AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[Frowny]

 

4 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

 

I see your goals, but i dont think you can make a hero hammer type list work while ruling out all the big killy heroes, vykros or no. I think to be at all competitive you'll have to make some concessions either on not doing as much hero hammer or on which heroes you allow yourself. For SBG, that's radukar, belladonna, the dragon Lords, the mortarchs, and the Avengori lords. After you've already i clouded radukar and belladonna, you are left with exclusively little support heroes, hardly enough for a Herohammer list.

It's possible you could do some sort of caster Herohammer i guess? With endless spells? Or maybe you'd be willing to convert a mortarch to be more wolf-like and fit the theme?

 

[Greybeard86]

29 minutes ago, Frowny said:

 

I see your goals, but i dont think you can make a hero hammer type list work while ruling out all the big killy heroes, vykros or no. I think to be at all competitive you'll have to make some concessions either on not doing as much hero hammer or on which heroes you allow yourself. For SBG, that's radukar, belladonna, the dragon Lords, the mortarchs, and the Avengori lords. After you've already i clouded radukar and belladonna, you are left with exclusively little support heroes, hardly enough for a Herohammer list.

It's possible you could do some sort of caster Herohammer i guess? With endless spells? Or maybe you'd be willing to convert a mortarch to be more wolf-like and fit the theme?

 

Apologies, I wasn't clear. I meant taking Radukar, Belladonna and the Avengori lord. I'd be excluding the dragon lords and mortarchs.

I'll think about it, but I appreciate the feedback!!

[Nasrod]

Vyrkos Dynasty

 

Belladamma Volga - 200

Gorslav the Gravekeeper - 75

Radukar the Beast - 315

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon - 435

[Hunter's Snare, Amulet of Destiny, Flame Slash]

 

Deadwalker Zombie x 40 - 230

Deadwalker Zombie x 40 - 230

Skeleton Warrior x 30 - 255

 

Vargskyr - 115

Fell Bat x 3 - 75

 

Spell Portal - 70

 

The update to Cursed City models being selectable on an individual basis has me tickled and this is the new version of the list I've taken to playing. Lots of fast ways to get charges, tons of dorks to clog the board afterwards, Belladamma Lycancurse shenanigans... by far the most fun army of 3rd edition for me.

Almost feels like a blue+black MtG control deck. The army as a whole hits like a wet noodle but it is a cockroach that can tarpit an opponent for ages. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 7/10/2021 at 7:38 PM, ArchaicArc said:

Hey, can someone explain thé Dragged Down and Torn Apart rule for zombies to me please? Can they just walk into combat without charging? Like if the move up within 6 during the movement phase, can they then activate and pile-in in the combat phase? To avoid « overwatch » etc. Thanks!

I made an overview post on it here:

 

18 hours ago, shinros said:

This is why I love the bloodline, the mystery around them. Here is my theory. 

In the white dwarf they mention that hrunspuul might just be nagash in another guise, it's more or less a mystery. To me it would be strange for Nagash to have control over Vyrkos vampires if they were completely unrelated to him. My personal theory that Nagash has bought hrunspuul to heel, possibly serves nagash as a sort of Cerberus figure or used his blood to make the Vyrkos.

I personally really like the idea of Nagash having become a bit incoherent after consuming all those other death gods, and sometimes making contradictory plans/doing contradictory things. I could totally imagine him taking on the aspect of Hrunspuul, the Hound of the Cairns and making weird vampiric deals with grandmas that hang out in the woods, and then later sending his Mortarchs to deal with this new vampire bloodline that is popping up. Just another day at the office for the ol' Skelepope.

15 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Perfect, thanks! I was thinking of adding a variation to my planned Bretonnia / blood knights conversion based on wolves. My main issue is that I do not like the zombie wolves, so I'll use the fenrisian then.

I assume someone has done a hero hammer + wolves list already?

Belladona + radukar beast + ??? + wolves + maybe bats? I really dislike Vhordrai (as a model), so trying to avoid him.

You can definitely build that list. Belladamma and Radukar the Beast form a strong hero core to build around. You will need two units of Direwolves, but that's not a problem because Direwolves are great. The Vengorian Lord is less smashy than the VLoZD, but he can still sit on objectives and count for 11 models.

I would say you have to think about bringing some kind of hammer, though. If you don't want a VLoZD, the choice is probably between Blood Knights and Grave Guard. Or maybe both.

6 hours ago, Nasrod said:

The update to Cursed City models being selectable on an individual basis has me tickled and this is the new version of the list I've taken to playing. Lots of fast ways to get charges, tons of dorks to clog the board afterwards, Belladamma Lycancurse shenanigans... by far the most fun army of 3rd edition for me.

 

Almost feels like a blue+black MtG control deck. The army as a whole hits like a wet noodle but it is a cockroach that can tarpit an opponent for ages. 

This is the kind of list I often find myself gravitating to, as well. But I am not sure it's actually that good in AoS 3. Objective play seems to have become less important in comparison to scoring battle tactics, and those really reward bringing mobile hammers.

[Wordy9th]

It's hard for me to build lists without a squad of blood knights, grave guard and vlozd as those seem to be our only hammers (with GG being the only consistent damage dealers outsideo of the charge). Anytime I don't include those Soulblight feels like a control deck at best.

I'm intrigued by the prospect of the Vargskyr and Bloodborne being less expensive mini mobile hammers running around. 

 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

20 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

It's hard for me to build lists without a squad of blood knights, grave guard and vlozd as those seem to be our only hammers (with GG being the only consistent damage dealers outsideo of the charge). Anytime I don't include those Soulblight feels like a control deck at best.

I'm intrigued by the prospect of the Vargskyr and Bloodborne being less expensive mini mobile hammers running around. 

 

 

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find the Bloodborn that good. They are 3 wounds, 10" move, 3 rend -1 attacks at a  3+/3+ with effectively damage 2. That's exactly the same as Blood Knights. But at the same time, their save is much lower, they can't self-command, they are locked to VYRKOS and they don't get Riders of Ruin like Blood Knights do. If you could take 5 of them, they would actually be more expensive than Blood Knights, as far as points go. I guess they have their 5+ ward, but with their bad 6+ save that's all they will get most of the time.

The Vargskyr is cool, though.

[JackStreicher]

24 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find the Bloodborn that good. They are 3 wounds, 10" move, 3 rend -1 attacks at a  3+/3+ with effectively damage 2. That's exactly the same as Blood Knights. But at the same time, their save is much lower, they can't self-command, they are locked to VYRKOS and they don't get Riders of Ruin like Blood Knights do. If you could take 5 of them, they would actually be more expensive than Blood Knights, as far as points go. I guess they have their 5+ ward, but with their bad 6+ save that's all they will get most of the time.

The Vargskyr is cool, though.

They're a fine harassment unit since they don't need to charge for their ~ 2 damage and they won't be deleted by directing only a few shots at them. Imo they go well with blood knights to soak up some shooting for them.

Edit: The Vargsykr is cool, yet it does nothing really apart from tanking  (mine tanked a Warstomper for 3 combat phases)

Edited July 12, 2021 by JackStreicher

[Wordy9th]

26 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find the Bloodborn that good. They are 3 wounds, 10" move, 3 rend -1 attacks at a  3+/3+ with effectively damage 2. That's exactly the same as Blood Knights. But at the same time, their save is much lower, they can't self-command, they are locked to VYRKOS and they don't get Riders of Ruin like Blood Knights do. If you could take 5 of them, they would actually be more expensive than Blood Knights, as far as points go. I guess they have their 5+ ward, but with their bad 6+ save that's all they will get most of the time.

The Vargskyr is cool, though.

Absolutely true, Blood Knights right now are a better deal. I think Blood Knights are likely to see a points increase long term and dislike the idea of having a million of them, however 135 points rather than 190 does offer some flexibility and a much needed mobile damage option outside of Vargheists. Speaking of which that's probably a better comparison!

[Nasrod]

Conquer, Ferocious Advance, Aggressive Expansion, Monstrous Takeover, and Savage Spearhead are all really solid tactics for this army to score. And while the army hits low, Radukar, VLoZD, and 80 Zombies are absolutely capable of getting Broken Ranks. 

Amulet of Destiny really feels like a mistake of an equipment, but I also feel like we would be one of the hardest hit by having it removed. 

[idn0971]

Radukar also does a decent job of doing some damage as well as providing excellent buffs and coming with a pack of 10 direwolves. His mortal wounds can be very nice as they are some of the only mortal wounds that the army can generate outside of graveguard

[idn0971]

I'm still not sure how to make sure grave guard actually get into combat with their slow movement. Honestly I think taking 1 or 2 blocks of 10 with great weapons might be the best way of using them as a sneaky hammer that you don't mind if they get destroyed

[Liquidsteel]

33 minutes ago, idn0971 said:

I'm still not sure how to make sure grave guard actually get into combat with their slow movement. Honestly I think taking 1 or 2 blocks of 10 with great weapons might be the best way of using them as a sneaky hammer that you don't mind if they get destroyed

Well with the smaller boards, you actually start pretty close to objectives and from each other. 18" distance isn't all that much after you factor in turn 1 movement; you can certainly expect them to be in striking distance turn 2 with a decent run turn 1.

 

Aside from that, utilising Grave Sites is key, in my opinion. You can pop them out of the Grave with a unit of Zombies or Wolves ahead of them, either by running the Wolves or also popping the zombies out. The GG sit 2.5" behind the screen, and when the enemy engages they provide a deadly counter strike. Even a unit of 10 like this can put some serious hurt on an enemy.

[Wordy9th]

45 minutes ago, idn0971 said:

Radukar also does a decent job of doing some damage as well as providing excellent buffs and coming with a pack of 10 direwolves. His mortal wounds can be very nice as they are some of the only mortal wounds that the army can generate outside of graveguard

Something to bear in mind with Radukar is if he charges near any monster at all his command ability becomes useless.

[idn0971]

24 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

Something to bear in mind with Radukar is if he charges near any monster at all his command ability becomes useless.

For sure. But that's a matter of target priority. And it's also true for any melee hero not just radukar.

 

And if they have a lot of monsters, we have decent power projection and can engage in multiple areas forcing them to choose their priorities with their monsters since they can only roar once

Edited July 12, 2021 by idn0971
Added further reasoning

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Liquidsteel said:

Well with the smaller boards, you actually start pretty close to objectives and from each other. 18" distance isn't all that much after you factor in turn 1 movement; you can certainly expect them to be in striking distance turn 2 with a decent run turn 1.

The big problem that I am worried about is the Redeploy command. Grave Guard might auto-charge 6", but their 4" movement is just barely better than the average movement distance of 3.5" you get from redeploy, which might mean that you have to make the long charge more often than not if your opponent is willing to spend that command point.

I am with @idn0971, honestly. More and more it looks to me like small units with Great Weapons are the way to go. That way they can support other, more defensive units that have an easier time locking the opponent into melee. And your loss will be a lot smaller if your opponent charges them off the board. You can still buff them to fairly ridiculous hights if you choose (they can easily deal 20 wounds against a 4+ from a unit of 10 if you really want them to).

[Liquidsteel]

I guess my thoughts are that Grave Guard are something that are sitting on the objective and daring the opponent to come at them, you use a screen as bait and the opponent must come to you.

Alternatively, you run a Driven by Deathstench general and you go for those re-rollable 9" charges from deepstrike.

There's also not a whole load of CP available, on paper you think you have a lot but they are still really precious, if the opponent is re-deploying then that's 1 less CP for other stuff.

I'm currently running a 30 of 2H GG, but it does feel like overkill, a 20 and a 10 are in mind for sure.

[idn0971]

20 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

I guess my thoughts are that Grave Guard are something that are sitting on the objective and daring the opponent to come at them, you use a screen as bait and the opponent must come to you.

Alternatively, you run a Driven by Deathstench general and you go for those re-rollable 9" charges from deepstrike.

There's also not a whole load of CP available, on paper you think you have a lot but they are still really precious, if the opponent is re-deploying then that's 1 less CP for other stuff.

I'm currently running a 30 of 2H GG, but it does feel like overkill, a 20 and a 10 are in mind for sure.

The way the battleplans are set up you don't really need objective sitters as much since so many points are scored from battle tactics and your grand strategy and you only really need to hold 2 objective on the battleplans to score max points.

[Liquidsteel]

10 minutes ago, idn0971 said:

The way the battleplans are set up you don't really need objective sitters as much since so many points are scored from battle tactics and your grand strategy and you only really need to hold 2 objective on the battleplans to score max points.

Yep valid point and one I'm aware of for sure, but nevertheless you do still need to hold those 2-3 objectives to score more, and a unit of Grave Guard behind a unit of Zombies is a great way to do so, in my opinion.

If the opponent needs to kill a battleline unit, and your battleline is on the objectives, then he has to come get them or choose another tactic.

Similarly if he needs to take an objective back from you, then he has to come for you and might make a poor decision with his engage.

With how easy most of the tactics are, if you can deny your opponent his tactics, or force a bad trade to achieve one, you'll be in a good position.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Liquidsteel

[Leshoyadut]

4 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

Yep valid point and one I'm aware of for sure, but nevertheless you do still need to hold those 2-3 objectives to score more, and a unit of Grave Guard behind a unit of Zombies is a great way to do so, in my opinion.

If the opponent needs to kill a battleline unit, and your battleline is on the objectives, then he has to come get them or choose another tactic.

Similarly if he needs to take an objective back from you, then he has to come for you and might make a poor decision with his engage.

With how easy most of the tactics are, if you can deny your opponent his tactics, or force a bad trade to achieve one, you'll be in a good position.

This is where I've been on the battle tactic issue, myself. You can't have nothing but slow stuff, for sure, but having 1-2 objective holders is going to still be good as your opponent needs to score battle tactics for points, too. Of course, the issue then becomes that they are getting to engage on their terms instead of yours. I think a bit of screening will help tremendously, though, along with being able to Redeploy the GG when something approaches to give you the engage on the next turn (potentially sacrificing an objective for a turn).

Keeping in theme with the MtG deck style analogies, I'm looking at this army as a midrange style (my preferred playstyle, so maybe a bit of bias). Having a versatile list that can reasonably cover being either the beatdown or the control, depending on what your opponent's army does best. So far I'm really feeling a blob of GG and a unit or two of Blood Knights fits that well, along with the obvious blob of skellies or zombies, depending on your preference. The GG are slow, for sure, but with Redeploy, you can (hopefully) get them out of easy charge range if your opponent is trying to engage on them, and then the move+charge on your turn isn't too bad after that. Or, if I need to be the beatdown, the Blood Knights are fast enough to get in there quick and do some real damage until my GG can get in a turn or so later.

Trying to test this style in a game against a friend who plays Ironjawz. Sadly, real life scheduling has prevented us from finishing the game so far. Planning to do a full writeup when we do get back to it, but we'll see when that happens. So far, though, Deathrattle Skeletons are insanely durable with even just one Necromancer. They survived with one model left against a unit of pigs and two Megabosses on Maw-krushas because of the Danse. Managed to take off the right models to leave all three enemy units within 3", which was just beautiful. *Chef's kiss*

Edited July 12, 2021 by Leshoyadut

[Andalf]

1 hour ago, Leshoyadut said:

This is where I've been on the battle tactic issue, myself. You can't have nothing but slow stuff, for sure, but having 1-2 objective holders is going to still be good as your opponent needs to score battle tactics for points, too. Of course, the issue then becomes that they are getting to engage on their terms instead of yours. I think a bit of screening will help tremendously, though, along with being able to Redeploy the GG when something approaches to give you the engage on the next turn (potentially sacrificing an objective for a turn).

Keeping in theme with the MtG deck style analogies, I'm looking at this army as a midrange style (my preferred playstyle, so maybe a bit of bias). Having a versatile list that can reasonably cover being either the beatdown or the control, depending on what your opponent's army does best. So far I'm really feeling a blob of GG and a unit or two of Blood Knights fits that well, along with the obvious blob of skellies or zombies, depending on your preference. The GG are slow, for sure, but with Redeploy, you can (hopefully) get them out of easy charge range if your opponent is trying to engage on them, and then the move+charge on your turn isn't too bad after that. Or, if I need to be the beatdown, the Blood Knights are fast enough to get in there quick and do some real damage until my GG can get in a turn or so later.

Trying to test this style in a game against a friend who plays Ironjawz. Sadly, real life scheduling has prevented us from finishing the game so far. Planning to do a full writeup when we do get back to it, but we'll see when that happens. So far, though, Deathrattle Skeletons are insanely durable with even just one Necromancer. They survived with one model left against a unit of pigs and two Megabosses on Maw-krushas because of the Danse. Managed to take off the right models to leave all three enemy units within 3", which was just beautiful. *Chef's kiss*

My better LoB lists have boiled down to this army.  30 Skellies, 10 Black Knights, 2x5 Blood Knights, 20 GG, Wight King, Vamp Lord, Necro, Neferata, One Drop trying to get first turn.  Yndrasta and spirit flasks has ruined her day a bunch lately but Neferata has done good work fighting other monsters and generally keeping them away.  Taking first turn allows me to choose aggressive expansion, which is hard otherwise, and then having good opportunities to continue with monstrous takeover or conquer rather than always relying on the easy run 3 early.  You should be able to get that later if you’re careful with the rest of your characters/infantry and my battle line general strategy thing has been easy to score with only Vampires and the Necro sitting out; 30 skeletons haven’t been taken out once, and they aren’t always supported.

I’m not sure which tactics are super easy really unless you have the build for it.  Running 3 units can be easy turn one, we are lucky we have a lot of good monsters for takeover, aggressive expansion is the best if you go first; conquer, savage spearhead and aggressive expansion are tough without deepstrike/reserves or more than one fast hammer unit.  Avengorii make out well but they’ll give up points for the same reasons.

The games I’ve played it seems if you’re well built for holding objectives, you’re generally poorly suited for battle tactics, and vice versa.  If you can work out your favourite units into a battle regiment, and take fast mounted heroes and monsters like we can, one drop lists should be on everybody’s priority to try out consistently and see if that going first and really pushing the momentum is key or not.  Also, reinforcing key units at list building seems like genuinely the only way to protect your main squads from shooting, and a lot of folks using min squads can’t hold objectives either; merely scoring for the turn they land and then getting blown away.  Which doesn’t work in every scenario now either.

Side note: Since the endless legion change to each turn my Black Knights have been on the TSN turning point after burner special all over the place.  I’ve found with 10 models they get their asses kicked all the time but with the 10 bravery they are hard enough to chew through with all the heals available too.  Then 5 come back late game and help with savage spearhead!  

Edited July 12, 2021 by Andalf

[swarmofseals]

Finally got in a game of 3.0 today.  I tried out my Nagash build:
 

Spoiler

Nagash

Radukar the Wolf

Necromancer (pack alpha, 5+ amulet)

2 Kosargi Night Guard

40 Zombies

40 Zombies

20 Zombies

Spellportal

Battle Regiment

 

I could definitely see going for RtB instead of RtW, but I wanted to try the full body count list and didn't want to go down to 2 drops.

My opponent was playing Syar Lumineth with a build that looks pretty typical for early season tournament LRL

Spoiler

Teclis

Loreseeker

Windmage

20 Wardens

10 Wardens

10 Wardens

20 Sentinels

Spellportal

Warlord + Hunters of the Heartlands

The battleplan was Power Struggle. I won't go into great detail but it was a lot of fun and the luck was pretty spiky in both ways. He snagged the middle objective with his Loreseeker and moved up cautiously, but I was able to shut down his magic with Nagash. I moved up very aggressively and made some positioning blunders that turned an easy Nagash charge into a very difficult one, but I managed to pull it off with a reroll, snapping off the Loreseeker and taking back the mid, but with Nagash in a vulnerable position.

I won the roll off for the second battle round but gave him the turn. This probably wasn't the best idea but I wanted to see if Nagash would survive. My opponent had an excellent magic phase and managed to get off Power of Hysh on his archers and Lambent Light on Nagash. He focused everything on Nagash, but this meant that he needed to be very aggressive with Teclis. He charged in with Teclis and his 20 Wardens, shot everything at Nagash and then tried to bring him down in the combat phase, but in the end Nagash survived with something like 4-7 wounds left. I wasn't even able to attack back with Nagash because of his windmage using the artefact that requires a hero within 6" of him to only attack him, but my Zombies and Kosargi Nightguard got to pile in en-masse and started to chip away at Teclis and the Wardens.

My poor positioning got the better of me again and I wasn't able to charge in with Radukar on turn 2. I pulled back with Nagash and healed a bit, but his magic was largely inconsequential. My Zombies kept doing work though and I easily held the center. My opponent won the next roll off and took the turn, but Nagash was able to unbind enough of his spells to stay alive. Radukar finally got in at the bottom of 3 and Teclis fell, surrounded by Zombies. At that point my opponent conceded.

Overall the army felt very good. Even though Teclis made Nagash very unimpactful on offense, the rest of the list felt extremely well suited to the task. Piling in 6" is just so so good, and zombies are amazing at the objective game. They are excellent against infantry as they already have good numbers and the ability to both regenerate casualties and add new models for every kill makes it hard for anything but super elite offensive infantry to get through them. They are also good against monsters as they can deal pretty good steady damage with the mortals, surround very easily with their pile in and have enough numbers to hold the objective. Their real vulnerability is battleshock, and Nagash takes that off the table. And if you can get Radukar or Vanhels off (or even better both!) they can do some real damage, too. Zombies and Nagash cover each-others' weaknesses very well so I'm pretty optimistic about some version of this build being seriously competitive for those of you that want to try a big man list.

[Obeisance]

Building Soulblight, I'm genuinely worried that I won't be able to handle top meta armies.

Kroak and Skinks will blow me off the table. High magic, high shooting, Unleash Hell and thier own retreat and shoot strat.

Lumineth, pretty much same situation but can punch more. Not that I've played against them yet.

Tzeentch with or without Archaeon seems really iffy as well.

Against both of those Belldama's wolf summoning will never get off.

So I'm curious, how does the army build and play into armies like these? What's your plan?

 

 

[swarmofseals]

45 minutes ago, Obeisance said:

Building Soulblight, I'm genuinely worried that I won't be able to handle top meta armies.

Kroak and Skinks will blow me off the table. High magic, high shooting, Unleash Hell and thier own retreat and shoot strat.

Lumineth, pretty much same situation but can punch more. Not that I've played against them yet.

Tzeentch with or without Archaeon seems really iffy as well.

Against both of those Belldama's wolf summoning will never get off.

So I'm curious, how does the army build and play into armies like these? What's your plan?

Kroak and Skinks has nowhere near the damage output that it did in 2.0. Skinks are fully 25% more expensive than they used to be, etc. Kroak is a problem but I think people generally overestimate how much damage he does. He no longer has access to Balewind Vortex. Soulblight is well positioned to just tank Kroak's damage -- we have good, steady healing and most of our smaller heroes (Necromancer, lil Radukar, Belladamma) all have very good wound redirection abilities. Skinks also hit at 5+ on base and thus lose half their damage output if they get -1 to hit. Unleash Hell gives a -1 at base, so they will need their +1 to hit CA as well just to balance that out. Any further source of -1 will put them on 6's to hit. Their own fire and flee command ability only lets them escape on a 4+, so that still fails fully half the time. Also, we have many options to pile in from >3". Zombies and Dire Wolves + Belladamma are going to make Fangs of Sotek cry. They can't Unleash Hell or shoot n' scoot if you don't charge.

Lumineth are pretty low damage output, especially Teclis lists. No doubt there will be certain Lumineth builds that will be difficult for certain Soulblight builds, but the same is true in reverse.

Tzeentch is definitely good, but again the damage output is not that bad. Flamers are way worse now, topping out at +1 to hit. Even in their rend changecoven 9 flamers (525 points worth!) shooting at a unit of 5 Blood Knights using All Out Defense isn't even a favorite to kill two models! Tzeentch also lost access to Changehost which is huge.

And really don't be so down on your casting. You can easily get Belladamma to +2 rerollable if not +3 rerollable. You will absolutely be able to get Lycancurse off against Kroak, Kairos, and Teclis at least some of the time. Fish for a high roll if you have to.

Anyway, I think that there are some builds that are going to struggle against these opponents of course. Grave Guard are not going to like facing off against the enemies you mentioned. Big skeleton blocks are not great here either. But I think whatever hero configuration you choose (hero heavy, hero lean, or Nagash) if you are supporting it with a significant number of Zombies, Blood Knights, or Dire Wolves in whatever combination you will absolutely have play against these opponents. Some will be hard matchups, but that's how it should be.

 

_____

Some unsolicited advice that you may not want

Spoiler

Don't get too discouraged by the balance talk on this forum or anywhere else. If you are new to the game you are a long way away from being able to play at a highly competitive level anyway. Just focus on learning and improving your own play as much as you can. Even in games that feel very unfair, focus on refining your own play. If you make mistakes, try to learn from them.

I won't name names, but there are some people on this forum who are very vocal and speak with great confidence and authority about balance issues who have little to no competitive play experience themselves (and have admitted as much). There are others who will take something with a grain of truth (X faction is overpowered) and stretch that truth into an exaggeration that is extremely discouraging if you don't know better (X faction is unbeatable), and do this on a regular basis. Don't take this stuff to heart.

Personally, I think that if you are relatively new to the hobby and have a goal of being tournament competitive the best way to get started is to do the following:

• Buy some kits that you like and use them to learn how to paint. It doesn't matter if they are competitive or not -- just buy what tickles your aesthetic fancy. Keep it small at first and paint what you buy.
• Get Tabletop Simulator and start learning the game, or borrow armies from friends to play in person. Try to play people who are better than you. Focus on learning from your mistakes. Don't draw strong conclusions from just a few games especially when you are new.
• Work on understanding the underlying math of the game - probabilities, expected values, and efficiencies are all very important. If you really want a gold star read up on systematic human error in estimating probability and try to correct for your biases.
• Once you get enough experience that you are confident in your abilities playing against a good quality of competition, think about investing in a tournament army.

•  

[Honk]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I won't name names, but there are some people on this forum who are very vocal and speak with great confidence and authority about balance issues

🍷🧛🏻‍♂️

Hov dareth he questhion meh authorithy? Imperthenth vool… meh tacthical acumen vill slaughter thee 👻

5 hours ago, Obeisance said:

I'm genuinely worried that I won't be able to handle top meta armies.

All is new in AoS 3.0, even Nagash lists are discussed again 😹

so caution yes, playing WAAC is brutal, but fear and despair? No

SBGL has gotten a lot of fancy tools to ruin your opponents fun, grandma’s lycanthropy spell, 6“ pile in ninja zombies, riders of ruin to retreat&charge… 

It might not be too obvious, the choices not forced (take eels&win, teclis&sentinels, kraok&skinks), which makes it tricky to find&use the sweet spot combo of units-buffs-playstyles-objectives-counters, but once you found your „best suited for me“ composition, your opponent needs to adapt and adjust and might not have the right tools for the task at hand…

 

[Liquidsteel]

I've been writing a few 1-drop Nagash lists myself recently, here's one I do fancy trying out, kind of a "castle" list which will bunker down on 2 objectives whilst Nagash reaches out and touches things. It's by no means a final draft and I welcome comments and criticisms.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords

- Lineage: Legion of Night

- Mortal Realm: Shyish

- Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery

- Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead (970) in Battle Regiment

Necromancer (125) in Battle Regiment

- General

- Command Trait: Master of Magic

- Artefact: Morbheg's Claw

- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour

Battleline

30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (255) in Battle Regiment

- Reinforced x 2

20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115) in Battle Regiment

20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115) in Battle Regiment

Units

20 x Grave Guard (280) in Battle Regiment

- Great Wight Blades

- Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations

Umbral Spellportal (70)

Emerald Lifeswarm (60)

Core Battalions

Battle Regiment

Total: 1990 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 3 / 4

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 111

 

Gist is to have 30 skeletons and Necro on 1 objective, with all the healing, plus Vanhels and Nagash offering re-rolling 1's to save, they should hopefully never die.

20 Zombies + 20 Grave Guard will pop out on another objective using the counter-strike formation.

20 other Zombies will provide an initial screen if needed or protect a flank/rear as necessary, or just shove them forward to be annoying.

Battle tactics wise you have a good chance to score each turn due to the flexibility of Nagash on the offense, coupled with being able to go first and complete the run 3 units for free, whilst taking up position.

Worth pointing out that as it stands, you can Run after using Morbhegs's Claw, as it does not prevent Runs.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Liquidsteel