The Ossiarch Bonereapers have been out for a while now and Travis hitting us with his pros and cons hot takes on the faction. Let’s see what he has to say!
After 12 battletomes this year, the Ossiarch Bonereapers are Death’s newest faction (Nighthaunt’s aren’t the baby anymore) and they are making a strong name for themselves. This week lets dig into the book followed by some list building after the holidays.
The Models:
These guys tend to fall on the either you love them or hate them spectrum with very little in between. They offer a sort of Mongolian type of Golem that is animated by the souls of multiple warriors in order to do Nagash’s bidding. There are some over-the-top hats of course, with lots of bones, armor, and varying poses. GW really let their artists have free reign in terms of designing this army and it shows in a lot of unique sculpts.
Personally, if I had to choose a model that I like best, I really like the Gothizzar Havester and the Mortisan Soulreaper. I think those two are very unique and really encompass what they are trying to do with this army.
The Lore:
This is interesting in that it is the first time outside of Nagash and his Mortarchs we are reading about death soldiers that can reason and interact. These are no mere reincarnations, but rather individuals (comprised of many other individuals) that can adapt to situations. That means they can follow orders that change on a whim, be trained in different formations, and act independently from the leader characters. This allows them to do things like build unique cities that can take advantage of the natural terrain, bridges that spawn entire oceans, or anything else they can kill and incorporate from the surrounding area.
They are led by Katakro’s Mortarch of the Necropolis, who claims the title of “Undefeated” even though he was defeated by Sigmar during the Age of Myth and sealed in a tome until Forbidden Power was released. Upon his release, he was remade by Nagash and he has set out to reconquer the lands that were taken from Nagash during his imprisonment.
The Army Rules:
- Nagash and or Arkhan the Black can be included in this army.
- Whenever a allocate a wound or mortal wound to a friendly Hekatos unit that is wholly within 6” of Mortek Hekatos, or 12” of Ossiarch Bonereapers Hero roll a dice, on a 6 ignore that wound or mortal wound.
- Do not take battleshock tests.
- You cannot use command points, instead, you get relentless discipline points. You receive 1 discipline point at the start of each turn for each friendly Ossiarch Bonereapers Hero. You receive 1 discipline point for each battalion in your army, 1 point for each liege on the battlefield and 3 points if Katakros in your general. Hen roll a dice for each Ossiarch Bonereapers unit on the battlefield and on a 6 gain 1 additional discipline point.
- You can use these points to use command abilities on warscrolls some are not on hero warscrolls. At the end of the round, you lose any unspent discipline points.
- Command Traits, Artifacts, and Spells unique to the army.
- Various Sub factions
Being able to ignore battleshock across the board without spending command points or needing to be within a certain number of inches of a leader. Being able to use discipline points with all your units is a pretty cool idea, plus they can’t be stolen from some of the more unique heroes out there. They have some interesting sub factions, but the best by far is the Petrifex Elite which you are hearing a lot of chatter about it needing to be nerfed.
The Warscrolls:
Favorites:
- Bone Tithe Nexus (It’s free)
- Katakros
- Nagash
- Mortek Guard
- Necropolis Stalkers
Mortek Guard with shields are an amazing battleline for the costs. They have a built-in rend and if you want to burn a disciple point you can re-roll saves. You should be taking three units of 10 of these for your battleline tax. Nagash is awesome in Petrifex Elite and is basically unkillable, while in non-Nagash lists Katakros is a solid take. The Stalkers are very solid for the points and are sneaky killing machines, they don’t really gel with a Nagash list but in other lists, they should be auto-included.
Second favorites:
- Mortek Crawler
- Mortisan Boneshaper
- Mortisan Soulmason
- Morghast Harbingers
I like the Harbingers as a fast-moving troop that can hit hard and tie up objectives. The boneshaper and soulmason are solid wizards that are not going to break the bank points-wise. The crawler is a fun model with three different ways of shooting so it opens itself to some variability.
My averages:
- Arch Kavalos Zandtos
- Mortisan Soulreaper
- Vokmortian
- Immortis Guard
- Arkhan the Black
Arkhan the black is solid in every Death list, but his rules are still more geared for a Legions of Nagash list. Still, if you run a lot of wizards in a fun list, he could be a big boon to the army. Arch Kavalos is ok, with some bonus damage on a charge, but with only 3 attacks its not that great. The bonus to attacks is nice which you can use on your catapults if you want, so a little gimmicky. Vokmortian casts 2 spells which is always nice but at 180, I would rather have the Soulmason.
My not so favorites:
- Liege Kavalos
- Kavalos Deathriders
- Morghast Archai
- Gothizzar Harvester
Liege Kavalos is a weaker version of Arch Kavalos for only 20 points less, so you should just take Arch Kavalos if you want to run him. The Morghast Archai are ok but just run Harbingers instead and they are much better. Deathriders are not as good on the Mortek Guard so unless you want to run an all cavalry army I would just stick with the guard for your battleline.
Finally, the Harvester is a cool model (IMO) but for 200 points I just don’t see you taking him in that he doesn’t dish out a ton of damage and if more there to keep your units healed.
There you have it my take on the book along with a very brief introduction to their lore and rules. Next week we will look at a couple of lists built around some of these guys to see how we can get them on the table.
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About the Author: Travis Perkins
