AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Also, cossposting the points:

EDIT: Crossposting them into the wrong thread, that is.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[ArcLight]

New article with some more Soulblight rules: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/06/battletome-soulblight-gravelords-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-ravenous-spell-slinging-vampires/

I like the new idea for the locus of Shyish.

[MotherGoose]

Love all of it. Can't wait.

[Malakithe]

So The Hunger becomes a modified version of Cado's which is nice. And I do love me some cruise missile Vargskyr which will now heal and my classic boy the good ol VLoZD will have a much better sustain

[Sception]

New hunger presents an interesting tactical dilemma in terms of when you activate hungry units in combat.  Do you activate first to get their attacks in before the opponent has a chance to kill or bracket them but at the cost of wasting hunger since you can't heal wounds you haven't taken yet, or do you activate them later in the hopes of healing whatever damage they do take?  Obviously the choice will depend on whether they're already hurt & what it is they're up against, but I like rules that make you stop to think and maybe not do what would otherwise be the obvious best thing.

[TechnoVampire]

I’m encouraged by the rules previews so far! New hunger and locus rules appear to provide meaningful/ tactical implications. If the warscrolls get similar tweaks we could be onto something good! 🙏 

 

[MotherGoose]

Well.... a lot is very different. Wasnt expecting such massive changes.

I like the changes personally, spells down to 3 each per lore but all really good, legions almost completely changed other than kastelai. Mannfred no longer nopes out of combat but has some nice abilities... most of the rules are on reddit.

Overall I'm liking what I'm seeing, only thing I'm bummed about is vyrkos lost rerolls to cast and Bella is down to 170 which worries me.

Vhordrai is amazing and the mortarchs are up to 14 wounds so I assume vlozd is now 16 but can't see in the pics.

Blood knights lost retreat and charge but now get riders of ruin on the generic movement, gained 2 inch range (yay) and rend 2 on the charge.

Returning half a unit is now just a 4+ roll at end of movement (3+ if its our phase) graves do the same for setting up units but now also +1 to returned models from heroes (which is now a solid 3 instead of d3 and its just for any units within 12 of a hero)

6+ ward without restrictions.

Summonable hero's? All i see is the rat Prince guy but there may be more which is cool.

Edited April 6, 2023 by MotherGoose

[Sception]

Yeah, I was very wrong about not much changing.  They re-wrote like every unit, and all the faction and subfaction rules.  It's going to take a long time to absorb all this.  I think it looks stronger overall, but so much has changed that I really don't feel comfortable calling it one way or the other.

[Sception]

46 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

Blood Knights lost retreat and charge but now get riders of ruin on the generic movement, gained 2 inch range (yay) and rend 2 on the charge

blood knights are rend 2 all the time, damage 2 on the charge

[MotherGoose]

Vampires being cheaper than a Wight king feels wrong. Also I'm yet to see belladammas rules, she's lost rerolls to cast for vyrkos and dropped to 170 so I'm a little worried one of my favourite heroes has become worse.

[MotherGoose]

Just now, Sception said:

blood knights are rend 2 all the time, damage 2 on the charge

Yeah I forgot that, but 230 points and lost retreat and charge... as you say there's such a surprising amount of change its hard to call whether it'll be better or worse. Overall I'd say the subfactions are more powerful and obviously the spells... only time will tell.

[MotherGoose]

Our last book... 'made with 3.0 in mind' doesn't seem so anymore otherwise why have they felt the need to change so much lol

[Sception]

5 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

Vampires being cheaper than a Wight king feels wrong. Also I'm yet to see belladammas rules, she's lost rerolls to cast for vyrkos and dropped to 170 so I'm a little worried one of my favourite heroes has become worse.

wight kings are probably summonable and thus can be raised once after they die, which is probably where the difference is there.

I'm pleased with the massive buff to vampire lords, though it's kind of funny that basically since the start of AoS we've seen old VC players asking for vampire lords to be tougher, stronger, better casters, anything more than support heroes, and this book shows up with a huge buff... to their support ability, making them more of a dedicated support hero than ever before.  😛

[Doko]

Glad for you guys if you find positive things on this book becase im very down after read it.

In general we lost around the 80% of our old habilitys,gone the -ld of units,the extra d3 models in each ld,the +wound and rerolls of vyrkos etc EVERYTHING have been gone and replaced by useless things or nothing.

Zombied doing mortals? Gone and now only when they die doing useless every combat buff and imposible buff his mortals wound output.

Necro doing attack twice? Gone for only a attack in the casting phase

 

What have positive and good this book? I only see the old book with 70% less habilitys and nothing new,no new tricks etc.

I only am somewhat happy with the new spells because they are very good but that it is all

Edited April 6, 2023 by Doko

[MotherGoose]

1 minute ago, Sception said:

wight kings are probably summonable and thus can be raised once after they die, which is probably where the difference is there.

I'm pleased with the massive buff to vampire lords, though it's kind of funny that basically since the start of AoS we've seen old VC players asking for vampire lords to be tougher, stronger, better casters, anything more than support heroes, and this book shows up with a huge buff... to their support ability, making them more of a dedicated support hero than ever before.  😛

Yeah overall I love the changes to our abilities and subfcations (not so much vyrkos losing rerolls) also looks like unique vyrkos can take items and traits? Mistake maybe...

Vampire Lords in Legion of blood could be so cool now 6 attacks damage 2 in melee and +1 to cast out of melee... I'm just confused as to why they stayed 5 wounds when most foot heroes seem to be going up to 6 (a lot of khorne, new bonereapers etc.)

[MotherGoose]

8 minutes ago, Doko said:

Glad for you guys if you find positive things on this book becase im very down after read it.

In general we lost around the 80% of our old habilitys,gone the -ld of units,the extra d3 models in each ld,the +wound and rerolls of vyrkos etc EVERYTHING have been gone and replaced by useless things or nothing.

 

What have positive and good this book? I only see the old book with 70% less habilitys and nothing new,no new tricks etc.

I only am somewhat happy with the new spells because they are very good but that it is all

I get it, there's a hell of a lot that's changed. Some big ones too like Manny no longer teleports and lost his command ability - but i was never a fan of the teleport anyway so I'm not too fussed.

Process the change and then reread all the rules again - there's a hell of a lot of good abilities and warscrolls in there. Some massive changes (zombies) and some nice little changes like how skeletons now rend and ressurect at the start of combat for all dead models rather than just when activating and only for models that died in that combat phase like before for instance. You could have 5 skeletons left out of 30, charge them into combat and you immediately roll 25 dice and each 4+ is one coming back, you outnumber the enemy and you have rend attacks, have a vampire nearby and they all have +1 attack with rend.

Blood knights always rend 2 and 2" range is another nice addition, with the hunger being added to ALL vampire units including vargheists and even fell bats. We can bring a unit back on a 4+ in the movement phase now (enemies too), which can change games. We have summonable heroes, unrestricted 6++ on all units, all heroes now bring back 3 models instead of d3, +1 if near a gravesite. Blood knights in Kastelai can become 4 attacks each damage 3 on the charge with rend 2. Vhordrai's scroll is amazing. Manny and nef both up to 14 wounds, VLOZD likely up to 16 but can't see. Mortarchs are generals in addition for all legions rather than just their own. We have half the spells, traits and items but near enough all of them seem really good compared to 1 good one per legion with an array of garbage. That's just off the top of my head, I'm going to read through it all again shortly.

Black knights still suck.

[Sception]

Just now, Doko said:

What have positive and good this book? I only see the old book with 70% less habilitys and nothing new,no new tricks etc.

Nerfs are everywhere and a lot of the old tricks are gone, but buffs are everywhere too.  A non-exhaustive list:

1) Vampire lord +1 attack to a summonable unit buff is no longer a command ability.  So it doesn't take command points, can't be blocked by roar or morghasts, can stack with other combat phase command abilities, and can be used multiple times in the same combat phase if you have more than one vampire lord and more than one summonable unit in combat to buff.  This is big.

2) zombies nerfed to hell - no mortals on 6s, no 6" pile in... or are they?  they deal mortals on 5+ as they die now, and a nearby corpse cart gives them the mortals on 6s proc, and they're 2 attacks base now.  Zombies on their own are way weaker, but zombies with a corpse cart nearby?  Plus maybe a vampire lord to grant them an extra attack?  Brutal.

3) Vyrkos, now the zombie faction, can heal those zombies more, give them extra movement, and a 5+ ward

4) rend 2 blood knights, a big deal to help with our current lacking rend

5) spell lores generally improved, particularly for vampires.  fewer total, but no duds.

6) Neferata's redeploy gimmick is cool (finally some hint of her subterfuge & espionage specialty) and twilight allure being automatic instead of a command ability is good

7) Legion of Blood just looking kinda good in general - why choose between fighty and casty when you can do both instead?

 

I don't know.  Just, a lot different.  Old tricks won't work, but there are new tricks here.  It could pan out worse than previous book, but overall I'm feeling pretty positive.

[MotherGoose]

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

Nerfs are everywhere and a lot of the old tricks are gone, but buffs are everywhere too.  A non-exhaustive list:

1) Vampire lord +1 attack to a summonable unit buff is no longer a command ability.  So it doesn't take command points, can't be blocked by roar or morghasts, can stack with other combat phase command abilities, and can be used multiple times in the same combat phase if you have more than one vampire lord and more than one summonable unit in combat to buff.  This is big.

2) zombies nerfed to hell - no mortals on 6s, no 6" pile in... or are they?  they deal mortals on 5+ as they die now, and a nearby corpse cart gives them the mortals on 6s proc, and they're 2 attacks base now.  Zombies on their own are way weaker, but zombies with a corpse cart nearby?  Plus maybe a vampire lord to grant them an extra attack?  Brutal.

3) Vyrkos, now the zombie faction, can heal those zombies more, give them extra movement, and a 5+ ward

4) rend 2 blood knights, a big deal to help with our current lacking rend

5) spell lores generally improved, particularly for vampires.  fewer total, but no duds.

6) Neferata's redeploy gimmick is cool (finally some hint of her subterfuge & espionage specialty) and twilight allure being automatic instead of a command ability is good

7) Legion of Blood just looking kinda good in general - why choose between fighty and casty when you can do both instead?

 

I don't know.  Just, a lot different.  Old tricks won't work, but there are new tricks here.  It could pan out worse than previous book, but overall I'm feeling pretty positive.

I loved zombies before, but I think I actually prefer them now - it's viable to use both zombies and skeletons now, and zombies are a great tarpit that no one is going to want to be in combat with zombies now, before they could be nuked by a big bad, now they will **** them up either way - Gordrakk charging into 40 zombies? here have 13 mortals on average just from us dying, oh hi we are back next turn.

[Craze]

Named Vyrkos heroes being able to get Command Traits and Artifacts is also something very interesting.

[ArcLight]

Worth noting the corpse cart buff for zombies is on 6s to Wound and is a mortal in addition rather than instead of normal damage. But they function much better as a tarpit now and will take enemies down with them when they get murdered.

All of the Vyrkos buffs go on Dire Wolves the same as zombies so it's interesting that they can use the heroic action to increase the size of a unit as well as do additional healing. Radukar's bonus 10 wolves is just something any of them can do now too which is nice.

[TechnoVampire]

Has anyone got a link to the leaks please? 

[ArcLight]

4 minutes ago, TechnoVampire said:

Has anyone got a link to the leaks please? 

https://imgur.io/a/vWYncGd?fbclid=IwAR16L0Dva_KMSQ8QQ3mYwNllMkbLmJa4VluCrdEJjDwRzgZmwq1iPClo_as

[TechnoVampire]

3 minutes ago, ArcLight said:

https://imgur.io/a/vWYncGd?fbclid=IwAR16L0Dva_KMSQ8QQ3mYwNllMkbLmJa4VluCrdEJjDwRzgZmwq1iPClo_as

Thank you kindly!

[ArcLight]

Skeletons are also looking pretty solid at staying alive with that 4+ per slain model resurrection being every combat phase + the 3 or 4 in your hero phase with deathly invocation. Then they can actually hit kind of decently if the hero babysitting them is a vampire lord for +1 attack and the rend they should have.

[TechnoVampire]

There’s a lot to digest here! Many changes, some good, but also some quite big losses. I play kastelia blood knights usually with support from VLOZD/ Vhordrai and Mannfred for utility and buffing and a unit of grave guard. I’m trying to see the positives, but my knee-****** reaction is that I’ve lost quite a lot of tech. Mannfred is a huge nerf losing his teleport, his command ability and locking his 1+ attack ability to legion of night. Vhordrai is an improvement, and has some nice ability’s, but it hurts my soul to still see those 4’s to hit, and not a single 2+ to hit or wound for an attack, unlike so many hero monsters now. He’s also lost his spell that gives him +1 to hit and wound for reliability, and lost 1 damage on the Lance vs an extra attack which feels unnecessary. Blood knights extra rend is great, as is 2” reach, but losing retreat and charge is a big deal, and the points increase is significant. Having to take a command trait to deep strike also seems harsh. Pinions gone is very sad for alpha strike, but the other lore of the vampires spells seem ok. I’ve not looked at much else. So many changes to go over it will take time. I’m sure there’s some nice stuff in there but my main list will need a serious rethink. Hope others are feeling happy with the changes! 

Edited April 7, 2023 by TechnoVampire