Soulblight Gravelords Discussion - 3rd edition.

[Sception]

In a faction with over 40 warscrolls you're reaching for...  side game units and the unridden version of a kit that saw tons of play in both the named and un-named ridden form for examples of lackluster units?  Yeah, internal balance for the faction has been pretty solid, I'd say.

Though we'll see what these changes do to it.

[JackStreicher]

8 minutes ago, Sception said:

reaching for...  side game units and the unridden version of a kit

It’s still part of the quite expensive Tome it’s written in right? So claiming internal balance to be good while ignoring units with issues, which are part of the army, is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Let’s just ignore the good warscrolls and balance according to the bad ones, shall we? It’s the same faulty logic but in reverse.

(also point me to the part in the tome that claims that those units are part of a sidegame or inferior)

8 minutes ago, Sception said:

40 warscrolls

Should I feel sorry for GW now?

oh 10 warscrolls are good, GREAT internal balance.

 

Balancing a game only by some overperforming lists kicks the rest of the lists even harder.

The win rates refer to the 1-5 most viable lists, not to the tome as a whole. The win rate means nothing outside of Tournaments.

Edited September 14, 2023 by JackStreicher

[El Syf]

Spirit gale was good but as I said in the rumour thread unless your flinging it around with Nagash I fail to see it doing the sort of damage people are saying. I may just roll poorly for spells but if I roll one 9+ for any spell in an entire game it’s a godsend!

Luckily I only need to make minor changes to my suspect Kastelai list due them putting grave guard up.

[Sception]

Every subfaction sees play.  Every battleline unit sees play.  Hoard infantry sees play (multiple builds!).  Elite Infantry sees play.  Heavy cavalry sees play.  little heroes see play.  Monster heroes see play.  Named heroes see play.  And all of them see good results.  There are almost as many distinct builds of overperforming soulblight armies with wildly different unit selections as there are entire factions in the game's sweet spot range.  The idea that internal balance in this faction is somehow bad is silly.

You judge internal balance on the variety of lists and units played, not on the existance of a handful of exceptions, especially in a faction as deep as this, and especially when those exceptions are leftover box game stuff that many players won't even be able to find.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Sception

[JackStreicher]

Just now, El Syf said:

Spirit gale was good but as I said in the rumour thread unless your flinging it around with Nagash I fail to see it doing the sort of damage people are saying. I may just roll poorly for spells but if I roll one 9+ for any spell in an entire game it’s a godsend!

Luckily I only need to make minor changes to my suspect Kastelai list due them putting grave guard up.

My best game with spiritgale were 3x 9+ dealing ~ 15ish MWs total

[JackStreicher]

2 minutes ago, Sception said:

There are almost as many distinct builds of overperforming soulblight armies with wildly different unit selections as there are entire factions in the game's sweet spot range.  The idea that internal balance in this faction is somehow bad is ludicrous.

If that’s true I‘d like to see the data (and which GHB the Data uses).

[El Syf]

Also raises a question I find amusing but can’t one army be allowed to be good? Especially a death army as GW LITERALLY DESTROYED OUR GOD in the broken realms lore and no other faction has been shat on that hard one n AoS.  If anything f it actually ties into the lore of the vampires being off the leash and striking out hard. But it’s okay because thankfully we’re undead yet seemingly even non undead characters can’t die anymore. Sorry for the rant it just got to me a bit.

Edited September 14, 2023 by El Syf

[Leshoyadut]

I'm trying not to doom too hard about this, but it definitely hurts seeing my list go up 90 points when it wasn't terribly overpowered in my experience. Also since, according to Woehammer's most recent meta update (August 27th), the only overperforming subfactions for us were Legion of Night and Vyrkos. LoB was next at a fat middle 53%; maybe a bit high considering its play rate, but it didn't need a lot of changes.

So I think the nerfs to Manny, Bella and deadwalkers (and deadwalkers-adjacent things, like Gorslav) were good, but the other points increases feel kinda bad since I didn't use any of those and I'm still going up noticeably. And this is on top of the Spirit Gale nerf, which is sad since I just liked that spell a lot in terms of its feel. I do get it probably needed some kind of nerf due to how it could be abused, but that hitting on top of my list costing an extra 90 points feels pretty bad.

Edited September 14, 2023 by Leshoyadut

[El Syf]

Also Vhordrai is now cheaper than a regular Vlozd?! I understand why partially as an ethereal Vlozd with the other legion of blood buffs is quite the headache but very surprised as Vhordrai on a charge still hits harder.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

37 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Also Vhordrai is now cheaper than a regular Vlozd?! I understand why partially as an ethereal Vlozd with the other legion of blood buffs is quite the headache but very surprised as Vhordrai on a charge still hits harder.

I have not looked into the specifics for a bit, but in general for named characters you only get what's on the warscroll. They don't get artefacts or command traits to uplift them and are frequently subfaction locked. Sometimes, that just means they should be cheaper than the generic version, even if their warscroll is stronger in a vacuum. And for generics, you basically always have to point for the best use case if you want to balance for competitive play, so even if the VLoZD is not that good in most subfactions, the fact that it is really scary in Legion of Blood means it needs to be pointed for that role, sadly.

[JackStreicher]

39 minutes ago, El Syf said:

legion of blood buffs is quite the headache

That’s the ONE combo that is too much. VloZD outside of LoB were Meh from the start, however luckily they became even more expensive instead of fixing LoB.

who is balancing this? An intern?

[Leshoyadut]

10 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

And for generics, you basically always have to point for the best use case if you want to balance for competitive play, so even if the VLoZD is not that good in most subfactions, the fact that it is really scary in Legion of Blood means it needs to be pointed for that role, sadly.

Realistically, this is true for all units, and is why I'm not that unhappy about the deadwalker changes. Zombies and dire wolves are exceptionally good in the LoN and Vyrkos lists that have been using lots of them. It stinks for the other subfactions that want to still use them, but I don't mind it too much, since they're still good units.. I just didn't want the other subfactions hit by the changes as much as they are here, since they're all fat middle or lower. LoB could have probably used a small tweak down (high play rate at 53% winrate says they're probably still slightly too strong), but I don't think we needed the full combo of Neferata, VLOZD, skeletons, Wight King and Grave Guard all getting increases on top of the Spirit Gale change.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Leshoyadut

[El Syf]

45 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have not looked into the specifics for a bit, but in general for named characters you only get what's on the warscroll. They don't get artefacts or command traits to uplift them and are frequently subfaction locked. Sometimes, that just means they should be cheaper than the generic version, even if their warscroll is stronger in a vacuum. And for generics, you basically always have to point for the best use case if you want to balance for competitive play, so even if the VLoZD is not that good in most subfactions, the fact that it is really scary in Legion of Blood means it needs to be pointed for that role, sadly.

I only play Kastelai so he gets the buffs from that which I may be putting too much stock in.

[TechnoVampire]

I’m just checking back in here after a while away. Hope everyone’s hobby is going well. The battle scroll increases didn’t surprise me much, but I do think they weren’t well targeted. Everything “good” saw an increase because a variety of lists/ subfactions have been over performing, but from what I can tell, that’s partly due to quite specific reasons (zombies, battle tactics are too easy, the hunger is really strong in certain cases). Despite that I think we’ll still be a strong faction with lots of builds, and hopefully now the meta win rate will be reasonable enough that we can make lists and have them last more than a couple of months. I do find it odd that we’re supposed to be a horde faction and there’s basically no cheap chaff battle line option anymore. Fingers crossed these are the last nerfs we’ll see for a while… I didn’t enjoy being the top peroeming faction. It draws too much attention 😉

[Leshoyadut]

1 hour ago, TechnoVampire said:

I’m just checking back in here after a while away. Hope everyone’s hobby is going well. The battle scroll increases didn’t surprise me much, but I do think they weren’t well targeted. Everything “good” saw an increase because a variety of lists/ subfactions have been over performing, but from what I can tell, that’s partly due to quite specific reasons (zombies, battle tactics are too easy, the hunger is really strong in certain cases). Despite that I think we’ll still be a strong faction with lots of builds, and hopefully now the meta win rate will be reasonable enough that we can make lists and have them last more than a couple of months.

For the subfactions that were over 60% winrate (Vyrkos and LoN), everything will be entirely fine. They'll probably drop, possibly into the fat middle, but they'll definitely still be quite powerful despite losing some units in their lists. The other subfactions will struggle a bit more, especially Kastelai and Avengorii which were already not exactly our top picks and didn't even make the 20 results benchmark for Woehammer's subfactions winrate chart. Given LoB was clearly better than the two of them, and it was already at 52%, they're probably kind of hurting at this point (though LoB is probably still okay).

Quote

I do find it odd that we’re supposed to be a horde faction and there’s basically no cheap chaff battle line option anymore.

I was just thinking about this last night as I've struggled to make lists that I like the last few days. I really enjoyed the unit of Grave Guard + cheap horde chaff + a few heroes, and that's much more difficult to pull off to the degree I'd expect from a horde army like SB. I'd almost rather that Endless Legions or my heroes were a bit weaker so things could be cheaper and I could embrace the fantasy a bit easier.

Endless Legions in particular is a very problematic ability for our army, I think: either it's actually good like it is now and everything has to cost a ton to make up for it, or it's not good enough as it has been in the past and fails to embrace the fantasy of the endlessly returning army of the dead. The higher costs associated with the former means that we just can't bring a lot of bodies like we'd expect to, even though we end up with a lot of bodies by the end of the battle. Seems like an especially hard balance to strike, and I think they overshot its power in this current book, and then certain subfactions can take better advantage of that than others (leading to internal balance problems on top of external balance problems).

There probably is a balanced point for it, though we haven't really seen it happen in combination with the rest of the army also feeling good at the same time.

Edited September 18, 2023 by Leshoyadut

[RocketPropelledGrenade]

20 zombies for 150 is still reasonably cheap. They're not Clanrat cheap, but they're far from an elite-cost unit at that price. I do feel people on the other stuff, though.

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

I was just thinking about this last night as I've struggled to make lists that I like the last few days

+1

as I‘ve mentioned: Fixing the subfactions should have priority over bloating points. Increasing points is the crudest way of „fixing“, it affects the whole faction in disregard of Subfactions.

the point increases I really don’t get is the wolves, bats and the VloZd (again)

[Beliman]

On 9/15/2023 at 1:15 AM, Leshoyadut said:

I'm trying not to doom too hard about this, but it definitely hurts seeing my list go up 90 points when it wasn't terribly overpowered in my experience. Also since, according to Woehammer's most recent meta update (August 27th), the only overperforming subfactions for us were Legion of Night and Vyrkos. LoB was next at a fat middle 53%; maybe a bit high considering its play rate, but it didn't need a lot of changes.

So I think the nerfs to Manny, Bella and deadwalkers (and deadwalkers-adjacent things, like Gorslav) were good, but the other points increases feel kinda bad since I didn't use any of those and I'm still going up noticeably. And this is on top of the Spirit Gale nerf, which is sad since I just liked that spell a lot in terms of its feel. I do get it probably needed some kind of nerf due to how it could be abused, but that hitting on top of my list costing an extra 90 points feels pretty bad.

Where are my Kharadrons? Not even 1 subfaction on this list?

[Leshoyadut]

33 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Where are my Kharadrons? Not even 1 subfaction on this list?

You can find the full article of data (though one that's more up-to-date than the image in my previous post) here. The likely reason there's no Kharadrons in the subfactions list is because Woehammer does a cutoff at 20 results for the subfaction in the given time period; if the subfaction doesn't have that many, then it doesn't make the list at all, regardless of its winrate. They have a 53% winrate as a whole faction, as you can see in the faction winrate chart.

Given they have 75 total results as a whole faction, I imagine there were one or two subfactions that were close but not quite. But since there's 6 subfactions, it's pretty reasonable that none quite hit the mark.

[TechnoVampire]

7 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:

For the subfactions that were over 60% winrate (Vyrkos and LoN), everything will be entirely fine. They'll probably drop, possibly into the fat middle, but they'll definitely still be quite powerful despite losing some units in their lists. The other subfactions will struggle a bit more, especially Kastelai and Avengorii which were already not exactly our top picks and didn't even make the 20 results benchmark for Woehammer's subfactions winrate chart. Given LoB was clearly better than the two of them, and it was already at 52%, they're probably kind of hurting at this point (though LoB is probably still okay).

I agree. I watched the metawatch article and thought that the lead designer (forget his name) was misrepresenting when he claimed that all the sub faction are performing well, in order to justify the widespread points increases. They know that’s not true, but to address the real issues would take too much work/ rewriting rules and warscrolls, which they basically only ever do with the release of a new book. LON and vyrkros will still be strong. LOB feels pretty tight writing lists now, but probably still do well in certain matchups. The other two will continue to struggle. They should have at least reduced the costs of blood knights to help Kastelai. They don’t even see tournament play, and have seen nothing but points increases. I think our book has a lot of well functioning units, but the idea that generally everything over-performs is a myth.  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I am definitely feeling the points squeeze after the battlescroll. Fitting in a VLoZD and Mortis Engine into the same list while also filling battleline effectively is basically not possible. Too bad, seems like I will need to cut the Engine from my fun list.

For the future, I hope that we eventually get rules nerfs and point drops instead. It seems like the combination of unit resurrection, hero regeneration and other healing abilities is just too strong overall. I personally don't know what should be changed, exactly. Maybe the Hunger? I personally like the idea of the army being composed of low-quality troops that are hard to kill as long as heroes are around, but I know a lot of people really want the vampires to feel super tough and powerful, so it's hard to say.

For what it's worth, Legions of Nagash had the same problem that SBGL has now, that being that their resurrection and healing was just too strong for a while (remember Nagash+80 Skeletons or later Grimghast Reapers?). I like unit resurrection as a thing that SBGL can do, but it just seems to have proven to be very hard to properly balance throughout the history of the game.

[Leshoyadut]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

For the future, I hope that we eventually get rules nerfs and point drops instead. It seems like the combination of unit resurrection, hero regeneration and other healing abilities is just too strong overall. I personally don't know what should be changed, exactly. Maybe the Hunger? I personally like the idea of the army being composed of low-quality troops that are hard to kill as long as heroes are around, but I know a lot of people really want the vampires to feel super tough and powerful, so it's hard to say.

I think possibly changing Hunger to be 4 wounds max would still make it really good while significantly reducing the amount they need to alpha the ethereal VLOZD to eventually bring it down. As for Endless Legions, I think it needs to end up as our turn only, and probably be at least more than 6" from enemies for placing the units. If it ends up being not good enough anymore, it could get changed to a 2+ or something to make it a little more consistent; if it's still too good, just push it to more than 9", and then just only on a 4+ if that's not enough. The combination would let a lot of things go down, though.

But I'm not a game designer, by any means. These are my initial ideas, and there may be a better/more elegant solution to the problem. I also don't work at GW, so my thoughts probably mean very little for what's actually going to happen to the army, but it feels nice to speculate a little.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

4 minutes ago, Leshoyadut said:

I think possibly changing Hunger to be 4 wounds max would still make it really good while significantly reducing the amount they need to alpha the ethereal VLOZD to eventually bring it down. As for Endless Legions, I think it needs to end up as our turn only, and probably be at least more than 6" from enemies for placing the units. If it ends up being not good enough anymore, it could get changed to a 2+ or something to make it a little more consistent; if it's still too good, just push it to more than 9", and then just only on a 4+ if that's not enough. The combination would let a lot of things go down, though.

But I'm not a game designer, by any means. These are my initial ideas, and there may be a better/more elegant solution to the problem. I also don't work at GW, so my thoughts probably mean very little for what's actually going to happen to the army, but it feels nice to speculate a little.

I kind of wonder if "you get one half-size unit resurrection per hero in your list, max one per turn and you can only bring back the same unit once" would be a way to do it. Or maybe just VAMPIRE and NECROMANCER heroes. And maybe they have to be on the battlefield to do it? Because then resurrection comes with a tax, and running 6 heroes will probably prevent you from running enough SUMMONABLE to fully take advantage of it. It would make the whole thing more predictable, and maybe that would make it easier to balance overall? I don't know, but it definitely seems like resurrection is a mechanic that GW struggles with and that probably needs a redesign from the ground up in the next tome.

[Leshoyadut]

3 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I kind of wonder if "you get one half-size unit resurrection per hero in your list, max one per turn and you can only bring back the same unit once" would be a way to do it. Or maybe just VAMPIRE and NECROMANCER heroes. And maybe they have to be on the battlefield to do it? Because then resurrection comes with a tax, and running 6 heroes will probably prevent you from running enough SUMMONABLE to fully take advantage of it. It would make the whole thing more predictable, and maybe that would make it easier to balance overall? I don't know, but it definitely seems like resurrection is a mechanic that GW struggles with and that probably needs a redesign from the ground up in the next tome.

I actually really like the one per Vampire or Deathmages hero idea. Ties it to our two types of wizard, both of which should be capable of raising the dead, both keeping it thematic and limiting its max potential. Gets away from the problem of every summonable getting semi+50% wounds (not entirely accurate, but close enough for this discussion) just by virtue of being in the army. Adds a little bookkeeping, but I think it's worth it.

But anyways, here's my very-much-joking list that I just thought of as a goof.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Subfaction: Legion of Blood
- Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination
- Triumphs:

Leaders
Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (410)*
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (480)
- General
- Deathlance
- Command Trait: Doomed Minions
- Artefact: Cloak of Mists and Shadows
- Universal Spell Lore: Flaming Weapon
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (480)
- Deathlance
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference

Battleline
30 x Deathrattle Skeletons (330)*
- Reinforced x 2
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (110)*
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (110)*

Endless Spells & Invocations
Malevolent Maelstrom (50)
Suffocating Gravetide (30)

Core Battalions
*Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 96
Drops: 3
 

And then the actual list that I'm going to be trying against a friend on Tuesday.

Spoiler

Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Subfaction: Legion of Blood
- Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination
- Triumphs:

Leaders
Necromancer (100)*
- Lore of the Deathmages: Waste Away
Neferata, Mortarch of Blood (410)**
- Lore of the Deathmages: Fading Vigour
Vampire Lord (150)*
- Lore of Primal Frost: Merciless Blizzard
Vengorian Lord (300)
- General
- Command Trait: Doomed Minions
- Artefact: Cloak of Mists and Shadows
- Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale

Battleline
20 x Deathrattle Skeletons (220)**
- Reinforced x 1
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (110)**
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (110)**

Units
5 x Blood Knights (230)**
20 x Grave Guard (320)**
- Great Wight Blades
- Reinforced x 1

Endless Spells & Invocations
Malevolent Maelstrom (50)

Core Battalions
*Andtorian Acolytes
**Battle Regiment

Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 109
Drops: 4
 

I know Blood Knights are not in vogue right now for us, but I think they still have legs, and I want to try the Vengorian Lord to see if it would be a reasonable alternative to a VLOZD. It is, of course, not as powerful, but it's also 180 less points, which means more other things. Andtorian Acolytes because I want to try Merciless Blizzard instead of Hoarfrost; I found Hoarfrost was leading to a ton of overkill with the GG, so I think getting some extra primal dice and blasting something other than their target might work better.

If the Blood Knights don't work out, I'm honestly not sure what to replace them with. More Grave Guard? I could fit in another 10, and dropping the Maelstrom would allow another reinforcement on the skeletons on top. Could just upgrade the Vengo to a VLOZD and have another 50 points. But that also ends up in the awkward position of skeletons being 110 (10 more than I'd have by also taking out the Maelstrom), so I guess I just take a second endless spell? Dunno. Things to play with.

Regardless, very much an experimental list to see what might feel okay right now by throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Don't have a particularly cohesive idea for it, but I think things generally work alright in it and nothing really sticks out as not synergizing with the rest. Just sad about not having a VLOZD since it's such an iconic centerpiece for the army that it's weird not seeing it there.

[TechnoVampire]

I feel like part of the issue with our book is how easy our book tactics are to achieve. They pretty much guarantee 2 VP every turn on top of our healing and resurrecting, which makes our attrition game even stronger. Personally I dislike book tactics. They seem to make the game harder to balance and have too much impact on overall performance. The fact that GW uses them as a balancing method, giving out easy to achieve tactics to struggling factions, I think just perpetuates the problem. Conversely I think having points increased on warscrolls to balance overly strong tactics feels backwards and not great. 

Id like to see how we’re doing now with the points changes. I like our rules, but maybe some of them still need tweaked (reduction in hunger possibly, and more conditional resurrection sound feasable). I’m not a fan of running hordes so I would be sad to see the faction focus only on that and I appreciate the current diversity in lists and play-styles available.