AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[TechnoVampire]

Nice, that gives him a bit of extra value. I’d love to see the rise of infantry and a move away from the shooting dominated meta with the next GHB. It would allow units like grave guard to shine, and death in general would benefit a lot from being able to make use of their slow but effective infantry. I feel that this GHB hasn’t been particularly kind to death players. 

[TechnoVampire]

(With the exception of nighthaunt and expert conquerors maybe) 

[Leshoyadut]

This GHB is definitely why I've been playing DoK in my games the last several months. I really enjoy Skeleton horde style most in SB, which already wasn't a top tier strategy, and Bounty Hunters kinda dumpstered them. While there are other viable strategies in the army, I don't like them nearly as much. Very much looking forward to the season change.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

11 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

This GHB is definitely why I've been playing DoK in my games the last several months. I really enjoy Skeleton horde style most in SB, which already wasn't a top tier strategy, and Bounty Hunters kinda dumpstered them. While there are other viable strategies in the army, I don't like them nearly as much. Very much looking forward to the season change.

I'm hoping the next battletome does something to make theme Deathrattle armies a bit more viable. As good as the current tome is, that is one area that could definitely be improved. The Wight Kings currently do nothing, Skeleton Warriors are kinda iffy in their role and Black Knight are only good as chaff. Grave Guard are obviously amazing, but they alone can't carry the theme, plus you don't even want them to be battleline a lot of the time.

During the Legions of Nagash days, we at least had Death March, which could turn Black Knights into a very speedy unit. No rend, but you could get easily dump command points into them from a Wight King for extra attacks, which could result into a pretty good turn 1 charge and pin. That playstyle was pretty NPE for your opponent, so I don't really want it back, but I think in general giving extra movement to DEATHRATTLE would be a good general role for Wight Kings. That or extra rend.

[TechnoVampire]

I agree. I’m generally a bit too lazy/ slow painter to field hordes (hence having a lot of grey nighthaunt), but I feel like a few viable deathrattle builds are sorely lacking from SBGL. They have always been a death staple from early fantasy battles, vampire counts and LON, and allow for a very different play style and aesthetic approach to the current lists. There are also plenty of good models to support them (although I’m still praying for new GG), but they need a subfaction and hero’s with decent warscrolls to function properly. Hopefully that’ll be updated whenever we get another battletome.

 

[El Syf]

Blood knights and skegs are getting reboxed as per rumour thread; this I understand usually goes with a new tome?!

might be next year if that’s the case.

[TechnoVampire]

On another note does anyone feel like the majority of vampire hero’s are pretty underwhelming? I feel like having similar combat characteristics to standard foot hero’s in army’s like Gitz is incongruous with basic fantasy lore. I’d happily pay more points for vampire characters that provide some buffs and also have decent combat potential. 5 wounds and minimal/ no healing and underwhelming attack profiles doesn’t feel very vampire-esque. I guess Cado breaks that mould a bit, but doesn’t provide any buffs and also being named restricts his uses. 

[TechnoVampire]

4 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Blood knights and skegs are getting reboxed as per rumour thread; this I understand usually goes with a new tome?!

might be next year if that’s the case.

That would be exciting, but I assumed that the two new death battletome’s announced for next year would be OBR and FEC 😣

[El Syf]

4 minutes ago, TechnoVampire said:

On another note does anyone feel like the majority of vampire hero’s are pretty underwhelming? I feel like having similar combat characteristics to standard foot hero’s in army’s like Gitz is incongruous with basic fantasy lore. I’d happily pay more points for vampire characters that provide some buffs and also have decent combat potential. 5 wounds and minimal/ no healing and underwhelming attack profiles doesn’t feel very vampire-esque. I guess Cado breaks that mould a bit, but doesn’t provide any buffs and also being named restricts his uses. 

Got my hopes up before the current tome that we might get vampiric powers back in a proper sense and they would actually be useful. You are entirely right though, vampires of all stripes used to be much more powerful than an empire general for instance. It might happen next time round…

Edited December 17, 2022 by El Syf

[TechnoVampire]

Just now, El Syf said:

Got my hopes up before the current time that we might get vampiric powers back in a proper sense and they would actually be useful. It might happen next time round…

I have a lot of love for the SBGL book, but I feel there are a lot of improvements that could be made. There are some wins like; sub factions, allegiance ability’s, command traits… but others things like the lore of the vampires for example sadden me 😭

[Leshoyadut]

As much as I would genuinely love a bit of a tune-up on the SB tome, I would actually be a little sad if we got a new tome before OBR and FEC, since they've both gone much longer without a new one than we have.

But, you know, if we do, then a small buff for Deathrattle would be real great. I'm totally fine with them being ultimately subordinate to the vampires the faction is named after, and I'm not looking for them to necessarily be usable entirely on their own (though I know plenty of others would love that), but Black Knights are pretty wimpy compared to their lore and Deathrattle Skeletons could use a little love. Obviously, Wight Kings are in dire need of something, too, beyond just making Grave Guard battleline as a general (though I do love my 30 block of GG).

I think just giving Black Knights more damage, improving the reviving ability of Skeletons (or possibly their save, depends on what direction GW wants to go), and giving the Wight King a real CA would all go a long way toward making Deathrattle a lot more robust of an army choice. Possibly also making the Wight King a little scarier in melee, but the CA is the big one and for a small hero they're actually not terrible in melee.

Black Knights getting damage and speed over Blood Knights having durability and self-healing would make them different enough pretty easily. Skeletons having more durability or self-reviving would make them a more distinct option from Zombies which do more damage and take Vampire Lord CAs better. Maybe have the WK CA be, like, improving rend for a melee weapon (all melee weapons?) on the receiving unit or something; give the option of improving quality of wounds instead of quantity like the VL gives, which would also fill a minor gap in the army's damage profile, imo. I think those would be good directions for the units that would avoid stepping on the roles of other units.

Then, as @TechnoVampire mentioned, improving the Lore of the Vampires would be great. I don't even know where to start with it, the only good spell is Pinions, and everything else is, at the very best of times, extremely niche. Needs a full overhaul. Buffing the Corpse Carts, Palanquin, and Coven Throne would all be great. Making the VLoZD a little more consistent would be sweet. Lauka Vai and the other monsters could use some small tweaks, too. Various little things like that to help the less-used units, though they're generally speaking not terrible, just not quite good enough.

But again, I want OBR and FEC to get their tomes. They are much more in need of it than we are, even if we aren't doing great in the current GHB meta (which will hopefully be changing soon, GW).

Also, this post got way longer than I intended. I guess I had more thoughts on the faction's balance than I thought. 😂

[Gery81]

According to very unreliable rumours we might get a new tome next September. The OBR and flesh-eater tome should be out next spring.

[Sception]

The plausibility of those rumors has risen considerably with the recent new model teaser video that seems to confirm the new seraphon, slaaneshi, & khornate models that the rumors predicted.

If the rumors do pan out we'll be looking at a September release with new necromancer model, new grave guard / skeletal crossbows kit, and an revised battletome including a new warscroll for the new deathrattle unit and, I'd imagine, some or all of the white dwarf update.  I wouldn't expect any meaningful updates or changes to the existing battletome rules beyond that, though of course anything is possible.

As with several others, I'd really like to see bloodline powers for our generic vampire heroes as a unique enhancement sort of deal, perhaps replacing the mount traits for ridden monsters & minor buffs to LoB vampire heroes from the white dwarf update.  Unique bloodline powers could do a lot to give the vampires in this vampire army some oomph, and maybe to differentiate generic vampire lords enough to be worth running more than one of them in the same list.  The other thing I personally would really want to see is the return of Vampire Lords on Barded Nightmares.  They wouldn't even technically need a new model for it, they could just tell you to paint a blood knight unit champ fancier than usual, like you're supposed to do for half the FEC heroes.  It's laughably frustrating that we lost the ability to field cavalry vampire lords just as we were finally getting a fancy set of plastic models for their blood knight retinues.  Sadly, the rumor has us getting a new necromancer model instead, so... *shrug*

 

But even with a bit of support, rumors are still rumors and all of that could come to nothing.  We were the last book release in 1st edition, and the last in 2nd edition.  Rumors aside, it seems unrealistic to expect an update before 4th edition is ready for release.

[Lich King]

They’re better off with a new corpse cart …

[Kaizennus]

I’m not sure where this falls on the “popular opinion spectrum” but I’d love to see our style shift back towards the hero-centric style of Vampire Counts.

There would be several design challenges to overcome in an AoS setting. Mainly somehow designing them a way to avoid being sniped while not making them too powerful. I think bringing back some kind of crumbling mechanic, but made to fit AoS rules, would be both thematic and balancing.

I want my army to be loaded up with 6 strong heroes who are supported by the chaff and maybe augmented with an elite unit or monster.

That being said, I don’t really think we need any dedicated ranges units and kind of hope we don’t get any. I’d also be worried that if they did give us one it would be a one-off unit with no support that wouldn’t really fit in a general list anyway.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 12/30/2022 at 3:41 AM, Kaizennus said:

I’m not sure where this falls on the “popular opinion spectrum” but I’d love to see our style shift back towards the hero-centric style of Vampire Counts.

There would be several design challenges to overcome in an AoS setting. Mainly somehow designing them a way to avoid being sniped while not making them too powerful. I think bringing back some kind of crumbling mechanic, but made to fit AoS rules, would be both thematic and balancing.

I want my army to be loaded up with 6 strong heroes who are supported by the chaff and maybe augmented with an elite unit or monster.

That being said, I don’t really think we need any dedicated ranges units and kind of hope we don’t get any. I’d also be worried that if they did give us one it would be a one-off unit with no support that wouldn’t really fit in a general list anyway.

Off the top of my head, I think the following are all thematic Gravelords archetypes that I would want to see be viable in the next book:

• Mixed arms (actually looks like an army)
• Skeleton/Zombie horde
• Oops! All Bloodknights
• Herohammer (particularly, good vampire heroes)

And maybe the following as more distant considerations:

• Monster mash
• Deathrattle kingdom
• Magic-heavy
• Nagash list

I think this should be possible to do. All the main archetypes (mixed arms, horde, cavalry, hero heavy) already exist in other armies, and I think they can all be made to work for Gravelords without stretching the mechanics too thin. The other archetypes are more nice-to-have, I feel. Yeah, it would be cool if Avengorii was actually viable next book, or if we could do a list that heavily makes use of magic. But I don't think those things are as central to the theme of Gravelords as the other ones.

[Sception]

I mean, is that so different from what we've had with the current book?

• mixed armys - ie looks like a (warhammer) army - yeah, we've seen that, seems to be what the book is built to deliver, and in particular seems to be the default focus of the new Vyrkos bloodline, who have received the lions share of this release's attention from GW in terms of new lore and new model kits..
• skeleton/zombie horde - not so much skeleton horde, but yeah we've seen some zombie horde
• oops! all bloodknights - yeah there's a whole bloodline dedicated to this, and it was one of the most popular ways to run the book when it first released & in the early days of 3e.  Yes, this build wants vamp lords on nightmares back - for aesthetic reasons if nothing else - but otherwise they're quite well supported.
• monster mash - again, there's a whole bloodline dedicated to this, AND we got an entire new small monster hero unit to go with them which helps make this build more viable, plus the white dwarf added mount traits for VLoZD.
• Nagash List - we saw plenty of this right up until the update that rewrote Nagash's warscroll.  Maybe they'll eventually reduces the big guy's points value in a way that makes the new scroll viable, or maybe not.  Maybe the 2k point competitive scene is better off without him, and he belongs in narrative big games.  I personally don't think making Nagash a viable build for tournament matched play should be a significant focus of dev time, but maybe that's just me.

IMO all of these builds are about as well supported as anybody could reasonably ask for.  Popularity of particular builds on the competitive scene has shifted with warscroll updates, points changes, and matched play seasons, but that's to be expected and even desired.  Regardless, I could make lists for any of these out of the current book right now and not feel like my intended army had been ignored by the devs.

 

So that leaves three slightly more contentious builds/themes:
 

Spoiler

1) Magic Heavy.  Honestly, this theme isn't lacking support now.  We have one bloodline that grants re-rolls on vampire spellcasting, another that can give generic vampire heros spellcasting buffs if they choose to specialize in magic over melee power, and a third with an artifact that boosts necromancer casting in an aoe.  We have two different aoe casting bonus support units which stack with each other and with the bloodline bonuses.  We have two entire spell lores.  Most of our fighting and buffing heroes are also wizards, so even builds that avoid focusing on magic will still have /some/ magic.  Our dedicated support wizard is better protected than most others in the game and has a fantastic signature spell AND a great set of lore spells to choose from.  We have multiple multi-casting named characters ranging from the relatively points efficient Volga who can slot into almost any list relatively easily up to Nagash - who has in and of himself been among the most powerful spellcasting armies in the game right up until they gutted his defensive kit without dropping his points to match - though again per 'nagash list' above, I'm both willing to give them time to get around to adjusting those points AND am not overly bothered if they don't.  Even setting Nagash aside for now, that's A LOT of magic support to build a list around.

The issue is, many people, harkening back to oldhammer characterization, feel like vampire counts should be, or at least should be able to build as, one of if not the most powerful spellcasting armies in the game, and, again Nagash aside, the Gravelords aren't really that, not with Lumineth, Seraphon, Tzeentch, & even some Cities builds in the mix.  I might argue that those armies maybe should be stronger in magic than the gravelords (again Nagash aside), so I'm not overly pressed about it, but I do think this is one area where improvements could fairly be asked for.  First, the lore of vampires is just kind of bad, and needs a serious tuneup.  Second, there's no clear necromancy themed subfaction, and from a flavor and narrative perspective there really should be.  Something to carry forward the legacy of the Necrarch bloodline from oldhammer fantasy & the Legion of Sacrament from the previous edition of AoS.  You could do this with an entire new bloodline, or you could re-shuffle the abilities of the existing bloodlines.

For instance, you could take the casting and summonable-support mechanics out of vyrkos and give them the bravery debuff and outflanking themes from LoBlood and LoNight instead, which imo would better fit their 'hunting wolf pack' theme.  Then rework legion of blood as the masters of vampire magic (casting re-roll for vampire wizards, neferata as lormaster of an improved lore of vampires) and deathrattle specialists, and the legion of night as masters of deathmage magic (bonus to necromancer casting and mannfred as lormaster of the deathmage lore) and deadwalker specialists - with new narrative developments to justify the more extreme mechanical shift to LoN that would represent - ie legion of night abandoning skirmishing hit and run tactics as mannfred shifts focus to claiming and holding an empire of his own, and with the Legion of Night picking up a bunch of powerful necromancers by offering sanctuary to surviving remnants of the legion of sacrament.

But whatever.  This is more a thematic issue than a mechanical one, as again there's lots of mechanical support for casting focused soulblight armies.  You can't really accuse the devs of failing to support the build.  IMO OBR armies have much more room to complain here, as thematically /they/ should be the undisputed masters of necromancy and death magic, more so than any flavor of soulblight, yet outside of arkhan & nagash specifically they don't have anything close to the support for magic armies that the gravelords have.

 

2) Deathrattle Kingdoms.  This one is more difficult, because there's an entire other bone themed undead army in the game, there's going to be some toe stepping if the devs try to support deathrattle as effectively a stand alone army in and of itself.  So while there maybe should be a necromancer focused bloodline, there probably shouldn't be an all skeletons all the time subfaction.  That said, even as a side theme in soulblight deathrattle is still currently lacking, and that mostly comes down to the units not being very good outside of grave guard.  The skeleton warriors healing gimmick just doesn't hold up next to the cheaper cost and mortal wound threat of zombie hordes, black knights are finally cheap enough to use them as throw away fast chaff, but the faction already has both dire wolves and dire bats for that role, & imo black knights should be hitting hard enough to be an appreciable threat, ie they should be the mounted grave guard that they look like, not the mounted skeleton warriors the devs keep writing them to be.  Wight kings are just worse, non-casting vampire lords and have been since AoS was released, they need a more unique identity than that.  Grave guard work great - though the shield build still fails to make them tanky enough to be worth giving up the extra damage output of the great weapons.  IMO there's support enough for this theme in terms of number of units, but basically all of them but grave guard need to be significantly reworked.  But if they do eventually get that rework, I still wouldn't want them designed to function as an army entirely of their own, they should still want to take some necromancers, vampires, & 'creatures of the night' like wolves & bats.

 

3) Hero Hammer.  Here's where we get most contentious, because there's been plenty of hero hammery soulblight builds.  It's just that the heroes they build around are named characters (Cado, Radubeast), monsters (vengabus, VLoZD), or both (Vhordrai, Mannfred).  The days of single generic infantry and non-monster cavalry heroes eating entire units by themselves, with your own units existing only as meat shields and delivery buses to get those heroes into melee, were deliberately left behind during the shift from Oldhammer to AoS, and I don't see the devs bringing them back, nor would I want them to.  The closest we might get is something like Nighthaunt do, with multiple small heroes clustered around a bodyguard unit all benefitting from each others auras to voltron together into a pseudo-single unit that becomes particularly frightening as a block.  But individually those heroes are still mostly no more potent than a single vampire lord is currently, apart from named heroes like Kurdoss.  And honestly, while the introduction of a dedicated bodyguard unit plus some more aura bonus heroes could allow that sort of death star hero unit in soulblight, it's honestly a build I'm content leaving to nighthaunts.

Yes, I'd like vampire lords on barded nightmares to return.  Yes, I'd like individual vampire lords to be a bit stronger & a lot more diverse, hopefully via a return of bloodline powers in the form of a new unique enhancement for generic vampire lord heroes.  But no, I do not want to see 'hero hammer' return, not in the form that those asking for it mean.  The game is better without it.

 

All that said, if we do get a new battletome in September/October as rumored, I wouldn't expect any significant changes to it.  It's too soon for us to be getting that much dev attention, especially given the rather packed new release schedule in 2023.  If the rumors come true, then what I'd expect is effectively a reprint of the current book, but with some or all of the white dwarf updates folded in, plus a new warscroll for just the new skeletal crossbow unit if that gets to be a thing, but nothing more than that yet.  Any hopes for more significant changes or additions to the existing SBGL rules will almost certainly have to wait for the next battletome after that, possibly as late as some time in 4th edition.

[Leshoyadut]

6 hours ago, Sception said:

All that said, if we do get a new battletome in September/October as rumored, I wouldn't expect any significant changes to it.  It's too soon for us to be getting that much dev attention, especially given the rather packed new release schedule in 2023.  If the rumors come true, then what I'd expect is effectively a reprint of the current book, but with some or all of the white dwarf updates folded in, plus a new warscroll for just the new skeletal crossbow unit if that gets to be a thing, but nothing more than that yet.  Any hopes for more significant changes or additions to the existing SBGL rules will almost certainly have to wait for the next battletome after that, possibly as late as some time in 4th edition.

I'm in a similar boat to you on this. What I would expect is something along the lines of the most recent DoK battletome if we get one this year. A number of small changes that add up nicely to a more well-rounded army, but no truly significant changes to shift the entire meta of our army up. I would love to see some number of the changes I talked about in my previous post, since those are, I think, generally reasonable in a relatively small shakeup tome like we could expect. Better supporting our weaker units/heroes, but I don't really dislike where we're at overall as I tend to enjoy our playstyles even if I want just a tiny bit more oomph.

[Sception]

i wouldn't even expect small changes, other than scroll for the new unit & the changes from the white dwarf update.  most of the book i'd expect to be a page for page reprint.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

17 hours ago, Sception said:

I mean, is that so different from what we've had with the current book?

It's not! And I think you read my post in a much more critical tone than I intended

I picked out the list archetypes I mentioned not because I think they are missing from the current book, but rather because I think they are popular play styles that exist and should be carried over, or because they fit the army from a lore/theme standpoint (or both).

I think I should go into detail a bit more on my reasons:

Mixed arms: Soulblight has a deep bench and can field and army that actually looks like an army. That is a strength of the book and part of the appeal of the faction.

Undead horde: It's a staple trope, and it reinforces the theme of elite vampires ruling over loads of lesser undead. Currently well supported by the existence of cheap, 20 base unit size zombies.

Oops! All Bloodknights: This list was really made possible by the 2nd edition Kastelai rules and new plastic Blood Knight kits, but you saw people attempting to make it work even in the Legions of Nagash days with Legion of Blood and Soulblight allegiance. The theme could be further improved with a mounted vampire hero or alternatively elite vampire infantry.

Herohammer: I think this list is currently not quite there. At least not to the extent that people want it. Sure, you can run Manfred, Belladamma and a VLoZD in a list. You can possibly even go up to the 6 hero cap. But a lot vampire heroes are more support pieces than dangers in their own right. I think a lot of the lesser vampires (the small Vyrkos dudes, the Crimson Court, the generic Vampite Lord) should probably get an upgraded warscroll and I would not mind a bloodline power unique enhancement for vampire lords, either.

In my other post, I called these playstyles only nice-to-have. Personally, I think they fit the faction, but I would not be disappointed if they are not in the book.

Monster Mash: Avengorii is currently trying to do this, but doesn't really succeed. And anyway, I personally don't think it's part of the Gravelords theme, at least not obviously so. It feels more like it was put into the book because the Terrorgheist and Zombie dragon already exist and don't have a real role. I think this type of list is more at home in Flesh Eater Courts, who do it better.

Deathrattle Kingdom: I think this theme is in a fairly unique position, because it has lore support, model support and is a legacy list that existed in the past (death march). EDIT: Also, the current starter box is literally all Deathrattle. I don't think Deathrattle need their own subfaction (this is the Soulblight book, after all), but I think having a few Deathrattle synergies would go a long way towards having this list be playable. This is my pet list, so I have ~opinions~:

• Deathrattle Skeletons are now able to heal any damage they took in the battleround, rather than just the combat phase.
• Black Knights just get their old charge bonus back (+1 damage and +1 to hit on the charge). This gives them a separate role from both Blood Knights and Direwolves, as a fast SUMMONABLE unit that can reliably clear low-save chaff.
• Grave Guard stay as they are.
• The Wight King on Steed gets the ability to give a 4" movement bonus to DEATHRATTLE, like the old Death March battalion.
• The Wight King on foot gets some kind of good buff for DEATHRATTLE units. +1 to save, +1 to rend, free command points, limited battleshock immunity, whatever. There are a lot of valid choices.
• The Necromancer and Mortis Engine, while not DEATHRATTLE per se, fit the theme well and could be valuable support for SUMMONABLE heavy lists in general. The Necromancer is already OK, the Mortis Engine could probably be made worthwhile by turning it into a hero that shoots out mortal wounds and heals a bit. Think undead Hurricanum in function.

Magic-Heavy: In my opinion, this is currently not a valid play style in SBGL. Simply because, while you can get good cast bonuses, reroll casts and even have a magic-related allegiance ability, there is just nothing worth casting. You can get a lot of casts and unbinds in a list, but they don't provide you with a win condition. There is no clear path to victory with magic for Soulblight. I think this could be changed by making the Lore of Vampires more impactful, since Vampires will be where most of your casts and cast bonuses will be outside of Nagash. Speaking of which:

Nagash: He's OK. You can run him, but currently he's not super fun in Gravelords. It would be cool if there was a real reason to bring him in this faction rather than any of the other Death factions. Maybe an overhauled Lore of Vampires could be that.

9 hours ago, Sception said:

i wouldn't even expect small changes, other than scroll for the new unit & the changes from the white dwarf update.  most of the book i'd expect to be a page for page reprint.

I actually disagree with this, there are three fairly significant changes I expect for sure:

Hero warscroll overhauls: The power level of foot heroes has risen significantly in 3rd edition. Just compare Deintalos and Cado to the older Vampire Lords, or Velmorn to a Wight King. I fully expect most pure combat heores to get upgrades.

Command ability changes: Dedicated command abilities seem to be becoming more rare. Instead, we see heroes that are now able to use the generic command abilities in a special way. I would expect this to be the case in Gravelords as well, specifically with the Rally command, where we will probably be able to use it for free or multiple times per turn on SUMMONABLE units. Some units will probably also get that 4+ rally.

Subfaction changes: Current subfactions generally have just a single extra allegiance ability. I think the subfaction specific artefact lists, command traits and multiple allegiance abilities of the current book will be gone in the next one.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[TechnoVampire]

On 1/3/2023 at 12:37 AM, Sception said:

i wouldn't even expect small changes, other than scroll for the new unit & the changes from the white dwarf update.  most of the book i'd expect to be a page for page reprint.

What would be the point in this if they did it? I imagine very few people who own the current book would buy a new one just to have a new warscroll and the white dwarf updates included... mind you it’s GW so who knows. I hope there’s more included if we are getting a new book this year. I like a lot about the current book, but there’s plenty that could be improved and updated. It would be a waste of everyone’s time of they don’t add or change anything. 

[Sception]

21 minutes ago, TechnoVampire said:

What would be the point in this if they did it?

this is exactly what they did with the second lrl book.  and they specifically asvertised that book as being optional "if you already have the lrl book from not that long ago, you don't need to buy a whole new book already, you can just get the white dwarf with the new warscrolls".  the point is to minimize frustration from players who just bought the book already, but also they couldn't not put out a new book since the old one is now missing units, and that white dwarf that has them isn't going to be in circulation for long.

'why not revise other stuff if you're putting out a new book anyway'?  again, to avoid making players feel like dupes for buying the original book in the first place.  also because new revisions require more dev time and playtest time, not to mention writing, proof reading, & editing.  There's limited time, budget, & worker hours to go around, & I imagine projects like 10th ed 40k, codex: world eaters, the entirely re-imagined cities of sigmar, or honestly any of updates to older 2e AoS factions that weren't already designed for 3e like the current SBGL book already was are all higher priority.

besides, by all gw's competitive metrics, the current sbgl book is doing fine to great.  solid internal variety despite the huge number of units.  overall win rates holding very close and steady within a couple percentage points of that magic 50% target number.  Right now there's literally nothing about the current book that needs changing, excepting only that the book still depends on a white dwarf supplement for stuff like faction objectives & 3e style path to glory rules, and that white dwarf is hard to find now even if new players knew they were supposed to look for it.

That's what a new book would be printed to fix, assuming again the rumors are even accurate.  And its a fix that wouldn't even take any dev time to implement.  why add costs arbitrarily where none are needed?  Why eat into limited dev time when 2023 is already packed to bursting with major all-hands-on-deck releases?

[TechnoVampire]

9 hours ago, Sception said:

this is exactly what they did with the second lrl book.  and they specifically asvertised that book as being optional "if you already have the lrl book from not that long ago, you don't need to buy a whole new book already, you can just get the white dwarf with the new warscrolls".  the point is to minimize frustration from players who just bought the book already, but also they couldn't not put out a new book since the old one is now missing units, and that white dwarf that has them isn't going to be in circulation for long.

'why not revise other stuff if you're putting out a new book anyway'?  again, to avoid making players feel like dupes for buying the original book in the first place.  also because new revisions require more dev time and playtest time, not to mention writing, proof reading, & editing.  There's limited time, budget, & worker hours to go around, & I imagine projects like 10th ed 40k, codex: world eaters, the entirely re-imagined cities of sigmar, or honestly any of updates to older 2e AoS factions that weren't already designed for 3e like the current SBGL book already was are all higher priority.

besides, by all gw's competitive metrics, the current sbgl book is doing fine to great.  solid internal variety despite the huge number of units.  overall win rates holding very close and steady within a couple percentage points of that magic 50% target number.  Right now there's literally nothing about the current book that needs changing, excepting only that the book still depends on a white dwarf supplement for stuff like faction objectives & 3e style path to glory rules, and that white dwarf is hard to find now even if new players knew they were supposed to look for it.

That's what a new book would be printed to fix, assuming again the rumors are even accurate.  And its a fix that wouldn't even take any dev time to implement.  why add costs arbitrarily where none are needed?  Why eat into limited dev time when 2023 is already packed to bursting with major all-hands-on-deck releases?

I think from a GW perspective a lot of what you say makes sense. They’re definitely a company (like the vast majority) driven by profits, metrics and sales, and I wouldn’t be expecting major changes if a new book comes out this year. I’m not convinced there are compelling reasons to reprint a carbon copy book, but I can see it happening. GSG, BOC and FEC sat on their books for over 3 years and some of them didn’t even have sub-factions. It seems unlikely that GW would want to print the same book a year later just to include a white dwarf update, even from a sales point of view, although if they did it for LRL, then it’s definitely not out-with the reals of possibility. I think the current book has many aspects that could be changed or improved, but I understand I’m looking at it from a players perspective and not a company who are ultimately driven by profits. Despite the rumours I’m not convinced that there will be a book this year, but If it’s a going to be a copy of the current one I’d prefer they just waited and utilised the resources for more interesting releases.

[Sception]

To be clear, my last post was very specifically trying to see things from GW's perspective.  From my personal perspective as a player there are a *bunch* of things that want or even need changing, I just don't think they're issues that show up in the places the dev team is watching.  Like, yeah, I agree that the current generic vampire lord falls well short of what their lore implies they should be, even in AoS where the strength of a vampire lord relative to their divinely empowered rivals and peers in other factions is less than it was in WHFB.  BUT people still regularly field vampire lords even in highly competitive games, mostly as support pieces or to activate auras in certain bloodlines.  We've been told what factors GW looks at to determine what aspects of the game need changing - does the faction show up in competitive settings, what is the overall faction win rate in competitive settings, does a particular unit or option see too little use in competitive lists (or too much in the case of generic options), and does the presence or absence of a particular unit or option affect the win rate of lists that have the option vs. ones that don't too greatly.  None of those factors would inform GW that the vampire lord - or honestly pretty much any other SBGL unit - is problem in need of fixing.

We do get more in depth examinations of questions like 'does this units rules and use on the table reflect its lore and narrative' when books get in depth re-examinations and updates, but not every battletome release /is/ an in depth re-examination or update, and given how recent the previous soulblight book was, how GW's metawatch metrics are signalling that the current book is fine as it is, and how packed the 2023 calendar is with other major projects that clearly require far more attention... look, there's room for significant changes to the SBGL book, and I'll be happy if we see some, but actually expecting any at this point strikes me as setting ourselves up for disappointment.

TBH, I still find the idea that we're even on the schedule for this year to be pretty iffy.  Even seemingly reliably rumors in the past have fallen through, and GW's had a lot of problems with serious delays in recent years.  Heck, such delays have heavily impacted soulblight already what with whatever cosmic disaster befell the Cursed City release.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Sception

[TechnoVampire]

8 hours ago, Sception said:

To be clear, my last post was very specifically trying to see things from GW's perspective.  From my personal perspective as a player there are a *bunch* of things that want or even need changing, I just don't think they're issues that show up in the places the dev team is watching.  Like, yeah, I agree that the current generic vampire lord falls well short of what their lore implies they should be, even in AoS where the strength of a vampire lord relative to their divinely empowered rivals and peers in other factions is less than it was in WHFB.  BUT people still regularly field vampire lords even in highly competitive games, mostly as support pieces or to activate auras in certain bloodlines.  We've been told what factors GW looks at to determine what aspects of the game need changing - does the faction show up in competitive settings, what is the overall faction win rate in competitive settings, does a particular unit or option see too little use in competitive lists (or too much in the case of generic options), and does the presence or absence of a particular unit or option affect the win rate of lists that have the option vs. ones that don't too greatly.  None of those factors would inform GW that the vampire lord - or honestly pretty much any other SBGL unit - is problem in need of fixing.

We do get more in depth examinations of questions like 'does this units rules and use on the table reflect its lore and narrative' when books get in depth re-examinations and updates, but not every battletome release /is/ an in depth re-examination or update, and given how recent the previous soulblight book was, how GW's metawatch metrics are signalling that the current book is fine as it is, and how packed the 2023 calendar is with other major projects that clearly require far more attention... look, there's room for significant changes to the SBGL book, and I'll be happy if we see some, but actually expecting any at this point strikes me as setting ourselves up for disappointment.

TBH, I still find the idea that we're even on the schedule for this year to be pretty iffy.  Even seemingly reliably rumors in the past have fallen through, and GW's had a lot of problems with serious delays in recent years.  Heck, such delays have heavily impacted soulblight already what with whatever cosmic disaster befell the Cursed City release.

I completely agree. I understood that’s what you meant in your previous post, and when trying to predict what we might see in a future tomb, GW’s perspective is the only one that matters.  I feel like they are maybe moving in the right direction by at least using metrics like win rate and competitive play as markers of what needs changing, as opposed to whatever random methods they used before (potential profit  predictions?). Maybe in the future we will even see them start to take community feedback on board.

I’m also totally with you on vampire lords, they don’t align with their supposed power or lore at all, and I feel that’s an area SBGL are lacking in more generally.