AoS The new Battletome: A Discussion

[Grotpunter]

I see what's "Good" now - but the things I had and liked are all shit now, an astrolith used to let us reroll ALL failed hitrolls, INCREDIBLE! now it gives a shit deathless save.
Slanns can only use their first spellslot to get summon points, so you might aswell run 6 slanns, 3 blocks of minimum skinks, and the rest of the 2k list with bound endless spells if you liked summoning.

My new list uses an EOTG - one of the models I like the least but need for the batallion that makes the army viable for combat situations.

Skink priests lost their protectionbubble, now they have a command ability to give +1 to hits (hey, at least if my bastiladon rolls a lucky 10 attacks, I have something to spend a CP on)

the whole 2+ save saurus guard doesn't exist anymore, nope that's gone...

carnosaurs lost their stackable attacks buff - now they're just dinos...

best thing I saw so far is that an EOTG is a "SKINK" and a "HERO" (and the crew are a mount for rules purposes) meaning a priest can give it +1 to hits and the serpent god dagger can be strapped to the EOTG's sumpy legs, causing you to trample heroes with ease.
HOWEVER I doubt that enormous grumpy grandma dino can sneak around the frontlines and herosnipe - so I guess it's better to give it the sacred stegadon hat and leave the dagger for my only other hero, the slann - who's azure lightning is melee (don't ask how I duct-tape the dagger onto lightning, it's magic)

And then kroxies are slightly better, eh, not a fan

Salamanders are... surprisingly good...
especially in large numbers with a skink priest and a commandpoint and behind a line of guard or a bastiladon

and then there's the flying things and chiefs, cool but not my style at all.

I managed to get a decent list out, now just hope it can cap points aswell as dealing big damagios.

I mean it is pretty common that a new tome changes things up and some people lost things they deeply loved and dont like direction the new tome is going. It sucks, but thats how it goes.

The old Astrolith and especially the old Thunderquake were tiresome imo. and felt like a band-aid fix to a broken army. It was annoying having to roll 5 times to determine damage for Razordons and Bastiladons. I'm surprised they kept the 2D6 for Razordons but oh well. The new Bastiladon is different to the old - It lost the MW save and ethereal, but gained a significantly better save at max health and now you can go Coalesced and get -1 damage, that's pretty big. The damage from the new Bastiladon is pretty close to what you got from the old Bastiladon with rerolls to hit and wound, and in Thunder Lizard with shoot twice it is significantly better. It is also somewhat more reliable now with flat 9 attacks at full health and +hit buffs. It really sucked to teleport a Bastiladon and then roll double 1s for the amount of attacks.

Loads of stuff is viable now. You just have to open up and embrace the new playstyles.

 

[Grotpunter]

Can I just say though - Bound Emerald Lifeswarm and several TL EOTGs... is probably your best bet for summoning and not dying miserably - get a slann for spells and CP (or two, one of em can be kroak, fling all the spells while generating decent CP AND CCP)Astrolith for bonus summoning and that crap deathless if an EOTG gets attacked, that's 3 heroes and 3 EOTGs that are gonna be able to roll 3 dice because slann and do it twice if you have the CP to pay for TL's "gamble-again"

that lifeswarm (and celestial apothesis) will probably keep you alive easily (especially with the astrolith casting buff making the apothesis easier to reach CV10 and heal D3)
if you're really paranoid or just not a fan of any of the artifacts, you can always pick the healing stick from Ghyran to do that little bit of extra healing on your engines - or the aetherquartz-recycle-CP-brooch so you can financially sustain your gambling addiction a little easier.

(battleline not included)
and then RNG your way to victory, the chances of you failing are very small - spend some CP, spin the wheel, blame it on bad luck if you lose because obviously 3 grumpy dinos are the best build you ever made, right?
Also, someone make a conversion of a stegadon with a slot machine on its' back, please.

RAW as is you can only roll once on the EOTG chart regardless of how many models you have, so there is no point in bringing more than 1. I personally dont think the EOTG is that great, but the aoe healing seems decent for sustain if you field a couple of bigger dinos, unless they just get sweeped in one round of combat.

 

[Aginor]

Just a thing tho - if a spell has a warscroll, but a BOUND spell has its' own, that means I can add both to an army right?
they're technically different since GW decided to make 2 warscrolls instead of making basic bound rules to apply to all spells.

Huh. Good question. I don't know.

 

[Canas]

Just a thing tho - if a spell has a warscroll, but a BOUND spell has its' own, that means I can add both to an army right?
they're technically different since GW decided to make 2 warscrolls instead of making basic bound rules to apply to all spells.

the rule for endless spells states something about only being able to bring 1 model of a given spell and both the bound and regular spell use the same model. So no you can't bring both.

 

[TheGreatDerpyOne]

oh right, yeah - they fucked the bastiladon too

 

[TheGreatDerpyOne]

so there is no point in bringing more than 1. I personally dont think the EOTG is that great, but the aoe healing seems decent for sustain if you

Wait, an EOTG can only roll once?
it's an ability right? abilities -unlike spells- can be cast multiple times (not by the same model)

 

[TheGreatDerpyOne]

ah and of course games workshop puts this in the most awkward wording possible and NOT UNDER THE SPECIAL RULES TAB WHERE IT BELONGS so I missed that part - roflmao seraphon got nerfbatted to the stoneage, I'll just run 3 sets of skinks, 2 slann, a skink priest or 2, and as many salamanders as I can -

text edited by a Mod. Plese tone down the language.

 

[Aginor]

ah and of course games workshop puts this in the most awkward wording possible and NOT UNDER THE SPECIAL RULES TAB WHERE IT BELONGS so I missed that part - roflmao seraphon got nerfbatted to the stoneage, I'll just run 3 sets of skinks, 2 slann, a skink priest or 2, and as many salamanders as I can - fuck yalls - and fuck greedy cunt workshop

I'd like to ask you to tone down the language a bit.

 

[TheGreatDerpyOne]

I mean it is pretty common that a new tome changes things up and some people lost things they deeply loved and dont like direction the new tome is going. It sucks, but thats how it goes.

The old Astrolith and especially the old Thunderquake were tiresome imo. and felt like a band-aid fix to a broken army. It was annoying having to roll 5 times to determine damage for Razordons and Bastiladons. I'm surprised they kept the 2D6 for Razordons but oh well. The new Bastiladon is different to the old - It lost the MW save and ethereal, but gained a significantly better save at max health and now you can go Coalesced and get -1 damage, that's pretty big. The damage from the new Bastiladon is pretty close to what you got from the old Bastiladon with rerolls to hit and wound, and in Thunder Lizard with shoot twice it is significantly better. It is also somewhat more reliable now with flat 9 attacks at full health and +hit buffs. It really sucked to teleport a Bastiladon and then roll double 1s for the amount of attacks.

Loads of stuff is viable now. You just have to open up and embrace the new playstyles.

We lost pretty much everything and got mainly shit spellslinging in return - nobody is ever going to run a saurus/carnosaur army anymore, ever.

whoooooo a double cast on a decent unit, yeah it's not terrible, but it's not exactly good either
oh some extra wounds or taking less damage? yeah but that means you pick coalesced, which means you can't have any of the other abilities that you might want.

Liked your army? liked your playstyle? pick a different faction and pawn off your models, you need to switch to some daemon shit now

 

[TheGreatDerpyOne]

I'd like to ask you to tone down the language a bit.

sorry - I'm fekin salty over my favourite faction being... well... turned into something it isn't.
I don't wanna fling spells, I want to summon and run dinos around - and Seraphon doesn't do that anymore

If I liked magic plays, I'd be playing something with Nagash

 

[Erta Wanderer]

We lost pretty much everything and got mainly shit spellslinging in return - nobody is ever going to run a saurus/carnosaur army anymore, ever.

i play saurus and they got better. they are a soled option now.
i don't think you understand how this game works you keep saying things are terable when they aren't

 

[Grotpunter]

We lost pretty much everything and got mainly shit spellslinging in return - nobody is ever going to run a saurus/carnosaur army anymore, ever.

whoooooo a double cast on a decent unit, yeah it's not terrible, but it's not exactly good either
oh some extra wounds or taking less damage? yeah but that means you pick coalesced, which means you can't have any of the other abilities that you might want.

Liked your army? liked your playstyle? pick a different faction and pawn off your models, you need to switch to some daemon shit now

Saurus is perfectly fine. Saurus Warriors can get quite beefy with all the Oldblood command abilities etc. Saurus Knights is a thing too especially in Firelance.

sorry - I'm fekin salty over my favourite faction being... well... turned into something it isn't.
I don't wanna fling spells, I want to summon and run dinos around - and Seraphon doesn't do that anymore

If I liked magic plays, I'd be playing something with Nagash

That is fine and understandable, but this isnt 4chan or twitch chat.

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

I think it’s pretty recognized that our power level has increased overall from one time to the next. We have more than 2 viable builds. I don’t think we will take top spot at many large tournaments, but now we have enough units and strategies that can be effective that, for most players, open up different play styles.

That said, I can understand the frustration of certain players who were expecting something from Seraphon (namely summoning and mass teleporting). It’s a fairly massive paradigm shift, arguably the biggest change of 2.0 battletomes. It would be similar to them releasing the new Stormcast tome and making them a horde army.

I think it’s fair to say most Seraphon players have a few regrets over aspects of the new book. I wish our dinosaurs were much stronger on the warscroll (and not as big of a disparity between coalesced and starborne). But I will make do.

These days make me realize that there are worse things in the world than not having an OP battletome with untouchable dinosaurs that zip around with impunity.

 

[Nart]

Nothing should be OP, actually. It is bad both for players, who play with the army and for players, who play against it (unless they are tournaments players, who cares only for effectiveness, which is ok, or WAAC players, which is not ok).

The battletome is really good after all and decently balanced both internally and externally.

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

Nothing should be OP, actually. It is bad both for players, who play with the army and for players, who play against it (unless they are tournaments players, who cares only for effectiveness, which is ok, or WAAC players, which is not ok).

The battletome is really good after all and decently balanced both internally and externally.

I agree. Now they just need to nerf some OBR, DoT, and a few other super broken battletomes, and we’ll be just fine!

 

[Killer Angel]

sorry - I'm fekin salty over my favourite faction being... well... turned into something it isn't.

what could I say… i don't want to debate what our army was back to WHFB, but the passage from the Old World to AoS was a traumatic one.
And even in AoS we passed through a lot of changes.
at the very beginning we were able to just summon units upon units for free.
then with points and reserves, our summoning was dead and we were just a normal army.
then GW gave us summoning (again, but different) and teleport.
Not teleport is limited and summoning is still unclear how it can work…

anyway, the game evolves. You cannot pick a certain playstyle and expect it won't ever change: evolution is the very nature of AoS, no army is going to remain the same for long. We only need to adapt.
Dinosaurs are still big, we just need to see the new synergies to make them work even better than before. Sauri are going to wreck the battlefield. Blobs of skinks that shoot enemy to Death are a thing that's even better than before.
We just need a little time to adjust.

 

[Satoabe]

I love the variety... when you set up on the table the opponent planned for Thunderquake or Starstrike.... now they have to gear for Coalesced or Starbound.... ummmm.... ok so maybe we will have a different mix of models but, strategically, we really didn't change ... except skinks got nerfed and saurus units got slightly better... oh... we got bound spells, better spells in exchange for crippled summoning.... and our battalions abilities were split in half but still cost the same points. We will need a large FAQ to clan up some sloppy wording and the cost of all of our battalions need to drop 20-40 points.

We are in an OK spot right now...just not OP like many of us hoped... I suspect GW wanted to curb the power creep that has been infiltrating the army books (especially looking at the last 4 army books) and they started with us.

For a fun weekend army there is nothing cooler than a colorful space lizard army
Competitively, we moved from a bottom tier 2 army to a middle tier 2 army. We will most likely average 3-2 and a top player will have a crack at 4-1... neither will make the final round with any regularity.

That said, I play for fun more than glory so I don't have near the angst that some of the more serious players have. I still want to play with a salamander/razordon heavy army in both starborn and coalesced flavors... it will be fun to experiment with this book. We have so many different combinations and synergies that have yet to be explored. I want to encourage everyone to keep playing around with combinations and hopefully we can find a few advantages that we can leverage against some of the OP armies out there.

 

[Just A Skink]

I confess, I'm a little mixed on the battletome. I also miss a few of the previous abilities and tactics. But I didn't care for skink spam, and I'm glad that saurus got a little better. So, I'm trying to move forward too. I guess, since my group doesn't play much, it's all just theoretical for me anyway, ha ha.

I do wish we weren't such a command point hungry army. A few more abilities just working within range of certain heroes would be nice. Don't some other armies have that?

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

I confess, I'm a little mixed on the battletome. I also miss a few of the previous abilities and tactics. But I didn't care for skink spam, and I'm glad that saurus got a little better. So, I'm trying to move forward too. I guess, since my group doesn't play much, it's all just theoretical for me anyway, ha ha.

I do wish we weren't such a command point hungry army. A few more abilities just working within range of certain heroes would be nice. Don't some other armies have that?

I hear you. A lot of our mandatory heroes are super squishy to boot.

We have a bunch of units that do well on their own without significant buffing required. Terradons+Chief, Salamanders, Kroxigors to some extent, Slann/Kroak (arguable; whole good, he does SO much better with Astrolith bearer and a Balewind).

Was it too much to ask for ONE monster that fell in this category? Like make the Oldblood on Carno a beast, and keep the Scarvet as is. Bump his points by 100 but give him 16 wounds, better to hit, more attacks, a save aura or some sort, *anything*... right now they are basically the same unit with almost negligible differences between them.

I dunno. I will have fun with this battletome but I still feel there were lots of missed opportunities.

 

[Dread Saurian]

We lost pretty much everything and got mainly shit spellslinging in return - nobody is ever going to run a saurus/carnosaur army anymore, ever.

whoooooo a double cast on a decent unit, yeah it's not terrible, but it's not exactly good either
oh some extra wounds or taking less damage? yeah but that means you pick coalesced, which means you can't have any of the other abilities that you might want.

Liked your army? liked your playstyle? pick a different faction and pawn off your models, you need to switch to some daemon shit now

Koatls claw literally is one of the better things to run due to the buffs the saurus have especially since coalesed gimps d3 damage dealers.
Fuck I dont even run formations right now that I got buffed. I run 3 of myself a few skinks and a starpriest. Most of the time I railroad through everyone unless my gf is running an extra shooty skaven army