Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, ShyishBarry said:

I hope that we get more vampires and vampiric creatures. Lauka Val and dire wolves are a given. I think we'll get a little bit of rules. On the other hand, I fear that we'll end up with an undead chaff-heavy Gravelords because while I get the Vampire Counts appeal, personally if I wanted to play a skeleton army, I'd just play Ossiarchs.

Same. I also don't want a 1 to 1 conversion of the old Vampire Counts to AoS

[warhammernerd]

Call me a heretic but I’m all about keeping stuff as it is, but drastically updating miniature range and massively overhauling rules.

I frickin love Zombros, Skelebobs, Doggos and Batties lead by Vamps. Sure, gimme a few new units, but personally I play Undead cos I love the existing lore.
 

Sure, throw us a new Vampiric Centaur Gribbly or two, but I really don’t want a massive AoS style reinvention along the lines of Lumineth, Ko etc.
 

Etheric Bong Wizards from the Realm of Heinrich Von Deathghist, nah.

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by warhammernerd

[Honk]

12 minutes ago, warhammernerd said:

Etheric Bong Wizards... Heinrich Von Deathghist

🤔 sounds legit

I hope they’ll add a bit to the range and then hard split the book into three...Not like LoN, all the units and some special rules, but a bit like LoN + FEC (rules), or cities or something 

with additional battleline. Wolves and zombies or skeleton always line, and some boiled down specific rules.

one Vampircount with all the knights and dynasty rules 

one wightking deathrattle with grave  guards and stuff

one more for necromantic horrors and magic... 

[Aren73]

I love the idea of playing quite an elite Vampire army. I'm not a big fan of massive hordes of undead, instead I very much like the theme of vampire knights with their elite wight troops and freakish vampiric monsters. 

 

OBR was the first real non-horde undead faction but I just can't jive with their theme and aesthetic. GW's take on vampires on the other hand is amazing, love it to bits. 

My ideal army would go something like this: 

 

Vampire Lord (mounted or on abysmal terror or zombie dragon) - a scary blender machine

Wight King to lead the charge of wights

Block of 30 skeles to plonk on objectives

Block of 20 Grave Guard to push stuff off of objectives

Unit of Black Knights

Unit of Blood Knights

Another unit of Blood Knights or Black Knights depending on points allowances

Some vampiric monstrosity

 

[Aturox]

Maybe we get abhorash on nightmare if hes not the big centerpiece.. With a statline like eltharion?

I am so ****** hyped 🥳

[Honk]

6 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

I love the idea of playing quite an elite Vampire army. I'm not a big fan of massive hordes of undead,

With the LoN-Book it was possible to go full bloodknights (as the Soulblight faction, with bloodlines 😻) or full horde  with necromancers with the legions...

unit focus was

grand host more deathrattle (guards being line and better Morghast) 

LoBlood you were back at vampires again (plus bravery debuff). 

sacrament and night with special abilities 

 

 I really liked the versatility of the LoN book and hope for the same, maybe with some deeper lines between the „legions“

[Ahlambra]

59 minutes ago, warhammernerd said:

Call me a heretic but I’m all about keeping stuff as it is, but drastically updating miniature range and massively overhauling rules.

I frickin love Zombros, Skelebobs, Doggos and Batties lead by Vamps. Sure, gimme a few new units, but personally I play Undead cos I love the existing lore.
 

Yeah I'm sort of torn on this myself. Part of me would love a couple of new units, like some kind of short-range (12") cavalry like Dark Riders/Marauder Horseman. But at the same time, it's not really fair to want them to change a faction that's been around for years just so I would like it more.

I know it's kind of "lazy", but I wouldn't mind if one of the subfactions had that 1-in-4 rule for Freeguild units or something. I'm not sure how you'd fit it lorewise, maybe some kind of royal huntsmen? Balance-wise, maybe exclude the Demigryph Knights so it's just the chaff-y units? I'll be honest I just want to run a bit of a monster mash with some Freeguild Outriders trying not to ****** themselves.

[Erdemo86]

1 hour ago, Aren73 said:

I love the idea of playing quite an elite Vampire army. I'm not a big fan of massive hordes of undead, instead I very much like the theme of vampire knights with their elite wight troops and freakish vampiric monsters. 

 

OBR was the first real non-horde undead faction but I just can't jive with their theme and aesthetic. GW's take on vampires on the other hand is amazing, love it to bits. 

My ideal army would go something like this: 

 

Vampire Lord (mounted or on abysmal terror or zombie dragon) - a scary blender machine

Wight King to lead the charge of wights

Block of 30 skeles to plonk on objectives

Block of 20 Grave Guard to push stuff off of objectives

Unit of Black Knights

Unit of Blood Knights

Another unit of Blood Knights or Black Knights depending on points allowances

Some vampiric monstrosity

 

I would like something more elite like

vampire Lord/ on Dragon or not

Necromancer

support/mage hero

alot of blood knights

some dire wolfs

Edited May 3, 2021 by Erdemo86

[Sception]

My expectations:

• echidna thing
• dire wolves

Stuff I hope to see, but am not holding my breath for:

• blood-born or other vampire infantry
• generic gravekeeper
• mounted vampire lord
• casty vampire lord
• faction terrain
• any insight at all into the faction rules, subfactions, etc
• confirmation on whether or not FEC are part of the faction

I'm already pretty content with what we've already seen, disappointment over Cursed City developments not withstanding.  New vamp counts battletome with new blood knights was all I really needed to be hype for this release.  So if we only see the expected stuff I'll still be happy.  Anything extra is gravy as far as I'm concerned.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

4 minutes ago, Sception said:

confirmation on whether or not FEC are part of the faction

I think if they are, we will probably get confirmation today. It depends on the release date, but if it's this month, how much longer do they want to wait to spring "By the way, FEC are souped in" on us? If we don't see anything to the effect of FEC being part of Gravelords today, I'd assume they are not.

As for the reveals today, I think there is a chance of another one or two kits that nobody is expecting, apart from the mother of nightmares. I think endless spells are also pretty likely.

[Sception]

Considering that the Legions of Nagash battletome is 'no longer available', but the FEC tome still is, and the charnel throne is back in stock, it's safe to say the merger isn't happening.  I'd still like direct confirmation, but I don't really expect to see it.

[The Brotherhood of Necros]

Are Arch-Regents and Ghoul Kings technically vampires? Just devolved?

And is what separates them from other devolved ‘Soulblight’ vampires like Vargheists purely the fact that Ghoul Kings are vampires from The Carrion King’s lineage?

Ie. A normal vampire starves, lives in graveyards etc. and devolves into. Vargheist

An Ushoran vampire starves, lives in graveyards etc. and devolves into a Ghoul King?

(and on the flipside, a vampire of any lineage feasts and overindulges and becomes a Varghulf? And what conditions creates a Vargskyr, how are they different from Varghulf?) 

Still trying to get my head around all this, thank you 🙏🏻 

[Aren73]

1 hour ago, Erdemo86 said:

I would like something more elite like

vampire Lord/ on Dragon or not

Necromancer

support/mage hero

alot of blood knights

some dire wolfs

That's fair enough, though to me that's not really an "army" per se. It feels more like a Vampire Lord's hunting party, including his hounds. 

My philosophy of what makes an army goes something like:

• A strong backbone that the army can fall back on (an "anvil" unit)
• Light skirmisher units to run around and be fast and not mind if they happen to die
• A powerful right hand unit that is used to do the heavy lifting
• Support units that bring out the best in the other units

Of course there are many different ways of doing things, this just makes sense for me. Even if I wanted to run a full cavalry army (which sounds dope tbh) I would still mix Black Knights in with Blood Knights, I feel I need bodies to be the backbone of the force and wolves don't really do it for me. 

[Liquidsteel]

Seeing as we're army wish listing, here's mine

Mortarch (Mannfred, Neferata or this new Lauka Val)

Vamp Lord on Zombie Dragon

Foot/Mounted Vamp Lord

Necromancer

One big tarpit of zombies

Couple of units of dire wolves

Blood Knights

Fell Bats

[Sception]

31 minutes ago, The Brotherhood of Necros said:

Are Arch-Regents and Ghoul Kings technically vampires? Just devolved?

And is what separates them from other devolved ‘Soulblight’ vampires like Vargheists purely the fact that Ghoul Kings are vampires from The Carrion King’s lineage?

Ie. A normal vampire starves, lives in graveyards etc. and devolves into. Vargheist

An Ushoran vampire starves, lives in graveyards etc. and devolves into a Ghoul King?

(and on the flipside, a vampire of any lineage feasts and overindulges and becomes a Varghulf? And what conditions creates a Vargskyr, how are they different from Varghulf?) 

Still trying to get my head around all this, thank you 🙏🏻 

In the old world, Ghoul Kings are vampires driven by hunger and a lack of access to living humans to feed on the blood of the dead.  This could sustain them, and stave off the feral beasthood induced by starvation, but did cause a sort of degenerative madness.  Most were of the Strigoi bloodline, which were hunted by the other bloodlines and forced to exist on the margins of society where feeding on the dead was their only option, but their ghoulishness was a result of corpse feeding, not inherent to the bloodline itself, and vampires of other bloodlines could conceivably become ghoul kings.

In AoS Abhorrants - Ghoul Kings and Archregents - are Vampries infected by the Carrion King's madness and delusions.  This infection may or may not be related to feeding on the blood of the dead, I don't think it's exactly clear in the lore.  Vampires descended directly from the Carrion King's bloodline will be Abhorrants from the moment of their creation, but other Vampires can become such, even if the process by which it happens is currently unclear.

...

In the old world, Varghulfs were vampires who had abandoned their mortal minds and bodies to embrace feral beasthood, either willingly or, more often, by being starved or starving themselves to the point of their hunger overwhelming what's left of their sanity.  Varhulfs were not specific to Ghoul Kings / Strigoi vampires, though were more common in that bloodline because of their history of being deliberately cut off from fresh blood supplies by other vampires.  Still, any vampire could be reduced to such a state.

In Age of Sigmar what a Varghulf is or how a creature becomes one is, afaik, unclear.  From their role it seems more likely that they are some sort of ascended mordant rather than a fallen soulblight creature, but I don't think there's firm confirmation one way or another.

...

Vargheists in the old world are similar but not the same, created by the von carsteins when lesser vampires that displeased their lord were buried alive as a punishment.  They starved, but unlike Ghoul Kings or Varghulfs they were sustained by rain water seeping through the warpstone-laced soil of Sylvania, and its corrupting influence caused their unique offshoot of the more usual bestial transformation.

In Age of Sigmar Varghulfs are a FEC thing, and Vargheists are what Varghulfs were - vampires that abandon themselves to their bestial nature, or are overwhelmed by it through starvation.  No special warpstone rainwater necessary.

We've also recently seen the addition of Vargskyrs.  They're brand new, so there's not a lot of lore on them.  They seem to be similar to Vargheists in terms of what they are & how they come to be.  I'm not aware of any key element that makes the difference in whether a fully feral vampire becomes one or the other.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sception

[Liquidsteel]

The FEC book lore section confirms Varghulfs to be the most favoured Mordants, they're not fallen Abhorants.

[Sception]

3 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

The FEC book lore section confirms Varghulfs to be the most favoured Mordants, they're not fallen Abhorants.

So it does.  Their warscroll keywords also align with this interpretation.

It's not clear then what a starved Abhorrant would become, if anything.  It's possible their madness & delusion is so complete as to override the underlying bestial predatory nature of the Soulblight curse.

Still, the Varghulf's current lore is a retcon, and could be retconned again in the future.  The entire FEC faction lore is a pretty ramshackle affair in its current state.  Which, I mean, that's thematically appropriate in its own way, so fair enough.

[Lich King]

I appreciate all model reveals and all, but honestly I rather have a good look at some of the Battletome sections. Like certain warscrolls / ability or spells most importantly : Army Construction. This is so I can focus my hobbling on which units I’m actually going to use in the near future etc.

[Sception]

14 minutes ago, Lich King said:

I appreciate all model reveals and all, but honestly I rather have a good look at some of the Battletome sections. Like certain warscrolls / ability or spells most importantly : Army Construction. This is so I can focus my hobbling on which units I’m actually going to use in the near future etc.

While this is on my wish list as well, I don't expect we'll get it today.  I do think we'll see some warcom articles to this effect in the week or two before release, though.

[Raptor_Jesues]

those usually come in the week before release

[Aren73]

1 hour to go! Hoping for an amazing Soublight reveal, bracing slightly against disappointment. 

[Sception]

The build up to the event has certainly been more about Kragnos than vampires, so muted expectations on our part may be in order.

[Lich King]

I know they won’t go super into detail - but maybe a quick overview and mention on certain other units which may or may not be in the Battletome ...

[pixieproxy]

Vargheists are likely to stay in right? X.x

[Raptor_Jesues]

this has been a terrible day for me so far, i really hope for some good ******