Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Sception]

articles going up early lately

[warhammernerd]

Just to chime in, in all the time I’ve been playing LoN and Soulblight, I can hand on heart say a pip of rend on my blood knights ISNT why I lost the games I did. It’s cos the faction was, in its entirety quite pants. Thankfully now it isn’t. So to everyone constantly moaning about us not getting -2 rend, it really ain’t what’s gonna win or lose you games. Sure their are some high armoured things in the game, but most factions struggle with a few units, as they should. 

[BaylorCorvette]

For the Riders of Ruin, I think we will see a change in 3.0 about what is considered a normal move OR we will see an errata/faq, the intent was obviously to charge later in the turn.

For the Legion of Night, it's basically the same as before with a few minor changes. I do like Mannfreds POOF from combat ability though, lol.

[Lightbox]

So Mannfreds ability to jump out of combat and teleport looks like it could be really useful... especially if he's just been charged.

[Erdemo86]

Mannfreds bloodline looks very weak to me compared to Kastelai Bloodline. Vargheist and Mannfred are both Vampires so why run this Bloodline over Kastelei? I don’t understand. Even if you play Mannfred and Vargheist in Kastelai they look stronger to me.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Erdemo86

[Liquidsteel]

Hmm looks like the Legion of Night is more or less the same.

Depends on what else is provided.

The teleport is neat.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Liquidsteel
link removed

[JackStreicher]

C'mon I hoped Mannfred would allow to include 1 in 4 Freeguilf infantry units -.-
Let's hope Neferata will get access to some living units.

Overall Mannfred sounds good (used to be my fav along with Nagash in LoN), yet, sadly, it's mostly reprints . I hoped for a reinvention ^^ (cool new mechanics like blood or night tokens, winds of death etc.)

Edited May 12, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Sception]

Having read it, that was a fun and characterful article.  It honestly sorely tempts me towards running Legion of Night, and validates my decision to rip arkhan off his dread abyssal and rebuild it as mannfred.  I'd still need to grab at least one more box of vargheists, though.  Mannfred teleporting out at the start of any combat he doesn't like is a significant boost to his survivability, which is the main thing the classic morghasts need in general.  Deep striking to begin with is also tempting... but I'm not sure I'd want to skip out on a turn of casting.  He also still needs something to shield him from shooting - I'm hoping one of the 3e generic core battalions will have a bodyguard rule.

In the mean time, though, yeah.  looks good.  Looks like a fun hero leading a fun faction.  Warhammer star scream may well get the day in the sun he so sorely deserves. 

[BaylorCorvette]

9 minutes ago, Erdemo86 said:

Mannfreds bloodline looks very weak to me compared to Kastelai Bloodline. Vargheist and Mannfred are both Vampires so why run this Bloodline over Kastelei? I don’t understand. Even if you play Mannfred and Vargheist in Kastelai they look stronger to me.

Well, we don't know if they are going to carry over that dumb rule that if you play a certain Legion / Bloodline then you have to run their Mortarch / Leader if you want to run one of the Mortarch / Leaders from another Bloodline as well. I.E. It's possible if we want to run Mannfred in Kastelai then we also have to run Prince V and he has to be our General. I hope they don't bring that rule into this book but seeing how this is pretty much LoN 2.0 I wouldn't be shocked. I would MUCH prefer the new rule to be that the Mortarch / Leader gets to count as the General in their own Bloodline in addition to the actual General. ALSO, I wouldn't be shocked if each Mortarch / Leader came with their Bloodline's keyword on their warscroll meaning they couldn't receive the keyword of another Bloodline, similar to Katakros and how he has the Mortis Praetorians keyword.

Again, we haven't seen the full set of rules for the Bloodlines yet, there is likely more to Legion of Night, but purely based on the community articles I agree that Kastelai seems better. Which is fine because that's what I was going to play anyways 😃

Also based on the end of that article, looks like we get to hear about Neferata / Legion of Blood tomorrow.

Edited May 12, 2021 by BaylorCorvette

[EMMachine]

7 minutes ago, Erdemo86 said:

Mannfreds bloodline looks very weak to me compared to Kastelai Bloodline. Vargheist and Mannfred are both Vampires so why run this Bloodline over Kastelei? I don’t understand. Even if you play Mannfred and Vargheist in Kastelai they look stronger to me.

I would most likely see that the Named Charakters have the Keyword of their Dynasty and can't get another one and wouldn't get the buffs of Kastelai.

5 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

C'mon I hoped Mannfred would allow to include 1 in 4 Freeguilf infantry units -.-

In the lore it was more likely that Mannfred would have played with Flesh-Eater Courts. An addition of Living troups would have been the thing of Neferata.

[Sception]

11 minutes ago, Erdemo86 said:

Mannfreds bloodline looks very weak to me compared to Kastelai Bloodline. Vargheist and Mannfred are both Vampires so why run this Bloodline over Kastelei? I don’t understand. Even if you play Mannfred and Vargheist in Kastelai they look stronger to me.

outflank anything, not just blood knights.  Outflanking terrorgheists in particular can be nasty.  battleline vargheists instead of blood knights if you happen to prefer that unit.  We haven't seen their rules yet - if vargheists get a bonus to charge distance then they'll synergize especially well with outflanking, the way morghast harbingers do in the current Legion of Night.

Mannfred himself looks cool, and judging by the way special characters work in other recent books - OBR especially - you'll be able to run him in Kastelai, but he won't gain their benefits since he'll have his own subfaction keyword built in.  This also may not be the full picture - the article mentions necromancers, & there may be a boost to them as well.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Sception

[Aren73]

Well, seems not much has changed, but that teleport looks mighty fun. 

It's very much an ability of "unless you prepare for it this is going to seriously troll you". 

Battleline Vargheists were expected and are very much welcome. 

[Erdemo86]

Who is Mannfreds biggest rival, we get to see tomorrow?

Edited May 12, 2021 by Erdemo86

[Sception]

 

Just now, Erdemo86 said:

Who is Mannfreds biggest rival, we get to see tomorrow? 

 

Neferata, the other Soulblight mortarch.

[Aren73]

Just now, Erdemo86 said:

Who is Mannfreds biggest rival, we get to see tomorrow? 

Himself, surely. 

Can't think of anyone else who messes up his plans more. 

[BaylorCorvette]

I love that they are giving each Bloodline / Dynasty unique battleline choices.

Everyone gets Skeletons & Zombies

-Legion of Night: Vargheists

-Legion of Blood: Black Knights

-Kastelai: Blood Knights

-Avengorii: Zombie Dragons & Terrorgheists

-Vyrkos: ??? I'm assuming we all get Dire Wolves as Battleline still. They may not get a special battleline but instead get multiple Generals.

[LordPrometheus]

15 minutes ago, Sception said:

 

Warhammer star scream may well get the day in the sun he so sorely deserves. 

Dude I love this LOL 🤣

[Sception]

2 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

I love that they are giving each Bloodline / Dynasty unique battleline choices.

Everyone gets Skeletons & Zombies

-Legion of Night: Vargheists

-Legion of Blood: Black Knights

-Kastelai: Blood Knights

-Avengorii: Zombie Dragons & Terrorgheists

-Vyrkos: ??? I'm assuming we all get Dire Wolves as Battleline still. They may not get a special battleline but instead get multiple Generals.

It's nice in principle, but forcing it results in weird things like Avengorii not getting battleline Vargheists since Mannfred already stole them and Neferata getting battleline Black Knights even though her forces have never been characterized as particularly cavalry heavy.

I would have rather seen avengoriii get battleline vargheists, legion of night get a different bonus to their vargheists (after all, they're already supposed to be taking skeletons and zombies as 'the bait' which covers their battleline anyway), and if legion of blood were to get any sort of unique battleline make it something vampyric, like battleline coven thrones & blood palanquins.  Or just leave them with the normal battleline and focus all their subfaction rules on the vampires on top.

But whatever, the implementation we have isn't bad.  I just think it focused too much on parallel bonuses (everybody gets a different battleline!) instead of letting the character and narrative of the factions drive their rules without any worry about what the other factions get.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Sception

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

It's nice in principle, but forcing it results in weird things like Avengorii not getting battleline Vargheists since Mannfred already stole them and Neferata getting battleline Black Knights even though her forces have never been characterized as particularly cavalry heavy.

Yup. 

I was hoping to really dig my claws into this new bloodline that GW have come up with but if it's just going to be Strigoi monster-mash then I'm not really interested. 

Still, holding out hope that Avengorii doesn't just benefit T-gheists and Zombie Dragons, but also bumps up Vargheists and Vengorian Lords. 

[Clan's Cynic]

Is it not still possible Avengorii also get Vargheist Battlelines? 

[Aren73]

@Clan's Cynic - possible definitely, though unlikely. 

The way I've found these things usually go, every subfaction has their flavour of battleline that isn't repeated across other subfactions. 

[Sception]

1 minute ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Is it not still possible Avengorii also get Vargheist Battlelines? 

Possible, but sorely unlikely.

[Liquidsteel]

Battleline Terrorgheists/Zombie Dragons is fine on it's own, but I reeeeally hope it's not the main gimmick for Avengorii.

I'm coming over from FEC, I didn't play battleline dragons there either.

Unless they really boost the units it could be a bit of a miss.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

The Legion of Night rules remind me a lot of Tempest's Eye: +1 to saves for the first battle round and a movement bonus.

In Cities, this is enough to make Tempest's Eye the go-to as a generically good allegiance. I hope Legion of Night will be the same for Gravelords: The allegiance that you know you can pick no matter what your list looks like and it will still work.

Mannfred's new teleport out of combat also seems quite good. Finally a reason to take him!

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Liquidsteel said:

Battleline Terrorgheists/Zombie Dragons is fine on it's own, but I reeeeally hope it's not the main gimmick for Avengorii.

I'm coming over from FEC, I didn't play battleline dragons there either.

Unless they really boost the units it could be a bit of a miss.

I'm fine with the battleline choices there, I was always going to field some skeletons and a terrorgheist so I'll be able to make the battleline requirements either way. 

I just hope that the bloodline buffs more than just big monsters. 

Or put another way - Legion of Night may have the quantity of Vargheists, due to them being battleline. But I hope that the Avengorii have the quality Vargheists (+1A/+1 to hit/+1D whatever it might be).