TMS

@Feinar, at 33 minutes the chaos sorcerer is killed by the impact hits from the steam tank but those impact hits should be distributed like shooting attacks, and not go all into only the sorcerer. Page 99 in the rulebook shows how this works. Love your reports!

Indeed and, just speaking personally, figuring out a way to win through avoidance or some other trickery wouldn't be enough for me. There's supposed to be a war aspect to the game as well, with both sides rolling dice and removing miniatures.

The long term enjoyment part of the game suffers the most when extreme armies like OBR and Fyreslayers come out. They're like deathballs that I can't even get close to or they'll melt me. I bank on superior mobility to try to win on objectives but if I can't fight them properly that gets old, fast. GW has created these armies where my offense isn't good enough to do anything, yet they also hit back unreasonably hard. Compare them to the staunch defender Sequitor block - similar defense but massively increased offense.

I was surprised and delighted to see 2 submitted Soulblight lists for the upcoming LVO tournament and I finally got a look at them. Both include Neferata and some Nighthaunt allies. Both lists taken from This Document (just search for Soulblight) #1 Bloodline: Swift Death Mortal Realm: Shyish Neferata Mortarch of Blood (340) - Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference Vampire Lord (140) - Mount: Flying Horror - Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) - General - Deathlance & Shield & Chalice - Trait: Mist Form - Artefact: Ethereal Amulet - Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions 10 x Blood Knights (400) 3 x Vargheists (150) 3 x Vargheists (150) 20 x Bladegheist Revenants (320) - Allies Extra Command Point (50) Malevolent Maelstrom (10) #2 Bloodline: Necromantic Mortal Realm: Shyish Neferata Mortarch of Blood (340) - Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb Prince Vhordrai (480) - Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) - General - Deathlance & Shield & Chalice - Trait: Mist Form - Artefact: Ethereal Amulet - Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference 5 x Blood Knights (200) 5 x Blood Knights (200) 3 x Vargheists (150) 20 x Chainrasp Horde (160) - Allies Suffocating Gravetide (20) The Bladegheists in the first list are interesting to me. I assume they'll be used both for screening and for punching. Having 3 characters nearby will give them some decent resurrections too. The second list is going for the double ethereal dragon gambit, with some chainrasps for screening. I wish both players the best of luck and hope they'll gain much glory next week!

Welcome, @Peter1990, to our world of darkness! I hadn't really considered just how far you could get with a pair of FEC starters, nice thinking! I think your list can work OK. I recommend setting up your Vargheists as three units of 6, 3 and 3. The bigger pack will be your power unit for when you really want to hit something. 9 Fell Bats are kind of expensive but can work as a makeshift screen at those numbers. Use them to block access to your important things, both in movement and during pile-in's, and to go and tag lonely objectives. Good luck!

Like others I've got trouble getting into the ungroundedness of the mortal realms in the AoS novels. Contrast with WFB stories (Ulrika and Von Carstein trilogy for me, specifically) where I know the world they describe and I can follow along on a map as they travel between locations, with more bonus points for letting me imagine what my own TT characters are up to in the vicinity at the time of the novels' happenings. I hope that the realms will eventually create the same kind of familiarity for me as the old world has, although I'm biased with a long history of WFB behind me. The disparity has taught me that the fluff is more important to me than I thought it was.

You're not forced to set the battalion up inside the keep. You pick the battlefield edge even if you won't be ambushing from it, so you'll still get the Shadow buff if you deploy on the field. It'll give you less deployment drops, too. I also like to have multiple transferences around. Together with pinions it does much for any VLoZD. I usually take pinions on the VLoZD and transference on the two following casters and try to keep the dragon within range of one of them. I rarely go with more casters than that but amaranthine orb would be the fourth pick. @Lorhan, for a VLoZD the mist form is the best command trait you can take, no doubt!

Yes, there typically is. Imagine Soulblight as the blood dragons with lots of heavy cavalry, although you could go for vargheists instead now and have a bestial theme, while Legions is more classical with big units of undead and powerful characters and special units. Legions could also go for elite armies and monster mashes if you want to. Legions is the stronger army with more list variety. Consider Soulblight the army for vampire purists while Legions is the VC of old.

With both that spell and her command ability yeah, I'd say she has more utility. With +2 to cast I think she'll be pretty strong, although she eats lots of CP. Give her a try!

Glad to hear success, @Raptor_Jesues. Vhordrai is a real glass cannon but when he works, he really does. His own quickblood spell in particular really boosts the dragon's output. You know, with the necromantic bloodline you could go for an ethereal Vhordy through Neferata's spell. Just stack that casting bonus as high as you can and let it rip!

Looking forward to following this, your necrarch vampire is perfectly gnarly! Soulblight was my first (and only) finished army and if I could do it, so can you! 👍

@Thamalys Yeah, certainly Swift Death. This list wants to move fast! Just noticed in the numbers that I could switch out the Vampire Lord for 2x Bat Swarms. Dangerously low on characters but provides something small and cheap to get in the way and harass shooters.

Happy new year everyone! May the coming year bring your army/armies much battle and glory! The first list I'm going to try this year I think will be one to celebrate my 6 new vargheists I got painted up. VLoZD Vampire Lord 4x5 Blood Knights 2x6 Vargheists 1980/2000 The list is lacking something cheap like bat swarms, doesn't have that very useful extra command point and I'm kinda screwed if one of the hero-only scenarios show up but there's a lot of scary things running around here. 🧛‍♀️

@Thamalys, I don't think you're missing anything, really. Legions are a stronger army, if not only for the gravesite + summonable combo. The only things Soulblight offer that Legions can't get are flying blood knights, as being stuck on the ground can be really limiting sometimes, and mist form VLoZD, which is simply just great. Aside from that it's purely a theme and fluff thing for me, since this is THE actual vampire army. I hope that either Soulblight gets its own tome or Legion of Blood is expanded to become less "just undead" and more vampirey. A thrall & vampire relationship á la Blood Bowl would be a nice angle to take, possibly with a focus on regenerating wounds instead of resurrection. More than once have my VLoZD survived on a single wound, rolling hot on those deathless saves, and then bounced right back up with a good chalice and a double cast of vile transference... just beautiful. 🧛‍♂️ I hope we'll get something new next year, either as a tome or as an update to Legions.

@Raptor_Jesues, I usually find vampire lords to be pretty weak for their cost (except that sweet command ability!) but in your list it also gives you someone with a command trait and artefact. Having another caster to get your endless spells out isn't bad either. You could maybe try the Ruby Vial artefact since you're going necromantic. You'll be up to -3 bravery with your banners, could be cool depending on the opponent. I don't really know how good battleshock is vs Fyreslayers though. I think a mortis engine would be a cool ally to your list. It's fast and the banshee scream benefits from your negatives to bravery. It also gives a bonus to cast and can heal all our multi-wound units. I would probably drop 5 blood knights to fit the engine in.

Yeah, it is silly. If the mortarchs could take deathmage spells (like they should!) then they'd have a nice big plus to themselves in this army. And with blood knights I mean just running those 20 as 4x5 instead of 2x10, that seems to work better for me. Sometimes you need 10 to kill something ASAP but more often I find them getting stuck or getting tagged by a lucky long range charge. With 2x5 you can have one unit ahead of the other and if the front unit gets into trouble the rear unit can charge in and help out. To properly kill things I like to have 6 vargheists instead of 10 blood knights, like I wrote before.

Great idea! I think I like the wings on the back more, myself... although I think both would work. Wings on the back could be painted up to be part of the armour while saddle wings could be more ornamental.

@Raptor_Jesues, Mannfred won't be able to take a deathmage spell in Soulblight... I suggest vile transference instead, to help top him and Vhordy up when needed. Personally I now like smaller blood knight units rather than big ones. Less investment and doesn't hurt so bad when they get stuck on something. I like 6's of vargheists instead for when something really needs to get beaten up, with a good command ability on them they're just much more consistent.

With the divining powers of Google Translate I think the only thing happening is Manny and Neffy coming down to 340p each. The Japanese document is already up with the points changes: https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/c7c3805e.pdf Not very interesting, in other words. Doesn't introduce any new list varieties. The JP document is for some reason completely empty of any FAQs though, maybe some things have happened there as well. If not then I think it was strange of them to name Soulblight explicitly as an army with updates and not Legions in general.

Something seems to be brewing for us in the coming winter FAQ. From the GHB19 errata, updated with today's date, second page. The tome erratas mentioned haven't been updated yet, I assume that'll be for later today.

@Sartxac, what are those Grave Guard doing for you? Got any good plan in mind? And I agree, Mist Form is superb. It's probably the single best thing about Soulblight as it is. It makes the VLOZD an excellent sniper that can always leave unimportant fights for more juicy targets.

Soulblight is the only army I have and the one I've taken to a couple of tournaments last year. I love vampires and I'm too lazy/unmotivated to get anything else done at the moment. Results have been mixed and I've never gotten a better result than 2-3 but I've caught some people off guard due to the army being rare and I enjoy showing off the conversions I've done. I'm hoping for a proper battletome to expand them into something more complete.

I've been away from AoS for a couple of months. Have you had anything good going on with Soulblight, perhaps against the newest releases? I can say I'm not looking forward to running into those exploding Ossiarchs...

Work has started on my 10 new blood knights. They've all been based and pinned, now to begin the painting.

Yeah, I agree with Honk. Vargheists hit harder than blood knights for the same points (damage 2 is better than D3) but they can't take a punch. Blood knights are tanky against things without rend. If you don't go with Swift Death for your bloodline then the vargheists are a lot more mobile with flying. I certainly think there's a place for both units in the same army. Typically, you'll get out what you put in: 3 vargheists < 5 blood knights < 6 vargheists < 10 blood knights