BaylorCorvette

Here's a question I have. In the Cursed City box, we know Zombies & Skeletons are going to be a "normal unit" within AoS proper. All of the other Death models, specifically the Hero models *could* be like Underworlds Warband or Warcry warscrolls where they are very underwhelming in AoS, so at worst they will make for a good proxy Vampire Lord or Necromancer. However the thing I am mostly curious about for AoS proper are the Vyrkos Blood-born. What do y'all think? Are they going to be an actual unit for AoS or is it just going to be a case of giving a model from a specialty game a warscroll, but it ends up being garbage that no one will really use it? Only three come in the Cursed City box, making that a weird unit size. However in AoS proper, they could be units of 5, things like Soul Wars gave weird numbers of Grimghast Repaers and Glaivewraith Stalkers for example. I think they are great models and would make for some cool "foot infantry" in Gravelords. I suppose we could see their AoS warscrolls this weekend from the YouTube reviewers.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting over here content without a ton of named playable characters, because I like creating my own armies lore with my own "named characters" and utilizing command traits and artefacts to help represent this. However, I do get the interest especially in the Black Library context of having a big named Frostlord leading a pack of Beastclaw Raiders for example.

I'm a huuuuuuge Vampire fan. So much so that in early 2020 I started a "Vampire Khorne" custom army to tie me over until a proper Soulblight army/book came out. I was originally 100% going to buy cursed city. However, the more I think about it the more I am leaning on not buying it. I likely won't play the actual Cursed City game, so I would just be buying it for the models. In addition I already have 20 of the old zombies and 30 of the old skeletons. So I am thinking I want to wait until I have the Gravelords book to see warscrolls and figure out my army. I personally do not care about the "good guy" models from Cursed City, I suppose I could get some of my money back by selling them off individually. The only thing I am REALLY interested in is the two zombie ogor models along with the Vargskyr. I do hope that they are an actual usable unit in Gravelords, but I'm 50/50 if they actually will be or not. We already know that the Vargskyr can charge 3D6, I hope it has the killing profile to make it worth while, even if it is a glass cannon. Could be nice to have a shock troop unit that just goes in an terrorizes enemy lines. Guess we only have to wait a couple days to find out their full AoS warscrolls, since I'm sure reviewers of Cursed City will also show AoS warscrolls for the box.

Oh yeah I totally agree that there are many ways that The Dolorous Guard will not be usable. I was just saying if they remain usable my Vampires and assuming the buff VLoZD's are likely to get, it will be nuts. It would be kinda cool if one of the bloodlines had something similar to Cities of Sigmar, where 1 in 4 units can be FeC units and do not count as allies. I think there is A LOT of potential with the Soulblight Gravelords new book. I just hope it isn't too far in one direction (too fluffy and not competitive or too competitive and not fluffy). The Orruk Warclans book is decent in combining both thematic elements while remaining competitive.

Maybe. But The Host of Syll'Esske survived despite Slaaneh's new battletome. It was included in the Errata for them last month.

I just hope Nighthaunt will be able to be allied into Soulblight Gravelords. The ability to take the Dolorous Guard as an allied battalion is huge, shrugging wounds from your general onto hexwraiths on a 2+. Although, becomes weaker if Gravelords do not have a way to replenish them via Deathly Invocations. I expect the VLoZD to only get stronger. Think if it had the killing power of a Frostlord on Stonehorn and then could pass its wounds off on Hexwraiths on a 2+, lol

I agree, very late April or sometime in May is my thinking. We know BR: Be'lakor is basically confirmed for April after the article today about the April coin and the free model. It seems to me that GW is really starting to pick up speed on their releases. In addition, we have Cursed City going on pre order this weekend and the Soulblight warband for Underworlds is also in April, both releases will have AoS warscrolls, so it makes sense that the Soulblight Battletome will be released in the next 20-50 days. If this turns out to be the case, I am curious if it will be a FULL release, or if it will be a staggered release similar to LRL. I realize the LRL staggered release was likely a result of COVID. However, if SGL are getting several never before kits (I have no basis for this, just a hypothetical) then I could see the battletome being released along with Skeletons, Zombies, Blood Knights, etc and then possibly the brand new kits at a later date. Granted, if they did this we would see their warscrolls in the SGL book.. ANYWAYS I think SGL is very soon and I couldn't be more excited!!!!

For a tournament list, I like my cheap units that sit back on an objective or zoning out an area to contribute some damage if possible. So doing 1 wound a turn is fine, However, if our elite Vampires are fast enough then it is whatever. But right now, a 10" moving Blood Knight unit or a 14" moving Zombie Dragon does not match up with threat ranges/distances of Orruks that can Mighty Destroyers, or other things that get double movement (Hero phase move OR something that drastically increases their movement speed). I agree that Vampires should be super fast, I just hope GW writes rules that actually reflect that. Because right now a lot of armies have ways to make their units really move around the board.

What I would envision would be something like the armored foot vampires from Underworlds Rise of the Lycans.

Same. BUT I am hopeful that we get Skeleton archers or maybe some other range choice, an elite Vampire archer unit? Although that seems even more unlikely. Would be nice to have some range options thrown in. Not looking to have something crazy powerful like doing mortal wounds on 6s to hit, or 5s & 6s and no Line of Sight needed like one army 🙄but having a unit that could sit somewhere and plink a few shots would be nice. Death is known to have no real range options with a few MINOR exceptions. Obviously OBR have the crawlers but they cost a lot and are super swingy. I think you can still keep the identiy of Death as a whole of not being a ranged attack faction but still have something minor. Heck, skeleton archers that are 1 attack, 4/4/-/1 and maybe some special warscroll ability where they re-roll 1s to hit or 1s to wound based on unit size would be sufficient. Although, I woundn't say no to elite Vampire scouts with deepstrike abilities that have bows that do mortals on 6s lol.

That art is amazing. I am SOOOO ready for Vampires! I've been waiting for this and we're so close!

I think "elite" is a matter of perspective. Elite compared to Zombies, yes. But elite compared to other armies elite choices, no. Usually models taken in increments of 5 instead of 10 are fairly elite (overall), unless they are a specialty unit of some sort. I do however think that they will do a better job differentiating Zombies from Skeletons in terms of function compared to what we have in LoN right now. These Skeletons look more like Grave Guard than your average naked skeleton. So perhaps they will have a combat profile more similar to Grave Guard. However then that begs the question, what happens to Grave Guard? Are they dropped from the line? Rolled into "Soulblight Gravelords Skeletons" ? I feel that the Zombies roll in Soulblight Gravelords will more than likely be a tar pit type of unit. However to be an effective tar pit will be tricky for these guys because Zombies are obviously not going to have a good armor save, nor will they likely have more than 1 wound, meaning you will need a lot of them to be an effective tar pit. The one mechanic they could have is the potential to have them regenerate fairly quickly. So you may have a unit of 40 of them and your opponent may kill 25 in a single turn. Assuming they don't battleshock away (maybe they are immune to battleshock?) perhaps their warscroll has a regenerate feature where you return X number of models in your Hero phase, then of course if there is still something similar to Deathly Invocations all of a sudden you 40 man that was reduced to a 15 man is back up to a 25+ man unit, for example.

Here is my wild speculation for AoS 3.0 & the narrative going forward, some spoilers from BR: Teclis.

I wonder if the Vargskyr will be a legitimate unit (as opposed to Cursed City model with a warscroll) for Gravelords? It looks awesome, really it looks like a Vampire version of the Crypt Horror.

I'm most excited to see the warscrolls, however if Warcry and Underworlds are any indication then I'm not going to hold my breath. On the flip side though, the Cursed City Skeletons, Zombies and Bats might be the warscrolls for a nomral unit of Skeletons, Zombies and Bats. Guess we'll find out soon!

Super excited! Also, curious to see the warscroll cards for AoS it will be the first glimpse into Gravelords keywords at the very least. I'm not holding my breath for the Cursed City warscrolls to be super great for AoS (i.e. Warcry and Underworlds warscrolls) but we'll see!

This is what I'm thinking will likely be the main impact. With Nagash "resting" Mannfred and Neferata will likely increase their plotting. I haven't read BR: Teclis narrative but I've read some summaries and it sounds like Mannfred and Neferata are already trying to backstab the other. So I think it will lead to more civil war within Death. Obviously Katakros & OBR will be loyal to Nagash. FeC kind of do their own thing already and I'm not really sure what Nighthaunt will do, will they try and be loyal to Nagash or will they try and utilize this opportunity to do their own thing?

In my headcannon that is how it is going to go lol.

So for anyone wanting to read a summary of the narrative in BR: Teclis, scroll to the bottom of this article: https://spruesandbrews.com/2021/03/27/broken-realms-teclis-and-new-lumineth-realm-lords-battletome-2021-review/ Don't click on my hidden text below if you don't want spoilers from BR Teclis and my thoughts on how it may effect Soulblight

FYI Warscrolls are up https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/searchResults?N=737771287+1692982392+3206404541+3637769477&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3ANZ_gw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_NZ_gw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord[product.startDate+<%3D+1616839740000+and+product.endDate+>%3D+1616839740000]&view=all

Warscrolls are up https://www.games-workshop.com/en-NZ/searchResults?N=737771287+1692982392+3206404541+3637769477&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3ANZ_gw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_NZ_gw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord[product.startDate+<%3D+1616839620000+and+product.endDate+>%3D+1616839620000]&view=all

From the leaks I've seen, for the most part the new LRL stuff looks alright balance wise. The only thing that sticks out as being crazy is the named flying fox. 24" movement, 12" move after shooting. 10w, 5+ save, 5+ FNP, -2" to enemy pile ins within 3", After charging 1MW and -1 to hit for enemies within 3" on a 3+, D3 MWs to anything it flew over, Bow attack profile is 18", 4 attacks, 2+ to hit, 3+ to wound, -3 rend, D3 Damage. However it is 300 points, so it is one expensive dude.

Yes please, I'll take two units.

I play in competitive tournaments, my most recent tournament was a 2 day event this past weekend that saw Lumineth go 2nd & 4th overall. "Kill Teclis" is easier said then done. If you don't take the first turn and kill him he then has protection of Teclis making him MUCH tankier. On top of that he can burn aetherquartz to have a 3+ save and then all out defense for re-rolling ones and that's assuming you can get to him, generally he will be screened good at least early on. My match up this past weekend I was able to dictate turn order and I took the first turn and was able to wiggle my Chaos Lord on Manticore with Sword and Lance to hit Teclis on an Alpha Strike. Despite the fact that I was able to make the Chaos Lord fight twice AND he had the Chaos Warshrine prayer to re-roll all Hits and Wounds, Teclis survived with 3 wounds remaining and that was without protection of Teclis. I agree killing the Cathallar isn't that difficult. Play the long game isn't exactly super easy either. For instance in this past weekends tournament when I played against Lumineth, I was able to squeak out a victory on Focal Points, but at the end of T4 I literally had nothing left in my starting army, thankfully Khorne summoning got me enough bodies to zone out and take objectives on T5 to win it. However the long game isn't super easy when LRL have archers dealing mortal wounds on 5 & 6 and not needing LoS and Teclis using Spell Portal to nuke nearly your entire army with mortal wounds via Searing White Light. Having played against LRL in a competitive two day tournament and winning my one match up against them, I will say they are (obviously) beatable, you just have to try and play the objectives and understand that Teclis does what he wants when it comes to the magic phase and there really isn't any way around that, in addition to the LRL player being able to target what they want most of the time by utilizing Spell Portal and Archers. I do think after seeing a lot of the leaks of the new units and for the most part don't seem over the top it will be good for the LRL faction as a whole. As mentioned LRL only have so many ways to be played currently, kind of similar to Slaanesh last year. However by pretty much doubling its army selection it will allow for much more variety of builds.

I won't retype out what has been stated in this thread several times. But I will echo the biggest problem with LRL is the NPE they bring. Last weekend I competed in a two day, 5 game tournament. I ended up finishing 6th overall which is a bit better than I was anticipating, one of my wins was against LRL. There were three LRL lists, one finished 2nd, one finished 4th and the other finished in the lower half, but that list was both running Teclis and Eltharion and such was very light on bodies. The annoying thing with LRL is the opponents inability to interact with the game, ranging from auto cast spells to dishing out mortals (via spells or just about any unit on 5 or 6 to hit), the ability to Hero snipe without LoS and not caring what negative modifiers To Hit you have because you're just looking for mortals is very frustrating too. All of this is amplified by getting double turned by LRL. You basically don't play AoS for 30+ minutes if that happens. Fortunately from all of the LRL leaks it looks like most of the new models that are coming aren't ridiculously powerful, so adding in unit variety will be a step away from the NPE. Obviously the meta lists will still exist and it will be very annoying to play against but LRL players that want to play something more casual will have a lot more units to pick from which is great.