AoS 2 - Soulblight Discussion

[El Antiguo Guardián]

16 hours ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

holy nagash's duck, i hope so

 

I hope it too.

[Halos0021]

Hi all, 

Pretty new to AoS, although I played around with Warhammer Fantasy about 20 years ago (vampire counts!)

Anyway would be keen for some feedback on the below list for a 1000pt league I’ll be playing in soon. 
 

Soulblight

Bloodline: Necromantic

Mannfred Mortarch of Night (340) - vile transference

Vampire Lord (140) - general, flying horror, mist form, saccharine goblet, amaranthine orb,

3x Vargheists (150)

3x Vargheists (150)

2x Morghast Archai (190) - spirit halberds - allies

Endless Spell - Prismatic Pallisade (30)

total 1000/1000

I know it’s a super low model count elite army but really like the models. My main question, other than for any general feedback, is on the morghasts; whether I’d be better off swapping them out for 10 graveguard or 20 skelles just to get the body count up for objectives..

 

appreciate any thoughts  

 

[Honk]

On 1/4/2021 at 3:29 AM, Halos0021 said:

appreciate any thoughts  

Just play it... switch it, try it

not sure if 10 GG will do any good camping an objective.

The lordling with 20 skellis might have the regeneration and bodies to secure a contested one.

 the fast murderball within mannis aura sounds fun, but To be honest Vargheists are glascannons and will die pretty quickly. You’ll really need to be careful with your positioning and combat.

maybe 20 skellis and a unit of 6 vargheists

played a flayer spam list before lockdown and the FEC regeneration far outperforms SBs... they were pretty fragile

[Halos0021]

1 hour ago, Honk said:

Just play it... switch it, try it

not sure if 10 GG will do any good camping an objective.

The lordling with 20 skellis might have the regeneration and bodies to secure a contested one.

 the fast murderball within mannis aura sounds fun, but To be honest Vargheists are glascannons and will die pretty quickly. You’ll really need to be careful with your positioning and combat.

maybe 20 skellis and a unit of 6 vargheists

played a flayer spam list before lockdown and the FEC regeneration far outperforms SBs... they were pretty fragile

Thanks - appreciate the response. Will give it a go and see how I get on! Yeah conscious that those VG can be murdered pretty quick but am keen to give a SB list a go a few times before defaulting to a normal summoning/recursion legion.

the other option also (lowering the model count even more!) would be ditching the VL and swapping Manni out for a VLoZD but then I lose two spells and a hero for those niche objective battle plans..

[Honk]

6 hours ago, Halos0021 said:

swapping Manni out

You could free up some points (100) when you take a coven throne.

love the spell, the CA mimics Mannis and the one time trait is nice in a do or die moment. 

[Halos0021]

Battle report

Scenario Battle for the Pass, 1000pt 

 

My first game of AoS after devouring content online for the last year.

 

I ran

Legions of Nagash

Soulblight

 

Vampire lord, (general), flying horror, saccharine goblet, killing blow, necromantic, amaranthine orb

Neferata Mortarch of Night, vile transference

 

3x vargheist

3x vargheist 

 

20x skeletons with spears 

 

Prismatic palisade 

Quicksilver swords

 

He ran

 

Hedonites of Slaanesh

Godseekers Host

 

Bladebringer - Herald on Seeker Chariot

(general), Speed chaser, Cameo of the dark prince 

The contorted epitome 

 

10x Daemonettes

20x Daemonettes

 

1x Seeker Chariot 

Dread Pageant

 

I won the roll for priority, 5 drop vs 6 so I had the choice of whether to go first. He positioned his chariots and Daemonettes as close to the forward boundary of his territory as possible so I elected to let him go first hoping to mostly just avoid being in charge range so I could hit him second turn.

 

On the left flank I had one unit of vargheist with the vampire lord within 6” angling towards the left hand objective, in the middle I had the block of skeletons within 6” of my starting objective and screening the only likely avenue due to terrain. On the right, Neferata then the other unit of vargheist on the right edge looking at potentially going for the right hand objective or at least a block of Daemonettes or the dread pageant who were opposite.

 

Opponent positioned chariots and epitome in the centre along with the fane, and had the big block of Daemonettes on the left opposite my vampire lord and vargheist.

 

Turn one he used the artefact to get battleshock immunity for units with 18” for the rest of the game as well as a command point and then promptly sacrificed the used artefact into the fane to gain rerolls to hit for the general on a 2+ for the rest of the game. He then went to cast a bunch of spells (hysterical frenzy was constantly foiled by not having his target wholly within 18”) and only managed to get mystic shield off on his general. All his units moved up, leaving his starting objective unclaimed but taking the two middle objectives with the Daemonettes on each side for a 4 victory point dividend at end of turn one. On the right the dread pageant managed a long range charge and caught my 3 vargheist out of position promptly decimating them all. (I poorly deployed them just outside of the 6” for Nef’s 6+ deathless thralls save. The seeker chariot in the middle managed to roll a 12” charge and went straight into Neferata who took two wounds but promptly dismantled it in return. Herald and epitome move forward a few inches. End of his first turn.

 

My turn started with Neferata using the command point to get the 15” -1 to hit aura followed by all three attempts at spells either failing or being dispelled (quicksilver swords, pallisade and amaranthine orb). Vargheist, vampire lord and Neferata all moved close to and charged the bigger block of Daemonettes on the left, reasoning that to leave Nef where she was or to go for the right objective would see the herald charge her next turn and daemonettes plus dread pageant plus epitome also join in.

 

Vargheist, vampire and neferata all charged in at the 20 Daemonettes with the Varg killing 13, vamp killing 4 and taking two wounds and neferata killing the remainder and also healing back to full health. Giving me 3 victory points and ending the round at 3-4. Block of skelles remained at the starting objective 

 

I lost the roll off and opponent took the first turn for battle round two. Opponent failed to get any meaningful spells off - maybe mystic shield on the epitome. The 10 Daemonettes on the right hand objective just moved forward to try and screen in the direction of my units, the herald moved forward but could only charge the skeletons due to terrain but failed the 10” charge even using a command point to reroll and failing that. He then charged the dread pageant into skelles killing 17 who did one wound in return. Epitome then went for its 11 attacks into the vampire with 3 wounds (who took a gulp from his saccharine goblet figuring he was probably not going to get to hit back anyway) and only managed to do 1 additional wound! Vampire than dolled out 4 wounds in return. End of turn 2 for the hedonites now with  2 more victory points bringing it to 6-3.

 

A better magic phase for the soulblight, palisade was unbound which I had hoped to block off the herald but Neferata got her mist form off on her self now ignoring save modifiers, and successful cast quicksilver swords throwing the 12 D6 rolls looking for 5+ to get 3 mortal wounds into the herald. Neferata also used a command point for her twilight aura -1 to hit, charged into the herald (locus failing for both heroes) successfully killing it. Vargheist and vampire both charged the epitome, with it splitting attacks, dealing both to the vampire, wounding one vargheist and then being destroying in return by the vampire. 3 more victory points bringing us to 6-6

 

I win the priority and take the double turn. My quicksilver swords come back at me and do 5 MW to Neferata, which she deathless thrall saves against 2. I then have a cracker of a magic round, Neferata has locus of shyish go off twice, resolve 2x vile transfer into the unit of 10 Daemonettes on the right hand objective, healing her back to full and killing 5. Neferata’s arcane bolt then goes off on a high roll and resolves twice into the dread pageant peppering them with 5 mortal wounds. Neferata charges into the dread pageant killing all of them except one model with 1 wound remaining. Vargheists charge into remaining daemonettes killing them all.

 

11-6 we call it there with a major victory for the Soulblight.

 

Obvious lessons learned for this noob:

• keep units within range of deathless thralls from heroes where possible!
• skeletons without heroes in range and no gravestones like in other legions just don’t seem worth it (my original list had a morghast unit instead)
• if Neferata can keep healing, she’s not bad at all
• Vargheists really do shred hordes but are indeed super squishy if they get hit first 
• I’m going to ditch quicksilver swords and amaranthine orb, feels like a lot of set up when I could just focus on palisades for board control, vile transference for little damage and healing and neferatas mist form spell. Might replace it with spirit gale.

[Lich King]

You cannot arcane bolt twice on roll of 9, it’s not one of the Lore spells for Locus.

[Halos0021]

So I couldn’t of. Thanks for the catch! 

[Grimoriano]

🤭

+++ MOD HAT +++ No leaked pictures please as per our forum rules

[El Syf]

1 hour ago, Grimoriano said:

🤭

+++ MOD HAT +++ No leaked pictures please as per our forum rules

Break out the blood it’s time to party!

Also, I know this will annoy a lot of people if it doesn’t feature, but I’m rather glad it’s not Vampirates.

I feel that there was never really anything to back that up and people just lost their minds with the total war vampire coast release.

Anyway for me this is how I want my vampires, give me Abhorash and doped up Blood knights and all is good.

[Lightbox]

52 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Break out the blood it’s time to party!

Also, I know this will annoy a lot of people if it doesn’t feature, but I’m rather glad it’s not Vampirates.

I feel that there was never really anything to back that up and people just lost their minds with the total war vampire coast release.

Anyway for me this is how I want my vampires, give me Abhorash and doped up Blood knights and all is good.

I'd love Vampirates but I'm fine enough converting and using cities rules for that. We sorely need good ol' soulblight proper stabby melee vampires first!

[Clan's Cynic]

The turnaround time would've been too short for a full Vampirate range anyway. The DLC only released around two-years ago and we know from the horse's mouth that new armies usually take around four years to be designed and produced. Even if GW did listen to the hype and go, "Okay, okay, we'd better make them then..." it's too early.

 

[Raptor_Jesues]

I honestly would have not cared much for vampirates, this makes me quite happy though. I hope either vlad or abhorash are in

Edited January 19, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[Clan's Cynic]

I'm sure everybody's already seen it by the time they get to this thread but:

[Ferrus65]

28 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I'm sure everybody's already seen it by the time they get to this thread but:

Ok, this will be mine. Time to start a new army, my undead friends!

[El Syf]

I'm so happy with this announcement and the two Vampires they've shown so far. Hopefully the warscrolls will be made better as well. I think I've bored everyone to death but for the first time in 20+ years in the hobby I can almost see it making sense for Abhorash to get a model  Have him lead anti Nagash vamps or something and B-I-N-G-O.

[Sception]

If there are anti nagash vamps (as opposed to vamps who openly serve nagash while scheming against him in secret plots that never go anywhere) I will eat my hat.  Nothing in the fluff suggests that's remotely possible or likely, it's like asking for there to be anti-sauron ring wraiths in an official LotR game Mordor faction.  Even if vampires could directly resist Nagash's mental dominion over the undead, and I'm not aware of any lore suggesting they can, any openly anti-nagash faction is by definition not a Death faction.  The Death alliance are the forces of Nagash, full stop.  Even the mad, disorganized, unreliable, and rebellious Flesh Eater Courts serve nagash's interests more than they conflict with it, whether they mean to or not.

If you want to play a good guy, look to Cities or Sigmarines or Sky dwarves or nature spirits.  If you want to play a moody edgy antihero faction who are on team good anyway, try literally any other order faction.  If you want to play tragically noble, explicitly anti-nagash vampiric antiheroes, betrayed by their creators, forced to drain the life from mortals to sustain their immortal existence, but super bitter and emo about it, that faction already exists in the Order alliance.  They're called 'Idoneth Deepkin', and they're also pirates if you happen to want vampire pirates while you're at it.

As for Abhorash, if we have to bring back more oldhammer heroes there's several I'd rather see (Isabella, Khalida, Krell, Dietrich).  Abhorash just feels too grounded in the oldhammer tone and setting.  I don't see a place for him fitting into AoS land, and the blood dragonesque vampire knights set in AoS land already have a character to lead them more in line with the tone of the setting and the faction - Vhordrai.

I could maybe see bringing Abhorash back as the true identity of the Carrion King.  Attempting to defy Nagash is something I could see Abhorash doing, and the FEC's particular madness of seeing themselves as noble knights is very in line with Abhorash's personality and image.  He sorta fits there.  If you were to bring Abhorash back and /not/ make him the Carrion King, well, I hate to say it, but he'd make way more sense as a Stormcast hero than a Soulblight one.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Sception

[PiotrW]

2 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I'm sure everybody's already seen it by the time they get to this thread but:

Now we're talking! ❤️ This is a style of vampires I could get behind...

[Harioch]

@Sception well if so many people claim that Abhorash is likely to make a come back it's mostly because we've seen a reference to him in the novel Eight lamentations where there is a vampire whose name is the Blood dragon, living at the top of a mountain,  who Nefereta send him her best vampires to be train because he's told to be the best warrior there is. Adhema, one of Neferata knight, is one of his pupils. 

So in the end, it's maybe just a hint to Abhorash by Josh Reynold (he never named him) but that also could be, if not a leader or a mortarch, at least a future character for the Soulblight.

[Honk]

16 hours ago, PiotrW said:

This is a style of vampires I could get behind...

🤔 nice double meaning... 🙈

she reminds me a bit much of the black fleet captain, a bit too much Dark Elf DNA, but still pretty good.

with all the girls in plate , I’d like some more lithe killers of the night... hoping for some dedicated heroes, plate for carstein and dragons, leather for lhamia and well desiccated robes for necrachs, if those lines stay active.

let‘s see what the weekend brings 😻🙀😻

[NotAWzrd]

1 hour ago, Honk said:

 

she reminds me a bit much of the black fleet captain, a bit too much Dark Elf DNA, but still pretty good.

Yeah I see that, I think if you did her hair white/silver she would look more undead. 
 

If it is indeed a legions of Nagash revamp, what models do you guys think will be carried over? 

[El Syf]

32 minutes ago, NotAWzrd said:

Yeah I see that, I think if you did her hair white/silver she would look more undead. 
 

If it is indeed a legions of Nagash revamp, what models do you guys think will be carried over? 

I'd guess almost all of the units other than ones that have found new homes in other battle tomes, heroes i think only Neferata/Manfred, VLoZD/Vhodrai, Weight Kings and the plastic Necromancer.  Blood Knights as said previously surely have to be getting an update into plastic, I'm also somewhat unsure about Varghiests. Zombies could do with a new sculpt or just binning off if not.

[Sception]

She does look a bit more dark-elfy than I'd like.  The big hair in particular feels very witch elf, and unlike the vamp lord's bat-tipped hair tendrils, it doesn't look particularly easy to trim the hair back or swap out the head entirely here.  You'd end up taking the right sword and most of her back with her.

Even with the slightly awkward posing and weird decision to pick the least stable and comfortable looking rock to stand on - despite it not even being particularly elevated - I still personally prefer the heavy armored vamp lord myself.  But I could see preferences going either way, and I'll probably pick up this box of vampire duelists eventually.

[Honk]

54 minutes ago, El Syf said:

unsure about Varghiests

Jumping in for my FEC flayers / horrors... that piece will stay and so probably out of laziness the vargheists for soulblight 😅

45 minutes ago, Sception said:

She does look a bit more dark-elfy than I'd like.

Maybe grab the fleetmaster and give him a new pegleg from a harpy, that‘ll make them a cute couple...

The whole „need dynamic drama pose“ frightens me a bit, the 40k nightlord termies, now the vamps, everybody brought something to pose on. doing a conqueror footstomp gets old pretty fast,

they could go the Archregent route and give them lithe and deadly vamp lords something a bit more sinister

[Uvatha]

In term or armour: The 2 models revealed so far are going exactly the way I was hoping  I had been tempted to convert some 40k Drukhari for making new Vampire Lords, and those new models are really close to this in term of armours. I don't see anymore blood chalices, but maybe the blue drops can capture life essence and heal the bearer?

In term or weapons: Sauron/Nazgul-like big maces and long swords... I love it. This is exactly capturing the specific and troubling essence of the vampires = looking thins, almost fragile, but still magically and unnaturally able to wield heavy weapons at incredible speed. The shield is gorgeous! 

In term of shape: I really hope that, if there is a whole army, then the models will not be all derived from a Daughter of Khaine style (female only and crazy hair style ). I hope there will be some diversity. And there will be not only warlords/commanders but also full range of sorcerers/necro specialised, assassins, etc...

In term of stance: I like that the new models are not simply huge beasts/Flesh Eater style. The way the 2 models look at the battlefield from above is so "elite style" I like it, and I can hear them whispering to their own deranged mind: "Indeed, why should I not honour these foolish foes of my unexpected presence in middle of this offending mess they are offering to my eyes, and transform this vain waste of flesh in a master piece of slaughter and soul harvesting..."

I was quite far with my own previous VL conversions (https://twitter.com/guillaume_gte/status/1271652117535694848/photo/1)

But I am not upset. This promising!