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How many spells did he know in LoN/OBR? He gets 13 in the new one. Not sure if that's an improvement or not.

For me, I like the new Blood Knights (except for the boob plate), the Wight King, Black Knights, Dire Wolves and Grave Guard.

Edit: Those are the existing Black Knights and Grave Guard.

The Wight King is larger than the knights, isn't it? No bueno for 9th Age.

At any rate, I would be happy to pick the SC skellies up, if it were priced reasonable. (I know, I know....)

The basic skellies are fine in small numbers, too detailed for a horde, imo. Zombies are u-g-l-y (not the kind of ugly they're supposed to be).

Characters and bataurs? Go away, please.

I haven't kept up on the rules previews, but the Blood Knights look boring to play.

drbored wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
The preorders for saturday have helped improve things and just waiting on the price of Radukar's court, and the new model of Radukar himself.

The preorder preview is pretty big. It feels like 3 preorder weeks have been smooshed into 1. Normally I might expect the soulblight stuff and the underworld warband. And then another week would be admech and the combat patrols, and then another week would be lelith and the necron and space marine models. This is a lot in one week!

Pretty pleased by everything except the start collecting. Hiding the Wight King in amongst a bunch of old models is a pretty low move. The verbiage on it, "and you also pick up the amazing new Wight King on Skeletal Steed (which is exclusive to this set at time of launch) to lead your deathless minions into battle." makes it sound like the Wight King will be in its own box later, or maybe the start collecting will be replaced by a Combat Patrol-style box later on once we're fully into AoS 3.0

I remember some people saying that Cursed City and the Soulblight were supposed to be a Fall/Winter 2020 thing. If that's the case, a lot of this makes sense. If it was supposed to be released some 6 months ago, then some of the weirdness with it being so close to AoS 3.0 wouldn't have been as apparent. I think GW is trying to get all the last things they need out before AoS 3.0 so that they can shift gears to focus entirely on that.

Point costs in cc refer　to november so that's　when cc was supposed to come when they wrote points there. Sb points are for may so sb book is on time.

Does explain why cc models came so soon separate from limited discount box. Usually there's half a year minimum. Well they were supposed to be here too but cc getting so delayed altered plans. Also explains why points changed.

 Eldarain wrote:
How many spells did he know in LoN/OBR? He gets 13 in the new one. Not sure if that's an improvement or not.

Thirteen!? He cast 8 before, which went down as he took damage.

Knows. Not cast. Teclis knows 22 spells plus any endless spell you buy. Casts max 4 though. But bigger spell selection makes better tool box(especially if you cast multiple spells) so if nagash learned new spells he got buff likely. Like the new wind lore is buff(and quite a big buff) to Teclis. 6 more spells to cast at times and not useless ones either.

Okay, I said that Black Knights are not that bad? Well I take that statement back.

Looks like only skelelon on steed I am running is going to be the new wight king.

Remember; rend is a rare and precious ability, too powerful to be used often. It certainly cannot be handed out willy-nilly to just any unit like less powerful effects such as mortal wounds.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:
Knows. Not cast. Teclis knows 22 spells plus any endless spell you buy. Casts max 4 though. But bigger spell selection makes better tool box(especially if you cast multiple spells) so if nagash learned new spells he got buff likely. Like the new wind lore is buff(and quite a big buff) to Teclis. 6 more spells to cast at times and not useless ones either.

Ah, a subtle but important detail I missed there...

Black knights are mobile though. Use them as screen or sueside units? Minimal unit size deal mortal wound when they charge. If they get resurrected they stil deal mortal wound when they charge. And they have a minimum charge of 6. Not good but that is how I see them. As opposed to the blood knights who are the cavery you use to fight. Likevice the hounds are the other throw away unit that is fast. But they degrade after resurrected where as black knights stil have D3 mortal wounds.

There are also some random dog synergies here and there.

How are the new skeletons? I never saw their warsscroll.

Also, 3rd edition is around the corner. It might change stuff.

Skeletons are good. You just need to get them in combat fast as possible.

And as for Black Knights, I just thought about it more and conclusion was that for every role I could have imagined it for there was always another unit that could do it much better for the cost. Black Knights are not durable or hard hitting enough to make it worth it.

As for mortal wounds, grave guard or even zombies are much better choice as they both cause one on 6s (deadwalkers 6+ hit, guard on wound) rather then just on charge.

Let's not split hairs over small margins. What is good?

 Niiai wrote:
Let's not split hairs over small margins. What is good?

Mannfred, zombies, grave guard, necromancer, corpse cart, blood Knights, Prince Vordrai, Neferata, Radukar the beast, dire wolves, coven throne. These are all good.

The only units I would consider to be very weak are the wight kings and the two new vampires.

The other stuff is average.

I don't think the new vampires are weak - Kritza looks interesting, Annika looks like she will die quickly unless you're able to not let a unit kill her outright. She looks like she could take smaller units. Who knows how 3.0 will change everything again.

The 2 new dragon hybrid vampires are good for their points. New foot vampire can grant increased attacks. The old wolf lady on wolf is a lvl 2 wizard with good abilities. All of these stood out.

The foot vampire is worse than the LoN version though. Command ability only affects Summonable, whereas it used to affect any unit in the army.

Also lost the horse option. Fly was usually better, the extra movement was nice to have sometimes... and yes I am a little bitter at having kitbashed a Lord on horse that I've not even been able to use in a game yet...

ERJAK wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Its built with 3.0 in mind so I honestly have no say in it until I see all 3.0 rules and play a game at least.

Gw's "x in mind" just means page or two less erratas. See how last 40k 8e codex had rules removed entirely with 9e and is among early factions to get 9e codex. And had no 9e style stuff in it to begin with

AoS team isn't the 40k team and IMO the AOS one is better.

Not for the past year they haven't been.

2016-2020 the AoS team dominated but since around the Kharadron book the AoS team has been really dropping the ball. Meanwhile the 40k team doing some really great stuff with 9th (drukhari being overtuned notwithstanding).

The last few battletomes are a fairly pathetic shadow of the equivalent 40k codexes in terms of flavor, internal balance, and external balance. Compare the DoK book to the SoB book and it's a joke how much less interesting Daughters of Khaine's listbuilding is, both competitively and thematically, compared to Sisters of Battle.

Still better than 40k ATM, 40k is a mess right now, some armies has a zero chance to win vs some others, internal balance is terrible (many options are not really an option), the Sisters of battle codex is also OP and has been for a long time, so I wouldn't consider that good balance. The new edition left some armies behind and GW did a "Update to stats" but literally ignored 70% of the armies like Chaos (Why did Tac marines get 2w in a FAQ but Chaos Marines didn't?, why di dall flamers get 12" range but any weapon not named flamer didn't?, etc.. etc.. Why didn't GK's get the updates?) and some armies like GSC, Tau, GK, Knights, etc.. that were made for 8th and was completely not set up for 9th style game not at least get some small FAQ to help them out in 9th? 40k is a mess right now, even though I have been playing it more than AOS lately, that is only b.c 9th came out and the drop off is the largest I have ever seen in 40k b.c so many armies just are not fun to play right now.

New White Dwarf has the build a hero section for the Soulblight - I like you have pets/mounts

It is much like the previous ones we have gotten, which is great because that is totally what I want to see and I hope they keep doing more of it.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is much like the previous ones we have gotten, which is great because that is totally what I want to see and I hope they keep doing more of it.

Agreed. I'm glad it wasn't one and done, forget it exists like the pre-Crusade 40K version.

Anyone else really disappointed they didnt break the CC group up so you could actually take them?

 quickfuze wrote:
Anyone else really disappointed they didnt break the CC group up so you could actually take them?

I can take them.... It's just damned inconvenient pts wise.

 quickfuze wrote:
Anyone else really disappointed they didnt break the CC group up so you could actually take them?

Things could have been different. I see them no different then the underworld data cards. Many of them are not worth taking. And two of them are not that impressive. Granny and wolf man are good though.

Isn't it a bit weird that both skeletons and zombies don't have some sort of number triggered special rules like other horde units? In my eyes, they look fine without any, but it's still a bit odd. Does anybody else thinks that those types of rules will be gone in 3rd?

epronovost wrote:
Isn't it a bit weird that both skeletons and zombies don't have some sort of number triggered special rules like other horde units? In my eyes, they look fine without any, but it's still a bit odd. Does anybody else thinks that those types of rules will be gone in 3rd?

Yeah there are a lot of things with this, less rules, higher costs, no horde discount, etc... They could just be trying to streamline core battleline units to quicken game play. Not really sure, but there are changes all over once you start to look, and it must be a new design philosophy the studio is going for.

Got the tome, though it feels like I am late for having read it on the day it releases

The fluff is great, I really enjoyed reading the background and the motivations. Very good for giving a feel of what the army is about and gives more personality to the vampires themselves. Particularly Mannfred and Neffy. It also does a good job showing where SGL fit in the larger picture of Grand Alliance Death and what their relationship with Nagash is. Semi-confirmation that Arkhan will be back.

The allegiance is a lot of pieces with most of them being decent and only a small number being really powerful or particularly awful. Nothing jumps out at me as being really OP or UP, which is nice. But I think the problem is nothing jumps out at me as being particularly fun or interesting either. Unlike some I don't draw a correlation between the two; AoS has a ton of very interesting mechanics that are balanced and very boring mechanics that are not. Rather the allegiance feels like a bunch of small ideas all shoveled into one pile. To illustrate, an SGL army's allegiance abilities are;
-A 6+ fnp like all Death armies, an aura off the heroes
-Gravesites, which can be used for deep strike or summonables and act like heroes for granting the fnp
-Slain summonable units can be returned at half strength, triggered off enemy units being destroyed and deploying from gravesites
-Spells double cast on a 9+
-A bravery debuff on enemies near zombies/skeletons
-Deathly invocation from heroes
-A bonus based on the bloodline chosen
-Another bonus based on the bloodline chosen

That I could summarize it in such a simple bullet-point style at all is not a good thing in my eyes. I would have much preferred some of those mechanics be cut in favor of fewer ones with more depth.

The command traits, artifacts, and spells feel much the same to me, design efforts were put into creating so many of them that it diluted the content into being bland. I am left with the distinct feeling that the rule writer(s) just weren't passionate about this project and it was just work to them. That said, it isn't that the rules overall are outright bad or poorly written, just uninspired. And at the end of the day it is still very much something that people can have fun with and, crucially, won't be trampling over other people's fun like some battletomes do.

After reading and seeing the stuff, I have to disagree a bit on the "no passion" on the project Ninth.

This feels like the most inspired AoS book to date. The models have very few duds and the book was just aces.

I am, to be clear, not commenting on the actual models.

I know, I didn't mean to make it sound like I thought you were.

I genuinely was surprised by the book.

Does the Soulblight book give any sneaky indications about what new Path to Glory is going to look like?

WHY did the make the new Vargulf exclusive to only one bloodline, and only as part of some overcosted hero unit!? Ugh...

Rihgu wrote:
Does the Soulblight book give any sneaky indications about what new Path to Glory is going to look like?

No, not at all.