Learning from my first few games with OBR

 I’m going to my first AoS 4^th edition tournament next weekend, so I thought I’d write a short blog about the lessons I’ve learnt from my first few games with the Ossiarch Bonereaper list I’m taking, in the hope that writing about the mistakes I’ve made drums them into my head enough that I don’t make them again at the tournament.

The list I’ve been running is:

General’s Regiment

Katakros (500)

Kavalos Deathriders (360)

-          reinforced

Regiment 1

Mortisan Soulmason (160)

-          Lode of Saturation

Mortek Guard (260)

-          Reinforced

Mortek Guard (130)

Regiment 2

Liege Kavalos (210)

-          Diversionary Tactics

Kavalos Deathriders (180)

Kavalos Deathriders (180)

The artefact on the Soulmason is a 5+ ward, and the heroic trait on the Kavalos is -2 to charge for enemy units within 12 inches.

Mistakes I’ve been making:

• Not remembering my rules

OBR’s battle trait in 4^th edition revolves around Relentless Discipline. In your movement phase, and every charge and combat phase, you pick from one of two abilities that applies within 12 inches of a chosen hero, or 18 inches of Katakros. The bit where I keep going wrong is in the enemy charge phase: one of the options I can choose is Anti-Charge (+1 rend) for the rest of the turn. I keep getting mixed up in the moment and thinking that’s a combat phase ability, and that I need to choose between that and a 5+ ward, whereas in fact I can have both

• Not castling up

Relentless Discipline only applies to units wholly within 12 inches of a chosen hero. My list struggles with this, because the Deathriders are fast and want to be going off and charging things. But I think I’ve been letting myself get too spread out, often for the purpose of scoring Take the Flanks for my turn 1 battle tactic. I think I should try to do something else turn 1 where possible, so that I can castle up more and get more use out of my relentless discipline abilities. Alternatively I can send the Liege Kavalos off with the deathriders to buff them, but keeping him wholly within 12 of the unit of 10 deathriders can be tricky, especially if they make a charge and he doesn’t.

• Not using Katakros well

Katakros is a quarter of my army, and one of the two biggest combat threats. While he does have decent buff abilities, I also need him to be getting stuck in and killing things. I think I’ve been playing too defensively and leaving him and the twenty Mortek Guard stuck near the back, which means that my opponent can fight the Deathriders first and then move onto Katakros later. I should be pushing my infantry up more in the early turns, so that Katakros and indeed the twenty Mortek Guard can get into combat as early as possible (watch me get him killed early every game at the tournament now).

• Messing up deployment

I’ve found deployment surprisingly tricky with this list. The army takes up quite a bit of board space, especially since the Bone Tithe Nexus is massive and has to fit in somewhere. I’ve found it easy to either leave the horses stuck at the back unable to make best use of their mobility, or to get the big unit of Deathriders killed off too easily by having them at the front when the opponent makes a big charge. Obviously what a good deployment looks like is going to depend hugely on what my opponent’s list is and who has choice of first turn, but it’s definitely something I need to give more thought too.

• Not using manifestations well

.I’ve been running the lore of morbid conjuration (Purple Sun, Shackles, Gravetide, Maelstrom) because it’s very good and in particular on the rare occasions when I manage to cast the Purple Sun, the -1 to save is hugely helpful. But I’ve been struggling to use it well, without any bonuses to cast I often can’t get them on the table, and because the deployment is already feeling quite crowded it’s sometimes proven tricky to find places to put the manifestations where they don’t just get in my own army’s way. I need to think more about what spells or manifestations are actually useful in each game state, and not be afraid to ignore manifestations in favour of my spell lore, which is pretty good.

So the plan is to do all of these things differently next weekend, we’ll see how that goes. Maybe I will write a follow-up blog and reflect back, or if it goes terribly I can add another five mistakes to the list.