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Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation


Neil Arthur Hotep

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8 minutes ago, Gotz said:

soooo, I've just seen this on twitter. The torso-neck vampire strikes again

vampiric-spirit-90-med.png?9648

Yet it's different. In my opinion the wings on the back and the unarmoured torso bind the model together. I think adding vampiric armour plates to the rest of the body would make it look more cohesive. The way the model is right now it creates a visual divide between the upper and the lower part which does not (in my opinion) charm the model or the idea behind it :)

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Excuse me, everyone! I clearly specified that this thread is for

On 3/22/2021 at 1:49 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Gravelords news, rumours, speculation, hopes and dreams.

Not disappointment and grumbling! ;)

 

Anyway, for me, the new Soulblight range is an overall hit.

I think the update is a good size, with 12 new kits. Of those, 5 are regular units, 6 are small to medium characters and one is a centerpiece. Which I think is a fair ratio: It's not like we could have got an updated Grave Guard unit if they had left out Kritza or whatever. They do a bunch of small heroes because they are quicker and easier to produce and give a faction a lot of character.

I see some people disappointed with the number of resculpts of old units. I get the desire to want something new, but we should really be more appreciative of these updated sculpts. They are about the rarest type of release GW does, and in the case of Legions of Nagash they were about the most needed. LoN went from a range of bad, old plastic kits and lots of finecast to a full, modern plastic range (except maybe Grave Guard). That is an investment into the future of this faction. It means the more grounded skeleton, zombie and bat aesthetic is sticking around. No one can argue about Soulblight that they are a soup faction for old models left on life support, like they did with LoN.

As for the Cursed City guys: Even though it's sad that they very likely won't see much play, GW made the right decision with them if they are not planning to release the models separately. Imagine if, like, Gorslav or whatever became a competitive staple. You can't have such a unit be locked away behind a €150 box set in a bundle with fifty other models. That goes double if you are not even selling that box anymore.

---

Here are some of my hits and misses for those who care:

Hits:

  • Lauka Vai

In my opinion, this is the perfect way to do a monstrous vampire centerpiece.

  • The Vyrkos

I really, really love all the weirdo vampire characters from the Vyrkos bloodline. If fielding Kritza, Annika and Belladamma Volga together is in any way viable, I am doing it.

  • The new critters

Even though I have an LoN army, I previously thought all the different bats and wolves looked bad. Now they are some of my favourite units and I am strongly considering focussing on them for my list.

 

Misses:

  • No support real for Deadwalkers

It's great that Zombies got a new sculpt and now don't look embarrassingly bad anymore. But it's sad that the hope we all had when we saw Gorslav of a Zombie specific support hero did not pan out. We will have to see if Zombies become mechanically viable this time around. In LoN, they did not have a niche at all.

  • No endless spells

Vampires in Warhammer were always pretty magically adept. So I would have liked to see them get faction-specific endless spells. I really thought a bat swarm endless spell would have been a no-brainer after Bat Swarms are apparently not a unit in the new book anymore. Faction terrain also falls into this category, somewhat, but since I have not seen any real inspired suggestions for what Gravelords faction terrain should be, I am less sad about it.

  • No regular vampire troops

I really thought we would get some kind of vampire infantry. Maybe the quick shock troops like the Bloodborn from Cursed City or the winged vampire from the Crimson Court warband. Or maybe heavily armoured elite knights. Instead, it seems like GW went with the established direction that all vampires are super huge mega chad leaders, which is not bad either, but I think some kind of lesser vampire unit would still have been welcome. Vargheists exist I guess.

---

Personally, I know I am getting some of the new models. I am still waiting to see the rules to fully commit, but I am entertaining two possible lists: Highly elite knightly vampires with Lauka Vai, Blood Knights and VLoZD, or full creatures of the night with as many Vyrkos as I can fit, Dire Wolves and Fell Bats.

 

Edited by Neil Arthur Hotep
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2 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's great that Zombies got a new sculpt and now don't look embarrassingly bad anymore. But it's sad that the hope we all had when we saw Gorslav of a Zombie specific support hero did not pan out. We will have to see if Zombies become mechanically viable this time around. In LoN, they did not have a niche at all.

I presume that corspe Carts will make them a lot more viable! 

 

3 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Vampires in Warhammer were always pretty magically adept. So I would have liked to see them get faction-specific endless spells. I really thought a bat swarm endless spell would have been a no-brainer after Bat Swarms are apparently not a unit in the new book anymore. Faction terrain also falls into this category, somewhat, but since I have not seen any real inspired suggestions for what Gravelords faction terrain should be, I am less sad about it.

Surprisingly I don't mind them not getting endless spells. Maybe they can use the Forbidden Power Spells as bound spells? (they already look very undeath related)

 

 

4 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I really thought we would get some kind of vampire infantry. Maybe the quick shock troops like the Bloodborn from Cursed City or the winged vampire from the Crimson Court warband. Or maybe heavily armoured elite knights. Instead, it seems like GW went with the established direction that all vampires are super huge mega chad leaders, which is not bad either, but I think some kind of lesser vampire unit would still have been welcome. Vargheists exist I guess.

I fully agree. Tbh this was my biggest letdown. I hoped the Crimson Court (in which they showed how amazing foot Vampires could look like) meant that we can expect them. Sadly nothing of the likes was added ;-| I also dread that the Vampire Lord on Mount is gone (I have a conversion of one that would lose it's place in my army)

 

 

6 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Personally, I know I am getting some of the new models. I am still waiting to see the rules to fully commit, but I am entertaining two possible lists: Highly elite knightly vampires with Lauka Vai, Blood Knights and VLoZD, or full creatures of the night with as many Vyrkos as I can fit, Dire Wolves and Fell Bats.

I am thinking about doing the same. We've got a lot of units to base our army around (Bats, wolfes, Knights, Critters maybe) :)

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7 minutes ago, Bosskelot said:

With Soulblight it really feels unbalanced in the other direction, especially as outside of a single Vampire Lord on foot and one on a Dragon you have no other options to represent an un-named Vampire character in your army which feels a little limiting. There's no way to represent an un-named "Feral" vampire either it seems. Radaukar or bust I guess.

Fair point, but we don't actually know that to be true just yet. And, as it stands unless there are changes, we can field Vamps on foot, flying horrors, nightmare riders and zombie dragons. There are a decent range of miniatures to chose from for the on foot vampire lords - though admittedly many of these are no longer available on Gdub store. But, we have just recently got the Underworlds gang, and thats 4 unnamed vamps. I have close to 20 now, going back all the way to 7th edition Fantasy, all on 32's ready to pick and choose from depending on the vibe. 

But more to your point, you want, or at least I think you want 'options to represent un-named Vampire characters', do you mean rules wise? Well, we have the Vengorian Bloodline and the Vykros for starters. It might be the case that any vampires from those bloodlines are represented by named characters, but we don't yet know that for sure. My hunch is we will be able to build our own customisable Vampire lords within both bloodlines, the degree of customisation may or may not be too our pleasing. 

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43 minutes ago, El Syf said:

could it not have been a mount rather than whatever it is? 

The Druchii black dragon head could fit 🤔

i do have spare vampire legs from all my terrorgheists or maybe a standing/crouching pose🧐

 

Maybe not the worst idea to make a more controversial Centre piece, all the haters can go proxy and custom built 

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43 minutes ago, Honk said:

The Druchii black dragon head could fit 🤔

i do have spare vampire legs from all my terrorgheists or maybe a standing/crouching pose🧐

 

Maybe not the worst idea to make a more controversial Centre piece, all the haters can go proxy and custom built 

OH YES, THE BLACK DRAGON HEAD IS PERFECT!!! Thank you honk ❤️

Anyway i wish to speculate a bit on the vangorian lord statline

imma say 14" fly, 12 wounds, 4+ or 3+ armor (probably 4+ since we have hunger, chalice etc, it also has no shield unlike wight kings and VL), Ld10
attacks are going to be
sword 4 hits, 3+, 3+, -1, D d3
claws 6 hits, 4+,3+,-2, D2
tail? 1 hit, 4+, 3+, -1, D?
 

perhaps some mortal wounds in the profileand an unique spell that does mortal wounds. As for command ability it strikes me as a wound reroller

about 300 points, 340 for the named one since it will have cool stuff

of course with a degrading statline it could have stornger stuff, like claws wounding on 2+ etc

Edited by Raptor_Jesues
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1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Excuse me, everyone! I clearly specified that this thread is for

Not disappointment and grumbling! ;)

 

Anyway, for me, the new Soulblight range is an overall hit.

I think the update is a good size, with 12 new kits. Of those, 5 are regular units, 6 are small to medium characters and one is a centerpiece. Which I think is a fair ratio: It's not like we could have got an updated Grave Guard unit if they had left out Kritza or whatever. They do a bunch of small heroes because they are quicker and easier to produce and give a faction a lot of character.

I see some people disappointed with the number of resculpts of old units. I get the desire to want something new, but we should really be more appreciative of these updated sculpts. They are about the rarest type of release GW does, and in the case of Legions of Nagash they were about the most needed. LoN went from a range of bad, old plastic kits and lots of finecast to a full, modern plastic range (except maybe Grave Guard). That is an investment into the future of this faction. It means the more grounded skeleton, zombie and bat aesthetic is sticking around. No one can argue about Soulblight that they are a soup faction for old models left on life support, like they did with LoN.

As for the Cursed City guys: Even though it's sad that they very likely won't see much play, GW made the right decision with them if they are not planning to release the models separately. Imagine if, like, Gorslav or whatever became a competitive staple. You can't have such a unit be locked away behind a €150 box set in a bundle with fifty other models. That goes double if you are not even selling that box anymore.

---

Here are some of my hits and misses for those who care:

Hits:

  • Lauka Vai

In my opinion, this is the perfect way to do a monstrous vampire centerpiece.

  • The Vyrkos

I really, really love all the weirdo vampire characters from the Vyrkos bloodline. If fielding Kritza, Annika and Belladamma Volga together is in any way viable, I am doing it.

  • The new critters

Even though I have an LoN army, I previously thought all the different bats and wolves looked bad. Now they are some of my favourite units and I am strongly considering focussing on them for my list.

 

Misses:

  • No support real for Deadwalkers

It's great that Zombies got a new sculpt and now don't look embarrassingly bad anymore. But it's sad that the hope we all had when we saw Gorslav of a Zombie specific support hero did not pan out. We will have to see if Zombies become mechanically viable this time around. In LoN, they did not have a niche at all.

  • No endless spells

Vampires in Warhammer were always pretty magically adept. So I would have liked to see them get faction-specific endless spells. I really thought a bat swarm endless spell would have been a no-brainer after Bat Swarms are apparently not a unit in the new book anymore. Faction terrain also falls into this category, somewhat, but since I have not seen any real inspired suggestions for what Gravelords faction terrain should be, I am less sad about it.

  • No regular vampire troops

I really thought we would get some kind of vampire infantry. Maybe the quick shock troops like the Bloodborn from Cursed City or the winged vampire from the Crimson Court warband. Or maybe heavily armoured elite knights. Instead, it seems like GW went with the established direction that all vampires are super huge mega chad leaders, which is not bad either, but I think some kind of lesser vampire unit would still have been welcome. Vargheists exist I guess.

---

Personally, I know I am getting some of the new models. I am still waiting to see the rules to fully commit, but I am entertaining two possible lists: Highly elite knightly vampires with Lauka Vai, Blood Knights and VLoZD, or full creatures of the night with as many Vyrkos as I can fit, Dire Wolves and Fell Bats.

 

This sums it up for me too. One thing I really really love is how wolf based the vyrkos are, I've always loved wolves and wolf miniatures and now we can run a full army of vampire and undead wolves. The granpire riding the wolf is just amazing imo. Favourite of the new models by far.

Edit: on the subject of endless spells, does anyone else have an incling that maybe we will get a similar treatment to seraphon? Maybe special control over the shyish endless spells?

 

 

Edited by Ghoooouls
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13 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

OH YES, THE BLACK DRAGON HEAD IS PERFECT!!! Thank you honk ❤️

Anyway i wish to speculate a bit on the vangorian lord statline

imma say 14" fly, 12 wounds, 4+ or 3+ armor (probably 4+ since we have hunger, chalice etc, it also has no shield unlike wight kings and VL), Ld10
attacks are going to be
sword 4 hits, 3+, 3+, -1, D d3
claws 6 hits, 4+,3+,-2, D2
tail? 1 hit, 4+, 3+, -1, D?
 

perhaps some mortal wounds in the profileand an unique spell that does mortal wounds. As for command ability it strikes me as a wound reroller

about 300 points, 340 for the named one since it will have cool stuff

of course with a degrading statline it could have stornger stuff, like claws wounding on 2+ etc

I think the sword attacks will be stronger in some way, either 2+ hit, wound, 3D, mortals on 6s or some other way. Effectively, I think Vengorian will have a stronger base attack than a regular vampire lord. 

In general I think vampire lords in AoS have felt a bit weak compared to their WHFB counterparts. But I always attributed that to the fact that everything else had been turned up to 11 in AoS. However now that we have a brand new all AoS version of vampires I think we can expect them to feel a bit more like vampire lords back in WHFB. 

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18 minutes ago, Rachmani said:

One thing about endless spells.

Maybe, with Nagash‘s plans undone, endless spells are gone for good. At least in matched play.

With how closely tied to Seraphon they are (with Bound Spells) I think it's unlikely.

I'd like to see generic spells retire though, I think they've had their day, but it would mean every race would need their own to compensate.

Maybe I'm just salty over Lambent Light through a spell portal.

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21 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

perhaps some mortal wounds in the profileand an unique spell that does mortal wounds. As for command ability it strikes me as a wound reroller

As mother of nightmares... some reality into nightmare bending aura of despair, -1 to wound and bravery?!

aaaand I would love to see an increasing stat line. fielded my Chaosdwarves with Skarbrand last week and I loved it (one more round with 1hp)

make it slow down, get -x to cast, but add to the claw attacks.

but with the LRL fox and other new powerplay heroes, the possibilities of CA are a bit wider than +1 to something. Pile in restrictions and ignore basic rules are thrown onto the table, destroy feature x, do ridiculous stuff...

i want my vamp on foot to have:

flicker: at the start of the combat phase, this model can move up to 4“ without restrictions. This model fights at the end of the combat phase and can pile in an additional 6“

because this will get faqed 6 times and just sits right in the excellent coherent rules GDubs is famous for

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2 hours ago, Chikrit said:

Isn't it strange that in the group photo there are all the new things and some of the old that suppossedly stays (vargheists, corpse cart, zombie dragon) but no sign of Neferata or Mannfred?

Might be because they're centrepieces in their own right and GW would rather you pay attention to the new, more expensive ones and get to impulse (pre-)ordering them. The leaks only mentioned Arkhan being removed, so I'd take that as Neffy and Manny still being in (and it would've been very odd if they weren't).

6 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

So when do we get our own sub-forum, like half of order has?

I think it's on or just after launch day of the Battletome the sub-forums go up usually...?

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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3 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

Potrebbe essere un'immagine stile anime raffigurante il seguente testo "WARHAM SOULBLIGHT GR LAUKA"

i wish o add that for those not liking the centaur like theme, it is a fairly easy conversion

It's not, her Torso is big, maybe even bigger than Sigvald's ^^

Talking about conversions: I think I might 3D model some armour bitz for everyone wanting to put more armour on her body. 

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4 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

Potrebbe essere un'immagine stile anime raffigurante il seguente testo "WARHAM SOULBLIGHT GR LAUKA"

i wish o add that for those not liking the centaur like theme, it is a fairly easy conversion

Ahh no, please no. It looks like she is crushing the poor thing under her bulk. 

Then again...maybe it likes that? ;)

 

No, on a serious note, I'm glad we have access to both a vampire lord on zombie dragon for the traditional crowd and this nightmare-fuel for something new. 

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Pretty sure the dragon rider's legs won't fit that torso.  Maybe mannfred's legs from the mortarch kit instead?  Still, though, I'm also inclined to point those who want a traditional mounted monster to the VLoZD, which imo holds up just fine.  And even if you disagree, it shouldn't be too hard to spruce it up with some blood knight bits.

...

the point about grass always being greener is a good one, with lumineth players looking enviously at our many faithful oldhammer update kits (seven!  In a single release wave!  that's almost unprecedented!) even while we envy their many interesting new units.

...

i still maintain that Kritza and Annika are only here because the models were already designed for cursed city anyway, that their rules (and the cursed city box group rules) will be afterthoughts that don't amount to anything, much like the inclusion of underworlds and warcry groups in other battletomes.  Imo they should be ignored when judging the new rules & release wave.  If you do so, the 'too many named heroes' problem, while still present, is much less severe.

Edited by Sception
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5 minutes ago, Sception said:

i still maintain that Kritza and Annika are only here because the models were already designed for cursed city anyway, that their rules (and the cursed city box group rules) will be afterthoughts that don't amount to anything, much like the inclusion of underworlds and warcry groups in other battletomes.  Imo they should be ignored when judging the new rules & release wave.  If you do so, the 'too many named heroes' problem, while still present, is much less severe.

It depends now whether GW put units like Vampire Lord on Steed etc. into Legends or not.
If not, we'll have an abundance of conversion options with the upcoming Blood Knights + The Crimson court + Palanquin + VLoZD + new Vampire Lord.
If we lose such old entries the conversion possibilies are more limited meaning we'll see a lot of Cursed City conversions or rather the same-ish conversions of the Foot Vampiresses. :)

Edited by JackStreicher
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