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Beware the Soulblight


DeGriggs

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Hey all! I have always been a fan of small elite armies and in AOS I've decided to run with Soulblight as my main army. Until GW releases a new bat swarm model, here is the list I'm running with:

 

1 vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon

2 Vampire lords on horses

15 blood knights (split into 3 units)

9 vargheist split up

 

I've had two games and am 1:1. The key is speed and the nearly garunteed charges on the blood knights (always at least 6" with banner) vargheist are the real stars.... Super great objective grabbers.

 

Any one else having success with a list? Enjoying Soulblight? Do you also hate the bat swarm? Tell me all about it!

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I'd drop the zombie dragon as he's redundant with the blood knights doing the same thing. Get the vamp Lords wings so they can hunt war machines and other backline type things.

With the saved points from the zombie dragon and maybe dropping 3 vargheist, i'd take bat swarms or fel bats.

 

It might sound silly, but the bat swarms let you make a protective screen in front of your knights. So you can guarantee you get the charge off when it's your turn. Summoning the bats is best, but you could also deploy them if needed. If you go against destruction and they turn 1 charge your list. You lost the game. So the bat swarms protect you. Going against other armies they might have other things that let them teleport on you and Bat swarms can protect here for cheap. I think the bat swarms and fell bats play different roles. The fel bats take up more space for the points, while the Bat swarms have more wounds and thus are tankier as a 6+ armor is pretty much nothing.

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Keep the Zombie Dragon otehrwise you don't have a 5+ Ward save on an incredibly hard to kill hero and all the Knights (shame he';s not as killy as the Ghoul King on ZD). His Command Ability is also solid. The only question is which artefact to give him (Cloak for alpha strike (movement 26 first turn) or Ring of Immortality to bring him back or the Tomb Blade to heal him.

Bat swarms aren't amazing as people can walk backwards out of their aura and then shoot you (unless you make the charge of 9 inches). They should protect nearby units not debuff enemy units.

 

 

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5+ ward save??? artifacts?? You can only have one allegiance and taking soulblight as battle line is a no go, unless your picking and choosing rules or whatever. Since no one has their own allegiance bonuses i'd probably let folks use thier grand alliance one as their subfaction one until their own subfaction comes out :P.

 

That said i don't think ruler of the night is gonna be the way to go with this list. Sure it might help the bat swarms and the vargheist, but on the knights and zombie dragon it just doesn't have the same value. I would instead take supernatural horror. I know it doesn't seem the ridiculous one, but how often is the save gonna come into play. Your not gonna lose because your knights are getting wiped out your gonna lose because your knights are bogged down in turn after turn of ineffective combat. Doubling the battle shock will let your explosive charges from your ZD, BKs, and Vargheist be even more explosive. Even against enemy death it could be something like a 50% damage increase to your army. You'll delete units on a double charge with supernatural horror. Where as without it the unit will stick around with a few models, you'll potential be counter charge and now everyone is locked up in the soup, and the knights suck in the soup. 

 

I suggest the bat swarms and Felbats, not because they are amazing or will really do anything in combat. It's merely to give you a unit that will protect you from stormcast deep strikes, skink ambushes, enemy morghast harbinger summons, miners and list goes on. While also letting you set up to get charges off why letting them screen in coming opponents. 

 

Reason i say drop the ZD is his average damage output on the charge is near the same as the knights on the charge. His damage doesn't fall off as much as the knights do however. That and wings are what your  paying for, but if your charging correctly i feel this should be no issue, and having a unit of knights, a vamp lord + whatever would just bring more to the table. 

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5+ ward save??? artifacts?? You can only have one allegiance and taking soulblight as battle line is a no go, unless your picking and choosing rules or whatever. Since no one has their own allegiance bonuses i'd probably let folks use thier grand alliance one as their subfaction one until their own subfaction comes out :P.

According to Ben Curry (who helped in the design process), you can choose your list and if you satisfy the requirements for units to become battleline (as here), then you can include these as battleline; AND then you can choose between Allegiance Death or Allegiance Soulblight at the start of each game. This wasn't how I read the (leaked) rules, but it does seem to be how it is played. On that basis the only sensible general is the VLoZD given the list. There's also "people overreact and make mistakes when they see a big toy" syndrome. Also the VLoZD supplies rend -2 (so you can beat Saurus Guard).

 

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Your not gonna lose because your knights are getting wiped out your gonna lose because your knights are bogged down in turn after turn of ineffective combat.

I think this is simplistic. You can lose a whole unit of 5 of these guys against the right opponent (e.g. 30 Stormvermin will easily do 15 wounds against a 4+ save) or focus fire. Adding on the Ward save makes them much harder to wipe out in one turn, so you'll get a model back and keep going. 

There's an interesting argument that the 6+ Ward save by itself is sufficient. However, the next option would surely be Red Fury in most scenarios, which doubles the damage of the VLoZD (most of the time unless he's smacking into a 3+ save opponent). Certainly the Battleshock buff you mention would be good against Ogres or Goblins, but far too many armies are trolling with infuriating bravery 10 (Seraphon) or have rerolls (all Order Allegiance armies for the time being).

 

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I am currently unbeated with this kind of list, and I run basically the same kind of units, (Vamp lord, 2 units of blood knights and 1 vamp lord on zombie dragon as my usual base.)

 

I have to say that I like the mounted vampire lord more. He's much less killy, sure, but he provides a nice support with his +1 attack ability providing what I feel is the best way to get more out of your bloodkights, making them even more dangerous on the charge. combine that with the Ring artifact and your guy is going to be around for a longer time.

 

Zombie lord on dragon rips and tears with the best of them, but I don't like his command ability as much as the Vamp lord's command ability personally. Then again I like spamming dice so it may just be me.

 

Don't be afraid to take second turn either. Let the enemy move forward, stay at a comfortable distance and then go in for the kill. Played a game where 2 squads of blood knights each took down a unit of minotaurs turn 1 because he charged right at me. Pick your battles to better murder the enemy

 

Also... Maybe take a look at the Vamp Lord on Abyssal Terror! his spell is friggen magic, and best of all he is still soulblight!

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