BaylorCorvette

So the warscroll cards previewed on Sunday show Command Point tokens, Gravesites and three new / unique buffs? -"Reanimated Horrors -1 Bravery" no idea what this could be, obviously a debuff but Reanimated Horrors seems like it would be something like Skeletons or Zombies healing. Maybe an enemy unit near a Skeleton or Zombie unit that heals gets a debuff as they see their recently slain friends rise from the dead to fight them? -"Vial of Pre Blood" some sort of buff token that Heroes have? Perhaps this replaces the D6 heal chalice? -"Swift and Deadly" possibly a run and charge buff? and if so, then oh boy oh boy. Run and Charge Blood Knights are going to be awesome.

I think the intent is clear. So either we are going to see a change in 3.0 with what "normal moves" are, as several people have mentioned, OR we are going to get an FAQ from GW saying that when Blood Knights use this ability they can still charge afterwards.

Shifting subjects slightly. Does this Blood Knight have a full helmet? Am I just now noticing this? I thought all the Blood Knights you could see their mouth / jaw exposed.

I asked on the war-comm FB page and they said the community team cannot answer rules questions and to e-mail aosfaq@gwplc.com. I strongly encourage everyone to send an e-mail to aosfaq@gwplc.com, the more e-mails they get on the same topic the more likely they are to address it with an FAQ. The article also says "Have an opponent that likes to hide the juicy targets behind cheap screening units? They might as well not bother." seems pretty clear the intent.

Based on the article saying "Riders of Ruin makes Blood Knights ideal harassment units, striking at ‘safe’ targets and disrupting your opponent’s plans. They hit extra hard every time they charge, allowing you to chew your way through the foe’s battle formation with a devastating strike in each successive turn." It looks like the intent is for them to still charge, so we could see an FAQ. Also we don't know what 3.0 is going to be like. Retreats might not be apart of normal moves. THIS. In my tournament Khorne army, I run two units of Chaos Knights. One with enscorcelled weapons and one with lances. The ensorcelled weapons either act as "chaff" or are my first wave of Knights to charge in and tie up the opponent with a follow up with lances. I used to run only lances but the problem was they really only got one good charge because even if I protected them allowing them to get the charge off, my opponent would usually just tie them up. So I for one actually like how Blood Knights are set up. Still can do more damage on the charge but aren't garbage if they get stuck in combat.

Yeah unfortunately in todays editon of AoS and the current wording I don't think they can technically charge afterwards. It will need an FAQ or maybe 3.0 makes retreats not apart of a normal move.

War-comm just confirmed Blood Knight base sizes, FYI.

My thoughts too about the banner. But I will reserve full judgement until we see the book / all the rules. If there is some way to get a better Deathless Minions then the re-roll of 1 is pretty impactful. For instance if there is a way to get a 5+ Deathless Minions and then the banner re-rolls 1s that would be pretty huge.

So as a competitive tournament player my thoughts: The new Blood Knight warscroll changes are good but not obviously OP, especially outside of Kastelai. IMO the warscrolls of a unit should be fairly simple but then sub allegiances add some buffs to a specific unit, that way it makes sub allegiances meaningful and outside of its specific sub allegiance a unit doesn't feel like it is an auto include. So if you don't play Kastelai, you may or may not want Blood Knights. However, if you want to lean into a Blood Knight themed army (like me) then Kastelai really adds a lot of flavor to the unit, being able to outflank with a unit and buff Vampires (not just Blood Knights) based on what type of units they destroy. The only real down side I see is that their weapon range is 1" across the board and they will likely be on large bases than whay they currently are on, meaning getting them all into range could be difficult. Still, I am VERY pleased and based on these rules I'm thinking we may not have gotten the bin writer after all. I'm just going to have to hold my breath on points for these guys.

Ok sure they could have had more hitting power. But lets look at these rules: -3+ Armor Save -Reroll Deathless Minions rolls of 1 with the Standard Bearer -Enemy chaff engaged our Blood Knights? Well we can just move away from them without it counting as a retreat and we can do some MWs when we do it. -Damage 2 on the charge (I'll take that over D3 on the charge ANY time) -Hunger heals D3 -Battleline in Kastelai -Outflanking in Kastelai -And buffs on VAMPIRE units (not just BKs if we kill things) I'm honestly PLEASNTLY surprised with the new Blood Knights. The BIG question is how many points for 5? Probably A LOT.

BLOOD KNIGHTS ARE BACK BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My expectation is that this is going to go off once maybe twice per game. At baseline, it is a 1 in 3 chance of it happening, which can be increased by killing enemy units. Since it only happens in OUR battleshock phase, we are talking a max of 5 times that this can even go off in a normal matched play game. However it is probably more common that it doesn't even happen turn 1 since it requires one of our units to be destroyed. Then if our turn is bottom of T5, it effectively doesn't happen. I'm sure there will be some way to change the dice roll aside from killing an enemy unit. Be it an artifact, command trait, etc. I just find it weird that only enemy units destroyed count towards the roll. I would think it would be any units destroyed, kind of like Khorne Bloodtithe. Overall I think this change is fair. It doesn't cost a resource (command point) nor does it require our General to be alive. For me personally, I think this will be a change for the better for how I played my Vampires, which was usually a VLoZD (as a General), a few Blood Knights, some other support Heroes and then chaff, with the occasional larger than min unit size summonable unit. So I really didn't use Endless Legion all that much.

Zombie leaning over a tuff of grass IMO.

Lets also consider that faction specific battalions sound like they are going away (in matched play) in favor of "Core Battalions" (per the video this Saturday), so if it is something like "Take one hero and three battleline" or maybe even more battleline to fill out the Core Battalion then that could really play into how to build a list.

So since you and I are both all about Blood Knights, for the Kastelai bloodline the article focuses on a couple things that I found interesting: 1) These Vampires reside in the Crimson Keep, a magical castle that has a tendency to translocate from place to place. I wonder if it will have a sub allegiance that will allow outflanking Blood Knights similar to the old Battalion, or possibly some sort of other buff. But the translocate mention seems to think it will allow with deploy shenanigan's. 2) The lord of the Crimson Keep is Prince Vhordrai. Presumably he has to be the General if you take him in this Bloodline. Perhaps if he is your General he makes Blood Knights battleline. Or maybe they are just Battle Line in this allegiance to begin with. 3) The well-drilled Kastelai cavalry values feats of skill and strength in combat and they become even stronger as the blood begins to flow. I assume this bloodline gives buffs to Blood Knights if they've killed something or attack a unit that is wounded or has taken casulties. I gotta say, it really sounds like Kastelai are exactly how I want to play Gravelords.

Maybe we will be lucky and they will be Battleline for all Blood Lines.

For me personally since I play competitively, I don't like any one unit costing 400 pts+ (too much tied up in one unit) nor do I like taking more than 1 monster or behemoth especially when it only counts as 1 model. Unfortunately this game favors hordes over super cool large beasts. I tend to lean more towards having some chaff to soak up charges or flank objectives, some more elite units (in this case possibly Blood Knights) supported by Heroes to give off buffs and then possibly 1 "big guy" to act as a missile or a distraction. So unless we have some strong gimmick with Terrogheists and/or Dragons I cannot see myself using this dynasty. Now if a Vampire Lord could ride a Terrorgheist then I've got some ideas, but that could fit into any Blood Line.

Speaking as a someone who really only plays in tournament matched play settings, I am not sweating things too much yet. We no longer have to make sure our general is alive and around a gravesite to bring a unit back, I very much like that change. However it is obviously less reliable since we cannot guarantee a resurrect with a CA and instead have to bank on a 1 in 3 chance (assuming we do not kill anything) AND we have 50% less gravesites, so placing will be more difficult. The wording of units WHOLLY within doesn't really surprise me since we've pretty much been seeing this for a while now. I was fully expecting the gravesite wording to be wholly within and I am assuming all other spells / CAs that target our own units will be wholly within too. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, hopefully there will be a focus on warscrolls since those are much easier to balance overtime than allegiances / battletomes. Also, we haven't really seen any other rules yet, so lets wait a bit before we make any knee ****** reactions. If this leak is true then Skeletons and Zombies have ways of regenerating units on their own. This leak was posted in April and predicted several things accurately, so it is very possible the information about Zombie and Skeleton regeneration is also correct.

I'm on the same page as you. I'm all in on the Kastelai Bloodline!!!

My guess is, like you mentioned, GW usually makes warbands not as good in AoS. Otherwise this means Vamp Lords are loosing their chalice. Although, Hunger being D3 now softens the blow of the (potential) loss of the chalice. Dare I say it is a net gain!? Especially if you're like me and roll 3 or less for the D6 heal, lol.

100% agree. I really like GMG because he literally goes over all of the details and rules. I can pause it where needed but I can see nearly everything (less lore related things) in a Battletome before it goes up for preorder. I also get why he is not everyone's cup of tea, so to each their own, but I'm glad he does what he does for reviews.

Well latest would be Friday late afternoon (U.S. time) due to New Zealand preorder. However with Some Slaanesh, DoK and LRL stuff I was seeing leaks as early as Wednesday. I'm team SBGL.

Nah, my thought is Slaanesh, LRL & DoK were written with 3.0 in mind as some of their stuff is a little wonky in 2.0, so I suspect Gravelords is also written with 3.0 in mind. I think we will be just fine. Might hot take now that The Hunger heals D3 each combat phase is that there will no longer be a once per game chalice that does D6. The great news is we will have rules previews from GW throughout the week, possibly some leaks mid week, if not then by Friday afternoon/evening thanks to New Zealand stuff going up for preorder. Then we will have man who reads books doing a page by page review of the book Saturday morning on YouTube.

To my knowledge though, no underworlds model have an AoS warscroll card printed from GW (other than the rules posted on the website) is that right?

Kinda disappointed with only 5 wounds. I was hoping that Vamp Lords would have 6+. Heck, my Chaos Lord on foot has 7 wounds! But the 3+ save is nice! Also his spell looks to be casting value of 5 and you pick an enemy unit within 6" (short range though) and they are +1 to be hit. So that's cool! And as others have said, it appears gravesites are sticking around! Sadly I guess no faction terrain for that.