Aren73

Or says interesting things about the book One massive positive of this release for me, unexpectedly, are the Vengorian Lords. It occurred to me just now. My two favourite units have always been blood knights and Vargheists. A Vengorian Lord is a mix of both. In the end, all told, this release is still very positive for me. Far from perfect but good enough that it is an improvement on the past, despite its many flaws.

I see where you're coming from king and I do appreciate your clarity on zombies. The coven throne does fulfill a niche, but effectively what you're talking about there is an anvil unit. It's a very good one because it can't be hurt. However, could we also not have a strong anvil with 10 2+ rerollable save Blood Knights? Sure some of them will die but not most of them, they should survive a round of combat against pretty much anything. They will also deal decent damage back. In a pinch they could hold up a strong unit and if 10 is not enough then use 15. As for GW nerfs: Gw generally nerfs stuff not in strong factions per se, rather they nerf overused units in both strong and weak armies. If a faction is too powerful then GW just tries to fix that on the next iteration of the book. It's why it's so important not to spam the same unit time and again. With battleline it's fine (unless that's all there is in your list) but with quirky units like the Coven Throne, if everyone brings one then GW will catch onto that and will decide that the Coven Throne is too good in comparison to the rest of the book. Now, what's easier for them, to fix all the other units in the book or to nerf the throne? It happens all too often.

Please, let's not. Yeah the Coven Throne is good and it fits in well with plenty of our lists, it isn't stuck into one list type. However let's not start calling it a must-have or saying it should be in every competitive list. That's a quick and short road to getting it a points hike from GW. The same thing I can see happening with zombies. People are jumping on these units that look amazing on paper and are focusing on them almost exclusively. What will happen is this: Every single tournament SBGL player will play lots of zombies and a Coven Throne, we'll still do middling in the tournament scene and then GW will give both units a points hike or worse, reduce their abilities. Both of those units are fine and good and quite strong in their own way, maybe even stronger than other units of their type in our book. But let's not start shoving them into every list just because we think that's what makes us competitive. Sometimes the unit is worth it, sometimes it's not, depends on the rest of the list.

Perhaps a unit that was destroyed at half strength, like Endless Legions? That would mean you can only ever do it with half a max strength unit at most AND only once one has died? I think that would've been fine - sure you can still auto charge an enemy but the unit would likely be either skeletons or zombies or maybe grave guard but even for 15 Grave Guard that would have meant the enemy has already killed 30 of them. So not a massive issue, not game breaking. I may actually play it like that. Simply replace "currently set up in the grave as a reserve unit" with "half of a unit that has died previously, like for Endless Legions ability".

It's a bit on the strong side though. Like...meta defining strong. If you can auto-charge an enemy unit of your choice (which brings with it that you can basically wipe it out) and the fact that Grave Guard can do this and you can keep doing it...nah. I wouldn't want to play against that. I think if you want to convince people to let you play these rules against them then definitely do NOT take that command ability.

Ok there are too many options there to list but in general: The customisation options are thematic and seem generally not overpowered though I imagine there will be one or three combinations that are straight up bust. Command abilities are very strong as are the spells, I could see those being mentioned as "too powerful" and tbh some of them are riding that line. A command ability that let's the user bring in a unit from the grave wholly within 12" and outside of 3" of the enemy....ooft. Especially when you can let your vampire turn into a fell bat...and it happens at the end of the movement phase not even in your hero phase, ooh boy.

Actually someone beat me to it, they are all up on the SoulblightGravelords subreddit. Excuse me? "My Legion I summon thee" is bonkers. Deep-striking Grave Guard outside of 3" of enemy...dear Nagash...

Alright you lot. Who wants some White Dwarf pics?

It's really dawning on me that skeletons are super fun with Vanhels! You can get really tactical with their activations, decide exactly at which point you need models back in the unit. Scenario: Enemy kills 20 dudes from a 30 man skeleton unit. Skeletons activate and return 10, to go to 20 man unit, whack back. Enemy activates another unit killing 15 skeletons, you're down to 5 ouch. You activate skeletons and roll 35 for returning (yup, that's how it works, faq'ed and all) and get back 17. The 22 skeletons again whack, doing a little damage. You use the battleshock command ability because battleshock on skeletons in these situations always sucks. Skeletons with multiple activations are great, quite useful and very thematic. They just keep reassembling once you kill them. Someone at GW has clearly been playing in the Catacombs in Dark Souls recently. It all depends if you care about durability or hitting power. Skeletons really shouldn't be doing damage in your army - don't even think about their damage output, it's irrelevant and insignificant. They require a hammer unit alongside them. However, a Necromancer and the -1 to wound corpse cart? Amazing. Skeletons are slow anyway so they'll keep up, I'll probably run mine right in the middle of a blob of skeletons. I recommend Vargheists as the hammer because: Vargheists need an anvil. They are too fragile to stick around. Skeletons need a hammer...it was meant to be Vargheists are fast (can even deepstrike if you care), faster than Blood Knights and easier to get all into combat Can fly and have a smaller footprint than Blood Knights - making manouvers and again getting into combat easier Don't degrade past the charge so if they do stick around for a second combat phase they'll still perform as you want them to (though then you have to worry about damage). 30 Skeletons. Necromancer for Vanhels and battleshock. Corpse cart for -1 to wound. 6 Vargheists to flank and be the hammer. Those skeletons are not dying, the Vargheists are providing the muscle, everyone's happy.

Fair fair, it will just end up being a multiple of that anyway. That's still 12 zombies dead, against 10 Berzerkers with no buffs. Against larger units with some support we could get to half the unit disappearing in one round of combat. And then you're forced to spend the CP to negate the brutal battleshock. However against skellies with Vanhels on them...as long as you're good for Battleshock then the skellies will bump straight back up to 30 models and while strong, the Hearthguard don't wipe 30 skellies which is what you want. As long as a few, even 1, skellie lives then you get the whole 30 man unit back EDIT: Of course, Skellies won't kill the Hearthguard. Skeletons need a hammer unit to help them do the damage, but as an anvil skeletons are 👌

By Buttload ™️ I did mean at least 10. But, whether 10 get to attack or not is debatable, they only have a 1" reach the poor things.

Coven Throne and a Buttload (technical term) of Blood Knights? Pop a mystic shield on them for a 2+ rerollable, get them hitting on 2+/2+. They won't kill the Hearthguard but they'll grind them down eventually and not too many will die.

The Kastelai version of the Stormcast "Only the Faithful!".

Eh, still more variety than the old blood knight kit Also, Blood Knights were traditionally this elite unit you might have 5, max 10 of in a game, the lack of variety wouldn't be an issue. Then again seems the new rules encourage 15 (and I've even seen 30) of them on the board....hordes of Blood Knights I guess. They got busy making fledgelings Yeah, the terrain and spells is a sore point. Let's not...I think we all agree on that.

Me three. Matched Play is the standard and expectation. I think players will naturally gravitate towards whichever system is best balanced (and not towards the one that is most fun, sadly).

Oh. So it turns it GW CAN write vampire powers eh? How interesting. Eh...I'm still super excited for these, even if I won't be able to use them every game.

I imagine all of it in the book might have been a bit too much to balance, but definitely some of it.

Awesome! I love the idea of the vampire turning into animals! Fight first in the combat phase is SUCH a vampiric ability! Um...I'm not sure what to ask really...all of the vampire stuff? 😘 While I know you can't post pictures here, you can host them on imgur (which is what had been done with the main book leaks) and we could share the link through message? Don't worry if not, I get that it's a lot of work.

As far as I was aware some tournaments do allow anvil characters. For me it feels like a Narrative Play device which GW tries to balance as well as they can to make it close to Matched Play. Sort of like the Crusade rules for 40k. Personally I see no issue in playing these balanced Narrative Play rules, Matched Play should be reserved for mostly tournaments IMO. The game isn't 100% balanced anyway - plenty of stronger and weaker books. Who really cares if in their casual game a character is like 10% cheaper than he should be for his abilities? The game needs balance and the clearly broken or abusable abilities should be bonked by GW. I just don't see this strong need to make everything Matched Play. Then again, maybe you guys have a lot more casual games than I do. My society plays almost exclusively Matched Play, has a very strong meta and a chunk of WAAC players (the ones that would abuse rule interactions that while TECHNICALLY correct nonetheless are a bit scummy in a casual game). I don't particularly want to make all my lists super competitive cheese but I feel I need to, to have a chance at winning or even a game that isn't over by end of turn 1/2.

Ooft that's a bummer, I was keeping my hopes up today for it. I think it'd be in GW's best interests to do a WC article on it really. They must've seen some of the feedback by now, I'm sure they use the internet, they can't be oblivious. "Vampire Lord feels boring/uninspired" is a sentiment which has been shared many times (not just by me haha). It would go a long way to reconciling with the detractors of the book if they came out and said "hey, here is an awesome customisation system coming up in the new White Dwarf, here's a preview of some of it!". Plus, increasing awareness of the cool stuff in the WD would help them sell more copies.

@RuneBrush Right on, added the source link now too! Seeing as you're here how about you chuck in something from your backyard? Go on, you know you want to

Amazing! I've played the game but I wasn't aware of the orchestral arrangement! It's so good, makes me want to play HMM3 again so bad A huge inspiration for me and in fact the main artistic direction for my army is Zdizlaw Beksinski, a Polish surrealist artist. I really like the idea of painting an army that is highly detailed and skillful but doesn't necessarily try to chase realism - instead is this form of nightmare which I think is very fitting for our army. Here's one of his pieces: Source: https://beinart.org/blogs/articles/zdzislaw-beksinski-from-the-inside-documentary

Same! 🤡

Hey all! Starting this thread for all the cool, unconventional, niche, inspirational and underrated vampire content out there. Art, music, movies, shows, games, models and all other forms of inspiration are welcome and encouraged! Extra points if you can show something that hardly anyone has seen before! I'll start, here is a track by Jelonek - I love the idea of this vampire inhabiting a village in the middle of nowhere, perhaps owning a manor, being the lord of the surrounding lands with the villagers none the wiser. One day he is killed, perhaps through dispute with another vampire, his body laid in his coffin. The scene playing of the villagers walking his coffin to its final resting place all the while not aware of the greater things at play and the being inside. It also helps that IMO, this track absolutely smacks. Why did I start this? There is so much vampire content out there, but most people only interact with perhaps 2-5% of it. I'm sure there's lots of amazing things out there that are just never seen unless you're part of a very specific group of people, I can think of at least a few things like that. Let's share what we know and learn from what we don't! Every and any ounce of inspiration is great for our hobby, perhaps something seen here will inform your next project or paint scheme? Based on the discussions here recently, I think we can all agree that fans of Soulblight Gravelords are perhaps some of the most enthusiastic, invested and vocal ones out there. Let's use that to make amazing armies, projects, lore and paint schemes!

The Blood Knight one is an odd one. I personally don't see Blood Knights as a "hit and run" unit. As amazing as that would make them, they don't feel like such a unit. I do like the idea of them crushing through ranks of enemies into units behind them. What would represent this better IMO would be if they were allowed to move at the end of the combat phase. So you'd charge in, chop the enemy unit, end of combat phase you can make a normal move across them and do some mortals. Leaving you free to move and charge in your next turn. Ofc that'd leave them hanging out in the open to get charged...so maybe you'd only want to move out in the enemy combat phase and not your own. Anyway, that aside, I just don't see Blood Knights as a unit that charges in, disengages and then charges back in. Perhaps in AoS 3 a charge move will be your move +2d6 like it used to be in fantasy? So you could then quite handily charge across and over enemy units if you're close enough? I actually think that'd be quite fun and cool. And you don't get the feels-bad if you don't make it in because just like with AoS now you don't have to declare charge targets. You'd just: 1. Declare you're charging 2. Roll 2D6 and add movement for charge distance 3. You can move up to the total 4. If you make it within 1" of a unit, you successfully charged that unit 5. If you can't feasibly make it within 1" of a unit then you can only move up to your movement char. I dunno. Unlikely tbh, that'd be a massive change. BUT it would mean the Blood Knight rules now make sense.