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Hi all,

I started Path to Glory as Vyrkos Dynasty Soulblight Gravelords, and in my first game I noticed... I don't have anything that does a lot of damage!
I have 2 vampire lords, one with Amethystine Pinions and one with Ghost-mist - neither of these are very useful for damage, and neither of them key off of the double cast on 9+ thing! I plan on adding a third Vampire Lord with Flaming Weapon.
My Warlord has the Vial of Manticore Venom for +1 to wound, but even then it seems like 4 attacks at 3+/2+/-1/d3 damage doesn't do a whole lot. My fellbats, skeletons, and dire wolves also do not have very strong offensive profiles (even on the charge/within the Vyrkos +1 to wound aura!).

As I progress on this path of glory, what are some things I should be looking to add to make it so I don't bounce off of... Chaos Chariots and Untamed Beasts...? (Seriously, it took me the entire 5 battle rounds of my Warlord using Finest Hour/All Out Attack/Arcane Bolt to take down 1 chariot, and the dire wolves killed like 3 Untamed Beasts the entire game. As much as the Vampire Lord did!)
Is there a particular unit that Soulblight "relies on" to dish out the damage? or a spell that is very good at doling it out? I wasn't too impressed with the direct damage spells but I guess if you double cast them they'd probably hurt a lot.

Also, since this is Path to Glory, I'm not taking any Unique units, so if Radukar the Beast is pivotal for dealing damage as Vyrkos Soulblights, I guess I'm sort of screwed.

Thanks in advance!

A unit of Blood Knights sounds really effective in a slow grow. Especially now that their special rule works properly.

Hm, Blood Knights do seem interesting except there's nothing Vyrkos about them! That is to say, they don't benefit from any of the faction bonuses and only barely fit into the more general lore of the dynasty. I can make the latter work, at least. Unsure about the former.

I think I can come up with narrative for them, and may have to make some "theme" sacrifices for damage. Currently I've been limiting myself to Vampire Lords and beasts (fell bats, dire wolves, terrorgheists in theory) and vargheists (those Vyrkos who couldn't overcome their inner bestial nature and completely succumbed to blood hunger).

Digging that theme for sure. People have made beautiful Vyrkos Knights using Fenrisian Wolves and the Wild Riders kit.

 Eldarain wrote:
Digging that theme for sure. People have made beautiful Vyrkos Knights using Fenrisian Wolves and the Wild Riders kit.

*gasp* my wallet! How dare you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, in relation to this thread, I played the second game of Path to Glory tonight and absolutely rolled over Ogors.

I don't know if I rolled exceptionally low vs Slaves to Darkness and exceptionally high vs Beastclaw raiders but I tabled him before he got a second turn. Ambush scenario didn't help but I honestly wasn't expecting to do that much damage to his hero, his yhetees, or his thundertusk riders.

Now I've got my third Vampire Lord and Blades of Shyish in the vault for a bonus damage spell to bring. I think if I build a terrorgheist to bring my force to 1250 I'll be all set for a while.

Zombies. That's it; if you need more damage, bring more zombies. Throw Vanhel's and the CA for +1 attack to boost further where needed.

Edit: Whoops just noticed you are limiting yourself to not taking cheese zombies. Have you looked at the Vargskyr (very nice if you give it +1A), or the Blood-born (very glass cannon infantry)? Also, taking the flaming weapon spell that gives +1 to damage would combo well with the vial of manticore venom.

Edit: Whoops just noticed you are limiting yourself to not taking cheese zombies. Have you looked at the Vargskyr (very nice if you give it +1A), or the Blood-born (very glass cannon infantry)? Also, taking the flaming weapon spell that gives +1 to damage would combo well with the vial of manticore venom.

I have the flaming weapon spell on a different vampire, because I'm a strategic genius. I have barely looked at the Cursed City stuff besides the Kosargi Nightguard, and that's because one of my opponents is playing Ogors so I was like "hm, what unit can represent risen Ogors..." but they have very few attacks unless you've got Radukar The Wolf (specifically).
Vargskyr I kind of mentally threw out when I noticed it wasn't a monster. How would one give it +1A? Off the top of my head, Vampire Lords can only give that to Summonable units unless there's another source.
Blood-born I haven't looked at at all because they're too tied to Radukar (in my head, at least, not sure if that's actually true lore-wise) and Ulfenkarn.
Also, if I ever buy the box, my friend wants the Blood-born to convert into kroot anyways But I do see that like Vargheists they have similar profiles to Vampire Lords, which is tasty.

On the note of zombies, the one game I played prior to this Path to Glory I brought a big unit and they didn't do a whole lot. I'm not lucky enough with the 6s, I guess

In other news, Blades of Shyish is a good spell for adding chip damage to a lot of units if you barrel into the middle of the enemy. Especially if you double-cast it. And my Ogor opponent thinks Dire Wolves are peak damage output, but I think I just spiked damage rolls and he failed a lot of saves. We'll see!

Ah yeah, forgot about summonable only. At any rate if cursed city stuff is out then the above suggestion of blood knights is your best bet.

Cursed City stuff isn't out per se, I just need to scour ebay for deals on the specific parts I like. I really wish Vargskyr was a monster!

Played another game, this time against Sylvaneth, and despite winning The Ritual I killed exactly 1 model by the end of the game - a Treelord. I was also tabled (twice, technically).

I was expecting to feel bad about how much damage the terrorgheist did, but besides the treelord it had 0 impact on the game itself, dealing net 0 damage (because of Kurnoths being healed) and dying quickly.

Guess I'm going to look into Blood Knights for my next purchase, although rend is really what I seem to be missing here. Rend, and consistent damage/mortal wounds, because d3/d6 isn't cutting it.

(Yes, I realize I'm describing Zombies)

You could also look into Endless Spells - both the generic ones & those of either Nighthaunt or Flesh Eaters.

I ran a Grand Alliance: Death army in a local Escalation League right before 3e arrived. The damage my Corpsemare Stampede (FEC predatory endless spell) doled out earned it & the ghoul king needed to cast it an allied slot in any future Soulblight list.

As an added bonus you also get a free unit of 10x ghouls to summon in as re-enforcements!