flamingwalnut

This book is even farther away from Necromancer focus than the previous Legion of Nagash, which is a shame. I won't get into the discussion of "So many little, obvious changes to make the book better" but the fact is that, you really want to use the Vampire units and ignoring ALL of them is going to be rough. BUT! It's not impossible. My first suggestion is: take the warscrolls you like, but theme the models differently. Nothing to say the Coven Throne can't be a Necromancer using Blood Magic. Nothing to say the Vengorian Lord or Lord on Zombie Dragon can't be a powerful necromancer on a twisted beast buffed by the revitalizing powers of undeath. With a bit of creativity and model conversions, any unit can be both recognizable as what it is and also be what you desire. If that really doesn't work for you, you're not DOOMED for a poor list. Avengorii focuses more on monsters than vampires. Legion of Night, though, is probably your best bet. Necromancers have the better spell lore and Corpse Carts can buff their casting. Grave Guard can be beasts in combat, as can Zombies with a few non-Vampire buffs. Skeletons are self sufficient, for the most part, and while your units will lack speed, the outflanking of Legion of Night helps immensely. You can add Chronomatic Cogs to make charges faster and your skellies/zombies faster in general and with Morbheg's Claw, a Corpse Cart, and the Mortis Engine, you can have +4 to cast!

For the Deathrattle issue of personality, they don't HAVE to be devoid of personality, even the lowly warrior. There are entire Deathrattle Kingdoms, and while the Wight King obviously has a kind of personality, each Warrior can have all sorts of personality to them. I find, for skeletons, to have a echo of their past lives. One skeleton can be aggressive and loud (I imagine some sort of supernatural wail), one can be a quiet shield wall with a tactical mind. Or maybe the Grave Guard are the soldiers and skeleton warriors are poor conscripts, fated to never see their homes again as they are lost to another lifetime. The rules aren't always perfect, but Age of Sigmar does so well with a blank canvas. So much magic and oddities and exceptions to be made. Always worth a shot!

As someone who played Legion of Blood in the old book, with up to 15 Blood Knights at a time, I feel ya. But I got to say......since Legion of Blood has changed so much, what ARE you really attached to? Neferata can be used in any Bloodline. She doesn't benefit from Kastelai battle traits, but she can be played there. And then you get Blood Knight battleline and some cool buffs. While Legion of Blood has some awesome tricks, as you noted, Kastelai does too and you can save up to 400ish points on Dire Wolf battleline with them as well, letting you fill out with bodies you actually want. At this point, while there are some cool traits and artifacts, I feel like you are attached to a name and not a concept. Neferata's Vampire Guard comes from Kastelai and her own Legion is instead her showing off her legion of loyal and disciplined Deathrattle legions, which are perfect tools and loyal subjects to build her crafty wall around and keep those backstabbing rivals from getting at her for any sort of advantage. So expecting Legion of Blood to be Vampire Legion is missing the concepts for loyalty to the name. Legion of Blood is a different beast than it used to be, because the focus has shifted.

Wow, that is a cool conversion and I LOVE your lore! I also have some sisters in my lore (which may get an overhaul) but only 1 is a vampire and it was a way to have background lore for armies of all alliances. Can't wait to see it painted up, as the actual Vengorian Lord model is like a shadow familiar/construct? That is a fantastic idea! Will see if I can put some lore soon. Sadly, while I still got a few models I need to finish, I probably won't be getting any new models for a week or so. So this army may be more of a slow grow than I intended, but hey, I got....a lot of stuff to work on.

I had to double check, because I SWORE Mortis Engines were a mount option for Lord Necromancers in Fantasy, but nope... That is...such a weird thing. I have no idea why, it would fit PERFECTLY! But Corpse Carts COULD be mounts. Basically, while my focus is on Vampires and Wights, I really do love Necromancers and would also LOVE for them to bring back hero Corpse Carts and even introduce Mortis Engines. Given the expansion with the Blood Palaquin, there is NO reason they cannot. It requires nothing but a small bit to make up a Warscroll. Fingers crossed!

Hm, well, I admit, I was a little uncertain about this being SO close to Legions of Nagash. BUT, the more I dig through the specific changes, the more I like it. The major things, like Zombie Dragon battleline and the Vykros having multiple generals (I assume like the Slaanesh sub-faction, which I love) are awesome and fall right into what I am looking for. I legit wanted a Zombie Dragon heavy army originally, and it was a reason I got into FEC in the first place. I have sold off my FEC and even chunks of my Legions of Nagash, so this is kind of the time to re consolidate and reconsider... But...with what? Obviously there is a LOT more to check out here, but even if this is a retweak of LON that bumps up the overall power of warscrolls and such, that is not a BAD thing, not at all. Wholly Within and is perfectly fine, I've used it with big blocks in Cities of Sigmar and I have no real issues. The real question at this moment is how "fast" do I want this army. Not in the army speed, but how quickly I build it up. lol I will likely start with painting and setting up what I do have and then considering the current Start Collectings still on my local shop's shelves. What do people think of the current Start Collectings? None of them work 100% barring some 1/4 allying in of Nighthaunt or FEC. But we can get Zombie Dragon/Varghests in one, Coven Throne/Black Knights in another, and the best is the Mortarch, Skellies, and Black Knights for the third. Tempted by the third one, but uncertain of how much I care for Neferata (Mannfred will get none of my respect lol) and Arkhan might be a fun bit for a Necromancer or Wight King. But I have 10 sword and board skellies and 10 Cursed City skellies...so another 10 would be 30 and I am pretty sure that "odd" number will end up being worthless. RIP...

At the moment, not quite sure. I am SUPER curious about the new bloodlines and where they may take the idea of Vampires. As well as what kind of lists I want to run. One thing I want to flesh out and use more is the hordes. My first foray into Legions of Nagash actually had very FEW hordes. I have min squad skellies and several dire wolves. My Coven Throne, Blood Knights, and Zombie Dragon were the big, elite hitters. The new zombies (and idea of zombies as an almost beastial horde, sounds like a lot of fun. I have a bunch of old zombies at a friend's place, so it's a great start, even if those are really....bad and old. lol But will post more lore and stuff on the forum as I get closer. I want to catalog all my lore soon, maybe get back into a lore building project.

Whew, read through all the pages. Feels wild. I am stoked for this army but a lot of the final "what do I WANT from this army" will rely on the rules and army composition. I love the 1 in 4 that they did with Cities and would to see that here in some subfactions or what have you. The breaking the Grand Alliance barrier by including Cities of Sigmar as a 1 in 4 or something would make for some GREAT conversion options. It's funny, though. My first actual "purchased for AoS" and not a Fantasy carry over was Legions of Nagash. Bought Dragon Princes for Blood Knights and used Spiders from Spiderfang for my Dire Wolves. It was wild! It was also my first major step into Narrative gaming for real. My Vampire Queen was from the Realm of Beasts and was eager to take back her kingdom from Chaos. Lots of Dragon themes and bestial magic. Was so much fun. It also makes me happy that I can lean into this theme even more with the Vykros! I hope the Coven Throne is buffed and good. It is by far my favorite piece and almost had me starting Vampire Counts when it came out. So beautiful and would love to return to it and clean up the paintjob and maybe convert it some more! What kind of narrative ideas and themes have you all made for your vampires before? Or are you starting fresh after tasting the new lore when the book drops?

I find them to be almost completely different units. Their REAL differences are their defining feature: Deep Strike vs Overwatch. Handgunners make a good bunker and castle, even a screen against alpha strikes. Shadow Warriors sneak onto far away objectives and threaten squishy wizards. Personally, they are far too different to compete for the same slot.

Awesome table, some gorgeous pieces. But it you want to be competitive you need some Line of Sight Blocking stuff. As it is, shooting armies will reign hardcore. Big rock pillars, giant skulls with no see through parts, giant gelatonous cubes, etc. Could even do some sort of smoking thermal vent or something similar. Love the theme, though. Would love to see more!

Wow, that is an absolutely mad creation! The sculpting is fantastic and it is so weird to see something so BIZARRE come from a simple basis. Well done! Is this mostly just for conversions and fun or do you plan on running this as an army? I'd be super curious what it intends to counts as!

The new article touches on several ideas that I love. An order of necromages driven to compile and tend to mass graves to keep the deadwalker population so high is an interesting idea. Mirroring life gardens by having their own twisted sentience and unchecked growth is cool. More importantly, the idea that places of death could be haunted and empowered not just by those who died, but by Shyish itself is awesome. The possibilities are endless, even if GW does not directly capitalize on it! Imagine a haunted house not JUST infested with spirits, but the house itself comes to life, a shifting construct that slaughters the curious passerbys until it can animate itself completely and stomp around, a twisted giant golem filled with uncertain corridors and traps and trapped souls. Would be an amazing giant piece, maybe even inspiration for a Cursed City expansion or even just a wild mission and custom table! Fight your way out of the moving Death House!

The swarms of bats and rats were ok for a while, but with THIS guy in context, it reminds me of what got me into Warhammer Fantasy: Skaven and the fantastic pied piper story. Now I am imagining a vampire that specifically "allies" with Skaven for even more undead fodder and some more swarmy friends, drowning people in a horde of undead rats of many different sizes. Love it.

Overall, great preview! I admit to feeling a little let down, but that is MUCH more to me wanting a new fire in my heart over a new project. Soulblight WILL have my interest, but I may have to wait and deal with what I got in the meantime... But it ALL looks rad.

I LOVE the new "Necromancer", especially due to the mentioning of Experiments. I would love a more "sculpted horror/Frankenstein" element to a new unit of sorts. This is definitely a buy at this point, especially because I feel like I am at a better point to actually play a separate game like Warhammer Quest.

Oh my goodness, this is amazing! You aren't the only Horde/Warhammer project I have seen, but my goodness your work is gorgeous! The idea of doing Warcraft themed armies has been on my mind since Warhammer Fantasy and with several recent and amazing projects I feel like I gotta do SOMETHING.... Thank you for sharing and can't wait to see more!

@Beer & Pretzels Gamer Bonesplitters are a tough one as they are basically a more aggressive version of Fyreslayers. They don't have a single unit like Bloodthirsters that spike so hard (Rogue Idol being their exception, but you noticed that). BUT, they have a LOT of potential buffs. If they bring their suite of mages, they can stack, like, 4 different exploding 6s abilities. That can be a LOT of attack spikes... So if they stack those buffs, that is the unit worth popping the Vulkites for. If they spread the buffs around, there isn't much of a point. Props on the battle reports, it is cool to see how others are faring. Don't get many games myself, obviously, despite having a big and growing community around me. Gotta keep this part of the forum alive! lol

While this is the Cities of Sigmar thread and I always love Cities of Sigmar, for YOUR purposes I am gonna suggest an entirely different army for a dragon army. Flesh Eater Courts. Their dragons are bigger, scarier, and with Feeding Frenzy and their buffs, hit SOOO much harder. They feel like epic killing machines where Cities and even Stormcast dragons are so...pillowfisted and even squishy... You can even have an ALL dragon army, with battleline dragons. And while the Flesh Eater Courts use ZOMBIE dragons, there really isn't much super undeadness to them, so just having regular dragons as the models would be just fine. My 2 cents.

Glad to see this topic still going. Realized I kinda dropped off the whole forums for a few months there. Hope things are going well, love the paintjobs I see! (Makes me almost want Lumineth, then my rage against Teclis and dwarf pride comes barreling in. lol) Keep it up, friends! Look forward to seeing more progress!

Extra bits and such can be fun basing materials. Collect a pile of them and make a custom objective. Pile up a bunch of trinkets around a banner, plop it onto a 40mm base, and use it to mark the objectives under your control.

Well, I bit the bullet and set out to found my own lodge! Start Collecting has been purchased and looking at a slow but steady build. MIGHT try to convert Vulkites to Hearthguard, but honestly not too worried about it. Bit by bit the Lodge grows! Now to start fleshing out the lore and looking for an IRL Book of Grudges to record games.

Not sure how many people watch this space, but figure I'd ask anyways. Pondering some step into Fyreslayer territory. Was going to get the Start Collecting and convert the Vulkites into Hearthguard Berserkers. Then I checked the Vulkite sprue and saw that their arms were a part of their body, making it damn near impossible to make for 2 handed poses... Anyone got any experience with this? Would just bulking up one axe be good enough for a Hearthguard? Is there another way or do I just shrug and go Vulkites?

I second the idea of just using the old boys as Savage Orruks. Their loadouts will be the same (dual choppas are Morboys, shields can be regular Savages and bows as....bows.) They will need some 32s at some point. Unless your friend group doesn't mind but personally rounds look better and have less issues. You might even consider painting some blue war paint or stuff to make them more savage. Using the chariots as Gruntas is actually rather inspired and old Warbosses can even work as either Big Bosses or Warchanters.

Even if the lore did say something specific and there was an absolute reason they were always green...your models, do as you wish. ANYONE who complains about your color choices aren't people worth paying attention too. But even better, the Mortal Realms of Age of Sigmar are so WONDERFULLY open ended. Dozens of odd magics, countless weird landscapes and literal centuries to cultivate weird exposures and shifts. Greenskin orks/orcs/orruks are all iconic, but the point of AoS AND this hobby is to make your own icons!

Hmmm, prices is a major issue. I get it, and was expecting in the Imperial Knight range because of the army style, but how did they rocket THAT much. Conversion from pound to dollar puts it at $155ish. (From £120). If it's $195....why is there a $40 jump!? I don't pay attention to pound to dollar conversions, is this normal? I know the conversion rate isn't an exact measure of GW's price, but why off by this much? Either way, I am excited for the army. I technically have 3 giants, one from my Fantasy days and 2 other DnD minis. The official DnD giants are the right size against GW's Mancrusher. Makes the group VERY hodgepodge, but I can work with that. I have some ideas for how this goes, but definitely want to see how the book/faction feels.