Neil Arthur Hotep

I've looked into this a bit. Settler's Gain is not the most powerful city, but I think it's workable. If you build a Settler's Gain list, you should probably bring a few Lumineth units to make it worth it. You can run a good Living City or Tempest's Eye list without Sylvaneth or Kharadron Overlords in it, but I don't think you can say the same about Settler's Gain. I think it makes the most sense to bring martial Lumineth heroes, which give battleshock immunity for a command point, and big monsters or long-range shooting, which Cities of Sigmar otherwise kinda lack. I don't think it's worth it to bring basic Lumineth troops outside of Sentinels, because Cities of Sigmar generally has better battleline choices than LRL, especially without aetherquartz. I also don't think bringing LRL wizards makes a lot of sense in Settler's Gain, because that allegiance buffs Cities wizards pretty significantly.

I voted "yes" because I think the threshold for a mechanic being bad in isolation is super high. I don't even think something as powerful as "You win the game" effects are bad in isolation. However, the same could be said for mechanics being good in isolation, so I think going into detail on why I think mortal wounds have a place in AoS is valuabel. Some points have already been mentioned: Mortal wounds are a "good" rule breaking effect that feels powerful without being game breaking Being able to just deal a wound to even high-armour units feels powerful, but is overall pretty managable. Personally, I am of the opinion that if we have a choice between potentially making offense too powerful or making defense too powerful, we should err on the side of offense. Because offense at least causes stuff to happen. Mortal wounds are part of a "damage-armour-armour piercing" rock-paper-scissors mechanic These soft RPS triangles are usually good mechanics to implement, because they give different strengths and weaknesses to units in a fairly natural way. This comes with the caveat that AoS knows another type of armour piercing damage in rend, which should probably be used more than it is. That said, I prefer the simplicity of "mortal wounds on 6s" to "+1 rend on 6s", which is significantly more annoying in terms of bookkeeping. Mortal wounds are good in situations where extra dice rolls (such as save rolls) would be onerous In AoS spell casting, you already get an attack roll (casting) and an active defense roll (unbinding). There is really no need to keep stacking more defense rolls on there by involving saves. Mortal wounds are good in this situation. --- The issues some are currently seeing with mortal wounds are not due to the mechanic itself. The presence of direct damage that does not allow a save is not in itself unbearable for the game. But we should be aware that mortal wounds are very strong. Usually, we see mortal wounds as a tool to deal with high-value targets that are hard to pin down in combat. But once we get into the range of being able to deal ~10 or so mortal wounds reliably, they can be used to deal with basically any unit. Which is not what we want, because in that case mortal wounds don't function to give units unique roles anymore. They instead reduce the natural diversity of roles. Lumineth are the army people currently like to point to when it comes to mortal wounds being bad, because they have the "mortal wounds on 6s (or 5+)" Sunmetal Weapons rule on most of their basic troops. It is worth noting that Lumineth don't necessarily have high damage output because of this, even if you value mortal wounds about twice as highly as regular wounds. If anything, the "problem" is that they have a very consistent damage output. Mortals on 6s certainly removes many instances of dice rolls that could go wrong for the Lumineth player. However, in general I don't think mortals on hit are problematic in melee. Shooting is a different matter, though. But even in the case of shooting such as with Sentinels, the problem is not with the mortal wound's ability to bypass save rolls. It's that the way those mortal wounds are triggered entails auto-hits on 6s to hit. This is a problem specifically because shooting defense in AoS relies so heavily on negative to hit modifiers (both with Look Out, Sir! and cover). If we had the ability to reduce the impact of ranged mortals on hit proportionally by getting cover or Look Out, Sir they would be way more managable. Sentinels hit on 4s normally. Imagine if their damage output actually dropped by 1/3 for each -1 to hit. There is a reason we moved away from "6+ to hit triggers an effect" to "natural 6s trigger an effect". In most cases, it's the better mechanic. But for ranged attacks, this wording just does not play well with the other rules of AoS.

We must really be nearing release if even plastic battleline kits are becoming "no longer available", huh? Soulblight preview next week?

I, for one, welcome our new vampire overlords.

I had not cosidered that angle, thanks! That might actually be a good fix for how dependent Legions of Nagash currently are on the general for resurrection, having a similar but worse ability available to all heroes.

That certainly seems to be in the cards. One of the locations on the Cursed City map mentions ghostly undead and so far there are none in the game. But I think a minor expansion for Nighthaunt proper before we enter AoS 3.0 is also possible. Even with the events of BR: Teclis... ...it feels like the Death narrative has not been fully concluded yet.

Can you get both in one list somehow? In any case, while you don't usually want your mages in combat, I think the option of giving them extra attack items is actually fairly decent. The typical wizard bonk is pretty good, the only problem is that most wizards only get one. I think most wizards get 3+/3+/-1/d3 profiles, right? Anyway, as someone who once bonked a Steam Tank to death with a Necromancer, I fully support melee wizard builds.

I have been thinking about putting it on the Battlemage on Griffon. I'm not sure it's workable, though. The Mage on Griffon gets Wildshape (+2 to run and charge) on his warscroll, so that's pretty good. I could potentially see him running up the board with some support troops and smashing into things. But his save is just too bad to be usable, I think (5+). If Raging Outburst applied to the Griffon's attacks, I'd do it for the meme, though.

Between 4 and 5 damage per activation against 4+ saves for those curious. If you can get him into combat that's definitely noticable. Still, I kinda wish we could just give him the +2 attacks artefact instead. Worth noting, though: If you put Raging Outburst on a foot hero, you can mitigate the -1 to saves by giving him a Honoured Retinue. I had not realized this before, but I think it's pretty neat. That's a cool list! I really appreciate the theme of the Loreseeker/Bladelord combo. I wonder, though, if making the Lorseeker your general and using Phoenix Guard as a Honoured Retinue would be more efficient points-wise. Although the bodyguard ability would be a good bit worse (2+ vs. 4+).

This raises the question whether it's not just better to simply take another Cathaller, though. For me personally, that has always been my problem with bodyguard units: Most of the time, I'd rather have another copy of whatever they are guarding.

I made this post in the Rumour Thread, but I think it belongs in here too: The warscrolls in Cursed City are not Soulblight Gravelords warscrolls. We can see this from the fact that Skeletons and Zombies are completely unchanged both in terms of points and warscrolls, and from the fact that the GRAVELORDS keywords does not appear anywhere. We also know that the Cursed City warscrolls are marked with a November 2020 date, which is way before we had any indication of Gravelords existing. The release of Gravelords is narratively tied to the events of Broken Realms, so we know they could only have been released earlier if Broken Realms had progressed quicker. Even after BR: Teclis, there is no really good narrative justification for a Gravelords release. They might only enter the narrative after BR: Be'lakor. If warscrolls and points get updated, don't expect big changes for the newer ones While it's reasonable to expect both Zombies and Skeletons to get a significant rework, I would not count on the new units from Cursed City being changed drastically. In fact, it is possible that those warscrolls give us glimpses of what the Gravelords battletome might be like. Gorslav, for example, has the ability to bring back a unit of zombies at half strength for a command point. But Legions of Nagash already has the ability to bring back full strength units for the same cost. Gorslav's ability has some marginal use as it is (he does not need to be near a grave site to summon), but it could be that this indicates a shift away from grave site summoning in the upcoming tome. Radukar might become a stand alone character Radukar has the distinction of being on his own, separate sprue. All other characters are on integrated sprues that make them hard to release as stand alone models. Radukar also thematically fits in with Kritza and Annika, and we know that Kritza is part of Gravelords proper, at least. So I think there is a chance that Radukar gets the option to be taken on his own in Gravelords. His warscroll is certainly good enough for it as it is. For all the other DEATH characters, I think it's more likely that we see generic heroes that are similar to them for which they could serve as alternate sculpts, such as a generic Zombie hero for Gorslav, generic Necromancer for Torgillius and generic Wight King for Halgrim. No idea where that leaves the Vrykos Bloodborn and Kosargi Nightguard. It would be nice to have them as proper troops in the final release, but it would require a proper stand alone kit. The Cities of Sigmar heroes might also still become more relevant Currently, only the Kharadron hero has a functioning subfaction keyword. The Cities heroes and the Sylvaneth hero have "nerf keywords", which currently only serve to deny them subfaction allegiance abilities. Does that mean a battletome's on the way there is a chance these keywords will become functional at some point? In my opinion, there is definitely a chance that we will see rules for the new Sylvaneth grove and a liberated Ulfenkarn as a Shyish City of Sigmar. Especially since the Gravelords story does not seem to yet have concluded as part of Broken Realms. We still need a real payoff for ven Brecht being rescued by a vampire. The new Witch Hunter models also point in the direction of more narrative development for Gravelords, since we know they are part of the Broken Realms narrative, too. Plus, while they call them Witch Hunters, they are carrying stakes and crossbows and hunting the undead, so the Soulblight connection is there.

It's hard to say. A few thoughts: The warscrolls in Cursed City are not Soulblight Gravelords warscrolls. We can see this from the fact that Skeletons and Zombies are completely unchanged both in terms of points and warscrolls, and from the fact that the GRAVELORDS keywords does not appear anywhere. We also know that the Cursed City warscrolls are marked with a November 2020 date, which is way before we had any indication of Gravelords existing. The release of Gravelords is narratively tied to the events of Broken Realms, so we know they could only have been released earlier if Broken Realms had progressed quicker. Even after BR: Teclis, there is no really good narrative justification for a Gravelords release. They might only enter the narrative after BR: Be'lakor. If warscrolls and points get updated, don't expect big changes for the newer ones While it's reasonable to expect both Zombies and Skeletons to get a significant rework, I would not count on the new units from Cursed City being changed drastically. In fact, it is possible that those warscrolls give us glimpses of what the Gravelords battletome might be like. Gorslav, for example, has the ability to bring back a unit of zombies at half strength for a command point. But Legions of Nagash already has the ability to bring back full strength units for the same cost. Gorslav's ability has some marginal use as it is (he does not need to be near a grave site to summon), but it could be that this indicates a shift away from grave site summoning in the upcoming tome. EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that Gorslav's ability means that he does not have to be the general to revive, which is a big benefit I had not considered before. Radukar might become a stand alone character Radukar has the distinction of being on his own, separate sprue. All other characters are on integrated sprues that make them hard to release as stand alone models. Radukar also thematically fits in with Kritza and Annika, and we know that Kritza is part of Gravelords proper, at least. So I think there is a chance that Radukar gets the option to be taken on his own in Gravelords. His warscroll is certainly good enough for it as it is. For all the other DEATH characters, I think it's more likely that we see generic heroes that are similar to them for which they could serve as alternate sculpts, such as a generic Zombie hero for Gorslav, generic Necromancer for Torgillius and generic Wight King for Halgrim. No idea where that leaves the Vrykos Bloodborn and Kosargi Nightguard. It would be nice to have them as proper troops in the final release, but it would require a proper stand alone kit. The Cities of Sigmar heroes might also still become more relevant Currently, only the Kharadron hero has a functioning subfaction keyword. The Cities heroes and the Sylvaneth hero have "nerf keywords", which currently only serve to deny them subfaction allegiance abilities. Does that mean a battletome's on the way there is a chance these keywords will become functional at some point? In my opinion, there is definitely a chance that we will see rules for the new Sylvaneth grove and a liberated Ulfenkarn as a Shyish City of Sigmar. Especially since the Gravelords story does not seem to yet have concluded as part of Broken Realms. We still need a real payoff for ven Brecht being rescued by a vampire. The new Witch Hunter models also point in the direction of more narrative development for Gravelords, since we know they are part of the Broken Realms narrative, too. Plus, while they call them Witch Hunters, they are carrying stakes and crossbows and hunting the undead, so the Soulblight connection is there.

If this actually pans out you better believe I am letting everyone know. I'm going to be so smug about it, you'll think I'm a Lumineth. Full on Lambent Light of Smugness.

Now that we have seen even more Vampire Hunters and they are confirmed to be Cities of sigmar units, I'm going to double down on this spurious prediction I made in December. 😎

I take offense to that! The Hysh lasers were 100% products of the human spirit of invention! #humangang #freecities4lyfe #collegiatearcanepride

It's certainly working on me. I just ordered Cursed City and am planning to get a bunch of Soulblight stuff. I am not sure my wallet can survive Order of Azyr on top of that.

Nice! So Jelsen Darrok from Cursed City was not just a one-off. Also worth noting that these are (presumably) new Cities of sigmar models, which a lot of people are still doubting would ever happen.

Crimson Court preorder next week: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/04/04/sunday-preview-warbands-warmasters-and-blood-bowl/ So maybe we will get to see proper Gravelords warscrolls then? Although they might just delay those warscrolls until the battletome is out.

Genuinely hard to say. If we don't get updated warscrolls, those models will have a very limited shelf life as far as AoS is concerned. Plus, eventual expansion characters are almost guaranteed to get the GRAVELORDS keyword. I would guess that these warscrolls will get at least a keyword update. Since Radukar is on his own sprue, he might graduate to a stand alone release as well.

Personally, I feel like the fact that there is no GRAVELORDS keyword on any of the warscrolls is strong enough evidence that what we have are not Gravelords warscrolls.

Say no more. Arkhan returns as the sun-god leader of the new Tomb Kings faction. I gotcha.

I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter for more obscure Teclis facts. Love it when people go really in depth with this kind of thing.

Bold prediction given that the guy who kicked Arkhan off the edge of Hysh is, himself, entirely composed of light.

I managed to snag one with GW as well. But like others have said, this box will certainly come back in stock eventually.

You make a good observation here: "We have seen a shot of the points values of the contents of the box in some of the darker corners of the internet over the last few days, but what caught my eye was the it has a blurb advising the points are accurate as of November 2020. This suggests that Cursed City was originally planned to launch around 6 months ago, long before we ever had any mention of the Soulblight Gravelords." I think this is absolutely right. And I think it tells us that we should view the warscrolls less as a Gravelords teaser, and more of a Legions of Nagash "you can play this if you like" added value situation.