Aren73

When it comes to unit sizes my impression is that we will still see hordes. I think what we'll get is one max size unit in the army which will act as the objective holder, that you just run up to the objective and dump on it. I also think that with the new coherency rules we move away from hordes as damage-dealers and into hordes as damage-sponges. The big winners here I think are skeletons - they were created to soak up damage anyway, now their function is more desirable. I am excited for pretty much everything, but disappointed by lack of rework to the terrain rules. That and I am dreading playing against any shooting heavy lists now. As a mechanic, shooting has only gotten stronger. Who knows, perhaps every shooting unit will double in points in the GHB or something? 😂

I think using 10 Blood Knights is scary, not because of their damage but their toughness. 3 wounds at a 3+ save with a 6+ reroll 1s death save is already quite tough. With Kastelai that 3 wounds can easily become 4 wounds. It's easy enough to increase their save char too. It's also quite easy to make it -1 to wound or -1 to hit them and the Vengorian Lord dishes out a --1 rend aura. Oh and they heal too. Killing such a unit, especially when buffed, would really take some dedication. It's doable for sure but it's not easy by any stretch and would probably take more than one turn. The fact that their damage is pretty good too turns them from a "nuisance" unit into a "worry" unit. If the opponent doesn't kill them, the Blood Knights are going to do some serious damage. But to get rid of them they'll have to work for it. In Kastelai, your opponent will want to kill a unit as soon as it gets a buff. In serious games I think it'll be quite hard to keep the buffed units from dying as soon as they "level up". A brick of 10 blood knights increases their chances of staying alive. I think what I'd do is hunt down units of 3+ wounds char first. Getting +1 wound char to a 10 man unit of blood knights makes them so much more difficult to deal with - IMO for Blood Knights it's actually the best buff of the 3. Sure the extra damage is great but the targets are more scarce and it doesn't help to keep them from dying as soon as they get it.

I've heard this being thrown around before but how does it work exactly? The Unquiet Dead ability says you can set the unit up "at the end of any of your movement phases" so the bats wouldn't be able to move after teleporting in. They arrive on a gravesite, stand there till the end of the turn because they're definitely not wanting to be in combat, then in your opponents turn they are charged/shot/magicked/eviscerated/de-batted and all other forms of horrible happenings. Am I missing something letting them arrive in the movement phase as normal?

I agree with the rules. Though I almost think it's the opposite with the models, that's where we got the love and Lumineth got a lot of kits which I don't feel are as well designed, not with the same kind of finesse or love IMO.

I see Legion of Blood as much more of the Lahmian vampires of old. They aren't Vyrkos (or Von Carstein for that matter) or Avengorii to have all of the vampire monstrosities. They also aren't Kastelai (or Blood Dragons for that matter) to be martial masters and vampire warlords. Instead Legion of Blood highlights two major aspects of classic Lahmian traits: 1. Deception, Manipulation, Mind-games The Lahmian vampires mess with the minds of their prey. They can do this through spells, magical auras or through disconcertingly beautiful visages. It makes sense then that this aura is only for enemy units close to the vampire units in this faction. Lahmian vampires have always messed around with mortal minds, making servants out of them, seducing them or manipulating them. I think ****** with the opponents' morale and making more of them flee actually fits in really well. 2. Using Undead Puppets to do their bidding So this could go for multiple bloodlines but to me, Lahmians especially had the affinity to use the undead like puppets. Not just in terms of resurrecting dead bodies and throwing them at the enemy but actually using them as puppets or dolls. The fact that it's for deathrattle is extremely fitting - a Lahmian vampire wouldn't want to sully him/herself with the likes of rotting zombies, ravenous gibbering ghouls or fickle ghosts. They would be disgusted by anything that drips, slavers, stinks, dribbles, sploshes, smears or squelches. But the skeletons and wights - they're clean. They don't make a sound, they're not wet, they are the perfect puppets - the perfect dolls. If you consider a Lahmian vampire like a puppet master, with their strings on every puppet they control, it makes sense that their puppets are less affected by negative modifiers. After all, the Lahmian vampire has a stronger control over them than other bloodlines might. Why is this important? I think the traits for Legion of Blood fit Lahmian vampires perfectly. They may not be Lahmians in name, but they definitely feel and act like Lahmians. It's a nice throwback. You could do worse than LoB if you want to play a Lahmian army. So, what does a Lahmian vampire army look like? Refined Vampire Lords, legions of skeletons and Grave Guard, a unit of Blood Knights, up to one unit of Vargheists (they are certainly a part of the faction, but they shouldn't make up the backbone of the army as they might for Avengorii or Vyrkos), definitely Coven Throne. The vampire units are the only sentient units in your army. The rest of them are clattering dolls. There's no shame in a vampire using dolls, really each puppet is just an extension of the vampire itself. You may think you're fighting 100 skeletons but actually you're just fighting one vampire that is coordinating each of their moves and should you die to them then you didn't die to the skeletons, you died to the vampire's genius and prowess. I hope this helps explain the faction traits and hopefully warms you to the idea of skeletons

Hey all, I've been a WHFB, 40K, AoS etc. player on and off for the past 10 years. I happen to be the president of my local wargaming club in the UK and I want to start a finite narrative campaign as we have a lot of AoS players/people with AoS armies but few games happening. Of course, as for any club, the pandemic has been rough for getting games going. While TTS has helped, I also think people are somewhat scared off by the perception of a fairly competitive local meta. Now that we're finally allowed to have games in person I want to shake things up and kick things off with a fun, finite narrative campaign. Finite Campaign? - What I have in mind is a series of 3 (or 4) large multiplayer games, sort of 40k Apocalypse style. Whole day event kind of things. In the past this style of games has always been a highlight of our society events. Before each game, the teams (of let's say 3-4 people) would go through a choose-your-own-adventure style options list, which would determine the particulars of the battlefield, mission, attacker/defender etc. Things like: Siege of a mighty chaos fort, Survive the night in the undead marshes, Protect and escort a character etc. I'll keep this thread for general questions and to get input and advice on running this - it's still a ways in the future but I want to make it fun and playable. I already have plans to alter the rules a bit, for example: Smaller armies with staggered reinforcements but the game lasts 7/8 turns instead of 5. This is based on experience of trying to play a large Apocalypse style game of AoS in the past and it took ages to get through each turn, it wasn't fun - instead, there'll be less models on the table each turn but there'll be more turns, it'll keep the game moving along. The first thing I'd be looking for is: Does anyone know of anywhere that has a compilation of the Anvil of Apotheosis rules and expansions? It'd be cool for the players to make their own character for this, seeing as it's narrative and all. I'm sure someone must've done a compilation but I haven't been able to find one. Cheers!

That could be it actually...I wonder, perhaps there's a higher chance to have damaged sprues if you get your items delivered than if you pick them up from a FLGS or GW? Less time spent in trucks/vans/being handled should mean lower chances of damage. On a completely different note: Should we be still using this thread seeing as it's after the release? Not that there's an issue with it, but shouldn't a news, rumours and speculation thread be reserved for convos about the next vampire wave or our next book or SBGL in AoS 3.0 that kind of stuff? I'm assuming if we want a "Random All things SBGL" thread we could just make one, or rename this one and make a new rumours thread? Just a thought, in the interest of keeping things nicely categorised.

The bit from the Warhammer Plus teaser is from the new Age of Sigmar 3 trailer coming with the reveal. Just like the trailer for the 40k reveal of Necrons vs Sororitas and Primaris. Seems AoS 3 is new stormcast vs armoured large goblins. See pics for similarities:

That's fair enough and a valid take. I definitely feel this battletome leans more towards your preferences but that's fine, it's still enjoyable for me that's for sure. And as much as I lament the severe lack of -2 rend in the book, I stand by what I said earlier. We may not be able to break the heaviest armour but we certainly have potential to be a faction with obnoxiously high saves. We don't have to out-damage other factions if we can out-survive them.

Perhaps, however: These are cursed weapons right? Even a scratch from one has the chance to kill. So if our Grave Guard are swinging around these clunky weapons and are less likely to make contact then it's only right the weapons don't do as many "cursed damage" aka mortal wounds. Whereas the normal swords, sure they won't cause as much normal damage but they'll touch/graze/make-contact-with the enemy a lot more - hence doing more mortal wounds. I feel like they had the chance to really differentiate the weapons and they went halfway there. I would have probably kept the sword'n'board profile as is but for great weapons I'd have: 1A/4+/2+/-2/2 The 2+ to wound is somewhat extreme so that could easily be a 3+. But this would really push the idea that these are heavy, slow but powerful cursed blades. Designed to cleave through armour. It would also push them away from the 3+/3+/-1/2 profile that is absolutely everywhere in the book. They'll do less mortal wounds for sure, but they'd be much more of a threat to heavily armoured units, especially that increasing their attacks through CAs would be more valuable than ever. I enjoy a wide variety of profiles in my armies - sadly this book has very little of that variety.

Agreed. They should be hitting on 4+, wounding on 3+ and not the other way around, it feels off. But IMO there's quite a bit of jankiness and things "feeling off" in this book.

Not Blood Knights. Blood Knights would be one of those obnoxious units with the 2+ rerollable save If you can't beat them, join them...

It would make a lot of sense for them to be our source of high rend. It would really cement their place in our book and make them unique. But - this is most likely a typo. Let's not get our hopes up, if this was any other army we'd probably say to go by the book.

Perhaps, but half our army is rend -1 dmg 2, did we really need yet another unit that has the same profile? I agree that rend -1 dmg 2 is better than rend -2 dmg 1. But at least it's some variety... There are already plenty of units in this book vying for the same target niche and very few units that can deal with other target niches. Anyway, most likely a typo, it's probably going to be -1/2

A viable rend -2 option in the book would be nice (was hoping that'd be blood knights) and it can't be a named character. Slightly worried about a high armour meta (supposedly) when we have so little good rend. Well alright then, just this once