4th Edition Soulblight Gravelords Discussion

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Let's try to bring some (unholy un-)life back into this faction forum.

How are you guys feeling about Gravelords right now? Have you had any fun in 4th with them yet?

Excited for the upcoming Deathrattle box set? I feel like I could go for painting another 100 skeletons.

 

[Sception]

Ugh, I do like to hear the sound of my keyboard clacking, huh?  How bout I, uh, just shorten this up just a bit...

I've mostly been in a holding pattern waiting for the battletome, though I don't know why since the first few battletomes have mostly just been faction pack reprints, and I don't expect that pattern to change with Spite Gourds.  Don't particularly mind that though, as they're the death faction pack I'm probably most satisfied with... though that's not a super informed opinion, as I haven't gotten many 4e games in with them.

In terms of excitement for upcoming sets... yeah, I'll definitely be tuning in for the upcoming LVO show, despite it starting at midnight where I am, and having jury duty the next day.  As far as I know the current Soulblight release rumors/expectations from least to most credible are....

• Zombie Dragon has been rumored but no physical evidence yet
• Grave Guard have been rumored and there's a rumour engine that looks like one of their weapons
• the LVO preview silhouette shows what looks like a new Black Knight champion
• a recent white dwarf had a picture of what looked like a new horse-mounted Vampire Lord, seemingly by mistake.

Out of that, I'm most excited/hopeful for new grave guard and a new horse-mounted vampire lord.  I'm happy enough with the current zombie dragon and black knights, but if new ones are released I'll get them, and re-base my current ones back to the old world.  Both of those are cross-faction dual kits... maybe we're seeing a push to get rid of those?  If so that's probably a good thing.  New black knights would also basically guarantee new hexwraiths for nighthaunt, and that's sorely needed.

...........

As for battletome hopes?  I don't have many.  We're still within an initial wave of battletomes that would have been in development before 4e released and thus before the devs could have heard any public feedback on the faction packs, so I expect the rules will mostly be copy-pasted forward just with some extra regiments and armies of renown.  My hopes for the new battletome are therefore focused on the lore instead of the rules.

Mannfred and Neferata have supposedly been waging a major civil war across shyish since the end of 2nd edition, yet we've seen and heard almost nothing about it.  That should be a major narrative focus, if not for the whole game than at least for this faction specifically.  It should be as big a deal for Soulblight as open war between Archaon and Be'Lakor would be for StD.  And Nagash won't be gone forever, the devs will want to bring him back sooner or later, so there's only so much time to take advantage of the narrative possibilities of the soulblight war.  They basically wasted it in 3rd edition already - not the only narrative hook wasted in 3rd edition, but I blame covid disruption for most of that.  This time around I'm hoping to finally see it as a major focus in the Soulblight battletome - armies, battles, maps, territory gained and lost, mortal populations caught in the middle, other dynasties forced to pick sides, ossiarchs, sigmarites, and especially skaven taking advantage of the conflict to seize soulblight territory, etc.  Ideally the lore section of the 4e Soulblight battletome should read more like a classic campaign book than a faction book.

I also hope to see this civil war narrative thread worked into the Soulblight Gravelords' appearances in other 4e narrative content.  For example, I really hope there's like a paragraph or two in Ravaged Coast about Soulblight agents of Mannfred and Neferata gathering emberstone to use in the war effort while attempting to prevent each other from doing the same.  Or maybe like sidebar in the next Sons of Behemat or Ogor Mawtribes books about vampire agents trading their preciously cultivated stock of humans in exchange for mercenaries to help in the civil war as ever more of the soulblights' resources are consumed (literally) in the conflict.

Edited Wednesday at 05:47 PM by Sception

[El Syf]

I’m probably going to join a club about half hours drive away as I miss playing games (my brother became a dad and has had more important things to occupy his time than aos lol) we are playing a game this weekend though and I’ve dreamt up this terrible list:

 

Nagash

10 Blood Knights

20 skegs 

20 skegs

20 grave guard

morbid conjugation 

I have no great hope of winning against his kurnoth heavy, durthu , tree lord ancient, lady of vines including list. Again I’m not optimistic but hopefully the blob of blood knights and Nagashes ability to bring them back will cause him to be weary and make mistakes.

 

With regards to our actual range etc. For the love of Nagash give us a mounted vampire lord that can buff blood knights!
As an aside to this and with only my one game so far of the edition under my belt, I still feel blood knights should hit a bit harder. Especially if they’re adamant at keeping them at 230. I think it’s a bridge too far to hope for much other than a single hero release alongside our tome along with maybe faction terrain and endless spells. 
 

It’s a shame the civil war narrative is just kind of oh it’s happening we just can’t be bothered to detail it.

Edited Wednesday at 04:30 PM by El Syf

[Sception]

Well, Nagash with 10 blood knights should at least give them some serious indegestion as they'll have to chew down that huge unit of cavalry twice in a row.  That said, with Nagash + Morbid in Soulblight I'd be sorely tempted to try to fit a mortis engine in there somewhere, with Nagash alone likely able to proc it's explosion every turn, on top of the explosion from malevolent maelstrom, or a ton of mortal wound damage output.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

Well, Nagash with 10 blood knights should at least give them some serious indegestion as they'll have to chew down that huge unit of cavalry twice in a row.  That said, with Nagash + Morbid in Soulblight I'd be sorely tempted to try to fit a mortis engine in there somewhere, with Nagash alone likely able to proc it's explosion every turn, on top of the explosion from malevolent maelstrom, or a ton of mortal wound damage output.

I have used Nagash + Mortis recently.

IMO, you are seriously starved for points when you do, and you have to kinda huddle together in a death star formation. I got charged turn 1 round 1 and really struggled to chew through the two blocks of Dawnrider that pinned me in. A big problem is that with the opponent in your face there is no room to summon manifestations, either. Ended up with Nagash dead in round 2.

There were several points where that game could have take a different turn, but 1100 points of heroes within 12" of each other is definitely hard to play on the table.

EDIT:

I want to say, though, the combo is still pretty fun and I will probably bring it again. If it drops a few points that could help it a lot.

Edited Wednesday at 06:57 PM by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Sception]

Sad to hear it doesn't work as well on the table as it does in my head.  Story of my gaming career.  😛

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

 

1 minute ago, Sception said:

Sad to hear it doesn't work as well on the table as it does in my head.  Story of my gaming career.  😛

To be fair, I didn't run the completely absurd list that floods the board with zombies and dire wolves with the combo. Just some honest Deathrattle stuff.

Still though, I have played with and against Nagash a few times now. He's not easy to play well right now. 9 casts are an absurd number, but after your manifestations are on the board, you will frequently spend the rest of them on giving out 5+ wards with his Invocation. Cities gets a 12" 5+ ward bubble for 200 points from Zenestra, so an 800 point Nagash is a hard sell for that alone.

He is so fragile, too. A big monster that can't hide from ranged attacks and can't usually be healed. Those 18 health points go down quick.

[El Syf]

30 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

 

To be fair, I didn't run the completely absurd list that floods the board with zombies and dire wolves with the combo. Just some honest Deathrattle stuff.

Still though, I have played with and against Nagash a few times now. He's not easy to play well right now. 9 casts are an absurd number, but after your manifestations are on the board, you will frequently spend the rest of them on giving out 5+ wards with his Invocation. Cities gets a 12" 5+ ward bubble for 200 points from Zenestra, so an 800 point Nagash is a hard sell for that alone.

He is so fragile, too. A big monster that can't hide from ranged attacks and can't usually be healed. Those 18 health points go down quick.

You could argue if spell ranges were greater, he could pop vile transference off more to heal and maybe if he had a second signature spell. Just looking again at the spell ranges and my word they are tiny these days!
Im a Vhordrai fanboy but wanted to see how mr. hat is in 4th.
 

Edited Wednesday at 07:41 PM by El Syf

[Sception]

I do miss the ability to heal himself.  And 9 casts are a lot more impressive when lores had 6 spells in them - or especially back in 2e times.  Remember when he had necromancer lore and vampire lore and a realm lore all at once?  Good times.  2nd edition really was the Age of Nagash.  As for nowadays, I think he's look a lot better if the offensive half of his signature spell wasn't 'wholly within'.  Frankly I don't think the defensive half needed to be either, but in general I think wholly within ranges are obnoxious and unfun to play with and the game would be better without them.  The problem they were trying to fix is more than addressed by the current extremely restrictive coherency rules.

Even as is, though, his colossal points value starts to look a lot more reasonable if you're getting an extra 300 to 500 odd points of morghasts or kavalos or blood knights or hexwraiths or or bladegheists, or morbheg knights or even just plain old zombies out of him.  Though I suppose the vulnerability to shooting does kind of make it an open question whether you'll get to use that stuff.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 hours ago, El Syf said:

You could argue if spell ranges were greater, he could pop vile transference off more to heal and maybe if he had a second signature spell. Just looking again at the spell ranges and my word they are tiny these days!
Im a Vhordrai fanboy but wanted to see how mr. hat is in 4th.
 

It is not uncommon on AoS to go up against lists with mostly low model count of multi-wound models, and in those situations killing a model with Vile Transference can be pretty tricky. My best target for it in my recent game was 10 Dawnriders with a 5+ ward. So, not great, sadly.

 

11 hours ago, Sception said:

I do miss the ability to heal himself.  And 9 casts are a lot more impressive when lores had 6 spells in them - or especially back in 2e times.  Remember when he had necromancer lore and vampire lore and a realm lore all at once?  Good times.  2nd edition really was the Age of Nagash.  As for nowadays, I think he's look a lot better if the offensive half of his signature spell wasn't 'wholly within'.  Frankly I don't think the defensive half needed to be either, but in general I think wholly within ranges are obnoxious and unfun to play with and the game would be better without them.  The problem they were trying to fix is more than addressed by the current extremely restrictive coherency rules.

Even as is, though, his colossal points value starts to look a lot more reasonable if you're getting an extra 300 to 500 odd points of morghasts or kavalos or blood knights or hexwraiths or or bladegheists, or morbheg knights or even just plain old zombies out of him.  Though I suppose the vulnerability to shooting does kind of make it an open question whether you'll get to use that stuff.

Yeah, the spell ranges are tricky. 18" wholly within is pretty short. Not being able to focus down a unit with Invocation of Nagash also makes things harder.

I know the Nagash+Morghasts list has had some success in tournaments, though. I suppose Nagash does pretty well into high magic lists and lists with big characters that need to respect hand of dust, so I think he might be better in tournament environments than against more casual combined arms lists, weirdly enough. I also think the nerfs to endless spells have definitely weakend them at least a bit (flooding the board with them is no longer easy now that the opponent can often decide to banish your best one nearly guaranteed if you do).

I wonder if Morbid Conjuration is still the best choice for Nagash. I ran kt for the theme last time, but maybe Primal Energy would be better for the healing. I know a lot of people are using Forbidden Power, too, but I think Nagash needs a lore that can deal damage.

Edited Thursday at 08:15 AM by Neil Arthur Hotep

[El Syf]

I’ll update with my experience of him after the game on Saturday, but yeah I’m now remembering how good he was in 2nd Ed and the legions of Nagash book in general was pretty wild.

[Sception]

Early 2e with the Legions of Nagash + the errata adding all the nighthaunt units from the 2e starter set so he also had big units of grimchasts with faction spell lores plus realm spell lores with a bunch of easy self healing....  that was wild times.  Super unhealthy for the game of course, Nagash mirror matches all over the top tables of every tournament, but it just felt so right what with how Nagash had just taken center stage with the Malign Portents then the Necroquake.  Good, good times to be dead.  If only Katakros's arrival edit: Kragnos, Kragnos's arrival, stupid too many too similar names for my old brain at the dawn of 3rd edition had been anything close to that consequential.

The Skavendoom is a nice return to properly Realms-shattering narrative developments, and honestly I'm a little bit sad that it /hasn't/ been accompanied by a similarly dominant showing by the skaven on the tables.  As bad as it would be for the game, I kind of wish Vizzik & company where as dominant on tournament tables now as Nagash was then, at least for a while.  Let them have a real moment in the sun.  Instead it's nighthaunts that have been bullying 4e.  Guess I can't really complain there.  😛

Edited Wednesday at 11:24 PM by Sception

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

10 hours ago, Sception said:

Early 2e with the Legions of Nagash + the errata adding all the nighthaunt units from the 2e starter set so he also had big units of grimchasts with faction spell lores plus realm spell lores with a bunch of easy self healing....  that was wild times.  Super unhealthy for the game of course, Nagash mirror matches all over the top tables of every tournament, but it just felt so right what with how Nagash had just taken center stage with the Malign Portents then the Necroquake.  Good, good times to be dead.  If only Katakros's arrival edit: Kragnos, Kragnos's arrival, stupid too many too similar names for my old brain at the dawn of 3rd edition had been anything close to that consequential.

The Skavendoom is a nice return to properly Realms-shattering narrative developments, and honestly I'm a little bit sad that it /hasn't/ been accompanied by a similarly dominant showing by the skaven on the tables.  As bad as it would be for the game, I kind of wish Vizzik & company where as dominant on tournament tables now as Nagash was then, at least for a while.  Let them have a real moment in the sun.  Instead it's nighthaunts that have been bullying 4e.  Guess I can't really complain there.  😛

Sometimes I look at this image from when I started playing AoS and think about how much things have changed:

 

On a different note: I actually am pretty happy with the Deathmarch subfaction.

I wanted to run it because I have a lot of skeleton models, but I was not sure if it would really be worth it because you have to jump through so many hoops to get the bonus (have to charge and have to outnumber). In practice I found that you often outnumber the opponent even with units like Black Knights, because there are just a lot of 6 man squads or single models in the game. And then sometimes you stack the rend to pretty absurd heights: -1 on warscroll, -1 from Honor Guard, -1 from Deathmarch and then maybe even another -1 from Purple Sun.

Also, 1 rend on Deathrattle Skeletons actually makes a big difference if you can get it.

[Beliman]

I have 2 games this week, one vs Soulblight (10 blood knights and dogs), and the other vs FEC (without Ushoran).

Wish me luck...

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I am going to play a short-notice game against Sylvaneth tomorrow. I will bring Nagash and make them enter the Bone Zone.

[El Syf]

16 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I am going to play a short-notice game against Sylvaneth tomorrow. I will bring Nagash and make them enter the Bone Zone.

Be very interested to see how we both get on, do you know what sort of Sylvaneth list your up against? This is what I’m facing:

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, El Syf said:

Be very interested to see how we both get on, do you know what sort of Sylvaneth list your up against? This is what I’m facing:

Yeah, I have the lists.

Sylvaneth:

Sylvaneth
Lords of the Clan

Belthanos, First Thorn of Kurnoth (350)
[General]
- 3 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatbows (200)
- 3 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Greatswords (220)
- 3 x Kurnoth Hunters with Kurnoth Scythes (200)

Drycha Hamadreth (240)

Spirit of Durthu (330)
[Seed of Rebirth]
[Spellsinger]

Treelord Ancient (240)
- 1 x Treelord (220)

Awakened Wyldwood

[Lore of the Deepwood]
[Manifestations of the Deepwood]

2000/2000pts
4 drops

Generated by Listbot 4.0

 

Soulblight:

 

Soulblight Gravelords
Deathmarch

Nagash, Supreme Lord of the Undead (880)
[General]
- 10 x Black Knights (360)
- 20 x Deathrattle Skeletons (200)
- 10 x Grave Guard (160)

Mortis Engine (240)
[Amulet of Screams]
[Lash of the Sire]
- 10 x Dire Wolves (140)

[Lore of Undeath]
[Morbid Conjuration]

1980/2000pts
2 drops

Generated by Listbot 4.0

 

Not super optimized, but should be fun. I will do a write up tomorrow.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Small write up as promised:

Lost in the 3rd round, but it game was fairly close and could have gone either way. Looking back, I made some questionable decisions, but it was more of a learning game anyway.

Battleplan was Battle for the Pass

I also have a unit of Grave Guard in reserves.

I outdropped and gave Sylvaneth first turn:

Sylvaneth are slow, so there was limited action turn 1. My opponent chose Seize the Center, but I prevented it with a Direwolf counter charge. Here's a thing I learned: Wildwoods actually speed you up quite a bit, because you can charge and pile in along them to gain distance. I also put out the Soulsnare shackles kinda in preparation for combat in the middle/my opponent trying to capture my home objective.

Another small thing that happened is that my opponent summoned the Gladewyrm to harass my Mortis Engine. The worm kind of sucks, though. Did a bit of damage, but not really a threat to high health wizards and I just blew it up with the Mortis Engine in the following turn.

Turn 1 Gravelords:

I think I am missing a good picture of this turn, sorry guys. I started with Take Their Land as my battle tactic, which is basically free if you have a unit in the grave. My Grave Guard went to the other side of the table in order to set up Take The Flanks the following turn (which I also succeed at).

My magic phase went badly. I cast enough spells to charge the Mortis Engine, but I had a miscast early and could not get out Gravetide or Purple Sun. This is a big set back, because they definitely need a turn to get into position, and the later they show up the less likely they are to be valuable. I put out the Maelstrom near the Center, though. The extra healing from the Mortis Engine lets you use the Maelstrom more offensively, because who cares if you take 6 mortal damage on a bunch of skeletons? You will just heal it back up anyway. I summon the Maelstrom last most of the time, because otherwise you just blow up your own units right away. Although thinking about it, I could have tried to charge it into the Wyldwoods for a better position.

Not a lot happened on my turn, otherwise. I tried to charge my Black Knights on the upper center point, but could not get on there because my opponent blocked my access by counter-charging Kurnothi on it. My guys got strike last and even though they had some good buffs could not really capitalize on the charge. However, they did manage to hit rend 3: 1 on the warscroll, 1 from Deathmarch, 1 from Honor Guard. I made a pretty big tactical mistake here: I could have stopped the counter charge with my Direwolves easily, but instead pulled them back to heal and protect my home objective. However, my opponent already had 3 objectives. Holding on to my home objective would only have given him one extra point, but I got totally boxed in on it in the following turn, and I that meant I scored pretty low on primaries the whole game.

Turn 2, Sylvaneth:

A punch of trees walked up into my deployment zone, but very little died. The Mortis Engine took some fairly serious damage and Nagash took a few points of chip. Some skeletons and dire wolves probably died, but they got better. Ignore those Black Knights up there, they are destroyed models that I just didn't move off the mat properly.

Here's a big uncertainty that I still have with Nagash and the Mortis Engine: Is the increased healing actually working against me sometimes? Should I just have let the Direwolves or skeletons die to bring them back on an objective? Or even the black knights? I just don't really have a good feel for it yet.

Turn 2 Gravelords:

My hero phase went better this time.

I managed to get the Gravetide and Purple Sun out. The Maelstrom blew up end of turn the round before, and the Mortis Engine got some good shots in this turn. Did not resummon the Maelstrom. I got the strike last and -1 damage spells on valuable targets, as well.

After combat, this is the state of things:

The Gravetide already died again, it charged onto the upper objective and died. That was good, though, because it prevented a counter charge onto my retreated Black Knights (behind the Purple Sun). Nagash Hand of Dusted the Treelord Ancient, but otherwise did disappointing damage. Drycha was on 2 health and died in my opponent's next hero phase from Shackels and a Nagash Magical Intervention.

Sylvaneth Turn 3:

My opponent tries to kill Nagash with Belthanos to end the game (Belthanos jumps all over the place with all the different movement abilities he has access to, don't put too much stock on his positioning in this picture).

Nagash ends the turn on 2 health, but Hand of Dusts another Treelord for his efforts.

I look pretty good on units so far (did not fully lose any yet), but I am behind on points.

Gravelords Turn 3:

It's getting pretty late and my opponent and I decide to have an epic conclusion. I charge Nagash into his Spirit of Durthu in order to force a decisive battle.

This is not necessarily smart, since Durthu is an absolute monster killer. But it is also not completely insane, since Durthu is low on health, in combat with the Purple Sun and Black Knights, and has strikes last. There is a real chance I could kill him before he gets to act, and then I think it is at least possible that I could bring the game home with the rest of my troops taking objectives off of my opponent. I am also still in the running for a double turn.

In the end though, Nagash does what he does best, which is disappoint. Just whiffed all his attacks and got wrecked by Durthu.

Conclusions

Playing with Nagash is pretty fun. But it is not very easy. Once Nagash dies, it always feels like the game is pretty much over, and I always struggle to know how many command points to hold back for him. Is the ideal play to try to give him All-Out Defense, Rally and Power Through whenever possible?

I am also really not convinced he needs to be 880 points. Not for his spell casting, at least, and certainly not for his combat ability. IMO, 9 casts are not significantly better than, like, 3. I suppose you pay the premium for his Once Per Game resurrection. In that way, I guess the Mortis Engine and focus on cheap, low quality troops in my list is a bit of a anti-combo. Maybe Nagash wants to run with a big, expensive unit like Morghasts that he can aggressively throw away early in order to bring them back. If the opponent can focus most of their efforts on Nagash, I think it's a losing battle in most cases. He just gets worn down.

For the future, I hope this list drops 40 points so that I can run 20 Grave Guard and 10 Skeletons instead of 10 Grave Guard and 20 Skeletons. I think that would help a lot and give the list more punch around the Mortis/Nagash castle.

[El Syf]

Pretty awesome game you had! Mine went the full 5 rounds but Nagash got wiped by durthu in turn four for me thanks to some questionable piling in from my opponent.
Overall his magic was what I expected and wanted but for a nine caster and the only wizard I had I was still left with 4-5 spells every turn so arguably a lot wasted and feels like he should have a 4+ ward at least.
 

The blood knights were a rather good distraction carnifex and I got them back again as intended although they didn’t seem that hot on damage leading me to believe they need Vhordrai basically to excel. 
 

lost by 4 points in the end which I guess isn’t too bad. Durthu should not be able to solo Nagash though! Admittedly he’d taken 6 or 8 wounds but it still felt a bit wrong when Nagash is getting on for triple the points!

Based on today I think I’ll go back to my Vhordrai lists as it’s a tiny bit less all your eggs in one basket.

[Beliman]

On 1/9/2025 at 12:54 PM, Beliman said:

I have 2 games this week, one vs Soulblight (10 blood knights and dogs), and the other vs FEC (without Ushoran).

Wish me luck...

Both lost. Soulblight list was about summon manifestations and a lot of dogs blocking roads. I didn't have enough damage to kill manifestations, dogs and a big unit of blood knights, I conceded early turn 3.

FEC was a but "better" for the first two turns, but I lost at the end of the third one. No Ushoran, just a king on bat-thing, 6 knights, and a bunch of Hulks with bones and another ones with wings.

Both players were awesome dudes, really fun to play against. Maybe in another edition it wil be fun again.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

18 hours ago, El Syf said:

Overall his magic was what I expected and wanted but for a nine caster and the only wizard I had I was still left with 4-5 spells every turn so arguably a lot wasted and feels like he should have a 4+ ward at least.

Yeah, it feels like a 4+ ward would not be out of line, given that Nagash is so expensive. Although maybe it just feels like that because I don't know how to play him yet. I also get the feeling that having 9 spells is not a huge advantage compared to, like, 3.

21 hours ago, El Syf said:

lost by 4 points in the end which I guess isn’t too bad. Durthu should not be able to solo Nagash though! Admittedly he’d taken 6 or 8 wounds but it still felt a bit wrong when Nagash is getting on for triple the points!

I'm fine if a slow 4" move monster-killer is good at killing monsters. Nagash is just so expensive that it always feels extra bad to lose him.

I believe that at full health, Nagash lives through combat with Durthu most of the time, though. And then Durthu needs to always respect the Hand of Dust.

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Both lost. Soulblight list was about summon manifestations and a lot of dogs blocking roads. I didn't have enough damage to kill manifestations, dogs and a big unit of blood knights, I conceded early turn 3.

FEC was a but "better" for the first two turns, but I lost at the end of the third one. No Ushoran, just a king on bat-thing, 6 knights, and a bunch of Hulks with bones and another ones with wings.

Both players were awesome dudes, really fun to play against. Maybe in another edition it wil be fun again.

Have you though about diversifying into a second army? I think KO will probably be stuck feeling not super fun until they get their battletome at least.

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Have you though about diversifying into a second army? I think KO will probably be stuck feeling not super fun until they get their battletome at least.

I want to play other Dwarfs, but I'm not a big fan of the actual Fyreslayes miniatures. I'm crossing fingers for a good Chaos Dwarf army.

Edit: (offtopic).

Anyway, I'm surprised about FEC. You are usually doing a lot of stuff in each phase. Magic and manifestations, looking for Deeds for each heroe, a few warscrolls abilities, movinent 6" but easy access to more Movement (2") or Run & Charge and, of course, cavalry unit with 12 movement. Add a few manifestations and some defensive shenanigans (return models and ward 5+), and the army feels really fun to play.

Pretry sure that it will hit a wall versus 3+ saves armies (mainly SCE and Slaves), but I can see a lot of awesome games versus most other armies in the game.

Edited Sunday at 04:10 PM by Beliman

[RUNCMD]

On 1/7/2025 at 7:48 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

How are you guys feeling about Gravelords right now? Have you had any fun in 4th with them yet?

I've jumped into SB at the end of 3rd and now they are my main squeeze in 4th. Im finding them difficult to win games with and I will preface that comment with: I didn't play heaps in 2nd and 3rd ed, I've played mostly 4th ed at this point and I feel like I am still learning a lot... however here are my thoughts so far on SB (for anyone who wants to chat about it and the faction):

- We have some good synergies within the faction, with too much emphasis on debuffing. Dont get me wrong, I love those debuffs, but having no natural ''faction wide'' ability to grant +1 to hit aura, really hurts right now imo.

- Blood knights are too over costed for something that does 1 Dmg. Whilst getting this from Vhordrai, which is fine, they still dont work well into anything with 3 health and good luck having them shift things with a nat +3 save. STD knights being a great comparison of what Blood Knights should aim to be when they grow up I feel.

- Graveguard also lacking in the dmg department. Whilst I can appreciate the stacks we can create, if you chuck them into something like Stormcast Annihilators, as example, theyre not going to survive the fight back, and by the time you get to fight with them a second time, youre probably looking at half your attacks. Ánother one I'd like to have a way to increase dmg or just be at 2 dmg. See what LVO/new tome brings anyway.

- Our battle formations really need an uplift. BoB is great but there is no incentive to take anything else, maybe deathmarch, but even that has far too many conditions to be viable.

- Necro ability also too many conditions required to be reliable.

- Cado is the fkn man!!!!! Honestly a great warscroll.

- Bella and Chad the beast's spells being until end of turn really makes them harder and harder to choose each list. Chad the beast at 300 pts with his spell lasting until next turn, im probably taking him every time tbh.

- Vargheists are the under rated unit of our faction

- Askurgans are amazing models and I want to run way more of them

- Vhordrai or the Mortarchs are auto include in every list

- Zombies great for tar pit shenans for the most part, outside of that, very little use

- Vargskyr I would actually run if it hit on 3's and was 150 pts. Or going back to my other point, having a +1 to hit aura or even spell

I get the feeling SBGL will be mid tier for majority of 4th Ed unless the tome is really shaken up and based on what we have seen so far and from what others have said about index edition, most likely wont happen?

Overall im having fun with the faction whilst learning the play style of it. Im finding the 4th playstyle to be conservative and somewhat slow for the first 2 rounds, with trading pieces being key for the 2nd round to have success on from there.

I'm keen to hear people's strategies for the faction and how you run SBGL in 4th. What do you use as your hammers, anvils, how are you playing the faction and what are some of your thought on SB in 4th?

I know it seems like this post has mostly been complaints and I'd like to say that this is just my current opinion/s based on my game play so far. I'm keen to have open discourse about this and chat about things!

[El Syf]

9 hours ago, RUNCMD said:

I've jumped into SB at the end of 3rd and now they are my main squeeze in 4th. Im finding them difficult to win games with and I will preface that comment with: I didn't play heaps in 2nd and 3rd ed, I've played mostly 4th ed at this point and I feel like I am still learning a lot... however here are my thoughts so far on SB (for anyone who wants to chat about it and the faction):

- We have some good synergies within the faction, with too much emphasis on debuffing. Dont get me wrong, I love those debuffs, but having no natural ''faction wide'' ability to grant +1 to hit aura, really hurts right now imo.

- Blood knights are too over costed for something that does 1 Dmg. Whilst getting this from Vhordrai, which is fine, they still dont work well into anything with 3 health and good luck having them shift things with a nat +3 save. STD knights being a great comparison of what Blood Knights should aim to be when they grow up I feel.

- Graveguard also lacking in the dmg department. Whilst I can appreciate the stacks we can create, if you chuck them into something like Stormcast Annihilators, as example, theyre not going to survive the fight back, and by the time you get to fight with them a second time, youre probably looking at half your attacks. Ánother one I'd like to have a way to increase dmg or just be at 2 dmg. See what LVO/new tome brings anyway.

- Our battle formations really need an uplift. BoB is great but there is no incentive to take anything else, maybe deathmarch, but even that has far too many conditions to be viable.

- Necro ability also too many conditions required to be reliable.

- Cado is the fkn man!!!!! Honestly a great warscroll.

- Bella and Chad the beast's spells being until end of turn really makes them harder and harder to choose each list. Chad the beast at 300 pts with his spell lasting until next turn, im probably taking him every time tbh.

- Vargheists are the under rated unit of our faction

- Askurgans are amazing models and I want to run way more of them

- Vhordrai or the Mortarchs are auto include in every list

- Zombies great for tar pit shenans for the most part, outside of that, very little use

- Vargskyr I would actually run if it hit on 3's and was 150 pts. Or going back to my other point, having a +1 to hit aura or even spell

I get the feeling SBGL will be mid tier for majority of 4th Ed unless the tome is really shaken up and based on what we have seen so far and from what others have said about index edition, most likely wont happen?

Overall im having fun with the faction whilst learning the play style of it. Im finding the 4th playstyle to be conservative and somewhat slow for the first 2 rounds, with trading pieces being key for the 2nd round to have success on from there.

I'm keen to hear people's strategies for the faction and how you run SBGL in 4th. What do you use as your hammers, anvils, how are you playing the faction and what are some of your thought on SB in 4th?

I know it seems like this post has mostly been complaints and I'd like to say that this is just my current opinion/s based on my game play so far. I'm keen to have open discourse about this and chat about things!

As someone that has played this army since it was vampire counts back in the mists of time, I’d say you are spot on with your takes. 
As you say Cado is a great warscroll and yeah other than my dalliance with Nagash the other day, I always have Vhordrai in my lists.

Hope you’re enjoying life in the soulblight world

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I have mostly been playing Cities of Sigmar this edition, and that's an army that people generally feel has no damage (when they restrict themselves to only humans). But even compared to Cities, it feels like SBGL has very low damage output. With the added complication that the Gravelords are also slower.

Looking though the faction pack, the two units that jump out as potential hammers are Blood Knights and Grave Guard. But both of them are more like medium damage units (high quality, but lower numbers). Really seems like a tough problem to work around. A big problem is that in 4th, there are absolutely some armies that have bruiser-anvils you won't easily break through with a cavalry unit, even on the charge. And then if you also don't have ranged damage to wear them down, you are kind of stuck playing around them the whole game.

IMO, 4th ed most strongly rewards doing mixed arms lists most of the time (unless you have one warscroll that is just absurdly good). So personally, I would probably be looking at not leaning too strongly into one type of unit ideally. It looks like Gravelords want to play a more defensive game, as well, so maybe high drops are good? So far, I have been pretty satisfied with the healing and recursion abilities. Those feel pretty good to use (and the big block of skeletons that just keep getting up over and over is one of the core fantasies that attracted me to the army in the first place), and I think they should probably be part of the game plan for Gravelords. The big problem with that is that this implies a "stand on circles" game plan which is not the best path to victory in 4th ed. Plus, there are absolutely factions in the game that have fast units that can wipe out any Gravelords unit in one turn.

On 1/13/2025 at 4:26 AM, RUNCMD said:

Our battle formations really need an uplift. BoB is great but there is no incentive to take anything else, maybe deathmarch, but even that has far too many conditions to be viable.

I don't know, the only formation that really looks bad is Legion of Shyish, IMO. The other three all seem like they have their uses. Bacchanal of Blood actually seems pretty great, with a cast bonus for characters and a free +1 to wound for Blood Knights. Deathmarch is interesting if you run Grave Guard and Black Knights (which both seem good) and I see it used in tournament lists pretty frequently. And Deathstench Drove gives you some free movement and adds a d3 mortal wounds tax for more defensive game plans. Since it is end of any turn, it looks kinda nice. Although it would be a lot better if it was not just in combat.