AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[JackStreicher]

25 minutes ago, JustAsPlanned said:

Had a dream last night that Grave Guard got new models, but they were a limited run and sold out in like, the first two minutes. Is this a portent of things to come?

Strange, I actually dreamed of new juicy Black Knights (I am serious) 😅

[Tizianolol]

My dream was they add  belladamma , radukar and other missing models on tts, so I finally can test them !!😭😭

[swarmofseals]

11 minutes ago, Tizianolol said:

My dream was they add  belladamma , radukar and other missing models on tts, so I finally can test them !!😭😭

Just use a blank base and label it?

[Tizianolol]

Ye did it, but its not the same feeling 😀

[AHexInScarletRed]

1 hour ago, JustAsPlanned said:

Had a dream last night that Grave Guard got new models, but they were a limited run and sold out in like, the first two minutes. Is this a portent of things to come?

I dreamed that I was a Tyranid Warrior when I was 14. I had one of those Bio-weapons and ran over the fields behind my parents' house. Half a lifetime ago, but I still remember that vividly, haha. 

Back to topic: 40 Zombies + Baby VL for the +1 Atk and doubling the ones that get up or 30 Skeletons + Necromancer for Objectives in Kastelai? 👀

[swarmofseals]

34 minutes ago, AHexInScarletRed said:

I dreamed that I was a Tyranid Warrior when I was 14. I had one of those Bio-weapons and ran over the fields behind my parents' house. Half a lifetime ago, but I still remember that vividly, haha. 

Back to topic: 40 Zombies + Baby VL for the +1 Atk and doubling the ones that get up or 30 Skeletons + Necromancer for Objectives in Kastelai? 👀

Personally I'd go 40 zombies + Necromancer. 40 zombies cover more space and have slightly more effective wounds at a slightly cheaper cost. I like the Necromancer over VL on foot because its much harder to snipe and will carry a useful spell for the turns where you aren't using Vanhel's. And if you are using Radukar or Mannfred, double tapping a 2-3 attack zombie unit is better than turning a 2-3 attack Zombie unit into a 3-4 attack zombie unit especially given that it doesn't require an extra CP.

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

A couple random question for folks regarding universal Enhancements and how they compare to our existing one.

Regarding artifact choice for a LoB VLoZD: does anyone think the new Amulet of Destiny might be better than the Soulbound Garments for survivability? Mortal Wound protection is always nice, and it still helps negate normal wounds as well, just less efficiently than the Soulbound Garments do for the normal damage part. I was leaning towards the amulet for a bit, but then it occurred to me that with all the healing we can call on with Heroic Actions added to the Hunger, big chunky damage is going to be the main threat to a VLoZD, and that tends to be from sources regular saves apply to. I'm still not 100% certain though. I do think for many dynasties, the Amulet is going to be a great choice on the VLoZD.

Also, the new Flaming Weapons spell doesn't have anything that prevents it from working on mounts, right? We could select the high-rend jaws or the enormous number of attacks on the claws to get +1 damage, yes? Might be a good alternative to Lore of the Vampires being lame, especially as smaller boards make Amethystine Pinions less of a big deal.

 

[Gery81]

I was looking at the arcane tome in my LoB list, to give it to a necromancer, so he can cast both van hels, and whatever other spell I give him. Or mystic shield on Nef, if there is no good van hels target. But Amulet of destiny can be interesting if you want to run double dragon.

[Tobjen99]

In LoN it was a rule that stated that artefacts and command traits that upgraded attacks in any way only applied to the rider and not the mount. Is that a rule in SbG? 
 

What about Vhordrais spell that gives him +1 to hit and wound, does that only target his lance or does the dragons attacks get that buff as well?

Edit: i found my answer for the 3.0 edt. 27.3.1 states that it does not boost the mount. I am still curius about the Vhordrai spell

Edited June 16, 2021 by Tobjen99

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

8 minutes ago, Tobjen99 said:

In LoN it was a rule that stated that artefacts and command traits that upgraded attacks in any way only applied to the rider and not the mount. Is that a rule in SbG? 
 

What about Vhordrais spell that gives him +1 to hit and wound, does that only target his lance or does the dragons attacks get that buff as well?

That's not a LoN rule, that's a core rule. Including in AoS3. Just artifacts and command traits, though, so spells should be fine, unless there's something new I've missed. I posted about another spell interacting with mounts just a couple of posts ago.

[Ghoooouls]

10 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

My dream was they add  belladamma , radukar and other missing models on tts, so I finally can test them !!😭😭

I've been using a mod called SAGA AOM and they have tons of armies. There's a vampire one with mannfred riding a wolf. I scaled him down to match 60mm and use him as belladama. (He also moves on his base like wizards chess which is cool)

For radukar I use the big varghulf thing from cursed city and scale it to 60mm.

I know it's not the same, but it at least looks cooler than a blank base.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Ghoooouls

[Ghoooouls]

4 hours ago, Gery81 said:

I was looking at the arcane tome in my LoB list, to give it to a necromancer, so he can cast both van hels, and whatever other spell I give him. Or mystic shield on Nef, if there is no good van hels target. But Amulet of destiny can be interesting if you want to run double dragon.

Yeah this is going to be great! I'm I'm so happy we can finally have a magic based vampire lord with more than 1 cast! May not be ideal, but who cares I love me a magic focussed vamp.

[Scruf]

6 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

Also, the new Flaming Weapons spell doesn't have anything that prevents it from working on mounts, right? We could select the high-rend jaws or the enormous number of attacks on the claws to get +1 damage, yes? Might be a good alternative to Lore of the Vampires being lame, especially as smaller boards make Amethystine Pinions less of a big deal.

I haven’t been able to find anything that prevents Flaming Weapons from buffing Mount weapons. I’d halfway expect an FAQ to hit us with the “fun detected” bat though. 
 

In the meantime, I’m looking at running it on Nagadron’s Abyssal Talons for some sweet 4+/3+/-2/3 attacks.

[JackStreicher]

9 minutes ago, Scruf said:

In the meantime, I’m looking at running it on Nagadron’s Abyssal Talons for some sweet 4+/3+/-2/3 attacks.

Juicy!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 hours ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

A couple random question for folks regarding universal Enhancements and how they compare to our existing one.

Regarding artifact choice for a LoB VLoZD: does anyone think the new Amulet of Destiny might be better than the Soulbound Garments for survivability? Mortal Wound protection is always nice, and it still helps negate normal wounds as well, just less efficiently than the Soulbound Garments do for the normal damage part. I was leaning towards the amulet for a bit, but then it occurred to me that with all the healing we can call on with Heroic Actions added to the Hunger, big chunky damage is going to be the main threat to a VLoZD, and that tends to be from sources regular saves apply to. I'm still not 100% certain though. I do think for many dynasties, the Amulet is going to be a great choice on the VLoZD.

Also, the new Flaming Weapons spell doesn't have anything that prevents it from working on mounts, right? We could select the high-rend jaws or the enormous number of attacks on the claws to get +1 damage, yes? Might be a good alternative to Lore of the Vampires being lame, especially as smaller boards make Amethystine Pinions less of a big deal.

 

I think there are a few good options in the generic enhancements.

Command Traits

Probably not so much in the case of command traits, though, since I believe basically all lineages have at least one really nice command trait you want to take.

Battle-Lust: Reroll runs and charges is probably the best one. I could see this on a VLoZD, but really, we already had other command traits that are as good or better in all lineages.

Skilled Leader: 5+, extra command point in your hero phase. We will have to see how command point hungry we are, under the new rules you already get 1 command point base, 1 for your general per hero phase, 1 for going second and 1 on a 4+ for a hero action per hero phase. Probably 3 guaranteed per turn, up to 6. Is that 5+ chance to get an extra point really worth giving up your command point for?

High Priest: We have no priests, so reroll chants does nothing.

Heroic Stature: +1 wounds characteristic. Not worth it.

Master of Magic: Reroll one cast/dispell/unbind per hero phase. Not bad, but not really that interesting.

Artefacts

Amulet of Destiny: 5+ ward. I think this one is better in other armies, since all our guys have 6+ by default already. I would definitely take Soulbound Garments over this, reaching a 2+ save by default is massive.

Vial of Manticore Venom: +1 to wound for a weapon. Not once-per-game or anything! So fairly decent, might see occasional use.

Arcane Tome: Become a wizard/+1 cast. It's OK. You could definitely slap this on a Necromancer and get a 2 cast wizard with fairly solid spells. You can also give him +1 to cast for cheap from a Corpse Cart, potentially +2 if you really want to by including a mortis engine. I think a Necromancer + Cart is a fairly points-efficient way to get a 2 cast wizard at ~200 points. But definitely grab Belladamma before you do this.

Seed of Rebirth: Reroll heroic action healing. Good for 7 bravery heroes, less so for our 10 bravery chads. We already have a 90% to make this die roll.

Spell Lore

I think this is where the meat is for us. Taking a spell lore enhancement gives every caster an extra spell, which can come from their native lore or from the generic lore. I fully expect this to apply to named characters, too, once we get that situation cleared up. For what it's worth, named characters got lore spells before and there is already room to argue that they can get them now according to RAW, so it's how I will be playing it.

Flaming Weapons: Cast on a 4 (!), +1 damage for a melee weapon. We have a lot of melee guys that are also wizards that would appreciate this option, like the Vengorian Lord or VLoZD. You can run Pinions + Flaming Weapons as a default loadout, to make sure you get where you want to go and hit hard once you get there. Deathlance with Sangsyron + Flaming Weapons: 3+1d3 attacks, 3+/3+/-2/5. Can stack with All-Out Attack and Finest Hour.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it a bit: All casters already have the option to cast Arcane Bolt instead, so we have to compare those two head-to-head when trying to find out if Flaming Weapons is worth it. Arcane Bolt casts on a 5 and (for the purpose of this comparison) does 1d3 mortals once you get into melee. The timing of those mortals is slight better, because they happen at the start of combat, and mortals are slightly better in general than normal weapon damage. The spell deals 2 mortals on average, so let's value it as 3 damage because of all those upsides (probably slightly undervaluing things, actually). You have to ask yourself: Can you deal 3 extra damage from Flaming Weapons? 3+/3+ profiles hit about 50% of the time, so do you get 6 attacks? Can your weapon negate a 4+ save? If no, Arcane bolt is probably just better.

Levitate: Cast on an 8 (boo), 18" range, grants fly. The casting value kills it, otherwise it would be cool to cast on Blood Knights, who get to deal mortals through Riders of Ruin when they fly over stuff.

Ghost Mist: Casts on 5, 6" range. Makes a terrain feature block line of sight. Appropriately spooky 👻. I rate this one pretty highly, especially as a second spell that can go on all your support wizards that are babysitting big blobs. Finally, a way to make  it so that Skeletons don't just get shot off the table: Put them behind/on a terrain feature and start up the fog machine. You have a Necromancer nearby anyway, right?

I think this is a nice extra tool in our anti-shooting tool box. All our anti-shooting tools are situational, as is this one, but here's the thing: If you just layer on enough tools that sometimes work, eventually your tools get pretty reliable. I definitely see myself taking that spell enhancement most of the time, giving all my wizards Ghost Mist, Flaming Weapons, or the more situational spells from Lore of Vampires/Deathmages (Spirit Gale, Soulpike, Spectral Grasp, Decrepify...) in addition to their workhorse spells (Pinions, Overwhelming Dread...).

Prayers

A bit anticlimactically, we have no priests, lol.

EDIT: Forgot triumphs, but there is little of interest there for us.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[AoS Hub]

 nvm

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by AoS Hub

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, AoS Hub said:

Blood Knights deal their mortal wounds only when they use Riders of Ruin (and when they use RoR they can "fly") ability so Fly change nothing here.

Overall good summary!

 

Read that ability again. It has two separate effects.

Quote

In your movement phase, if this unit is within 3" of an enemy unit, it can make a normal move. If it does so, it can pass across other models with a Wounds characteristic of 3 or less (that do not have a mount) in the same manner as a model that can fly.

After this unit has made a normal move, roll a dice for each enemy unit that has any models passed across by any models in this unit. On a 2+, that enemy unit suffers D3 mortal wounds.

The second part of the ability is not conditional on the first. If it were, it would say "If this unit has made a normal move in this way...".

[Alfascozzesi]

With regards to traits and enhancements I probably won’t get any additional enhancements due to having two regiment battalions only. Does this mean I can choose from the universal lists for spells/ artefacts etc by dropping the battle tomb version?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

27 minutes ago, Alfascozzesi said:

With regards to traits and enhancements I probably won’t get any additional enhancements due to having two regiment battalions only. Does this mean I can choose from the universal lists for spells/ artefacts etc by dropping the battle tomb version?

It's a bit unclear right now. The tome says that you get to choose "one spell from the following tables", which refers to the Lore of Vampires and Lore of Deathmages tables. The new core rules say you get "one free spell lore enhancement".

As written, this seemingly means that you just get two spells per wizard, one from the applicable Lore table and one from anywhere. But there will probably be an FAQ to clarify this, and it really could go any of three way:

1. You actually get two spells.
2. You only get one spell, from anywhere.
3. You only get one spell, and the first has to be from your army lores.

We just don't really know at the moment.

[Liquidsteel]

15 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's a bit unclear right now. The tome says that you get to choose "one spell from the following tables", which refers to the Lore of Vampires and Lore of Deathmages tables. The new core rules say you get "one free spell lore enhancement".

As written, this seemingly means that you just get two spells per wizard, one from the applicable Lore table and one from anywhere. But there will probably be an FAQ to clarify this, and it really could go any of three way:

1. You actually get two spells.
2. You only get one spell, from anywhere.
3. You only get one spell, and the first has to be from your army lores.

We just don't really know at the moment.

He means can he ignore the suballegiance CT and Artefact.

My understanding is yes, as I don't recall it saying you were locked in to those.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

He means can he ignore the suballegiance CT and Artefact.

My understanding is yes, as I don't recall it saying you were locked in to those.

Yeah, artefacts and command traits should be valid choices even without battalions.

[Alfascozzesi]

Both answers are helpful.

Thanks 🙏 

[BaylorCorvette]

6 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Flaming Weapons: Cast on a 4 (!), +1 damage for a melee weapon. We have a lot of melee guys that are also wizards that would appreciate this option, like the Vengorian Lord or VLoZD. You can run Pinions + Flaming Weapons as a default loadout, to make sure you get where you want to go and hit hard once you get there. Deathlance with Sangsyron + Flaming Weapons: 3+1d3 attacks, 3+/3+/-2/5. Can stack with All-Out Attack and Finest Hour.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it a bit: All casters already have the option to cast Arcane Bolt instead, so we have to compare those two head-to-head when trying to find out if Flaming Weapons is worth it. Arcane Bolt casts on a 5 and (for the purpose of this comparison) does 1d3 mortals once you get into melee. The timing of those mortals is slight better, because they happen at the start of combat, and mortals are slightly better in general than normal weapon damage. The spell deals 2 mortals on average, so let's value it as 3 damage because of all those upsides (probably slightly undervaluing things, actually). You have to ask yourself: Can you deal 3 extra damage from Flaming Weapons? 3+/3+ profiles hit about 50% of the time, so do you get 6 attacks? Can your weapon negate a 4+ save? If no, Arcane bolt is probably just better.

Overall, I agree with your analysis of flaming weapon. Although I am thinking of potentially taking flaming weapon on a VLoZD in Vyrkos with the artefact that gives D3 extra attacks on the charge. That means the Lance would be 4 attacks minimum, possibly 6 at 3/3/-2/5 damage with Flaming Weapons. We have several ways to make that hitting and wounding on 2s as well. BUT loading up a VLoZD with an arcane bolt to unleash at the start of the combat phase is a super good option too and I love it.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

Overall, I agree with your analysis of flaming weapon. Although I am thinking of potentially taking flaming weapon on a VLoZD in Vyrkos with the artefact that gives D3 extra attacks on the charge. That means the Lance would be 4 attacks minimum, possibly 6 at 3/3/-2/5 damage with Flaming Weapons. We have several ways to make that hitting and wounding on 2s as well. BUT loading up a VLoZD with an arcane bolt to unleash at the start of the combat phase is a super good option too and I love it.

I think that's one of those cases where you can reasonably expect to deal more damage with Flaming Weapon than with Arcane Bolt. 2+/2+ is about a 70%  chance attacks go through. So you reach a point where Flaming Weapon is worth it at about three attacks. If you have more than that, you come out ahead.

It's a micro-optimization though, really. In the end, I think the question should be: Do I have another guy who will want to cast Arcane Bolt a lot? Like if you are running both a VLoZD and Vengorian Lord. In that case, sure: Double up with Flaming Weapon on one of them. Otherwise I think the choice does not have a huge impact, and I would personally probably bring a different more situational spell instead.

[BaylorCorvette]

5 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think that's one of those cases where you can reasonably expect to deal more damage with Flaming Weapon than with Arcane Bolt. 2+/2+ is about a 70%  chance attacks go through. So you reach a point where Flaming Weapon is worth it at about three attacks. If you have more than that, you come out ahead.

It's a micro-optimization though, really. In the end, I think the question should be: Do I have another guy who will want to cast Arcane Bolt a lot? Like if you are running both a VLoZD and Vengorian Lord. In that case, sure: Double up with Flaming Weapon on one of them. Otherwise I think the choice does not have a huge impact, and I would personally probably bring a different more situational spell instead.

Yes for sure. The down side is if you take flaming weapons you cannot be a 1 drop list. Unless you're able to forgo your own spell lore to take one of the core spells, flaming weapon in this case. I've seen people argue that it can go one of three ways.

1) You get a spell lore from your book, and then need to take one of the new core battalions that allows an additional enhancement for you to be able to take flaming weapons.

2) Your first spell could be a spell lore from your book OR one of the core spells, such as flaming weapons.

3) You get a spell from your book plus one core spell automatically (this is the least likely ruling IMO).