Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[warhammernerd]

7 minutes ago, Aturox said:

Wait for neferatas legion it might be more skeleton focused this time:

When they do sally forth from their stronghold in Nulahmia, the Deathrattle legions march in lockstep, in a menacing display of Neferata’s ironclad will. Add the fact that the Legion of Blood can take Black Knights as battleline units, and you have a reliable core of skeletal warriors around which to build your army.

Hoping that unlike AoS 2.0 they don’t see rolling 200+ dice a turn as the best way to make skeletons viable. If we’re talking about obnoxious, then this is villain #1. Rolling shed loads of inefficient attacks for modest return. At best it’s boring and slows game down a lot, at worst it leads to people just saying - nah, let’s not bother roll we can just say their dead or whatever. I’d much prefer some thematic unique rules to represent skeletons relentless implacable advances. Don’t ask me what, just not rolling 340 dice a turn. Eugh 

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

Geeze, bait the enemy into charging mannfred, teleport away in their combat phase, and the next turn you're still free to move and easily charge.  The more I think about it, the more I really, really like this rule on mannfred.

Urge to paint... rising......

That one rule singlehandedly informs a whole 2k list. 

[Sception]

I mean, i liked rolling 340 dice a turn, but I can see how it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

[BaylorCorvette]

I do find it funny the polarizing takes people have on the various Bloodlines / information that has been released thus far. I've seen lots of love and hate for just about everything and honestly I think that is good. I have yet to see something from Gravelords that everyone absolutely is in love with or absolutely hates. That means it has a strong appeal to a set of people. If everyone unilaterally hated / loved something then it would be because GW made compromises and settled with a conservative approach rather than pushing the design (both visually and through rules/warscrolls). All of this is great.

[warhammernerd]

1 minute ago, BaylorCorvette said:

That means it has a strong appeal to a set of people. If everyone unilaterally hated / loved something then it would be because GW made compromises and settled with a conservative approach rather than pushing the design (both visually and through rules/warscrolls). All of this is great.

Agreed. It’s a really good outcome thus far. 

[Aren73]

2 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

I do find it funny the polarizing takes people have on the various Bloodlines / information that has been released thus far. I've seen lots of love and hate for just about everything and honestly I think that is good. I have yet to see something from Gravelords that everyone absolutely is in love with or absolutely hates. That means it has a strong appeal to a set of people. If everyone unilaterally hated / loved something then it would be because GW made compromises and settled with a conservative approach rather than pushing the design (both visually and through rules/warscrolls). All of this is great.

I was about to bring that up. The diversity in reactions to the new rules is quite fun to see. 

Also very amusing, seeing as a lot of the rules they've shown us are unchanged  

[Sception]

41 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

I do find it funny the polarizing takes people have on the various Bloodlines / information that has been released thus far. I've seen lots of love and hate for just about everything and honestly I think that is good.

It certainly implies we'll be seeing a lot of different builds from different subfactions and not just a single spammed list that defines the entire faction.  That said, I don't want to start counting unhatched chickens.  it's still very early, and most of the book is unknown.  Plenty of room for GW to ****** it up one way or the other.

But yeah, so far, despite my handful of complaints and words of caution here and there, I'm very much liking what I'm seeing overall.

I'm still crossing my fingers SO HARD for that Nagashii symbol to represent a real and viable faction in its own right, not just "Soulblight Gravelords but with no subfaction bonuses so they're flat worse than any of the other options" or "grand alliance death reprinted without changes yet again, have fun running Nagash with no spell lores, nerd."

Edited May 12, 2021 by Sception

[Aren73]

Yeah, I wouldn't say that people having strong reactions = good book. 

I think it mostly just means that GW is trying things that are perhaps unexpected, or we don't know entirely how to put into context yet. No wonder, most of the book is unknown. 

Rather, the more I see the more I'm thinking that they have tweaked LoN rather than rewritten Vampire Counts. 

[Liquidsteel]

19 minutes ago, Aturox said:

Wait for neferatas legion it might be more skeleton focused this time:

When they do sally forth from their stronghold in Nulahmia, the Deathrattle legions march in lockstep, in a menacing display of Neferata’s ironclad will. Add the fact that the Legion of Blood can take Black Knights as battleline units, and you have a reliable core of skeletal warriors around which to build your army.

Yeah I was a bit dismayed when I saw this. Legion of Blood, Skeletons? Black Knights as Battleline? Doesn't make sense. 

[BaylorCorvette]

3 minutes ago, Sception said:

It certainly implies we'll be seeing a lot of different builds from different subfactions and not just a single spammed list that defines the entire faction.  That said, I don't want to start counting unhatched chickens.  it's still very early, and most of the book is unknown.  Plenty of room for GW to ****** it up one way or the other.

But yeah, so far, despite my handful of complaints and words of caution here and there, I'm very much liking what I'm seeing overall.

I'm still crossing my fingers SO HARD for that Nagashii symbol to represent a real and viable faction in its own right, not just 'Soulblight Gravelords but with no subfaction bonus so they're flat worse than any of the other options' or 'grand alliance death reprinted without changes yet again'.

Very true, even if things look amazing if GW calculates points like they did with the new Slaanesh book then we're f*cked lol.

[Grailstorm]

How can anyone possibly like this rule on Mannfred. It’s the most game breaking rule I’ve ever seen.

[Liquidsteel]

Just now, Grailstorm said:

How can anyone possibly like this rule on Mannfred. It’s the most game breaking rule I’ve ever seen.

It's countered via always strike first, or by charging something else then piling in to him from more than 3" away.

It can be countered.

[Malakithe]

Just now, Grailstorm said:

How can anyone possibly like this rule on Mannfred. It’s the most game breaking rule I’ve ever seen.

Game breaking? The LRL threads are over there ----->

[Grailstorm]

Just now, Liquidsteel said:

It's countered via always strike first, or by charging something else then piling in to him from more than 3" away.

It can be countered.

Not if you don’t have ASF. Or long pile ins.

[Grailstorm]

Just now, Malakithe said:

Game breaking? The LRL threads are over there ----->

It’s the definition of game breaking. Some armies literally can’t kill him. No unit should be immune to combat.

[Sception]

4 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

Very true, even if things look amazing if GW calculates points like they did with the new Slaanesh book then we're f*cked lol.

true, bad points values can be crippling, but they're also the least bad crippling problem you could have, since points values do get adjusted regularly, so you won't be stuck waiting 3-5 years for another battletome for a potential fix.

[Liquidsteel]

Just now, Grailstorm said:

Not if you don’t have ASF. Or long pile ins.

You can charge another unit, but stay outside of 3". That unit can be taken out by another of your units, you are then free to pile in 3" and in to Mannfred.

It's something that's been done to counter things like Skinks retreating, or FEC back when they were rampaging.

[warhammernerd]

Plus we don’t know whether Manfreds ability is an ‘always on’ ability or CP. So, it might not always be available.

[lare2]

3 minutes ago, Grailstorm said:

It’s the definition of game breaking. Some armies literally can’t kill him. No unit should be immune to combat.

Out of curiosity, what armies are wholly reliant on just melee to cause damage? Not being confrontational... just curious as I'm utterly ignorant. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by lare2
I used to regularly run Mortarchs... it was very rarely melee that killed them.

[Raptor_Jesues]

even if i am not going to run him i feel very happy for mannfred trolling shenanigans.

on another note, i am mildly pissed that bloodknights are 1" only, after rebasing all of them i feel like i probably will run multiple small units

[BaylorCorvette]

2 minutes ago, Grailstorm said:

How can anyone possibly like this rule on Mannfred. It’s the most game breaking rule I’ve ever seen.

Clearly you do not play in competitive tournaments. This is easily countered by:

-Strong Magic / Prayers

-Shooting

-Damage that happens in the charge phase (impact hits, etc)

-Things that can pile in 6"

In addition, competitive play isn't about killing things, it is about scoring more Victory Points than your opponent. Mannfred more than likely still only counts as 1 model for objectives. Furthermore you can zone out his teleporting so that he doesn't get placed where you don't want him. If his combat profile is like it is currently then he isn't even that huge of a threat where you HAVE to kill him. 

Now if your objective is to just kill things, then OK I guess this sucks but that is rarely the case in competitive play. In Places of Arcane Power where only Heroes score VPs then this ability is useless for him.

[warhammernerd]

Just now, lare2 said:

Out of curiosity, what armies are wholly reliant on just melee to cause damage? Not being confrontational... just curious as I'm utterly ignorant. 

Their aren’t. All armies have either some ranged magic output, some shooting, ability to project power, striking out of combat sequence ie before teleports, or ways to stop X unit doing Y. 
So, I too am not being confrontational, but there are lots of ways to shut down rules such as this. But sure, there will also be lots of times when he is next to impossible to kill BUT he is one model and last time I checked they didn’t tend to win game’s singlehandedly ——- Archaon aside.

[BaylorCorvette]

3 minutes ago, warhammernerd said:

Their aren’t. All armies have either some ranged magic output, some shooting, ability to project power, striking out of combat sequence ie before teleports, or ways to stop X unit doing Y. 
So, I too am not being confrontational, but there are lots of ways to shut down rules such as this. But sure, there will also be lots of times when he is next to impossible to kill BUT he is one model and last time I checked they didn’t tend to win game’s singlehandedly ——- Archaon aside.

Yeah, exactly. Unless Mannfred just has some crazy spell that dishes out huge damage, then he isn't even going to be dealing much damage if he never engages in the combat phase. What this ability does is allow Mannfred to choose what he engages. But again, there are very few models that I say "I NEED to make sure I kill them or else I cannot win/have a chance of winning." 

[Raptor_Jesues]

also if mannfred is not drastically changed he is mostly a melee and support characher, having him run constantly is not exactly having him pay for himself

Edited May 12, 2021 by Raptor_Jesues

[JackStreicher]

1 minute ago, Raptor_Jesues said:

also if mannfred is not drastichally changed he is mostly a melee characher, havign him run constantly is not exactly having him pay for himself

*rather mediocre melee char that dies most the time ^^
I move the model and the more. Yet the rules made the mortarchs WAY too squishy for some of most powerful entities of Undeath.

Sth. Tells me that his statline will remain the same ... 

Edited May 12, 2021 by JackStreicher