Lets Chat: Legions of Nagash

[Hyperkinako]

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

I think the mortis might be overkill on nagadh's casting (though the healing pulse is admittedly great here), 2 wound knights are awkward with the maximized heals, and the skittles want to be max size.  Try instead:

Nagash, 2 archai, 5 guard, 2x40 spears, mortis

Or

Nagash, 2 archai, 15 guard, 2x40 spears

Or

Nagash, 4 archai, 2x10 guard, 40 spears

Or my (current) preference:

Nagash, necromancer, 2 archai, 5 knights, 2x40 spears

Mortis is good, but i think necro for artefact, extra deathmage spell, and vanhels is better.

Thanks, I was also considering the Necromancer list.  Though will have to see how I do painting that many Skellies.  But agree the need for maximizing on them.

[Malakithe]

Maybe in GH2018 they will drop some points costs hopefully.

Im skeptical on the cheap battalions going up later too but it is what it is. 

So 12 spells. Which means rule of one wont be a issue at all. Plenty to choose from plus warscroll spells. Arkhan plus his battalion will be able to complete and possible shut doen Tzeentch meta. But ive been saying that since this thread opened lol

[TheWilddog]

Can someone summarize the spell lore leaks, I am behind a server wall and can not get to the 4chan stuff and I am dying!!!!

[Drofnum]

17 minutes ago, TheWilddog said:

Can someone summarize the spell lore leaks, I am behind a server wall and can not get to the 4chan stuff and I am dying!!!!

They are on Reddit as well if you have access. I'm on mobile so cant really relay them at the moment.

[Undeadly]

23 minutes ago, TheWilddog said:

Can someone summarize the spell lore leaks, I am behind a server wall and can not get to the 4chan stuff and I am dying!!!!

I have them open on my phone:

Deathmages:

Casting Value: 5. 18" Inches. -1 to hit and -1 bravery till next hero phase

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. -1 attack and may only use 1 dice to charge with

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Select a terrain feature. Halve movement of enemy units within 3"

Casting Value: 7. 12" Inches. When it attempts to move, roll a dice.  On a 5+, the enemy unit may not move.

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Pick a enemy Hero. -1 to wound and -1 damage from Melee weapons.

Casting Value: 7. 3" Inches. All enemy units within 3" suffer 1d3 mortal wounds. Roll a dice for each mortal wound inflicted, and on a 5+, get a wound back.

Vampires:

Casting Value: 5.  For every unit within 12" Inches of the caster, roll a dice. On a 5+, deal 1 mortal wound.

Casting Value: 6.  12" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. Roll 3 dice. Every 5+ Deals a mortal wound. If two dice match, the unit receives -1 to hit. If three dice match, -1 to hit and to wound. 

Casting Value: 7. Pick a unit within 12" of your caster, and than a friendly DEATH unit within 6" of the enemy unit. The enemy unit suffers d3 mortal wounds.  For each wound allocated, restore 1 wound on the unit.

Casting Value: 5. Caster can fly, and add 5" Inches to the hero's movement. 

Casting Value: 6.  18" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. When that enemy unit charges, roll a number of dice equal to the result of the Charge roll. on a 5+, they suffer 1 Mortal wound.

Casting Value: 7. Pick a point within 12", and draw a line. Roll a dice for each enemy unit that has a model under that line. On a 4+, the enemy receives d6 Mortal wounds.

 

 

[TheWilddog]

4 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

I have them open on my phone:

Deathmages:

Casting Value: 5. 18" Inches. -1 to hit and -1 bravery till next hero phase

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. -1 attack and may only use 1 dice to charge with

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Select a terrain feature. Halve movement of enemy units within 3"

Casting Value: 7. 12" Inches. When it attempts to move, roll a dice.  On a 5+, the enemy unit may not move.

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Pick a enemy Hero. -1 to wound and -1 damage from Melee weapons.

Casting Value: 7. 3" Inches. All enemy units within 3" suffer 1d3 mortal wounds. Roll a dice for each mortal wound inflicted, and on a 5+, get a wound back.

Vampires:

Casting Value: 5.  For every unit within 12" Inches of the caster, roll a dice. On a 5+, deal 1 mortal wound.

Casting Value: 6.  12" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. Roll 3 dice. Every 5+ Deals a mortal wound. If two dice match, the unit receives -1 to hit. If three dice match, -1 to hit and to wound. 

Casting Value: 7. Pick a unit within 12" of your caster, and than a friendly DEATH unit within 6" of the enemy unit. The enemy unit suffers d3 mortal wounds.  For each wound allocated, restore 1 wound on the unit.

Casting Value: 5. Caster can fly, and add 5" Inches to the hero's movement. 

Casting Value: 6.  18" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. When that enemy unit charges, roll a number of dice equal to the result of the Charge roll. on a 5+, they suffer 1 Mortal wound.

Casting Value: 7. Pick a point within 12", and draw a line. Roll a dice for each enemy unit that has a model under that line. On a 4+, the enemy receives d6 Mortal wounds.

 

 

Thx!!!!

[bsharitt]

One interesting bit of wording is where eligibility for the new allegiances is "in this battletome" instead of specifying keywords. I supposed it was easier than listing them all and they can't say all death but flesheaters(because they don't want to backdoor Tombkings, or even mention them to exclude them). But that means any future model releases would have to say they are available for the allegiance if they are allowed to be added. The Knight of Shrouds is already no in the battle tome so technically RAW, he and the Mourngul(since FW models don't go in GW books) are left out in the cold since, only being available to Nighthaunt armies using the GHB2017 abilities(I don't see anything about them specifically being superseded like Soulblight, and they still have their "battle line ifs"), a generic death army, or can still be allied to Soulblight.

[someone2040]

9 minutes ago, bsharitt said:

One interesting bit of wording is where eligibility for the new allegiances is "in this battletome" instead of specifying keywords. I supposed it was easier than listing them all and they can't say all death but flesheaters(because they don't want to backdoor Tombkings, or even mention them to exclude them). But that means any future model releases would have to say they are available for the allegiance if they are allowed to be added. The Knight of Shrouds is already no in the battle tome so technically RAW, he and the Mourngul(since FW models don't go in GW books) are left out in the cold since, only being available to Nighthaunt armies using the GHB2017 abilities(I don't see anything about them specifically being superseded like Soulblight, and they still have their "battle line ifs"), a generic death army, or can still be allied to Soulblight.

But Tomb Kings no longer share any keywords with current Death range anyway (Outside of Death keyword).

They could've easily keyworded the Legions to be : Include warscrolls with the following keywords - DEATHLORDS, DEATHRATTLE, DEADWALKERS, DEATHMAGES, SOULBLIGHT, NIGHTHAUNT

And it still would've fit the same warscrolls while including the Mournghoul and Knight of Shrouds as well as the Sepulchral Guard.

Dunno, the absence of keywording it makes me feel like this is it for those factions. It's unlikely any of those factions will receive new units in the future, or if they do they'll need to include some form of blurb to allow them in Legions of Nagash armies (Which I would guess the errata will do for the Knight of Shrouds soon enough).

[Undeadly]

32 minutes ago, TheWilddog said:

Thx!!!!

Overall, the spell lore's are not exactly terrible, but not exactly as good as I had hoped. I would have preferred if one of the Spell lores had been given more focus on actually buffing our troops over de-buffing our enemies, as I feel like that would have been more thematic, and more efficient. Now, we either have to run a Necromancer along in the back to keep up with our troops, or let them come to us. I also question the idea of putting the Soul Scythe spell in the Deathmages section, guaranteeing it won't see use out side of the Mortarchs or Nagash. The 5+ to prevent moving spell, and 3 dice gambling game spell both seem very situational and feel very week, although at the least the gambling game has a chance to do some damage. The clear winners here are the Flying spell and the Orb spell. How they expect Necromancer's to actually keep up with our units, aside from Grave Guard Skeletons and Zombies is a bit lost to me, as they have lost the ability to take a mount.

 

Now as for the battalions, it is a mixed bag in my opinion.  Firstly, the fact that 4 out of the 6 we were given require a Mortarch and Nagash means that we are now being further pigeon-holed into taking a our Moratchs, and making them our generals. The most powerful, in my opinion, is Arkhan's, as although it's save boost really only effects Arkhan, and is fairly terrible on Necromancers, the ability to give our Necromancers the ability to cast twice is very powerful indeed. Neferata's seems pretty good, especially when paired with the Speed boost Spell. Nagash suffers from the fact that Nagash is very expensive; and it relies on Morghasts to protect him, another expensive unit. It does do a decent job of supporting his Troops, albeit. Mannfred is by far the worst of the 4 Mortarch battalions, as all it does it just  give Vargheists a bit more punch on the charge, and give him a re-roll on his DI on the skeletons.

The Deathrattle one is just a bit lazy, following the same formation that we have in the book. In comparison, this formation is far more offensive, instead of defensive. The first trait is decent on a large Black Knight unit, but relatively useless on the Skeletons and Grave Guard. The extra move, however, is actually rather good. It pairs nicely with the Command Trait from Legion of Sacrament that lets you move 3" in the Hero phase, letting you move your Skeletons an additional 7" a turn, which can make them speedy buggers.

The other Battalion, centered around the Prince is passable, I suppose. 15 Blood Knights and the Prince makes it very a point heavy investment, and will probably only see play in Soulblight or Legion of Blood armies, as it is a lot of points to put into what is now a considerably less tanky unit.  It does give the necessary re-rolls to hit when near the born edge, but still, even at minimum unit sizes, this isn't cheap in the slightest.

The Artifacts surprised me; Mostly by giving us 6 per allegiance, for a total of 24 mostly unique Artifacts. Some are incredibly good, such as the -2 to hit Cloak, the Terrorgheist shooting attack,  and Gold Bracelets. Some of them are good, like the Lantern in Nagash's artifacts, and than have a copy that is actually a worse copy, such as Arkhan's banner. Or Soulblight's Chalice and Nagash's Amethyst Shard. Some are decent, like the instant Arcane bolt that lingers on afterwards.  A mixed bag overall.

As for Command traits, well, as talked about above, most of them are never going to be used due to Mortarchs and Nagash serving as the leaders in their armies. In the case of Grand host of Nagash, where you would probably not going to use Nagash in the first place, the traits are not exactly appealing besides Lord of Nagashizzar. Sacrament's is interesting, with Bound to the Master giving you a mini-Arkhan and Mastery of Death giving your units a speed boost. Dark Acolyte is a bit silly, as unless you bring the Mortis engine, it's mostly useless. Legion of Blood gives you a mini-Neferata trait but only for the general, a speed boost/charge re-roll and the possibility to do a lot of MW on a six. No mini-me for Mannfred, but he does have a trait that lets your general also infiltrate. 

Also, even now, I'm not exactly sure how good Gravesites are, if they are so easily de-activated. Since they are placed before units, it is incredibly easy for the enemy to place a ranged unit ontop of the 1 or both of the sites, and basically render them unusable for deep striking. And since we have very few units that can get that far back that quickly, I think they may not be as useful as one would think.

Overall, I guess you could say I'm a little disappointed with what we got in some in aspects, but really surprised with others. But overall, I still think that this book is a bit of a mess, and seems really oddly thrown together. It is a improvement, but by how much? I personally don't feel like GW did enough, but I think that some builds will become far more viable. For example, a Deathrattle horde backed up by a de-buffing Arkhan's Travelling Magic Show could be potentially devastating, if we are able to reach the enemy. But that's a bit of a IF, isn't it?

[Thostos]

5 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

Overall, the spell lore's are not exactly terrible, but not exactly as good as I had hoped. I would have preferred if one of the Spell lores had been given more focus on actually buffing our troops over de-buffing our enemies, as I feel like that would have been more thematic, and more efficient. Now, we either have to run a Necromancer along in the back to keep up with our troops, or let them come to us. I also question the idea of putting the Soul Scythe spell in the Deathmages section, guaranteeing it won't see use out side of the Mortarchs or Nagash. The 5+ to prevent moving spell, and 3 dice gambling game spell both seem very situational and feel very week, although at the least the gambling game has a chance to do some damage. The clear winners here are the Flying spell and the Orb spell. How they expect Necromancer's to actually keep up with our units, aside from Grave Guard Skeletons and Zombies is a bit lost to me, as they have lost the ability to take a mount.

 

Now as for the battalions, it is a mixed bag in my opinion.  Firstly, the fact that 4 out of the 6 we were given require a Mortarch and Nagash means that we are now being further pigeon-holed into taking a our Moratchs, and making them our generals. The most powerful, in my opinion, is Arkhan's, as although it's save boost really only effects Arkhan, and is fairly terrible on Necromancers, the ability to give our Necromancers the ability to cast twice is very powerful indeed. Neferata's seems pretty good, especially when paired with the Speed boost Spell. Nagash suffers from the fact that Nagash is very expensive; and it relies on Morghasts to protect him, another expensive unit. It does do a decent job of supporting his Troops, albeit. Mannfred is by far the worst of the 4 Mortarch battalions, as all it does it just  give Vargheists a bit more punch on the charge, and give him a re-roll on his DI on the skeletons.

The Deathrattle one is just a bit lazy, following the same formation that we have in the book. In comparison, this formation is far more offensive, instead of defensive. The first trait is decent on a large Black Knight unit, but relatively useless on the Skeletons and Grave Guard. The extra move, however, is actually rather good. It pairs nicely with the Command Trait from Legion of Sacrament that lets you move 3" in the Hero phase, letting you move your Skeletons an additional 7" a turn, which can make them speedy buggers.

The other Battalion, centered around the Prince is passable, I suppose. 15 Blood Knights and the Prince makes it very a point heavy investment, and will probably only see play in Soulblight or Legion of Blood armies, as it is a lot of points to put into what is now a considerably less tanky unit.  It does give the necessary re-rolls to hit when near the born edge, but still, even at minimum unit sizes, this isn't cheap in the slightest.

The Artifacts surprised me; Mostly by giving us 6 per allegiance, for a total of 24 mostly unique Artifacts. Some are incredibly good, such as the -2 to hit Cloak, the Terrorgheist shooting attack,  and Gold Bracelets. Some of them are good, like the Lantern in Nagash's artifacts, and than have a copy that is actually a worse copy, such as Arkhan's banner. Or Soulblight's Chalice and Nagash's Amethyst Shard. Some are decent, like the instant Arcane bolt that lingers on afterwards.  A mixed bag overall.

As for Command traits, well, as talked about above, most of them are never going to be used due to Mortarchs and Nagash serving as the leaders in their armies. In the case of Grand host of Nagash, where you would probably not going to use Nagash in the first place, the traits are not exactly appealing besides Lord of Nagashizzar. Sacrament's is interesting, with Bound to the Master giving you a mini-Arkhan and Mastery of Death giving your units a speed boost. Dark Acolyte is a bit silly, as unless you bring the Mortis engine, it's mostly useless. Legion of Blood gives you a mini-Neferata trait but only for the general, a speed boost/charge re-roll and the possibility to do a lot of MW on a six. No mini-me for Mannfred, but he does have a trait that lets your general also infiltrate. 

Also, even now, I'm not exactly sure how good Gravesites are, if they are so easily de-activated. Since they are placed before units, it is incredibly easy for the enemy to place a ranged unit ontop of the 1 or both of the sites, and basically render them unusable for deep striking. And since we have very few units that can get that far back that quickly, I think they may not be as useful as one would think.

Overall, I guess you could say I'm a little disappointed with what we got in some in aspects, but really surprised with others. But overall, I still think that this book is a bit of a mess, and seems really oddly thrown together. It is a improvement, but by how much? I personally don't feel like GW did enough, but I think that some builds will become far more viable. For example, a Deathrattle horde backed up by a de-buffing Arkhan's Travelling Magic Show could be potentially devastating, if we are able to reach the enemy. But that's a bit of a IF, isn't it?

 Agreed,,overall im seeing it as being rather meh.I dont think the gravesites are as good as the banners and the loss of summoning pretty much makes the army very static.

 There are some interesting aspects with the loss of summoning,such as now we can actually start our battleline units off the board and bring them in near a friendly gravesite,or save one for later forcing the opponent to camp a backfield gravesite with something..the threat could be an effective points exchange.

 Either way ill be trying the Nagash battalion as Ive had him on my shelf since the end of 8th edition.Not expeciting much though as he will be in a very low model count army with marginal mobility.I dont see him placing at the top tables,still pretty much just a funsy game.

 

[Josh]

super interesting! very keen to see how it goes. No doubt there will be some non obvious nuggets of gold im sure!

keen to try the arkhan battalion & wonder how i can use my nighthaunt army in the mix

[Sception]

Overall this does look like the weakest of the recent battle tomes to me, and not at all the 'reboot' it was billed as, since nearly all profiles, special rules, and points values remained the same, with the exception of the new summoning/healing system (admittedly not the disaster i had feared, but not better than a lateral move, either), with new allegiance stuff (relatively alright) and spells (rather lackluster i think, but my vision is still clouded by memories of 8th edition, so i may not be judging these fairly) layered on top.

Honestly, it feels too conservative, like the writer was afraid of making things overpowered so they lowballed a lot of stuff on the theory that points could just be lowered later if need be.  Either that, or they just didnt want to put too much work into a book that wasnt flogging new models.  But the effort on display in terms of new fluff and all makes me doubt that this was a 'written over the weekend zero effort and no testing rush job' like some previous GW faction books.

That might just be wishful thinking on my part.

This doesnt strike me as the competitive fine tuning that we were hoping for, and I'm more than a little annoyed at the extents they went to to prevent any interfaction synergy.  That said, competitively it looks like at worst a lateral shift to me, and there may yet be some breakout lists.  And while the new rules may not be much stronger, they look a lot more thematically engaging, and the new fluff is very welcome.  Part of me's a bit disappointed, but mostly I'm just excited to try it out.

[Jamopower]

The debuff spells look potentially really good. Influencing the opponent's move is always valuable.

[WoollyMammoth]

This seems like a consolidation of everything in death. Hopefully just before moving on to expand death with different things. As far as battletomes without new models, this is easily my favorite so far. 

The spell lores are really good. They are not at all what I wanted (almost no offence), but they are really good. Death can easily cast spells all day, they will be really hard to shut down, and they have total board control, stopping units in their tracks, making them have less attacks, -1 to hit etc etc. When you add this in with our regenning units, it creates a pretty messy situation for your opponent. This new army is going to be a really fun tactical toolbox

THE GOOD

• Consolidating all of (non FEC) death from shattered 8 parts to one solid part you can play 4 unique ways
• Lots of great unit updates to make pretty much every scroll in death relevant now, no more duds.
• Death has insane regen capability now
• The spells are great
• Very easy to use and relatively cheap battalions
• Really great command traits and artifacts
• No scrolls have had point increases

THE BAD

• No points discounts. Nagash still way overcosted. Bloodknights, Grave Guard, Mannfred - all still in a poor spot.
• Mannfreds battalion seems very odd. Vargheists get 13 attacks instead of 10 and Arkhans heal re-roll for 140 points?
• Vargheists no longer battleline

THE UGLY

• Blood Knights straight up nerfed
• Forcing you to take specific named chars, or none at all. With really good command traits this means that most people will simply not be taking Nagash or any Mortarchs. Sacrament is even designed so that you can still get the +6" to cast even without Arkhan!!? If you take a non-named general you get access to some really potent things like:
  - Add 1 attack to all deathrattle within 6"
  - Tree stomps for your general
  - Free 3" move for all units within 6"
  - Everyone gets +6" to casting rolls
  - Minus 1 to hit in combat
  - Kill any models then pick a unit to get +1 attack
  
  Its not as bad as getting the 5++ like in the old days, but its still pretty bad. The only thing in Neferatas legion is the -1 to hit, so taking her is still a great option, but Sacrement has almost no need for Arkhan and Mannfred/Nagash are still over-costed so despite all the new stuff, we are still likely to see a lot of VLoZD. Are you going to take Arkhan or are you going to take a VLoZD with -2 to hit in the shooting phase and still not missing out on the 6" spell range??

[swarmofseals]

Gave the full list of abilities a read and have a few thoughts:

Spoiler

• There are tons of amazing command abilities and artefacts. There are loads of possibilities worth exploring for every playstyle.
• The lore of Deathmages is fantastic. The first, second and sixth spells are all amazing and the other three are potentially good too. I'm most skeptical of spell four as it's a cast value 7 and then only works on a 5+.
• Lore of Vampires is less impressive but still has some good ones. I like spells 2 and 3 a lot. Just for reference the odds of rolling a double on 2d6 is 44.44% and a triple is 2.78%. Spell 1 seems very weak and I'm skeptical of spell 5 given that it is both situational and not that powerful. Spells 4 and 6 are nice. 
• The battalions are tough to judge.
  • First Cohort is spicy buy very hard to use given the expensive battalion cost on top of Nagash. Hard to get use out of the extra artefact as you'll need two further heroes.
  • Court of Nulahmia seems... fine. The abilities are good but I'm not sure that the combination of required units are any good. The total cost of the battalion is an absolute minimum 1070, so I'm not optimistic. 
  • Deathmarch is solid. It requires taking a crappy Wight King, but the bonuses are good and help solve the skeleton speed problem
  • Nightfall Pack is pretty bad, I think. The bonus is fine but it requires taking crappy Mannfred. Given the relatively steep price I'd probably prefer to just take an extra unit of Vargheists and not be forced into using Mannfred
  • Lords of Sacrament seems like a fantastic choice. As a Sylvaneth player I can attest to the power of adding an extra cast to every wizard in a battalion. Given that lore of the Deathmages is arguably better than the Sylvaneth lore plus the extra casting benefits one could definitely make the case that this battalion is even better than a Gnarlroot Wargrove. Plus it costs less than Gnarlroot cost even in GHB 2016 AND has an extra bonus to armor save which is just gravy. 
  • Castellans of the Crimson Keep is hard to evaluate. The price of the battalion seems fair and I think the units are quite good (although taking three units of BKs is a really big investment and will lead to something of a glass cannon army). The abilities are very hard to evaluate though. Deepstriking off the board edge is potentially powerful, but it's also the kind of thing that you can get zoned out of using well. The rerolls to hit are excellent, but it only affects a relatively small portion of the table. I get the feeling like this will fall flat on some tables and be really great on others depending on the scenario, terrain, opponent deployment etc.
• New Coven Throne is great.
• Vhordrai is a hell of a beatstick. I think most of the time you don't take him as your general though unless you are trying a gimmicky double dragon list. He combos VERY well with a Coven Throne general.
• Bloodseeker Palanquin seems a bit expensive for what it does. I think it's ability will be difficult to trigger, and you'll need to be buffing multiple units for it to be worthwhile even when it does. I'm definitely disappointed in this one. 
• The "must be general" rule for mortarchs is a bit weird to me. I get why it exists, but it leads to some very odd situations where you may actually be more likely to take a mortarch in a different legion rather than your legion's mortarch. 
• By *far* the most disappointing thing for me is that it appears that you can't use the new spell lores if you take a GA: Death army instead of a Legion. I really can't think of why this should be the case. I'm hoping it was an oversight. 

 

•  

[someone2040]

9 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

• but it leads to some very odd situations where you may actually be more likely to take a mortarch in a different legion rather than your legion's mortarch. 

Just a note that it's very clear with the Legion rules that if you take a MORTARCH you must take that Legions Mortarch and it must be the General. I believe the wording is such that if you say, take Legion of Sacrament, you could take both Arkhan and Neferata but Arkhan would have to be the General.

So it's kinda like the rule is 0+ Mortarchs, but the first one you take must be the one belonging to that Legion.

14 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

• By *far* the most disappointing thing for me is that it appears that you can't use the new spell lores if you take a GA: Death army instead of a Legion. I really can't think of why this should be the case. I'm hoping it was an oversight. 

If I had to guess, there could be a few reasons

A) Doesn't upset the balance of the other Grand Alliance lists not having spells

B) Prevents synergies with compendium

Which is really just C) They don't want Mixed Lists to get any real bonuses

Overall, I imagine that mixed lists are never going to get a lot of love because GW wants to push people hard on collecting specific factions. As it stands, if they opened it up to GA: Death then Ghoul Kings could also get spells, which may not be an interaction they want. Of course, they easily could've solved that by SOULBLIGHT keywording it instead of Vampire, but *shrugs* you know, just GW things.

 

To be honest, the most disappointing thing for me would be the lack of warscroll battalions. 5/6 are tied into a special character and the 6th is a reprint of an existing one. A lot of interesting things are tied to battalions in the game at the moment, first and foremost for me being artefacts. There's a lot of cool ones in the tome, and the fact you need to purchase a battalion to get access to an additional one is a bit unfortunate. There always seems to be a clear pick for most allegiances, and then the rest squander in teh dust.

[someone2040]

Here are my initial impressions on the spell lores.

 

Deathmages:

Casting Value: 5. 18" Inches. -1 to hit and -1 bravery till next hero phase

Seems like a nice little debuff spell. Stacking minus bravery could be a thing for Death with the banner changes.

 

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. -1 attack and may only use 1 dice to charge with

Again, a nice little debuff spell. 

 

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Select a terrain feature. Halve movement of enemy units within 3"

Situationally I think this could be really interesting, especially against Sylvaneth and Nurgle. Given you know where enemy units are going to be at the beginning of their next movement phase, it could really restrict some slow moving armies.

 

Casting Value: 7. 12" Inches. When it attempts to move, roll a dice.  On a 5+, the enemy unit may not move.

People seem to be thinking this is too situational, but do remember that moves/charges and pile-ins are all 'moves'. So in theory for a combat unit wanting to get into melee, this is going to prevent one of their moves during the turn. That being said, the short range and higher casting value does certainly make this a pick you need a clear plan for. I think you'll probably see this in Legion of Sacrament since you can extend spell ranges.

 

Casting Value: 6. 18" Inches. Pick a enemy Hero. -1 to wound and -1 damage from Melee weapons.

I think probably the first two spells are better than this, although this is good at targeting big monsters.

 

Casting Value: 7. 3" Inches. All enemy units within 3" suffer 1d3 mortal wounds. Roll a dice for each mortal wound inflicted, and on a 5+, get a wound back.

Given that Deathmages in general don't really want to be in combat, this spell might be restricted to the Deathlords. It does however increase to 9" with Arkhans command ability, so perhaps has a niche application with Arkhan the Black.

 

Vampires:

Casting Value: 5.  For every unit within 12" Inches of the caster, roll a dice. On a 5+, deal 1 mortal wound.

Seems pretty uninspiring due to the low amount of mortal wounds. Given most Vampires (other than the Mortarchs) only cast one spell, I think you have better stuff to be casting. The fact that you need to roll a 5+ for it just makes it even more lackluster.

 

Casting Value: 6.  12" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. Roll 3 dice. Every 5+ Deals a mortal wound. If two dice match, the unit receives -1 to hit. If three dice match, -1 to hit and to wound.

I think this is more interesting than the above if only because you're obviously doing it for a reason.  You're taking it to do some chip damage but also for the potential of debuffing the unit. That being said, better off taking a Deathmage with their first spell IMO.

 

Casting Value: 7. Pick a unit within 12" of your caster, and than a friendly DEATH unit within 6" of the enemy unit. The enemy unit suffers d3 mortal wounds.  For each wound allocated, restore 1 wound on the unit.

This is a kinda cool one I reckon, kill enemies heal friends. Shame that the range for the heal is a bit short, as it basically means "Choose an enemy in combat with a friendly DEATH unit, damage that and heal your friendly unit". You're not often within 6" and not in combat. I can see this being taken purely on the fact it deals D3 mortal wounds so can get past units with tough armour (Looking at you Stardrake). Again, perhaps more common in an Arkhan list due to increasing it back up to 18" range (And maybe 12" transfer???).

 

Casting Value: 5. Caster can fly, and add 5" Inches to the hero's movement. 

Shame that most Vampires and the Mortarchs already fly. Maybe there'll be some niche application for the extra movement, but seems unlikely.

 

Casting Value: 6.  18" Inches. Pick an enemy unit. When that enemy unit charges, roll a number of dice equal to the result of the Charge roll. on a 5+, they suffer 1 Mortal wound.

An interesting mechanic in that it makes charging less attractive. Probably just chips a mortal wound or two off a unit before they get in, so perhaps unlikely to make much of a difference overall.

 

Casting Value: 7. Pick a point within 12", and draw a line. Roll a dice for each enemy unit that has a model under that line. On a 4+, the enemy receives d6 Mortal wounds.

Personally this is my favourite one if only because it can deal a large amount of mortal wounds which will penetrate through units the rest of the list isn't amazing at dealing with. Think this one will be taken a lot.

 

Obviously, I think a lot of this stuff gets better with Arkhan in the list. Then your debuffs start getting real range on them, and some of the shorter ranger spells become better as they get a little reach on them. Based on spell lores and some interesting artefacts, my early pick would be looking at Legion of Sacrament for sure.

[Burf]

Don't forget that all of these spells are actually about 33% more effective than they appear due to the locus of shyish.

[shadowgra]

As a fan of debuffs the lore of deathmages is really really strong. 5+ for a -1 to hit AND bravery to a unit? With all the +1 to cast available?

I mean a necromancer can cast it on a 3+ with a 18" range, that last until hero phase with mortis+corpse cart. And it can trigger twice on a 9+ to cast (not a huge chance but with 6 mages it is gonna happen)

I wonder how mortarch stay in all of this. The spells are so amazing that someone could even take the death lord in order to have another of these spells, even if this means losing a command trait. Neferata looks really strong in a debuff list.

[Jamopower]

1 hour ago, someone2040 said:

 

Overall, I imagine that mixed lists are never going to get a lot of love because GW wants to push people hard on collecting specific factions. As it stands, if they opened it up to GA: Death then Ghoul Kings could also get spells, which may not be an interaction they want. Of course, they easily could've solved that by SOULBLIGHT keywording it instead of Vampire, but *shrugs* you know, just GW things.

 

There needs to be a reason to take the specialized allegiance over the grand alliance. Though with this book the lines are bit more hazy when there are basically four grand alliances on top of the generic one.

I also made my first list, based on the models I currently have I get to 1500:

Necromancer (110)

Tomb Banshee (80)

Tomb Banshee (80)

Vampire Lord (140)

Vampire Lord (140)

Units

5 x Dire Wolves (60)

10 x Zombies (60)

10 x Black Knights (240)

10 x Grave Guard (160) -Great weapons

40 x Skeleton Warriors (280) -Spears

3 x Spirit Hosts (120)

Total: 1470 / 1500

 

I'll run it as Legion of Blood to get the banshees working bit better and have a small buff on the vampires. The zombies will stay in graves with possibly the grave guard there as well to come out from a grave site midway on the table. The list feels quite balanced, but it could be stronger. However compared to what it is now, it's a massive improvement in countless ways.

[Burf]

40 minutes ago, shadowgra said:

As a fan of debuffs the lore of deathmages is really really strong. 5+ for a -1 to hit AND bravery to a unit? With all the +1 to cast available?

I mean a necromancer can cast it on a 3+ with a 18" range, that last until hero phase with mortis+corpse cart. And it can trigger twice on a 9+ to cast (not a huge chance but with 6 mages it is gonna happen)

I wonder how mortarch stay in all of this. The spells are so amazing that someone could even take the death lord in order to have another of these spells, even if this means losing a command trait. Neferata looks really strong in a debuff list.

What makes me sad is that they chaanged soulstealer from 'bravery' to 'bravery characteristic'.

[smucreo]

How would Ring of Dominion (use an enemy weapon as your own on a 5+) and Walking Death (each 6+ to hit deals MW equal to the weapons damage characteristic) combo with each other? Walking Death specifies that it affects the generals melee weapons, so this would mean it doesn't apply on the enemy weapon you are using right?

[Killax]

12 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Just shy of 500 points for the named VLoZD is WAY too much imo. There is no way he is that much better than the 8 Nurgle/Tzeentch/Khorne Greater Demon variants, and there is no way he is approaching Stardrake good (especially when all but 3 of those get the benefits of command traits and artifacts). Given the unfortunate lack of points changes all around, I am thinking the 1st list I try will look something like this:

• 
  
  Could run is as either Grand Host or Legion of Sacrament. Will have to wait to see all the traits and artifacts first.

Would certainly go for the Legion of Sacrament considering how many Wizard Heroes you have there vs Morghasts. Which to me really is the prime difference between those two choices and obtaining the most out of the Legion.

11 hours ago, 5kaven5lave said:

70 points for the Sacrament battalion is amazeballs. Let the spells rain down etc etc. 

Absolutely, happy to see you guys hopefully getting excited now?  

11 hours ago, Elmir said:

Looks like we'll be getting quite a few 2 digit battalions in our book. Almost feels like they forgot a 1 at the start of those numbers...

Do think it might change in GH2018 but maby not at all. Thing is really that Death can keep it's drops low if they want to. These Battalions are sweet  

5 hours ago, someone2040 said:

They could've easily keyworded the Legions to be : Include warscrolls with the following keywords - DEATHLORDS, DEATHRATTLE, DEADWALKERS, DEATHMAGES, SOULBLIGHT, NIGHTHAUNT

And it still would've fit the same warscrolls while including the Mournghoul and Knight of Shrouds as well as the Sepulchral Guard.

Dunno, the absence of keywording it makes me feel like this is it for those factions. It's unlikely any of those factions will receive new units in the future, or if they do they'll need to include some form of blurb to allow them in Legions of Nagash armies (Which I would guess the errata will do for the Knight of Shrouds soon enough).

They sure could have and didn't. However this actually works out much better for you. The choices are now maximized. It is Grand Allegiance Death 2.0. I wouldn't even worry one minute about the few mediocre choices you have versus the great ones. Welcome to Age of Sigmar where most armies can only do a fraction of what Legions of Nagash can do.

There are rumours of future releases and I am quite certain they will come. Whats even more likely is that some aspects will come with the Legion Keyword standard. A lot of it is like Chaos in terms of design approach. But what I can't agree with is that this is it. It is very likely more will be added at some time in the future. It might just not be next month. 

2 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

This seems like a consolidation of everything in death. Hopefully just before moving on to expand death with different things. As far as battletomes without new models, this is easily my favorite so far. 

The spell lores are really good. They are not at all what I wanted (almost no offence), but they are really good. Death can easily cast spells all day, they will be really hard to shut down, and they have total board control, stopping units in their tracks, making them have less attacks, -1 to hit etc etc. When you add this in with our regenning units, it creates a pretty messy situation for your opponent. This new army is going to be a really fun tactical toolbox

THE BAD

• No points discounts. Nagash still way overcosted. Bloodknights, Grave Guard, Mannfred - all still in a poor spot.
• Mannfreds battalion seems very odd. Vargheists get 13 attacks instead of 10 and Arkhans heal re-roll for 140 points?
• Vargheists no longer battleline

THE UGLY

• Blood Knights straight up nerfed
• Forcing you to take specific named chars, or none at all. With really good command traits this means that most people will simply not be taking Nagash or any Mortarchs. Sacrament is even designed so that you can still get the +6" to cast even without Arkhan!!? If you take a non-named general you get access to some really potent things like:
  - Add 1 attack to all deathrattle within 6"
  - Tree stomps for your general
  - Free 3" move for all units within 6"
  - Everyone gets +6" to casting rolls
  - Minus 1 to hit in combat
  - Kill any models then pick a unit to get +1 attack
  
  Its not as bad as getting the 5++ like in the old days, but its still pretty bad. The only thing in Neferatas legion is the -1 to hit, so taking her is still a great option, but Sacrement has almost no need for Arkhan and Mannfred/Nagash are still over-costed so despite all the new stuff, we are still likely to see a lot of VLoZD. Are you going to take Arkhan or are you going to take a VLoZD with -2 to hit in the shooting phase and still not missing out on the 6" spell range??

In terms of what I mend with the narrative, it's still really simple. 
- Grand Host of Nagash is Nagash's Grand Host, if he is around he must be the general. Who else would lead this force if not Nagash? 
- All Legions furthermore are narratively lead by either Arkhan, Mannfred or Neferata. So logically they will lead their Legion if they are around. The mere fact that even your named characters get the same Legion bonus as other characters is allready a massive buff. Because Legions of Nagash is the first army that alters named characters at all.

What I see in general with these kinds of comments is that you give way more thought in what the army can't do. So much that you skip on what it does. Which really gives a blurred competitive vision that doesn't put the energy in figuring out the correct synergy. Instead it seems you purposefully look for the anti-synergy.

In context, if I'd do that for Khorne, I could write a whole page about:
1. Blood Tithe not really doing anything for my army if things go bad.
2. Bloodsecrator stacking before, which basically moved us from Tier 1 to Tier 2.
3. Several units also lacking Keywords meaning the army is full of bogged synergies that only are optimized when you either go full Mortal or full Daemon.

I can't really agree with the bad and uglies you mention there. 

• Your Legion Allegiance abilities only improved units. A cost increase as a result would have been much more likely (see what happend to Tzeentch and Nurgle in the past). The fact that you see this as bad states something about a very blurred vision. 
• Not all Battalions are relevant per book... Nothing new...
• I think that there is absolutely nothing lost with Vargheist not being Battleline. There should be a focus on Summonable units, there is now. Narrative points it out to be the backbone of your force, always.
• Blood Knights most certainly arn't bad in Legion of Blood. I've seen worse, there is much worse.
• Again there is no forcing going. In addition it isn't like any other army can work with this aspect much more differently. Plus there is only one named character to be a forced general per Legion. It's rather easy to circumvent this if you do not want this.

Bad... I really think you should look into what Summonning and Deadly Invocation does for your army. There is litterly nothing bad about Legions of Nagash. It just depends on using the right Legion for the right army with the right units. If you can't figure that out on paper, feel free to switch Legions by using the same army to get to the awnser.

All in all, I'm certainly happy with your detailed opinion but I think it would be much more helpful for you and the Death sub-forum to focus on when unit X or Y works well and when it doesn't. Lastly I would be very happy that Nagash isn't part of the must takes for Death. As I'd basically quit Chaos altogether if that was the case for Archaon. 

Despite you thinking the Glottkin dying to quick, or thinking named characters can't live without Command Traits, it depends so much on army context that vacume discussions are really moot.

[Killax]

20 minutes ago, smucreo said:

How would Ring of Dominion (use an enemy weapon as your own on a 5+) and Walking Death (each 6+ to hit deals MW equal to the weapons damage characteristic) combo with each other? Walking Death specifies that it affects the generals melee weapons, so this would mean it doesn't apply on the enemy weapon you are using right?

The way I see it it does work in conjunction with each other.
- Roll 5+ functionally obtain another Melee attack stat.
- Hits of 6+ (all Melee attacks) lead to MW.

There is no real thaking over the enemy weapon as far as I am concerned. There just is a copy of it on your Hero for a moment. The only thing that is left out of the MW part is Mount weapons. Which currently still isn't always super clear either but we can make a good guess  

[smucreo]

Well if that's the case it may be pretty good to combo big enemy heroes down, although you need a bit of luck to get the 6+ rolls, so it's not the most reliable thing ever.