New Soulblight/LoB army

[Silverline]

With the release of the new Death book and the snazzy new allegiance rules therein, I have finally decided to dust off the Soulblight project I started and then immediately became distracted from a while ago. A huge blow has been the removal of the Soulblight keyword from the old Abyssal Terror lord, which means the rather snazzy kitbash project I was working on has been made rather redundant.

So I am left with the VLoZD kit and a box of Dragon Blades to be converted into Blood Knights, and I am now faced with a quandary.

Do I pick up a second unit of Knights and create a proper Soulblight list, or use the arguably-superior Legion of Blood rules? If so, what would make the best Battleline options? On paper, wolves seem like the natural choice to run alongside the knights, but I would need to source some decent plastic proxy miniatures. Skeletons would alternatively provide a method of actually contesting objectives, though with minimum unit sizes and little support I imagine they would fall apart immediately.

How have people found the new rules, of Soulblight and Legion of Blood? What do people use for their Dire Wolves? And how many goats do I need to sacrifice in order to get a plastic Blood Knight infantry kit released?

[xspire]

If you're thinking LoB, using what you already have, a good backbone list would be: 

2 x VloZD or run one and use your kitbash as a Neferata conversion? 

5 Blood Knights

2 x 40 Skeletons

5 Dire Wolves

There's lots of possibilities for the leftover points

[Silverline]

8 minutes ago, xspire said:

If you're thinking LoB, using what you already have, a good backbone list would be: 

2 x VloZD or run one and use your kitbash as a Neferata conversion? 

5 Blood Knights

2 x 40 Skeletons

5 Dire Wolves

There's lots of possibilities for the leftover points

I am looking to build a viable 1000pts list to begin with, before bumping the points values up

[xspire]

Fair enough, all of the allegiances in the LoN book as a whole really shine at 2k points. If you're set on 1k you can just add battleline to what you already have.

[AverageBoss]

Most Soulblight lists were taking a 40x skeleton unit and Necromancer as allies prior to Legions, just to have some bodies on the field. Fills a battleline slot now with Legion of Blood.

Dire Wolves are all around great. I would actually recommend them over skeletons at anything other than the full 40 man unit. Fenrisian Wolves from 40K make for great Dire Wolves imo.

[Dracothjay]

I’d go LoB mate, it’s so much better. I was a true blue soulblight fanatic before the tome dropped. Now I’m a legion of night player and try and incorporate as much soulblight into it. Blood knights not so much, but vargheist and mannfred are my always go to units!

as I see it, LoB is perfect for you as it’s a very soulblight built army with some amazing traits and artefacts. 

[Honk]

I have to agree, with the new book, there is no reason to play pure Soulblight anymore. Maybe keeping it true / nostalgic reasons with a pure blood Knight list, but otherwise...

I like the flexibility of legion of the night...list looks like

necromancer

vampire lord (ambush)

3x5 wolves

4 morghast harbringer halberds (ambush)

5 black knights (ambush)/ 20 zombies (necro)

depending on the scenario and opponent very versatile list and the morghast Hammer can drop from any direction when needed. If enemy has a lot of shooting i‘ll switch the knights for zombies to protect my necro

 

[Silverline]

Cheers! I think I will work towards a Soulblight-heavy LoB build, as Blood Dragons have long been my favorite bloodline back in WHFB.

My current thoughts are leaning towards taking a second unit of Knights and simply running Soulblight at 1000pts, then branching out with Wolves, a block of Skeletons and some Vargheists along with another lord to go LoB at the higher points values - though adding a third unit of Knights to the mix certainly isn't out if the question, both because of my affinity to them lorewise and because they make out like bandits in the allegiance rules!

The Fenrisian Wolves do look pretty sweet, and certainly better than the old Dire Wolves sculpts. I admit that I am eyeing off the Mantic skeletons though, largely out of frustration that there seems to be no decent way to pick up a large pile of them affordably through GW.

[Acid_Nine]

Yea, it's kinda sad to see how soulblight went to a fun list to run to being the suboptimal choice compared to LoB. With the loss of regen the blood knights are a bit more squishy than I would like...

 

That said, I don't think it should be thrown out all together. at 1,000 points I had a lot of fun with swift death vamps using two 5 man blood knights and a VLoZD just rampaging around. the relic giving +1 to hit and wound is a lot of fun for the rider. plus you don't have to take any dire wolves or skeletons to fill battle line

Still, there are a few good lists to bring for a 1000 point LoB list. The coven throne now has an amazing command ability that could be absolute murder on a squad of 10 blood knights at that level (reroll 1's to hit, wound and saves holy carp) and you still have room for 2 dire wolf squads and a banshee to capitalize on the -2 bravery a knight squad can give. 

[Silverline]

I'd be curious what would be required to make Soulblight Allegiance a more appealing choice over LoB for those like myself who want to run little more than just a pile of heavily-armoured vampires. I imagine that having some Blood Knight infantry available as battleline might even things up a little - Swift Death especially would be a VERY appealing option in that case!

[xspire]

They need battle line options that benefit from regen - dire wolves or fell bats would be perfect as you probably already want these to screen your knights, or reinstate Vargheists as battle line to reduce the 2000 point army list battle line tax.