Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Aren73]

A start collecting with limited edition book and dice would be cool, I hadn't considered that. 

I don't think we'll get it, though we'll eventually get a start collecting box probably. 

But for the fun of speculation, what do you think would be in such a box? 

I imagine:

10 Skeletons

5 Blood Knights

Vampire Lord

3 Fell Bats

 

I think such a box would be really cool. 

Then again they could go down the route of dire wolves and zombies. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 minutes ago, NicholasFlamelGames said:

Ello chaps, I noticed the Start Collectings are out. I am super curious to see if we are getting a LRL type box to start with minis and the tome or a new start collecting. I mean maybe we get nothing haha but a vamp can hope can't he 🧛‍♂️.

Would be nice to get a bundle of some kind, but I would not count on it. If I recall correctly, neither Lumineth wave two nor Hedonites got any special bundles including their new models.

[NicholasFlamelGames]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Would be nice to get a bundle of some kind, but I would not count on it. If I recall correctly, neither Lumineth wave two nor Hedonites got any special bundles including their new models.

I was thinking LRL wave 1. I don't have my hopes up but you never know. Since all start collectings seem dead (see what I did there) maybe they will release something :). 

 

8 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

A start collecting with limited edition book and dice would be cool, I hadn't considered that. 

I don't think we'll get it, though we'll eventually get a start collecting box probably. 

But for the fun of speculation, what do you think would be in such a box? 

I imagine:

10 Skeletons

5 Blood Knights

Vampire Lord

3 Fell Bats

 

I think such a box would be really cool. 

Then again they could go down the route of dire wolves and zombies. 

Realistically I would be pretty stoked to see any type of bundle with new minis. I was really hoping for a less Derpy zombie dragon but I am still happy with a lot of the new minis and am really excited for the tome. I have been playing Deepkin for awhile now and am ready to mix things up!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Just now, NicholasFlamelGames said:

I was thinking LRL wave 1. I don't have my hopes up but you never know. Since all start collectings seem dead (see what I did there) maybe they will release something :).

Sure, I was just going off of wave 2 because that's the more recent example.

But now that you mention it, with the rumours of AoS 3rd edition being in the works possibly for this summer, maybe that could the time to put out some new Start Collecting or equivalent boxes. If so, Soulblight might get one then.

[BaylorCorvette]

So after a good nights sleep, I am overall pretty happy with the releases we will be getting. While a little disappointed that we aren't getting SOME sort of foot Vampire unit, I'm not shocked either. I really like that it looks like you can go several ways with the theme of your Gravelords army. Want werewolf vampires? Got it. Want beastial vampires? Got it. Want regal / aristocratic vampires? Got it. Then of course you can kit bash stuff to make your own theme. The foundation is there for any Gravelords army - Skeletons, Zombies, Zombie Dogs, its just a matter of what direction do you want to take your army.

Like many others, the Lauka Vai / Vengorian Lord model is a little strange. As two different models they are amazing but the way they are connected (at the shoulders) is just weird. I THINK what I am going to do is likely kitbash this (I love kitbashing in general, see below) to give it a head from either the Black Dragon, Zombie Dragon or possibly something else and then either have a Vampire rider or like Teclis, have a Vampire standing at the base or maybe floating by this beast.

 

All I know is that this guy that I kitbashed for my Vampire themed Khorne army is going to find a place in my Gravelords army!

[JustAsPlanned]

Looking back at the Avengorii stuff, I think the the wing things were on the back instead of the waist, it’d look at least a bit less jarring

[Mikosan]

I am super pleased with all the new stuff.  I absolutely get why the bat/dragon/vampire monstrosity is polarizing, but it is so dang weird that I love it.  Skeletons, zombies, and wolves look fantastic and fit the image in my head of an old school vampire counts army.  The vyrkos vamps look cool too.  I like that the different bloodlines have their own look and style, just wish the feral wolf vamps had their own unique unit like the bloodborn from cursed city, that would have been ace.  Still would like to see some endless spells and maybe a terrain piece.  I really don't understand how GW decides who gets what on that front. 

I don't really see an issue mixing some of the old and new stuff together.  I think the corpse cart looks fine with the new zombies, and black knights look fine with the new mounted wight king, new blood knights will look good with anything but I suppose new skeletons and grave guard could look wonky.  I never liked the zombie dragon kit and probably won't include one in whatever I decide to do anyway, same with the vargheists.  For me its going to be skelly blob, zombie blob, wolf blob, black knights, blood knights, bats, and one maybe two bat/dragon/vampire things.  Plenty of foot vamps to choose from with the underworlds models and new sculpts.  Can't wait to see prices, well actually I can, let me daydream a little longer before the reality of the financial hit sets in proper lol

[Sception]

On pricing, I'm just hoping the skeletons and zombies will come 20 to a box.  If they are, then their prices will probably be tolerable.  If not, then this is going to be an exceptionally difficult army for new players to guy into.  At least it will if they don't play at home clubs or independent stores where they can draw on the wide selection of much more affordable 3rd party skeleton and zombie models out there.

Otherwise, I expect prices to be bad, but even bad prices can still be manageable for one-off heroes & monsters like the special characters or vengorian lord, or for small throw away support units like dire wolves & fell bats.

If they /raise/ the price on the existing blood knights, that could hurt though.  Frankly even at the current price I'd be tempted to skip them and stick to black knights and wight kings for my cavalry needs.

[JackStreicher]

So my standard 2k army would look like this:

Radukar the Beast

VLoZD/Mortarch

Necromancer on Corpse Cart

Wight King/Vamp Lord

10-20 Dire Wolves

40 Skeletons

10+ Black Knights

5-15 Blood Knights

3+ Fell Bats

 

Or my absolute dream (yet not possible because reasons)

 

Radukar the beast 

Vampire Lord

Necromancer

Necro on Corpscart

10 Dire Wolves

30-40 Skellies or Zombies

6-12 Vyrkos Bloodborn

2x 6 Korsagi Nightguard

3 Critter swarms 

2 Vargskyr

 

I hope bat swarms will still exist in the Bsttletome 🤔

Edited May 4, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Raptor_Jesues]

5 minutes ago, Sception said:

On pricing, I'm just hoping the skeletons and zombies will come 20 to a box.  If they are, then their prices will probably be tolerable.  If not, then this is going to be an exceptionally difficult army for new players to guy into.  At least it will if they don't play at home clubs or independent stores where they can draw on the wide selection of much more affordable 3rd party skeleton and zombie models out there.

Otherwise, I expect prices to be bad, but even bad prices can still be manageable for one-off heroes & monsters like the special characters or vengorian lord, or for small throw away support units like dire wolves & fell bats.

If they /raise/ the price on the existing blood knights, that could hurt though.  Frankly even at the current price I'd be tempted to skip them and stick to black knights and wight kings for my cavalry needs.

i hope so but i would not bet on it. Besides i loathe hordes and i wish them purged with big lances. 
if i could i would do something like
double vengorian lord (with the named one)
loads of bloodknights
some wolves
other stuff i feel like putting in at the moment

Edited May 4, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[Aren73]

4 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

i hope so but i would not bet on it. Besides i loathe hordes and i wish them purged with big lances. 
if i could i would do something like
double vengorian lord (with the named one)
loads of bloodknights
some wolves
other stuff i feel like putting in at the moment

I wonder if Blood Knights will be Battleline under conditions, as before. 

I probably wouldn't run it but it would be awesome to see a full knight army. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

9 minutes ago, Sception said:

On pricing, I'm just hoping the skeletons and zombies will come 20 to a box.  If they are, then their prices will probably be tolerable.  If not, then this is going to be an exceptionally difficult army for new players to guy into.

I would not hate it if skeletons and zombies capped at 30 models per unit in the new tome, to be honest. Although I suppose if anything is going to be a horde unit, it should be these guys.

[Raptor_Jesues]

anyway i did a fast photoshop of Lauka Vai and it looks a lot better.I think part of the weirdness of the model resides in the paintjob, this looks a lot more natural

Edited May 4, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I would not hate it if skeletons and zombies capped at 30 models per unit in the new tome, to be honest. Although I suppose if anything is going to be a horde unit, it should be these guys.

I am hoping that we won't be a full horde faction. 

Legions of Nagash are the classic undead hordes. Flesh Eater Courts are the mad cannibal hordes. Nighthaunt are the gloomy, cursed hordes. I hope that we can go in a more - horrid, surreal direction, with plenty of models but not necessarily "horde". 

I like the idea that instead of having lots of skeletons you have plenty of skeletons who keep coming back. Going with the rumours, a unit of 30 where half of them get back up every time they fight would be perfect 

[El Syf]

1 minute ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

anyway i did a fast photoshop of Lauka Vai and it looks a lot better.I think part of the weirdness of the model resides in the paintjob, this looks a lot more natural

This 100%, it's much better if still a little odd.

[Sception]

9 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Legions of Nagash are the classic undead hordes. Flesh Eater Courts are the mad cannibal hordes. Nighthaunt are the gloomy, cursed hordes. I hope that we can go in a more - horrid, surreal direction, with plenty of models but not necessarily "horde". 

We are legions of Nagash, though.  That's overwhelmingly established at this point.  The days when people were speculating that this might be an elite, pure soulblight faction are long gone.  Soulblight Gravelords are the new Vampire Counts.  The Gravelords battletome replaces the already officially discontinued Legion of Nagash book, it does not exist alongside it.

I'm hopeful that there will be support for more elite builds, but by default this is the one and only classic warhammer undead horde of weak skeletons and zombies buffed by necromancers and lead by powerful vampire heroes faction.  Our battle line is skeleton warriors and zombies.  Those are both fundamentally hoard units in their basic concepts.  Even if their unit cap is dropped to 30, which I highly doubt, a 'typical' SG army is still going to be running like 3 to 4 of those maxed units in it.  Maybe a unit of grave guard in place of one of those, but even grave guard are pretty hoardy for an 'elite' unit.  Collecting from scratch, you're still looking at probably 80 to 100 undead infantry in a typical force, and if that's all boxes of 10 for us$40 or more I just don't see it as a viable faction for a new player to start.

Again, I'd hope more elite builds are viable, whether via options for battleline black knights, blood knights, or vargheists, or via msu battleline wolves with armies built around those more elite units anyway.  Viable or not, they'll certainly be possible.  But viable or not, possible or not, they'll still be quirky side builds of a hoard faction.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Sception

[BaylorCorvette]

15 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

I wonder if Blood Knights will be Battleline under conditions, as before. 

I probably wouldn't run it but it would be awesome to see a full knight army. 

I reaaaaally hope Blood Knights can be battleline some how. Maybe if a VLoZD is the General or in a specific Bloodline? I would love a super elite Gravelords army.

11 minutes ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

anyway i did a fast photoshop of Lauka Vai and it looks a lot better.I think part of the weirdness of the model resides in the paintjob, this looks a lot more natural

Def looks better!

[Aren73]

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

We are legions of Nagash, though.  That's overwhelmingly established at this point.  The days when people were speculating that this might be an elite, pure soulblight faction are long gone.  Soulblight Gravelords are the new Vampire Counts.  The Gravelords battletome replaces the already officially discontinued Legion of Nagash book, it does not exist alongside it.

I'm hopeful that there will be support for more elite builds, but by default this is the one and only classic warhammer undead horde of weak skeletons and zombies buffed by necromancers and lead by powerful vampire heroes faction.  Our battle line is skeleton warriors and zombies.  Those are both fundamentally hoard units in their basic concepts.  Even if their unit cap is dropped to 30, which I highly doubt, a 'typical' SG army is still going to be running like 3 to 4 of those maxed units in it.  Maybe a unit of grave guard in place of one of those, but even grave guard are pretty hoardy for an 'elite' unit.

Again, I'd hope more elite builds are viable, whether via options for battleline black knights, blood knights, or vargheists, or via msu battleline wolves with armies built around those more elite units anyway.  Viable or not, they'll certainly be possible.  But viable or not, possible or not, they'll still be quirky side builds of a hoard faction.

I disagree I don't think we are exactly LoN. LoN has just stopped existing, as the stop-gap it always was and has been split into FEC, NH, OBR and now SG.

I don't think we'll have the same lore as LoN necessarily, the same focus or even play the same. For sure there will be plenty of similarities but I don't think it's a direct 1:1 transfer. 

LoN was never Vampire Counts, it was Undead (as in the old armybooks before VC and TK split). Soulblight Gravelords I think will be a lot more Vampire Counts than they are LoN. 

[Sception]

The problem with battle line blood knights is that unless they really ramp up their offensive prowess, I don't really see an army of them sweeping large unit blocks off of objectives, at which point you can kill a lot of stuff but will still probably lose on objectives.

Knight armies will be possible - whether via battleline black or blood knights or just via msu wolf battleline with the rest of your army spent on knights anyway.  But will it be viable?  Cav armies in AoS generally aren't, but we'll see.  There are a few notable exceptions, and It would certainly be cool if SG were among those exceptions.

Though not at the expensive of the classic warhammer undead horde, imo.

[El Syf]

Erm given the glut of characters a horrendous thought just occurred; what if Vhordrai gets the chop?! 

[Raptor_Jesues]

Just now, El Syf said:

Erm given the glut of characters a horrendous thought just occurred; what if Vhordrai gets the chop?! 

i dont think he will, too new

[JackStreicher]

7 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

I reaaaaally hope Blood Knights can be battleline

Iirc the Community Team mentioned this yesterday on the live stream.

[Sception]

9 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

I disagree I don't think we are exactly LoN. LoN has just stopped existing, as the stop-gap it always was and has been split into FEC, NH, OBR and now SG.

I don't think we'll have the same lore as LoN necessarily, the same focus or even play the same. For sure there will be plenty of similarities but I don't think it's a direct 1:1 transfer. 

LoN was never Vampire Counts, it was Undead (as in the old armybooks before VC and TK split). Soulblight Gravelords I think will be a lot more Vampire Counts than they are LoN. 

LoN wasn't pre split warhammer undead.  It explicitly didn't include any of the tomb king stuff.  It was absolutely Vamp Counts that traded the ghoul units for a new coat of paint.  Gravelords are just legions of nagash that have traded the ghost units in order to go /back/ to the vamp count paint coat.

Our army is skeletons, zombies, dire wolves, wights, necromancers, and vampires.  It's vamp counts.  I'm not saying there can't be varying builds.  Even in the old vamp count days there were varying builds, including more elite cavalry builds.  But the core identity of the faction was, and remains, a hoard of weaker lesser undead buffed and sustained by necromantic spellcasters & support heroes and led by a small handful of powerful vampiric heroes and elite units.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Sception

[Raptor_Jesues]

3 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Iirc the Community Team mentioned this yesterday on the live stream.

pinky swear it, else be known as a cheat and a liar

Edited May 4, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[Sception]

If the min size on dire wolves stays at 5, and the points cost stays well under 100, I'm not sure it particularly matters whether blood knights or other units become battleline, as you'll be able to cheaply cover your battleline requirements via small useful wolf units anyway, which fit well into pretty much any theme, from undead hoards (they're zombies after all) to elite vampiric cavalry armies (as hunting dogs to help flush mortal prey out of hiding).

The question isn't whether blood knights will be battleline, the question is whether you'll be able to build a viable battle strategy with blood knights as the backbone of your army.  For comparison purposes, take the OBR deathriders.  They /are/ battleline, just by default, so if you want to field a cavalry army you technically can.  But while they're a great support unit for an army based on the OBR infantry, on their own the deathriders have neither the weight of numbers to contest objectives nor the extreme offensive power to sweep enemy units off of them, and as such while you can legally make an OBR cav army I'm not sure you can make one that's actually viable on the tabletop.

Soulblight armies under LoN could field full blood knight lists, and legion of blood armies could fill their battleline requirements with cheap dire wolves and have the left over points to run essentially an army of blood knights even though they weren't battleline for them.  But neither made for a particularly viable or competitive build on the table, and I'm not sure we're expecting the sort of changes to the unit that might better enable that in the new book.  Hope for, certainly, but expect?

Edited May 4, 2021 by Sception