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You wait for a Death Battletome, then two come along at once!

Whilst Andy has been busy looking through the Ossiarch Bonereapers Battletome I have been tasked with taking a look at the other (IMHO better) undead faction getting a new Battletome, the Soulblight Gravelords!

A massive shout out to Games Workshop for sending us this Battletome to review, as well as the new Ivya Volga mini.

During this review we’ll also be checking out the rules and Matt’s stunning painted Ivya Volga, the latest character to join the ranks of the Gravelords. More on here further down the page, however you can watch the unboxing video of Ivya below (as well as the new Mortisan Ossifector):

Slight disclaimer, I am not a competitive tournament player, however I do enjoy competitive games. To this end my review is more of a general look at the book picking out as much new and changed stuff as I can, especially anything which seems fun.

Grab yourself a brew, get settled in, and let’s delve into this tome.

Lore

First things first, the background of the Soulblight.

The Soulblight Gravelords were one of the factions that sort of transitioned over from Warhammer Fantasy, and I can safely say with the arrival of this book they are starting to feel more at home in the Mortal Realms. The arrival of Warhammer Quest Cursed City led the way with this of course, but they are now starting to feel like a fully fleshed out Age of Sigmar army.

The lore and stories in this book are perfect for newcomers, introducing you to each of the great Dynasties and all the key players, included Nagash. It’s nice to see some of the other dynasties getting as much text space as Vykros, which, let’s face it, are the main faction since the arrival of Cursed City and continue to be the torch in this book.

Experienced Vampire fans will also be satisfied with the content in this section of the book. As I mentioned, they are starting to really feel at home away from the Empire of Old.

The book also contains some painting advice for painting your own Vampires, Zombies and Direwolves

Allegiance Abilities

OK, so let’s not muck about. Let us start to talk rules.

As with all of the current edition of Battletomes, you have a choice of subfaction, represented here by the Cursed Bloodlines (Dynasties).

These we have seen before, but for newcomers these are the names of said Bloodlines:

• Legion of Blood – Home to Neferata, a returning Vampire Lord from the Old Times. The covert of Bloodlines
• Legion of Night – This is Mannfred’s Bloodline. Hit & Run specialists.
• Vykros – This is where you’ll find all the characters from Cursed City.. If you love Direwolves and Zombies this could be the subfaction for you
• Kastelai – If you want to run a plethora of Vampires, this could potentially be the faction for you.
• Avengorii – Like Monsters? So does this Bloodline

Endless Legions returns, allowing you to choose one destroyed Summonable unit and, on a 4+, allow you to bring them back at half strength within 12″ of a Hero or Gravesite.

What is new however, is that you can now choose a Summonable Hero too. Same restrictions, same dice roll. The only disappointing thing is we are basically looking at just Wight Kings and Kritza who have the right keywords, however in a meta where you want on foot heroes for a number of Battle Tactics this could be a fantastic ability to have in your back pocket.

The Unquiet Dead also returns which, for those unaware, is basically deepstrike for Skeletons and Zombies.

Something that has changed a little is Deathly Invocation. In your Hero phase, you choose up to 3 friendly Soulblight Gravelords Summonable units and you can then heal up to 3 wounds back of bring back 3 wounds worth of models to that unit. However, should you be within 12″ of a gravesite you can add 1 to the number if slain models that are returned.

Deathless Minions has been improved, giving all of your Gravelords a ward save of 6+ regardless of if they are within range of a Hero or not.

Oh, and if the above didn’t make it obvious, Gravesites are back, and work as they did before (unless I’ve missed something).

Spell Lores

Boy oh boy, are some of these tasty!

The lore in here are split into two sections, both containing three spells a piece.

The first is reserved purely for Vampire Wizards, the second for Mortarchs and Deathmages.

Previously, on a spell cast of 9+ you basically got to double the effects of the spell. This has changed. Now, on a cast of 9+ you gain a bonus ability.

Let’s look at a couple of spells as examples, starting with the Lore of Vampires:

• Soulpike: Has a casting value of 6 and allows you to pick 1 enemy unit. You roll a number of dice equal to the charge value of the enemy unit, and for each 4+ that unit takes a mortal wound. May make a unit think twice about charging you. On a cast of a 9+ you can choose 2 units, instead of 1.
• Spirit Gale: Have you ever seen an ability that deals damage to every enemy unit on the board? Well, now you have. On a cast value of 7 this spells deals one mortal wound to every enemy unit. Cast it on a 9+ and it instead deals two mortal wounds. We aren’t talking mega damage here, but it’ll help towards making units take battleshock and could potentially finish off a Hero or two.

Now we’ll pick a couple from the Lore of Deathmages, excluding Prison of Grief which was recently previewed on WarCom:

• Fading Vigor: Casts on a 6. Pick an enemy unit. Boom, they have -1 Attack on the unit’s melee weapons. Cast it on a 9+ and you are taking 2 Attacks away from each model in that unit. Very powerful.
• Waste Away: Casts on a 6. Subtract 1 from the wound roll and Damage characteristic of the enemy unit you have picked. Again on a 9+ you can choose two units, instead of one.

With spells out of the way, it’s time to take a bit more of a deep dive into the Bloodlines.

Legion of Blood

Before we take a look at the Legion of Blood, a quick note.

Unlike many recent Battletomes, this one actually has a selection of abilities unique to each Bloodline. So no generic Soulblight relics or command traits. Your available choices are limited to the Bloodline you have chosen.

Every Bloodline has a Battle Trait, and for the Legion of Blood it’s Unparalleled Expertise. This rule reminds me a little of the Ogors!

If a Vampire is within 3″ of any enemy units, it is classed as bloodthirsty. If it is more than 3″ from enemy units it is instead empowered.

• Bloodthirsty = Gain an extra attack on all melee weapons
• Empowered = Add 1 to casting, dispelling and unbinding

You also gain two exclusive Heroic Actions. The first makes your Hero ignore ward saves when in combat whilst the second forces your opponent to spend an extra CP if they want to issue All-Out Defence or Inspiring Presence (within a 12″ radius, it’s like a mini Total Eclipse, sort of…).

Finally you have a choice of 3 Command Traits and 3 Artefacts. All have usage here, but I’m going to pick out my favourite for each of these.

Tailored Downfall is one of the three Command Traits and basically allows you to choose one Hero prior to battle. Should said Hero come within 3″ of your General, that enemy Hero gains strikes-last. Amulet of Screams is as delightful to your opponent as the very name suggests. Any time your opponent successfully casts a spell within 18″ of the bearer, you roll a dice. On a 3+, that caster takes D3 mortal wounds after the effect of the spell takes place.

All-in-all, a very strong dynasty to start us off.

Black Knights are Battleline in this subfaction.

Legion of Night

Mannfred heads up this legion. If you have chosen Legion of Night you gain the following Battle Trait, Ageless Cunning.

After an enemy units finishes a charge move during their charge phase you can picking 1 friendly unit within 12″ and attempt a charge with them. Charging in your opponents charge phase, neat!

You then unlock 1 Heroic Action and 1 Monstrous Rampage. The Heroic Action is a free teleport for a Hero, however it cannot be used if said Hero is within 3″ of any enemy units. Other than that just the normal rules regarding placing the unit 9″ away from the enemy.

Into the Jaws of Death is a Monstrous Rampage which is basically an Overwatch. You pick 1 enemy unit within 6″ of this Monster which has charged. You then roll 2D6, adding 3 to the roll if the enemy unit is within half an inch of the Monster. If the roll beats the charge distance rolled by your opponent, you get to use Pestilential Breath or Death Shriek (depending on the Monster) for free against that enemy unit.

Again, 3 different Command Traits and Artefacts to choose from. Some great choices, and a couple of ‘OK’ ones. The Bait is a very cool Trait however, giving all your Summonable units on the battlefield +1 to their Save and Ward Save rolls (whilst the general is also on the battlefield) in the first battle round.

Morbheg’s Claw is a fun little relic. The bearer can use this relic in the Hero so long as they are outside of 3″ of any enemy units. All friendly Soulblight Wizards within 12″ of the bearer gain +2 to cast. The downside is the bearer of this relic cannot move, run or charge until your next hero phase.

Vargheists and Fell Bats are classed as Battleline in this subfaction.

Vyrkos Dynasty

If you like Special Named Characters, this Dynasty is probably the place for you, as it is still home to the vast majority of characters from this book.

The main vampire is of course still Radukar, so Direwolves feature a lot in this Bloodline.

The Trait is called Strength of the Wolf is the Pack and in short it allows a Vykros unit to fight immediately after a Vykros Hero, which is very cool.

Like the Legion of Blood, Vykros get two exclusive Heroic actions. One however is a once per battle action, which allows you to summon 10 Direwolves with the normal placement restrictions. You’ll note later that Radukar no longer has the once per battle ability to also do this.

The second action is called Pack Alpha. You pick a friendly Hero, then pick a friendly Deadwalkers (Zombies) unit within 12″ of the Hero. Add D3 models to the unit. This along with Deathly Invocation means you’ll be bringing a few of your models back per turn.

Yep, once again you have 3 Command Traits and 3 Artefacts to pick from, each of them being very useful. Take these two for example:

• Driven by Deathstench: (Command Trait) Reroll all charges for units within 9″ of the General. Great for folks like me, who cannot ever make charges.
• Ulfenkarni Phylactery: (Artefact) Add 1 to Ward saves for friendy Summonable units wholly within 9″.

This was always going to be a strong Bloodline thanks to the vast array of characters, and the rules for them only strengthen the case.

Kastelai Dynasty

Want to make your Vampires punchier? Then this could be the subfaction for you.

Might of the Crimson Keep is the name of the Battle Trait for this Bloodline. It gives your Vampires a buff for the rest of the game at the end of a combat phase in which they have slain any enemy models. You cannot however, gain the same ability twice.

So what do the buffs look like? Well…

• If you have slain an enemy Hero or Monster = Add 1 Damage to the unit’s melee weapons (but not the mount’s melee weapons sadly, sorry Zombie Dragon).
• If you have slain a model have has 3 or more wounds and is not a Hero or a Monster = Add 1 to the number of attack’s of the vamp’s melee weapons (sorry again mounts, that doesn’t include your attacks).
• If you have slain a model with 2 or less wounds = You gain an extra inch to your movement (even if you have a mount, yay you get something big scary monster!)

You also get one exclusive Heroic Action, and one Monstrous Rampage. The Heroic action is a little bit of an odd one, but is pretty cool. You basically pick a Vampire and at the end of any phase in which a wound or mortal wound was allocated to your Vamp (but your Vampire is still alive) you dish out D3 mortal wounds to all enemy units within 3″ on a dice roll of a 2+.

The Monstrous Rampage, however, is much more straight forward. Your Monster gets to add 1 to wound rolls in the following combat phase. Roar!

Yep, as with all the other Bloodlines, you get a choice of three Command Traits and 3 Artefacts, and we have some solid choices here.

For Command Traits, how about Undead Bladelord. If another one of your Vampire’s gains an ability via Might of the Crimson Keep then your General gets the same ability too (once per turn mind).

Artefact-wise, there is two I wanted to bring up, The first is the Fragment of the Keep, which subtracts 1 from wound rolls for all melee weapon attacks from enemy units within 3″ of the bearer. Tasty! The Red Casket is also well worth a mention, adding 3 to the run and charge rolls for the bearer. Handy for those of us (ME) who roll low on charges.

One final key point here is that Blood Knights become Battleline with this Bloodline.

Avengorii Dynasty

What’s that? You prefer big monsters instead of zombies and skeletons? Well, in our final stop of the Soulblight Bloodlines we have the Avengorii Dynasty.

Cursed Abominations, the Dynasties Battle Trait, allows you to pick 1 friendly Monster at the start of the combat phase. That Monster can fight using his top profile, regardless of how much of a kicking it has had so far.

In a not so shocking turn of events you get two exclusive Monstrous Rampages to choose from. Maddening Hunger, allowing your Monster to swallow an enemy model whole (you pick D3 units, roll a dice for each. If the dice roll is higher than the number of wounds on the model it is slain). The second one is called Unstopabble Nightmare and basically allows your Monster, until the end of the following combat phase, to fight immediately after the death of another one of your Avengorii units (within 6″).

You know this by now. 3 Traits and 3 Artefacts are up for grabs, including:

• Monstrous Might (Command Trait): Subtract 1 from wound rolls made by enemy melee weapons of whom are attacking one of your Monsters.
• The Furious Crown (Artefact): Once per battle, at the start of the charge phase, you declare that you will unleash the crown. After you’ve made said charge you roll a number of dice equal to the charge roll and for each roll of a 4+ you dish out a mortal wound.

Terrogheists, Zombie Dragons and Vargheists are all Battleline in this subfaction.

Summary of Bloodlines

What I like most about the choice of Bloodlines is each pushes your army into a different direction, almost changing the way you will play.

Legion of Blood has some killer abilities and has the ability to hit hard early game, whilst Vykros will continue to be popular thanks to the many character, who in turn do a great job of buffering the vast array of undead you’ll have.

Path to Glory

For those seeking some narrative play to sink your teeth into (sorry, couldn’t help it) we have some excellent content here and it is all fluffy.

Take for example your Summonable units not being on your order of battle, because ofcourse they wouldn’t! You’d be raising them before battle!

Equally all the Veteran Abilities, Quests and Territories have a Soulblight feel to them, and narrative players will have a blast integrating these into a campaign.

There is even a Vampire Name Generator (which is too small IMHO) and a Dynastic Quirks table, giving your army a bit of a start when it comes to a back story.

Matched Play

Right then sports fans, Matched Play time.

In this new era of Age of Sigmar, this page is super important as you could be landed with horrible Battle Tactics and/or Grand Strategies which will make Victory look like the end of a rainbow.

Thank goodness then, that the Soulblight Gravelords don’t suffer from this, and have a few great choices for both.

Let’s look at a couple of Grand Strategies choices first of all:

• Lust for Domination: Back from the White Dwarf update for the old book. Simply control more gravesites than your opponent, in the same manner of which you control objectives. Simple.
• Empire of Corpes: Replace 3 Summonable units that have been destroyed during the game. Risky, as you are relying on dice rolls to bring back units, but very much achievable.

The other two, Danse Macabre and Crimson Larder has you needing to have more Summonable units left compared to enemy units within your territory or with the latter needing to have killed every enemy Hero and for your army to have Vampires left, both of which in my opinion are just too risky.

Some good choices for Battle Tactics, which include…

• The Choicest Vintage: Pick 1 enemy Hero. A Vampire Hero needs to kill said enemy unit in that turn.
• Endless Nightmare: Pick a friendly Summonable unit. Complete the tactic if you manage to bring back at least 6 models. Their is a few ways to do this, making this a strong choice later in the game.
• The Grasping Dead: Pick a friendly Summonable unit within 3″ of enemy units. Complete this tactic if said unit is still within 3″ of an enemy unit at the end of the turn. Importantly doesn’t say it has to be the same enemy unit.

Overall I’m very pleased with the options available, with some great early and late game contenders for Battle Tactics and some very achievable Grand Strategies.

Warscrolls

Now on to the largest section of the book, the Warscrolls.

Now, I’m not going to go through every scroll in the book, but what I will do is point out the interesting changes that I have spotted. Now, I may miss some cool changes, which I apologise for, but hopefully I’ll be able to give you a taste of what’s changed.

One very important thing to mention is that every Vampire keyworded model in this book gains The Hunger. After the unit has fought they can heal up a number of wounds equal to the number of wounds and mortal wounds that were dished out to an enemy unit (with a cap of 6). This includesoulblight gravelords

s Vargheists and Fell Bats.

• Nagash: The big baddie, who just recently in the lore has had a hard time of it. He is, however, still a beast on the tabletop, even if he has gone through some changes. Gone is his range attack however he is +3 to cast, unbind and dispell regardless of how many wounds he takes. He also has the same ability as Endless Legions, giving Nagash the ability to bring back a half strength unit. He can also heal of bring back up to 3 wounds worth of models, and has a 5+ ward save bubble. He still has Hand of Dust, one of my favourite spells in the game!
• Mannfred Von Carstein: Mannfred has sadly felt the force of a nerfbat a little, losing his teleport ability (his Legion does have that teleport Heroic Action though if you remember from earlier in the review, so at least that is something). He’s still a beatstick and gives out extra attacks to nearby Summonable units should his Gheistvor causes any wounds.
• Neferata: She’s lost her -1 to hit aura, but her Dagger of Jet is still capable of one shot killing any enemy Heros. Her spell Dark Mist allows for a Legion of Blood unit to ignore any save modifiers.
• Vengorian Lord: Now dishes out more consistent damage, mainly thanks to his Gore-drenched Talons doing flat 3 damage now instead of D6 (a better trade off I think). He’s lost his run and charge, but has gained a new ability called Festering Feast. Should a Soulblight Monster kill any units whilst within 12″ of this Lord, once per turn you can heal all wounds to your monster.
• Radukar The Wolf/Beast: Some minor changes, with the Beast still being…well…a Beast. Can no longer summon a free unit of Wolves as discussed earlier in the review. He can however now move D6″ at the end of any phase in which he took damage.
• Ivya Volga: You’ll have seen images of the new Vampire during this post, and she’s pretty good. Her main draw is the ability to changing the attacks characteristics to 1 on a Monster’s melee attacks as well as counting as 10 models on an objective whilst a Monster is within 3″.
• Belladamma: She’s back and has barely changed. Still has her spell Lycancurse for turing her foes into wolves! Awwwoooo.
• Gorslav, Torgillius, Watch Captain Halgrim: All are still here with the Vykros keyword. Between them they combo very well with Summonable units. Gorslav can bring a half strength unit back without the need of a dice roll. Torgillius dishes out 5+ Ward saves to nearby Summonable whilst the Watch Captain (who is one of a few Heros who can be re-Summoned!) can give out the command ability At the Double three times without spending more than 1 command point.
• Lady Annika/Kritza: These two, dare I say, lesser Vampires have had a little glow up. Annika has the ability to worsen a Hero or Monsters save for the rest of the game should she wound them She can also deepstrike. Kritza on the other hand can potentially destroy an enemies artefact, is the only Summonable Hero Vampire and can retreat instead of fighting.
• Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon: Again, has more consistent damage, no more D3 or D6 damage which have all been replaced with average flat damage. No real changes to his warscroll aside from a couple of extra wounds.
• Blood Knights: Can now re-roll ward saves of 1 so long as the Standard Bearer is alive. Can still deal D3 mortal wounds to units this model crosses in the movement phase. Still a solid unit.
• Askurgan Trueblades: The Warcry Vamps are here, and have the same Warscroll as published on WarCom.
• Coven Throne: Has lost it’s Mortal Wound output, but has gained the ability to give out the same command ability to two units instead of one at the cost of a single CP and has also gained the spell Undying Servitude which does D3 mortal wounds to a 6 Wounds or less Hero. Should said mortal wounds kill the Hero, they come back as a Vampire Lord under your control. How neat is that!
• Wight King: Now has an ability which gives exploding hits to Deathrattle Skeletons and Grave Guard. Is Summonable, as well as his on Skeletal Steed version.
• Black Knights: Now do Mortal Wounds on the charge. After making a charge you roll 2 dice for each model left in your unit, with 5+s doing mortal wound to the enemy unit.
• Grave Guard: Now hit on 4s, wound on 3s with the Great Wight Blades, still causing Mortal Wounds on 6s to wound which is great. Can also re-roll ward saves of 1 should your banner guy still be kicking it around. Can be Battleline should you have a Wight King as your general in your army.
• Necromancer: His spell no longer grants a Summonable unit to fight again. Instead when he casts it on a unit which is in combat, they can immediately fight. Still a great spell allowing you to fight twice, just in two different phases.
• Deadwalker Zombies: No longer have an ability to do mortal wounds when attacking (but see Corpse Cart later). Instead, everytime a Zombie dies via a melee attack you roll a dice, and on a 5+ you deal a mortal wound to the enemy unit. For each enemy model slain by attacks caused by this unit at the end of the combat phase you roll D6s, and on a 2+ you bring a Zombie back. Now hits on 5s and wounds on 4s and each zombie has 2 attacks. Have lost their pile-in ability however.
• Dire Wolves: Seemed to have gained the 6″ pile-in move that the zombies lost. Can now move 10″
• Corpse Cart: Remember me saying Zombies no longer do mortal wounds with attacks? Stick one of these wholly within 12″ of them and on 6s to wound you deal a mortal wound in addition.
• Deathrattle Skeletons: For each slain model from this unit, at the start of the combat phase, you can roll a D6 and on a 4+ you can bring one back. This is worded much better than the last warscroll which forced you to fight with Skeletons later in the fight phase. They also now have the potential to have -1 Rend on their weapons, you just need to ensure your unit of Skeletons outnumbered the enemy unit.

Points

It is worth noting at this point that points have increased across the board for the Soulblight Gravelords. As you’ll read in my summary shortly, I believe the book is a big improvement on the last one, which explains the points increases. We’ll soon see when people start playing with the new book if the points increases work out good value.

Summary

Right, it is time to wrap up the latest Soulblight Gravelords Battletome for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.

In my opinion, this book is a big improvement on the last one. It hasn’t re-invented the wheel, but what it has done is given minor buffs across most of the Warscrolls, made damage more consistent, added more synergies and made more units fun to play with. Who doesn’t want to turn an enemy hero into a Vampire Lord?!

The Bloodlines almost provide you with 4 different ways of playing the Gravelords, which makes the army versatile, especally when you consider the wide variety of potentially available Battleline units. I really like the fact that each one has it’s own abilities, artefacts and command traits, as it appeared most Battletomes were heading away from this and were instead just giving you a small pool of generic artefacts/traits to choose from.

It’s still a real shame that the lions share of the special characters are Vykros. If anything the Warscrolls for said heroes further lock you into that particular dynasty, as they give very little if you were to use them in a different one.

That said, with the abilities available for the other Bloodlines there is enough here for you to ignore those characters and use the other warscrolls in the book.

The points increases seem in some places a little harsh, but until I’ve played a few times with the army or have seen how they are doing in the competitive scene it is very hard to judge.

All in all, I think this is a super fun Battletome, with plenty to keep you interested. If this is your faction, or if you picking up Soulblight for the first time, there is plenty to play around with.

Now pass me those Contrast paints, I need to paint some hordes of Zombies!

This book and Ivya is available to preorder through Element Games right now. Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us a copy to review.

Published by David Jennings

Born and raised in Crewe in Cheshire, Dave is a geek through and through. Enjoys designing and managing websites. View all posts by David Jennings