Gery81

The Trueblades are not just anti-monster tech. As long as the 2 cursebloods are alive, it can make an opposing unit strike last on a 2+. That can be very powerful. It is 360 points though. 10 Blood Knight, with un-rendable 2+ save is a very though anvil. Add in Nefarata's spell and ability, and it takes a lot of effort to remove that unit. I didn't consider it at first, but the Mortis Engine makes a lot of sense with 30 skeletons in LoB. It allows you to bring back d3 more skeletons, and if multiple units are fighting those skellies, they will all take 6 mortals after the ME charged up. Plus the potential mortals every turn. Helps the grind a lot. I like it, time to paint mine And I just realized that Fell Bats can be brought back now with Endless Legion. That is certainly cute.

Good weekend for Soulblight

Speaking of MWs, here is a meme list. Legion of Blood Heroes - Vampire Lord, general, doomed minions, Vile transference (130) - Vampire Lord, spirit gale, amulet of screams (130) - Necromancer, Waste away (90) - Wight king on steed, arcane tome (160) Battleline - 2x40 zombies (2x230) - 10 Black Knights (220) Other - 20 Grave guard with GW (280) - 2 Mortis Engine (2x230) - Corpse cart with +1 to cast (blazier?) (70) 2000 points on the nose I am sure it is clear what is the idea of this list

My first LoB list would look something like this VLoZD with lance and Vile transference (general) 440 VloZD with sword and flaming weapon 440 Neferata 390 Mounted Wight King 160 5x Black Knights 550 1980 If I feel like I need some more bodies to screen, then I can swap one BK unit for Dire wolves, or Zombies.

This to me is one of the best changes in the book. I always hated the idea of Mannfred leading LoB grave guard, or Kastelai blood knights, while the actual faction leaders not making the cut. Maybe I am just too much of a narrative minded player

That is correct

The new dire wolves can do a lot of things. They are one of our best options to tag troublesome ranged units without charging. They also work really well with zombies. Have the zombies up front, preferably on an objective, the wolves behind them, in pile-in range. If something charges those zombies, and kill them, they will bring some models with them, and then the wolves can pile-in, and retake that objective. It is probably one of the best use of the "kin of the wolf" heroic action in Vyrkos.

I usually shorten Warlord trait to WT

I would try that in LoN, where they can counter-charge too. That would shift a combat very decisively. Also, the same WK gives those Black Knights re-roll charges too. But, you can only run 10, unless it is LoB. They are not battleline otherwise

Yeah, while that is great, one of them is most likely the extra move. I think that is kind of a miss, it should have been an extra rend, or +1 to wound or something. That would make those Blood Knights real scary. And yes, the Shifting keep should have been a Battle trait, replacing one of the "actions", and the WT should have been the once/game power up...

Probably the sins of the previous edition. That said, I don't mind that LoB focuses more on the Vampire heroes, while Kastelai focuses more on Blood Knights, and other non-hero vampires. It feels like the trick will be to use Vhrodrai's ability to spread the love, and power up more than one unit at once. Also, I didn't realize that you only have to kill one model with the appropriate wound characteristic to get the buff, not the whole unit (according to goonhammer review), which makes very easy to get those buffs.

VLOZD in LoB looks scary enough for me. Take 2 and Neferata with them, take the cloak and doomed minions on the general, and take Vile transference on one of them. They will have 8 rend 3 damage 3 attacks, and another 8 rend 1 damage 2 attacks, that will hit on 2s against your opponent big scary (as long as it is not a monster), Vile transference and Neferata is there to give those monsters a pause, and they are not that trivial to remove from the field either. If you really want to, you can take Purple sun too. Oh, and their no inspiring presence rule do extra damage too. Gives roughly 700 points to fill with whatever else you think you need, probably chaff to clog up the board, and stuff that do battletactics.

Doomed minions say, that if your general is within 3" of a selected unit, than every attack with a melee weapon hits on an unmodified 2+ against that unit. So, c), whole army.

I know I want to try out -1 to hit grave guard with a 3+ un-rendable save. Plus whatever other defensive buffs I can get. That is a unit that can take and dish out some damage.

According to very unreliable rumours we might get a new tome next September. The OBR and flesh-eater tome should be out next spring.

When I run 30 skeletons I always run a brazier corpse cart with them. That -1 to wound really helps them staying on the board (and the -1 to casting rolls are nice too).

I see a lot of lists running 2 units of zombies, 2 units of wolves, and a unit of fell bats. Also 3 units of zombies can do it too, just string out 1 or 2, and leave the 3rd behind them. Or just 3 minimum skeleton units as the front screen. It is no way a sure thing, moving all these parts is tricky, but that is what makes this army interesting. I mainly like to use this against Ironjaws. No shooting to worry about, and just dare my opponent to take the first turn charges, and risk the counterpunch.

This is how we deal with hammers charging into our screens. Set the zombies up behind the screen, and once that screen died, pile the zombies in just to tag that unit (1 zombie within 2,9 inches will do). Then counter-charge with our hammers. No re-deploy, no unleash hell for them. This is what I am practicing now, how to set my units up, so that I can pile-in the zombies, without blocking the charges of my other unit. The fact that models piling in don't have to move closer, just have to keep the distance helps (they can move around the target unit, getting out of the way). Also, we don't necessarily want to put or GG in the grave. I doubt that Longstrikes can deal with a VLoZD, and a unit (or 2) GG in one turn.

I agree that overwhelming dread is the most useful spell in the Lore of deathmages. Slapping a -1 to hit penalty on something is always nice. The most impactful spell however, in my opinion, is Prison of grief. Stopping movement wins games. Yes, the 5+ roll is unreliable, but otherwise it would need a casting value of 8+, it would be so powerful.

I hope there won't be any points increases, our strong units don't feel under-costed. But, if there will be, those are the most likely units. On the other hand, we have a few units that need some love. Black Knights, The Palanquin, Vargheists, Mortis Engine for sure, and maybe Neferata, the Coven throne, the Wight kings and our unmounted beasties. Lauka Vai too, but it's mostly her sub-faction that is the problem.

There has been a video posted a bit earlier in this thread that has an interview with the player who went 5-0 with a vyrkos list, mosty running wolves and zombies (and the Gargant). And on the honest wargammer channel they were talking about a Legion of night list that went 5-0 with a Gargant, but I am not sure what was in that list.

In my experience Soulblight struggles to deal with the save stacking. Blood Knights have a huge base, and 1 inch reach, so it's difficult to get them all within range, and -1 rend just doesn't cut it. GG needs at least 2 buffs to be scary, otherwise their damage is lacking, 4+ to wound is not great. Our mortal wound output, again, is not great, nowhere near what top armies can produce, and we have to get close and personal to do it. Zombies and GG are really slow, and the gravesites only help with your initial deployment. Also good screening will prevent them to hit anything important. The VLoZD suffers from low number of attacks/4+ to hit on the dragon (yet some orks have 7 attacks to our 3, salt). You need the Prince to deal real damage. Sadly our best playstyle seem to be tons of bodies, with 1 or 2 "big scary" running around killing easy targets. It really saddens me that the best builds (aka 5-0 in tourneys) all have the Mega mercenary. Not a good place to be in my opinion.

The greatweapons are actually 3+/4+/-1/2, so your chances to do MWs don't change.

What do we have with -2 rend? GG does not have it, we only have it on our monsters.

Thanks for the advice, will see how it goes next Friday.