AoS Wish-list for a theoretical future "balance patch"

[Tyranitar]

Yeah I'm leaning more towards Erta and Jason here, those 2 40 blobs of skinks in a FoS list are only a threat if you have a starpriest and a priest to support them, and if your opponent can't kill them turn 1/2. 40 unbuffed skinks will do 4~ damage vs 4+ armor, which is quickly becoming the new norm. That being said, I was fully expecting some nerfs as we all were. Kroak to 350ish and skinks/skink heroes getting bumped up 10 points would have been sufficient, because I think seraphon are about where GW wants them, and we're in line with newer releases.

 

[Putzfrau]

Yeah I'm leaning more towards Erta and Jason here, those 2 40 blobs of skinks in a FoS list are only a threat if you have a starpriest and a priest to support them, and if your opponent can't kill them turn 1/2. 40 unbuffed skinks will do 4~ damage vs 4+ armor, which is quickly becoming the new norm. That being said, I was fully expecting some nerfs as we all were. Kroak to 350ish and skinks/skink heroes getting bumped up 10 points would have been sufficient, because I think seraphon are about where GW wants them, and we're in line with newer releases.

IMO the ease of killing our support heroes is a little overstated on this forum. Its easy to talk about,, a lot harder to reliably pull off in game before thr seraphon player gets what they need from them. The amount of times my heroes die before I want them to (or let them) is extremely, extremely small. You can teleport and have a potential 17inch move before shooting a 16'' gun. You outrange basically everything in the game and have super easy access to screens, you really shouldn't be needing these guys to be in harms way. And if they are dying it means the enemy is now probably horrendously out of position, because you can't deploy in a way that just gives your characters up for free. Being out of position is something an army with summoning and teleporting can punish in the objective game.

I also think the relative strength of our warscrolls is understated. Skinks are a good warscroll with or without buffs. 240 points for 40 bodies with an 8'' move and a ranged attack? Thats a good stat line for a battleline unit.

Also, even with all that said I think seraphon are a few modest point changes away from perfection. I believe I posted my thoughts earlier, but you pop kroak up to 380 or just over 400 to stop allies, take skinks to 70 and take the skink priest to 90 and fangs is fine. And i probably wouldn't even suggest it all at once, see how one of the changes plays out as new stuff is released.

Regardless, this is the meta for the next 6 months. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. LRL play well into seraphon so i imagine the new releases will take over the seraphon hate for a little bit.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

IMO the ease of killing our support heroes is a little overstated on this forum. Its easy to talk about,, a lot harder to reliably pull off in game before thr seraphon player gets what they need from them. The amount of times my heroes die before I want them to (or let them) is extremely, extremely small. You can teleport and have a potential 17inch move before shooting a 16'' gun. You outrange basically everything in the game and have super easy access to screens, you really shouldn't be needing these guys to be in harms way. And if they are dying it means the enemy is now probably horrendously out of position, because you can't deploy in a way that just gives your characters up for free. Being out of position is something an army with summoning and teleporting can punish in the objective game.

you don't have to kill all our heroes to make them fail. heck bad luck can do that. killing their escort nuters them just as quickly and is almost as easy. or force them out of position or kill just part of the cp engine. all of the above can take the teeth right out of our army, doesn't make us bad just delicate and people need to remember that. all the games i've watched where seraphon lose it always comes down to our heroes neutralized we fall to pieces if that happens.

I also think the relative strength of our warscrolls is understated. Skinks are a good warscroll with or without buffs. 240 points for 40 bodies with an 8'' move and a ranged attack? Thats a good stat line for a battleline unit.

no no it isn't. it took 40 skinks to kill 3 of your warriors over 2 rounds both range and melee attacks that is a 130 point deparity for no benefit and it took me moving 2 additional squads onto that point and the support of a buffed 40 man for me to take it from 10 warriors. that's 220 points vrs 600 skinks need their buffs to work. a fully buffed 40 man went into your marauders twice and even with the charge didn't kill them on top of them fighting 40 other skins and taking chip damage. skinks are solid skreens and a great buff platform and that's about it.
yes bodies are helpful. but bodies that can't do anything but sit on objectives? less so. there is a reason no one uses gnoblars or goblin shootas

 

[Canas]

all of the above can take the teeth right out of our army, doesn't make us bad just delicate and people need to remember that

To be honest this probably is what makes us a pain to balance and why people are so quick to shout OP. Every combo we have relies on multiple delicate parts, and we lack a strong core that still at least sorta works even after taking a beating. Which makes us very binary. Either the combo is intact, at which point we're quite powerfull. Or some parts are missing and you're left with a limping force that struggles to put out more than a few wounds. And even fairly minor losses can have this effect. You only really need to kill 100-200 points for any of our 600+ point combo's to start showing significant cracks, if not completly fall apart. Imho, we desperatly need a more solid baseline, so our combo's don't completly fall apart after a mere 10-20% of the combo is removed. Would probably be significantly easier to balance that way, and more pleasant to face.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

To be honest this probably is what makes us a pain to balance and why people are so quick to shout OP. Every combo we have relies on multiple delicate parts, and we lack a strong core that still at least sorta works even after taking a beating. Which makes us very binary. Either the combo is intact, at which point we're quite powerfull. Or some parts are missing and you're left with a limping force that struggles to put out more than a few wounds. And even fairly minor losses can have this effect. You only really need to kill 100-200 points for any of our 600+ point combo's to start showing significant cracks, if not completly fall apart. Imho, we desperatly need a more solid baseline, so our combo's don't completly fall apart after a mere 10-20% of the combo is removed. Would probably be significantly easier to balance that way, and more pleasant to face.

well we did have something like that and then they increased the points by 37.5%.
mmm regardless this was why i was so down on our book at first none of our stuff is good at face value except maybe kroxagors (and i must admit im biased)

 

[Putzfrau]

you don't have to kill all our heroes to make them fail. heck bad luck can do that. killing their escort nuters them just as quickly and is almost as easy. or force them out of position or kill just part of the cp engine. all of the above can take the teeth right out of our army, doesn't make us bad just delicate and people need to remember that. all the games i've watched where seraphon lose it always comes down to our heroes neutralized we fall to pieces if that happens.

If heroes are dying before they are doing what they need to do it's probably player error or a very, very specific sequence of events against a specific matchup on a specific battleplan that is unlikely to consistently be a problem. As mentioned, there's basically 2 armies our heroes are in danger from round 1 - LRL and OBR catapults, and it's not as if you walk up to those tables and go "guess my heroes are dead" and its a loss from turn 1. They have to work HARD for their wins against seraphon. KO is another one that potentially can threaten on turn 1, but they are screenable and probably just dumping all over your skinks instead.

I'm interested in anyone's experience who has found their heroes regularly dying, cause it seems like just a thought experiment we are entertaining for arguments sake. And just to clarify, that being an exploitable weakness is different than it being an exploitable weakness you can use consistently. Saying "just kill the heroes" is certainly a sound strategy but its by no means an easily achievable one which kind of makes all the difference, right?

no no it isn't. it took 40 skinks to kill 3 of your warriors over 2 rounds both range and melee attacks that is a 130 point deparity for no benefit and it took me moving 2 additional squads onto that point and the support of a buffed 40 man for me to take it from 10 warriors. that's 220 points vrs 600 skinks need their buffs to work. a fully buffed 40 man went into your marauders twice and even with the charge didn't kill them on top of them fighting 40 other skins and taking chip damage. skinks are solid skreens and a great buff platform and that's about it.
yes bodies are helpful. but bodies that can't do anything but sit on objectives? less so. there is a reason no one uses gnoblars or goblin shootas

Not sure why we'd be looking for a unit that as you said is a "solid screen" to actually kill things. Armies need screens. Armies with kroak, salamanders, bastiladons, and all the rest of the ranged and mortal wound spam we have need screens even more. If they are a "solid screen" they are a good warscroll and being able to buff them turns them into an even better warscroll. The game we played seems to be a pretty solid example of that, considering all they needed to do was take up space and hold objectives... which they did beautifully.

BTW people definitely do use gnoblars and no one uses shootas cause they just use stabbas. Regardless, they are different armies. Cheap bodies/screens in an army that has kroak, salamanders, bastiladons, and all the rest of our ranged mortal wounds or shooting damage is a lot more effective than it otherwise would be.

Anyways, dunno if it really matters. No events for the foreseeable future means the "competitive meta" is pretty irrelevant right now haha

 

[Jason839]

well we did have something like that and then they increased the points by 37.5%.
mmm regardless this was why i was so down on our book at first none of our stuff is good at face value except maybe kroxagors (and i must admit im biased)

pretty much why I am all in on dracothians tail this year. Depending on the list I take kroak, salamanders, and either kroxigor or chameleon skinks. The rest of the list is a slann to make summoning points and cast endless spells and 10 man skink units that I don't care about dying. Everything I have is self sufficient and I can hide the important parts off the table. Lot harder to disrupt compared to the other armies.

I'm interested in anyone's experience who has found their heroes regularly dying, cause it seems like just a thought experiment we are entertaining for arguments sake. And just to clarify, that being an exploitable weakness is seems to slip towards what we don't have or how we can be better and it just feels so, so, out of touch with the game. Maybe people aren't playing enough games to realize it, I dunno. I know people who are literally taking a break from AoS because of seraphon, their play experience has been that oppressive. It's just interesting for me to read those experiences on one forum, and come here and read a totally different perspective.

I live in the US in one of the states that was pro trump and refused to shut down and did the bare minimum for virus control. Consequence of this was I got to play all last year. Competitive meta wise, my meta shifted into heavy shooting. My regular opponents are KO, flamer spams Tzeentch, archer spam lumineth, and mortal wound spam everyone else. Most recently, morathi boat shooting spam as of the new book they got. If your army does not 1 turn 1 charge like iron jaws or eel spam IDK, shoot your opponent off the board from 24+ inches away like lumineth or DoK, spam mortal wounds and high powered shots like tzeentch and Seraphon can, it is not competitive in the meta that has developed. Most of these armies have movement tricks to allow them to circumvent los issues, or ignore los blocking terrain anyways. Now if you feel this is not a healthy meta, I would agree with you, but we are not the cause of this meta, it is the natural progression of the missions in aos 2 lending themselves to shooting armies and the latest releases giving the game good shooting again. In a world like this a 5 wound 5+ save hero does not live past turn 1. Since we never go first because our battalions are worthless and not taken, this means our heroes are sniped turn one and we are left with weak warscrolls that do not match up to what's across the table.

 

[Putzfrau]

In a world like this a 5 wound 5+ save hero does not live past turn 1. Since we never go first because our battalions are worthless and not taken, this means our heroes are sniped turn one and we are left with weak warscrolls that do not match up to what's across the table.

How have you been performing against those lists?

In my opinion, you really shouldn't be consistently losing your heroes turn 1. Turn 2? Sure. But all of those units are screenable or LOSable outside of sentinels which is possible to outrange turn 1. If changehost is porting flamers to alpha a hero, thats a good thing for you. KO is screenable but potentially problematic. Summoning helps the long game something KO can struggle with. The best DOK lists don't have teleport, but can which makes it harder. I'll concede that LRL will almost always be the exception to the "its harder to kill heroes than it sounds" rule, which is why i think sentinels are a dumb unit. But 24 inch shooting mostly just means your heroes need to be the enemies movement + .01 inches off your frontline. It's obviously battleplan dependent, but most people also aren't putting their fragile shooting units on the line.

But for arguments sake, lets say heroes are killed against armies built around killing heroes at range. Summoning and teleporting still helps our objective game, and we have plenty of units (kroak, sallies, chamos, etc) that dont rely on heroes to do decent damage. We "overcome" that deficiency a lot better than I think these type of blanket "our warscrolls are shit without heroes" arguments make out.

 

[ILKAIN]

Also, even with all that said I think seraphon are a few modest point changes away from perfection. I believe I posted my thoughts earlier, but you pop kroak up to 380 or just over 400 to stop allies, QUOTE]
While I understand and don't disagree with not letting Kroak be allied...the only way I could agree with that much of a cost increase would be to make him a lot stronger. maybe make his CP generation "gain one CP at the start of the turn and then roll 3 dice, for each 4+ get one CP" and make his meteor spell unique from the others, maybe just an upgraded version that does d6 instead of d3 OR one that can be cast more than once, with an increased CV like Celestial deliverance.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Not sure why we'd be looking for a unit that as you said is a "solid screen" to actually kill things. Armies need screens. Armies with kroak, salamanders, bastiladons, and all the rest of the ranged and mortal wound spam we have need screens even more. If they are a "solid screen" they are a good warscroll and being able to buff them turns them into an even better warscroll. The game we played seems to be a pretty solid example of that, considering all they needed to do was take up space and hold objectives... which they did beautifully.

because they aren't just a screen they are one of our 2 main combat units(with knights being the other one) and that is what people complain about when they mention them. as for how the game went you killed 2/3ds of my army and i knocked out 1/3rd of yours and we ended in the middle of turn 3. on any other battle plan you would have won.
heck you might have still won if we kept playing or if you had gone first

 

[Putzfrau]

because they aren't just a screen they are one of our 2 main combat units(with knights being the other one) and that is what people complain about when they mention them. as for how the game went you killed 2/3ds of my army and i knocked out 1/3rd of yours and we ended in the middle of turn 3. on any other battle plan you would have won.
heck you might have still won if we kept playing or if you had gone first

I appreciate the confidence, but that game was out of my hands well before we called it haha. I think its fair to say that you also weren't playing the tightest game. I dont think you even got a buffed unit of skinks into me completely, and I think if we were both taking it a little more seriously it would have skewed more in your favor not less. With 240 skinks on the board, its essentially a board control and wound efficiency list which was effective. We can totally unpack that game if you want, but you intentionally built a list that leveraged the wound efficiency and were successful at that.

I guess I don't consider skinks a combat unit, I consider them a good screen that you can buff into a good combat unit. If they were a combat unit they would need a wildly different statline and point cost. Are there any 60 point per 10 units that are good combat units??

 

[ILKAIN]

I appreciate the confidence, but that game was out of my hands well before we called it haha. I think its fair to say that you also weren't playing the tightest game. I dont think you even got a buffed unit of skinks into me completely, and I think if we were both taking it a little more seriously it would have skewed more in your favor not less. With 240 skinks on the board, its essentially a board control and wound efficiency list which was effective.

I guess I don't consider skinks a combat unit, I consider them a good screen that you can buff into a good combat unit. If they were a combat unit they would need a wildly different statline and point cost. Are there any 60 point per 10 units that are good combat units??

Skinks.... when buffed lol

 

[Erta Wanderer]

I appreciate the confidence, but that game was out of my hands well before we called it haha. I think its fair to say that you also weren't playing the tightest game. I dont think you even got a buffed unit of skinks into me completely, and I think if we were both taking it a little more seriously it would have skewed more in your favor not less. With 240 skinks on the board, its essentially a board control and wound efficiency list which was effective.

I guess I don't consider skinks a combat unit, I consider them a good screen that you can buff into a good combat unit. If they were a combat unit they would need a wildly different statline and point cost. Are there any 60 point per 10 units that are good combat units??

scaven and tzeench come to mind. also FELL BATS

 

[Putzfrau]

scaven and tzeench come to mind. also FELL BATS

Are we seriously considering clan rats and horrors "good combat units"? Sorry, but i'd have to respectfully disagree. They fall firmly into the same camp as skinks. Good wound efficiency (aka a good screen) that can be buffed to do decent damage.

Even if we do say they are "good combat units" their unbuffed profiles are extremely similar to skinks. No one is looking at clan rats and going "thats a tasty unit" and then looking at skinks and calling it trash.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Are we seriously considering clan rats and horrors "good combat units"? Sorry, but i'd have to respectfully disagree. They fall firmly into the same camp as skinks. Good wound efficiency (aka a good screen) that can be buffed to do decent damage.

well i was talking blue horrors as they do the same damage unsupported as a buffed 40 man skink blob but yes pinks to.
and plague monks more then clan rats as while they are 8 points a wound instead of 6 they are still in the top 10 cheapest models and they do much much more then skinks.

 

[Kilvakar]

@Erta Wanderer and @Putzfrau you guys should post a battle report and breakdown, since we've heard about your battle a couple of times now. It sounds interesting!

 

[Erta Wanderer]

@Erta Wanderer and @Putzfrau you guys should post a battle report and breakdown, since we've heard about your battle a couple of times now. It sounds interesting!

we can probably do that in the future sounds like fun. until then you can watch the whole thing with commentary from lizard wizard here

 

[Putzfrau]

well i was talking blue horrors as they do the same damage unsupported as a buffed 40 man skink blob but yes pinks to.
and plague monks more then clan rats as while they are 8 points a wound instead of 6 they are still in the top 10 cheapest models and they do much much more then skinks.

So you're using arguably the most efficiently pointed unit in the game and a unit that is 25% more expensive to make your argument? Sure, i'll give you that. Skinks are not better than horrors and unbuffed are worse in combat than a unit thats more expensive then them and made for combat.

If that makes the skink warscroll bad then so is nearly every warscroll.

Speaking of TTS, i'm more than happy to show anyone what i'm talking about in TTS. Will gladly walk through a game and give a battlefield representation of what i'm talking about.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

So you're using arguably the most efficiently pointed unit in the game and a unit that is 25% more expensive to make your argument? Sure, i'll give you that. Skinks are not better than horrors and unbuffed are worse in combat than a unit thats more expensive then them and made for combat.

If that makes the skink warscroll bad then so is nearly every warscroll.

Also not totally sure how blue horrors do the same damage as buffed skinks, but whatever. Skinks are a good warscroll, and if anyone is having trouble understanding where i'm coming from we can play in TTS and i'll walk you through why seraphon are bonkers right now, skinks being the biggest reason why.

well you did ham string me by requiring points per wound(not a great judge of effectiveness) i can find plenty of good damage dealers that are at least that cheep being just just as durable and do leagues better damage

as for blues we have 40 skinks 240 +skink priest 70 +skink star priest 120 tottal points 430 damage 6 points per wound damage 12-17with spikes from 6 to 21
blue horrors 40 for 400 5 points per wound average damage 12-17 with spikes from 6-22

 

[Putzfrau]

well you did ham string me by requiring points per wound(not a great judge of effectiveness) i can find plenty of good damage dealers that are at least that cheep being just just as durable and do leagues better damage

as for blues we have 40 skinks 240 +skink priest 70 +skink star priest 120 tottal points 430 damage 6 points per wound damage 12-17with spikes from 6 to 21
blue horrors 40 for 400 5 points per wound average damage 12-17 with spikes from 6-22

I don't like calculating damage that way because it completely negates the advantage of actually having some of your power attached to heroes and not just built right into the warscroll. The heroes aren't glued to the skinks, it isn't the only thing they can buff, and it isn't the only thing on their warscroll.

I would love to see all these units that are "at least that cheap" and do "leagues better damage." Let me know if those units also have an 8inch move and a ranged weapon... and can still be buffed if needed.

But sure, if you wanted to prove that horrors are godly you've gone and done it. The best unit in the game is the best. Hardly an argument for skinks being bad.