[The Rumour Thread]

7 hours ago, KingBrodd said:

I'm just glad that we are at a stage in Warhammer that regardless of how much support your Faction gets, it is supported.

I remember the dark times of WHFB where sometimes an army would languish without an Army Book update for entire Editions of Warhammer and the Editions weren't on 3 yearly cycles. Not only that but once you got that book there was no guarantee at all of new minis so for hobbyists it was a nightmare.

I can be happy knowing that even if I dont get a range refresh for Mawtribes this Edition that I am guranteed a new Battletome and a Mini of some sort, whether that's a whole new unit of a single model I will have something.

Warhammer also felt much cheaper back in the day comparably even if wages were lower. With great price gouging comes great responsibility.

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

2 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

My club mate that went 5-0 beat a Kruleboyz list with the Nagash and Blood Knights list we've been running. I'm not sure on the specifics but it included 2 killbows and a few units of boltboyz

Nagash seems great at blasting Monsters or taking care of death star shooting units ☠️

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

Just now, BaylorCorvette said:

dice will be dice I guess, and yeah I much rather play against them than LRL. Unfortunately I think Kruleboyz is just a hard counter to us. Some games will be easier than others and dice will go our way every now and then too. If I wanted to build a list strictly around beating Kruleboyz I would focus on just a TON of bodies and possibly no monsters. But I prefer not to tailor my list against one thing specifically since most of my games are tournaments and I need to be able well rounded.

That is good advice. Our club is doing one event a month including a Major and a GT within the next 2 months. The army just feels so fun to play. Tailoring a list is never a good idea. I may try out Nagash in a bit but I am really enjoying a mixed arms force.

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

5 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

Thanks for the kind words. I have not yet played against Kruelboyz but one of the guys in the local scene is leaning heavy into about 12-15 Boltboyz, 2 Killbows and some other stuff. My strategy going up against them would be dependent on mission and who got to dictate turn order. Usually against a shooting army, if I can dictate turn order (I'm a 2 drop) then I will outflank / put a lot of things in the graves and then deploy deep in my own zone and give them the first turn which should help minimize damaged received turn 1. Your turn 1 you pop things out of the graves and outflank, maybe get lucky with a long bomb charge or two. Then priority roll, if you get the double you are in a much better position. At the end of the day, it is an objective game so you don't HAVE to kill them, but yes their MW output is pretty crazy.

I was playing for objectives and trying to tag. The problem was if you don't get priority he has 2 turns of shooting since he was a one drop. He can reliably kill the Vengo Lord and Prince V per turn with shooting. Because he has so many bodies and it was tectonic interference he was able to screen out the grave guard. I tried a long bomb charge with the GG but playing for that is just a luck thing. My meta is pretty competitive as well. It was still a lot more fun playing Kruleboys than LRL :p.

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

18 minutes ago, Predien said:

Range MW output is the bread and butter of a KBz army. Most are going to be running anywhere between 6-12 boltboyz and/or some beastskewerz. You'll need to deploy outside of 27" with your big guys and force the KBz to move. When the KBz units move their shooting profile gets a lot shorter. Also consider adding in some Unleash Hell fodder. Bats are quick and cheap. If you can get into the boltboyz you will absolutely destroy them in combat...you just have to get there.

He was running a one drop so I had to go first and then I had to move up. I stayed outside of the 20 inch massive threat range but within the 27. He just popped the Vengo Lord so easily. Hew as running 9 Bolts and 40 Gut Rippas it was rough. Way harder match than for the fish bros.

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

On 10/11/2021 at 9:06 AM, BaylorCorvette said:

Took the list I went 4-1 with for a 3rd place overall finish out of 70 people at a GT a few weeks ago to a 14 person local this past weekend. Ended up going 3-0 and finishing second, there was a SoB player that also went 3-0 and scored 1 more tournament point than me to secure the first place finish at the tournament. 

Game 1 was on Survival of the Fittest against a dwarf heavy Cities of Sigmar Tempest Eye list. He was running a death star of 30 irondrakes buffed out the a$$, basically 58 shots hitting and wounding on 2s with -2 rend then the champs anti monster weapon. He also ran 20 Phoneix Guard to screen / hold the center of the map. I squeezed out a win by basically outflanking or putting everything in the graves, minus my heroes and two dire wolf units. As expected he went to the center objective and as a result I pushed to the two side objectives. I then was able to sweep around one flank and mush his irondrakes back so they couldn't contest an objective any more which allowed me to secure the win.

Game 2 was Tooth and Nail against a Legion of Blood list running the super buffed VLoZD (-1 to hit & +1 save) everything else was Skeletons, Grave Guard, Zombies or foot support heroes. Given that you couldn't put ANYTHING in reserve for Tooth and Nail made things interesting for both of us since we were SBGL players that wanted things in the graves. My Army was much faster which allowed me to dictate engagements. The funny thing was my Prince Vhordrai failing a 3" charge with snake eyes and then using a CP to reroll into snake eyes again, that is a 1 in 1,296 chance!!! My Vengorian Lord tanked the heck out of the VLoZD, some Grave Guard and 2 Vamp Lords on foot for four combat rounds only taking 5 wounds (Fragment of the Keep + Reduce Rend by 1 is amazing!) Anyways I was able to be more aggressive and control the board which gave me the win.

Game 3 was Savage Gains against Vykros Dynasty. I went from never having played against SBGL to having two matches in a row. My opponent I knew really well and he's a great player so it was a fun game that tested both of us (he finished 6th (with a Tzeentch Archaon list) in the 70 person GT that I finished 3rd in . His list was Belladamma, two units of Grave Guard, some wolves, zombies, Necromancer, foot Vampire Lord and allied in was the named Gate Breaker Mega Gargant mercenary. Again the Vengorian Lord came up huge. In about 4 rounds of combat the Gate Breaker was only able to kill a single Blood Knight and put a few wounds on some other things. Fragment of the Keep on a Vengorian Lord is so good. Anyways, the game was super close and we ran out of time, so we talked it out. I had recently gotten a double turn which allowed me to sweep his back lines and then we just rolled off to see who got turn 5 (I did) and we both agreed I would have won.

So another solid showing for this list. I will likely be taking it to the Austin GT hosted by GW in November.

Congrats on the win good sir! So I have played 2 games so far with my Soulblight. My first game was Vyrkos with a Gargant, 20 GG and Prince V against Slaves and it was a good game but very one sides for the Gravelords. I recently played my second game as my 10 Blood Knights and Vengorian Lord are all done and I played the same list you are running with the Grave-sand Shard instead; I played against a good friend's Kruleboys list and he smashed me. I made a few misplays as well as not getting one in 4 priorities and lycancurse did not go off once :(. However. I do feel like if there is a weakness it is ranged mortals. Any tips from a pro? Most of my competitive play has been with Deepkin and I haven't had too much of a problem with ranged units minus 50 Sentinel spam. 

 

My Vengorian Lord was shot off the board in one turn with a 5+ fnp easy. There were a lot of bodies so I could not get the pups to pile in 6 to the bolt boys. I may have been a little too timid with playing as well. I have a bigger GT coming up and despite knowing I can do very well with the fish bro's I am going to take the SBGL just because they are way more fun at this time! I really like your list because I am not into spamming 20-25 blood knights and I like to control the board space when I play. 

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

I figured something like All Out Defence on him would be so vital to keep him around and you would really want to keep that -1 to wound aura and -1 rend ability going. Because it says "use" and not issue or receive it seems a little confusing. If you were to receive a Command Ability it seems as if you are still using it but I was unsure. It seems to be pretty mixed when it comes to the thoughts on this :S.

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

@BaylorCorvette I just wanted to check in and see how you were using the Vengorian Lord in regard to Undeniable Impulse. It reads that you cannot "use" a command ability if you roll equal or less than the current battle round. Does that mean that The Vengorian Lord could not receive a command from another Hero like Prince V?

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

2 hours ago, BaylorCorvette said:

So my plan if I was going up against a 1 Drop or a 2 Drop but they deployed first was going to be deep deploy (closer to my board edge) and possibly more things in the graves and/or have Blood Knights outflank depending on the scenario and opponent. That is the other nice thing about the list. In the event that you do not get to dictate turn order you have ways to work around it. Possibly even keeping things back turn 1 but have something (zombies) pop out of the graves to at least get an objective or two without putting yourself in a vulnerable position.

Having the 2 squads of wolves and zombies seems pretty clutch for screening, capturing objectives and deepstrike threat. Also, having summonable units to come back to life and snag and objective that isn't guarded etc. I am trying to design a similar list with 3 squads of blood knights and playing around with fell bats as well. 

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

28 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

If your local meta is shooting then I think you def take Belladamma and 1 - 2 units of wolves. Use her spell (could even consider spell portal if you want) to try and spawn some wolves to prevent Unleash Hell and then obviously you take wolves to wound shrug / chaff / fast objective grabbers. My experience from playing against shooting (mostly KO) with this list is that you will take a lot of damage from something. Fortunately there is a lot of redundancy built into this list so if you lose something early it isn't game over. Also being double Battle Regiment this is a two drop list. The average drop list at this event (74 ppl) was between 4-5 drops. All 5 of my games I got to dictate turn order which was significant in how I played the game. It also prevented by KO opponent who was a 3 drop to use his pregame move to Fly High and Warp Lightning Vortex me. 

I will have 2 units of wolves actually so I am definitely thinking that. I think I will stay away from the portal for the simple fact I want more bodies like yourself but the wolves seem just so strong against shooting with Bella. The last two events I played (only one day events mind you) I was a 2 drop and many times ended up not being able to decide the order. There are A LOT of Giants, LRL, DOK and Stormcast/S2D here. My last event I came up against the 4 fox list and 30 sentinels bonanza. Really though that list can take care of most elite units in the game anyway I was just running Deepkin and with forgotten nightmares, it isn't as bad for at least one turn. 

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

48 minutes ago, BaylorCorvette said:

Thanks. I've consistently told people that I think at 200 pts Belladamma is one of the best value warscrolls in the book. So many things in her tool kit to use for various situations and is fairly survivable with 9 wounds, getting Look Out Sir and can wound and MW shrug to wolves and if she takes chip damage then I will send her into soft targets to heal with The Hunger.

You're right that high MWs can be devastating against this list but that is the case against more armies than not in AoS and at least SBGL has a 6+ ward. The problem I think my opponents have is prioritizing targets. I built this list to specifically have a ton of threats. You can try and focus down Prince Vhordrai, but it will take a lot of resources and if you don't kill him then he will use the Chalice, Heroic Recovery and likely The Hunger. Belladamma can wound & MW shurg, the Blood Knights are fairly stout and turn 1 I usually keep the Grave Guard and Zombies in the graves. Really IMO the most vulnerable target in my list turn 1 is the Vengorian Lord and he's not super easy to kill. Finally if my opponent tries to focus on one of those units and not the wolves then the wolves get into their lines and tie them up. If they do focus on the wolves then they have to deal with Vhordrai, Blood Knights (likely buffed with Rousing Commander and Under the Killing Moon), a Vengorian Lord and Grave Guard. Also this list operates perfectly fine without Magic. Against the Seraphon player with Kroak I didn't get a lot of my spells off which was fine. If I can get my spells off it is just icing on the cake and really takes the list to the next level.

Relating to the artifact, when the book initially came out I considered the Grave Sand, but after spending more time list building and thinking about it the less I liked it. It is once per game, activates in the Hero Phase, so your opponent could possibly avoid the units under the bubble. The Fragment of the Keep with the -1 To Wound was absolutely clutch in 3 of the 5 games I played, not really coming up much against Seraphon and KO. In other tournaments it has worked very good for me. The way I usually play is Prince Vhordrai charges up one side of the board and I have Grave Guard pop out of the graves on his side and the other side of the board (which is the real threat) I have both units of Blood Knights escorted with the Vengorian Lord who is providing the -1 To Wound bubble, reducing rend by 1 and then supplying Rousing Commander. Usually Belladamma is following them too supplying Under the Killing Moon.

I really appreciate the response! I have been playing with Deepkin for so long and using them for 2 recent events so I am mostly theory crafting right now but there is a huge difference between theory and actual game play and I love hearing about the experiences of others who are actually competing in different events. I am picking up my SBGL army October 8th ready to go and Bella is the piece I am most excited to use. You hit the nail on the head with her (or the nail in the coffin...sorry). For 200 points I struggle to make a list without her. The command ability alone to tie up important units and even have the wolves do a little damage to archers is fantastic. For having so many elite units you also have a solid amount of wounds. I really like this list.

Deep strike potential is also great especially for missions such as savage gains. You can easily keep a few wolves back to stop thing such as Shadowstalkers while denying your opponent the ability to leave his home objective completely un-defended. Grave Guard seem almost an auto keep in the grave site especially when you go second. You are also right regarding everyone is going to struggle against 30-50 sentinels and foxes etc that is a given. My meta is HEAVY SHOOTING so I will have to play around with it. I will post more this coming fall/winter after I have done some events with these guys and share how it is going. There are just so many options with SBGL. From the initial release and all the salt to now what a change :p. 

[AoS3 - Soulblight Gravelord Discussion]

6 hours ago, BaylorCorvette said:

Well folks the Hammerfest GT was this past weekend, a total of 74 people attended (in the quote above you can see some stats on the lists), I went 4-1 and finished 3rd Overall with my Kastelai list. I also won Best Death Player and also best "Chris". The last award was a meme award since the most common player name was Chris, lol. First and Second place were both Daughters of Khaine lists running Morathi and a block of 15 bow Snakes.

Quick Highlight of my games:

-Game 1 was against Bonesplitters running a Rogue Idol and Kragnos on First Blood. Highlight was Rogue Idol getting a triple move spell off and flying across the board. Got Prince Vhordrai down to 4 wounds remaining but on my turn I finished off the Rogue Idol and between the Chalice and Heroic Recovery and the Hunger I got him nearly back to full. Meanwhile due to how I zoned Kragnos out he really only ever saw combat round 2 when he wiped some wolves and then at the end of round 5 when I tabled Bonesplitters and only Kragnos was remaining, the Prince did 15 wounds with just his lance and then the dragon finished him off.

-Game 2 was against Sons of Behemat and was my only loss on Tectonic Interference. It was a Kraken Eater (amulet of destiny), Warstomper (artifact to re-roll his saves) and two units of 3 mini giants. Turn 1 he crashed into my lines which I expected. What I didn't expect was him to roll three 6's in a row to stuff three Blood Knights into a bag! I thought the game was nearly decided top of turn 1. I somehow managed to salvage the turn, got the double turn and made it a game that went into turn 5 where he only had the Kraken Eater left. Ultimately he won by 4 VPs.

-Game 3 was against Seraphon running Lord Kroak on Savage Gains. It was basically a race to see if he could kill me with Magic and shooting before I crashed into his lines. The answer was no he couldn't, lol. I decimated his units and just had too many bodies zoning him out.

-Game 4 was against KO running Flair Pistol for re-roll all hits on all his units against one of mine for 1 turn and Spell in a bottle with Warp Lightning Vortex. He had 1 Ironclad, 2 Frigates and 2 Gunhaulers with support heroes and chaff. This was on Power Struggle. Turn 1 he killed Belladamma and a unit of drive wolves, however I rolled a 5 in the battleshock phase to return a unit of dire wolves which I promptly did on one of his objectives that he left which also resulted in him failing his battle tactic and scoring 0 VPs turn 1. A unit of graveguard with great weapons got a frigate down to 1 wound remaining in one go around and then killed it next turn, some blood knights and a Vengorian Lord killed the other Frigate and from there on I just had bodies on objectives.

-Game 5 was against Big Waagh on Feral Foray and by far the most intense as one might expect at a top table in the final round. The list had a Megaboss on Mawcrusha with Rend -3 artifact and command trait to free mighty destroyers. He also had a unit of 6 Gore-gruntas and a unit of 15 Savage Orruk Arrowboys along with a a few min sized units of Savage Orruks for chaff. We traded blows throughout the game. 90 shots from the Arrowboys having 6s to hit generating an additional hit (from a spell) are no joke! On turn 3 his Mawcrusha came in and did like 25-30 wounds to Prince Vhordrai, killing him. However on the next turn he picked Slay the Warlord as his battle tactic. Knowing this I popped Finest Hour on my Vengorian Lord. At the start of combat my Vengorian Lord had 8 wounds remaining, the Mawcrusha failed to roar at me so I popped all out defense. So I reduced his rend by 1 from the Vengorian Lords ability and then had +2 to my save. I had to make 6 saves against the Boss Gore-hacka at dmg 3 and like 5 saves against the mount that were damage 3 as well. The freaking Vangorian Lord tanked the ****** out of it and didn't fail a single save! He failed the battle tactic which basically secured the victory for me.

-Final Thoughts: As expected, Prince Vhordrai always attracted the attention of my opponent as the primary target, which is exactly what I want. Between having 14 wounds, a 3+ save, the Chalice, and easy Heroic Recovery the Prince can tank a lot. This allows my Vengorian Lord to move up the board with the 2 units of Blood Knights and crash into something very important and pop Rousing Commander. Having two gravesites site near the back corners in my opponents territory but still in range of an objective is KEY! I would just keep a 20 block of zombies in the graves and my opponent either had to baby sit or would forget or not care and then out come the zombies and take an objective. Units coming back at half strength in the battleshock phase is HUGE but not super reliable. It did come in clutch for me twice though.  Belladamma performed really great. Under the Killing Moon is amazing and she was able to shut down enemy magic pretty well. Lycan Curse never really came up huge for me given the opponents I played against. However different opponents (lots of shooting) could be huge. Overall, I am very happy with how the list performed. There were 5 other Soulblight Gravelord lists at this tournament, a few of which were Kastelai (one ran 4 units of BKs and another list ran 5 units of BKs). Even in Kastelai I do not thinking having a ton of BKs is the answer. A single unit of 20 grave guard with Great Weapons without any buffs other than an all out attack is sufficient to destroy or severely cripple things. This list has a bunch of threats and a reasonable amount of bodies and chaff.

Here is my list:
Allegiance: Soulblight Gravelords
- Lineage: Kastelai Dynasty
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs: Bloodthirsty

LEADERS
Vengorian Lord (280)**
- General
- Command Trait: Rousing Commander
- Artefact: Fragment of the Keep
- Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference

Prince Vhordrai (455)*
- Lore of the Vampires: Amethystine Pinions

Belladamma Volga, First of the Vyrkos (200)*
- Lore of the Vampires: Amaranthine Orb

UNITS
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
5 x Blood Knights (195)*
10 x Dire Wolves (135)*
10 x Dire Wolves (135)**
20 x Deadwalker Zombies (115)**
20 x Grave Guard (280)*
- Great Wight Blades

CORE BATTALIONS
Battle Regiment*
Battle Regiment**

TOTAL: 1990/2000

WOUNDS: 143

I really appreciate the write up! 4-1 is fantastic and you deserve to be proud. I love that you mentioned the 6 inch pile in command ability because I feel like that really goes under the radar with Bella. I think I like it even more than Lycancurse. It seems your list may struggle against heavy mortal output such as the new Kruleboys and LRL but you were able to take on Seraphon who can usually do that in spades. Recently I have played everything from 4 Foxes to 50 Sentinels. Do you find the -1 to wound in melee is better than the 5+ FNP for a turn? It seems like such great utility to have against an alpha with shooting or combat but especially if the opponent tries to sent 30+ sentinels your way.