Andalf

I would take what I have to say with a huge grain of salt. The games I’ve been playing have been in house with my fiancée mostly just learning the new ropes and trying to force our collections into things that look like how We think AoS 3 will look. That being said, game against Neferata, 2x Blood Knights, Mortis Engine, 3xBlack Knights, Vengorian Lord, Wight King bravery bomber and a zippy little vamp lord. Survival of the Fittest: 3 objectives evenly spaced down a diagonal deployment, choose 3 predator units of your own and score a point for killing predators with yours. Standouts were casting teleport early twice and getting to place Stoneguard behind enemy lines w/in 9”. At 8 to cast I never rely on it but it was really helpful aligning a big counter attack turn 3. Avalenor and buffing D3 units with an attack was also big. He took the centre and was pretty easily able to send that ability to every Stoneguard unit that needed it so long as I rolled well because of wholly within 24”... like it or not 5 Stoneguard with that buff hit about as hard as the Blood Knights, I use Mallets and punched 2-3 extra damages and the Stonemage was in range of two squads for the extra rend (almost making them better than the Vampire Knights? 👍🏻) which really didn’t help how spread out her cavalry were down the sort of main front line of the table. They couldn’t run through with Riders of Ruin because I had too many units behind my main line, little support wizards, and the Dawnriders snaking all over because they were mostly useless in this matchup otherwise. Neferata ended up wrecking face through a bunch of little 5, 2-wound elf squads but I managed to heal back probably 5 Stoneguard with Emerald Lifeswarm total throughout the game, and probably 7+ on Avalenor with heroic actions. A lucky Solar Flare kind of sealed the deal turn four stopping all of the debuffs/buffs they could cast and by then I’d scored 3xbattle tactics to their 1 and contested/controlled too much of the table for them to really make an end game push. To a very big extent I think dice went way in Lumineth favour, but they also just had more opportunities to make their moves more efficient with the loads of CP’s. They could maintain their strategy better throughout the game because of the ability to rely on 5/20 mechanics (spells, CA’s, warscroll abilities yadda) popping off, and some surprisingly, rather than the Vamps really relying on maybe just some of Neferata’s defensive stuff, a flying version of a Stoneheart in the Vengorian Lord (sort of) and the strength of the Blood Knight’s scroll.

Radukar the Wolf Annika Gorslav Halgrim Torguillius Vampire Lord - Spoor Tracker 4 Kosargi Night Guard 3 x 20 Zombies 20 GG w/ Shields 20 GG w/ GW 2 x Vargskyr

I would swap Mannfred for Belladamma and a Spellportal every time in this list. Her command ability makes scoring the centre of the table really hard on your opponent. And with all of those Blood Knights and VLoZD you pack plenty of counter attack power. Lycancurse is game changing tech, and Blood Knights are the best unit in the book for Under the Killing Moon. The lists where I’ve had nothing but big scary monsters and cavalry have been interesting, and it seems most lists here are Dragon/Mortarch/Blood Knight combos. The armies I’ve played against have eschewed going for the horde style and really doubled down on MSU. As the games have been progressing through turns 2/3, with the 8 terrain piece limits, you really start to see that two or three of these little 5/10 man squads can actually shut things down, deploying lines and just being 3-6” away from each other and behind. Redeploy and any heals makes this mechanic even stronger. If they have any kind of defensive stats like Sequitors or, I hate to admit Stoneguard, they can basically cut huge sections of the board off now. They support each other a lot better too because now those little MSU buggers have two units ready for a counter charge that doesn’t have a super crowded pile in. With this being the case most of my Blood Knights have been landing a charge struggling to kill, more than 3, 2 wound models and then dropping the last couple with Riders of Ruin is basically just luck. In those circumstances you kind of leave little pockets of resistance behind (or get 2 turned...) and make it hard for any of your army to follow them into a hard situation so they tend to go wrecking ball mode and then burn out fast; or you simply can’t Riders of Ruin through your opponent and they get bogged down or pushed back. I’ve found, my Neferata list, the times I took first turn I was overstretched by turn 2 and was struggling with Battle Tactics. If I didn’t take first turn I tend to lose/get one of my lynch pins busted up/crowded out by special rules and trapped in my own deployment struggling on the ‘primary’.

It looks so... Vyrkos.

My list is on the first page, I just switched the twinstones for Chronomantic Cogs and am playing some Soulblight in a few hours. I put Lyrior with the Artillery Battery for free all out attack without using it. Makes him a slightly better support charge piece, allowing me to still use it on my Dawnriders at the same time. Starshards generally hit on 2’s and they haven’t been in position, or really up against armies I played defensively enough against, to use Unleash Hell. I take a Warlord Battalion to get the extra spells on my Windmage, Stonemage and two Dawnriders squads. I’m almost glad the changes to twinstones because I was really back and forth between them and the cogs to begin with, but now that they disappear it seems no brainer for tactical flexibility. I can’t push big spells but it’ll be up to me to go timely and I prefer this play style, reminds me of the old Winds of Magic days... Windmage takes teleport and heals, Stonemage takes Entomb and battleshock immunity. Some hard spells, some easy spells, and great utility. Nothing is guaranteed but same thing, I think having strong mechanics that show up mid game as more of a surprise will be more effective in winning games than using up all the internet combos people will be appraised on. Can’t wait to post up an Arcane Bolt, Windblast Vortex and charge in with Almighty Blow for 3d3 MW from the little Hurakan Goku!

It definitely reads this way. The FAQ also removed the “2 or more Vanari models in the unit” stipulation the Strike in Unison rule had so it looks like Starshards are a pretty serious Go. MW’s are going to be the real enemy every time but hopefully I can get/keep a protection of Hysh bubble up with Lyrior. I can’t nuke my champions with one bad miscast, and if Cogs manages to go off there is plenty of spell casting ability; it’s just not the classic +2/3 to 4 casts, it’ll be 3-4 extra casts trying to be savvy with bypassing dispels. Looks like fun and I’m really glad my collection doesn’t feel like it needs an entire overhaul.

I feel like there is a chance we were warhammer opponents in another life friend. This is exactly the army I started building model wise when Cursed City landed myself (Grandma Volga, Vlad the Wolf and two red headed step vampires). Having Gorslav, Kosargi and the vampires from the cursed city crew makes this feel so much more themed than any of the LoB or Vyrkos lists I’d been putting together. You are right about how it plays like you would imagine an undead City of Sigmar and rather than play for battle score points looking ahead this might be one of the first tournament seasons I really try to build that fancy themed board, I’d been knocking ideas around since my Fiancée surprised me with Cursed City of nowhere. The army builds I’ve been tinkering with now seem more streamlined since I can more precisely choose which keyword I’m building around. Spoor Tracker will probably end up on a Vengorian as my 6th character, I don’t know why but I am so into that zombie horde shuffling into the middle of the table...2nd turn goes so far for the army, and I think it’s going to play into the new missions better than a lot of horde lists. The only irksome part so far is I’m not so sure it will hang against a lot of the better AoS3 lists, but it has a ton of secret plays baked in I know it. I would recommend the Spell Portal at minimum for the ‘Damma but think Cogs is so good for them too with the ability to reroll casts. **and then I pictured Chad the Beast running with a pack of Vargskyr and blood born which gave me the thought of how to convert my Bloodseeker Palanquin more Vyrkos-y.

Sequitors with ward saves are great against the proc’ing mortals on 6 proliferation. They are worse vs no rend, same vs -1 and better vs -2 than they were before, but don’t do as well as Liberators with All Out Defence. I’m liking the bit of dichotomy there. if cycle of the Storm stays, I’m happy.

I dunno, Neil Arthur’s Wight King Bravery bomb is in most of my LoB lists so far, along with 15 Black knights. Mostly so I can get away with 360 points of battle line and get BLOOD KNIGHTS with the rest of them without risking the internet thinking I play warhammer for fun! 🤪🥸😎

That extra CP goes quite far in a lot of Soulblight combos as well so far. It has let me get a timely Call of the Hunt and All out’s while protecting your assault from counter attacks with things like Belladamma’s pack leader’d wolves rushing down one flank or Gorslav bringing back a unit to speed bump. Another thing is Bloodseeker Palanquin’s looking a bit nicer for Vyrkos now that you can cherry pick all the Vampires, my Coven Throne and Palanquin just arrived in the mail for my LoB but starting to see some nice plays. Under the Killing Moon Vargskyr is pretty scary to 2 wound enemies, fighting from behind two zombies keeps them safe from a lot of retaliation. Despite not getting faction terrain/endless spells, I’m sure feeling spoiled for choice as far as every unit in this battle tome having a place and good reason to try.

They are (Kosargi this is) that good IMO, and Radukar re-rolling for spells makes him an underrated Vamp Lord on foot IMO. He makes good use of every new rulebook spell. With Spoor Tracker from a friend and a Vanguard formation you can pretty well expect to hold the center of the table turn one with 2 At the Double’s; especially if you take turn 2 or get a CP off Torgy or Heroics. I’ve been running Cogs to get him to Pinion himself and try to Levitate the Nightguard, then just smush them into the middle of the zombs and it’s on.

I’ve ran the Cursed City in 2 or 3 games and had a blast, I just always thought either Halgrim or Gorslav never had a good set of units to support. This is actually the best change so far because I love Gorslav and the Kosargi’s and really think this makes the Zombie horde I was originally interested in possible. Gogo 60 Levitating Zombies!!

I think it was their longevity that really stood out. With 8 wounds they just seemed generally tankier, with all the heroic actions going on them for heals and finest hour they seemed like little demi gods. I do agree with the points cost, I suppose I’ll have to see how often the teleport wrecks my plans before counting on them enough for a tournament setting. I get really excited about new things and I hadn’t got the chance to run them in AoS2. Nothing I do within this game is intended to run with the best of the best stuff, I tend to try out everything maybe a themed kind of guy but not really fluffy.

I meant looking ahead, sorry; and not that they won’t win, but that they won’t be as dominant as everybody is saying.

Kind of a good thing really, makes it easier to throw them around without worrying about losing the general anyway. Makes sense too, holding onto those warlord vp’s with them is as obnoxious as the rest of it! Guess I should read the warscrolls a bit closer, it’s nice a can work in the practice games.

I gotta say man, I think this is the best list I’ve seen for AoS3 in general so far. I would honestly go with the Fellbats and Burning Head over the Skeletons. I think the 10 man Skeleton squad just doesn’t have as much room to go somewhere that isn’t likely them just getting wiped or maybe speed bumping out of a grave. Kastelai has the outflank option but Fellbats can go anywhere, they can double back to tag objectives really easily, generally out-chaff the chaff, and amongst the best of the now ubiquitous Unleash Hell counters for non-shooting armies (IMO). The burning head might do damage but zoning out areas and herding units around the table is one of the best uses for all endless spells in general, I think; especially for these faster cavalry forces, you do have good board and objective presence though so aiming for the Triumph at -20 points might actually be a good play.

I played a 2k test game against my fiancée using a real hodge podge collection of Lumineth stuff. I pulled out what I think is my meanest Stormcast stuff, and ran into Ellania and Ellathor in a bad way. At 285 points they are steep, but you have to kill them with ranged mortals, or make sure you kill them in combat before they get to swing. If you don’t fulfill either of these requirements they just don’t die... and then they go Nuclear. For the first three turns they stood in Combat with a Tauralon, Gryphcharger and 10 Sequitors. The Lord Arcanums had to leave to deal with a Loreseeker on my back objective and I wasn’t closing the warlord kill I was trying to get from the Twins at all so abandoned that idea. They then proceeded to Finest Hour through the last of the Sequitors and teleport to an objective on Turn 5 that my Warlord Tauralon and 3 Evocators were sitting on fighting Lyrior Uthralle on his last 4 wounds. They cut half of the wounds out of both units with their laser beam and finished the Tauralon, while Lyrior helped take the Evocators to one left and outnumber for the objective. Im putting this here because I hear a lot about how they seem too expensive, but I have a really good feeling about them. I’ve designed a couple Alumnia lists they’ll fit a lot better into, with Heroic Healing and all the CP Lumineth can generate they were always on a 2+/5+ and were a great spot for Protection of Hysh because they’ll likely outlive everything in their bubble before teleporting out, unless your opponent pours everything into them which Bladelords can really help with. I had two questions though. Can they really automatically come back to life on D6 if they die as long as they fight in the fight phase? It’s sort of worded as such, but seems way too awesome, we laughed and said let’s have it work this way until the internet tells us it doesn’t; I’d still think they were extremely powerful without this (after rereading it like 7 times it doesn’t work this way, looks like they need to be alive to be removed from the table) Also, can I make them the general and get a free CP on 4+? With Lyrior and a Calligrave in the Shrine I was able to push Commands without even thinking about it, even more might be too many!

There is a pretty big play around in forcing your opponent to use the CP’s as well though. Unleash Hell is basically your second to last option per player turn, if you’re going second you do start w/ 3 + whatever your Battletome/heroes can generate. It sounds easy turn one I’ll give you that, but by turn two or three... it’s even a play around to give the shooter first turn to limit exposure to his spending CP on Unleash Hell this way. There are just too many factors, IMO, to suggest that this one very particular interaction (scary shooters getting Unleash Hell) is going to dominate games to the point it’s a problem. At least for now the jury has to be out until your ‘meta’ might decide which way it’s going to take this edition, but I’m not seeing heavy shooting armies winning. If anybody has taken notes from 40K, movement and contesting objectives and really risking your neck in melee is what is winning games; maybe some really souped up Castles will get their 70% win rate due to probabilities but if you’re playing against an army equally tuned for devastation, while standing still in the corner and counting on your opponent to let you setup to do Lambent Light, maybe spell portal, Power of Hysh, maybe Twinstones to even have the chance to cast them, or bringing God to do it automatically but not much else, and then charge face first into you... this sounds like a losing proposition. Even Shootcast, or whichever the next worst offender is. Not even remotely creative. You know there’s books that bring models back to life on one wound too right? If anybody had seen my Gryphcharger get killed 4 times by Ellania and Ellathor I’d think they would think that’s cheesy. Especially when the 28 dice I rolled for the new Blazing rule or whatever in turn killed them. But guess what? As long as the Twins fight you get to roll under your wounds or the round # and come back to life with D6 wounds and teleport anywhere on the table 12” away. Which they do automatically when they die, and so they teleported to the other side where my warlord was sitting on an objective, got the charge off in their next turn and dumped my Tauralon on his Ass with their 5 damage sword, winning the game that I had in the bag for most of the last three turns... they even managed to heal themselves back up. None of this was possible in AoS2, it was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played and most of the stuff we were pulling off made stacking shooting units look like play-doe IMO.

In the middle of a game currently, turn 3. Opponent deploys a squad of 20 Wardens, 5 Bladelords, Ellania and then a bolt thrower and Wind Spirit tucked in behind. Turn 1 My LA on Tauralon, Gryphcharger and Footie on Dais Arcanum jumped across the 18” no mans land and the two mounted lords pull off the charge. Wind Spirit I think shaved a wound or two off with Unleash He’ll but other than that nothing. Turn 2 my Tauralon was free’d up and made another charge into Ellania and Bladelords that the Gryphcharger had pinned down. Unleash Hell took my Tauralon down to 3 wounds. In the next two hero phases I heal him back up from Healing Light and Heroic Actions. His 20 sentinels were dealing with Sequitors and Evocators that had dropped on his objectives but they were now primed to shoot any of my LA’s who were coming in next. I just turned around and left him in the corner and went about dominating Battle Tactics after using Ghur to delete the objective the Sentinels were standing on. It was a turn the Lumineth had won the double, but couldn’t give me first turn without really being exposed to some skull cracking, but the choice of which Objective to destroy made it almost a lose-lose; something worth noting to watch for IMO, and I think this Dynamic is a lot harder of a new tool to gauge the power of than he Unleash ****** from relatively powerful shooting models doing relatively nothing other than forcing my actions on heals rather than boosting my saves.

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I always forget about the outflank they have. Not a hard mechanic to block out for some, but definitely makes it seem like taking anything other than Blood Knights in Kastelai isn’t necessary! I do wonder how much the smaller board will affect these reserve options going forward. Whether anybody is going to hold out to bring things in later in the game and such.

The thing is, while Blood Knights are certainly powerful, they only really come at you from one direction. It’s great to have the two or three squads for sure, my 10 have been my bread and butter most games. I just can’t see more than 15-20 being viable once you want to start scoring VP’s. I’ve been playing a cav heavy LoB list myself, and the 2x5 I bring often get in each others way with those bases. Kastelai lists have generally bad magic casting ability and Soulblight don’t get many CP to work with either. I think you may want to consider another vector of attack like Zombies from the Grave or Fellbats in order to plug up Unleash ****** and help herd units into your Riders of Ruin.

...then yes more Blood knights.

2 stacks of Vargheists and another 10 dire wolves fits perfectly if you’d rather go all out attack w/ no plebs. Gives you a couple new deployment options and fits the theme if that’s what you’re into. I think others would say another Dragon, but Vargheists in the Monster Hunting Core Battalion could get some work done for you. They might come in handy scoring some of the easier Battle Tactics while the Knights are sinking their teeth into stuff too.

I think Sentinels are going to cause more headaches as support character and chaff removers. They aren’t an easy unit to setup to do the big damage people are saying, and Lumineth have no cheap counter chaff of their own and will rely on chip damage shooting in that regard. Plus Sentinels are one of a few strategies in that entire battle tome actually reliable to help take out enemy wizards, which will be a priority to control magic phases without Teclis. I think Stormfiends are worse for Unleash Hell, Hurricane Raptors and Sisters of the Watch as well, more because the armies they come with generally support their warscroll better and I think get better mileage out of those units outside of just shooting stuff. To a degree I believe all of those units kind of need the option to stay relevant, and at the cost of a CP it’s not going to be at hand in even the most well laid plans, really fun with my Mortis Engine I gotta say.