Kaizennus

I found them the easiest kit to put together out of all the new Soulblight stuff. There's some options in the kit. If I remember correctly, they all have set legs but you have choice of torsos, heads, and for some of the zombies, weapons.

We're all running what I guess you would call, "non-competitive" lists since it's a small group. Our LRL is not running Teclis at the moment and is only running 20 sentinels. This is done partly out of being interested in playing other units that are more fun to him and partly because he knows it's really strong and changes the game pretty significantly. The CoS player is running a lot of the Dark Elf/Empire stuff for shooting and has a lot of direct damage spells. I do want to be careful though. My intention is not to out-right counter their armies, which I suppose I could since I know their lists. I still want to bring something that is fairly "balanced", as in something I would bring to a small tournament, but maybe just one where I know that lots of people favor magic and shooting lists.

First of all, thank you for the suggestions about how to improve my lists. I've made some attempts at what I hope are more focused lists, and using what models I currently have access to (so perhaps not completely optimal). Grave Guard Focused List Rationale Blood Knight List Rationale Vyrkos List Rationale I tried to make these lists using the suggestions made in the thread while also taking into consideration the people I play against. For example, Belladamma has been quite bad for me (with or without spell portal) because I just can't contend with the magic in a Zaitrec or Hallowheart list. Critique, either about the lists or about my rationales (I wrote them out to give an idea of what I'm thinking about when making the list but I could have lots of misconceptions) would be very welcome~

I think in matched play all games are now considered to take place in Ghur and you only have the GHB artifacts available. I could be wrong though.

I can post my lists below to share what I’ve been using so far. I do however have access to pretty much everything on the roster except for Nagash, Cursed City Heroes and the Coven Throne/Morris Engine so I’m fairly open to a variety of lists. First Week Second Week Third Week Fourth Week I've been collecting and assembling the army over time and have had more and more pieces come in through the weeks, which is partly why this list has changed up. The fourth list is the one that got completely crushed. I'm still quite new to the game. Prior to 3.0 I played about.. five games I think? So I know my piloting ability is definitely a factor.

Hey guys, looking for some advice. I’ve been playing 3.0 for four weeks now in a non-competitive setting with a limited player group. The two players I’m playing against regularly are playing Zaitrec LRL and Hallowheart CoS. Definitely having a lot of fun playing but I’m struggling to bring a competitive list to the table and I think it would be more fun for everyone if I brought a list that was stronger. I’ve been running various Vyrkos lists with mixed success. Most of my losses have been close (within 2-3 points) or been minor loss tie breakers and a single blowout loss. My games generally come down to attrition though. I’m not really killing more than one or two units an entire game and am usually closing out points by holding objectives with lots of models before ending the games with only a unit or two left myself. One of the biggest challenges is that I’m getting locked out of a lot my army abilities. Shackles, total eclipse, spells that make heroes have to roll to move or charge, etc. We also play with the suggested 8 large size terrain pieces which makes it hard to maneuver around the board. I’m at a bit of a loss on how to build a list that can compete but that isn’t just a “counter list”. Some ideas I’ve had is to try and build a list that doesn’t rely on any spells or command abilities since I’m consistently being shut down in the magic phase and generally have few CP to use each turn. I also considered using larger monsters/heroes but I do face a lot of mortal wounds (in both my last two games I’ve had Radukar shot off in turn one, and once I had Radukar and a vengorian shot off the board the first turn). Im still enjoying myself but advice would be welcome!

I believe going “wide” refers to bring armies with lots of units/high model count.

Hey, I'm still a new player but I thought I'd share my experiences with my first 3.0 game over the weekend and how the game went while playing Soulblight. For context it was my SBG vs. a magic themed Lumineth army. We played the Feral Foray battleplan (the one where you can raid objectives) and used 2k point armies. Here's the list I ran. It was built around pieces I had prepared, so it's not optimal by any means. Here are a list of my thoughts on the game: Blood Knights (as predicted) were very strong. Even the unit I poorly deployed and boxed out still did enough to warrant a spot in the army. I also didn't get off any amazing Rally's or anything, which would probably push them even further along the strength list. Radukar was also very effective, and quite tanky with all the healing available. I was rolling 2D3's worth of healing every turn. VLoZD got blown off the table before getting into his first melee phase, but that was more of a dice/luck issue. However, I really found the large base to be very troublesome. The smaller board and lots of terrain pieces (we played with the suggested 8) meant that there really wasn't a lot of places he could attack into. Pretty sure this will be the first unit to be cut from the list. I made the mistake of not summoning the wolves on turn 1. By the time I got the opportunity to finally cast it later in the game (the eclipse spell was limiting me to one command per turn) there was actually no where I could summon. The 9" from enemy rule, plus the 12" Radukar bubble, and the coherency rule makes summoning on the smaller board very, very hard (especially when Radukar is likely going to be on the front lines all game long). I put my zombie units in the grave sites. One unit got their worth by slowing down the advance along one side of the table. I tried to use the other offensively but they were too slow to get into combat. The large block also had a little bit of trouble navigating through all the dense terrain efficiently. The skeletons and graveguard didn't see much action. They were too slow to march across the field, though that was partially my mistake for not pushing them faster with more run rolls. They also got locked down by a Rune of Petrification which just wrecks blobs of slow death units. Have to be way more careful of that in the future. However, the one combat my GG did get into, they hit pretty hard. Perhaps they should have been the graveyard summons? Vampire lord was fragile. Basically as soon as my opponent decided to kill him (to get the battle tactic) he just shot him down. Didn't get a chance to use his command ability due to eclipse so I wasn't able to get his true value out of this particular game. Thoughts on 3.0 Really liked everything overall. The heroic actions were cool and useful and didn't slow down the game really. The battle tactics are really fun and makes you plan out your turns a bit more since getting some of them are pretty tough (like killing a general) without planning. I think they do favor monster play too much though. The battleplan we used was pretty interesting. I misplayed by burning an objective in my third turn (the GHB ruling) and then my opponent raided a different objective which made the battlefied "smaller" and a lot harder for me to score points. I think stuff like that is really fun and interesting, it's nice to look back and clearly see parts of the game that were decided with essentially no "luck" involved. I'm tempted to play something more monster heavy to take advantage of the many new monster perks, but I'll definitely be giving Vyrkos another shot with Belladoma and a different mix of units next time.

So I'm still very new, only a handful of games under my belt and none of them as SBG or even LoN. But I'm putting together my first few lists and trying to work with what I have access to at the moment. Any thoughts on these lists from people with actual experience? List #1: Legion of Blood This list tries to make the VLoZD tanky by giving him a 2+ save and a -1 to hit debuff. The Vengorian adds to this with his -1 to rend aura and the necromancer spell that also gives a -1 to hit rolls. You then have 60 models worth of battleline chaff that can be buffed by the necromancers and (the deathrattle) potentially be immune to negative modifers (but there's not a lot of vampires in the army). Grave guard are your big hitters, Dire Wolves act as screens, and the Fell Bats can harass or grab objectives. List #2: Vyrkos List This list is a bit more offensive. The Skeletons and Zombies will get a +1 to wound buff from the allegiance ability and should always be in range due to stacking vampires in this list. The vampires can re-roll their casts, and while their spells aren't the greatest I think you should be able to get the buffs off fairly consistently against most armies. The VLoZD has the trait that lets him count as 14 models for objectives, which gives you a bit more objective play, especially if you can keep him alive for later turns. His artefact will likely give him a +3 charge once per game, which isn't particularly notable but at least it plays into the vampire stacking. Once again, you have 60 models of chaff and now two full units of dire wolves which can either be used to screen or grab objectives. Anyway, that's my thought process as a total noob to the game and faction. I imagine there's a lot of stuff that I'm overlooking and/or misunderstanding. I'm also guessing that there are some better units I could swap out. Hoping to pick up some blood knights, the mortarchs, and either a corpse cart or coven sometime in the future. Thoughts and advice would be appreciated.

I got my first few games in and had a blast. Playing as FEC was a lot of fun and I’m excited to play a 2k game next time (played 1k since I didn’t have a chance to finish assembling yet). I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for videos or guides on two things: 1) assembling the terrorgeist. I... really botched my first one and couldn’t assemble it properly. I followed the printed instructions but couldn’t get all the legs/wings to align properly. 2) guides on how to approach magnetizing the terrorgeist. I have the drill and some tiny magnets for minis. I had trouble transporting my models, particularly the terrorgeist (I have an hour long subway ride to get to the gaming club). I have no idea how I’ll transport two of them. I think magnetic wings could help though. Thanks in advance. I hope I’m not asking for help too frequently here!

Hello, Is anyone able to use the AZYR app to make FEC lists that use a grand court? I’m trying to make a blister skin list but I constantly get an invalid warning saying I can’t choose a delusion, even though I haven’t actually selected one. Am I doing something wrong?

Aha, that’s right. On second thought even A3 sized paper is just under 12 inches on the short side too so neither would work.

I like the look of those ones that are completely clear and just lay flat on the table. Would it be too low effort to just measure and cut circles from laminate paper or perhaps those clear paper folders? I guess accuracy of measurement could be an issue in a tournament but they could still be used as mostly a visual with actual tape measurements being the “exact” tool of a disagreement occurs. I also really liked those metal “ring” circles someone posted earlier too.

Thanks for the insights everyone! Because supplies are limited in my country I bought pretty much a whole army, so I guess I’ll save most of the flayers and horrors for last and see what the news is then. Also, where can I check out the leaks/theories for the upcoming third edition?

So I decided to go really “all in” on FEC as my first AoS army. I have several months worth of modeling/painting ahead of me but I need to decide on how to build my knights. Right now I have enough kits to build 18 knights. Any suggestions on how many of them should be horrors and how many should be flayers?

First of all, thank you for the detailed post, it’s very appreciated! I have a few follow up questions if you don’t mind. My buying options are a little limited because I’m in Asia (but will be immigrating back in the next year or two). The only GW exclusive store has a pretty limited catalog. For example, they are sold out on the start collecting box and the flayers kit (there is a gundam store that sells the start kit but it’s up priced about $20). However, they do have the Warcry boxes and they are sold at the same price as the flayer box. Out of curiosity, would it make sense for me to pick up the warcry boxes since they come with 3 flayers and 10 ghouls? Or am I missing something obvious. I’m considering two boxes since they’re a little less than $50 each at the moment but are on the “last chance” list (which I believe means they won’t be restocked). They also have the Grymwatch set for about $35 and is also last chance. Do you think it would be worth it to pick them up and use as you suggested? Generally speaking, what’s a good number of ghouls to have? It seems lists are pretty “knight” heavy these days. I have 50 atm and could have 70 if I pick up the warcry boxes. I know that there is summoning though so I’m guessing you need a few extra? Finally, I do agree about the Soulblight consideration. They were actually my first choice but I don’t think I’ll be able to pick up the models for a long while (cursed city and the new warband were sold out before the pre orders even went out, so I’m not confident they’ll be readily available and might have to wait until I’m fully back in N.America in the future). Thanks again.

So I decided to go all in on FEC (and maybe expanding to soulblight in the future). I was able to pickup 2 boxes of the Mortal Realms boxes and one box of the getting started set. this gives me: 50 ghouls 2 arch regeant 9 Crypt Horrors/Crypt Flayers/Vargheists 1 terrorgeist with a hero There’s a lot of choices for how to build the boxes, such as the obvious choices between Crypt Horrors/Crypt Flayers/Vargheists. However I’m a little confused about the other leader options and if I should build models for them. I’m also quite limited in that there’s only two stores in my country (that I’ve found, I’m in Asia) that sells AoS. They don’t sell the crypt horror set so if I want more of those I’d have to buy another large box set. My question is, how should I go about choosing my build options? I think I’ll try the magnetization for the terrorgeist/zombie dragon. Is this possible for other models? Should I build two arch regeants or is there something else I could build one as? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hello TGA, I sort of introduced myself over on the death forums by asking questions about the Soulblight Gravelords who I had thought about starting my journey into AoS with. However, after closer inspection of actual availability of models in the country I live, I realized I might need to be more flexible. My situation is a little unusual. I'm coming towards the end of a 10 year journey abroad. My plans haven't been finalized (due to COVID) but I am planning to return to North America either this fall (2021) or next summer (2022). I am a former Warhammer:Fantasy player, though it's been around 16+ years. Back then I played High Elves (who may or may not have survived the passage of time, they are currently on the other side of the globe and I haven't seen them in ages). A friend of mine convinced me to start AoS with them (they are in N.America right now) and I've fallen in love with the hobby all over again. Regardless of when I return, I'd like to start collecting now so that I have time to paint up models and familiarize myself with rules. I live in Asia, and so far I've only found a grand total of two stores who sell GW products. This limits my ability to collect an army pretty significantly. Fortunately, I'm pretty open to collecting a wide variety of armies and I've done some research on what I could realistically start collecting. My plan is to build a 1k point army while I'm here, before eventually expanding to a full 2k point build. Once I'm back in N.America I'd like to participate in some events and local game nights (COVID permitting) which means I'd like to ultimately build a list that is somewhat balanced between "fun" and "competitive". I'm not looking to build a 5-0 list, but I'd still like to take balance into consideration. Of course, 1k lists aren't competitively balanced but I'd like to create a list that is good enough to play at that point level whilst also providing a decent starting point for a future 2k army. Price isn't a huge concern, and I don't mind replacing a few units or having some "leftovers" in the future, but an army that provides a strong base for a 2k army would be preferred so I don't waste too much time or money. Also, my friend is playing Ironjawz and is also building a list that is balanced between "cool" and "functional". Since we will likely be regular partners, it would be fun to have an army that "plays nice" with them (I'm a little worried about Kharadron in this aspect). I'm very new to AoS and it's been more than a decade since I did war gaming, so my analysis isn't great. It's also been pretty hard to find good competitive information for list building. I've come up with the following lists based on what's actually available for me to buy and what I think is decent power wise. My question for you guys is: which of these armies seems like the best solid foundation for a fun, but decently competitive 2k army? There are other units available so if you see a list that is mostly good but might need some substitutes then let me know and I'll reply with whether or not they are available. I'm also just including the models, and not the spells or items. (My main choice for an army was Soulblight Gravelords because as a WH:F player I always loved Vampire Counts and they would have been my second army. However, I really worry about availability. The city board game and the the new warband were automatically labelled as "sold out" as soon as they were posted. Lumineth seem to be in decent stock, though there are a few units sold out atm. I had thought about starting up a LoN army to transition into gravelords, though it's a bit of a risk considering I may not have ready access to any of the new units) Thanks in advance, and here are the lists: Flesh Eater Courts 72,000 won Broken Realms: Mortevell’s90,000 won Start Collecting! Flesh-eater162,000 won -------------------------------------------------------------- 1x Abhorrant Archregent 1x Royal Terrorgheist 20x Crypt Ghouls 6x Crypt Horrors (1000 pts) Lumineth Realm Lords 38,100 Eltharion 30,200 Bannerblade 105,200 Wardens 45,300 Ballista 52,600 Sentinels 56,900 Dawnriders Total: 336,900 won ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1x The Light of Eltharion 1x Vanari Bannerblade 20x Wardens 10x Sentinels 5x Dawnriders 1x Ballista (990 pts) Kharadron Overlords 172,00 Start Collecting Kharadron x2 Total: 172,800 won ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1x Edrinmaster 20x Arkanaut Company 10x Thunderers x6 Skywardens x2 Gunhaulers (980 pts) Khorne 72,000 Start Collecting: Goreblade 43,200 Flesh Hounds 54,400 Blood Warriors 25,200 Bloodmaster Total: 194,800 won ---------------------------------------------------------- 1x Mighty Lord of Khorne 1x Bloodsecrator 1x Bloodstoker 1x Bloodmaster 15x Blood Warriors x10 Blood Reavers 1x Khorgorath 5x Flesh Hounds (990 pts) Stormcast Eternal 36,000 Solbright 32,800 Lord-Castellant 54,000 Sequitors 14,400 Sequitors (3 Sequitors already owned) 21,600 Ballista 36,000 Vanguard Raptors 54,400 Liberators Total: 240,600 won ---------------------------------------------------------- 1x Lord-Castellant 1x Astereia Solbright 10x Sequitors 10x Liberators 1x Ballista 3x Vanguard-Raptors (990 pts) Legions of Nagash (with considerations for Soulblight Gravelords) 79,200 Start Collecting: Skeleton Horde 28,800 Deathrattle Skeleton Warriors 14,400 Necromancer 79,200 Start Collecting: Malignants Total: 202,600 won ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1x Mannfred 1x Necromancer 20x Skeleton Warriors 5x Black Knights 5x Hexwraiths 3x Spirit Hosts (1000 pts) Summary Lumineth Realm Lords = 336,000 won Stormcast Eternal = 240,600 won Legions of Nagash = 202,600 won Khorne = 194,800 won Kharadron Overlords = 172, 800 won Flesh Eater Courts = 162,000 won (BTW from my lurking and from the responses from my other post I just want to say how awesome this board seems to be and how nice it is to actually communicate on a good old fashioned forum (but maybe I'm just an old ******..))

Thank you for the great insight on these guys. It does seem like they might not be the best lords to invest in considering we will also probably get some new ones that might be better suited to the new army. I used to be a High Elf player so unfortunately I will be starting completely fresh. Thank you for the suggestions though! I’ve actually been messing around in TTS but haven’t played a real game yet there. Thank you for the in depth answer! Based on the last few replies I think your suggestion about the warband or the city (if I could find a copy) would be a better first step. I might also just pick up a unit of black knights or old skellies separately to practice painting. From what I’ve seen, armies tend to have a lot of skeletons so I guess having an extra set wouldn’t be too bad right? I assume you could mix them with the new units on the board right? Like, could you combine a box of old skeletons with a box of new ones in one unit? What about two separate units? Thanks again everyone!

Oh, yes that’s what I meant, I had heard you could build the hero as a vampire instead of Arkhan. I realize this is going beyond the scope of the thread topic, but are there any particularly good resources for magnetization? If I were to go with one model however, is there any particular favorite for which hero to choose? I realize though that it’s hard to judge without knowing more about the new army book. Thank you for your response though~

Hey all, Former fantasy player (roughly 16 years ago) looking to get back into it with AoS. I’ve been thinking to roll with the upcoming Soulblight since I used to love the Vampire Counts, but never collected them personally. I know we’re likely a ways off from the release, but how “risky” would it be to start off my model collection with the Nagash starter set and building Arkhan as one of the vampires? From what I’ve seen in this thread it looks likely that most of the models will probably transition over right? Is there a better way to start up the army while I wait?