Battletome: Soulblight Gravelords - quick review (2023)

The legend of Shyishan states that the first of the Vyrkos, Belladamma Volga, was not fathered by any vampire, but was instead created after bargaining with the undead beast god Hrunspuul, the dog of Cairns. In exchange for his gifts, the evil Hrunspuul cursed Belladamma's entire lineage to reflect the qualities of one of the many totemic animal spirits worshiped in their strange tribal culture, of which the wolf was the most sacred.

To be honest, I find this passage to be probably the most interesting bit of new knowledge; It shows that there are other beings in realms outside of the main pantheon that have the ability to grant powers and abilities though interestingly, because Hrunspuul is an undead beast of a god; whether god-beast brought back by Nagash or already undead to begin with, Vyrkos vampires are still subject to Nagash's will.

I assume this is Hrunspuulitself.

We end up with a short timeline that mostly covers existing stuff already covered in other books.

To those familiar with unit summaries from previous books, much will seem familiar. Some of the entries have been updated from a more vampire-centric point of view, but there are some fun stories, including my favorite which features Mannfred and Neferata trying to go head-to-head in the (now empty) throne room of Nagash's fortress. Of course, with new models like Lauka Vai and the vampire bloodline Vyrkos, there are some new entries with the biggest focus on wolf boys who once again have some of the more interesting lore in the book.

We learn about the origins of Lauka Vai and the Vangorian lords; the former was twisted into her new bat-centaur form by a chaos wizard, and the latter was too close to Shyish Nadir when the necroquake occurred. The background difference between these two closely related units is almost a little jarring to me, but the miniatures are very cool so I can forgive the slight discrepancy in the background.

Another nice tidbit is the confirmation that other races can actually contract the soul taint curse with the mention of at least one aelf vampire existing somewhere in the realms.

Now to the real heart of the book and probably what will be the most important thing for most players; real rules! There are five different keywords that you can choose for your army, each of which gives different combat traits, command traits, and artifacts.

In terms of combat traits shared by all factions, Gravesites make a welcome return and via The Unquiet Dead rules units can be put in reserve to spawn near your graves during the game. Also returning are the Locus of Shyish and Deathless Minions rules which allow double casting of the vampire and death mage lore spell on a 9+ along with the 6+ wound or mortal wound negation that the undead have enjoyed for some time. It's worth noting that the tombs have lost their ability to heal, which, as we'll see, is a trend that runs throughout the book. It seems someone at Games Workshop doesn't want multiple healing options during moves so they really hit the army's ability to restore their units to full strength.

Skeletons are your new best friends.

New to the party is the Reanimated Horrors rule; A callback from Undead when we played Warhammer: Fantasy, this gives a bravery penalty to enemy units within 6" of friendly Deadwalkers (all zombies and Direwolves) and Deathrattles (all skeleton-based infantry and cavalry).

We also have endless legions; This is essentially a reworked version of the previous Endless Legion command ability which had the ability to restore a completely destroyed unit. These days; at the end of your battle shock phase you may roll a die, adding the number of destroyed enemy units to the score, and on a 5+ you may return destroyed Deadwalkers or Deathrattle units that can be summoned at half power within 12" of the tomb.

Finally we have Deathly Invocation; Those familiar with the Nagash Legion book will recognize this from several previous war scrolls. The formulation is largely the same; with the ability to select a number of units near your characters and heal D3 wounds worth of models, but now each unit can only be affected once per turn. With 3rd edition around the corner, I'm wondering if there might be a change in how damage is calculated (ie it doesn't spill over to Warhammer 40k). If this were the case, then the effect of the reduction in healing would be completely reduced to make victims more bearable.

To the factions themselves;

Legion of Blood

Multiple models flee if they fail a melee test within 3" of a vampire and ignore negative hit and wound modifiers for your death stack units when within range of your vampires

Neferata's Legion is back with a focus on failing melee tests and making sure your skeletons don't degrade in combat (unlike other factions that focus on improving them). Of the command features available, both Aristocracy of Blood and Sanguine Blur seem pretty good allowing for charge re-rolls within 12" and additional 3" pile-in moves when within 12" of the general. Alternatively, you can push multiple failed battle shock tests with Soul -Crushing Contempt for a further -1 to bravery within 3" of general when combined with Reanimated Horrors and the Legion combat trait.

Legion of the Night

+1 save for deathrattle and deadwalkers on turn one and set up to half the units in your army in reserve to come within 6" of any board edge and 9" of enemy units at the end of your movement phase.

Mannfred's Legion is also back and looking to make your deathbender and deadwalkers survive the first turn, either by boosting saves or keeping them off the battlefield ready to be used in later turns. Given how bad skeletons are in combat (and how important it actually is to stick around due to their baked ability to reanimate), I'd like to use the Unbending Will command trait to ignore melee rolls for units within 12" of the general. I also think it would there could be an argument for a cheap character with Morbheg's Claw; in exchange for giving up movement, charge, shoot, and fight until the next hero phase, all Legion of Night Wizards within 12" get a +2 to roll potentially pushing bonuses further with friendly corpse carts and other magical polishing units.

Dynasty Vyrkos

+1 to wound for deathblow and undead within 9" of your vampiric heroes. You can also reroll the roll for your vampiric wizards.

The first of the new sub-factions, and probably one of the best with versatile combat traits (simple and effective) and solid command abilities. I especially like Driven by Deathstench to reroll attacks within 9" of the general, or Spoor Trackers for a free 3" move on your dead walkers (yes, direwolves are also dead walkers) also within 9" of the general as long as you don't run.

Kaštelai dynasty

Place your blood knights in reserve to come within 6" of any board edge and 9" of enemy units at the end of your movement phase. Also gain boosted stacking abilities for your vampire units when they destroy enemy units.

Fans of the old blood dragons will essentially get them back. If you like bloodsuckers, you probably want to go to Kastelai. The stacking advances from Might of the Crimson Keep can be quite powerful depending on which meta king evolves after going 3rd edition. Abilities stack up; specifically be +1 to wound, +1 to your wound characteristic, or +2 to run and charge depending on the type of unit you killed (hero, monster, or infantry with characteristic wounds of 3 or more or 2 or less), but you can get only one of each buff during the game.

Avengorii Dynasty

Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares. With a great new model and good rules, I'm pretty sure you'd want to use it whenever you wantIgra se Avengoriii.

Your Terrorghests and Zombie Dragons will have the ability to gain Cursed Mutations and gain -1 to wounds in combat along with your Vampire Monsters. Also in the fight phase you can choose one of the scariest, zombie dragon or vampire monsters to fight with their highest level statline, regardless of how many wounds they have suffered.

The Avengorii are the last new sub-faction introduced by the new Lauka Vai, Mother of Nightmares (whose improvements to your monster units you'll probably want anyway). I really like the idea of ​​this dynasty; with the ability to take zombie dragons and Terrorghiests as a battleline and improve them through battle traits, it allows the player to create small, elite armies similar to those open to the flesh-eating courts. I find the command traits to be mediocre as there are a few unit enhancements where I believe Soulblight Gravelords really shine.

Spell lore from Legions of Nagash mostly brings it back intact with some improvements. Vampire lore is still focused on dealing damage, so for me learning death mage is more interesting with a few debuffs for opposing units. Now interestingly, all wizards gain access to the new Empowering Aura spell that can be cast by any number of wizards in the same hero phase;

On an 8+ to roll (with +1 to your roll for each of your heroes on the battlefield), you may choose 1 unit that you can fully summon within 18" of the caster and heal the unit's model's worth of 3 wounds. By Deathly Invocation, each unit he can only get the benefit of this spell once per turn.The model's flat 3 wounds are pretty good here, and with Deathly Invocation it looks like you'll be able to heal an average of 3+D3 wounds on your summonable units per turn.

As of now, there seems to be a split in opinion among the player base; On the one hand, Soulblight Gravelords is supposed to be a replacement for the Legions of Nagash book with a greater focus on vampiric elements, but on the other hand, there are players whose armies consist of mixed forces of death and feel short-changed most of their units are split into various other factions . Several volumes have already been written about the individual units featured in the book (we all know for example that the basic Skeletons and Zombies are improved over their previous incarnations), but I think there's something to be said for the book's design choices.

A look at unit changes between Legions of Nagash and Soulblight Gravelords;

+ Prince Duvalle and the Crimson Court

- Soul Wars (Chainwrasp Hordes, Grimghast Reapers, itd.)

Looking at the unit lists above, it seems like we've lost a lot of variety in terms of army building since the move to Soulblight Gravelords in exchange for a number of named characters and combo units from Shadespire and Cursed City that they're unlikely to take because most of them don't really fill it has no tactical niche or synergy with the rest of the book. All ghost units are gone (although I think there was an argument to keep the Black Coach since it's one of the classic vampire units), as well as bat swarms and anything related to Arkhan the Black and Morghast.

Come to the Games Workshop. Give me the Vyrkos Bloodborn as separate units!They are!

I feel like there's something of a missed opportunity here with the Radukar's Court content that could have opened up a number of interesting playstyles, especially given the reduced number of actual units that can be taken. Looking at the individual components of the court; As a player I would love to be able to take Vyrkos Bloodborn units to replace a blood knight in a Vyrkos list, or a single Vargskyr to act as a fast moving tether unit to compensate for the loss of bat swarms. After that we have characters like Gorslav and Halgrim who would be excellent choices to boost zombies and skeletons if they could be taken individually. However, this isn't something that can't be fixed, as point costs are updated fairly regularly in the game so it would only take a minor mistake to open up those tactical options, especially now that both Radukar the Wolf and Radukar's Court are available for purchase outside of Cursed City from Gamesa Workshop directly.

Edit:Cheers to Games Workshop for canceling parts of my review! As of this writing, Age of Sigmar 3rd Edition is now out, as well as a full set of FAQs and errata for all factions in the game. Additionally, we now have separate point costs and unit sizes for all of the Haunted City units, which opens up room to build lists in a fairly fair way.

I think the big winner here is Gorslav Cuvar Groba. He's very cheap, makes sub-commander slots easier to fill in new battalions, and his command ability is a guaranteed 30 zombie unit (if you're taking him, a 60 zombie block is probably mandatory). Second, there are the Vyrkos Bloodborn;You can boost them once for a 6 man unit and they can be taken in any dynasty (but you won't get the dynasty bonuses of using them outside of Vyrkos due to their keywords). These guys are a bit of a glass cannon, but they are very fast and have reasonable attacks for their relatively low cost. Given the move away from large units to a smaller MSU style of play that the rules encourage; 18 attacks from a unit of 6 with D3 damage could be pretty good for a small footprint. Finally, the last unit that I think will definitely be played is the Vargskyr; relatively cheap and very fast with its 8 movement and 3D6 charge, it makes it a good contender as a club replacement for absorbing the opponent's command abilities in the shooting phase.

The book itself includes five battalions of war scrolls; The first is the mandatory 'battalion of all battalions' which boosts Deathly Invocation to Nagash power level. Second, we have Red Banqueters made up of Vampire Lords, 1 Bloodseeker Palanquin or 1 Coven Throne and Bloodknight units that allow a small amount of healing for each unit in the battalion in the hero phase. The Fellwing Flock, made up of Verghiests and Fellbats, gets +1 to hit when rushing, and the brilliantly named Deathstench Drove made up of Corpse Carts, Dire Wolves and Zombies, allows 1 extra attack if they're in range of the Corpse. Cart. We finally have Deathmarch back for all you skeleton lovers out there; again consists of Wight Kings, Black Knights, Grave Guards and Skeletons and gives a 3" movement boost to 3 different units from the battalion when in range of the Wight King.

In addition, there have been improvements in the remaining units in the book; Mannfred got a pretty big boost which probably made him one of the best characters in the book with the new out of combat redeployment rule and the ability to boost attacks and hit streaks and wound nearby troops. Lauka Vai appears to be an auto-include for the Avengorii army and is a direct upgrade from the Avengorii overlord with her deadly assault wounds and impressive Queen of the Monsters command ability that selects 1 enemy unit on the battlefield to be +1 to hit on all sides of your monsters that target him in battle.

You'll probably find that one or two Necromancers are pretty much mandatory for any infantry-based Soulblight army.

In my opinion, the big winners of the book are the new Zombies and Skeletons. Zombies gain the ability to activate within 6" of an enemy unit and receive the mortal wound attack previously enjoyed by spirit hosts with the added bonus of adding new zombies to the unit on a 2+ for each model killed during that phase. Skeletons now benefit from the Skeleton Legion rules: when you choose this unit to fight, roll a die for each model in this unit killed in that phase On a 4+, you may return that model to

this unit. It's worth noting that both skeletons and zombies benefit greatly from the Necromancer's Vanhel's Danse Macabre which allows the unit to choose to fight a second time; Zombies will need to take more wounds to increase their numbers, and Skeletons will be able to activate Skeletal Legion a second time during the turn.

However, something I want to try out revolves around the new Belladamma Volga, Radukar the Beast, Dire Wolves, and Vyrkos Dynasty's +1 to wound ability for deathrattles and deadwalkers within 9" of your vampire heroes;

Belladamma Volga has very good synergy with Dire Wolves. Her spell spawns more wolves if she kills one, and her command ability gives good extra range to the wolves already pretty impressive 10" move. Add to this her ability to similarly push wounds onto nearby Dire Wolf Necromancer units and she actually becomes more survivable than Necromancers her steady line would suggest.

Beast-boy further pushes the wolf synergy here. He's 'almost' fast enough to keep up with them, but his command abilities would essentially give all wolves around him +1 attack (and if there aren't any, he can spawn in a free unit once per game).

The Wolves themselves may not be that great on paper given their statlines, but with the extra attack from Radukar, +1 to hit and wound when attacking and a further +1 to wound for being dead walkers within 9" of your vamp heroes (either Radukar or Belladamma) then suddenly you have a unit with 3 attacks, a piece that hits on a 3+ and wounds on a 2+ that can be activated within 6". Combining all of these into an army might be a bit difficult, but I could see something like a big block of 30 wolves plus two characters being quite useful in the game.

Ultimately, I think the book succeeds in some areas, but also falls short in others. There are a number of upgrades that will work quite successfully probably based on the excellent new zombies and skeletons, but it seems to me that too much in terms of variety has been removed in exchange for boosts to what is left behind. However, that being said, the truth is that we haven't seen any of the changes coming with AoS 3rd Edition yet, so as I mentioned before, if Games Workshop made some changes with 'splash damage' being less effective on one wounded infantry (which kind of makes sense anyway given how it works in 40k) then I think the amount of healing we have, albeit reduced, could go a long way in keeping our units on the field and really driving home that impersonal aspect of the horde that seems to be going for.