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Kaizennus

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  1. For some reason blood knights are listed as being a smaller base size as well (same as black knights now). Almost certainly a typo, especially since they wouldn’t even properly fit on those bases.
  2. I had my first game using the leaked rules for the new season. I ran this list since I wanted to play around with the new champions mechanic. Originally I had something even fluffier that used 6 champions, but decided to run a list that at least had some semblance of a normal army. Overall, I thought that new season rules are much better than last season's. Not just for SBG, but for the game in general. As for Soulblight specifically, I felt there were some good and bad things for us in the new rules. New Battle Tactics: ⬜ A Matter of Honor Pick 1 enemy GALLETIAN CHAMPION or SWORN BODYGUARD unit on the battlefield. You complete this battle tactic if that unit is destroyed during this turn by an attack made by a friendly GALLETIAN CHAMPION or SWORN BODYGUARD unit - I think this is possible if you run Grave Guard as a bodyguard unit (thought that means taking the special battalion). Our heroes however, have little hope of pulling this off. Unfortunately, GG are slow and difficult to setup, so it might not be easy to get them the opportunity to pull this off. ⬜ Lead The Assault You complete this battle tactic if at least 2 of the objectives you control are in enemy territory and are each contested by any friendly GALLETIAN CHAMPIONS. - This tactic is already very situational because not many battleplans have 2 objectives in enemy territories. In addition, controlling two "homebase" objectives and having two champions on them seems very difficult for us. The Wight King and Necromancer are slow, and generally want to be babysitting other slow moving units. The V.Lord can move kind of fast in some situations but again, they are so easy to kill that you don't really want to have them running off on their own and they aren't likely to solo claim an objective unless nothing is there. ⬜ United Offense Pick 1 objective controlled by your opponent. You complete this battle tactic if you control that objective and 2 or more friendly GALLETIAN CHAMPIONS are contesting that objective at the end of this turn. - Definitely doable, and encourages you to have at least two champions. This is fine since there are a lot of lists that want to run V.Lord and Necromancer anyway. It takes some planning to get off though since the Necromancer (or WK) is so slow, and you need to have a good target for it. Probably good for those games where there's a center objective that can be flipped several times in a game. ⬜ Cunning Maneuver Pick 1 friendly GALLETIAN CHAMPION on the battlefield that is more than 3” from all enemy units. You complete this battle tactic if at the end of the turn that GALLETIAN CHAMPION is more than 3” from all enemy units and is contesting an objective you control that is wholly outside your territory. - Basically a freebie, and a good option for a turn 1. The new battle tactics aren't super great for us, a few situational ones and one freebie (which is nice). Unfortunately, when you combine this with the other returning tactics : Gaining Momentum, An Eye for an Eye, Desecrate their Lands, This One’s Mine! means that we might struggle to consistently score tactics. I think this will be another seasons where faction specific tactics will really help some armies reach that full score potential and I don't think we fall into that group. No Retreat, No Surrender (Realm Command) - Most of our stuff wants to pile-in, but this works for Blood Knights so it maybe has some play. Probably better for some of the more elite factions. Grinding Teeth of Gallet (Realmsphere Magic) - This one can be really punishing against us since we want to be camping objectives with lots of bodies, but on the flipside we are a relatively magic-heavy faction and pretty much always have a caster (whereas some armies need to actively decide if they want a wizard or not) so there are bound to be times when we can use this to punish some opponents as well. Strike at the Opening (Heroic Action) / Lead by Example (Heroic Action) - The first action isn't that great for us since none of our champions are particularly amazing fighters, but it does give us the opportunity to maybe get a hero phase attack in with Grave Guard. However, I think this might sound better than it really is. Do you really want to have your champions actively in melee? We are also super hungry for CP so giving up that one potential point a turn can hurt. Desperate Action (Season Rule) - Pretty cool, basically a straight up buff for everyone. Even if you don't use the combo action above, this might allow us to do something like get off a heroic recovery or something while still rolling for the CP. The Key To Victory (Season Rule) - Very nice rule for us since our little buff heroes were so vulnerable to shooting in the past. We also don't have any real shooting of our own so this is just a straight up buff for us. Galletian Command: United in Purpose (Battalion) - We already have this baked into our rules with the White Dwarf update and honestly ours is better since we can trigger it with our bigger named heroes. This might be useful for our opponent's though, and we might be on the receiving end of some pretty painful double-whammy's. Thoughts For List Building - I don't think it's worth it for us to play heavily into the champion builds and go hard for the new tactics or special rules. Our little heroes just aren't durable or combat worth enough to justify it. - The bodyguard battalion might be useful, or it might be better to aim for 1-drops so you can control that opening turn a bit more. Interested in trying this out a bit more, but it seems like GG are the only really worthy targets for this. - This season's tactics look to be a little difficult for us. They still favor aggressive, hard-hitting gameplay and that isn't really our forte. - So, while it seems like a lot of the new stuff isn't particularly amazing, I think we actually end up in a better spot overall with the removal of bounty hunters and inherent 2 rank fighting. I think our "normal" lists from the original GHB season are stronger now. It's now much safer to bring support heroes without worrying as much about them getting sniped, and he removal of bounty hunters and elite units fighting in two ranks means our typical battleline stuff is viable once again. For my next game I'm probably going back to my "normal" casual Vyrkos list since it actually had a lot of points nerfs and now maybe I can move a few pieces around to put another strong piece in there. That list runs a V.Lord and Necromancer which can attempt some of the tactic stuff and isn't as vulnerable now to shooting.
  3. I’m not sure where this falls on the “popular opinion spectrum” but I’d love to see our style shift back towards the hero-centric style of Vampire Counts. There would be several design challenges to overcome in an AoS setting. Mainly somehow designing them a way to avoid being sniped while not making them too powerful. I think bringing back some kind of crumbling mechanic, but made to fit AoS rules, would be both thematic and balancing. I want my army to be loaded up with 6 strong heroes who are supported by the chaff and maybe augmented with an elite unit or monster. That being said, I don’t really think we need any dedicated ranges units and kind of hope we don’t get any. I’d also be worried that if they did give us one it would be a one-off unit with no support that wouldn’t really fit in a general list anyway.
  4. I’m going to go against the grain here and suggest not to go this way unless you were really comfortable with selling off the extra stuff and really wanted to double down on some of the exclusive units. I think if you’re looking to get into Soulblight as an actual playable army your money would be better spent on “real” units to bolster a cursed city flavored army. That probably means picking up stuff like Belladamma, wolves, a box of zombies (you can use the CS ones for the extra zombie models you might need, and whatever else fits your fancy. The only time is really encourage double CS boxes would be out of necessity, like limited access to other kits or if you maybe got the second box for free/ significant discount.
  5. Played a 1k tournament this weekend using the new seasonal rules. First tournament in my country in over two years due to COVID. Tied for 3rd with a 2-1 record as SBG: Kastelai My Kastelai List Game 1: SBG vs. Kruelboyz Battlelines Drawn Kruelboyz List This is the new battleplan where each quarter of the board is its own objective. I was chosen to go first and set myself up pretty defensively and focused on gaining control of my gravesites for my grand strategy. My opponent was running two monster heroes and I misjudged their reach so on his turn he was able to push up aggressively. I rolled a 6 on a redeploy for one unit of BKs but my general got wrecked. I rolled absolutely horribly on saves, but no matter. Without my general I lost my Rousing Commander buff and without it I didn’t have the hitting power to challenge the big monsters. I ran him around the board and in the end I lost with a score of something like 15-20. Game 2: SBG vs Ogors The Lurkers Below Ogors List This is the tug of war battleplan that doesn’t use points. Once again I got chosen to go first and slowly moved my units into position across the board. On my opponents turn he managed to make some good charge rolls and engage two units of my blood knights with his ogors. The BK’s held super well, especially with the buffs from my vengorian and his artefact. On my turn I retreated and countercharged everything and popped my rousing commander and one-shot his big blob of ogors and left his remaining group tied up at the side of the board. In his next turn he was actually able to break through my general and kill him, but on my turn three I auto-advanced one of my BKs and at the end of the turn I had all three objectives and got an auto-win. Game 3: SBG vs Stormcast Turf War This battleplan has two objectives, no reserves, and has both players potentially deploying 18” away from each other. I was chosen to go first again (2/3 of my opponents brought the 1 drop battalion) and screened out his fulminators with wolves while I got a charge off with one unit of BK into his liberators/judicators. His libs actually tanked my damage really well since my army lacks both mortals and rend. Between the unleash hell and the counter attack I ended up losing more models than him. On his turn he wiped out my wolves and my engaged knights held strong. He got the double and I had a hairy turn but I rolled ridiculously well on saves and came out fairly unscathed and even brought my wolves back. On my turn I popped rousing commander, charged everything and wiped out everything he had except for his fulminators. He decided to concede feeling that he had no way of winning on points. Post-Tournament - Overall it was a really fun experience and I thought I played okay. I scored a decent amount of tactics after game 1, but it's going to take some time to learn how to use them correctly - It seemed like many people weren't comfortable building lists around the new Bounty Hunter/ Conqueror battalions and I saw a lot of "traditional" lists - I don't think I got a real feel for the new season yet since people weren't using a lot of the new stuff yet, and proving grounds didn't really seem impactful during my games - I think BK's are a solid build for the new season. Easy to play, fast, does well with most of the tactics and new rules. I can easily see this being a go-to for Soulblight players - I think veterans are going to suffer really hard, even ogor battleline got totally rolled over largely in part because of the bounty hunter mechanic - The missions I played were okay. Not a fan of the tug of war one, even though I snagged a quick victory using it. Also didn't really like Turf War since it's basically designed to just have players throw units at each other in the middle of the board. They were good choices for a 1k tournament however. - Not sure how I feel about the 4 quarters battleplan. I think I'd have to play it a few times with 2k armies before I make a judgement on it. For 1k I think it suffers from being "too big" in a way. - I look forward to getting more 2k games in and would love to do a 1k tournament again in the future. It is pretty tiring though! I can't imagine how 5 rounds of 2k must feel like.
  6. I think this is a fantastic idea. Going through the traits it seems like it all pretty much fits thematically with an inquisition/Witch Hunter style: Venom-Encrusted Weapons -> poisoned weapons Kruelboyz Waagh! —> could work as a coordinated attack/hunt ability Noisy Racket re-themed as the enemy tired from being hunted down Lethal Surprise is basically traps in the wilderness Disappearing Act could be interpreted as distracting/misleading the enemy before the battle starts, or decoys or something like that Covered In Mud is basically camouflage I think your ideas about models is good too. And overall the playstyle of a sneaky, primarily ranged army (but with some melee) could really fit the theme.
  7. So I recently wrapped up my fourth Warhammer army (3 AoS and 1 40K). I’ve built all my armies for play purposes and have learned a fair bit about the hobby side, but have yet to really delve into the kitbash/mod/3D printing side. I’ve seen so many cool “conversion” armies, such as Seraphon Tau or Goblin KO. I would like to take a shot at making one of these conversion armies of my own, and I’d really love a “Witch Hunter” themed army. I realize it’s a bit hard to pad out a whole army on the theme, but I’m thinking something a bit more elite with things like peasant mobs or ranger/hunter types. Any thoughts on where to begin with something like this? Which army do you think would work well as the “rule set”? Any suggestions on models to use or convert, or 3D files to look for? This is going to more of a passion project as opposed to a tournament build, so I’m open to 3rd party options for this army. Any insight would be appreciated!
  8. Date: July 3rd, 2022 Game Type: Matched Play / 1000 Points / GHB 2022 Season 1 (Gallet) Game #1: Soulblight Gravelords (Vyrkos Dynsasty) vs. Stormcast Eternals (Knights Excelsior) Battleplan: The Mighty and the Cunning Battleplan Rules Objectives can be chosen as Proving Grounds more than once 2 VP each time you kill a Veteran unit, +1VP if it was contesting an objective Hold 1 / Hold 2 / Hold More Than Your Opponent scoring system Soulblight Army List This was going to be our first game of AoS using the newly release GHB2022. It was also the first game either of us had played in several months as both of us had taken some time off of AoS to play 40k for awhile. We decided to play two 1k point games, we figured this would be a good introduction to the new rules, plus I have a 1k tournament coming up and I wanted to prepare for it a bit. I (Soulblight) cooked up two different lists for this weekend. The first list is my Kastelai Blood Knight list that I'm planning to take to the tournament. It is definitely a more aggressively built list and not what I would normally take to a 1k casual game. To balance this I also decided to bring along an infantry list (as seen above). I figured this list wouldn't be as strong, but might be a bit more fun to play against and would let me try out some of the new GHB mechanics (such as veterans). Our first battleplan was The Mighty and the Cunning. A relatively simple looking battleplan with 4 objectives across the middle and a mechanic that gives bonus points for killing Veterans (more on that at the end of the battle). My opponent won the roll off and decided to let me deploy first. Since we both had 5 drops this meant I had the choice for first round and decided to go first. My opponent placed his General and Grandhammers into reserve, while I did the same with one group of Zombies and my 30 Grave Guard Round 1 I went first and my first real decision came with choosing one of the new battle tactics. I decided to take advantage of the deepstriking capabilities and took Barge Through Enemy Lines (2VP if you get 2 units into your opponent's territory, 3 if both units are veterans). Other than that, I basically moved onto the two middle objectives and sat tight. I was able to score a solid 6 points right off the bat. My opponent decided to move slowly onto his first objective and chose Against The Odds (control an objective that is not being contested by enemy veteran s). He decided not to drop his paladins and only managed to score 3VP this turn. Round 2 We tied on the roll off, which meant that I was able to choose to go first again. My opponent chose one of the middle objectives as the Proving Ground. Once again I decided to play it safe this turn. With "horde" style armies like these it's generally better for you to avoid combat as long as possible, especially when you get to go first and jump on a lot of objectives. I knew my army wouldn't hold up long against his units so I had to farm VP early on. I slid my GG over to the furthest objective and started to screen them out with my zombies. . I don't usually like to play my GG into a defensive position but I had been a little greedy with the first turn Battle Tactic. Speaking of which, this turn I took one of the "freebies" in Desecrate Their Lands (control a terrain piece in the opponent's territory). I moved my Blood Knights forward a bit and into a potential charge position for next turn (assuming they survived any enemy charges themselves Once again I was able to score pretty high this turn with a solid 5 VP. My opponent decided to drop his Grandhammers this turn and easily got his charge off. Those guys are absolute grinders, and they easily wiped out my Blood Knights after doing some pretty decent damage in the movement/charge phase. He also started to move the rest of his army up the board behind the Hammers and I piled-in my zombies to make sure I didn't lose the objective and to prevent his hammers from charging the next turn. My opponent got a few VP this turn but was still held back by primary point scoring. Round 3 I finally lost the roll off here and got my first taste of a Gallet double-turn. My opponent moved up his forces, including his Yndrastra and easily finished off my Zombies. This was particularly damaging because it allowed him to score 3 Bonus VP due to the special mission rules, another 2VP for his battletactic, and a final 1VP on Primary. This helped him gain significant ground on the score sheet. Why only 1 VP on primary? Because I rolled a clutch Legions roll and was able to bring back 10 Zombies on the back objective. On my turn there wasn't much for me to do. I continued to reposition my Grave Guard and Zombies and grabbed the other "freebie" tactic Against The Odds. Round 4 I lost the roll off here which was pretty unfortunate, a double turn would have allowed me to get my GG into potential counter strike position. My opponent decided not to engage my main force on the final objective, instead he move enough forces onto the third objective and then flew Yndrastra back onto the objective that I had claimed with my Zombies in the last turn. He was able to make a pretty far charge after getting the free re-roll from his Banner hero and Yndrastra made short work of my 10 zombies. In retrospect I hadn't considered how big a swing in points it would be to allow my opponent to score the bonus points again. My opponent scored 3 Bonus VP, 3 Primary VP, and 2 Tactic VP, giving him the lead. On my turn I played it pretty defensively and just used the Proving Ground mechanic to take back the objective he had stolen previously. I decided to gamble with the Soulblight Unstoppable Armies battle tactic (succeed at the Endless Legions roll in the battleshock phase) but ultimately failed it. Round 5 I won the double here and was kind of out of options. I decided to deny his Grand Strategy by moving my Grave Guard and General into his territory and preventing his Defend What's Ours (no enemy units in your territory at the end of the game). I made a pretty significant misplay as I forgot about the bonus points mechanic again. As a result I took the other Soulblight battle tactics Callous Overlord (complete it if a summonable unit, not in combat at the start of the turn, dies this turn) and sacrificed my zombies by piling them into his main army. This was ultimately a -1VP exchange for me since he scored 3 bonus VP to my 2, whoops! In the end it didn't really matter though. My opponent was able to get his turn 5 battle tactic (Barge Through Enemy Lines) and then just sit tight on the objectives he controlled. He didn't get his Grand Strategy, but I did get mine (the Soublight Lust for Domination strategy which required you to control more gravesites than your opponent). Despite that, he was able to win the game 25-23 (I think... I know the difference was 2 points but I left my scoresheeet at the club so I can't confirm the final numbers, but it was something along these lines)! Post Game All in all this was a really fun game. After playing 40k for the last 6 months or so it was really refreshing to play AoS again (but that's a topic deserving a blog post of its own maybe). I found the new rules really fun and engaging. The new tactics and grand strategies are much more difficult to complete, which is probably better for the game, particularly the Grand Strats. I think there's going to be some serious imbalance due to the faction specific Tactics and Grand Strats, the Soulblight ones aren't even "that" great, but with how difficult the new ones are they definitely gave me an edge in this game. As for the mission? I think this one really punishes the Veteran mechanic and the amount of VP you score for killing them is way too swingy IMO. I think 1VP for killing and 1 bonus for being on an objective would have been enough. Scoring potentially 3VP every time you kill a veteran unit is huge. I guess they thought this would balance out with the special proving grounds mechanic (you can choose the same objective multiple times whereas normally you can only choose each objective only once) but that seems to only really be the case if you have super durable Veterans in your army. I had predicted that these new rules would probably spell the end for Soulblight horde style armies and this game pushes me to thinking that will likely be the case (of course it's just one 1k point game). Fortunately there are other builds that Soulblight can build into, such as the Blood Knight build I used in my follow-up game. That being said, it was a fun game and I offer congratulations to my opponent. I think this was his first win against my Soulblight and I know they've been a bit of a boogy-man army for him, so it's nice to see him grab victory today (I had similar issues in dealing with Lumineth so I know how freeing it is to finally beat that nemesis army)!
  9. So the problem with hordes in 3rd edition was that the GHB2021 really encouraged killing things. Lots of battle tactics were based around killing targets and the meta shifted to high damage output armies that could cut through typical hordes (there was still some horde play though). Garagants were also really big last season and hordes didn’t play well into them either. Hard to say how the new season will go. I think the rules support elite infantry much more than mass units but we will have to wait and see how people build their lists. Maybe mass zombies will be really good, maybe it will be worse than ever. I’m leaning a bit towards the later because I think our horde pieces are going to get shredded by bounty hunters, but there may be ways around that too (I’ve been toying with the idea of lots of minimum sized units to just endlessly screen and overwhelm objectives with numbers).
  10. So it’s confirmed now that the new book will contain rules for matches play. Will be interesting to see how this rolls out. Could be harmless, could be good. Could be disastrous.
  11. I'm curious to see what the new "campaign" book is. Is this purely a narrative thing? Personally, I'm stoked to have more lore, especially if it is delivered in a nice hardcover book with lots of great illustrations. But it almost seemed like this includes the rules for next season too. Is this replacing the GHB? Is it in addition to the GHB? If it does have seasonal rules will they also be included in the GHB, or will you need both? I will end up buying both anyway, because I'm a sucker and I enjoy the books, but I'm worried about the other players in my group. Buying multiple books is a big investment, especially for more casual players and I could see many players in our group not wanting to pick them up, and unfortunately I find that sometimes helps kill the interest or leads to rules misunderstandings. Pirated versions will likely make do, even if it's just distributed between members of the local group, but I'm curious to see how it works out.
  12. For sure, badly implemented complexity is a total turn off for most people, especially the casual crowd. I do think there needs to be a good balance between casual and hardcore interest however, since they do feed off each other. It’s the more active player base that generates a lot of online content and discussions (and hype), whether it’s on YouTube, Twitter, podcast, etc. Another important distinction, I think, is that complex rules are not necessary for a competitive, strategic game. Some of, if not most, really successful games really have a beautiful simplicity to them. The “easy to learn, difficult to master” mantra holds a lot of weight IMO, and should be the goal of GW’s design philosophy.
  13. I agree with everything you said~ Another issue/difficulty is game length and how complexity affects it. Personally, I dislike the 3(+) hours it takes for a “good game” (ie: not a game where someone just crushes the other person in two turns). Like you said, rules like multi-weapon profiles, conditional re-rolls and buffs, etc all slow down the game and aren’t really fun. So even for someone like me who enjoys a deep rule set there’s also the counter-issue of game length. Wargame rules are not an easy thing, though I guess we’d all agree that GW could do better.
  14. I agree for the most part. I think that overall this is a pretty useless balance update that doesn't accomplish much and does seem a little lazy. However, I am open to more of this "lateral" style balancing. The idea of making balance changes that aren't focused on points and warscrolls is an area that isn't explored enough. There are lots of ways this can be approached: army restrictions, terrain rules, battle plan design, etc. I think the idea of "kill points" is in itself kind of a neat idea, but I would rather it be something applied to every unit in the game. I think it could be an interesting additional stat line that could help balance the way games are scored. From my experience, many players actually really enjoy... killing things.. and I've played more than a few players who didn't really feel that engaged by chasing victory points on objectives or tactics (for what it's worth, I don't include myself in this group) and for these players a kill point system could be fun for them. However, something like that would need to be a full fledged change, like in a new edition or at the very least a new GHB. The half-measure we got instead is kind of silly.
  15. After following this topic for the week I think one thing that has become increasingly clear is that it is really hard to balance the enjoyment of the game for the different play groups/styles. For example, I've seen a lot of comments about how some players don't like the extra complexity of the game, and these players usually play less regularly (this is not an attack on that, just an observation. I imagine most players only play once every month or two). On the other hand, there are players like myself who feel the game is actually not complex "enough", and would like to see more sophisticated terrain rules, battle plans, etc. It's a tough balance. Players who want to pick up and play every now and then are going to prefer a simpler rule set, while those who play weekly will probably find more enjoyment in a more complex game. It makes me wonder if that is part of the reason why 40K has such a stronger online presence. Certainly part of it has to do with 40k being "older" and having more players, but I also think the more complicated rule set attracts players who play more regularly (and therefore are more likely to participate in online discussions). This is purely speculation though, I'd be curious to see if that matches other people's experiences.
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