AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[Liquidsteel]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I make this mistake all the time, too, still: Roar only stops command abilities in the combat phase, not the battleshock phase. It just really feels like it should be stopping Inspiring Presence, but it actually does not.

As for Archaon: I guess we could bring our own god model Nagash and try to Hand of Dust him. Or instakill him with Neferata's dagger. Other than that, I think he just seems too tanky to be taken down in a single attack. Maybe Grave Guard can do it if you really pile all the buffs into them? Good luck catching Archaon with their 4" move, though.

20 Grave Guard with Mannfreds Command Ability killed an Archaon in the final game of 2.0 for me. Granted he would now have +1 save. So I think they'd need to have an extra attack from somewhere also.

Archaons base is massive, so you can probably make it difficult for him to redeploy if needed. Or pop out of the grave and attempt the long bomb. 

[RuneBrush]

17 hours ago, Sorrow said:

People, a question!

Do you think that there might be a second wave of Soulblight models in the future?

Absolutely!  However the future is a long time 😉  I'm not convinced we'll get much in the way of new Soulblight models this edition of the game - there may be a random hero appear, but can't see there being a second wave.  That said we all thought the same about the Lumineth and were proven wrong on that.

[Liquidsteel]

I had a decent game yesterday, my Vyrkos with all my new toys vs a Slaves to Darkness Tzeentch list. My opponent has been very much out of practice, with this being his first full game of AoS 3.0, so I had the knowledge advantage massively, plus he played too cautiously. In any case...

We played the new mission, Veins of Ghur, like old Starstrike.

Bella did great - I found Lycancurse to be amazing (in this match up), as well as her command ability to allow wolves to pile in from 6. It allowed me to pin my opponent for 2 full turns whilst he dealt with them, as if you can tag a unit with weakish offence (Untamed Beasts and Chaos Warriors, respectively) they can struggle to take down a handful of wolves. Also being able to run wolves then pile in was great, though it does mean you lose out on the +1/+1 from charging.

Spirit Gale was also great in this combination, because you can engineer the -2 bravery debuff quite easily.

Overall not a lot happened, as we ran out of time after his turn 3 before mine, but I had managed to take the lead on battle tactics and objectives by that point already. My opponent was also new to AoS 3.0, and I made two 6s on my re-deploys which really messed with his plans.

I still haven't managed to test the offensive capabilities of Blood Knights and the VLoZD, so hopefully figure that out next game.

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Liquidsteel

[Noob Vampire]

Question about Zombies and their superior pile in of 6 inches.

 

We do know the charge roll has to end at least a half of inch from enemy unit to success.

How does this affect with pile in. Can pile in be used even if your charge roll fails? There is a good chance 6” is better than charge move.

And what about marching? If you march then pile in can’t be used? 
 

 

Thank you all,

 

n Vamp

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Noob Vampire said:

Question about Zombies and their superior pile in of 6 inches.

 

We do know the charge roll has to end at least a half of inch from enemy unit to success.

How does this affect with pile in. Can pile in be used even if your charge roll fails? There is a good chance 6” is better than charge move.

And what about marching? If you march then pile in can’t be used? 
 

 

Thank you all,

 

n Vamp

I wrote an overview post about this in another thread. Should answer most of your questions

 

[PlayerJ]

Vyrkos Vengorian lord, which is better Sangoryn or Amulet of destiny as its artifact? 

It'll also have flaming weapon and pinions spells from a spell enhancement (with a chromatic cogs cast from a different wizard,  usually Belladamma).

Edited July 24, 2021 by PlayerJ

[Honk]

3 hours ago, PlayerJ said:

Vyrkos Vengorian lord, which is better Sangoryn or Amulet of destiny as its artifact? 

Mine will fancy the sangoryn today… I don’t have reliable experience (1.game), but watching YT batreps a lot of were surprised how tanky Vengorians are. With ignore rend and shield or defense you should be able to keep him pretty save.

Not sure if the extra ward is needed… if your opponent has a lot of MW-output, might be

[Kaizennus]

4 hours ago, Honk said:

Mine will fancy the sangoryn today… I don’t have reliable experience (1.game), but watching YT batreps a lot of were surprised how tanky Vengorians are. With ignore rend and shield or defense you should be able to keep him pretty save.

Not sure if the extra ward is needed… if your opponent has a lot of MW-output, might be

Just anecdotal but I’ve had the exact opposite experience. Been running vengorian in my last 4 games or so. Every game except one he died in the first turn to concentrated fire.

The damage was dealt via mortals by magic or sentinels. In general I feel the vengorian doesn’t do well against concentrated mortal wound damage.

it’s my favorite model in the army but I’m finding it harder to justify in my lists, though I’m only really playing shooting/magic armies so my experiences might not be typical.

[Warbossironteef]

Has Radukar the Wolf's scroll been discussed in this chat? They warscroll im looking at says, "friendly" and doesn't require the SBGL keyword for either ability.

Not that it's good, but he could be healing and buffing any Summonable Nighthaunt unit. Kind of funny. 

[idn0971]

8 minutes ago, Warbossironteef said:

Has Radukar the Wolf's scroll been discussed in this chat? They warscroll im looking at says, "friendly" and doesn't require the SBGL keyword for either ability.

Not that it's good, but he could be healing and buffing any Summonable Nighthaunt unit. Kind of funny. 

I think you are looking at the old warscroll. The current warscroll specifies friendly soulblight gravelords units.

[Liquidsteel]

2 hours ago, Kaizennus said:

Just anecdotal but I’ve had the exact opposite experience. Been running vengorian in my last 4 games or so. Every game except one he died in the first turn to concentrated fire.

The damage was dealt via mortals by magic or sentinels. In general I feel the vengorian doesn’t do well against concentrated mortal wound damage.

it’s my favorite model in the army but I’m finding it harder to justify in my lists, though I’m only really playing shooting/magic armies so my experiences might not be typical.

Most things fall to concentrated MW output, to be fair.

I've had him killed turn 1 by Lumineth one game then tank 30 sisters of slaughter another. 

The game has skewed, regular damage is way less effective and consistent now due to the save stacking. Mortals are even better because of it.

I'm not a fan of this direction but here we are. 

[Warbossironteef]

2 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

Most things fall to concentrated MW output, to be fair.

I've had him killed turn 1 by Lumineth one game then tank 30 sisters of slaughter another. 

The game has skewed, regular damage is way less effective and consistent now due to the save stacking. Mortals are even better because of it.

I'm not a fan of this direction but here we are. 

Agreed. Not the biggest fan of the god meta but at least the mission rules are good. 

SBGL has some good counters to the melee heavy armies. Our ability to put 150 to 200 wounds on the table is also good counter to mortal spam and we have some tanky heroes.

I havent faced Lumineth or top end Tzeentch lists but our matchups against most armies aren't terrible. 

I think we especially have good tools against Gargant and Ogors.  Mannfred alone can really disrupt those armies by acting as a fast moving screen/distraction piece that they literally have no counter to

 

 

[Liquidsteel]

Yeah. Not sure I could handle that level of horde to be honest though from a personal playstyle perspective. 

Currently working on Nagash, hope to get him on the table sometime in the next few weeks after I give my Vyrkos list a few more outings. 

Will he Nagash, Necro, 30 Skellies, 20 Grave Guard, 2 x 20 Zombies and some endless spells.

[Honk]

11 hours ago, Kaizennus said:

The damage was dealt via mortals by magic or sentinels. In general I feel the vengorian doesn’t do well against concentrated mortal wound damage.

@Liquidsteel beat me to it, who likes mortal wounds?

Sadly I was not yet able to get myself the „Hyshian Treatment“ 

—————————————————————

got my first game in and have to say I liked what I saw…

Vyrkos 
vengorian, Belladamma, Radukar the beast, necro, vamp lord

3x5 Bloodknights, 2x10 wolves, 10skellis

played against slaves to darkness:

be‘lakor, lord on karkadrak, sorcerer, sorcerer on manticore, warshrine, 10 chosen, 10 Warriors, 5knights and a chariot

Lost pretty hard, due to positioning and early double turn with Radukar not doing anything, because Be‘lakor said so…

but against normal damage, the knights and the vangorian are rock solid, with finest hour mystic shield and all out defense. When to choose what still needs a lot of refining (forgot rally), but a unit of knights with belladammas spell stomped be‘lakor into the ground (barely but still)…

movement phase and positioning in a mobile list needs polishing, with the terrain and enemies, wolves and knights are tricky to shuffle around.

can‘t wait to get my revenge 

[Obeisance]

So I played in a tournament yesterday, not with Soulblight, went 2-2, a buddy playing Beastclaws won. I finally have some game experience in the new edition and I have some take-aways.

Time - 95% of games finished in time, the round time was 2 hours- most people were done well in advance. Actually finishing games in 1.5 hours is amazing.

Monsterhammer - Top 4 armies: Frostlord spam, Morathi, Archaeon, Nagash. Big monsters are here. The ability to Roar to shut down AAA/AAD, Best Day, Duel- all great.

Save stacking - You have the CP to AAA/AAD, Best Day and Arcane Shield. Rend 1 is useless, rend 2 is okay. Things can just have good saves whenever they need them. I was playing 9 Stormfiends and was one-drop. 90% of the time my opponent's first monster reaction was BEST DAY EVER AND NOW I HAVE GREAT SAVES and so I gave up trying to kill them and murdered the rest of the armies.

The biggest problem I'm having is the fact things like Archaeon exist. I've played against him 3/6 times I've played AOS3 and like.. why even try to kill him? 1+ rerollable save is like.. what do I do about this? So I just limited what he did and played the scenario, which worked out well. He can only kill a unit/turn. I do not like the save stacking/rerolling saves, but if they went away.. monsters probably would, too.

I very much like the 40k style scoring of hold one/two/more in concert with battle tactics. I had a really good day hanging out and playing games yesterday, even if I played into Archaeon, Archaeon, Alarele, Mawkrusha/Idol and got destroyed in two games. I've played a bunch of AOS2 and I like AOS3 waaay more. It's so much more interactive and fluid. You're always doing something and thinking ahead.

...

Which brings me to the problems I'm thinking about, trying to build lists for competitive events as Soulblight.

a) How do I deal with Gotrek in general? Bait him with Manfred, stomp on his face and fly away? Apply debuffs and hope for the best? Keep letting him go for infantry, feed him ******, clear out 3" around him and never let him fight twice? I don't think we have the volume of attacks required to get through his saves. 

b) Archaeon in whatever. I don't think we can kill him, especially with him forcing reroll 6s. Kill the army, play the scenario. Feed him units and deny his movement.

c) Morathi and bowsnakes. I haven't played into this, but I suspect it's an Archaeon situation. At least with Morathi, you can do 3 damage/turn and she can't heal it away.

d) What would you do about 3 Frostlords/multiple Mwkruashas? The damage output is insane.

The more I look into Soulblight, the more I think the game is about buff stacking on infantry and fishing for mortals. Manfred, Vampire Lord and Necromancer. Zombies and Graveguard.

...

Turns out I can borrow a buddy's Soulblight while I paint my own. I think that's what I'm gonna do next.

So future list ideas after what I've learned yesterday?

Bloodline is probably Vyrkos, for reroll casting and +1 to wound, but there's a case to be made for Blood, for 9" zombie pile-ins.

I need Manfred, Vampire Lord, Necromancer, those three are musts. I'm inclined to go VLOZD over Vengorian, just because the Vengorian only has rend -1 and -1 is totally useless. 5++ Talisman is 100% in on whatever monster I pick and I suspect I'm going to end up taking Sangyreson for +D3 attacks. Problem with the VLOZD is that  the lance doesn't have enough attacks.. so this mitigates that. At least monsters can scream to turn of AAD. Then Goreslav. 100% getting recursion instead of five attempts at a 5+ is really good.

And then there's Belldama. She's awesome, too. Reliable casting +1 with a reroll and the ability to ****** up Unleash/Redeploy is so good.

I don't like Blood Knights (I own two boxes unopened) because -1 rend.

As for infantry, I think my army is going to end up being zombie spam (as I own 120, 4 unopened boxes) and a Grave Guard hammer, plus potentially bats for fast objective taking.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Obeisance

[Honk]

3 hours ago, Obeisance said:

The biggest problem I'm having is the fact things like Archaeon exist.

Sounds legit… discussed that yesterday too. The big pieces forces the other player to go for objectives and feed things into the blender, which is not much fun.

In a causal journeyman setting, a lot of things turn out to be oppressive and broken to play against. Frostlord snowball one shotting support heroes was great fun… same goes for eels.

But I guess others complain about every slain flayer just coming back for feeding frenzy or bloodknights just leaving combat to charge again…

[TheArborealWalrus]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask about an army conversion I'm cooking up?

I was inspired by the video below to do a vampire coasts army for AoS. Unfortunately most of the vampirate stuff doesn't quite fit units in the grave lords. I was hoping to get some advice, especially since most of my area is very competitive. (And I'd like to at least stand a chance) I realize this might be asking a bit much...

The units I've figured out are:     1: deck droppers as fell bats.(actually have fell bats carrying them)       2: Deck hands are literally zombies. No shooting though. (probably throw some zombified idoneth in with some black arc corsairs.)         3: Blood knights as depth guard on like floating armored fish/crustaceans (think Idoneth style. Would use the blood knights as the base model)         4: Vampires obviously as themselves. Not sure which legendary lord I'll shoot for yet. Leaning towards Noctilus currently. (Dreadfleet just sounds cool)         5: The rotting leviathan will probably have to be a vampire on zombie dragon. (or maybe just a dragon/terrorghiest) Doesn't really fit, but there aren't many options for a giant crustacean. 

I pictured a core of zombies with at least 1 unit of blood knights. Some fell bats for thematic reasons (also sneaky objective grabs) and the big ol' hermit crab. Making something useable out of this might be a challenge. What I've come up with feels ... easily taken apart. (we have lots of lumineth) Also the idea of making/using 80 zombies is daunting. So I come to the collective for their wisdom. I haven't played any games as the grave lords yet, so this will be my first death army. I'm excited though.

Thanks for listening to me ramble and hopefully thank you for any help.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 hours ago, Obeisance said:

Then Goreslav. 100% getting recursion instead of five attempts at a 5+ is really good.

It's actually 10 attempts now after the FAQ.

[Obeisance]

33 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's actually 10 attempts now after the FAQ.

I should really check the FAQ!

[JackStreicher]

50 minutes ago, Obeisance said:

I should really check the FAQ!

Yes, every battleshock phase now. I still only ever returned 5 sirewolces in 1 out of 4 games.. 😅

[Honk]

1 hour ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

Thanks for listening to me ramble

No worries, but after watching that YT thing… maybe just stick to contrast paint dipping nighthaunt 🤣

maybe as an idea:

double crab 🦀 not to belittle your efforts 😅 (vhordrai&vlozd), wightking (first mate, general?), Necromancer (doctor with hacksaw)

double drowned zombies, sea dogs (20 guards)

Double fell bats and one unit of shark/eel riding vampirates 

1985pts

 

20 guards with the wightking (rr1) can really dish out the pain, in the age of monsterhammer, two dragons sound like a nice idea.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 hours ago, TheArborealWalrus said:

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask about an army conversion I'm cooking up?

I was inspired by the video below to do a vampire coasts army for AoS. Unfortunately most of the vampirate stuff doesn't quite fit units in the grave lords. I was hoping to get some advice, especially since most of my area is very competitive. (And I'd like to at least stand a chance) I realize this might be asking a bit much...

The units I've figured out are:     1: deck droppers as fell bats.(actually have fell bats carrying them)       2: Deck hands are literally zombies. No shooting though. (probably throw some zombified idoneth in with some black arc corsairs.)         3: Blood knights as depth guard on like floating armored fish/crustaceans (think Idoneth style. Would use the blood knights as the base model)         4: Vampires obviously as themselves. Not sure which legendary lord I'll shoot for yet. Leaning towards Noctilus currently. (Dreadfleet just sounds cool)         5: The rotting leviathan will probably have to be a vampire on zombie dragon. (or maybe just a dragon/terrorghiest) Doesn't really fit, but there aren't many options for a giant crustacean. 

I pictured a core of zombies with at least 1 unit of blood knights. Some fell bats for thematic reasons (also sneaky objective grabs) and the big ol' hermit crab. Making something useable out of this might be a challenge. What I've come up with feels ... easily taken apart. (we have lots of lumineth) Also the idea of making/using 80 zombies is daunting. So I come to the collective for their wisdom. I haven't played any games as the grave lords yet, so this will be my first death army. I'm excited though.

Thanks for listening to me ramble and hopefully thank you for any help.

 

It's a fun project! Maybe open a new thread?I

Personally, I would not try to force a shooting playstyle like the Vampire Coast has in Total War. Gravelords just can't support that. If you want to do heavy shooting, you might need to play this army as Cities of Sigmar instead.

A fun unit to consider is the Mortis Engine. You can do a nice ghost ship with the Gloomtide Shipwreck:

[Warbossironteef]

20 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

Yeah. Not sure I could handle that level of horde to be honest though from a personal playstyle perspective. 

Currently working on Nagash, hope to get him on the table sometime in the next few weeks after I give my Vyrkos list a few more outings. 

Will he Nagash, Necro, 30 Skellies, 20 Grave Guard, 2 x 20 Zombies and some endless spells.

I think that would be a really solid list. I've been thinking about branching out into Nagash as well. 

I got some more games in and I can tell you that the necromancer against most armies will not be getting his spell off. Specifically in a Nagash list your opponents, any decent one, will save dispells. Necromancer is cheap and durable but usually fails do anything in  my games. It's such a shame he doesn't get the rerolling of Vyrkos.

 The best thing about him is he is cheap and can use Pack Alpha, which is amazing. That said, i think a different version of your Nagash list has legs too. I really like Bella with Nagash because she can help disrupte some shooting armies. Also, Direwolves are good substitutes for 30x skellies. They get to a 4+ rerolling 1s, are faster, 10 more wounds and can fight better. That said the new coherency rules make positioning more challenging, but not impossible. 

Seems crazy to forgo a artefact and Command trait but Bella is so much better than Necromancer I dont think it matters. I also went with BKs over GG because they are faster, tougher and much more independent.

Just figured I share some other Nagash ideas! I love the idea of Necro and Skellies plus GG, but his spell is just so freaking unreliable and those units really need the buffs.

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead (970) in Battle Regiment
Belladamma Volga, First of the Vyrkos (200)
UNITS
20 x Dire Wolves (270)
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)
5 x Blood Knights (195)
ENDLESS SPELLS & INVOCATIONS
Emerald Lifeswarm (60)
Umbral Spellportal (70)
TOTAL: 1995/2000

[Liquidsteel]

I like the sound of that, I've has two games of Vyrkos now and Bella has been great.

Lycancurse is so good for messing with people's plans.

I don't think I would like to run a 20 of wolves, plus 30 skellies can also be 4+ rerolling 1s. Azyr says they have a 6+ save but it's wrong. Plus the recursion on skellies seems great. 

I say seems because still not tried them out.

Grave Guard for me are just amazing, but I agree my version is slow and this could be very annoying.

5 blood knights did a great job for me today, but they were supported by both Radukars attack buff and bellas exploding 6s. 

[Warbossironteef]

7 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

I like the sound of that, I've has two games of Vyrkos now and Bella has been great.

Lycancurse is so good for messing with people's plans.

I don't think I would like to run a 20 of wolves, plus 30 skellies can also be 4+ rerolling 1s. Azyr says they have a 6+ save but it's wrong. Plus the recursion on skellies seems great. 

I say seems because still not tried them out.

Grave Guard for me are just amazing, but I agree my version is slow and this could be very annoying.

5 blood knights did a great job for me today, but they were supported by both Radukars attack buff and bellas exploding 6s. 

Yeah I think it's a matter of playstyle and situation.  Skellies would be better against certain melee matchups but wolves might be more consistent overall. I think have a hard time seeing an army with 4inch move infantry push out. Yes you can ambush 2x20 man Zombies but you may just get pinned in your deployment zone with the 30 skellies and GG. 

I think it would be matchup dependent but against top armies I dont see the Necro giving you much, even though I wish he could.