AoS Competitive non-skink Seraphon Q&A

[Putzfrau]

Hello fellow Lustrians!

I've seen a couple threads pop up over the last months with some questions about winning competitively without using skinks/sallies and just the general effectiveness of less-shooty seraphon lists.

My competitive list has been some variant of Firelance since the book was released and I happen to play in a very competitive group (TTS, so if that's a dealbreaker for you sorry!) with i'd say decent to good results. I've looked around for some more in depth discussion around this side of the book and haven't found much, so I was thinking it might be cool to start some dialogue around what's working, what's not, what matchups are horrendous, etc etc.

So, with all that said, how has everyone been finding the combat side of the seraphon book? Any burning questions around matchups or battleplans? What's been working for people? Any weird builds that have surprised you?

I actually found giants to be a weirdly massive problem for the knights. All of them having access to break coherency with the whole "put it in the bag" thing ends up being a massive pain. With only 1 inch reach you're perpetually suffering from having to double stack (minimizing your outgoing damage), use your pile in to mitigate it (so you're getting hit first) or just eating it and dealing with losing a couple models in battleshock. I'm sure with a couple games it'll be fine, but it was definitely the biggest factor in the game which I was shocked about.

 

[Tav]

I love using saurus knights and the koatls claw subfaction in particular, its super fun.
They suffer quite alot against most things in the meta as they are all easily shot to pieces and lacking rend they just get stopped in their tracks by some units.
Chameleon skinks are the best friend to a saurus list since they stop your opponent from committing everything into you

 

[Putzfrau]

I love using saurus knights and the koatls claw subfaction in particular, its super fun.
They suffer quite alot against most things in the meta as they are all easily shot to pieces and lacking rend they just get stopped in their tracks by some units.
Chameleon skinks are the best friend to a saurus list since they stop your opponent from committing everything into you

My current list runs 3 skink screens with 3 full units of 10 knights. I've found the heavy screen set up to be fantastic in ensuring i'm getting the charges off i want. I'm usually pretty conservative with 2 units of my knights, and treat them almost like torpedos, launching them over screens with the slann CA and a massive 3d6 +3 (or 4) inch charge. If the charge roll flubs, you still got your screen set up.

I've actually found it matches up pretty well into tzeentch, KO and shooting cities lists. KO because the -1 damage just ruins them, and i've found i can usually just shrug that first volley before i get into them but its definitely dicey. Tzeentch is a little trickier and depends more on the makeup of the army you're up against.

I'm not sure how it does into seraphon, the few mirror games i've played, i got super lucky wiht a few charges and managed to go like 19 inches in a charge which let me tag a different unit and stay out of three, then pile into the skink blob.

I love chamos, but i've actually ended up dropping them out of my list just because i found the screens to be more helpful with my specific composition.

What matchups have been the toughest for you?

 

[Tav]

Ive found that armies that have big wound sinks are hard to shift, blightkings is a big one that a cant figure out what needs to be done, they move fast enough to grab the board space and then all of the no rend attacks tend not to do enough make an impact. Do you run just 1 starpriest for the knights or do you double up?

 

[Putzfrau]

Ive found that armies that have big wound sinks are hard to shift, blightkings is a big one that a cant figure out what needs to be done, they move fast enough to grab the board space and then all of the no rend attacks tend not to do enough make an impact. Do you run just 1 starpriest for the knights or do you double up?

totally with you there on the blights. My buddy plays an absolutely nasty blight list and it's just like running into a brick wall.

I run 1, i'm already so hero heavy I didn't think fitting the second in was worth it. For the lists that have the sniping capability, I don't feel like the starpriest venom is as essential in those matchups, so i'm a little more okay with losing it. I'm also legitimately lining up on the table edge in some match ups.

 

[Tav]

Nice, the knights and carnosaur are my favourite units in seraphon, always looking for the glorious carnosaur moment, do you tend to run the scar vet on carno or cold one? I prefer the carnosaur as a threatening unit and its also easier to get his buff out due to bigger base and being faster

 

[Putzfrau]

Nice, the knights and carnosaur are my favourite units in seraphon, always looking for the glorious carnosaur moment, do you tend to run the scar vet on carno or cold one? I prefer the carnosaur as a threatening unit and its also easier to get his buff out due to bigger base and being faster

For 210 points, I think the scar vet carnosaur is an absolute steal so I always run with him. I play pretty conservative with him just because keeping him up to utilize the command point recycling command trait i've found is pretty key in ensuring the knights are clearing the things they charge.

 

[Tav]

The knights are probably one of the most slept on units in the book. I think they are great

 

[Putzfrau]

The knights are probably one of the most slept on units in the book. I think they are great

Totally agree. From a pure efficiency standpoint they are kind of insane. I wish more of their movement was built into their actual move characteristic instead of in all the charge bonuses, but it still works out. I'm trying to mess around with a more balanced seraphon build that has a little bit of shooting and combat, just trying to find the right combination at the moment.

 

[JscoobertDoobert]

Ive found that armies that have big wound sinks are hard to shift, blightkings is a big one that a cant figure out what needs to be done, they move fast enough to grab the board space and then all of the no rend attacks tend not to do enough make an impact. Do you run just 1 starpriest for the knights or do you double up?

My friend plays blightking lists and my solution so far has been to just buff a unit of 10 up and throw them in and hope the mortal wounds is enough. My problem is that even if I kill the whole unit in one charge the mortal wound bounce back for each guy I kill destroys my knights so I just end up trading one for one which can be rough. I’ve also been able to wipe out smaller units with a carnosaur but again the mortal wound bounce back cripples him so he just becomes a support character after one fight. Luckily there’s not a lot of shooting so heroes being sniped isn’t a problem.

 

[Putzfrau]

My friend plays blightking lists and my solution so far has been to just buff a unit of 10 up and throw them in and hope the mortal wounds is enough. My problem is that even if I kill the whole unit in one charge the mortal wound bounce back for each guy I kill destroys my knights so I just end up trading one for one which can be rough. I’ve also been able to wipe out smaller units with a carnosaur but again the mortal wound bounce back cripples him so he just becomes a support character after one fight. Luckily there’s not a lot of shooting so heroes being sniped isn’t a problem.

Yeah, the mw bounce back is brutal especially since knight lists are a little light on wounds anyways. I just don't see how you are conceivably ever going to kill 80 wounds of blightkings so i try to hit them from both ends and keep them spread out, minimizing the damage they can do while trying to pick off the harbringer and other heroes.

It's a rough matchup for just about any list. You just can't go into it thinking you can clear them off, so you gotta body block the objectives and use pile in to their disadvantage to ensure you're keepingi then stretched out as much as possible.

 

[Tav]

Totally agree. From a pure efficiency standpoint they are kind of insane. I wish more of their movement was built into their actual move characteristic instead of in all the charge bonuses, but it still works out. I'm trying to mess around with a more balanced seraphon build that has a little bit of shooting and combat, just trying to find the right combination at the moment.

Ive tried utilising knights in thunder lizard alongside bastiladons but you lose to much support on the knights to run the bastis. Maybe a few minimum salamander units thrown in could work.

 

[Kilvakar]

I've been trying to run Coalesced lists since the new battletome came out, with varying degrees of success. First of all, a Kroaknado build is pretty much just as viable in Coalesced as it is in Starborne, so that's always nice. I've found that a Thunder Lizard Thunderquake list does very well against things like Skaven who can't usually swarm you turn 1, and I've also had good luck vs IDK as our dinos do enough damage to be a serious threat to their eels while also being able to at least take a charge. Thunder Lizards are definitely my favorite constellation to run, although I would really like to get more practice with Koatl's Claw as well.

I haven't tried a Knight spam list yet, but I've been acquiring more Knights so I actually have enough to do it now (I should try it out on TTS for sure, though). I have used Knights vs Ironjawz, but after a buffed Oldblood on Carnosaur, a Scar-vet on Cold One, and a unit of 10 Knights all died to a Maw-Krusha and 5 Brutes, I've started to be really disappointed with the lack of rend on the Knights. (Granted, that Maw-Krusha was an experimental super-defense build with a 3+ and a 5+ ward save, but it seems like most scary units have one or both of those.) Even though they have a massive number of attacks, anything with a decent save is still going to wreck them. They're essentially melee Skinks. Lots of attacks, no rend, and they die quickly. You need the Starpriest's MW buff for them to do any real damage against anything other than 6+ save infantry.

Saurus Warriors are actually quite survivable vs. comparable infantry, and in a Coalesced army when above 15 models you're looking at 4 attacks per unit, which is great for infantry. Taking them in Koatl's Claw with the Sunclaw battalion really extends their usefulness. They're still not very survivable against cavalry or anything with anti-horde bonuses, though. And they don't put out enough damage to out-grind things like Blightkings and Mortek Guard. Still, a block of 20 will usually be able to hold an objective for a couple turns, and blocks of 40 will take your opponent a lot of effort to chew through.

I love, love love our dinosaurs! They're why I started to like the army in the first place. The Bastiladons can do very well with shooting, and will almost never die in one round of fighting. The Stegadons and Carnosaurs can put out a crazy amount of damage, but will also die much more quickly than a massive dinosaur should. I have tried over and over again to play well with Carnosaurs, but honestly I haven't had much success with them yet. Probably because I usually play against Orruks or Skaven, and occasionally IDK or Khorne. My opponent always tries to kill them right away, and they bracket so hard that even taking 3-4 wounds reduces their usefulness significantly. I always get charged turn 1 with Orruks, or Skaven bracket them with artillery before they get into combat. So I have yet to kill an enemy hero with a Carnosaur, but I have cleared out some infantry with them. Heck, a Carnosaur won't even be able to kill 3 Gore-Gruntas most of the time, especially if he gets charged. Stegadons, on the other hand, while just as easy to kill will typically get off quite a bit more damage before they do down, at least in my experience. Probably just because they have more attacks with some rend moderate damage rather than very few attacks with some rend and high damage. I've just found that most of the time my opponent is always able to save vs the Carnosaur's jaws, thus negating the majority of the damage from that unit.

One sleeper unit that I really enjoy using are Kroxigors, especially as part of a Thunderquake battalion. They put out a significant amount of attacks, actually have some rend, do a lot of damage and at least most of the time don't die right away if they get charged or fail to wipe the unit they attack. They also get buffed just for being around the Stegadons or Bastiladons I bring in a Thunder Lizards army, and I've had a group of 3 Kroxis hold off 6 Morrsarr Guard for 2 or 3 turns before.

 

[chefofwar]

i never tried the slann fly over the screen move on a charge and CA. gonna have to try that one out.

Stegs and krox are my go to favorites for combat. I have not been able to get a good feeling on carnosaurs. They either get nuked by the opponent or just meh due to jaws attacks getting saved. The steg and krox clear units for better for me.

I tried a list using oldblood on foot and the sunblood as I never see those units used. kinda middle of the road. didnt do much. also didnt have a lot of pivotal action from where they were positioned. for fear of losing those heroes they were paired up with much larger saurus units and they ended up clearing the enemy first anyway. seemed like more of a worry then benefit.

The sunblood's CA did help when I had a couple saurus units all beating up the same enemy unit, it was cool to have a CA affect multiple friendlies.

 

[Putzfrau]

I've been trying to run Coalesced lists since the new battletome came out, with varying degrees of success. First of all, a Kroaknado build is pretty much just as viable in Coalesced as it is in Starborne, so that's always nice. I've found that a Thunder Lizard Thunderquake list does very well against things like Skaven who can't usually swarm you turn 1, and I've also had good luck vs IDK as our dinos do enough damage to be a serious threat to their eels while also being able to at least take a charge. Thunder Lizards are definitely my favorite constellation to run, although I would really like to get more practice with Koatl's Claw as well.

I've been starting to play Thunder Lizard more and i really enjoy it. Working on a double carno, double basti list right now with a nice balance between bodies, melee damage, and shooting. It's gone fairly well in a few games i've played with it so far.

I haven't tried a Knight spam list yet, but I've been acquiring more Knights so I actually have enough to do it now (I should try it out on TTS for sure, though). I have used Knights vs Ironjawz, but after a buffed Oldblood on Carnosaur, a Scar-vet on Cold One, and a unit of 10 Knights all died to a Maw-Krusha and 5 Brutes, I've started to be really disappointed with the lack of rend on the Knights. (Granted, that Maw-Krusha was an experimental super-defense build with a 3+ and a 5+ ward save, but it seems like most scary units have one or both of those.) Even though they have a massive number of attacks, anything with a decent save is still going to wreck them. They're essentially melee Skinks. Lots of attacks, no rend, and they die quickly. You need the Starpriest's MW buff for them to do any real damage against anything other than 6+ save infantry.

So knights actually do a pretty decent amount of damage into a 4+ save, with or without the MW buff. Assuming you are in KC, you'll always have reroll 1's and exploding 6's on them (as well as the +1 hit buff) so a unit of 10 is doing average of 14ish damage with the spears, 4 with the riders jaws, and another 9ish with the mounts jaws. That's pretty amazing. They definitely die quickly, but I think you're selling them a little short on the damage front.

Saurus Warriors are actually quite survivable vs. comparable infantry, and in a Coalesced army when above 15 models you're looking at 4 attacks per unit, which is great for infantry. Taking them in Koatl's Claw with the Sunclaw battalion really extends their usefulness. They're still not very survivable against cavalry or anything with anti-horde bonuses, though. And they don't put out enough damage to out-grind things like Blightkings and Mortek Guard. Still, a block of 20 will usually be able to hold an objective for a couple turns, and blocks of 40 will take your opponent a lot of effort to chew through.

See, and i've found saurus warriors to be very difficult to leverage effectively. 4 attacks per unit is amazing, but you're so rarely getting most of that damage into anything meaningful i've found it to be pretty consistently lackluster. I'm going to keep trying them because i have 120 painted O.O but i haven't found them to be a unit i want to focus my army around.

I love, love love our dinosaurs! They're why I started to like the army in the first place. The Bastiladons can do very well with shooting, and will almost never die in one round of fighting. The Stegadons and Carnosaurs can put out a crazy amount of damage, but will also die much more quickly than a massive dinosaur should. I have tried over and over again to play well with Carnosaurs, but honestly I haven't had much success with them yet. Probably because I usually play against Orruks or Skaven, and occasionally IDK or Khorne. My opponent always tries to kill them right away, and they bracket so hard that even taking 3-4 wounds reduces their usefulness significantly. I always get charged turn 1 with Orruks, or Skaven bracket them with artillery before they get into combat. So I have yet to kill an enemy hero with a Carnosaur, but I have cleared out some infantry with them. Heck, a Carnosaur won't even be able to kill 3 Gore-Gruntas most of the time, especially if he gets charged. Stegadons, on the other hand, while just as easy to kill will typically get off quite a bit more damage before they do down, at least in my experience. Probably just because they have more attacks with some rend moderate damage rather than very few attacks with some rend and high damage. I've just found that most of the time my opponent is always able to save vs the Carnosaur's jaws, thus negating the majority of the damage from that unit.

One sleeper unit that I really enjoy using are Kroxigors, especially as part of a Thunderquake battalion. They put out a significant amount of attacks, actually have some rend, do a lot of damage and at least most of the time don't die right away if they get charged or fail to wipe the unit they attack. They also get buffed just for being around the Stegadons or Bastiladons I bring in a Thunder Lizards army, and I've had a group of 3 Kroxis hold off 6 Morrsarr Guard for 2 or 3 turns before.

Love krox, love bastis, and I think carnosaurs suffer from weird target priority. It seems like you'd want to send them into the big stuff, but really their profile is more suited for average-to-low save horde units, screens, and average save monsters (3+ start to get a little dicey). They also need a command point or two to really get some reliable damage numbers.

Against Skaven, there's really no bad target for a carnosaur, just make sure you deploy in a way that you're not taking them off top of turn 1. I probably wouldn't send him into stormfiends or a verminlord, but other than that you should be good. Against Orruk's, you really want to be putting him into the infantry, and either screen out the really scary stuff and get your mortal wounds/shooting on it. Carnosaurs are gonna lose the mawkrusha fight 10 times out of 10.

 

[Tyranitar]

I don't know that coalesced lists are bad, I think they just don't play the objective game as well as starborne due to superior mobility with teleport and summoning, which makes coalesced the less competitive option

 

[Kilvakar]

I think you can play objectives pretty well with Saurus Warrior lists, as even though they're not that tough it's going to take a while to shift a 40-man unit off an objective. The problem is not being able to teleport onto an enemy's backline objectives, or re-deploy your units if they get caught in a bad engagement.

Thunder Lizards basically don't play objectives at all, since our monsters still only count as one model for holding them. You have to aim to wipe your opponent when playing as them, and you have to do it quick enough to be able to recover on objective points in turns 4-5.

 

[Kilvakar]

What sort of matchups have people had experience with when playing non-Skink heavy lists?

Personally, I've used Thunder Lizards to great effect against Skaven and Idoneth Deepkin. We have a lot of hordebreaker abilities through spells, Kroxigors and Stegadons with flamethrowers, and our shooting from Stegadons and Bastiladons can take out their heroes. Like us, Skaven tend to fold when their heroes go down. IDK are always rushing you, but our dinosaurs are able to deal enough damage to deal with their eels even after taking a charge, and they have no way of shutting down our magic.

I've seen moderate success with Koatl's Claw vs Ironjawz. With the damage reduction basically negating the Warchanters' buffs, the only thing that's really difficult to deal with are the Maw-Krushas. Still, Orruks in general being able to move pretty much their entire army across the board turn 1 is really difficult to deal with unless you invest a significant amount of points into screens.

I've played against Khorne as well, and they seem really weird to play against. On the one hand, they deal a ton of damage. But on the other hand, they aren't very fast or survivable, and I feel that we can take them down quite quickly. But with the Blood Tithe points, it seems that they can always reliably summon in a Bloodthirster by turn 3-4, or just summon in a bunch more troops to engage your units that have weakened themselves fighting the original army. In fact, that seems to be a Chaos thing in general. Being able to summon just from taking damage or dealing damage, casting spells, etc. They have constant replenishment and honestly Chaos summoning puts our current summoning mechanic to shame.

I want to try running a base Starborne (no constellation) list of Saurus Warriors in the Sunclaw battalion with heavy magic support from Kroak and a Slann, and see how that goes. I feel like the ability to teleport the Saurus with rend on their spears or rend -2 on the clubs sounds pretty effective, especially since you can do it after buffing them with a Starseer and Starpriest.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

What sort of matchups have people had experience with when playing non-Skink heavy lists?

Personally, I've used Thunder Lizards to great effect against Skaven and Idoneth Deepkin. We have a lot of hordebreaker abilities through spells, Kroxigors and Stegadons with flamethrowers, and our shooting from Stegadons and Bastiladons can take out their heroes. Like us, Skaven tend to fold when their heroes go down. IDK are always rushing you, but our dinosaurs are able to deal enough damage to deal with their eels even after taking a charge, and they have no way of shutting down our magic.

I've seen moderate success with Koatl's Claw vs Ironjawz. With the damage reduction basically negating the Warchanters' buffs, the only thing that's really difficult to deal with are the Maw-Krushas. Still, Orruks in general being able to move pretty much their entire army across the board turn 1 is really difficult to deal with unless you invest a significant amount of points into screens.

I've played against Khorne as well, and they seem really weird to play against. On the one hand, they deal a ton of damage. But on the other hand, they aren't very fast or survivable, and I feel that we can take them down quite quickly. But with the Blood Tithe points, it seems that they can always reliably summon in a Bloodthirster by turn 3-4, or just summon in a bunch more troops to engage your units that have weakened themselves fighting the original army. In fact, that seems to be a Chaos thing in general. Being able to summon just from taking damage or dealing damage, casting spells, etc. They have constant replenishment and honestly Chaos summoning puts our current summoning mechanic to shame.

I want to try running a base Starborne (no constellation) list of Saurus Warriors in the Sunclaw battalion with heavy magic support from Kroak and a Slann, and see how that goes. I feel like the ability to teleport the Saurus with rend on their spears or rend -2 on the clubs sounds pretty effective, especially since you can do it after buffing them with a Starseer and Starpriest.

i run a non coalesced warriors list. i have experience with IJ, ogres, night haunt , tzeench, KO(but the player is very new), gits, LoN, SCE(shootcast and dracolion spam), skaven , IDK, Fyre slayers, STD, FEC, and sylvaneth
Starborn warriors works very well if you build it right sun claw is just better in starborn. with how spread out we need to be and as hero dependant as we are teleporting is a must. it also helps to be able to bring in 20 skinks to act as skreens and i have long been in love with 12 bravery saurus.
mostly you just have to be carful as to when you turn off +1 to cast and turn on +1 to charge

 

[PartridgeKing]

Kroaknado build

Apologies if this is a really obvious question, or I've failed to find it in my searches but, what pray tell, is a 'Kroaknado build'? So far I'm guessing Lord Kroak on the Balewind Vortex, but are there more constituents to it than that? (I now also wish the Idoenth could put a shark on the Balewind for the sharknado experience.)