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AoS A new player question

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Jungle Swarm

Genestealer

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Hi!

I'm a completly new player to aos/fantasy.
Ive done 3 games, lost badly all 3 games. All of them vs Nighthaunt.
My units (saurus warriors for example) just easily melt away vs his units. While my warriors only kill 2-4 that he will resummon later.

I just can't catch a break, and im not sure what im doing wrong.
 
Welcome to the forums!

Well, there are a few different aspects to this:
- experience. If you opponent knows his army well, and how to play it, then he has an advantage.
- the armies. Nighthaunt is pretty strong right now. But we aren't too bad either.
- size of the game. Depending on how many points are allowed for the game we can play different tactics.
- the list. Can you decribe us what he played, and what you played? Perhaps just post everything you have so we can see how it fits together.
- Keep in mind that Seraphon are a synergy-based army. We rely on our buffs, we have hardly any "super units" that just work on their own. One example below.


Saurus Warriors, our most basic battleline unit. Kinda bad, but with buffs they become good:
Unit of 10: Sucks.
Unit of 20: Sucks.
Unit of 30: meh, but as soon as they lose one guy: sucks.
Unit of 40: Pretty good actually
Unit of 40 + Skink Starpriest + Skink Priest + Astrolith Bearer + Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur + Sunclaw Starhost: Awesome!
 
First battle was straight out of 2 SC boxes.
1000 pts of a firelance starhost with oldblood on carno, trog and 10 skinks.

2nd list (1500) had some proxy, but i also bought/converted ripperdactyls, slann, 10 temple guard, astrolith, sunblood, bastiladon with arc, 20 skinks and 20 warriors.

Todays list was 2000. kroak (proxied), astrolith, eotg (kroak was old and remembered him looking like a tyrannofex) skink priest, sunblood, trog, bastiladon, cogs spell, 20 warriors, 10 guards and 5 guards.

I do not know the names of his units, but i know more or less whar each did.

I did some damage, kroak delt some nice damage, the bastiladon did lots of mw and the eotg summined ripperdactyls almost every turn. But i found myself stuck at my deployment zone with many units, anything thatcwondered too far got dwindled fast (ripperdactyls never survived morecthan a turn) my warriors died like nothing and my guard were awesome but few. Trog did nothing.

But than in his turn most of the damagei dealt got healed. The fact everything flues and ignores rand and ignore wounds on 6s and than comes back to life, the ammount of rerolls he can amass..
I just couldnt snipe his heores, couldnt chip away his units fast enough.
 
If he has a halfway decent list then I think you will need a more optimized list to actually beat him.

You should try to focus on his heroes I think.

As for Rippers dying: they are glass cannons, so yeah, they rarely survive beyond their first or second combat phase. But six Rippers in a Shadowstrike should have a good impact, even on Nighthaunt units.
 
I will try to get some more games against other players (and different armies) but any quick-tips for building better lists? Things you thing i should take out or add?
 
I think against many armies the Skink-heavy lists (like Shadowstrike Starhost) or big Monsters (Thunderquake) combined with Skinks work better than Saurus, perhaps because of their mobility.

But Saurus lists can work as well if you prefer using them. I just wouldn't recommend mixing them too much. So basically either go Guard or Warriors, but probably not both.
 
I didnt have much luck with skinks wheb i brought themin my lists, but they were always like 10-20 only
 
Genestealer said:
I didnt have much luck with skinks wheb i brought themin my lists, but they were always like 10-20 only
Click to expand...

Skinks exclusively hold objectives and be annoying. They arent gonna kill anything. Use wary fighter to get extra movement and screen your other stuff.
 
Putzfrau said:
Skinks exclusively hold objectives and be annoying. They arent gonna kill anything. Use wary fighter to get extra movement and screen your other stuff.
Click to expand...
I disagree, a bit at least. A 40-model unit (or two) in a Shadowstrike and with an Astrolith Bearer near can be surprisingly killy. It has worked for me quite often.
 
Aginor said:
I disagree, a bit at least. A 40-model unit (or two) in a Shadowstrike and with an Astrolith Bearer near can be surprisingly killy. It has worked for me quite often.
Click to expand...

I've never used a 40 man blob, so that could be totally right! I imagine with that many attacks rerolling you're bound to do at least a little bit of damage.
 
im going to have another fight on saturday, hope ill do a bit better (vs the same player)
 
Yeah, a 40 unit of skinks with Shadowstrike can be good, admittedly I had some lucky dice rolls and my opponent had some bad ones but a 40 blob once took 10 wounds off an Ironclad turn one, hitting on 3s rerolling 1s isn't to be sniffed at. If my Rippers hadn't failed their 3" charge I'd probably have taken it down and everything in it, lady luck is very fickle.
 
A key question here is what gametypes you were playing. Seraphon has almost unparalleled board control meaning we kick ass at objective-type games but we will rarely come out on top in a sustained deathmatch - blow-for-blow, most of our units just don't have the stats to keep up with some of the other factions out there.

I've only played against Nighthaunt twice, and both times I was playing my Deepkin rather than my Seraphon, but those games did alert me to some things:

  • The fact that they ignore rend actually doesn't effect Seraphon that much as we are a notoriously non-rendy army. Capitalize on units that offer volume of attacks rather than raw strength (Razordons, Saurus warriors in BIG units, Rippers or even correctly synergized Knights can all do well here).
  • Nighthaunt is one of the quintessential attrition-based armies. Once a big unit of Chainrasps has landed on an objective, you can bet your bottom dollar they aren't going to budge any time soon. This is where Lords of Space and Time comes in - try and grab the objectives in your first turn for some easy points (I understand Nighthaunt also can drop units on objectives in the first turn, which makes minimizing your deployment very important - use batallions!).
  • Don't forget that you are just as good, if not even better than Nighthaunt at returning destroyed units to the battle. A Slann can cast one spell and still have two more left to use on a unit of Skinks to grab an objective. I have lost count of the number of times the humble Skink has been the unsung hero of the game.
  • Hero sniping is crucial - as it is when facing most opponents. I think most Nighthaunt heroes are on a 4+ 6++ save with 5-7 wounds. Nothing that a tactical insertion of Ripperdactyls or Razordons will struggle to deal with. Yes, good deployment will make this difficult for you - but his forces will eventually have to spread out in the interest of board control. At this point, LoSaT onto his flank and bury him in 8D6 shots!
 
Aginor said:
I disagree, a bit at least. A 40-model unit (or two) in a Shadowstrike and with an Astrolith Bearer near can be surprisingly killy. It has worked for me quite often.
Click to expand...

Astrolith Bearers are the true Heroes of the Seraphon. Few models can carry as much of an army's weight.
 
Genestealer said:
Hi!

I'm a completly new player to aos/fantasy.
Ive done 3 games, lost badly all 3 games. All of them vs Nighthaunt.
My units (saurus warriors for example) just easily melt away vs his units. While my warriors only kill 2-4 that he will resummon later.

I just can't catch a break, and im not sure what im doing wrong.
Click to expand...

The units I recommend to anyone starting out Seraphon is first to pick up a Slann. Next look into an Astrolith Bearer. From this point you should study the three major Battalions that see good tournament showings. They are as follows: Shadowstrike Starhost, Thunderquake Starhost, or a single drop Fangs of Sotek battalion. All of the highly competetive Seraphon list require good use of our allegiance ability and of our new to GH2018 summoning abilities. Both of these traits normally make use of Skinks. I would buy at least three boxes of Skinks. Even if you run a suarus centered army like a Sunclaw Starhost, you will still probably be summoning Skinks over saurus.

Seraphon do tend to have more unit abilities and more phase dependent abilities than the average army. As a result you might also be having a hard match due to some rule oversights. Keep playing and reread your main rules after ever few games to gain a comprehensive grasp of your army. Never underestimate the power of making a checklist for your phase. @Aginor wrote a nice reply about check list here:

Aginor said:
What I usually do (I am able to remember most of that stuff, but sometimes I get distracted or I am stressed and then I forget stuff) is this:

After you have made your list, go through your special abilites. That means
- Allegiance abilities
- artefacts
- spells
- abilities on warscrolls

Use a sheet of paper. Write the phases on there, and below each phase write a short sentence about an ability that triggers in that phase.

Mark the abilities that can trigger in enemy phases red or something, so when your opponent plays through the phases you can look at your sheet and raise your hand to interrupt him if something triggers.

Something like:

Before fight:
- Slann Pick Constellation

Before every round:
- move predatory endless spells

Hero
- command trait does xxxx
- artefact does xxxx
- Command abilities
- check bataillon abilites
- LoSaT
- Plant Astrolith
- EotG roll
- Steggy can move Skink unit 1d6
- cast spells (remember constellation)
- unbind (Slanns unbind on whole table! Troggy can unbind too)

Move
-

Shooting
- if Slann used his command ability, reroll saves
- Astrolith rerolls

Charge
- Razordons might fire at attackers
- Constellation

Combat
- Bastiladon Snakes first!
- Skinks wary fighters

Battleshock
- if Slann used his command ability, roll three dice




In your own turn just look at the sheet at the start of each phase, and look what you shouldn't forget there.
Click to expand...
 
40 man skink units are MVP- before the point nerfs I always ran 3 40-man units. Now I mix it up more (therefore the nerf was probably good), but skinks in 40 man blobs are like 4 razordons (force a lot of saves) and with wary fighter they can keep shooting people even if they get locked up in combat
 
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