test without help.

Last edition they where an ok choice fo the army.

this edition:

They got cheeper: yay
Spears became optional: yay
can't take a magic banner: boo
no longer core with Crok Gar: boo
Cold ones get 2 attacks now: yay

over all they got better,
so I say they went from an ok choice to a good choice.

 

86% chance IIRC, so about 3/20 or once every 6 attempts. Its going to happen. It also means that the unit is unable to Flee.

No, they went from being an overpriced choice with S5, to an overpriced choice with S4.

 

Those odds assume that they will never be in close combat.
realisticy you would usualy only be testing 3 or 4 times a game.