AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[Nightseer2012]

6 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

That works quite well for the idea of an unstoppable tide of the undead: No matter what you do, there is no way to stop those zombies and skeletons from just getting up again.

Speaking of, I am learning to hate Sequitors all over again.  Their Sequitor-Prime stops returning units within 3" (Skeletons, Zombies, Invigorating Aura, and Deathly Invocation), and they can chose to have a 5++ from Aetheric Channeling.  I guess I am just happy they are not also the new Thunderstrike, and don't have 4+ re-rollable anymore, but my one opponent has always had a solid wall of Sequitors to hide his stuff behind already.

On another subject, I saw people mentioning taking down SoB on the earlier pages and that got me thinking about Monters.  Has anyone theorized what we will be doing about the incoming Draconith lists, or tips about SoB (or Death for that matter) taking down Monsters in general?  AoS 3.0 makes me miss dedicated monster hunters like the Necrosphinx in Death.

[Honk]

50 minutes ago, Nightseer2012 said:

Has anyone theorized what we will be doing about the incoming Draconith lists, or tips about SoB (or Death for that matter) taking down Monsters in general?

Decisive charge from buffed up graveguards (van hels and Crimson feast) or maybe bloodknights (venga and fragment)… manni as support or Neffi for defense 

but what kind of cheese the stormy stormboyz get to ride into battle, one can only guess 😅

[Ravenborn]

I noticed a few comments about wanting new grave guard, and couldn’t agree more.  The new skellies are what made me finally breakdown and start building a SBGL army. I just bought a pile of second hand models, and decided I need to figure out how to build GG with skellies, the old grave guard models, and my bitz drawer. 
 

I’m happy with the guy on the right, hunched over a bit. The guy on the left needs something. Maybe more ripped cloth over his knees so he doesn’t look like a swift breeze would knock him down?

[Honk]

19 minutes ago, Ravenborn said:

The guy on the left needs something.

When in doubt, cape up… 👘

 

or mystical cotton whisps 🌬🤔

[MKxJump]

Hey all, I'm new to the army and AoS in general. Wanted some advice for what I should look to pick up for 1000 pts to start learning the game with the hopes to expand in the future.

I like the look of so many units in the faction, especially anything skeleton themed. Undead are just so damned cool and a joy to paint. 

I'd love your help with getting my lists to work well for me as a new player and also some recommendations with where to go in the future.

Currently weighing up three options:

 

Option 1: Kastelai Dynasty

  Prince Vhordrai (General): 455 pts

  Blood Knights x5: 195 pts

  Blood Knights x5: 195 pts

  Dire Wolves x10: 135 pts

Total Points: 980 pts

 

Option 2: Vyrkos VLoZD

  Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon: 435 pts

  Wight King (General): 115 pts

  Deathrattle Skeleton x20: 170 pts

  Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

Total Points: 1000 pts

 

Option 3: Vyrkos Belladamma

  Belladamma Volga: 200 pts

  Wight King On Skeletal Steed (General): 130 pts

  Deathrattle Skeleton x20: 170 pts

  Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

  Blood Knights x5: 195 pts

Total Points: 975 pts

 

*edit: formatting

Edited December 2, 2021 by MKxJump

[Honk]

42 minutes ago, MKxJump said:

I like the look of so many units in the faction, especially anything skeleton themed… 
help with getting my lists to work well for me as a new player and also some recommendations with where to go in the future.

I personally would recommend list No3 or maybe No2 since the lists are broadly set up.

No3 with knights, guards and also strong magic I like most, but would recommend wolves instead of skellis (-35pts) for Belladamma. Maybe the burning head for direct damage… 

VloZd is very good, but at 1k also tricky, if your opponent can handle it, very unbalanced. Necromancer and vamp lords are things to consider to push the guards into imba mode…

List no3 with wolves, give it a good try out and see from there, if you like the tanky knights or the killy but fragile guards more

[MKxJump]

44 minutes ago, Honk said:

List no3 with wolves, give it a good try out and see from there, if you like the tanky knights or the killy but fragile guards more

I think adding in wolves is a good idea and an oversight of mine to not include them in Option 3.

I could change it up to this list here which replaces the Blood Knights with beasts:

  Belladamma Volga: 200 pts

  Wight King On Skeletal Steed (General): 130 pts

  Deathrattle Skeleton x20: 170 pts

  Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

  Dire Wolves x10: 135 pts

  Fellbats x3: 75 pts

Total Points: 990 pts

 

Or I could knock the Wight King off his horse and add the Necromancer to this list for massive GG potential:

   Belladamma Volga: 200 pts

   Wight King (General): 115 pts

   Necromancer: 125 pts

   Grave Guard x30: 420 pts

   Dire Wolves x10: 135 pts

Total Points: 995 pts

 

Or keep all Blood Knights and still desaddle my WK for this list that has a lot more board coverage:

   Belladama Volga: 200 pts

   Wight King (General): 115 pts

   Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

   Dire Wolves x10: 135 pts

   Blood Knights x5: 195 pts

   Fell Bats x3 : 75 pts

Total Points: 1000 pts

 

Sheeesh, I love how many options this army has!

 

--- Edit: Now I think about it, the moment I remove the Wight King's horse it opens up the amount of points for a VLoZD which is so strong. So I think it's between finding a way to run him with a Horse and Belladama, or accept he's going on foot and the VLoZD is gonna do the heavy lifting.

Edited December 2, 2021 by MKxJump

[Honk]

1 hour ago, MKxJump said:

Sheeesh, I love how many options this army has!

QfT…

only the Black knights are &@*+$#… now if they also get riders of ruin movement in the winter faq 🤔

only the movement, not the pass over MWs 💀👍

[Skreech Verminking]

57 minutes ago, Honk said:

QfT…

only the Black knights are &@*+$#… now if they also get riders of ruin movement in the winter faq 🤔

only the movement, not the pass over MWs 💀👍

An extra damage on the charge for their lances wouldn’t be missed at that point either 

[Nightseer2012]

1 hour ago, Honk said:

only the Black knights are &@*+$#… now if they also get riders of ruin movement in the winter faq 🤔

only the movement, not the pass over MWs 💀👍

While they DO DESPERATELY need something, I don't think it would be Riders of Ruin.  It doesn't match their lore, Blood Knights are famously prideful and this is supposed to represent the Blood Knight literally leaping over/through their enemy in order to reach a worthy foe.  Black Knights are supposed to be Wights, not just armored skeletons, and wights are supposed to be almost as difficult to kill as vampires.  Another point of armor, or another wound maybe, while they are also missing the Cursed Weapons that normal on-foot Grave Guard get.  At the end of the day, I would rather they be a little more tanky than killy.  They kind of suffer from not having a defined role.  Wolves are the light skirmishers (even though you have to take 10 now, ugh), while BK are the heavy cav (very tanky and moderately killy).

GW giving them "skeleton but on a horse" will always confuse me.  Add to the confusion deathly charge, which makes you think you WANT them charging, but they are so pillow fisted that their literal ONLY wound output IS their deathly charge.  I hope they either make them better (more resilient is my hope), or make them cheaper so they are at least not too expensive to be the 120pt arcane missile that they currently are.  And -10 wont be enough, it will have to be a huuuge drop in points to make Black Knights worth it.

[Sception]

Give black knights an extra armor save (seriously it feels like the designers forgot their shields), mortals on 6s to wound like other wights, maybe spruce up their lances a bit instead of the impact hits rule which feels off to me and doesn't scale with reinforcements.  Like, give them mortals on 6 to wound and let their lances re-roll wound rolls on the charge?  If you still think they're a little bland, then maybe give their skeletal steeds back the old warhammer fantasy rule that let them move through terrain (but not models) as though they could fly.  Or, alternatively, give them a bodyguard rule for spite gourd heroes, sort of like hexknights picked up in the emerald host faction rules for nighthaunts.  That would be a nice nod to their common oldhammer role as a delivery bus for characters, as well as to their portrayal in the Dominion of Bones novel.

While they're at it, I'd like them to rename the unit.  Not "black knights" but "wight knights".  Similar scheme, ironic inversion, fun wordplay, and it would make it harder for the designers to forget that they're supposed to be a semi-elite unit like grave guard in the future.

[Leshoyadut]

Personally, if they're going to be making larger changes to Black Knights (big if), I'd actually rather they become a more kill-y cavalry option. We already have Blood Knights for a tanky option, and I think leaning into the Grave Guard (relatively squishy, but very high damage) on mounts thing would work well for adding a new option to the army. Adding some MWs to their attacks and/or buffing their to hit and wound rolls would be nice, though they'd need to be careful about giving more MWs on top of the impact hits.

[Wordy9th]

I was thinking to make Wight Kings feel like they're a true general unit, why not add the Wight King keyword to all these allegiance abilities that need a vampire? EG: +1 to wound in vyrkos if a Vampire is within 9", or especially Legion of Blood's deathrattle focused all <Deathrattle> units are immune to negative modifiers.

 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

44 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

I was thinking to make Wight Kings feel like they're a true general unit, why not add the Wight King keyword to all these allegiance abilities that need a vampire? EG: +1 to wound in vyrkos if a Vampire is within 9", or especially Legion of Blood's deathrattle focused all <Deathrattle> units are immune to negative modifiers.

I'd rather just give Wight Kings an aura that buffs Deathrattle in some way by default. A movement buff would be especially nice. Run and charge or just +3" movement.

[Sception]

reroll charge for deathrattle would be amazing, but any deathrattle aura buff on wight kings would be nice.  I don't want to see wight kings do vampire things, but I do want to see the return of 'vampire lord on barded nightmare' as a hero option.

[Howdyhedberg]

So I guess I'm a soulblight army owner now since I bought the battlebox.

 

I'm planning on using all the contents + a necromancer (will use one of my cos wizards as a proxy). That will be 1000 points as of today. 

 

Any suggestions from you on the best subfaction for this?

[oggurt_da_bog_zombie]

1 hour ago, Howdyhedberg said:

So I guess I'm a soulblight army owner now since I bought the battlebox.

 

I'm planning on using all the contents + a necromancer (will use one of my cos wizards as a proxy). That will be 1000 points as of today. 

 

Any suggestions from you on the best subfaction for this?

Probably Vyrkos. Welcome to the vampire club 🧛‍♂️.

[Howdyhedberg]

2 hours ago, oggurt_da_bog_zombie said:

Probably Vyrkos. Welcome to the vampire club 🧛‍♂️.

Thanks! Might be done with the painting by 2023 :)! But I will probably get some games before that!

[Sception]

10 hours ago, Howdyhedberg said:

Any suggestions from you on the best subfaction for this?

Vyrkos or Legion of Night are closest fits, but any would work fine.  I recommend using the same list in different subfactions to get a feel for which you might like.

[MKxJump]

 I'm having a difficult time pinning down a list of 2000 pts for Vyrkos.

Here's the characters I'd like to run:

  - Belladamma + 10 Dire Wolves

 - Necromancer + 30 Skeleton

 - Grave Guard

 - Some kind of aggressive fast unit; I'm thinking Blood Knights and/or VLoZD.

A lot of the lists I come up with don't have Blood Knights in. Is that a bad thing? Whenever I add Blood Knights, it comes at the cost of the Grave Guard or VLoZD.

Should I just leave my Blood Knights unpainted for now and wait to use them in Kastelai with a Nagash? Or do those with experience using them feel they add to more for the army than a VLoZD or Grave Gaurd, despite those units benefiting from Vyrkos abilities.

 

For context my non-BloodKnight list is as follows:

 - [G] Belladamma: 200 pts

 - [G] Wight King on Steed (Arcane Tome): 130 pts

 - Prince Vhordrai: 455 pts

 - Vampire Lord: 140 pts

 - Necromancer (Arcane Tome): 125 pts

 - Deathrattle Skeletons x30: 270 pts

 - Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

 - Grave Guard x20: 280 pts

 - Dire Wolves x10: 135 pts

TOTAL: 2000 pts

 

To add Blood Knights, I'd have to remove a unit of 20 Grave Guard and 10 Skeletons from the 30. I'd also remove the Steed from Wight King, and with the steed off of Wight King, Vhordrai now can just be a normal VLoZD.

This gives 280+85+15+20 pts (400 pts). Enough for two Blood Knights x5 units. Worth it?

[Liquidsteel]

I really like your list, it has a bit of everything. You absolutely do not need Blood Knights, though they are still potent outside of Kastelai.

My suggestion is play with the list as is for a few games, then try the Blood Knight list with unpainted models and see how you feel.

2 x 20 zombies could replace the 30 skellies and achieve battleline along with the dogs, freeing up the Wight King again. That could then provide a third list maybe. 

[Le Chef]

Exciting! Any idea what we can expect?

[Liquidsteel]

Specifically no, however generally we can expect new Grand Strategies, Battle Tactics and Battalions. 

[Ravenborn]

I’m also starting a new army, and currently building models. Do I need to build more than my list includes? 

By this I mean; are there spells or abilities that can increase the size of a unit beyond its starting size? 

Thanks!

Edited December 6, 2021 by Ravenborn

[Kaizennus]

14 minutes ago, Ravenborn said:

I’m also starting a new army, and currently building models. Do I need to build more than my list includes? 

By this I mean; are there spells or abilities that can increase the size of a unit beyond its starting size? 

Thanks!

Zombies are the only unit that can grow beyond starting size.

You might also need dire wolves for summoning. Belladamma's spell can summon multiple, Radukar the Beast can summon 10 once per game, and theres a Vyrkos Command Trait that lets you summon 5 (though it's not used very often).

IMO a good option for extra zombies are ghouls from from the FEC Start Collecting Kit if you picked that up for the Zombie Dragon.