Hi all,
It’s time for another narrative review! Today we are looking at the Soulblight Gravelord (SB) Age of Sigmar Path to Glory rules! We reviewed their White Dwarf rules earlier so it will be interesting to see how GW has expanded them!
Army Special Rules:
The SB have kept their summonable unit rules from the White Dwarf rule set: Rather than tracking all units normally, summon-able units are instead limited to a number based on your army’s composition. For each mortarch you can include 3 summon able units, 2 for each vampire hero and 1 for each Soulblight hero. Summonable units don’t gain experience or casualties which makes sense.
A new element for the SB is the idea of influence. Basically, you can influence territories for bonuses, but that relies on you completing certain quest missions. However, if you lose, your opponent can de-influence your territories which is a pain.
Quests:
The SB get four quests:
- Champions of Undeath: This is how you get Heroic Upgrades on your units
- The Revenant Legions: If you are bummed about not having veteran abilities on your battleline you can use this quest. After you win a major victory you can give each unit of Skeletons or Zombies a Veteran ability for the next battle.
- Propagate the Curse: This sets up their custom mission, you need 6 points and get 1 for each hero left on the field after a battle
- Mass Graves: You complete this by winning a battle with your general still alive. You basically summon a free unit of skeletons or zombies in your next battle.
These quests are okay if a little dull. They don’t do much to help build a narrative.
Custom Mission:
For this mission your forces are razing a defiant outpost that is rallying resistance to your corruption. To win the SB player just need to kill more than half the enemy units. If exactly half have been killed, you count up the wounds caused as a tie breaker. To aid in their defense the defenders don’t take Battleshock they also get a mechanic whereby they roll 6 dice at the start of each turn.
- If they get a double: A friendly unit gets +D3 to the attacks characteristics of their weapons
- a triple: when targeting a summonable unit, if they roll any natural 6’s (to hit or wound) they auto kill a model
- A Quad: kill all summonable units within 12″ of a friendly unit.
In order to counteract these powerful abilities the Gravelords get the option to revive heal all summonable units more than 3″ away from enemy units, and can revive slain squads.
This mission is crazy and seems like a lot of fun. You get the feeling of fighting off endless hordes, and has a series of wild nukes available to the defenders haha.
Veteran Abilities:
The SB get a full, 6-option table but many of the abilities are tied to specific units:
- Ruinous Charge: Auto 3 Mortal Wounds when Blood Riders use Riders of Ruin
- Eager for Bloodshed: Vargheists can come in from reserve more than D6″ away
- Corpsemaster Seneschal: Corpsecarts can give a free command to a friendly Summonable unit
- Horrors of the Deep Graves: Zombie Dragons/ Terrorgheists get +2 wounds
- Warriors of Elder Ages: Deathrattle units can fight if within 6″ and get +3″ to their pile-in moves
- March of a Thousand Corpses: Zombies only, auto-heal the unit back to full once per battle
These are some really good options and each has a use. The buff to your monsters is great as it is an ability that you don’t have to use during a game. The ability to fully revive a zombie unit is also crazy!
Territories:
The SB get a small table with four options. As mentioned earlier, these are “Influenced versions of existing territories:
- BLEAK EXPANSE (OLD KEEP): +3 Summonable units
- OUTPOST OF UNDEATH (ANCIENT ROADS): Get 3 allied units
- OUTPOST OF THE LIVING (LARGE SETTLEMENT): +3 Glory Points after each battle
- CURSED CITADEL (RUINS OF MYTH): +1 number of territories you control, +1 barracks and +1 Outpost.
These are all quite good and, unless you don’t want some of the cheaper units, can really buff your army. The mountain takes a lot of work but it can grant some great buffs!
Conclusion:
The SB rules are pretty good and, outside of some mediocre Veteran Abilities and Territories are a lot of fun. The SB have one of the most interesting quest battles i have seen so far, and one worth playing just for fun, even outside of Path to Glory. Their interaction with summonable units is interesting and fluffy, although I would have liked to see a way to get experience for Grave Guard units
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