AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[woolf]

I would think Nagash should counter Lumineth quite well?

[Liquidsteel]

53 minutes ago, woolf said:

I would think Nagash should counter Lumineth quite well?

Not entirely, he does well against non Teclis builds or non Zaitrec, from my experience, but Teclis shuts him down. The guaranteed unbind is very powerful and the spell ignore makes offensive casting a 50/50.

I had the misfortune of playing vs Teclis in Zaitrec, where even the regular units were on base +2...

[woolf]

23 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

Not entirely, he does well against non Teclis builds or non Zaitrec, from my experience, but Teclis shuts him down. The guaranteed unbind is very powerful and the spell ignore makes offensive casting a 50/50.

I had the misfortune of playing vs Teclis in Zaitrec, where even the regular units were on base +2...

rigth the spell bounce aura, forgot about that >.<

[Tizianolol]

Guys what do you think about dire wolves? I have seen many top tier list with them, I dont think they are too good( coherency hurts them a lot) but many people are playing that unit. Im curoous about your thought!

[Kaizennus]

46 minutes ago, Tizianolol said:

Guys what do you think about dire wolves? I have seen many top tier list with them, I dont think they are too good( coherency hurts them a lot) but many people are playing that unit. Im curoous about your thought!

I think all our battleline units are good and serve different roles, so which one to use depends on what you want to do with your list.

Dire Wolves are the most self-sufficient of the three. You just place them on the board and they do their stuff without the need for buffs from heroes or spells. They don't do a whole lot except take up space and die, but they do that pretty well. You get 20 wounds with a 5+ save so they are more durable than a MSU of Zombies or Skeleons, but only have 10 bodies and is the most expensive option. They are also fast and spread wide, so they are good screens.

Skeletons only really shine in larger unit sizes. MSU groups of 10 are basically just a cheap minimum battleline unit, but groups of 20, and especially 30 are quite durable. They shine well with buffs too, particularly Vanhel's so they are a great choice if you're running a necromancer.

Zombies are our best option for bodies on the board. Don't underestimate the advantage 20 bodies can be, especially in 3rd edition. Even just MSU of 20 zombies can slow down a lot of units, and if you take them in groups of 40 or 60 they can lock down almost anything for quite awhile. Like skeletons, they take buffs really well. +1 Attacks can sometimes lead to mortal wounds jackpots and deal a lot of damage. There's also plenty on shenanigans with the 6" pile in that makes them surprisingly mobile and good at catching enemy units. The 6" pile in also makes the a great screen for your counter charge as you can use the pile in to wrap around the enemy unit and open up a space for something like your Grave Guard to charge into on the next turn.

What's also nice is that you can comfortably run all three if you want, and still have a competitive list. I've seen lots of successful lists running something like 30x skeletons, 40 zombies, and 10 Dire Wolves. You can also go all in on just one option too and field like 120 zombies or something like that.

[Boar]

9 hours ago, Tizianolol said:

I dont think they are too good( coherency hurts them a lot) but many people are playing that unit. Im curoous about your thought!

They are very effcient in terms of effective wounds per point, and quite fast. That makes them very annoying obstacle for your opponent to remove.

[Liquidsteel]

Wolves are there as fast moving chaff, and a wounds buffer for Belladamma.

They do basically no damage so don't expect anything from them, assuming you charge a screen with a 5+ save, even on 3s to hit and wound, you probably have 6 bases in combat? 

That equates to around 3-4 damage, on average.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I agree with everyone else, the fact that Direwolves are decently tanky and fairly fast in an army full of slow moving battleline makes them good. They are also still quite cheap in the grand scheme of things.

They play an important role in an army like Gravelords which will often want to grind out a game and win on objectives more than just smashing the opponent to bits. They control space well, can go where they are needed and are not too easy to chew through. And since they are DEADWALKER SUMMONABLE, they can be resurrected through Endless Legions or with Gorslav.

 

[Sutek]

If I'm playing my Vyrkos list I will always have two units of dogs available to me.  One to bubble wrap Belladamma, one for Radukar to summon.  They are not there to kill anything, but their speed comes in handy for objective play.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Some new tech courtesy of Warhammer Weekly:

As you all probably know, the foot Vampire Lord has the following command ability:

Quote

You can use this command ability in the combat
phase. If you do so, pick 1 friendly Soulblight
Gravelords Summonable unit wholly
within 12" of this model. Add 1 to the Attacks
characteristic of that unit’s melee weapons until
your next hero phase. The same unit cannot
benefit from this command ability more than
once per phase

If you are like me, what you might have missed is that the extra attack buff lasts until your next hero phase, but can be used in any combat phase.

So you can ramp up the extra attacks over the course of multiple combat phases:

• Turn 1, your own combat phase: +1
• Turn 1, your opponent's combat phase: +2
• Get double turned, Turn 2, your opponent's combat phase: +3

Combos well with the Vyrkos command trait Pack Alpha, which lets you use a CA for free once per turn with your general.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Wordy9th]

No way. Is this actually legit? XD

I love the Vampire Lord, my issue is just keeping him alive, and if he's the general that's even more on the line if he dies.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Wordy9th

[Liquidsteel]

We've discussed it in the WhatsApp chat a few times. and I'm not sure it 100% works that way, personally.

It says a unit can only "benefit" from it once per phase, which I take to mean actually benefit from the effects of.

Meaning you could theoretically stack it across 2-3 combat phases, however the extras would be wasted as you can only ever "benefit" from +1 attack.

It doesn't say you can only "receive" it once per phase, it says "benefit".

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Wordy9th said:

No way. Is this actually legit? XD

I love the Vampire Lord, my issue is just keeping him alive, and if he's the general that's even more on the line if he dies.

I definitely think there is a strong case that this is how it works right now. But it's almost certainly an unintended interaction that they just didn't catch in the FAQs.

Good news if you want to give it a spin at some point, though: If you make use of the Pack Alpha combo in Vyrkos, you'll have easy access to extra generals. Belladamma is good in pretty much any list, and you can get Kritza for 95 points if you just want an extra general that just won't stay dead.

 

1 hour ago, Liquidsteel said:

We've discussed it in the WhatsApp chat a few times. and I'm not sure it 100% works that way, personally.

It says a unit can only "benefit" from it once per phase, which I take to mean actually benefit from the effects of.

Meaning you could theoretically stack it across 2-3 combat phases, however the extras would be wasted as you can only ever "benefit" from +1 attack.

It doesn't say you can only "receive" it once per phase, it says "benefit".

I see where you are coming from with this, and the wording is vague enough to support it.

But to make the case against your reading, I would point to the fact that all commands used the "benefit" wording to mean "receive" before receiving and issuing commands became a thing in 3rd edition. The whole concept didn't exist in 2nd, and that makes it difficult to argue that we should base our interpretation of a ruel's effects around this precise difference in wording.

Alternatively, you could try to claim that "The same unit cannot benefit from this command ability more than once per phase" leaves enough room for interpretation to make attack bonus stacking still go through by RAW. You could say that, since you issued the command in two separate phases, the unit is not benefitting from it more than once per phase. There are two relevant combat phases in which you issued it, and it benefits once for each of those phases.

In reality, though, the answer is as always: If you want to use this in a tournament, ask your TO to give a ruling. If you want to use this casually, don't. It's almost certainly an exploit, even though it survived two FAQs. Make your life easy and just argue it's probably unintended and don't get caught up in the trap of trying to argue what is or is not RAW.

[Liquidsteel]

Yeah completely fair interpretation, as I said it's been discussed several times, which shows it's not cut and dry. On this one I'm going to err on the side of caution unless a TO allows it.

In general, the word benefit has come up before, also, in a different scenario.

I played against Lumineth a couple weeks ago, and Teclis cast Howling Gale on to Nagash, who had used his Supreme Leader of the Undead command ability in my own turn before.

The spell howling gale states that a "unit cannot use or benefit from commandabilities until your next hero phase."

My opponent claimed this meant that Nagash no longer benefited from his re-roll 1s to hit and save, I wasn't sure, so agreed to play it that way.

The fact is says use or benefit, probably does indicate that "benefit" means actually utilise the effects of, which brings me back to my point regarding the Vamp Lords ability, though can see what you mean regarding AoS 2 and 3 language differences, as maybe if it was written now it would say "issue or receive".

Edited September 10, 2021 by Liquidsteel

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

33 minutes ago, Liquidsteel said:

In general, the word benefit has come up before, also, in a different scenario.

I played against Lumineth a couple weeks ago, and Teclis cast Howling Gale on to Nagash, who had used his Supreme Leader of the Undead command ability in my own turn before.

The spell howling gale states that a "unit cannot use or benefit from commandabilities until your next hero phase."

My opponent claimed this meant that Nagash no longer benefited from his re-roll 1s to hit and save, I wasn't sure, so agreed to play it that way.

I'll say the following not to disagree or argue at all, but to illustrate how the Vampire Lord attack stacking might go through by raw even if you acknowledge that not being able to benefit in the context of Howling Gale will turn off previously used commands:

 

The wording "a unit may not benefit from this command ability more than once per phase" allows for two readings:

1.: A unit may not benefit from more than one instance of this ability in any given phase.

or

2.: A unit may not gain the benefit of this ability more than one time per phase in which it is used.

Accoring to 1 you would not be able to stack extra attacks, but according to 2 you would be fine, since you issue the command only once per phase.

 

Overall, it's a fairly gamey interaction, though, and with the RAW being so unclear I would definitely err on the side of no attacks stacking in casual context.

[Obeisance]

Is there a Soulblight/Death discord?

[Warbossironteef]

Finally finishing up my ZombieDragon. Time to put his Vampire Lord ontop

[Kaizennus]

Yea I feel the vampire lord command ability is, at best, a RAW vs RAI debate. But I’m not sure when you’d even want to abuse it.

in friendly games I don’t think you want to be “that guy” abusing the writing of rules.

In a tournament the TO could possibly overrrule it and if not.. well you’ll also probably end up as “that guy”.

But kind of an interesting interaction on its own I suppose.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Kaizennus
Grammar

[Boar]

19 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

The wording "a unit may not benefit from this command ability more than once per phase" allows for two readings:

1.: A unit may not benefit from more than one instance of this ability in any given phase.

or

2.: A unit may not gain the benefit of this ability more than one time per phase in which it is used.

Accoring to 1 you would not be able to stack extra attacks, but according to 2 you would be fine, since you issue the command only once per phase.

That could also be understood that you can not benefit twice, as in when Vanhel's is used only one pile-in your skellies or whatever would get bonus attack.

[djrodriguez123]

On 9/6/2021 at 11:01 PM, swarmofseals said:

 

 

I've had a ton of success against Lumineth with Soulblight so far, although with the caveat that I've only faced the typical Zaitrec or Syar Teclis + Vanari lists. Usually it's Teclis, 20-40 wardens, 20-40 sentinels and one other hero.

I've won basically all of my games against these types of lists, and most of the games have been very lopsided.

Here are my observations:

• Lumineth's strength is suppressing heroes both through highly targeted mortal wounds and through things like Total Eclipse. The less reliant you are on heroes the better you will be.
• Lumineth's weakness is that they tend to have to castle in order to keep their units buffed effectively, and overall their mobility is limited. Lumineth often struggles with objective play and to some extent with battle tactics. The plans where they have an easier time on objectives they tend to have a harder time on tactics.
• Lumineth can deal very focused and targeted damage well but their overall damage output is very low. This can be exploited by favoring defensively efficient units.

The natural conclusions to draw from these observations is that you should not overly rely on heroes, you should take advantage of opportunities to play the objectives, and you should focus on packing the board with a lot of bodies/wounds. Expensive characters are bad vs. Lumineth, although it's unlikely that they can be avoided completely if you are using an all-comers list as you need at least some heroes for certain battleplans. I've found that Mannfred, the Necromancer, and Radukar are the best heroes. Mannfred doesn't need to get in combat and isn't easy to kill. He will probably die, but at least your opponent will need a turn or two to get the job done. Small Radukar and the Necromancer are both disproportionately difficult to kill due to bodyguard. Big Radukar at least leaves behind some wolves.

Grave Guard are not good against Lumineth due to poor defensive efficiency. Blood Knights are much better, and Zombies are also great. Dire Wolves can be useful, too.

The list that I've tried that dunked on Lumineth the hardest is very simple:

 

Mannfred

Radukar the Beast

6x5 Blood Knights

10 Dire Wolves

2x Battle Regiment

 

They will probably kill Mannfred on turn 1 or 2, but that hardly matters. Just run up and smash. If you get the double turn it's over instantly, if not they may be able to kill some Blood Knights but when they kill a unit or two there are plenty more.

What do you think of 

 

Manfred

VLoZD

6 x 5 Blood knights 

 

battle regiment

hunters

[swarmofseals]

2 hours ago, djrodriguez123 said:

What do you think of 

 

Manfred

VLoZD

6 x 5 Blood knights 

 

battle regiment

hunters

Vs Lumineth specifically? I think it's probably worse than with Radukar and 10 Dire Wolves but 30 Blood Knights is 30 Blood Knights.

If just talking about a general all purpose list I also prefer the Radukar version but VLoZD version is certainly fine. I'd also be tempted to try 5x5 Blood Knights and swap the VLoZD for Vhordrai, plus either 20 zombies and 3 Fell Bats or 2x3 Fell Bats.

I'd also generally go 2x Battle Regiment over 2x Battle Regiment and hunters. I don't think immunity to rampage on 3 units is worth +2 drops. YMMV though.

[djrodriguez123]

1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

Vs Lumineth specifically? I think it's probably worse than with Radukar and 10 Dire Wolves but 30 Blood Knights is 30 Blood Knights.

If just talking about a general all purpose list I also prefer the Radukar version but VLoZD version is certainly fine. I'd also be tempted to try 5x5 Blood Knights and swap the VLoZD for Vhordrai, plus either 20 zombies and 3 Fell Bats or 2x3 Fell Bats.

I'd also generally go 2x Battle Regiment over 2x Battle Regiment and hunters. I don't think immunity to rampage on 3 units is worth +2 drops. YMMV though.

Meant take  all corners in general, was reading your battle report and trying to figure a good healthy medium. Going to Houston Gt end of the month and it seems to be looking sons, ogres, and sce heavy

[vlad3theimpaler]

Has anyone tried running Radukar the Wolf and Korsargi Nightguard since the faq nixed their save after having the wound transferred?  I ran them a couple times prior to that faq and found their ability to tank wounds very useful, but I'm curious if losing their 5+ after bodyguarding hurts them enough to make them feel not worth it anymore.

[Warmill]

On 9/10/2021 at 12:15 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I definitely think there is a strong case that this is how it works right now. But it's almost certainly an unintended interaction that they just didn't catch in the FAQs.

Good news if you want to give it a spin at some point, though: If you make use of the Pack Alpha combo in Vyrkos, you'll have easy access to extra generals. Belladamma is good in pretty much any list, and you can get Kritza for 95 points if you just want an extra general that just won't stay dead.

 

I see where you are coming from with this, and the wording is vague enough to support it.

But to make the case against your reading, I would point to the fact that all commands used the "benefit" wording to mean "receive" before receiving and issuing commands became a thing in 3rd edition. The whole concept didn't exist in 2nd, and that makes it difficult to argue that we should base our interpretation of a ruel's effects around this precise difference in wording.

Alternatively, you could try to claim that "The same unit cannot benefit from this command ability more than once per phase" leaves enough room for interpretation to make attack bonus stacking still go through by RAW. You could say that, since you issued the command in two separate phases, the unit is not benefitting from it more than once per phase. There are two relevant combat phases in which you issued it, and it benefits once for each of those phases.

In reality, though, the answer is as always: If you want to use this in a tournament, ask your TO to give a ruling. If you want to use this casually, don't. It's almost certainly an exploit, even though it survived two FAQs. Make your life easy and just argue it's probably unintended and don't get caught up in the trap of trying to argue what is or is not RAW.

I think it's a real stretch to claim that getting 2 uses out of an ability in one phase is only benefitting from it once. Receive and benefit don't mean the same thing, if it said a unit may only receive the ability once per phase I'd say stack away, but it doesn't. Break it down:

 

A) What is the benefit of the command ability? It gives you +1 attack.

B) If you give a unit +2 attacks from 2 uses of the command ability, it's benefitting from it twice.

C) A unit can only benefit from this ability once per phase.

 

How do you allow A and B without breaking the rule in C? You can't, as the command may have been issued in 2 separate phases but you're still trying to benefit from it twice on the same unit in the same phase.

 

Edit: the real answer is it's supposed to say either use in hero phase, last til next hero phase, or use in combat phase, last til end of that phase and it slipped through the proofreading net like the wighr king CA.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Warmill

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

First off:

10 hours ago, Warmill said:

Edit: the real answer is it's supposed to say either use in hero phase, last til next hero phase, or use in combat phase, last til end of that phase and it slipped through the proofreading net like the wighr king CA.

I completely agree with this. I don't think the interaction was intended, it won't survive the next FAQ and you are "that guy" if you try to force it on an opponent in a casual game.

But I want to lay out the reasoning in favour of the Vampire Lord CA letting you stack attacks once more, because I think it's an interesting example if of why interpreting rules can get pretty difficult sometimes.

You said that it's a stretch to think that getting +2 or more attacks out of the ability is compatible with the wording "a unit may only benefit once". I think that is interesting, because it was (and still is) my intuitive interpretation of the rule, even after taking "may only benefit once" into consideration.

This is because historically, "may only benefit once in this phase" was GW rules language for "you can't stack this ability in this phase".  If I was to try to translate AoS rules into a computer game, I'd probably have translated it like this.

• Cost: Spend a command point.
• Do what: +1 attacks to target unit
• Until when: Next hero phase
• If you already used the ability in this phase, you can't use it on the same unit again.

The last line accounts for the "may only benefit once per phase" clause. In this case, it's interpreted as "you can put this on a unit once per phase". There is evidence that this is what the rules writers wanted, because in the new edition they codified this system into "issuing commands" and "receiving commands". They did not have this kind of mechanical structure in place when the rule was written. So they implemented something similar with the "benefits from". I will defend the point of view that "benefit only once" was just the precursor to "issue/receive", and we should generally interpert it like this.

But other interpretations are of course possible, if you ignore the historical component of how the rules have developed. If you just want to go with what's written on the page, I can see two readings for "may only benefit once per phase":

• If a unit already gets +1 from this ability, you can't use it on the same unit again.

Or this (thanks @Boar) :

• Did the unit already use the extra attack in this phase? If so, it does not get another extra attack.

I think your interpertation has a case for being closer to RAW. But at the same time, Boar's reading seems even more close to RAW. So why perfer your interpretation of that one?

I think it's because we intuitively understand that the +1 attacks buff is supposed to work with Vanhel's. And we also understand that you are not supposed to be able to stack +1 attacks with the CA. And then working backwards, we can find a way to read the rules texts that can be considered RAW and give us the desired result.

The phrasing "a unit may only benefit from this ability once per phase" really is not mechanically clear. "Benefit" could mean "receive the command", "have one instance of the buff" or "make use of the buff". I think all those interpretations are reasonable. And depending on which one you favour, you get different results. "A unit may only receive this command once per phase" will let you stack it. "A unit may only have one instance of this buff per phase" might not (if you read "per phase" as "in any given phase").

In the end, I would advocate to treat this as an instance where the RAW is unclear, and we should rely on RAI. That would probably mean just not letting the ability stack, making this whole post a gigantic waste of time

Edited September 13, 2021 by Neil Arthur Hotep