Leshoyadut

How big of a unit were you using? I've been mostly seeing folks use blocks of 20, and I haven't gotten the chance to test out a unit of 30 with the new book yet. I feel like this means that 30 is probably overkill (or at least viewed as such by most people) on unit durability, but I want to know how it actually performs.

Any monster that can gain the Legion of Night tag can do it. So a VLOZD can, but, say, Neferata could not because she can't get Legion of Night.

I'm pretty set on LoB, yeah. Though a problem with this suggestion is that my WK list doesn't have the points for changing it to mounted. I'm also actually into the exploding 6s it gives to my bone boys and don't really like any of the LoB CTs, anyways. They're all very specific and finicky. Part of me thinks Battle-Lust on the WK to re-roll runs so he stays in range of the GG is the best choice there, tbh. The subfaction bonuses, heroic actions and artefacts can all work with everything else just fine, so I'm not terribly fussy about the identity of my general in LoB. But it's just something I'm looking to experiment with, and I can iterate on it after trying it out. That's what Tabletop Simulator is for, after all.

With how many wizards we have in the army, it was generally pretty easy to get one of them to cast it, especially with the bonus it got from having heroes (which we also had a plethora of, even before Cursed City). I ended up using it a couple times a game on average. But with access to easier and more consistent Endless Legions recursion, I don't think I'll miss it a great deal, especially with Deathly Invocation now healing straight up 4 wounds inside of gravesites. Our other options are more consistent and bigger than they were, so I don't think we'll need Invigorating Aura anymore. Now, for where I'm at, these are the two lists I'm kinda initially thinking of. I have most of the models for them both, I just need to assemble and paint (basically where I've been at for a long time already). I really do like the 30 Grave Guard pile, that was something I enjoyed early on after the 2e book released. With shields now changing the save instead of giving +1 to saves, I think they're in a better place, but the 2" reach with great weapons is hard to pass up on a 30 block. Even with just 20 of them, fighting three ranks deep sounds preeeeeeeeetty good. Mortis Engines also seem pretty neat, and I think it would fit well into this grindy setup. I also want to do a more Black Knight heavy list at some point, but I just miss my hordes of chaff and want to do something with them first.

It also currently works with Corpse Carts, so you can have a unit of 4 Corpse Carts pretty easily.

It's once per turn, not once per round. It's every movement phase. Personally, yeah. I'm hyped about these things. I also love how the new Hunger gives our big heroes a ton more staying power in a combat. Even helps Vargheists (who now get it) and Blood Knights. More reliable regen through Deathly Invocation is great, too.

This sounds like everything I want from the army. I love me a grindy playstyle. Great to hear it was a positive experience!

Just running some calcs on the new sword vs. lance on the VLoZD. This one is just a VLoZD normally. This one is in LoB. I think the lance is better against 2+ and 3+ saves because of the relatively small difference in non-charge damage vs. higher charge damage, but at 4+ it starts being worse overall, and at 5+ and 6+ it's worse even on a charge. If you know basically all of your opponents are going to be fielding 2+ save things that need to die, it could be better to have a lance? But it seems like sword is going to be the commonly correct call into either a more varied field or an unknown field. This is also ignoring any other buffs which would even them out relatively, like AOA, but would still place the sword above the lance in raw numbers. Something like Flaming Sword would put sword even further ahead because it has more attacks to gain from the bonus damage. Also, their spell seems...decent now? It does an average of 3 MWs, which isn't too bad, but casts on a 7. Including cast chance, it does ~5% more damage than an Arcane Bolt released in melee (1.666 for AB, 1.7499 for CoE), and about 109% more damage than a ranged Arcane Bolt (.8333 for AB, 1.7499 for CoE). In exchange, it can cast at an 18" range. When in LoB, if cast out of melee but released in melee, that changes to ~18% better than AB (1.8334 for AB, 2.1666 for CoE). Still a bit swingy and unreliable, but not bad on average. Comparatively, Flaming Weapon adds at least 1 damage on average, going upwards of over 3 damage, and casts on a 4, when in LoB. Even outside of LoB, it adds almost as much (1 attack on the sword doesn't make a huge difference for Flaming Weapon). All in all, I think sword with Flaming Weapon is a solid choice for a VLoZD. It works as a decent hammer relative to our other options and has good staying power with The Hunger giving it, on average, capped (or close to) regen every turn, though I'm not sure it's worth 440 points. But given the strong grindy game our army seems to be leaning toward, it may fit very well into what we have as a solid anvil. I think it's worth trying out, at the very least.

I just want to say that I'm in love with the Coven Throne warscroll spell and I don't care how impractical it is in actual play. The fact that I can just get a free Vampire Lord by killing a <7 wound hero with a d3 MW, 12" range spell is amazing to me and I'm going to try making it happen at least once.

Reading the changes and seeing people be all doom and gloom about it both here and on Facebook makes me wonder if I'm reading the same leaks as everyone else. While some things definitely got a nerf (zombies without a corpse cart, greatweapon grave guard damage), a lot of things got changed to be a) more consistent, b) more powerful, or c) both. Neferata in Legion of Blood is a real monster, Manny still seems solid and can still teleport when in LoN, Lauka Vai and Vengorian Lords both got buffed, a lot of the subfaction traits, CTs and artefacts are better than they were (or mostly a wash at worst). The Hunger got three noticeable changes, all of which for the better, imo: it's instant, doesn't require you to kill a model, and is based on damage you dealt instead of a d3/d6. Vargheists got hangry. Zombies lost some damage on attack, but became painful to attack. A bunch of warscroll CAs just got turned into either passive always-on effects (like Neferata's Twilight's Allure) or into once-per-turn-per-unit abilities (like the Vampire Lord's +1 attacks). A lot of great stuff is in there that, in my opinion, far makes up for the losses. While some of the losses will be felt because they could be fun tricks to use, the new stuff just looks good. Honestly, the reaction to this book feels a lot like the reaction to the current book, which turned out to be pretty solid for a while after it came out. It's showing its age now, for sure, but it was actually good until the Bounty Hunters attacked until design improvements/power creep passed it by, which is always going to happen eventually.

While the WarCom article mentioned rules changes in the section for OBR, they only said warscrolls, pitched battle profiles and Path to Glory changes for Soulblight. Obviously we need to take anything WarCom says with an entire salt lick, but I feel like it's probably a good rough idea of what we're getting changed. I would of course assume the White Dwarf changes, PtG stuff, and adjustments to points and warscrolls. I would not be surprised if the pitched battle profile changes included something for Zombies and/or Skeletons (poooooossibly Dire Wolves?) to get additional free reinforcements in appropriate subfactions. Beyond that? I really don't see much. I could see the usual cutting down on artefacts and subfaction traits in a specifically 3E book, and I'd love to see Endless Legions get adjusted to be a little more reliable, plus a revision on some of the spells. These are all relatively simple things for them to change that wouldn't take a lot of new design work and testing to add, and Endless Legions/Vampire Lore changes would help all of the army at once. But again, I'm not going to expect a whole lot.

The hero is kinda whatever. Beautiful model, but once more just feels like they planned wayyyyy more than they used for Cursed City, and that's all we're gonna get for a while. It's cool and I do like the wolf themed vampires, but I want something different if they are going to give us something. But ultimately, we don't really need more new models with the relatively recent refresh. They can only give so many new models at a time, and other armies need it more than we do, as much as I want some new Grave Guard. Honestly, the thing for me is that there are so many warscrolls in the army that are close to being good (at least casually, if not competitively) and just need a touch-up. I'd love to see them do a little tweaking, like DoK got with their newest tome, and I really don't want any major overhauls because the army feels generally good despite not performing quite as well as I'd like. Buuuut I don't really expect much. Like you say, I'd be surprised if the new tome did much more than incorporate the White Dwarf stuff. A man can dream, though. A man can dream.

Which is honestly a real shame. Love the model, and I enjoyed using it in some armies before the current GHB. Really wish they would add it to the store at some point on its own.

I'm in a similar boat to you on this. What I would expect is something along the lines of the most recent DoK battletome if we get one this year. A number of small changes that add up nicely to a more well-rounded army, but no truly significant changes to shift the entire meta of our army up. I would love to see some number of the changes I talked about in my previous post, since those are, I think, generally reasonable in a relatively small shakeup tome like we could expect. Better supporting our weaker units/heroes, but I don't really dislike where we're at overall as I tend to enjoy our playstyles even if I want just a tiny bit more oomph.

As much as I would genuinely love a bit of a tune-up on the SB tome, I would actually be a little sad if we got a new tome before OBR and FEC, since they've both gone much longer without a new one than we have. But, you know, if we do, then a small buff for Deathrattle would be real great. I'm totally fine with them being ultimately subordinate to the vampires the faction is named after, and I'm not looking for them to necessarily be usable entirely on their own (though I know plenty of others would love that), but Black Knights are pretty wimpy compared to their lore and Deathrattle Skeletons could use a little love. Obviously, Wight Kings are in dire need of something, too, beyond just making Grave Guard battleline as a general (though I do love my 30 block of GG). I think just giving Black Knights more damage, improving the reviving ability of Skeletons (or possibly their save, depends on what direction GW wants to go), and giving the Wight King a real CA would all go a long way toward making Deathrattle a lot more robust of an army choice. Possibly also making the Wight King a little scarier in melee, but the CA is the big one and for a small hero they're actually not terrible in melee. Black Knights getting damage and speed over Blood Knights having durability and self-healing would make them different enough pretty easily. Skeletons having more durability or self-reviving would make them a more distinct option from Zombies which do more damage and take Vampire Lord CAs better. Maybe have the WK CA be, like, improving rend for a melee weapon (all melee weapons?) on the receiving unit or something; give the option of improving quality of wounds instead of quantity like the VL gives, which would also fill a minor gap in the army's damage profile, imo. I think those would be good directions for the units that would avoid stepping on the roles of other units. Then, as @TechnoVampire mentioned, improving the Lore of the Vampires would be great. I don't even know where to start with it, the only good spell is Pinions, and everything else is, at the very best of times, extremely niche. Needs a full overhaul. Buffing the Corpse Carts, Palanquin, and Coven Throne would all be great. Making the VLoZD a little more consistent would be sweet. Lauka Vai and the other monsters could use some small tweaks, too. Various little things like that to help the less-used units, though they're generally speaking not terrible, just not quite good enough. But again, I want OBR and FEC to get their tomes. They are much more in need of it than we are, even if we aren't doing great in the current GHB meta (which will hopefully be changing soon, GW). Also, this post got way longer than I intended. I guess I had more thoughts on the faction's balance than I thought. 😂

This GHB is definitely why I've been playing DoK in my games the last several months. I really enjoy Skeleton horde style most in SB, which already wasn't a top tier strategy, and Bounty Hunters kinda dumpstered them. While there are other viable strategies in the army, I don't like them nearly as much. Very much looking forward to the season change.

Since I don't fully understand your question, I'll just break the ability down as much as I can. Whether you actually run and charge or not is completely independent of you being able to use a command ability with the Vengorian Lord. At the start of your hero phase, you roll a die. If the result is less than or equal to the battle round number, Undeniable Impulse is active until your next hero phase, when you roll again. If the result is greater than the battle round number, Undeniable Impulse is not active until your next hero phase, when you roll again. Next, if Undeniable Impulse is active, you can run and charge but not use command abilities with the Vengorian Lord (but it can still receive them); if Undeniable Impulse is not active, you can use command abilities with the Vengorian Lord but cannot run and charge. It does not affect whether other units can receive or use command abilities, only whether the Vengorian Lord can.

Just had a game today against a friend. He played a non-shooting Lumineth list (he finds the ranged alpha strike style to be boring). I played a Witch Aelf heavy list with no Morathi. I don't remember what his grand strategy was, but it ultimately didn't matter, anyways. His list (also had a Shrine Luminor, but that doesn't show up on War-Com): And my list: As I'm writing this up, I also realize that we both forgot triumphs, which would have gone to me by ten points. Woops. Anyways. We played on In the Presence of Idols, and I won the die roll. Since he had a generally slower, lower damage army, I decided to take the first turn to either let me exercise my long threat range with the WAs, or if charges didn't work out, just let him have the early double turn to set me up for later. Both situations seemed fine to me with my screening WAs setup appropriately. Round 1: Round 2: Obviously, with how things went, if he had managed to get even one or two of his other spells off, things would have been very different. If he could have gotten gotten the 5+ ward on the Stone King, it would have almost certainly survived, barring some incredibly bad luck. If he had gotten a Total Eclipse off, I would have had a lot more trouble having the CP to confirm battleshock. If, if, if. Lot of bad luck for him, sadly. That said, I think it was still a good showing for my list. Doing 18 damage into Avalenor despite him ignoring my rend was incredible, and surprisingly not that much above average (which was 16.89 compared to the 18 I did) in that situation. My Avatars were great as usual; they do enough damage to not be ignorable, but are durable enough to stay in the fight pretty well. The Hag Cauldrons didn't even get the chance to get in, but I've seen them do work in past games. The foot Hag obviously did its job with summoning the Heart of Fury multiple times and providing Witchbrew; any combat prowess it has would have simply been a bonus beyond that. The thing I'm happiest with, though, is the Bloodwrack Medusa. I decided to try this setup on it in games against another friend and managed to have truly awful luck with never actually successfully casting Mindrazor (not even getting unbound, just rolling very badly) despite having over an 80% chance to work. Getting it off in this game was super satisfying and definitely justified the 130 points. I suspect it'd be in a tougher spot if my opponent had shooting, but thankfully that didn't really come up this game. Will definitely need more testing against heavier shooting lists in the future. All in all, a reasonably fun game, though my friend's bad luck did put a damper on both of our spirits. I do like winning, but I also like seeing my opponent do well.

For me, the points changes don't actually change anything. I was already running Neferata in my lists, and after Bounty Hunters stops being a thing, I'll probably look to start having 30 blocks of GG again, but not because of the WK drop. And the monsters, like you said, are also still just kinda lackluster beatsticks when we have a lot of better things we can do with our army. Does make Avengorii slightly better? But the points drop doesn't feel like what they needed. So I guess it just makes it a bit easier to put Purple Sun in my lists and still get a triumph, but ultimately doesn't make a huge difference.

A Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon is great, it's used in a lot of lists and is a real force to be reckoned with. The Blood Knights are also great; while I see 5 in lists more than 10, having 10 is absolutely never a bad thing as they're a great unit. I think the most niche thing out of what you were thinking is Lauka Vai/generic Vengorian Lord, but they're still good with their bubble and you can find uses for them pretty easily. Of the three options, I think my recommendations would be, in order of "most generically useful to least generically useful" given him already having 5 Blood Knights: 1) VLoZD, 2) Blood Knights, 3) Lauka Vai. But none would be bad to have, if you think he'd enjoy painting one of the choices more than the others.

The warscroll builder and the mobile app are both wrong way too often for what are supposed to be the "official" list building options. It's dumb that they let those go with so many issues consistently.

As @Neil Arthur Hotep noted in the other thread, while I really like the wounds-done-equals-wounds-gained instead of healing if you kill a model, the timing of it makes it kind of awkward to actually make use of on a small hero. You need him to get attacked, but not killed, before he attacks to get value from the heal. Though as you say, something like this on Vhordrai/VLoZDs would actually be pretty dope, since they can take some hits and keep attacking.

This was because of the FAQ document that was released. It looks like they forgot to delete the last couple of pages from the PDF properly, so the Bloodwrack Viper had its old warscroll listed. They fixed it a few days ago, so the battletome is the most current and accurate version, meaning it does still have its monstrous action.

Hell yeah, I'm a big fan of Season of War, myself. They have great commentary, a good UI for understanding turns/VPs/etc., and solid camera angles for the table itself. Also love the little story intro they do at the start of each.

I don't think ours needs to change. It feels a bit sad having ward saves become so common, both thematically and game design-wise, but between getting them from both heroes (which we tend to want at least a few of, since we have some great support and offense options) and gravesites, our army is pretty easy to blanket with them. We're also in a decent place as far as balance goes and don't really need a buff or change, even as small as this one would be.