Soulblight Gravelords News, Rumours and Speculation

[Aren73]

On the topic of competitive factions, I actually see Vyrkos and not Kastelai as the go to. 

Kastelai embodies the "win more" theme, where if you are doing well anyway, you'll do better. If you are killing enemy units, then your units get stronger. But if you're already killing enemy units then giving you help to kill more enemy units isn't the largest buff you could get. 

I do really like the faction though and I think there could be a way of playing it to make it strong. What it really wants is some way of killing units outside of combat. 

Whereas Vyrkos - they buff our perhaps best unit in the book (Grave Guard) with a straight up, simple, +1 to wound. On top of that you reroll casts - something every vampire army enjoys and factors well with the locus of shyish. 
Vyrkos isn't gimmicky or situational, you just get a reliable buff that you'll use from the start to the end of the game. 

Kastelai on the other hand, is more fun. 

[Verminlord]

I agree Vyrkos is looking like it has the most competitive legs of the bloodlines. Avengorii looking strong as well

[Sception]

What makes grave guard better than zombies, which are cheaper per attack, much cheaper per wound, pile in 6", and are already battleline without having to burn points on a wight king?

Are you really going to hang your subfaction choice on a 'wholly within 9" aura?

I'm not saying GG or vyrkos are bad at all.  Maybe you're right.  There just seems to be a lot of overlap between guard and zombies, and I'm trying to tease out the differences.

[Aturox]

Did anyone notice that the vamps with the specific allegiance keyword in the warscroll wont benefit from others? So no added bonus and no allegiance to the named vampires when playing in another legion.

Its stated under the allegiance abilities

[Erdemo86]

4 minutes ago, Sception said:

What makes grave guard better than zombies, which are cheaper per attack, much cheaper per wound, pile in 6", and are already battleline without having to burn points on a wight king?

Are you really going to hang your subfaction choice on a 'wholly within 9" aura?

I'm not saying GG or vyrkos are bad at all.  Maybe you're right.  There just seems to be a lot of overlap between guard and zombies, and I'm trying to tease out the differences.

I Agree too, You burn points on a very useless Wight King and the bubble is only 9 inch. Kastelei Bonus is not so Hard to get off, you will always destroy some units and get some buffs even if your not winning. I value a +1 dmg buff on a CT, Blood Knights, Prince V or a Radukar much mir over a +1 to wound on Grave guard. Also you can have a +1 dmg +1wound bubble for One Phase and you could even activate it in the enemy combat phase!

[FeralMulan]

4 minutes ago, Aturox said:

Did anyone notice that the vamps with the specific allegiance keyword in the warscroll wont benefit from others? So no added bonus and no allegiance to the named vampires when playing in another legion.

Its stated under the allegiance abilities

Most allegiance abilities don't really buff the heroes anyways, so no huge deal. I guess name characters won't get the Kastellai bonuses? That's about it.

[Aren73]

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

What makes grave guard better than zombies, which are cheaper per attack, much cheaper per wound, pile in 6", and are already battleline without having to burn points on a wight king?

Are you really going to hang your subfaction choice on a 'wholly within 9" aura?

I'm not saying GG or vyrkos are bad at all.  Maybe you're right.  There just seems to be a lot of overlap between guard and zombies, and I'm trying to tease out the differences.

For Grave Guard, the Mortal Wounds are a nice strong ability however a good chunk of their damage comes from normal damage too. Great weapons are great  There isn't really an enemy type Grave Guard don't want to go into, they produce plenty of mortal wounds against heavily armoured/ethereal enemies and also hit hard enough normally that large units of chaff don't want to be anywhere near them. For zombies however, enemy hordes don't really care about them and will likely out-damage the zombies. Sure you get a few MW through, but the enemy horde will deal way more through normal damage. 

In terms of durability, it's difficult to compare the zombie heal to a normal save so I won't - that requires deeper analysis and I don't want to jump to conclusions. Still, a 4+ save isn't bad for sword and board Grave Guard. 

On Battleline options you've got me beat for sure. 

However, as a final upside to Grave Guard you get the buff effect where any buff put on Grave Guard will be more valuable than one put on zombies. +1 to Hit and +1 to Wound are much nicer on a -1 Rend, 2 Damage weapon than a - Rend and 1 Damage one. Likewise, buffs to saves go much further when they're protecting a higher damage dealing unit. In essence, when you buff Grave Guard you are augmenting a larger amount of points. 

Zombies are a MW machine and a self-healing tarpit. Grave Guard are a MW machine and a blender unit, plus a somewhat tough to kill bruiser unit. 

Oh, a fun side note, Grave Guard deal more MW with their swords than great weapons  I find that quite funny. 

[Erdemo86]

6 minutes ago, Aturox said:

Did anyone notice that the vamps with the specific allegiance keyword in the warscroll wont benefit from others? So no added bonus and no allegiance to the named vampires when playing in another legion.

Its stated under the allegiance abilities

No I didn’t, you’re right thx. So Radukar out of my list and Replace him.

[Verminlord]

Am I missing something with coven throne? I get that +1 to hit wound and save is an amazing buff, but its limited to wholly within 12, and costs a CP. There are no other redeeming qualities to the unit. It's a single caster and it's unique spell only effects itself. So 310 points for single caster that can buff one, maybe two units per turn?

[BrotherTalarian]

1 minute ago, Verminlord said:

Am I missing something with coven throne? I get that +1 to hit wound and save is an amazing buff, but its limited to wholly within 12, and costs a CP. There are no other redeeming qualities to the unit. It's a single caster and it's unique spell only effects itself. So 310 points for single caster that can buff one, maybe two units per turn?

Yeah, I’m thinking of replacing the coven with Manny in a Kastali list.

 

1 minute ago, Erdemo86 said:

No I didn’t, you’re right thx. So Radukar out of my list and Replace him.

how come? He’ll still be a blender and give +1 attack to all models within 18”, no? 

[FeralMulan]

Just now, Verminlord said:

Am I missing something with coven throne? I get that +1 to hit wound and save is an amazing buff, but its limited to wholly within 12, and costs a CP. There are no other redeeming qualities to the unit. It's a single caster and it's unique spell only effects itself. So 310 points for single caster that can buff one, maybe two units per turn?

A. That buff is REALLY good B. Only need to be wholly within 12 when the ability is triggered, then they can go their separate ways. C. If that spell goes off, and you charge a big scary enemy unit, you basically took that thing out of commission until your next turn D it has enough attacks to still be a relatively good horde clearing unit.

[Aren73]

1 minute ago, Verminlord said:

Am I missing something with coven throne? I get that +1 to hit wound and save is an amazing buff, but its limited to wholly within 12, and costs a CP. There are no other redeeming qualities to the unit. It's a single caster and it's unique spell only effects itself. So 310 points for single caster that can buff one, maybe two units per turn?

The buff is also usable for all units and lasts through your opponent's turn. It is truly golden, amazing ability. 

But yes, you pay a lot for it. An extra spellcaster is always nice though and the throne could do some damage here and there. 
It's like taking the Necromancer for the Vanhel's, you buy the unit for more or less one ability, up to you whether it is justified in your list. 

[Erdemo86]

1 minute ago, BrotherTalarian said:

Yeah, I’m thinking of replacing the coven with Manny in a Kastali list.

 

how come? He’ll still be a blender and give +1 attack to all models within 18”, no? 

Yeah but don’t gets the buff of Kastelei.

[Darkhan]

5 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

Am I missing something with coven throne? I get that +1 to hit wound and save is an amazing buff, but its limited to wholly within 12, and costs a CP. There are no other redeeming qualities to the unit. It's a single caster and it's unique spell only effects itself. So 310 points for single caster that can buff one, maybe two units per turn?

Yeah, kinda waste. Coven is only good for that buff. All else is shait.
If you include 1x unit of 15 blood knights, it's up for discussion...but would rather use those 310 points for something else tbh.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Darkhan

[Erdemo86]

9 minutes ago, BrotherTalarian said:

Yeah, I’m thinking of replacing the coven with Manny in a Kastali list.

 

how come? He’ll still be a blender and give +1 attack to all models within 18”, no? 

Manny don’t gets Kastelei Buffs either. And the Melee Profil on Ct is not sheet if you get +1 dmg. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by Erdemo86

[Darkhan]

7 minutes ago, FeralMulan said:

A. That buff is REALLY good B. Only need to be wholly within 12 when the ability is triggered, then they can go their separate ways. C. If that spell goes off, and you charge a big scary enemy unit, you basically took that thing out of commission until your next turn D it has enough attacks to still be a relatively good horde clearing unit.

Coven is not a good horde clearing unit😂 imo.

[Doko]

So esqueletons:

Lost horde discount

5 points expensiver

Changed from 3 attacks to 1

Lost the option of 2" weapon

 

And.........for all these huge nerfs they got the a model killed in that phase come back with 4+ if you attack after the rival......

 

Again seems other unit nerfed into the useless and we can burn it together wigthkings and blackknigths

 

I guess i wont buy any new skeleton and use my 10 from the start collecting as grave guard

[Aren73]

2 minutes ago, Doko said:

So esqueletons:

Lost horde discount

5 points expensiver

Changed from 3 attacks to 1

Lost the option of 2" weapon

 

And.........for all these huge nerfs they got the a model killed in that phase come back with 4+ if you attack after the rival......

 

Again seems other unit nerfed into the useless and we can burn it together wigthkings and blackknigths

 

I guess i wont buy any new skeleton and use my 10 from the start collecting as grave guard

A 30 max, cheap unit that you can buff the saves for, has effectively a 4+ save after save after save and you can heal...that comes back at half strength after being killed. I like them for objective holding. 

[FeralMulan]

3 minutes ago, Darkhan said:

Coven is not a good horde clearing unit😂 imo.

It has 25 attacks altogether with mortal wound potential. Not the worst imo. Not saying it will blend 60 orks in one go, but it's decent.

[Sception]

14 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

Oh, a fun side note, Grave Guard deal more MW with their swords than great weapons  I find that quite funny. 

Do they?  I thought they were same attack range, same number of attacks, same to hit roll for both, which means both will be rolling the same number of dice to wound and thus both will roll the same number of natural sixes to wound to proc mortals?

Unless you mean shield guard will take less damage before swinging and thus make more attacks, which, sure, that makes sense.

The way you talk about them, though, it kind of sounds like you're picturing them with both shields and great weapons, even though it's one or the other.  Which do you go with?  Swords can take a bit more of a hit, and thus hope to maybe get in an extra mortal or two, and they're more consistant with the better to wound roll, but half as much potential damage per attack is really going to cut down their offensive potential vs. those hoards you were talking about.

Then again, 14 points a wound and only a 5+ save, with as little recursion as this army seems to have, will great weapon grave guard even last long enough to swing at anything?

 

Dang but I wish they had the skeletons' get back up rule.  Or that skeletons had grave guards chance of proccing mortals.  Oh, well.

[Doko]

7 minutes ago, Aren73 said:

A 30 max, cheap unit that you can buff the saves for, has effectively a 4+ save after save after save and you can heal...that comes back at half strength after being killed. I like them for objective holding. 

Sure have a 4++ IF the enemy dont kill the full unit AND attack after rival.

In other situations are 85 points for 10 wounds with 5 save,im sorry but to me they are useless. Even doggys are better as objetive holders.

For only 45 extra points(50% expensiver) they have 100% more wounds than skelys and 100% more damage.

Only if every star align and skellys arent wiped and attack second they are a little better tanking but allways worse in damage

[Darkhan]

10 minutes ago, FeralMulan said:

It has 25 attacks altogether with mortal wound potential. Not the worst imo. Not saying it will blend 60 orks in one go, but it's decent.

True enough, but you can get 20 wolves for 270pts with 42 attacks and 40 wounds😜 and able to resurrect them.

Coven is tempting yes, but I just see those points spent better elsewhere:) 
 

[vaector]

3 minutes ago, Sception said:

Do they?  I thought they were same attack range, same number of attacks, same to hit roll for both, which means both will be rolling the same number of dice to wound and thus both will roll the same number of natural sixes to wound to proc mortals?

Unless you mean shield guard will take less damage before swinging and thus make more attacks, which, sure, that makes sense.

The way you talk about them, though, it kind of sounds like you're picturing them with both shields and great weapons, even though it's one or the other.  Which do you go with?  Swords can take a bit more of a hit, and thus hope to maybe get in an extra mortal or two, and they're more consistant with the better to wound roll, but half as much potential damage per attack is really going to cut down their offensive potential vs. those hoards you were talking about.

Then again, 14 points a wound and only a 5+ save, with as little recursion as this army seems to have, will great weapon grave guard even last long enough to swing at anything?

 

Dang but I wish they had the skeletons' get back up rule.  Or that skeletons had grave guards chance of proccing mortals.  Oh, well.

So I was just kind of messing around with some buff stacking theory crafting and I came up with this: Take Belladamma Volga, Necromancer, and 20 Graveguard with Great Blades. Bella's spell makes the Graveguard's attacks explode on hits of 6s which each can lead to mortals of 6's to wound as well. Then do it again with the Necromancer's spell. If my math is correct...

With perfect rolls: 2 fights * (20 bodies * ((2 attacks) * (2 bonus attacks) * (2 dmg + 1 mortal))) = 480 damage

And that's only with a midsize 20 body unit. Granted, this is top end damage so you can't expect anything near this and this also counts on whole lot of things have to go right in addition to getting both spells off. Sure seems like a fun use of 610 points though.

[Sception]

5 minutes ago, Doko said:

Again seems other unit nerfed into the useless and we can burn it together wigthkings and blackknigths

Oh, yeah, absolutely, skeletons and black knights are both real bad, and in a way that I don't think they can fix with minor points adjustments.  Or even major points adjustments.

I really like the get back up rule, there seems to be a real idea behind it, like skeletons get to be the tougher, tankier battleline, while zombies are more fragile, but also faster thanks to 6" pile in and deadlier thanks to frightful touch.  That's not a terrible way of imagining the units.

But skeletons aren't enough tougher, or else they're too pillow fisted, and in any event cost way too many points per model, I would not call them better than zombies dude for dude, yet zombies are way cheaper, which cuts into the supposed extra survivability of skeletons, as does the lower max unit size, since they're less likely to have any dudes left after taking a hit to start rolling.  Deathrattle in general also sees fewer & less easily exploitable synergies than it used to have.

So there's definitely a good idea for a direction to take them in - again, I don't think the author had no good ideas, they just needed that revision process to polish them.  And to ditch the LoN allegiance abilities outright rather than nerf them all into the ground but I'm getting off topic.

 

Anyway, take these exact skeletons, but make them the same batch and max unit size as zombies, and price them at like 130 for 20, then drop the wight king by 30 points give it back the +1 attack for deathrattle units CA, change the Vamp's CA to +1 rend on any SG unit and give it back its horse option so it could run with blood knights, bump the vamp lords points up a bit but give them an extra wound, a couple extra attacks, an extra spell cast and a decent signature spell, give black knights back their shields and lances and ditch the impact hit for the grave guard's ensorcelled blades since they were always supposed to be mounted wights, maybe bump them up to grave guard price....

relatively minor changes overall, but it wouldn't take much to make this stuff work.  And again, the core concept - that zombies are the offensive core that heal themselves by killing stuff while skeletons are the defensive core that get back up on their own if you let the enemy swing first - that's a solid direction for differentiating them, imo.

[NicholasFlamelGames]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

it's in mortal wounds on sixes for zombies, grave guard and the spirit hosts carrying manny, nef, mortis, throne, & palanquin; impact hits for lauka/venga/mounted wight king/black knights; screams on terrorgheists & mortis engines; and Vhordrai's lance.

Not a great answer, but there you go.

but yeah, dang would wight kings granting +1 rend to deathrattle units have been nice.  Maybe not nice enough to make them could, but enough that I wouldn't be feeling so bad about the lousy new gorgeous wight king and their terrible, terrible black knights.

That would require getting your 4 inch move units into the protected units you really want to deal MWs too. I find with MW output you are usually targeting high priority and strong units that tend to be fast or protected. I do like Lauka but it is not very reliable. Terrorgheists seem kind of weak for their points in Kastelai and Vyrkos and Vhordrai....he is just a boss. I feel you but I do think there is still a weakness with having no shooting, unreliable mw output that requires a lot of things being in place and only a few higher rend options. I do really like the book and am looking forward to playing! More observations of things I believe may be weaknesses to overcome in future games. There are def some janky and funy plays though.