As the title suggests, I am looking for ideas for an Old Blood in a 1K Battle foremost. A Cold One is a must! Here's my thought: -Cold One -Tali of preservation (4+ Ward) -Dragonhelmet (+1 to AS, 2+ Ward against flaming attacks) -Halberd w. Poison of the Firefly Frog => 248 points What do you think? EDIT: you can read about my Beastmen encounter with an Old Blood on page 2
how about something like... Cost: 249 Saurus Oldblood . . + Halberd + Shield . . Hide of the Cold Ones . . Talisman of Endurance . . Venom of the Firefly Frog that gives him St-6 To-6 1+ save and a 5+ Ward save. (also stupidity)
Ah, you havn't put him on a cold one - my bad, but he does say a cold one is required though. I have a vey good build somewhere, I'll have a look for it and post it when I get home.
@n810 your char has a 2+ save (in close combat). he cant use the shield with the halberd (duh ) @Carnivorous fun idea to use the dragonhelm instead of a normal light armour. @both why would you use a halberd? he does have I4 which means he will strike before about half the things in the game. however, he is so tough to kill, that in a 1000p battle, almost nothing will be able to hurt him in combat. a great weapon will be a big help when fighting any monster (T5+) or any cavalry, or character. my suggestion: a 1+ AS combines with a 4+ ward is a very VERY good save for such a small battle. it is unlikely that your enemy will be able to field anything capable of taking him down. his offence is pretty good as well, with high attacks and S and magic attacks for etherals. HOWEVER, i think it is a fairly useless project to include such a character in such a small battle. he costs about the same as a unit of saurus, or 3 units of skinks, or 3 salamanders. i am convinced that aither of those choices will be superior, because this character provides no utility at all. he has the same Ld as your saurus, and he can not go solo and keep stuff busy, due to the lack of stubborn. in such a small battle it would be far superior to field an extra combat unit instead of a decent character. you can even get by if you make a skink priest your general, because the saurus chars wont provide any extra Ld anyway, and you cant afford a slann. If you absolutely want a character with magic attacks to kill etherals, go for a much cheaper scar veteran, for example with cold one, light armour, dragonhelm, GW(or your precious halberd if you insist, though i do not agree) and venom. Also give him luckstone (or dawnstone if you feel really fancy) for some protection, but tbh, a 1+ save and T5 should be enough for these small games. he would only cost you about 130 pints, saving you 120 points compared to the old blood. thats 11 more saurus, almost 2 more salamnders or almost two more skink units. a HUGE difference tbh.
Have to agree...250 points on 1 character in a 1k game is abit much. id rather have another steggy instead of a combat character
Thanks 4 the input all. Yes 8th ed is all about troop choices and I really to prefer it that way as opposed to the olden days were one pimped Character would rout an army. So I've wholeheartetly been playing accordingly but never actually tried a bit of a stronger Hero in a game (other than a Slann which are--I admit--completely OP, IF, you roll decently for your Powerdice Pool). I will want to test an Old Blood out sometime so I can really get the feel myself if they're no good at all or have a niche in the army. @The Omen - interesting idea with the +1T item - he's already stupid on his Cold One @Lord Tsunami - The GW is 4 more points, bringing the Old Blood over the allowed 25% of the Army. Otherwise I would have taken the GW too. One more thing. The plan all along is to also field a unit of CoC for the added punch to combat rez.
Two that I've had good luck with, not as a unit killer, but as more of an annoyance is Oldblood, Cold One, Crown of Command, Warrior Bane. Then either a Dawn Stone (for 1+ re-rollable) or Armor of Fortune for a 1+/5+. I give him the 5 point sword just in case I run into an ethereal unit (we have a couple VC players and a Bret that uses the green knight on occasion) Being as durable as he is, he can tie up a horde or light-hitting block (spears, swords, etc) without much issue and being stubborn and cold blooded if he loses combat (i've actually had him break units on the charge before by surprise). Another one that's worked out reasonably well for killing elves is Oldblood, Dawn Stone, Armor of Fortune, Golden Sigil Sword, Cold one. Most people are surprised by the concept of an I10 lizardman. Though this one tends to need help w/ combat results since he's not stubborn. Get a skink BSB close enough to him and he's not going anywhere though.
@ tsunami - Yea I know. how about this one then: Cost: 247 1 Saurus Oldblood + Cold One + Great Weapon . . Armour of Destiny . . Venom of the Firefly Frog There ya go, St7 attacks, magical/poison, 1+As 4+Ws.
Why the hell are you guys giving him a great weapon? He's the only Initiative 4 model in our army. Old-Blood w/Piranha Blade, light armour, shield, Talisman of Preservation, Potion of Speed (246 points Now we're talking. In that one challenge you have to win, drink the Potion and suddenly you're hitting at I7. Any unsaved wounds are doubled (perfect for killing monsters or characters), you have 2+ armour and 4+ ward. S5 is perfectly fine, you don't need a great weapon, and Venom is specifically for blowpipe Skink Chiefs.
@Taipan indeed your guys strikes first, but lets check his damage output, compared to GW+poison against human infantry: Phirana-guy: 2.78 wounds GW-guy: 2,92 against a character (ws 6, t4, 1+ save) Phirana-guy: 1,11 wounds (yes, with multiple wounds) GW-guy: 1,48 against a small monster (T5, 4+ save) Phirana-guy: 2.78 wounds GW-guy: 2,92 against a big monster (T6, 4+ save) Phirana-guy: 1,85 wounds GW-guy: 2,50 so you see, he does less damage in all cases i checked, and he is not very likely to floor a monster before it can hit back or anything like that. Initiative is not very important at all since you very rarely manage to kill actual fighting models, but yes, it can have its virtues. however, most of us prefer a better offence and defence to the odd chance of managing to kill something before it strikes back. as for the blowpipe chiefs you speak of... such a skink cost at the very least 73 points, just a little more than 10 blowpipe skinks. do i even have to present the maths for one skink chief with 5+ poison vs 10 normal skinks with 6+ poison?
He's not built for slaughtering chaff, thats what everything else can do just fine. Irrelevant Two problems. Firstly, you assume 1+ armour save, and no ward save. This is flat-out nonsense; with Armour of Destiny and Talisman of Preservation available to all armies (not including their race-specific items), the General will have a 4+ ward save. Because he's invested in such protection, the need for a super-high armour save is lessened. Also, by assuming a massive armour save, you of course bias your modelling towards the great weapon (which has higher Strength and thus negates most armour entirely). Secondly, you can't mathhammer double wounds. You can say 'X amount of wounds will get through', and do a comparison (I'm sure the great weapon beats Piranha Blade at that), but you can't simulate what happens when you fail your save (both of them, remember he'll have ward) against Piranha Blade. It doesn't work that way. Unusual example, most monsters don't have 4+ armour save. 5+ is more typical. Again, you're kind of copping out by multiplying the expected wounds by 2 for Piranha Blade. It doesn't accurately reflect what actually happens; ie, if you get more than 1 unsaved wound on target, it pops. Very unusual. GW usually balances the biggest monsters (except the insanely-priced Dragons) with no armour at all. Again, you're not accurately representing what the Piranha Blade does. In a challenge, an enemy hero will drop you before you can swing if you don't have potion and a weapon at Initiative. Most monsters aren't ASL either, and they're perfectly capable of crushing you as well. It's a needless gimp to our only decent combat hero (Scar-Vets are too slow for most challenges, if you don't have Light buffs up they're going to lose). Great weapon heroes are 7th edition leftovers, Initiative is king in 8th. I didn't say it was a good build (no Skink Chief is), but thats their intention. Putting it on a great weapon and an Old Blood is 7th edition strategy. You'll get cut down by most other heroes.
yes... you can. that is exactly how you do it... you can question my tactical reasoning all you want, but if you are going to question the math you should know what you are talking about. you can add a ward save if you wish, but since it affects the two examples in the exact same way it wont change the relative difference. so with a 1+ save and a 4+ ward you simply halve the number of wounds in both cases. very well, in that case its 3.33 to phirana-guy and 2.92 to great weapon guy. i just took the first monster that came to mind (the hydra). again, i took the first monster that came to mind, the stonehorn. it also fits on our very own stegadon. but sure, if you want a T6 monster with no save at all (or a 5+ save) its will be 2,22 wounds for phirana-guy and 2,5 for GW-guy. very true, but that assumes that you actually take all 3 wounds. most enemy characters will not be able to kill your old blood, even if he gets multiple rounds to try. with a toughness of 5, a 1+ (sometimes rerollable) AS, and a 4+ ward we have one of the harder to kill characters in the game. however, this is a purely tactical decision if it is worth risking dying before you strike back, and it can not easily be proven with mathhammer. however, this is getting more and more off topic i think. sorry about that
I don't think I expressed myself clearly before, so I'll try to restate my argument. Basically, you can calculate the expected wounds from the Piranha Blade, and the great weapon, and compare. Obviously, in every scenario bar T3 models, the great weapon will cause more expected wounds per round of combat ( with T3, they draw level). But (and this is important), if a model fails its save against the Piranha Blade, it takes two wounds EACH TIME the save is failed. You don't just double up the expected value of the wounds inflicted, because that doesn't adequately represent whats happening. I'll try and give a scenario where this matters. Lets say you're fighting a typical 1+/4+ Lord who is fighty. Piranha Blade will hopefully go first (due to Potion, you have pretty good odds to at least go same time). Assuming WS6 (pretty reasonable on Lords) and T4 (pretty normal), your expected value for wounds inflicted is 1.66, not amazing, but on average expect to get at least one wound. Against the same model, the great weapon is going to inflict 2.083, so on average two wounds. Your opponent must pass armour first, then ward if armour fails. Against Piranha Blade, his armour is -2, so 3+ then a 4+. The failure rate is 27-28%. Not great, but it's not impossible to get a wound past. People can roll double 1's, and its between 1/4 and 1/3 chance of getting that wound through. Against great weapon, his armour is -4, so a 5+ then a 4+. The failure rate is 69%. Pretty excellent, and what you'd expect from a S7 monster. What is interesting is when we model what happens when your enemy does roll snake eyes. If he fails one armour+ward against the Piranha Blade, he suffers two wounds. To kill 90% of characters in the game, you only need to get your opponent to fail two such sets of saves (or one, in the case of most Heroes). This is why Other Tricksters Shard can be so powerful, not just against Daemons. And why Mindrazor is so powerful. It can afford you the high Strength you need to break armour, without forcing you to take great weapon and gimp yourself. If he fails one armour+Ward against the great weapon, he suffers one wound. To be as effective as the Piranha Blade, you need to cause two unsaved wounds. Your odds of doing so are just over 1/3. Of course, this is pure, 1v1, no magic/items helping out. The other thing we're not taking into account is striking order. Initiative is king, and its not unreasonable to expect that your Old-Blood (or Scar-Vet) may get taken down before he can swing if he takes great weapon (Scar-Vet in particular is highly likely to die, as he only has armour to rely on). On the other hand, with I6/7 from the Potion, its pretty unusual you won't go either same time or first.
OK, if you want to keep doing this, lets keep doing this. I apologize to everyone who doesnt really care about the fine details of warhammer statistics that we seem to clutter up this particular thread. First it is obvious that a basic lesson in probability calculations is in order. All probability calculations assume an infinite number of samples, and therefore the average wounds caused (in this case) is what is calculated. The fact that piranha blade can potentially cause 10 wounds in a single turn is therefore not interesting. that issue is often refered to as "burst potential" and it plays a very large role in for example PvP in world of warcraft. overly simplified it can be said that there it is better to have a small chance to cause a large amount of damage at once, than to have a large chance of causing a small ammount of damage. this is because the first case is much harder to react to for a player who is healing, and thus can result in a dead player. this is not applicable in warhammer, since there is so very little healing, and there is no real "reaction time" since it is turn based, so we can drop that argument at once. Now on to the example with a T4, 1+ AS and 4+ ward character. Mr GW hits on 4+, wounds on 2+ and the save is 5+/4+. that means mr GW has a 14,81% chance of actually causing a wound with each attack. (note that i took poison in to account, though it is a very small contribution here. without poison it is 13,89%) Mr P(as in piranha blade) hits on 4+, wounds on 3+ and the save is 3+/4+. that means mr P has a 5,56% chance of breaking through and causing TWO wounds. According to all normal probability analysis this is analog to having a 11,11% chance of causing ONE wound. As you can clearly see, since they both have 5 attacks you can see that since 14,81>11,11 mr GW will come out on top in this comparison. Now, there is actually an effect that is not included in this type of analysis. that is the potential "overkill" of mr P. If you are fighting an enemy with an even number of wounds, this does not show up (assuming mr P is the only one attacking), but if the enemies number of wounds is odd, then it actually becomes significant. I did take this in to account when it came to the obvious case when fighting models with only one wound. In this case mr P does not get any benefit from his sword, since even if his sword causes 2 wounds, the enemy only has one wound to lose. If you want to be nit-picky though, the same phenomenon exists when fighting models with 3, 5, 7 wounds and so on. The effect grows smaller when the number of wounds increase, but against a normal lord, who has 3 wounds, mr P can either cause 2 or 4 wounds, meaning that the 4th wound is "wasted". you would still get overkill for it in a challenge, but it should not be included in an analysis of how good mrP and mr GW are at killing stuff. This means, that in a fight against a guy with 3 wounds, 1 wound in every 4 that mr P causes would be "overkill" and hence should be removed from the comparison. mr GW will never cause any accidental overkill in that way, but understanding the difference between causing excess wounds with normal attacks (and they can both do that) and causing it with the doubling of the wounds made by mr P IS a quite subtle point, and many people will have trouble understanding it in the case with 3 wounds, even though they think it is very obvious in the case with only 1 wound. If you are not truly interested in these fine points, just take my word for it that this effect does exist and that it can be significant. All in all that means that the probability to wound for mr P should be reduced by 25% to 8,33% to take the potential overkill into account. one wound in every four that he causes (against a 3 wounded character) will always be "wasted" since he can only cause 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 and never 3. As you can see here, the problem with overkill does exist even for mr GW, since he could potentially cause 4 or even 5 wounds in a single turn, but the loss he gets from this is much much smaller, since it is to be compared with mr P scoring 8 or 10 wounds in a single round. It can happen, but the reason that i didnt count with teh possibility of 6+ wounds on mr P and 4+ wounds on mr GW is that it is a whole magnitude less likely to happen, and can thus be ignored. as an engineer it is my job to simplify where possible In closing i would like to press the issue that i do not pretend that my strategical thinking is beyond reproach, but that if you question my maths you'd better know what your are talking about. the last post contained counter arguments that are clearly not valid mathematically. strategically though mr P has one edge; that he can potentially kill an enemy character (or monster or whatever) before said character can ever strike. mr GW does not have that luxury. whoever, as the calculations show, mr GW is more likely (in the cases i calculated) to EVENTUALLY beat said character/monster. My tactical choice here is to go with the "safe bet" on mr GW rather than the "wildcard" of mr P. If any one choses diferently that is fine by me, as long as they do not claim that it is a choice build on mathematical analysis.
Hello, Does Your Old Blood Have to go on a Cold One?? If not I would take the usual one: 247 points: Armour of Destiny DawnStone The other Triksters shard and GW If on a CO I wopuld just make him a Monster Hunter and Fill in: Co BurningBlade/SoM Charmed Shield Potion of Speed Dawnstone. Cheers
being on a cold one is indeed a big risk you take, since it allows enemies to snipe you with cannons and such even if you are in a unit. if you want the old blood for his combat potential it would indeed be a good idea to get him on foot to protect him. however, it is never a worth while investment point for point to take a combat character without utility instead of another unit. However, if we take into account that this topic was supposed to be about a combat character for a 1k army (yes, i am sorry), it could indeed be possible to skimp on protection a bit because you are unlikely to face anything really nasty like an enemy lord with full kit, or a greater daemon. It may actually be an idea to keep it very simple, like this: Oldblood Light Armour Dragonhelm Shield ++goodies++ you have 79 points left for spending on "goodies". The blade of realities can be insanely good if you face a monster, though you are only likely to face a single one in these small battles... unless you are playing against ogres ofc If you want an infantry killer, go for sword of bloodshed and potion of foolhardyness. if you want more defense, add in armour of destiny and/or dawnstone. the possibilities are endless really, though still i wouldnt recommend this type of character, especially not in a 1k battle.
So I played not a 1000 pt battle last night, but a 1250 pt battle. Since I still wanted to try my new toy (an Old Blood on a CO) I used the following build, slightly over 250 pts: GW w/ Venom 4+ Ward Talli "Scale Armor" (light armor - opponents are -1 to hit) Dragonhelmet 267 pts Yes its absolutely a risk to run him around solo but I just want to try things for myself sometimes and I've never used an Old Blood so far. Ok; opponent: Beastmen - fluffy stuff. I set him up so that I could engage in glorious battle with a smelly Giant. Turn 2: The Giant picks his nose, lumbers at my Old Blood swings his tree trunk and turns my Old Blood into little stain. ...my friend charged, rolled a 6 on W6 for swinging club, caused 5 wounds with str 6 and I promtly could not make at least three saves with a 4+/4+ chance. I should have know this was not my battle when the opening magical phase killed my Stegie with a Bernstein Spear. In conclusion about using my Old Bloods: 1) I would consider him again but next time as part of a unit on foot. 2) I still do believe that 1) is worth considering over a Scar Vet. 3) I cannot be angry at the dice gods because I roll an ungodly number of parry-save-6s--in every game-- which evens out the cosmic balance again. 4) Lord Tsunami has reminded me that I still suck at calculus. Thanks to all for your views and comments. Carnivorous out