Wordy9th

In a fit of hedonistic excess, I bought a bunch of stuff today: Any ideas for lists / strategies for this bunch? Cheers!

Absolutely correct. How did your tournament go, @Liquidsteel?

Hey guys, if I’m looking to start collecting slaanesh does anyone have any suggestions on what to go for? I’m thinking the shadow and pain box and the blade carnival with sigvald? I’m a fan of big boxes for value but I’m open to suggestions. I’d like it to have it reasonably competitive (though I’m well aware of slaanesh’s relatively low power level at the moment), with suggestions for base army and models for summoning and what to buy for it. cheers!

Absolutely. This was also with us really rushing the dice and playing fast and loose with coherency on my skeletons etc just to pick up the pace. The last half an hour was just two frowning faces rushing through mechanics and that's not really how AoS should be played. For sure, it's a sacrifice of playing horde based armies. If you want 5 full turns your opponent needs to make decisions in the instant, know exactly what he's doing and probably also not have a horde army himself. In the meantime you'd better know all your ****** too, and even with all that taken into account with the fatigue of so many games back to back your thinking time is precious indeed. I don't think I'd move to a more elite army, -to me SBGL is all about those shambling hordes- but I'm always a little bit jealous of those sub 30 model armies that run around and get ****** done. I spent most of my games, including the ones where I was very ahead, taking my skeletons and zombies off the board and putting them back on again. This was also with everything on movement trays and magnetized!

The bats was a mistake it seems! Luckily it would have made no difference to the match as I could have brought back 10 zombies to do the same thing anyway. As for the Lumineth game the situation wasn't so much his army, or the player himself (he was quite nice), it was the fact it was near 8pm and we hadn't even finished turn two. We went into turn 3 with me winning priority and most of my stuff on the board (and a fair bit of his) and a point ahead and our tired brains (we'd been playing from 9:30 until 8pm) had to try and 'play out' the game from this point which was borderline impossible with so many variables still in play. The process was fairly terse and took a while until eventually a draw was agreed on, but lessons were learned as it was both our first tournaments. I bought him a drink afterwards and it was all good in the end! A huge challenge of tournaments is the amount of rules being thrown at you, I enjoyed the Dragons game because I knew what they did, but the Seraphon and Lumineth games were a barrage of 'my things do this' and getting games under your belt is the only way to get through the variables that can be thrown your way, especially with an army like SBGL which has so many itself!

Aye I did run Vyrkos for most of my games until a snap decision a couple weeks before the tournament. A couple games against shooty meta lists which were predominant in the tournament I attended made me feel like the sacrifice of the very good vyrkos combos you mention felt necessary to not lose key pieces early. Not having the command trait up etc is certainly not great, but getting in with no wounds taken felt like a justifiable sacrifice. Consider it I did because I took that trait to the tournament to very good effect :). Thanks a bunch. I've been toying with the idea of swapping out the vlozd for a Vengorian lord which leaves me with the exact points needed for 3 vargeists. I hate how such a squishy unit is battleline but some extra spicy off the board dps feels like it could be a shout, I shall have to test.

How's the great unclean one, and what should I be taking with him?

Great weapons, and yeah I believe so. It's a toss up between the better spellcasting and wound aura and versitility of Night. Best of luck on your adventures. I'd have gone but that'd be too many tournaments in a short space of time for me right now! Let us know how it goes.

I came third place overall at the London Open tournament last weekend with a Legion of Night list, thought I’d give you guys a run down! The top five placements were: 1) Seraphon 2) Serpahon 3) Soulblight (me) 4) Seraphon! 5) Legion of the first Prince Here’s the list: Overall it was an amazing experience, with 1 loss to the eventual winner of the tournament which was really close (27-29 I believe). 1 draw and 3 wins – including the final game against an all dragon and bastion list! Here’s a very brief run down of the games, if people want an extended review or questions about the matchups feel free to ask. Round 1 vs Karadron Overlords on veins of Ghur. 53-6 VP win. A very brutal start as I kept most of my forces off the board (this will become a theme vs every army except OBR). He took first turn and failed his battle tactic to kill my block of 30 skeletons. I then double turned him, destroyed his ironclad with the Vlozd, skeletons and Mannfred and took every objective from there. Grave guard charged the Magmadroth and one shot it. Hooray. Round 2 vs Seraphon Thunder Lizards, Apex Predators. 27-29 loss. A very close game with an exceptionally good opponent. There’s so much to say about the game but highlights were him summoning 20 saurus guard for free with the engine of the gods, me managing to kill everything except the slaan and 3 big lizards but eventually running out of steam and losing to objectives. A very tough matchup with very tough terrain to work around. Excellent game which felt very winnable. Round 3 vs Lumineth. Power struggle, 10-10 draw. A stressful game that only got to the bottom of turn 2 before we ran out of time and ended up (with some stressful discussion) in a draw. Loremaster took the middle objective and landed the mortal wound rock endless spell in the middle of my skelton blob. Mannfred and GG killed the big mountain dude and a bunch of stuff, the Vlozd took out some hammer units on the right until we had to end it. Probably would have went on for another 2 hours before resolution but end of day fatigue was kicking in for both of us. Round 4 vs OBR. Tectonic interference. 20-0 differential victory. A matchup I have played many times and played out as well as it could have for me. Only kept the GG off the board who eventually came on to kill Arkhan who had miscast his first spell. Overran all the objectives, he failed his battletactic to kill the Vlozd and I ran away with the game. Round 5 vs Stormcast Dragons. 34-27 victory on Feral Foray. The game of the weekend for me, and one of the reasons I brought LoN to the tournament. He gave me first turn, seeing only my chaff on the board. In response I move up an inch and ended the turn, won priority and gave him the double turn to his horror. He then moved in with everything, toasted 20 zombies, 15 skeletons and another 17 zombies, my corpse cart and 3 bats. I took the turn, bats came back, vlozd and mannfred came on and killed bastion, burned the objectives on the back. Got the double, charged in with everything and killed a bunch of dragons. The 30 skeletons held on the entire game against 4 dragons, proving pivotal to the victory of the game. Overall it was amazing for a first tournament and I didn’t expect to come third overall against some very good players and lists. I Believe LoN was instrumental in helping against some of the lists that the other SBGL players really struggled with, and it has a lot of play in the future. PS: I love my skellies!

The game feels balanced for 2k points, to the point where anything below that mark usually needs some kind of social contact agreement between players to not bring units that break the balance at lower point levels. i played a lot of games from 1-1.5k points while collecting my army and it only really felt like a balanced game once I hit the 2k mark. GW feels confident enough to say that the 2k point mark is the level where total strangers can play with to the letter rules, and that’s the point where I feel most comfortable playing at. Othwrwise it can tend to feel like DND, where you need a solid social contract basis to play essentially make believe rules for a good time.

I think some of my wargamer peers should take a perspective pill or two with some of the hyperbole going on in this thread. It's bitter medicine but honestly I think it's for the best and I mean only well by it. Anyone here enjoying the price hikes in energy costs can attest that their monthly energy bills skyrocketing because of Russian T-90s sat at the border of Ukraine far outweigh paying £5 more for some Slaangors every month. And that's just one facet of a constantly changing world of pandemics and war. Your escapism shouldn't be based on the -continual- buying of these boxes, I mean there's cheaper options. A Wordsworth classics War and Peace should set you back £3 which is weeks of enjoyment for less than the price differential of aforementioned Slaangors. You don't need to worry about money going to vast, faceless and ominous megacorps either, unless you take issue with further enriching Tolstoi's estate ^_^. If I was going to 'stand up' to corporations then I'd probably not make my stand in the realm of plastic warriors, by already being in this hobby you're fairly complicit. Did you consider sending your money to various charities instead of spending it on your Element Games starter bundle, or MWG's new Chaos Marines? If not, step back the moralising a bit and look at the reality of the situation: A corporation faces rising costs. A corporation then increases prices. No Corporation wants to price out their market because that will lose them money. If this prices you out then there are other options for escapism. Posts like mine are not shilling for corporations, or defending vile business practices, they're an attempt to help other wargamers who use this hobby as escapism, social connection and an artistic outlet not feel down when real world situations like this pop up by putting things into perspective just a little bit. I know a lot of wargamers have tough things going on in their lives, that's why a lot of us turn to plastic men as a forum (figuratively) for connection. This conversation has value, as does holding GW to account, but indulging in hyperbole to the extent some have is damaging to your own mental health, and can possibly turn other people in the community off.

Company faces rise in costs. Doesn’t increase prices to compensate. - no company ever

Be careful what you wish for. If that was the case then maybe your opponent might choose to magically blast or shoot something valuable instead ^_~.

Rules as written the core rules faq states to ignore any wording like 'benefit' because the only language that is legal now is issue and receive. Therefore it is legal to do so since you ignore the 'benefit' section as it is a term that is no longer in use in 3.0.

Vordrai's extra pip of rend is so valuable it's hard to not pick him sometimes. -3 Rend is a bit of a game changer and it makes me feel sad not to have it.

The Vlozd with LoB artefacts and Martial specialization is quite a pick. Soulbound garments is incredibly nice for shooting lists (it gets around not having access to all out defence in the hero phase or charge phase). I think Black Knights have the potential to be a better version of Wolves for the one specified role of fast speedbump / objective holders (if you've ever paid 135 for wolves to sit on a point all game and never die then you'll know what I mean). Wolves have 10 more wounds but if you're speed bumping the unit probably will do more than 20 damage anyway. The VL +2 to cast is also +2 to dispel, that's actually really good! Deathrattle being immune to maluses doesn't sound that hot, but it's not a miserly 9inch range like the Vyrkos one is, and with +1 to wound as a buff you'll be glad of it when on occasion that Frostheart Phoenix comes to town which would make your GG wound on 5s(!) otherwise. I think LoB does have play, though it doesn't quite fix the problem of facing a shooting meta enough for me just yet.

Yeah this is what I firmly believe. 30 Skeletons are a 'threshhold'. You add in a Corpse Cart, a Van hels and a legion of Night +1 to save and all of a sudden you might have a unit that can sustain an alpha strike then come back after it. That's actually a game changer. Let's take a look at the options: 30 skeletons are 255 points 20 wolves are 270 points 40 zombies are 230 points. 30 Skeletons provides 30 bodies on an objective, vs the Wolves 20 and Zombies 40. It's 30 wounds vs 40 and 40. In my view, the only way to make Skeletons valuable as a group of 30 is if they come back in strong numbers. Your best case scenario is a 20+ model unit never leaving the centre objective while providing screening to your support heroes and potential big threats. The worst case scenario is them dying to shooting, but that isn't so bad because people have shot your skeletons, and not say, your GG / Vlozd / whatever. Their advantages over wolves is: models and space. You can sure as hell fit more 255mm bases in an objective circle than wolfies can with their surfboard ones. You likely don't want wolves to sit holding a centre objective as that isn't really their role, wolves also do zero damage. Zip. Not just their profile but the fact you can't get any reasonable amount in combat due to base size and coherency. If you want an Anvil, not a speedbump, and you can NOT die in one go to an alpha then Skeletons do this job better. Zombies: they die and do little damage outside of a Necro and VL buffing them. Zombies are a better all round tech piece for sure, and I've had many occasions where their pile in shenanigans have been important in securing the game, but they cannot anvil as much as skeletons can, and take Van Hels worse due to dying in droves after their first attack. Skeletons role is quite clear, as are zombies and wolves. I think that yes, overall, skeletons lack the same utility as the other two options (though taking them as ten is a great shout too for a simple speedbump) but if you want them for that One Thing, that is to operate as a tar pit which, with enough support, can hold an objective all game, they can do their job with enough support. Maybe they all die in one go, but that requires the opponent to invest quite heavily in that direction, this allows your damage dealers to do their job and make them pay for their choice. If they live though, if only one model lives, that's that, 50-70% are coming back, the objective stays yours, and they have to sit there all game dealing with it. I think many people balk at the investment of not just the 255 points for the skeletons, but also the corpse cart and necro. However I want those things anyway, and the synergy is so good that it also provides value to those support pieces even further.

By the logic of giving people books based on their harmony with third edition,I think that fact that DoK are getting a book but Ossiarchs get a tome celestial tells you all you need to know about the... logic here.

Finished up a corpse cart, ready to give -1 to wound to all those horrible enemies. Worked on my skin and doing flames / bottles. All new concepts for me. I think it turned out well for an 80 point unit :).

The main power of the double is massively in the turn 1-2 sector. This is because you're essentially doubling the output of near 100% of your army. The 'comeback double' is nowhere close to being as strong, because you're doubling the output of what is likely to be a much depleted army. And yet you get MORE incentive not to take the double later in the game. The turn 1-2 double really needs addressing in someway, like a turn 3 mechanic at the very least.

Another battlebox out of nowhere with no real indication of how it ties into the lore or story of third edition? Cmon GW!

Sitting and watching your second place army get double turned by dragon breath is pretty lame for sure. I do enjoy the double turn and you see its magic in many matchups, overall I would keep it. Huge caveat though and rant warning; there's a few factors which make it REALLY bad for enjoyable experiences. Like the example above, factors like double tapping your mortal wound output shooting removes so many interactive elements of the game (Save stacking, posistioning etc) that it's almost toxic. Also being able to have spam lists of so many of these guys plays a part. There are inherent parts of the game which make things problematic and the double turn compounds it. Take longstrikes for example. A recent game I had had mannfredd and a Vlozd turn 1 shot off the board, which is bad enough but to be fair they're expensive so sure have great output. My real bugbear is how when charging these guys they get to shoot again, and even worse, somehow can shoot while in melee with those great big balistas with zero malus. With a double that's 3 turns of shooting before the other player even gets to do damage to them. That shouldn't be a possibility. You can see the benefit of the double turns in so many games with non-janky lists, its just when the other less well designed aspects of the game come to the fore that it becomes a real NPE.

Yeah that Archaon list doesn't look particularly chill. I just want to say lol at the LVO 2nd place SBGL player taking Terminus Clock as a second artefact. Love that I'm seeing that artefact used at high levels of play xD.

Two questions: 1) I was thinking, there's a command trait with LoB that allows wounds I think to do their damage as mortals on 6s. I'm just thinking how much this could spike on a LoB Vlozd, am I missing anything or is this really good? 2) Halgrim's CA, does it count as a run (eg I can't charge) or not? It does say make a 'Move' of 4 inches instead of making a run roll so I'm not sure. If it doesn't then this definitely has play. There's a load of variables with this list, particularly because A) I haven't faced the list you're facing yet and B) I've not ran a SBG list with so many infantry. Posistioning will of course be hugely key. I think you will do enough damage if you get a crimson feast or two off on 20 GG for sure. The only hard recommendation I might make would be to make both VLs have Arcane expertise. Especially if you're worried about spells, having +2 to unbind twice is a really good shout. Maybe go with Decrepify and Overwhelming dread on the Necro to really drop the debuffs on Archaon and co.

You really feel it when that Vlozd is hitting on 3/4s and 3s with no buffs, it's incredibly painful to see him whiff everything which happens a bit too often without support. One of the issues with my build is that the first charges will occur from the table edge which means no hero phase buffing, but such is life. I'm glad im not the only one who had mannfred one shot off the table this weekend, props! What buffs did you have on your vlozd and GG for killing the gargants in the game?