Elmir

Called all of this a bit earlier before the leak... But that seemed to really upset some people who just want hype. Soulblight gravelords is pure bin-guy.... Yes the meme is based on truth.

Ok... you seem to be taking this rather personally. All I said was that people get really riled up by the hype of these Warhammer community articles and HOPE the rules are more than they actually say they are. And hope yet remains it seems that AoS3 will change this rule and change the basic wording of what constitutes a basic move. Should you want to actually dig into win percentages of books, Vince Ventrulla did a great show about balance, player skill and how it all ties together with the powerlevel of books. It really digs in deeper into this "good book vs bad book" and how a few noticeably high skilled players actually make the win/loss rates seem more favourable than they are. Or... you know... you can not get that an obvious meme... is a meme. But still try to keep this in the back of your head: a meme doesn't catch on unless a large portion of the population (AoS players in this case obviously) recognizes a (sometimes) harsh kernel of truth in it.

That's true, buffing them with fly would allow them to run down heroes. But that being said, I'm happy some people at least know AoS 3 would need some rules rewriting before the new Blood knight ability works the way the HOPE it does.

Feel free to cling onto that hope. It's an ember of it at least. I'm just hoping (like @Sception actually dare say out loud in these hype days) a 40% winrate army isn't actually nerfed compared to what it used to be. Because if you think a reliable 1CP faction defining ability can just be replaced with a dice roll for half the maximum result, you really are just clinging on to hope. The HWG didn't just meme this into existence out of thin air, some books really are getting neutered with their next iteration... These types of things only stick if tons of people actually go: "you know what, there's a solid core of truth in that".

Blood knight aren't allowed to run and charge though, just because they circumvent the rules for not being allowed to move across models during a normal move... Any normal move starting within 3" of an enemy is considered a retreat: People are just intuitively assuming normal move means anything different than a move made in the movement phase... And that's quite clear on page 4 of the rulebook. Additionally, a normal move cannot end within 3" of an enemy, so riding across a unit will be difficult at best, and you cannot move across any models is 3+ wounds, so no... you can't ride down characters hiding in the back. For some reason, the hype-bug has gotten into people's head so badly that they are misreading even the most basic rules spelled out loud and clear in the BRB... And I don't consider that a success at all. It was already a fairly weak army... and it seems to be getting even weaker despite the warhammer community team doing it's best to hype it up. I already have a death army that only looks pretty on a shelf with my nighthaunt... Adding some more models next to that isn't exactly what I had hoped for.

I'm really hoping you are right, because removing the most solid ability an army had in the past without any real compensation, is never a positive thing. It leaves armies with a mono-build that TRIES to not get obliterated by "real armies" in the very near future. Sylvaneth and their wild woods anybody?

Seeing how this is a speculation thread: 1) Vampire lords will be based around the single real model for a non-named vampire they made in plastic: the vampire lord will most likely be nerfed significantly, but I wouldn't trust GW to adjust the points cost accordingly. 2) I'm reading a lot of rules previews that are not that different from what they used to be, or new sub-factions that are sidegrades from the old subfactions. 3) I'm reading rules of the strongest/most reliable LoN abiltity being replaced by random dice rolls for half the effect it used to be. And the brutal assessment is: we drew bin guy to re-write the LoN book. sorry if this bursts the excitement you might have for this new book... But I'm really not that optimistic that the issues facing the old LoN are in any way addressed with these small rules previews. I'm hoping to be proved wrong however.

Those are going to have their own unique warscroll cards...

Tbh, the thing I'm mostly worried about, is the humble vampire lord. With there not being any plastic mounted lords and the new plastic miniature not having any wings, I just wonder how they changed the warscroll card for him. Losing winged nightmare or a steed without a points adjustment would make vampire lords even more of a "meh" choice than they already are.

normal move just means it's made in the movement phase... It's specifically mentioned in the core rules. A normal move initiated within 3" of the enemy is a retreat... This rule just allows them to retreat through enemy models and do damage to them while doing so.

I finished these for Warhammer Underwolds, but there's a good chance I'll get some extra ones to slap on a 40mm base and use as normal vampire lords for my army (as it does seem they made the switch). Easiest way to get a regular Vyrkos/avengorii themed vampire in there I reckon. They luckily also did not do any weird stuff like sculpting parts of the feet onto the bases.

Not so Crimson Crimson court!

I'm actually happy that, as a long time LoN player, I feel like I can take my time with all those characters without the need to paint a lot of troops. New sculpts are cool and all that, but there's no rush to paint a new block of 40 skellies when I already have 80 painted ones... The new dire wolves look great, but I don't have to rush them to tabletop ready because I can just use the older version meawhile So I'm definitely dropping some cash on those characters first.

Yeah, those are fairly far away compared to the models in the front. How can I tell? The camera focus doesn't have that deep a depth of field. If you want to push this further, compare the basesize of Lauka Val to the terrorgheist in the back on a 130mm round base. There is NO WAY the 130mm all the way in the back can be anything near the "supposedly 100mm base" in the front. This is all photography manipulation, I don't think this model is going to be as big as people think it is. All tricks in the book are applied to make it seem larger than it really is. This model is going to leave me with a "Volturnos/Ossiarch bonereapers" effect. The previews all made those look larger than they really were.

I've been looking at the new mother of nightmare model, but I think she's not quite as big as some seem to think. That looks like a 60mm base at most. They cleverly hid the base and put it up higher, but when you compare her base with the 40mm base and 25mm bases in front of her, there's no way that's she's on a 100mm base. Just a small thing I noticed... This isn't going to be a mortarch sized character, let alone a Nagash sized one.

Yes, that's why I mentioned they finally got split up like they probably intended. The army makes more sense now than it did before and I'm happy to see LoN waved goodbye in this way. I hope something similar can happen for StD, Skaven, CoS and orruk Warclans...

It was never a soup army... It was 1 army from WHFB: Vampire lords. It's now been finally been split up the way they probably envisioned it from the start. It's probably the GA that made the full transition from WHFB to AoS (except maybe chaos if they sort out Skaven and BoC a bit more). Also, owning a lot of both old skellies and the newer versions, the old skeletons hold out just fine... It were mostly the bats, wolves and zombies that needed an update. But many of the old plastic kits hold up just fine today: mortis engine, corpse cart, Vargheist etc still hold up quite well imo. I think the only thing they missed, were bat swarms... Those might be completely removed in the new book however.

I'd say we were shown 2 death centaurs today... Just with batwings attached for extra madness.

We have yet to see what vampiric blood lines do. There was one that made all vampire fly, right? I'm betting Flying circus will be a valid option.

With 12 new kits in this release, I'm actually quite happy. Some people are saying not enough generic kits.... but: - Blood knights - Skeletons - Zombies - Dire Wolves - Dire Bats - Wight King on horse - Vengorian Lord I suppose the only old kits that are being kept are probably: - Black knights - Grave Guard - VLoZD - Vampire Coven/Mortis engine (I hope that's still an option, love those) - Corpse cart - Necromancer - Wight king on foot. - Bat swarms (shudder) And all the old NH and OBR stuff will get cut out and LoN book will be scrapped. Overall, I'm quite happy with where Grand alliance death went. All in all, this feels like the first GA that was "properly converted" to AoS without too many lingering WHFB holdovers.

It's good that they are redoing skeletons of course. But... If I had to pick some units I would have redesigned from the ground up, the old skeletons would not have made the shortlist... I'm not even planning on getting (a lot) of the new ones when I have 80 of the old ones and to be honest... they hold up fine. I feel the same about black knights and grave guard tbh.

Working on Cursed city right now: The Ulfenwatch are done:

More backlog clearing before the big new battletome hits!

Technically Death models... Just for blood bowl! I did want to share these in this thread however. It's a new experiment with contrast paints over "en Grisaille" greyscale undertones. It was LIGHTNING fast compared to my normal style of painting (which some already consider quite fast)... I think I'm going to use these techniques for the Ulfenkarn box (if I can get my hands on it). I will post a step by step on how to speedpaint like this using contrast paints, rattlecan primers, nuln oil and a good drybrush.

And the latest additions! These are also 3D prints from Fleshcraft studios. I will be using these as Chainghasts to accompany my spirit torment into battle!