Aren73

This one speaks too much sense, can't have that much wisdom going around, will need to do some hair-trigger impulse buying to balance it out.

That's sort of what I'm settling on now too. The rescultps are necessary, I love the Vengorian Lord and the named characters are I guess a bonus though not one I care much for. All in all the release is positive, but the lore and rules/playstyle is what will make it either a success or failure for me.

@BaylorCorvette - I suppose no matter how people may complain or praise this release, it's quite a safe release. Mostly resculpts and some decent looking special characters. Thanks for linking btw, I'm new here didn't know if it was against forum rules or not.

On a completely different note to all this - I recently ran a poll on an fb Soublight group about this release. Options being: Was the reveal: As expected, better than expected or worse than expected? The split is sitting around 35%, 34%, 31%, for expected, better, worse respectively. This tells me the community is surprisingly non-extreme on this release, with most people thinking it's "alright". I thought based on some reactions that we'd get a lot more people being extreme one way or the other. Something more like a 20:40:40 split or even more skewed. It also tells me that GW didn't blow many people away with this release, it's not one of those cases where they've massively overdelivered. But they also didn't drop the ball majorly, they didn't betray the fanbase so to speak. No idea what to do with that data...it's nice that people online aren't as extreme as one might think?

No need to get on his case for that. VC have classically always had ghosts in them, it'll be a bit jarring for most of us not to have any now. As for horde lists - frankly yes, a Soulblight Gravelords army should be viable as a horde. But they'll be doing a great disservice to the faction if that's the only viable list type. Perhaps one of the allegiances/subfactions/dynasties will work better for hordes but it shouldn't be at the expense of hybrid lists at least. I for one despise taking ~150 models to a game, I much more enjoy playing in the 80 ish range where I might take one large unit of skeletons/zombies/Grave Guard but the other units are more elite and aren't at full size. We have a lot of special, quirky units and it shouldn't be the case that every SG army takes the same 3-4 full blocks of the same core units and then maybe sprinkles in one elite unit for flavour. This is kind of what I meant earlier - I can see why we wouldn't be viable without a large unit of skeles/zombies/GG in the army, if you just used the (to use the whfb terms) Special and Rare sections of the book then yeah, the army doesn't have to be viable for that. But, the army should definitely be viable for taking some large units and plenty of elites. At this point I am tired of the classic undead trope of hordes all the time where the only thing viable are many large blocks of dudes buffed by a hero. It doesn't need to be just that. We're not just "vanilla undead", generic fantasy undead that you'd see in any fantasy setting. We are the Vampire faction and yes, we have skeletons and zombies but we also have vampire knights, mutated vampiric monstrosities, a weird chariot/palenquin thing. We have massive bats and even a huge-chonker-ohlawdhecomin-bat. We are not the same undead as you see in Mantic's Kings of War (even if they did start as a VC ripoff ), there is a reason why we don't have the typical skeleton archers and undead catapult. There is nothing more boring they could do with SG than make it "Generic Undead" and purely that. That should be one possible list/subfaction but not the whole thing. In short, I agree with you that yes, hordes should be one viable aspect of our army. However, I don't think that if they only get that right then it's a good book. In my eyes it will be a failure if that's the only viable list. Something like the hybrid list I mentioned above should also be viable and then probably a speed list (knights, knights and wolves/bats with Vengorian/VLoZD or something). If they can't make that work then they have made a "Generic Warhammer Undead" faction but not "Vampire Counts" or "Soulblight Gravelords".

Agree with a lot there. I'd say a few other core themes of the army are: Our core is an attrition kind of unit. Our more elite units are very strong, surprisingly strong for what would otherwise be a horde faction. That's what distinguishes Vampire Counts for me from the other horde factions. The elite units. It's what gives our army a distinctive feel. Other horde armies' elite units may have still quite a few models in them, whereas ours are like Blood Knights - very powerful and hit like a brick, if somewhat fragile for their points. I am 100% onboard with you on our chaff units, I just want our elites to keep their identity too.

I still think SG will be closer to Vampire Counts than LoN was. Sure LoN wasn't *exactly* pre-split undead but it was more towards that feel. It was a toolbox of "Run your undead however you want" with no heavy emphasis on neither the "Vampire" nor the "Counts" part. In essence: Vampire Counts was a subfaction of Legions of Nagash. Vampire Counts IS the Soulblight Gravelords faction.

I disagree I don't think we are exactly LoN. LoN has just stopped existing, as the stop-gap it always was and has been split into FEC, NH, OBR and now SG. I don't think we'll have the same lore as LoN necessarily, the same focus or even play the same. For sure there will be plenty of similarities but I don't think it's a direct 1:1 transfer. LoN was never Vampire Counts, it was Undead (as in the old armybooks before VC and TK split). Soulblight Gravelords I think will be a lot more Vampire Counts than they are LoN.

I am hoping that we won't be a full horde faction. Legions of Nagash are the classic undead hordes. Flesh Eater Courts are the mad cannibal hordes. Nighthaunt are the gloomy, cursed hordes. I hope that we can go in a more - horrid, surreal direction, with plenty of models but not necessarily "horde". I like the idea that instead of having lots of skeletons you have plenty of skeletons who keep coming back. Going with the rumours, a unit of 30 where half of them get back up every time they fight would be perfect

I wonder if Blood Knights will be Battleline under conditions, as before. I probably wouldn't run it but it would be awesome to see a full knight army.

A start collecting with limited edition book and dice would be cool, I hadn't considered that. I don't think we'll get it, though we'll eventually get a start collecting box probably. But for the fun of speculation, what do you think would be in such a box? I imagine: 10 Skeletons 5 Blood Knights Vampire Lord 3 Fell Bats I think such a box would be really cool. Then again they could go down the route of dire wolves and zombies.

Ahh no, please no. It looks like she is crushing the poor thing under her bulk. Then again...maybe it likes that? No, on a serious note, I'm glad we have access to both a vampire lord on zombie dragon for the traditional crowd and this nightmare-fuel for something new.

I think the sword attacks will be stronger in some way, either 2+ hit, wound, 3D, mortals on 6s or some other way. Effectively, I think Vengorian will have a stronger base attack than a regular vampire lord. In general I think vampire lords in AoS have felt a bit weak compared to their WHFB counterparts. But I always attributed that to the fact that everything else had been turned up to 11 in AoS. However now that we have a brand new all AoS version of vampires I think we can expect them to feel a bit more like vampire lords back in WHFB.

@swarmofseals - First of all, thank you for the well put together and politely worded reply. It's much more enjoyable to disagree with people if both can be expected to have a grip on their emotions. To tackle your first comment about my post I'd say this: You say I attempt to assert an opinion as an objective fact, by using the phrase "lets call a spade a spade". However, you'll find immediately after I said that I followed it up with an objective fact, namely the ratio of named characters to overall releases. That's not an opinion, it can't be. That's how it was intended to come across. A - let's look at the objective data B - let's then talk about how we feel about it. As for your second claim, that my question about "Does anyone actually play multiple named characters?" is leading and not an honest question: It was intended as both. I am genuinely interested in how many people would play specifically multiple named characters in a list. It is indeed leading but only in so far as I want to demonstrate my deep disbelief in the majority of the community doing that. I could have run a poll, tried to gauge the true interest in multiple named character lists in the community and then made an objective claim that "the majority" or "the minority" etc play those lists. But that's effort and time, by the time I'd have done that the conversation would have gone cold. So instead, I used that question which both seeks to ask who here would actually play multiple named characters in a list as well as expressing that I find it unlikely that the majority does so. Nonetheless - I appreciate your approach to this discussion, it's level-headed and makes for a more chill environment, kudos. In general I'd like to respond with two things. Firstly - there are plenty of objective things we can say about this reveal. For example the ratio of named characters to resculpts. Or the fact that on paper this release seems smaller than the Gloomspite Gitz one (which had the same amount of resculpts, more new units, terrain and endless spells). These are things that inform our opinions but ultimately it is our opinions that matter. It is based on our personal opinions that we will buy and play this army. Secondly - Opinions are important and I see them as just as valid data. If someone feels bad or good about this release there is a reason they feel so. Some of those reasons will be based more on their internal factors and experiences but I'd say the majority of those reasons are still based on the quality of this release and the perceived value it brings to each person. I don't mind if someone says their opinion to me framed as objective fact - it is the objective fact to them, I don't need them to preface it with "In my opinion" because I already know that that's what they mean. As long as people are polite and respectful I am VERY interested in everyones opinion on this. I love Vampire Counts/Soulblight and I enjoy talking about both negative and positive opinions regarding them. To close, I'd also say that at that point I got a bit tired of the negative comment bashing that was going on and I wasn't as subtle as I could have been - perhaps it makes my post seem a bit on the arrogant side. Let me assure you it's not, I just wanted to bring the conversation on more solid and objective ground, away from just shouting "I think this is GREAT" "No I thing this is BAD". The point was to underline two things which I think are true. The first, that there is an unusual ratio of named characters in this release. The second is that the majority of the community probably won't play more than one of those, occasionally, making it a bit of a weird release. Those are still technically opinions, however they're informed opinions based in the objective reality, as well as my observation over playing AoS since release of how many named characters people play in their lists. TLDR: Thanks for being chill, I agree with your sentiments however I had valid reasons for putting things across how I did, let's all try to give well-informed, high quality opinions and debate

@Koradrel of Chrace and @Harioch haha thanks - hey I am still really stoked for the faction! Don't get me wrong, sure I think the new reveals could have been better, but I am still so so hyped for Soulblight Gravelords as a whole! I'm going to grab some Fell Bats, a Vengorian Lord (or two!), skeles, blood knights, a Terrorgheist and plenty of Vargheists and I am going to run a bat themed, nightmare army! It's going to be kick-ass and look amazing and hopefully be at least somewhat viable Fingers crossed for good rules eh?

I think you're right, for example if Vargheists had been in this release I'd have been much more excited. But also, for me in particular, the new Blood Knights are...7/10. They're better than the old ones for sure. But they could have done with slightly chonkier armour and big fur cloaks, sort of like this image: I'll feel much better once I come up with some fur for them

Ah you're right, Blood Knights also needed resculpts 100%. Really, the resculpts are not my issue with this release, they bring those units up to speed with the rest. I do just wish we didn't get so many named characters. I'd happily sacrifice Anika, Belladamma and Radukar the Beast for one new vampiric unit like the Bloodborn. If it was up to me I'd have probably done the resculpts as is, also had a new kit for Grave Guard, ditched the above mentioned named characters, kept Lauka and the Vengorian Lord and added just one new unit. This would bring the release from a 7/10 to an 8-9/10 for me. I don't get the feeling that people are hating this release, rather I think the general feeling is "it's ok, it's a bit meh, probably not as good a release as Lumineth or OBR".

Let's call a spade a spade. 5/12 - almost half of our new releases are named characters. Does anyone here actually like running multiple named characters in their lists? The rest of our releases are resculpts. Which is great and all, however only the fell bats and zombies were screaming for a resculpt, the rest were ok for now. I like the new models, they're pretty but I feel like they could have planned the release better. That doesn't mean that we're a bad faction! Our 2012 release was so good that we have plenty of flavourful, gorgeous models to fall back on. However, that doesn't make this release amazing. It's simply ok, it's alright. @warhammernerd - it's really tiring when people try to shut down honest and genuine critique. Games Workshop doesn't produce pure gold all the time, some of their releases are better than others, it's ok for other people to think that this release is one of the lackluster ones. I am still HYPED for the faction, I can't wait to run my surrealist, bat inspired vampire force. But that doesn't mean that I don't see flaws with their release.

The amount of copium...

No, I don't think that's actually happening. Based on what we've seen and some rumours (of which most have been confirmed now) nothing from the cursed city box is a separate unit except for zombies and skeletons. Buuuuuuut apparently you can take all the cursed city stuff as one unit, letting you take the Vargskyr etc - as long as you also take all the other characters. Basically, no vampire infantry. Unless you count Vargheists

It's sad that this is a question It's a new faction with a new battletome.

Hahaha fair enough - that being repeated in the article does make it seem as if there will be no terrain or endless spells. Shame, Soulblight endless spells could have really been gorgeous. Oh well.

I was just demonstrating that when they say "this is everything" they could mean anything from "That's it" to "That's all that we're showing today" or "Those are all the new models not including terrain or endless spells". We really don't know. We may or may not have endless spells and they may or may not be coming with this release wave. Currently there isn't enough to be able to say either way.

Well I guess if that is "EVERYTHING" then we're also not getting dice, warscroll cards or a limited edition battletome After all, everything is everything.

Already mentioned - Who knows? I certainly hope so but we may just be treated as a bit of a side-faction.