Deadkitten

It is SO expensive though. I'm not convinced it is worth it. But the Soulblight artifacts are pretty baller. Plus a don't think I'm a fan of Prince Vhordrai outside of a Double Dragon list. Which of course is doable, but 2 dragons plus the Battalion is a lot.

OK. I think I'm finally ready to talk about my poor showing at Midwest Meltdown. R1 vs Sylvaneth playing the Meteor mission. This guy was a great opponent. He was 9th at Adepticon and took Best Order at the event. I deployed trying to cover as much ground as I could, banking on my speed to be able to redeploy if I needed to. He gave me 2nd turn so he could get forests down. I ran the large wolf unit in the center as far forward as I could. He summoned the archers with Alariel and did a number over on my general. I completely forgot my hero entire hero phase so wasn't able to heal up with the chalice. I lost my general next turn and gave up a charge on a unit of Blood Knights on my right, which was, of course, where the objective ended up landing. I wasn't able to redeploy my left fast enough to compensate. Major Loss R2 vs Mortal Nurgle playing better part of valor He had the big unit of Marauders with the triple save and a couple units of Chaos Knights doing a classic Pincer. I responded with a Refused Flank. Sent 2 units of Blood Knights and a Vamp lord into that center marauder unit. Thought it might be a mistake once I realized what I ran into, but the Dragon, Knights and wolves were more than enough for the Knights and Blightkings on my right. He burned that objective early and it was smooth sailing from there. Major Win. R3 vs Grots playing Relocation Orb Boy do nets really suck. I just had no idea what I was running into. I double tapped Pinions T1 and over extended my General and blundered him away. The Fanatics wigged me out and I played too conservatively because of it. Major Loss. R4 vs Death playing the one where Artifacts and Wizards matter He got first turn and just bum rushed the objectives. He was deployed Skelly block, vargheists, VLoZD w Dogs, Vargheists, skelly block. I was Big Dogs, BK, BK, BK VLoZD. His Necro and Vamp Lord out paced the Skelly block on the left. I agonized over burning a CP on the dogs to give them +1 A and didn't. They dropped the Necro to 1 wound but the Skelly block caught up and it just became a mess until the end of the game. It ended up losing it for me. On the other side, the Dragon hit the skelly block and chomped through them. I had took that objective early. I kept feeding one of the Vargheists dogs but they eventually killed it and sent a BK unit into the other that dropped it in a turn. My general missed Pinions twice which slowed me down a bit but I eventually dropped his VLoZD and took the center. We had to stop early, like turn 3. Another turn and my center would have been able to hit that second skelly block tabling him and a turn after that, I would have taken him on VPs. But we had to call it so it was a Major Loss. Then, I got to talking to the paint judge and completely forgot about turning in my score sheet so got zeroed out on kill points. Oh well. R5 vs Nurgle playing a bit of generic mission. we each had 2 objectives we needed to defend/attack. I completely split my force and really weighted it towards one side. He set up pretty evenly with flies and Marauder horse in the center. I had such success breaking the Nurgle Marauder Anvil in G2, I thought I would try again. This anvil was WAY better, 30 plaguebearers backed up by a GUO. The terrain gummed me up a bit and my opponent blundered by not continuing the additional -1 to hit debuff. I eventually got through the block and he had to retreat the GUO onto his objective. If I had gotten a double turn I would have won. As it was, he got priority, was able to get his flies over in time and summon more plaguebearers between me and the GUO/Objective. Minor win to me on kill points. So a bit disappointing actually. My inexperience continues to come through and I make stupid mistakes. I wrote "Hero Phase" on my hand after that first game. Honestly, I'll probably be doing it again... I'm not sure about my artifact load out. It was a great ace up my sleeve for Sylvaneth, I should have used it vs the Grots but figured I could save it for the general instead of the Shaman I was up against, and took out the VLoZD. The Ethereal artifact on the VLoZD is probably just better. Not sure about the unit of 30 wolves. I think liquidating the unit to go to 10/10/10/10 might be better than 30/5/5/5. I'll need to try it out. The Dragon was good when it was but 440! That's another BK unit backed up by a Vamp Lord and a Wolf screen to boot! Whatever, it's a dragon. The +1A LoB buff on it seems stupid good. I'm definitely interested in any comments or observations anyone has.

I've been struggling with this issue as well in Legion of Blood. Without going all in on the Blood Keep Battalion, I just plan on going second. But this list, in either the Soulblight or LoB variety, really really wants to go second. I've compensated with a large unit of wolves and I've been playing EXTREMELY conservatively the first turn or two. As Black Forest said, this isn't an early game list. But yeah, a double turn with this sort of damage output is game ending.

I concur. Your analysis seems pretty solid. Given the ability of the Knights to dish out damage, I'm just looking for lots of bodies that can stick around. I've been contemplating taking my screens up to 10.

It did but there was too much of a disparity. I didn't know until after that he wasn't running an artifact. I had the Orb, Pinions and the Sanguine Blur CA on my general. I was able to take out his hero along with the knights. The ability to shield them with the wolves like this is huge. I then either move them out of the way or fall them back and then just charge in the knights. I think there's some frustration in my group with the Blood Knights at this level.

my buddy playing SCE for the first time. He engaged the wolf line and got counter-charged by the Knights.

Oh they are!

I had Pinions on both the Dragon and my General. The General's trait was Sanguine Blur (+2 Move & Reroll charge) with the Orb of Enchantment. I ran the other Lord as support for the big unit of dogs so it had Vile Transference. As to your question, yes, I liked having access to the third unit. I think the large unit works best without being tied to the Knights so essentially each unit of knights has its own screen. Practically, two were generally enough and I used the 3rd as a hassle unit. I was at a local 3 round event on Sat. It was very low key but the store was full, maybe 20 people. It was my first AoS event. First round was vs Deepkin. 5 objectives, 1 center, and we scored each round. I made so many errors. I mixed up which model was my general and ended up in combat with the Eidolon without the Orb. Oops. I did take out a ton of the stabby eels. I had a moment where I charged the Dragon into two casters sitting on an objective. I knew the right answer was to split the attacks but I had no idea how much damage I needed to do to kill them both so I put it all into one and then wasn't able to take the objective. I missed so many castings just completely forgetting Magic entirely. Also missed resurrecting the 30 dogs. Definitely the jitters. I lost, but not too hard and that guy ended up coming in 2nd so there's that. Second game was vs LoN Sacrament. He was running Vhordrai and another VLoZD. It was the mission where you burn objectives for points depending on how long you have it. I was doing real well, I think. Still a few errors but nothing too bad. I dropped Vhordrai without needing to pop the Orb and had a good set up to take out the VLoZD. That was his general and he was running the Mark of the Favored. It generated MWs on the unit attacking it. He claimed the MWs were generated before the attacks. The FAQ says after, but I didn't check. I did call over the TO who ruled the attacks happened after the MWs from the Trait in the absence of an FAQ. So no surviving model = no actual attacks. I put out a LOT of attacks. So I lost that one too, but learned a valuable lesson. Round 3 was the other one I tested with the weird deployment zone. It was vs Savage Orcs. He had the big stone guy and just loads and loads of the two Orcs with the big spear battering ram. I ended up tabling him. I just kick out so much damage at -1 Rend. I was able to gum up his big stone baddy with the 30 dogs. He ran the Cogs endless spell set on movement so I was able to basically pick my matchups. That third wolf unit achieved me my secondary by moving off the opposing table edge for the rest of the game. All in all a good event. There's definitely some room to stream line the list a bit. Might not need that 3rd unit of 5 dogs, the 30 unit could be 20 and then there's the CP. All the bad bits were my fault. I never really truly felt like I didn't have the tools I needed or was out classed or anything like that. Definitely going to finish getting it painted up so I can take it to larger events.

So played two games with this list an won both versus Wanderers and Nurgle. Vs Nurgle it was Total Conquest. I essentially split my force. Large wolves, VLoZD and a BK unit on defense and everything else on offense. There was a marauder unit attacking backed up by Blightkings. In the center was a GUO with 30 Plaguebearers. My opponent took the first turn and then I won priority round 2 for the double turn. So basically, the Marauders hit the wolves and was counter charged by the Dragon. It then went into the Blightkings along with the Blood Knights to wipe them out. I swept away the other flank, consolidated on the Objective and made sure I had a screen for the GUO + block of Plaguebearers. I had 3 objectives and the 4th was wide open. On his turn the block of Plaguebearers hit the screen I threw up and got into the BKs running with the VZoZD a bit as well. We called it at that point. The VLoZD was free to roam and I had effectively blocked him off from 2 and maybe 3 objectives. I would have been able to resurrect a wolf unit and through the large one into the Plaguebearers. Second game was vs Wanderers playing Better Part of Valor. Opponent had the vast majority of his army in reserve that could come on any table edge. He had a pretty good hammer unit, archer characters, regular archers, and then some more archers. Also a couple of light cav units. I bubble wrapped my Deployment table edge forcing him to come on at his edge. I threw the VLoZD up front and some BK behind. He popped his once per game -3 rend ability to drop the Dragon. I played it cagey behind some woods until I could hit his center which folded. On my right I tried running some BK up the flank. He did his teleport wiht his hammer unit (forget what they were- Glade Guard?) but missed an 8" charge with a reroll. Whew... He was able to sneak on of the cav units through to take my right objective from the unsupported wolves. I was able to take it back but it did really interesting things to the objective VP tally. The BK dropped his big hammer unit by 60-70%. I was able to consolidate on the center objective and able to then threaten the right, backing up the engaged BK, at which point we called it. Good games. Those BK HAVE to get their charge off. Losing the dragon was a bummer but the -3 rend thing is just so brutal. I gave him 3 units, knew 1 would go, but figured the other 2 could do the job. The Nurgle player just botched the scenario. He figured he could pivot the GUO+ pals to whichever flank he needed to but I was able to block him off and basically ignore that chuck while focusing on the lightly held flanks. I'm taking the List to a local event on Sat. Need to just change up spells and whatnot but I'll leave the units as is.

Success is an odd term in a vacumn. It needs to be defined. I suspect it is bc you are trying to use those units in a way that they just can't be used. Generally, those min Battleline units are not fulfilling that role on the table. They are not the workhorse units. The roles they are very similar to the role of Irregulars in historical black powder armies. In fact, Plan A for mine is sort to basically get killed. If they die allowing my Regular workhorse units engage when and where they want in max potential, then that is a full success for that unit.

The Soulblight Allegiance stuff is in the Legions of Nagash book.

Dire Wolves move 10" + 6" run = 16" That should put them on any midfield objectives easily. 30 Wolves × 2 wounds = 60 wounds. That's with the 6+ FNP if I get a Vamp Lord up there w the Pinions spell.

Has anyone been fiddling with NH cav lists? How would they fare?

I just really like the idea of chucking 60 wounds 16" forward with that extra command point. All these elite knights need some bodies to balance them out I think. Combining a couple Blood Knight units has merit though. I'm still getting the models together. Played a few 1K games though.

Blood Knights seem to be a pretty good cavalry list buried in the Death lists. But each seem to be doing a different thing. I'm not sure if a good cav build is better than a good Death build. The black knights (BkK) are doing a bit of a different thing in those Death lists than the Blood Knights (BdK) are. I see Death lists sort of falling into answering the question of to Nagash or Not to Nagash. Those that run Nagash are definitely playing a game that that the Blood Knights just aren't suited for. Those that don't run him seem to be playing a hyper attrition game. Again, the BdKdon't play that game. This brings us to Legion of Blood. One of the allegiance buffs is specifically for the BdK so it's hard to not consider them under this allegiance. And you want a few of them, to leverage the ability. Throw in some wolves to screen and a VLoZD and you've got a Cav build. I see these lists as attempting to grab objectives early and camp them while pinning the opponent into their DZ. In this context they seem like many other cav lists. The Wolves screen against alpha strikes allowing the BdKs to go where they will do the most damage and engage where the BdK would get bogged down. Respawning is icing on the cake after they've done their job. I'm not sure the Black Knights do as good a job here as the Blood Knights. But the options are fairly limited which worries me. It's just fewer tools in the tool box. They don't kick out mortal wounds really and can struggle at putting out blocks of damage to take down really big stuff. I'm looking at running a full unit of wolves along with my Blood Knights. VLoZD 2 × Vamp Lord 3 × min Blood Knights 3 × min Wolves Max Wolves +1 CP

What tactical flexibility do you feel other units bring? What are the holes that need plugging in the Blood Knight build?

It's just so good. I just don't see what a straight Soulblight list brings to the table.

Bravery 10 armies just seem like too much of a soft counter. I think there will be a lot of Nighthaunt and Maggotkin running around.

I think i'm just going to need to do a whole bunch of GS-ing. I have a Sorceress on Black Dragon coming that I want to put side-saddle with a VC outfit.

What bitz did you use here?

How did you do these? I'm also using Chaos Knights as a starting point. I shaved off all the spikey bitz including the horns at the horses' joints. While they do seem nightmarish, it just has too much of the Chaos Knight read. I'll fill in all the chaos stars with GS next. After that, I'm doing torso swaps and bare heads from Kromlech. Shields will be a mix of 40K FW Black Templar and Dark Angel storm shields. Need to figure out weapons. Probably going with scythes for the leaders. Haven't made much progress other than cleaning up all the horses.