Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Sception]

It would be perfectly viable to have physical gravesites, and if legions of nagash were being released today, in this era of faction terrain, I absolutely believe that there would be gravesite models.  Doesn't even need new models, they could just have you use the parts of the mausoleum kit.

But I doubt it will matter in Soulblight Gravelords, as I doubt the gravesite rules will remain in place.  There will certainly be some sort of faction terrain, but I doubt it will work like gravesites currently do.

Which is a shame, since the gravesite rules are so cool and cinematic in play.

[Causalis]

Don't be so hung up on the name of it. Replace "Gravesite" with something like "Feeding grounds" etc. and boom, you got the new faction terrain! 

[Raptor_Jesues]

9 minutes ago, Causalis said:

Don't be so hung up on the name of it. Replace "Gravesite" with something like "Feeding grounds" etc. and boom, you got the new faction terrain! 

then i demand it to work on bloodknights as well u.u

[JackStreicher]

I wished they'd spill more infos about all the other units we're getting for SBG today. I want to know what the army will contain so that I can save up my money to buy IT ALL 

Edited March 25, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Honk]

7 minutes ago, Causalis said:

hung up on the name of it

For me, it’s not the name, it is the whole system of d3 hp to summonable...

if that system and the keywords stay, it lessens the viability of elite builds. As mentioned, bloodknights, if they should be allowed to be taken as battleline, the „gravesite system“ should include them somehow.

Soooo... some rules and overall possible army compositions would be a nice thing to find for Easter 

[Sception]

47 minutes ago, Causalis said:

Don't be so hung up on the name of it. Replace "Gravesite" with something like "Feeding grounds" etc. and boom, you got the new faction terrain! 

It's not the name (grave sites are a perfectly appropriate name and concept for the grave lords), it's the effect.  I expect to see soulblight terrain of some form.  I don't expect it to be in the form of four separate instances of free healing + target locations for deep striking from reserve + a command ability to revive entire summonable units back to full strength.

gravesites were cool and thematic and cinematic, but they also led to a fair amount of 'feel bads' and while I'd love to be proven wrong, I just don't expect them to make the cut to the new faction.

[lare2]

There's a short story in the new White Dwarf focusing on Van Brecht's escape from Anvilgard, following BR: Morathi. It's still not explicitly stated that vamps helped him escape but I think it's heavily implied. What is cool though is how they're depicted: never seen, always in the shadows, toying, and, very awesomely, absolutely savage when it comes to a fight. I mean, just one shreds apart a group of aelves. Hopefully they're as brutal on the table. 

Got me thinking though, I'm aware that Van Brecht has vamp connections but they seemed pretty intent on helping him get to safety so that he could tell the SCE of Morathi's betrayal. Whatever the SBG are, they seem pretty anti-aelf in the narrative so far.

Edited March 25, 2021 by lare2

[Honk]

12 minutes ago, lare2 said:

they seem pretty anti-aelf in the narrative so far.

Seeing the floating temple of aelven cheese, I get a distinct anti-treehugger vibe as well...

Post-Nurgle tournaments will be interesting 

[Gothmaug]

21 hours ago, RedRowan said:

Would be pretty cool but I reckon they are going to be tied specifically to Cursed City.

Steve 

Arent all the Cursed city models receiving AOS warscrolls  included as a booklet in the Cursed City game (and I assume in the soulblight gravelord book as well)? Everything else in the boardgame is either a single monster hero/monster unit, a unit of 3 (Vrykuls, Swarms) or a unit of 10 (skeletons, zombies). This makes me think that the ogre zombies will be a unit of 2, perhaps have a Bodyguard function, similar to some of the Cryptothralls for the necrons in 40K. 

[RedRowan]

I think they'll get a warscroll trough the Cursed City game, what I meant is I don't think we will see a new unit of them for the new Battletome.

Steve

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, Gothmaug said:

Arent all the Cursed city models receiving AOS warscrolls  included as a booklet in the Cursed City game (and I assume in the soulblight gravelord book as well)? Everything else in the boardgame is either a single monster hero/monster unit, a unit of 3 (Vrykuls, Swarms) or a unit of 10 (skeletons, zombies). This makes me think that the ogre zombies will be a unit of 2, perhaps have a Bodyguard function, similar to some of the Cryptothralls for the necrons in 40K. 

The question is more which Cursed City models will see an independent release and have their rules printed in the battletome. I definitely think it is possible for all the non-hero units to make it into the proper Gravelords release, but I would also not be surprised if (for example) the Kosargi Nightguard were only ever released in the Cursed City box.

That goes even more for the hero units. I could easily see Torgillius or Hargrim not getting a stand-alone release, for example.

[Sception]

Every Cursed City antagonist model will get an AoS warscroll and thus be at least usable in the new Soulblight Gravelords, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be published in the battletome proper and carried forward as supported units and characters available outside of the cursed city box with separate model releases going forward long term.  Additionally, the AoS rules for side-game units like those from Warhammer Quest, War Cry, and Underworlds tend to be very low-balled in power, even if they do subsequently get printed in a full battle tome.  For example, look at the various Warcry warband rules in the Slaves to Darkness battletome.  All cool models with unique, 100% legal AoS unit rules printed in the battletome and everything, and every one of them is completely eclipsed by plain old marauders, to the point that they'd be dramatically more playable if GW hadn't even bothered writing rules for them and had instead just told players to 'use them as variant sculpts for the marauder unit.

As such, Ulfenkarn characters like Radukar, Kritza, and so on, will 100% be ~playable~ in AoS, but whether or not they're actually ~worth~ playing will likely depend on whether they were designed for Cursed City and given AoS rules as an afterthought or whether they were designed for AoS first, and they're just getting an early introduction in Cursed City.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Sception

[Doko]

If these units dont get a separate box and have rules in the book as the skeletons or zombies,to me are as they dont exist

[herohammer]

The big issue with the warcry war bands is more that marauders are hands down the best unit in S2D with the possible exception of archaon (who is better in tzeentch,khorne, and slaanesh). Untamed beasts, Corvus cabal, and especially iron golems all get played in my experience so that is a decent chunk of them that work alright.

what I would be more worried about than underpowered rules for stuff like the kosargi are rules that get dropped after a little while from matched play like the rules with the tzeentch themed warhammer quest.

[Raptor_Jesues]

i would suggest everyone to temper their hopes for the cursed city models being used in AoS, they will almost certainly have garbage rules 

Edited March 25, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[HanShot First]

Do we think we are getting a new corpse cart? It’s currently sold out on GW’s website and it needs an update.

[Paladin of Khorne]

18 minutes ago, HanShot First said:

Do we think we are getting a new corpse cart? It’s currently sold out on GW’s website and it needs an update.

Probably just going through repackaging and updated manuals. 

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

So I sold most of my LoN (aside from my actaul vampire models from wfb because nostalgia) and have been playing obr for a while now (and slaanesh who I've been playing since i got into aos) and while gravelords won't be anytime soon for me they'll probably be my 2022 project so I'll give my two cents on some of the topics I've red in here.

So to start, returning characters: we already have 6 vampire characters confirmed including the cursed city crew, throw in the non vampires and we're at 8 or 9 named characters before we even consider nagash or arkhan (arkhan will probably stay obr tho since his legion was recycled into null myriad) But while I don't think we need more characters I'll admit a returning Von Carstein would be an instant buy for me. Abhorash is cool and all but if he ever descends from his damn mountain he should be a nomadic hero as death's equivalent to gotrek or the new aelf twins. My pick for a returning character would be Isabella WITH Vlad in a more limited form. Vlad was the mortarch of shadows when he died so how cool would it be to have Isabella on a 60mm base with the shadow/ghost of Vlad looming over her protecting her? It'd be s sick smaller scale diorama piece.

As for the discussion regarding the invocation tax working against elite builds you can solve that by taking a seraphon style approach. Split the dynasties or whatever the sub factions are called into two groups, call them the "lords of death" and the "midnight aristocracy" or something. The former plays like a polished LoN, their shared allegiance abilities includes invocations auras on all heroes, access to nagash and can take nighthaunt allies or something. The latter group represents more martial vampires/vampire rebels if mannfred does go mask off traitor like the recent short story implies and gets blood knights and/or vampire infantry battleline, access to vordrai,  bonuses to charge or a better version of the red thirst rule and maybe a deep strike from being less tethered to their undead puppets. Universally I'd like to see a traits list for vampires similar to mount trait tables. I'd expect at least 4 dynasties as well, hopefully following themes similar to the underworlds warband as they all look like their from different dynasties with the armoured blood dragon, the heavy yet regal Von Carstein, the fast and stylish Lahmian and the wild and bestial fourth dynasty.  This is all wishlisting but having an army with two shared mortarchs it'd make sense to split it in a way to make each ones respective force feel different while sharing a unit roster.

[Sception]

I have to say, while I'm not personally hoping for any returning oldhammer heroes, if I had to pick one it would be Isabella.  Just isabella, on her own, honoring vlad's sacrifice by (un)living for herself, able to be a proper character in her own right and not just someone else's side kick.  That's a character with potential that was never fulfilled, maybe could never be fulfilled in the old world.  But that's just me.

Again though, while I don't really want any other big names back, and would rather see the existing vamps get some more proper spotlight instead of being Arkhan's also-rans, if they do bring back any old names I'll still be fine with it.

Honestly, there's very little they could do at this point to kill my hype for this faction.  Just the stuff we've already seen is enough for me to be super excited.  I can't wait to get my hands on some of those blood knights.

[lare2]

2 hours ago, Sception said:

Honestly, there's very little they could do at this point to kill my hype for this faction.  Just the stuff we've already seen is enough for me to be super excited.  I can't wait to get my hands on some of those blood knights.

Ditto. The rules could be utter dross and I'm still going all in. Currently trying to flog all my worldly possessions to afford it all. 

[Evil Bob]

14 hours ago, Sception said:

It would be perfectly viable to have physical gravesites, and if legions of nagash were being released today, in this era of faction terrain, I absolutely believe that there would be gravesite models.  Doesn't even need new models, they could just have you use the parts of the mausoleum kit.

Not to mention GW has put out gravesite tokens before.  The AoS Warscroll cards could easily include another set.  If they are axed in the next book my four piles of skulls and a pike 25mm bases can be used as objective markers.

Maybe I’m getting a little greedy wanting both gravesites and a useful faction terrain.  Seriously I’d even be okay with a mini inverted pyramid being held up by ghosties.

[LandonGolds]

This seems like a bad time to have started getting into the game with a Legions of Nagash skeleton-heavy army. I bought a horde of like 50 skeleton warriors, 10 grave guard, a necromancer, a wight king, some bat swarms, and 5 hexwraiths just to be faced with the strong possibility of my army building plan being turned on its head. Really hoping I can still play with all these units. I already started painting. Soulblight Gravelords looks cool, I just want to be able to have an army focused around my never ending ranks of classic bone boyes.

Do you guys think I'm screwed? Should I save all the trouble of painting this army?

[JackStreicher]

52 minutes ago, LandonGolds said:

This seems like a bad time to have started getting into the game with a Legions of Nagash skeleton-heavy army. I bought a horde of like 50 skeleton warriors, 10 grave guard, a necromancer, a wight king, some bat swarms, and 5 hexwraiths just to be faced with the strong possibility of my army building plan being turned on its head. Really hoping I can still play with all these units. I already started painting. Soulblight Gravelords looks cool, I just want to be able to have an army focused around my never ending ranks of classic bone boyes.

Do you guys think I'm screwed? Should I save all the trouble of painting this army?

The Skeletons and Grave Guard will stay in some shape or form as will everything you bought. Hexwraiths however might become allies.

[El Syf]

2 hours ago, LandonGolds said:

This seems like a bad time to have started getting into the game with a Legions of Nagash skeleton-heavy army. I bought a horde of like 50 skeleton warriors, 10 grave guard, a necromancer, a wight king, some bat swarms, and 5 hexwraiths just to be faced with the strong possibility of my army building plan being turned on its head. Really hoping I can still play with all these units. I already started painting. Soulblight Gravelords looks cool, I just want to be able to have an army focused around my never ending ranks of classic bone boyes.

Do you guys think I'm screwed? Should I save all the trouble of painting this army?

Everything @JackStreicher said.

Especially if it’s on rounds, I’m only starting afresh as most of my stuff other than Nagash and Manfred are on squares.

It also depends on how bothered you will be by the new models vs old. If you hadn’t already made purchases I would have said to hold off but you already got a nice lot of models (hopefully on rounds) so enjoy it. The only slight issue other than hexwraiths is we don’t know whether graveguard will remain a thing, so they may become more standard skeletons.

[Honk]

2 hours ago, LandonGolds said:

just want to be able to have an army focused around my never ending ranks of classic bone boyes.

no worries, you’ll be fine

They showed a new cast of skellis and I‘m not sure what happens to grave guards... but if all fails you can still mix them all into 60 new casts for 3x40 skellis and they’ll look pretty...

bat swarms well, everybody is hoping for new ones and the fell bats got new casts...on top the WHQ Vampire hints at a vermin focused dynasty, so pretty save there

the hexwraiths, might need readjustment... a new mounted wightking approaches, looking fancy, so you might want to wait and see if they need to be blackknights, same sprue, sooo no harm no foul, if already built, rebuilt, if not possible, repaint