Empire of Dust 2000

Army lists and Tactics
#1

At this point I’ve collected a lot of 3D files that would be great for EOD, so I once again find myself looking at EOD lists … and being a little nonplussed at the options. So little Me3+, so many expensive options, etc. Anyway, here’s what I’m currently looking at:

Army: Empire of Dust
Points: 2000
Unit Count: 13
Unit Strength: 20

225, Enslaved Guardian Horde
225, Enslaved Guardian Horde
125, Revenant Regiment
125, Revenant Regiment
125, Revenant Regiment
105, Revenant Cavalry Troop
105, Revenant Cavalry Troop
105, Revenant Cavalry Troop
215, Undead Wyrm
190, Bone Giant
200, Ahmunite Pharaoh
– Wings of Honeymaze
135, Cursed High Priest
– Weakness (3)
– Surge (8)
120, Cursed High Priest
– War Bow!
– Surge (8)

Originally I had 2x mummies instead of 3x revenants, but US17 felt quite low for me, and while I actually respect mummies, I also see them all the time and never see revs outside of a token horde, plus how terrible could they be? De4+ was a little unexpected (aren’t Undead ones De5+? but perhaps not natively CS1?) but maybe they’ll hold 1 round?

Honestly the worst feel is the second surge priest without a secondary power. Thankfully he also inspires, but I wish he did something else (besides the Bow for cheek). Maybe swap him for rev champ with the tome? Since I’ve got so many revs anyway. Horse for extra bubble work?

EDIT: I also thought about dropping that second priest for the monolith, which is always much better than I expect!

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#2

I discovered that Halpi’s raised the price of EOD cav too (still waiting for my LGS to get my copy of the book :sweat_smile:), which is a major bummer. Also I went back to the forge re: being really unsatisfied with the priests in general. Here’s where I’m at now:

Army: Empire of Dust
Points: 2000
Unit Count: 14
Unit Strength: 20

225, Enslaved Guardian Horde
225, Enslaved Guardian Horde
125, Revenant Regiment
125, Revenant Regiment
125, Revenant Regiment
115, Revenant Cavalry Troop
115, Revenant Cavalry Troop
115, Revenant Cavalry Troop
190, Bone Giant
190, Bone Giant
160, Ahmunite Pharaoh
105, Revenant Champion
– Mournful Blade
– Undead Horse
90, Revenant Champion
– Undead Horse
95, Undead Army Standard Bearer
– Tome of Darkness
– Undead Horse

I really dig the mounted heroes, especially with the pharaoh relegated to baby sitting the guardians or being a surge bot. Me4+ isn’t awesome on the rev champs but that should be enough to ground a thing, or with duelist’s help, drop a wizard here or there.

#3

Hey guys. I am a fellow empire of dust player, and a rather casual/inexperienced at that. I started right about when third edition hit.

Because it was mentioned and I am wondering myself; how do you see eod and surge?
On concept, the army was designed to abuse surge to make up for their mediocre and expensive units. However, getting a good amount of surge sources in the army seems rather difficult, given the steep points investment.

Other armies, like undead and heck even forces of nature all have access to cheap surgers (necromancers, druids), lowest you can go in eod is bsb with tome.

Combined with the army upgrade and the high surge vaules on the casters, it seems the intention was to make long surges viable. I personally dont like that as it is a high risk-high reward strategy in an army that is unit wise more of a grind army, which normally dont employ tactics like that.

Whats your approach to surge?

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#4

Yeah, weirdly Undead lost the option to take Revenants with 2H weapons and EoD lost the option to take them with shields. Trying to add a little more difference between them I guess.

#5

Much like charge ranges, Surge is really more about the threat than the movement. It’s an additional layer of problems to present to your opponent, as well as a flexible tool for yourself. The chances of you needing to surge more than two things on any given turn are pretty slim: it’s much more important to have good coverage, so that ANY of your pieces can surge.

Hand in hand, try not to rely on Surge. Positioning your units to have good sight lines is still extremely important, and doubling your speed is generally worth a ton of surge dice. The best times to surge are to get a flank charge or hit something behind you (like a dragon!) and your opponent knows this (or they’ll soon get used to it). When you actually cast surge, it’s usually because your opponent didn’t have the tools to close every door, so they had to leave an opening.

From the other side of the table, the important thing to remember is to make your opponent surge if you have to leave the opening - try not to let them just charge. At the very least it keeps that caster from using their Drain Life of Weakness or whatever, and often puts them in a bad position or leaves a tiny chance of failure. Plus, they might not have enough casters to do all the surging they want to :stuck_out_tongue:

All this to say, EoD does not have the very cheap Surge casters that other factions do, so you have to be careful about what you bring. The Monolith is fantastic at covering a large part of the board though, so you can be very good at getting the best Surge charge available to you, at least.