Soulblight, Spearhead, and That Glorious Vampire Glow
A new temptation: Soulblight Gravelords
At the start of the year, we fell into one of the most familiar Warhammer traps: “we’re just looking” quickly turned into “okay, maybe we do want to try this faction.” This time the temptation was Soulblight Gravelords for Age of Sigmar, and honestly, it is not hard to see why.
Stas immediately got hooked on the look of the vampire rules and abilities. There is just something very cool about the whole Soulblight vibe: aristocratic monsters, undead hordes, and that dramatic supernatural style that practically begs for moody paint jobs.
Spearhead means… Spearhead
Along the way, we had one of those hobby reality-check moments.
Stas asked the very important question: does Spearhead really mean you can only play with the contents of the specific box you bought, and not bring in other units from the wider faction range?
And yes — that is exactly how it works.
We have apparently talked about this a lot already, but this was the moment it landed again: Spearhead uses predefined forces. That is part of the format’s appeal. You get a tighter, more controlled entry point, which is great for learning the game and getting models on the table faster, but it also means less list-building freedom than full Age of Sigmar.
For anyone else getting into the format and wondering the same thing: if you are buying into Spearhead, you are buying into that specific ready-made force.
The real hobby spark: vampire effects
Rules chat aside, the thing that really lit us up was painting.
Michał dropped an example image of a vampire model with a really striking glow effect and the reaction was immediate: even if the execution in that example was not perfect, the idea absolutely worked. That eerie magical aura around a vampiric miniature is exactly the kind of effect that makes us want to sit down at the desk and try something new.
There is something about Soulblight that really rewards this kind of painting. Cold skin, rich fabrics, dark armor, pale faces, magical weapons, spectral highlights — and then that final touch of glow to make the whole miniature feel supernatural.
Michał’s immediate conclusion was also the most relatable one possible: “I need to get myself an airbrush so I can do stuff like this.”
Honestly, fair.
An airbrush is not mandatory for glow effects, of course, but it is very easy to see why this was the first thought. Soft transitions, colored light, subtle halos around details — this is exactly the kind of visual trick that makes airbrushing feel like forbidden magic when you first see it done well.
The inspiration phase is part of the hobby too
One thing we like about moments like this is that they remind us how much of the hobby happens before a brush even touches a model.
There is the excitement of discovering a faction. There is the rules confusion. There is the sudden obsession with one specific visual effect. There is the dangerous thought of buying a new tool. And then, naturally, there is the rabbit hole of hobby media.
This time that led us to a Polish miniatures podcast recommendation: Crazy Miniatures Podcast. It is always nice to find more local hobby content, especially when we are in that early inspiration stage and want to absorb everything — rules talk, painting ideas, community chatter, all of it.
Also, apparently 2d6 still hits hard
In the middle of all this, there was also an update from Michał that changing the layout in 2d6 had not helped much and things were still going badly. We are not going to pretend this became the main theme of the day, but it definitely added to the overall energy of testing things, learning things, and occasionally getting punished by dice anyway.
Which, to be fair, is also a very authentic Warhammer-adjacent experience.
Where we landed
So the final mood of the conversation was very much this:
- Soulblight Gravelords look extremely tempting
- Spearhead is a fixed format, so no sneaking in extra units
- vampire glow effects are incredibly cool
- an airbrush suddenly sounds like a very reasonable purchase
- and hobby inspiration can come from anywhere: PDFs, podcasts, screenshots, and random chat messages included
If we do end up going deeper into Soulblight, there is a good chance the painting side will be what pulls us in first. The faction just has too much style to ignore.
And yes, if we start trying those glowing vampire effects ourselves, we will absolutely show the results — successful or otherwise.