Had my first game with the new book...

[Belladamma Voltaire]

... And won!

5 turn game against Hedonites.

Sigvald
Glutos
Lord of pain
Lord of hubris
Shardspeaker

5 Twinsouls
10 painbringers
5 seekers
11 blissbarb

My SBG list was:-

- Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords
- Army Type: Legion of Blood
- Grand Strategy: Empire of Corpses
- Triumph: Indomitable
LEADERS
Neferata (390)*
- Spells: Waste Away
Wight King on Skeletal Steed (160)**
- Artefacts of Power: Amulet of Screams
Necromancer (90)**
- Spells: Waste Away
Vampire Lord (130)**
- General
- Command Traits: Doomed Minions
- Artefacts of Power: Cloak of Mists and Shadows
- Spells: Vile Transference
BATTLELINE
Black Knights (110)*
- Hellknight
- Standard Bearer
- Hornblower
Deathrattle Skeletons (170)*
- Skeleton Champion
- 2 x Standard Bearer
Deathrattle Skeletons (170)*
- Skeleton Champion
- 2 x Standard Bearer
Black Knights (110)*
- Hellknight
- Standard Bearer
- Hornblower
Dire Wolves (130)**
- Doom Wolf
OTHER
Grave Guard (280)*
- Seneschal
- Great Wight Blade
- 2 x Standard Bearer
- 2 x Hornblower
Blood Knights (230)**
- Kastellan
- Standard Bearer
- Templar Lance
CORE BATTALIONS
*Battle Regiment
**Warlord
TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000

A few takeaways from this:-
1. The restrictions on summoning back and where to place them is WILD.
2. Nef remains the best support piece for playing LoB
3. Skeletons in blocks of 20 feels like the sweet spot.

As a quick summary of the battle:-

Skeletons and Nef killed the seekers.
Blood Knights bounced off Glutos. Ignoring him is our best bet without the support of a hefty combat piece (VLOZD with grave guard just to be sure but even then, I'm not certain)
Nef wrecked most of what she touched.
Sigvald got locked in combat for too long with basic skeletons.

Battle tactics wise I dropped 1 and so did he but my units being like paper bar Nef meant he couldn't get the temptation dice grand strat but I got Empire of Corpses. By the end of 5 I'd lost Nef, my black knights and brought everything else back once. I'd managed through doing this too clog the field up remove that Slaanesh couldn't move a great deal which takes away their momentum.

Finally score:-
26-24.

Legion of blood felt competitive however I'd have liked the combination activation option more for the army from Vykros.

Overall I'm very happy with how things went and think next time I'll have a crack of my zombie Nagash idea.

 

[The Sun King]

Awesome! Thanks for the report! Can you explain further why you think 20 skellies are the sweet spot?

 

[Belladamma Voltaire]

30 as a points investment is too heavy and their footprint feels too big. 20 can clog things up so but because there's two of them you're effectively getting 60 skellys for an investment of 2*20 same bringing back 10 is easier than 15.
It also is an easy "slot in" option for lost building. No version of the SBG lists can do without at least a block of 20 in my opinion.

 

[The Sun King]

30 as a points investment is too heavy and their footprint feels too big. 20 can clog things up so but because there's two of them you're effectively getting 60 skellys for an investment of 2*20 same bringing back 10 is easier than 15.
It also is an easy "slot in" option for lost building. No version of the SBG lists can do without at least a block of 20 in my opinion.

Interesting. I don't play with Skellies at all and it seems to work really great, but my build is also an alpha strike with Neffy, VLoZD and 10 Bloodknights, so it is quite different from the footslogging lists.