TheArborealWalrus

So I just went to a 1 day event and got 2nd place. Thought I'd provide some "brief" battle reports. My list: 1990pts Kastelai. 2 drops. 143 wounds. Yes, this is a direct copy paste of Baylor Corvette's list. I feel dirty for not having come up with my own. It just seemed to have all the components I wanted. No fell bats though, but I get the feeling that they are a pipe dream. *sigh* I really wish there was more incentive to take the normal zombie dragon over Vordrai, but 20pts for better in every way is hard to argue against. Pretty much the same with Belldona. If there was a cavalry leader (that actually buffed blood knights), I'd take that. Otherwise I don't have any complaints with this list. Not sure if it will pass the Behemat test, but it's got legs, that's for sure. Game 1: Vs Dispossessed (Cities of Sigmar) His (approximate) list: 7 drops. Battle: This one was over (as in my opponent couldn't win) very quickly. It was the one where you have to control the objectives for 2 subsequent turns. I set up terrain to create sight lanes for us to fight over and had him go first with the zombies and grave guard in reserve. I elected to go second and my opponent decided to play defensively. Barely moving forward, he also kept the shadow warriors in reserve. I moved my dogs up to screen and ran my heroes out of range of the iron drakes, (because of doggo screening) and scored my tactic. I kept the blood knights defensive on my right and played the waiting game. Turn 2: My opponent won the roll off and strangely decided for me to go first. Confused, but fine with this, I went. I used lycan curse to tie down the drakes and charged in. I killed 15 of them and wiped out the 10 man hammerers for the battle tactic. The dogs formed a screen from his cavalry on the right and the blood knights remined on the edge of my right objective. He chose to take my right objective and moved his cavalry to do so. I'm not sure his plan as both his charges were 11-12 inches. His ironbreakers held on his right objective while the big hammerers unit tried to expel me from the left. I lost 6 doggos and took a wound on prince V for 10 hammerers. He took it back but wouldn't be able to hold onto it for long. Both cavalry units failed their charges, losing his battle tactic. The third turn saw him win initiative where he took the double and my right objective. He lost the left for it though. I mopped up his infantry on the left as we ran out of time. The score was 18 to 5. I feel a little bad, but I picked up his spirits a bit by complimenting his Dawi's paint job. A strange game. Good to see the traditional Dawi out and about though. Game 2: Vs Kruleboyz, big yellers His approximate list: 4 drops We were playing the new battle for the pass. I chose to be defender and set up the board to create sight lanes. We had craters as terrain so we agreed that they would count as forests (otherwise we had 4 rock pillars and a house for terrain). This was actually one of my teammates, so it was Ironic that I came out to fight new players and got matched with one of my practice buddies. 😛 My opponent set up his troops oddly, with most of their shots being blocked. I later found out that immediately after agreeing to the craters as forests he forgot that detail. I put a doggo on each flank with prince V hiding behind a pillar on my right. I put my general and a blood knight unit on my left and kept belladona in the middle. Everything else was in reserve. My opponent had a troll, 10 hobgrots, and 3 man bolt boy team on each flank with a killbow on the left and a shaman on the right. The center (trapped behind a "forest") had the rest of his forces. Turn 1: I chose to go 2nd. My opponent moved his units, but still about half his forces weren't able to get shots on my units. (I learned in my next game that the vengorian lord flies. Which would've let him riddle her with bolts. Whoops.) He did 2 wounds to the vengorian lord and killed a few hounds. The killbowz suffered heavily from "I have 1 shot" syndrome this whole game. He got his take 2 objectives not in your territory tactic. I moved up and had my hounds charge the first hobgrot screens sitting on the center objectives, with the veng joining the left. No reserves were deployed. I got my tactic of taking a objective from the enemy too. Turn2: My opponent won the roll off and went first. He chose to kill my hounds on the right as his tactic. I popped finest hour on my general. The trolls lumbered forwards and the boltboyz loosed what shots they could, targeting both heroes on the left as well as the hounds. Bella took a wound and lost a hound. When the trolls charged in it hurt. The troll hit my general first. The wolves were annihilated and my vengorian took 4 wounds. 4 wounds were done back to each troll. My turn I picked monstrous take over on the left objective and cast lycan curse on the hobgrots by the big boltboy unit. Killed 3 and tied down all the central shooters. Dropped the blood knights on the left to go after the killbow and moved the other blood knights to support. The remaining dire wolf unit charged the center and prince V charged everything on the right, taking 2 wounds from unleash hell. Unfortunately neither blood knight unit made a charge. I went with the vengorian first in the hope of killing the troll. Did 3 wounds. Uh oh. The right troll did 10 wounds to V and the general got left with 1 wound, rescued only by making 2 deathless saves. The boltboyz and troll were killed by V as well as the center hobgrots. The wolves did not respawn. Turn 3: I won the roll off and my opponent destroyed the right objective. I picked having 2 units in his territory as my tactic. I retreated the general and put the grave guard on the left with the zombies on the right. Prive V healed 7 wounds and then killed the right flank. The blood knights moved to shield the boss and the wolves continued interference. A few boltboyz were dragged down and Bella wiped out the 3 man unit in center. The grave guard made it to the troll and murdered it. The blood knights failed to kill both shooters they made it to, but with V, served as my battle tactic. My opponent killed the blood knight shield on the left but his army was on fumes as the time ran out. Score: 23 to 16 Game 3: Vs Soulblight, Vrykos My opponent's approximate list: We ruled it that we both got to set up gravesites that counted for both of us, so everywhere was covered in them. Same old shtick of creating sightlanes, even though neither of us had shooting. It was the mission that let you burn your opponent's objectives. We ironically mirrored each other's deployment Monsters/heroes in the center with support on the sides. I did my usual thing and had doggos on each flank and a blood knight on the left with the other in reserve. He had both wolves on the left with the zombie buffing crew on the right. Turn 1: Either one of us could reach the other but I didn't want to force such a fight, so I took first turn. I chose the run 3 monsters one and cast the spell to make Bella count. Shuffled them around and dropped my zombies in front of them to screen. Didn't make any aggressive moves yet. My opponent went full tilt into my zombies and wolves on the left. (got his battle tactic of killing a battleline) Both were completely killed, leaving me terrifyingly exposed. (Radakar's fresh pack sat back babysitting the center objective.) Turn 2: Whoever won this was going to put the other on the back foot for the rest of the game. So my opponent took the dreaded double turn and selected "slay the warlord." Have to admire his moxy. I popped finest hour on her and my opponent charged my hero blob and my blood knights. Bella got killed in exchange for Radakar and my general ... took 1 wound. She had a 1+ reducing rend and wound rolls. She took it like a champ. The blood knights killed 4 wolves for 1 wound that they healed. Unfortunately my opponent burned my center objective. The zombies respawned at this point on my right. My turn I picked having 2 units in enemy territory and dropped my grave guard on the right and the second blood knights behind the center. My heroes fled to the to his lines and we entered the charge phase. Both my units made it in and killed the corpse cart for 6 graveguard. Both wolf units were killed, leaving his last one on the left. This was the first time my blood knights had ever done anything but die. It was exciting. Turn3: My opponent won the roll off and took first turn. I destroyed his right hand objective that was still crawling with zombies. He chose to have 2 units in my territory. A blood knight was turned into a wolf and my opponent stole my right objective and burned it, as well as managing to finally kill my general. My turn I chose monstrous take over on his left objective. V retreated onto it and the central blood knights moved in to surround them. We had like 5 minutes for my turn so everything else was ignored. The knights made it in and killed 6 hounds for no casualties, giving me another full point score for the round. I finished by burning one of his objectives. Score: 20 to 17 Conclusions: 1 - Placing grave sites behind my opponent's lines proved very useful throughout all my games. Both the dwarves and Kruleboyz were forced into more defensive posturing by the possibility of 20 grave guard or zombies showing up. This let me pen them in and take their army apart piece meal. 2 - One+ saves are still busted. Only happened once, but it's still ridiculous. 3 - Bella is way too good. She's such a good caster. Lycan curse saved my bacon in both shooting games. We need better alternatives to her. Not going to happen, but still... 4 - Kastelai level up system didn't matter at all in my games, but the ability to outflank blood knights was very good. Them being battle line also puts less pressure there. 5 - lol Didn't use rousing commander once. It felt more like a just in case thing. ... Probably would have helped vs that troll. Using it to make yourself more dangerous in their turn is also a great idea. I hope you all found this helpful, and are having a lovely week. Cheers!!

Another off the wall question for the hive mind. I was looking at trying my hand at a vengorian lord, but I'm having difficulty theming it with my vampire coast army. My only idea is a mer wyrm ridden by a lord, but I am willing to consider alternatives. (especially since I haven't found any appropriate conversion models) So yeah. TLDR: Vampire coast vengorian ideas? Models to start the conversions with would be extra bonus internet cool points from me. Thanks, hope you have a good week.

Soon… 😈 And by that I mean probably a month out. So much sculpting 🥲 Cheers 🍻

Whoops. The list is kastelai because of the dragon lord focus. I have the brick of the keep (-1 to wound rolls within 6") on the VLoZD. That's kind of where my game plan keeps getting stuck. 3 games against this list and haven't gotten it once. Alas, that's always been the plan. I just can't roll higher than a 7 for spells. Without the re-roll hits spell or PoH, the archers aren't too bad. The idea behind the wight king is that he's fast enough to run with the goon squad providing the re-roll charges and be ignored by my opponent. It's also a couple of mortal wounds against the inevitable 1+ save monsters, as well as making my grand strategy (batttleline alive) easier. I can try making the VLoZD general, but I feel that just puts a target on his/her back. The vampire spells besides pinions kind of all suck so I just went with the one I remembered at list creation. It has never been used once, so easy swap out. I like the bats, but I could try and use 40 grave guard. Unsupported grave guard have just repeatedly let me down in the past though. I'm a fair man, I'll give it a try. I suppose I should have spelled out my opponent's game plan. They all blob up and take first turn, daring you to charge in. Teclis in the back, spears on the sides, and with Gotrek in the front. Meanwhile he picks one objective grabber to snipe out per turn until there's an opening. (Whether it's from a suicidal charge or the gap in control that the archers have created) He then teleports (or the double movement spells) the spears onto objectives or to gum up the works. Wherever he expects trouble gives mystic shield, letting him easily get +3 to their save with a 5++. Teclis is no slouch in combat either. He's butchered a unit of 20 grave guard by himself before. The only times I've had success was when I wiped out the spears. Then I pulled ahead for a few turns and then get wiped out by shooting and Teclis zooming in. When I charged the archers (obviously bats eat overwatch) he'll pop +2 their saves and I'll kill 6-16 of them. (hate -1s to hit)Then Gotrek and Teclis move in and spell/shooting/melee them to death. When I went for teclis he pops +3 to save and I'll d0 around 8 damage to him. Then both dragons die again. Thank you all for your ideas. It's possible that I'll just have to accept that If I run into my friend's list I'll most likely lose. (Probably won't since the lumineth community thinks his list is bad. He's earned this though, we used to crush his Lumineth all the time, then came the dark Gotrek days) I'm not overly afraid of the other lumineth meta list. The fox horde while spooky can be countered with the tactics you all have suggested. They'll help out others if nothing else. Perhaps I should do a batrep from fighting them. Anyways, have a good week. Cheers.

I've got my own ideas, but I'd like to get the community's opinion on how to fight a list that's been giving my group a lot of trouble. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of models so changing the list is less of an option for me. What I'm fighting: What I've been using: The major problem is that Teclis dominates the magic phase, The archers and teleportation prevent me from just hanging back on objectives, and Gotrek + Teclis + unleash hell, kill anything that gets close. I've had some success by killing the spears and playing keep away, but he just teleports, shoots, and finishes whatever off with Teclis. The closest I've gotten it is a single priority roll determining winner. (Which he has won each time thus far. :P) It's just such an uphill fight. Any ideas for tactics? List changes with what I have? I freely acknowledge that this is more of a gatekeeper list than an unstoppable meta build. I just have a limited set of models to work with and wanted to pick up some tactical ideas. I'm trying to practice for a GT in November. Thanks for any brainstorming. I hope you have a good week. Cheers

The vampire fleet captain on rotting leviathan. Looking good. … I really need to start painting. Hope you’re having a great weekend. Cheers

The vampire fleet captain on rotting leviathan. She represents a vampire lord on zombie dragon. She has her throne to lounge in during long rides and to intimidate petitioners. (She’s a younger vampire. Not as sure of her power. Leans more into the dramatic.) Likewise, the heads of defeated foes gives a certain impression. Her body was leftover from the dominion set. I built the back of her with leftover green stuff from the zombie project. The cloak is a mold from a Corsair cloak. Her right arm is from an old high elf sky cutter crew and the other is a repositioned free company arm. Hat is a great sword on top of another dominion leftover. The banner is bretonian. Otherwise mostly followed the rotting leviathan guide I posted elsewhere. Fun project. I’d like to make another, even though I traded a friend for a leviadon that the count (prince V) rides on. That one is still in the planning stages though. … I should probably start painting… Hope you’re having a good one. Cheers👍

The vampire fleet captain on rotting leviathan. Took a little extra time as I wanted to wait for her to dry before photographing. She represents a vampire lord on zombie dragon. She has her throne to longe in during long rides and to intimidate petitioners. (She’s a younger vampire. Not as sure of her power. Leans more into the dramatic.) Likewise, the heads of defeated foes gives a certain impression. Her body was leftover from the dominion set. I built the back of her with leftover green stuff from the zombie project. The cloak is a mold from a Corsair cloak. Her right arm is from an old high elf sky cutter crew and the other is a repositioned free company arm. Hat is a great sword on top of another dominion leftover. The banner is bretonian. Otherwise mostly followed the rotting leviathan guide I posted earlier. Fun project. I’d like to make another, even though I traded a friend for a leviadon that the count (prince V) rides on. That one is still in the planning stages though. … I should probably start painting… Hope you’re having a good one. Cheers👍

10 more deckhands. Why goblins? Because I had 9 from the rotting leviathan. I figure that goblin pirates and chaos raiders would be a rather constant threat. So here they are. Plus you never get to see other species of undead. Finished the rotting leviathan, now I’m working on the vampire riding the crab. Haven’t decided on a head yet. Still can’t find any official blood knights in the US for the depth guard. 🥲 Hope you like them. Should get the crab on here in a day or so. Have a great week.

Weird question, has anyone tried out a mega gargant merc with soulblight? I was working on my necrofex (gargant), and I was wondering what people thought of it. Is it oppressive? Like, only take it to tournament stuff? Straight bad? Is it better to go chaff heavy with it? Lots of fast stuff? Just make a monster goon squad? I don't know if people talked about it before, but what do people think of our giant merc?

It'll be nice when you can get them without having to scrounge around. I think the blood knights are just fun to use. Solid, but not oppressively powerful. Then again, I'm a fan of old Bretonia and all cav forces. So I might be biased. (I request that if a source is discovered for the US, that the rest of us plebians be told) Cheers.

With the story in mind, I'm not sure which of the dynasties Count Thorne came from. Obviously he's been walking his own path since the age of chaos, but it's good to remember your roots. (I also want to pick a dynasty to default to with the army. 😛) He's calculating, which could be Blood or Night. His honor rather denies Night though. His core of depth guard rather sounds like a rogue Kastelaii. Avengorii is right out with it's propensity for madness, although Thorne has quite a menagerie of undead beasts. Nothing really says Vyrkos to me about him, so probably not that. I'm just not sure. Since he's rather a rogue element he really could be any of them. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. Hope everyone is having a good night. Cheers I have decided to canonically go with the Kastelaii as his original house. This only slightly because Luhor Harkon was a blood dragon (the old world Kastelaii). I also had the idea of using an undead idoneth leviadon as Thorne's mount. The cost of the project just went up.

Your local game store is probably the best bet. Otherwise you'll have to pay scalper prices online or wait for GW to produce more. (to the best of my knowledge/searching) You'd have to ask someone else if you'd like to get an idea of how long that would take. Otherwise use 3rd party models or other GW heavy cavalry models while you wait. Not a great answer, but that's how it is.

Zombie Pirates. First 20 of them. That is all. Hope you all are having a great week. Cheers.

I’ve started a vampire coast army, inspired by the total war videogame. These are my first deckhands zombies. I’m working on some grave guard (not depth guard, those will be blood knights), a rotting leviathan (vampire on zombie dragon), and a necrofex colossus(mega gargant). I’ll post the models when they are fully built. Hope you enjoy, cheers!

Having not seen any Avengorii lists around, I made 2 as a sort of thought experiment. I don't think they'll win a GT, but it should be a pretty good time in the monster edition. Failing that, at least it'll be a short game. Unfortunately I'll need to make 2 more zombie dragons to use it. 😛 {Fair warning, This all comes without playing a game with the army yet} I'll try out all the bloodlines eventually. I love that there are so many ways to run this army. List 1, The Goon Squad: 1965pts, 3 drops - regiment The idea is to have a hyper lethal goon squad of dragon lords face rolling over threats. Possibly switch one out for Vordrai *shrug*. Their job is to punch through and goon the Archaon types or spread the pain out. Depends on what you're fighting. (I've seen VLoZD whiff damage hard before so I suspect that will actually be a problem) The zombies job is to sit either in the way or on objectives. They're mostly just bodies. The necromancer(s) are there to make the prized sorcery strategy easier. Add a few spells in and summon zombies back out. They let me take the warlord battalion if I want to as well. Unfortunately none of the available enhancements intrigue me for Avengorii. List 2, The Monster Mash: 2,000pts, Alpha beast pack (the free beginning move one) Not a lot of strategy here. Slap as many monsters on them as fast as possible. Probably bounce off. A lot of durable stuff out there. A lot of -1 to hits running around too. Makes me want to look at legion of blood again. I believe it says that the battleline trait replaces behemoth when you swap their role, so I think that lets you exceed the normal 4 limit? If not then replace a terrorghiest with more skeletons to babysit objectives I think the first list is better, but who knows. I'll try them both at some point. Hope you enjoyed my little thought experiment. Cheers

I was looking at the bloodlines and no one seems to talk about the avengorii bloodline. The ability to reduce wound rolls by 1 from anything that is not a monster seems pretty powerful with a a VLoZD focused list. Am I missing something? Is it that they don't buff your troops at all(and have not great artifacts)? Just curious. Cheers

More Fluff Pt 2: Count Thorne returned to Zharkan in a cold fury. Every soul felt it, even the living could feel the gathering death magic. It was months, but a fleet like none before it was raised in Zharkan. Their target was the defeated enclave of the civil war. Their "ally" had been putting a lot of resources into rebuilding them and would be sorely hurt by it's loss. It was time for the aelves to bleed. The idoneth had been expecting an attack, but hadn't expected it on aelves that had not participated in the attack. They had misunderstood their enemy and were about to pay a bloody price for it. The enclave found the army too late to properly prepare and found their recovering defenses smashed apart by rotting leviathans and the eels and sharks met by the depth guard on their new undead mounts. It was bloody, but the aelves never really stood a chance. The dead merely rose again and the unprepared defenders were swept aside by the waves of unlife. The enclave was equal parts furious and terrified. This was far beyond the response they had expected from one of Nagash's minions. As skirmishes erupted along the edges of their city the idoneth made a decision. They had relocated once, they would do it again. They fled through the waterways to another realm swearing vengeance. When the dread fleet found the now abandoned city, they destroyed it, shattering the buildings and cursing the ground. For a time the seas settled into a relative peace. More chaos ships plied the waves every year, but Zharkan enjoyed decades of safety. So much so that some began to question the necessity of the dread fleet. That's when the age of Sigmar began. Zharkan didn't feel the entrance of the stormcast eternals so much as they felt the return of the idoneth deepkin. While chaos battled the resurgent scions of Sigmar, the dread fleet saw endless skirmishes with the sea borne aelves. These minor conflicts culminated in the battle of red sand. The idoneth launched one grand raid to wipe Zharkan from the map once and for all. The dread fleet had not been idle, but it is hard to prepare to fight foes that fly. It was a costly battle. Almost a hundred vampires slain along with over a thousand citizens, including Thorne's first mate. The idoneth paid a steeper price still. Their warriors unafflicted with the curse that plagues their nations were killed almost to the last and the king fell along with them. With the death of their king the attackers broke and fled with what soul stuff they had. Over the next few months the enclave retreated to wherever they had taken root and Zharkan mourned their dead. Many of the vampires were unable to be raised back to unlife as their souls had been taken by the aelves. Among these was Thorne's first mate. Unwilling to leave him, Thorne turned his body into a wight so that he might still serve beside his old friend. Zharkan was not greatly involved in the events of the soul wars and between the mortals and the dead, the roving spells proved little threat to the city. The idoneh still plagued the shipping lanes, picking on lone vessels and scurrying away before retribution but the dread fleet couldn't find their hiding place. Even when the necroquake unleashed howling masses of spirits Thorne bound these entities to his service. They also had given him an idea. In a move few expected, Thorne reached out to the idoneth and offered the wayward souls for a price. The vampires lost and peace for these wayward spirits and any more that roamed into their waters. Somewhat reluctantly the aelves put away their pride and accepted the deal. A new tentative peace settled upon the sea and with the rise of new cities across the realms, things were starting to look up for Zharkan.

Now for the fluff Pt1: Count Damien Thorne is an old vampire. Some whisper that he was of the first to take the curse after the mortarchs. Others say he once opposed Nagash's dominion of Shyish and was afflicted with the curse as punishment. Forever fated to serve his enemy. His detractors claim it is all an act to give his cold rule a dignity it doesn't deserve. The only ones who know for sure are the count and his original crew, and they aren't talking. All that is known for sure is that Count Thorne has ruled over and protected the island of Zharkan since the age of chaos. As Sigmar fled back to Azyr and Nagash to Shyish, Count Thorne arrived at Zharkan's docks with 3 ships full of refugees and his undead crew. Startled and frightened, the town almost threw them to the deep. It was only the impassioned pleas of the living that stayed their hand. (It certainly had nothing to do with a few dozen vampires in plate armor glowering at them) The town was devastated to hear of the alliance's defeat at the Allpoints. Worse still they heard of Nagash's betrayal, yet here was one of his minions saving their countrymen. The town demanded to know his intentions, and this was the Count's reply: "When my master broke his oath, mine to him was broken too. I come here now to save what little I can from these uncaring 'gods'." At first an uneasy alliance was established and the costal town came under Count Thorne's protection. In exchange the dead would join his crew along with a tithe from their profits. Over the years the living came to rely on the protection of the dead and a new sort of life settled on the coast. The count titled his ships the "dread fleet" and set about keeping the waterways clear of pirates and chaos raiders. As the chaos invasion lingered, Thorne's mastery of the sea grew. Not needing air, he and his crew plumed the depths and found new beasts to "tame" and the Idoneth deepkin. At first the relationship was cautious but an accord was struck. The idoneth were locked in a civil war across the realms and in exchange for the Count's aide, they would teach him the ways of the deep. For a time the deal was profitable for all as the enclave's enemy was ground into submission and Thorne learned not only of deep magic, but of the idoneth's manipulation of the soul. This changed when Thorne returned to Zharkan to find it raided by the aelves. Only his depth guards had prevented a total slaughter. Thorne was furious and demanded an answer from the treacherous aelves. This was their response: "Our deal was to teach you of the deep so log as you slew our enemies. We did not agree to protect any humans. No deal has been broken." The Idoneth were no fools however and saw the Count's rage and decided to wipe his memory of their enclave from his mind. They however forgot one thing about the soulblight curse. The connection between sire and offspring. Once the second betrayal began all of his depth guard and wights knew that something had gone wrong. Under the command of these lesser vampires and undead, the vampire coast made ready for the war they knew was coming. Pt 1 - TLDR: The count is an honorable dude who broke ties with Nagash and adopted an island city. They made a deal with the Idoneth until the sea aelves decided to break it and steal people. Now it's war.

Extra units I might want on to use eventually: Mortis engine/coven throne: The gloomtide shipwreck is rather massive so I was thinking of using the kharadron overlords gunhauler or maybe the frigate. Put spirit hosts/hexwraiths under it or just use the ghosts from the kit. Put an interchangeable hero on top to switch between types. Prince Vordrai: Serving as Thorne's counts as in game, I wanted to have something more ... powerful looking. So in swoops the Ahkelian leviadon. I got inspired by some guy's 9th age zombie monster made out of the same model. The idea I'm having is that this is where Thorne directs the battle from. So I want to have some of his entourage up there with him. So I'll need a howdah and more piratical, less idoneth looking crew. Deck guns to serve as the "breath attack" I think. I'll need to get a suitable Thorne model. Armor and a great coat I think. Vampire(s): I'm leaning towards having (not)Noctilus as removable, but I want a more generic option too. So a senior depth guard will be the full fledged vampire. Maybe make him/her a captain in their own right. Either pick up the separate lord model or get the shade spire warband. Leaning towards the shade spire band personally. Sea dogs: Literally just the dire wolves box. Add bits of seaweed and barnacles (as seen from the rotting leviathan build) onto them. Not sure Prometheans: I've been thinking about using the smaller spiders I have to make the Prometheans in the same way as the leviathans. We'll see. I want to create their mama first. Maybe use the Prometheans as black knights. Grave guard: I got lost my train of thought and went for the blood knights equivalent above. Whoops. For the grave guard my plan is to use black ark corsairs bodies and I will try to scrounge together appropriate great weapons. Leaning towards namarti weapons, or at least emulating them. Call the unit the red guard, although I haven't settled on a color scheme. Thinking of green stuffing helmets like the nighthaunt horse hero from the starter set. Might find mine and make a mold. Probably will need 40 for possible lists. Hulks: Use the ogor gluttons kit like they did back in fantasy. Zombie it up and done. Count as the night guard perhaps? Maybe make them fly so they can be vargheists? Although Vargheists are vampires. We'll see. Necrofex Colossus: Use the gloomtide shipwreck and maybe the skaven war machines used in the YouTube tutorial. Count it as the mercenary mega gargant. More Depth Guard: An extra unit or two of depth guard. (Thinking 15 in total) The idea would be to have the option to run the army as Idoneth if I wanted to. Same reason I plan on giving guns to the zombies, except for cities of Sigmar. Wight king on steed: Use an Ahkelian king and zombify it, and convert the rider to better fit the aesthetics of the counts. Mournghouls: I know that these already have a warscroll, but there is the smaller version as well. I plan to use Vargheist rules for these diminutive terrors. Glutton bodies with crypt horror arms? Just use the upper half of a crypt horror? Use the legs to make crypt flayers after. Obviously extensive greenstuff work. The rest of the soul blight roster doesn't have good equivalents in the coast, but I'll update this if I think of any more.

So I was trolling around YouTube when I stumbled across a video detailing the construction of a rotting leviathan from total war warhammer 2. I don't have that dlc but I was struck by inspiration! Unfortunately I'm in the middle of working on my stormcast eternals army and I don't like to leave things half finished. 3/4 finished maybe, but not half. So while I continue painting and basing the stormcast I'll keep this as a little project log. I wanted to have a sort of road map so I asked the soulblight forum for some list ideas. The current list will need 2 rotting leviathans, 1 with count (not)Noctilus on it, 40 deck crew zombies, 20 grave guard (I still am not sure of an analogue I want to use for them), 6 deck droppers, a wight king, a necromancer, and 5 mounted depth guard. The problem with the grave guard is that the total war equivalent are the depth guard, but they're vampires, not skeletons. The only lesser vampires are blood knights and depth guard are not mounted (why would you be on a ship?) The idoneth fortunately came to my rescue with an answer. The dread fleet uses the aethersea. So they ride large armored sharks/crabs or something into cites/villages. Perhaps even in boarding actions against other ships. For this reason, as well as the dangers of having someone who could actually threaten their cities, this dread fleet's arch enemy are the idoneth. Many an undersea bloodbath do I see occurring between the two. I'll get more into it when I get around to the lore posts. I'll be using the actual blood knight models instead of ishealan guard for the conversion as I don't fancy sculpting that much armor onto the fish/elves. So I'll have to wait for them to come back into stock. 😛 The rotting leviathans will follow the video that started it all as araknarok spiders with parts from the gloomtide shipwreck (plus some other odds and ends). Count (not)Noctilus I'm thinking will start life as the free stormcast that GW stores are handing out right now. Failing that (our store is currently without a manager), I'll probably troll around bits bins for a suitably tall and armored individual. Not sure if I'll put a lesser vampire onto the second leviathan. Well see what strikes my fancy. The new fell bats, while pretty, only offer 2 that could reasonably be carrying deck hands. I'm trying to keep as much of the stuff GW as I can for the sake of vanity (I like the idea of one day being featured on warhammer community. Silly, I know). I don't want to get 3 boxes of them, so I might have to look elsewhere or get creative. The deck hands will be pretty easy unless I want to get fancy, which of course, I do. Most of the fights are going to be against the idoneth and black arc corsairs (along with standard humans). That means a fair number of the crew are going to be from these individuals. That means, a box of zombies + corsairs + nemarti (maybe some frostgrave crew, though those can be a touch hard to find). I could also use those lovely cloaks for the grave guard. Maybe armed with nemarti great weapons? We'll see. I plan to make my way down from the top. Start with the heroes who will be influencing their minion's design. Not sure on the wight king. I'm currently thinking a vampire that lost their unlife that the count didn't wish to be parted from. Or an old first mate who refused to take the curse with his captain and served as a mortal until his passing. The old gunnery wight from the game can't have a 3+ save with just his shirt, so I'll work with something else. I'm playing around with the aristocracy side of things in my head currently. (also looking at medieval ship combat) I'm drawing a blank on who/what the necromancer should be on the ship. A doctor? The one who introduced the count to the curse? That creepy guy no one likes? A deep diving suit because necromancers are still alive and must breath? Who knows? Not me. I'm worrying about it after (not) Noctilus is built with his angry hermit crabs. Thank you for checking out this mad idea of mine and actually reading through this mess of ideas. As for the video that started it all:

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask about an army conversion I'm cooking up? I was inspired by the video below to do a vampire coasts army for AoS. Unfortunately most of the vampirate stuff doesn't quite fit units in the grave lords. I was hoping to get some advice, especially since most of my area is very competitive. (And I'd like to at least stand a chance) I realize this might be asking a bit much... The units I've figured out are: 1: deck droppers as fell bats.(actually have fell bats carrying them) 2: Deck hands are literally zombies. No shooting though. (probably throw some zombified idoneth in with some black arc corsairs.) 3: Blood knights as depth guard on like floating armored fish/crustaceans (think Idoneth style. Would use the blood knights as the base model) 4: Vampires obviously as themselves. Not sure which legendary lord I'll shoot for yet. Leaning towards Noctilus currently. (Dreadfleet just sounds cool) 5: The rotting leviathan will probably have to be a vampire on zombie dragon. (or maybe just a dragon/terrorghiest) Doesn't really fit, but there aren't many options for a giant crustacean. I pictured a core of zombies with at least 1 unit of blood knights. Some fell bats for thematic reasons (also sneaky objective grabs) and the big ol' hermit crab. Making something useable out of this might be a challenge. What I've come up with feels ... easily taken apart. (we have lots of lumineth) Also the idea of making/using 80 zombies is daunting. So I come to the collective for their wisdom. I haven't played any games as the grave lords yet, so this will be my first death army. I'm excited though. Thanks for listening to me ramble and hopefully thank you for any help.

Thanks for all the comments. I had been wanting to bring my star drake out before everyone recommended him, so I have no excuse now. I made these 2 lists with him in it. List 1: 1995pts - No stormhost - 1 Command battalion, 2 Beast hunter battalions List 2: 1990pts - No stormhost - 1 Command battalion, 2 beast hunter battalions The basic strategy is to grind the enemy to dust against a 2+ save shield wall that respawns (from Yndrasta) and rain death on them. The drake drops meteors and deals with hordes until the wall reaches the enemy. I considered taking hammers of sigmar to have a 3+, 6++ and maybe spawn in a 10 man unit again if something goes wrong. Wouldn't be hard to swap it. I'll be using the deep strike to drop one (or more) of my bricks onto objectives and/or hide from shooting alpha strikes. The templar is taken because I like the -2" pile in axe and he's cheaper. Thunderlord to help against possible hordes and staunch defender because "staunch spear wall" meme(and 2+ save). Apotheosis vexilor is there to set up and heal any badly damaged vindictor unit before I send them out again. He'll be better against non alpha strike shooting armies. At worst he gets nuked turn 1 instead of something more important(or I keep him in the sky for a turn or 2). The animals are there as fast movers and screens. I like gryph hounds and they can make troublesome combat order choices. They also hurt other deep strike armies. Aetherwings are fast, they fly, and are 100% expendable. The shooters are there to lay down some hurt ... which the raptors are better at, but they're very easy to kill. 6 wounds and they're gone. When they drop, they have to hurt or I'm not going too do well. Vindictors are reliable and I can use that 10 man unit to keep respawning from Yndrasta and the vexilor. I unfortunately don't have the raptors, but I'll proxy when I try them. Any suggestions? I'm tryin for a list to take on not just Teclis and friends. Cheers! For Sigmar!

So there's a lot of Lumineth players in my area. Does anyone have strategies for how to handle the cross board sniping/tons of magic? I thought I was being cheeky keeping everything in the sky, but without a better charge I'm not so sure that plan works anymore. From experience the archers are pretty durable for squishy boys too. (easily get a 4+, 5++, with -1 to hit. That's tougher than most of our guys) Any suggestions for fighting them before the new book? We've got 1-2 tournaments I'm supposed to help them practice for later this month and early next month. Want to make a fight of it at least. Thanks for any help, cheers.