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

I just transplanted Lauka's hair onto the Vengorian Lord and you know what - I'm low-key chuffed with myself. No more bald vampire.

I gave my Vengorian Lord a hair transplant from Lauka Vai. I hate bald vampires and now I hate GW for making me put in so many hours and shred my thumb on the scalpel. Still...it seems to have worked. Thoughts?

Well Mannfred was always the wizard, you know, the Loremaster, the most powerful of the Von Carstein trio at magic, the bookworm. It's why he gets so many casting bonuses now

We watched the same Honest Wargamer video yes? I too am starved for Soulblight content on YouTube

Shh, we're not meant to be talking about the skeleton rule working like that, most other people will miss it and then maybe GW will faq it to be the good version because they'll miss it too. Also it makes rolling for it with Vanhels awful. Because for some models you're rolling two dice because they died twice, for some you're rolling one. Each model can only get back up once but some models have two goes at getting back. It makes it a real mess if you read it like that. Example: Skeletons Tom, Richard and Ahmed die from a unit of skellies. The unit activates and each rolls a 4+ and Tom and Ahmed get back but not Richard. Next the unit takes more casualties and Ahmed also dies. Then because of Vanhels, the unit activates again. You roll a 4+ for Tom, Richard and two for Ahmed because each had been "slain" that phase and Ahmed had been "slain" twice, no matter if they reanimated. You roll a 4, 5, 5 and a 6! 1. Tom's success gives him nothing, his model is "returned to the unit" but he's there already, nothing happens. 2. Richard died once, didn't resurrect the first time, but because he was "slain" in the phase he gets a second go at it with Vanhels and indeed does come back. 3. Ahmed the lucky boy not only got back up the first time, because he was killed twice he gets two goes at coming back the second time! He was "slain" twice as per the FAQ. He gets two successes, so he gets returned to the unit twice. However...returning the same model to the unit multiple times doesn't do anything more than once. The rule is a mess if you treat it RAW. If you play it RAW you have to do it individually for each model because of the example above. How often will this scenario happen? All you need is Vanhels and then two enemy units going into your skeletons...so reasonably often if you have them on an objective. This rule needs an errata stat.

Yup, @Sception is correct, reanimated models still count as slain models. It's a double edged sword. You get to roll twice for them, but they still count towards battleshock even if they got up. Funky.

The skeleton regen is really hard to take into account, it gives them a lot of swing and variability. It does nothing to stop them getting wiped in one go, but is stupidly strong if the enemy doesn't wipe them and then you get to go. Regarding @Neil Arthur Hotep's excellent breakdown it's like the the effective wounds of the unit getting doubled as long as they don't get wiped and go second. How often the "don't get wiped, go second" scenario happens is one of how good your and your opponent's play is. I play Necrons as my second army and boy am I feeling the parallels. Suddenly Skeletons are like a unit of Necron Warriors (who also happen to hate spells - no regen too). Except for Necrons the reanimation happens after every enemy unit's attack against that unit. I find it odd that we have no other ways of interacting with this rule (or Endless Legions for that matter). I would have thought a Wight King could have a CA that "you pick a unit of skellies, they roll 4+ for all their dead models to reanimate" or something like that. Would have fit nicely and basically makes them a Necron Overlord with a resurrection orb. Looking at the Deathrattle subfaction the term half-baked springs to mind...

Also smaller unit footprint on Vargheists than Blood Knights. More Vargheists will get in range to attack/fit in tight spaces.

Fair fair, I thought the lack of -2 rend would drag them down but for their points they don't seem to me to be bad currently. Maybe I'm too used to seeing the 3/3/-1/2 profile everywhere and so don't really see it as anything special anymore. Also, initially I didn't think much of their save changes but going up to a native 3+ is actually such a strong buff, plus the reroll 1s on death saves (every little helps), they seem significantly tougher to kill than their previous iteration.

How do we feel about Blood Knights for their points in general? My flatmate, a gitz player, was amazed they are as cheap as they are for how tough and killy they are. Is that just him being a gitz player?