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SBGL Battletome Update in December WD


Sception

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On 12/13/2021 at 8:12 AM, Doko said:

In general a sligth more reliably dragon breath and thats all,the rest is useless.

A niche use with radukar(i havent him so i wont use it never)

A sligth buff tolegion of blood that wont do close to vyrkos\kastelai\nigth 

Battallions and tye rest useless.

So as i said other update useless as city of sigmar was,but this is better because we got a lesser upgrade to the dragon

Quite a lot of this stuff is useful, your discounting too quickly. Plus it's free. 

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45 minutes ago, Envyus said:

Quite a lot of this stuff is useful, your discounting too quickly. Plus it's free. 

Yeah, I agree. The coordination attack is a good boon/quality of life thing and if even one of the battle tactics is useful in any given game that eases the pressure quite a bit.

I also think Legion of Blood has now closed the gap a little. Their VLoZD is now a bit fightier with a Martial lord on top, and their magic/magic defense is a bit better with one or two small casters. They can compete with Vyrkos on casting now. Their niche is in their artefacts, which are better than what you get in Vyrkos. I think if you want to play a defensive SUMMONABLE based army, they are now the best pick.

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This white dwarf review pans through the SBGL update in full, including open play and path to glory rules:

The most notable thing about path to glory is that summonable units aren't recorded on your order of battle, instead you just pick them each battle up to a limit based on the heroes you field in that game.

Up side: you don't have to worry about casualties, order of battle reinforcement limits, or glory costs for adding new summonable units.

down side: no veteran abilities for these units, and the limit per character is surprisingly strict: you can only take 3 summonable units per mortarch, 2 per non-mortarch vampire hero, and 1 per other SBGL hero.

There are summonable heavy builds that would really struggle with that.  Hilariously, as written Nagash himself would only be able to muster the necromantic energy to raise a paltry one (1) summonable unit beyond those provided by other heroes & territories.

There is a territory that adds to the summonable limit, but only one unit, or 3 with upgrade.  It's pretty rare to roll, and you cant choose it as a starting territory.

Unless I missed something there's no adjustment to the total unit pool limits to account for the fact that half your army in any given game won't be coming from your order of battle.  There's also no extra allowance for wizards, so you'll still likely have to burn multiple starting territories on the arcane terrain.

Overall a bit clunky, but still looks interesting & I'm excited to play around with it.  The unique terrain, Cursed City especially seem pretty cool.

Edited by Sception
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/15/2021 at 10:31 AM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Yeah, I agree. The coordination attack is a good boon/quality of life thing and if even one of the battle tactics is useful in any given game that eases the pressure quite a bit.

I also think Legion of Blood has now closed the gap a little. Their VLoZD is now a bit fightier with a Martial lord on top, and their magic/magic defense is a bit better with one or two small casters. They can compete with Vyrkos on casting now. Their niche is in their artefacts, which are better than what you get in Vyrkos. I think if you want to play a defensive SUMMONABLE based army, they are now the best pick.

I'm not sure the artefacts are better personally. Obviously the +1 flat save is great, but other than that it seems a bit lackluster to me. 

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1 hour ago, Btimmy said:

I'm not sure the artefacts are better personally. Obviously the +1 flat save is great, but other than that it seems a bit lackluster to me. 

In my mind the Soulbound Garments and Oubliette Arcana are good. The Oubliette is a free second attempt to unbind a spell per hero phase. The 5+ chance may look low, but against casters with high bonuses it's actually frequently going to be better odds than trying to beat their roll on 2d6. Teclis auto-casting on a 12? You still get a 1/3 chance to unbind. Between those two artefacts and the arcane tome you have a good amount of choices.

In Vyrkos I find the selection a lot weaker. Only the Sangsyron stands out, and that only really on the VLoZD. And now that Legion of Blood gets +1 attack for free on those guys, the competition has become a lot stiffer in that regard, too.

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55 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

In my mind the Soulbound Garments and Oubliette Arcana are good. The Oubliette is a free second attempt to unbind a spell per hero phase. The 5+ chance may look low, but against casters with high bonuses it's actually frequently going to be better odds than trying to beat their roll on 2d6. Teclis auto-casting on a 12? You still get a 1/3 chance to unbind. Between those two artefacts and the arcane tome you have a good amount of choices.

In Vyrkos I find the selection a lot weaker. Only the Sangsyron stands out, and that only really on the VLoZD. And now that Legion of Blood gets +1 attack for free on those guys, the competition has become a lot stiffer in that regard, too.

The arcana would be good if it was a decent range, but unless you are putting it on a hero that wants to run towards them I am finding it hard to see how useful it really is personally. 

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4 hours ago, Btimmy said:

The arcana would be good if it was a decent range, but unless you are putting it on a hero that wants to run towards them I am finding it hard to see how useful it really is personally. 

Ya, I've put it on a mounted Wight King and had some success. Ring of Dominion is alright so I usually alternate between the two, no favorite yet. If RoD went off on a 4+ instead of a 5+, I think it would be a lot better.

 

Question that I'm not sure I've seen answered here. In the new AoS app, the most recent update makes it so the LoB battle trait is a choice for the entire army, not individual lords. I.e. according to AoS app, all VL and VLoZD share the same martial or arcane trait choice, and you can't for example make the VLoZD martial and a VL arcane. 

My reading of the rule seems it's a per unit choice and not army wide, and also happens to be how the Battlescribe repo guys interpreted it. Thoughts on the correct intent of the rule? 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I read this as being a per-vampire choice, rather than per army. If not, no one will ever pick martial!

A question came up in a game recently - can you pick Unstoppable Armies for your battle tactic if you have no units to return? Endless Legions doesn't seem to require you to have a unit to return in order to roll the dice, just that normally there would be no reason to bother.

As an extension to the question above, can you roll Endless Legions if you have been tabled? Again, nothing to say you have to have a hero alive to use it or anything...

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/16/2021 at 3:03 AM, Sception said:

The most notable thing about path to glory is that summonable units aren't recorded on your order of battle, instead you just pick them each battle up to a limit based on the heroes you field in that game.

Up side: you don't have to worry about casualties, order of battle reinforcement limits, or glory costs for adding new summonable units.

down side: no veteran abilities for these units, and the limit per character is surprisingly strict: you can only take 3 summonable units per mortarch, 2 per non-mortarch vampire hero, and 1 per other SBGL hero.

There are summonable heavy builds that would really struggle with that.  Hilariously, as written Nagash himself would only be able to muster the necromantic energy to raise a paltry one (1) summonable unit beyond those provided by other heroes & territories.

There is a territory that adds to the summonable limit, but only one unit, or 3 with upgrade.  It's pretty rare to roll, and you cant choose it as a starting territory.

Unless I missed something there's no adjustment to the total unit pool limits to account for the fact that half your army in any given game won't be coming from your order of battle.  There's also no extra allowance for wizards, so you'll still likely have to burn multiple starting territories on the arcane terrain.

I bought a 600pt army to start a path to glory campaign with just before these rules came out.  As my army contained 3 summonable units I couldn't field it as I only had a single vampire as leader and I didn't have 600pt to start the campaign with. My plans went down the drain so to speak.

Since you can only have 1 wizard to start with (I was planning on the small settlement as starting territory) and only 2 units to choose from that aren't summonable I am at a loss what to take in the 600pts to start a PtG campaign.

Do you have any suggestions ?  I want to revisit the gravelords when I finish painting up a Blades of Khorne army.

 

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Path to glory is a pretty loose, informal system to begin with.  I'd start by asking the group if they would be willing to houserule an alternative for summonable units.

Namely, they cannot gain renown and they never suffer casualties, just like now.  Unlike now, there's no limit on how many units can field in a game, but they still must be paid for & added to your order of battle, including paying for reinforcements, and count towards all order of battle limits like any other unit.

Then just ditch the gravelands territory - if you roll it just choose a roll of 21 to 42 instead.

This still gets accross the idea that summonable units are cheap & easily replaced, but don't grow in skill.  And it does so without messing with list building with arbitrary new limits, messong with order of battle limits by having half your army not count towards them, and messing with the sense of accomplishment that comes from finally adding a freshly painted unit to your order of battle, which is the entire point of slow grow style campaigns like this.

If your campaign group agrees to this, then you can resurrect your initial list & build plans.

...

If your group isn't ok with homebrew, then the answer, as is so often the case in the current Soulblight rules, is Blood Knights.  if you don't have any already, I'd strongly advise picking up a box.  Blood Knights are strong, effective, add to your oob like a normal unit, don't take summonable slots, and fill up a lot of points.

Here's my suggested 600 point starter oob for path to glory if using the white dwarf rules, regardless of dynasty:

* Arcane Waypoint starting territory: most of our heroes are casters.  You need to start w/ this & invest in upgrading it early.  this is an easy swap from your initial list if using the white dwarf rules since, with summonables not counting towards your oob, the reinforcement limit is basically moot.

* Vengorian.  Fast, killy, monstrous, a vampire, a caster, amazing debuff aura, a prime artefact platform, cheap enough to take in smaller games but tough enough to stand a chance of surviving in bigger ones.  There is no better PtG warlord option, it's not even close.  a plain vampire can in theory later be upgraded to a dragon rider, but in the mean time it's super fragile to be running as your warlord.  If you can, start w/ the venga, & add the infantry support hero vamp after upgrading your waypoint.

* 5 blood knights.  Tough, fast, killy, fill points, hurt things, look great.  a signature unit for the faction.  You won't regret picking them up.

* Necromancer.  Solid utility casting, nice model.  Might as well start with him as he's easy on the wallet and exactly fits your remaining points.

* core enhancements depending on taste & bloodline.

In games, bench either the necro or the venga  depending on points limit, and fill points / battleline slots with summonables as best you can - if necessary remember that reinforcements do not count against summonable unit limit.

Here's a few sample army lists using the above order of battle

500 point list:

* Necromancer (venga's too pricey)

* 5 blood knights (to kill stuff)

* 20 skeletons (to camp w/ necro)

600 point list:

* Venga (fits now, kills stuff, supports blood knights)

* 5 blood knights (kill stuff)

* 20 zombies (camp an objective)

750 point list:

* Same as 600 points, but add either the necro, 10 dire wolves, 20 more zombies, or 6 fell bats (in a single unit due to summonable cap) depending on which you think will be most helpful.

Making the best use of the white dwarf rules as written will mean painting a bunch of summonable units entirely separate from your oob, units you can swap around like a sideboard.  Which, again, feels contrary to the entire point of PtG, but that's just how the white dwarf rules work.

....

Expanding out from the awkward start, try to upgrade your arcane waypoint, then building up normally towards any typical SBGL list style, with the exception of summonable horde spam.

If you want to run a summonable horde type of list you can still do it, it just takes set up.  pick up miscelaneous non-summonable heroes & support units (gorslav, corpse cart, etc) & upgrade your arcane waypoint while spamming the 'scout fertile lands' quest, but don't actually add any territories until you luck out and roll gravelands.  Once you upgrade a gravelands, the summonable limit should no longer be a problem.

Edited by Sception
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