TechnoVampire

I get your point about certain units being able to be used to cover a lot of area in 10’s. I have thought about it, hence the reason that I don’t think that a blanket rule for coherency works particularly well. Having to use 10 x 25mm infantry in 2 ranks isn’t the end of the world, but it feels at odds with what they’re designed for, and makes them less valuable. It’s something I was hoping they would have cleaned up in the next edition, but ultimately not a massive deal.

Additionally I do find a coherency number of 6 very strange when a lot of infantry units come in 10’s. Having to use a minimum size infantry unit on 25mm bases in 2 ranks feels particularly unintuitive and also overly harsh considering the new coherency range is 1/2”. I think they could have safely made the maximum number of models in one rank 10.

I find I end up mostly playing in base contact to make sure I’m getting the maximum into range for combat. It’s really screening that’s going to be affected. I do wonder how that’s going to pan out. Personally I’d have maybe liked to see coherency be a stat that makes sense for each specific unit. Having one blanket rule just doesn’t make sense for all (IMO)... Like small skirmishing units could be used in 10’s designed specifically as a screen, while other units such as those with spears and shields are designed to be used in tightly packed in ranks. Maybe that would add to mental load/ bloat but I think there will always be winners and losers with one rule and different base and unit sizes. The standardised weapon range should help a lot with that though.

I meant to reply to this message with my last 😅

The last article got me excited and gave me a lot of hope. I felt a little uneasy after the subfactions preview that some aspects of the game might be getting oversimplified, but the combat phase looks to be cleaner and also more interesting than before. I’m a big fan of the weapon specific abilities and more clearly defined roles that units seem to be given, such as infantry killers, objective holders etc. For me this adds an additional layer of tactics and makes things feel more flavourful and in keeping with the actual identity of the units on the table. Like you I’m excited to see specific warscrolls and rules for my faction! (SBGL).

I had the same reaction. It felt like a rebranding of the current system, minus the narrative intrigue. The new subfactions (“battle formations”) appear to have all the same kind of restrictions as before (relating only to specific unit types), however now there’s is no lore… which apparently allows us to paint them however we like for the first time. I’m also concerned that there might only be a single trait for each battle formation, which to me would feel like dumbing down faction rules, while keeping numerous core rules I’d happily have seen stripped away. That’s the oposite of the kind of “streamlining” I’d like to see, but hopefully it’s not the case 🤞

@Leshoyadut I like your second list (LOB with vengorian lord). I’m similarly attached to blood knights, despite the fact they’re not considered overly competitive and run 5 in my list. I find them versatile and pretty tanky. My list is similar to yours but still using VLOZD. This is what I’m going to try out post points increases: Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords - Army Type: Legion of Blood - Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination - Triumphs: Inspired LEADER 1 x Neferata (400) - Spells: Waste Away 1 x Vampire Lord (140)* - Spells: Hoarfrost 1 x Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (460)* - General - Command Traits: Doomed Minions - Deathlance - Artefacts: Cloak of Mists and Shadows - Spells: Vile Transference BATTLELINE 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (100)* - Skeleton Champion - Standard Bearer 10 x Dire Wolves (140)* - Doom Wolf OTHER 5 x Blood Knights (230)* - Kastellan - Standard Bearer - Templar Lance 20 x Grave Guard (150)* - Seneschal - 2 x Standard Bearer - 2 x Hornblower - Great Wight Blade CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment TOTAL POINTS: (1890/2000) I think the points add up. I also might try switching out the zombies for a second unit of dire wolves.

I feel like part of the issue with our book is how easy our book tactics are to achieve. They pretty much guarantee 2 VP every turn on top of our healing and resurrecting, which makes our attrition game even stronger. Personally I dislike book tactics. They seem to make the game harder to balance and have too much impact on overall performance. The fact that GW uses them as a balancing method, giving out easy to achieve tactics to struggling factions, I think just perpetuates the problem. Conversely I think having points increased on warscrolls to balance overly strong tactics feels backwards and not great. Id like to see how we’re doing now with the points changes. I like our rules, but maybe some of them still need tweaked (reduction in hunger possibly, and more conditional resurrection sound feasable). I’m not a fan of running hordes so I would be sad to see the faction focus only on that and I appreciate the current diversity in lists and play-styles available.

I agree. I watched the metawatch article and thought that the lead designer (forget his name) was misrepresenting when he claimed that all the sub faction are performing well, in order to justify the widespread points increases. They know that’s not true, but to address the real issues would take too much work/ rewriting rules and warscrolls, which they basically only ever do with the release of a new book. LON and vyrkros will still be strong. LOB feels pretty tight writing lists now, but probably still do well in certain matchups. The other two will continue to struggle. They should have at least reduced the costs of blood knights to help Kastelai. They don’t even see tournament play, and have seen nothing but points increases. I think our book has a lot of well functioning units, but the idea that generally everything over-performs is a myth.

I’m just checking back in here after a while away. Hope everyone’s hobby is going well. The battle scroll increases didn’t surprise me much, but I do think they weren’t well targeted. Everything “good” saw an increase because a variety of lists/ subfactions have been over performing, but from what I can tell, that’s partly due to quite specific reasons (zombies, battle tactics are too easy, the hunger is really strong in certain cases). Despite that I think we’ll still be a strong faction with lots of builds, and hopefully now the meta win rate will be reasonable enough that we can make lists and have them last more than a couple of months. I do find it odd that we’re supposed to be a horde faction and there’s basically no cheap chaff battle line option anymore. Fingers crossed these are the last nerfs we’ll see for a while… I didn’t enjoy being the top peroeming faction. It draws too much attention 😉

I don’t do number crunching, but the Trueblades (particularly in Kastelai) look like they could be a pretty choice recipient for the new GHB spell? Ps I’m also part of the AOS coach SBGL discord server and it’s very active. I would recommend: https://discord.com/channels/615105941079326721/828937779109953548

Wow… you are thorough 🤣 I agree with a lot of what @MotherGoosesaid generally about blood knights, but also appreciate your thorough input on the topic (I think we’re mostly all in agreement tbf). I didn’t take your tone as stubborn, you presented your data very reasonably and it’s helpful. Similarly I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to claim blood knights are a trash unit now, or anything similar… I mostly just think the are in a bit of a weird place relative to the sub-factions and how they function. I think they seem to work great in LOB, but in order for Kastelai to be a bit more competitive they probably should come down a bit in points, maybe enough to allow another cheap chaff unit if you are playing multiple units of blood knights. I do maintain that the new riders of ruin ability is quite poor. It only affects units with 3 or less wounds and with the movement and base size of blood knights the chances of being able to move over another unit, or doing mortal wounds on a normal move are quite slim. They’ve kept elements of the old rule, but removed the core mechanic, which allowed them to move out of combat, so now it’s not nearly as relevant.

Kudos for the thorough numbers break down. I definitely hadn’t gone that far, and based my opinion on overall warscroll; minimum 5” charge, 5+ mortal wound ward, attacking in 2 ranks, versatility of marks vs the hunger and 6+ ward. (You could add StD banners and Kastelai buffs in but they are quite situational) The 4+ to hit on CK’s is a big disadvantage though for sure… you can’t argue with numbers and yours show that the blood knights do more damage on average. I think the CK’s win on versatility, but I’ll probably have to revise my opinion that they are flat out better.

… Regardless I do feel blood knights were overpriced before the nerf, and are more-so now. As far as I’m aware their positive performance has mostly been in LOB as a 10 in combination with Neferata, but outside of that I think they cost too much for what they bring. Riders of ruin is a really average ability now and basically reads: deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit with 3 or less wounds after charging. Compared to the old warscroll which cost 200 points with retreat and charge I think they are worse, despite the extra rend and reach, and they weren’t exactly breaking the meta before.

Fair points. I’d add that with the lances they attack in 2 ranks which is pretty big, and with banners and mark of chaos they can be made more mobile, harder hitting or more survivable in any combination. Banners are a finite resource, so that’s probably not fair to include. On reflection “objectively better” is maybe misrepresentative when the warscrolls are read RAW, but within the army, they can be made into a power house unit that point for point I subjectively think are noticeably better than blood knights 😉

I think FAQ’s show that the lack of internal balance within the new book is an issue. LOB makes points adjustments almost impossible in some cases (blood knights and VLOZD) because of how much better they function in the sub-faction. Blood knights are objectively too expensive for what they do (compare them to the likes of chaos knights in StD), but being able to spam mortal wounds with them and make them unkillable in LOB was too much. Riders of ruin feels really bad now. It was clearly designed to trigger when used with the “retreat” over other units in the old edition. Now it’s very hard to trigger because of blood knights base size. It feels like the already weaker sub factions will suffer for the sins of LOB.

… found a seller on eBay who printed me 2 units of 20 with command group for £60. Im really happy with the detail and how they look, especially for the price.

So I purchased some of the GG proxies I posted above and I’m pretty happy with how they look:

Thanks, that’s not a bad shout and I’ll look into it if I fail my mission to acquire the official head without spending stupid money. It does look like a decent alternative, though I think the original has a lot of nice character and is very unique. I appreciate you taking the time to help 😊

Hey guys. I’m wondering if anyone can help me out. I’ve swapped my Mannfred rider out for Neferata (permanently, no magnets, straight in with glue), and I’ve realised that I don’t have the head for her! She’s currently sitting headless and sad atop her mount. Is there anyone here that by any slim chance has a spare neferata head that they’d be willing to sell to me? (I’ve checked online and can’t find anything). (I’m UK bases in case it makes a difference) Thanks!

Hello fellow nighthaunt players. I’m just wondering if anyone has much experience playing with Krulghast crutatior? I have a friendly tournament coming up and I have 150 points left to spend so I’m considering including it in my list. I know it tends to get quite positive reviews, but I’m wondering if its damage reduction ability is worth spending 150 points on or if it’s actually quite situational, as Krulghast doesn’t do much else. My alternative is using Knight of shrouds (mounted) and giving it spiteful spirit and soul fire ring for the mortal wound pulse, but that can be tricky to pull off. He does have a decent attack profile though and he’s fast for objective grabbing. Free all out attack 1/battle round is also nice.

I’d love to agree with you on this point, but if making rules accessible was at the top of GW’s priority pile they’d provide free rules online in the same way they do with war-scrolls, and still have a way of monetising them through printed books (for people that like those) and a paid app that conveniently updates the rules and let’s you build lists with them (add in any other app based bonus’s that would encourage people to pay for it)… please don’t take that as me trying to undermine what you are saying, I’m just making the point that GW could easily provide rules to a much wider audience while still make money from them if they wished to do so. It seems clear to me that book only rules is a (failed) attempt to prevent people from accessing them for free and as they see it losing any potential profit. Ironically GW might even attract more players (and money) if the rules were more readily accessible.

That’s fair, but I’m not suggesting a ban on books or printed material. Like many people I’d like an option for digital rules that doesn’t require purchasing a book that may be out of date within a few weeks after FAQ’s are released. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The app could be available offline, or there could be an option to print rules. One option could be an online PDF people can purchase is updated, and you can print, or books could simply exist alongside a cheaper option for digital rules… There are many alternative solutions that don’t require exclusively using expensive disposable books.

That’s a fair point. The part I feel most strongly about is GW providing digital rules that they can update quickly as opposed to making us buy paper books that are as good as disposable as soon as you put a code into the the app. My thinking was more that they could make the app subscription based and provide the rules, which are updated quickly and easily for each faction, (helping to keep up to date with the break-neck pace of the changes in the game). If they were free then even better! I’d also be all for physical lore and artwork books that people can collect… if they also include the rules in them then great!

For me this is 100% the best answer. Having digital subscription based army rules would allow GW To quickly change points or rules that are out of balance, meaning as players we don’t have to wait years for an update if an army or key unit suddenly sucks or breaks the game. It feels like this is a logical progression on many levels, and popular for players, however GW will probably avoid this as long as possible, because they are terrified of having rules pirated and they love selling printed rules on dead trees. Maybe if the community increases pressure GW might eventually start to listen.