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Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
Pre-order is up on NZ site. Looks like knight of shrouds (and all the heralds) are unique characters. Prince Vordray is just named VL on Zombie Dragon, so no new models. Also, no death dice, but there are Malign Portents dice, close enough I guess. We finally have warscroll cards, but not sure if they will have FEC. New terrain that looks like a slight rework of some old terrain to look haunted but no rules attached to it (at least not downloadable).
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
The grave sites look like a lot of fun and I'm very pleased to see the Lore of Vampires make a return. Magic looks significantly more diverse on the whole, which is a very welcome development, given how I feel that undead armies are supposed to be highly dependent on it.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
The legion allegiance keywords can be applied only to units in this book. Its not backwards compatible with FEC or TK, nor even forwards compatible with the knight of shrouds or any other future death releases.

Im more than a little bitter about that.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
The legion allegiance keywords can be applied only to units in this book. Its not backwards compatible with FEC or TK, nor even forwards compatible with the knight of shrouds or any other future death releases.

Im more than a little bitter about that.
We knew (or at least should have expected) that nothing was going to be compatible with TK.
 

El Syf

Vargheist
Dec 4, 2011
648
Eastbourne
Preordered pretty much everything other than the new models. Justified it to myself that it's all essential purchases.
Still of the opinion Arkhan has te best legion really.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
I need only 2 of them, but they are certainly not cheap
Yeah. When I called my FLGS to pre-order, they were giving me really weird prices, like double what they actually are. I had to wait and make sure. Total cost ended up being $250.

Edit: After recalculating, and adding the warqueen who will be made into a vampire, the total cost is $310. I really hope that Daughters of Khaine allows time to recuperate.
 
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Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
The legion allegiance keywords can be applied only to units in this book. Its not backwards compatible with FEC or TK, nor even forwards compatible with the knight of shrouds or any other future death releases.

Im more than a little bitter about that.

We knew that TK and FEC won't be in this but the knight of shrouds is not in it? That's strange as for forward compatibility, that means they have no intention of adding new units anytime soon, or they will add an erretta which would be likely for the KoS, since they said an erretta will be up 2 weeks after each battletome release. We should just be glad that we got ZD and TG back, as we didn't even have points for beast of the grave other than the FEC warscrolls, now we have both.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Not just that they arent in the book, but that they arent in the legions. Based on the early previews, i thought the legions would be optional substites for grand alluance death, such that any death army could use the legion rules instead of their own, so legacy tk players wouldnt be left out, and future death units would be part of the lwgions automatically. Sadly not so
 

Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
Not just that they arent in the book, but that they arent in the legions. Based on the early previews, i thought the legions would be optional substites for grand alluance death, such that any death army could use the legion rules instead of their own, so legacy tk players wouldnt be left out, and future death units would be part of the lwgions automatically. Sadly not so

If that was the case they would have named it GA: death 2017 or something like that and not a battletome. As for TK players it was quite clear that they wouldn't be included in anything else when GH17 hit and their keywords got changed to make it so that there's little to none interaction with the existing Death range. And FEC do not need to be in this as they work well as ax existing subfaction. This is aimed as a well needed update for the current range. Any new releases, assuming we will have any, will come along with new battletomes. At least as far as I know that's how all battletomes currently work.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
And yet they included the grand alliance rules as well, so i dont think any renaming would have been needed. And how well fec work ad a stand alone faction is... well lets just say its a matter of some dispute and leave it at that.

And my understanding is that the chaos god tomes are based on the god keywords, and thus built to be forwards compatible with future chaos units. I dont think it was unreasonable to hope for the same from lon. As it is, new deathrattle units would not automatically be part of the grand host, new deathmages would not automatically be part of the legion of sacrament, new soulblight units would not automatically be part of the legion of blood, etc.
 
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Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
And my understanding is that the chaos god tomes are based on the god keywords, and thus built to be forwards compatible with future chaos units. I dont think it was unreasonable to hope for the same from lon. As it is, new deathrattle units would not automatically be part of the grand host, new deathmages would not automatically be part of the legion of sacrament, new soulblight units would not automatically be part of the legion of blood, etc.
I envy your optimism that we will be getting new things...
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
I'd have a lot more optimism to envy if the book had been structured in such a way as to imply the writers though death might ever get new units.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Example of the issue being a problem already: necros lost their horses since gw doesnt currently sell mounted necros. A compendium entry exists for mounted necros, but as far as i can telk, it isn't a legal choice in any of the four legion armies, not even as allies.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Another example - the mornghul is apparently not a legal choice in any legion army, even as allies.
 

El Syf

Vargheist
Dec 4, 2011
648
Eastbourne
Mournghoul news sucks major balls. Thought the nerf it got was the worse that could happen. Hopefully the new two week later errata/FAQ sorts this. Was considering getting another one as well!
 

Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
Sucks balls for mournghul. It's retarded that there's no nighthaunt alligeance with updated gravesites and lores. But that means we might be getting a nighthaunt battletome shortly. As for FEC I don't mind it, I always saw them as a different army from the rest of death with little to no synergy with the rest of the Death range after their AoS rework, except for a few units which you can still ally with them regardless.
 

Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
But seriously other than that I don't know why people are complaining. I know that we always get the short end of the stick but seriously this Battletome is great. It's not for making a nighthaunt or using your old TKs or FEC, and it does have its' shortcomings but we got what we always wanted, Spell Lores and 4 factions under which most of the current range can be united, having different bonuses and play styles. From what I can see this opens up a lot of new ways to play and mix/match the Death range competitively.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Im happy for the good parts (special character themed factions being a good idea to begin with, grave sites, deep striking through grave sites, special character formations, spell lores, fluff, buffs to black knights, good artefacts like the wristbands and the casty knife, good allegiance abilities like regen buffs, attack buffs, casting buffs, outflanking), and complain about the not so good parts (LoN units more dependant on Legion allegiance rules plus less interfaction synergy eg necros not buffing fec or tk plus no built in backwards or forwards compatibility together making mixed grand alliance death armies less workable now and in the future; few to no points changes despite blood knights, wight kings, etc being noticeably overpriced; no new formations outside of special character retinues; less good allegiance abilities like bringing back dead summonable units which costs reserve points and is thus basically unworkable in matched play, no new models).

I have been hearing more things i dislike in the last day or two, basically since we transitioned from official previews to advance reviews, but overall I'm still mostly happy with the book, and am excited to get my hands on it and start playing with it on saturday. There's more good than bad here, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to point out the bits I don't like.

Currently im leaning towards grand host, if only because that closest fits the models i like most and have in nearest to playable shape. Im working on 40 spearletons, 20 shield guard, 10 black knights, a necromancer, and a wight king. That's 1070, so I'll have to drop 5 gguard to play with them. If my motivation carries me through painting all of that, then morghasts will come after, maybe the big guy himself.
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Not going to link, b/c rules, but the full ruleset of LoN has leaked on 4chan, including points, scrolls, spells, allegiances, and battalions.

The nagash battalion looks very nice. Pricey, but cheaper than one might have guessed, potentially covers your entire battleline requirement, and gives nagash a 3+ roll to pass any wounds, including mortals, to the morghast unit.
 
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Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
Not going to link, b/c rules, but the full ruleset of LoN has leaked on 4chan, including points, scrolls, spells, allegiances, and battalions.

The nagash battalion looks very nice. Pricey, but cheaper than one might have guessed, potentially covers your entire battleline requirement, and gives nagash a 3+ roll to pass any wounds, including mortals, to the morghast unit.

Oh haven't seen that yet, can't wait to have this book, hopefully it arrives a bit early :D
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Overall, i do feel its the weakest of recent tomes. Not enough reconsideration of profiles, no reconsideration of points, too much pushing of too-expensive, too-fragile special characters, not enough battalions, the vamp lore isnt very good, nerfs to soulblight and grand alliance death allegiances, too many new spells, abilities and artifacts have an extra die roll added to see if they even work at all, too reliant on characters in a game with easy sniping, new gravesite summoning is too inflexible & easily shut down, several new abilities rendered useless by reserve points, etc etc etc.

But all that said, its still a positive power shift, just not imo enough of one to repair the GH17 and compendium nerfs. The necromancer debuff spells are good, the gravesites, while not great for summoning, do help cushion the character dependence of the new healing system, some of the legion allegiance stuff looks actually decent, and there could easily be a few breakaway lists with competitive relevance.

And while its not, at least at first glance, as much of a competitive shot in the arm as I wanted to see, there does look to be a lot of fun thematic stuff in here, and the new, more detailed fluff is very welcome. Overall I'm a bit disappointed, but not displeased.
 

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