AoS Realmshaper Engine - Let's Crack It!

[ILKAIN]

Skink casters are good, but they are 1 cast wizards, so you either have to pick between warscroll spell, lore spell or an endless spell. All of which are superb.

Lets see what competitive AOS looks like around Q3 2020 when tournaments maybe start again. I think you will be surprised.

if the top Seraphon lists are summoning lists you are right I will be.

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

1 Bound spells are good
2 Magic does compliment FOS
3 Skink heros also generate extra CP and are cheaper
4 Skink casters are also an extra caster and are cheaper
5 the +1 cast board wide is very beneficial and the only thing you listed that cant be done more efficiently
6 summoning is dead competitively. its got too much variance and too little cost benefit for the prices.
7 we don't want CCP, because summoning is dead

I think it’s too early to declare summoning dead. It’s by no means a strategy to build your list around, but summoning a few units of skinks, warriors, terradons, or a replacement priest/starpriest is not insignificant, and having 2 frogs means you have a backup for summoning if one goes splat.

We have enough ways of removing models that we don’t have to overwhelm the board from turn 1 with wary fighter skinks, so summoning has potentially become unnecessary/irrelevant.

However, you should be able to count on at least one small unit by turn 4, which can often be the difference between winning a close game and losing.

 

[Killer Angel]

I think it’s too early to declare summoning dead. It’s by no means a strategy to build your list around, but summoning a few units of skinks, warriors, terradons, or a replacement priest/starpriest is not insignificant

pretty much

 

[Nart]

Yes, slann+kroak is possible, but is seems to me a bit suboptimal, compared to other options. But it definitely has some potential. 7 universal unbinds (which you can pretty easily raise up to +3 for Kroak) will shut down any, but the strongest, magicians. You have a chance to deny even some of Nagash's stuff. Also, on average, it is 2-3 bonus CP per turn. Even more, if you bring starseer and brooch. Finally, don't forget realm spells - there are quite a few good ones in every realm.

 

[Canas]

However, you should be able to count on at least one small unit by turn 4, which can often be the difference between winning a close game and losing.

Which is great and all, but doesn't exactly make it a good, fleshed out mechanic. Summoning 1 or 2 msu of what might well be the worst battleline unit statwise in the game isn't exactly brilliant even if this occasionally can win you a game due to how you score points.

To be honest, the most telling fact that summoning is kind of dead is that a single branchwraith has more effective summoning as a simple spell than our faction ability unless we invest to an absolutly ridiculous degree in it. I mean, it's literally more cost-efficient for us to just bring a tree-lord & branchwraith ally than it is to bring enough slann to get our own summoning going.

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

Yes, slann+kroak is possible, but is seems to me a bit suboptimal, compared to other options. But it definitely has some potential. 7 universal unbinds (which you can pretty easily raise up to +3 for Kroak) will shut down any, but the strongest, magicians. You have a chance to deny even some of Nagash's stuff. Also, on average, it is 2-3 bonus CP per turn. Even more, if you bring starseer and brooch. Finally, don't forget realm spells - there are quite a few good ones in every realm.

It IS lot of invested points - really wish the warscroll spell was different for Slann and Kroak for this reason alone (assuming it was a good spell). I guess that’s why you can forgo a spell for CCP - 2 endless spells, comets call, 3 CDs, and 2CCPs between the two. If needed, you can swap in a celestial apotheosis, stellar tempest, etc situationally. Decision to harvest CCP even easier if you are out of range of CD.

 

[Alladin the Paladin]

I mean, it's literally more cost-efficient for us to just bring a tree-lord & branchwraith ally than it is to bring enough slann to get our own summoning going.

This is absolutely true. But the point of bringing 2 frogs isn’t to support summoning. I would bring them for endless spells and MW spam lists. The summoning here is a side hustle that can reap dividends in the end game.

I think most agree that a summoning *list* is dead competitively. But summoning (as a mechanic) isn’t dead, it is just night and day from what we needed it to be. It is a passive bonus that builds over time, more in line with Nurgle/Slaanesh than Sylvaneth/Tzeentch.

Not that this is in any way meant to be an equivocation of our mechanic to either mentioned, but that’s just how I see it, high-level.

 

[RandomTsar]

@RandomTsar

So I think the position really depends on your army list and what your plan is with it.

A is interesting to me if I wanted to screen off heroes from long range stuff like OBR Crawlers, but I think it isnt good enough.
B seems like a pointless plan. The enemy could just ignore it and go for your objective. Otherwise you have to split your forces; You want to get his objective, defend your own AND defend the pyramid. As we talked about previously, the footprint is huge and the bonuses dont make you immortal, so you can very easily get caught. Also, why even put it there? What are you achieving?
C is probably a bit too far forward.
D is the kind of stuff I would do. Probably scoot it a bit forward and closer to the objective, meanwhile the entire pyramid blocks any deep striking from behind. This means you can defend the objective with bodies, meanwhile screening your pyramid.

From off the top of my head there is 12" from the middle line and down to your territory. So if you scoot up the pyramide to the white line and next to the green objective, you have roughly 22" (Kroak's CD) where the red line ends.
View attachment 69254

On the flipside though, this is exactly the issue - If you place it in D, but lose the roll-off, you have planted a great garrisonable terrain for your opponent to drop his stuff inside. It wont even have to be long range artillery, it could be defensive casters etc., and they suddenly protect the objective rather well. It will automatically prevent any deep striking behind it, since there will be less than 9" too.

Due to the risk of the enemy getting it, I would be more inclined to put it somewhere like in position C - Its agressive if you get it, but if your opponent can get it, you can still place Kroak on the exactly opposite side in your territory and start nuking whatever is inside.

Another option could be to place it between B and D. It isnt right next to the objective, but it is close enough that you could defend it with a shooty/magical force, but if the enemy is a more melee heavy army and wins the roll-off, they would have to split their army up to defend both.

A) I agree with assessment, in situations were it might be too scary for your opponent to get the garrison effects I think it might be worth it.

B) Ooof. Showing my lack of experience playing games. My point of view it that in our case it allows our secondary slann (aka Support Slann) to be in an out of the way location to utilize the RE + CCP + Bonus cast lore + endless spell spam. This is assuming a lot of the list, ie starborne + kroak & slann with endless spells. On the flip side this would be out of the way for our opponents so they likely wouldn't garrison it, for the reason you stated it being bad.

C) nothing to add :s

D) An interesting point I hadn't thought about. It would also cause our opponents to split their forces a bit more into waves, which might allow us to screen or impede them in other ways, right?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and opinion on the RE placement!

My reply above assumed we could put Kroak inside ontop of a Balewind for extra reach.. Which we cant per the FAQ that I completely forgot. Hmm. Honestly I dont even know what I would want to put inside.

My plan is to run Kroak + Slann + Starpriest for casters. The Starpriest will have to be within certain range of Skinks to buff them. Kroak cant be set up on his Balewind. Maybe the Slann? Idk at this point.

I think our terrain piece really shines with the idea of a support hero in it. I think it would also have to be specifically included for the idea/intention of having that hero occupy the terrain and being happy with their results if that's all they do. Which is hard as we are pretty tight already with which support heroes to take.

 

[Canas]

I think most agree that a summoning *list* is dead competitively. But summoning (as a mechanic) isn’t dead, it is just night and day from what we needed it to be. It is a passive bonus that builds over time, more in line with Nurgle/Slaanesh than Sylvaneth/Tzeentch.

Slaanesh generates a metric ton of points, getting plenty of reinforcements. It's a little more than a bonus

As for nurgle, yeah you're probably not going to be summoning hordes of reinforcments with them either (I think it takes like 3-4 turns of just spawning trees before you start generating a good amount of points) but it has several major advantages compared to our "mechanic":

1) It requires no sacrifices; no wasted spellcasts, no pointcosts.
2) They actually have rules that improve their summoning without needing to spend 260 points for a mere D3 extra points...
3) It is quite easy to at least summon a new tree per turn, even if you pay no attention to summoning. Get a model in both territories and an additional D3 for your starting tree and you're already at 6 + D3 per turn. Meanwhile we're stuck with a bunch of D3's that deny us the much needed reliability to actually turn this into something usefull
4) Trees generate more points, so any summoned tree will summon more trees, so it has a nice self-reinforcing cycle. It's also rather thematic. It also makes it much more of a fleshed out mechanic as it means you can at least rely on the trees to make a forest that grows ever faster. If nothing else you can throw some terrain down to box your opponent in.
5) Their basic summons are not amazing, 5 plaguebearers or 1 nurgling base is probably worse than a msu of skinks. However, the trees actually have decent enough effects to actually build a stratagy around. They help with zoning and making your slow army faster. Summoning a forest, spewing out mortal wounds & speeding up your slow plaguebearers, is at least a legitimate mechanic that you can rely on. Compared to that our "summoning" that consists of "after 2-3 turns you get a msu of cannonfodder" is kind of a poor mechanic...

weirdest thing is, with our focus on the realmshaper engine & us remaking the mortal realms into jungles we could actually use the exact same basic fluffy-mechanic of spreading "corruption" (or in our case, spreading "ordered" jungle were our various dinosaurs can roam and grow stronger)

 

[Nart]

I have a feeling that we will summon either 10 skinks or single Salamander. Maybe-maybe, 10 warriors or 5 Guard. That's it. Investing in something that costs 15+ CCP is not worth it, unless things are already going well.

EDIT: I feel, like we are going too far from RSE discussion.

 

[Imrahil]

Note for the fellow hardcore nerds (like me) I made this in AutoCAD

I like that a lot
Use(d) it a lot for my study and work.

Nice work on all the plans.

Grrr, Imrahil

 

[LizardWizard]

its officially not useable in competitions.

What makes you say it can't be used in competition?

 

[LizardWizard]

The primary issue I have with it is, say vs DoK. They charge up the board with their immortal WE blobs, and their amazing buffing heroes just garrison it to make them even more durable.

I think placing it in the middle of the board is not a good option. You will want to pick a side. And if your opponent gets the side, then too bad.

I mean. It won't be near an objective unless it is Starstrike or Shifting Objective. So who cares if it is garrisoned by the enemy. They are not scoring points with those units. Unless that unit shoots, has less than 20 wounds, or has a Seraphon Wizard/Priest then they aren't too likely to benefit from it either. Their support units will suffer all the weakness of print increase that we do, except they won't be able to throw out MWs. And most support units in AoS have a short leash to the units that benefit from them.

 

[Killer Angel]

What makes you say it can't be used in competition?

It must be placed before other terrains. In tournaments more often than not (due to time necessities) you have tables with pre-arranged terrains, so by RAW it couldn't be used.

 

[Nart]

It must be placed before other terrains. In tournaments more often than not (due to time necessities) you have tables with pre-arranged terrains, so by RAW it couldn't be used.

But in Pitched Battle the Terrain must not be preplaced, so by RAW the tournament is illegal!

I am sure, that every org in his right mind will allow you to place it.

 

[Killer Angel]

I am sure, that every org in his right mind will allow you to place it.

I believe so, yes.

But it's funny nonetheless

 

[Nart]

We are reaching levels of RAW, that shouldn't be possible.

 

[LizardWizard]

It must be placed before other terrains. In tournaments more often than not (due to time necessities) you have tables with pre-arranged terrains, so by RAW it couldn't be used.

I don't think TOs at any large event will stop us from being able place it. I assume it will be similar to how most TO's handle the Bone-Tithe Nexus. If anything it will be an advantage to place the RSE onto a preloaded table, especially if the TO has assigned terrain features from the GHB2019.

 

[LizardWizard]

A further point to placing onto a tournament table is that the RSE's only restrictions is that is has to be 6" from objective and table edges. You could in theory place it directly onto a piece of existing terrain if the table is preset.

 

[Nart]

A further point to placing onto a tournament table is that the RSE's only restrictions is that is has to be 6" from objective and table edges. You could in theory place it directly onto a piece of existing terrain if the table is preset.

Unfortunately, GHB states, that the faction terrain has to be set up 6" from other terrain pieces. I guess, it is appied to RSE too. But, once again, the org has to decide, what to do.