Cavalry Prince 2400

[SpellArcher]

Prince, Barded Steed, Dragon Armour, Shield, Giant Sword, Daemonhunter, Lucky Charm, Cenyrn
BSB, Barded Steed, Dragon Armour, Ogre Sword, Hardened Shield, Potion of Swiftness
Archmage, Lvl 4 High Magic, Honour, 4+ Ward, Book of Meladys

10 Lancers, 2+ Armour, FC
5 Reavers
20 Sea Guard, FC, Flaming Banner

20 Flame Wardens, FC, Razor Standard
5 Knights of Ryma, Devastating Charge
3 RBT

Frost Phoenix

2397

Basically, I've thrown together the kind of list Seredain was running in mid-late 8th to see how it might work. I've taken a flyer and dropped Dusk Stone from the Prince, so he only has one re-roll now. On the plus side his 3+ Ward vs magic takes a lot of things right out of the game. Shard of Cenyrn makes him more dangerous than he's ever been, for one round. Even Talisman of Loec didn't have +1 to hit. Anything on three wounds is in desperate trouble against him.

The BSB is a bit vulnerable, with only a 1+ armour save. But I feel the Prince needs the killing power of Ogre Blade in support. Another option is to take the Banner of Ryma but I don't quite trust it. The Archmage has five spells and the increased ranges from the honour could make spells cheaper to cast. I'm not sure if he can get away with the Book, or whether a scroll is necessary.

10 Lancers is small, I went for the minimum, perhaps 12 or 15 are necessary. Again, the Sea Guard aren't huge but I think they're still useful. The RBT mean the list can get by without Skirmishers I feel and the Flaming banner could help them. The Frost Phoenix and the Knights just emphasise the offense, one could probably be dropped if necessary.

I went for the Archmage in Flame Wardens to see if it was still viable. Obviously Holy Attacks and the loss of the old Attribute complicate things. But I feel High Magic still favours deploying in a combat unit. One alternative is to stick the AM in the bus and swap the Flame Wardens for Swordmasters. Increased spell range might mean he could get away with deploying in the Sea Guard but it could be risky.

Comments welcome.

[Prince of Spires]

I think in this style list the LSG add little over simple archers. Switching the LSG for archers gives you better shooting and room to increase the bus in size.

The rest of the list looks interesting. I guess it needs some testing to determine exact unit sizes. For instance, I can imagine that the knights of Ryma want a bit more bodies while the flame wardens could do with fewer models. The frost phoenix is a good force multiplier. I would leave it in the list for now.

One worry is that you only have 1 redirector. The list could be fast and mobile enough to only need one. But running into an army that can out-redirect you can give you some serious trouble.

Rod

[SpellArcher]

Thanks for your thoughts Rod.

I think in this style list the LSG add little over simple archers. Switching the LSG for archers gives you better shooting and room to increase the bus in size.

The idea is that the unit will fight sometimes, which was a key point for Seredain. In 8th the Archers shoot and fight in three ranks, minimising Sea Guard combat advantages. But not in 9th Age, while the Sea Guard gain the Parry option and Quick to Fire goes a long way to negating the shooting advantage. Maybe the Sea Guard need more bodies/heavy armour/Gleaming Pennant to do this job fully, I'm not quite sure.

The rest of the list looks interesting. I guess it needs some testing to determine exact unit sizes. For instance, I can imagine that the knights of Ryma want a bit more bodies while the flame wardens could do with fewer models. The frost phoenix is a good force multiplier. I would leave it in the list for now.

I have a lingering suspicion that either the Knights or the Frost Phoenix can be done away with. Maybe up the Knights to six but much more and they cease to be a semi-disposable support unit. Seredain never took a Frostheart because he hated cannon so much but I think what it brings is still worth the risk.

One worry is that you only have 1 redirector. The list could be fast and mobile enough to only need one. But running into an army that can out-redirect you can give you some serious trouble.

This is a good point. I'd like at least one more but couldn't find the points. If I played the list I imagine I might slip an eagle or some more Reavers in at some point.

[Ferny]

I'd switch flaming banner on seaguard for movement banner on helms - M10 core heavy cav (bus) is pretty scary, even without BotWD, FIER, re-rolls etc.

I'd keep seaguard over archers - in 9th they're much more flexible (until the next patch at least). I would however give them heavy armour if you expect them to be combat troops (or ambush if you don't, but I'd probably make the unit smaller if I gave them ambush, which would match the points increase, whereas I wouldn't want them any smaller if I go the armour route). If need be reavers can be dropped.

I agree that more redirects are needed - I'd be tempted to go eagles here, given that your core 'tax' is serving an important role. I guess for points unless you lose some from your character set up (AM being the obvious target), you'd need to drop bodies from the flame wardens...at which point they become less effective at their role, so I'd be tempted to change them to SMs or Lions depending on how you read the meta.

What does worry me about this list though is that it feels low on bodies, and I can't quite work out where the loss is coming from. I think it might be the extra lord - I'm used to playing Lv4/LM+caddy+BSB in 8th (sometimes without caddy), and LM+BSB in 9th. Having a Prince plus an AM is not my usual style, and actually I think you can afford to drop down to a Lv1/2 with scroll (or book, or extra spell) unless there's a particular reason for keeping lv4. In fact, if you weren't looking at points savings but rather at build you could consider replacing him with 2xLv2 in 9th and it wouldn't be inherently worse and might even be better...?

[Ferny]

Working through this list...does the cav prince need the BSB to be mounted also? If so, why? For the res? For the combat power? For challenges? For speed?

If not, can he keep up on foot? What about on a griffon (4++ probably) if you can squeeze the points?

[Ferny]

SA - interesting CavPrince list here:
http://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php? ... rnamennts/

Curiously he doesn't go for the mounted BSB option and following from our PM discussion about sisters, he's going for them (with BSB handmaiden, and ultimately loremaster).

[Prince of Spires]

Working through this list...does the cav prince need the BSB to be mounted also? If so, why? For the res? For the combat power? For challenges? For speed?

Combat power. The cav bus needs to rip through stuff fast. But also, if it does end up in combat for multiple turns then the prince needs all the help he can get. With the lancers only s3 after the charge, they aren't going to do much. So I think the BSB is very much needed, or at least adds a lot to the bus.

I think in this type of list Seredain has a point about the frost phoenix. It has a giant bulls-eye painted on it for any kind of high power long range shooting. The choice is too obvious. There aren't any other targets. So I would probably leave it at home.

As for the Knight of Ryma, 5 does make a disposable unit, but I fear it's too quickly rendered ineffective. Take one or two models off and you have a unit that can act as a redirector, but not much else. Adding two bodies there makes them a lot more reliable.

If you do drop the Phoenix, then that creates some room for 2 eagles and 2 KoR. You can then also drop the reavers from your core. And use those points for a few extra lancers. It leaves a few points left over (haven't done the exact math), which can go to something like a small unit of SM.

Rod

[SpellArcher]

I feel there's a case for the Flaming banner on the Lancers, so they can run through Crypt Horrors etc easier. But overall I now think a Ld boost is necessary on the Sea Guard, either Gleaming Icon or Banner of Discipline, depending on how many Ld tests we think they'll be taking. Steadfast is key here.

you'd need to drop bodies from the flame wardens

My gut feeling is that this unit shouldn't be smaller. One of the main reasons for it is as a place to keep the Archmage. I don't trust a smaller unit of Swordmasters for this job. I feel the list needs four/five spells, otherwise you lose a lot of flexibility and power. I looked at 2 lvl 2's but where to keep them? Seredain tried the Core block for this but once it hits combat they just die.

Combat power. The cav bus needs to rip through stuff fast. But also, if it does end up in combat for multiple turns then the prince needs all the help he can get. With the lancers only s3 after the charge, they aren't going to do much. So I think the BSB is very much needed, or at least adds a lot to the bus.

This. Kill and kill and kill. Also, this unit is designed to grind. It will quite often lose a round of combat by one or two so it needs multiple re-rolls.

I think in this type of list Seredain has a point about the frost phoenix. It has a giant bulls-eye painted on it for any kind of high power long range shooting. The choice is too obvious. There aren't any other targets. So I would probably leave it at home.

This is one of the few places I disagree with Seredain. Everything has a hard counter. The point of Combined Arms is that any enemy strong in one area will be weak vs some of the units you bring because of sheer variety. Frost Phoenix adds a Flying (harder to redirect) combat threat, Thunderstomp, Blizzard Aura to the army. It also makes up for lack of redirectors by being a good blocker. I can see the cannon argument but having used it, I would probably keep it in. I like the hitting power of the Knights too but if I had to choose I'd cut them.

SA - interesting CavPrince list here:
http://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?thread/ ... rnamennts/

Won't let me in Ferny!

[Malossar]

Swap from high magic to life. Losing the attribute has made it a lot less attractive.


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[PadForce]

I agree on the frost phoenix, its too good in some matchups to bot include, it can turn games vs eleves by itself

[Prince of Spires]

Dropping the knights doesn't leave you with a lot of points you can do something useful with. I would still do the core swap I mentioned, simply because I think having a bigger bus for the two characters will pay off. But instead of two eagles I'd go for just 1 and put the remaining 85 points in a unit of SM.

You're left with a slightly less mobile army. But I do think your core is stronger. I think Curu's ideas about the size of the helm bus in 8th still hold in 9th. The eagle itself is a better redirector then reavers. Cheaper and with fly(9) it's more mobile. Also, you become less dependent on getting the charge.

Rod

[SpellArcher]

Swap from high magic to life. Losing the attribute has made it a lot less attractive.

This is probably the kind of thing where I continue running high magic because it works for me, eventually hit a brick wall and then realise you were right Mal!

I think Curu's ideas about the size of the helm bus in 8th still hold in 9th.

Mind elaborating Rod?

[Prince of Spires]

I had a look around to see if I could find Curu's posts on the subject. But my google-fu is escaping me at the moment. In general though he ran his SH bus' at 17-or so.

There were several sides to the argument for a larger bus.

The first is that there are simply too many things out there that can remove a handful of wounds from the SH. 12 models means you need to only lose 3 to face a panic test for instance. You will also almost certainly not have a full back rank anymore after combat is over.

There is also combat reliability. This is perhaps less the case in 9th with only 2 ranks attacking. But more bodies means rolling more dice, means less freak results where you not wound anything. It grants you the extra rank for longer as mentioned.

It keeps the bus valuable as the game progresses. Lose 5 models in a round of combat from a 10 helm bus and after that it is mainly suited for distraction duties or running down fleeing or small stuff. Lose 5 models from a 15 helm bus and it's still perfectly suited for the bus role.

All in all, I think a bigger bus is more reliable and less likely to give up points. Both of which are valuable in a tournament.

Rod

[SpellArcher]

I feel a big reason for the large 8th edition buses packed with characters was Banner of the World Dragon. This took a lot of heavy dangers (Death magic, Organ guns, Daemons etc) right out of the game. So the huge concentration of power in the bus made sense. This was a lot of points that your opponent was very unlikely to kill and score. Running a similarly sized bus without World Dragon is more risky because the opponent has a substantially better chance of killing it, which probably costs the game. Putting all your eggs in one basket makes more sense if it's an especially strong basket.

Now of course an 18-strong bus is necessarily harder to kill than one 12-strong. But the killing is done mainly by the characters, losing rank and file doesn't impact that much. What it does impact is the safety of the characters from ranged attacks. In particular, once Look out Sir is lost, war machines, especially cannon, become a huge threat. This is compounded by the characters usually relying on Armour Saves (which war machines savage), rather than Wards or Regen.

In early 8th, under the 7th edition HE book Seredain was happy with his modest unit of 8 Helms plus Prince/BSB. From the release of the 8th army book he wrestled with the unit size issue. He tried 13 but disliked the impact on his Core shooting. He went to 10 but found Ironblasters in particular a real headache. So back to 12, sometimes with a High Mage in the unit for Shield of Saphery, which as he argued, reduced the need for further models. He never took World Dragon on the bus.

I suspect a sweet spot will be found. Various option like Banner of Ryma for the 5+ Ward vs ranged, MR 3 on a mage say, or the 5+ Ward vs war machines item could affect this. But upping the R&F and character count probably has an effective upper limit, given the increased risk vs certain weapons and enemies no longer kept honest by World Dragon.

[Malossar]

My recent experience. Bigger bus. Once you lose the first 5 wounds or so you lose a lot of combat punch or wound absorption meaning eventually they'll kill your command units and your archmage will be pushed to the front netting your opponent free points.


I can't tell you how many a bad armor save roll resulted in me losing 4-6 helms at a time even from high elf archers at the masters tournament. Especially if you're not going to be running Nature you'll want the bodies.

Why 2400 and not 2500? ETC and friends seemed to have made 2500 the benchmark.

If you went up to 2500, I would add a third noble for some grinding to the bus.


Consider dropping book for scroll I think it might be handier to lock down a phase when you need your bus to get unengaged and preventing the magic phase from swinging the combat.

[SpellArcher]

Why 2400 and not 2500? ETC and friends seemed to have made 2500 the benchmark.

I guess Mal because most of our recent discussion here has centred on 2400 lists due to certain tournaments.

I think the difference here is in army concept. Once you put the Archmage into the bus I reckon you go from Combined Arms to Bus Plus Support. I can see very good reasons for doing so but I don't think it's the only way. The bus becomes stronger but if you lose it, it's pretty much game over. I've seen Seredain pull minor losses or even wins out after losing his bus.

With the Archmage in the bus I feel Life (or Path of Nature) makes a lot of sense. Furion used to run a list with that soon after the 8th book hit. The buffs make it very strong and you're always in range to heal wounds on the fighting characters. I wouldn't even consider running less than 12 Lancers in that unit. Going for the maximum of 15 would be tempting.

I feel high magic is less suited to being in the bus, at least for a Combined Arms list. I can see the utility in a Star Dragon list say but sitting in the PG means you don't have to cast at whatever the bus is pointing at and can hopefully cover more of the table. You still need to be reasonably close to the enemy though. I guess you could run a longer-distance lore (Heavens?) and keep him further back. That might demand a dedicated bunker though.

Consider dropping book for scroll I think it might be handier to lock down a phase when you need your bus to get unengaged and preventing the magic phase from swinging the combat.

I think you're probably right here Mal. Though the 5-dice casting cap improves the Book's chances of stopping any particular spell.