Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Darkhan]

24 minutes ago, herohammer said:

that is why I said broken one way or another. Sylvaneth are too bad. Seraphon and tzeetnch are too good

Then we agree😂

[Aren73]

25 minutes ago, FeralMulan said:

Batallions are rumored to be on their way out, so no, this didn't particularly bother me.

 

Nah, all we have is that there are some armies with good battalions and some with not so good and GW wants to level the playing field a bit. 

For all we know they'll just add a bunch of new universal ones in the book and call it done. 

I really hope they don't get rid of them, I really like the Fellwing Flock - I'm a huge fan of Vargheists and the Fell Bats models are lovely, plus it's a nice little buff. I was really happy when I saw that in the book and I hope it stays for matched play. 

[Sception]

I'd like to think we could keep these battalions.  But the rumor pile with 'no tome battalions' has been pretty right about a lot of other things.  Until 3e is out and we can see for sure, I'm just not going to get invested in these or write any lists with them.

[Nightseer2012]

2 hours ago, Darkhan said:

Kritza and Lady Annika...no reason at all to include those two, I had so high hopes. 

Yea, they are both on my list for "Why wasn't this warscroll finished" along with black knights.  Consider, only Belladama and Radukar the Wolf are wizards, out of what, 5 named Vyrkos Vampire wizards?  That leaves normal vampire lords and VLoZD's to get the Vyrkos reroll to casting.  Vampire Lords have no warscroll spell.  So they are basically locked to "Invocation caddy" because the Lore of Vampires is just... so bad.  At least VLoZD has his "decent" warscroll spell. 

And don't get me started on the whole "Invocation can be cast by anyone, but can't stack, and you have mostly 1 cast wizards so enjoy" nonsense.  I was actually super excited about Kritza for a hot minute, I loved the idea of a vermin style vampire, and his own individual power is actually interesting, he just doesn't DO enough.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 hours ago, Darkhan said:

Kritza and Lady Annika...no reason at all to include those two, I had so high hopes. 

@Nightseer2012

For what it's worth, I am planning to pick up Kritza and Annika next week for the models and will probably throw them into a list occasionally.

Kritza is really janky at the moment, since his "Scurrying Retreat" triggers every movement phase after he dies once. Even if he already got resurrected. And his "copies" dying should give you more "Scurrying Retreat" triggers, too.

Him just coming back onto the board wherever you want is kinda nice. It could make a difference in scenarios with heroes capturing objectives. Especially since he can be your general in additon in a Vyrkos list.

And he's still a hero, so at least he can provide Deathless Minions, the Vyrkos +1 to wound and Inspiring Presence. Not too bad for a small hero that you don't care about losing.

 

Annika is kinda tanky, which is fun. 6 wounds, 4+/4+ (so Phoenix Guard levels) and heals herself completely if she kills something. Probably impossible to grind down by no-rend attacks. I don't see a real role for her in the army, but she aight.

[Darkhan]

4 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

@Nightseer2012

For what it's worth, I am planning to pick up Kritza and Annika next week for the models and will probably throw them into a list occasionally.

Kritza is really janky at the moment, since his "Scurrying Retreat" triggers every movement phase after he dies once. Even if he already got resurrected. And his "copies" dying should give you more "Scurrying Retreat" triggers, too.

Him just coming back onto the board wherever you want is kinda nice. It could make a difference in scenarios with heroes capturing objectives. Especially since he can be your general in additon in a Vyrkos list.

And he's still a hero, so at least he can provide Deathless Minions, the Vyrkos +1 to wound and Inspiring Presence. Not too bad for a small hero that you don't care about losing.

 

Annika is kinda tanky, which is fun. 6 wounds, 4+/4+ (so Phoenix Guard levels) and heals herself completely if she kills something. Probably impossible to grind down by no-rend attacks. I don't see a real role for her in the army, but she aight.

Yes, they lack a proper synergy. New reveal monday and everything, no idea why they didnt make them more unique.

I will be surprised if they don't faq the endless kritza respawn.

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, Aren73 said:

Creativity, inspiration whatever you'd like to call it - what I mean is the amount of thematic rules in the book, on the allegiance abilities and warscrolls. 

Our faction abilities and are ok, some are more thematic than others. The warscrolls however, a lot of them are sadly quite bland. 

What makes a warscroll thematic (to me) is th special abilities and spells on it. The current iteration of the Vampire Lord is especially bad for this - he has the same cookie cutter profile as any vampire in the book. That's not just any vampire lord, but any vampire, even Vargheists, they all swing more or less the same. 

On top of that the Vampire Lord has no special rules to distinguish him as a vampire lord, except the hunger which again every vampire has. He can cast magic but has no unique spell and has a command ability which while nice is a pretty generic command ability seen again and again. 

The vampire lord doesn't feel much like a lord, instead it comes of as any other vampire in the book. I don't think they got very creative with the lord - hence why I said lack of creativity. I mean even our old warscroll had more flavour with the flying horror, nightmare steed and the chalice there. 

I feel like more could have been done with them, that's all. Zombies and skeletons got some really cool rules changes and they feel very on theme, there's some real vision there. 

I just do not see the same strength of vision for the lord or the fell bats. For Black Knights I think they tried but didn't change them enough - leaving them in an awkward spot where it would have been better had they not tried. 

For me it's not a bad book, it's just a bit bland.

That makes more sense, I don't think I've ever applied creativity to rules like that which is why I didn't quite grasp what you were saying.

I think most games tend to have a bit of a disconnect between the rules and the background and agree that the vampire is pretty lack lustre, especially having lost the option to be given a nightmare (though I prefer fly being automatically built in).  In my eyes the vampire lord just represent one of the many vampires that make up a court - they're nothing special but wield more power than a thrall.  Now, what I'd love to have seen was a slightly higher tier vampire, perhaps one which gets boosted depending upon their blood line (in the same way as Daemon Princes do).

 

2 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

I don't think it's too early either, because we're not at the point of leaked photos; from 10am Saturday the NDAs were lifted and a whole swathe of online blogs and podcasts were uploaded. You get the book read out to you, warscrolls and allegiance abilities shown and discussed, and can download the warscrolls from the GW official website.

FAQ's typically come out 2 weeks from release, in the pandemic it's longer sure, but there is no reason to wait. 

It's still a far cry from having the book in your own hands and actually being able to digest it.  I've lost count of the number of times a reviewer has got stuff wrong - even WarCom get stuff wrong!  It's not like it's a long time to wait until we physically get the book either.  Happy to agree to disagree on this one.

It's going to be interesting to see when the FAQ comes out.  Countdown on AoS 3 is the 29th and I can't see an FAQ coming out on the 5th June when the new game could invalidate some of those answers!  Who knows 🤷‍♂️

[Aren73]

16 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

That makes more sense, I don't think I've ever applied creativity to rules like that which is why I didn't quite grasp what you were saying.

I think most games tend to have a bit of a disconnect between the rules and the background and agree that the vampire is pretty lack lustre, especially having lost the option to be given a nightmare (though I prefer fly being automatically built in).  In my eyes the vampire lord just represent one of the many vampires that make up a court - they're nothing special but wield more power than a thrall.  Now, what I'd love to have seen was a slightly higher tier vampire, perhaps one which gets boosted depending upon their blood line (in the same way as Daemon Princes do).

I agree, having a Vampire ....Count (I know I know) in the book too, who is a beefier, more customisable Vampire Lord, would be ideal. One could argue that's what Vengorian Lords are but I disagree, in terms of lore and theme they're very different, more bestial and don't have any more customisation. 

It always grinds my gears when there are lots of rules and lots of profiles that do exactly the same thing, but are called different. It feels like fake variety which in my eyes is even worse than no variety. A lot of GW books, profiles and rules feel like that: they're repeated across armies and books, just they have a different name in each one. It's probably much easier to balance and leads to a better meta and whatnot but...eh, definitely not as interesting. 

But that's the state of AoS and 40k now, no use me complaining about it, it's just what the games are. 

Instead, I now really want that Vampire Count, it would be so on theme! Also a bit tongue-in-cheek, which undead have always been (Warhammer has always been tbh). 

[Liquidsteel]

I think the 29th will be the announcement. So new box and new edition revealed and maybe the date of when it releases, though they love to keep us guessing.

 

With 9th edition for 40k, how long did it take from Indomitus announcement to release?

[warhammernerd]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

@Nightseer2012

For what it's worth, I am planning to pick up Kritza and Annika next week for the models and will probably throw them into a list occasionally.

Kritza is really janky at the moment, since his "Scurrying Retreat" triggers every movement phase after he dies once. Even if he already got resurrected. And his "copies" dying should give you more "Scurrying Retreat" triggers, too.

Him just coming back onto the board wherever you want is kinda nice. It could make a difference in scenarios with heroes capturing objectives. Especially since he can be your general in additon in a Vyrkos list.

And he's still a hero, so at least he can provide Deathless Minions, the Vyrkos +1 to wound and Inspiring Presence. Not too bad for a small hero that you don't care about losing.

 

Annika is kinda tanky, which is fun. 6 wounds, 4+/4+ (so Phoenix Guard levels) and heals herself completely if she kills something. Probably impossible to grind down by no-rend attacks. I don't see a real role for her in the army, but she aight.

He is rad, but he dies and then if he comes back you don’t test again until he dies again. Anyone who try’s to play this any other way, ie having multiples of him on the tabletop is only doing so because they think read as written supersedes read as intended. For 95 points, he is ace as is. Obviously if you had multiples of him running around the board he would cost a lot more AND be stupidly broken. But sure...

That said, as is, he in an excellent way of ensuring any Vampire lord buffs in the form of battle traits, such as ‘The Strength of The Pack is The Wolf’ (+1 to wound WW 9” of a Vamp lord) are really hard to shut down. He simply can’t reliably be sniped off the board. Such a great rule, and means him not being a wizard is no big deal.

Annika, likewise makes an excellent nuisance unit running around the flanks. Annoyingly hard to shift for crappy units, small footprint and not too shabby output.

[umpac]

4 minutes ago, warhammernerd said:

He is rad, but he dies and then if he comes back you don’t test again until he dies again. Anyone who try’s to play this any other way, ie having multiples of him on the tabletop is only doing so because they think read as written supersedes read as intended. For 95 points, he is ace as is. Obviously if you had multiples of him running around the board he would cost a lot more AND be stupidly broken. But sure...

Nah, even with multiplying Kritzas hes just bad. He doesn't buff anything, he doesnt do any damage, he isnt mobile. Ressing him also relying on a 4+ so even with multiply-rules you will very rarely see more than 1-2 on the table anyway (it relies on him dying multiple times and rolling tons of 4+, its not gonna be a thing).

Rules as written ALWAYS supersedes rules as intended because we know what is written but its impossible to know the intent. That being said, this is an obvious oversight and will 100% be FAQ'd in a month and nobody is going to buy 10+ Kritzas just for a low-power gimmick that will be gone before you can even paint them.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

New list, who dis?

Allegiance: Vyrkos Dynasty
Mortal Realm: Shyish

Leaders
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435)
- General
- Deathlance
- Command Trait: Hunter's Snare
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vengorian Lord (280)
- Artefact: Gravesand Brooch
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Necromancer (125)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread
Belladamma Volga (200)
- General
- Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike or Amethystine Pinions

Battleline
30 x Skeleton Warriors (255)
30 x Grave Guard (420)
- Great Wight Blades
10 x Dire Wolves (135)
10 x Dire Wolves (135)

Total: 1985 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 139

 

---

 

This list is written with the idea in mind that in AoS 3, +to hit, wound and save will not longer stack and that mystic shield will probably give +1 save.

 

This list has four different parts that are supposed to mostly act independently, but can support each other when needed.

 

The Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon gets Hunter's Snare so that he can capture for 14 models. Lance for big damage on the charge, making him more likely to bump a unit down low enough to capture right away. Lore spell is Amethystine Pinions, because he's supposed to go out and smash stuff quickly.

 

The Grave Guard go together with the Vengorian Lord. The plan is to deep strike them in via gravesites. The Lord is supposed to quickly run up (thus, Pinions again) and start supporting them defensively with his rend reduction aura, heal command ability and spell like Invigorating Aura or Mystic Shield. He can is also supposed to prevent enemy units from charging the Grave Guard by getting them locked into combat. To that end, he gets the Gravesand Brooch artefact which allows him to reroll 1s to save. So he can potentially sit on a 2+, rerolling, ignore rend -1 save if he really wants to.

 

Belladamma Volga is the second general in this list, which may become more relevant in AoS 3, who knows? In any case, she adds value by being a +1 to cast double caster with good spells on her warscroll. She can support Dire Wolves with her command ability, which allows them to do their job of screening and tarpitting better. She takes Pinions or Soulpike. Maybe even Amaranthine Orb. Not that important, because she can always cast her warscroll spells.

 

Finally, the Necromancer goes together with the Skeleton Warriors. He grants them Deathless Minions and defensive support from Vanhel's (potentially double heals for the skeleton blob) and Overwhelming Dread, making them more resilient. He also helps with Battleshock, which is going to be a problem on Skeletons with how many of them you expect to die each combat phase. I'm not 100% on the Necro, he does not give out +1 to wound from Vyrkos and does not get reroll casts, either. Listen, buddy, you are in the list for now, but you better be on your best behaviour because you're on thin ice! He'll probably be the first thing to go in favour of a generic battalion when those come around in AoS 3.

 

---

 

Overall strengths of this list:

 

Good amount of bodies.

Nice mix of fast and slow units.

Good spell casting (5 spells per turn, 4 of which get rerolls).

Invigorating aura +4/+5 to cast because of all the heroes and all units will likely get Deathly Invocation every turn.

Fairly resilient overall.

Only Summonable troops, so Endless Legions is likely to be impactful.

No stinky zombies

Edited May 17, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, umpac said:

He doesn't buff anything, he doesnt do any damage, he isnt mobile.

But that's not true!

Just by being a SBGL hero, he buffs with fnp6++, can heal some units, buffs deathwalkers and deathrattle with +1 to wound in a vyrkos bloodline list, +1cast to any  invigorating aura casted by other wizards, etc... and if this new CA reactions are true, that's another point to take in consideration.

I compeletely agree about Kriza being uninteresting, but for 95p hero on an army with innate synergies just by being a hero or vampire/hero, that's not that bad.

Btw, I prefered that both Kriza and Annika to be on par with Belladamma or even Radukar with same cost rang, but that's another thing.

[umpac]

9 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Just by being a SBGL hero, he buffs with fnp6++, can heal some units, buffs deathwalkers and deathrattle with +1 to wound in a vyrkos bloodline list, +1cast to any  invigorating aura casted by other wizards, etc... and if this new CA reactions are true, that's another point to take in consideration.

Its technically true that the general faction abilities apply to him, but you have plenty of better sources for all those buffs via characters that also provides other much more powerful buffs.

95 pts to provide buffs you already have redundancy for is bad, but you have a point, he does provide some value.

[Sception]

I'll be interested in Kritza when and if we get swarms back and he does something cool for or with them.  Until then, he's just thematically awkward.  Like if we had a wight king, but no deathrattle units.  Or if they made the grave keeper a real hero in its own right, but took away zombies.  Or if they finally introduced plastic blood knights, but took away the mounted vamp lords that go with wait what?

Anyway, Kritza's a hero who very much goes with a very specific unit, and even if they can make him work on his own mechanically, it just doesn't feel right to field him that way.

[Lightbox]

11 minutes ago, Sception said:

I'll be interested in Kritza when and if we get swarms back and he does something cool for or with them.  Until then, he's just thematically awkward.  Like if we had a wight king, but no deathrattle units.  Or if they made the grave keeper a real hero in its own right, but took away zombies.  Or if they finally introduced plastic blood knights, but took away the mounted vamp lords that go with wait what?

Anyway, Kritza's a hero who very much goes with a very specific unit, and even if they can make him work on his own mechanically, it just doesn't feel right to field him that way.

At least the lack of mounted vampire can be easily remedied with anvil of apotheosis.

It would have been great to have rat swarms for Kritza to utilise and give him a little pied piper playstyle, definitely feel they missed a bit of a trick with that one.

[Darkhan]

9 minutes ago, Lightbox said:

At least the lack of mounted vampire can be easily remedied with anvil of apotheosis.

It would have been great to have rat swarms for Kritza to utilise and give him a little pied piper playstyle, definitely feel they missed a bit of a trick with that one.

I thought they were going to do this with the rats from cursed city. Why the hell even call him rat king. 
So much potential.. 

[El Syf]

There is the slim chance we get Lumineth treatment, there's some odd things that don't stack up, no mounted vampire lord, grave guard become major playas but keep their old kit when skeletons and wight king on skeletal steed get new kits but head scratching warscrolls.

Obviously the biggest omission which book 2 will rectify is the distinct lack of Abhorash...

On a more serious note does anyone have nay recommendations for metallic reds? Don't really like GW's non metallic armor on the blood knights.

[Izotzuhure]

3 minutes ago, El Syf said:

There is the slim chance we get Lumineth treatment, there's some odd things that don't stack up, no mounted vampire lord, grave guard become major playas but keep their old kit when skeletons and wight king on skeletal steed get new kits but head scratching warscrolls.

Obviously the biggest omission which book 2 will rectify is the distinct lack of Abhorash...

On a more serious note does anyone have nay recommendations for metallic reds? Don't really like GW's non metallic armor on the blood knights.

I was planning on testing Flesh tearer red over Leadbelcher to get a dark metallic red. 

[Ghoooouls]

8 minutes ago, Izotzuhure said:

I was planning on testing Flesh tearer red over Leadbelcher to get a dark metallic red. 

This works well, I have some blood knights where I did this.

I think it was flesh tearers red anyway

[Lightbox]

8 minutes ago, Izotzuhure said:

I was planning on testing Flesh tearer red over Leadbelcher to get a dark metallic red. 

Can confirm that contrasts over metallics work very well.

 

Retributor armour with blood angels red over it is great for a more vibrant cherry red like 30k thousand sons.

[Aren73]

14 minutes ago, El Syf said:

There is the slim chance we get Lumineth treatment...

One can dream...

Previously I've said I don't think such a thing is at all likely to happen. Now I'm here desperately hoping it will. 

It's best to assume we won't, not to think about it, not to speculate, not to talk about it or mention it in any way. 
Because when it doesn't come (as is most likely) then at least we can keep our sanity. 

We have a book. That book can make playable lists. Let's make those lists, play them and enjoy the faction for what it is. And if we DO get the LRL treatment...well, we'll be a bunch of lucky undead. 

[BrotherTalarian]

Hmm, after read the riders of ruin rule again, I’m lead to believe that the RAI might very well be RAW.

And that’s it’s very much only supposed to be used to trample over your enemy to be able to charge a target hiding in the back the following turn, and not be able to charge again after. 
 

x         (O) 

———

^ 

O

 

where O charges in to — 

Following turn o moves to (o) 

—- takes mortals 

then on the last turn (o) charges x 

 

(did this on mobile hope the image translates well haha) 

[Sception]

charge on the same turn you use it seems to be RAI (that's how it's described in the Warcom article, & hasn't been changed since afaik), but definitely isn't raw, since a retreat move is not distinct from a normal move in AoS 2e core rules.  The rule lets you make a 'normal move' while within 3" of an enemy, and any 'normal move' that starts within 3" of an enemy is a retreat and follows the rules for a retreat, including not charging later that turn, which riders of ruin provides no explicit exception for currently.

I fully expect an errata or FAQ to clarify this, and possibly even for 'retreat moves' to be made distinct from 'normal moves' in the 3e core rules, which would avoid the problem altogether.  I do believe blood knights are intended to and will be made able to RoR and charge in the same turn.  But that isn't the RAW currently.

[Beliman]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

possibly even for 'retreat moves' to be made distinct from 'normal moves' in the 3e core rules

I think that this will be the case. There is another ability that talks about a "normal move" and specify that it can "run" but nothing about "retreat".