AoS Bloodclaw or Fangs for Sauri army

[Boshea]

Original posted this on reddit, but makes more sense to post it here. So now that 2.0 has dropped fine tuning how I want to run my Seraphon. Sauri heavy armies have two primary battalions in Bloodclaw and Fangs of Sotek.

Bloodclaw has the advantage of not needing sub battalions. Assumption currently is that strategic mastery on it will get the same rework as Starbeast where it gives d3+1 instead of 1 at the start of the game. The battalion also gets the most work out of the Carno Old bloods ability since you need 3 other heroes. Looking at Sunblood for rerolls, Carno vet for exploding 6s, and cold vet for better charges and knight buff. 40 warriors, 2 units of knights to fill battleline and battalion requirements gives me about 600 point left to play with and 2 hero and 2 behemeth slots open. For behemoths right now I have the option of doing two more Carno vets to really maximize the old blood ability, or two Trogs to free up heroes. Haven't seen the endless spell rules, but hear cogs is busted and probably should at least take a Starpriest to cast it. Can always take the extra skink from the carno kit and put him on foot to be a priest. Slaan is an option for a stronger magic phase and he cast off the trogs.

Fangs is a little more taxing. Slaan and Carno Old blood are needed along with a Sunclaw star host. With a brick of 40 warriors in the Sunclaw I have about 600 points to play with to fill out to 2k. Can only get a Firelance in with a Coldone vet, but would like to get a Carno vet in for the command ability. Trade off with taking the Carno vet is much weaker knights since they lose the bonus mortal they get from firelance, but don't have the bonus bite like Bloodclaw. Best solution is likely take the Carno vet and pick up something later to fill out the remaining point. Could fill it with Trogs for now, but probably better things I could pick up.

So just wondering what the thoughts are on either battalion in 2.0. Bloodclaw is the most compact and benefits from the Old blood the most due to being hero heavy, but has less consistent command generation. Fangs has better generation and built in magic support but a steeper unit tax, and not as good of ways to dump command with minimum requirements.

As for a working model pool currently, mostly just 4 start collectings, a sunblood, and an extra box of warriors. So that gives the following
1 Old Carno
1 Vet Carno
1 Sunblood
30 Knights
Can convert two Scar vets out of the extra 2 Knights
68 Warriors
2 Skink Priest from left over carno kit pieces.
2 Carno/Trog kits I haven't decided on.
Depending on if I go for Trogs now (4 Carnos in a list just seems fun, 2 and 2 also works), the Sauri bits would likely let me put together an Oldblood on foot and/or Astrolith bearer.

Biggest omission for models is a Slaan (which is needed for Fangs), but still waiting for them to come back in stock. Magic support in general is pretty light, but its probably the next purchases I'm looking at along with Malign Sorcery.

 

[Asamu]

For Bloodclaw you could do something like this:

Allegiance: Seraphon (Hysh)
Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur (260)
Saurus Oldblood (120) - General - Warblade - Trait: Mighty War Leader (Start of the hero phase, generate an extra CP on a 5+)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (240) - Greatblade
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Lens of Refraction (Whenever a unit within 6" would suffer wounds from a spell, reduce the damage by d3)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch (whenever you spend a command point, generate another on a 5+)
Skink Starpriest (80)
40 x Saurus Warriors (360)
15 x Saurus Knights (270) - You can split up the knights however you want. 5 units of 5 might actually be best for more coverage. They should screen on turn 1 to protect the Saurus warriors and heroes.
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
Bloodclaw Starhost (150)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)
80 pts left, so you could take Quicksilver Swords, Prismatic Pallisade, or Soulsnare Shackles and an extra CP or something.
Wounds: 139
Total: 2000

With the extra CP you'd start with 3+d3 CPs + the normal 1 CP each of your hero phases + 1 on a 5+ in each of your hero phases + another on a 5+ whenever you use one - it's an average of about 10 CP on turn 2. Spam that OB on carno ability as much as possible once you get in combat and eat their army. Swap the lens for the +1 rend sword or something if you don't need to worry about magic sniping your characters (it's mostly just for defense against kroak and tzeentch). ~15 carno jaw attacks with double damage from the serpent staff will mulch just about anything.

Maybe drop the extra CP and 5 knights to bump a cold one vet to a 3rd carnosaur

The Sunblood would be nice to include, but you're already re-rolling 1s to hit from the cold one vets, and most of the list hits on 3s, so the command ability isn't worth much compared to the other options.

The foot Oldblood lets you reform 3" after teleporting even if you fail or roll the 3-4 result, so you can more reliably make charges and cross the board a bit faster - It's good set up for an alpha strike with the 40 warriors (that generate +1 attack for each time you use the scar vet carno ability on them for each 5+ to hit - and bite hits do double damage on 6s to wound with serpent staff) if an opportunity presents itself.

Maybe drop 5 knights and a cold one scar vet for a 3rd carnosaur.

I probably wouldn't go for Fangs of Sotek without 90+ saurus (though you could probably make it work with an extra carno or something instead of 30 saurus), but you could do Dracothian's tail, which has a lower model tax (though the battalion cost is a bit higher)

Probably something like this:
Allegiance: Seraphon
Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Trait: Vast Intellect - Artefact: Incandescent Rectrices
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (160) - Artefact: Lens of Refraction (Whenever a unit within 6" would suffer wounds from a spell, reduce the damage by d3)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (240) - Greatblade
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch
40 x Saurus Warriors (360)
20 x Saurus Knights (360)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
Dracothion's Tail (80)
Firelance Starhost (150)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)

Total: 1950 / 2000 - maybe add Geminids instead of the extra CP that you probably don't need.
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 136

Pretty similar concept. Hold the big unit of knights in reserve turn 1 -> drop it in your opponents face in the hero phase turn 2 with some buffs.

 

[Aginor]

Welcome!

Some nice ideas in there, I have to think about it...

 

[Boshea]

For Bloodclaw you could do something like this:

Allegiance: Seraphon (Hysh)
Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur (260)
Saurus Oldblood (120) - General - Warblade - Trait: Mighty War Leader (Start of the hero phase, generate an extra CP on a 5+)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (240) - Greatblade
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Lens of Refraction (Whenever a unit within 6" would suffer wounds from a spell, reduce the damage by d3)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch (whenever you spend a command point, generate another on a 5+)
Skink Starpriest (80)
40 x Saurus Warriors (360)
15 x Saurus Knights (270) - You can split up the knights however you want. 5 units of 5 might actually be best for more coverage. They should screen on turn 1 to protect the Saurus warriors and heroes.
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
Bloodclaw Starhost (150)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)
80 pts left, so you could take Quicksilver Swords, Prismatic Pallisade, or Soulsnare Shackles and an extra CP or something.
Wounds: 139
Total: 2000

With the extra CP you'd start with 3+d3 CPs + the normal 1 CP each of your hero phases + 1 on a 5+ in each of your hero phases + another on a 5+ whenever you use one - it's an average of about 10 CP on turn 2. Spam that OB on carno ability as much as possible once you get in combat and eat their army. Swap the lens for the +1 rend sword or something if you don't need to worry about magic sniping your characters (it's mostly just for defense against kroak and tzeentch). ~15 carno jaw attacks with double damage from the serpent staff will mulch just about anything.

Maybe drop the extra CP and 5 knights to bump a cold one vet to a 3rd carnosaur

The Sunblood would be nice to include, but you're already re-rolling 1s to hit from the cold one vets, and most of the list hits on 3s, so the command ability isn't worth much compared to the other options.

The foot Oldblood lets you reform 3" after teleporting even if you fail or roll the 3-4 result, so you can more reliably make charges and cross the board a bit faster - It's good set up for an alpha strike with the 40 warriors (that generate +1 attack for each time you use the scar vet carno ability on them for each 5+ to hit - and bite hits do double damage on 6s to wound with serpent staff) if an opportunity presents itself.

Maybe drop 5 knights and a cold one scar vet for a 3rd carnosaur.

I probably wouldn't go for Fangs of Sotek without 90+ saurus (though you could probably make it work with an extra carno or something instead of 30 saurus), but you could do Dracothian's tail, which has a lower model tax (though the battalion cost is a bit higher)

Probably something like this:
Allegiance: Seraphon
Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Trait: Vast Intellect - Artefact: Incandescent Rectrices
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (160) - Artefact: Lens of Refraction (Whenever a unit within 6" would suffer wounds from a spell, reduce the damage by d3)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (240) - Greatblade
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch
40 x Saurus Warriors (360)
20 x Saurus Knights (360)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
5 x Saurus Knights (90)
Dracothion's Tail (80)
Firelance Starhost (150)
Chronomantic Cogs (60)

Total: 1950 / 2000 - maybe add Geminids instead of the extra CP that you probably don't need.
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 136

Pretty similar concept. Hold the big unit of knights in reserve turn 1 -> drop it in your opponents face in the hero phase turn 2 with some buffs.

Super good overview, and I guess I just really underestimated the Foot Oldblood ability for reforming. Probably go for double Carno Vets for the wow factor of it. Still waiting for Malign to show up to really look into realm stuff, but did look up which realm Hysh is in the Core Book. Realm of light actually works well for the paint scheme I'm planning. Going to do them in the skittle rainbow in honor of Little Skittles from Crendor's Bloodbowl team, and an old reference to somebody's skittle knights from WHFB locally. On the upside I did learn that endless spell rules are in the Azyr app, so got to see what exactly Cogs does. I can now understand why people consider it auto-include for almost any army. Downside is the app is currently missing Battalions for GHB and Grand alliance books.

 

[Boshea]

So just got done a game against Legion of Nagash (Legion of Sacrament) and a few take aways.
-I really really should invest in a Slaan
-Most likely dropping the Carno Old Blood to fit the Slaan since as hilarious as one rounding Arkhan was, he didn't do a lot.
-Got a turn one charge with the 40 warriors, and almost one rounded 30 skeletons with three stacks of Saurian Savagery. Probably would have one rounded if I remembered to give them Serpent Staff.
-Was kind of underwhelmed by the foot old blood. Outside of the turn one charge he didn't really do much. Don't think Mighty leader ever gave a command point back
-Similarly I think I only got one point back with Aetherquartz
-Cogs is a giant double edged sword
-Despite most people not liking them, the knights did pretty decent overall even when stuck grinding a unit down thanks to the extra bite. Pretty sure they only scored one mortal wound the entire game.
-Lived the dream and have my cold one vet score do 14 attacks thanks to two Old blood buffs and a 4+.
-Teleporting Carnos are fun

Slaan is probably the best thing to fit into the army for both double teleport, and Configuration. Points are easy with dropping the Carno Oldblood for him. Probably also want to drop a unit of knights so I can grab another endless spell or two so he has more offensive uses for his 3 spells. Two carnos is still lots of angry, and gives good coverage for throwing around the exploding 6s. Best use for the Foot-blood is likely hide in the back with the Aetherquartz after I teleport the warrior horde.

If I was to completely rewrite everything I'd look into fitting a Shadowstrike with rippers and two chamo units just for the hero snipe potential. While they probably wouldn't have taken out Arkhan, they would have kept the necromancer busy and maybe harassed some other heroes. They are also decent units for summon fodder since my best unit currently is knights. There is also the option of going hard magic and building around Kroak with a portal, but that would take a pretty drastic rework.

 

[Putzfrau]

Does bloodclaw even exist anymore? What does the updated warscroll look like?

 

[Boshea]

Its debatable if it exists. Was ommited from errata doc but its in GHB and warscroll builder, same with the other grand allegiance battalion for skinks. Dropped 50 points and Strategic mastery gives 1+D3 command points at the start of the game.

 

[Putzfrau]

Its debatable if it exists. Was ommited from errata doc but its in GHB and warscroll builder, same with the other grand allegiance battalion for skinks. Dropped 50 points and Strategic mastery gives 1+D3 command points at the start of the game.

Gotcha. Fangs gotta be better than, 1+D3 command points seems pretty underwhelming.

 

[Boshea]

That's assuming it keeps Strategic mastery, and doesn't get a new trait. That was the errata for strategic mastery on starbeast constellation.