Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Grimoriano]

2 minutes ago, Doko said:

Yes and not.

As you said a +1 save to a unit with 6 save is a 50% increase but that is a useless data.

The point is the final damage,+1 save is 16% better survivality for any save,dont matter if it is 3,4,5 or 6

Example, you get done 12 wounds

Unit with save 6 die 10

Unit with save 5 die 8 

So a +1 extra save are a 20% less models died and not 50%increase

If we take grave guard as example and as example the same 12 wounds

Shields die 6

2 hans die 8

So shields are as 25% better

Damage output

Shields  3,3 mw and 9 damage

2 hands 3,3 mw and 18 damage

So 2 hands do around 80% extra damage

 

As you said if the extra damage gonna be lost due to overkill of course shields are better. But then we can bring multiple msu 2 hands units and the damage wont be overkill.

2 hands make the wound roll at 4+, so it is not the double. 

[Aren73]

Ok I mathsed some crunches and crunched some maths. 

Comparison of a unit of 40 Zombies and 30 Skeletons, neither is supported, taking damage. Healing is taken into account

3 Damage profiles (no rend, 1 rend, 2 rend). 1st Graph shows the amount of models dead from each unit at the end of the combat phase, the 2nd graph shows the amount of models remaining after the end of the combat phase. 

I didn't count in battleshock because it can be ignored and it's a massive difference if you do or you don't so...yeah. I do realise that if you don't ignore battleshock then it changes things, I know. 

This shows to me that:

1. Skeletons are generally better than Zombies when neither is supported
2. Skeletons fare notably better against Rend - and Rend -1
3. Against Rend -2 the two units become quite similar
4. Zombies always do better against very small amounts of chip damage - because they can heal above starting size
5. Skeletons always do better against large amounts of damage - until they die and then they're not doing anything anymore  

 

[Doko]

Hnnn interesting i tougth was all the same stats but double damage,then 2 hands are 3\4\1\2?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, Nightseer2012 said:

What about a Vrykos Vengorian Lord w/ Driven by Deathsteanch?  Deep strike the Gravegaurd, move up to support with Vengorian general w/ DbDs, both the Grave Guard and the Vengorian Lord get a reroll on charges?

I think that's a cool idea. I think that puts your odds of making the 9" charge at about 50%. The command trait faces stiff competition in Vyrkos, though. Both Hunter's Snare and Pack Alpha are very good.

[FeralMulan]

Weird question but I see a lot of people talking about taking heroes with Realm Artifacts.

I thought those were no longer allowed in Tournaments? Or are they just talking casual games?

[Aren73]

8 minutes ago, Elmir said:

Ironically, you seem to miss that those skeletons are also getting necro support in that comparison vs the vargheists. 

You also don't need zombies to be ridiculous all the time. The point is that you can GET them to be ridiculous while regular skeletons just plain can't. A unit who's ability requires it to get close to massacred before it's semi useful, is just plain not as good... not in an army that already doesn't lack tanky units in the form of blood knights who are, even without support, one of the tankiest units in the game.... and if you give them support, can become downright obnoxious while still being fast. 

Skeleton usefulness is VERY circumstantial while zombies have got a lot more going for them in general... Even if there are some fringe cases where the enemy can spend a ton of attack power to destroy a 230p unit. They are our new skinks... another unit that needs a bit of support to get there, but (like you said) can become insane when you do. 

Nope, I didn't miss it

30 Skeletons with a Necromancer (380) are cheaper than 40 Zombies with a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord (495). 

The skeletons still do better...

[Grimoriano]

2 minutes ago, Doko said:

Hnnn interesting i tougth was all the same stats but double damage,then 2 hands are 3\4\1\2?

100% sure, double checked

[Beliman]

5 minutes ago, FeralMulan said:

Weird question but I see a lot of people talking about taking heroes with Realm Artifacts.

I thought those were no longer allowed in Tournaments? Or are they just talking casual games?

They are in GHB 2020, under Matched Play and even the book encourage you to play with them.

Even if people don't want to play with them, the artefacts are just for list-building option than anything realm-related, so I think it should be fine for everybody to use that artefacts, even you don't want to play with realm rules (trait, spell and CA).

Edited May 15, 2021 by Beliman

[Doko]

6 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Ok I mathsed some crunches and crunched some maths. 

Comparison of a unit of 40 Zombies and 30 Skeletons, neither is supported, taking damage. Healing is taken into account

3 Damage profiles (no rend, 1 rend, 2 rend). 1st Graph shows the amount of models dead from each unit at the end of the combat phase, the 2nd graph shows the amount of models remaining after the end of the combat phase. 

I didn't count in battleshock because it can be ignored and it's a massive difference if you do or you don't so...yeah. I do realise that if you don't ignore battleshock then it changes things, I know. 

This shows to me that:

1. Skeletons are generally better than Zombies when neither is supported
2. Skeletons fare notably better against Rend - and Rend -1
3. Against Rend -2 the two units become quite similar
4. Zombies always do better against very small amounts of chip damage - because they can heal above starting size
5. Skeletons always do better against large amounts of damage - until they die and then they're not doing anything anymore  

 

Yes.....but now do the same numbers if the damage is from magic,shooting or leadership or skeletons attack first.or if the unit is deleted full

 

So yes

Zombies are better in every situations if full supported

Without support and the 4++ active then skeletons are very little better

Without support and the 4++ dont active zombies are as double better

 

So yes, in perfect scenario and situations skeletons are marginally better tanking than zombies

But in realistic games zombies gonna be better tanking than skeletons

Also zombies outdamage skeletons in any situation

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 minutes ago, Doko said:

 

If we take grave guard as example and as example 12 wounds done to us

Shields die 6

2 hands die 8

So shields are as 25% better

Damage output

Shields  3,3 mw and 8,8 damage

2 hands 3,3 mw and 16,6damage

So 2 hands do around 66% extra damage

 

As you said if the extra damage gonna be lost due to overkill of course shields are better. But then we can bring multiple msu 2 hands units and the damage wont be overkill.

I think your damage clacs are off. Great Weapons are on 4+ to wound and you are ignoring the mortals, which are a substantial part of the damage output.

Against 4+, 10 shield grave guard do 8.15 wounds vs. great weapons at 11.11. That's 36% more damage. Not even close to double.

I don't like the idea of MSU Grave Guard, either, because small units die even faster and their damage output decays harder. Lose 10 Grave Guard out of 30 and your output is still good. Lose 10 out of 20, not so much.

[Doko]

My maths isnt off,i redid it with the 4 to wound and edited the post.

Also i did the mortal wounds too,but i compared to no save enemy because it is the easier

 

Yes vs armored targets the gap is smaller but also can be said with tanking,i did the numbers with 0 rend enemy attack,if we do numbers with rend then shield is also worse the gap

Edited May 15, 2021 by Doko

[Boar]

Just now, Doko said:

Also zombies outdamage skeletons in any situation

Vyrkos gives +1 to wound for both skellies and zombies near heroes. This benefits Skellies more who then achieve slightly better results vs 4+ saves,  and are noticeably better vs 5+ saves. Stronger saves of course still in favor of zombies.
 

Of course zombies has access to battalion for +1 atk, but that's different story which btw with uncertain future of AoS 3.0 battalions could change.

[Aren73]

13 minutes ago, Doko said:

Yes.....but now do the same numbers if the damage is from magic,shooting or leadership or skeletons attack first.or if the unit is deleted full

 

So yes

Zombies are better in every situations if full supported

Without support and the 4++ active then skeletons are very little better

Without support and the 4++ dont active zombies are as double better

 

So yes, in perfect scenario and situations skeletons are marginally better tanking than zombies

But in realistic games zombies gonna be better tanking than skeletons

Also zombies outdamage skeletons in any situation

Magic is the same as -2 Rend. Against shooting skeletons come out on top - neither unit heals and skeletons have a better save. Against leadership Skeletons AGAIN do better because in almost every scenario you end up killing more zombies, meaning they suffer more from battleshock. If skeletons do attack first (why would you ever pick them to attack first??) then yes, they don't do nearly as well. 

In my previous post I showed that a max unit of skellies and Necromancer (380) survive better than a max unit of zombies and Necromancer and Vampire Lord (495), just how much "full support" are you going to sink into zombies before they become as amazing as you think they are? 

Unless you're up against tiny amounts of damage, skeletons will survive better. In fact, unless you kill the unit you are guaranteed 50% of the unit remains and that's without any support! 

 

30 Skeletons are only 255 pts. 
Unless you kill them in one blow, at least 15 are guaranteed to remain. 
Rend - takes 55 wounds to kill them
Rend -1 takes 43 wounds to kill them
Rend -2 takes 37 wounds to kill them

As an objective blocking unit they are nuts



 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Aren73

[Elmir]

13 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Nope, I didn't miss it

30 Skeletons with a Necromancer (380) are cheaper than 40 Zombies with a Necromancer and a Vampire Lord (495). 

The skeletons still do better...

In this one very particular situation... tanking stuff... And we have an army that has plain ol' better units to tank damage than these guys. 

The fact that zombies are just plain easier to manipulate to strike first with their pile-in shenanigans, gain ablative wounds when they do pull off the "insane" buff (which btw, isn't even at  full potential when talking about Vyrkos builds) and all round scale better because of lower points per model, they are the better all rounders by a long shot.  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, Doko said:

Yes.....but now do the same numbers if the damage is from magic,shooting or leadership or skeletons attack first.or if the unit is deleted full

You're overthinking it. What skeletons are is a battleline unit that holds on objective and is hard to shift in melee. For 255 points at 30 bodies, you could do a lot worse than a 5+/6++ (from Gravesites now even, don't need a Necromancer) and 4+ model return. Set them up in a tight block and don't pile them in and that objective is secure for a while.

Killing 30 of them in one go is harder than you think. Do some calcs some time. It requires effort to do in melee. Sure, they are vulnerable to magic and shooting or hero phase fighting, but your opponent will then have to bring those tools in if they want to capture that objective. And still: They are just a cheap battleline unit. They don't have to survive everything. You even get a chance to get 15 back for free if they die.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

As an objective blocking unit they are nuts

Glad people are coming around on the humble skeleton. I think they are actually pretty decent! One block of 30 in every list will probably be a staple for me. Probably not more than that though, they are just too immobile.

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Elmir said:

In this one very particular situation... tanking stuff... And we have an army that has plain ol' better units to tank damage than these guys. 

The fact that zombies are just plain easier to manipulate to strike first with their pile-in shenanigans, gain ablative wounds when they do pull off the "insane" buff (which btw, isn't even at  full potential when talking about Vyrkos builds) and all round scale better because of lower points per model, they are the better all rounders by a long shot.  

In most situations. Dude...I even gave the zombies 115 more points. 
That's just one of many scenarios where Skellies are better at tanking than zombies. 
It's not all scenarios, definitely not, but in the majority of scenarios skellies tank better. 

 

And yes, zombies do much better damage. But I'm not taking skellies for damage, I have grave guard to do that for me. 

Grave guard are better at damage than zombies. 

[Elmir]

I'm actually quite curious how the interaction will be between those models getting ressed vs how many will count for the inevitable battleshock that follows. 

The wording of the AoS3 battleshock will matter a lot on having to take those resurrected casualties into account or not for your final battleshock test. 

[Elmir]

Just now, Aren73 said:

In most situations. Dude...I even gave the zombies 115 more points. 
That's just one of many scenarios where Skellies are better at tanking than zombies. 
It's not all scenarios, definitely not, but in the majority of scenarios skellies tank better. 

 

And yes, zombies do much better damage. But I'm not taking skellies for damage, I have grave guard to do that for me. 

Grave guard are better at damage than zombies. 

no, you are giving zombies the handicap of needing a 140 vampire for their tanking and that is BOLLOCKS, either you compare their tanking (have fun doing that after a battleround where they add their damage to their numbers if they strike first btw, because they it would matter)

So no, some people here are still having a hard time swallowing that bitter pill that the humble old skeleton... is just plain not that good anymore and is outshined by the way more versatile zombie. 

[Sception]

A note on save probabilities in general, separate from the skeleton/zombie debate. +1 save is not always 16% better.  You're not concerned with the number on the die that you want to roll, but rather with the proportion of rolls you succeed, and how many extra dice that means your opponent has to make you roll on average to fail the same number of times.  The better your save, the more powerful each additional +1 save becomes, and even going from no save to a mere 6+ is already better than 16%

• To wipe out a unit of 10 1 wound models with no save requires 10 damage
• for a 6+ save, requires 12 damage on average, 20% better than no save at all
• for a 5+ save, requires 15 average damage, 25% better than 6+ save
• for a 4+ save, requires 20 average damage, 33% better than a 5+ save
• for a 3+ save, requires 30 average damage, 50% better than a 4+ save
• for a 2+ save, requires 60 average damage, 100% better than a 3+ save.

[Aren73]

4 minutes ago, Elmir said:

no, you are giving zombies the handicap of needing a 140 vampire for their tanking and that is BOLLOCKS, either you compare their tanking (have fun doing that after a battleround where they add their damage to their numbers if they strike first btw, because they it would matter)

So no, some people here are still having a hard time swallowing that bitter pill that the humble old skeleton... is just plain not that good anymore and is outshined by the way more versatile zombie. 

I gave them the vampire to double their damage output and their heals. Sure, we can take the vampire away, now the zombies with Necro are cheaper than skellies with necro by 25 points (woo?).
Zombie damage and heals are halved...they still come out worse. 

People are blinded by the omg-MWs-on-6s-models-get-back-on-2s thing but the maths is generally in favour of skellies. 

And once again, this is just for tanking. Zombies have better damage, I am not and will not argue against that. 

EDIT: Also I literally did the maths for a whole range of scenarios and even put up the graphs. It's not just one oddball scenario that skellies tank better, it's a whole range. 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Aren73

[Doko]

8 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Magic is the same as -2 Rend. Against shooting skeletons come out on top - neither unit heals and skeletons have a better save

Sure both units dont have healing and as you said skeletons have 5 save but.....for same cost skeletons are 30 wounds and zombies 40 wounds so without the healing skeletons are worse in magic and shooting if we compare cost of units

 

But last post about skeletons,im pretty sure nobody gonna use them in competitive because they are useless  and need too much specials situations to only be a little better than other units.

If people are happy with skeletons good for you it is great

[Sception]

spamming f5 on the preorder page.  This is my life now.

[Elmir]

Just now, Aren73 said:

I gave them the vampire to double their damage output and their heals. Sure, we can take the vampire away, now the zombies with Necro are cheaper than skellies with necro by 25 points (woo?).
Zombie damage and heals are halved...they still come out worse. 

People are blinded by the omg-MWs-on-6s-models-get-back-on-2s thing but the maths is generally in favour of skellies. 

And once again, this is just for tanking. Zombies have better damage, I am not and will not argue against that. 

Then try to argue  for the fact that getting a worse tanking unit in skeletons is somehow the smarter choice compared to just getting the tankier, faster and harder hitting Blood knights instead? If a tanky unit is what you are after...

Skeletons lose out in damage and flexibilty/tricks compared to zombies for your battle line, and with the mega fast blood knights being one of the tankiest units in the game, they kind of also lose out against those too in that department. I just don't see a place for the humble skelly in this book. 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

40 minutes ago, Elmir said:

no, you are giving zombies the handicap of needing a 140 vampire for their tanking and that is BOLLOCKS, either you compare their tanking (have fun doing that after a battleround where they add their damage to their numbers if they strike first btw, because they it would matter)

So no, some people here are still having a hard time swallowing that bitter pill that the humble old skeleton... is just plain not that good anymore and is outshined by the way more versatile zombie. 

I don't know, I think skeletons can do some cool stuff. I mean, I like Zombies floating around in the mid field with their large threat range, gumming up the board and capturing with their huge body count. But even with mortals on hit, their damage is bad unless supported. Around 4 damage for 20, which I use as a benchmark unit size because of their low reach.

Skeletons, meanwhile, I like for sitting squarely on an objective in a tight pack. Minimize the opponent's area of attack, get charged and then regenerate to surround him. Regeneration is before they attack or pile in, so you will generally be able to bring at least 15 skeletons in to attack if even one of them survives. They also do no damage, also around 4 or 5 against a 4+ save unsupported. But the difference is, your opponent will grind down zombies. They will get ground down by skeletons if they can't kill them on the initial attack.

So, to me the difference is: Zombies want to charge, skeletons want to be charged. Both are valuable roles.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep