AoS Starmaster or Kroak?

[LizardWizard]

I was comparing Kroak to the normal slann. Kroak can use all his spells to summon 2x10 man skinks. Slann can only get 9 points on his own.

I have a strong feeling they will nerf summoning in the next book to one unit a turn per slann but I'm thinking there will be a list of spells for the slann to pick from.

I doubt GW will limit summoning without buffing the units that we can summon. One can never really know until the book is out though.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

You're right. they just did that with Khorne summoning, so that's just my guess. Either way, the books probably far off. Time to go test Double Frog Shadow-Comet.

It rolls off the tounge.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

Wait I just read our summoning rules, only our general can generate summoning points... I forgot about this... so sad.

That's the rule right?

 

[LizardWizard]

Wait I just read our summoning rules, only our general can generate summoning points... I forgot about this... so sad.

That's the rule right?

That is why I asked about the double summoning.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

Well since this a Kroak vs Slann page what do you guys think is the better list. I like both. I think the Kroak list would be fun to test out to see how good comet plus kroak's comet can be, but that's two spells. The other one is more simple. Protect Slann and EotG early turns, summons skinks, threaten with shadowstrike and force your opponent to come after you slann/Eotg and then bring in Celestant Prime turn 3 to clear off opponents back objectives/ spread out forces. I dont have the Celestant model but it's beautiful and would be cool to own. I proxyed it a few times but that was before the changes and I also think it was more expensive too.

Lord Kroak (450)
Skink Starpriest (80)
Knight-Incantor (140)
UNITS
20 x Skinks (120)
10 x Skinks (60)
10 x Skinks (60)
6 x Ripperdactyl Riders (280)
3 x Ripperdactyl Riders (140)
4 x Razordons (160)
4 x Razordons (160)
BATTALIONS
Shadowstrike Starhost (180)
ENDLESS SPELLS
Balewind Vortex (40)
Everblaze Comet (100)

or

Celestant-Prime (340)
Slann Starmaster (260)
Skink Starpriest (80)
Engine of the Gods (220) or ( 10x Skinks and 4x Razordons)
UNITS
20 x Skinks (120)
20 x Skinks (120)
10 x Skinks (60)
6 x Ripperdactyl Riders (280)
4 x Razordons (160)
4 x Razordons (160)
BATTALIONS
Shadowstrike Starhost (180)

 

[LizardWizard]

I think the second list is probably better. They are both pretty equal though. It would depend on how your EotGs rolls.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Kroak!

 

[Blitzkriyg]

I run both, slann General for summoning and kroak backed by 2x eotg for killing. I will be taking this in the aus championship finals if I get called up missed out by 1 place

 

[Nart]

The main problem with Kroak is overnerfed Celestial deliverence alongside with cost of strongest monsters. Kroak was broken in early days of AoS because of stacking astroliths, CD having low cast value and high range. Taking away anything of this would tone it down, but GW decided to do all at once. Not being able to take trait or artefact hurts a lot too. His command ability is random and CP is not what we starve for.

He could be interesing in games with Realm magic, but every realm has only a couple of interesting spells. Looking forward for our own lore - this is where he could shine.

I just don't consider using him without a Slann because of Great Rememberer - it made me so many games. Probably, in new GHB it will lose some point weight.

Spoiler: P.S.: A little off-topic cry here

Through last weak I read several suggestion on different boards about seraphon stuff should be nerfed. I don't get. Skinks are cheap, but all they do is existing and occasionaly making a wound, if it is not a block of 40. Yes, they are porbably the main reason why we are competitive now, but this doesn't make them overpowered all of a sudden. Just strong. Same with hunting packs - they bring lots of shooting, but short ranged and random. Most opponents have lots of ways of bringing them down, if they know what to do. Rippers can charge turn 1 and strike hard, but it is so easy for most armies to protect most valuable targets. On the last tournament only two opponents out of five gave me opportunity to kill their heroes, and this was just their mistake - they could protect them if they wanted. Summoning is strong, but still not broken - we cannot return units just by a snap of fingers (like some other armies really can).

We are not taking half of top-5's of most tournaments, unlike other armies, but we, for some reason, alongside them on nerf wishlist of some people, because we are simply strong in certain aspects. Players, that lose to me, often simply didn't understand what to do. So often they go for bastiladons and stuck there instead of pursuing my heroes. Only one my opponent ever tried to dispel balewind.

Overpowered things should be nerfed. But strong are not always overpowered.

 

[Stuart Glasson]

Well since this a Kroak vs Slann page what do you guys think is the better list. [...]

Lord Kroak (450)
Skink Starpriest (80)
Knight-Incantor (140)
[...]
or

Celestant-Prime (340)
Slann Starmaster (260)
[...]

Forgive the newb question but how/what do a knight incantor and Celestant-Prime do that synergises? I have no idea what those models are capable of ...

 

[Joshua Horchler]

So the main reason those units have synergy is because Seraphon right now, are not the best at killing your opponents army off the table or killing big monsters.

What we are really good at is having rhe best and cheapest battleline that is super fast, we have reliable summoning, and the ability to deep strike rippers.

The idea behind the stormcast units is that hey are both able to finish off weakened enemy buffing heroes and help clear off objectives. Same thing with Razordons.

So you are running your skinks around, getting to objectives first, hoping taking out key pieces of your opponents army with Rippers, Razors, Kroaks comet , or incators comet and then slowly dying but the whole time collecting more points and winning.

It's the skink life right now. Our poor Saurus just cant kill things. This is in terms of being super competitive. You can always play what you want in casually friendly matches I enjoy both types of games.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

Forgive the newb question but how/what do a knight incantor and Celestant-Prime do that synergises? I have no idea what those models are capable of ...

Oh and Prime is another rare deepstriker who can charge the turn it comes in. It also does some chip mortal wounds.

 

[Stuart Glasson]

Thanks - and I can see he's a tanky mofo
Seems like our start collecting box was really the wrong way to start collecting

 

[Canas]

Spoiler: P.S.: A little off-topic cry here

Through last weak I read several suggestion on different boards about seraphon stuff should be nerfed. I don't get. Skinks are cheap, but all they do is existing and occasionaly making a wound, if it is not a block of 40. Yes, they are porbably the main reason why we are competitive now, but this doesn't make them overpowered all of a sudden. Just strong. Same with hunting packs - they bring lots of shooting, but short ranged and random. Most opponents have lots of ways of bringing them down, if they know what to do. Rippers can charge turn 1 and strike hard, but it is so easy for most armies to protect most valuable targets. On the last tournament only two opponents out of five gave me opportunity to kill their heroes, and this was just their mistake - they could protect them if they wanted. Summoning is strong, but still not broken - we cannot return units just by a snap of fingers (like some other armies really can).

We are not taking half of top-5's of most tournaments, unlike other armies, but we, for some reason, alongside them on nerf wishlist of some people, because we are simply strong in certain aspects. Players, that lose to me, often simply didn't understand what to do. So often they go for bastiladons and stuck there instead of pursuing my heroes. Only one my opponent ever tried to dispel balewind.

Overpowered things should be nerfed. But strong are not always overpowered.

I think the main issue here is how we win, and how you're supposed to counter it. Our army focusses a lot on controlling the flow of battle and engaging when and how we want to. After all that's the only way to win when your stuff is kind of terrible stat-wise. However, if you're on the recieving end, especially against a good player, this can feel unfair. After all a good player will end up controlling the entire game and you managed to do nothing of significance.

Losing because your big scary bloodthirster got stuck having to wade through endless hordes of skinks who can't even scratch it just feels very anticlimactic and frustrating. On the other hand, if your bloodthirster gets killed in an epic duel against a dragon or something and then you lose it feels "better". Doubly so when you take into consideration the average player isn't especially good so he doesn't even realize why those skinks were such a problem and how much better you had to play to keep that bloodthirster from actually doing something usefull. All he sees is "my bloodthirster didn't manage anything and somehow this was due to cannonfodder, clearly the fodder must be OP"

 

[LizardWizard]

I think the main issue here is how we win, and how you're supposed to counter it. Our army focusses a lot on controlling the flow of battle and engaging when and how we want to. After all that's the only way to win when your stuff is kind of terrible stat-wise. However, if you're on the recieving end, especially against a good player, this can feel unfair. After all a good player will end up controlling the entire game and you managed to do nothing of significance.

Losing because your big scary bloodthirster got stuck having to wade through endless hordes of skinks who can't even scratch it just feels very anticlimactic and frustrating. On the other hand, if your bloodthirster gets killed in an epic duel against a dragon or something and then you lose it feels "better". Doubly so when you take into consideration the average player isn't especially good so he doesn't even realize why those skinks were such a problem and how much better you had to play to keep that bloodthirster from actually doing something usefull. All he sees is "my bloodthirster didn't manage anything and somehow this was due to cannonfodder, clearly the fodder must be OP"

Agreed. Players I face in the first rounds of an event normally say something to me along the line of: "Seraphon, I thought this was suppose to be a serious event." Players later in the event know to take them seriously. I think the notion that Seraphon are weaker makes losings to board control that much more frustrating.

 

[Canas]

Losing against control playstyles is inherently frustarting as the power-fantasy of a control-playstyle is to prevent your opponent from not doing anything. It's a very difficult thing to balance.

 

[LizardWizard]

Losing against control playstyles is inherently frustarting as the power-fantasy of a control-playstyle is to prevent your opponent from not doing anything. It's a very difficult thing to balance.

That is fair. I do normally get slaughtered at the top tables though. Most of my games I have maybe 200pts of units left. So my opponent still gets to do things, just not things related to objectives

 

[Canas]

That is fair. I do normally get slaughtered at the top tables though. Most of my games I have maybe 200pts of units left. So my opponent still gets to do things, just not things related to objectives

Fortunatly we are weak and can't completly control the opponent. Other aspects of the game still matter. The best we can do is steer the game in our favour and for example force a more favorable engagement. But ultimatly we can't force you not to engage. Our opponent still has agency left, no matter how well we play. The RNG inherent in dice probably helps here a lot. That bloodthirster might get lucky and charge past the skinks into something valueable. Or a double turn allows him to smash through your lines before you can reform.

But for example, I once played a TCG game against a good player with a control deck. I managed to play a less than 10 cards that game that didn't immeadiatly get countered/removed/etc. and I lost cuz he milled the rest of my deck suffering 0 damage to my health. Even though I managed to do way more damage to him than he did to me it never felt like I had any agency as I never could get more on the field than the most basic of cards for more than a few moments, even when chaining together my own limited control and counters,. I don't think I've ever played such a boring game anywhere else. That's what happens when control gets powerfull enough that when succesfull they completly deny any real agency for the opponent.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

Yeah I think you are right that most players enjoy combat vs combat style of games, but the thing about Seraphon is all of our stuff dies. Your opponent still gets to interact and a lot of the times if the first few turns dont go well, especially based on the scenario you are playing, the Skink plan doesn't work out.


I think that some players might find annoying but it's by no means overpowered. It requires a lot of skill, some luck and is also heavily matchup and scenario dependent.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

IMO it's more enjoyable than playing against unkillable giant models that summon or bring things back to life. (FEC).

This is a good discussion though and one I think we all hope GW is having when working on the new book. If our Saurus brothers get some new life then a lot more play styles will be opened up.