Soulblight Gravelords Discussion - 3rd edition.

[TechnoVampire]

So I purchased some of the GG proxies I posted above and I’m pretty happy with how they look: 

 

 

[TechnoVampire]

… found a seller on eBay who printed me 2 units of 20 with command group for £60. Im really happy with the detail and how they look, especially for the price. 

Edited May 21, 2023 by TechnoVampire

[Leshoyadut]

Those look really good! I'm definitely gonna see about asking a friend with a 3D printer to make some for me.

[Sception]

FAQ's up on warcom.

Highlights:

• Pack Alpha limited to summonable deadwalkers, as expected (no corpse carts, no zombie ogres)
   
• Neferata's redeploy nerfed to maintain battleplan deployment restrictions (ie, if the battleplan says you can't deploy within some distance of enemy models, then the redeployed units still can't do that)
   
• Neferata's spell nerfed to prevent any modifiers to saves to the target unit, both positive and negative.
   
• Blood Knight Riders of Ruin nerfed to only apply to normal, run, and charge moves - no longer works on retreat or pile in.

[Sennyo]

I get why blood knight lost the pile in, but why take away the wounds on the retreat

[Tizianolol]

Big nerf to blood knights . Basically is d3 mw on charge because its very difficult be able to pass over a unit during move and charge after. Very sad faq. Nerf about nerferata are fine. SbGL LoB got very hight win rate !

[JackStreicher]

Blood Knights are dead now, unless they drop to 190 points.

I really don’t get the nerf: „Oh no, this vampire unit isn’t trash, that’s against our guidelines! NERF IT ASAP“

[ArcLight]

Also clarity that Doomed Minions doesn't apply to mounts.

[Leshoyadut]

Blood Knights losing a d3 MWs a turn stinks, but I don't think it kills them. For 90 points over Grave Guard, they do about as much damage, have more wounds, have better saves, and move over twice as fast. This is a comparison of them vs. GG with and without a Vampire Lord buff. All of this is with AOA, as well.

This also doesn't count ~2 average MWs on the charge from the Blood Knights. ~24 damage to a 4+ is solid, especially considering how independent they are. They don't need babysitting by anything, they can just do this on a charge wherever they are.

So they could probably use a small points reduction, but I think saying they're dead or need at least a 40 point reduction is an exaggeration. They lose about 2 damage a turn from the pile-in change, which is sad, but not backbreaking. And while losing the retreat damage is sad, I have to kind of wonder how often two damage from your Blood Knights retreating is genuinely relevant. I admit I haven't gotten that many games in, but it definitely hasn't come up for me that it actually makes a difference in whether an important unit lives or dies.

I don't think Blood Knights needed a nerf outside of LoB, and it's unfortunate to see them get caught in the crossfire, but I think they'll still be fine.

The rest of the LoB nerfs, while again sad, hardly surprise me. It was doing very well, and probably needed a couple of things toned down. The army still functions the way it should, just not quite as powerfully. Can't have 2+ unrendable saves anymore, but that's probably better for the game.

Also, as a bonus, if you can get Blood Knights both Kastelai buffs, they fully slap.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Leshoyadut

[TechnoVampire]

I think FAQ’s show that the lack of internal balance within the new book is an issue. LOB makes points adjustments almost impossible in some cases (blood knights and VLOZD) because of how much better they function in the sub-faction. Blood knights are objectively too expensive for what they do (compare them to the likes of chaos knights in StD), but being able to spam mortal wounds with them and make them unkillable in LOB was too much. Riders of ruin feels really bad now. It was clearly designed to trigger when used with the “retreat” over other units in the old edition. Now it’s very hard to trigger because of blood knights base size. It feels like the already weaker sub factions will suffer for the sins of LOB. 

Edited May 24, 2023 by TechnoVampire

[Leshoyadut]

I'm not particularly familiar with the StD options, but I think Blood Knights compare pretty well against them. Same damage on and off the charge, basically the same wheel (bravery 10 vs. 7, but that's largely a non-issue), Blood Knights get one more hoof attack, Chaos Knights have a 5++ only against MWs vs. a 6++ against everything, the same weapon ranges (though CKs get the 1/2" of 1/2" thing for their hooves, I guess; 2" range with the lances makes this kinda irrelevant for them).

In the Blood Knights' favor are a better to-hit (3+ instead of 4+), -2 rend baseline instead of -1, d3 impact wounds on a 2+, and The Hunger. In exchange, the Chaos Knights get...a better leader? And you can give one unit of them a neat banner. Looks like you can support CKs with some heroes, though that starts to add more effective cost for the CKs in this equation. 10 more points for the BKs doesn't feel like a bad trade comparatively for something that seems better on its own than the CKs are.

I could very well be missing something, however, and I'm open to being corrected here. Definitely doesn't feel like "objectively" better than BKs, though.

[TechnoVampire]

6 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

I'm not particularly familiar with the StD options, but I think Blood Knights compare pretty well against them. Same damage on and off the charge, basically the same wheel (bravery 10 vs. 7, but that's largely a non-issue), Blood Knights get one more hoof attack, Chaos Knights have a 5++ only against MWs vs. a 6++ against everything, the same weapon ranges (though CKs get the 1/2" of 1/2" thing for their hooves, I guess; 2" range with the lances makes this kinda irrelevant for them).

In the Blood Knights' favor are a better to-hit (3+ instead of 4+), -2 rend baseline instead of -1, d3 impact wounds on a 2+, and The Hunger. In exchange, the Chaos Knights get...a better leader? And you can give one unit of them a neat banner. Looks like you can support CKs with some heroes, though that starts to add more effective cost for the CKs in this equation. 10 more points for the BKs doesn't feel like a bad trade comparatively for something that seems better on its own than the CKs are.

I could very well be missing something, however, and I'm open to being corrected here. Definitely doesn't feel like "objectively" better than BKs, though.

Fair points. I’d add that with the lances they attack in 2 ranks which is pretty big, and with banners and mark of chaos they can be made more mobile, harder hitting or more survivable in any combination. Banners are a finite resource, so that’s probably not fair to include. On reflection “objectively better” is maybe misrepresentative when the warscrolls are read RAW, but within the army, they can be made into a power house unit that point for point I subjectively think are noticeably better than blood knights 😉

Edited May 25, 2023 by TechnoVampire

[TechnoVampire]

… Regardless I do feel blood knights were overpriced before the nerf, and are more-so now. As far as I’m aware their  positive performance has mostly been in LOB as a 10 in combination with Neferata, but outside of that I think they cost too much for what they bring. 

Riders of ruin is a really average ability now and basically reads: deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit with 3 or less wounds after charging. Compared to the old warscroll which cost 200 points with retreat and charge I think they are worse, despite the extra rend and reach, and they weren’t exactly breaking the meta before. 

Edited May 25, 2023 by TechnoVampire

[Leshoyadut]

11 hours ago, TechnoVampire said:

Fair points. I’d add that with the lances they attack in 2 ranks which is pretty big, and with banners and mark of chaos they can be made more mobile, harder hitting or more survivable in any combination. Banners are a finite resource, so that’s probably not fair to include. On reflection “objectively better” is maybe misrepresentative when the warscrolls are read RAW, but within the army, they can be made into a power house unit that point for point I subjectively think are noticeably better than blood knights 😉

BKs also have the 2" lances, as I mentioned in my previous post. The only reach advantage the CKs have is the 1/2"-of-a-unit-within-1/2" thing, which helps their hooves, but those don't do a ton. Can also help in tight spaces, though I also don't usually have trouble fitting lances in for a unit of 5, at least.

The Marks of Chaos seem decent, though not much different than the Kastelai or LoB bonuses, just more versatile. Versatility is a form of power, to be sure, but not as direct of one, I think. But realistically, their 1 worse to-hit on the lances hurts CKs a lot.

(Once again, all profiles have AOA.) CKs with the Khorne mark are still behind BKs when both are on the charge, even when the BKs have no buffs from Kastelai. Even when I drop the BKs to only two models getting hooves in, they're still ahead.

Only after dropping the BKs to four models getting lances and two getting hooves do they fall behind CKs on damage, and even with that only when they have 0 Kastelai buffs.

On a turn when they don't get a charge, the CKs are still outdamaged by the 4-and-2 BKs with no Kastelai buffs.

And again, this doesn't include the impact hits that BKs get automatically (though Mark of Khorne Heroes can do that, too, at the cost of CP in your charge phase; this also gets back to my earlier point about BKs needing less support), or The Hunger which they also always have.

Honestly, after all of this, I'm almost feeling like BKs are the better ones here and may not be overcosted if CKs also aren't (don't know the prevailing opinion on that, though). They do more damage in the large majority of these cases, and always do more damage if they have any Kastelai buffs.

While they can't get the -1 to wound on attacks against them from Nurgle, they can pretty easily heal a few of their wounds over multiple combats; not as good against being alphaed, but still similar durability bonuses. Mark of Slaanesh is the only consistent buff they can just have that BKs can't replicate, and that is a pretty nice one. Both Tzeentch and Undivided seem pretty RNG-heavy to work out for them, and Tzeentch is pretty niche with them having to be targeted by a spell to even have a chance of working.

BKs seem pretty legit to me.

[TechnoVampire]

43 minutes ago, Leshoyadut said:

BKs also have the 2" lances, as I mentioned in my previous post. The only reach advantage the CKs have is the 1/2"-of-a-unit-within-1/2" thing, which helps their hooves, but those don't do a ton. Can also help in tight spaces, though I also don't usually have trouble fitting lances in for a unit of 5, at least.

The Marks of Chaos seem decent, though not much different than the Kastelai or LoB bonuses, just more versatile. Versatility is a form of power, to be sure, but not as direct of one, I think. But realistically, their 1 worse to-hit on the lances hurts CKs a lot.

(Once again, all profiles have AOA.) CKs with the Khorne mark are still behind BKs when both are on the charge, even when the BKs have no buffs from Kastelai. Even when I drop the BKs to only two models getting hooves in, they're still ahead.

Only after dropping the BKs to four models getting lances and two getting hooves do they fall behind CKs on damage, and even with that only when they have 0 Kastelai buffs.

On a turn when they don't get a charge, the CKs are still outdamaged by the 4-and-2 BKs with no Kastelai buffs.

And again, this doesn't include the impact hits that BKs get automatically (though Mark of Khorne Heroes can do that, too, at the cost of CP in your charge phase; this also gets back to my earlier point about BKs needing less support), or The Hunger which they also always have.

Honestly, after all of this, I'm almost feeling like BKs are the better ones here and may not be overcosted if CKs also aren't (don't know the prevailing opinion on that, though). They do more damage in the large majority of these cases, and always do more damage if they have any Kastelai buffs.

While they can't get the -1 to wound on attacks against them from Nurgle, they can pretty easily heal a few of their wounds over multiple combats; not as good against being alphaed, but still similar durability bonuses. Mark of Slaanesh is the only consistent buff they can just have that BKs can't replicate, and that is a pretty nice one. Both Tzeentch and Undivided seem pretty RNG-heavy to work out for them, and Tzeentch is pretty niche with them having to be targeted by a spell to even have a chance of working.

BKs seem pretty legit to me.

Kudos for the thorough numbers break down. I definitely hadn’t gone that far, and based my opinion on overall warscroll; minimum 5” charge, 5+ mortal wound ward, attacking in 2 ranks, versatility of marks vs the hunger and 6+ ward. (You could add StD banners and Kastelai buffs in but they are quite situational) The 4+ to hit on CK’s is a big disadvantage though for sure… you can’t argue with numbers and yours show that the blood knights do more damage on average. I think the CK’s win on versatility, but I’ll probably have to revise my opinion that they are flat out  better. 

[MotherGoose]

I'm in agreement they're overcosted now, the nerf due to tournament LoB spam has made them suffer unnecessarily.

Chaos knights hitting on 4s is bad, but easily getting all of your attacks in outweighs that in my opinion. They can receive way more buffs in their army and also get eye of the gods. Blood knights are extremely limited in buffs now almost everything got subfaction locked and changed to only affecting summonable stuff.

My point being you can't really compare the two warscrolls alone, as Chaos knights can very easily be much more than that, compared to blood knights warscroll which is more 'what you see is what you get'.

Likewise, comparing warscroll vs warscroll damage output vs GG is fairly pointless. GG have some of the easiest access to the best buffs we have, with multiple ways of getting +1 attack, attack in the hero phase and 6s splitting. You can very easily give then +2 attacks (or more) and 6s splitting, blood knights again suffer more in that regard. Just with the 6s splitting the GG outshine the blood knights in pure damage, and also do way more mortals which gets through lucky or high armour saves.

In an army that has so many buffs and auras, the blood knights are left in the dust when you look at pure damage in a battle. GG can also effectively survive by deploying off the board, 'deep strike', can be resurrected and can come back once destroyed, meaning across a battle they're likely to get far more damage in.

I like them, and I think they're 'good' rather than 'bad' or 'great' (with some of the coolest models ever), but they are definitely a little overcosted now they've given a slight buff to attacks but stripped away their best ability and taken away almost every single buff they had in our previous book.

Also, what are these Legion of blood bonuses for blood knights attacks? Hitting on 2s on d3 units from a command trait? Just trying to make sense of the damage tables posted as some of them seem off.

Edited May 30, 2023 by MotherGoose

[Leshoyadut]

10 hours ago, MotherGoose said:

I'm in agreement they're overcosted now, the nerf due to tournament LoB spam has made them suffer unnecessarily.

Chaos knights hitting on 4s is bad, but easily getting all of your attacks in outweighs that in my opinion. They can receive way more buffs in their army and also get eye of the gods. Blood knights are extremely limited in buffs now almost everything got subfaction locked and changed to only affecting summonable stuff.

My point being you can't really compare the two warscrolls alone, as Chaos knights can very easily be much more than that, compared to blood knights warscroll which is more 'what you see is what you get'.

Which is why I was comparing with some buffs for the Chaos Knights, and even dropped attacks from the Blood Knights in some of those calcs. While maybe not perfect, I would say that the Blood Knights still compare plenty well despite those issues.

Though I do agree that buffs can make a huge difference and warscroll vs. warscroll doesn't always make the most sense across factions. Which is why I also pointed out the superior independence of Blood Knights. Plus getting things (heroes and the like) to buff Chaos Knights increases the effective cost of them, so I avoided looking at buffs that would cost points to add. Still a flawed comparison, but it was the one being made, and I tried to disadvantage the BKs in some ways (like lowering model count on) to get a bit closer.

I will also say that being able to fly over small wound models is pretty sweet for BKs and isn't something I saw as an option for CKs.

Overall, though, my main point was that Blood Knights are genuinely comparable in strength to Chaos Knights, which I think is fair to say. Chaos Knights are more buffable, but that increases the overall cost for their strength, whereas the Blood Knights are more powerful baseline and thus more independent on the field.

There are also of course other factors to each army that mean they need to do different things for both. The relative strength and point values of other units increases or reduces the opportunity cost of a unit like BKs or CKs. It also matters what role(s) you need covered in the army based on what other options you have that can fill in. But there are only so many factors we can compare, and the topic of CKs vs. BKs came up (and not for the first time in discussions I've read elsewhere), so I did what I could to compare them on as relatively equal of a footing as I could come up with. As it was, I feel like my CK vs. BK post was overly long already, and I didn't want to make it even longer. 😅

Quote

Likewise, comparing warscroll vs warscroll damage output vs GG is fairly pointless. GG have some of the easiest access to the best buffs we have, with multiple ways of getting +1 attack, attack in the hero phase and 6s splitting. You can very easily give then +2 attacks (or more) and 6s splitting, blood knights again suffer more in that regard. Just with the 6s splitting the GG outshine the blood knights in pure damage, and also do way more mortals which gets through lucky or high armour saves.

In an army that has so many buffs and auras, the blood knights are left in the dust when you look at pure damage in a battle. GG can also effectively survive by deploying off the board, 'deep strike', can be resurrected and can come back once destroyed, meaning across a battle they're likely to get far more damage in.

I like them, and I think they're 'good' rather than 'bad' or 'great' (with some of the coolest models ever), but they are definitely a little overcosted now they've given a slight buff to attacks but stripped away their best ability and taken away almost every single buff they had in our previous book.

How are you getting more than +2 attacks on GG? Manny requires Legion of Night units and Chadukar requires Vyrkos units, so they can't stack on the same target.

But yeah, if you spend 550 or 650 points and pile all of your buffs (one of the +1 attacks buffs also requires a hero to attack first, leaving the GG open to retaliation) onto a single unit of 5+ save GG (which also requires your GG to be wholly within 12" of the buffers), you can massively increase their damage, to be sure. And while the other heroes do things on their own, at least some of those several hundred points have to be counted toward the GG's effective cost if you're deathballing with them that hard, and then the opportunity cost is approaching the cost of Blood Knights that, again, do all of this on their own.

Now, I think they have different roles in the army, but my earlier comment about GG was just comparing hammer vs. hammer in terms of effectiveness. I also noted some other differences that mean they should be costed differently, but that wasn't really my point. Gaining at least one Kastelai buff and adding 2 damage for impact wounds to the Blood Knights puts them not far behind a unit of 10 GG and a VL. First one is 4 lances and 2 horses, second image is all 5 lances and 5 horses.

As you mention, there are other non-damage benefits and drawbacks to each. The BKs are faster, can fly over small enemies, and don't lose 33% of their damage from a 5 wound hero dying; GG can receive other buffs, too, can come out of the grave, and can return models/be re-summoned at half strength. They're not directly comparable in all ways, I just brought it up as a point of comparison in hammer vs. hammer.

I'm not trying to say that they're perfect in every way, I think they should get a little something after losing the pile-in wounds (a small points reduction is probably the right direction), nor am I trying to paint them as overpowered. I think we probably agree on them being good but not great, I just don't see them as especially overcosted for what they're doing in the army, and I believe the heavy kneejerk reactions a couple people had to their nerf was unwarranted.

Quote

Also, what are these Legion of blood bonuses for blood knights attacks? Hitting on 2s on d3 units from a command trait? Just trying to make sense of the damage tables posted as some of them seem off.

I was being a dumb-dumb before and forgot that the LoB vampires buff was only heroes. Just a mistake on my end. Also just noticed that the +1 damage BKs in the calcs in my previous post was actually fully wrong because they had +1 attacks from my mistaken LoB bonuses. These are the correct numbers for charging/not charging with 4 models of lances and two horses.

And this is for all five getting everything in.

Less to make any new or different points and more to correct what I posted above.

All that said, I feel like I'm probably putting more words than I really need to be into this. Not to say that the discussion is wrong to have, but more that I may be coming off as defending them harder than I mean to be. I know I can at times come off as overly invested or especially stubborn about a point, and I don't mean to be if I am seeming that way here. I simply enjoy the analysis and tend to think about these things a lot/worry I'm missing something, so I have a lot of words to say. 😅

[TechnoVampire]

54 minutes ago, Leshoyadut said:

Which is why I was comparing with some buffs for the Chaos Knights, and even dropped attacks from the Blood Knights in some of those calcs. While maybe not perfect, I would say that the Blood Knights still compare plenty well despite those issues.

Though I do agree that buffs can make a huge difference and warscroll vs. warscroll doesn't always make the most sense across factions. Which is why I also pointed out the superior independence of Blood Knights. Plus getting things (heroes and the like) to buff Chaos Knights increases the effective cost of them, so I avoided looking at buffs that would cost points to add. Still a flawed comparison, but it was the one being made, and I tried to disadvantage the BKs in some ways (like lowering model count on) to get a bit closer.

I will also say that being able to fly over small wound models is pretty sweet for BKs and isn't something I saw as an option for CKs.

Overall, though, my main point was that Blood Knights are genuinely comparable in strength to Chaos Knights, which I think is fair to say. Chaos Knights are more buffable, but that increases the overall cost for their strength, whereas the Blood Knights are more powerful baseline and thus more independent on the field.

There are also of course other factors to each army that mean they need to do different things for both. The relative strength and point values of other units increases or reduces the opportunity cost of a unit like BKs or CKs. It also matters what role(s) you need covered in the army based on what other options you have that can fill in. But there are only so many factors we can compare, and the topic of CKs vs. BKs came up (and not for the first time in discussions I've read elsewhere), so I did what I could to compare them on as relatively equal of a footing as I could come up with. As it was, I feel like my CK vs. BK post was overly long already, and I didn't want to make it even longer. 😅

How are you getting more than +2 attacks on GG? Manny requires Legion of Night units and Chadukar requires Vyrkos units, so they can't stack on the same target.

But yeah, if you spend 550 or 650 points and pile all of your buffs (one of the +1 attacks buffs also requires a hero to attack first, leaving the GG open to retaliation) onto a single unit of 5+ save GG (which also requires your GG to be wholly within 12" of the buffers), you can massively increase their damage, to be sure. And while the other heroes do things on their own, at least some of those several hundred points have to be counted toward the GG's effective cost if you're deathballing with them that hard, and then the opportunity cost is approaching the cost of Blood Knights that, again, do all of this on their own.

Now, I think they have different roles in the army, but my earlier comment about GG was just comparing hammer vs. hammer in terms of effectiveness. I also noted some other differences that mean they should be costed differently, but that wasn't really my point. Gaining at least one Kastelai buff and adding 2 damage for impact wounds to the Blood Knights puts them not far behind a unit of 10 GG and a VL. First one is 4 lances and 2 horses, second image is all 5 lances and 5 horses.

As you mention, there are other non-damage benefits and drawbacks to each. The BKs are faster, can fly over small enemies, and don't lose 33% of their damage from a 5 wound hero dying; GG can receive other buffs, too, can come out of the grave, and can return models/be re-summoned at half strength. They're not directly comparable in all ways, I just brought it up as a point of comparison in hammer vs. hammer.

I'm not trying to say that they're perfect in every way, I think they should get a little something after losing the pile-in wounds (a small points reduction is probably the right direction), nor am I trying to paint them as overpowered. I think we probably agree on them being good but not great, I just don't see them as especially overcosted for what they're doing in the army, and I believe the heavy kneejerk reactions a couple people had to their nerf was unwarranted.

I was being a dumb-dumb before and forgot that the LoB vampires buff was only heroes. Just a mistake on my end. Also just noticed that the +1 damage BKs in the calcs in my previous post was actually fully wrong because they had +1 attacks from my mistaken LoB bonuses. These are the correct numbers for charging/not charging with 4 models of lances and two horses.

And this is for all five getting everything in.

Less to make any new or different points and more to correct what I posted above.

All that said, I feel like I'm probably putting more words than I really need to be into this. Not to say that the discussion is wrong to have, but more that I may be coming off as defending them harder than I mean to be. I know I can at times come off as overly invested or especially stubborn about a point, and I don't mean to be if I am seeming that way here. I simply enjoy the analysis and tend to think about these things a lot/worry I'm missing something, so I have a lot of words to say. 😅

Wow… you are thorough 🤣 I agree with a lot of what @MotherGoosesaid generally about blood knights, but also appreciate your thorough input on the topic (I think we’re mostly all in agreement tbf). I didn’t take your tone as stubborn, you presented your data very reasonably and it’s helpful. Similarly I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to claim blood knights are a trash unit now, or anything similar… I mostly just think the are in a bit of a weird place relative to the sub-factions and how they function. I think they seem to work great in LOB, but in order for Kastelai to be a bit more competitive they probably should come down a bit in points, maybe enough to allow another cheap chaff unit if you are playing multiple units of blood knights. I do maintain that the new riders of ruin ability is quite poor. It only affects units with 3 or less wounds and with the movement and base size of blood knights the chances of being able to move over another unit, or doing mortal wounds on a normal move are quite slim. They’ve kept elements of the old rule, but removed the core mechanic, which allowed them to move out of combat, so now it’s not nearly as relevant. 

Edited May 31, 2023 by TechnoVampire

[Honk]

2 hours ago, TechnoVampire said:

I do maintain that the new riders of ruin ability is quite poor.

Yes, I also really liked the idea of Not being Stuck in combat and always charging.

 

On the other handside, they are pretty tanky with a venga lord, AOD and new hunger 

[Leshoyadut]

Just messing around with some quick calcs on the new spell in the upcoming GHB. Looks like with greatweapon Grave Guard, you'll want to change To Hit if you roll a 1, but rend on a 2 against 2+ and 3+ saves, with a 3 against anything with a 4+ or better save.

Regardless of what you roll, though, that's a not-insubstantial buff to their damage that also scales super well with other buffs.

Exploding 6s to hit sees damage for both -2 and -3 rend be better than 2+ to hit against <=4+ saves.

Extra attack from a VL sees rend better at 2+ and 3+ saves, but worse at 4+ or worse saves.

Both together returns the inflection point to 4+/5+ saves again.

Was originally only doing that first calc, but then my brain just took off and wanted to see the rest as well.

As for other units, Blood Knights are slightly different in wanting to look at to wound vs. rend since they already hit a 2+ to attack with AOA.

That said, it kinda doesn't matter which is better against what save because you're never giving them a 3+ to wound or -1/-2 rend. It only matters what you actually roll on the d3 after casting the spell; still nice to know the damage numbers, though.

Fun honorable mentions: Zombies going from a 5+/4+ to 2+/4+ sounds amusing, especially with a corpse cart nearby. Skeletons going to 2+/3+ with their -1 rend if they have more bodies doesn't sound bad at all. Dire Wolves on a 2+/3+ might actually do noticeable damage. Still not good, but not laughable. VLOZD getting a 2+ to hit on the snapping maw sounds nice. Maybe a Vengo Lord getting -3 rend on their sword or something?

Overall, sounds like a great spell for us. Since we have so many wizards so easily, and we have a plethora of units that take good advantage of it, I think it'll be easy to find a place for it in lists.

[J4yzor]

Thank you for the detailed analysis. The spell really looks good. For the casters i guess only ANDTORIAN LOCUS are allowed to use the lore. That are only the vampire lord and Necromancer.

Edited June 12, 2023 by J4yzor

[Leshoyadut]

Brain was tickled by the zombies getting the buff and decided to check. Corpse Cart included for all of them, plus AOA on the zombies without the spell. "Everything" is buffs from CC, WK, VL, and the spell, just for giggles.

Zombie hammer back on the menu? Probably not since the investment to get there is huge, but still.

While I was typing this up, I realized they could get another attack in LoN or Vyrkos.

Since their mortal wounds are on the to wound roll, the bonus to attack from the spell is actually pretty great for them. I think they could be a viable death star target if you wanted to, since they're cheap and have a whole ton of wounds behind them on top of the damage.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

Brain was tickled by the zombies getting the buff and decided to check. Corpse Cart included for all of them, plus AOA on the zombies without the spell. "Everything" is buffs from CC, WK, VL, and the spell, just for giggles.

Zombie hammer back on the menu? Probably not since the investment to get there is huge, but still.

While I was typing this up, I realized they could get another attack in LoN or Vyrkos.

Since their mortal wounds are on the to wound roll, the bonus to attack from the spell is actually pretty great for them. I think they could be a viable death star target if you wanted to, since they're cheap and have a whole ton of wounds behind them on top of the damage.

Thanks for the calcs. I definitely think that using Hoarfrost on our cheap trash is the play rather than using it on Grave Guard or Blood Knights. 2+ to hit Zombies are just super good. It really opens up a completely new role for them, while for Grave Guard getting them on a 2+ or rend -2/-3 doesn't fundamentally do anything that giving them extra attacks from a VLord doesn't.

Skeletons are not a bad target either: Before, they were good at grinding but couldn't really bring the damage. Hoarfrost makes them legitimately pretty threatening. If you run them with a dedicated Necromancer, you can even get them to fight in the hero phase with Vanhel's and Hoarfrost up at the same time because of the extra cast from ANDTORIAN LOCUS.

[Leshoyadut]

Speaking of skeletons, I figure I can give them a round of calcs today. These are all with AOA when appropriate, and only looking at MSUs, but you can pretty easily multiply the numbers to get however many skellies are actually fighting.

-3 rend is better than 2+ to hit until 5+ saves if they have their baseline rend active, or until 6+ saves if they don't. Pretty solid at almost 5 wounds to a 4+ with just a unit of 10.

This is+1 attack from a VL. Vanhel's is basically the same, though negligibly higher since it also gets the extra attack from the champion twice.

As expected, the same result as baseline, just with higher numbers. Over 9 damage to a 4+ is getting preeeeeetty sweet for a VL/Necro + 10 skeletons. Bump the skelly count up a bit and you're doing some very serious damage, comparable to GG with GW for the points.

And finally, exploding 6s from a WK.

Same conclusion once again, not surprising since they don't really have any special things like the GG or zombie MWs. But also doing some solid damage still, even if it's not as much as the VL.12ish damage with 20 of them and a WK is not bad at all.

Also, some calcs with -2 rend because they didn't fit above.

A lot of in-between 2+ to hit/-1 rend and 3+ to hit/-3 rend for better saves. Seems like generally a better option than 2+ to hit if you roll a 2 until the same time -3 rend is worse than 2+ to hit: when they'd have no save without the extra rend.

Pretty consistent pattern across all of these calcs, which feels right. Honestly, almost feels silly to have done all of these because it feels so obvious in retrospect, but the general rule of thumb on buffing them with Hoarfrost is: Improve rend unless the improved number wouldn't actually change their save from what you're already doing. And also that they're a good target for Hoarfrost if you have some other buff on them as well (Vanhel's, VL, WK, whatever), and not a terrible option even if they don't.

[TechnoVampire]

I don’t do number crunching, but the Trueblades (particularly in Kastelai) look like they could be a pretty choice recipient for the new GHB spell?

 

Ps I’m also part of the AOS coach SBGL discord server and it’s very active. I would recommend: https://discord.com/channels/615105941079326721/828937779109953548

Edited June 17, 2023 by TechnoVampire