REVIEW: Soulblight Gravelords (2023)

Soulblight Gravelords are finally here. With their arrival, the vampires are now enjoying themselves in the moonlight. Featuring most of what made up the Legions of Nagash, plus a few new additions, the Gravelords are ready to leave their mark on the mortal realms.

First off, a big thanks to Games Workshop for sending me this review copy of Battletome to check out. I'm a huge fan of the Death alliance in AoS, if it wasn't obvious already, so I was definitely excited to see what this book had in store. Granted, vampires have never been my favorite of the various Death sub-factions, but I really like what they've done with them here. Plus, I love all the other stuff with them, like skeletons and zombies. As with all Battletome reviews, I have to start with the cover, and wow, this is an amazing cover. I love everything about it. Style, colors, composition. It sums up everything that is great about this army and boils it down to one picture. Of all the four death books currently published, I think this is probably my favorite cover. I just wish there was a new Zombie Dragone out that looked more like the one on this cover, because that is one cool dragon.

The lore sections open with a general overview of the Soulblight Gravelords that focuses predominantly on the vampires themselves over the rest of the army. This makes sense because vampires are really the heart of the army. They make up almost the entire personality of the Gravelords, while the other units are more or less just the tools they use. It covers a lot of basic vampire characteristics, which are no different from what you may already know about vampires from common folklore. All of them are incredibly powerful and terrifying. Most are also deeply charismatic, and some have immense necromantic power. It also briefly touches on their origins in the world-that-was with Neferat as the first vampires. Vampires inhabit all kingdoms, which would give them all slightly different characteristics. It is also mentioned that not everyone is evil, and some are indeed noble, but they are the exception to the rule. Some vampires worship Nagash, some tolerate him, but all serve him.

We then get a brief overview of the Nasgah, who will be familiar to you from any of the past books of death. A big piece of new information here is the re-creation of vampires within the mortal realms. When Nagash first arrived in the realms, vampires didn't exist. He retrieved the souls of Mannfred, Neferata and Ushoran from the underworlds and reformed them as whole beings. Ushoran eventually went mad and went on to found the Carnivore Courts, but both Mannfred and Neferata started new vampire lineages, meaning that every vampire in the mortal realms can trace their bloodlines back to one of the two of them.

This is followed by a recap of Necroquake and the Soul Wars that followed. During these times the Soulblight Gravelords prospered and greatly expanded their kingdoms. Both Neferata and Mannfred saw Olynder and Katakros as rivals who would lead them to even greater heights of conquest. We also get the Soul Wars ending fromBroken Kingdoms: Teclisthe book, which SPOILERS if you haven't read it yet, ends with Nagash banished back to the underworlds and Arkhan destroyed... at least for the moment. Although their master may have fallen, most of the Gravelords saw no reason to give up the momentum they had and continued to push forward. There are two pages describing Shyish, with some new information about the Gravelords' domains, such as Castinia, which resembles old Sylvania, something Nagash made to mock his Mortarch. Neferata has its capital Nulahmia, which is briefly mentioned as having Ushabti statues guarding its entrances. Although not specifically named as such, they definitely are, although there is no mention of whether they are animated or not. Nice to see they aren't erasing her non-Hekharean heritage, especially with a town called Nulahmia.

The main new addition to the background lore comes in the form of different bloodlines or lineages. The two largest are the Legions of Night and Blood, belonging to Mannfred and Neferata. Although technically every other bloodline actually belongs to one of these two, enough time has passed that many have branched off into something completely their own. The three most powerful of the remaining bloodlines are Vykros, Kastelai, and Avengorii. The Night Legion is one of the largest of the group, led by Mannfred. He is a brilliant tactician, using misdirection and traps to win his battles. He mentions how the Legion of Night was Nagash's weapon of terror, but has since been replaced by Olynder and Nighthaunt. Mannfred still managed to stay on top. For example, when Arkhan slaughtered his black disciples to form Mortisans for his legions of Kostores, Mannfred saved those he could so that he could have powerful Necromancers under his command.

The Blood Legion, in contrast, is much more about gathering information. Neferata is known as the Queen of Mysteries, and as such has a wide network of spies who do her bidding. When they go to war, it's usually with large regiments of skeleton warriors, because they're not as ugly as zombies. The Vykros, according to legend, were not descended from one of the two vampires, but from the huge beast of the wolf god. As such, all vampires of this dynasty reflect the bestial aspect of the wolf. They are largely a nomadic dynasty, with the dark forest kingdoms home to many of them, but some have made more permanent homes, such as the city of Ulfenkarn. This city actually gets two whole pages to itself, most of which you may be familiar withDamn citysurrender. It is mentioned that Radukar was defeated by the heroes of the city and chased away. A small pocket of the living has begun to flourish in the city, though other Vykros vampires still rule there, as does the transformed Radukar Beast, who now roams the streets killing everything he finds.

The Kastelai dynasty is most closely associated with the old Blood Dragons. Their leader is Prince Vhordrai, who once tried to overthrow Nagash but failed. As punishment, he was magically banished to the Crimson Keep, which can appear anywhere across the kingdoms. From there, let the Blood Knights of Kastelaj ride on, but they can only stay out for 24 hours before they have to return. Although they resemble Blood Dragons, Aborash is not mentioned, so it seems that he is not part of the mortal realm, at least for now. It is also mentioned that the Vhordrai may try their luck again at deposing the Nagash now that the Great Necromancer has been laid to rest. Lastly, the Avengorii dynasty resides within Ghur. They embody the monstrous aspect of the Soulblight curse and make excellent use of monsters and Varghiests. They are led by Lauka Vai, who feels that attacking helpless mortals is beneath her, and instead focuses the dynasty's efforts on hunting the Ghura beasts. Although these are not direct comparisons, both the lore and the rules I will discuss later call for some comparisons of the old bloodlines with these five. The Night Legion are the von Carsteins, the Blood Legion are the Lahmians, the Vykros are the Necrach, the Kastelai are the Blood Dragons, and the Avengorii are the Strigoi. As I said, they are not direct translations, but it is pretty obvious that they were kept in mind when creating the new dynasties.

The timeline section is actually a bit short and as such mostly covers the main events that many Death players will already be familiar with. One new addition that I liked was Harvest to Far. Here, the Kostorezi of the Ivorian army and the Avengorii are arguing over a territorial dispute. The Kostohvats are nearly defeated when Vokmortian arrives and brokers peace between the two. This section ends with events fromBroken Kingdoms: Teclisand states that it now seems inevitable that Mannfred and Neferata will fall out with their master's indisposition.

The unit sections give a little more background on each individual unit and character in the army. The Vengorian Lords are vampires who were too close to what became the Shyish Nadir at the time of the Necroquake and became saturated with death magic. This turned them into horrible monsters, which they despise. Now they seek to destroy every reflective surface so they don't have to see their own reflections. One of the weirder ideas to me is the one with the Fell Bats storing all the blood they drink and then flying back to the vampire strongholds and dropping it for them to drink. Kritza, the Rat Prince was once a noble of Ulfenkarn. While still alive, he tried to deceive Radukar and was almost killed. Forced to hide among the corpses, he lived off rats, and thanks to the bloody kiss of Radukar, he became a vampire with an affinity for rats. He lived in the sewers until Radukar was finally overthrown. Now he has emerged to take over Ulfenkarn in Radukar's place. There's also a cool story here near Nagash's part that further highlights the deepening rivalry between Mannfred and Neferata.

The gallery section shows all the painted models as well as some fantastic scenic shots. I especially like the one of the Black Knights attacking the forces of Nurgle in the swamps of Ghiran. The hobby tutorial section here has some really good paint tips. In fact, I think it might be the best yet. I loved their black fabric method so much that I went ahead and bought the two colors I needed. The zombie skin recommendations look really cool too. I think I'll stick pretty close to their Fell Bat guide as well.

Moving on to the rules section, we start with loyalty abilities. Each Gravelords army must choose one of the five bloodlines I mentioned above, which I'll talk about in more detail shortly. Also, any Gravelords army can contain Nagash, and he then gets the Soulblight Gravelords keyword, just like with Bonereapers. Deathless Minions return, giving a roll of 6+ ignore wounds to any unit within 12" of any hero. Graves also return, allowing you to place two in your territory and two outside of your territory after you've chosen sides but before deploying. Any unit with the Summonable keyword can be held in a grave instead of being placed normally. They are then brought from the graves at the end of your movement phase, fully within 12" of the space and 9" away from any enemy unit. Locus of Shyish, which was previously in the spells section, has now been moved to devotional abilities. Whenever you cast a Lore of the Deathmages or Lore of the Vampires spell and it is an unmodified scroll of nine or higher, you must resolve the effects of that spell twice. Reanimated Horrors takes over rules that previously applied to some units' flags and moves them under a separate rule. Now enemy units within 6" of any Deathrattle or Deadwalkers unit take away one of their bravery, and if they are within range of two or more of those units, then take away two.

Endless Legions has had several changes. Now, at the end of your combat roll test, count the number of enemy units that were destroyed that turned and rolled a die, and add that number to that. If it's a 5+, you may choose one zombie or skeleton unit of your own that has been destroyed and bring up to half that number back from the graveyard, but this counts as a completely new unit. This is a much more restrained version of the rules, still allowing you to recycle your own units, but significantly reducing the power. Lastly, Deathly Invocation, which was previously on heroes' war scrolls, has now been moved to loyalty abilities. There is a table that lists each hero's keyword and how many units they are allowed to heal. Deathrattle units can select up to two, while Mortarchi can select up to four. You do this in your hero phase and can only select summonable units. Each unit you select either heals D3 wounds or restores D3 wounds to the model's value. The big change is that each unit can only be healed once, regardless of how many heroes you have near them, including Nagash.

After that, it breaks down the remaining special rules between each bloodline, with each bloodline getting two special rules, plus all command traits and artifacts. Legion of Blood makes D3 more models run away from an enemy unit that fails a melee test near a vampire. All of their Deathrattle units also ignore negative modifiers on their hit and wound rolls if they are within range of a vampire unit. This definitely encourages you to have a mostly skeleton and vampire themed army for them. There are six command traits and six artifacts to choose from. Of the command traits, I like Walking Death, where you can deal lethal wounds with your weapon instead of normal wounds on a wound roll of 6. Orb of Enchantment seems pretty good artifact-wise, letting you pick an enemy hero within 3" once per battle , and on a 3+ they cannot be chosen to fight in that phase.Black Knights can also be taken as a battle line in this dynasty.

The Night Legion retains some of its previous rules with The Bait. You add 1 to saving throws for your Deathrattle and Deadwalker units on your first turn. Eternal Cunning allows you to ambush half of your units. They can then appear at the end of one of your movement phases within 6" of any board edge and 9" of an enemy. Above Suspicion is probably the best command trait, allowing your general to ambush anywhere on the table instead of near the edge of the board, although Unholy Impetus is also very good. This allows you to add 1 to the melee attacks of all friendly units within range of your general if they killed any models in combat. This means you'll want your general to attack early in the combat phase. Of the artifacts, Shard of Night looks pretty good with all the foxes flying around lately. Allows you to ignore the tearing characteristic of attacks that target you. The Vargheists can also be taken as a battle line in this dynasty.

The Vykros Dynasty is my favorite because it really favors how I think I want to play this army. You can add 1 to the wound roll for Deathrattle and Deadwalker units within range of your vampires, and you can also reroll the saving throw for any of your vampire units. My favorite command trait is definitely Spoor Trackers. This allows you to move any Deadwalker unit within range of your general up to 3" in your hero phase. Any extra movement for them is a nice bonus. The Ulfenkarnian Phylactery is a great artifact, extending the range of your immortal minions from 12" to 18". This dynasty favors zombies and spells, as well as Dire Wolves, which tick all the boxes I'm looking for.Another great command trait is Kin of the Wolf, which allows you to summon a unit of 5 Dire Wolves once per battle .

The Kastelai dynasty is all about the Blood Knights and the Crimson Fort. Their first rules allow you to place your Blood Knight units in reserve. You can then place them from any edge of the table at the end of any movement phase. Their Blood Knight units also gain power every time they destroy an enemy unit. If they destroy a hero or monster, they get +1 damage to their melee weapons, if the unit has a characteristic wound of 3 or more and is not a hero or monster, they get an extra wound, and any other unit gives them +2 to their run and charge rolls . My favorite trait is Rousing Commander. This is a once-per-battle ability that gives all friendly Blood Knights within range of the general +1 damage and wound enhancement for that combat phase. The Sword of the Red Seneschals is an artifact that allows you to choose the wielder's melee weapon. If you kill any model in the combat phase with that weapon, then all of your units within 12" of the wielder gain +1 to their wound rolls for the phase. Blood Knight can also be taken as a battle line in this dynasty.

Finally we have the Avengorii dynasty. They actually have three special rules, the first of which allows one of your Zombie Dragons or Terrorgheists to choose the Cursed Mutation upgrade. These include a once-per-battle ability that lets you pick a model with 3 or fewer wounds and eat it to heal 1 wound, a once-per-battle ability to run and charge in the same turn, and an ability that forces enemy wizards to re-roll a successful roll within range of the monster. You may choose one additional Cursed Mutation for each battalion you have in your army. Monstrous Might subtracts 1 from the enemy's wound roll when targeting Zombie Dragons, Terrorgheists, or Vampire Monsters unless they are also monsters, and Unstoppable Nightmares lets you choose one Zombie Dragon, Terrorgheist, or Vampire Monster in the combat phase and let them attack with their invulnerable profile for that phase. They only have three command traits and three artifacts to choose from, probably since they also have Cursed Mutations. Torment Driven Throes is a command trait that lets you roll a die for every enemy unit within 3" and on a 5+ they take a mortal wound and can't attack until that hero fights. Furious Crown is probably my pick of the artifacts, which is a once per combat allowing you to roll dice equal to your charge roll and on a 5+ you deal a mortal wound to the unit you are charging Zombie Dragons and Terrorgheists can also be taken as a battle line in this dynasty.

There are two spells to choose from, one for Nagash and Vampires and one for Nagash, Mortarches and Deathmages. There is also a new spell that every wizard in the army knows, Empowering Aura. This spell is not limited to casting once per turn, but you cannot double cast it on the same unit. Fires up on an 8+ and you choose a fully summonable unit within 18" of the caster to heal 3 wounds or return 3 wounds worth of models. So you can do that plus Deathly Invocation in the same turn, on the same unit , as they are different abilities. Just like before, Lore of the Vampires is much more aggressive, while Lore of the Deathmages is all about debuffs. I think we'll see Amethystine Pinions being taken from vampires a lot, giving the caster an extra 6" of movement on 5+. I've always preferred Lore of the Deathmages since I'm a big fan of debuffs. Overwhelming Dread allows you to select an enemy unit and subtract 1 from hit rolls on a 5+. Weak Power activates on a 6+ and subtracts 1 from the enemy unit's characteristic attacks. The best thing is when you roll it on a 9+ and double these effects.

The narrative battle plan is called The Bell Tolls for Thee and it looks like a lot of fun. It represents the Gravelords army just trying to completely overpower the enemy inside the graveyard. They actually played out this battle plan in this month's White Dwarf and I really enjoyed it. I hope that they will do this more often in the future when the new army comes. Instead of playing the Matched Play battle plan in White Dwarf, play the narrative from the new battle tome. This is followed by the Path to Glory section before we move on to the scrolls.

You can choose five battalions of war scrolls for this army. The first is the mega battalion, which beats the Deathly Invocation rule. The others are the Red Banqueters, who are all vampires and Blood Knights and allow you to heal D3 wounds to every unit in the battalion in your hero phase. Fellwing Flock are Vargheists and Fell Bats and gives them +1 to hit when charging. My favorite is the Deathstench Drove, which consists of 1-2 Corpse Carts, 2 units of Dire Wolves, and 2 units of Zombies, and gives units 1 extra attack if they are in range of the Corpse Cart. Finally we have the good old Deathmarch, a battalion that has been with us since the death book of the Grand Alliance. The unit requirements have changed a bit, but they're mostly the same, and now you can pick 3 units in range of your Wight King at the start of the movement phase and add 3" to their movement. Honestly, I'm really happy to see this one continue. It's a tradition in this moment.

I won't spend a ton of time on war scrolls, since you can already find them for free and a lot of people have already worked on them. Instead, I'm just going to pick out some of my favorites, as well as some changes that stood out to me. Speaking of which, almost everything here is polished. Mannfred has a pretty cool ability called Mortarch of Night, which allows him to rest at the start of the combat phase if he's in combat and move anywhere on the battlefield 9" away from enemy units. Prince Vhordrai is still a beat stick, as expected. Lauka Vai and Vengorian Lord are almost identical, except she has an extra wound and a few different abilities. If you're leading an Avengorii army, you'll probably want to take Lauka Vai because her command ability improves monsters in battle. I like the Nightmare's Miasma ability that she shares and Vengorian.Works the cleave characteristic of an enemy unit by 1 when they are within 3" of them. They also both share a 3+ save, so that makes them quite survivable in combat.

All of the Vykros characters seem like a lot of fun and pretty good. Belladamma Volga has a bunch of great abilities, including a few that enhance Dire Wolves. The Radukar Beast lives up to its name and also has a command ability that allows it to bring a unit of 10 Dire Wolves once per game. Kritza and Annika are interesting secondary characters. They both have identical profiles and are not wizards. Annika ignores all wounds on a 4+, and if she still has wounds at the end of the phase, she heals to full. This makes it pretty hard to survive, even with only 4+ saves and 6 wounds. Kritza on the other hand makes enemy units that attack him -1 to hit in a crowd, and when he's killed you roll the dice and on a 4+ place a new Kritza anywhere on the battlefield more than 9" away from the enemy. And I think Annika is technically better , but I really like the idea behind Kritza, as well as his great model. I just wish I could take the Rat Swarms from the Cursed City with me. He has a bit less points too. None of them improve anything though, they are a bit odd unit as heroes, since they're also not particularly lethal I think Annika might be good to take for battle plans that have heroes holding objectives, since she'll be hard to switch Anyway, they seem fun to take.

Blood Knights Riders of Ruin's ability allows them to move around units within 3" and deal mortal wounds to them, essentially allowing them to rampage through the battle line. I believe that doesn't count as retreat, since it says normal movement, so they should be able to re- charge after you do this. Zombies are great now. They've lost all their command models since the new kit doesn't have them, but they have some pretty good abilities. They can stack in 6" which means your enemy will have to be even more careful with placement around them if they want to avoid zombies getting stuck. They also deal a mortal wound on a roll of 6, making them similar to Spirit Hosts in their attack profile. At the end of the combat phase, you also roll dice for each enemy model they killed, and on a 2+ you add a zombie to your unit. One of the Corpse Carts also increases its save from "-" to 6+. Keeping in line with the line troops, Deathrattle units also got a few better players. Grave Guardian now does an extra mortal wound on a 6 wound roll instead of double damage, and their shiny weapon does 2 damage. Regular skeletons now only have one attack profile, regardless of whether they have swords or spears. They hit more accurately, but have lost all their buffs to attacks. Instead, when you choose them to fight, you roll dice for each model you lost to that unit already in that phase, and on a 4+ you return them to the unit. This encourages you to use them as tar pits and attack later in the phase, with the deadlier unit attacking first. Dire Wolves are still great with 2 attack, hitting on 3s and 3s on offense and with 10" move.

Oops, looks like I spent more time on the war scrolls than I planned. I really like this book if you can't tell. I think it takes all the best parts of the Legions of Nagash book, simplifies them, and adds a bunch of cool vampire stuff on top of it. The lore part is great and I really like how it sets up the conflict between Mannfred and Neferata now that Nagash is out of the way. I would have liked to see more jockeying between all the Mortarchs during this time in general. The Vykros stuff is the most lore-wise for me, which makes sense, they seem to be the most fleshed out of the new vampires thanks to Ulfenkarn. The army itself has a bunch of different builds you can make. Besides just five bloodlines, you can also make a Deathrattle-centric army, a zombie-centric army, a mixed army, a Blood Knight-heavy army, or even multiple combinations. There's a lot of flexibility in list design here and I'm excited to see what people do. I think I'll lean towards the zombie side of things myself.

Till next time,

Tyler M.