Ghoooouls

Looks fun! My only worry would be not having anything fast, other than your heroes... and bats but let's be honest bats are just there to block lol

Yea I didn't overlook this, I purposefully didn't talk about various points as it gets quite in depth. Yes GG have more attacks, but they are harder to position because there are more models, harder to manoeuvre around scenery, harder to get within range of buffs, easier to keep out of range of enemy abilities, charges, shooting etc etc. There are so many variables, but yeah a larger unit also has benefits like screening better and stuff. I think something that is talked about a lot and maybe what you guys that think GG might be OP is that they can be buffed to crazy. But as Neil pointed out, its kinda pointless. They are perfectly capable of blending most units anyway, with 1 or 2 buffs they become capable of blending almost any unit, like a lot of heavy hitting units are. But that comes to the point of building around a unit of grave guard. I've done around 8 battle with the new tome, GG have been great half the time, useless the other half. They are slow. And if the enemy targets them, they melt with a stiff breeze. They are good. No doubt about that. But they are definitely not OP and not the best infantry in the game.

Okay we'll I've just outlined how they aren't in my previous post. Comparisons are usually done on a 'points per wound' basis, not a 'points per unit of 10/20' etc. This is because 10 grave guard are much more comparable to 5 two wound models, as you're paying for 10 wounds of models. So 10 grave guard compared to 5 hearthguard, 20 grave guard compared to 10 hearth guard and so on. You can't really compare them to 10 HG for instance, because that's comparing 10 wounds to 20 wounds of models. Obviously there are pros and cons to being multi wound small unit vs a single wound larger unit. You also have to take into account the whole warscroll, not just attacks and damage. You say greatswords are worse, but they can be great. They have a better base attack profile, a better save and better move. Just for being within 18 of a hero they are 2s to hit and 3s to wound, so only being damage 1 doesn't really matter, because they are getting way more attacks in as well as more mortals. 10 greatswords within 18 of a hero do 7 damage *average* to a unit with a 4+ base save. 10 Grave guard great weapons in comparison do 8 damage average to the same unit, neither of those including mortals. On average the grave guard would get around 2 mortals in from their wound rolls, whereas the greatswords would get 3-4. Freeguild greatswords are also 140 points for 10.

I don't really understand your argument.... Hearthguard are a better unit and also cost less than GG, but sounds like you're saying GG are too good? GG 140 for 10 wounds, HG 120 for 10 wounds. GG 3s 4s -1 d2, HG 3s 3s r1 d2. GG 5+ save and 6++ 'ward' save with their damaging load out near a hero, HG 5+ save and 4++ ward save with damaging load out near a hero. GG 1 inch range, HG 2 inch range. GG take 1 wound and lose a model/attacks, HG are both MUCH harder to kill, and can take 1 wound without losing any attacks. GG mortal wound on a wound roll, HG mortal wound on a hit roll. Trying to include as little buffs as possible, just a hero nearby for the ward save, because both can be crazy with buffs.

Hearthguard have 2 wounds each so are easier to fit in cover and move around scenery as a smaller unit, they do mortal wounds on the hit roll instead of the wound roll (MASSIVE difference), and have incredibly easy access to a 4+ wound negation on all wounds and mortals and have 2 inch range rather than 1.

Forgot to mention, necromancers got buffed loads! Point drop by 5 points, better attack profile, better wound shrug onto summonable units, better spell. They are almost as good as a wight King in combat now hahaha.

Sure! I can't remember the exact armies as I've done a fair few on TTS now... Usually will consist of at least one unit of 40 zombies, or at least 2x 20 and a pack of wolves for battleline. I have also used 20 grave guard (both with S+S and with great weapon) and I have to say I prefer the great weapon. 4+ save is nice, but when people want to kill them, they will kill them. The extra damage of the great weapon means they require less support and buffing. My 20 with great weapons took a round of magic from a magic heavy Tzeentch list, got some lucky ward saves and 14 of them just with +1 attack from a vampire managed to easily kill 20 marauders and then the next turn killed a mutalith vortex beast. I worked out that the same rolls I made for the marauders would have left some alive which could have blocked me up for another round etc. I dunno from my experience I prefer the damage 2 just for guaranteed nukes. The stand out units for me that i've tried are grave guard, blood knights and the mortarchs. Grave guard just nuke anything they come across most of the time but, pretty obviously, are quite slow. Blood knights seem to perform WAY better than before. The 3+ save is really, really noticeable and with neferata's spell or even just mystic shield they are a pain for the opponent to remove, and if they don't remove them, they are gonna get killed by them. I've played with LoB, LoN, Avengorri and Kastellai so far. LoB: Neferata is a beast. Like seriously she is so good now, i'd have been happy with just the 12 wounds and 3+ save, but her spell only ignoring negative modifiers now, the healing d6 from killing anything, and the 5+ hero kill with her dagger is huge. Her with a unit of blood knights popping her command and trying to get her spell off were really good fun to use. LoN: Mannfred is another kind of animal now as well. Again, like Nef, I'd take 12 wounds 3+ save and the change to his armour (ignore each phase instead of 1 each turn), but He has been hulked up as well. Disregarding the obviously powerful teleport ability, he can deal some steady damage like before, but his spell is SO much better now. I ran him with a corpse cart and mortis as well as a necro with the claw for a total of +4 to cast so he had no trouble forcing magic through and it was great fun knowing you can also charge him in safely as well. His spell coupled with the mortis shooting was really cool to use. Deepstriking is great as well, but in this battle I didn't really use it as my opponent screened too well. Kastellai: Probably my favourite. Its just so fun levelling up all your vampires in-game. The vengorian lord really shone through, for his points i think he is really powerful. I gave him the trait/item combo of getting the vampire level-up buffs when something within 6 inches dies, and he just followed some blood knights around helping them out and levelling up himself even if he didnt kill. Pinions with him is insane because he most likely runs and charges for the first half of the battle, so 18 inch move, run and charge can get him across the board with ease. Again, like with nef manny and the blood knights, his 3+ save really shone through in this battle, coupled with the ward save and the hunger as well as his inbuilt -1 rend, these guys can take a hit pretty well. Avengorri: Lauka Vai is just a better vengorian really, without the option of the items and traits obviously, but she has some cool ones built in. The 5+ mortal thing on the charge is pretty cool and adds to her character, only got about 4 mortals with it but still, mortals are mortals. She's a beast in combat and just like the vengorian, relatively tanky. Her spell is very situational but really cool. If she gets it off you can be really aggressive with her as anyone that wants to charge her gets their charge halved. Also gave her the pinions and she was zooming around the board. I also just love zombies now, they can hold objectives relatively well with d3+3 coming back each round with a 6+ ward and the 6" pile in threat. If in combat I would just retreat them in my turn 3.1 inches away, attack with all my other stuff and then pile them in at the end so they got to attack first before the unit they were 'in combat' with. It's good fun and makes movement for your opponent tricky as they have a surprisingly large threat bubble. I may be just stating the obvious with all this, but my main takeaways so far is that on paper, a lot of the stuff seemed quite cool, in practice i've found it really fun and really effective. The army feels less reliant on support heroes now. It feels like your opponent has a lot more to worry about as well, and so may not just target the heroes. Zombies can be a threat, grave guard are insane, blood knights are great, even dire wolves on the charge aren't to be shrugged at especially with buffs such as van hels or whatever. It feels like an army that has a lot of possibilities and a lot of valid choices. When I played Legions of Nagash I found that I was way too reliant on my heroes, whereas now that isn't really the case. One huge thing is the grave sites giving the ward save, this is seriously good. If placed correctly, you can cover all the board you will need for the whole battle to give your entire army the 6+ ward, alongside heroes giving the bubble. I have to say though, in all my battles, I have yet to return a unit at half strength through our allegiance ability. It just doesnt happen for me. If it was each battleshock phase maybe, but only on our turn and 5+ unless you destroy enemy units in our turn, just didn't seem to happen much. When I destroyed a lot to make the roll easy, I had no summonable units that were dead yet anyway.

I'm just desperate to try out belladama and radukar on Tabletop Sim but no one is making the models and I have no idea how lol... I've tried multiple lists other than the Vyrkos though and all have performed a lot better than my previous legions. Really enjoying the new book and rules.

That's weird.... mine were fine luckily.

When can we expect the preorder to go up? Its on the homepage but just takes me to the current range.

Personally, I wouldn't care. But some people do. Not a very helpful answer sorry lol.

Could you ask for pics and send them via DM on here? Understand if that's too much effort haha

It's a new type of the 'anvil of apotheosis' from the generals handbook - essentially a 'hero creator' where you spend points to give your custom hero abilities and better stats. The one in the generals handbook was quite fun, although they tended to be vastly overcosted for matched play. I'm hoping the 'anvil of blood' in the new white dwarf magazine is a little bit less over costed, and it's specifically for making your own vampire heroes.

I'd also appreciate a DM of the anvil of blood, although are you not allowed to post pics? It's not a leak or anything right?

Usually a few days after release, so next week sometime

This works well, I have some blood knights where I did this. I think it was flesh tearers red anyway

Extra hit that would roll to wound in addition to 1 mortal from the single attack. So you roll 1 6, that does a single mortal and a single wound roll, whereas usually it would be a single mortal and attack ends.

Well so long as the unit kills something he would heal d3 at least, I was thinking about it in the wrong way in that he can't heal past 3/3 but actually as you say is tokens on the model so let's say he has the buff up for 4 wounds, takes 3 but he kills a model... at the end of the phase he heals d3 let's say i roll a 3, that takes those 3 damage counters off him entirely before his characteristic returns to 3 wounds, correct? I was super tired and wasn't understanding right lol.

Yea this is how I see it, there's been similar rules for other armies and they've split into 2 additional hits not just 1. The hit roll of a 6 generates an extra attack from the vargheist ability, but it also triggers grandma wolfs ability.

So a blood knight with rousing commander activated can actually never return to 3 wounds then? You effectively give them 4 wounds for a turn and then one of them is stuck at 2 wounds for the whole battle? I use rousing commander, he takes 3 wounds, then heals 2 up to full health at 3 wounds... but he's taken 3 damage total so he actually still has 1 damage allocated to him and effectively on 2 wounds, because 2 more wounds allocated equals his wounds characteristic and he's slain? Or am I thinking about it wrong and even though he caps at 3 wounds, he can still remove 3 wounds allocated if he rolled a 3? I'd like to hope this is with a change to damage allocation in 3.0 but I highly doubt it, I think it's just a blatent overlook or is intended. I think you would heal first at least, as you choose which order to do your 'start' and 'end' of phase stuff, correct?

You would heal first as its at the end of combat, whereas the rousing commander is until the end of the turn? I haven't checked it but assume it is. Just checked, they are both end of phase abilities lol... I think you choose which order they activate?

Deleted - I'm wrong lol

They've already taken the damage, they would stay on 1 wound. Just because their characteristic returns to 3 doesn't mean they take an extra damage from nothing. They get attacked, you allocate the damage and one is left on 1 wound, then at the end of the turn their characteristic returns to 3... so? They already took the damage, where does the extra 1 damage come from to kill him off? Edit: will probably get FAQ to clear it up but seems fairly obvious to me, you don't keep track of how many wounds you've inflicted in that way, like imagine an ability where you change a models wound characteristic to 1... say my vampire lord got hit with 1 mortal wound, then next turn they cast a theoretical spell that changed his wound characteristic to 1, he wouldn't just die because he took damage in the past. He'd already allocated that damage, there is no carryover in that respect.

The more I look and think about grandma wolf, the more I love her lol. I think she's now my favourite 200ish point hero in the game. Her wolf spawning spell is seriously cool and thematic, and has the potential to tie up/stick enemy units for a round (particularly 1 wounders), spawning a wolf or two into combat with them. On the flip side, depending which model your opponent decides to kill, you could even spawn a dire wolf outside of combat (2.9 inches from the model that will die if he's on the corner of the unit or whatever) then threatened to run back and cap objectives as a nuisance or position to block other units. I love it. Her other spell is great too. Couple her with an 80 point cart and potentially a mortis and she's at +3 to cast, rerolling all casts. I'll bring the cogs with her for 3x casts and rerollable 4+ save, 3+ shrug onto wolves....I just can't stop thinking about her hahaha

I'll be using them a lot, nice buff to their attacks and deep strike baked in is great