9th Age Saurian ancients - 0.99 Discussion

[PlasmaDavid]

No possibility of getting a Skink character onto a Raptor? Lame My Skink Chief riding a terror-bird is my favorite kitbashed model! I know it was gone from the 8th edition army book, it was just a cool option!

I suppose each army book would be endlessly complicated if they added in little options like that, even if the balance was heavily weighted towards uselessness in the name of caution. People like myself will still pay through the nose for unique and fluffy army compositions!

Still, haven't touched 9A at all yet, hoping to dive into it and get the local club guys into it also once it hits 1.0. Browsing the Saurian army book it all looks pretty good, though some of the "fluffier" elements seem to be gone, eg monsters eating their handlers.

 

[protector]

Yo, I just played my first 9th Age game (which I won quite handidly, if I may add ), and I have to say I think the reactions are overblown.
It is true that the internal balance is in some places rubbish, examplewise the Alpha carnosaur or the Skinks who lost their poison. Personally I always preferred ranking them up to Skirmishing them, but losing their shields for javelins is still uncanny.

Still, Saurian Ancients are a force to be reckoned with, I wouldn't buff too much in the next change.
That being said I have to admit I much prefer Eliasson's 9th Edition to 9th Age.

did you happen to use a cuatl with yhe new disciplines and caiman ancients instead of skink high priest and saurian on raptor or carnosaur? And did you use skunk braves without caimans, raptor riders and temple guard instead of chameleons and weapon beasts?

otherwise the feedback although useful doesn't actually apply to what other players are having concerns with. We can still definitely make a competitive list, the problem is that certain units were nerfed so hard they are not internally or externally balanced. If you can win competitive games with options like I listed then that is feedback we need to listen to as it will prove we are over reacting.

 

[DonCheadle]

I played what I played in 8th, which was basically one big spears block of Saurus, one mid-sized TG block with a slann, this time using the lore of light.
I took the Becalming Coagitation discipline but that hasn't changed as far as I'm aware. A Scar-Vet on a Carno, a Skink Priest LoWilderness Scroll Caddy and both Bastiladons as well as three Skink Cohorts (I never really liked the skirmishers that much anyways) and two Ancient Stegs, one with blowpipes, one with the engine. Opponent had a strong Orc setup with two Goblin Kamikaze bombers and a Catapult in the backfield, a Spider with the Webflinger, a 40-sized horde of Feral Orcs, a strong core of Black Orcs with the General in them and a lvl 4 and lvl 2 Orc Shaman as well as two units of wolf riders with two goblin heroes accompanying them.

What I hadn't considered was the synergy of the whole army. The Stegadon delivering a 5++ to my nearby Monsters alongside the Slann making the enemy shots only go off on a 4+ due to Pha's protection made enemy artillery completely unreliable. My bastiladon-buffed 30-block of Spear Saurus got charged by his Black Orcs and subsequently tore that whole units off the field on the same turn by causing something along the lines of 14 casualities making them run off the field. I think he gave up on turn 4 after 3 of my monsters charged his Feral Orc horde, killing his Bsb alongside his lvl 4. This was done by the grace of the Howdah skinks alone, after the 7th Lore of Light spell gave them +1 A and +1 to hit, which alongside the Bastiladons poison proved to be highly deadly.

All I'm saying is that Lizardmen are still a competitive choice in 9th Age. Sure not all choices are balanced against each other and some design choices appear to be awfully punishing of one specific playstyle or another, but from a pure strength standpoint they're definitely still viable.

 

[protector]

How in the world did your spear saurus beat a large block of iron orcs? If they charged using paired weapons they should have killed 8 without their lord, 7 killed with great weapons, and even with poison with double extra ranks you should have done 7 unsaved wounds back. I understand if you rolled like a beast and destroyed a unit but it should be noted that 9 times out of 10 that iron orc unit would have crushed your spear saurus.

I certainly agree that lizardmen can still be very competitive, the main issue is that we have been limited to less competitive choices all around, point for point matchups with our saurus should end very poorly for us with other army infantry choices.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

How in the world did your spear saurus beat a large block of iron orcs? If they charged using paired weapons they should have killed 8 without their lord, 7 killed with great weapons, and even with poison with double extra ranks you should have done 7 unsaved wounds back. I understand if you rolled like a beast and destroyed a unit but it should be noted that 9 times out of 10 that iron orc unit would have crushed your spear saurus.

I certainly agree that lizardmen can still be very competitive, the main issue is that we have been limited to less competitive choices all around, point for point matchups with our saurus should end very poorly for us with other army infantry choices.

That's why I don't like to rely on anecdotal evidence. Luck of the dice and mismatches in player skill play too large a role for my liking. I'd rather rely on the sweet unbiased purity of math.

 

[protector]

That's why I don't like to rely on anecdotal evidence. Luck of the dice and mismatches in player skill play too large a role for my liking. I'd rather rely on the sweet unbiased purity of math.

agreed, I'm very much a math nerd on matchups and determining balance. That being said the best games are the ones where math is made worthless and the dice gods have a roaring good laugh at everything.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

That being said the best games are the ones where math is made worthless and the dice gods have a roaring good laugh at everything.

Perhaps the at the very least they are the most memorable ones.

 

[Pinktaco]

Some months back I charged an IO unit with spear warriors, carno BSB, salamander and stygiosaur. He still managed to remove such a big chunk of my warriors it wasn't even fun

 

[woogity]

hey sorry to get in on this so late, been super busy and just had a chance to look over the new book...at a glance some interesting changes.

the cons:
skink braves no longer have a shooting weapon by default, also not sure why we made non poison javs that only exist on a unit that has poisoned attacks default?

caimens can no longer be T5...since they do not have fear and dont get born predator with GW...straight up...unit is dead will not play them with this ruleset.

weapon beasts...we took out all the options they had, without changing anything except moving razordons back to rare...why...were they OP?

skink hunters no longer core kinda guts what the army always was.

skink braves no longer have the option for 2 hand weapons. this made for some really wicked synergies within the unit, i suppose if it was over the top power wise its fine to remove it...but they are skinks...pretty sure it wasnt.

Skink high priest no longer has synergies with saurus, and is now not cost effective.

baby carno no longer has multi wounds and still only has one stomp...was really looking forward to playing one of these guys, but hes out of the list now as well with a full monster sized footprint, he needs some concessions vs regular monstrous cav...unless i can bunker this guy in a unit of saurus now...is that allowed?

Caimen ancient is now truly useless as he cannot be bsb, and is otherwise a caimen with a few stats boosted by one but for over twice the price...definitely will not take now. If you really want ws4 caimen...the thyo is only 5 points more, not out of the character points , and pretty much better in every way.

80 f*ing points for the wandering path...80...80...


pros:
ahhh...the new sharpened horns could be cool, and tbh the spear of the stampede+sharpened horns combo of old was op. bottom line. would prefer to keep the multi wounds option somewhere, even if it was either the spear of the stampedes ability or an additional upgrade for the taurosar.

altar of the snake gods fairly priced now, it was much too good for 110 pts.

crocodile warriors probably more fair now, 4+ on a core block vs low str stuff is maybe too much.

did skink chiefs drop from BS5-BS4? if so i think that is probably fair as well, given all the bow shenanigans in .11.

not sure if it had this in the previous version, if it did i missed it, glad to see spell swapping is back for the toads. that was always a really powerful and fun ability.



net loss really and far too many changes at once... gonna give it a few plays as looking through some of the other books it seems the nerf bat was wielded in generous helpings in alot of places, but the reduction of options definitely hits the fun factor of the game pretty hard.

 

[Haemoglobin]

Exactly how most of the SA community feels. The SA AS and ABC are doing what they can to improve this book.

Things are being discussed and I can guarantee you that there will be improvements.

But keep in mind that it will not be massive things. I have been ranting my butt off to get more things done, but the RT will only allow one redesign and points changes. It is clear that the book needs more thing than a single redesign and a couple of point changes to be back on track.

From my perspective I can see improvements, but don't expect miracles. Doing what we can

 

[Niarg]

There may be improvements but it sounds like the blanket restrictions and forced new direction (focus on saurus instead of skinks) will prevent the book from really being fun for me in anything like it's current format.

I've always been tempted by the Tomb Kings style though so (for me at least) I think it's time to start scouring eBay for a new army!

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

I've always been tempted by the Tomb Kings style though so (for me at least) I think it's time to start scouring eBay for a new army!

That might be pricey. Some of those Tomb Kings have been going for very high prices.

 

[Niarg]

True, although I've picked a few things up at a reasonable price.

 

[Lawot]

I've always wanted Lizardmen to be a more combat-focused army. The Skink Cloud was always, for me, just one option that became our ONLY competitive option. While I think it should remain a good option (especially given that many of us have learned to play in that way), I much prefer to play a Saurus-heavy list.

...now we just need Saurian Warriors and Raptor Riders to be competitive in combat...

 

[Haemoglobin]

You could do what a diff guy did (apparantly with succes), putting more than 50% of your army into Saurian Warriors. 3x 35 or something Buffed with some magic that could do quite the damage. If you get it into the combats you want. If

 

[Lawot]

Well, one of my regular opponents is an O&G player. They like fighting, a lot. So maybe I can put them down and say, "I bet your Orc block won't beat these guys in combat."

 

[Lawot]

@woogity the javelins on the Braves, and the ridiculous poison/non poison thing...

It's basically a compromise between a number of character, unit choice and balance issues.
One of the concerns going into the 0.99 redesign was that there were too many examples of a unit of Braves with Poisoned shooting, Poisoned attacks, and additional hand weapons totally destroying units that should have been way out of their league. In addition, the Rules Team decided that nobody would have poison shooting in Core - that Core allowed such shooting to be taken in large quantities, and large quantities of poisoned shooting was just too much. Hence moving Skink Hunters to Special, and taking away poison shooting from the Braves. Taking away all shooting from them was on the table, but it was decided that some kind of shooting and/or skirmishing Skink unit was necessary in Core, even if they couldn't have shooting. So they got regular javelins, Hunters kept poisoned javelins. Ironically, we now have the reverse of an illogical situation that we've always had: Skinks have always put poison on their javelins, so you'd think they could figure out that the same poison was just as effective when you put it on a knife. And yet, Skinks have had poisoned shooting but no poisoned CC attacks for as long as I can remember. Now, we still have that absurdity on the Hunters, and the opposite on the Braves: they coat their knives and pointy sticks, but haven't gotten as far as putting it on a thrown weapon.

That goes on the list with several other absurdities, like the fact that Saurus break from combat. Come on, they're living weapons designed only to fight at the command of the Slann, why would they have any sense of self preservation? They should all be Ld10 and Unbreakable. But that's a ridiculous Core unit.

Not saying whether I think that's the best way to handle Skink Braves, but I hope it clears up some of the "why" of the Braves' rules.

 

[PlasmaDavid]

I never had an issue with "should be unbreakable" units retreating, it's part of the game and you can easily justify it as "the particular leader for that block of Saurus instinctively knows they need to run for their lives to serve the Slann another day". You don't have to simply view it as panicked running away whilst getting slain, more like a tactical withdrawal.

Same with the matter of poison, people should easily be able to deal with "silly" things like units having poison CC weapons but not ranged weapons.

On the matter of making Core more interesting, I always wondered since Saurus are the Anvil (mind you they're a pretty bitey Anvil) why not have Skinks a bit more powerful or flexible, more like glass cannons for attacking units already engaged with your Anvils. (unless cohorts are already supposed to be played that way...)

 

[airjamy]

That's why I don't like to rely on anecdotal evidence. Luck of the dice and mismatches in player skill play too large a role for my liking. I'd rather rely on the sweet unbiased purity of math.

People often forget that maths and statistics give no certainty in games, even though they can be a big help. When talking about game balance in a broad sense, and especially when talking about buffs and nerfs, maths is the only thing you can talk about in the end.

@woogity the javelins on the Braves, and the ridiculous poison/non poison thing...

It's basically a compromise between a number of character, unit choice and balance issues.
One of the concerns going into the 0.99 redesign was that there were too many examples of a unit of Braves with Poisoned shooting, Poisoned attacks, and additional hand weapons totally destroying units that should have been way out of their league. In addition, the Rules Team decided that nobody would have poison shooting in Core - that Core allowed such shooting to be taken in large quantities, and large quantities of poisoned shooting was just too much. Hence moving Skink Hunters to Special, and taking away poison shooting from the Braves. Taking away all shooting from them was on the table, but it was decided that some kind of shooting and/or skirmishing Skink unit was necessary in Core, even if they couldn't have shooting. So they got regular javelins, Hunters kept poisoned javelins. Ironically, we now have the reverse of an illogical situation that we've always had: Skinks have always put poison on their javelins, so you'd think they could figure out that the same poison was just as effective when you put it on a knife. And yet, Skinks have had poisoned shooting but no poisoned CC attacks for as long as I can remember. Now, we still have that absurdity on the Hunters, and the opposite on the Braves: they coat their knives and pointy sticks, but haven't gotten as far as putting it on a thrown weapon.

That goes on the list with several other absurdities, like the fact that Saurus break from combat. Come on, they're living weapons designed only to fight at the command of the Slann, why would they have any sense of self preservation? They should all be Ld10 and Unbreakable. But that's a ridiculous Core unit.

Not saying whether I think that's the best way to handle Skink Braves, but I hope it clears up some of the "why" of the Braves' rules.

I get that you see Sauri in that way, but i think of fleeing as sometimes being a really good choice. When i play TK, sometimes it is really a shame i cannot flee with my skellies, as it would expose my enemy enormously when i roll that high fleeing range or if he fudges his charge. From a fluff perspective, you could say that Sauri are extremely well bred, also seeing the advantage of falling back and then coming back full force.. but even Sauri are not perfect, sometimes things go wrong and they are caught and killed.

 

[airjamy]

You could do what a diff guy did (apparantly with succes), putting more than 50% of your army into Saurian Warriors. 3x 35 or something Buffed with some magic that could do quite the damage. If you get it into the combats you want. If

I think people will quickly figure out that this is the best way to play now, Cuatl, TG, lots of Sauri and filling the rest with chaff and anti chaff and some mosters. Hell to play against, because Sauri are still very cost effective even though they are slow. You can with that many units just bulldozer the table. I call the tactic boring, i really prefer playing with my beloved poisenous Skinks.