MotherGoose

Pretty much my thoughts and I'd love for the udpate to be that in depth.

Whilst I'd love for 8+ kits I'm tempering my expectations. They're an army that really need a full refresh as, currently, they're sort of bodged together from mostly older kits from fantasy when they weren't even their own thing. Varghulf needs to be replaced, however I also think the flayers and horrors are starting to show their age too, the trouble is they share a kit not just with each other but also two different courtier heroes and a soulblight unit. New crypt ghast also needs to be done if these leaks are replacing the standard ghouls, if they're a new 'elite' ghoul then maybe not... The warbands also stand out like a sore thumb now compared to the rest of the range, and id love to see some of the baboon ghouls as a proper unit, a bit like dire wolves. Same goes for the vlozd/gkot if I'm honest, I love the terrorgheist but I have to admit I've never been a fan of the ghoul king on top or the vlozd. However replacing one doesn't seem likely. That's before even thinking about actual 'new' units rather than updated ones. Then obviously we need a named character or two, perhaps the big centrepiece that most armies seem to get.

I think a new varghulf sculpt is a given if we do get a big refresh, that things from like 1990 and looks hideous.

@Elarin any secret news for our beloved flesh eating ghouls?

Looks like a scorpion with the tail/stinger at the top left... cities scorpion war Altar???

I'm in agreement they're overcosted now, the nerf due to tournament LoB spam has made them suffer unnecessarily. Chaos knights hitting on 4s is bad, but easily getting all of your attacks in outweighs that in my opinion. They can receive way more buffs in their army and also get eye of the gods. Blood knights are extremely limited in buffs now almost everything got subfaction locked and changed to only affecting summonable stuff. My point being you can't really compare the two warscrolls alone, as Chaos knights can very easily be much more than that, compared to blood knights warscroll which is more 'what you see is what you get'. Likewise, comparing warscroll vs warscroll damage output vs GG is fairly pointless. GG have some of the easiest access to the best buffs we have, with multiple ways of getting +1 attack, attack in the hero phase and 6s splitting. You can very easily give then +2 attacks (or more) and 6s splitting, blood knights again suffer more in that regard. Just with the 6s splitting the GG outshine the blood knights in pure damage, and also do way more mortals which gets through lucky or high armour saves. In an army that has so many buffs and auras, the blood knights are left in the dust when you look at pure damage in a battle. GG can also effectively survive by deploying off the board, 'deep strike', can be resurrected and can come back once destroyed, meaning across a battle they're likely to get far more damage in. I like them, and I think they're 'good' rather than 'bad' or 'great' (with some of the coolest models ever), but they are definitely a little overcosted now they've given a slight buff to attacks but stripped away their best ability and taken away almost every single buff they had in our previous book. Also, what are these Legion of blood bonuses for blood knights attacks? Hitting on 2s on d3 units from a command trait? Just trying to make sense of the damage tables posted as some of them seem off.

I'd be surprised if we don't get a range expansion, even if its just a couple of units. They said at warhammer fest that the winter tome MIGHT be an army that hasn't seen any love since 3rd edition came out and that it MIGHT come alongside more models. When we reach winter, there will be only one battletome/army that hasn't got a 3.0 book, so it will obviously be FEC, and it sounds like they're getting some love.

Was at fest today and stayed after the reveal for the Q&A and they made it sound very likely that FEC is the winter tome (obviously) but that they'd also very likely be getting more new minis alongside the tome

Yea I think unless you play super competitively they'll still be fun and good

I'd imagine we may find out more this weekend at warhammer fest. If I remember correctly it's only cities and ghouls left to get 3.0 tomes so one is coming sooner than the other. I'd expect one around summer and one around autumn/winter.

Yea benefit to this is bella is just amazing too - portal turning people into dogs and locking them in combat/stopping stand and shoot is phenomenal

Yea it is, but I love me some magic heavy armies so I usually build with cogs for rerolls. Necrarchs were my fave back in the day - then vyrkos. Now we've lost the rerolls I don't have a full on favourite sub faction anymore but I love blood, night and vyrkos.

The difference for me (and why I like spirit gale so much) is that it can be cast easily from a hero that costs 130 points and can sit out of dispel range, 70 points for +1 to cast from a cart if you really want, and against certain armies it is even better (kruleboyz covered in mud boltboyz, nighthaunt tanky but low wound elite infantry for instance). I've also been extremely lucky with my rolls in the last few games. One of my games by the end of my turn 2 my 130 point vampire had killed 4 boltboyz covered in mud on his own JUST from spirit gale, as well as doing 4 mortals to the rest of the army too, at infinite range. At that point he's already got more than his value back in turn 2. Would be a very different story with worse rolls. Kroaks spell, whilst undoubtedly amazing (which it should be lets be honest, it's kroak), cost 395, plus relies on casting through another unit that has to be put in harms way and will likely die the next turn, trog is probably the best survivability wise, but then you're looking at 395+270 or however much the trog costs. 700ish points into that spammable spell feels like it should be as good as it is. Spirit gale is far easier to pull off rangewise as it relies on nothing other than the cast itself, and I find it hard to not include it in most armies. That being said there's only 3 to choose from and I usually have 3+ vampire casters... On another note, I tried mannfred the other day and he feels much cooler to me personally and less NPE for the opponent, the legions movement/charge shenanigans are awesome, and mannfred himself seemed really good. Noticed the extra rend too, but also noticed the lack of +1 to hit and wound command 😂

Yea not saying its game breaking, just that i love it and have found its brilliant, especially as its so easy to fit a vamp lord in for so cheap just to bring it. I think all the spells are awesome now, although some quite situational (vile trans is useless if your opponent doesn't have monsters/high wounds for instance) but I'm very happy with our new magic rather than just always using the same, only good spell (pinions). Its nice to be able to do damage with magic now rather than just 'roll to cast then hope it doesn't get unbound oh yea also now you have to roll again to maybe do a mortal' style spells we used to have.

Which ~130 point caster can do 2 mortals to every enemy unit on the board with no los in one spell? Most armies pay through the nose for such good spells IMO, but I'd be happy to be wrong and really hope they don't nerf it as its about damn time Vamps got some good magic!

I have indeed, and no single spell looks as good as spirit gale. I'd rather have a spell that targets all enemies boardwide with no range or sight than your typical single target nukes like tzeentch too, though it would be nice to have both 😅 I'm half expecting them to nerf spirit gale to 24 inch range or something, boardwide+no los needed feels potentially a bit too good in some instances, but I guess we don't have huge access to other damage and almost 0 ranged options...

One thing I find interesting is the lack of discussion on spirit gale, absolutely amazing spell in my opinion and been fantastic in the games I've done. The fact we can have a little 130 point hero whacking down 15+ mortals a turn from a single spell without the need for range is bonkers, if you roll the 9+ version its essentially the slanns spell but on the whole enemy army rather than just d3 or d6 units. Also similar to Teclis's spell that hits everyone within 18 for d3, (potentially d6), but spirit gale is boardwide, castable by a cheap lord that can sit in the corner out of range or next to a unit for look out sir and infinite range and can easily be done turn 1 unlike a lot of other spells. Granted I love magic heavy lists and usually bring the cogs too for the rerolls, but it's a brilliant spell. In one of our battles (3k) I think we worked out spirit gale turn 1 did 26 mortal wounds, then turn 2 did over 20 again, over 46 mortal wounds with 2 spells. Not sure many other spells in the game have that output. Even without the 9+ cast, hitting everything is still great, with the 9+ it's essentially a 'within 3 inch' arcane bolt to every enemy unit on the board.

Even with the 6++ and potential heals, GG are substantially less tanky than Saurus, also it doesn't really seem like you're thinking about the reality of a battle and how hard it'll be getting 30 models all attacking a single unit whilst also being within range of small aura buffs. GG also can't be reinforced twice to 30 models in a single unit unless too take a Wight king as a general, so that's another thing to bear in mind. I'm not saying GG are bad, far from it, but I think Saurus are great from what I've read, and only time will tell how well they perform. GG are one of the heaviest hitters in the game when buffed right, and the fact saurus can even come close says something - whilst being harder to remove and having access to teleports and movement shenanigans. They fulfil a different role to GG and would be better to compare them to units like liberators, blood warriors etc. Another thing to note is you're not only comparing two very different units, but you're also comparing two very different armies. Soulblight rely heavily on the glass cannons and array of small aura buffs to get damage in. GG barely move, die to a stiff breeze and the entire army has a whole phase (shooting) that they pretty much don't take part in. The army needs big hammers and easy buffs, always have. Saurus can also be 3+ save 5+ ward save -1 damage and the army has extremely easy access to making enemy rend 0, giving -1 to hit and so on. They can be real tanks if you want, they dish out enough damage to be decent in combat and tanky, they are quicker than GG and can teleport and so on, they're more a 'jack of all trades master of none' type unit, whereas GG are just GG. They move slow and hit hard, that's it.

In my experience the healing is sort of similar to before and the bringing back half strength units is still as good as it ever was - easier to do in general now and can be game changing if you're clever with grave placement.

Yea its pretty clear in my opinion too, but it seems there's enough people questioning it that a simple FAQ question/answer would put it to rest. Is tomorrow 2 weeks since our release? Could see an faq then.

There's a couple of things that need sorting pretty quickly imo - namely corpse carts and nightguard being able to get d3 models added in vyrkos.

So when are we expecting an faq? Was hoping there'd be a day 1 faq to confirm a few bits.

Cado can't as it states in his description, crimson court can!

What time are the day 1 faqs usually released?

Volkmortian too, a factionless amazing hero like arkhan would be awesome - but I guess that would change the whole direction of our book. I'm happy to be 'forced' into certain factions depending who I want to use if it means we keep multiple abilities/heroic actions/monstrous actions rather than most other books that just get a single ability for the army.