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Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
Finally i've got the book in my hands.

I really like the Abilities of soulblight and nighthaunt.
Many possible combo.

I can send a banshee or a Cairn Wraith into the fray with save 2+!

And i am really happy for the return of bloodlines
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Everything that's a skeleton has the skeleton keyword, but they're still part of different factions, just like fyreslayers and whatever the sky dwarves are called. And they don't have exactly the same rules as their shields are different. If GW ever wants to expand the deathrattle faction, something I guarantee you they intend to do eventually, the fact that half of an entire separate army was hanging off of them really limited what they could add without the risk of mechanically breaking something, as well as what they could add without having to worry if a TK unit would just be the better version.

So no, I don't mind TK stuff not being deathrattle anymore. What I do mind is that TK skeletons don't get the max unit points discount. That is just straight up punishing you for playing old armies by making your units cost more points for no reason.
 
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Oppenheimer

Varghulf
May 26, 2013
743
I looked over every point for compendium. There wasn't a single point decrease or hoard bonus only increases. They didn't even try to balance them against the GHB2 except by increasing some of the death points.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
I looked over every point for compendium. There wasn't a single point decrease or hoard bonus only increases. They didn't even try to balance them .

Of course.
It's "you can still play discontinued armies, but we won't encourage it "

GW don't look for balance, they just ptomote the models they sell.

I would have liked a more honest approach from them, but we must deal with it.

As a TK player, i am deeply unsatisfied. But as Death player i am "forced" to use what I have at disposal.
I only hope GW will improve our range... because frankly, if we have just 2 pages in the pitched battles tabs and Order got 10, something is going VERY wrong
 
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Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
Of course.
As a TK player, i am deeply unsatisfied. But as Death player i am "forced" to use what I have at disposal.
I only hope GW will improve our range... because frankly, if we have just 2 pages in the pitched battles tabs and Order got 10, something is going VERY wrong
So playing straight TK isn't really a thing any more. However, the entirety of TK isn't useless either. I think "Settra is still good and worth considering, but 460 points for an 8 wound model might be a little too risky. I am strongly considering taking a bone giant and/or casket of souls though. Both of those are good enough to take in a mixed Death list.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
I agree.
Some TK are still a playable option, but we are going to see changes. No more royalkitty and generic Settra will become the new main general for them.
No more SSC in mixed armies but scorpions qre still good and so on
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
I'm pretty skeptical of scorpions, honestly. Having to surface more than 9" from any enemy units is a colossal nerf for them. Necroknights are still good, Not-Settra is still good, their skittles are still decent - though missing the horde discount is a pointless slap in the face. Royal and necrosphynx both got heavy nerfs and massive price hikes, so I think they're kind of out. One or the other would have been alright (again settra, necroknights still good), but not both at once. The catapult's pretty bad now, again price hike plus nerf is too much. Two or three with a necrotect might still be able to justify themselves on damage output, maybe, but I'm not jumping out of my seat to try it.

If you like skeletons, TK is still a better rules basis than Deathrattle for the moment. Even without the price discount for big skittle units, TK still have better heroes, more variety of units (ranged or melee infantry and light cav, plus chariots, monstrous cav, a monster, a war machine), can benefit from both liche priests and necromancers, etc.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
I'm pretty skeptical of scorpions, honestly. Having to surface more than 9" from any enemy units is a colossal nerf for them.

Sure, they were nerfed, but the 9" puts them on the same level of similar teleporting / scavenging units.

In the end, even if they're no more reliable hunters/killers, a scorpion is still a 80 pts model that can pop on objective since turn 1 or can act as a potential threat until it doesn't pop. And can be dangerous in cc.
It's still a solid utility unit, the same as dwarfs' gyrocopter.
 

Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
As a guy who used to play mixed death i am dissatisfied with TK losing deathrattle and their abilities being revised to buff only themselves, however @Malisteen does have a point. they couldn't develop anything for deathrattle due to TK units. As for the new point increase for TK i can say they they are very playable and i have been playing with the point increase since last Feb when the Trial came out. Also last weekend I saw a match with pure TK vs Blades of Khrone at my local store and TK completely wiped the floor with Khorne. it was a massacre lol so they are still pretty op, could be better than before actually.
 
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Infernal Skull

Wight King
Apr 21, 2012
442
Jeeze, GW limited what can ally with what by subfaction keyword, instead of just letting you ally with anything in your alliance? Bleh. Yuck. They really can't do anything right by us.

Also, why the heck does 'necromancer on a nightmare' have its own scroll, with its own higher points cost, when the regular necromancer scroll already lets it ride the exact same steed with the exact same rules and no price hike?

All of the army factions have been dialed back to work within their own army's units, so that's not so bad, but the Death "grand" alliance is at this point made from a SINGLE former army-- Vampire Counts. And the fact that we can't even ally with all of OUR OWN ARMY is what sucks. The death sub factions look neat, but the restrictions make them seem very uninteresting. There's basically ONE Nighthaunt list that you can build: x2 units of spirits, hexwraiths, some banshees, some wraiths, maybe a mourngul or black coach. No wait, the black coach sucks.

I love that the coach, which doesn't match the aesthetic of the Nighthaunts AT ALL is part of the faction (I guess because a wraith drives it?), but the Mortis Engine, which has an ethereal swarm and BANSHEES all over it isn't, AND CAN'T EVEN ALLY WITH THEM.

FYI: The Compendium Necro on steed has different rules. All the keywords are different in his spell (I think they're not even keywords at all).
 
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Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
re: compendium necromancer on steed. It has the same keywords as the regular necromancer, and the same stats and weapons. The only difference is the regular necromancer's look out sir and spell apply to any skeleton, mordant, or zombie keyword units, while the compendium necromancer's abilities only work specifically on the skeleton warrior and zombie units. But the regular necromancer's abilities also work on those units because they fall under the same keywords. And the regular necromancer is cheaper.

There is literally, literally, no reason for the compendium necromancer to exist. It serves literally no function, and is strictly worse than the regular unit. it shouldn't be there.

Re: scorpions & 9" - the the units that appear at that range and are any good either have ranged attacks or charge range bonuses & rerolls or aura affects or are tough enough to occupy and hold objectives or are just so darn threatening that they mere presence will shift the game dramatically, and from where I'm sitting scorpions don't seem to have any of that.
 
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Infernal Skull

Wight King
Apr 21, 2012
442
Tomb Scorpions are only 80 points though. You can take up to 3 in a unit, but I'd field those separately, so they can all surface, and you'll get 3 attempts to get a successful 9" charge with one of them. Then they'll have to deal with the others as well, or they will DEFINITELY be charging in next turn.
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
I cannot fathom why alliances between the factions which come from the old Vampire Counts army have been disallowed. It makes building the sort of list that I would want to use in Age of Sigmar impossible. As a result, I have definitively decided to only play Age of Sigmar using the free warscrolls and forget about the General's Handbooks and other updates altogether, assuming I even decide to play it again.
 
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Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
I cannot fathom why alliances between the factions which come from the old Vampire Counts army have been disallowed. It makes building the sort of list that I would want to use in Age of Sigmar impossible.

Out of curiosity, what were you planning to use? Named characters as Vlad?
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
I just wanted to convert my Vampire Counts army from Warhammer into an Age of Sigmar army, but I cannot do so if I use the General's Handbook because I use a mixture of Skeletons, Graveguard, Black Knights, Wraiths, Banshees, Hexwraiths, various bat units, and I was also planning to add the Coven Throne. The changes to the rules seem to make this impossible in Age of Sigmar, unless I'm missing something.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
I just wanted to convert my Vampire Counts army from Warhammer into an Age of Sigmar army, but I cannot do so if I use the General's Handbook because I use a mixture of Skeletons, Graveguard, Black Knights, Wraiths, Banshees, Hexwraiths, various bat units, and I was also planning to add the Coven Throne. The changes to the rules seem to make this impossible in Age of Sigmar, unless I'm missing something.

As far as I see, you just have to avoid specific allegiances (as Soulblight or similar), but there's nothing that forbids you to field a "simple" Death Allegiance, using just the updated abilities of Death.
If you want to post a wanna-be list or a general idea, (even by PM) we can try to work on it.
 

Alabaster427

Minister of Thriftiness
Dec 9, 2013
1,315
I just wanted to convert my Vampire Counts army from Warhammer into an Age of Sigmar army, but I cannot do so if I use the General's Handbook because I use a mixture of Skeletons, Graveguard, Black Knights, Wraiths, Banshees, Hexwraiths, various bat units, and I was also planning to add the Coven Throne. The changes to the rules seem to make this impossible in Age of Sigmar, unless I'm missing something.
There's nothing saying that you can't run that list in AOS. It might not have as much synergy as running straight Nighthaunt or Soulblight, but it's still playable. There hasn't been enough time to see which Death lists do well in tournaments but before the new GHB, Death smoothies always did well.
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
It was my understanding from the discussion taking place here that alliances were only possible by keyword if using the latest General's Handbook. I have to say that I find all this very confusing. This is what happens when changes are made across multiple books, instead of sticking with the free rules online and updating those.

Regarding tournament performance, that's not something that I worry about :).
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
no, you can still just play a death army, with any death units. If you're playing a big mix of skeletons, vampires, ghosts, and so on, then that's what your army is, it's a Death army, and that's supported just fine.

Allies are only there if you're playing a subfaction army, like you're playing a just-ghouls army or a just-ghosts army, but you want to dip in one or two units from something else while keeping your specific subfaction rules (like the extra battle line options, or vampire bloodline rules, or whatever).

Like, for instance, ghouls get some fun extra special rules for a ghoul only army, and fair enough for it, but there are some gaps in the unit selection. On the other hand, necromancers are neat, and can support a lot of different factions, but they really aren't a faction in themselves, so the allies rules let you take a ghoul army with all the ghoul rules but still add a necromancer to it, where as before the only way you could do that was to drop all the ghoul rules and just field a Death army.

But you can still just field the Death army if you want to, that's still an option, then you don't have to worry about what can ally with what, only with what is in the Alliance to begin with. You miss out on subfaction rules, but can field whatever you want.


Don't get me wrong, I still think it's dumb that they limit what can ally with what within the same alliance, especially for Death where we have so few units and factions already with all the actively supported ones previously coming from the same army anyway. But you can definitely still field your mixed army just like before without bother. Even with the arbitrary restrictions on allies, the current system is more open than it was, not less.
 

Unas the slayer

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 1, 2017
1,863
Northern Italy
It's not that much different from old Ghb.
Armies are made by allegiances, composed by models that share the same keyword.
"Death " is a valid allegiance.
Allegiance as Soulblight was possible also in the old GHB, but the only advantage was blood knights as battleline, but you had to use death allegiance abilities.
The new book gives also specific ability to that allegiance .


GHB 2017 introduces also allies, aka units that you can include without sharing the keyword.

Edit : and i just have been ninja"d
 

Irisado

Ancient Vampire Lord | Siphoner of Spammers
Staff member
True Blood
May 22, 2010
718
Nottingham, UK
Thanks for the explanation to both of you. It still seems unnecessarily complex, but so long as I can just keep to Death, at least that makes my army useable. I still feel that the Age Sigmar type rule set is better suited to 40K than what used to be Fantasy though, so I'm definitely sticking with my square bases, so that I can still play old editions of Fantasy.
 
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