AoS 2 - Legion of Blood Discussion

[Mark Williams]

The batwinged female looks awesome.

[Tizianolol]

Guys hi all!  i have a question about +1 attacks of all melee weapon ability from legion of blood. My vlozd got plus 1 for his mount attacks too? Thx all!!

[ACBelMutie]

10 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys hi all!  i have a question about +1 attacks of all melee weapon ability from legion of blood. My vlozd got plus 1 for his mount attacks too? Thx all!!

Yes. It's an alligance bonus to the unit, not a command trait or object that applies only to the hero himself.

Greetings

[Tizianolol]

Guys im glad to share my idea for 2000 pts

Vlozd ( 3+ save without modify amulet)

Prince vhordrai 

Necromancer 

2x5 dire wolves 

20 zombies 

10 blood knights

3 vargheist

Balewind vortex 

X2 additional cp 

Tot 2000

 

What do you think? Im not sure about 20 zombies, i ferl like they cant hold anything. Im planning to play 10 black knights instead to cap battleline. But they are not best unit to hold points. Have you suggestions? Thx all!

 

 

 

 

[ACBelMutie]

On 6/21/2020 at 12:24 AM, Tizianolol said:

Guys im glad to share my idea for 2000 pts

Vlozd ( 3+ save without modify amulet)

Prince vhordrai 

Necromancer 

2x5 dire wolves 

20 zombies 

10 blood knights

3 vargheist

Balewind vortex 

X2 additional cp 

Tot 2000

 

What do you think? Im not sure about 20 zombies, i ferl like they cant hold anything. Im planning to play 10 black knights instead to cap battleline. But they are not best unit to hold points. Have you suggestions? Thx all!

You can't buy more than 1 CP. You can get another one if you get a battalion, but LoNs battalions are quite bad.

Zombis are just bad. Play them in a big blob of 60 or just 10 to cover battlelines. Remember Black Knights aren't battleline, so if you put out the zombis, you will need another battleline.

Greetings

[Tizianolol]

I changed the last list into that :

Vlozd ( 3+ save without modify amulet)

Prince vhordrai 

Necromancer 

2x5 dire wolves 

20 chainrasp horde 

10 blood knights

3 vargheist

Balewind vortex 

1  additional cp 

Tot 2000

What do you think guys?:) thx

[Thamalys]

On 6/24/2020 at 10:34 AM, Tizianolol said:

I changed the last list into that :

Vlozd ( 3+ save without modify amulet)

Prince vhordrai 

Necromancer 

2x5 dire wolves 

20 chainrasp horde 

10 blood knights

3 vargheist

Balewind vortex 

1  additional cp 

Tot 2000

What do you think guys?:) thx

It’s a well-balanced list, I like it. The Balewind Vortex is a nice touch, having the Necromancer to cast Danse Macabre AND Overwhelming Dread (because that’s what you’ve picked, right?) is really good stuff. Vhordrai has a place when, as in your case, you have a “regular” VLoZD as well in the list. Let us not forget his Command Ability...  I suggest Amethistine Pinions as the spell for Vhordrai, nothing freaks out your opponents more than Our Talented Prince being able to move up to 24’’. Obligatory Vile Transference for the VLoZD instead (Aura of Dark Majesty as Command Trait recommended as well).  Two things you might want to consider:

- Split the Blood Knights into two units of 5.  Easier to manoeuvre, easier to get in cover, immune to morale, easier to get at least one charge with them off. Yes, they are less effective buffs wise and they struggle to clear tough hordes in one go as units of 5, but this is an objective game after all. You’ll be outdropped in any case by most competitive lists, no pint in trying to keep the number of drops low...

- The Vargheists, sadly, are useless. It pains me to say this, as I LOVE the models and I am the proud owner of a unit of 9 which I do field in Soulblight... but in Legion of Bloods they make no sense.  Let go of them and take 10 (excellent) Grimghast Reapers instead, or better still a VL (flying horror needed) to babysit your second unit of Blood Knights.  You already have the (fantastic) dire wolves to grab objectives quickly. 
 

Hope this helps!

[El Syf]

I usually play Grand Host for my love of Morghasts but with the points reductions to Vhordrai and Blood knights I've been toying with the following list. 

Any pointers would be much appreciated as I'm not well versed with them. I've taken the unit of 20 chainrasps just to have a decent sized unit to camp on an objective (and the ethereal bonus).

Allegiance: Legion of Blood

Leaders
Vampire Lord (140)
- General
- Mount: Nightmare
- Command Trait: Aura of Dark Majesty
- Artefact: Soulbound Garments
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Prince Vhordrai (460)
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
Vampire Lord (140)
- Mount: Flying Horror
- Artefact: Shadeglass Decanter
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

Battleline
20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)
5 x Dire Wolves (70)
5 x Dire Wolves (70)

Units
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
10 x Hexwraiths (260)

Battalions
Castellans of the Crimson Keep (150)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 129
 

[Thamalys]

21 minutes ago, El Syf said:

I usually play Grand Host for my love of Morghasts but with the points reductions to Vhordrai and Blood knights I've been toying with the following list. 

Any pointers would be much appreciated as I'm not well versed with them. I've taken the unit of 20 chainrasps just to have a decent sized unit to camp on an objective (and the ethereal bonus).

Allegiance: Legion of Blood

Leaders
Vampire Lord (140)
- General
- Mount: Nightmare
- Command Trait: Aura of Dark Majesty
- Artefact: Soulbound Garments
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Prince Vhordrai (460)
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
Vampire Lord (140)
- Mount: Flying Horror
- Artefact: Shadeglass Decanter
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

Battleline
20 x Chainrasp Horde (160)
5 x Dire Wolves (70)
5 x Dire Wolves (70)

Units
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
10 x Hexwraiths (260)

Battalions
Castellans of the Crimson Keep (150)

Total: 1990 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 129
 

Looks fun! Suggestion: drop your Vampire Lord as your general as well as the Hexwraiths (still sub-optimal unit in my opinion, despite the points drop) and get a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon instead as your general. That way, you have an additional serious threat, you are much more survivable (Kroak, Teclis and a Mortek Crawler can deleted a Vampire Lord first turn) which you need to be to use Endless Legions and you can make excellent use of Vhordrai command ability. I also personally think that battalion is a waste of points: skilled opponents will zone you out easily. I appreciate it does wonders in lowering the drops, but... just my take, though!

[Mark Williams]

I'm planning to bring this list to a tournament in August, and wanted to run it by you guys to see if there's anything wrong with it or if you see room for improvement.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Legion of Blood
Mortal Realm: Shyish

Leaders
Neferata Mortarch of Blood (340)
- General
- Lore of the Dead: Vile Transference
Coven Throne (240)
- Artefact: Orb of Enchantment
- Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale
Vampire Lord (140)
- Mount: Nightmare
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb
Necromancer (130)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread

Battleline
10 x Dire Wolves (140)
10 x Dire Wolves (140)
20 x Skeleton Warriors (160)
- Ancient Spears

Units
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Suffocating Gravetide (20)
Balewind Vortex (40)
Extra Command Point (50)
Horrorghast (60)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 138

I have a sideboard of the following units/models:

2 Vampire Lords on foot

1 Winged Nightmare Vampire Lord

20 additional skeleton warriors with spears

2x5 Black Knights

2 units of Bat Swarms

1 unit of Fel Bats

1 Purple Sun of Shyish

I still have enough time that I could paint another unit or so before the tournament as long as it's not too big.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Mark Williams

[JackThorne]

Put that unit of Skeletons up to 40, for sure. Take the points out of the Dire Wolves, 5 of each should be fine. 

[Mark Williams]

13 hours ago, JackThorne said:

Put that unit of Skeletons up to 40, for sure. Take the points out of the Dire Wolves, 5 of each should be fine. 

This is what I've ended up going with:

Allegiance: Legion of Blood
- Mortal Realm: Shyish
LEADERS
Neferata Mortarch of Blood (340)
- General
- Lore of the Dead : Vile Transference
Coven Throne (240)
- Artefact : Orb of Enchantment
- Lore of the Vampires : Spirit Gale
Vampire Lord (140)
- Nightmare
- Lore of the Vampires : Amaranthine Orb
Necromancer (130)
- Lore of the Deathmages : Overwhelming Dread
UNITS
10 x Dire Wolves (140)
10 x Dire Wolves (140)
20 x Skeleton Warriors (160)
- Ancient Spears
5 x Black Knights (120)
5 x Black Knights (120)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
5 x Blood Knights (180)
ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Suffocating Gravetide (20)
Extra Command Point (50)
Balewind Vortex (40)

.............................................

The reason for the 10 dire wolves is that I'm having a dog of a time holding objectives and blocking people from careening into my best units as soon as the game starts. The skeletons are great and don't get me wrong, but they spend most of the game just sitting in the back field not doing much, and I don't tend to move them around much either as I just have them surround my necromancer and baby sit him. Most of the army has a forward momentum to it, but the dire wolves are basically the "ablative wounds" of the first charge (taking or receiving). I found that 5 just didn't hold the line long enough to make something happen, but 10 is enough to where they tend to survive 1 round of combat and have time to heal back up a little, plus I can bring them back to life with a command point and they become a real pain in someone's side at that point. Our tournament is coming up in a few weeks, and I'll write up a battle report after that.

In play testing the army, I'm finding it's only real weakness is just a lack of tactical flexibility. It runs forwards and attacks things, but there's very little gameplay outside of the assault phase. Occasionally I have a very interesting hero phase, but that's completely hit or miss and seems random as heck. I've had a game or two where Neferata's command ability completely stuffed someone's assault army, but that's also pretty spotty too it seems. I admit it's fun when you fight an army with a pretty low bravery, as the minuses to bravery can really mess with people already hurting in that department.

[Thamalys]

Alright, so I did manage to roll some dice over the weekend - a gazillion thanks to @TimM85 who managed to organise and flawlessly run a lovely 2-day event (the Waaagh warm-up ) during this crazy times. As such, I thought it worth to share the performance of my list: 

VLoZD (Aura of Dark Majesty, Orb of Enchantment, Amethystine Pinions), Vhordrai (Vile Transference), Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread), three units of 5 dogs, 2 units of 5 blood knights, 1 unit of 20 Grimghasts and a corpse cart - 2000 pts on the nose. Easy peasy.

Keeping in mind that I hadn't play any AoS game since... well, the onset of The Plague, really (March? Bloody hell, that's grim...), I am very happy with myself. I ended up 3 - 2, which I'd say it's decent for Legion of Blood  these days. A few thoughts:

- The two games I lost were both against Cities of Sigmar (and against two lovely guys as well, I should say- didn't think it was possible to enjoy the game as much against those lists, so fair play to them!): different flavours (Living Cities and Tempest Eye), but similar idea, i.e. a metric ton of long-range shooting. As we all know, it's an uphill struggle for us to counteract "proper" shooting lists. And I am talking bucketloads  of dice, some of which with rend -3 (hello, IronDrakes...).

- The loss against Living Cities [battleplan: focal points]: it was close (lost by 1 point in the end, albeit I had almost nothing left on the table). No regrets, I think I played quite well, forcing my opponent at the very back of the table with a double-dragon alpha-strike that deleted phoenix guards and puny free guild humans alike (go dragons!). It took him 5 turns to claw back the objectives in my deployment zone... and without a double turn, who knows? Happy with that. The reality is that playing cagy against an army half of which can deep strike 9" away from you and then move and shoot is simply not going to work, so forcing the opponent to deal with the dragons in their territory was the only sensible thing I could think of - and it (almost) worked out. Should we invest in even more alpha-strike potential? I don't think so, but please let me know if you think otherwise.

- The loss against Tempest Eye [battleplan: shifting objectives]: I got utterly, decisively tabled by the end of turn 3. Again, no regrets - I did what I could. Being double turned (note that I could not do anything to prevent that, my opponent out-dropped my by 1 drop, I had 10, he had 9), the two dragons were both deleted in one go via a frankly outrageous amount of Tau-like firepower. The battleplan allows you to deploy out of range of some of the shooting (not all of it - hello, Frigate...) and I did take advantage of the battle line +1 victory point conditions to establish a solid lead in turn 1. However, the opponent had bodies as well, so eventually you have to commit - and when you do, there is no salvation from the shooting, as deleting dwarvish units takes more than a single all-in charge even for our deadly vampires. 

- Being almost always out-dropped is a real issue, as getting double-turned is HUGE for every LoN army (most of our big monsters can withstand almost anything for one turn and then heal, but not for two turns in a row ). I did consider the obvious battalion choice for my list, i.e, Castellans of the Crimson Keep, but 150 points it's a lot to pay for reducing your drops - to a number (in my case, ~6-8) which is still very high compared to a lot of what's out there.

- Against combat-focused army, we do have the tools. The manoeuvring requires some finesse (that's what I like about LoB) but both the damage and the speed are there. The problem, really, is that the meta is clearly shifting toward a lot of ranged threats, against which we have very little to offer. To make things worse, not a single piece of terrain on the weekend could provide actual cover for e.g. my blood knights. Similarly to what has been done for 40K, I think that the game has to evolve so as to mitigate shooting and long-range threats in general, with dedicated rules for specific pieces of terrain. At that point, an entirely shooting-oriented build will be sub-optimal and (perhaps) combat armies can hope to get up there with the big scary lists.

- Seraphons came out on top. No surprise there. I guess I am not the only one to be annoyed by the usual "new battle tome = six months of very powerful stuff until the next FAQ/book" situation. I understand they have to sell models but really, can't we just to forbid new battle tomes in tournaments until they get FAQd into normality? (I know that's silly, ok? A man can dream...) Slaneesh (insane summoning), Tzeench (flamers nonsense), Bonereapers (petrify autotake), now Seraphons - come on now...

- I had a fantastic time and it was so good to play AoS again. Sadly, from today even small tournaments are going to be impossible to run (aside for very small mini -leagues) in the UK so that's a bit sad. I've heard about the "SuperSeries" thingy (there's an ongoing trend here on TGA as well about that) which is all well and good, but it looks to be limited to a specific circle of people I have no access to, so no dice there.

That's it - happy to elaborate on any of the above and curious to hear your thoughts about it as well, of course! 

[Macarian]

2 hours ago, Thamalys said:

VLoZD (Aura of Dark Majesty, Orb of Enchantment, Amethystine Pinions), Vhordrai (Vile Transference), Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread), three units of 5 dogs, 2 units of 5 blood knights, 1 unit of 20 Grimghasts and a corpse cart - 2000 pts on the nose. Easy peasy.

Thanks for the write-up, looks like a lot of fun  

I was wondering, why does your list include a Necromancer and Corpse Cart? Aren't they too slow to keep up? Just curious  

Edited September 14, 2020 by Macarian

[Thamalys]

9 hours ago, Macarian said:

why does your list include a Necromancer and Corpse Cart? Aren't they too slow to keep up?

Fair point! Here’s my rationale.

The list is made of three chunks, two of which are very fast (VLoZD/Vhordrai + 1 unit of wolves + 1 unit of blood Knights) and almost always start on the flanks. This way it’s very hard to take advantage of Vhordrai’s Command Ability, but that’s fine, as it’s really rare you have enough CPs for that - while you can use two more deathly invocations on the central block, which is the slow one and contains the Grims, the Necro, the Cart and 1 unit of wolves to screen. 
 

The Necro is there to cast Dance Macabre (with a +1 from the Cart) and send the Grims to their deaths (again) ASAP. This is because I want the opponent to waste resources on them as opposed to the two fast-moving chunks and I find that it takes them a couple of turns to die - which allows you to bring them back by turn 3 or so. Always be super-aggressive with your summonable stuff - it’s one of the few strengths we have!

Both  the Necro and Cart always run (they’d never charge anything), so they usually do manage to keep up with the Grims if needed. If not, no problem - they are there to give the +1 to cast (which has a  very decent 18” range and it’s sorely needed to cast Vhordrai’s spell which casts on a 7) and cast Overwhelming Dread on a 4 (amazing spell for that CV!). 
 

One can argue that the dynamic duo is not essential to the list and I do agree - if you ditch both Necro and Cart you can put in, say, some more Grims, and you don’t really care about not being able to give them the 6+ shrug (as they’ll be back).  Also, gravesite still work even in the absence of heroes nearby, so the healing is still strong. An army with only two Leaders but 10 more bodies... I mean, it could work - I’ll have a ponder. Thanks!

[Macarian]

12 hours ago, Thamalys said:

Fair point! Here’s my rationale.

Thanks for sharing, interesting stuff  I am thinking about playing a double dragon list myself and I was wondering about something to claim a backfield objective. A Corpse Cart might just be the thing to buff the casting in the early turns while scoring a point or two.

[Mirbeau]

Hi all,  any ideas on how to give a zombie dragon +1 to hit? The 4+ rolls are killing me at the moment, even with rerolls from dread knight. 

[Thamalys]

11 hours ago, Mirbeau said:

Hi all,  any ideas on how to give a zombie dragon +1 to hit? The 4+ rolls are killing me at the moment, even with rerolls from dread knight. 

Wow, really?! Considering the extra attacks from our Allegiance Abilities, with Dread Knight on a VLoZD is usually quite effective!

Anyway... I can't think of anything solid, here, I am afraid. Some other Legions have artefacts that can give you +1 to hit and +1 to (not on the maws/claws, though, they don;t apply to the mount!) wound, namely:

• Grand Host of Nagash, Amthyst Shard (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)
• Legion of Night, Vial of the Pure Blood (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)
• Soulblight, The Saccharine Goblet (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)

There's also a quirk Command Trait from GA Death:

• GA Death, Predator of the Shadows (command trait, +1 to hit and wound if in cover - but a VLoZD is too big to benefit from cover in the first place, so...)

Sticking with LoB, though, the only additional buffs I could think of are:

• Ally Lady Olynder, she can cast Grief-Stricken (the target has a -1 to hit, whover attacks the target with a melee weapon gets +1 to hit against them)
• Use a Vampire Lord (to give the VLoZD +1 attack, albeit that's 2 CPs spent there if using Dreadknight as well)
• Use Vhordrai! His own spell gives him a +1 to hit and +1 to wound and if you give him the re-rolls (Dreadknight) as well it becomes an absolute wrecking ball

As I said, though, I never found myself in a position where a VLoZD with Dreadkinght on did not deliver... re-roll eveyrthing is super-powerful, and with the amount of attacks we get in LoB, we can delete most things! Can you name a situation where your VLoZD under-performed? I mean, one where he was supposed to do well - say, getting rid of 40 Mortek Guard is not doable whatever the buffs...

 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Thamalys

[Honk]

Use a Coven Throne to buff your VampLord... CP hungry, but quite nice

[Mirbeau]

On 10/23/2020 at 11:03 AM, Thamalys said:

Wow, really?! Considering the extra attacks from our Allegiance Abilities, with Dread Knight on a VLoZD is usually quite effective!

Anyway... I can't think of anything solid, here, I am afraid. Some other Legions have artefacts that can give you +1 to hit and +1 to (not on the maws/claws, though, they don;t apply to the mount!) wound, namely:

• Grand Host of Nagash, Amthyst Shard (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)
• Legion of Night, Vial of the Pure Blood (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)
• Soulblight, The Saccharine Goblet (artefact, once ber battle until your next hero phase, +1 hit, +1 wound)

There's also a quirk Command Trait from GA Death:

• GA Death, Predator of the Shadows (command trait, +1 to hit and wound if in cover - but a VLoZD is too big to benefit from cover in the first place, so...)

Sticking with LoB, though, the only additional buffs I could think of are:

• Ally Lady Olynder, she can cast Grief-Stricken (the target has a -1 to hit, whover attacks the target with a melee weapon gets +1 to hit against them)
• Use a Vampire Lord (to give the VLoZD +1 attack, albeit that's 2 CPs spent there if using Dreadknight as well)
• Use Vhordrai! His own spell gives him a +1 to hit and +1 to wound and if you give him the re-rolls (Dreadknight) as well it becomes an absolute wrecking ball

As I said, though, I never found myself in a position where a VLoZD with Dreadkinght on did not deliver... re-roll eveyrthing is super-powerful, and with the amount of attacks we get in LoB, we can delete most things! Can you name a situation where your VLoZD under-performed? I mean, one where he was supposed to do well - say, getting rid of 40 Mortek Guard is not doable whatever the buffs...

 

 

Thanks so much for taking the time to type that all up, a really comprehensive response.

So since my games back from our lockdown, mine has not made a dent in a unit of 3-4 Ogor gluttons holding a backfield objective and a unit of three stormfiends (and then been nuked in the subsequent turn or so). I'm finding the rider's attacks are going through but bouncing, and the mount is mainly just missing and  wounding once i at all with the jaws, even with rerolls (with the claws doing a couple of wounds). I'll admit my luck has been terrible and I haven't played that well with the model (and the model has proved a good distraction piece either dragging combat threats towards it or attracting mass firepower).

Going through your list I think Vhodrai is the way to go for now (and one day a double dragon list), shame he doesn't have the vampire lord keyword though, think he'd want a companion for +1 attack at minimum (and ideally one on a dragon for piling in fun).

[Honk]

1 hour ago, Mirbeau said:

mine has not made a dent in a unit of 3-4 Ogor gluttons

With Dreadknight and the lance you should be able to kill two or three... 🤔 they only have a 5+ save,
but without I can see unbuffed bad rolls can make him hit like a soft pillow.
If you round down the averages for bad rolling, the Lance, claws and the maw score only one wounding hit each, that’s only 5+d6 dmg 

on the other hand he does have a 3+ save against the gluttons 😅👍

[Mirbeau]

1 hour ago, Honk said:

With Dreadknight and the lance you should be able to kill two or three... 🤔 they only have a 5+ save,
but without I can see unbuffed bad rolls can make him hit like a soft pillow.
If you round down the averages for bad rolling, the Lance, claws and the maw score only one wounding hit each, that’s only 5+d6 dmg 

on the other hand he does have a 3+ save against the gluttons 😅👍

Yep, operative word being should! I've been using the sword rather than the lance for consistency but yeah, some bad luck and play. They didn't do much back, but he got a turn (in which one got and a bit got eaten) and then won a roll-off so some ironguts proceeded to munch some dragon.

[Honk]

2 hours ago, Mirbeau said:

won a roll-off so some ironguts proceeded to munch some dragon.

And thereby ignoring all other objectives ...

tough play would have been to disengage from the vamp with the ogors and stay within 6“ of the objective (if they then still hold it...sometimes you can’t score after retreating). That would have left him stranded one more round 😂

 sometimes it‘s best to view him as a distraction carnifex, my Ghoulking on Terrorgheist does not really hope for melee anymore... but he messes up the deployment and forces the opponent to take care of him

[Mirbeau]

6 hours ago, Honk said:

And thereby ignoring all other objectives ...

tough play would have been to disengage from the vamp with the ogors and stay within 6“ of the objective (if they then still hold it...sometimes you can’t score after retreating). That would have left him stranded one more round 😂

 sometimes it‘s best to view him as a distraction carnifex, my Ghoulking on Terrorgheist does not really hope for melee anymore... but he messes up the deployment and forces the opponent to take care of him

Oh for sure, I could have won the game partially because of that  because they were in no position to do anything else- would have disengaged but he got the double and I'd gone first so he had two rounds to close the gap.

[Thamalys]

I've managed to roll some dice during the weekend - a very small tournament divided in non-interacting "clusters" of 4 people each. Probably the way forward, until we get rid of the Plague... a discussion for another day, perhaps; for now, I am just massively grateful to the TO who persevered and made it happen - legend.

Anyway, Legion of Blood. Three games in (two major losses, one major win) I thought I share with you a few thoughts.

The Games

• The List: VLoZD (general, Aura of Dark majesty, Orb, Pinions), Vhordrai (Vile Transference), Necromancer (Overwhelming Dread); three units of 5 dogs, 2 units of 5 Blood Knights, 20 Reapers, cheeky Bat Swarms (2000 pts on the nose).
• Game 1 [against Khorne, 4 units of 6 Bloodcrushers and a Deamon Prince, Startstrike] - Very, very, very close. We run out of time and played it out quickly - made a couple of silly mistakes (I blame the hurry, but really I can only blame myself) and lost it by a couple of points. The tools were there - no question, the problem was that in two different occasions my opponent will have tabled me if he did get the double turn (which I consistently negated to him throughout the game).
• Game 2 [against Deepkin, you know which list, Total Conquest] - tabled in turn 3, classic. I genuinely did what I could, but I have only that many screens against stuff that flies (which flies itself some 16" and then charges in your face). The tools were not there, but the same holds for most factions out there against eels anyway. It could have been a different game if I had won the priority for turn 3, but hey - that's Deepkin, that's always the case.
• Game 3 [against Bonereapers, Katakros, two Crawlers, 10,10 and 40 Mortek Guard, The Better Part of Valour]. With this one I had the opportunity to keep my battle line (the dogs) in the grave until I managed to delete the two small units of Mortek Guard (the 40-man one... no point), and at that point the points were in my favour. Definitely a good battleplan for this list (very fast, can delete things quickly if no screens are around)

The Units

• The dogs are amazing - so much utility for 70 points... they win games, those furry buggers.
• Vhordrai... it is a terrific distraction and when it connects (it needs his spell off, otherwise it can and will bounce and a 7 to cast is not great) it's mayhem, but... I don't know, guys. I know I claimed that given the latest points drop The Prince is now a viable option, and he is, but maybe another VLoZD is equally good - and I need those 20 pts more for my next list (to squeeze in a Coven Throne!). His command ability, while amazing on paper, it's really hard to use in an objective game -if you have two dragons in one place, chances are you are doing something wrong.
• The Necromancer is virtually useless. Yes, his spells are great, but he is very slow, he can't keep up with the Reapers - which you should always suicide in turn 1 and get back in turn 2, that's how you change the tide, they loose points you don't , easy as that. He also dies very quickly and it's 130 points. He's going, the Reapers are largely self-sufficient and are not meant to do a ton of damage or to stick around for very long.
• The bats are great for what they do, but a -1 to hit is not going to do miracles against a shooting list - 80 pts... again, not sure.
• Blood knights are phenomenal, if very difficult to manoeuvre. I think that a blood knights-based list (6 units of 5?) would be competitive, I just can't bring myself to convert more than the 10 I have at the moment.

The issues

• Cover. AoS is very loose in terms of terrain, and in most cases we don't get any practical opportunity to get our units in cover - something we desperately need with e.g. Blood Knights
• Drops. Being consistently out-dropped  is a problem, as if you try to mitigate the double turn you loose a ton of damage potential. Solutions? Perhaps Castellans of the Crimson Keep really is the way to go, although you pay quite a few points for that and most factions still have much better options to go down to 2-4 drops. 

That's it. Comments/suggestions welcome - I know that the hopes for a new Soulblight battle tome are on the rise, but let's work with the tools at our disposal for the time being... any thoughts?