AoS Balanced games Seraphon vs. X

[Aginor]

Ok, let's go.
Deathrattle list (ok, technically with a Necromancer from Deathmages and a Vampire on dragon from Soulblight) for 1000 points:

Allegiance: Death

Heroes
Necromancer (120)
Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120)
- General
- Trait: Ruler of the Night
- Artefact: Ring of Immortality
Vampire Lord On Zombie Dragon (440)
- Vampiric Sword & Shield & Chalice

Battleline
30 x Skeleton Warriors (240)
- Ancient Spear & Shield
10 x Skeleton Warriors (80)
- Ancient Spear & Shield

Total: 1000/1000


This is a bunch of Skellies (unfortunately we have to split them for fulfilling BL requirements), buffed by a Necromancer and a Wight King with a Standard (those two get bubble-wrapped between the Skellies to protect them) and the Vampire Lord goes on a rampage wherever needed.

Since at 1000 points you cannot play a Shadowstrike I imagine that both the Skeleton tarpit (which actually becomes frightening with Ruler of the Night, the Wight King's command ability and Danse Macabre applied to them, especially if the Vampire buffs them with mystic shield as well) and the Vampire can be pretty hard to come by.


I would probably play an Eternal Starhost against those Skeletons, since those have a fairly decent chance to withstand all those attacks and when they are standing still they will do enough damage to overcome the Ruler of the Night and the regeneration provided by the Standards of the Skellies and the Wight King.
...which leaves the Zombie Dragon. It is highly mobile, has a good save and lots of wounds, has rending attacks, and can cause mortal wounds (by casting spells). It isn't exactly cheap but we lack hard hitters at 1000 points, so this seems to be pretty strong. In fact I would probably say that guy's healing abilities put him on par with a Maw-Krusha or even above it in power. What do Seraphon usually do to kill him?

In larger games (over 1200 or so) however I think Seraphon will get the upper hand.
I'll post more Death lists soon, because I have some ideas I'd like to discuss.

What do y'all think?

 

[Crowsfoot]

I played Eternal starhost against a 1000 point Death list, and you have to concentrate all your fire power and take out the full unit in one go or your on a hiding.

The ward saves Death have are hard to compete with.

 

[Canas]

Next up: Seraphon vs. Deathrattle and Seraphon vs. Nighthaunt.
Those are two armies @Mesandres and I are working on.

List examples soon (tomorrow), and I really think those could be interesting to discuss because Deathrattle for example can be an enormous tarpit, which is something I believe Seraphon could struggle against, especially some lists.

So stat tuned, more balance discussion here soon!

Wouldn't deathrattle be relativly easy since we can fairly easily field a large army with rend negating a significant chunk of their defensive bonus? (saurus guard core supported by our various big dinosaurs and some kroxigor)

 

[Crowsfoot]

Wouldn't deathrattle be relativly easy since we can fairly easily field a large army with rend negating a significant chunk of their defensive bonus? (saurus guard core supported by our various big dinosaurs and some kroxigor)

Not really they are harder than you think to wipe out, a 20 skelly unit with 2 death saves takes some downing, I made a big mistake when fighting them I split my 15 guards and attacked 2 units and they just kept on coming and eventually won.

And that was without a Necromancer in the army.

And wight king with Black axe is lethal!!

 

[Canas]

Not really they are harder than you think to wipe out, a 20 skelly unit with 2 death saves takes some downing, I made a big mistake when fighting them I split my 15 guards and attacked 2 units and they just kept on coming and eventually won.

And that was without a Necromancer in the army.

And wight king with Black axe is lethal!!

Meh, I only looked at what just the deathrattle had (so no necromancer) and don't have the book for it (so no allegiance abilities). Just the models themself seem easy enough to deal with. The only real threat being the wight king with his half wounds & insta-kill mechanic. The rank and file shouldn't be too much of an issue for us unless I'm missing something.

Also, don't split up your attacks, focus fire

 

[Crowsfoot]

Meh, I only looked at what just the deathrattle had (so no necromancer) and don't have the book for it (so no allegiance abilities). Just the models themself seem easy enough to deal with. The only real threat being the wight king with his half wounds & insta-kill mechanic. The rank and file shouldn't be too much of an issue for us unless I'm missing something.

Also, don't split up your attacks, focus fire

I know that now!

 

[Aginor]

An interesting faction concerning synergies.
The combination of "Deathless Minions", "Ruler of the Night", and a Wight King with a battle standard as general make Skeletons pretty resilient against damage, and one of the Bataillons (Legion of Death) even buffs their regeneration.
Together with a Necromancer's spell that means a unit of skeletons might have the following characteristics:

- Move 8"
- Save 5+ or 4+ if Terrain or mystic shield
- If they fail their save or get a mortal wound: another 5+ save against that.
- If that fails they get another 6+ save against dying
- when some have died they have 2-7 of them just spawn again in the next hero phase
- they each have four attacks 4+/4+/-/1 with a range of 2"
- can be activated twice in the combat phase. So another four attacks each.

Granted that takes a lot of synergy and there will probably be much stronger options which is the reason we don't see that at tournaments I guess. But they sure get a lot stronger using their synergies.

I am looking forward to playing them myself and see how they do.

 

[Canas]

An interesting faction concerning synergies.
The combination of "Deathless Minions", "Ruler of the Night", and a Wight King with a battle standard as general make Skeletons pretty resilient against damage, and one of the Bataillons (Legion of Death) even buffs their regeneration.
Together with a Necromancer's spell that means a unit of skeletons might have the following characteristics:

- Move 8"
- Save 5+ or 4+ if Terrain or mystic shield
- If they fail their save or get a mortal wound: another 5+ save against that.
- If that fails they get another 6+ save against dying
- when some have died they have 2-7 of them just spawn again in the next hero phase
- they each have four attacks 4+/4+/-/1 with a range of 2"
- can be activated twice in the combat phase. So another four attacks each.

Granted that takes a lot of synergy and there will probably be much stronger options which is the reason we don't see that at tournaments I guess. But they sure get a lot stronger using their synergies.

I am looking forward to playing them myself and see how they do.

Issue with this is that it relies on a necromancer & wight king. Both of which could just be focussed down first.
Also, the respawning is limited by your point reserve, so that's probably a lot less scary than you'd expect at first glance.

Also, Saurus guard in an eternal nighthost can pump out absolutly horrific amount of wounds, especially against a tarpit unit as they're allowed to stand-still. Now also bring a skink priest and a starpriest for optimal saurus survivability.

This would result in the following:

1 unit of 5 saurus guard just looking at their polearms:
10 attacks at 3+/3+ -1 rend with D3 damage would in the worst case average ~2.9 attacks getting past the save.
These 2.9 attacks would average 5.8 wounds.
These 5.8 wounds would be reduced to 3.9 by their second save.
Which results in 3.2 skeletons actually dying.

On the other hand, these saurus guard have a re-rollable 2+ save and -1 to being hit, let's say 10 skeletons can actually hit them.
They'd do 80 attacks at 5+/4+ which results in about 0.37 hits per turn.

A unit of 5 saurus guard would be killed after 13.5 turns. In return they'd have killed 43.2 skeletons with their polearms alone.

On top of that, we have it slightly easier focussing down their necromancer and wight king, while they can't really reach our supporting units like our skink priest.

I'd say we'd stand a good chance

 

[Aginor]

Some good points in there, I definitely agree with the snipeability (is that a word?? ) of the heroes. The Death player has to bubble-wrap them well so they can neither be shot nor attacked in melee, and some armies will still be able to just kill them in some way. Major problem there, and I think that's also the reason why we don't see Deathrattle in tournaments. That's where they are weak.

But negative to the points issue, the respawn of models caused by the units' banners is not limited by the point reserve, those banners add models to existing units, which is not subject to reinforcement point rules. So those don't cost a thing. Which is good because that would make them even weaker and completely unviable.

As for your example: There would be more than 10 Skellies being able to hit, because of their 2" range (third row of skellies can hit). If there isn't a lot of terrain I am even pretty sure that assuming the guards stand close together in a line you could move at least 20 Skellies into position to hit.
Math behind that: The row of Saurus Guard is 5*32mm = 160mm wide. If you put the Skellies right in front of them, on base contact, you can fit sx to seven Skellies into one row. If you assume that there is enough space to have a second and third row as wide as the first one that makes 18-21 Skellies being able to hit. If ne of them is the Seneschal that makes 161 attacks if I am not mistaken.
If they manage to get one wound through that will significantly reduce the Guard's offensive power (by one fifth), thus probably putting their average regeneration over the damage the Guards will generate (see below).

So while I still agree that Saurus Guard are much stronger I think the Skellies are quite a bit better than in your math example. If buffed they regenerate an average of 3.5 Skeletons per round. Given that the Guards kill an average of 3.2 of them per turn that still means the Guards are more likely to win, but not that easily. If the first Guard dies in the first round I'd even say there is a pretty decent chance of winning (and there should be, because those Skellies are about triple the point cost of the Guards).

EDIT: I am so looking forward to test that myself soon.

 

[Canas]

But negative to the points issue, the respawn of models caused by the units' banners is not limited by the point reserve, those banners add models to existing units, which is not subject to reinforcement point rules. So those don't cost a thing. Which is good because that would make them even weaker and completely unviable.

The hell kind of stupid exception to the point reserve rule is that. I thought they had at least been consequent when screwing over summoning mechanics into unviable... that chances quite a lot...

At 161 attacks against a eternal starhost with priest and starpriest would still only be 0.64 attacks hitting per turn. Still not too scary. Plus, in reality there'd be 15 guards attacking (at minimum). Even if we'd let 40 skeletons counter that's about 9.6 dead skeletons for 1,28 guards. At which point battleshock will also take its toll on the skeletons. Resulting in about 11 skeletons and 1.28 gaurds per turn dying. Also, I just realized I didn't count the alpha for the guards, so it's slightly better for the guards. And of course there's still the bites taking an occasional skeleton down. I'd bet on an eternal starhost unless it's facing truly ungodly numbers of skeletons, provided he isn't rolling terrible of course

Anyways, I'd have to see the actual point values to see what i'd field. But so far it sounds doable and even somewhat favorable for us. At least against the deathrattle. Nighthaunt is a bit different or mixing with other death stuff is liable to be very problematic.

 

[Aginor]

You interpret the part about summoning wrong IMO. It is not an exception to the rule.
The rule is: Every time you use an ability that sets up a unit you pay reinforcement points. There is no exception to that.
The Skellies' regeneration is just an ability that makes up for their extreme squishiness. A normal healing skill except that you cannot regenerate wounds on models that have only one wound, AND they cannot exceed their starting size so that won't grow forever (which is exactyl what was broken with summoning and caused the rule change).
So no problems with that here.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Just a thing I thought,

If the skeletons are within 18in of the necromancer and wight king would they get +2 to hit making them a very effective killing machine!

 

[Aginor]

@Crowsfoot
Wait, really?? If you are referring to the Skellies' "Serve in Death" ability I am not quite sure if that stacks for multiple heroes....
I didn't read it that way but it could actuyll be true...

 

[Crowsfoot]

Wording is this,

Serve in Death: You can add 1 to hit rolls for units of Skeleton Warriors that are within 18" of a Death Hero from your army.

I know it says "a" Death Hero but I think it need clarification.

 

[Canas]

You interpret the part about summoning wrong IMO. It is not an exception to the rule.
The rule is: Every time you use an ability that sets up a unit you pay reinforcement points. There is no exception to that.
The Skellies' regeneration is just an ability that makes up for their extreme squishiness. A normal healing skill except that you cannot regenerate wounds on models that have only one wound, AND they cannot exceed their starting size so that won't grow forever (which is exactyl what was broken with summoning and caused the rule change).
So no problems with that here.

This is just as problematic as it can still cause infinite troops. Arguably it's worse as there's little to no requirement for it (at least summoning requires a spellcast which could be interupted). The only way in which it is "less" problematic is cuz it can't generate field infinite skeletons at the same time. But it can easily make the unit effectivly immortal.

As for it being an exception or not, i'd view it as an exception to the spirit of the rule at the least. Though you're right that at least technicly it doesn't break the rule if you'd read it that way. It is just quite weird that this works differently. This way certain reinforcing mechanics behave very differently in terms of point costs which is weird.

Also, this'd mean that daemons spawning from banners are similarly free of cost. And arguably certain abilities are sometimes free and sometimes not. For eample take the split rule on the horror of tzeentch. They can either join an existing unit, in which case this reading of the rule would make em free, or start a new unit, in which case they'd cost points. This would be silly.

 

[Canas]

Wording is this,

Serve in Death: You can add 1 to hit rolls for units of Skeleton Warriors that are within 18" of a Death Hero from your army.

I know it says "a" Death Hero but I think it need clarification.

It just says being in range of a death hero, not for each hero in range. So it'd only give 1 bonus.

 

[Aginor]

This is just as problematic as it can still cause infinite troops. Arguably it's worse as there's little to no requirement for it (at least summoning requires a spellcast which could be interupted). The only way in which it is "less" problematic is cuz it can't generate field infinite skeletons at the same time. But it can easily make the unit effectivly immortal.

As for it being an exception or not, i'd view it as an exception to the spirit of the rule at the least. Though you're right that at least technicly it doesn't break the rule if you'd read it that way. It is just quite weird that this works differently. This way certain reinforcing mechanics behave very differently in terms of point costs which is weird.

Also, this'd mean that daemons spawning from banners are similarly free of cost. And arguably certain abilities are sometimes free and sometimes not. For eample take the split rule on the horror of tzeentch. They can either join an existing unit, in which case this reading of the rule would make em free, or start a new unit, in which case they'd cost points. This would be silly.

Yeah, pretty much agree with that. I'd still call it relatively harmless for skeletons because the 1d6 Skellies die pretty quickly, too. And the tournament scene shows us it does at least not break stuff, I haven't seen a Skeleton build that relies on it.

It just says being in range of a death hero, not for each hero in range. So it'd only give 1 bonus.

I think I agree, even though the rules as written are a bit unclear IMO. They should change it to "any" or "each" to clarify what they mean.
EDIT: Btw the same applies to the Infernal Standard of the Wight King as well. It is not 100% clear if multiple standards cause multiple rolls or not and people interpret it differently.
...and still Deathrattle is considered a pretty weak army so maybe it doesn't matter either.

 

[Canas]

Yeah, pretty much agree with that. I'd still call it relatively harmless for skeletons because the 1d6 Skellies die pretty quickly, too. And the tournament scene shows us it does at least not break stuff, I haven't seen a Skeleton build that relies on it.

yea, for the skeletons themselfs it'd not be an issue, but in general this reading would lead to some severe issues and inconsistencies. Anyways, I'd like to see your lists so I could see what I'd field against em

I think I agree, even though the rules as written are a bit unclear IMO. They should change it to "any" or "each" to clarify what they mean.
EDIT: Btw the same applies to the Infernal Standard of the Wight King as well. It is not 100% clear if multiple standards cause multiple rolls or not and people interpret it differently.
...and still Deathrattle is considered a pretty weak army so maybe it doesn't matter either.

Meh, it's clear enough, but a bit more explicit wording wouldn't hurt. In general more explicit phrasing could be usefull. GW seems to have a tendency to word things just vaguely enough that a lot of rules have some wiggleroom.

 

[Aginor]

@Canas I posted a possible 1k list in this thread, post #81 (first one on page 5 for me)
IMO that one could be scary because sniping those heroes might be hard for a 1k Seraphon list.

Ok but I think we cleared most of the stuff up that really matters for Deathrattle since IMO neither Grave Guard nor Black Knights are worth any real discussion. The former ones are - IMO overprized - slightly heavier variants of Skeleton Warriors and the Black Knights seem to be pretty weak compared to other available and similarly priced units (such as Hex Wraiths).

So with that I'd like to move on to the Nighthaunt, but - for now - ignoring the undead Elephant in the room that is the Mourngul.
Peek under the spoiler of you want to see a "fun" list with them anyway.

Spoiler: Mourngul list to cause flipped tables

Allegiance: Nighthaunt

Leaders
Tomb Banshee (80)
- General

Battleline
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
- Nighthaunt Battleline
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
- Nighthaunt Battleline
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
- Nighthaunt Battleline

Behemoths
Mourngul (400)
Mourngul (400)
Mourngul (400)

Total: 2000/2000

So what I want to talk about is Hexwraiths, Spirit Hosts, Cairn Wraiths, Banshees, and the Mortis Engine, buffed by Necromancers and maybe a Mortarch. Example list:

Allegiance: Death

Heroes
Cairn Wraith (60)
Cairn Wraith (60)
Tomb Banshee (80)
Mannfred Mortarch Of Night (460)
- General

Battleline
6 x Spirit Hosts (240)
- Nighthaunt Battleline
3 x Spirit Hosts (120)
- Nighthaunt Battleline
3 x Spirit Hosts (120)
- Nighthaunt Battleline

Units
5 x Hexwraiths (160)

Behemoths
Mortis Engine (180)

Total: 1480/1500


Ok, so technically I know this is not a legal list since mixing in the Mortis engine and the Mortarch disallows Spirit Hosts as battleline. But I'll ignore that rule for now because it sucks big time. Nighthaunt can't even play their SC box. IMO everything in Deathmages and Deathlors should just be "wildcard" and not break any Death allegiance, so that would allow Spirit Hosts to be battleline here.

So what do y'all think about lists like that? Fun to play? worth it? How would you fight it?

Main selling point of Nighthaunt is their rend immunity and the mortal wound causing abilities they have. But I don't have experience fighting or playing them so I am looking forward to your opinions.

 

[Canas]

@Canas I posted a possible 1k list in this thread, post #81 (first one on page 5 for me)
IMO that one could be scary because sniping those heroes might be hard for a 1k Seraphon list.

Lovely I've missed it somehow. Let's see.

Preferably I'd just bring a couple of bastillidons, stegadons and carnosaurs to deal with that stupid dragon. But since there's rules about behemoths and battleline units this isn't actually allowed. On a sidenote, that rule rather screws us over, especially at lower points, seeing as quite a lot of our cool stuff consists of behemoths while our battleline isn't particularly amazing without synergies.

Which leaves me with the following:

Heroes:
Skar veteran on carnosaur (260)
Either:
- Legendary fighter
- Relic blade
- Celestite war-spear
Or:
- Master of defense
- Phoenix stone
- Celestite war-spear
Eternity warden (140)
- Phoenix stone
Skink priest (100)
- Priestly trappings (is its equipment mutually exclusive?)

Battleline:
3x 5 saurus guard (300)
1x 5 chamelon skinks (120)

Battalion:
Eternal starhost (80)

1000 points total

Now the general tactic would be to either get the skar veteran to fight the vampire one on one, possibly backed up by the skinks firing at it while the guard hold back the skeletons.

Failing that position the guard in such a way that the skar-veteran can reach the skeletons, since all it's attacks but only the first line of skeletons can potentially reach him. This should be viable given that the skar veteran has 2" on all his attacks (position our eternity warden similarly). Now focus down the skeletons and bank on our damage output and our good battleshock effects to rout the skeletons quickly.

Also the chameleon skinks should probably keep their distance from the vampire and instead focus the wight king and necromancer.

Alternativly, it might be interesting to swap the chamelon skinks for a sunblood, on a good day those would be liable to destroy the entire unit of skeletons on his own so that could be quite hilarious.

The different builds for the skar veteran are cuz I'm not sure how reliably he can go off and just chomp through the entire skeleton horde or eat the vampire's dragon. If he is fairly reliable, use the offensive build, if he's liable to fall just short the more defensive build is probably wise.

The biggest question here would be just how devestating that vampire is going to end up being when compared to our carnosaur.