Battlescrolls

[Praetor_Dragoon]

I case you have missed it, Black Library is releasing digital Battlescrolls in an advent calendar. So far, there have been two vampire counts Battlescrolls released (That 'coincidally' overlap with the holiday bundles)

Having gotten them both, I will review my impressions so far.

Battlescrolls
Formations are taken as 'allies' to your army, following the oft-forgotten ally rules in the BRB. They don't take up percentages. (So you can't count the skeletons from the formation to fill up your 25% core) Units in them can take all the usual upgrades. Stat-lines and options are copied from the the armybook.

The formations represent fluffy and interesting options, and should be more used as "This seems fun" optiosn rather than brute power.

Restless Dead
First and less restrictive of the formations. It allows you to field 1-4 Skeletons, 1-2 Grave Guard, and 1-2 Black Knights led by a Wight King. The wight king counts as the general for the formation for marching. (Not crumbling!) It also allows them to 'promote' an enemy unit or terrain piece in the enemy side to a friendly battle standard bearer of sorts. If they are within range of it they suffer 1 less wound due to unstable/crumble.

Cryt Scavenger
Second formation, more restrictive, as you need 20+ Ghouls, Crypt Horrors and a Necromancer (not multiple units). It allows you to deploy a Garden of Morr terrain piece (Hey, rules for it!) Friendly undead (all of them!) have a 6+ regen while within range and Ghoul Kings, Crypt Horrors, Vargheists, and Terrorgeists reroll failed regen saves. Also, LoD/LoV wizards get +2d6 channel. Don't know if you can split the terrain pieces, but I doubt that.

 

[TheChairman]

Strange that no one else has replied to this thread.
I got mightily disappointed with the first battlescroll when I read it as I was expecting something along the lines of being able to run a pure undead list. But meh, its fine. too costly in minimum requirement to field the formation Imo as i don't really like black knights and GG all that much.

The newest one made me reschedule and change my completed army look completely. I can not see how this formation can not be seen as a must have for anyone fielding any type of ghouls or horrors? For just below 500 points(counting if your not already fielding any of the units required for the formation) in units that are good as well as a hero choice that you will most likely be picking anyway(and not take any of your hero % as a bonus)its mind blowingly good. rerollable regen save on horrors, strigois and varghulfs? What the hell is not to like with that? Also giving all units regen save near it? combined with dual mortis thats 4+ regen for the entire army(if they are within range of course). and on top of that. 3 casters = 9! 9 channel die. If you run the usual average of 4 casters thats a flipping 12 channel die if everyone is in range of a terrain piece that you get to place down!!! and that can appear at random as well.

If your already fielding horrors and a necro all you have to do is spend 200 points in ghouls for a terrain piece that is basically a static ME regen bubble with a nice boost to magic, as well as a pretty convenient hiding spot for a mortis engine(or two). Will be interesting to use this piece as a guaranteed peek-a-boo location for my duo ME list for round 4 to come out and say hello. guess this varies on the location of play though, as rules for buildings and IT are different in different clubs and groups.

I just can't wait to see what battle scrolls other armies are getting, if we get something this strong the other armies must get something really awesome as well.


Oh and hi by the way, just felt forced to finally make an account to reply here. I threw my orcs out the window about 2 years ago and started VC as that was the original army i would have started with back 14 years ago when i started painting(or well, undead was the army i planned on)but the only hobby center within 100 miles i bought from did not have undead, so i got stuck with orcs until i finally had enough of them.

 

[Nagashizzar]

Where can you buy those battlescroll?

 

[Mr. West]

Some answers for the three of you:

1.) No one has replied to this particular thread, because we allready have two seperate threads, one dedicated to each of the two scrolls, in the main rules forum section 'Teachings of Abhorash'.
That's why.

2.) You download them from Black Library.

 

[TheChairman]

That explains everything.