On A Pale Horse They Ride

Yup, this is the other list that drew my attention.

Goal:

Heavy skeleton horse cavalry, thundering around the place doing as they choose.

Research:

This list is all about the Kavalos Deathriders as a Stalliarch Lords legion. These guys can run and charge in the same turn, their cavalry are fast and the Ossiarchs can already buff their movement from their own basic rules. Seems pretty good to me.

Battalions?

Nope.

Building the list:

Kavalos Deathriders are the other battleline unit for the army, so we’ll start with three of these. Two will be the basic, 5 man-horse units, the third we’ll bump up to 15 strong. To lead them, we’ll toss in Arch-Kavalos Zandtos (the 20 point difference between him and a regular lord seems like an easy choice to make).

That’s the core of the list sorted, now for the magic and then spending the final points. The Ossiarchs only have one mage I’d class as fast, plus I’ve liked him since his Tomb King days, so in goes Arkhan the Black.

We’ve got speed, hitting power and magic sorted, so the obvious choice to me would be to put in two Mortek Crawlers, but I can’t say I’m a great fan of the model, nor the idea of leaving them behind as the army charges off. Instead, I’m going to go with six(!) Morghast Harbingers. These bad boys can charge 3D6” instead of 2D6”. I won’t often go for those charges, but it brings the average charge distance up to 11” from 7”, and I do like me some reliability, with six I can mess around with three small units, one big one or two and four strong units. Plus, I think they look cool and somewhat stompy.

 

The Army:

Arkhan

Arch-Kavalos Zandtos

15 Kavalos Deathriders

5 Kavalos Deathriders

5 Kavalos Deathriders

2 Morghast Harbingers

2 Morghast Harbingers

2 Morghast Harbingers

Ouch, this is surprisingly expensive at £365.50 and we’ve not bought the terrain piece either (though it looks good and seems to be universally recommended). It is just 33 models though, so a compact force but tough force (129 wounds!).

Pros:

I’m not sure I’ll make a swifter army in any of my lists, and their more powerful than I would expect for the speed.

Cons:

The army doesn’t have any objective campers and will rely on clearing the opponents off objectives (not my usual playstyle). Plus, even after making two lists I’m still oscillating on whether I like their aesthetic, which is probably all the answer I need really. Ossiarchs, you are not for me.

And for a parting thought