TechnoVampire

Trying to look past my initial disappointments, I feel like blood knights in Kastelai with support from Vhordria could be turned into fast moving and pretty tanky hammers. Use Vhordria to pick off a hero, or unit with 3+ wounds and start handing out those + 1 damage and wound buffs to blood knights. If you take VLOZD as general you can give him the command trait that lets him also get the buffs for free so start adding to his attacks and damage… it’s a niche list with limitations for sure, but potentially fast, hard hitting and tanky with a lot of 3+ saves and self healing supplemented by 6+ ward.

I agree. I don’t know why GW seems to think that a vampire on a dragon should be a very unreliable source of damage and provide no buffs or utility or whatsoever. The warscroll looks almost unchanged from the one in LON years ago (aside from the good healing ability) and feels very outclassed by newer monster hero’s. At 440 points it feels like a miss to me… maybe in Kastelai with buffs, artefacts and command trait it could be worth something, but I don’t feel like trying to build a good unit out of an underwhelming warscroll is very appealing.

How do others feel about the new VLOZD warscroll? I know it’s technically an improvement, but I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed by it. Probably more of an anvil than a hammer unit? I’m confused by this books lack of command ability’s on hero’s (although I am aware numerous hero’s have got free a ability’s now which is cool)… He seems to be a 440 point hunk of meat without a whole lot else going on. I’m also trying to work out how likely it is riders of ruin will come into play with combat range being 3”, base sizes, and coherence meaning many things are in 2 ranks. Will we ever be riding over things?

I feel like as long as they can survive the initial punch, with the new ability 1 x 20 could be a pretty efficient tar-pit unit, and without bounty hunters running rampage that will be much easier than before.

Depending on the VLOZD warscroll I’m thinking I’m going to attempt a 2 x dragon + blood knight Kastelai list and lean into the Kastelai buffs and Vhordrias ability: Vhordria: 470 VLOZD general: 440 4 x blood knights: 920 2 x deathrattle skeletons (either as screens or a block of one): 170 2000 points. not very versatile or technical, but could be fast and hit hard with buffs stacking up quickly (plus I have all the models 😋)

Question is who’s going to cast them now? Mannfred took possibly the biggest nerf in the book, and he was previously the most versatile deathmages caster. His role as a utility/ buff piece + debuff caster has been seriously reduced and his points don’t seem worth it any more.

There’s a lot to digest here! Many changes, some good, but also some quite big losses. I play kastelia blood knights usually with support from VLOZD/ Vhordrai and Mannfred for utility and buffing and a unit of grave guard. I’m trying to see the positives, but my knee-****** reaction is that I’ve lost quite a lot of tech. Mannfred is a huge nerf losing his teleport, his command ability and locking his 1+ attack ability to legion of night. Vhordrai is an improvement, and has some nice ability’s, but it hurts my soul to still see those 4’s to hit, and not a single 2+ to hit or wound for an attack, unlike so many hero monsters now. He’s also lost his spell that gives him +1 to hit and wound for reliability, and lost 1 damage on the Lance vs an extra attack which feels unnecessary. Blood knights extra rend is great, as is 2” reach, but losing retreat and charge is a big deal, and the points increase is significant. Having to take a command trait to deep strike also seems harsh. Pinions gone is very sad for alpha strike, but the other lore of the vampires spells seem ok. I’ve not looked at much else. So many changes to go over it will take time. I’m sure there’s some nice stuff in there but my main list will need a serious rethink. Hope others are feeling happy with the changes!

Thank you kindly!

Has anyone got a link to the leaks please?

I’m encouraged by the rules previews so far! New hunger and locus rules appear to provide meaningful/ tactical implications. If the warscrolls get similar tweaks we could be onto something good! 🙏

New Nagash warscroll leak.

Fair… I think the AOS community will forever be haunted (pun intended) by LON + grimghasts. I’m ashamed to say it’s what pulled me over to LON initially and then SBGL, as I was getting tired of losing 90% of my games with nighthaunt. the play testing issue is interesting and something I’d never considered.

Valid point for sure. As players we will favour one or two factions above the rest and probably view balance within them less objectively than GW. Personally I most enjoy when the rules feel unique to each faction, and reflect the lore and the themes of the army mechanically, and I think that GW has been making big strides in this direction with the 3.0 tomes. (I also play Nighthaunt and I love their current tome for this reason). I think in this regard SBGL still have some work to be done, and the current tome feels dated compared to newer ones specifically in regard to lore and themes being reflected on the table (vampires are a perfect example). I don’t want to seem overly negative, as I think lately GW has been getting a lot of things right (using meta data to inform design choice is long overdue, but I celebrate them finally doing it) so I just hope they continue the new trend and don’t relapse into old patterns when they start to feel like things are comfortable (AKA SBGL is a 3.0 tome so let’s just copy it). fingers crossed for the new book being another step in the right direction.

This one has always completely baffled me in particular.

Cool new rules for the hero indeed and the wording at the end of the article is dangerously close to tempting me into hoping for something fresh, but I dare not! I think you’re approach is pretty spot on. GW often make some very left-field design choices that confuse the player base. I’d like to think they have some kind of secret master plan, but I think your explanation about lack of testing and resources is a much more likely explanation. For my part I was mainly pointing out what I see to be quite obvious elements that could do with a refresh to modernise the army, but they in no way reflect my expectations of GW’s approach. ultimately I think we all just want the same thing; to see our favourite factions receive a little bit of the love and attention they deserve, in ways that seems obvious to us - the people that play them regularly… I just wish GW employees would browse these forums occasionally 🤓 (edit) or just employ more play testers, which feels well within their means considering their profits over the last few years.

On a general note I don’t think there’s ever much excuse for making people pay for a new battletome that’s mostly copy and pasted from the old one. If the current book is so good it doesn’t need any significant changes, then the faction doesn’t require a new book, and if you’re going to the effort of printing a new book that people have to pay for to access the most current rules, then it only makes sense to change things that aren’t working, or are out of date. I don’t think the SBGL battletome needs anything like an overhaul, but to ignore obviously poor design elements, such as lore of the vampires having 5 different ways of rolling multiple dice to attempt to do a small number of mortal wounds, or blood knight lances having 1” reach is either very lazy or very out of touch. I understand that there’s limited capacity to write and test new rules even small ones, but I’m a pretty firm believer in doing something right or not doing it at all. Apart from anything it just feels bad to pay for something new, and it barely provide any significant improvements or interesting changes to the faction you love.

I picked up on that wording myself and felt like it was quite likely used to set expectations.

My apologies, I remembered incorrectly. You are right, LOS (legion of sacrament) received +1 to cast and locus of shyish was an army wide ability.

You must be Scottish? We are the only people I know that say ‘belter’ 😂

Sorry, but I didn’t follow what you meant about the LOS locus ability. I thought that was specific to them in the LON book and then carried over to SBGL? You are right that most books, (even improvements) have loads of stuff carried forward. I’m not really getting my hopes up about most, or even any of it getting changed. My general point was more that despite the book being relatively new, there are things that could be addressed to make it feel more modern, interesting and a bit more competitive if GW was interested in doing so. I feel like SBGL could quite easily be modernised to provide a more unique identity, as opposed to a sort of mashup of LON and a more vampire focussed army, however I don’t think that’s very likely at this stage.

I agree with what you’re saying from a GW perspective, that in their eyes the book is a 3.0 book, however a lot of that stuff was a hangover from the 2.0 LON battle tome. locus of shyish was brought over from legion of sacrament, the spell lores were a direct copy paste and mostly nerf, as were gravesites, and some of the war-scrolls such as Vhordia and VLOZD barely changed and now feel pretty dated when compared to monsters in newer books. The summoning mechanics also feel quite weak and dated when compared to the 4+ rally and other recursion abilities that newer books have, as does our ward save, and those are supposed to be signature death abilities. With these things in mind I feel that despite the book being relatively new, there’s quite a lot of it that feels dated, or cobbled together from old and new, without as much focus or direction as newer books have. Whether GW will acknowledge and address that is another matter though.

Well spotted. Battle crazed sounds like it could potentially be a Vhordrai ability… I hope so as it might suggest a new warscroll.

I strongly agree with these thoughts/ expectations. the book is currently in a reasonable place, but there are a lot of little things they could do to make it feel more current and relevant to the lore and meta. When it comes to GW I’ve learned not to expect too much, so I’m preparing myself for a copy paste job, but if that is the case I’ll actually be quite disappointed. The 3.0 trend has mostly been encouraging so far (skaven aside), so I hope they at least implement changes similar to @MotherGoosesuggested, with anything additional as a pleasant surprise. If there are no changes other than incorporating the white dwarf updates and missing warscrolls the book is going to feel very dated and outmatched by the time 4’th edition roles around. Copy paste battletome’s feel incredibly lazy, and a wasted opportunity when it takes minimal effort to make small balanced improvements. Fingers crossed GW is starting to realise/ care about this.

Ah yeah, the 6+ Ward as standard seems like a no brainier now and I’ll be disappointed if that isn’t implemented. I’d also like to see summoning enhanced somewhat. I feel like the endless legions ability is pretty poor, and could do with a rework. Vamp lords have been a confusing unit for me since I started playing AOS. I’d happily see them go up in points a bit and gain a body and combat profile that matches the lore. If GW are worried about the army needing cheap hero options for buffing, then they could just make a few variations of necromancer… that’s another model I feel badly needs an update anyway.

I also enjoy having multiple artefact and command trait choices, though it can be frustrating when there are a few good ones locked into specific sub factions. If they simplify them into one, then I hope the majority are unique and useful. Saying that Gitz got a whole host of unique ones for their sub factions. I’m really hoping the spell lores get a bit of a rework. There are currently too many similar spells with very meh mortal wound effects. I’d love to see a bit more utility and potentially some debuff spells in the lore of the vampires. like Neil above, I’d like to see death rattle get a bit of love, providing them with a decent sub faction or some viable hero suport. I’d love a vampire lord that feels worthy of the title. Particularly something mounted/ has mobility and maybe provides buffs to other vampires. mostly I think our book is in a good place, just being outclassed a little with some more recent tomes, so bringing it up to par with a few adjustments would be great, as opposed to a major rework. lastly I’d really love if we got new grave guard models (though I’m not holding out much hope anytime soon, based on all the other planned model releases). Based on the other recent skeleton releases I think they’d be incredible.