AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[swarmofseals]

@Neil Arthur Hotep Roar prevents command abilities in the combat phase only, so it and the Horrorghast are serving two completely different roles.

I also am a bit skeptical about trying to longball Grave Guard into something from the grave. You're only going to have two gravesites forward enough to matter on turn 1/2 most likely, not to mention that cogs only has a range of 6 and the GG will need to be wholly within 18" of that. So you're limited to wholly within 12" of maybe two gravesites, outside of 9 of the enemy and wholly within 24" of a hero that must be in your territory. That's very restrictive, so it should be very easy for the opponent to predict where the GG are coming in and screen off those angles, so you'll likely need to get a double turn to do real damage.

So even if we assume you resolve cogs, you're looking at a 66% chance of getting stuck in and then a 33% chance of getting the double turn, so a "success" case of only ~22%. If you don't make the double turn then you're likely in trouble as the opponent will very easily charge your unsupported 420 point unit.

[swarmofseals]

@Gery81 and @Ghoooouls just keep in mind that the ability only lets you pile in an extra 3", it doesn't allow you to be selected to pile in from >3". So you still need to be within 3" to fight, you just get to "go deeper" when you do fight.

Note that this is different from the zombie pile in, which reads "this unit is eligible to fight in the combat phase if it is within 6" of an enemy unit..." thus allowing zombies to pile in from outside of 3. Sangine Blur lacks this key bit of text.

[Andalf]

I gotta say that the pile in an extra 3” ability is something I regularly have one of those “wish I could have that” moments when running more of a zombie horde with Vyrkos.  All of those swirling combats with flying models can really make use of that ability as we’ve all so recently made note of...  I wonder what going against the grain of a typical LoB list with all of the Deathrattle models and really investing in extending the Zombie tide and putting that little mechanic to more use could look like...  

In both of those dynasties I take the reroll charge aura simply because getting in always seems so much more important, but maybe this is also a good place for an interesting Vanguard combination.  Belladamma and wolves love this but I’m a little to much of a theme player to cross bloodlines.

Edited June 26, 2021 by Andalf

[Gery81]

2 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

@Gery81 and @Ghoooouls just keep in mind that the ability only lets you pile in an extra 3", it doesn't allow you to be selected to pile in from >3". So you still need to be within 3" to fight, you just get to "go deeper" when you do fight.

Note that this is different from the zombie pile in, which reads "this unit is eligible to fight in the combat phase if it is within 6" of an enemy unit..." thus allowing zombies to pile in from outside of 3. Sangine Blur lacks this key bit of text.

Yes, I am aware of that. That's why I try to keep at least a couple of GG models 3" of the front of my bait unit. The redeploy command can help with that. Also, it is a great offensive tool too. I can't wait to punish someone with a flying Lord who stayed a bit too close to their screen. The VLoZD most likely won't be able to do this, his base is too big, but the Vengorian Lords and the Mortarchs have smaller bases. And as noted above, while it's not thematic for LoB, zombies can make good use of this.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Gery81

[vlad3theimpaler]

16 hours ago, Warboss Gorbolg said:

@Okonomiyakimarine I really like the concept of this list thematically as it has a wide variety of units.

I'm a bit surprised in so many people focusing on spamming units (i.e., blood knights) because if they are that good then they will likely get downgraded in not too distant future. Spammy lists are only for those willing to retool their army every year or two. It's an expensive way to build and collect armies.

I would say they're also for people who really like the theme of a certain unit and are going to try to make it work even if they get hit with a nerf.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

@Neil Arthur Hotep Roar prevents command abilities in the combat phase only, so it and the Horrorghast are serving two completely different roles.

You're right of course, and I even knew this. I guess I'll probably keep making that mistake a few more times until it really sinks in, haha.

7 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I also am a bit skeptical about trying to longball Grave Guard into something from the grave. You're only going to have two gravesites forward enough to matter on turn 1/2 most likely, not to mention that cogs only has a range of 6 and the GG will need to be wholly within 18" of that. So you're limited to wholly within 12" of maybe two gravesites, outside of 9 of the enemy and wholly within 24" of a hero that must be in your territory. That's very restrictive, so it should be very easy for the opponent to predict where the GG are coming in and screen off those angles, so you'll likely need to get a double turn to do real damage.

So even if we assume you resolve cogs, you're looking at a 66% chance of getting stuck in and then a 33% chance of getting the double turn, so a "success" case of only ~22%. If you don't make the double turn then you're likely in trouble as the opponent will very easily charge your unsupported 420 point unit.

As for this, I guess we will have to see. I have looked at the geometry of it a bit, but have not yet had the chance to get an actual game in. for what it's worth, 4 wholly within 12" bubbles cover most of the new table size, so deep striking from the grave is not super restrictive. It does not necessarily be from just the two in your opponent's territory, either.

Setting up Cogs is probably the real challenge if you want to have them for the turn 1 charge. But lists can easily have 3-4 wizards in them, so that makes things a bit more flexible.

It's going to depend on how easily the opponent can fully screen off all angles of attack from Gravesites. Personally, I think if you want to close off all the angles, that will be really hard to achieve. And even than, I would not feel terrible about "gambling" on trying to get the charge without cogs. At that point, the opponent will already have positioned their units and screens less effectively overall out of fear of the Grave Guard charge. If that only leaves open angles where getting Cogs is impossible, so be it: Still leaves you with a 50% chance to make the charge with rerolls, and the possibility of trying again on a double turn. If getting even one of those charges is a success, you are looking at a ~66% on plan B, not even taking into account that the charge on turn 2 would probably be a lot easier to get.

[Honk]

12 hours ago, Gery81 said:

You can make a VLoZD to pile in 6" too, and jump over a unit to get to what is behind them.

Sure this is legal? His base is 130mm, so  he can’t move his big junk over a unit…

nice tactics for your vargheists woth radukar, or something. support hero manages the road block, while vargheists jump into the back lines 

[Gery81]

52 minutes ago, Honk said:

Sure this is legal? His base is 130mm, so  he can’t move his big junk over a unit…

nice tactics for your vargheists woth radukar, or something. support hero manages the road block, while vargheists jump into the back lines 

I mentioned it in another post the VLoZD is most likely unable to do it, because of it's big base size (it has a 5" diameter). Most of my models are still on square bases, so I should have checked the size of the round bases beforehand. The only time it might be possible if the screen is on the 25mm base (that should be less then an inch, so jumping over it might be possible) and in one line. But the Vengorian and our Mortarchs are on a different bases, so they should have an easier time doing this. I am looking at Vargheists too, as a unit that can take advantage of this.

On a different note. What do people think of the geminids? It's one way to shut down Unleash Hell and inspiring presence, on a 2+ roll. Also the Coven Throne spell can stop a unit Unleashing Hell too.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Gery81

[Boar]

3 hours ago, Gery81 said:

On a different note. What do people think of the geminids? It's one way to shut down Unleash Hell and inspiring presence, on a 2+ roll.

Geminid debuff stops working at start of combat turn, and thus is unable to affect inspiring presence.

[Alfascozzesi]

5 hours ago, Boar said:

Geminid debuff stops working at start of combat turn, and thus is unable to affect inspiring presence.

Stops working at the start of the next combat phase so will stop inspiring for your opponent on your turn.

[Warbossironteef]

Are we/me sleeping on how good 5 man units of Bloodknights are? I get 195 isnt "cheap" but they do so many things so well. 5x man units shouldn't be your hammer unit but they will 100% beat up so many chaff and objective sitting units. 15 3+ wounds is enough that your opponent will have to use something decent to deal with them taking away threats from Manny and VLOZD. 

Im starting to think most or all my lists would be better off with 2x5man units than Prince V.

[Gery81]

24 minutes ago, Alfascozzesi said:

Stops working at the start of the next combat phase so will stop inspiring for your opponent on your turn.

I think Boar is right hear. You cast and do the damage in your hero phase, so the start of the next combat phase is your combat phase.

[Boar]

53 minutes ago, Alfascozzesi said:

Stops working at the start of the next combat phase so will stop inspiring for your opponent on your turn.

Effect can be applied at hero phase (yours or enemy's) in both cases next combat phase (not f.ex. "yours combat phase", it's literally just next combat phase, it cares not for who's comabt turn it is) will happen before battleshock phase.

[Kaizennus]

Hey, I'm still a new player but I thought I'd share my experiences with my first 3.0 game over the weekend and how the game went while playing Soulblight.

For context it was my SBG vs. a magic themed Lumineth army. We played the Feral Foray battleplan (the one where you can raid objectives) and used 2k point armies. 

Here's the list I ran. It was built around pieces I had prepared, so it's not optimal by any means.

Spoiler

Faction	Soulblight Gravelords
Subfaction	Vyrkos
Grand Strategy	Hold The Line
Points	Name	Type	Battalion	Wounds
315	Radukar the Beast	Leader	Warlord	11
125	Necromancer	Sub-Leader	Warlord	5
	Spell: Overwhelming Dread
140	Vampire Lord	Sub-Leader	Warlord	5
	General
	Command Trait: Pack Alpha
	Artefact: Terminus Clock
	Spell: Amaranthine Orb
435	Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon	Leader		14
	Artefact: Sangsyron
	Spell: Flaming Weapon
85	Deathrattle Skeletons	Battleline	Warlord	10
140	Grave Guard			10
140	Grave Guard			10
115	Deadwalker Zombies	Battleline		20
115	Deadwalker Zombies	Battleline		20
195	Blood Knights		Hunters of the Heartlands	15
195	Blood Knights		Hunters of the Heartlands	15
Total Points				Total Wounds
2000				135

 

Here are a list of my thoughts on the game:

• Blood Knights (as predicted) were very strong. Even the unit I poorly deployed and boxed out still did enough to warrant a spot in the army. I also didn't get off any amazing Rally's or anything, which would probably push them even further along the strength list.
• Radukar was also very effective, and quite tanky with all the healing available. I was rolling 2D3's worth of healing every turn.
• VLoZD got blown off the table before getting into his first melee phase, but that was more of a dice/luck issue. However, I really found the large base to be very troublesome. The smaller board and lots of terrain pieces (we played with the suggested 8) meant that there really wasn't a lot of places he could attack into. Pretty sure this will be the first unit to be cut from the list. 
• I made the mistake of not summoning the wolves on turn 1. By the time I got the opportunity to finally cast it later in the game (the eclipse spell was limiting me to one command per turn) there was actually no where I could summon. The 9" from enemy rule, plus the 12" Radukar bubble, and the coherency rule makes summoning on the smaller board very, very hard (especially when Radukar is likely going to be on the front lines all game long).
• I put my zombie units in the grave sites. One unit got their worth by slowing down the advance along one side of the table. I tried to use the other offensively but they were too slow to get into combat. The large block also had a little bit of trouble navigating through all the dense terrain efficiently. 
• The skeletons and graveguard didn't see much action. They were too slow to march across the field, though that was partially my mistake for not pushing them faster with more run rolls. They also got locked down by a Rune of Petrification which just wrecks blobs of slow death units. Have to be way more careful of that in the future. However, the one combat my GG did get into, they hit pretty hard. Perhaps they should have been the graveyard summons?
• Vampire lord was fragile. Basically as soon as my opponent decided to kill him (to get the battle tactic) he just shot him down. Didn't get a chance to use his command ability due to eclipse so I wasn't able to get his true value out of this particular game.

Thoughts on 3.0

• Really liked everything overall. The heroic actions were cool and useful and didn't slow down the game really.
• The battle tactics are really fun and makes you plan out your turns a bit more since getting some of them are pretty tough (like killing a general) without planning. I think they do favor monster play too much though.
• The battleplan we used was pretty interesting. I misplayed by burning an objective in my third turn (the GHB ruling) and then my opponent raided a different objective which made the battlefied "smaller" and a lot harder for me to score points. I think stuff like that is really fun and interesting, it's nice to look back and clearly see parts of the game that were decided with essentially no "luck" involved.

I'm tempted to play something more monster heavy to take advantage of the many new monster perks, but I'll definitely be giving Vyrkos another shot with Belladoma and a different mix of units next time. 

[ZLee Syn]

Couldnt find aos3 thread so I am posting it here. What do you guys think of this list?

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords - Lineage: Legion of Night

Grand strategy: Hold the Line

Leaders Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380)

- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

- Universal spell lore: Flaming Weapon

Vampire Lord (140)

- Universal spell lore: Ghost-mist

- Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale

Necromancer (125)

- General

- Command Trait: Unbending Will

- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread

- Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify

Necromancer (125)

- Artefact: Morbheg's Claw

- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour

- Lore of the Deathmages: Spectral Grasp

Battleline

40 x Deadwalker Zombies (230)

20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)

10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)

10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)

Units

3 x Fell Bats (75)

1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (80)

5 x Blood Knights (195)

5 x Blood Knights (195)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs

Chronomantic Cogs (45)

Lauchon the Soulseeker (55)

Soulsnare Shackles (65)

Batalions:

Warlord (Mannfred, vlord, necro, CC)

Hunters of the Heartlands (Z, Z)

Hunters of the Heartlands (BK, BK)

Hunters of the Heartlands (Sk, Sk)

Vanguard (bats, general)

Total: 1995 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400

Edited June 28, 2021 by ZLee Syn

[Alfascozzesi]

9 hours ago, Boar said:

Effect can be applied at hero phase (yours or enemy's) in both cases next combat phase (not f.ex. "yours combat phase", it's literally just next combat phase, it cares not for who's comabt turn it is) will happen before battleshock phase.

I think you are right as well, looking at it again. That’s makes it no where near as good as I thought. Will stop unleash hell or movement commands. Thanks

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 hours ago, Warbossironteef said:

Are we/me sleeping on how good 5 man units of Bloodknights are? I get 195 isnt "cheap" but they do so many things so well. 5x man units shouldn't be your hammer unit but they will 100% beat up so many chaff and objective sitting units. 15 3+ wounds is enough that your opponent will have to use something decent to deal with them taking away threats from Manny and VLOZD. 

Im starting to think most or all my lists would be better off with 2x5man units than Prince V.

Honestly, the only reason I am not putting a unit or two of 5 Blood Knights into all my lists is that they don't fit the themes I am going for and that I am still writing lists that use models I already have. If I was starting completely fresh, I'd probably bring a bunch of them. They are definitely our best unit right now.

They are just such good all-rounders. Even without support, they are fast enough to get where they need to go, punch reasonably hard and tank like champions. And you can easily support them to make them quite fighty if you want. You can build around them or just throw them in a list unsupported, and they will definitely do work.

[Liquidsteel]

I'll definitely be picking up another box to take me to 10, I think 2 x 5 can slot in to any list, and 1 x 5 could be a staple.

Long term might get to 20 or so I think but will be a steady accumulation, I'm in the process of painting up my 30 Grave Guard and still need to paint up Belladama and 40 zombies, as well as having plans to pick up Nagash at some point.

Definitely going to end up with 5000 points or more painted which will be great to have flexibility on lists.

[Sception]

14 hours ago, Warbossironteef said:

Are we/me sleeping on how good 5 man units of Bloodknights are?

If you've been sleeping on them, you're the only one who has been.  People have been talking up blood knights non stop for a while now, they're pretty clearly the strongest and most efficient individual unit in the book.  Multiple units of 5 can absolutely be your hammers and is probably the best way to run them.  Larger units suffer pretty badly from the new coherency rules.  Mosts lists run a unit or two, several people have been looking favorably at blood knight spam lists with 4+ units of them, and the only armies I've been seeing without them are ones that are dedicated to a gimmick that just doesn't leave room for them - eg avengori monster mash or grave guard buff stacking.

[Warbossironteef]

One quick thing people should know about Bella and Portals, the new portal rules added wording,  "...effect of that spell can be measured from this endless spell instead of the caster."

The "effect" part is brand new. It means if you cast Under a Killing Moon next to Portals you can throw your amazing buff bubble up the field 18 inches. It gives Bella the range to buff your BKs, VLOZD and Mannfred. It's great.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

17 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

One quick thing people should know about Bella and Portals, the new portal rules added wording,  "...effect of that spell can be measured from this endless spell instead of the caster."

The "effect" part is brand new. It means if you cast Under a Killing Moon next to Portals you can throw your amazing buff bubble up the field 18 inches. It gives Bella the range to buff your BKs, VLOZD and Mannfred. It's great.

Was this really not possible before? I am vaguely remembering that there was some interaction with Spell Portal and bubble spells in the past, but I don't remember what it was. Or am I thinking of the Balewind Vortex? Or Arkhan's command ability?

Does anyone know what I could be thinking of? I swear there was some unexpected interaction with bubble spells and spell portal/range increases.

[Warbossironteef]

I didnt use Portals much before but im pretty sure it only mentioned range and visibility. Now it specifically states effect which makes it clear the bubble spells work from the portal.  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

I didnt use Portals much before but im pretty sure it only mentioned range and visibility. Now it specifically states effect which makes it clear the bubble spells work from the portal.  

It's definitely a good shout out either way. I think I was remembering this:
 

Quote

 

Q: Some spells require you to pick a point on the battlefield within a certain distance of the caster, and then draw a line from that point back to the caster. Can this point be measured from an Umbral Spellportal, and if it can, is the line drawn back to the caster?

A: Yes to both questions.

 

But I don't off-hand remember the combo that made it weird. Mega-distance Amaranthine Orb with Arkhan maybe?

[AHexInScarletRed]

How'd y'all balance out Kastelai in terms of Blood Knights & other units? 

I figure I'd for example: 

Prince Vhordrai (455)

- General

- Spell: Amethystine Pinions

Vengorian Lord (280)

- General

- Command Trait: Rousing Commander 

- Artifact: Sword of the Red Seneschals

- Spell: Flaming Weapon 

Vampire Lord (140)

- Spell: Ghost Mist 

Battleline:

20x Zombies (115)

20x Zombies (115)

5x Blood Knights (195)

5x Blood Knights (195)

5x Blood Knights (195)

10x Dire Wolves (135)

Other:

3x Fell Bats (75)

3x Fell Bats (75)

Total: 1975 / 2000

Could rid me of the Wolves and pump up one unit of Zombies to 40 (or just fuse the 2x 20). The Vampire Lord is there because the CA has better interaction with the 1 Attack of Zombies than VDM as I bring nothing else to increase Attacks. I don't know if it's worth to bring another unit of Blood Knights instead of the Wolves and one unit of Fell Bats. Vargheists instead of the Fell Bats are also an option to Deep Strike, but I guess I'll need the Fell Bats against shooting.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, AHexInScarletRed said:

How'd y'all balance out Kastelai in terms of Blood Knights & other units?

If you want to be Blood Knight focussed I think it makes sense to take 2-3 units of them like you have done.

Have you considered battalions at all? Your list is currently 11 drops, which is high. You qualify for Warlord/Command Entrourage and could probably fill up a bunch of smaller battalions as well. If you drop one unit of Fell Bats and take Kritza in order to qualify for Battle Regiment you could get down to 6 drops (possibly 5 if you change some things around), which might be worth considering.