Empire of Dust - Clash of Kings 2022

Army lists and Tactics
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I think Shattering only comes into play for nerve tests in the range phase. So if you surge into a unit that you’ve just shot at, you won’t benefit from the shattering rule as there won’t be a check until the end of the combat. So no stacking by the looks of it :frowning:

I had my first game with the COK updates yesterday. My main take away is as the original post said - Rev champs with surge (5) is so refreshing! I took two mounted champs with surge and the Monolith, which gave me pretty much guaranteed surge (13) across the board with the manoeuvrability of the champs. And when they’re not surging, they’re still inspiring or threatening flyers / shooting units etc.

The changes to the Reanimated Behemoth were brilliant fun too. I’m not sure it will completely replace my 2nd Bone Giant, but hitting on 3s is very nice. The lower nerve just makes me nervous!

RAHS was fun but gave me a headache trying to keep my possible mulitcharges open. He did get a few double charges with the Wyrm Riders, but i was against Seige Breakers, so even hitting on 3s didn’t do too well. I’ll give RAHS another go as the threat of his ability is it’s main use I think.

Same goes for the wyrm riders, i think their threat range and manoeuvrability is their greatest strength. Thinking of taking them with brew of haste or nimble next time if i have the points.

I also used chariots for the first time. I took 2 regiments as thicccccc chaff. I wasn’t expecting a lot from them damage output-wise so i wasn’t disappointed, but really liked the threat and the plinky plink damage to make your opponent think.

I find however that my soul snare just gets hounded from turn one with either hex or LB. Might have to practice keeping it hidden until absolutely necessary.

Looks like i’ve got some painting to do.

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Argh, of course you are correct I missed the point about shattering only applying to nerve tests in the shooting phase^^ Thank you for pointing it out!

All in all I think the changes did a lot to make the list more flexible and enable more playstyles, so hurray :smiley:

Looking forward to future games and the reports from all of you!

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A desert swarm regiment is the perfect companion for the Snare. I ran one tonight and it kept the Snare from being shot at. Cover + Stealthy makes a great combo.

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Does anyone happen to know when EasyArmy will update their EoD lists? Still, really looking forward to new upgrades the the army!!

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The subscription version has been updated - not sure about the free one

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If not, there’s this:

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After some more games;

–Wyrm Riders aren’t that great. As one youtuber said they are “aggressively mediocre.” A points drop or the addition of TC1 would have made a difference.

–Chariots are ok. Not fantastic, just ok. I only run legions now. The bow upgrade is a waste.

–Shooting is more important for us than it ever has been due to the upgrade to elven shooting, points reduction costs across all the armies and enemy wizards getting inspiring (thus being more plentiful). Use those hills when possible. I will be running two guardian archer hordes and soul snare every game. I will be trying out a caster with Alchemist’s Curse to deal with fast Def 5-6 enemies. I rarely see a caster aside from Sebek-Rei in Dust armies these days due to the high cost but the new Library gives us some nice tools and honestly, who doesn’t want to try out the new fun options?

–Healing MIGHT be more important than Surge for us. Said caster will also have Celestial Restoration. Sebek-rei will also be in my list. The playing field has changed a lot since the days of 2nd edition with the inclusion of so many hard hitting units with a multitude of attacks so let the heals fly!

–Clash has definitely made chaff more important than ever. I run 2 troops of rev cav and 2 scavenger troops in 95% of my lists. A list with a ton of shooting can get away with less.

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Interesting insights, thanks for sharing!

On the chariots; given that you miss out on the bow upgrade, what makes you pick the chariots over other mobile light hammers (Rev Cav, Wyrmriders)? Is it the deep nerve pool?

On the chaff: whats your opinion on desert swarms as chaff? Too slow?

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Chariots don’t get effected by the -1 to hit from Phalanx or neither of the new Slayer or Rampage rules, which is a nice extra.

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Sceleris nailed two reasons.
A legion also allows me to get enough unlocks with my chaff and irregular guardian archers. The nerve pool definitely helps like you mentioned.

I run one scarab swarm in front of the Soul Snare but that’s it. They are indeed slow unlike scavengers who have incredible coverage and they lack defense and hitting power unlike revenant cavalry.

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I’m still experimenting but I love the Ej Periscope for our casters. Allows them to hide behind infantry units and still cast spells from safety :grinning:. Especially from Hex which may be an issue for us going forwards.

I wish my flying Wryms had got slayer or rampage, but I’m being picky.

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Yes, the periscope is my choice for hidden gem of the new Clash. I’ve moved away from height 2 units so I won’t be using it soon, though.

Try out Apaphys if you haven’t yet. He needs to be built around but he’s a beast and a player at Crossroads did very well with him.

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I agree with this sentiment. EoD got a few new toys back, yet Elves have their whole army back and more toys! I played with Sylvan kin in a recent event, its speed and flexibility lead to very controlling play. Being able to neutralize targets at range and keep 12" threat targets at arms length was huge!

Looking back at EoD, nearly all my lists are not going to handle the new meta. Keith Conroy’s Herd for example shows how flight a can open flanks to superior distance chargers. Spd 14 Spirit walkers WCd3+1. A hot roll is 18" charge from one of the slowest units in that army. And that unit can take down almost anything that’s not Def6.

Elves have their Drakons and dragons, And now the Stormwind that charge 18" have Nimble better nerve and can buy Pathfinder.

Twilight got a big jump in speed, same with Varangur with the formation and a Lord on a horse. That guy is a beast with Rampaged3 item and HSB. 13 Att on average against non monster targets.

Ogres got crazy with the Warrior Regiment unlocks. 6 Warrior regiments unlocking SGTs with Heavy bows and Elite, 2 Shooters hordes, and 3 Warlocks, all supported by Nomagrok. Insane range damage starting on Turn 1.

This is just the scratch of the new top tier considerations. Openly, the stuff in EoD is fun, though I think Hex heal and Def 6 is going to be a mainstay in EoD now. We will need those surges to keep us in the fight. Going to have to go back to those Guardian Archers to see what kind of early pressure we can do is my first thought. As much as I love Mummies, I dont know if they can hold their own anymore.

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Do you mean Def 5? For 6 all we have are Behemoths, Shobik and non-flying Pharaohs. If so, I agree. My list is mostly rev cavalry and guardians. We have to go the shooty route or something of a monster mash with Apaphys, Chariots Pharaohs, Shobik, Dragons, etc. although I admit I have no idea how to run things like Dustin Howard’s list or the one used by the player at Crossroads in the north eastern U.S.

I agree with just about everything else you said. So many armies were given incredible tools while Dust and a few others were left behind. If I’m proven wrong in time about Wyrm riders and some other things I’ve said here and elsewhere i’ll own up to it but I stand by what I’m saying for the time being.

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I must admit I am worried about eleven shooting after CoK. They were already good before and now they are better. At the UK CoK tournament I lost badly to an Elf list with 3 bolt throwers, 2 Archmages and 4 regiments of Gladestalkers. I was losing a unit a turn and really struggled to get across the board. That army just got better😳 and im not sure why people thought more shooting was needed

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There are really effective counters to elite shooting lists though and there are armies and army builds and even just certain units that shooting alone really can not touch at all in any significant way. @Chicken-Jim.

I played a mixed infantry and alpha strike list on my last tournament and enemy shooting, even shooty Goblins, was/were not really a problem … IF i closed quickly and decisively.

Some other guy brought a full alpha strike all mounted army with 3 flying monsters as well, … which i’d guess would just melt a shooting skewed list. /shrugs.

Frankly … personally I’d have a much harder time against pure alpha lists than against heavy shooting lists. (All those angles that you have to watch out for to deny flanks are getting really horrible to keep track off once there’s a critical number of high speed hammers on the table.)

That said: I was thinking of including some more shooting myself … but another high speed hammer and maybe even some chaff is much higher on the priority list right now. :wink:

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Not an EoD player but have enjoyed the discussion on the changes.

The newly added comments in this article are interesting on the Clash 22 updates:

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Thanks @MarkG for pointing out this useful source of information!

And to the previous posters; I am by no means a tournament player, but still I also feel that empire of dust is not one of the best (meaning strongest in gaming) armies out there currently. Which is fine, as I have other reasons for liking them. Maybe it could be worthwhile to also talk more about why we chose EoD on the first place and how it is affected by Clash 2022, to have some positivity in here and feed the hobby mojo :wink: Helps with painting 40 skeleton spearmen if you know why you do it…

On my part, a large part of my EoD history started approx. 15 years ago; with the teenage me deciding that undead Egyptians on chariots are “cool”! Well, my classmate played highelves and also back in WHF, tomb kings were not the most competitive fellows. Still, also on the gaming I fell in love with their grindy, outlasting nature, their built-in reliability and relentlessness (invocations were great!). Don’t judge me on this, it was mostly kitchen table stuff that produced these gaming experiences.

Fast forward 13 years; After showing my old books to a friend and checking a certain website I noticed that the old world had gone BOOM! However, the wargaming spark was kindled anew from looking through the old army book and I looked for other ways of bringing my (literally) dusty skeletons on the table. After some google action, I came across KoW and hurray, there was the solution!

And what a wonderful solution it was; the rules are streamlined enough to play the game infrequently with my wife without having to invest 2hs to reading first and Mantic provides wonderful models at an affordable price. Resulting in me also picking up a slowly growing Basilean army to have an in-house enemy :wink:

I love my EoD now for similar reasons as 15 years ago; they feel relentless, never-ending. For each skeleton you put down there are more than enough to replace them (heal and drain life), they grind better than almost anyone (Mummies, soul snare supported blocks, again drain life) and just keep on coming from every direction (surging them 50x50 bases everywhere). Skeletons are crappy on their own, but if you can make the army tick as a clockwork, they are a force to be reckoned with. And Clash 2022 helped further refining these qualities, I think.

Cheers, sry for the long post, unfortunatly out of potatoes.

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Sure, let’s talk about fun stuff with the army and the more uplifting aspects of it.

Fun stuff I haven’t tried out for kicks;
–Rah’s with 2 giants. Small frontage from the monsters and CS3 makes for a major can opener battleforce vs. Def 6.

–Soul Snare with double Drain Life Behemoths
All that healing on a Def 6 Me 3 pair of monsters.

–Shadowbeast on a Pharaoh with Eternal Guard
Everyone else us using the spell why not try it?

–Scorched Earth caster + Wither and Perish caster.
Use it to defend a guardian archer horde hiding in some difficult terrain for extra laughs.

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A friend of mine went up against a top player in the region who runs EoD and was demolished. This was the list and I’ll add some commentary from him which I will paraphrase;

rev cav troop, skirmisher’s boots
scavenger regiment
chariot legion, bows, brew of strength
guardian horde
guardian horde
guardian archer horde
behemoth
monolith
undead wyrm
soul snare
rev champ, surge
rev champ, surge, steed
IoS

18 US 13 drops

My friend said his halfling list had a lot of shooting which did nothing against -/17.

-Chariots went on a flank with the rev cav and a rev champ. The troop would charge, move to flank, surge charge, repeat, repeat. The chariots came behind shooting and projecting threat. It was more of a problem than he thought it would be.

-On the other side he basically put all his guardians, IoS and behemoth “that loved getting charged.”

-He said "If your units are fearless with 17 nerve chaff might be a waste.

-As always, use terrain to your advantage. Sit objectives in the right spots and have a plan

-“The list has so much healing that as long as something doesn’t break in one round, they are fine.”

-He said he’s also seen lists with five guardian hordes perform well. I’ve seen this before and was actually getting the models for it (2 archers, 3 melee)

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