Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Inferno]

4 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Alright you lot. Who wants some White Dwarf pics?

are they allowed? if so please

[Aren73]

Actually someone beat me to it, they are all up on the SoulblightGravelords subreddit. 

Excuse me? "My Legion I summon thee" is bonkers.

Deep-striking Grave Guard outside of 3" of enemy...dear Nagash...

Edited May 19, 2021 by Aren73

[JackStreicher]

12 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Actually someone beat me to it, they are all up on the SoulblightGravelords subreddit. 

Can't find them X_x (I'll get mine on Friday)

[Sartxac]

Do Anyone thinks in a combination of VLDZ and Vhordrai on Kastelai with "Fragment of the keep" (-1 to wound 6" of the VLDZ)? This does big resistence to our dragons and other good artifact is the red sword.

Fightings togheter could be competitive or are too points?

For other band, what does the CA Rousing Commander?

Edited May 19, 2021 by Sartxac

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

29 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Alright you lot. Who wants some White Dwarf pics?

Put them on imgur and post the album on reddit.com/r/ageofsigmar/ if you can. That's the easiest way to get the rules to everyone, I think.

EDIT: Oh, already up. Disregard my post.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Aren73]

Ok there are too many options there to list but in general: 

The customisation options are thematic and seem generally not overpowered though I imagine there will be one or three combinations that are straight up bust. 

Command abilities are very strong as are the spells, I could see those being mentioned as "too powerful" and tbh some of them are riding that line. 

A command ability that let's the user bring in a unit from the grave wholly within 12" and outside of 3" of the enemy....ooft. Especially when you can let your vampire turn into a fell bat...and it happens at the end of the movement phase not even in your hero phase, ooh boy. 

[Lightbox]

I'm very tempted to make a Vyrkos Vampire with anvil of blood that has curse of the lycan and just take 2 pairs of bestial claws for my weapons and just have a full crazed rip and tear vampire werewolf running around for a giggle.

 

EDIT: I can also see potential way to use the blood born or zombie ogor models as Bestial companions for your vampires/necros/wights with the anvil, just nice to think outside the box with it.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Lightbox

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Aren73 said:

Deep-striking Grave Guard outside of 3" of enemy...dear Nagash...

That's immediately where my mind went, too. You can also give the hero a deep strike, which also triggers end of movement, so you can deep strike and bring the Grave Guard along.

It's frustrating how much easier it is to build a better Wight King with these rules.

• Wight King base: 3 DP
• Ancient Shield (ignore rend -1): 1 DP
• 3+Save: 6 DP
• Mount: 6 DP
• "My Legions I Summon Thee": Set up units from the grave wholly within 12", outside of 3" of enemies.

16 DP. Leaves us with 4 more for speed enhancements, flying or whatever. 200 point hero.

EDIT: I should probably explain this properly. Since Grave Guard still have their 6" auto-charge, if you get to set them up within 12" of a hero with 8" (possibly 10") movement, you will basically always get to charge them in first turn. You can make a run with the Wight King, too, if you need to. Basically a better Death March charge from LoN, just with Grave Guard. Personally, I think this interaction is so much better for Deathrattle than anything in the Gravelords book that it will be hard to convince people to allow Anvil of Blood heroes. Basically enables a completely new play style.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Aren73]

11 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

That's immediately where my mind went, too. You can also give the hero a deep strike, which also triggers end of movement, so you can deep strike and bring the Grave Guard along.

It's frustrating how much easier it is to build a better Wight King with these rules.

• Wight King base: 3 DP
• Ancient Shield (ignore rend -1): 1 DP
• 3+Save: 6 DP
• Mount: 6 DP
• "My Legions I Summon Thee": Set up units from the grave wholly within 12", wholly within 3" of enemies.

16 DP. Leaves us with 4 more for speed enhancements, flying or whatever. 200 point hero.

EDIT: I should probably explain this properly. Since Grave Guard still have their 6" auto-charge, if you get to set them up within 12" of a hero with 8" (possibly 10") movement, you will basically always get to charge them in first turn. You can make a run with the Wight King, too, if you need to. Basically a better Death March charge from LoN, just with Grave Guard. Personally, I think this interaction is so much better for Deathrattle than anything in the Gravelords book that it will be hard to convince people to allow Anvil of Blood heroes. Basically enables a completely now play style.

It's a bit on the strong side though. Like...meta defining strong. 

If you can auto-charge an enemy unit of your choice (which brings with it that you can basically wipe it out) and the fact that Grave Guard can do this and you can keep doing it...nah. I wouldn't want to play against that. 

I think if you want to convince people to let you play these rules against them then definitely do NOT take that command ability. 

[Sception]

Yeah, if anything the summon legion ability is going to be the reason that nobody allows any of this.  It's just so obviously broken.  A real shame, honestly.

I also wish there were an ability to give basic spellcasting ability to a hero that doesn't have any.  So that you could make a skeletal wight wizard, or a vampire hero with both a command ability and basic spellcasting.  You can't really use these rules to create a decent version of Vlad otherwise.  Honestly, most notable vampires in the lore are both wizards - if not quite on the level of necromancer and lich lords - and skilled battlefield commanders.  That was kind of the core concept of Warhammer vampires going all the way back to the old undead army.

Still, very cool.  Can definitely make a number of interesting and unique vampires this way, as opposed to the core book vampire lord wish, while not useless (a +1 attack CA will never be useless), really does feel more bland and shabby than ever before.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

15 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

It's a bit on the strong side though. Like...meta defining strong. 

If you can auto-charge an enemy unit of your choice (which brings with it that you can basically wipe it out) and the fact that Grave Guard can do this and you can keep doing it...nah. I wouldn't want to play against that. 

I think if you want to convince people to let you play these rules against them then definitely do NOT take that command ability. 

Yeah, deep striking and auto charging one of the most offensive units in the game seems kinda strong.

Also, these rules are not well designed. Wight King is outclassed by Martial Vampire Lord: The vampire gets +1 to saves and +2" movement. It's 2 DP more expensive. +1 to saves is 2 DP on it's own. And some options are limited to Vampires, none are limited to Wight Kings as far as I can tell.

EDIT:

Deep strike vampire for "My Legions I Summon Thee":

• Martial Vamp base: 5 DP
• Crypt Shield: 1 DP
• 3+ save: 4 DP (Can you go up to 2+ actually?)
• Bat Wings/Curse of Midnight: 4 DP
• Descent from Upon High (what is this spelling, by the way?) 2 DP

16 DP, 4 left over for whatever.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Sception]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Also, these rules are not well designed. Wight King is outclassed by Martial Vampire Lord: The vampire gets +1 to saves and +2" movement. It's 2 DP more expensive. +1 to saves is 2 DP on it's own. And some options are limited to Vampires, none are limited to Wight Kings as far as I can tell.

There's definitely some wight king themed abilities - black axe, 6's to wound proc mortals, etc.  Some of those really should have been explicitly limited to Wight Kings.  Maybe a BSB type ability as well?  The difference isn't that huge or debilitating - the movement difference disappears if you give them a mount, for instance.  I think the balance on the core profiles is about as good as could be hoped for, but yeah, should have been some explicitly wight and necromancer limited abilities.

And Summon Legions should have been or done something else entirely.  Maybe a healing ability.  Maybe bring back a summonable unit at half strength.  Maybe....  bah, it doens't matter.  Something else, anyway.  Cuz as is the ability is too broken to play.  Which is a shame, because it's thematically cool.

[Aren73]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

And Summon Legions should have been or done something else entirely.  Maybe a healing ability.  Maybe bring back a summonable unit at half strength.  Maybe....  bah, it doens't matter.  Something else, anyway.  Cuz as is the ability is too broken to play.  Which is a shame, because it's thematically cool.

Perhaps a unit that was destroyed at half strength, like Endless Legions? That would mean you can only ever do it with half a max strength unit at most AND only once one has died? 

I think that would've been fine - sure you can still auto charge an enemy but the unit would likely be either skeletons or zombies or maybe grave guard but even for 15 Grave Guard that would have meant the enemy has already killed 30 of them. So not a massive issue, not game breaking. 

I may actually play it like that. Simply replace "currently set up in the grave as a reserve unit" with "half of a unit that has died previously, like for Endless Legions ability". 

[Doko]

As fyreslayer player i can say that hearthguard is hard,but can be very easily useless if the death player have the tools.

The coven throne for only 300 points do the 400+500 points of buffing heroes hearthguard useless entire the game

Chaff units as skeletons or zombies to keep them busy.

Or kill with magic and fly units to his weak heroes.

I dont mean hearthguard are weak because they are maybe the best melle unit of the game,but we habe maaaaaany options to win against them.

And with aos3 deleting battallions they wont can attack twice neither get better than 4 save

[Verminlord]

25 minutes ago, Doko said:

As fyreslayer player i can say that hearthguard is hard,but can be very easily useless if the death player have the tools.

The coven throne for only 300 points do the 400+500 points of buffing heroes hearthguard useless entire the game

Chaff units as skeletons or zombies to keep them busy.

Or kill with magic and fly units to his weak heroes.

I dont mean hearthguard are weak because they are maybe the best melle unit of the game,but we habe maaaaaany options to win against them.

And with aos3 deleting battallions they wont can attack twice neither get better than 4 save

If you're referring to the coven thrones "shudder" spell, it only affects the coven throne itself. Nothing is limiting hearthguard output besides the tentative changes in AoS 3.

I personally think the coven throne is a waste of 300pts. Especially if hit wound and save are limited to +1 and old mystic shield is back as is rumoured.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Verminlord

[Sception]

16 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Especially if hit wound and save are limited to +1 and old mystic shield is back as is rumoured.

This is something I'm worried about when it comes to grave guard with shields.  If they're allowed to stack their shield bonuses with other save bonuses, then I think both equipment options have merit, even if great weapons are still probably better most of the time.  But if the armor bonus from their shields can't stack with coven throne, mystic shield, etc, then I think we're looking at a third edition in a row of great weapons being the overwhelming best choice and shields just being pants by comparison.

A shame, since I always liked the way shield guard looked better.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Sception

[BaylorCorvette]

3 hours ago, Aren73 said:

Actually someone beat me to it, they are all up on the SoulblightGravelords subreddit. 

Can you PM the SBGL subreddit for some reason I can only find the AoS reddit.. odd.

[Televiper11]

Are Sepulchral Guard still a separate WS or are they just generic Skellies now? 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

4 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

Are Sepulchral Guard still a separate WS or are they just generic Skellies now? 

Still separate. 80 points. Their new warscroll is up on the store.

[Verminlord]

59 minutes ago, Sception said:

This is something I'm worried about when it comes to grave guard with shields.  If they're allowed to stack their shield bonuses with other save bonuses, then I think both equipment options have merit, even if great weapons are still probably better most of the time.  But if the armor bonus from their shields can't stack with coven throne, mystic shield, etc, then I think we're looking at a third edition in a row of great weapons being the overwhelming best choice and shields just being pants by comparison.

A shame, since I always liked the way shield guard looked better.

I think shields would still have merit as they need less support than great weapons. For me the load out would change based on the list.

[Doko]

1 hour ago, Verminlord said:

If you're referring to the coven thrones "shudder" spell, it only affects the coven throne itself. Nothing is limiting hearthguard output besides the tentative changes in AoS 3.

I personally think the coven throne is a waste of 300pts. Especially if hit wound and save are limited to +1 and old mystic shield is back as is rumoured.

????? Nothing limiting the hearthguard output???? Last time that i read my fyreslayer tome we havent nothing to disengage and charge again.

So coven use his spell on the hearthguard and charge them,then you can give then double turn to the rival if you want and hearthguard are 100% useless and enemy is wasting 150 battallion+400hearthguard+140 battlesmith+120 runefather+120 runesmitter because usually all these are around the block of buffed hearthguard and wont can go to buff other unit due to 4" move.

So to me(and many theorycrafter in youtube the coven is a must have and a key unit for competitive) the coven is the best unit of our tome,300 points for do useless 1000 points of the rival,also the best ca of maybe all aos

[Aren73]

3 minutes ago, Doko said:

????? Nothing limiting the hearthguard output???? Last time that i read my fyreslayer tome we havent nothing to disengage and charge again.

So coven use his spell on the hearthguard and charge them,then you can give then double turn to the rival if you want and hearthguard are 100% useless and enemy is wasting 150 battallion+400hearthguard+140 battlesmith+120 runefather+120 runesmitter because usually all these are around the block of buffed hearthguard and wont can go to buff other unit due to 4" move.

So to me(and many theorycrafter in youtube the coven is a must have and a key unit for competitive) the coven is the best unit of our tome,300 points for do useless 1000 points of the rival,also the best ca of maybe all aos

Please, let's not. 

Yeah the Coven Throne is good and it fits in well with plenty of our lists, it isn't stuck into one list type. However let's not start calling it a must-have or saying it should be in every competitive list. That's a quick and short road to getting it a points hike from GW. 

The same thing I can see happening with zombies. People are jumping on these units that look amazing on paper and are focusing on them almost exclusively. 

What will happen is this: Every single tournament SBGL player will play lots of zombies and a Coven Throne, we'll still do middling in the tournament scene and then GW will give both units a points hike or worse, reduce their abilities. 

Both of those units are fine and good and quite strong in their own way, maybe even stronger than other units of their type in our book. But let's not start shoving them into every list just because we think that's what makes us competitive.

Sometimes the unit is worth it, sometimes it's not, depends on the rest of the list. 

[Doko]

Hnnn no.

Zombis are good,yes. But we have many others units that can do the same so they arent must have(to me they arent even great)

But coven is a must have because in the actual meta the top armys usually have one deathstar unit buffed,and we can do that deathstar useless with the coven,so it is a key unit and even if you dont want call it a must have,not because it is overpower,but because we havent other unit that do the same.

Closer is belladona getting wolfs engaged in a unit,but this only reduce the numbers of models that can attack us due to pile in toward dogs.

And also if soulbligth is middle tier(as it seems gonna be) why gw nerf one unit   when it isnt even close to top? And if gw nerf coven and buff the useless units(skeletons,black nigth,wigthkings,fell bats) then i gonna be happy but i have 4 armys and even if i hate play with my fyreslayers againsth the coven i dont think need nerfs or be overpower because against armys that havent any powerfull key unit or can shooting the coven out of play in one turn it is useless.

To sumarice,the coven is a key unit due to his spell that gives us many options in competitive but 310 is high points and i even think that his cost for his stats must be something as 260 so i dont think be nerfed never even if people use it

Edit: also helps that every good hero is a named,we havent heroes that can use the items or abilitys from the book(vampires on zombidragons are bad,necromancer and vampires on foot are only 5 wounds and slow,wigthking on horse would be ideal but he is useless) so that the coven can equip items and so is a reason more

Edited May 19, 2021 by Doko

[Aren73]

2 minutes ago, Doko said:

Hnnn no.

Zombis are good,yes. But we have many others units that can do the same so they arent must have(to me they arent even great)

But coven is a must have because in the actual meta the top armys usually have one desthstar unit buffed,and we can do that desthstar useless with the coven,so it is a key unit and even if you dont want call it a must have,not because it is overpower,but because we havent other unit that do the same.

Closer is belladona getting wolfs engaged in a unit,but this only reduce the numbers of models that can attack us due to pile in toward dogs.

And also if soulbligth is middle tier(as it seems gonna be) why gw nerf one unit   when it isnt even close to top? And if gw nerf coven and buff the useless units(skeletons,black nigth,wigthkings,fell bats) then i gonna be happy but i have 4 armys and even if i hate play with my fyreslayers againsth the coven i dont think need nerfs or be overpower because against armys that havent any powerfull key unit or can shooting the coven out of play in one turn ut is useless.

To sumarice,the coven is a key unit due to his spell that gives us many options in competitive but 310 is high points and i even think that his cost for his stats must be something as 260 so i dont think be nerfed never even if people use it

I see where you're coming from king and I do appreciate your clarity on zombies. 

The coven throne does fulfill a niche, but effectively what you're talking about there is an anvil unit. It's a very good one because it can't be hurt. 
However, could we also not have a strong anvil with 10 2+ rerollable save Blood Knights? Sure some of them will die but not most of them, they should survive a round of combat against pretty much anything. They will also deal decent damage back. In a pinch they could hold up a strong unit and if 10 is not enough then use 15. 

As for GW nerfs:

Gw generally nerfs stuff not in strong factions per se, rather they nerf overused units in both strong and weak armies. If a faction is too powerful then GW just tries to fix that on the next iteration of the book. It's why it's so important not to spam the same unit time and again. With battleline it's fine (unless that's all there is in your list) but with quirky units like the Coven Throne, if everyone brings one then GW will catch onto that and will decide that the Coven Throne is too good in comparison to the rest of the book. 

Now, what's easier for them, to fix all the other units in the book or to nerf the throne? 

It happens all too often. 

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Doko said:

Hnnn no.

Zombis are good,yes. But we have many others units that can do the same so they arent must have(to me they arent even great)

But coven is a must have because in the actual meta the top armys usually have one deathstar unit buffed,and we can do that deathstar useless with the coven,so it is a key unit and even if you dont want call it a must have,not because it is overpower,but because we havent other unit that do the same.

Closer is belladona getting wolfs engaged in a unit,but this only reduce the numbers of models that can attack us due to pile in toward dogs.

And also if soulbligth is middle tier(as it seems gonna be) why gw nerf one unit   when it isnt even close to top? And if gw nerf coven and buff the useless units(skeletons,black nigth,wigthkings,fell bats) then i gonna be happy but i have 4 armys and even if i hate play with my fyreslayers againsth the coven i dont think need nerfs or be overpower because against armys that havent any powerfull key unit or can shooting the coven out of play in one turn it is useless.

To sumarice,the coven is a key unit due to his spell that gives us many options in competitive but 310 is high points and i even think that his cost for his stats must be something as 260 so i dont think be nerfed never even if people use it

Edit: also helps that every good hero is a named,we havent heroes that can use the items or abilitys from the book(vampires on zombidragons are bad,necromancer and vampires on foot are only 5 wounds and slow,wigthking on horse would be ideal but he is useless) so that the coven can equip items and so is a reason more

I'm with @Aren73. Coven Throne has an awesome spell and CA, but it's not a cheap and can't take a punch (no cover/obstacle, 4+ armor save, giant flying chariot that can't hide, 12wounds, etc...) that can disappear in one shooting/magic phase (and it will).

Edit: He can benefit from Cover/Look Out Sir!

Even if it's a great unit and a powerful force multiplier, you can't spam Coven Thrones like Necros/vampire lord and let's be honest, at 300p and all this things going on, the enemy will target your Coven Throne asap.

Imho, awesome unit that can be your MVP or die early game without doing anything (and it's hard to stop that outcome for the Gravelord player).

Edited May 19, 2021 by Beliman