Soulblight As a Replacement for LoN?

[Sception]

I think the "deadwalker hero' model looks piratey, which is the kind of theme I'd expect from a War Cry or Underworlds release rather than for a base faction in AoS.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but the "foot vampire knight" arm & sword still looks more FECy than SGLy to me.  Proper Vampires get nice, well maintained gear.  Pitted & corroded stuff is for lesser undead.  The boot you put there also doesn't match the armor style on the confirmed vampire lord, which makes me think it's not a new vampire thing.

The "necromancer Vampire" and the bone flute in the "centerpiece diorama" bits look more like daemons than undead to me.

the "vampire duelist" bits look to be an underworld thing based on a preview on warhammer community today.

.....

While I agree that Zombies and Dire Wolves /should/ get new models, the fact that they're already in plastic makes me skeptical that they /will/.  In my view:

Spoiler

 

Probably staying with current models:

• Skeleton Warriors
• grave guard
• black knights
• vargheist
• mortis engine
• corpse cart (especially if we get new zombies)
• Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon
• Coven Throne
• Blood Palanquin
• Mannfred
• Neferata
• unridden Zombie Dragon and Terrorgheist (if they aren't shifted entirely to FEC)

Maybe staying with current models:

• wight king, but sprue retooled to be on round base
• necromancer, but sprue retooled to be on round base

Confirmed for new model:

• Vampire Lord

Probably getting new models

• Blood Knights

Maybe getting new models, but I'm not holding my breath

• Fell Bats (if not, then likely dropped outright)
• Zombies

Really should get new models, but I've seen no indication that they will

• Dire Wolves
• Prince Vhordrai

Maybe get new models, or if not then probably just dropped outright:

• Mounted Vampire Lord
• Mounted Wight King

Probably just dropped:

• wight king with black axe, though the axe might remain as an artefact or something
• Legion Black Coach
• Bat swarm

Moved to other books

• Arkhan
• Nagash (though I like the idea of him being playable in any undead army, his lore has him strongly favoring OBR)
• Morghasts
• Spirit Hosts
• Tomb Banshee
• Cairn Wraith

Probably safe to expect:

• endless spells
• faction terrain - though this could just be a re-packaged mausoleum kit with faction specific rules

Less safe to expect:

• entirely new units:  if the Soulblight Gravelords really are Legions 2.0, ie AoS rules for left over oldhammer vamp counts, then based on similar oldhammer holdover factions like Beastmen, Ogres, Seraphon, Skaven, or FEC then it isn't really safe to expect a lot of new units.  New units would certainly be cool, but even dropping several units from the current Legions book, the faction would still already have more units than most other AoS factions.  Not saying new units can't happen, just that I wouldn't advise getting hopes up for it.

 

•  

Edited January 20, 2021 by Sception

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

22 hours ago, Sception said:

I think the "deadwalker hero' model looks piratey, which is the kind of theme I'd expect from a War Cry or Underworlds release rather than for a base faction in AoS.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but the "foot vampire knight" arm & sword still looks more FECy than SGLy to me.  Proper Vampires get nice, well maintained gear.  Pitted & corroded stuff is for lesser undead.  The boot you put there also doesn't match the armor style on the confirmed vampire lord, which makes me think it's not a new vampire thing.

The "necromancer Vampire" and the bone flute in the "centerpiece diorama" bits look more like daemons than undead to me.

the "vampire duelist" bits look to be an underworld thing based on a preview on warhammer community today.

I think those are all very reasonable takes.

Just to note, I put all rumour engine pictures that (I think) could possibly be Gravelords units into my list. I did not try to stick to ones that are likely, necessarily. Probably, some of these rumour engines will not be Gravelords, or not even Death. So yeah, I full expect some things on the list to be Underworlds, Warcry or a specialty game (Warhammer Quest seems likely).

I agree that there are a few pictures that look like FEC. But I'm not sure where an FEC release would fit into the timeline. After Hedonites come out next month, there needs to be a Lumineth and Gravelords release. I would guess that Lumineth could be the driving faction in the next Broken Realms, and Gravelords could be a Battletome release in between Broken Realms II and III, much like Hedonites are in between BR I and II. I suppose it could be that FEC get a small expansion in BR II, but more likely they would go into BR III.  We will be probably a year and a half out from the release of that rumour engine at that point, plus the "vampire foot knight" is the earliest Death sneak peek we have. That's why I think it might be somewhat likely that it's a model in Gravelords or Ulfenkarn (if that is the next Warhammer Quest).

I put that picture down as Vampire Foot Knight because I fully believe there will be some kind of Vampire infantry in the Vampire battletome. I think that's almost as certain as new Blood Knights, even if we don't have rumour engine that definitively points towards it. It could be, though, that Vampire duellists will fill that role completely. Given how Underworlds warbands often depict a cross section of a faction's troops, I still think it's likely that we will see foot vampires even if we know that two of the rapiers and sabres are part of the Underworlds warband.

For the bone flute, I could see that being a Chaos or FEC thing. The "necromancer vampire" seems like a Death thing to me, though. The long, skinny hand with the skull really suggests that, in my view.

As for the boot in the "vampire knights" section, I just wanted to put that somewhere because it has a skull on it. That's by far the thing I am the least confident about. I think it's possible that there are several visual styles in this army for different Vampire bloodlines, though. That would explain some differences in armour designs and appearance. But I guess we will probably see on Saturday.

Finally, as far as models being removed: I think it's fairly safe to say that anything Finecast will go unless it's replaced. I believe that means GW will get rid of build options such as mounts or wings for Vampire Lords/Wight Kings, because those are basically straight upgrades anyway and only really existed to ensure old models remained playable. And while I think retooling Wight Kings and Necromancers to be on round bases would be nice, I think that's not actually physically possible since plastic models use steel molds that can probably not be easily modified.

[Sception]

I don't object to putting the pics up for discussion in the first place, I'm just giving my take on them.

I don't dislike the idea of new vampire elite infantry, but IF the gravelords really are LoN 2.0, then that makes them a new book for an existing AoS army.  A holdover oldhammer AoS army at that.  Looking at what new model kits other armies in similar positions got in their last releases, we have examples like:

• Ogres: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, not even any endless spells?
• FEC: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Skaven: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Seraphon: one faction terrain kit, not even their own endless spells?  Did they even get a new hero model?
• Beastmen: faction terrain piece, some endless spells
• Cities of Sigmar: Nnnn... nnothing?  I don't think they got a single new model kit?

All of these factions have been left with several extremely dated and hokey model kits little removed in quality from the current zombie & dire wolf kits, and most of them are still stuck with terrible mail order only finecast models for some of their key units.  Maneaters, Varghulfs, Shoggoths and more tell me that we could absolutely still be stuck with a bunch of the current finecast kits after SGL is out.

So going purely on pattern recognition, it is not only /possible/ but even /likely/ that the SGL book will leave us with exactly the same kits that we currently have for zombies, dire wolves, even fell bats and, yes, blood knights.   A new vamp counts army book release where literally the only new model is the already previewed Vampire Lord wouldn't be unusual, at this point that should be *the base expectation*.

Literally the only think even slightly indicating otherwise are the several rumor engine pictures of new models that look very undeadish, but don't seem to be nighthaunt, fec, or obr.  But even there, they could all be war cry or underworlds releases.  We've already gotten confirmation that the fancy swords with basket hilts are an underworlds release, which takes my personal confidence in new blood knight models from around 80% down to 20%.  And if even new blood knights are looking unlikely to me, you can guess what I think of the likely hood of a new vamp infantry unit is.

Again, how many new units did Ogres, FEC, Skaven, Lizardmen, Beastmen, and Cities of Sigmar see?  And why would you expect the situation to be any different for SGL?  We haven't been seeing the kind of build up that other major recent releases have seen.  I mean, then intended to announce SGL as part of a weekend preview that was clearly mostly about Lumineth and Underworlds releases.

I'm not trying to squash hopes here, just... maybe keep your expectations in check.  A brand new vampire infantry unit would be /cool/.  But the idea that it's almost guaranteed?  That it's even *likely*?  That sounds like you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

Edited January 21, 2021 by Sception

[El Syf]

If that's all we're getting we best march on Warhammer world lolz. 

Although that would be massively disappointing.  

This is not my remit but there was always unsubstantiated talk back in Oldhammer that VC were one of the better selling armies, maybe this still holds true and GW reckon they'll sell a boatload of new Vampire models? We can but hope.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

33 minutes ago, Sception said:

I don't dislike the idea of new vampire elite infantry, but IF the gravelords really are LoN 2.0, then that makes them a new book for an existing AoS army.  A holdover oldhammer AoS army at that.  Looking at what new model kits other armies in similar positions got in their last releases, we have examples like:

• Ogres: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, not even any endless spells?
• FEC: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Skaven: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Seraphon: one faction terrain kit, not even their own endless spells?  Did they even get a new hero model?
• Beastmen: faction terrain piece, some endless spells
• Cities of Sigmar: Nnnn... nnothing?  I don't think they got a single new model kit

[...]

That's a valid position, but I would point out that all those examples are from a time period where GW was still in the process of giving everything new battletomes. Now that AoS factions have been fully established, I think we might well be at the point where old factions WHFB might finally get expanded or redone.

The division between AoS and WHFB factions is murky, anyway. Hedonites are getting a big release soon, and while Slaanesh mortals are an AoS thing, Slaanesh in general certainly is not.

We will have to wait and see. My personal stakes in this are fairly low, anyway, since my LoN is converted Tomb Kings, so I have long given up on the possibility of "proper" new models. But I genuinely think the new Vampire Lord, presumed faction name change and all the Death rumour engines/teasers suggest a larger release. If that could finally put to bed the idea that old factions can't get new models, that would also be appreciated (although I can understand that's probably the smart prediction at this point in time).

[Sception]

Ah, but the AoS factions have not been fully established, as Legions of Nagash is /technically/ a first edition battle tome, never updated for 2e.  Yeah, it was clearly designed for early 2e mechanically, but it is still technically a 1e book, and if you look at it's narrative identity and place in the game world, Legions of Nagash is firmly grounded in first edition.  These are the forces Nagash used to accomplish his great work, but they no longer have a place in the world that work created.  Soulblight Gravelords, whether it's a pure soulblight faction or an update for miscelaneous corporeal undead in general, is very much a 'what place does this 1st edition age of sigmar faction have in 2nd edition kind of book.  Again, absolutely in line with Ogres, FEC, Skaven, and so on.

Even discounting borderline examples or stuff now confirmed for underworlds, it does still feel like there's a lot of rumor images pointing to a more significant undead release wave - though curiously with the underworld warband aside almost none of it feels like /vampire/ stuff - so I'm not saying we definitely won't see more.  Just that I've seen this forum in particular let expectations grow unchecked and then get super disappointed with what were, honestly, pretty cool releases.  In particular, that exact thing happened with the Legions of Nagash book, which was honestly so cool for lore, and for positioning our faction in a central narrative space, and had what were at the time both very powerful and very thematically engaging rules... but there weren't any new models and a lot of people had built up expectations for a ton of new models, even though no other oldhammer carryover faction had seen any.

There were other complaints - I was very skeptical of several of the rules previews until the full book was out and put everything in context - but the lack of models seemed to lead to the most pronounced and lasting negativity at the time.

[Honk]

2 hours ago, Sception said:

And why would you expect the situation to be any different for SGL? 

Now there is a bucket of holy water to the face... hang me out to dry in bright sunlight, will ya please...

[lare2]

Busy day... first time on. See the acronym SGL. This what we've settled on 😁

[Sception]

8 minutes ago, lare2 said:

Busy day... first time on. See the acronym SGL. This what we've settled on 😁

As far as I can tell, I just started saying it, and nobody's stopped me yet.

[Sception]

1 hour ago, Honk said:

Now there is a bucket of holy water to the face... hang me out to dry in bright sunlight, will ya please...

Again, I don't mean to quash hopes.  Just trying to reign in expectations, so that if SGL, like LoN, turns out to be a fun and cool book but not the hoped for big model range shake up then maybe we can focus on the former and not the later.

[Honk]

Just now, Sception said:

maybe we can focus on the former and not the later.

I couldn’t...

if they don’t want to produce new minis... great, do a LoN 2.0

death has a great range, of outdated models maybe, but still great. The amount of battleline options and elite units makes a bunch of fun casual lists possible and rewarding to play, from massive zombie hordes to 3x5 wolves + elites.

and please bring back Nagash into playable centerpiece territory.

 

but if they declare new an shiny vampires and wuss out, maybe even FEC style with reduced Death range and „only“ newish bloodknights, I‘ll be raging hard.

first FW kills my chaosdwarves, then a botched SGL... 🥺

[lare2]

28 minutes ago, Sception said:

As far as I can tell, I just started saying it, and nobody's stopped me yet.

Hey, I'm sold - works a treat 👍

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

4 hours ago, Sception said:

I don't object to putting the pics up for discussion in the first place, I'm just giving my take on them.

I don't dislike the idea of new vampire elite infantry, but IF the gravelords really are LoN 2.0, then that makes them a new book for an existing AoS army.  A holdover oldhammer AoS army at that.  Looking at what new model kits other armies in similar positions got in their last releases, we have examples like:

• Ogres: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, not even any endless spells?
• FEC: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Skaven: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
• Seraphon: one faction terrain kit, not even their own endless spells?  Did they even get a new hero model?
• Beastmen: faction terrain piece, some endless spells
• Cities of Sigmar: Nnnn... nnothing?  I don't think they got a single new model kit?

All of these factions have been left with several extremely dated and hokey model kits little removed in quality from the current zombie & dire wolf kits, and most of them are still stuck with terrible mail order only finecast models for some of their key units.  Maneaters, Varghulfs, Shoggoths and more tell me that we could absolutely still be stuck with a bunch of the current finecast kits after SGL is out.

 

I disagree as to most of those kits being anywhere near as dated something like the Deadwalker zombie plastics or as hokey as the Wight King on Skeletal Steed finecast. They could just purge the worst kits from Legions, but then they lose a large number of units, and zombies seem a good bet for something that will be included.

Now, I will admit I'm a bit of an outlier in terms of quality judgments, as I still like a number of widely-reviled kits like the Seraphon Cold One Knights and the Dragon Ogor Shaggoth (dated in size, but still badass looking). And I do agree that people shouldn't get their hopes up too far. I just don't quite agree on where "too far" is. I think seeing a couple heroes and a couple unit kits is not an unreasonable expectation, and more than that isn't yet in the realm of pie-in-the-sky. I'd wager on updated zombies coming alongside the new Vampire Lord as a minimum, honestly.

[Sception]

Razorgor, chaos spawn, night runners, gutter runners, yhettes, gorgers, kroxigor, salamanders...  I mean aesthetic opinions are subjective (heck, I don't think the current zombie kit is bad, just dated), but in my subjective opinion there are bunches of kits out there as hokey or outdated as anything in our range.  Give me that mounted wight king over a razorgor any day of the week.

I would love to and hope to see a bunch of new suff for SGL, But at the same time I can't bring myself to see the existing line as some sort of shameful tragidy in desperate need of overhaul compared to other oldhammer holdover factions.

[Lich King]

The Faq leak is fake but if something like that turns out to be real - Soulblight Gravelords will be the LON 2.0 with few new kits/remakes . Which is cool with me ! New rules for existing models !

[SirSalabean]

I feel like the name Soulblight Gravelords heavily implies the vampires with lord over skeletons and zombies which makes me think it will be put into that army. 
 

 

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

21 minutes ago, Sception said:

Razorgor, chaos spawn, night runners, gutter runners, yhettes, gorgers, kroxigor, salamanders...  I mean aesthetic opinions are subjective (heck, I don't think the current zombie kit is bad, just dated), but in my subjective opinion there are bunches of kits out there as hokey or outdated as anything in our range.  Give me that mounted wight king over a razorgor any day of the week.

Fair! It's definitely a subjective thing. I would put the deadwalker kit down as a contender for the worst kit GW still produces, so naturally I want to see it gone, but I admit some of the ones you mention are fairly bad. Some I think are merely simplistic or lower detail, though. Salamanders are fine, gorgers are actually kinda cool, the chaos spawn is iffy but was iffy from the moment it replaced the old metal spawn (which was much cooler).

[Ganigumo]

Personally I think LoN is going to be replaced by Soulblight Gravelords. The gravelords part seems to indicate there's more going on in there than just vampires and it wouldn't be a stretch to roll the remaining LoN stuff into gravelords. In particular I suspect they're going to remove all the stuff that nighthaunt and bonereapers are using, and that leaves vampires, zombies, and skeletons. I don't think it makes any sense to keep legions around if the only things it has exclusively are zombies and skeletons, especially when we have another skeleton-like  army in bonereapers.

Rolling them together and making a book thats' more like classic vampire counts makes sense, with vampires and their minions. Nagash will hopefully get a warscroll that just has all the death faction keywords this time, just like archaon does for chaos.

I suspect this will be a pretty hefty release overall though. somewhere between 5-8 kits. My current guesses for kits are : Vampire on foot (confirmed), Blood Knights (probably dual kit with another variant), Vampire infantry, new zombies, and there will be another 1-3 kits that are very unexpected and novel, like a zombie giant and/or a new named character. I'd also speculate that an inevitable battle box would have a mounted vampire hero to go alongside the blood knights.

[Honk]

Mounted Vampire Hero confirmed...

[lare2]

1 hour ago, Ganigumo said:

1-3 kits that are very unexpected

There's some kind of skelly model coming as well. Hopeful it's a Wight King of some kind 

[Honk]

Personally I like the skelli and graveguard sprues. direwolves are ugly, but I use fenrisian wolves instead. same goes for zombies, my ghouls have to step in, since I painted 90 skellis, 120 ghouls and won‘t paint another 120 zombies (over 40, can be generous with my lifetime anymore)...

what 3 units I hope for?

Bloodknights are the dream...

big vampire heros  at megaboss level to cover the 200-300pts section

mortal servants

 

Xmas and Easter in one:

a Katakros style Vampire coven Centre piece BASE in which you can set your bloodline hero of choice. Lhamia with thralls, seduced knights and handmaidens; Dragon Warrior „Round table“ knights; nekrach necromantic coven with necromancers and acolytes...

that would be totally awesome, but if that doesn’t happen the respective rule set:

you could install mini battalions, fe special rules and abilities if a certain set of models are listed and next to each other.

Wild idea for nulahmia: a Vamplord, a stormcast hero and two servants are called a coven and the stormcast gets keyword adjustments (ability to steal external heroes and use them)

dragons: three lords and three servants, extra attacks and better save for melee 

necrach Lord two necros and two acolytes, +2 casting and one extra spell

[JackStreicher]

If the SGL replace LoN we might see changes to Nagash which make him usable, viable and valuable in ALL the Death Factions.

Aoart from that I just hope the Wight King gets a rules rework and that our foot Vampires will get some kind of protection against shooting and MW magic spam (more resilience).

Yet I already mourn my Vamp Lord on Steed which will likely get removed (I‘ve made such a cool conversion two years ago x_x)

 

Edit: Though I‘ve played Vampire Counts for years and even after the World that was blew up, I hope this won’t be Vampire Counts as they used to be. I‘d love to see a fresh take on the army, the bloodydrinking, the horror they might cause etc.. Maybe even „off board“ characters that sabotage, hinder and manipulate your opponents army (like in ASOIAF)

Edited January 22, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Malakithe]

Going with all the IF's, IF SGL replaces LoN Im thinking Nagash and Arkhan are gone. They have a new home with OBR and had their warscrolls adjusted to match them. I cant see them making yet another adjustment to both of them. Thats too much external and internal balancing. That leaves Manny and Neffy to hang out with whatever this new thing will be. What will their roles be now? 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

23 hours ago, Sception said:

Ah, but the AoS factions have not been fully established, as Legions of Nagash is /technically/ a first edition battle tome, never updated for 2e.  [...]

I want to comment one more time on why I think it's not unrealistic to expect a larger release for Soulblight, not just a battletome update and a plastic Vampire Lord. I definitely don't want to imply that your points are somehow invalid, though. Especially the point about managing your expectations. I agree that the LoN book was actually really good for the time. Same with other, similar books like Cities of Sigmar, which has some of the best mechanical design of any AoS book, even if people are still disappointed that there were no new units. And you are completely right that we should not hype ourselves up to an unreasonable extent and then get disappointed with a good release just because it does not fulfill all our hopes and dreams.

Your argument was that looking at the release patterns for old factions, it might be more reasonable to expect a small release with few new models than a big faction rework with lots of kits. I think the evidence supports this. But evidence is always subject to interpretation. It's up to the person analyzing the evidence to decide what is especially pertinent in the case at hand.

In my opinion, your examples from 2019/2020 are not the most pertinent ones. It's true that they seem to establish a certain pattern for updates to old factions. But I think we also need to look at the context of those releases. In 2019, we were seeing close to a battletome a month. GW was going through an effort to give every faction real rules. At the same time, they were focussing their large releases on AoS original factions. That tells me that at the time their priorities were to make old factions playable, and to give AoS a more distinct identity in comparison to WHFB.

I think we are past that era of AoS 2.0 now, though. And since I think priorities have likely changed now, I don't expect the same patterns to hold. For one, the battletome release cycle has slowed down considerably. Even disregarding COVID, we would not be looking at a breakneck pace of a battletome every month anymore. And since that pace has slowed down, we can probably expect future battletomes to come with more significant model releases again.

It could also be valuable to look at Legion of Nagash related releases specifically. There were two of those, Nighthaunt and OBR, and both times they came with a good amount of new models. Nighthaunt are an especially pertinent, since much like Soulblight it's a faction that builds significantly on old models.

Plus, there is the pattern of the Hedonites release. Since that is the most recent release, it might be a good indication of how faction updates will work in the future. So that could mean a large amount of models supplemented by spin-off game content (Underworlds, Warcry, duel box heroes, possibly Warhammer Quest).

Anyway, there is not that much use in arguing this point right now. It's probably best to wait and see what the preview show on saturday has to offer. If we see any new troop options, I think a larger release is likely. If we just see heroes and Warhammer Quest, it's probably a minor battletome release. Either way, I personally be happy with updated rules and a new Warhammer Quest or something like that. Plus, if those rumour engines are not LoN/Soulblight stuff, at least Flesh Eater Courts players can probably look foreward to new models.

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

59 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Aoart from that I just hope the Wight King gets a rules rework and that our foot Vampires will get some kind of protection against shooting and MW magic spam (more resilience).

If Gravelords are an LoN replacement and if the Wight King sticks around at all, I think him getting a rules rework is very likely.

At the moment, he's just a worse Vampire Lord, pretty much. It would be nice if he actually offered good Deathrattle synergy, instead of being a Vampire Lord without synergy with anything other than Deathrattle, as he is right now.

4 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

That leaves Manny and Neffy to hang out with whatever this new thing will be. What will their roles be now? 

I think the least we can expect are new rules that make Mannfred and Neferata actually synergize with the SOULBLIGHT keyword. New command abilities seems fairly likely to me.

A bit more speculation: If we see a range expansion, then I would guess one of the two will be the Vampire-focussed centrepiece, and the other will be more zombie/skeleton/creature of the night focussed. I think Neferata buffing Soulblight and Mannfred buffing all the other stuff seems somewhat likely, even though the new Vampire Lord looks more Carstinian than Lahmian. Another option could be that Neferata enables an aggressive playstyle for Soulblight, while Mannfred enables a more defensive/ambushy one.

There is also the possibility of another Mortarch/big centerpiece hero being introduced, if we are being really optimistic.