Tutorial Realmshaper Engine Guide.

[LizardWizard]

RSE Guide Index​

This guide is intended to improve and inform good Realmshaper Engine placement and usage. Please feel free to commit below and add to the conversation.

• Overview
• Targeting
• Tertiary Benefits
• Placement
• Unit Guide
• Taking the Good with the Bad

Other Useful Seraphon Threads:

• @Killer Angel's Battletome 2.0- Seraphon Overview
• My Seraphon List for Battletome 2.o

 

[LizardWizard]

Disclaimer​

At the moment a lot of the information in the thread is based on theorycrafting, which due to the current environment is not yet informed from tournament experience. Age of Sigmar is a complex game with lots of variables. The enemy army composition, your list, and the battleplan are just a few of the factors that can greatly impact how wise or unwise any particular placement of the RSE might be.

Further note, this thread is still under construction. Hopefully it won't stay in the same state that my Target Priority list is currently sitting in. Initially I will build the outline structure for the thread and then expand and fill in from there. Hope you find some useful information and share your own knowledge with us as well.

 

[LizardWizard]

Overview​

Realmshaper Engine:

The Realmshaper Engine is a Seraphon Allegiance terrain piece. It is placed during game setup and before all other terrain is added to the table, but after the battleplan is determined. It must be placed more than 6" from any objectives. If both players have terrain that is set up in this manner then players roll off and the winner places theirs first (at the moment this only interacts with other RSE and the OBR's Bone-Tithe Nexus). This means that when the RSE is placed on the table neither opponent will know which is their territory.

The Realmshaper engine may be garrisoned by a combined wounds characteristics of 20 or less worth of models. If only part of a unit is capable of being garrison within the RSE then that unit is unable to garrison. Units may garrison a piece of terrain at the end of their movement phase if they are wholly within 6" of it and no enemy units are within 3" of it. If a piece of terrain which may be garrisoned is wholly within your own territory then you can garrison it as part of that unit's deployment instead of during the movement phase. Units which are garrisoned are removed from the table and assumed to be within the garrisoned piece of terrain. They may attack, cast spells, and use abilities as normal.

A unit which is garrisoned gains the effect of cover and enemy units suffer -1 to their hit rolls for all attacks that target a garrisoned unit. Range for each garrisoned model is measured from that piece of terrain. Enemy units may not end a normal movement within 3" of a RSE that is garrisoned by any opposing units. Units within the RSE may still be charged, but the enemy unit must be able to place the first model it moves within 1/2" of the RSE. Due to range measurements for garrisoned units this means that an attacker may target any of the units inside of the RSE if any part of the RSE is in range of their attack. This is also the case for units attacking out of a garrisoned piece of terrain.

As per the Seraphon Designer's Commentary if a wizard which is garrisoned within the RSE attempts to cast Balewind Vortex (regular or bound variant) the Balewind Vortex is set up within 1" of the RSE and more than 3" from enemy units. The caster is then removed from garrison and placed atop the Balewind Vortex.

The Power Unleashed scenery rule allows the RSE to target a terrain feature anywhere on the table and potentially deal mortal wounds to units within 3" of the target piece of terrain if the RSE is garrisoned by a friendly Seraphon Priest or Wizard. The mortal wounds are rolled for on a unit by unit basis and occur on a 4+. This roll is modified by +2 if the targeted terrain is within 18" or by -2 if the targeted terrain is more then 36" away. For each successful roll the enemy unit will take d3 mortal wounds.

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[LizardWizard]

Power Unleashed​

Congratulations! You've managed to garrison a RSE with either a Seraphon Priest or Wizard.

There are two primary ways in which Power Unleashed can impact the battlefield. Firstly is direct impact. This means the dealing of mortal wounds to enemy units. Ideally to multiple enemy units. And even more ideally to low wound characteristic heroes or support units such as Sneaky Snufflers, ect. The second is through soft influence. Fear of mortal wounds is a strong motivator. Being able to dissuade an opponent from placing their units near arcane/mystical/comanding/ect terrain is a huge advantage.

Play environment will heavily impact how much benefit you get from Power Unleashed. Any games of AoS which use the terrain features from the GHB2019 will increase the value you get from the RSE's targeted ability. RSE are a powerful Allegiacne ability so long as terrain is more than just an obstacle to move around or cover to sit on.

In most cases the RSE is really just looking to put the maximum amount of mortal wounds into the highest number of vital enemy units. Any terrain piece with enough enemy units around it is a great target. Other targets to consider are enemy faction terrain. Hitting a Herdstone can drastically reduce your opponent's ability to generate Cull Points. Punishing Slyvaneth for turtling inside their Awakened Wylswoods is also a great use. Your opponent might think twice about placing their faction terrain near an objective if you win the territory with your RSE.

Knowing which units your opponents want to keep alive can help you decide between strong targets. Dealing lots of damage is always a good feeling, but keep in mind pieces of terrain that have units near them who are holding an objective. Knocking d3 models off an objective might put those victory points into striking range.

Lastly, keep the current game turn in mind. Dealing d3 mws to a 5 wound hero who is otherwise inaccessible in the late game is far less beneficial than killing d3 grots to force a battle shock.

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[LizardWizard]

Tertiary Uses​

• Blocking Movement:
  • The RSE has a respectable foot print and is an obstacle. It can be placed to help create a channel/bottleneck to important zones of the battlefield. This potential benefit will be heavily impacted by how tournament organizers handle RSE placement and other table terrain.
• Constricting a Deployment Zone:
  • Ideal in situations where the opponent has a lot of behemoth sized based in their army or is spamming huge hordes. Particularly awesome on Battle for the Pass which has limited deployment space already. Or for blocking out a forward corner of deployment on Duality of Death. This is a great way to incentivize your opponent to give you the RSE if they win the roll off.
• Blocking Line of Sight:
  • This is an absolutely amazing trick vs heavy shooting armies like Disciples of Tzeentch, Cities of Sigmar, Shootcast Eternals, ect. Even heavy spell armies or the dreaded 9 Arcane Bolt Nagash can be severely lamed by hiding heroes behind the RSE's silhouette.
• Baiting a Misdeploy:
  • Placing the RSE in such a way that you can still effectively garrison it while making it inconvenient for the opponent. This might cause the enemy to place a unit too far forward if they want to race you to a neutrally deployed RSE. Or perhaps they aren't practiced in which units of theirs are best to garrison and they might hide those slow moving OBR support heroes in the RSE only to realize they can't keep their synergies stacking without slowing down their movements.
• Creating an Additional Focal Point to Battle Over:
  • Battleplans that are already saturated with objectives are great for this. Scorched Earth, Focal Points, and the Better Part of Valor are perfect. Placing the RSE in neutral territory vs an elite army might leave your opponent with having to surrender the RSE or an objective.
• Causing Additional Decision Making for an Opponent:
  • Mental Fatigue is a real consideration at long multi-day events. Placing the RSE alone adds another decision to the game for your opponent. Any of the above tactics have the added benefit of forcing more game theory upon the person across the table.

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[LizardWizard]

Placement​

There are some match ups where I will elect to not place my Realmshaper Engine on the table, some situations that are a toss up, and some where the potential benefit is too good to pass up.

Here is a quick reference table showing my views on when to place and when to decline placing the Realmshaper Engine. This was originally posted in an other dedicated RSE thread.

Times to Place It:

• Your Opponent Doesn't Have a Good Reason to Garrison:
  • If your opponent has a bunch of hordes whose wound count are too high and too few heroes or elite units to take advantage of the RSE.
  • The enemy army have little to no ranged attacks or spells resulting in them needing to come to you.
• You Stand to Gain a Great Advantage if You Decided Territories:
  • For example: heavy shooting list who are mobile such as CoS and DoT. Being able to garrison your own units or hide behind the silhouette of the RSE is extremely powerful.
  • If your opponent has lots of minimum sized units it can become difficult for them to avoid the RSE's Unleash Power.
• There is No Substantial Risk if You Fail to Win the Territory Roll Off:
  • This can occur for a number of reasons. Maybe you are playing against a behemoth heavy Ogor Mawribes.
• You Need Every Advantage, Luck Included, to Beat Your Opponent:
  • Sometimes this will be player related and other times it might be army related. Then there are those awesome and terrifying moments when both the opponent and their army are a difficult match up for you. At the moment shooting spam CoS and Shooting Disciples of Tzeentch are very rough match ups for a lot of competitive Seraphon builds. This alone can make placing the RSE worth while. If you know you are going to need some luck then you are going to need to do what you can to make room for that luck to happen.

Times to Elect Against Placing:

• The Opponent Has Units That Greatly Benefit from Garrisoning:
  • This is especially dangers when those enemy units don't require table mobility to be effective. Looking at you Nagash.
  • Enemy gun-lines are particularly risky. It might worth placing the RSE out of shooting range of neutral and friendly objectives. If this isn't possible then consider not placing the RSE all together.
• The Opponent Will Greatly Benefit from Line of Sight Blocking:
  • If you are bringing lots of shooting, like Skink Spam, Hunting Packs, Thunder Lizards, ect and the opponent has small units or support that they want to hide from you then it is possibly not wroth the risk of giving them cover. This can be mitigated by where you place it in a lot of cases.
• There is substantial risk if you fail to win the territory roll off:
  • Your opponent having the RSE provides a greater potential benefit to them than any bonus your would receive from it. This can be gauged by them have 1 more of the above reasons not to place in their favor and you have 1 or fewer of the reason to deploy it for yourself.

Finding the Ideal Location:
Now that you have some idea of when to place or not place the RSE, lets discus the best locations to place it. This section still to be expanded


There has been some confusion and debate about weather placing the RSE is optional. Here is a quicklink to @Killer Angel's well stated argument below as to why placement is optional.

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[LizardWizard]

Unit Guide​

A hero garrisoned in the RSE with a qualifying unit to provide Look Out Sir and a -1 to hit artifact can be an impressive -3 to hit with shooting or -2 to hit in combat.

Keep those Starpriest alive by giving them the Feather Cloak and place them in your RSE with some Chemeleon Skinks/Skinks.

Hide your Slann/Kroak w/some Saurus Guard inside the RSE to gain ridiculous durability for our amphibian overlords.

Place a Skink Priest/Starpriest and 3 Kroxigor inside the RSE to active Power Unleashed and blend any hordes by gaining 1 attack on the Kroxigor's Moonhammer per each enemy model within 2" of the RSE. Also lets the Kroxigor gain +1 to hit from the Skink Priest/Starpriest via Battle Synergy.

Chameleon Skink's Perfect Mimicry interacts wonderfully with the RSE. Garrisoned units receive the benefit of cover and a bonus -1 to be hit.15x Chameleon Skinks from Fangs of Sotek with a Skink Priest/Starpriest can be a nightmare for enemy charges and makes for a great shooting bunker.

Stick a Bastiladon into the RSE to increase their line of sight and gain some extra defense via the -1 to be hit applied to enemy attacks which target it.

Create a bigger foot print to increase the effective range of the Saurus Astrolith Bearer's Celestial Conduit and Revivifying Energies.

Place Kroak/Slann, 5x Chemelon Skinks for LoS, and an Astrolith inside the RSE for extra spell range, Look out Sir, and the durability benefits of being Garrisoned + Revivfying Engeries are a potential nightmare for anyone who hoped to alpha strike your Slann. Toss on Scales of Ignax for further MW protection or Gryph-Feather Charm for another -1 to hit.

Place a Thunder Lizard Skink Chief on Steggaon w/Sunfire Throwers into the RSE against enemy horde armies and dare them to attack you. Enjoy @ILKAIN !

Garrison a maxed out Salamander or Razordon Hunting Pack.

Place the RSE towards the back of a territory and garrison your 6x Terradons/Ripperdactyls inside to keep them safe until you are ready to send them into combat. Hide your Terradon/Ripperdactyl chief behind the RSE for cover & Look Out Sir from enemy shooting with the potential for line of sight blocking.

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[LizardWizard]

Taking the Good with the Bad​

Whatever you opinions of the RSE were prior to reading this guide, I hope that you have found some good uses and helpful information here. While this thread has largely been focused on maximizing the benefits of the RSE the simple fact that there has to be a debate over rather it is optional to place it as well as having a dedicated section on when to leave it off the table all indicates some serious flaws. I fully expect to have a couple conversations with my opponent about the terrain piece. However, I also expect to gain a significant advantage in some of my games due to the RSE.

Like any choice in Age of Sigmar the RSE is about understanding the risks and rewards and knowing when to play risky and when to play safe. In short, I am excited to use the RSE at tournament myself. And I am equally excited to see how everyone else here uses theirs.


Good RSE Practices:

• Don't garrison multiple low wound heroes.
  • Especially if the opponent has a terrain targeting ability such as the Knight Heraldor.
• Try not to let your opponent envelope the RSE.
• Be willing to leave your garrison.
• Remember to use all your support hero spells and abilities of your garrisoned units.
  • Making a reminder sheet or even just looking at your sideboard of units who are suppose to be inside can help avoid out of sight out of mind related misplays.
• Be wary of Predatory Endless Spells.
  • If you can't unbind, dispel, steal, or zone out the endless spells before they reach your RSE then be ready to abandon ship. You don't want an Eathervoid Pendulum, Purple Sun, ect getting to move across or end in range of all your units inside.
• Use Unleash Power before casting multi target offensive spells such as Commet's Call to better determine your targets.
• While learning to use the RSE I recommend always choosing to place it.
  • Furthermore, place it in a deployment zone.
  • This will provide you with the most opportunities to see the RSE's various strengths and weaknesses.
• Watch out for the Skaven endless spell Warlighting Vortex.

Best of luck with your own Realmshaper Engines. May the priority dice be always in your favor.

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[Canas]

Are there any limitations besides wounds for garisoning? Certain behemoths would be weird, and I'm not sure if there's anything that starts at 21+ wounds, which would also lead to weird interactions if it can garison while wounded.

Also an additional reason not to garison:
- Your opponent has loads of AoE mortal wounds e.g. endless spells, a dracoths breath attack, kroak's celestial deliverance. Those kind of attacks would wreck havoc on garrisoned units as they're now easy to hit with the giant base and you'l hit all of them. Even A slann with several guard would quickly get wiped out by something like that. Which does kind of raise the question why garissoning doesn't help against mortal wounds, cuz this is rather a glaring weakness.

 

[LizardWizard]

Yeah, I plan to make a special section on not garrisoning multiple low wound units in the RSE if the enemy has things like a Knights Heralder, Warp Lightning Vortex (Sepcial the Spell in a Bottle), ect.

 

[LizardWizard]

Are there any limitations besides wounds for garisoning? Certain behemoths would be weird, and I'm not sure if there's anything that starts at 21+ wounds, which would also lead to weird interactions if it can garison while wounded.

It is based off wound characteristics. So if you had a Dreadsuarian with only 20 or less wounds left he still wouldn't be able to garrison because its wound characteristic is 35(37 with Thunder Lizards). I will make sure to change the wording in the overview to make that more clear.

 

[Killer Angel]

We really need some magic to make it work... but we can try

 

[Grotpunter]

Placement​

Here is a quick reference table showing my views on when to place and when to decline placing the Realmshaper Engine as well ideal placement selection. This was originally posted in a dedicated RSE thread.

There are some match ups where I will elect to not place my Realmshaper Engine on the table, some situations that are a toss up, and some where the potential benefit is too good to pass up. Here is a quick guide to my current theory on when to use and not use the RSE.

Times to Place It:

• Your Opponent Doesn't Have a Good Reason to Garrison:
  • If your opponent has a bunch of hordes whose wound count are too high and too few heroes or elite units to take advantage of the RSE.
  • The enemy army have little to no ranged attacks or spells resulting in them needing to come to you.
• You Stand to Gain a Great Advantage if You Decided Territories:
  • For example: heavy shooting list who are mobile such as CoS and DoT. Being able to garrison your own units or hide behind the silhouette of the RSE is extremely powerful.
  • If your opponent has lots of minimum sized units it can become difficult for them to avoid the RSE's Unleah Power.
• There is No Substantial Risk if You Fail to Win the Territory Roll Off:
  • This can occur for a number of reasons. Maybe you are playing against a behemoth heavy Ogor Mawribes.
• You Need Every Advantage, Luck Included, to Beat Your Opponent:
  • Sometimes this will be player related and other times it might be army related. Then there are those awesome and terrifying moments when both the opponent and their army are a difficult match up for you. At the moment shooting spam CoS and Shooting Disciples of Tzeentch are very rough match ups for a lot of competitive Seraphon builds. This alone can make placing the RSE worth while. If you know you are going to need some luck then you are going to need to do what you can to make room for that luck to happen.

Times to Elect Against Placing:

• The Opponent Has Units That Greatly Benefit from Garrisoning:
  • This is especially dangers when those enemy units don't require table mobility to be effective. Looking at you Nagash.
  • Enemy gun-lines are particularly risky. It might worth placing the RSE out of shooting range of neutral and friendly objectives. If this isn't possible then consider not placing the RSE all together.
• The Opponent Will Greatly Benefit from Line of Sight Blocking:
  • If you are bringing lots of shooting, like Skink Spam, Hunting Packs, Thunder Lizards, ect and the opponent has small units or support that they want to hide from you then it is possibly not wroth the risk of giving them cover. This can be mitigated by where you place it in a lot of cases.
• There is substantial risk if you fail to win the territory roll off:
  • Your opponent having the RSE provides a greater potential benefit to them than any bonus your would receive from it. This can be gauged by them have 1 more of the above reasons not to place in their favor and you have 1 or fewer of the reason to deploy it for yourself.

Finding the Ideal Location:
Now that you have some idea of when to place or not place the RSE, lets discus the best locations to place it. To be continued


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Im pretty sure you dont have a choice if you want to place it on the table or not. Page 62 in the battletome specifically says you must place it if the RSE is part of your army.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Im pretty sure you dont have a choice if you want to place it on the table or not. Page 62 in the battletome specifically says you must place it if the RSE is part of your army.

then just say it's not part of your army terrain doesn't have points and can't go into any army building programs I've seen

 

[Grotpunter]

then just say it's not part of your army terrain doesn't have points and can't go into any army building programs I've seen

It has a matched play profile in the back of the book, it is just 0 pts cost. On warscroll builder you can also include it in your army.

It makes no sense that there is a restriction on having to place it if you can just opt not to. Either it is in your list or it isnt.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

It has a matched play profile in the back of the book, it is just 0 pts cost. On warscroll builder you can also include it in your army.

It makes no sense that there is a restriction on having to place it if you can just opt not to. Either it is in your list or it isnt.

it also makes no sense that it helps your opponent soooo

 

[Grotpunter]

it also makes no sense that it helps your opponent soooo

Actually it does. It is terrain with a specific terrain rule like many other faction terrain. Gnawholes are effectively just arcane/deadly terrain, but with a unique ability for Skaven, just like we have as Seraphon.

The fact that the RSE is in the matched play profiles indicate it must be picked as a part of the army list. It is irrelevant if it is costed at 1 pt or 0 pt.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Actually it does. It is terrain with a specific terrain rule like many other faction terrain. Gnawholes are effectively just arcane/deadly terrain, but with a unique ability for Skaven, just like we have as Seraphon.

the gnaw hole is a terrible counter to what i said it hurts your opponent and helps you. gnawholes give no benefit to your opponent maybe if it gave both sides arcane it would be a good comparison but it doesn't

 

[Killer Angel]

It has a matched play profile in the back of the book, it is just 0 pts cost. On warscroll builder you can also include it in your army.
It makes no sense that there is a restriction on having to place it if you can just opt not to. Either it is in your list or it isnt.

You're right that our battletome says that you must place the RE if the RE is part of your army. Except it is not.
FAQ says that terrains are not part of the army, and the matched play profile only means that you are allowed to set it up. RE cannot be in the army list.

It's another example of badly written rules. Still it remains the fact that terrains are not part of the army.
I cannot be forced to field something that is part of my army, if that something is not a part of the army.



edit: IMO you are never forced to set up anything: pick for example the Chama skinks, if they are not placed at the beginning of the 4th round the unit is killed. You are not forced to set it up, you can decide to auto-kill your unit.

2nd edit: the sentence for the RE, says that it must be placed by the player before other terrains.
IMO that "must" doesn't mean that the player must place it, but that if you place it you must do it before the placement of all other terrains. The "must" just defines the timing of the placement, you cannot place it in a different way.

3rd edit (and i bet it won't be the last one):
IMO, the most (and probably the only) valid reasoning would be that:
1 - the above FAQ says "warscrolls are included for those instances when a spell or ability allows you to set up the terrain feature".
2 - If a terrain feature is fielded for a reason different than spells or abilitiies, the FAQ doesn't apply.
3 - the RE is not listed under "allegiance abilites", so the FAQ doesn't work in that case, and so the RE it's a part of the army, as written in the battletome.
4 - if all of the above reasoning is true, then the RE is, indeed, a part of your army. But in any case, this won't stop a seraphon opponent to use it: in all terrain warscrolls, "friendly unit" refers to the player who's actually controlling the objective.

 

[RandomTsar]

2nd edit: the sentence for the RE, says that it must be placed by the player before other terrains.
IMO that "must" doesn't mean that the player must place it, but that if you place it you must do it before the placement of all other terrains. The "must" just defines the timing of the placement, you cannot place it in a different way.

I think this is the more convincing argument, thank you for sharing this. Who knew commas and word placement in a sentence could be so important? (everyone)

The chameleon skinks comparison is a less effective argument as the warscroll says you declare them as a reserve in hiding as their set-up, meaning you still set them up just in a special way not on the battlefield (I believe similar wordage is used for all alpha strike like abilities).

@LizardWizard I would suggest pointing out the argument of what part the "must" can refer to in your section about abstaining from placing it. As it can already be seen the battletome will cause some confusion to others (as it did myself). I would update my thread but it seems it is doomed. Not sure if you think my placement aid pictures are useful but feel free to use them here if you think they might help.