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AoS 2 - Seraphon Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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5 minutes ago, Beliman said:

@madmac don't get me wrong, I don't play Seraphons (I'm OTP Kharadrons). I just pointed that people go from gloom and doom to shout how awesome are their toys in less than an hour.

Oh that definitely happened, it was just a quirk of how information leaked out. Pretty much all the bad warscrolls were leaked early in the day, with the actually good ones largely not slipping through until later in the afternoon, which looked even better at the time with everyone's greatly diminished expectations.

Then the allegiance/artifact/battalion information was revealed today and people are mostly slipping back to even-keeled about the whole thing.

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Seraphon look extremely busted right now. 

Points are low, they can basically ignore half of the damage that is dealt by 2 and D3 damage weapons and they have incredible synergies all across the book. 

All that being said I‘m eager to face that OP army and try not to get stomped.

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I haven't checked out the battletome reviews yet, but I've looked at the warscrolls and points and really have a hard time seeing where the complaints are coming from. There are so many powerful buffs just on the warscrolls. A well designed Seraphon force looks to me to be very strong, and that's without even factoring in any of the battle traits.

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1 hour ago, madmac said:

The artifacts are mostly bad as it turns out, but that's not rare for these books.

Overall, I think Seraphon will be around Mawtribes tier, with a heavy competitive focus on Skink armies. Ironically Skinks are still greatly superior to Saurus, except now they're just better at fighting instead of focusing on summoning and board control. There's so many good options for powerful skink based armies now.

Saurus Warriors and Knights got just enough oomph from spells and CAs ect to be viable, though I don't know if they can reach as far as competitive. Saurus Guard, bizarrely just got absolutely shafted. In exchange for +1 wound they lost literally all of their unique synergies from the first battletome. No more +1 save for friendly heroes, no special battalion for another + save and d3 damage, no more +1 attacks from Eternity Warden...they literally are just the weakest Saurus unit for points now. Carnosaurs are slightly improved but still very iffy.

The Skink heroes are basically all incredible, the Starpriest is the # MVP in the book and the Starseer is probably #2. The Stegadon hero is also a must for monster armies, the Terradon Chief turns Terradons into alpha strike monsters, the Ripper Chief is really the only way to make good use of rippers now...

Saurus builds will be entirely dependent on Coalesced/Coatal bonuses backed by CA spamming Saurus heroes and the Skink MVP casters. In terms of actual stats they barely improved at all, so it's really down to increased synergy for them to do anything. Their heroes also basically didn't noticeably improve in stats, they just have usable CAs now. 

Eternity Warden is officially useless, his new warscroll does nothing and his only battalion is the 4000 point one that will never see play. Astrolith Bearer went from indispensable to...highly dispensable.

Slaan also looks a bit iffy, IMO. Our spell lore didn't improve much from the GHB, summoning is no longer a real thing, spending 260 points on him is a big ask. Kroak is probably better now in most cases and not that much more expensive.

The artefacts being meh doesnt look like that big of a deal since you will usually have the subfaction specific ones and for a second slot I think Aetherquartz Brooch would be amazing with the amount of CAs between the various heroes. Even the standard reroll 1s to X/Y/Z  wont be too bad. 

Im really bummed about Saurus Guard - They look much better than Warriors due to the extra armor, but I agree they seem kinda meh. The Eternity Warden was a perfect hero to beef up the Guard, but no.

Slaan used to be a requirement in every army, but I could see armies skip out on him now, especially coalesced with a focus on Saurus. If you build for magic the Slaan can be good I think. You can get up to +3 casting and rerolling casts, which is honestly quite powerful. The Slaan spell lore looks weak, but the true power comes from a couple of bound Endless Spells. Between the terrain piece, Comet's Call and some endless spells you really have some options to chip away at important lower wound support heroes.

In general most warscrolls look really weak on their own, and they heavily rely on being juiced up with a combination of buffs. I think the army looks great, but you are gonna lose if you just push everything across the table while focusing buffs on 1 unit and letting the opponent pick his fights with non-buffed stuff. 

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Some observations and comments

Some units really want to be coalesced, others don't care so much, and are therefore probably better in the starborn.

Units that really like being coalesced-Saurus warriors, Knights, Carnosaurs (that sweet 5 damage bite), Ripperdactyls, chameleon skinks to give backfield threats

Units that don't care so much-Skinks, Chameleons, Salamanders/Razordons, Kroxigors, Stegadons 

Units you will always take-Skink starpriest. That venom ability will be key for many units to make them shine. Without, I think some will struggle, 2 other great support abilities (spell + CP roll) at a very reasonable price. Astrolith bearer if taking many casters. 

Units that aren't great-Saurus Eternity warden, Temple Guard (OK for guarding as Slaan I guess as 5 models). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say bastilidaons are OK, but not amazing. They really need the doubleshoot to be worth it for firepower, and while sturdy, they aren't that killy in melee

 

-Spectacular Kroaknado. Balewind+Astrolith+Kroak is +12 inch range, put the vortex out front and you can hit their entire front line, and if they position badly, maybe some heroes. It got cheaper too!

-Mega Stegadon (megadon?)- Engine of the gods, + Nimble + Sacred stegadon helm), 2+ save (1+ against 1 target), max damage ~30, all at 3+/3+/rend 1. Or Engine of the gods + prime warbeast+ sacred stegadon helm, Damage ~40, but not as sturdy. 

-Saurus- Buffed to high heck. This one is obvious. Much better in coalesced. 

-Knights- buffed to high heck, need coalesced. About as good as saurus per point, but the big bases means getting multiple bases in may be harder, but they are faster

-Skinks- buffed to high heck. Shadowstrike + boltsplitters +stegadon chief + venom + fangs of sotek. Get in range turn 1 easily, shoot like champs, shoot again on the enemy charge and then can either fight (reasonably well too) or retreat and do it again

-Bastilidon +mystic shield. This guy will be really hard to break, needing at least rend 2. 

 

Lists I think will be strong/worth trying out

Shadowstrike+Skinks + starpriest+ stegadon chief. Great Alphastrike, some tricks. Can also put in a Kroak if needed.

Koatl's Claw+ Saurus (either knights or warriors)+ Saurus Heros + starpriest.

Thunderlizards + Megadon leader, possibly bastilidons or stegadons. 

 

I think this new tome will be about picking one thing, and executing it very very thoroughly.

 

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1 hour ago, Frowny said:

-Spectacular Kroaknado. Balewind+Astrolith+Kroak is +12 inch range, put the vortex out front and you can hit their entire front line, and if they position badly, maybe some heroes. It got cheaper too!

3x Celestial Deliverance + Comet's Call + Terrain feature = Very much dead support heroes. Doesn't have to be a turn 1 move. :D

I think at least a unit of 3 sallies is gonna be huge in every list. -2 rend both on the shooting and in melee is pretty big vs Mortek Guard etc.

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Just preordered the pyramid.... then read this:

It seems the Realmshaper Engine needs to be placed before placing all other terrain. This means that you need to place it before it has been decided which side of the table you are getting. On top of this, since it's a garrison and it does not specify that only Seraphon can enter, enemy units will be able to enter it as well. So basically, you could be setting it up in enemy territory and then enemy units and go inside and you don't get to use it yourself + it benefits your enemy.

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OK, I've finally reviewed the entire allegiance package and battalions and crunched out all the math-hammer and these are my top line conclusion is that this tome is incredibly strong and I think is likely to be OP (but as always I will reserve judgment on that until we get a lot of experience in).

The biggest points are:

  • Coalesced Saurus and Saurus Knights are incredibly efficient. Fully buffed they are by far the most efficient units I have ever calculated with the sole exception of pre-nerf fully buffed Plague Monks.
  • Skinks, Terradons and Salamanders are all very efficient as well when buffed.
  • Ripperdactyls are insanely efficient in Coalesced (although not as much so as Saurus/Saurus Knights, but enough to absolute top tier. Roughly up there with fully buffed Witch Aelves). In Starborne they are not quite as good but still top tier, far better than the vast majority of warscrolls.
  • The old Seraphon Shenanigans (endless waves of skinks that will just run away from melee, double teleports etc.) are gone but replaced by a new set of shenanigans that are incredibly powerful. Fangs of Sotek CA is going to be abused so, so hard.

Overall I think there are going to be three very competitive builds:

  • Coalesced Saurus smash-em build that will play a lot like Ironjawz
  • Dracothion's Tail deepstrike shooting alpha
  • Fangs of Sotek shooting/containment
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The problem with Saurus is still that they have 1" weapons on >1" bases. It's very difficult to get more than 5 Knights into combat, and almost impossible to get 10+ into combat at the same time. Warriors can use 2" Spears, but that means you lose a point of Rend.

They also can't compete with any unit that fights first, or forces them to fight last.

They're going to be really good but not overbearing by any means. You won't be able to spam Saurus to win - you need to bring in some magic and ranged to support them.

Edited by PJetski
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1 hour ago, PJetski said:

The problem with Saurus is still that they have 1" weapons on >1" bases. It's very difficult to get more than 5 Knights into combat, and almost impossible to get 10+ into combat at the same time. Warriors can use 2" Spears, but that means you lose a point of Rend.

They also can't compete with any unit that fights first, or forces them to fight last.

They're going to be really good but not overbearing by any means. You won't be able to spam Saurus to win - you need to bring in some magic and ranged to support them.

You dont need Saurus to kill, you need them to hold. 

40 Wounds reducing incoming damage by 1 is a very good tarpit thats hard to shift. 

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5 hours ago, Phasteon said:

You dont need Saurus to kill, you need them to hold. 

40 Wounds reducing incoming damage by 1 is a very good tarpit thats hard to shift. 

Saurus also murder most things they touch when buffed though. It's easy to get basically infinite CPs with Koatl's Claw, which means a +2 to hit for pretty much all of your Saurus all the time. Maybe +1 to wound and exploding 6s as well, and potentially mortal wounds on 6s.

It's also fairly easy to get the unit to a 2+ save with a skink priest + starseer.

7 hours ago, PJetski said:

The problem with Saurus is still that they have 1" weapons on >1" bases. It's very difficult to get more than 5 Knights into combat, and almost impossible to get 10+ into combat at the same time. Warriors can use 2" Spears, but that means you lose a point of Rend.

It's actually easier than you might think. If you honeycomb the bases, you can get 2 ranks in pretty easily (assuming you get perfect base to base contact); vs other 32mm bases or monsters, you should never not have 2 ranks in. It's only against 25mm infantry that are lined up perfectly in b2b where it doesn't quite work out, but with a little bit of lateral spacing on them in such a formation, you can guarantee it against anything, so getting 10+ saurus in isn't actually very difficult. It's just a matter of arranging them correctly.

10 buffed Coalesced Saurus with the horde bonus for a unit >15 in a Sunclaw with +2 to hit, exploding 6s, and mortal wounds on 6s do 20 damage to units with a 4+ save. They have outstanding offensive potential for their price range, and with a 4+ save and -1 to damage when damage > 1, they're tough as well, with potential bonuses to their save from the Slann command ability and starseer spell, mortal wound shrugs from an astrolith, and potential -2 for enemies to hit from geminids and the starpriest spell.

Edited by Asamu
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7 minutes ago, Asamu said:

Saurus also murder most things they touch when buffed though. It's easy to get basically infinite CPs with Koatl's Claw, which means a +2 to hit for pretty much all of your Saurus all the time. Maybe +1 to wound and exploding 6s as well, and potentially mortal wounds on 6s.

It's also fairly easy to get the unit to a 2+ save with a skink priest + starseer.

I believe the Skink Priests Star-stone Staff only effects SKINK units

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2 hours ago, PJetski said:

The problem with Saurus is still that they have 1" weapons on >1" bases. It's very difficult to get more than 5 Knights into combat, and almost impossible to get 10+ into combat at the same time. Warriors can use 2" Spears, but that means you lose a point of Rend.

They also can't compete with any unit that fights first, or forces them to fight last.

They're going to be really good but not overbearing by any means. You won't be able to spam Saurus to win - you need to bring in some magic and ranged to support them.

 

11 minutes ago, Phasteon said:

You dont need Saurus to kill, you need them to hold. 

40 Wounds reducing incoming damage by 1 is a very good tarpit thats hard to shift. 

<<Why Can't We Have Both? Meme>>

They can hold and they can kill! 

PJetski, when I calculated the fully buffed damage efficiency for Saurus I calculated it for a 20 man unit with spears and only counted 10 models for the jaw attacks. They still scored a WDR of .444. For reference, a WDR of around .25 is in contention for "best in the game".

Saurus Knights on the charge calculate out to a WDR of .516. 

Yes, these are extreme scenarios that require a lot of buffs. But let's look at a much less extreme example: Saurus Knights with spears, charging with only the Koatl's Claw and Coalesced buffs. With self buffs only their WDR is .185. Many factions don't have a single warscroll that gets that high even fully buffed.

I also don't think you'll have that much problem getting 10 Knights into combat. They have a decent number of move bonuses, can potentially be throwing 3d6+4 to charge and can be made to fly in two different ways. Against some targets it may be difficult, but against large units getting 10 into combat should be super easy.

I also really don't buy the notion that they can't compete with units that fight first. Most of the units that fight first or force them to fight last are large heroes that often aren't that damage efficient to begin with. And those models will be severely hampered by the -1 damage. Yes, they will kill a fistful of Saurus, but like @Phasteon says your Saurus are cheap. A Keeper of Secrets kills an average of 13.15 Coalesced Saurus when it piles in and attacks twice. Assuming the Saurus have no extra defensive buffs. Meanwhile 20 Saurus with spears fully buffed will deal an average of 31.43 unsaved wounds to a Keeper of Secrets, and that's assuming half the models can't attack with their jaws at all. 

And of course I'm not suggesting that you should just spam Saurus and Knights plus buffing units and ignore everything else, although I think that an army that does that is still probably pretty good. It would likely function very similarly to how Ironjawz lists that are mostly Ardboyz, Gore Gruntas and buffers do. 

Salamanders are great ranged support and are actually solid in melee as well, particularly in a Coalesced list. You're already going to have some magic from the Skink buffers, but it's easy to add in great magic by throwing down a Slaan or Kroak (both of whom provide a great buff for Saurus as well!)

The thing that makes ultra efficient units broken isn't just that they can make almost any engagement profitable, it's that they allow you to fit so much into your list. You can afford to take a bunch of super killy and quite tanky Saurus and still have plenty of points left over for magic, shooting etc.

(PS: Don't underestimate the damage reduction ability. It will turn many matchups into near byes. How do Ironjawz beat Coalesced in any way? Mawtribes? You will laugh at Flamers of Tzeentch. Hearthguard Berzerkers with axes will only tickle you. Charging cavalry with nice damage bonuses? How about no damage bonus?)

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5 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

<<Why Can't We Have Both? Meme>>

They can hold and they can kill! 

PJetski, when I calculated the fully buffed damage efficiency for Saurus I calculated it for a 20 man unit with spears and only counted 10 models for the jaw attacks. They still scored a WDR of .444. For reference, a WDR of around .25 is in contention for "best in the game".

Saurus Knights on the charge calculate out to a WDR of .516.

What does WDR stand for? Is it damage/point cost? If so, Saurus can get up to ~0.4699 with subfaction + Oldblood + scar vet + sunblood + starpriest + hand of glory or burning head for re-roll 1s to hit. I'm only getting ~0.431 for knights with full buffs. If they hadn't gone up in points, it'd be ~5.39, but they're up to 100 points now instead of 80; either way, they'd score lower than Saurus, even on the charge.

It should also be noted that with how easy it is to farm CPs with Saurus lists due to the extra CP generation from all of the Seraphon wizards (Just a Slann + Starpriest + starseer is +1.83 CPs per turn on average, on top of the normal 1 per turn. With Kroak instead of a normal Slann, that goes up to 2.33), Koatl's Claw command trait + aetherquartz Brooch (turns each CP used by the general into ~5 or 6 CP on average), it's fairly easy to spam out the buffs on multiple units, and even use your other buffs alongside that. The list sort of builds itself as well 60-80 saurus in units of 20-40, an Oldblood, a Scar Vet carnosaur (which fully buffed could potentially do ~43.75 damage on average when charging before artefact weapons/saves, depending on how they FAQ the Great Drake asterism; currently, there's nothing saying it doesn't affect mounts), a Slann, a starpriest, a starseer, and 5 guard + a sunblood, astrolith, second scar vet carnosaur, some terradons, salamanders, and/or endless spells to fill out the last 240-380 points.

Edited by Asamu
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@Asamu WDR stands for Weighted Damage Rating. It's a statistic that I developed a couple years ago that allows you to compare damage per point cost across different rend values and mortal wounds. It's intended to reflect the variance in value of each damage type across different possible save values and the estimated frequency that one encounters each save. For example, it gives a rend value's performance against 4+ and 5+ saves more weight than 3+ and 6+, which in turn have more weight than against 2+ and -. 

The differences in numbers we are getting are probably due to the weighting that I'm using.

I'll also note that my calculation on Saurus is assuming a unit of 20 lizards with spears, where all can attack with their spears but half can't reach with their bites. 

If you assume 20 lizards with clubs and let everyone fight, then their WDR is .6499.

This includes +2 to hit, +1 to wound, exploding hits on 6's, extra jaw attack, mw on 6's to wound, rr1s to hit, and -1 rend for jaw attacks.

Solid build, although I'd probably approach it slightly differently. Can comment more later on specific list ideas.

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Hey fellow lizzies. So as I couldn't wait for the actual book to arrive, I took notes of our Allegiances, Traits, Artefacts and Spells. Thought I should share for people that might be interested 😁  I 'll share at all Seraphon platforms.

Every page is numbered and has a "whole page photo" and then 2 more with half the page zoomed in so it will be as readable as I could get. Kinda suck at taking photos but still think they are readable 😅

Still missing batallions as I didn't have the time for it. I wrote the notes as careful as I could. If a spell misses the "visible" word for example is because it doesn't need it ( most of them do so it 'll seem weird that one or so doesn't )

Finally a NEW BOOK ! 

 

** Edit : Found the info from the YT Videos by freezing the screen and so on so credits to the guys that uploaded it for us . Used the Dark Artisan video but it's also been uploaded by the Guerilla Miniature Games 

 

Page 1 whole.jpg

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Page 1b.jpg

Page 2.jpg

Page 2a.jpg

Page 2b.jpg

Page 3.jpg

Page 3a.jpg

Page 3b.jpg

Page 4.jpg

Page 4a.jpg

Page 4b.jpg

Edited by Seraphage
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40 minutes ago, Seraphage said:

 

Thank you for the write-up. I just want to say that it took me an embarrising long time to understand that uYnHP means "until Your next Hero Phase". I thought at first its some kind of Slaan incantation 😄

But maybe I just destroyed my brain today while trying to come up with a name for my Temple-Ship (I settled on Tsil-Hubhub btw.)

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On 3/7/2020 at 8:26 PM, Calebexnihilo said:

Just preordered the pyramid.... then read this:

It seems the Realmshaper Engine needs to be placed before placing all other terrain. This means that you need to place it before it has been decided which side of the table you are getting. On top of this, since it's a garrison and it does not specify that only Seraphon can enter, enemy units will be able to enter it as well. So basically, you could be setting it up in enemy territory and then enemy units and go inside and you don't get to use it yourself + it benefits your enemy.

How would this work with tournaments with pre-placed terrain? I guess tournaments would have to use house rules for it? Or just straight up ban it i guess, if you're playing RAW.

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OK, so list-wise (for a Saurus-heavy build) I think that you will probably want to run either the Sunclaw or Firelance to at least keep your drops down. I don't know that it's really possible to really go low drop without giving up a lot though.

Between the two battalions I'm more attracted to Firelance mostly because I rate the movement bonuses quite a bit higher. I also think that it's probably more efficient to get an Oldblood on Carnosaur and Scar-veteran on Carnosaur as opposed to 2 Scar-veterans on Carnosaur and an Oldblood on foot. The bigger base and higher speed makes the command ability easier to use on the mounted version. Using Firelance works better with this plan, since Sunclaw only allows Oldblood on foot (I think).

I'm also a little skeptical about the practicality of the Sunblood. The combination of the CA being 12" range and the model being on foot makes me think it will be awkward to use effectively. 

You almost certainly want at least one Skink Starseer and Skink Starpriest. I'd probably consider two Starpriests simply because the mortal wound buff is going to be really important in some matchups. 

A Slann or Kroak also seems nice. I'm not sure if entirely necessary but definitely nice.

And after that Salamanders seem ideal to deal with heavy armor.

So something like:

Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur

2x10 Saurus Knights

5 Saurus Knights

Firelance: 1070

Starseer: 140

Starpriest: 120

Oldblood on Carnosaur: 250

40 Saurus: 320

That leaves 300 points. Room for a Slann/Kroak and Temple Guard would be nice, or Salamanders, or maybe 20 more Saurus and another Starpriest. Any of those options would push into the 6-7 drop range though, which isn't ideal.  Alternately you could just bulk out the Knight units to keep the drops to 5.

For Sunclaw I'd probably do something like:

2x40 Saurus

20 Saurus

Oldblood

Sunclaw: 1090

Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur: 210

2xStarpriest: 240

Kroak: 320

Astrolith Bearer: 140

That's 2k on the nose but unfortunately up to 6 drops. 

Edited by swarmofseals
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59 minutes ago, Gecktron said:

Thank you for the write-up. I just want to say that it took me an embarrising long time to understand that uYnHP means "until Your next Hero Phase". I thought at first its some kind of Slaan incantation 😄

But maybe I just destroyed my brain today while trying to come up with a name for my Temple-Ship (I settled on Tsil-Hubhub btw.)

I actually have it in a box on the first time it is written at page 4, Slann spells (ii). I knew I should have written it at the top of the page but had no room at the time 😅

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5 hours ago, umpac said:

How would this work with tournaments with pre-placed terrain? I guess tournaments would have to use house rules for it? Or just straight up ban it i guess, if you're playing RAW.

On the OBR terrain piece, GW hilariously FAQ'ed it with basically "Ask your TO". Hahaha... GW doesn't even know how

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12 hours ago, umpac said:

How would this work with tournaments with pre-placed terrain? I guess tournaments would have to use house rules for it? Or just straight up ban it i guess, if you're playing RAW.

Same as OBR. All events i've attended so far has been TO'd so the Nexus is placed "after" the pre-placed terrain. It's super tricky to get it in a good position most of the time. 

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