AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion

[Bruteforce]

6 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

@Bruteforce my opinion on skellies is quite the same.

in this super elite edition even 30 die too quickly without achieving their role as a tarpit. The fact that they have to take battleshock tests for every model They‘ve lost does not help.

imo they‘d either need a better, defensive profile, more protection from battleshock or a bigger minimum size (15-20) to be good.

Zombies are much better while also being able to deal damage. The skeleton attacks are more of a gimmick that waste time instead of dealing any damage.

 

@warhammernerd skellies look super good imo. It’s frustrating however to remove all 30 off the board after your opponent swings at them. The same goes for Grave Guard.

Too bad GG look like skeletons in their bath robes 😐

[warhammernerd]

6 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

@Bruteforce my opinion on skellies is quite the same.

in this super elite edition even 30 die too quickly without achieving their role as a tarpit. The fact that they have to take battleshock tests for every model They‘ve lost does not help.

imo they‘d either need a better, defensive profile, more protection from battleshock or a bigger minimum size (15-20) to be good.

Zombies are much better while also being able to deal damage. The skeleton attacks are more of a gimmick that waste time instead of dealing any damage.

 

@warhammernerd skellies look super good imo. It’s frustrating however to remove all 30 off the board after your opponent swings at them. The same goes for Grave Guard.

Been thinking much the same. This build means they get no battleshock, and with then vengorian lord baby sitting they also deduct rend. Think it can be super tarpitty and quite hitty.

Running it twice this week, will report back.

—-

Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
    - Army Type: Legion of Night

LEADER

Wight King (115)**
    - General
    - Command Traits: Unbending Will

Mannfred Von Carstein (380)**
    - Spells: Decrepify

Necromancer (125)**
    - Artefacts: Morbheg’s Claw
    - Spells: Invigorating Aura, Overwhelming Dread

Vengorian Lord (280)**
    - Artefacts: Shard of Night
    - Spells: Invigorating Aura, Amethystine Pinions

BATTLELINE

2 x Grave Guard (420)*
    - Wight Blade and Crypt Shield

1 x Deathrattle Skeletons (170)*

1 x Deathrattle Skeletons (170)*

Vargheists (155)***

Vargheists (155)***

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Hunters of the Heartlands

**Command Entourage

***Hunters of the Heartlands

TOTAL POINTS: (1970/2000)

Created with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The App

[Gery81]

When I run 30 skeletons I always run a brazier corpse cart with them. That -1 to wound really helps them staying on the board (and the -1 to casting rolls are nice too).

[Wordy9th]

Yeah this is what I firmly believe.

30 Skeletons are a 'threshhold'.

You add in a Corpse Cart, a Van hels and a legion of Night +1 to save and all of a sudden you might have a unit that can sustain an alpha strike then come back after it. That's actually a game changer. 

Let's take a look at the options:

30 skeletons are 255 points

20 wolves are 270 points

40 zombies are 230 points.

30 Skeletons provides 30 bodies on an objective, vs the Wolves 20 and Zombies 40. It's 30 wounds vs 40 and 40.

In my view, the only way to make Skeletons valuable as a group of 30 is if they come back in strong numbers. Your best case scenario is a 20+ model unit never leaving the centre objective while providing screening to your support heroes and potential big threats.

The worst case scenario is them dying to shooting, but that isn't so bad because people have shot your skeletons, and not say, your GG / Vlozd / whatever.

Their advantages over wolves is: models and space. You can sure as hell fit more 255mm bases in an objective circle than wolfies can with their surfboard ones. You likely don't want wolves to sit holding a centre objective as that isn't really their role, wolves also do zero damage. Zip. Not just their profile but the fact you can't get any reasonable amount in combat due to base size and coherency. If you want an Anvil, not a speedbump, and you can NOT die in one go to an alpha then Skeletons do this job better.

Zombies: they die and do little damage outside of a Necro and VL buffing them. Zombies are a better all round tech piece for sure, and I've had many occasions where their pile in shenanigans have been important in securing the game, but they cannot anvil as much as skeletons can, and take Van Hels worse due to dying in droves after their first attack.

Skeletons role is quite clear, as are zombies and wolves. I think that yes, overall, skeletons lack the same utility as the other two options (though taking them as ten is a great shout too for a simple speedbump) but if you want them for that One Thing, that is to operate as a tar pit which, with enough support, can hold an objective all game, they can do their job with enough support.

Maybe they all die in one go, but that requires the opponent to invest quite heavily in that direction, this allows your damage dealers to do their job and make them pay for their choice. If they live though, if only one model lives, that's that, 50-70% are coming back, the objective stays yours, and they have to sit there all game dealing with it.

I think many people balk at the investment of not just the 255 points for the skeletons, but also the corpse cart and necro. However I want those things anyway, and the synergy is so good that it also provides value to those support pieces even further. 

 

 

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Wordy9th said:

Yeah this is what I firmly believe.

30 Skeletons are a 'threshhold'.

You add in a Corpse Cart, a Van hels and a legion of Night +1 to save and all of a sudden you might have a unit that can sustain an alpha strike then come back after it. That's actually a game changer. 

I agree with this. I'd like to add, though, that I think skeletons have exactly two ways in which they can go in a list. You can take them as a few units of 10 to satisfy battleline as cheaply as possible (in which case, I think 20 zombies are better if you can afford them), or you can take them in a block of 30 with some support to make them perform. You probably don't want more than one block of 30 either: Having one unit that is slow and does no damage but can hold an objective well is good, but having a lot of them probably won't work.

It helps that the Necromancer and Corpse Cart are only minimal taxes. They are both cheap enough and have uses outside supporting the skeleton block. So if things go bad and you lose all your skeletons early, they are not useless. They can still go support all your other units, especially SUMMONABLE units, quite effectively.

[warhammernerd]

Many pearls of wisdom shared, thanks. Yup, seems to make more sense to switch 2 x 20 skelly packs to 1 x 30 backed up with a balefire corpse cart. Hopefully this paired with an 18” battleshock immune Wight King bubble and ignore -1 rend from Vengorian should make it stubborn af. And not that anyone asked, or cares lol… but part of my belligerence about using GG with sword and board is cos I’ve taken forever to source the old metal ones and I love them, of course they aren’t as killy as great weapons.
 

But, I’m gonna try leaning into their survivability I hope…

——

Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
    - Army Type: Legion of Night
    - Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination
    - Triumphs: Inspired

LEADER

Wight King (115)*
    - General
    - Command Traits: Unbending Will

Mannfred Von Carstein (380)*
    - Spells: Decrepify

Necromancer (125)*
    - Artefacts: Morbheg’s Claw
    - Spells: Overwhelming Dread, Invigorating Aura

Vengorian Lord (280)*
    - Artefacts: Shard of Night
    - Spells: Amethystine Pinions, Invigorating Aura

BATTLELINE

2 x Grave Guard (420)**
    - Wight Blade and Crypt Shield

2 x Deathrattle Skeletons (255)**

Vargheists (155)***

Vargheists (155)***

ENDLESS SPELL

The Burning Head (20)

OTHER

Corpse Cart with Balefire Brazier (80)**

CORE BATTALIONS:

*Command Entourage

**Hunters of the Heartlands

***Hunters of the Heartlands

TOTAL POINTS: (1985/2000)

[Juanruni]

Hello, I don't play soulblight since AOS 2.0 and I want to play Kastelai again.  I would like to know what works better now.  Can somebody help me?

[Lich King]

A lot of problems would be solved with Deathrattle Skeletons if they simply changed their 4+ revive ability before Pile In to include “those who were killed this turn” instead of that phase. It would include anyone who got shot off or magically blasted , which would be quite remarkable. 

[Wordy9th]

Be careful what you wish for. If that was the case then maybe your opponent might choose to magically blast or shoot something valuable instead ^_~.

[Doko]

Skeletons are ****** and only black nigths are worse.

Sure you can add 999999 buffs to skeletons and change a bad unit 4\10 to a 7\10 but......why dont spend these same buffs in other unit that be a 7\10 to get them to 10\10? 

Skeletons are bad and wolfs even with new coherency are better and zombies also wins in every aspect.

Skeletons only have one use:be played as proxy of grave guard

[warhammernerd]

On 2/9/2022 at 12:31 AM, Doko said:

Skeletons are ****** and only black nigths are worse.

Sure you can add 999999 buffs to skeletons and change a bad unit 4\10 to a 7\10 but......why dont spend these same buffs in other unit that be a 7\10 to get them to 10\10? 

Skeletons are bad and wolfs even with new coherency are better and zombies also wins in every aspect.

Skeletons only have one use:be played as proxy of grave guard

Ahhh gotta love a tempered thoughtful response. Thanks bebe. 

[Doko]

I could post numbers,but in this section we have seen every number allready.

Worse damage in every situation than other battlelines

Worse tanking im magic,shoting etc all that isnt  melle and even in melle is only sligth better.

So sorry but they arent useless,but in competitive they havent a place because every other battleline is better 

[warhammernerd]

Sure, I hear you. I guess the thing is, and always has been in this forum and the hobby in general, that there are two camps (which GW and some people like to divide into narrative and competitive, though personally I don’t agree with this polemic way of talking / playing the game) -

1) Those that thing things are garbage unless they are ultra efficient and said player will always take X over Y cos they’ve done the numbers / read the forums / given birth to an excel spreadsheet.

2) And there are those of us who have either been in the hobby so long and stuck with a faction through thick and thin for the love of it (and that means trying to see the good in as much as possible, being thematic, obeying the rule of cool, trying to fix things and make interesting lists which utilise less seen choices etc etc)

So with the … shall we say, smooth brainers / net listers / pure competitive players who reject everything which isn’t tuned to heck… you go girl… really. I’m here for you and hype for your need to only play the best of the best of the best. But when your done with chasing whatever that thing is your chasing, and you just wanna I dunno, chill out a bit and maybe play things cos their fun (which might involve letting go of the need to prove anything) I and we are here to give you a hug and cheer on whatever crappy unit choices you want.

From the formerly salty, now wisened, deeply sarcastic and full of love old gamer that I am.

Edited February 11, 2022 by warhammernerd

[warhammernerd]

Kiss kiss

Must stop being a wind up. 

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by warhammernerd

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, warhammernerd said:

Sure, I hear you. I guess the thing is, and always has been in this forum and the hobby in general, that there are two camps (which GW and some people like to divide into narrative and competitive, though personally I don’t agree with this polemic way of talking / playing the game) -

1) Those that thing things are garbage unless they are ultra efficient and said player will always take X over Y cos they’ve done the numbers / read the forums / given birth to an excel spreadsheet.

2) And there are those of us who have either been in the hobby so long and stuck with a faction through thick and thin for the love of it (and that means trying to see the good in as much as possible, being thematic, obeying the rule of cool, trying to fix things and make interesting lists which utilise less seen choices etc etc)

So with the … shall we say, smooth brainers / net listers / pure competitive players who reject everything which isn’t tuned to heck… you go girl… really. I’m here for you and hype for your need to only play the best of the best of the best. But when your done with chasing whatever that thing is your chasing, and you just wanna I dunno, chill out a bit and maybe play things cos their fun (which might involve letting go of the need to prove anything) I and we are here to give you a hug and cheer on whatever crappy unit choices you want.

From the formerly salty, now wisened, deeply sarcastic and full of love old gamer that I am.

In my opinion, even if you are mainly interested competitive play, looking at the raw numbers should only be the first step. When analyzing how good a unit really is in a competitve context, it's much more important to look at how it matches up to common meta threats and whether it can play a role that other units in your army can't play. If a unit has good match ups or a valuable niche, then it can definitely worth taking even if it is inefficient by the numbers.

And that's not even getting into more casual play where janky units that do interesting things definitely have a place. There, the question is not necessarily just "Is this optimal?" but " How strongly am I handicapping myself by doing this?". In my opinion, 255 points for a unit of 30 skeletons which may or may not tarpit something for the whole game is definitely a casually viable gamble.

 

 

[Liquidsteel]

Local meta is also important. You might not be able to attend tournaments, and only play the same people, despite having a "competitive mindset".

If your opponents are running Khorne, Fyreslayers, FEC etc, then 30 Skellies with the Necro/Corpse Cart package probably are a competitive choice.

It's all relative.

[LeonBox]

Quick question regarding Spoor Trackers: whilst this is a great trait for getting surprisingly fast zombies/faster Dire Wolves, it is also very short-ranged (wholly within 9"). I was tempted to put it on a Necro but, given his small base and its limited range, I feel I won't get too much out of it. The other target is a VLoZD, but that might hamstring his being where you need him if he's babysitting zombies/wolves. Who would you put it on and why? 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

5 hours ago, LeonBox said:

Quick question regarding Spoor Trackers: whilst this is a great trait for getting surprisingly fast zombies/faster Dire Wolves, it is also very short-ranged (wholly within 9"). I was tempted to put it on a Necro but, given his small base and its limited range, I feel I won't get too much out of it. The other target is a VLoZD, but that might hamstring his being where you need him if he's babysitting zombies/wolves. Who would you put it on and why? 

I have not used Spoor Trackers myself, but in the combo build that uses it to get a turn 1 charge with 30 Direwolves, it goes on a Vampire Lord. I think the Vampire Lord might also be a good general purpose hero for it, since he can be fast with Amethystine Pinions and you generally want him to stick around a unit of Zombies or Wolves anyway.

[umpac]

On 2/13/2022 at 4:31 AM, LeonBox said:

Quick question regarding Spoor Trackers: whilst this is a great trait for getting surprisingly fast zombies/faster Dire Wolves, it is also very short-ranged (wholly within 9"). I was tempted to put it on a Necro but, given his small base and its limited range, I feel I won't get too much out of it. The other target is a VLoZD, but that might hamstring his being where you need him if he's babysitting zombies/wolves. Who would you put it on and why? 

I tried it a few times with 2x40 zombies in 2.0 and didnt feel like I got much out of it. You basically only have use for it turn 1 and its hard to get 2 units in range without feeling super restricted with your deployments. Might improve early board control slightly but Pack Alpha is too good and I always ended  up regretting not picking it instead. 

I feel like you definitely need to put it on a large base if you really want to run it for the reasons you mention.

[LeonBox]

22 hours ago, umpac said:

I tried it a few times with 2x40 zombies in 2.0 and didnt feel like I got much out of it. You basically only have use for it turn 1 and its hard to get 2 units in range without feeling super restricted with your deployments. Might improve early board control slightly but Pack Alpha is too good and I always ended  up regretting not picking it instead. 

I feel like you definitely need to put it on a large base if you really want to run it for the reasons you mention.

I just played a game with it and I have to agree with it not being really worth it and making your deployment way too tricky. I'll stick with Pack Alpha (Vyrkos is super CP-thirsty) or Hunter's Snare in future. 
 

[Wordy9th]

I came third place overall at the London Open tournament last weekend with a Legion of Night list, thought I’d give you guys a run down!

The top five placements were:

1)     Seraphon

2)     Serpahon

3)     Soulblight (me)

4)     Seraphon!

5)     Legion of the first Prince

Here’s the list:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Lineage: Legion of Night
- Mortal Realm: Ghur
- Grand Strategy: Prized Sorcery
- Triumphs:
Mannfred von Carstein, Mortarch of Night (380)*
- Lore of the Deathmages: Decrepify
Necromancer (125)**
- Artefact: Arcane Tome (Universal Artefact)
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Vampire Lord (140)**
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (435)**
- General
- Deathlance
- Command Trait: Swift Form
- Artefact: Shard of Night
- Mount Trait: Foetid Miasma
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions
30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (255)***
- Reinforced x 2
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)**
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)*
20 x Grave Guard (280)***
- Wight Blades & Crypt Shields
- Reinforced x 1
1 x Corpse Cart with Unholy Lodestone (80)*
3 x Fell Bats (75)*
*Battle Regiment
**Warlord
***Hunters of the Heartlands
Artefact

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 3 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 141
Drops: 7

Overall it was an amazing experience, with 1 loss to the eventual winner of the tournament which was really close (27-29 I believe). 1 draw and 3 wins – including the final game against an all dragon and bastion list! Here’s a very brief run down of the games, if people want an extended review or questions about the matchups feel free to ask.

 

Round 1 vs Karadron Overlords on veins of Ghur. 53-6 VP win.

A very brutal start as I kept most of my forces off the board (this will become a theme vs every army except OBR). He took first turn and failed his battle tactic to kill my block of 30 skeletons. I then double turned him, destroyed his ironclad with the Vlozd, skeletons and Mannfred and took every objective from there. Grave guard charged the Magmadroth and one shot it. Hooray.

Round 2 vs Seraphon Thunder Lizards, Apex Predators. 27-29 loss.

A very close game with an exceptionally good opponent. There’s so much to say about the game but highlights were him summoning 20 saurus guard for free with the engine of the gods, me managing to kill everything except the slaan and 3 big lizards but eventually running out of steam and losing to objectives. A very tough matchup with very tough terrain to work around. Excellent game which felt very winnable.

Round 3 vs Lumineth. Power struggle, 10-10 draw.

 A stressful game that only got to the bottom of turn 2 before we ran out of time and ended up (with some stressful discussion) in a draw. Loremaster took the middle objective and landed the mortal wound rock endless spell in the middle of my skelton blob. Mannfred and GG killed the big mountain dude and a bunch of stuff, the Vlozd took out some hammer units on the right until we had to end it. Probably would have went on for another 2 hours before resolution but end of day fatigue was kicking in for both of us.

Round 4 vs OBR. Tectonic interference. 20-0 differential victory.

A matchup I have played many times and played out as well as it could have for me. Only kept the GG off the board who eventually came on to kill Arkhan who had miscast his first spell. Overran all the objectives, he failed his battletactic to kill the Vlozd and I ran away with the game.

Round 5 vs Stormcast Dragons. 34-27 victory on Feral Foray.

The game of the weekend for me, and one of the reasons I brought LoN to the tournament. He gave me first turn, seeing only my chaff on the board. In response I move up an inch and ended the turn, won priority and gave him the double turn to his horror. He then moved in with everything, toasted 20 zombies, 15 skeletons and another 17 zombies, my corpse cart and 3 bats. I took the turn, bats came back, vlozd and mannfred came on and killed bastion, burned the objectives on the back. Got the double, charged in with everything and killed a bunch of dragons. The 30 skeletons held on the entire game against 4 dragons, proving pivotal to the victory of the game.

 

Overall it was amazing for a first tournament and I didn’t expect to come third overall against some very good players and lists. I Believe LoN was instrumental in helping against some of the lists that the other SBGL players really struggled with, and it has a lot of play in the future. PS: I love my skellies!

[Liquidsteel]

Nicely done! Were the GG with Great Weapons or did you actually run Sword and Board?

I'm taking a similar list to Slaughter this weekend, though running Vyrkos with Bella in place of the Necro and 2 units of Wolves.

No Skellies, though glad to hear they served you well.

I think these types of lists are very interchangeable between Night and Vyrkos, for the most part.

[Wordy9th]

Great weapons, and yeah I believe so. It's a toss up between the better spellcasting and wound aura and versitility of Night. Best of luck on your adventures. I'd have gone but that'd be too many tournaments in a short space of time for me right now! Let us know how it goes.

[Liquidsteel]

Yeah with Vyrkos it's mostly the Spellcasting, coupled with the Command Trait and Artefact. The +1 to Wound is decent but with Mannfred often wasted, or difficult to guarantee being only 9".

Sangsyron gives average of 2 additional lance attacks, which combined with Mannfreds Aura and Bellas Spell, puts the VLoZD at some serious damage potential over the standard loadout, to the point that he one shot a Gargant for me without breaking a sweat (though on average it should survive if at full HP).

Counting as 14 also means he can reliably take an objective just by standing on it.

Being able to hide more of the army is definitely a major perk of Night, though it does mean not getting things like Mystic shield and the Command Trait up, if you come on and fail charges, could be difficult if you don't win the roll off. I would maybe consider Swift and Deadly to get it to a 7" rerollable perhaps.

 

[Sutek]

Well done on the placing.  I've written a similar list I'm planning to try during March and maybe taking to a tournament.  The main difference in my list is I've got a block of six Vargheists instead of the skeletons and bats for even more starting off the board shenanigans.