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AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion


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On 7/29/2021 at 9:43 AM, Honk said:

QfT

the only reason might be, if you know you’re fighting a „first strike“ blender… 

5 all out attacking knights took down Be‘lakor in one charge , if they were facing some Slaanesh filth, with locus of diversion, fighting last might cripple them

Slaanesh locus is no longer fight last, it is "can't pile in." It also only comes from their Daemonic HQs, which cost a truckload of points atm.

As someone that plays both armies, if you are losing to Slaanesh atm with SBGL please show me both lists. I can either help you with a gameplan, or you may be playing against someone capable of polishing turds enough that I could put Slaanesh on the table again and not spend the next hour of my life being a salty whinerbaby. 

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Hey, I noticed a couple pages back there are some lists from different non Vyrkos bloodlines with Vyrkos characters like Radukar. Does that mean I can include something like a Vargskyr in a Legion of Night or Blood army? I'm joining an escalation league and having a single unit like to eat up some points would be nice between bouts of painting zombies and skeletons. Plus, it's a cool model.

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On 7/29/2021 at 8:46 PM, Warbossironteef said:

Here's what painting 70 zombies on strips of cardboard looks like in case anyone was interested :)

Still WIP. Last picture is after some oil washes. Starting to bring them to life (or bring them to death?)

 

20210728_081544.jpg

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20210729_085525.jpg

Hi mate!

Wich models are they?

Great job!

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37 minutes ago, Akylas said:

Hey, I noticed a couple pages back there are some lists from different non Vyrkos bloodlines with Vyrkos characters like Radukar. Does that mean I can include something like a Vargskyr in a Legion of Night or Blood army? I'm joining an escalation league and having a single unit like to eat up some points would be nice between bouts of painting zombies and skeletons. Plus, it's a cool model.

There aren’t any limitations for putting any units or characters in any sub faction.

the only thing is that named characters are stuck with their home sub faction keyword and sometimes lose out on allegiance abilities (example: mannfred can’t re roll casts in a Vyrkos army).

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3 hours ago, Kaizennus said:

There aren’t any limitations for putting any units or characters in any sub faction.

the only thing is that named characters are stuck with their home sub faction keyword and sometimes lose out on allegiance abilities (example: mannfred can’t re roll casts in a Vyrkos army).

Thanks. That's good to know. Before I was thinking characters and special units were all bloodline locked. I better get started painting that Vargskyr.

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On 7/31/2021 at 8:49 AM, Nasrod said:

that I could put Slaanesh on the table again and not spend the next hour of my life being a salty whinerbaby. 

And I thought the slaaneshis like it just that way... 🥳

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I've been trying to explore a lot of different Soulblight variations, so far focusing on Nagash and zombie apocalypse lists. Most people seem to be pushing character heavy lists, but I'd like to propose a different direction focusing on maximizing efficiency.

To begin, I'd like to illustrate the efficiency gap between Blood Knights and the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. Math ahead:

Spoiler

Two units of Blood Knights, charging:

  • 28.44 rend 1 damage
  • 7.4 rend 0 damage
  • 84.38 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions, 67.5 without
  • Cost: 390 points

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, charging:

  • 8.83 rend 2 (12.38 with Sangsyron)
  • 4.66 rend 1
  • 37.8 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions
  • Cost: 435 points

Overall damage comparison (BK, Sangsyron, VLoZD base kit)

  • vs. - : 35.84/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 6+: 34.6/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 5+: 28.63/16.26/12.71
  • vs 4+: 22.66/13.42/10.47
  • vs 3+: 16.69/10.58/8.21
  • vs 2+: 10.71/7.74/5.97
  • vs 2+ +1: 5.97/4.9/3.72
  • vs 2+ +2: 5.97/2.48/2.25

Despite being cheaper, the Blood Knights vastly outperform in every category the minimum damage difference is +60% vs. vanilla VLoZD and +22% vs. Sangsyron. The maximum difference is +166% vs. vanilla and +110% vs. vanilla. Defensively, the Blood Knights have +123% more weighted effective wounds with Deathless Minions and +79% more without.

Of course, the VLoZD does have advantages: it's faster until it takes quite a bit of damage, can heal and perform heroic actions, shoot a little, and is a monster. But that gets counterbalanced some against the Blood Knights being able to "retreat" and charge and sprinkle mortal wounds in the process.

The Blood Knights also scale equal better off of nearly every buff. +1 Damage to rider weapons and +1 Attack all scale the Blood Knights better than the VLoZD. Bonuses to hit and would and exploding 6's are roughly equivalent.

The VLoZD clearly has better activation efficiency, but I'm not sure that this is as much of a benefit in 3.0 as it was in 2.0. I know people are still in the mindset of "hit as hard as possible with one thing, charging with more just gives your opponent the opportunity to swing back," but I think people haven't fully absorbed how the new command abilities change the dynamic. If you charge one enemy unit, your opponent gets to use all-out defense to significantly soften the blow. If you charge multiple enemy units, your opponent has to pick where to use AOD, and the thing they don't pick is going to get hit a lot harder. So now it's a lot more attractive to charge multiple targets, particularly if you can charge with at least one more unit than your opponent has in combat. If you charge 3 into your opponent's 2, your opponent can soften the blow on one thing and then you use AOD on whatever they choose to strike first on, thus allowing you to get two activations against a soft target to your opponent's 1 (and that 1 being with a damaged unit at that). Hitting multiple targets also carries the benefit of pressuring battleshock, which is a real thing in 3.0.

So in the end I see lists running one or more dragons and can't help but wonder if they wouldn't be better off running more and more Blood Knights instead.

So what heroes might a Blood Knights focused list want to run? None of the options are at all competitive with BKs for actual combat efficiency, but how much value do buffs add? Let's explore it (more math!):

Spoiler

Here's the % increase in damage output achieved by various buffs along with the absolute rend weighted damage output increase per unit of BKs buffed:

+1 Hit OR Wound: 26.4%, +5.98

+1 Hit AND Wound: 60%, +13.6

+1 Damage to riders: 42%, +9.52

+1 Attack: 33.3%, +7.55

Exploding 6's: 26.4%, +5.98

Units that can buff BK's include: Belladamma, Radukar, Mannfred, Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, any non unique hero (Rousing Commander, Sword of the Red Seneschals, Unholy Impetus)

Of the non-unique heroes, I don't think it's worth considering the regular Vampire Lord as it's so easy to snipe. The Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, and VLoZD are worth considering as they can all keep up with Blood Knights relatively well. A Necromancer is also worth considering because it's cheap and might have additional usefulness, but one must keep in mind that keeping in buff range will be MUCH harder.

Lets look at a ton more math on these options. What I'm going to try to do here is calculate the total combat value provided by different options between their innate combat ability and the value of the buffs they provide.

Spoiler

NOTE: One unit of charging Blood Knights unbuffed has a weighted offensive value of 22.67 at a cost of 195 points, for a WOR (weighted offensive rating) of .116.

 

  • Belladamma is mostly being taken for her casting profile, but her exploding 6's buffs does provide .03 WOR per target.
  • Radukar the Wolf alone has a base WOR of .047 (self buffed) and provides an additional .05 WOR per buffed target.
  • Radukar the Wolf plus bodyguard has a base WOR of .068 (self buffed) and provides an additional .031 WOR per buffed target
  • Radukar the Beast has a base WOR of .084 (self buffed, includes summoned Dire Wolves but does not assume they are buffed) and provides an additional .024 WOR per buffed target
  • Mannfred has a base WOR of .07 (self buffed) and provides an additional .036 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Vengorian Lord (Clotted Deluge) has a base WOR of .046 (self buffed) and provides an additional .021 WOR per buffed target. Unholy Impetus adds an additional .027 WOR per buffed target. Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .06 (self buffed) and adds an additional .034 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Coven Throne has a base WOR of .031 and provides an additional .044 WOR from its buff. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .019 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .024 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .048 and adds .031 WOR per target
  • A VLoZD has a base WOR of .048. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .014 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .017 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .053 and .022 WOR per target.
  • A Necromancer is mostly being taken for casting, and is unlikely to be able to get Unholy Impetus or Sword of the Red Seneschals to work, but Rousing Commander adds .076 WOR per target.

A few conclusions from this:

Both versions of Radukar are good bets to be offensively "profitable" at least the turn they charge. As long as you're buffing two units of Blood Knights with the command ability (which should be easy given the 18" radius), you're getting more WOR than you would if you had invested the points in more BK alone. Furthermore, these options aren't actually bad on defense either. Radukar the Beast + his wolves has a defensive efficiency of .16 (albeit at the cost of a CP), and Radukar the Wolf with 2 Nightguard has a defensive efficiency of .118. Blood Knights have a defensive efficiency of .207, so you're giving up some defense but less than in comparison to most heroes.

Mannfred is pretty easy to make profitable as well. If he can buff two targets (which isn't trivial but should be doable pretty often) he'll exceed the WOR value of pure BK. He also has the benefit of being a 2 wizard and a monster hero along with superlative mobility. His defensive profile is a bit hard to pin down due to uncertainty around how many woulds his armor will negate. At minimum he's just below half efficiency compared to BK, but at just 3-4 wounds negated he starts pulling even with Radukar the Wolf.

The Vengorian Lord can plausibly break even or exceed on WOR but it's not easy. With Rousing Commander plus either his spell going off or Sword of the Red Seneschals, all hitting two targets he's solidly in the black. But with RC being a once per game thing he's going to have a tough time breaking even most of the time. Defensively he's OK, particularly in melee, and he has the benefit of being a monster hero.

The Coven Throne lags pretty far behind except when using Rousing Commander, which when combined with the command ability gives us an easy total WOR of  .154 with something getting +1 save in addition. But again, that's once a game. It's not going to be easy to make Sword of the Red Seneschals work here at all, so Fragment of the Keep is a more likely artefact choice. I could see this as an option that is more oriented toward providing defense with a splash of offense. That +1 save is worth a bit under half a unit of Blood Knights in defensive efficiency, assuming the enemy actually attacks the buffed unit.

The VLoZD does just a hair better than breaking even with both Rousing Commander and SoRS buffing two targets, so I don't think this one is going to get there based on efficiency, especially given that it is far behind on defensive efficiency.

If you can actually manage to buff two things with Rousing Commander on a Necromancer you're getting well ahead that turn, but it's going to have a hard time using an artefact effectively except for possibly the Grave-sand Shard.

Belladamma isn't going to get there on offense, so if you take her you are doing it for her magic prowess. That said, I'm not really sold on Belladamma in this kind of list. She's very helpful against shooting, but I don't think shooting armies are going to be particularly problematic for a list that is just spamming bodies that are efficient on both offense and defense and are reasonably fast. Furthermore, to make her reliable as a caster requires significant extra investment.

 

Overall, I think the two heroes that are clearly at the top of the pile are Mannfred and Radukar (either version). The Vengorian Lord and Coven Throne could both work but are pretty marginal and clearly behind the two unique heroes. The VLoZD is substantially worse, and I don't think Beladamma makes much sense for the reasons mentioned above. The Necromancer is a bit of a wild card.

So that leads me to the question: could it really be optimal to just forego a command trait and artefact? I really think it might, depending on the list. Mannfred and Radukar both are just better than what the trait and artefact provide on any hero for this kind of list, so it only makes sense to dip to a non-unique hero if you're already taking Mannfred and Radukar. I suppose a hero package of Mannfred, Radukar the Wolf and a Vengorian Lord (810 points or 905 if you take nightguard) could make some sense, but that's really more points than I'd want to be spending on heroes. Mannfred and Radukar the Beast is a more palatable 695, or wolf at 530/625 depending on nightguard.

 

As far as subfactions go, I think it's pretty clearly between Kastelai and Legion of Night. I get that Vyrkos can build a very strong VLoZD with Hunter's Snare and either amulet or Sangsyron, but I wonder if that is a trap.

Kastelai has the benefits of an easier grand strategy, better performance on battleplans that care about battleline units for scoring, and the uncertain value of Might of the Crimson Keep. I think figuring out how useful that last one is will take a lot of test games.

Legion of Night has the benefits of redundant generals and an easier path to actually resolving spells through a Necromancer carrying Morbheg's Claw. But you'll need three battleline units that aren't Blood Knights (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as having some blocks of zombies could be useful for counterbalancing the otherwise low model count for objectives.

 

Here's a few lists:

 

Basic Kastelai

Spoiler

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

6x5 Blood Knights

1x10 Dire Wolves

Probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

52 models, 384.53 weighted effective wounds

Kastelai with bats + zombies

Spoiler

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

5x5 Blood Knights

1x3 Fell Bats

1x40 Zombies

Again probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

80 models, 371.1 weighted effective wounds

Go Wide

Spoiler

Mannfred

Radukar the Wolf

Necromancer

4x5 Blood Knights

2x40 Deadwalker Zombies (or 1x40, 2x20)

1x2 Kosargi Night Guard

Can be Legion of Night or Kastelai. Lots of battalion possibilities, but Battle Regiment + Hunters or Battle Regiment + Vanguard or double Battle Regiment probably best.

105 models, 335.1 weighted effective wounds

The first list is just crazy raw efficiency. The damage potential is very high and the effective wound count is insane, but the body count is relatively low.

The second list is like the first list but compromises effective wounds slightly for more bodies.

The third list has significantly fewer effective wounds but a ton more bodies and it can also potentially be Legion of Night to leverage Mannfred and a Necromancer into legitimate casting threats with Morbheg's claw. The gain in defensive efficiency from Mystic Shield, Overwhelming Dread and/or Fading Vigor could easily offset the loss of effective wounds. Mannfred, Radukar and the Necromancer all are crazy good at scaling the zombies up if the opponent focuses too hard on the Blood Knights.

Perhaps more later.

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Nice write up, thanks for the effort and will definitely give it another read to fully digest.

I'd like to ask if you can include Nagash in your calculations - offering his command ability plus the god model status, you can still bring 4 units of blood knights along side him plus a rousing commander carrying foot vampire.

Similarly how does Vhordrai compare to two units of Blood Knights, rather than just the vanilla VLoZD? Extra attack, extra rend, extra healing, great self buffing spell, mortals for his breath attack.

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HI

what do you think about that.

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Lineage: Vyrkos Dynasty
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Inspired


Necromancer (125) in Battle Regiment
- General
- Command Trait: Spoor Trackers
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Prince Vhordrai (455) in Battle Regiment
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vampire Lord (140) in Battle Regiment
- Artefact: Vilnas' Fang
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb


60 x Deadwalker Zombies (345) in Battle Regiment
- Reinforced x 2
10 x Dire Wolves (135) in Battle Regiment
10 x Dire Wolves (135) in Battle Regiment
5 x Blood Knights (195) in Hunters of the Heartlands
5 x Blood Knights (195) in Hunters of the Heartlands
5 x Blood Knights (195) in Hunters of the Heartlands


Battle Regiment
Hunters of the Heartlands

Total: 1920 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 169
 

I'll play a horde of zombies. I hesitate a lot with dynasties.
Vyrkos allows spells to be re-rolled, +1 for wound to Vhordrai.
But it is especially the +3 "in heroes phase that interests me. The zombies move 3" (hero phase) + 4 "+6" (run) + 6 "(pill-in) = 19" threat.

Vhordrai is a free threat and the Bloodknight because.. the are so strong.

 

thank you.

 

 

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Hello folks! I have a general question about WH vampires :)

Is there any particular reason why all of them seem to be so tall? I recently assembled both the new Vampire Lord and Lady Annika and I noticed they seem to be taller than the average human being (I'm using the Slaaneshi archers as the human baseline). Is this purely a style choice on GW's part, or is there some fluff explanation for this?

... and yes, me assembling these minis means I've started collecting the Soulblight army. My sixth AoS army, yay! 🤪

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@swarmofseals I agree with most oh what you have here. 

The only thing i'd say is hit'em hard will still matter if you can kill archaeon or go'trek.

One benefit VLoZD and i guess vhordrai have have is that they over the beast is that they are also monsters and can use the monster actions.

For rousing command the coven throne isn't to bad, as it can hit more targets, not being to concerned with getting itself stuck into combat for that turn, and more just projecting the buff from the best spot. Having played skaven with lots of similar buffs, if you set  it up right you can very easily get all your units in on the buff. With 4 or 5 units buffed and it's command ability (stacking quite well with the the rousing command increase the buffs .WOR as you call it.)

I also think the bloodseeker has some value. bringing a strong buff like  unholy impetus on the warscroll, This can be used in conjunction with rousing command. Also it's ranged attack put you in a place where you want to put the model some where quite central. 

I think the idea of the two ghost ships is the most effective first turn possible. 

Anywho mostly agree just adding my two cents.

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@Iron Fist I'm not sure why you'd take that list as Vyrkos, only the Vampire Lord on foot gets access to the casting re-rolls, and you're hardly making use of the +1 to wound ability as you only have 1 Vyrkos Vampire and neither Zombies nor Dire Wolves can use it that much (zombies just fish for 6s to hit, Dire Wolves get +1 via charging anyway).

The 3" from spoor trackers is good for that threat range but I'm not sure it's worth going Vyrkos for it alone.

You're also 80 points under.

You could drop 1 unit of dire wolves for another unit of Blood Knights and just run it as Kastelai.

Edited by Liquidsteel
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10 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

Is there any particular reason why all of them seem to be so tall?

GW's just not very consistent about scale, especially since they ditched square base rank & flank in oldhammer for skirmishy round bases in AoS.  Bigger models means more room for fancy details that the largest rival miniature manufacturers just can't match, especially not in plastics, so GW's scale in general has been creeping up, and creeping up faster for heroes and low model count elite units.

These days it's more surprising when a unit /isn't/ way bigger than the game's supposed official scale.  Mortek Guard, for instance, are comparative weenies, noticeably smaller than most other recent infantry units of their base size, including the new skeleton warriors.

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34 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

@Iron Fist I'm not sure why you'd take that list as Vyrkos, only the Vampire Lord on foot gets access to the casting re-rolls, and you're hardly making use of the +1 to wound ability as you only have 1 Vyrkos Vampire and neither Zombies nor Dire Wolves can use it that much (zombies just fish for 6s to hit, Dire Wolves get +1 via charging anyway).

The 3" from spoor trackers is good for that threat range but I'm not sure it's worth going Vyrkos for it alone.

You're also 80 points under.

You could drop 1 unit of dire wolves for another unit of Blood Knights and just run it as Kastelai.

Thank you

Any advice for a 120 zombies horde list?

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17 hours ago, PiotrW said:

Hello folks! I have a general question about WH vampires :)

Is there any particular reason why all of them seem to be so tall? I recently assembled both the new Vampire Lord and Lady Annika and I noticed they seem to be taller than the average human being (I'm using the Slaaneshi archers as the human baseline). Is this purely a style choice on GW's part, or is there some fluff explanation for this?

... and yes, me assembling these minis means I've started collecting the Soulblight army. My sixth AoS army, yay! 🤪

There actually is kind of a reason. The vampire take on an aspect of the bat. If you look I'm images they have pointed ears, and so all of them are all some degree of ware at, and apparently if you ware anything you get bigger in human consciousness. 

 

In some art they even have slightly bat like noses. 

Edited by mmimzie
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4 hours ago, mmimzie said:

The only thing i'd say is hit'em hard will still matter if you can kill archaeon or go'trek.

One benefit VLoZD and i guess vhordrai have have is that they over the beast is that they are also monsters and can use the monster actions.

For rousing command the coven throne isn't to bad... With 4 or 5 units buffed and it's command ability (stacking quite well with the the rousing command increase the buffs .WOR as you call it.)

I also think the bloodseeker has some value. bringing a strong buff like  unholy impetus on the warscroll, This can be used in conjunction with rousing command. Also it's ranged attack put you in a place where you want to put the model some where quite central. 

I think the idea of the two ghost ships is the most effective first turn possible.

Personally I don't think Soulblight has any build that will want to take on Gotrek or Archaon directly. The big heroes are totally incapable of dealing with these two in melee and monster heroes are a particularly large liability against Archaon. Much better to have a lot of effective units on the table and try to play around them.

Agree re: the monster thing, although I don't think this does nearly enough to close the gap.

I'd be really shocked if you can reliably get 4-5 units of Blood Knights both in combat and wholly within 12" of a Coven Throne (or any other hero).

Sadly you can't take both Unholy Impetus and Rousing Commander as they are both command traits and they belong to different bloodlines.

I do like Mortis Engines more than most, but I think they are kinda contrary to the strategy I'm going for as they are both defensively inefficient and only count as 2 for capping. I would love to see people trying to make them work in other lists though. I also tend to think that Soulblight is not going to do much on turn 1 in most games unless going second against a very aggressive opponent. I'm OK with that, and would prefer to try for maximum impact on turns 2 and 3.

5 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

Nice write up, thanks for the effort and will definitely give it another read to fully digest.

I'd like to ask if you can include Nagash in your calculations - offering his command ability plus the god model status, you can still bring 4 units of blood knights along side him plus a rousing commander carrying foot vampire.

Similarly how does Vhordrai compare to two units of Blood Knights, rather than just the vanilla VLoZD? Extra attack, extra rend, extra healing, great self buffing spell, mortals for his breath attack.

I've played quite a bit with Nagash, although not in a BK list. I didn't bother calculating his buff simply because it's damage impact isn't that high, particularly relative to Nagash's cost. If you're curious though it adds .004 WOR per target. God lists definitely are their own thing, and their gameplan revolves around having a nigh-unkillable centerpiece. Nagash plays well against Monster Mash because he's so hard to bully and the efficiency gap isn't nearly so bad (especially if you can Hand of Dust big things), but against wide lists Nagash is going to have problems.

Vhordrai has a WOR of .056 unbuffed and .09 with Quickblood. His defensive efficiency is a bit lower than a regular VLoZD, but that doesn't account for the extra healing. So overall Vhordrai is still about a quarter less efficient than BKs with Quickblood active and less than half as efficient without Quickblood. Given how unreliable Quickblood is I probably wouldn't consider him in this kind of list.

4 hours ago, Iron Fist said:

Thank you

Any advice for a 120 zombies horde list?

Check the last few pages, there's been some discussion of zombie heavy lists.

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8 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I've been trying to explore a lot of different Soulblight variations, so far focusing on Nagash and zombie apocalypse lists. Most people seem to be pushing character heavy lists, but I'd like to propose a different direction focusing on maximizing efficiency.

To begin, I'd like to illustrate the efficiency gap between Blood Knights and the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. Math ahead:

  Hide contents

Two units of Blood Knights, charging:

  • 28.44 rend 1 damage
  • 7.4 rend 0 damage
  • 84.38 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions, 67.5 without
  • Cost: 390 points

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, charging:

  • 8.83 rend 2 (12.38 with Sangsyron)
  • 4.66 rend 1
  • 37.8 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions
  • Cost: 435 points

Overall damage comparison (BK, Sangsyron, VLoZD base kit)

  • vs. - : 35.84/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 6+: 34.6/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 5+: 28.63/16.26/12.71
  • vs 4+: 22.66/13.42/10.47
  • vs 3+: 16.69/10.58/8.21
  • vs 2+: 10.71/7.74/5.97
  • vs 2+ +1: 5.97/4.9/3.72
  • vs 2+ +2: 5.97/2.48/2.25

Despite being cheaper, the Blood Knights vastly outperform in every category the minimum damage difference is +60% vs. vanilla VLoZD and +22% vs. Sangsyron. The maximum difference is +166% vs. vanilla and +110% vs. vanilla. Defensively, the Blood Knights have +123% more weighted effective wounds with Deathless Minions and +79% more without.

Of course, the VLoZD does have advantages: it's faster until it takes quite a bit of damage, can heal and perform heroic actions, shoot a little, and is a monster. But that gets counterbalanced some against the Blood Knights being able to "retreat" and charge and sprinkle mortal wounds in the process.

The Blood Knights also scale equal better off of nearly every buff. +1 Damage to rider weapons and +1 Attack all scale the Blood Knights better than the VLoZD. Bonuses to hit and would and exploding 6's are roughly equivalent.

The VLoZD clearly has better activation efficiency, but I'm not sure that this is as much of a benefit in 3.0 as it was in 2.0. I know people are still in the mindset of "hit as hard as possible with one thing, charging with more just gives your opponent the opportunity to swing back," but I think people haven't fully absorbed how the new command abilities change the dynamic. If you charge one enemy unit, your opponent gets to use all-out defense to significantly soften the blow. If you charge multiple enemy units, your opponent has to pick where to use AOD, and the thing they don't pick is going to get hit a lot harder. So now it's a lot more attractive to charge multiple targets, particularly if you can charge with at least one more unit than your opponent has in combat. If you charge 3 into your opponent's 2, your opponent can soften the blow on one thing and then you use AOD on whatever they choose to strike first on, thus allowing you to get two activations against a soft target to your opponent's 1 (and that 1 being with a damaged unit at that). Hitting multiple targets also carries the benefit of pressuring battleshock, which is a real thing in 3.0.

So in the end I see lists running one or more dragons and can't help but wonder if they wouldn't be better off running more and more Blood Knights instead.

So what heroes might a Blood Knights focused list want to run? None of the options are at all competitive with BKs for actual combat efficiency, but how much value do buffs add? Let's explore it (more math!):

  Hide contents

Here's the % increase in damage output achieved by various buffs along with the absolute rend weighted damage output increase per unit of BKs buffed:

+1 Hit OR Wound: 26.4%, +5.98

+1 Hit AND Wound: 60%, +13.6

+1 Damage to riders: 42%, +9.52

+1 Attack: 33.3%, +7.55

Exploding 6's: 26.4%, +5.98

Units that can buff BK's include: Belladamma, Radukar, Mannfred, Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, any non unique hero (Rousing Commander, Sword of the Red Seneschals, Unholy Impetus)

Of the non-unique heroes, I don't think it's worth considering the regular Vampire Lord as it's so easy to snipe. The Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, and VLoZD are worth considering as they can all keep up with Blood Knights relatively well. A Necromancer is also worth considering because it's cheap and might have additional usefulness, but one must keep in mind that keeping in buff range will be MUCH harder.

Lets look at a ton more math on these options. What I'm going to try to do here is calculate the total combat value provided by different options between their innate combat ability and the value of the buffs they provide.

  Hide contents

NOTE: One unit of charging Blood Knights unbuffed has a weighted offensive value of 22.67 at a cost of 195 points, for a WOR (weighted offensive rating) of .116.

 

  • Belladamma is mostly being taken for her casting profile, but her exploding 6's buffs does provide .03 WOR per target.
  • Radukar the Wolf alone has a base WOR of .047 (self buffed) and provides an additional .05 WOR per buffed target.
  • Radukar the Wolf plus bodyguard has a base WOR of .068 (self buffed) and provides an additional .031 WOR per buffed target
  • Radukar the Beast has a base WOR of .084 (self buffed, includes summoned Dire Wolves but does not assume they are buffed) and provides an additional .024 WOR per buffed target
  • Mannfred has a base WOR of .07 (self buffed) and provides an additional .036 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Vengorian Lord (Clotted Deluge) has a base WOR of .046 (self buffed) and provides an additional .021 WOR per buffed target. Unholy Impetus adds an additional .027 WOR per buffed target. Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .06 (self buffed) and adds an additional .034 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Coven Throne has a base WOR of .031 and provides an additional .044 WOR from its buff. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .019 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .024 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .048 and adds .031 WOR per target
  • A VLoZD has a base WOR of .048. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .014 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .017 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .053 and .022 WOR per target.
  • A Necromancer is mostly being taken for casting, and is unlikely to be able to get Unholy Impetus or Sword of the Red Seneschals to work, but Rousing Commander adds .076 WOR per target.

A few conclusions from this:

Both versions of Radukar are good bets to be offensively "profitable" at least the turn they charge. As long as you're buffing two units of Blood Knights with the command ability (which should be easy given the 18" radius), you're getting more WOR than you would if you had invested the points in more BK alone. Furthermore, these options aren't actually bad on defense either. Radukar the Beast + his wolves has a defensive efficiency of .16 (albeit at the cost of a CP), and Radukar the Wolf with 2 Nightguard has a defensive efficiency of .118. Blood Knights have a defensive efficiency of .207, so you're giving up some defense but less than in comparison to most heroes.

Mannfred is pretty easy to make profitable as well. If he can buff two targets (which isn't trivial but should be doable pretty often) he'll exceed the WOR value of pure BK. He also has the benefit of being a 2 wizard and a monster hero along with superlative mobility. His defensive profile is a bit hard to pin down due to uncertainty around how many woulds his armor will negate. At minimum he's just below half efficiency compared to BK, but at just 3-4 wounds negated he starts pulling even with Radukar the Wolf.

The Vengorian Lord can plausibly break even or exceed on WOR but it's not easy. With Rousing Commander plus either his spell going off or Sword of the Red Seneschals, all hitting two targets he's solidly in the black. But with RC being a once per game thing he's going to have a tough time breaking even most of the time. Defensively he's OK, particularly in melee, and he has the benefit of being a monster hero.

The Coven Throne lags pretty far behind except when using Rousing Commander, which when combined with the command ability gives us an easy total WOR of  .154 with something getting +1 save in addition. But again, that's once a game. It's not going to be easy to make Sword of the Red Seneschals work here at all, so Fragment of the Keep is a more likely artefact choice. I could see this as an option that is more oriented toward providing defense with a splash of offense. That +1 save is worth a bit under half a unit of Blood Knights in defensive efficiency, assuming the enemy actually attacks the buffed unit.

The VLoZD does just a hair better than breaking even with both Rousing Commander and SoRS buffing two targets, so I don't think this one is going to get there based on efficiency, especially given that it is far behind on defensive efficiency.

If you can actually manage to buff two things with Rousing Commander on a Necromancer you're getting well ahead that turn, but it's going to have a hard time using an artefact effectively except for possibly the Grave-sand Shard.

Belladamma isn't going to get there on offense, so if you take her you are doing it for her magic prowess. That said, I'm not really sold on Belladamma in this kind of list. She's very helpful against shooting, but I don't think shooting armies are going to be particularly problematic for a list that is just spamming bodies that are efficient on both offense and defense and are reasonably fast. Furthermore, to make her reliable as a caster requires significant extra investment.

 

Overall, I think the two heroes that are clearly at the top of the pile are Mannfred and Radukar (either version). The Vengorian Lord and Coven Throne could both work but are pretty marginal and clearly behind the two unique heroes. The VLoZD is substantially worse, and I don't think Beladamma makes much sense for the reasons mentioned above. The Necromancer is a bit of a wild card.

So that leads me to the question: could it really be optimal to just forego a command trait and artefact? I really think it might, depending on the list. Mannfred and Radukar both are just better than what the trait and artefact provide on any hero for this kind of list, so it only makes sense to dip to a non-unique hero if you're already taking Mannfred and Radukar. I suppose a hero package of Mannfred, Radukar the Wolf and a Vengorian Lord (810 points or 905 if you take nightguard) could make some sense, but that's really more points than I'd want to be spending on heroes. Mannfred and Radukar the Beast is a more palatable 695, or wolf at 530/625 depending on nightguard.

 

As far as subfactions go, I think it's pretty clearly between Kastelai and Legion of Night. I get that Vyrkos can build a very strong VLoZD with Hunter's Snare and either amulet or Sangsyron, but I wonder if that is a trap.

Kastelai has the benefits of an easier grand strategy, better performance on battleplans that care about battleline units for scoring, and the uncertain value of Might of the Crimson Keep. I think figuring out how useful that last one is will take a lot of test games.

Legion of Night has the benefits of redundant generals and an easier path to actually resolving spells through a Necromancer carrying Morbheg's Claw. But you'll need three battleline units that aren't Blood Knights (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as having some blocks of zombies could be useful for counterbalancing the otherwise low model count for objectives.

 

Here's a few lists:

 

Basic Kastelai

  Hide contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

6x5 Blood Knights

1x10 Dire Wolves

Probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

52 models, 384.53 weighted effective wounds

Kastelai with bats + zombies

  Hide contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

5x5 Blood Knights

1x3 Fell Bats

1x40 Zombies

Again probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

80 models, 371.1 weighted effective wounds

Go Wide

  Hide contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Wolf

Necromancer

4x5 Blood Knights

2x40 Deadwalker Zombies (or 1x40, 2x20)

1x2 Kosargi Night Guard

Can be Legion of Night or Kastelai. Lots of battalion possibilities, but Battle Regiment + Hunters or Battle Regiment + Vanguard or double Battle Regiment probably best.

105 models, 335.1 weighted effective wounds

The first list is just crazy raw efficiency. The damage potential is very high and the effective wound count is insane, but the body count is relatively low.

The second list is like the first list but compromises effective wounds slightly for more bodies.

The third list has significantly fewer effective wounds but a ton more bodies and it can also potentially be Legion of Night to leverage Mannfred and a Necromancer into legitimate casting threats with Morbheg's claw. The gain in defensive efficiency from Mystic Shield, Overwhelming Dread and/or Fading Vigor could easily offset the loss of effective wounds. Mannfred, Radukar and the Necromancer all are crazy good at scaling the zombies up if the opponent focuses too hard on the Blood Knights.

Perhaps more later.

Really detailed and useful post! I’m currently working on a Kastelai/ blood knights list. Currently running. 
 

4 x 5 blood knights

Vhordrai 

VLOZD (red sword and rousing commander)

30 x deathrattle skeletons 

3 x fell bats. 
 

I really like running the two dragons together for flavour and fun, but have considered replacing Vhordrai with Manfred. Do you think that would be a good option? 
 

Thanks. 

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11 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I've been trying to explore a lot of different Soulblight variations, so far focusing on Nagash and zombie apocalypse lists. Most people seem to be pushing character heavy lists, but I'd like to propose a different direction focusing on maximizing efficiency.

To begin, I'd like to illustrate the efficiency gap between Blood Knights and the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon. Math ahead:

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Two units of Blood Knights, charging:

  • 28.44 rend 1 damage
  • 7.4 rend 0 damage
  • 84.38 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions, 67.5 without
  • Cost: 390 points

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon, charging:

  • 8.83 rend 2 (12.38 with Sangsyron)
  • 4.66 rend 1
  • 37.8 expected wounds assuming an average incoming rend of .75 with Deathless Minions
  • Cost: 435 points

Overall damage comparison (BK, Sangsyron, VLoZD base kit)

  • vs. - : 35.84/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 6+: 34.6/17.04/13.49
  • vs. 5+: 28.63/16.26/12.71
  • vs 4+: 22.66/13.42/10.47
  • vs 3+: 16.69/10.58/8.21
  • vs 2+: 10.71/7.74/5.97
  • vs 2+ +1: 5.97/4.9/3.72
  • vs 2+ +2: 5.97/2.48/2.25

Despite being cheaper, the Blood Knights vastly outperform in every category the minimum damage difference is +60% vs. vanilla VLoZD and +22% vs. Sangsyron. The maximum difference is +166% vs. vanilla and +110% vs. vanilla. Defensively, the Blood Knights have +123% more weighted effective wounds with Deathless Minions and +79% more without.

Of course, the VLoZD does have advantages: it's faster until it takes quite a bit of damage, can heal and perform heroic actions, shoot a little, and is a monster. But that gets counterbalanced some against the Blood Knights being able to "retreat" and charge and sprinkle mortal wounds in the process.

The Blood Knights also scale equal better off of nearly every buff. +1 Damage to rider weapons and +1 Attack all scale the Blood Knights better than the VLoZD. Bonuses to hit and would and exploding 6's are roughly equivalent.

The VLoZD clearly has better activation efficiency, but I'm not sure that this is as much of a benefit in 3.0 as it was in 2.0. I know people are still in the mindset of "hit as hard as possible with one thing, charging with more just gives your opponent the opportunity to swing back," but I think people haven't fully absorbed how the new command abilities change the dynamic. If you charge one enemy unit, your opponent gets to use all-out defense to significantly soften the blow. If you charge multiple enemy units, your opponent has to pick where to use AOD, and the thing they don't pick is going to get hit a lot harder. So now it's a lot more attractive to charge multiple targets, particularly if you can charge with at least one more unit than your opponent has in combat. If you charge 3 into your opponent's 2, your opponent can soften the blow on one thing and then you use AOD on whatever they choose to strike first on, thus allowing you to get two activations against a soft target to your opponent's 1 (and that 1 being with a damaged unit at that). Hitting multiple targets also carries the benefit of pressuring battleshock, which is a real thing in 3.0.

So in the end I see lists running one or more dragons and can't help but wonder if they wouldn't be better off running more and more Blood Knights instead.

So what heroes might a Blood Knights focused list want to run? None of the options are at all competitive with BKs for actual combat efficiency, but how much value do buffs add? Let's explore it (more math!):

  Hide contents

Here's the % increase in damage output achieved by various buffs along with the absolute rend weighted damage output increase per unit of BKs buffed:

+1 Hit OR Wound: 26.4%, +5.98

+1 Hit AND Wound: 60%, +13.6

+1 Damage to riders: 42%, +9.52

+1 Attack: 33.3%, +7.55

Exploding 6's: 26.4%, +5.98

Units that can buff BK's include: Belladamma, Radukar, Mannfred, Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, any non unique hero (Rousing Commander, Sword of the Red Seneschals, Unholy Impetus)

Of the non-unique heroes, I don't think it's worth considering the regular Vampire Lord as it's so easy to snipe. The Vengorian Lord, Coven Throne, and VLoZD are worth considering as they can all keep up with Blood Knights relatively well. A Necromancer is also worth considering because it's cheap and might have additional usefulness, but one must keep in mind that keeping in buff range will be MUCH harder.

Lets look at a ton more math on these options. What I'm going to try to do here is calculate the total combat value provided by different options between their innate combat ability and the value of the buffs they provide.

  Hide contents

NOTE: One unit of charging Blood Knights unbuffed has a weighted offensive value of 22.67 at a cost of 195 points, for a WOR (weighted offensive rating) of .116.

 

  • Belladamma is mostly being taken for her casting profile, but her exploding 6's buffs does provide .03 WOR per target.
  • Radukar the Wolf alone has a base WOR of .047 (self buffed) and provides an additional .05 WOR per buffed target.
  • Radukar the Wolf plus bodyguard has a base WOR of .068 (self buffed) and provides an additional .031 WOR per buffed target
  • Radukar the Beast has a base WOR of .084 (self buffed, includes summoned Dire Wolves but does not assume they are buffed) and provides an additional .024 WOR per buffed target
  • Mannfred has a base WOR of .07 (self buffed) and provides an additional .036 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Vengorian Lord (Clotted Deluge) has a base WOR of .046 (self buffed) and provides an additional .021 WOR per buffed target. Unholy Impetus adds an additional .027 WOR per buffed target. Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .06 (self buffed) and adds an additional .034 WOR per buffed target.
  • A Coven Throne has a base WOR of .031 and provides an additional .044 WOR from its buff. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .019 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .024 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .048 and adds .031 WOR per target
  • A VLoZD has a base WOR of .048. Sword of the Red Seneschals adds .014 WOR per target, Unholy Impetus adds .017 WOR per target, and Rousing Commander changes self WOR to .053 and .022 WOR per target.
  • A Necromancer is mostly being taken for casting, and is unlikely to be able to get Unholy Impetus or Sword of the Red Seneschals to work, but Rousing Commander adds .076 WOR per target.

A few conclusions from this:

Both versions of Radukar are good bets to be offensively "profitable" at least the turn they charge. As long as you're buffing two units of Blood Knights with the command ability (which should be easy given the 18" radius), you're getting more WOR than you would if you had invested the points in more BK alone. Furthermore, these options aren't actually bad on defense either. Radukar the Beast + his wolves has a defensive efficiency of .16 (albeit at the cost of a CP), and Radukar the Wolf with 2 Nightguard has a defensive efficiency of .118. Blood Knights have a defensive efficiency of .207, so you're giving up some defense but less than in comparison to most heroes.

Mannfred is pretty easy to make profitable as well. If he can buff two targets (which isn't trivial but should be doable pretty often) he'll exceed the WOR value of pure BK. He also has the benefit of being a 2 wizard and a monster hero along with superlative mobility. His defensive profile is a bit hard to pin down due to uncertainty around how many woulds his armor will negate. At minimum he's just below half efficiency compared to BK, but at just 3-4 wounds negated he starts pulling even with Radukar the Wolf.

The Vengorian Lord can plausibly break even or exceed on WOR but it's not easy. With Rousing Commander plus either his spell going off or Sword of the Red Seneschals, all hitting two targets he's solidly in the black. But with RC being a once per game thing he's going to have a tough time breaking even most of the time. Defensively he's OK, particularly in melee, and he has the benefit of being a monster hero.

The Coven Throne lags pretty far behind except when using Rousing Commander, which when combined with the command ability gives us an easy total WOR of  .154 with something getting +1 save in addition. But again, that's once a game. It's not going to be easy to make Sword of the Red Seneschals work here at all, so Fragment of the Keep is a more likely artefact choice. I could see this as an option that is more oriented toward providing defense with a splash of offense. That +1 save is worth a bit under half a unit of Blood Knights in defensive efficiency, assuming the enemy actually attacks the buffed unit.

The VLoZD does just a hair better than breaking even with both Rousing Commander and SoRS buffing two targets, so I don't think this one is going to get there based on efficiency, especially given that it is far behind on defensive efficiency.

If you can actually manage to buff two things with Rousing Commander on a Necromancer you're getting well ahead that turn, but it's going to have a hard time using an artefact effectively except for possibly the Grave-sand Shard.

Belladamma isn't going to get there on offense, so if you take her you are doing it for her magic prowess. That said, I'm not really sold on Belladamma in this kind of list. She's very helpful against shooting, but I don't think shooting armies are going to be particularly problematic for a list that is just spamming bodies that are efficient on both offense and defense and are reasonably fast. Furthermore, to make her reliable as a caster requires significant extra investment.

 

Overall, I think the two heroes that are clearly at the top of the pile are Mannfred and Radukar (either version). The Vengorian Lord and Coven Throne could both work but are pretty marginal and clearly behind the two unique heroes. The VLoZD is substantially worse, and I don't think Beladamma makes much sense for the reasons mentioned above. The Necromancer is a bit of a wild card.

So that leads me to the question: could it really be optimal to just forego a command trait and artefact? I really think it might, depending on the list. Mannfred and Radukar both are just better than what the trait and artefact provide on any hero for this kind of list, so it only makes sense to dip to a non-unique hero if you're already taking Mannfred and Radukar. I suppose a hero package of Mannfred, Radukar the Wolf and a Vengorian Lord (810 points or 905 if you take nightguard) could make some sense, but that's really more points than I'd want to be spending on heroes. Mannfred and Radukar the Beast is a more palatable 695, or wolf at 530/625 depending on nightguard.

 

As far as subfactions go, I think it's pretty clearly between Kastelai and Legion of Night. I get that Vyrkos can build a very strong VLoZD with Hunter's Snare and either amulet or Sangsyron, but I wonder if that is a trap.

Kastelai has the benefits of an easier grand strategy, better performance on battleplans that care about battleline units for scoring, and the uncertain value of Might of the Crimson Keep. I think figuring out how useful that last one is will take a lot of test games.

Legion of Night has the benefits of redundant generals and an easier path to actually resolving spells through a Necromancer carrying Morbheg's Claw. But you'll need three battleline units that aren't Blood Knights (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, as having some blocks of zombies could be useful for counterbalancing the otherwise low model count for objectives.

 

Here's a few lists:

 

Basic Kastelai

  Reveal hidden contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

6x5 Blood Knights

1x10 Dire Wolves

Probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

52 models, 384.53 weighted effective wounds

Kastelai with bats + zombies

  Reveal hidden contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

5x5 Blood Knights

1x3 Fell Bats

1x40 Zombies

Again probably Battle Regiment + Hunters of the Heartlands or 2 Battle Regiment

80 models, 371.1 weighted effective wounds

Go Wide

  Reveal hidden contents

Mannfred

Radukar the Wolf

Necromancer

4x5 Blood Knights

2x40 Deadwalker Zombies (or 1x40, 2x20)

1x2 Kosargi Night Guard

Can be Legion of Night or Kastelai. Lots of battalion possibilities, but Battle Regiment + Hunters or Battle Regiment + Vanguard or double Battle Regiment probably best.

105 models, 335.1 weighted effective wounds

The first list is just crazy raw efficiency. The damage potential is very high and the effective wound count is insane, but the body count is relatively low.

The second list is like the first list but compromises effective wounds slightly for more bodies.

The third list has significantly fewer effective wounds but a ton more bodies and it can also potentially be Legion of Night to leverage Mannfred and a Necromancer into legitimate casting threats with Morbheg's claw. The gain in defensive efficiency from Mystic Shield, Overwhelming Dread and/or Fading Vigor could easily offset the loss of effective wounds. Mannfred, Radukar and the Necromancer all are crazy good at scaling the zombies up if the opponent focuses too hard on the Blood Knights.

Perhaps more later.

First off, awesome write up and thanks for all the effort in working out the math.

All I can really add is from my experience with 3rd edition so far (as SBG). Personally I've found BK to be really lackluster in actual gameplay due to two things: 1) they are super vulnerable to mortals (ex: Lumineth shooting or offensive magic) 2) with the smaller board space and the suggested 8 pieces of terrain you basically never get all 5 BK into combat.

The second part is IMO the biggest issue because the MW thing depends on who you play against. But I've found the board is  really cramped for cavalry units like BK. If they had a 2" reach it would be a different story, but on average I'm only getting 3 BK into combat. Against armies with high MW I'm also usually losing 1-2 models on average before they even get into combat so again, you're usually only attacking with 2-3 models (in my experience).

Being able to retreat from combat for free is really their biggest advantage in my experience. Even the trample mechanic, while cute, doesn't seem to happen very often because it can be played around and again, the smaller board makes it hard to finish outside of 3" sometimes.

I'm definitely interested in seeing them work, and I think the idea that 2 BK might outperform a VLoZD is actually pretty intriguing and something I'd be interested in trying out.

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I spent this weekend playing Brendan Melnick's SBG list from the Circle City Clash in a few games. At first I wasn't sure how the list would/could perform but it has a lot of similarities to the lists I've been building except his list forgoes using an extra hammer unit like VLoZD or Blood Knights.

Spoiler
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords

-Lineage: Vyrkos Dynasty

-Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery

-Triumphs: Inspired

Leaders

Vampire Lord (140) in Warlord

- General

- Command Trait: Pack Alpha

- Spell: Amethystine Pinions

Vengorian Lord (280)

- Artefact: Sangsyron

- Spell: Flaming Weapon

Necromancer (125) in Warlord

- Artefact: Arcane Tome

- Spell: Overwhelming Dread

Belladamma Volga, Fist of the Vyrkos (200) in Warlord

- Spell: Soulpike

Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380) in Warlord

- Spell: Fading Vigour

Battleline

10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85) in Warlord

30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (255) in Hunters of the Heartlands

- Reinforced x2

40 x Deadwalker Zombies (230) in Hunters of the Heartlands

- Reinforced x1

Other

20 x Grave Guard (280) in Hunters of the Heartlands

- Reinforced x 1

- Great Wight Blades

Core Battalions

Hunters of the Heartlands

Warlord

Additional Enhancements

Artefact

Total: 1975/2000

Wounds: 141

Drops: 9

Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly since he performed so well at the tournament) the list worked really well. It's a very balanced and synergistic list that is quite versatile in its ability to throw big buffs around quite freely. It sort of leaves your opponent guessing sometimes, where will you throw your buffs? Evenly? Or will you stack everything on a single unit? This list also does a good job of collecting battle tactics, is decently strong in the magic phase, and has plenty of CP to use and throw around. I was especially surprised by how good a 30 block of skeletons can be when buffed, they have the potential to be really scary and take forever to kill.

I'll likely be running this list again this weekend but I've been thinking about how I would tune this list, and here is one I've been working on.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords

- Lineage: Legion of Night

- Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery

- Triumphs: Inspired

 

Leaders

Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380) in Warlord

- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour

Necromancer (125) in Warlord

- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)

- Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread

Vampire Lord (140) in Warlord

- Lore of the Vampires: Soulpike

Wight King on Skeletal Steed (130)

- General

- Command Trait: Unbending Will

- Artefact: Morbheg's Claw

Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435)

- Deathlance

- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

 

Battleline

30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (255) in Hunters of the Heartlands

- Reinforced x 2

40 x Deadwalker Zombies (230) in Warlord

- Reinforced x 1

20 x Grave Guard (280) in Hunters of the Heartlands

- Great Wight Blades

- Reinforced x 1

 

Core Battalions

Warlord

Hunters of the Heartlands

 

Additional Enhancements

Artefact

 

Total: 1975 / 2000

Reinforced Units: 4 / 4

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 133

The biggest weakness I found with the original list was the MSU of Deathrattle Skeletons. 10 Skeletons are not enough to really do anything except maybe hold a back objective, but I feel like 3rd edition encourages you to be a lot more aggressive due to the battle tactics. The small group of skeletons is also a liability because it gives your opponent a juicy target for Broken Ranks.

In order to take out that group of skeletons we have to do one of two things: a) replace them with dire wolves or zombies (we are at the reinforcement cap with our other units) or b) make the grave guard battleline with a Wight King.

For this version I’ve opted for the second option. I’ve taken out Belladamma, the Vengorian Lord, and the extra group of skeletons and have replaced them with a VLoZD and a Mounted Wight King. Since we’ve lost out our best caster and a vampire caster I thought it would be better to switch the dynasty to LoN, that way we preserve Mannfred as a second general and get access to Morbheg’s Claw, which will make our Vampire Lord and Necromancer better casters.

Now, this build loses out on a few things, so let’s list them here:
- We lose Belladamma’s 2 casts and her +1 double dispells
- We lose Belladamma’s Under a Killing Moon spell buff which is super strong on the Grave Guard
- We lose out on the Vengorian Lord’s anti-rend aura
- The Vampire Lord no longer has the free command ability trait so his +1 attack ability is going to cost us CP now
- We lose out on the +1 to wound buff for the Skeletons/GG/Zombies

And here is what we gain:
-The VLoZD is a strong and fast hammer unit that can act independently. It’s going to be a prime target for opponent’s spells and missile attacks, but that allows your other units to be safer for a turn or two. Ideally the VLoZD is going to take out something decent and is your best option for claiming Broken Ranks yourself.
-We get Morbheg’s Claw (I placed it on the Wight King because I want the extra spell on the Necromancer and the Wight King shouldn’t be moving around too much) which makes the Necro and V.Lord much better casters.
-We get access to Unbending Will (no battleshock wholly within 12”) which I think is a fair trade off for Pack Alpha. I found that I was using a CP almost every turn anyway to avoid battleshock.
-The Wight King’s CA is IMO better than the Vengorian’s anyway, and could be quite decent on a large group of skeletons attacking twice within Morbheg’s

I’m not sure exactly how I would split up this army/deploy it. It would definitely be tempting to play this as a death ball/castle type army since you have a lot of bubbles and buffs that can be shared, but again, I think 3rd edition discourages that.

One split could be:

Skeletons/Necro/WightK/Vlord on one side
GG/Mannfred on another
Zombies in a gravesite and VLoZD on its own (and possibly in the LoN reserve too)

Perhaps a better split though would be to throw the Vlord into the group of GG. His +1 attack would be great for them, though he does lose out on the +2 casting from Morbheg’s (though he doesn’t have great spell choices anyway so maybe it doesn’t matter much).

I do worry that this version messes too much with the buff synergy and I'm unsure how big a loss the Vengorian Lord is. Maybe I'm missing some obvious issues too, so I'm curious to see what people have to say.

Edited by Kaizennus
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5 hours ago, TechnoVampire said:

I really like running the two dragons together for flavour and fun, but have considered replacing Vhordrai with Manfred. Do you think that would be a good option? 

 

Thanks. 

I should have been clear that my post was strictly taking a competitive perspective. If you enjoy running double dragon lists for other reasons by all means do that! Swapping Vhordrai for Mannfred could work, as could swapping the regular VLoZD for Mannfred.

1 hour ago, Kaizennus said:

First off, awesome write up and thanks for all the effort in working out the math.

All I can really add is from my experience with 3rd edition so far (as SBG). Personally I've found BK to be really lackluster in actual gameplay due to two things: 1) they are super vulnerable to mortals (ex: Lumineth shooting or offensive magic) 2) with the smaller board space and the suggested 8 pieces of terrain you basically never get all 5 BK into combat.

The second part is IMO the biggest issue because the MW thing depends on who you play against. But I've found the board is  really cramped for cavalry units like BK. If they had a 2" reach it would be a different story, but on average I'm only getting 3 BK into combat. Against armies with high MW I'm also usually losing 1-2 models on average before they even get into combat so again, you're usually only attacking with 2-3 models (in my experience).

Being able to retreat from combat for free is really their biggest advantage in my experience. Even the trample mechanic, while cute, doesn't seem to happen very often because it can be played around and again, the smaller board makes it hard to finish outside of 3" sometimes.

I'm definitely interested in seeing them work, and I think the idea that 2 BK might outperform a VLoZD is actually pretty intriguing and something I'd be interested in trying out.

That's an interesting point regarding terrain. I suspect it will vary a lot from table to table and matchup to matchup. Overall though I've been finding flying to be somewhat less of a boon in this edition previously as it's hard to avoid landing on terrain at times, which requires a diagonal move, thus significantly reducing flying mobility. I've been playing mostly on TTS with a pretty large volume of terrain and haven't had too much trouble so far, although I've largely been playing high body count zombie lists. I'll need to see how it goes with BKs. Generally though with terrain having to be >3" from objectives and >6" from each other there should be a fair amount of open space, particularly around objectives.

The mortal wound thing is a problem for sure and is one of the reasons why I think the mixed Zombie/BK list is attractive. Zombies are efficient vs. mortals and high rend while BKs are efficient vs low rend. If we're just talking about the big bruiser heroes vs. BKs though I'd argue that stuff like the VLoZD and Vengorian Lord suffer even more against high mortal wound shooting than BKs do.

Vs. ranged mortals I definitely don't expect to hit the enemy line intact. But the nice thing about having 4-6 units of BKs is that even if two get annihilated by shooting, when the rest hit the enemy line they should do a huge amount of damage.

As far as the trample mechanic goes, you can move them just over the models they are currently fighting and then back 3". Unless your BKs are actually surrounded that should be easy to pull off. Nothing about the rule requires you to go all the way through the enemy unit -- you just have to move in such a way as to pass over the enemy models at some point during the move. People do this with endless spells all the time, clipping one unit and then moving backwards to hit something else.

Regardless though I do agree that actual battlefield conditions will make a big difference and it's going to require some real testing.

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8 minutes ago, swarmofseals said:

I should have been clear that my post was strictly taking a competitive perspective. If you enjoy running double dragon lists for other reasons by all means do that! Swapping Vhordrai for Mannfred could work, as could swapping the regular VLoZD for Mannfred.

That's an interesting point regarding terrain. I suspect it will vary a lot from table to table and matchup to matchup. Overall though I've been finding flying to be somewhat less of a boon in this edition previously as it's hard to avoid landing on terrain at times, which requires a diagonal move, thus significantly reducing flying mobility. I've been playing mostly on TTS with a pretty large volume of terrain and haven't had too much trouble so far, although I've largely been playing high body count zombie lists. I'll need to see how it goes with BKs. Generally though with terrain having to be >3" from objectives and >6" from each other there should be a fair amount of open space, particularly around objectives.

The mortal wound thing is a problem for sure and is one of the reasons why I think the mixed Zombie/BK list is attractive. Zombies are efficient vs. mortals and high rend while BKs are efficient vs low rend. If we're just talking about the big bruiser heroes vs. BKs though I'd argue that stuff like the VLoZD and Vengorian Lord suffer even more against high mortal wound shooting than BKs do.

Vs. ranged mortals I definitely don't expect to hit the enemy line intact. But the nice thing about having 4-6 units of BKs is that even if two get annihilated by shooting, when the rest hit the enemy line they should do a huge amount of damage.

As far as the trample mechanic goes, you can move them just over the models they are currently fighting and then back 3". Unless your BKs are actually surrounded that should be easy to pull off. Nothing about the rule requires you to go all the way through the enemy unit -- you just have to move in such a way as to pass over the enemy models at some point during the move. People do this with endless spells all the time, clipping one unit and then moving backwards to hit something else.

Regardless though I do agree that actual battlefield conditions will make a big difference and it's going to require some real testing.

Those are all very good points too. I will definitely be playing around with them a bit more because I think they have some good potential and they're just awesome models in general.

The terrain rules are kind of a personal pet peeve, or perhaps an area of disappointment for me. I understand that they avoid terrain "layouts" probably because you could never know what people have access to in their homes. I'm a bit spoiled because we play in a wargaming club that has an abundance of terrain pieces to choose from. I still think they should re-do the setting up rules though. I don't really like the system of one player setting up the battlefield wholly and I think it kind of lends itself to some awkward situations.

For example, this weekend when I played a Beastclaw Raiders army I got to set up the terrain as the defender. I told my opponent he could help out because I specifically didn't want to zone out his big guys or something like that. He was actually surprised and said that usually the opponent sets it up that way specifically. Typically when myself, or the guys I play with more regularly, set up terrain we do it together and make it fair and aesthetic. 

I think a possible alternative could be something like... defender gets to set up 5 pieces of terrain: 2 in their zone, 2 in neutral, and one in opponents, and the attacker sets up 3: 1 in each zone.. or something like that. Kind of make it an extra deployment strategy kind of thing. Alternatively I'd actually love to see the community adopt "maps" of some sort that are used throughout different tournaments (but maybe distinguish by relative size or type such as big/small and wall/hill/building).

But anyway, I'm way off topic now for the Soulblight topic!

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@Kaizennus it's a bit off topic but I think the point you raise leads to a very important factor that rarely gets discussed. Variations like the one you describe can have a profound impact on play experience, and yet it rarely gets discussed or acknowledged. We tend to talk about our play experiences as universal when they are often anything but.

Most of the time tournaments have preset tables, so I rather imagine this will continue. Although some tournaments may have the players set up, which will create a very different experience.

Personally I mostly play on TTS on the DeinoK table which has a variety of preset terrain layouts. Of those I generally only use a few as some of them are very awkward. But overall they tend to be symmetrical. Sometimes the terrain needs to be moved around a bit to account for the objectives in the specific battleplan, but even then I try to keep it symmetrical and avoid both excessive open space and excessive clutter. I think trying to game the terrain setup should be heavily frowned upon.

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3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:
9 hours ago, TechnoVampire said:

 

I should have been clear that my post was strictly taking a competitive perspective. If you enjoy running double dragon lists for other reasons by all means do that! Swapping Vhordrai for Mannfred could work, as could swapping the regular VLoZD for Mannfred.

I assumed that from your level of detail and general perspective, and although I don’t play competitively I still like to build lists that work. In my last game running VLOZD and Vhordrai together worked well, I managed to stack buffs from red sword and rousing commander on Vhordrai and a unit of blood knights, after using vhordrais CA on VLOZD. Situational but it was very effective. 

Despite that your breakdown gave me some alternative considerations and I will test Manfred out and see how he works in the list. 
 

Cheers!

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Something worth considering, aside from what is strongest, is how quickly can you actually pilot your list?

I've been running quite heavy on bodies with my lists, maybe only around 8 games or so played of 3.0 and around 10-15 with Soulblight in general. I never got in to TTS as just don't enjoy it.

I've usually had around 80-120 bodies on the board, depending on the list.

Most games are not done in 2.5 hours, it took around 4 hours in my last game just to get to turn 4 (this was vs Slaanesh). Most games are around turn 3 usually after 3 hours or so.

It's not just the movement of big units like zombies, but also checking buff ranges, working out how best to set stuff up from out of the grave etc. I've used movement trays in the past and they're great at the start, but once you get in to combat they can be really tricky when you're trying to do optimum pile ins on 25mm bases (two ranks) especially as the ones I'm using are magnetic.

In casual games this is fine, but I have tournaments starting from next month and I need to speed up to get to later turns to ensure proper scoring and battle tactics.

I don't own enough Blood Knights yet, so first tournament will still be quite hordey, however I definitely think I will prefer and do better with fewer units and less bodies. Something like Nagash, Lord, 3x5 Blood Knights, 1x40 Zombies, Portal in Kastelai.

 

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