Once you’ve selected your Warlord and two mages or three sources of Inspiring, who do you pick as your 4th Commander?
Entirely depends on the army - in some cases I’d not pick a Warlord at all.
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Which 4th? I can’t afford a 4th normally or I prefer a unit for his costs. Characters got so expensive but many of them don’t deliver.
Depending on the army I play it varies so much. Some lists have no warlord, some have two battalions with each.
And why should an army take two wizards? One is enough often. Banechant or another supporting spell could be just the thing I need.
I get the impression, from podcasts etc, that often the 4th commander choice is less certain with the first three being more fixed. Choices 1-3 are functional - Inspiring, key spells, army choice unlocks - while the fourth choice is more of a flavour/signature pick.
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I rate the Trident Realms Warlords and think I’d take two Aquamages the majority of the time. The fourth choice gets more interesting - Dambuster Sentinel to fly about or an Envoy to free up the Warlord from inspiring the line.
Fitting a 4th Hero into Dwarfs is tricky, given the more elite nature of the army. Hell, sometimes you don’t even need a 3rd Hero if you’re already taking the Steel Behemoth (which is Inspiring).
If I’m taking a 4th though, it’s going to be either a Warsmith, Stone Priest or Flame Priest - whichever of those I haven’t taken yet. All three are great support heroes and the best in the list by a good margin.
For Abyssals, I’m still working out army lists but Hero #4 is likely to be an Efreet. Mobile Fireballs is just too fun. 
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my next Undead list has 2 Champions (Necromancer and ASB with surge) and that’s it. They’re so expensive for what they bring, and I’d rather have another regiment of heavy cav than a warlord!
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This. I need inspiring, so I want an army standard. Sometimes there’s a reason (i.e. unlocks or surge as undead) I want a 2nd character, so that’s where the inspiring talisman goes.
There’s some flying warlords that pay off (usually the flying monsters on 50*50 bases) , so that’s what my 3rd character is. I almost never take a 4th unless I have very good commands and/or spells.
Goblin wizz using bane chant and the mawpup command are worth as buffbots, so I’m willing to take two and an army standard. I am not sure if I want any warlords (though I’m still on the fence about Groany) as I’d rather take an additional unit.
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Perhaps the number of characters that get taken will increase as armies have their Commands fleshed out. If you have two situational commands, the extra cost isn’t going to be worth it.
I’ve just been messing around with lists but not thinking too competitively. A troop of Dambusters might be better than taking a Sentinel but I’d probably go with the character for flavour.
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Not a criticism but this made me feel a bit sad, as the Undead have such cool characters. Hopefully, some adjustment is made to make them a more appealing choice.
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Bit off topic, but non Commander Inspiring options look super valuable in this edition. A sea monster with Inspiring would be straight in the list!
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I’m trying to have less commanders indeed. Halflings have the iron beast which is inspiring and his little brother Taran which is a commander but also a little tank (ah yes lt. Gruber)
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Vampire on foot: makes Soul Reavers Core, but then you have nothing to Command.
Vampire on horse: same as above, but costs about the same as:
Vampire on pegasus: trade Duelist for more speed and the ability to flank!
Vampire on dragon: costs more than a regiment of SRC, doesn’t have Dread, can’t even have good Surge
Revenant on (Flying) Wyrm: just overall very low stats for the points, but these are our Surge (8) options
Barry Wight: Really fun idea, lots of points for a character that doesn’t do much damage
Zuinok: the only actually decent Warlord, but I just don’t like the guy. From “The Outsider” to the main warlord of the faction? Why?
Lady Ilona: moves Soul Reaver Cav from Support, a slot with plenty of room, to Special which is already quite strained. Nice idea, unfortunately it doesn’t make sense given how useful (and mandatory! we don’t have Commands without them!) our Shambling Core really is.
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Similar issue with the angel characters in Basilea moving elohi into a crowded Specialist group, rather than a threadbare Support slot. And like the SRC, elohi can’t be targeted by the commands as yet.
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Some armies don’t even have any possibility to switch sections for example FoA. What about them?
FoA warlords are either very expensive combat individuals (which pretty much always suck now), or are pricy titans - even with a slot switch you might avoid them anyway!
Be happy they don’t have wasted space in their army lists?
Undead have 2 Warlords that change army building, but neither work because Support > Specialist is bad, and Specialist > Core on the Soul Reavers stops you having any commands.
Why does it stop you having commanfs? They are there and nobody forces you to play without shamblers. And you should switch your perspective sometimes and look or play at other armies. I play several different armies and most of them can’t use more than one command in a useful way.
@Sam_Urai
Because undead commands only work on shambling hordes, i.e. non-vampire, non-werewolf, non-ghoul units.
This means that IF you want to switch soul reavers to core, you won’t have many units that can be targeted by your commands.
Unless you really, really want those foot vampires (they aren’t that good) and your special slot doesn’t allow for them, you are better off skipping the vampire lord altogether and spend those 200-ish points on more units.
Unfortunately, I have to agree with @MistakeNot’s assessment that undead characters are not living up to the point cost. You want a few casters for surge and two inspiring characters .(both can be taken using the inspiring taliman on a necromancer and the tome on the army standard). If you want fleshfeast/vampire army, you can get by with only the Army standard and a crypt gorger with inspring taliman.
I still want the vampire-on-undead peg, because I love mobile flanking platforms, but there are debatable better choices. You definately don’t need him for the commands.
Edit: this is not to say that I do not like the undead. I think they are in a fine place. It’s just a pity their characters are too expensive for what they do, mostly because the commands are limited to the shambling core.
yeah let me just grab my Twilight Kin, which was themed as an elite raiding force around Skiffs, Impalers, and Wranglers - oh wait, that’s only Core with 1 Warlord (almost done painting), Support (for some reason), and hideously overpriced respectively.
Maybe I’ll pull out my Sylvan Ki- hm. I could keep working on my Kingdoms of Men, was modelling some nice Knight Hordes and this troop of Fanatics just needs basi- oh. hm.
I get that I can run 2 units as Soul Reavers as Core, but I’ve got Revenant Hordes and Revenant Cavalry to fill my Core, I’m not running out of Special slots, so paying 195 points to be allowed to change nothing practical doesn’t seem very reasonable!
Of course I could then streamline the list, take out some Revenants. But then who am I not-Shambling or +Lifeleeching with my Warlord? If I just bring Ghouls and Soul Reavers as Core, who am casting +Lifeleech on, the Goreblight? I guess?
My point being, at this point in the design space (stripped down, simplified) our Warlords are paying for very limited utility. I’m also, admittedly, annoyed that Individuals can be flanked.