Lords of the Mortal Realms - Death Previews

[Sception]

Wight King being a soulblight hero has been brought up, though I did miss the explicit "Soulblight Gravelords" branding.

The commenters on the live show specifically said Radukar was an ogre, and the big zombies were ogre soldiers he brought with him when he saved the city from Chaos.  The first picture showing him next to the necromancer isn't to scale, he's quite big - his base size is at least as large as the necromancer's.

All that said, he doesn't really /look/ like an ogre, doesn't have warhammer ogre features, so maybe the commenters were wrong and he's just big?  Hard to say.

Regardless, his aesthetic isn't particularly to my taste either, but again, we've got at least 5 other new plastic vampire lord options to choose from coming out, between the underworlds warband and the already previewed armored lord with bats in their hair.

EDIT: the commentators said Radukar was an ogre during the presentation, but from later released artwork it's pretty clear they were mistaken.  He's a beefy boy, but not an ogre.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Sception

[Lich King]

Zombies feel a bit overdone - could’ve just had half of them be with tombstones- and others just shambling about. Skeletons look great- but again the poses like “haaay” Instagram . Some of the Kossak look doesn’t merge with other stuff  but there’s a lot here to enjoy .   Probably won’t be till late March or even April until we get the revelation of Soulblight Gravelords. Probably June release which will go right into Aos 3.0

[Honk]

2 hours ago, El Syf said:

whole Lumineth thing really bored me to death. How big is that army going to be?

Well, there are still some old world models missing... good thing they got their ballista back 🤣 maybe some chariots next?

the wightking looks rad, but I‘m not sure if I like all those bones in my bloodsoup🤔 

[Kaleb Daark]

7 hours ago, Sception said:

 

New Mounted Wight King! ...

I love this model, it's AMAZING.  Very old school, very Warhammer Armies: Undead.

 

I’d love to do a nice proper warhammer armies undead army again.  Haven’t done that sine ravening hordes paperback in fantasy battle second edition.

a nice proper medieval dead army rather than a gothic undead army.  That would suit me down to the ground.

[Malakithe]

Under the Wight King they said later in the year for more. So im guessing aug-sep timeframe. Also arent these vamps supposed to be some kind of vampire/werewolf hybrid? That would make the leader a vampire/werewolf ogor? Im not 100% convinced he is an ogor due to all the proportions being all off. His head and mouth are way too small. The tall zombies are off in their sizes too but maybe death is a good source of shedding calories

People say that they said on stream he is an an ogor but the warhammer community team gets stuff wrong all the time.

[Sception]

5 hours ago, Lich King said:

Zombies feel a bit overdone - could’ve just had half of them be with tombstones- and others just shambling about. Skeletons look great- but again the poses like “haaay” Instagram . Some of the Kossak look doesn’t merge with other stuff  but there’s a lot here to enjoy .   Probably won’t be till late March or even April until we get the revelation of Soulblight Gravelords. Probably June release which will go right into Aos 3.0

I thinkbit'll be later than that.  October or November, prob shortly after aos 3.0 rather than before.  We've still got at least two btoken realms books to go, neither of whick look to feature the gravelords.

[Sception]

No, these are not specifically vampire werewolves.  Rather, all warhammer vampires have maddened feral bestial forms with wolf and bat like features.  They can take on aspects of these forms to take advantage of greater strength, flight, enhanced senses, & various other supernatural abilities, but at the risk of losing their sanity and the ability to return to their human forms.  They forcibly revert to these forms when starved of fresh humanoid lifeblood.  Vargheists, varghulfs, ghoul kings in general are all examples of this to various degrees.  It's the physical manifestation of the inhuman, predatory nature of the Soulblight curse, the inescapable truth that the entire vampiric race was created by Nagash's power and will not to rule over the living but instead to hunt them to extinction.

[Saxon]

Ranged unit for soulblight? A man can dream right? 😁

[Nactigal]

Well I guess I'm coming crawling back to death. These zombies are just incredible but they're going to be a nightmare to paint a 40 of em.

[Sception]

7 hours ago, Nactigal said:

Well I guess I'm coming crawling back to death. These zombies are just incredible but they're going to be a nightmare to paint a 40 of em.

They look nice, but I'm not sure I'm going to replace my existing zombies.  10 come in this box, so we could easily be looking at the full release being a box of 10, while a full unit of zombies is currently and might remain 60.  New models generally get a price increase over old models, 10 old skeletons is us$30 right now, so maybe us$35, maybe even us$40.  Chainrasps are us$40 for 10 after all.

If you need 60 zombies, and zombies are 10 for us$40, then even if you already have 10 from Cursed City you'll still need to spend a full us$200 to get that 10 up to a full unit.  $200 for a chaff tar pit.  For models that look good individually but will be murder to paint 60 of.

Again, don't get me wrong, I kind of like these models, and I hope GW is more reasonable about price this time around.  The price point on chainrasps is utterly unreasonable for a weak hoardy chaff unit (though at least the models are smaller and have less detail so they're quicker and easier to paint), so much so that I simply could not afford to buy as many chainrasps as I would need for a nighthaunt army and thus never collected nighthaunts in the first place.  The first and to date only GW undead army I never collected.  And since then we've seen some better prices.  Mortek Guard in particular are us$60 for a box of 20.  That makes them 25% less per model than chainrasps!  and that's for larger more detailed models and a much more elite unit that you need far fewer of per unit and per army.

Going forward I really hope basic battleline infantry starts coming in boxes of 20 in general, though honestly even at the same price as mortek guard I'd have a hard time justifying replacing my zombies.  Not unless the zombies are also made a bit stronger, with a smaller max unit size.

We'll see, I guess.

[Lich King]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

They look nice, but I'm not sure I'm going to replace my existing zombies.  10 come in this box, so we could easily be looking at the full release being a box of 10, while a full unit of zombies is currently and might remain 60.  New models generally get a price increase over old models, 10 old skeletons is us$30 right now, so maybe us$35, maybe even us$40.  Chainrasps are us$40 for 10 after all.

If you need 60 zombies, and zombies are 10 for us$40, then even if you already have 10 from Cursed City you'll still need to spend a full us$200 to get that 10 up to a full unit.  $200 for a chaff tar pit.  For models that look good individually but will be murder to paint 60 of.

Again, don't get me wrong, I kind of like these models, and I hope GW is more reasonable about price this time around.  The price point on chainrasps is utterly unreasonable for a weak hoardy chaff unit (though at least the models are smaller and have less detail so they're quicker and easier to paint), so much so that I simply could not afford to buy as many chainrasps as I would need for a nighthaunt army and thus never collected nighthaunts in the first place.  The first and to date only GW undead army I never collected.  And since then we've seen some better prices.  Mortek Guard in particular are us$60 for a box of 20.  That makes them 25% less per model than chainrasps!  and that's for larger more detailed models and a much more elite unit that you need far fewer of per unit and per army.

Going forward I really hope basic battleline infantry starts coming in boxes of 20 in general, though honestly even at the same price as mortek guard I'd have a hard time justifying replacing my zombies.  Not unless the zombies are also made a bit stronger, with a smaller max unit size.

We'll see, I guess.

20 zombies for 38$ on store. I’m sure you can find cheaper 

[lare2]

In the UK we had/have the advantage of Mortal Realms, which had 10 Chainrasp as low as £5 for 10. Needles to say I stocked up on an extra 50. The normal price for them, however, is ridiculous. Fingers crossed for the new skellies and zombies, if they are indeed replacements.

[Sception]

49 minutes ago, Lich King said:

20 zombies for 38$ on store. I’m sure you can find cheaper 

For the current models, yes.  I'm speculating on the cost of the new models when and if they get a separate AoS release.

[Sception]

47 minutes ago, lare2 said:

In the UK we had/have the advantage of Mortal Realms, which had 10 Chainrasp as low as £5 for 10. Needles to say I stocked up on an extra 50. The normal price for them, however, is ridiculous. Fingers crossed for the new skellies and zombies, if they are indeed replacements.

I'm quite aware, and quite jealous, of the mortal realms business.  Here in the us I can get chainrasps on the secondary market for ~ us$30 plus $5 shipping, or shipped from the uk for ~us$15 plus $20 shipping.  The extra shipping completely eats the effect of Mortal Realms on the price of the models, so I mostly only get to be jealous of UK players who get to collect the army at anything close to a reasonable price.  And that's not even getting into the ridiculousness of trying to collect an army for players living in some other places, particularly Australia.

The base price point on chainrasps really is just beyond the pale for the kind of unit they are.  Since then we've seen some improvement - again, mortek guard are quite reasonably priced for how elite they are - but then we saw some egregious backsliding.  The basic lumineth infantry are, if anything, /less/ elite then mortek guard, and they cost fully twice as much per model.  I was never inclined to branch out from undead armies, but if I had wanted to collect lumineth then the price of their basic infantry would have prevented me from doing so just as the chainrasp price prevented me from playing nighthaunt.

Honestly, the chainrasp price point might even be optimistic.  GW could price these units at us$50 or even us$60 for 10, while still writing the faction rules such that you need to 80 or more for a functional standard sized army.  In that case, I'll personally still be ok.  I can begrudgingly continue to use my existing  zombies, and I still actually like my current skeletons (with tomb kings shields from back when those were cheap as chips for that proper 'undead legions' feel).  But I really hope GW is more reasonable about the new vamp counts infantry pricing than they have been with the lumineth, because otherwise this will be an extremely discouraging army for new players to buy in to.  If skeleton warriors and zombies end up costing more per model then mortek guard, then collecting the army from scratch becomes very cost prohibitive.

[Nactigal]

I have quite a few older Nighthaunt but never dived in because of the price of chsinrasps. There are other battleline but I felt like I was playing at a disadvantage.

I don't have any of the old zombies. I never loved their desdwalker look. I would love to get the new ones and would commit that painting time, though IDK if I could pay $40 for 10. 

[Evil Bob]

7 minutes ago, Nactigal said:

I have quite a few older Nighthaunt but never dived in because of the price of chsinrasps. 

What is it at now, $40 for ten?  Utter cartoon supervillany.

 

Aside I am extremely excited at using the Cursed City objective markers in AoS.  Don’t ****** this up for me GW!

[Lich King]

2 hours ago, Sception said:

I'm quite aware, and quite jealous, of the mortal realms business.  Here in the us I can get chainrasps on the secondary market for ~ us$30 plus $5 shipping, or shipped from the uk for ~us$15 plus $20 shipping.  The extra shipping completely eats the effect of Mortal Realms on the price of the models, so I mostly only get to be jealous of UK players who get to collect the army at anything close to a reasonable price.  And that's not even getting into the ridiculousness of trying to collect an army for players living in some other places, particularly Australia.

The base price point on chainrasps really is just beyond the pale for the kind of unit they are.  Since then we've seen some improvement - again, mortek guard are quite reasonably priced for how elite they are - but then we saw some egregious backsliding.  The basic lumineth infantry are, if anything, /less/ elite then mortek guard, and they cost fully twice as much per model.  I was never inclined to branch out from undead armies, but if I had wanted to collect lumineth then the price of their basic infantry would have prevented me from doing so just as the chainrasp price prevented me from playing nighthaunt.

Honestly, the chainrasp price point might even be optimistic.  GW could price these units at us$50 or even us$60 for 10, while still writing the faction rules such that you need to 80 or more for a functional standard sized army.  In that case, I'll personally still be ok.  I can begrudgingly continue to use my existing  zombies, and I still actually like my current skeletons (with tomb kings shields from back when those were cheap as chips for that proper 'undead legions' feel).  But I really hope GW is more reasonable about the new vamp counts infantry pricing than they have been with the lumineth, because otherwise this will be an extremely discouraging army for new players to buy in to.  If skeleton warriors and zombies end up costing more per model then mortek guard, then collecting the army from scratch becomes very cost prohibitive.

Games workshop doesn’t care - they will do it and guess what? People will reluctantly buy ...

[Nullius]

19 hours ago, Sception said:

No, these are not specifically vampire werewolves.  Rather, all warhammer vampires have maddened feral bestial forms with wolf and bat like features.  They can take on aspects of these forms to take advantage of greater strength, flight, enhanced senses, & various other supernatural abilities, but at the risk of losing their sanity and the ability to return to their human forms.  They forcibly revert to these forms when starved of fresh humanoid lifeblood.  Vargheists, varghulfs, ghoul kings in general are all examples of this to various degrees.  It's the physical manifestation of the inhuman, predatory nature of the Soulblight curse, the inescapable truth that the entire vampiric race was created by Nagash's power and will not to rule over the living but instead to hunt them to extinction.

Well said. People are kind of spergy about the fact that Warhammer doesn’t follow the i.p. for Twilight or the World of Darkness, forgetting that Warhammer predates both of those ip’s. Warhammer vampires always borrowed from old Eastern European folklore. The name of the old shape shifting bloodline that Ushoran founded and that eventually became the feral vampires of the flesh eater courts was Strigoi: 

From Wikipedia 

Strigoi in Romanian mythology are troubled spirits that are said to have risen from the grave. They are attributed with the abilities to transform into an animal, become invisible, and to gain vitality from the blood of their victims. 
 

Neferata and her bloodline often transformed into cats, from house cats to huge predatory cat. 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Nullius

[Ghoooouls]

On 2/20/2021 at 8:08 PM, Lich King said:

Zombies feel a bit overdone - could’ve just had half of them be with tombstones- and others just shambling about. Skeletons look great- but again the poses like “haaay” Instagram . Some of the Kossak look doesn’t merge with other stuff  but there’s a lot here to enjoy .   Probably won’t be till late March or even April until we get the revelation of Soulblight Gravelords. Probably June release which will go right into Aos 3.0

Glad I'm not the only one, I'll be using my current skeleton models for sure. No interest in these cheesy sexy pose skellies at all.

[Saxon]

8 hours ago, Sception said:

They look nice, but I'm not sure I'm going to replace my existing zombies.  10 come in this box, so we could easily be looking at the full release being a box of 10, while a full unit of zombies is currently and might remain 60.  New models generally get a price increase over old models, 10 old skeletons is us$30 right now, so maybe us$35, maybe even us$40.  Chainrasps are us$40 for 10 after all.

If you need 60 zombies, and zombies are 10 for us$40, then even if you already have 10 from Cursed City you'll still need to spend a full us$200 to get that 10 up to a full unit.  $200 for a chaff tar pit.  For models that look good individually but will be murder to paint 60 of.

Again, don't get me wrong, I kind of like these models, and I hope GW is more reasonable about price this time around.  The price point on chainrasps is utterly unreasonable for a weak hoardy chaff unit (though at least the models are smaller and have less detail so they're quicker and easier to paint), so much so that I simply could not afford to buy as many chainrasps as I would need for a nighthaunt army and thus never collected nighthaunts in the first place.  The first and to date only GW undead army I never collected.  And since then we've seen some better prices.  Mortek Guard in particular are us$60 for a box of 20.  That makes them 25% less per model than chainrasps!  and that's for larger more detailed models and a much more elite unit that you need far fewer of per unit and per army.

Going forward I really hope basic battleline infantry starts coming in boxes of 20 in general, though honestly even at the same price as mortek guard I'd have a hard time justifying replacing my zombies.  Not unless the zombies are also made a bit stronger, with a smaller max unit size.

We'll see, I guess.

What about us poor Cities players where half our units still cost the same and still come on square bases  

[Honk]

11 hours ago, Nullius said:

People are kind of spergy about the fact that Warhammer doesn’t follow the i.p. for Twilight

Sorry I‘m not a native speaker, „spergy“ means something like rejoicing / frolicking / thanking the gods?

 

if GDubs would throw an emo-glitterbomb on us like they furrier up them noblebright elves... I‘d do a Wilhelm The third , bearhug Vlad and throw myself from the walls of Altdorf

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I finally have some time to put down a few of my thoughts.

To start, all the models look extremely good. The mood they are going for is also a complete hit with me. I'm writing this as my first comment so that I don't have to repeat it far every single model.

I want to speculate about what models will likely be part of Gravelords. I think all units will get warscrolls (the game comes with a Warscroll book after all), but I don't think all of them will be made "real". That is, I don't think all of the new models will be available separately for Gravelords.

New zombies: They called them Deadwalker Zombies on the stream, so they seem to be a replacement for the old zombie kit. If that is the case, I would predict a substantial warscroll rewrite. These new zombies don't look like a unit you run in 60s. They are too fiddly, and don't look "throwaway" enough. Rather, to me, they give off an impression of resilience: They are still up and walking around even though they were buried with their gravestones staking them into the earth. I think these guys might take the functional role of Chainrasps (assuming Gravelords lose the Nighthaunt crossover units) as a tanky infantry option. Gorslav is almost certainly going to be a buff hero for Deadwalkers if these guys are in.

New skeletons: Notably not refered to as Skeletons Warriors on stream, but as Ulfenwatch. They will likely be a "real" unit, given how they come with a champion and banner, but I predict they will not replace an existing unit. Some people have been speculating that they might be on 28mm bases. I don't think GW has an interest in making people rebase all their Skeleton Warriors on slightly larger bases if that is the case. I think these guys along with Watch Captain Halgrim might be a specialist infantry unit you can run in 10s or 20s. I would hope for them to have a utility role and not just be a medium skeleton infantry that goes in between Warriors and Grave Guard. I don't think that would be an interestinge niche.

Wight King: Really good news! The new Wight King model shows that the Deathrattle subfaction will stick around and is worth supporting from GWs point of view. The presence of a Wight King on steed suggests that Black Knights will be part of Gravelords as well. Maybe the current Deathmarch playstyle (Deathrattle suicide charges) will stick around. I think it would be nice if the new book set up Deathrattle as offensive, glass cannon troops, while Deadwalkers take the roll of defensive tarpits. That would give both subfactions a distinctive feel.

Vrykos Bloodborn: The wolf-vampires. I think they could well be a real unit: A kind of fast, elite shock troop. I could see them ignoring terrain, ambushing or getting bonuses to charge. Would be a welcom addition to the slow Grave Guard roster.

Bat and rat swarms: Surprising units for me. I would have thought that all animal minions would be removed once the new book comes out. But these seem like they might both be in the actual book! That's fine with me. If bats become that aetherwings of Soulblight, that's a pretty good deal. Not 100% sure on the rats, though. It seems like that should be Skaven territory. It's worth noting that maybe Torgillius will become a permanent hero option if animal minions are a big part of the new book.

Radukar and the ogor zombies: Being a vampire seems like a pretty sweet deal for an Ogor. "You will become immortal and attain dark, forbidden powers, but in exchange you will be plagued by a supernatural hunger that will eventually drive you to break the ultimate taboo: Drinking the blood of other sentient beings." "Sweet, I was going to do that anyway! It's literally all upside for me!"

That being said, I am not sure these guy will make it into Soulblight permanently. Although big zombies could be a cool addition, especially if they had the ability to protect your small buff heroes for a reasonable point cost (4+ wound pass-off or something).

The Vargskyr: The new, big smash-bat. Looks cool! It would kind of be a missed opportunity not to have a cool, big monster available separately. Although this guy kind of infringes on FEC territory.

While we are on the topic of FEC: There is some speculation that their endless spells will be discontinued and that they might be re-absorbed into gravelords. That would be a big missed opportunity to me. I think FEC have managed to do very well out of their limited unit pool. Their concept seems strong enough to capture people's interest. I think they deserve a fair shake as their own army, with a real roster expansion that makes them look a little less same-y. And at the same time, Gravelords already has a lot of troop variety. I think Gravelords are stronger as a concept if they are vampires controlling skeletons, zombies and animals. Adding ghouls into the mix as well, especially after their prior characterization in AoS seems like it would be too much.

 

[Souleater]

FEC should stay separate.  GW have given them a great background story, certainly strong enough to justify them being their own faction.

[Sception]

2 minutes ago, Souleater said:

FEC should stay separate.  GW have given them a great background story, certainly strong enough to justify them being their own faction.

Should is neither here nor there.  GW gave the beastclaw raiders a fantastic unique background strong enough to justify them being their own faction, too, but that didn't stop them from getting rolled back into the Mawtribes, nor did it stop the Plague Rats from getting rolled back into the rest of the skaven.

So, yeah.  It could happen.  I don't exactly want it to be, I /want/ the FEC range to be expanded with new models reflecting their cool AoS narrative, but that hasn't really happened through two battle tomes now, and at that rate maybe its better if they were rolled back into the vampire counts.

[Sception]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

New skeletons: Notably not refered to as Skeletons Warriors on stream, but as Ulfenwatch. They will likely be a "real" unit, given how they come with a champion and banner, but I predict they will not replace an existing unit. Some people have been speculating that they might be on 28mm bases. I don't think GW has an interest in making people rebase all their Skeleton Warriors on slightly larger bases if that is the case. I think these guys along with Watch Captain Halgrim might be a specialist infantry unit you can run in 10s or 20s. I would hope for them to have a utility role and not just be a medium skeleton infantry that goes in between Warriors and Grave Guard. I don't think that would be an interestinge niche

"Ulfenwatch" is not a kind of unit, it is the name of the city guard of Ulfenkarn, the setting of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City, specifically.  It would not make sense for there to be a unit called ulvenwatch outside of that setting.

As for what the ulfenwatch would be called elsewhere, they are in fact referred to as skeleton warriors in their preview article on warhammer community. (link)

"While an individual skeleton warrior shouldn’t cause your party much trouble, they will be inspired to fight even harder by their banner bearer, so make sure that you try to take him out first."  (emphasis added)

So yeah, these guys are almost certainly skeleton warriors.  I could see these new armored skeleton warriors *replacing* both the current skeleton warriors and grave guard, leaving us with just one skeletal infantry unit, but I absolutely cannot see them coexisting with both.  Grave guard are only barely, fractionally, marginally more elite than regular skeleton warriors.  Offensively and defensively they're barely any different.  there really isn't room for a 'mid point' unit between them because there is no space between them for such a unit to occupy.  If anything, grave guard are already too close in ability to skeleton warriors to begin with.

So yeah, I barely see room for two skeletal infantry units, certainly not three, especially with a bunch of new units being added, and double especially with some rumors that FEC might be getting folded back into this faction as well.

EDIT: that said, just as we're seeing newer, heavier armored skeleton warrior models, it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that we might see newer, beefier, heavier grave guard as well.   the new Wight King is, aesthetically, a major throwback to old Warhammer Undead aesthetics, and the current grave guard were always a bit weedy compared to the older art and the metal wight infantry they replaced.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Sception