Hi, new to AoS, new to Soulblight Gravelords

[Helias Tancred]

Hi.

I've been into 40k for 10 years, but just now getting into AoS. I chose Soulblight Gravelords, because I love the sculpts and I like their lore. Cado Ezechiar is an interesting character whose model I picked up and will run in my army (I enjoyed his novel too). I decided to go the Vyrkos route, great sculpts, lore, and an Eastern European vampire look is too cool! I plan to play 1k and 1.5k games with a couple of my friends who are also getting into AoS; Seraphon, Fyreslayers, Daemons of Nurgle, and Slaves to Darkness. 

 

 

Edited February 13 by Helias Tancred

[Sception]

Vyrkos definitely has an edge on skulpts (more unique Vyrkos units, more generic units that aesthetically fit vyrkos better than the other bloodlines).  Mechanically Vyrkos favours larger hoard armies thanks to options like Torgilius and the Phylactory, though from a competitive perspective those aren't the strongest Soulblight builds these days.  They were for a while, but hoards of skeletons and especially zombies were overtuned and got hit with some heavy points cost increases and nerfs to some of the faction traits for reviving summonable units - be sure to read our FAQ pretty thorougly, a lot of our book has been rewritten at this point.  Post those nerfs I prefer skeletons to zombies for chaff & filling out battleline, along with some wolves because I mean if you're playing vyrkos you kind of have to, as you get an extra unit of 10 for free via the faction traits.  That said, Zombies are fine if you happen to have some  already.

The leading edge of Soulbight last time I checked was monster mash lists with a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon plus at least one of Neferata, Mannfred, or Vordrai, though I'm not sure if those builds have survived the most recent battlescroll update.  As with most soulblight factions, the Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon is a strong option for Vyrkos, though for us it's more of a techy piece using its high movement and the hunter's snare command ability to steal objectives and units of dire wolves, fell bats, cavalry, or infantry raised up from grave sites to shield it from enemy units, and only engaging with enemies that are already engaged in combat so they can't bring their full offense to bear on your dragon.  In comparison, a Legion of Blood VLoZD has options to ramp up both its offensive and defensive power, making it serious melee hammer even on its own.  It's up to you whether the near 500 point cost of the zombie dragon is worth it.  Compare to Radukar the Beast, who is slower (-6" move & no flight, but can run & charge), and more fragile (12 wounds 4+ save instead of 16 3+), and doesn't hit quite as hard, but he buffs nearby friendly summonable units when he charges (especially brutal with grave guard), and like the dragon can swing objective control with hunter's snare due to the ability to give vyrkos unique generals command abilities.  He plays a lot like a Vyrkos zombie dragon - you still have to be cagey with him, avoid letting him get charged, only throw him against an enemy that's already engaged with something else, but when you do throw him in he adds an impressive bit of damage - while costing nearly 200 points less.

Radu-beast also looks cooler than the current official zombie dragon model and is a lot easier to paint.

Cado's a solid hero option.  Sadly no faction bonuses, but that's not super critical for us, as long as you have at least one proper Vyrkos vampire hero in the army to call in your free wolf pack.  Again you want to avoid him soloing enemy units, he won't survive that, but he's pretty mobile, has a nice spell, and can chip in a respectable bit of damage on a unit that's stuck in with one of your tar pit units. 

You will want some hammer units.  Ideally, especially with Vyrkos's support for hoardy undead, you'd like to use grave guard, but the models are really old and look particularly weedy next to the current skeleton warriors, when they're supposed to be the the elite skittles.  If your vanity, like mine, just won't let you field the current grave guard models (I kicked all of mine back to square bases for Old World), then Blood Knights, Vargheists, or the warcry warband, askurgan truebloods/trueblades/whatever they're called are decent. 

Sadly the Vyrkos specific Cursed city units that you'd like to be good for this - the Blood-born & Vargskyr - kind of aren't really.  At least they don't cost many points?  Even so, they're very fragile.  Things might be different if the Vargskyr were a monster, letting you get some utility out of Roar.  Or if the Blood-born weren't single, letting you reinforce them up to a unit of 6.  As is, the blood-born at least are still a decent utility unit thanks to their low points cost, high movement speed, and pre-game move, letting you capture objectives early or gum up your opponent's first turn movement options if they make you go first, but they'll die the moment an enemy unit looks at them funny, and while they hit decently hard per model you can't take enough of them in a unit to call them a real hammer.

....

If you want to mix factions, there's also the 'Liche's Hand' regiment of renown from the recent 'Mad King Rises' campaign supplement, which gets you Arkhan the Black plus two units of Morghasts out of the OBR tome for 750 points.  Mixing them into a Vyrkos army gives you a bit of the old Legions of Nagash feel - the faction Soulblight Gravelords used to be before Arkhan and the Morghasts joined the Ossiarch Bonereapers.  Adding Liche's Hand to Vyrkos lets you use elite morghasts as your hammers while filling out your battleline with soulblight chaff buffed with Vyrkos support options, which is at least interesting in theory.  The Morghasts are fast, and boast solid reach, rend, and damage on their halberds, plus good healing from Arkhan, plus impressive utility tech in their ability to shut down enemy command abilities and a 2+ spell ignore from the regiment of renown.  But all that said their total damage output is on the low end for a hammer unit due to their low model count per unit (same problem as blood-borne really), so you'll probably want at least something hard hitting on the gravelords side as well.  Also, while Arkhan has good healing for himself and the morghasts, strong antimagic, and a bit of combat ability (though less than he looks), as a triple caster with no lore access he's not really shining to full effect here.  Maybe consider one or more endless spells?  That's really cutting into your points for actual soulblight units though.

Honestly I'd only go this route if you intend to pick up a full OBR army in the future, as the Regiments of Renown rules probably aren't sticking around long term.  Just something I've been tinkering with lately anyway.

Edited March 3 by Sception