Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Sception]

3 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

The Cursed City stuff sounds dumb enough to be believable.

I find it difficult to believe GW is immediately showing off conversions done in-house, but I suppose they did show that one Sigvald-into-Vampire conversion on Community pretty quickly.

I mean, they showed off a bunch of conversions with the Anvil of Apotheosis rules in the last general's handbook.  Including a vamp lord on zombie dragon converted from archaon's steed.

[BrotherTalarian]

6 hours ago, Sception said:

That's what it looks like to me, especially with the anvil rules in this issue.

Certainly we aren't seeing the sort of big spotlight articles we'd expect from the soulblight gravelords release, or even mention of the faction by name, so I think we can pretty safely say that the gravelords release will not be in May, or if it is it will be towards the end of the month.

Curious how you came to this conclusion? 
 

I think we’d have a better idea after Monday, but let’s assume they reveal the rest of SGL, that gives them the entire month to advertise more, have these articles, and have a pre-order on the 3rd Saturday of may. 
 

No? 
 

In any case I’m hyped for Monday, and could be making the argument because I’m eager to get my hands on these new models and rules. 

[Evil Bob]

13 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Part of the problem with Petrifex was, in my opinion, that it was just the brain-dead most obvious best choice, and a bit of a noob stomper at that. So average players disproportionally hit a wall when playing against it. I think that's still a legitimate reason to complain, though. After all, most players are average, so we should keep the average player in mind when balancing factions.

Fair assessment.
 

Although I just cannot stress enough how the problem wasn’t they were the best.  It was they made the other sub factions so terrible.  My Favorite Null Myriad got a garbage 5+ to spell resistance.  These bones were steeped in real stone and yet the main gimmick has no solid benefit.  Even other sources where Devs deemed it important set the number as low as 3+.  So this group not only lacks a combat, survivability, or movement type bonus but “something weak other” that has no reliability.  It was also odd that Arkhams group loses their +1 cast from LoN.

Rather than trashing the book over one nerf they should have done that nerf and fix the other sub factions.

At these prices the lack of effort kind of ticks me off.

[Honk]

57 minutes ago, Evil Bob said:

At these prices the lack of effort kind of ticks me off.

QfT +1

 

just reminds me of my FEC Gristlegore GKoTG... first strike? What are you smoking and may I have some too? 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Honk

[Sception]

1 hour ago, BrotherTalarian said:

Curious how you came to this conclusion?

I'm used to new faction book releases getting articles in white dwarf about that specifically, but admittedly I've been out of tge white dwarf game for a while so maybe thats not how they do anymore.

[Sception]

23 hours ago, Evil Bob said:

OBR hype was overblown.

Overblown or not, the meme is that there are two AoS rules writers - one writes 'sin' books and one writes 'bin' books, and if those are the two categories, obr can't in good faith be sorted into the 'bin' pile.  Especially when the most direct comparison faction was not the arcanites that came after but rather the mawtribes released directly alongside them.

You certainly can't look at OBR and say 'ugh, after that trash Death is due for and actually good battletome for once'.  Out of all the current Death battletomes, including LoN, the only one that was kind of weak and janky right out of the gate was Nighthaunt.

[dirkdragonslayer]

7 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

The Cursed City stuff sounds dumb enough to be believable.

I find it difficult to believe GW is immediately showing off conversions done in-house, but I suppose they did show that one Sigvald-into-Vampire conversion on Community pretty quickly.

Recently they have been showing off conversions on the Community site and in white dwarf articles, so it's not super far fetched. Especially since the same white dwarf has the anvil of apotheosis/blood rules. They aren't afraid to show off converted models, and to me it definitely looks like a modified Sigvald.

Edit: Maybe it is something new? I saw a slightly clearer picture of the thing on another site and the "legs" were bat wing bits I don't recognize. The shoulder and sword arm still looks like Sigvald to me, but those bat wings being used like a seals flipper look too defined to be a kitbash. I am going to leave this at a "I dunno."

Edited May 1, 2021 by dirkdragonslayer
Second guessing myself.

[Malakithe]

The more I look at the potato pic the more im kinda agreeing that its a crazy kitbash instead of a new model. Heres to hoping the Anvil of Blood stuff isnt crazy overpriced and mostly unusable in matched play like the other Anvil stuff

[warhammernerd]

Pretty sure it’s the mental new centaur camp thing predicted / leaked a while back

[Il Maestro]

Pretty sure we've had some solid 'confirmation' by @Whitefang of the fact that this is a new model rather than a conversion.

 

And remember, when it came to the other conversions shown off they have always been specifically in the setting of heavy narrative gaming or non-GW employed model showcases for hype. Knowing full well that we pick apart every last pixel of all releases for clues, and with the likely imminent SBG release (which would line up with a new battle report), to me it seems unlikely they would have a large converted mini as the showcase.

[Raptor_Jesues]

because no one has ever been known to be trolling someone else on the internet ever. 
I am not saying that whitefang is surely full of it of course but him saying so is not exactly proof

Edited May 1, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[lare2]

My money's on a new model. I'll bet you a Mars bar. 

[Raptor_Jesues]

12 minutes ago, lare2 said:

My money's on a new model. I'll bet you a Mars bar. 

you are on

[Malakithe]

Eh...all these recent 'rumors' sound sketchy at best

[Sception]

I don't know.  The rumors are apparently from several weeks back - back when Cursed City was released - and they were so specific about the weird new upper-torso-vampire, lower-torso-weird-winged-centaur, an absolutely absurd concept that nobody would have rationally guessed at and yet exactly what the white dwarf potato cam image seems to show.

At this point I'm convinced.  I believe this is a new model, and I expect we'll be seeing it properly on monday.  Utterly bizarre concept, though.  I mean, part of the point of vampires conceptually is they're not constantly on the battlefield.  They don't just exist to fight, they're not daemons.  They spend most of their time engaging in politics and gross parodies of high society.  The occasional bat wing or wolf tail or digitigrade leg is one thing, but how does a vampire who's lower torso is a giant silly monster body attend a fancy dinner or masquerade party?  Is it supposed to be like a temporary war form transformation and afterwords they revert to a more humanoid shape?  Yeah, there's precedent for more monstrous vampires in Varghulfs, Vargheists, & Vargskyrs, but only when they've lost their minds and humanity, succumbing fully to their bestial hunger.  From it's armored upper torso and use of weapons this thing is still a person.

If anything, this looks like something Nagash would have made, something specifically to dash a vampires pretentions to humanity.  A physical reminder that they aren't queens and princes meant to rule the living but monstrous unliving nightmares who exist to hunt the living to extinction.

If that's their angle, then I could see myself getting behind that.  Plus the named one at least is a lady, and I'm always keen to see more ladies in Age of Sigmar.  I can't believe I'm talking myself into liking such a stupid, goofy concept.

How am I going to maintain my pessimistic disposition?

I guess the other rumors are still kind of worrying, particularly:

Spoiler

zombies and skeletons losing their large unit bonuses.

At the end of the day this is a new book for legions of nagash, and I'm not sure how legions of nagash makes it to being a competitively viable book if it loses its nighthaunt units and skeleton warriors lose their extra attacks.  What are you even supposed to be using for your main combat blocks at that point?

We'll see though. 

[JackStreicher]

40 minutes ago, Sception said:

I don't know.  The rumors are apparently from several weeks back - back when Cursed City was released - and they were so specific about the weird new upper-torso-vampire, lower-torso-weird-winged-centaur, an absolutely absurd concept that nobody would have rationally guessed at and yet exactly what the white dwarf potato cam image seems to show.

At this point I'm convinced.  I believe this is a new model, and I expect we'll be seeing it properly on monday.  Utterly bizarre concept, though.  I mean, part of the point of vampires conceptually is they're not constantly on the battlefield.  They don't just exist to fight, they're not daemons.  They spend most of their time engaging in politics and gross parodies of high society.  The occasional bat wing or wolf tail or digitigrade leg is one thing, but how does a vampire who's lower torso is a giant silly monster body attend a fancy dinner or masquerade party?  Is it supposed to be like a temporary war form transformation and afterwords they revert to a more humanoid shape?  Yeah, there's precedent for more monstrous vampires in Varghulfs, Vargheists, & Vargskyrs, but only when they've lost their minds and humanity, succumbing fully to their bestial hunger.  From it's armored upper torso and use of weapons this thing is still a person.

If anything, this looks like something Nagash would have made, something specifically to dash a vampires pretentions to humanity.  A physical reminder that they aren't queens and princes meant to rule the living but monstrous unliving nightmares who exist to hunt the living to extinction.

If that's their angle, then I could see myself getting behind that.  Plus the named one at least is a lady, and I'm always keen to see more ladies in Age of Sigmar.  I can't believe I'm talking myself into liking such a stupid, goofy concept.

How am I going to maintain my pessimistic disposition?

I guess the other rumors are still kind of worrying, particularly:

  Hide contents

zombies and skeletons losing their large unit bonuses.

At the end of the day this is a new book for legions of nagash, and I'm not sure how legions of nagash makes it to being a competitively viable book if it loses its nighthaunt units and skeleton warriors lose their extra attacks.  What are you even supposed to be using for your main combat blocks at that point?

We'll see though. 

Agreed!

I thought the horde bonus referred to saving points for buying a maxed out unit 🥲

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

40 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Agreed!

I thought the horde bonus referred to saving points for buying a maxed out unit 🥲

I think that 4chan post was talking about extra attacks. I personally welcome that change, extra attacks on skeletons just meant rolling 200 dice to deal no damage at the end. Plus, it made it so that nothing in LoN could give bonus rend or damage because that would quickly become absurd with 5 attacks per skeleton.

[Acrozatarim]

Given other rumours about them possibly cutting down on the number of units who can horde it up in general, they may have decided to stop doing the whole 'if you've got 20 you get +1 whatever' numbers rules across the board for 3e?

God knows the sheer variety that the horde bonuses take across the different books is pretty damn incoherent at this point, and honestly I don't think it's really worked as a sticking plaster replacement for the old combat rank bonuses that WHFB numbers gave you.

[lare2]

I'd love to see the end of horde bonuses. You ever ran a horde army at a 5 game tourney? Man, your back's in serious pain after that. Especially with skellies - 200 (x2 with Danse) dice to roll on the attack seriously does you over. Also really slows the game down. Always had to have my standard questions prepped to keep my opponent engaged as I rolled. 

[Sception]

Regardless of rules implementation, I'm sure we haven't seen the end of hordes, whether in the game or in our faction.  It's too central to the aesthetic image and base concept of warhammer undead.  We'll be intended to run big blocks of skeletons & zombies.  The question is whether the rules will successfully incentivize it.

Edited May 1, 2021 by Sception

[pnkdth]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

I don't know.  The rumors are apparently from several weeks back - back when Cursed City was released - and they were so specific about the weird new upper-torso-vampire, lower-torso-weird-winged-centaur, an absolutely absurd concept that nobody would have rationally guessed at and yet exactly what the white dwarf potato cam image seems to show.

At this point I'm convinced.  I believe this is a new model, and I expect we'll be seeing it properly on monday.  Utterly bizarre concept, though.  I mean, part of the point of vampires conceptually is they're not constantly on the battlefield.  They don't just exist to fight, they're not daemons.  They spend most of their time engaging in politics and gross parodies of high society.  The occasional bat wing or wolf tail or digitigrade leg is one thing, but how does a vampire who's lower torso is a giant silly monster body attend a fancy dinner or masquerade party?  Is it supposed to be like a temporary war form transformation and afterwords they revert to a more humanoid shape?  Yeah, there's precedent for more monstrous vampires in Varghulfs, Vargheists, & Vargskyrs, but only when they've lost their minds and humanity, succumbing fully to their bestial hunger.  From it's armored upper torso and use of weapons this thing is still a person.

If anything, this looks like something Nagash would have made, something specifically to dash a vampires pretentions to humanity.  A physical reminder that they aren't queens and princes meant to rule the living but monstrous unliving nightmares who exist to hunt the living to extinction.

If that's their angle, then I could see myself getting behind that.  Plus the named one at least is a lady, and I'm always keen to see more ladies in Age of Sigmar.  I can't believe I'm talking myself into liking such a stupid, goofy concept.

How am I going to maintain my pessimistic disposition?

I guess the other rumors are still kind of worrying, particularly:

  Hide contents

zombies and skeletons losing their large unit bonuses.

At the end of the day this is a new book for legions of nagash, and I'm not sure how legions of nagash makes it to being a competitively viable book if it loses its nighthaunt units and skeleton warriors lose their extra attacks.  What are you even supposed to be using for your main combat blocks at that point?

We'll see though. 

In the old WHFB army books you could turns your vampire into a monstrous abomination or even ethereal. In the general description they also say the vampire doesn't really have a defined formed at all. Described as when under stress or in the thick of combat they might drop their mask completely, i.e. it takes a conscious effort for the vampire to remain looking human. Same is true when having consumed a great deal or warpstone or exposed themselves to massive amounts of death magic. Layla, the silver princess, is an example of a vampire who required constant scented roses and such to hide her reeking smell and always wore a mask (a silver mask). 

With this in mind I see them going all in on the "one-winged" vampire model to give us a true monster, the true face of the vampire laid bare.

As for hordes, bonuses and such might just be linked with the vampires themselves or any number of other reasons. As for units, I doubt they'll take away and not add anything. Seems out of character with the recent books (even though the HoS was kind of barebones it still had more units than before).

[Feii]

Im fine with mob units losing their bonuses for numbers if it means they are costed more evenly/justly. Ofzen times you get these horde units and they are busted (cough marauders cough) and if you pointed them correctly you are painting them with horde bonus counted so anybody who is running them below the treshold is having a feel bad moment. 
 

 

Having that said rules that boost these units should be present in the subfactions, battalions (rip) or via CAs. 

[Feii]

One more thing if we are not getting a full army revamp do you think we are getting the LRL/SLAANESH trestment? ie next wave for holidays or so

[Honk]

8 hours ago, Sception said:

new upper-torso-vampire, lower-torso-weird-winged-centaur, an absolutely absurd concept

Maybe, as Lady of Nightmares... that mashed potato lower half is some deranged smoke with faces, bats and tentacles, which she rises out of. 
 

One more week 😓🥳🧟‍♀️ Feels like x-mas
 

[Sception]

59 minutes ago, Honk said:

One more week 😓🥳🧟‍♀️ Feels like x-mas

One week nothing, we're already at...

Edited May 1, 2021 by Sception