AoS Fangs vs Reapers

[Dingus]

Howdy y'all.

As for some background: I'm someone who owns a few armies, among which are Fangs and Bonereapers (Mortis Praetorians), both of which are probably my most favorite to play. My LGS also happens to have two others players that play Seraphon (Fangs and TL) and another that plays reapers (Mortis Praetorians).

Before moving onto the question, I am fully aware that 3.0 is around the corner and that matchups can change. From what I see from the leaks, I'm doubting the matchups would change too much but the reaper errata could be either really good or really bad for them. That being said, I'm curious as to what the community here thinks for the time being -

Being on both sides of the matchup, I have to ask, how should the reapers play this matchup? It feels like it's pretty much always a shut down for the Seraphon player. I've had some closer matches with some hot dice from the Mortek Crawlers but even then I don't know if I've ever won or seen another reaper player win the matchup, online or in person. The mobility and mortal wound output just seems harsh for the reapers since that capitalizes on their weaknesses so much. If the Crawlers don't overperform and kill the support heroes early I never seem to know what to do. On the other side of the table, it almost seems too easy to keep them out of reach and just clobber them with skinks and sallies, Kroak just melts em when they get closer, and MSU skinks and summons just give em the run around for objectives faster than they can kill.

Does anyone have any insight onto the matchup? Particularly with meta lists for both armies. I feel like knowing how to play a hard matchup better would make me a better player all around.

Appreciate your time and input.

 

[Nart]

From my experience, OBR simply don't have enough instuments to deal with a competitive seraphon list, sorry. To win Seraphon, OBR player has to be better. The problem is there's not enough wounds in the army, and seraphon easily bypass good saves with tons of mortal wounds. Killing mortek is enough to deny objectives.

I can tell only about the stuff I am afraid when go against OBR.

1) Katakros. The guy is a quarter of the list, but he gives more durabitlity an attacks and he is hard to crack with 3+ save, 20 wounds and healing. Unlike Archaon, he can stay in the back of your force in safety. The thing is, even with 3+ save seraphon still have enough damage to chew through mortek. Katakros is best against thunderlizard to eat command points and throw -1 to-hit on bastiladons;
2) Arkhan. Once again, can shine against thunderlizard, dealing tons of wounds to bastiladons. His empower shields spell can mitigate some damage to mortek too. Once again, the problem is Kroak still has the upper hand and the magic is gamble. Finally, Arkhan easily goes down to shooting;
3) Nexus. All his effects can be annoying and with Katakros you can throw -1 to-hit two times per round. But Nexus got hit heavily by new monster rules. If you put it in the middle of board, it will get demolished very easily;
4) Fast Cavalry. I think, it is the best bet against seraphon right now. Make your deathriders as survivable as possible and try to lock seraphon in the deployment, while you win by objectives. Unfortunately, once again this trick is only good against thunderlizard;
5) Mortek Crawlers. Yes, they are easily outranged but they force seraphon player to avoid them, which is very nice. With Cursed Stelle you have a good chance to oneshot any support hero and main profile good at clearing skinks. But they are too random to rely on, unfortunately. Against seraphon you want to bring 2+, maybe even all 4 and just hope to get lucky enough. With anti-bravery profile you can one-shot a TL monster - need a lucky 6.

Despite becoming weaker against top meta, seraphon will still terrorrize melee-focused armies. I hope the following FAQ will improve OBR and you will be able to have fun and even match-ups.

 

[Dingus]

From my experience, OBR simply don't have enough instuments to deal with a competitive seraphon list, sorry. To win Seraphon, OBR player has to be better. The problem is there's not enough wounds in the army, and seraphon easily bypass good saves with tons of mortal wounds. Killing mortek is enough to deny objectives.

I can tell only about the stuff I am afraid when go against OBR.

1) Katakros. The guy is a quarter of the list, but he gives more durabitlity an attacks and he is hard to crack with 3+ save, 20 wounds and healing. Unlike Archaon, he can stay in the back of your force in safety. The thing is, even with 3+ save seraphon still have enough damage to chew through mortek. Katakros is best against thunderlizard to eat command points and throw -1 to-hit on bastiladons;
2) Arkhan. Once again, can shine against thunderlizard, dealing tons of wounds to bastiladons. His empower shields spell can mitigate some damage to mortek too. Once again, the problem is Kroak still has the upper hand and the magic is gamble. Finally, Arkhan easily goes down to shooting;
3) Nexus. All his effects can be annoying and with Katakros you can throw -1 to-hit two times per round. But Nexus got hit heavily by new monster rules. If you put it in the middle of board, it will get demolished very easily;
4) Fast Cavalry. I think, it is the best bet against seraphon right now. Make your deathriders as survivable as possible and try to lock seraphon in the deployment, while you win by objectives. Unfortunately, once again this trick is only good against thunderlizard;
5) Mortek Crawlers. Yes, they are easily outranged but they force seraphon player to avoid them, which is very nice. With Cursed Stelle you have a good chance to oneshot any support hero and main profile good at clearing skinks. But they are too random to rely on, unfortunately. Against seraphon you want to bring 2+, maybe even all 4 and just hope to get lucky enough. With anti-bravery profile you can one-shot a TL monster - need a lucky 6.

Despite becoming weaker against top meta, seraphon will still terrorrize melee-focused armies. I hope the following FAQ will improve OBR and you will be able to have fun and even match-ups.

Thanks for the detailed response!

These are mostly as I suspected unfortunately. I am going to assume the matchup will always be favored for the Seraphon army just due to the tools they have available at the moment, was hoping there something I wasn't seeing to make the matchup at least occasionally winnable for the reapers. But perhaps not assuming they run a good list and aren't making silly mistakes.

Hopefully it becomes plausible with the FAQ and if the rumors are true about the archers. New books could change things up too.

 

[Tyranitar]

My friend plays obr so in addition to it being my most played matchup him and I have discussed it at length and assuming roughly equal player skill the matchup is heavily seraphon favored. You're initial observations are spot on and I agree with everything @Nart said. I think from the obr side, if you want to win you need to play greedy. Play aggressive and set up for a double turn, take Cursed Stele shots at heroes, move katakros up the board and into combat, things like that. From my perspective, I try to neutralize the crawlers asap because they're the only real threat and once I take care of them I can run circles around the remaining army. I've started largely ignoring katakros because I found with how much firepower it takes to bring him down I'm better off clearing mortek for objective control.

We're eager to see the obr errata, they're going to need a decent overhaul to come out ok. If they have to abide by the "rule of one" for command abilities, they're going to be...boned.

Side note, if you're open to trying other lists, Koatl's Claw makes for a good matchup, at least it did in 2.0. KC seems to be in a rough spot for 3rd but that should even the playing field even more

 

[Dingus]

My friend plays obr so in addition to it being my most played matchup him and I have discussed it at length and assuming roughly equal player skill the matchup is heavily seraphon favored. You're initial observations are spot on and I agree with everything @Nart said. I think from the obr side, if you want to win you need to play greedy. Play aggressive and set up for a double turn, take Cursed Stele shots at heroes, move katakros up the board and into combat, things like that. From my perspective, I try to neutralize the crawlers asap because they're the only real threat and once I take care of them I can run circles around the remaining army. I've started largely ignoring katakros because I found with how much firepower it takes to bring him down I'm better off clearing mortek for objective control.

We're eager to see the obr errata, they're going to need a decent overhaul to come out ok. If they have go abide by the "rule of one" foe command abilities, they're going to be...boned.

Side note, if you're open to trying other lists, Koatl's Claw makes for a good matchup, at least it did in 2.0. KC seems to be in a rough spot for 3rd but that should even the playing field even more

Appreciate the reply! Perhaps playing greedy and taking chances is the right way to play as reapers in this matchup because playing conservatively only seems to lead to losses. Better to risk it for the biscuit in such matchups, thats a good point.

 

[Tyranitar]

Appreciate the reply! Perhaps playing greedy and taking chances is the right way to play as reapers in this matchup because playing conservatively only seems to lead to losses. Better to risk it for the biscuit in such matchups, thats a good point.

Yeah it depends on the context I suppose. Round 5 at the top table of a GT, maybe play for a draw. Good old kitchen table Warhammer between friends, go for the greedy win or fail spectacularly