runefang?

[Demoulius]

Charging at cav/chaff/skirmisher might be a good idea Those units are generally cant fight back enough to ward off the chariot (haha ward off )

Block of infantry though... I can already see them turn the lovely chariots into firewood

Like you guys said, a supporting charge... Now that is probably the best use for them Now I just need to learn to plan ahead for these things

[Lardidar]

A FangMaster is a great target for a +3 strength and attacks beasts spell, sure the strength is wasted but 7 attacks! BAM!

[underscore]

Speaking of GrandMasters, what would people say to a Sword of Bloodshed, Enchanted Shield, DawnStone and Seed of Rebirth combo? Which would make +3 Attacks with a re-rollable armour save of 2+ and a 6+ Regen.

[theunwantedbeing]

Speaking of GrandMasters, what would people say to a Sword of Bloodshed, Enchanted Shield, DawnStone and Seed of Rebirth combo? Which would make +3 Attacks with a re-rollable armour save of 2+ and a 6+ Regen.

A touch illegal as that's 2 talismans.
Also he'll get a 1+ save from being on a barded steed with his full plate armour and a regular sheild, so the Enchanted Sheild is a bit pointless and a re-rollable 1+ save tends to leave no real point to getting an extra 6+ save on top of it all.

It's a reasonable combo, 7 st4 attacks isn't bad as such it is merely not great although a buff spell sorts that issue out nicely enough.
The 1+ re-rollable save keeps him safe from almost all infantry attacks as well.

The runefang is better, even though you can't get the re-rollable save along with it.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

At strength 4?

Not worth it.

Runefang means every attack becomes a wound.

Also, Grandmasters come with full plate and a barded warhorse. They will never have a use for the enchanted shield. My Grandmaster Tyrion has the giant blade and the dragonhelm to give him a 1+ (2++ against flaming) and strength 7.

[The bearded one]

At strength 4, which diminishes its value.

[underscore]

A touch illegal as that's 2 talismans.

So it is, duly noted. For some off reason my brain had stored the Seed in the Enchanted Items category...

And yeah, I realised that strength would be an issue - I was pondering the Ogre Blade as mentioned by Freman, but fancy the Bloodshed for silly fluffy reasons. Part of the idea was to have a GM who would be happy to get in the mix with infantry and as I often play against Elves I guess I'm kinda used to them being a bit squishy!

The shield and the Seed were the bits I wasn't really sure on - and it seems like one is somewhat redundant and the other isn't allowed anyway. By the sounds of it there's probably better places to spend the points.

[The bearded one]

Also, Grandmasters come with full plate and a barded warhorse. They will never have a use for the enchanted shield. My Grandmaster Tyrion has the giant blade and the dragonhelm to give him a 1+ (2++ against flaming) and strength 7.

How about trading that dragonhelm in for a dragonbane gem? Saves 5 points.

[LaughinGremlin]

Dwarfs crafted the runefangs, but it takes a man to properly wield such a long, "tall" weapon. My first list that I made with the new book includes a runefang on a grandmaster along with the tricky shard. He rides with 9 other s4 lancers. No hurricanum is in the list.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

The original Tyrion model doesn't have a shield, so I bought the helm to give him the 1+ and replicate the protection of his dragon armour.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Runefang means every attack becomes a wound.

You mean every hit.

The Runefang often does 2-3 wounds. 7A @ S4 should realistically yield the same result against most infantry, and he shouldn't be fighting heavy elites or scary monsters and characters anyways since the chance to die without a ward save is too high.

[The bearded one]

You mean every hit.

The Runefang often does 2-3 wounds. 7A @ S4 should realistically yield the same result against most infantry, and he shouldn't be fighting heavy elites or scary monsters and characters anyways since the chance to die without a ward save is too high.

8 (not 7) str4 attacks against a T4 opponent, if that target only has light armour, or no armoursave at all, would yield roughly the same result as 4 attacks from the runefang. toughness 5, or a higher armoursave, will reduce its effectiveness in comparison to the runefang. In addition the runefang easily obliterates a character by directing 2-3 attacks at it. A runefang grandmaster can easily go toe to toe with scary elites (and reliably kill 3-4 per round, helping the remainder of your units immensely), many enemy characters, and significantly wound any multiwound model.

remember that grandmaster is still WS6, initiative 6, with a 1+ armoursave, He will usually strike before everybody else except certain characters or ASF units, and with a hurricanium near, he can reliably do 4 wounds to any monster (which his unit can finish off).

260'ish points for a runefanged grandmaster? A decent enough deal to consider paying for. But a couple points less for a 7 str4 attack grandmaster? no thanks, I'll take 10 knights instead..

[Athlan na Dyr]

And if you ever feel inadequate, the potion of speed or Other Tricksters shard are your friends.
Still, the Runefang is only useful on an assassin type or monster hunting character, and even then it can't deal with a decked out Chaos Lord, Ogre Tyrant or Vampire Lord and will still strugle with Hell Pits and the like. In the former case, a VHS is generally better and for the later there is always cannons. To my mind, the Runefang armed GM is useful as threat saturation, rather than my first pick for dealing with characters or being my general,

[The bearded one]

I wouldn't run him alone, but with a unit of knights. He can kill a lot of hard-to-kill opponents with ease to turn combat resolution around, and in a fight you could allocate 2 of his attacks onto an enemy BSB or somesuch and kill it with not too much difficulty. It's 3-4 nearly guaranteed wounds per round. If you manage to put a few wounds on an enemy monster but not quite kill it, he'll chop its head off before it even does anything.

[Lord Inquisitor]

I'm becoming quite attached to a grand master with runefang and OTS. I found that he will trash other characters. I had some success running him alone into a chaos knight deathstar with 4 characters and a warshrine-granted 4+ ward. He was able to concentrate on one character at a time thanks to challenges and with some shadow debuffs on the enemy unit, stayed alive long enough to kill two chaos heroes and would have killed more if a pesky doom and darkness and static combat res hadn't lead to him running away to be run down by some pesky dogs.

The main problem of course is that he has to be mounted. Unless he's a secondary Ld 9 lord, he's general and I keep having the temptation to turn his unit into a giant deathstar.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Just keep in mind the mantra, Empire do not do deathstars.

However, in a unit of Inner Circle knights with the banner of eternal flame he is a fairly hard counter to any unit that relies on toughness, armour, or regeneration, and with the other trickster's shard he even makes ward saves unreliable.

A spell to boost his attacks, perhaps another or the hurricanum to boost his hits, and if you can get timewarp on him...

Okay that kind of focus on a character in an Empire army is overkill. Of course, like they say, there's no kill like overkill.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

8 (not 7) str4 attacks against a T4 opponent, if that target only has light armour, or no armoursave at all, would yield roughly the same result as 4 attacks from the runefang. toughness 5, or a higher armoursave, will reduce its effectiveness in comparison to the runefang.

And? So my point stands.

With only four attacks I have a hard time to imagine how the TGM "easily obliterates characters".

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Just grab some dice (4) and try doing some rolling. Factor in +1 to hit and re-roll successful ward saves.

He should reliably kill two wound characters and do significant damage to three wound characters.

Avoid ASF and higher initiative if you can though.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

I have used a Grand Master (without Runefang) but with lance + OTS for years, so forgive me if I do not take your advice to "try rolling some dice". I think I am quite capable of operating dice. In that config, he usually killed 1-2 models. Sure, auto-wounding will help a little on the charge and more later on but if that turns into 3 models a round for 250 - 380 points (minus whatever the Hurri does for the rest of the list) I'm not overly impressed. I'm pretty sure that 250 points spent on Halberdiers or Demigryphs will yield considerably more wounds. Sure they can't be a General but that's somewhat irrelevant when your praising him for his combat prowess.

I also often want him to benefit from flaming and have a warded General, so the Runefang is out for me regardless of its cost.

[DivineVisitor]

Il be giving him a go for the first time against one of my mates Dwarves on Wednesday so we'l see how that goes.