So yeah, changed it to Thoughts and Opinions instead of Review because I felt that it lacked the format of a review, so my format won't change, just the title.
Vampires are back with an updated book to reflect all the new stuff.
The Lore:
Basic stuff, with a nice bit of text for the big man himself Nagash, but also bringing us up to the events of Broken Realms: Teclis, though it limits that part to a basic summery so you need to get the book to get the full lore of events. There is a page dedicated to each of the five cursed bloodlines, which for me is something I very much appreciate over the complete lack of information given in the Death Guard Codex, so a thumbs up on that. Oh, and of course we have a basic rundown on the background of both the faction and the characters & units within it.
Allegence Abilities:
So because this faction is more Vampire focused, the rules for General Death Faction are not in this as is the Soulblight Allegiance (as these are replaced with more specific Bloodlines). Also, Arkhan the Black and his Sacrament are not in this (including a number of units, but that's for later).
As such, you must pick one of the five Cursed Bloodlines to be your allegiance. These are:
- Legion of Blood (aka Neferata's Legion)
- Legion of Night (aka Mannfred Von Carstein's Legion)
- Vyrkos Dynasty (Belladamma Volga's group aka The Cursed City box set group)
- Kastelai Dynasty (Prince Vhordrai's group aka The Fist of Nagash)
- Avengorii Dynasty (Lauka Vai's group aka The Monster Focused Army)
Each faction has their own Battle Traits, Command Traits and Artifacts of Power. As far as their unit focuses that each one tends to favour are on: Blood is mostly Vampires and Deathrattle troops, Night is mostly everything, Vyrkos is Deathrattle, Deadwalkers and Dire Wolves, Kastelai is Vampires and Bloodknights and Avengorii are Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragons.
Grave sites are still there and are used to bring summoned units that you set aside on to the field and Deathless minions is the same as before. Wizards in the army who cast a spell on a 9+ and that spell is not unbound by your opponent, then after you apply its effects, you can apply those same effects again, so that's sweet.
The Reanimated Horrors replaces the negative Bravery rule from the Standard Bearers, so in this army your Deathrattle and Deadwalkers will subtract 1 Bravery if an enemy unit is within 6" of one of these units or subtract 2 if they are within 6" of two or more of these units (so you can only have a max of -2 Bravery). Finally, both the Endless Legions and Deathly Invocation give you abilities to restore wounds/models to units, as is expected to in an army of the living dead.
Spells:
So there are two spell lists, one for Vampires and one for Deathmages. Vampires spells are focused more on offensive and self buffing, where as Deathmages spells are more weakening your opponent along with a single spell that can do damage and heal the caster. Despite having two separate lists, there is one spell called Invigorating Aura, which any wizard in the army can cast, which is another spell to help heal/restore models. This means there are plenty of ways to help keep weaker unit numbers up and the higher wound ones survive longer.
The one thing to got me however, was that they are the only Death faction without it's own Endless Spells. Very confused by that decision.
Warscrolls & Pitch Battle:
Obviously there is way to much for me to go through, so instead I'm going to point out a few of the pros and cons that have stood out to me.
So as mentioned above, with the Reanimated Horrors rules, the Standard Bearer rules for Deathrattle instead let you re-roll rolls of 1 for Deathless Minions rolls. While I like this, I am a little miffed at the Deathrattle Skeletons. Their rules have drastically changed from the past ones, with a slight points increase. To be fair, I'd like to try them out before making a final conclusion, it's more the fact that now I have to alter the arm of my Skeleton Champions weapon as the only way to give your champion it's extra attack is by giving it the new Mace and Helberd weapon options they now have. Yes, my biggest gripe is that I now have to convert a Champion model. Also, Deathrattle Skeletons no longer have musicians. I have no idea why, but I can only assume that they couldn't come up with a good idea for an instrument sculpt, so they scrapped it. Still going to keep the single one I have though (I'll just shove a shield on his back or something). Oh, and spears are the exact stats as blades (yes, they are now 1" range too). Yeah, I don't understand either.
Fellbats also seemed to have changed a bit. They got a slight points reduction and had Scent of Gore ability replaced with Single-minded Ferocity, which just comes down to the loss of a possible double amount of attacks and gain the ability to retreat and then charge again in the same turn. I mean, given how bats react to you when you walk by the tree their in, yes a bat does indeed retreat and then charge back to the tree as you walk by it, but I don't know if this will make them more effective given that none of their stats have changed.
To top it all off, the Bat Swarms are no longer. Once again, another Swarm unit forsaken by the sands of time. Then again, we don't have Arkhan, the Morghast (they like staying with the Bonereapers it seems) and any of the Nighthaunt from the Legions of Nagash book too, so there's that.
Now obviously there are a lot of nice things to replace that. First off, both crews from the Underworlds boardgame are in it, along with all the living dead in The Cursed City box game. I feel this some what makes up for the fact that every Vampire model was removed from the Store to be replaced by a single model. As for what replaces Arkhan, we have the bestial Vamp lady Lauka Vai, or you can make a Vengorian Lord from the same boxset. These new leaders are the kind of creativity I've been wanting to see, and their rules are rather nice too. You want a monster themed army, give these two a look.
Speaking of new leaders, we finally have the Wight King on Skeletal Steed. He looses a single attack and the Tomb Blade rule to get the ability to cause Mortal Wounds on a 2+ when he charges. He also gets increase speed, two wounds and steed attacks. Still has the same Command Ability as his on foot counter part, but that's not a bad thing.
Zombies have got models that finally match the one of the Corpse Cart, though there rules have been changed quite a bit and got a slight points decrease. They are still good and being Deadwalkers benefit from certain rules and abilities.
Actually, there are a number of characters and units that have had their points slightly altered, but it's more the min/max unit count in the Pitched Battle Points section. Now the minimum unit is whatever the box model count, so units like Zombies are not 20 instead of 10 and Dire Wolves are now 10 instead of 5. So they are now in line with the Grave Guard that got the change in a previous update, though I can see that some might be annoyed with this change, particularly since I've seen so many run Dire Wolves in packs of five, partly as support or objective runners and partly as cheap Battleline units to free up points and spots for more effective units (Though if you're playing Vyrkos Dynasty then you'll probably take a unit or two). I imagine people will be re-evaluating their options and points after some of these changes.
Final Thoughts:
Despite the loss of Bat Swarms, I really do like this book. I feel that for most units that got a points change, it shouldn't effect things too much. The fact that they don't have Warscrolls for a Terrain piece or any Endless Spells is interesting, but I imagine that the current Endless Spells are still good, assuming you'll spend your time casting them as oppose to restoring wounds on units or weakening enemy units.
The inclusion of three new Allegiances/Cursed Bloodlines certainly adds more options/play styles to the faction. I really like how the Avengorii Dynasty makes Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragons battleline units and now all I want to see is an Avengorii monster army take on the Sons of Behemat. Would be very interesting to see.
Also interesting is their Allies, Flesh-Eater Courts and Nighthaunt. No Ossiarch Bonereapers despite Nagash is in this book. I mean, I get that the Deathrattle are very nervous as they are just bones and the Bonereapers want said bones, but you'd think the Vampires or Nagash would simply stop it. I can't wait for this conflict to be examined in future Age of Sigmar fiction and games.
So in conclusion, if your playing these Legion of Nagash armies, you'll most likely get this one as it's the replacement for Legions of Nagash (seriously, that name is no longer used in the web store and the book is no longer available). If your wanting to play an army of Skeleton, Zombies, Vampires or a mixture of the three, then this is also the book for you. If your on the fence about picking this faction for your army, I suggest either looking through the book at a local hobby store or checking out the miniature range and see if they connect with you (you can also check out the Warscrolls both on the web store or Age of Sigmar App).
I can't wait to work out new army list with this one.
