Seraphon the new Adepticon Champions

[Future]

If saying they are weak is anecdotal what makes them factual strong? I only bring seraphon to tournaments and have done well with them but I agree they are very weak in the meta. We lose spell casting to summon, which is terrible. We don’t have the mortal wound defense of strong armies, we don’t deal consistent mortal wounds. We have a weaker than average save. 

 

In return we gain mobility to play for board control. We only win when our opponent misplays and we can catch and capitalize on the misplay. This was shown in spades during game 5 of Adepticon. Winning a single event does not make the faction good. It more shows that a good general with the right condition can win an event with most factions.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Future

[Requizen]

4 hours ago, Future said:

If saying they are weak is annidotal what makes them factual strong?

Going 5-0 at one of the biggest tournaments in the world. 

Also being one of the easiest armies to summon in chaff with every turn, which is actually how you win games (much better and winning Majors over saving up for Bastiladons).

[Future]

Going 5-0 does not make them mechanically strong, its also anecdotal, that was my point. I agree they summon chaff easily but they give up casting 3 spells a turn, making their mechanic very expensive. I also agree summoning skinks is the most correct way to play them. I've done better with them then most lizard pilots (statistically speaking), but I still don't think they are strong. I think it reinforces my point that a good general can win games with most armies.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Future

[Requizen]

9 minutes ago, Future said:

Going 5-0 does not make them mechanically strong, its also annidotal, that was my point. I agree they summon chaff easily but they give up casting 3 spells a turn, making their mechanic very expensive. I also agree summoning skinks is the most correct way to play them. I've done better with them then most lizard pilots (statistically speaking), but I still don't think they are strong. I think it reinforces my point that a good general can win games with most armies.

The word you're looking for is "anecdotal", sorry to nitpick.

 

Also this discussion is always so freaking circular that I'm tired of having it. Here's how it goes for every army that isn't egregiously bad:

"This army sucks!"
-Actually no, they have good mechanics, it's just that no one is playing them.
"But they have downsides!"
-All armies have downsides, their strengths can lead them to victory by focusing on XYZ.
"If they have good mechanics, then why aren't they winning events?"
*Army wins an event*
"That doesn't prove anything, they still suck unless you can prove they're good."
-?????

Seraphon are good, they've been good for a while (at least since the Summoning changes and GW leaving them with 2+ solid Battalions). They have everything you want in an army - bodies, summoning, good magic, good monsters, reasonable shooting, reasonable combat, and solid mobility. People online have been discussing the power of Thunderquake for a while, but few people are actually running them at events. 

No one needs to write a thesis paper to prove that an army is good. Considering how subjective this stuff is, you could win 3 tournaments in a row with Slaanesh or something and people would still complain about how bad they are (protip: Slaanesh isn't bad either).

[Future]

Fixed, thanks.

 

I agree with you and I think you misread my comment if you think I am saying they suck. I was just pointing out they don't have as many tools as tier 1 armies and that is factual. No spell lores, no mount traits, no terrain, no faction endless spells, no modern rules. We need a buff to be a tier 1 army. My point was you don't need to be a tier 1 army to win an event. I love our battalions, I love a lot of the parts of my army, but I it needs a modern overhaul to join the top tier club. 

 

Winning an event shouldn't validate that an army is tier 1, just like not winning should not validate that it 'sucks'.

[Scurvydog]

I find it very dangerous to consider an army "in a good place" if it can do decently in some events, without looking at how the army does this, is it fun and does it fit into the narrative and hobby aspects as well.

I will not argue against their viability, they might not be at the new book level of power creep, but they can challenge just about anyone in some way. But I will argue that the way they do this is not really all that great of a design, mostly boring for the opponents and limits the seraphon player to very few warscrolls, battalions etc.

As a Seraphon player I hate how it is needed to paint up 100 skinks for a viable tournament army. The entire Saurus aspect of their faction is entirely gimped and never sees play in anything but friendly soft list games.

As mentioned before they do not have a spell lore, instead the Slann, masters of arcane power do absolutely nothing but sit there and then perhaps make home their points value in some dispells and at around turn 3 of skink summoning. 

The difference is primarily that an army can be good at winning, but that does not mean it is good by design.

[whispersofblood]

The reality is that discussions like these will always end up confused because people think terms means certain things and they don't always mean that. Take even something like competitive meta. It can mean anything from the most destructive lists and factions, to high skill environment that emphasizes adapting lists to player packs and scenarios. But, it almost never means both.

Seraphon have all the tools of the later and almost none of the former. It's why opinion gets so divided on what is OP in general, and why destructive builds don't dominate the GT scene a month after release. It is also why DoK are still such a dominate faction despite the destructive power that has been released since the summer.

If you are trying to fight it out against against Voltunos IDK every weekend, then yeah morrsarr can seem over powered. But, the first time you beat them in knife to the heart because no matter how destructive they may be, zoning the eels, summoning the bodies you need to claim both objectives and ending the game is eye opening. 

[Mayple]

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

. It can mean anything from the most destructive lists and factions, to high skill environment that emphasizes adapting lists to player packs and scenarios. But, it almost never means both.

Solid point

3 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Seraphon have all the tools of the later and almost none of the former.

If the claim here is that Seraphon isn't a destructive force (and do correct me if I'm misunderstanding you here) I'll have to strongly disagree. 

Seraphon packs one heck of a punch, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I tend to use Seraphon as a stress test to check the durability of my army, because if it can withstand the absolute punishment they can dish out, then it has the staying power to slug it out with the best of them. Really one of those things you'll make a note of if you face down a highly optimized Seraphon list (if you haven't already, course, in which case you know what I'm on about) 

[Saxon]

On 4/10/2019 at 3:16 AM, Future said:

If saying they are weak is anecdotal what makes them factual strong? I only bring seraphon to tournaments and have done well with them but I agree they are very weak in the meta. We lose spell casting to summon, which is terrible. We don’t have the mortal wound defense of strong armies, we don’t deal consistent mortal wounds. We have a weaker than average save. 

In return you get Lord Kroak which is the most unpleasant model i've ever had to play against. 

Tactics: Hide Kroak, meteor strike everything. 

[Mayple]

42 minutes ago, Saxon said:

In return you get Lord Kroak which is the most unpleasant model i've ever had to play against. 

Tactics: Hide Kroak, meteor strike everything. 

To be fair, he used to be far worse (for the opponent) to deal with.

Oh boy, those were the days. Old Balewind with Kroak teleporting into prime position, and then hitting every unit within 20-30 inches with constant waves of  d3 mortal wound damage until all the supporting pieces (heroes) were dead, followed by specialized units, and ultimately the breaking of whatever served as the big chunky core unit (like a big horde unit, or such) --- Annihilated by a single skelletal toad on a corpse. I still have nightmares. 

Hilariously, you couldn't snipe him out either (as his stuff outranged most ranged units in the game. Learnt that the hard way trying to lightning cannon his face) - and unless you killed him in a single blow (i.e: in one turn), he'd just shrug the damage off. You couldn't punish him any other way either, as he'd have plenty of units to screen with, and he really only needed to keep himself going for two, maybe three rounds to destroy any opportunity for the opponent to get to him. None of your heroes were safe either, as not a single one of his massively destructive spells required any line of sight, and in return, he'd dispell whatever you wanted to throw back at him with a global dispell range, and a bunch of bonuses to do so. 

Really happy that stopped being a thing. It was incredibly useful to learn how to operate a game strategy under such hellish circumstances, as a result I've adapted the viewpoint that anything is beatable, simply because I'm not fighting Kroak anymore, and no one scares me like Kroak ---but it was far from.. ah, enjoyable

Kroaknado, man. That stuff was brutal. 

[Sedraxis]

On 4/10/2019 at 12:40 AM, Future said:

Fixed, thanks.

 

I agree with you and I think you misread my comment if you think I am saying they suck. I was just pointing out they don't have as many tools as tier 1 armies and that is factual. No spell lores, no mount traits, no terrain, no faction endless spells, no modern rules. We need a buff to be a tier 1 army. My point was you don't need to be a tier 1 army to win an event. I love our battalions, I love a lot of the parts of my army, but I it needs a modern overhaul to join the top tier club. 

 

Winning an event shouldn't validate that an army is tier 1, just like not winning should not validate that it 'sucks'.

Imo winning doing well in tournaments is exactly what validates armies as tier 1. If you think Seraphon will get buffed with a new battletome you might be very disappointed.

They might get a terrain piece, spell lore, endless spells and the like, but they will probably lose all the things that make them so strong right now.

No more cheap one-drop battalions, no deepstriking rippers 3" away and getting free rerolls on everything, no 40 pt razordons and no summoning free skinks everywhere all the time. 

Now this is purely speculation of course. I agree they need an overhaul, but mainly because they break so many basic rules of the game it feels like cheating sometimes.

Beating someone because I can just teleporting some guys or flood the board with skinks for free never feels like a "oh wow well played" moment.

I do hope the saurus part of the army will recieve some love. The current allegiance abities do nothing for them

 

[stratigo]

On 4/3/2019 at 7:56 AM, Nos said:

DOK are an expensive army to buy, leading me to conclude that it’s largely people who are pretty serious about the game who own the majority of 2000 point DOK armies 

Have you guys considered chess clocks?

[Jamopower]

On 4/10/2019 at 12:48 AM, Future said:

Going 5-0 does not make them mechanically strong, its also anecdotal, that was my point. I agree they summon chaff easily but they give up casting 3 spells a turn, making their mechanic very expensive. I also agree summoning skinks is the most correct way to play them. I've done better with them then most lizard pilots (statistically speaking), but I still don't think they are strong. I think it reinforces my point that a good general can win games with most armies.

It would be expensive mechanism, if the Slanns had any good spells to start with...

[InSaint]

On 4/3/2019 at 10:20 AM, Mayple said:

*Note that Daughters of Khaine shows up as an extreme outlier, since it is played by a lot of people, yet retains an incredibly high winrate. No idea why, but this might be where the "play to win" players went, or it might be a much easier faction to play for newer people - alternatively the faction is just OP broken, but I'd look at the former before I'd consider the latter

Sigmar and Nagash are both fools for rejecting Morathi's advances!

Look at the Daughters of Khaine 😎🤘👠

 

[ageofpaddsmar]

On 4/11/2019 at 7:00 AM, Sedraxis said:

Imo winning doing well in tournaments is exactly what validates armies as tier 1. If you think Seraphon will get buffed with a new battletome you might be very disappointed.

They might get a terrain piece, spell lore, endless spells and the like, but they will probably lose all the things that make them so strong right now.

No more cheap one-drop battalions, no deepstriking rippers 3" away and getting free rerolls on everything, no 40 pt razordons and no summoning free skinks everywhere all the time. 

Now this is purely speculation of course. I agree they need an overhaul, but mainly because they break so many basic rules of the game it feels like cheating sometimes.

Beating someone because I can just teleporting some guys or flood the board with skinks for free never feels like a "oh wow well played" moment.

I do hope the saurus part of the army will recieve some love. The current allegiance abities do nothing for them

 

I don't mind if the new book nerfs them abit . I am just bored of the current book , after all it is the oldest book still being used.  

with regards to summoning I guess we will see what happens in the slaanesh book . If theirs stays the same  then I think to complain about seraphon summoning is abit silly

Edited April 19, 2019 by ageofpaddsmar