AoS Fixing Serephon

[Erta Wanderer]

Hey all I've had a lot of fun trying to hammer out the best way to fix our poor lizards if we where to right the next book and thought it would be a good idea to have a dedicated page for that to keep it off unrelated pages. post a unit fix that you think would be cool and we will hammer it out hear.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

so far elswear we have done Saurus guard and warriors lets round it of with knights im thinking heavy cavalry 8 speed just as fast as skinks 3 wounds save of 4+, 3+ when charging not shur what to do with the weapons beyond changing the MW to 6 hit instead of 6 wound

 

[LizardWizard]

All I want from all of our Saurus battleline is for them to get 1 more wound than they current have and a 5+ save after save for wounds and mortal wounds. They should all go up by 10-20 points to compensate for it though.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

All I want from all of our Saurus battleline is for them to get 1 more wound than they current have and a 5+ save after save for wounds and mortal wounds. They should all go up by 10-20 points to compensate for it though.

This would make us a very tanky faction but I think we need a little more oohmph we already struggle with damage and there is a lot of units that could fill that role

 

[LizardWizard]

This would make us a very tanky faction but I think we need a little more oohmph we already struggle with damage and there is a lot of units that could fill that role

Rippers and Razordons are our good damage atm. All our Saurus units wouldn't be bad at hitting either if they could live long enough to swing. I might ask a club mate if I can test out a game where Warriors cost 120 per 10 but have 2 wounds and 5+ save after save. In Sunclaw they should be able to get some damage done.

 

[Canas]

Edit: this is basicly a summary of what I posed earlier in the rumor thread, though a bit more extensive so we can actually discuss it without highjacking that thread

In short (hehe.. writing a short post imagine that..):
General:

• Shields need to work more consistently against all levels of rend instead of only rend -X.
• Mount traits
• Prayers
• Better artifacts
• Subfactions that give some specialised bonus (and possibly malus to balance things out) comparable to stuff like gristlegore
  
• Replace some of the duds in our spelllore (why do we have yet another re-roll hit rolls of 1 in there? We have like 5 or 6 seperate mechanics for that) Possibly give us two lores (a slann and skink lore). Maybe even more so we can have some fun customizing. We are supposed to be some of the best wizards in the universe after all.
• Change our summoning mechanic so more units are involved and our slann gets to actually do something beside hiding in a corner
• Better general traits & less slann generals.
• Our versions of the SCE's treasured standards and mystic lights for the various heroes that carry items of importance into battle (EoTG, the various skink heroes, astrolith bearer)

Troops:

• Saurus warrior: need to be sturdier, actually have a bite & be viable at smaller than horde sizes.
• Saurus knights: need to be sturdier, actually have a bite & lances need to be reworked.
• Saurus guard: need to just be sturdier, their bite is good enough
• Skinks: A 10 man unit needs to be able to reliable score a wound more than once per game.
• Chameleons: need to be sturdier & choose between being proper ranged troops or assasins with weird teleporting skills so their stats can actually be focused into a niche instead of being this weird unit you only use cuz free teleports are always gonna be usefull somehow.
• Skink handlers: need to be part of a "hunting pack" unit similar to how a dwarf cannon comes with cannoneers. Also some protection to prevent people from sniping them and they have potential for more buffs.
• Terradons: need an overall stat-buff to compete with rippers, or make their ranged attacks more valuable so they fill a different niche & their bombs need to be less hit or miss.
• Rippers: mostly fine.

Monsters:

• Kroxigor: need an overall stat-buff, the bite mechanic needs to be reworked, the moonhammer needs to be more reliable, work without your opponent kindly sticking as many enemies in range as possible, and work against lone models (or possibly give us an alternative special hammer so we can pick depending on what we're facing)
• Razordons: mostly fine
• Salamanders: Need some extra baseline range and extra attacks. They don't necesarly need to do more damage, but 1 attack per model with a max of 4 models is just quite likely to miss completly.

Behemoths:

• Carnosaur: needs mount traits, needs an overal buff to deal with powercreep
• Stegadon: needs an overal buff to deal with powercreep. Blowpipes have the same issue as a kroxigor's moonhammer so they probably need the same solution. The bow needs some more attacks (again, not necesarly more damage, a mere 3 attacks is just quite likely to fizzle and do nothing). Something to have it remain powerfull beyond the charge. And a less punishing damage chart (or be sturdier so it's more difficult to immeadiatly knock him down a tier).
• Bastiladon: needs to be sturdier, with the amount of damage certain opponents can pump out it's just not really doing it's job anymore. Maybe give it a variation of Morathi's rule? Also it needs some love offensivly, especially in melee so it can actually break free and start shooting at an important target again (instead of shooting at whatever it's locked in melee with). Ark of sotek needs some love as well. Have the "failed" hits do something (Idunno, lemme put down snakes in hiding that bite someone when they come near like traps/mines)
• Troglodon: needs to decide if it wants to be a hero or "merely" a behemoth (why isn't the oracle on top a hero.. give us a melee skink hero that actually kicks butt, even if it is making the giant dinosaur doing all the work). Needs something to get through armour. Some overal buffs to deal with powercreep. Something to properly distinguish it from a carnosaur, having a slightly better charge & an unbind is not enough to really distinguish it and give it it's own role. It's basicly just a poor man's carnosaur as it is now.
• EoTG: Similar issues as the stegadon stat-wise. Should double down more on the buffing aspect of the shrine and drop the random damage effects. Also give it some passive baseline supportive effects to give it some reliability. For example say it default has a +1 to hit aura and if you get the right effect on the engine that aura becomes +1 to hit +1 to wound. But that +1 to hit is always gonna be there. This would also make it less necesary to fish for the summoning effect.

Heroes:

• Skink priest: make it a vaguely capable combatant that isn't utterly helpless when attacked by anything. Make it's ranged attack meaningfull so it can provide some support besides the one prayer in the hero phase. Involve it in summoning. Also prayers...
• Skink starpriest: basicly the exact same issues as the skink priest. In addition give something for our venom when we don't have an applicable target.
• Skink starseer: again, why does it have such an horrificly bad statline. Does GW just hate skink heroes? Basicly the exact same issues as the other two skink heroes. Also, make this a better caster & summoner that sits somewhere between a slann and a starpriest so it has it's own little niche.
• Slann: give it a meaningfull ranged attack, or make it viable to go into melee so it actually does something besides sitting in a corner summoning more seraphon. Give it a reason to cast spells instead of banking summoning points.
• Saurus oldblood: far too weak a combatant (and on carnosaur the carnosaur does most of the work). Also, needs to be better at supporting the troops he leads.
• Eternity warden: needs some buffs statwise, possibly allow him to guard something besides his slann.
• Scar veteran: in a surprisingly decent place in both versions. Scar vet on cold one should probably affect himself with his command ability as well though.
• Saurus sunblood: needs some (minor) statbuffs, mostly just needs to struggle les with armour and needs some reliability.
• Astrolith bearer: it's utility is a bit spread out over various niches (casting, hit-rolls, summoning). It'd benefit from some more focus. Possibly allow us to pick the type of banner? Also, again rather underwhelming as a combatant and needs some buffs there.

There you go a fix for nearly everything

 

[Canas]

Rippers and Razordons are our good damage atm. All our Saurus units wouldn't be bad at hitting either if they could live long enough to swing. I might ask a club mate if I can test out a game where Warriors cost 120 per 10 but have 2 wounds and 5+ save after save. In Sunclaw they should be able to get some damage done.

That's fine for minimum sized units but is gonna be broken for a horde. 40 models with 2 wounds a 5+ save, rend protection and a 5+ ward save are gonna be horrificly difficult to move. Throw in a summon starlight and mystic shield and it just gets silly.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

cool

That's fine for minimum sized units but is gonna be broken for a horde. 40 models with 2 wounds a 5+ save, rend protection and a 5+ ward save are gonna be horrificly difficult to move. Throw in a summon starlight and mystic shield and it just gets silly.

then make it so you can't take 40 it's not unreasonable to lower the cap if they get stronger. im going to try to wright warscrolles for all of these it will help me refine my balance know how and should be great fun.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

also to clarify mount traits are traits that are only available to mounted generals yes?

 

[Canas]

cool

then make it so you can't take 40 it's not unreasonable to lower the cap if they get stronger. im going to try to wright warscrolles for all of these it will help me refine my balance know how and should be great fun.

That'd be a possible solution but @LizardWizard didn't mention that or any similar drawbacks hence my remark

And yeah, its fun to make up your stuff

 

[Canas]

also to clarify mount traits are traits that are only available to mounted generals yes?

No, for all mounted heroes. Though usually only the fancier mounts (so scar vet on cold one might be out of luck). Other factions have em to.

Also I forgot, give us stuff like the totem artifacts & mystic lights that the SCE have (no idea if others have em as well). That could help us loads with fleshing out certain units. As an example, they have one that turns give a hero carying a totem (basicly any banner) a small healing aura. Give us stuff like that to stick on our EoTG, our astrolith bearer, our priests, the sort of heroes that would be carrying similar items of importance into battle.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

No, for all mounted heroes. Though usually only the fancier mounts. Other factions have em to.

Also I forgot, give us stuff like the totem artifacts & mystic lights that the SCE have (no idea if others have em as well). That could help us loads with fleshing out certain units. As an example, they have one that turns give a hero carying a totem (basicly any banner) a small healing aura. Give us stuff like that to stick on our EoTG, our astrolith bearer, our priests, the sort of heroes that would be carrying similar items of importance into battle.

oh so like these

Magmadroth Traits[edit]
MAGMADROTHS only. Only one of your magmadroths can take one of these. For every battalion, you can assign one of these traits to another magmadroth.

1. Cinder-crest Youngblood: When you use this model’s Lashing Tail ability, subtract 1 from the dice roll that determines if the target unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model made a charge move in the same turn, subtract 2 from the dice roll instead. Good for aggressive Magmadroths that like to be in the thick of battle.
2. Flame-scale Youngblood: After this model has made a charge move, pick 1 enemy unit within 1" of this model and roll a number of dice equal to the charge roll for that charge move. For each 6, that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Quite inconsistent, and even the best outcome (12 inches charge) is not that devastating (on average, 2 mortal wounds). There are better options.
3. Fire-claw Adult: If the unmodified wound roll for an attack made with this mount’s melee weapons is 6, that attack has a Rend characteristic of -3. Useful against tankier armies.
4. Lava-tongue Adult: When you use this model’s Roaring Fyrestream ability, subtract 1 from the dice roll that determines if the target unit suffers mortal wounds. If this model is wholly within your territory or within 6" of an objective, subtract 2 from the dice roll instead. A pretty defensive one. Worth considering if you know that you will have to defend some of your territories.
5. Coal-heart Ancient: Worsen the Rend characteristic of melee weapons that target this model by 1, to a minimum of 0. The best one. Keeping your Magmadroth alive for longer is the best way of increasing its damage output.
6. Ash-horn Ancient: You can re-roll save rolls of 1 for attacks that target this model and friendly MAGMADROTHS within 6" of this model. A must pick if you plan on including several Magmadroths. If not, pass.

do you know who all has them i want to shoot for balanced and it would be good reading. ill look for totams to do you know whitch units have them?

 

[Canas]

oh so like these

Magmadroth Traits[edit]
MAGMADROTHS only. Only one of your magmadroths can take one of these. For every battalion, you can assign one of these traits to another magmadroth.

1. Cinder-crest Youngblood: When you use this model’s Lashing Tail ability, subtract 1 from the dice roll that determines if the target unit suffers D3 mortal wounds. If this model made a charge move in the same turn, subtract 2 from the dice roll instead. Good for aggressive Magmadroths that like to be in the thick of battle.
2. Flame-scale Youngblood: After this model has made a charge move, pick 1 enemy unit within 1" of this model and roll a number of dice equal to the charge roll for that charge move. For each 6, that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Quite inconsistent, and even the best outcome (12 inches charge) is not that devastating (on average, 2 mortal wounds). There are better options.
3. Fire-claw Adult: If the unmodified wound roll for an attack made with this mount’s melee weapons is 6, that attack has a Rend characteristic of -3. Useful against tankier armies.
4. Lava-tongue Adult: When you use this model’s Roaring Fyrestream ability, subtract 1 from the dice roll that determines if the target unit suffers mortal wounds. If this model is wholly within your territory or within 6" of an objective, subtract 2 from the dice roll instead. A pretty defensive one. Worth considering if you know that you will have to defend some of your territories.
5. Coal-heart Ancient: Worsen the Rend characteristic of melee weapons that target this model by 1, to a minimum of 0. The best one. Keeping your Magmadroth alive for longer is the best way of increasing its damage output.
6. Ash-horn Ancient: You can re-roll save rolls of 1 for attacks that target this model and friendly MAGMADROTHS within 6" of this model. A must pick if you plan on including several Magmadroths. If not, pass.

do you know who all has them i want to shoot for balanced and it would be good reading. ill look for totams to do you know whitch units have them?

Yup.

SCE, Flesh eaters & Fyreslayers have em

 

[LizardWizard]

That's fine for minimum sized units but is gonna be broken for a horde. 40 models with 2 wounds a 5+ save, rend protection and a 5+ ward save are gonna be horrificly difficult to move. Throw in a summon starlight and mystic shield and it just gets silly.

Right, they would still be weaker than Hearthguard Berserkers. Which, at the moment can be -1 to wound, 2+ save, 4+ Save after save, and Command point reroll 1/s on saves. If you up Warrior's MPP to 120 per 10 then they would be half the cost of HgBs, but they would also be much more killable. Seems comperable to other study battleline. They would also be a fraction of the HgBs damage, either polearms or broadaxe.

Essentially if you want a unit to be tournament viable in the current meta they either need to be strong and expensive or cheap and weak. Currently Saurus' biggest issue is that they are lower-mid price, and lower mid-potency.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

ok lets try this out

Carnasaur Traits
Carnasaurs only. Only one of your Carnasaurs can take one of these. For every battalion, you can assign one of these traits to another Carnasaur.

Dread terror you blood roar comes into effect even if the unit is immune to battle shock tests
Blood on the wind +2 to charge roles
Clever girl you only need one hit with your claws to gain +2 to bit hits
Jungle hunter ignore terrain movement penalty as if the carnasaur had flight
Made of Sunlight heal d3 in your hero phase
Savage furry attacks made by the mount on a hit roll of 6 gain rend -3

 

[Canas]

Right, they would still be weaker than Hearthguard Berserkers. Which, at the moment can be -1 to wound, 2+ save, 4+ Save after save, and Command point reroll 1/s on saves. If you up Warrior's MPP to 120 per 10 then they would be half the cost of HgBs, but they would also be much more killable. Seems comperable to other study battleline. They would also be a fraction of the HgBs damage, either polearms or broadaxe.

Essentially if you want a unit to be tournament viable in the current meta they either need to be strong and expensive or cheap and weak. Currently Saurus' biggest issue is that they are lower-mid price, and lower mid-potency.

I think this might be a bigger issue than saurus being weak... I mean 40 models with 2 wounds a 5+ save, a 5+ ward save, a re-roll of 1, -1 to hit, 10 bravery and rend protection against rend of -1 should be freaking problematic to move. They have a 180! effective wounds against regular attacks. The fact that this is somehow still "normal" (in a tournament setting) is kind of depressing. Scratch most of my previous suggestion where I said "needs better stats" all other factions just need to be nerfed into the ground...

ok lets try this out

Carnasaur Traits
Carnasaurs only. Only one of your Carnasaurs can take one of these. For every battalion, you can assign one of these traits to another Carnasaur.

Dread terror you blood roar comes into effect even if the unit is immune to battle shock tests
Blood on the wind +2 to charge roles
Clever girl you only need one hit with your claws to gain +2 to bit hits
Jungle hunter ignore terrain movement penalty as if the carnasaur had flight
Made of Sunlight heal d3 in your hero phase
Savage furry attacks made by the mount on a hit roll of 6 gain rend -3

Those would be decent. Especially with some general buffs to the carnosaur.

Now on to the stegadon, bastiladon & troglodon .I don't think ti should be limited to just heroes, any sufficiently impressive mount really should have em.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Those would be decent. Especially with some general buffs to the carnosaur.

Now on to the stegadon, bastiladon & troglodon .I don't think ti should be limited to just heroes, any sufficiently impressive mount really should have em.

cool i didn't wan't to go over board and these seemed like a good compromise that covers a lot of the carnos weaknesses ill try to do the rest tonight but i've got a game in half an hour

 

[Blighboy]

Saurus in general could just use the Fyreslayer treatment.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

ok first and foremost we have to adjust our alliance abilities they are to powerful to remain as they are if we buff all our units to a fare level.that and summoning needs a desperate overhaul. remember we are only fixing what is there this isn't a re-wright i suggest the following.

Masters of Order:

SLANN WIZARDS in a SERAPHON army can attempt to unbind enemy spells and dispel endless spells that are cast anywhere on the battlefield, rather than being limited by the usual 30" range. this is good as things are now but would end up very very powerful if we ever got bonuses to unbinds we don't want a repeat of nagash making all wizards useless so i would make this work just like our spells do where we can unbind from any skink within 15" but i would change it to 12"

Contemplations of the Ancient One:

To go with the new spell lore from GHB 2019, at the end of your hero phase, 1 friendly SLANN WIZARD can swap their Seraphon Lore spell with another. this really has good flavor and wouldn't break anything it can stay as is.

Lords of Space and Time:

Once per turn, in your hero phase, you can pick one of your SERAPHON units anywhere on the battlefield to be transported through space and time. If you do so, remove the unit from the battle field and set up again anywhere more than 9" from any enemy unit (This counts as the unit's movement for the next movement phase). this is the big one it holds us together despite our weaknesses and i think if we had the troops for a proper alpha strike this would be broken so i have two basic fixes for it. alow for multiple teleport but you must stay out of 9" of the enemy AND units you previously summoned this turn. this wouldn't fix the problem but would make it much harder for us to drop armys on people. second solution is we only get one take away great remember-er even with just one free jump it still very good. what do you all think?

Celestial Conjuration

we need new summoning at the moment it's good but terable lore and feel wise and again if we had good units to summon it would be broken the following changes are what i propose and the one time im going to compleatly re-wright a rule

1. any general can summon not just the slann i know they are saposed to be the ones creating our troops but we need options and there is already precedence for channeling thru a different unit.
2. points are generated thru the following methods geomantic lay lines when ever a serephon wizard is within 6" of a objective he generats 1 summon point slann generate a d3 Meeting of minds when a wizard is within 8" of another hero they generate 1 summon point for each hero within range slann generate d3. first draft lets problem shoot this.

Made of star stuff

this is my first additional rule and will help keep the summoning changes balanced and help with our general frailty
all seraphon are crafted from star light and begin to fade when they are to far from there makers being no less deadly but weapons tend to pas thru them at times this rule gives all seraphon a 6+ shrug when out side of 6" of any serephon wizards and a 5+ shrug when out side of 18" this means that we get weaker when we try to camp on top of objectives it doesn't compleatly remove screening but makes it a lot more fun to play against us it also means we have a good reason not to play a summoning list with no wizards on the field we become a lot sturdier

i enjoy criticism and debate what did i do wrong hear?

 

[Erta Wanderer]

ok mount traits i'm going to take a page out of storm casts hand book and have three general traits and three specialized traits we have a lot of big boys.

General traits
Jungle hunter ignore terrain movement penalty as if the carnasaur had flight
Made of Sunlight heal d3 in your hero phase
Blood on the wind +2 to charge roles

Carnasaur traits
Dread terror you blood roar comes into effect even if the unit is immune to battle shock tests
Clever girl you only need one hit with your claws to gain +2 to bit hits with bights
Savage furry attacks made by the mount on a hit roll of 6 gain rend -3

Bastiladon traits
tuf beyond reason your mortal wound protection aplise to all damage giving him a +4 shrug this can only be taken once
Tranquil if the bastiladon doesn't move in the movement phase gain +1 to hit rolls
Sharp hide saves of 6 deal a mortal wound to the attacker in melee

stegadon Traits
Bread for war pick a melee weapon add 1 to the damage
Calming presence +2 bravery to all friendly units within 8"
Faster then he looks +3 movement

Trogladon traits
Royal from the deep a veteran of many conflicts add 1 to save rolles
chosen of the stars +1 to casting and unbinding
costic blood every time you take a wound roll a die on a 3+ deal a mortal wound to a unit within 3"

Engeon of the gods traits
Wait wait i got this add or subtract 1 from cosmic engine rolls
chosen of fait -1 to ranged hit rolls that target this unit
Bread for war pick a melee weapon add 1 to the damage