TechnoVampire
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Posts posted by TechnoVampire
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1 minute ago, Sception said:
once per hero phase, heal up to three summonable units, the units must be near your heroes, & they heal a bit more if they're also near your gravesites.
What I attempted to say, but clearer 😆
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2 minutes ago, N.I.B. said:
Bought the tome yesterday. About Deadly Invocation - is that once per hero phase, OR once per Hero in the hero phase?
Up to 3 friendly summonable units wholly within 12” of any friendly hero can each receive it once in your hero phase. It can be the same hero or multiple hero’s. The trigger just requires the unit is within range of a hero and the effect resolves once on each receiving unit (is my understanding).
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4 hours ago, Nightseer2012 said:
This is more me commenting on how the paradigm of our 3rd edition book has shifted even more into the "you win by grinding" mindset with almost every army build, and I am somewhat loathe to give up my last true blender unit,
I feel similarly. I use a lot of blood knights and they are my all rounders, they are fast so can grab objectives and cover the board, they can take a hit and they also have reasonable damage against the right target. When using GG I like them to be the true hammers I can rely on to kill things, and I’m often willing to use a unit of bloodknights to screen them and allow them to get into position. For this reason I like them with GW’s as opposed to shields, but I think it totally depends what role you want them to fill. They are quite a versatile (though slow) unit.
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2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
Another use case I see is to put Great Weapon Grave Guard in the grave with a Wight King. Even though the Wight King buff is weaker than +1 attacks, with the naturally higher damage of Great Weapons it's going to easily be significant.
I did this in a game I played at the weekend and gave my wight king (general) the swift and deadly command trait (reroll charges) which worked a treat and meant I got my charge off the same turn I deep-striked. I can also testify that the 2” reach was very helpful in allowing me to hit multiple targets… I do wish the wight kings buff triggered in the hero phase though for this reason, as that would make them a very effective pairing.
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49 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
This is the reason why I actually favour Graveguard with Shield. 4+ save is OK and they still easily output more than 1 damage per model fighting against 3+ saves with buffs.
Makes sense. If you are using V-lord and wight king with them as well, you can fish for 6’s and probably still get good mileage from them. The difference between 4+ and 5+ save is significant, especially with AOD. I’d imagine significantly reduces chances of them being wiped out in 1 combat/ shooting phase.
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I’m hoping there are some points adjustments in the not too distant future. I feel like dragons and blood knights are too expensive for what they do, and reducing them a little would create some space for supporting them more with summonable units. I love grave guard but they are painfully slow, which makes them unreliable as hammers.
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3 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:
Personally, I typically use BattleScribe, though it usually takes a bit of time to get updated. I'm also looking forward to the other couple of listbuilders that are in development, though last I saw neither of the ones I was looking at were open to use quite yet. The WarCom listbuilder is also fine for just getting your points right, though it includes nothing about the actual rules of the army on there, and both takes time to update and can at times just be wrong as WarCom sometimes is.
Right now, I'm using Notepad until I get digital tools for listbuilding on my PC.
As @RocketPropelledGrenade said, I think the VLOZD has space in other subfactions, for sure. Making one your Kastelai general for Undead Bladelord, plus having Vhordrai on the field, means you can get three units their upgrades by killing models with some Blood Knights. Ramps up your power very quickly with your hero hammers. Even just +1 damage and AOA on Vhordrai brings him up to over 13 damage to a 2+ on the charge. +1 damage also puts a sword VLOZD in spitting distance of LoB damage, plus you still have the chance to get +1 attacks.
Comparing lance VLOZDs also doesn't place them too far apart, though the LoB VLOZD does pull a little further ahead. Combined just +1 damage and just +1 attack since they have the same effect for the Kastelai lance vamp.
...Except when you have both attack and damage from Kastelai, then it puts the Kastelai VLOZD ever so slightly ahead of LoB. Kastelai seems like a fully legit choice for VLOZDs with the levelup stuff.
For Avengorii it's slightly more complicated because it comes more down to the monstrous rampage, which only matters after you've done your Roar for the turn, and isn't exclusive to the VLOZD. So while Avengorii doesn't specifically help VLOZDs much, they do fit in with the various monster related bonuses you can get (fighting with top profile, the rampages, once per battle strike first, etc.).
An idea list I have for Kastelai could be something like:
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Lineage: Kastelai Dynasty
- Grand Strategy: Take What's Theirs
- Triumphs:
Leaders
Prince Vhordrai (470)
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference
Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440)
- General
- Vampiric Sword
- Command Trait: Undead Bladelord
- Artefact: Fragment of the Keep
- Lore of the Vampires: Spirit Gale
Battleline
10 x Blood Knights (460)
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Blood Knights (230)
5 x Blood Knights (230)
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)
10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (85)
Total: 2000 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 1 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 112
Drops: 7Gives you the double dragon that a lot of folks wanted to make work previously, plus a bunch of Blood Knights and a couple skellie screens/objective nabbers. Probably things to improve with it, maybe you don't actually want the double dragon, but I like the idea of leveling three units up every turn when one of your Blood Knights gets some skills. Also considering the Blood Knights can fly over small troops all the time now, you can more easily strike a hero in their backline for the +1 damage.
Thanks for calculating the damage breakdowns, that’s really useful… Your list is the exact same as one I’m running, except that I’m currently using 1 x 20 skeletons and 4 x 5 blood knights. If you get a chance to test it let us know how you get on.
(Fist of Nagash is also “a friendly Kastelai vampire unit” so he can share any buffs he acquires that turn, and he’s good at hunting hero’s.)
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6 hours ago, JackStreicher said:
Have you had a look on ebay? Usually they're sold at fair prices
Thanks, I’ve had a little look and feel like the prices are quite high, but I’ll keep an eye out 😊 -
2 hours ago, N.I.B. said:
Hello fellow suckers. Is this the biggest AoS Death forum on the western hemisphere? I'm considering entering AoS and dusting off my trusted Vampire Counts, but I can't say the reviews for the new Soulblight battletome has me hyped. I'm more of a competitive player, and from what I gather the new tome is an overall nerf. Is it too early to destillate a competitive build?
I think it depends on your play style and what you like. It seems to have been a bit divisive initially. Quite a lot was changed and not all for the better, but the book is probably more coherent now (Maybe restrictively so). It’s still quite early to tell. Personally I’m coming to terms with certain changes and trying to find lists that allow me to still play the way I like to. There seems to be a pretty heavy focus on summonable units and attrition tactics, as opposed to offensive synergy and fielding multiple threats. If you like bringing back cheap chaff that also has some interesting utility then you may well enjoy it, however if you’re more into hard hitting melee armies then there’s better options out there (but there are still some options).
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Is there any indication that the sons of velmorn will be sold as a separate unit anytime soon? I love the models and want to use Morlak as my wight king and the others as GG stand ins.
… if not I’ll probably just buy the gnarlwood boxset and sell off the khorn ones.
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6 hours ago, Tizianolol said:
I think the list is legal. I did it with the app
Vhrodrai 470
Vengorian lord 280
2x5 blood knights 920 (230×4)
Zombie dragon ( monster) 300
Its 1970. I dont have VLoZD, i got the normal Zombie dragon to have synergy with vengorian lord and to benfit from his deploy out of the map!:)
Sorry my bad, I thought you meant VLOZD as it’s on my mind 😅
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3 hours ago, Tizianolol said:
This is what u was thinking
vhordrai
-SP vile transference
vengorian lord
- CT undead bladelord
- AR fragment of the keep
- SP flaming weapon
4 x5 blood knights
Zombie dragon
Its 1970
The good synergy with vengorian and a monster plus classic kastelai combo with msu of blood knights and vhrodrai. Vengorian is a good tanky piece with decent damage with kastelai trait and we got a zombie dragon to deeps strike!!!
Its a 2 drop list too!!
Unfortunately I think you may have miscalculated your points cost somewhere? The app calculates the points of this list at 2110… regardless I think vengorian lord does have potential in Kastelai and I’ve looked at running it myself… maybe you could drop the VLOZD and take some summmonable units?
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1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
Doing some math on Deathrattle Skeletons, I actually kinda rate their offensive capabilities now. Sure, 1 attack 1 inch reach is bad, but 3+, 4+, -1, 1 means they can actually do OK damage in over time. They are not just a total tarpit anymore. Point for point their damage is actually quite decent when they get their rend buff.
Also, 1 attack means that +1 attack buffs actually really turn their damage on. Maybe there is an opportunity sometimes to move a vampire lord in close or charge something nearby with Radukar the Beast if you are in Vyrkos. Could totally swing a fight out of nowhere:
Save 20 Skeletons +1 attack, +1 to hit 2+ 7.59 3+ 11.39 4+ 15.19 5+ 18.98 6+ 22.78 - 22.78 That’s really not bad looking at it. I was thinking this may be the case, but can’t do maths so I’m glad others here can 😊. I’m planning on using skeletons as my summonable option when running GG, V-lord and WK. I also love the models so I’m glad they’re good now!
has anyone looked into bloodknights output now with new buffs and rend?
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1 hour ago, Vasshpit said:
Clay beast creations has some interesting skellies. They're not quite just a skeleton in armor but are pretty cool non the less. 🤘
Thank you I will check them out 🤓
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4 hours ago, Leshoyadut said:
How big of a unit were you using? I've been mostly seeing folks use blocks of 20, and I haven't gotten the chance to test out a unit of 30 with the new book yet. I feel like this means that 30 is probably overkill (or at least viewed as such by most people) on unit durability, but I want to know how it actually performs.
Wondering the same. I think there’s a place for a block of 30 (am I right in thinking on 25mm bases with 2” reach they should technically be able to attack in 3 ranks?). Sometimes you’ll lose models early to shooting or magic in a unit of 20 before getting into combat, and if you want to guarantee killing something then 30 could be a shout, especially if you’re putting points into buffing them via V-lord and WK.
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… speaking of printing has anyone found any good alternate models/ prints for grave guard? The GW ones don’t hold their own for me anymore.
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Apologies multiple post.
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6 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
That's exactly what it is!
Personally, I am satisfied with the quality. It is 3d printed plastic. Mine had only very minimal print errors (small stray buts of filament, kind of like flashing on a plastic cast) which were easily cleaned up.
My biggest gripe with the set is that the layer lines are pretty significant. That makes it hard to use washes on them if you don't sand them down. The printers at Dark Fantastic Mills might be better now, though, I bought my terrain from them 3 years ago or so.
Otherwise, no real complaints. The terrain is rugged enough that you can just throw it into a box and go. It is very gameable, with lots of room for miniatures to stand on top, although that makes it look somewhat large in the table compared to 28mm miniatures. For what it's worth, I like the set enough that am considering buying a few more pieces of it once I get a proper home gaming table together.
Thanks that’s really helpful. I don’t know a lot about 3D printing, but I have bought a couple of things and those look pretty good quality by comparison. I like the style of the terrain a lot and it’s quite competitively priced, so I’ll probably grab a few bits 😊
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Looks like the book has been updated on the app. Seems early as the book isn’t even available yet? (No complaints though)
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@Neil Arthur Hotep I meant to comment from your picture before, that it looks like you have the necrosian scenery from dark fantastic mills? I’ve been eyeing it up for a while. Would you recommend it?
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Such a great ability! It completely bypassed the weaknesses of the hammer units with 4’s to hit such as GG and VLOZD.
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I think if I was playing LOB my list would look something like this:
VLOZD 440 (general)
Neferata 390
20 x GG 280
20 x GG 280
3 x Black knights 330
V- lord 130
Wight king 135
1985
Although I’m not sure how long GW will allow an ethereal VLOZD with 16 wound 3+ 6++, extra attacks, hitting (chosen units) on 2’s and healing up to 6 wounds a turn… but enjoy it while it lasts! 😆
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1 hour ago, Beliman said:
A lot of unique characters that have a subfaction keyword can only buff their own units (Brokk Grugnisson, Lyrior, Astreia, Gardus, Khorgos Khul, etc...). There are a few ones that can buff anyone, like Volturnos (Ionrach), Grinkrak (King's gitz) or Awlrach (Grieving Legion), but they are not that common and they usually are from old 3.0 books.
I think the issue with this book is that we have A LOT of unique characters and attaching them all to sub factions to me feels very restrictive. It’s pretty common and logical to make sub-faction specific characters more aligned with that sub faction, but many of the characters in this book have multiple abilities as well as spells locked into those factions, and you would have to be kind of desperate to play them out with… neferata for example has two abilities and a spell all locked into LOB. For me it would have made a lot more sense to make some of those spells or abilities attached to units thematically associated with the sub faction instead, or just not attached at all. I feel like one spell/ ability is enough, still giving you freedom to move elsewhere, but making them more potent in their aligned sub-faction.
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2 hours ago, Sception said:
Yeah, I've seen a lot of reactions dumping on the soulblight mortarchs, but they actually both look very solid to me, as does Prince Vhordrai - yes he lost the ability to hero-phase attack with another monster, but quickblood for asf that lasts till your next hero phase on a monster hero that tough, that killy, and self healing, is almost a return to the old OP gristlegore days. Regular VLoZD also benefits significantly from the new hunger rule, and has strong and useful buffs in each of the subfactions making them exciting in that there looks to be a bunch of ways to run them that are all strong in different and unique ways. Belladamma Volga remains a very solid double caster for her points, radubeast is a solid beatstick with a good buff attached had hasn't lost a step once you remember that he has full access to Vyrkos subfaction abilities, including traits and artefacts. The wight kings are both better, albeit more specialized. Necromancer is worse, but still a solid support caster with bodyguard protection and access to some excellent debuffs from the lore. Torgillius trades the bodyguard ability for a 5++ aura which is great. The new hero's a silver bullet, but impressive in her particular specialty, which is surprising given that most foot heroes who try to specialize in monster hunting are just bad. Lauka Vai is decent, especially when paired with a VLoZD.
The regular vamp lord doubled down on being a support hero instead of bringing back the unit-eating blender lords of fantasy that many have wanted since AoS's release - but that was never a realistic request since that's just not how foot heroes work in AoS. It's not how they've worked since the game was released and it isn't how they work in any other faction. And once you accept the vamp lord as a support hero, he's actually pretty solid - +1 attack that stacks with spells and command abilities is really good, actually! Granted, it would be better if it weren't restricted to summonables, because right now there's really only a single unit in the army worth giving that buff to, and yeah that's a problem, especially as they're also the oldest kit left in the model range and they really don't hold up next to the new skeletons. It's unfortunate that the vampire is as much a dedicated grave guard enhancer as the wight king is, that doesn't really fit the fluff, so yeah, improvements to be made, but if you are taking grave guard then the vamp lord is still very solid.
Blood knights lost their better retreat & charge, but hit much harder with +1 rend and 2" reach. They're maybe a bit overpriced, but they're super playable.
Honestly, the soulblight heroes in general are very impressive, even if they're not all impressive in the same ways that they used to be. And it's narratively fitting for the faction to have high end heroes and elites at the top with a hoard of suffering peasants at the bottom of the pyramid holding them up. But even then, the peasants aren't terrible. Black Knights aren't the medium cav I want them to be, but they are a cheap source of fire & forget mortal wounds that will get some damage in and die early as starting grist for endless legions. Grave guard are extremely fragile glass cannons, but you've got deployment shenanigans, excellent screens, and healing abilities to get them into combat, and once there they suck up buffs like a sponge before hitting like a train. Zombies are a cheap tar pit that clogs the table with friendly bodies and deals a bunch of free mortal wounds to any enemy units forced to take the time to clear them. Skeletons are slightly more expensive targets that don't do any damage at all, but are significantly harder to clear thanks to their improved self-healing ability. Dire wolves are excellent body blockers, very fast, and can get into combat with dedicated shooty units without provoking unleash hell thanks to their 6" pile in. Fell bats are super cheap and super fast flying chaff, and now battleline in one of the factions for what is essentially a better version of the old 5 model wolf units. Corpse carts can buff our casters and make zombies just that extra big more dangerous to clear out.
I don't like the big chariots (mortis engine might be ok with a points drop), or the unridden monsters, or the generic vengorian, or the vargheists. But in a book this big there's going to be some duds, and even setting those aside the army has more than enough for multiple effective builds, including builds that make good use of a lot of the units that are getting dumped on in some of the community reactions.
Aside from my distaste for the mortarchs and many other gripes, I find myself agreeing with the majority of this 😅
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Soulblight Gravelords Discussion - 3rd edition.
in Death
Posted · Edited by TechnoVampire
As much as the power gamer in me likes that the rule as written currently functions this way, I’m wondering if it also needs an FAQ for clarity, as I get the feeling this was not the intention… Also I don’t know the core rules well enough to say myself, but do they allow for piling in/ charging 1/2 inch over another model and then back again, and does that count as “passing across”?
Edit: I just checked myself and yes it does:
I feel it’s likely the ability will be changed to “normal move” in which case it will be pretty situational, and a lot worse than the old rule.