As always we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Battletome. We have also been provided with a provisional Battle Profile list for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that these points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Ossiarchs have had a really up and down journey throughout their (relatively short) lifespan. One of the factions created wholly for Age of Sigmar, they debuted to a lot of fanfare in second edition, only to lose much of that momentum when COVID stopped tournaments shortly after. They went into third edition suffering from the absolute weirdest rules transition ever, where they could not use command abilities despite the new edition heavily emphasizing them. Then their third edition tome hit, and absolutely tore up the scene as they suddenly had 10 command points a turn to work with.

In fourth edition they’ve been…fine. Solid units, but they're very expensive and have difficulty trading with cheap chaff. Once a unit dies it’s gone for good, and that was probably a solid chunk of your army too. The faction traits are also terribly boring -- just a bunch of auras from your heroes that are pretty much negated when Katakros is practically a board wide aura machine.

So how does this book stack up? Pretty well, I'd say. Let’s take a dive.

Top 5 Things We Like About the Book

Return of Relentless Discipline Points - Yes they’re back, you now receive currency each turn to augment your units and adapt them to their new situation.
Sick New Units - The new stuff is pretty great looking and most are very usable on the table.
Complete Rewrite of Warscrolls - Forget what you know, basically everything in the book is rewritten to act completely differently from what it used to do.
Ranged Threats - The tried and true Crawler can now be more of a threat to the enemy, and also brings in a long awaited Archer unit to the army.
Fun Tech Stuff - Ossiarchs were primarily an anvil army before, standing in place and shrugging off blows to grind their opponent out. While they certainly can do that, they’ve been blessed with a lot of fun tricks to outsmart their opponents.

Credit: Kevin Stillman

Battle Traits

The most important thing to state is that Relentless Discipline Points are BACK! Unlike third edition, you don’t share your balance with command points, they are separate currencies. Every round, you choose a hero and their datasheet will tell you how many Relentless Discipline Points (we’ll call it RDP for short) you receive. The Wizard characters (Including Nagash) give between 2-3, the Martial heroes somewhere between 5-7 and Katakros a whopping 10. You can pick the same hero multiple times, and they do go away at the end of the round, so you likely will just pick the hero who will give you the most every time.

There is a list of generic traits which will look very familiar to anyone who’s played previous editions or the faction pack. One bit of feedback they seemed to address is that now RDP costs scale with unit size. Since previously they were 1 RDP no matter what, you might as well run all reinforced units to get maximum value. Most RDP abilities cost 1 point (2 for a reinforced unit); if there’s any variation from that theme, we’ll call it out.

In the movement phase you have two options: Remorseless March adds 3” to movement but you cannot Run. Better than 2” it was previously, but now it’s gonna cost you and trying to move everything up faster is going to run out your bank account very quickly. You also have Impassive Retreat, which grants retreat and charge. You cannot use both on the same unit in the same phase, which means due to the OBR’s often slow base movement retreating is all but impossible except for their cavalry units, anyway.

As a nod to the army’s brand new shooting unit, the new Ruthless Extermination lets a shooting unit reduce wards by 1 for their target. It’s matchup specific, but you’re probably going to be very glad you had it for being able to pelt armies like Nurgle without needing to get into combat first.

In combat you have Pitiless Assault, which is the tried and true Bludgeon from previous versions: You get +1 to wound rolls when you swing. OBR notably have some units with 4+ to wound that you definitely want to use this on, but even just making sure your bigger guys like Immortis Guard can hit on 2+s is still nice to have. You can only issue this to a unit that hasn’t received a Relentless Discipline order this turn which has some interesting interactions with the final ability, Inviolate Legions.

Inviolate Legions is your 5+ ward they’ve always had; it works a bit different here though. Rather than get that 5+ for the whole phase, it’s only for the attack (not unlike how All Out Defense works right now). It also works in any phase, for any attack action, so they can finally hold up their shields to block against archers like you’d expect them to. It also specifically states it can be used multiple times on the same unit, so you can keep that up -- it’s just going to get expensive. Due to how Pitiless Assault is worded, you can use Pitiless Assault and then pop 5+ wards all day, but if you pop your 5+ ward first it can no longer be picked for the +1 to Wound. So you might need to think carefully if you really need to use it just yet if you’re banking on a big swing.

There are several more Relentless Discipline battle traits on the hero’s sheets, and we’ll call them out as we go through them. Overall the new traits are solid, arguably less powerful than the Battle Pack version which gave these same buffs through a (pretty generous) aura, now you have to spend points on them, but it allows a lot of modularity, especially in the combat phase where you can get both a 5+ ward and +1 to wound now.

Battle Formations

First, Border Guards gives Anti-Charge to units that are either within neutral territory or wholly within 6” of both Friendly and Enemy territory. This is basically a wordy way to give an out to you if a mission has no neutral territory, which is appreciated. Since you lost the Anti-Charge relentless discipline this isn’t really a bad pick if you want to get that back.

Next, The Inevitable Empire is probably my favorite. Pick an enemy unit and on a 3+ its control score is locked to 1 while it is within Neutral or Friendly territory. Ossiarchs often struggle with numbers so being able to reduce a massive horde unit down to just 1 can really shut down their ability to steal objectivess from under your nose.

Ruthless Legions is here to deliver a bit of bad news. On a 3+, you can pick one unit that charged to get Crit (2 hits). But wait a minute, isn’t that just a given in OBR? Not anymore! Many units that had that ability had it stripped away, and this is one of the more straightforward ways to get it back, so you can make a strong push for this one.

Finally, Remorseless Conquerers turns a run roll of 1-3 to a 4. On its face this is just kinda fine, but remember Redeploy is a run ability! That means you can move minimum 4” on the Redeploy too which is a game changer.

The Battle Formations are pretty specific and even then don’t seem to be the hits they could be, even for the niche they’re trying to fulfill. I think you have a strong argument to keep using the Scourge of Ghyran Hekatos Drill Masters to basically get a free RDP on a unit, if only to give them 5+ ward for free for the whole turn.

Heroic Traits

Manufactured Mind is an interesting idea if you’re not super confident in how to operate the army. When choosing which hero gives you your RDP budget, you can pick a dead hero once per game. You basically give this to your Mortisan in case Katakros eats shit in a bad turn of luck halfway through the game or something, but it doesn’t feel good to have a trait that only works if things are going catastrophically bad.

Imperious Will makes friendly non-Hero units wholly within 12” of the bearer of this trait attack, if they did not charge this turn, do D3 mortals on a 2+. It’s fine, it can be done multiple times per turn and Ossiarchs tend to like to plant their flag and grind it out strategy, but a few mortals here and there isn’t game changing.

The one I lean toward is Immaculate Defender which makes it so friendly infantry wholly within 12” ignore the first wound each combat phase. It’s not a lot, but on bigger units like Morghast every skipped wound can make or break the unit and since its by phase this can add up to a lot of saved wounds fast.

Artefacts

While the heroic traits are kinda lackluster, I do think the Artefacts are a lot better. Shard of the Necris makes it so unmodified hit rolls of 1-4 always miss, as long as they didn’t charge. This means it’s not so great for a Liege Kavalos but is great for protecting your Wizards. It works on ranged attacks as well, so no sniping them out.

Blade of the Nadir is for the more martial heroes. During deployment you can pick one of their non-companion weapons and then for the whole game, 6s to wound deal D3 mortals in addition to the normal damage. Really nice on something like a Liege Kavalos.

Finally, Amulet of the Gnosis is for Cavalry lists. While the Relentless Discipline ability to Retreat and Charge does not stop the mortal wounds, this does as long as they remain within 12” of the bearer. Slap this on a Liege Kavalos and keep your boys from ever feeling stuck in.

Ossiarch Bonereapers Mortisan Ossifector. Credit: Laura Bates

Spell Lore

Empower Nadirite Weapons has undergone a huge overhaul. Since their inception, Ossiarchs have had Crit (2 Hits) as a bread and butter ability, and this book has removed that from them for the most part. This spell now grants it, or if they already had it, makes it go off on a 5+ like it did before. This is an unlimited spell, and can target the same unit multiple times, so there’s going to be a strong argument to bring two wizards to spread out the buff, or to really soup-up one unit before it goes off to fight.

Immolating Flames brings back the Crematorians in spirit. Target a friendly unit, when a model dies in combat, roll a number of dice equal to their health characteristic and then deal a mortal wound to that attacker on a 5+. I don’t love it, because frankly you just don’t have enough guys to be sacrificing them willy nilly, but if you got the casts it can be a way to make your opponent hesitate a little to attack. It’s also nice that it scales based on health characteristic, so it’s beneficual to both Mortek Guard and Morghast Archai.

Finally, Drain Vitality returns unchanged. Enemy unit within 12” gets -1 to hit and to save, great spell, really important to cast before a big charge.

Units

The real depth of this book comes through in the units. Many units have been radically changed from their previous incarnations. Almost everything has a fun little trick it can pull now, and many heroes come with special abilities and their own Relentless Discipline abilities that can radically change how your army works.

As stated above, most units lost their Crit (2 Hits) which does cause a notable power decrease in a lot of units, even if they kept otherwise similar statlines.

Heroes

Nagash hasn’t changed, other than giving him Relentless Discipline points (it’s 3 by the way, awful). He really doesn’t work so hot in Ossiarchs due to their high point costs and he tends to play much better with 1 wound units (and one big hammer to revive). If you’re going for a heavy Mortek strategy there might be something there.

Let’s look at the two big named Heroes because they have the most to talk about: Katakros is quite different now. He generates 10 RDP, more than anything else in the book, but that drops to a pathetic 4 if he takes 10 wounds. He doesn’t lose spear attacks anymore but that’s because he doesn’t need to: he’s capped at 3 at full health now. Supreme Lord of the Bonereaper Legions no longer hands out +1 to save, but instead gives a unit Fight Twice. It has a staggering cost of RDP equal to the unit's wound characteristic (+1 if they’re reinforced) so a full unit of Morghast would cost 7 RDP to do this. You issue it in the Fight phase too, and it cannot be combined with any other, so you can’t get the +1 to wound here. It’s potentially very powerful but you have to really plan out using it when the time is right. His ability to disrupt Command Points is quite different here, rather than 5+ once per turn, he can pick an enemy unit in the Hero Phase within 18” and on a 3+ they cannot use commands. This makes it both better and worse, since a 3+ guaranteed to shut a unit down for the turn is quite nice, but your opponent can try and plan around it. His final ability is the new You Dare?!, which can only be used once per game once half your units have died. At that time Katakros gets turbo pissed off and his attacks bump up to 8 spear attacks and 6 shield attacks for the rest of the round. You can use this at the start of either player's turn, so even if your opponent is going first you can still activate it. I love the flavor of this ability but it reads more like a rubber banding mechanic if you’re losing. You may be able to gin it up a bit by bringing lots of chaff that dies on purpose, and wait to swing back in the back half when only your hammers remain, but this seems like a huge gambit. I think he’s still very playable for all the tech he brings to the table, but he’s going to be harder to justify than he was before. The loss of handing out +1s to saves to multiple units hurts and is going to make the army in general a lot more fragile.

Arkhan the Black is mostly the same, though his mount is a bit more impressive. While he technically has fewer attacks now (5 down from 6), they do 3 damage, and he gains D3 extra attacks on a 2+ (with a +1 against Wizards and Priests, so it can’t fail) rather than the old mortal wounds you probably frequently forgot about. The really interesting part is how Curse of Years changed. Functionally it works the same, but if you get 8 successes the unit is instantly obliterated, bypassing Ward saves. Last change: He's lost his 4+ spell shrug aura which is a huge hit, it’s been replaced with an extra Unbind within 18” that if successful shuts that spell off until your next turn. If the enemy has an annoying unlimited spell you can shut that off early to prevent them from spamming it, a niche choice but valuable. Overall the biggest issue is cost, I think he is far too expensive and does not justify his new price tag of 440 points but might be usable after some discounts.

Next, let’s look at the new stuff: The Liege-Kavalos on War Chariot and the foot hero the Liege Mortek. The Liege-Kavalos Chariot Hero is a bit underwhelming, with a combat profile almost identical to the regular Liege-Kavalos but with 12 wounds instead of 7; he’s definitely more tanky but his abilities leave a bit to be desired. In the movement phase, he and up to two Chariots can make a pile in and do D3 mortals, and in combat grant them 5+ Wards. This seems to imply they’re a cavalry unit meant to grind it out, but the hero gets Charge damage, so you probably would want to retreat and charge again with them, which makes it feel very disjointed. We’ll get to the regular chariots later, and they are far less disappointing.

Speaking of less disappointing, the new foot hero the Liege Mortek is a real banger. He comes with the stock foot hero option of fight and then nominate a unit to fight after him with a +1 to hit, but what really steals the show is he can pick a friendly ranged unit within 12” to shoot instead of fighting. Even if they’re in combat somehow, they get Shoot in Combat for this purpose, so your Mortek Crawler can do some Looney Tunes ass shit of firing a boulder at point blank range. Very funny, probably pretty good!

Rounding out the martial heroes are the regular Liege-Kavalos and the named variant, Zandtos. The Liege-Kavalos is difficult to talk about without explaining what the Deathriders do so we’ll hold off on that, but the short version is he keeps his requisite Fight then nominate a unit to fight after, and boosts their movement on their warscroll ability from 10” move to 12”. Zandtos is a bit more exciting, once per game on the charge he can inflict Strike Last on every unit he’s in combat with, which can set up a massive charge to pay off big time, and he also gives Deathriders Charge +1 damage as an RDP ability (again…we’ll get to that). He’s also worth the most RDP outside of Katakros at 7.

Finally, we hav the casters who had a few subtle changes. The Soulmason is identical to his previous version, can’t really argue with a Power 2 Wizard who grants Strike First. Vokmortian saw Voice of Nagash change again and I think now he’s an auto take. For 1 CP he can pick an enemy unit within 12” and they cannot be targeted by any non core abilities. The best part? It’s no longer once per game! His warscroll spell is way less clunky too, punishing the target unit with D3 mortals on a 2+ any time they use a core ability. Now that Ossiarchs have a proper foot lord, Soulreaper lost his nominate a unit to fight but gets a wizard shotgun where he does D3 mortals on a 2+ to every unit in combat and gains that many RDP, which is very nice for helping pay the 5+ ward tax on all your guys. He kept his -1 to wound for enemy units ability, so he makes a nice friend to join with Katakros or another martial hero. The Boneshaper is basically a copy of the Scourge of Ghyran version, which added the new Triaxes to the list of valid units for recursion. Lastly, the Ossifector got a slight boost to boost rend on ranged attacks too. Only a really useful change for the Crawler, but it’s nice its there.

There’s a lot to talk about with the heroes, so apologies for being so long winded. Overall the hero changes are very good and the army leans very heavily on them to do their job. You’re gonna want either Katakros or another Martial Hero in order to have a high RDP budget to work with each turn and then a Wizard or two to cast your spells.

Infantry

Ossiarchs have a ton of Infantry, big and small. Let’s start with the new unit, the bow wielding Triaxes. These guys are sick; they fill a niche the army really did not have before, which is a solid ranged unit with volume of fire. Crawlers were good, but swingy, these are way more consistent attack profile, basically mimicking Blissbarb Archers. Even better, if they focus fire on one unit they can shut off healing, which only goes away if they try and heal up (a la Nurgle plagues). Combined with the new Foot lord, they can get more shots in the combat phase, which ups their efficiency. Since you can only tag one unit per turn, you probably will always bring a reinforced unit.

Another new unit is the Mortis Reapers. I like these guys, but I don’t think they quite do what GW would hope they would do. They have Anti-HERO and 3 attacks per model, so being assassins they seem to be designed to do something similar to Riverblades in Lumineth, but the abilities don’t support that. They have a weird teleport when within 3” of terrain and then pop back down within 3” of that same terrain feature, still holding to the 9” from enemy rule. It’s bizarre and might be fun on a board with a huge terrain piece but otherwise it doesn’t seem too useful. They also get a POCKET SAND ability: If they survive combat they can do D3 mortals on a 2+ and then leave. They can’t end their move in combat which seems to defeat the point of getting close to heroes. They are 90 pts, however, tying them for the cheapest unit in the army, so I think they can get there as cheap chaff who use their teleport to steal objectives.

Next, the humble Mortek Guard. At first blush this looks like the Scourge of Ghyran version but one important change is their ability to reduce rend now works on any unit, not just specific heroes. It also works against shooting attacks, so this is actually kind of nice. They’re cheap enough you might be able to round out a list with them.

Let’s look at the big stuff, because that’s all changed too. Immortis Guard probably got the wildest departure, no longer giving any sort of Ward or Bodyguard ability. Instead they now shut off weapon abilities (Except Companion, natch) on a 3+. This actually isn’t bad and is worth considering at least a 3 man unit to tell Chosen to go pound sand. Their cousins the Necropolis Stalkers sadly lost the fluffy 4 combat stances ability in favor of a horde clearer, rolling dice equal to the number in the target unit and doing mortals on 6+ (5s if there are 3 or more stalkers). This does help them fulfill their role a bit more as a horde clearing unit, since they did retain their insane number of Rend 2 Damage 1 attacks.

Lastly, the Morghast; they are basically unchanged, and probably don’t need to be. Archai grant a +1 to cast on a 3+, rather than dealing with the fiddly Arcane Charges, and Harbingers lost the ability to receive a Relentless Discipline command outside of range, since that’s not really a factor anymore. These are still the strongest hammers in your army since they’re one of the things that didn’t lose Crit (2 Hits). So same as before, hit them with that Empower Nadirite Weapons and send them to destroy whatever you want.

Cavalry

The one Cavalry unit, the trustworthy Kavalos Deathriders, are very different. They make a poor hammer, lacking Charge +1 Damage. At first blush their new ability seems like a free Power through, dealing d3 mortals and then leave combat. It also brings a Liege-Kavalos out of combat with them should you so choose, adding another d3 mortals. However, it has the Fight Keyword, which feels like a pretty bad combat option. They work more as a mobility piece where you bring a minimum sized unit, tag a unit then promptly leave before the enemy can swing into them, grabbing an objective.

There’s a lot of combos you can look at for Cavalry that makes them very playable. If you want the old school “charge your Cav at the enemy’s face” vibes, Zandtos is there to grant them Charge. If you want to embrace the new weirdness, you can bring the generic Liege-Kavalos in, charge, fight and then nominate the Deathriders to fight, picking Deathrider Wedge instead, and they both get to leave. It’s all very workable; you just really need to pay the hero tax to get it there.

Beasts

Only one. The Teratic Cohort is wildly different and I think makes them fit the theme better. They only have 1 health and a 5+ save now which, honestly is far more fitting as the disposable morons of the Ossiarch legions. They don’t have a deep strike, instead getting a free move at the start of the game, and a 3” move in the hero phase. This lets them really strike out early to grab a mid-table objective and force your opponent to deal with that. They’re also only 90 points, which means they will evaporate instantly and you do not need to feel bad about that.

Monsters

Still one, the Gothizzar Harvester, which has probably seen the most changes over time of any unit in the army. Instead of tracking Tithe points, it operates like ogors, on a generic Full-Hungry binary (starting on Full). If it’s full, you can return a model to a unit, or 3 models to a 1 wound unit, wholly within 12”. Once it’s empty, you roll a die for each dead enemy unit at the end of each turn (no ranged required) and if you can score a 4+ it fills back up. It’s fine if you want to run a lot of Mortek Guard and Triaxes but I think the hit it took to its weapons really makes it struggle to find a place, since it now only has 6 attacks without the Crit 2 hits. Even at Damage 3 that still feels like a net loss.

Warmachines

While the Hero version of the Kavalos War Chariot was a bit underwhelming, the regular version is quite good and very playable. It has a 10” move, and a solid stat profile, but it does not have Charge for extra damage as you might think, so this makes a pretty poor Hammer. It's design makes it more of a grinder, nailing an enemy unit with its Pinning Attacks in the shooting phase which make an enemy unit unable to pile-in on a 3+, then charge in, use their Scything Assault to reposition in a spot where the least amount of dudes can hit you if necessary, and then Power Through onto an objective, which is an insane amount of movement for OBR.

Mostly the same, the Mortek Crawler lost Anti-Infantry but this is balanced out by the Ossifector being able to give it +1 Rend generically now. It kept the Strike Last trick, which makes it very strong to use in the enemy shooting phase to try and dissuade them from charging you. It got a new ability to grant it Anti-Terrain and +1 damage against Terrain which is very flavorful but impact is going to vary. Probably nice to have against something like Sylvaneth which rely so heavily on their terrain.

Endless Spells

Basically still the same. Bone-Tithe Shrieker is still absolutely clutch against armies with Army-wide Wards, and Nightmare Predator was made a little bit better by being able to be brought back on a 3+ if it actually killed something, so that’s nice. These were one of the better faction specific endless spells and I think you still take these.

Terrain

The Bone-Tithe Nexus has always been notorious. Initially it could inflict some nasty debuffs from really far away, and over time the range and dice roll for it to go off has steadily gotten worse. As of fourth edition it often came across as a liability, due to its large size it makes a very juicy charge target for deep striking to try and ping pong off of to get into combat with an actual unit.

So they did the funniest thing possible.

No more debuffs, no more rolls, it just is a 9” “You cannot set up here” zone for the enemy. No deep strikes, no Teleports, no Transformed to Spawn. That aura also gets bigger by 3” every round, and this thing is huge. That is a massive area to deny that sort of movement to the opponent. Make them unable to teleport into your backline objectives, protect your castle by making them have to drop in even further than 9” away, there’s so many options available as the fight goes on it’s only going to get more annoying to deal with.

Kavalos Deathriders

Credit: Silks

Rules of Renown

Army of Renown - The Lance of Ossias

There’s two Armies of Renown here. First up we got The Lance of Ossias for those who want to fulfill their equestrian dreams. You have to bring Zandtos, and then you can bring any Chariots or Cavalry, but that’s it.

They generate RDP the same as the regular army, but get a different set of generic abilities. Vengeful Outriders gives 2” of move to a unit (Which is fine, they all move 10” so losing 1” from the regular version isn’t too bad). Silent Menace lets you target an enemy unit and they cannot Redeploy, which is great to keep them from messing with your charges. Fury of Zandtos gives a unit Crit (2 Hits) back, and this is in the Charge phase so it doesn’t step on the toes of Blood-Smeared Hooves in the combat phase, giving -1 Rend to all attacks (including the mounts!).

The enhancements are solid, since you have to take Zandtos you’re probably bringing a second Liege-Kavalos to fill this role. The Heroic Trait Prevailing Tactician gives an extra 2 RDP if the hero is not wholly within 12” from Zandtos. So you’re going to want to do this every turn to get a told of 9 RDP with Zandtos’s 7. The artefact is the returning Helm of Tyranny from the Faction Pack, which now reduces enemy Control by 3 within 12”. Given OBR’s pretty low numbers, every reduction is helpful.

Overall I like this faction a lot and I think it is very playable. Lack of a wizard seems rough at first, but now you have a non-magical way to get Crit 2 Hits so the only thing you’re really missing is Drain Vitality. The addition of Extra rend and shutting off Redeploys are very useful tools. As stated above the Cavalry have turned into more weird movement and control pieces rather than hammers, and this subfaction gives you back that feeling of sending 30 Deathriders into the enemy and picking them up.

Army of Renown - Null Myriad

Arkhan’s legion, Null Myriad is the other option and being dead hasn’t slowed him down one bit. Obviously he is a mandatory take, and alongside him you can bring any non-Unique wizards and any infantry, which is a pretty generous breadth of options.

You lose Relentless Discipline (which is fine, given your highest value hero would give you 3) and are instead given the tools for magical supremacy. Arcane Immunity grants a 4+ Ward to all Spell, Prayer and Manifestation damage for everybody, which is going to vary depending on the army you’re facing. First of the Mortarchs makes it so Arkhan’s spells cannot be unbound if he rolled doubles, but he still has to meet or beat the casting value. This is a bit niche, since usually you need double 4s, 5s or 6s to pull this off, and he already gets +1 to cast so often if he rolled that good it’s hard to beat that, but it’s not unwelcome.

Supernatural Absorbtion is a very neat trick in the hero phase where you can dispel an endless spell in combat range on a 3+ and then immediately Heal damage equal to that Manifestations wound characteristic (or if not wounded, restore a number of models with wound characteristics equal to it). I think this has a lot of interesting play, it has to be in the hero phase so it needs some setup, but you could use a Teratic Cohort to bumble into combat from outside of 3”, then immediately dispel it if the wall is trying to block you. It’s also one of the only semi reliable ways to bring back a dead Morghast unit, given their large wound characteristic.

For enhancements you have Aura of Enervation which is just the Aura of Sterility from the Faction pack, -1 to wound on shooting attacks that target wholly within 12” of the bearer. Gothizzar Cartouche gives +1 to hit to a unit wholly within 12” on a 3+. Solid pick, basically an All Out Attack without the downside, and you can always use AoA later if it fails to go off.

Being a spellcaster Legion, you naturally get your own unique spell lore. All of these spells are Unlimited, which is important to note. Unearthly Aura gives +1 to wound to a friendly unit, and Reinforce Constructs gives a 5+ Ward, giving a magical way to get around not having your Relentless Discipline. Your last spell is Summon Horrors of the Necropolis which condenses all the endless spells into one spell, since it’s unlimited there isn’t really a functional change here other than different wizards must cast it in the same turn, rather than the same casting multiple manifestations..

This a fun legion, and plays very differently from the core option. Without Relentless Discipline you’re going to be slower and less able to adapt to changing circumstances, but your spells will make up for a lot of the lost combat efficiency. This legion really wants you to run really big hammers like Morghast, buff them up and send them in, then swat away any spells coming your way.

Regiments of Renown

Both of these are available to all the other Death factions. First is the Herald of the Bone-Tithe which includes:

Vokmortion, Master of the Bone-Tithe
3 Immortis Guard
10 Mortek Guard

Vokmortian gains a spell with Casting Value 7, The Decree of Nagash, which makes it so Fighting costs 1 CP. Which is honestly insane, combined with his Warscroll ability The Voice of Nagash and his warscroll spell you can pretty much shut down a unit from being able to do anything. This makes him even better than he is in Ossiarchs! The Immortis Guard are a nice tool to have, since shutting off Weapon abilities is pretty rare. Mortek Guard are whatever, but they’re cheap.

Your other option is another in the recent line of “We should give an artillery piece to armies that don’t have one”. Karahtet’s Siege Breaker includes:

1 Mortisan Ossifector
1 Mortek Crawler

While the hero in these sorts of detachments often doesn’t get to do anything, he’s actually very valuable here. He inherently can give the Crawler +1 Rend, and he comes with a spell in this detachment to give them a 5+ Ward. Useful for protecting it from counter shooting if nothing else (if the Crawler gets into melee, forget it, it’s so over).

I think this will see some play. The crawler itself is fine damage wise but its real use is that it can inflict Strike Last on an enemy unit, which is useful both on offense or to use in Covering Fire on Defense. Death notoriously is very lacking in shooting options so this would be a welcome option in pretty much all the other Death factions.

Final Thoughts

I like this book. It’s a huge departure from the Battle Pack and while I think the decision to make Relentless Discipline another currency to keep track of aside from your Command Points feels a bit dull, I welcome its return. The real changes are in how the Warscrolls function, Ossiarchs have always been more of an anvil army. Push up to the middle, secure the castle, and stand your ground, then kill the enemy on the punch back.

This has changed a bit, without Katakros’s +1 to Save the army isn’t going to be as Tanky as it was. With the loss of Crit 2 Hits on most units, and Charge on Cavalry, the army has shifted from beat sticks to more tech pieces. The goal is to use your RDP to out maneuver and outsmart your opponent, you’ll have to be patient and wait for the perfect time to strike. This definitely feels a lot more on flavor than before, but is going to be an adjustment for those who’ve gotten used to how the army works.

We've also got a separate article coming up later today for Path to Glory and Spearhead, for those interested in those game modes.

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Tags: age of Sigmar | Ossiarch Bonereapers | battletome