@John Rainbow - any list with significant investment in flyers need board control. It is what mobile lists live and die by. If you for some reason cannot go where you want to go, you will frequently find yourself a) playing a forced game (i.e. it`s up to the dice to determine the outcome, for example vs Dwarfs) or b) playing a lost game. Good infantry generals can, depending on their army and its elements, sometimes even force a flying circus to play under the 2nd scenario, however most armies are unable to do so and that is why I believe flying stuff can still work in 8th ed, despite cannons being more accurate than in 40k and hurting twice as much: people say the movement phase died, I beg to differ and the flying units let us show people why this is still the most important phase of the game.
So, yet another flyer or stack up RBTs? I`m inclined to lean towards the latter. Not only do they grant you a pretty big advantage against enemy flyers, they also possess enough power to seriously contend the ranged threats to your flyers (4 RBT will, with a little luck, take out a war machine in a game turn). The second phoenix gives you some terrific combat potential (seriously not many things can face 2x frosthearts and a star dragon), but I think the loss of board control means that it`s not worth it. I could be wrong though, 3 flying monsters is no joke (you can even griffonize the BSB for 4 thunderstompers!).
Re:griffon BSB, while he is easy to kill will he really be targeted in a proper monster mash list? Perhaps he will, perhaps he won't. Yet another option is to take a Dragon Mage, he can easily be given decent protection and the dragon is, yet again, another monster that is tough to deal with.
Shooty dragon I believe can be deceptively powerful. True, you have a terrifying game on your hands vs Dwarfs. But honestly, 4 RBT and 20 sisters along with 30 archers and 20 reavers... Not much can cope with that! Furthermore, this list isn`t designed to take fights, as such you can invest more in ranged heroes: Reaver Bow + PoS for example, Shadow Magic... The options are many. This list has an inherent advantage against lists like WoC (compared to "standard" high elf armies) as it denies so much of the board, yet still possess a LOT of counter-charge power. I haven`t played this sort of list yet so I can`t say for sure, but I know fully well how much mileage skilled players can get out of a significant ranged presence. I do agree with you re:combined arms though, I doubt it has much of a fighting chance given the big nerf our elites received. Perhaps fighty-lions w/free-reform-on-charge-BSB could do it, but I don`t see it being all that powerful to be honest.
@rusty - the question is how fun it is when you play Dwarfs on Planet Bowling Ball and lose 1500 points T1. To an extent this is a problem for any monster-based list, but even more so when you go all-out I feel.
I think playing a star dragon comes down to 3 things: you have to preserve your points as much as possible, and you need to be able to control the board and decide combats ASAP. Previously, in our last book, a Dragon-list could endure through pure strength, the 2+/2+/4++ prince striking at ASF S6 combined with ASF S6 Lions were enough to just grind it out, even against MC. Now however, things are drastically changed. Seeing as I`m a big fan of abusing the movement phase to its full potential and will likely play a lot of ETC games, the shooting list and combined list are out of the question. That leaves monster mash and the cavbus. The first suffers from the 0-1 Frostheart ETC restrictions, the latter can pretty much play as it wants.
The monster mash I believe have some very polarized matchups. I believe that when you go with this, you go big or go home. This means Star Dragon, Griffon-BSB, Frostheart, Flamespyre, lots of min-sized units for chaff-clearing and deployment control (3x10 Archers, 3x5 Reavers, 5xSisters) and a utility mage (likely to go with Ring of Fury + Scroll, lore debatable but I'm thinking Fire is actually a good idea to complement the semi-decent ranged presence).
The cavbus is somewhat more interesting to build. Basically, you have 3 solid elements: the bus, the star dragon, the frostheart. The rest of the list is written in stone, with RBTs for board control, silver helms and reavers in core and characters pretty much maxed out. Problem is, how do you max them out?
First of all I would like to ask you to consider what we see winning games as of today. I`ll stick with some typically strong ETC lists for the sake of simplicity, I doubt lists diverge too much from this regardless of comp to be honest:
- Warriors with multiple chariots, crushers and flying stuff
- Daemons with a greater daemon, lots of beasts of nurgle, plenty of chaff and a skillcannon
- Ogres with a star, mournfang and ironblaster
- Empire with STank, an infantry block or two (or maybe even cavstar) as well as artillery and significant magic offense
- Lizardmen MSU poison spam
- High Elves with lots of Lions
- Vampire Counts with enough units to bog you down forever, spirit leech spammability
- Skaven. No comment
- Chaos Dwarfs - rock hard elements, powerful magic, powerful artillery
I`ve probably left a few, but a main trend appears: armies are composed of a few units dealing a lot of damage, with the rest basically just around to support them in doing so. Also, quite a few armies sport stars that you cannot successfully engage, unless you have a stronger one or the opportunity presents itself. Also, lots of lists have something they want to "sink their teeth" into. For example, Ogres want to ram home a combo-charge with their star + mournfang, Daemons want to block stars with Beasts of Nurgle while the rest kill the rest etc. To this end, I believe that units comprised of non-skirmishing or non-flying models are at an inherent disadvantage. Note that this is contrary to most people`s fears about 8th (at least if you are to believe the internet), where massed ranks of infantry will win you games. Likewise, ignoring this completely means you will struggle with steadfast (to a certain degree) and you might end up with units that are easy to take points away from.
So, inherently I believe the monster mash is actually better suited than a cavbus to exploit the movement phase and the current meta. While M9 is certainly strong, a 15+ strong unit sure isn`t easy to move around (of course depending a bit on the rest of your forces). Furthermore, taking the Shelmbus removes ranged presence. The huge saving grace of the cav bus however is its capability to deny points to the enemy. Not only is the bus incredibly hard to completely whittle down, it is also hard to catch off-guard. Thus, you will likely only lose it if you do something stupid, or are already losing big regardless. Additionally, a bus allows 2 mages which provides a significant magical offensive advantage.
I`ve been giving this a lot of thought today. Perhaps not surprisingly, my initial draft is very similar to team Italy`s ETC list:
Star Dragon, Prince with: Enchanted Shield, Star Lance, Other Trickster`s Shard, Golden Crown of Atrazar, Heavy armour = 596 (2+ and one 2++, hits like a firetruck at Mach 1 when he lands a charge).
Steed, Mage with: level 2, dispel scroll (high magic) = 155 (Soul Quench is very flexible and the rest of the Lore provide a lot of utility spells: WBW is great, apotheosis doubles up combined with life, hand of glory is somewhat situational but cheap to cast and drain can be a game winner against armies that rely on magical buffs).
Steed, Mage with: level 2, crown of command (lore of life) = 165 (Lore attribute synergizes perfectly with the list, signature spell is at least as good as high magic attribute, though somewhat wasted when I already have a high mage, flesh, regrowth and dwellers are super-powerful)
Barded Steed, Noble with: BSB, BOTWD, heavy armour, shield, lance = 172 (no-brainer. Added bonus: stubborn star dragon, potentially being healed up).
Barded Steed, Noble with: Heavy armour, Dragonhelm, Shield, lance = 107 (basically the points that are left, providing hitting power and the fireward you can just about never go wrong with. 1+ is nice)
Characters: 1195
13 Silver Helms with Shields, Full Command = 329 (17 strong in total. Yikes footprint!)
5 Reavers, bows & musician = 95
5 Reavers, bows & musician = 95
5 Reavers, bows & musician = 95 (redirect is the name of the game. Bows give a lot of utility against lone mages and chaff, as well as annoyingly plinking away at whatever presents itself in lack of other threats).
Core:
1 Tiranoc Chariot = 70 (with the points left over from rare, I think this is the best investment given that character points are already maxed. The other options include a Great Eagle or a unit of Sisters. The former I simply consider sub-optimal given that the list has 3 units of Reavers, the latter could arguably be a nice inclusion).
Special: 70
1 Frostheart Phoenix = 240 (no-brainer)
4 RBTs = 280 (board control)
Rare: 520
Total: 2399
Long post, now I`m hoping for some replies and thoughts from you