have been doing some testing for nationals.

Heres one of the armies that has been doing well:


Anunub
Technomancer*
Amotep gunner***

War hatchetKrugg*
War Impailer***

2 Det zombie*
Grave robber*


Its 1 pt under but with the incredible range it never gets stalled out by the opponent, and you don't mind coming at them.

Just out of Curiosity, how much use has the amotep been? How many games does it do much besides clean up and moving the technos in formation?

The reason I ask is that if it could be removed you could upgrade one of the zombies to blue -- mostly for the toughness, but the extra attack and damage wouldn't hurt either. You could also upgrade the hatchetkrugg and throw in a skeleton.

He is very good for the army. dealing the first damage to toughness figs, forcing swarm armies to manuver on their way in, and keeping other gunner armies from just marching forward to hit the engine heedless of the cost.

cutting him for upgrading figs that don't get much better by upgrading is not recommended. Plus you would lose formation movement (really slow the army down) and the army has plenty of things to lev.

I see your points. Have you tried playing the army against an army using a war impaler? You can't ram it, and your detonating zombies die in one ram (Unless the stats here at the realms are wrong, the yellow ones don't have toughness -- not an upgrade that "doesn't matter" IMO). You would essentially have to kill it with the atlantis formation, not something easy to do when it has better maneuverability. Especially considering it can off both your zombies, and take your grave robber out of it's only useful slot pretty swiftly. This only gets worse if the opposing army has 2 rammers as well.

On a side note, Bshugg, I appreciate what you're doing by sharing your nationals testing with the board. I'm sure those forking over the $$ to attend Origins appreciate it even more.

Err... say hypothetically, 1 technomancers fling a pyre spirit into your grave robber formation. and all your det zombies bite the dust along with the robber, and that's not all, it is infernally difficult to hit 19 when your highest attack rating is 9, cept your amotep of course, but that's not gonna happen put it that way....

that is quite the statement, b/c I hypothetically doubt that there will be many pyre spirits at nationals.

You both are absolutly right about this armies weakness to ML/ram. The reanimation portion of the army completely withers and dies to it. Against it, you keep the zombie formation beyond 20" away giving you a cushion of 1 turn to do something about it. Not that theres much that you can do. The best you can hope for is to make them pay dearly for doing it. Make sure that the rammer never makes it back to safety(with your own ML/ram and the atlanteans) and you are most likely facing an even trade(38 pts of necropolis for a 36-44 pt rammer)

Against the pyre spirit you wait till it comes over and then ML/ram the #### out of it over the next two turns with the Impailer. 4 clicks really softens it up. You will lose all usefulness of the necro formation but will demolish an 80 something point figure.

Im not saying this, or any of the other armies I post on here are the most amazing thing around, but they are well made and tough to beat. My hope is that they help others besides my self prepare for nationals.

However when not facing ML/ram, you can do amazing things with this army. Give it a try!

I doubt that the rammer will be gunning for the grave robber and company....

Most likely, it will be aimed right at your back bone. In which case the engine should be split anyways.

As for the army...
I really think that a scorpem (namely scarabet) would do more good than the amotep.

42up true, but fitting him turns the main theme (heavy ML/ram) in to a minor theme, or cuts the current minor theme(fling/recursion) which is in there to beat certain match ups.

Shugg, seeing as how the purpose of this thread is to help folks who are preparing for nationals, you may want to consider posting an alternate version without anunub.

Just a thought.

You may be right, you may be wrong. The one thing I've noticed from looking at all the 'nationals' armies from our overseas friends, is that there's alot of stuff that nobody really expected to see.

I realize you have several reasons why you wouldn't use a pyre, or this or that, whatever ... and I would most likely agree with them, as would probably all the other 'great minds' on this forum.

But before you get to the top-ranks where all the serious meta-gaming resides, you're going to have to fight a battle or two against the free-floating pool of whoever was so fortunate as to snag an invite ...

Maybe Timmy the insane power gamer or Joe the didn't know any better noob WILL pack a pyre spirit. Just because nobody in their right mind would do so, doesn't mean that somebody thats not in their right mind or is looking to do something totally unexpected won't try it.

The hypothetical was just that... a very valid 'what if'. Doubt all you want, but unless you're 110% certain you won't see a particular unit at the nats, don't discount it out of hand just because it seems unlikely.

After all, a dwarf in a chariot won the Canadian Nats, didn't it? How many of us would have scoffed at the idea before it happened?

Let's keep our minds open to all possibilities here, gentlemen.

Hitman

what was that?

The play ins are single elim and from what we can tell the Nat are going to be swiss. All it takes is one guy playing something that ends up being one's "hate" army and there goes Nationals for someone. We have no clue what all we been in the field. There wil be alot of what one expects and alot fo what one does not expect. When We went to BoB we saw alot fo armies and figs that are not played at our venue. Alot of these armies looked very strange and some did very well and some did not. I played against a 3 ME stormie. I had not played against one of those things in along time. I did not have a way to realy deal with it in my army. Alot of other people did have ways to deal with it but coudl not deal with other armies. I know some people who have been kicking around everything from Gatelords and Pryes and I would not be surprised if either of those 2 figs showed up. All it is going ot take at Nationals is for one to get matched up once with someone who brought an army that is one's hate army to basicly elim one from a chance. So everyone better bring their A game and better already have in mind how to beat armies that they might not have a real answer to.

flying_moose: The army would be pretty terrible with out Anunub and I wouldn't suggest playing it. However if you still want to give it a whorl:

Drop anunub to a techno*
and

upgrade det zombie* to a **
OR
add imp**