AoS First 500 points battles with Seraphon

[samheim]

Ok got to test out the Seraphon for the first time.

Once against Stormcast and once against Nighthaunt.

My observations against Stormcast.

The Old Blood feels like crap, mine has the spear. 4 attacks at 4+ to hit? 1 damage? this is really poor. The Sequitor with great mace bash his head in. They hit on 3 and do 2 damage per wound. Also the Old bloods command ability is stupid and crap. I am sure some genius nerd who play in tournaments will explain why its amazing you can move your models 3 inches etc. But really this command ability combined with the weak attacks make the old blood feel much more like a support character then fighter.

The Troglodon was poor against Storm cast, got shot up with the celiesta ballista and the castigators.

Cold one riders were pretty good and manage to kill the lord arcanium with the scar veterans help.

The Cold one knights I think should either have 1 more attack or hit on 3+ with spears. Overall it seems like the seraphon needed to put out more damage.


The 2nd battle against Night Haunt.

This battle had 4 objectives to capture and hold. The night haunt have big problems when ever they can't form into a death star for all the buffs. The end of the battle was pretty close, but Seraphon won. The scar veteran and Knights were wiped out by chainrasp horde being supported by guardian of souls. They had to charge up on to a hill bridge and were only able to fight 2 at a time.

However 12 Saurus warriors and the Old blood met with 10 glavewavife stalkers and knight of shrouds on steed.

The battle was pretty fierce. First round the stalkers took down 5 saurus, and all the old blood could do was prod at thin air with his 4+ to hit spear.

2nd round the KOS charge and then he miss everything, the first time in the 2 games the old blood manage to get 3 wounds on the knight of shrouds.

The 3rd round it was resolved by the trogladon joining in and killing the Kos. Only 1 Saurus warrior made it out alive.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

bewair a lot of our stuff is out of date ill try to give advice
yes the old blood on foot is a suport hero his ability works best when paired with LoSaT to give you a 6" charge if you wan't a melee monster run him as a sun blood with an artifact. better attack better suport ability

trogs biggest problem is lack of rend and this hurts with stormcast they all have good saves so you can't do a lot with him best use we have found is a summon charger with his spit he can make a 9" charge most of the time and be in combat first turn

damage and survivability are our week points positioning and chaff are our strengths skinks are the best chaff in the game. a good way to buff knights is to run them in a firelance battalion

don't forget you get a free teleport once per hero phase.

 

[Canas]

Our army is reliant on synergies while the SCE rely on individually powerfull units who barely need support. As a consequence in low point games SCE tend to crush us. Especially if you're stuck with only melee troops and thus need to footslog to his frontline while his ranged troops just decimate your ranks without any risk.

In general small games are horrificly unbalanced as the game becomes very swinging since every single loss counts. Having a long ranged efficient artillery piece like the balista can decide a game like that before the front-lines ever connect as it'l have already killed half your army if it gets lucky.

As for the oldblood, yeah it's a supporting hero. Allowing some nice re-rolls & the command ability has some interesting potential uses (though those only become relevant with larger groups of saurus to move around). Also, it's quite a tanky hero, especially with the right support. At 7 wounds a 4+ save and natural rend protection it is quite hard to move. Add in a nice artifact or a mystic shield and he'l be suprisingly difficult to move. Unfortunatly his damage output is lacking with only 5 attacks and we don't have a whole lot to improve that. But thanks to how sturdy he is he can often trade quite favorably.

As for our general damage output. Yeah, we're not super heavy on the damage. We suffer from powercreep and are in need of an update. On top of that we're a summoning & synergy based army while the SCE is an army of individually powerfull units. Which all but guarantees that in any 1v1 situation the SCE will nearly always win. But on the other hand, we can literally drown em in freshly summoned bodies, and a buffed up horde of sauri will chew through quite a lot of SCE.

 

[samheim]

hmmm... not sure I can agree with you about the balance in small games.

If anything I have thought it was understood that AoS and 40 K only scaled up to a certain size, and after so many thousands of points it becomes unwieldy to play, because of the amount of dice rolling involved.

The box set's GW normally releases are 500 points.

And also the Seraphon won against the SCE tho it was very close.

Night haunt is the army I would rate as complete pants and unable to win anything at all ever.


Anyway, I now have some options, do I expand my Seraphon, Nighthaunt and Stormcast armies to 1500 points. Or do I get Wraith and Rapture and then have 5 500 point armies!


500 points appeals to me a lot because, I don't get board of painting them and can actually visualise myself finishing them all to my own standard I would be ok with.

Also getting someone to play a 500 points game is not such a big deal, as it only takes an hour. 1500 points, I have to find someone willing to donate 4 hours of their life.

 

[Canas]

The game is balanced around playing with 1000-2000 points, with the sweet spot being somewhere around 1500, if I remember correctly. Going over 2000 makes for too big games, going under a 1000 tends to make the armies too small which creates wonky interactions with things like objectives and individual units can suddenly become superpowerfull (e.g. try killing a great unclean one in a 500 point game).

The boxed sets are generally 600-800, and they can be completly bonkers in terms of balance. The two armies in thos boxes aren't even necesarly equal in terms of points (the SCE vs. Khorne box had 810 vs 730 points for example). That's why they include the scenarios in those boxes that give specific handicaps to the players. The newer boxes appear to be a bit more balanced though. Also, the SCE generally are the only ones who come closest to resembling an actual army with fairly varied units that fullfill different roles in those boxes. Probably helps that their units tend to function well as individuals and don't need much support. Hence those tend to feel the best to play with usually.

Nighthaunt are a decent army, but the boxed set has some weird unit sizes which screw things up. It has 5 stalkers, but you field em per 4 while it also has 4 reapers, which you're supposed to field per 10. The lack of allegiance rules are also kind of an issue for them seeing as their allegiance abilities are a big part of what make em powerfull. Also, it doesn't help that the bulk of the nighthaunt in that box are chainrasps which are their weakest unit in terms of combat prowess. Getting some additional nighthaunt to flesh them out and using the allegiance rules should probably make em feel far more capeable.

As for what to get next, if you want to stick with small games wrath and rapture might be more interesting. But I would suggest eventually growing the other armies as well. Even if you stick to small 500 point games, having some options to choice from when building an army is nice .

 

[samheim]

Played 1300 points of Night Haunt vs 1300 points of Stormcast today.

On a small table. The Stormcast annihilate the entire Nighthaunt army, the Stormcast only lost about 7-8 models.

They can just shoot at the Nighthaunt characters from a distance. They only have 5 wounds a piece. The only option for Nighthaunt seems to be to play as a deathstar.

30 chain rasps did nothing. Maybe kill 2 sequitors. The 5 Evocators are basically undefeatable. They kill 10 Glavestalkers in 1 go. I don't know what Nighthaunt have to fight back against them with.


The lists were

Nighthaunt

2x guardian of souls

2x Lord Executioner

1 x useless Etherial horse

1 x Spirit Torment

12 Grimghast reapers

10 Glaivewrath stalkers

30 chainrasp horde


Stormcast

13 Sequitors

5 evocators

8 castigators

2 celistia balista

1 Lord arcarnum on Demi charger

1 knight incantor.


The SCE charecters are super powerful. With the the 3 attacks x D3 damage
Also the spell to revive a dead model once per turn, is to much imo.

The sprit storm spell is far better then the nighthunt summoning, as it takes wounds off potentially all Nighthaunt characters at once.

And the Nighthaunt have no way of shooting the knight incantor, they have to move forward or they will be shot to pieces at a distance.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Played 1300 points of Night Haunt vs 1300 points of Stormcast today.

On a small table. The Stormcast annihilate the entire Nighthaunt army, the Stormcast only lost about 7-8 models.

They can just shoot at the Nighthaunt characters from a distance. They only have 5 wounds a piece. The only option for Nighthaunt seems to be to play as a deathstar.

30 chain rasps did nothing. Maybe kill 2 sequitors. The 5 Evocators are basically undefeatable. They kill 10 Glavestalkers in 1 go. I don't know what Nighthaunt have to fight back against them with.


The lists were

Nighthaunt

2x guardian of souls

2x Lord Executioner

1 x useless Etherial horse

1 x Spirit Torment

12 Grimghast reapers

10 Glaivewrath stalkers

30 chainrasp horde


Stormcast

13 Sequitors

5 evocators

8 castigators

2 celistia balista

1 Lord arcarnum on Demi charger

1 knight incantor.


The SCE charecters are super powerful. With the the 3 attacks x D3 damage
Also the spell to revive a dead model once per turn, is to much imo.

The sprit storm spell is far better then the nighthunt summoning, as it takes wounds off potentially all Nighthaunt characters at once.

And the Nighthaunt have no way of shooting the knight incantor, they have to move forward or they will be shot to pieces at a distance.

well the main problem is your trying to out anvil storm cast chain rasps arn't a hammer they are a tar pit they can do damage but it's not their job try bringing blade gysts for the 3 rend 1 attacks or hex raithes for the mortal wounds. also why do you have 6 heroes? you could drop half of them and take more bodies.
i know you don't like aligence abilities but try running Night haunt in legion of greef being able to bring back a dead unit for a command point is very good.

 

[samheim]

well the main problem is your trying to out anvil storm cast chain rasps arn't a hammer they are a tar pit they can do damage but it's not their job try bringing blade gysts for the 3 rend 1 attacks or hex raithes for the mortal wounds. also why do you have 6 heroes? you could drop half of them and take more bodies.
i know you don't like aligence abilities but try running Night haunt in legion of greef being able to bring back a dead unit for a command point is very good.

Might try playing them as legions of Nagash. Adding a vampire lord on zombie dragon. Also ally in some ghouls and crypt horrors.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Might try playing them as legions of Nagash. Adding a vampire lord on zombie dragon. Also ally in some ghouls and crypt horrors.

VLoZD are always fun but ghouls arnt good without a abhorrant ghoul king giving them +1 attack and they are fragile. i would take a necromancer for dance macabre letting blade gheists hit twice in combat is very good.

 

[samheim]

VLoZD are always fun but ghouls arnt good without a abhorrant ghoul king giving them +1 attack and they are fragile. i would take a necromancer for dance macabre letting blade gheists hit twice in combat is very good.

To be fair I did play badly. I charged the Chainrasp and Grimghast reapers ahead with the Ethereal steed. They made it to the Balistas, but they became detached from the Guardian of souls and Spirit torment buffs.

It could well be down to my poor command performance. 6 heroes, but I don't think that is all bad. The lord executioners can put out some damage.
Also the we had some bad dice rolls. We didn't manage so summon back a single ghost with between all 3 summoning hero's.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

To be fair I did play badly. I charged the Chainrasp and Grimghast reapers ahead with the Ethereal steed. They made it to the Balistas, but they became detached from the Guardian of souls and Spirit torment buffs.{/QUOTE]well something to learn from

 

[Erta Wanderer]

It could well be down to my poor command performance. 6 heroes, but I don't think that is all bad. The lord executioners can put out some damage.
Also the we had some bad dice rolls. We didn't manage so summon back a single ghost with between all 3 summoning hero's.

[/QUOTE]
alright lets take a look at that The lord executioners are a 80 point model that dose between 0-6 damage with a 28% chance of doing nothing. chain rasps are 80 for 3 and they deal 1-4 unbuffed and 2-6 buffed or you can go blade ghiests at 90 for 5 that on the charge do 6-12 unbuffed and 10-16 buffed. all avrages are bassed on a 4+ save. the unfortunate truth is that most foot heroes are rubish in combat and are taken mostly as suport.

dice happen it's part of the game at higher points you can take a battalion that lets you bring back about 18 models a turn

 

[Accurate_Noib]

I found that teleporting the Cold one riders out of combat and charging them in again to reset their charge bonus really hurts the enemy. I would use the old blood with the great blade because its by far the best pick against stormcast due to the rend and damage. the only advantage of the spear is the range but i would avoid it. The troglodon is a great pick but wont do much against stormcast. i suggest bringing a Bastilladon with solar engine or ark of sotek to cause some guaranteed damage and using the Troglodons blood roar and the Saurus banners to make the stormast rout from the battlefield. using a sunblood to boost saurus is by far the best potential pick in your list and bringing a few salamanders with rend would be a great pick. overall you should add some skinks and use the fear aspect of your army to your advantage. Getting a slann is important because you can really flex on them other armies with our impecable magic second only to tzeench. Make sure you keep summoning with a slann getting in a fresh monster late game or having a tide of skinks can really tip the balance of power into your favour.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

The troglodon is a great pick

no it isn't they have the weirdest damage curve i have ever seen and our warriors do more damage then they do you can summon them in but don't start with one.

but wont do much against stormcast. i suggest bringing a Bastilladon with solar engine or ark of sotek to cause some guaranteed damage and using the Troglodons blood roar and the Saurus banners to make the stormast rout from the battlefield. using a sunblood to boost saurus is by far the best potential pick in your list and bringing a few salamanders with rend would be a great pick.

if you do bring salamanders a astrolith is mandatory they will not perform well otherwise

overall you should add some skinks and use the fear aspect of your army to your advantage. Getting a slann is important because you can really flex on them other armies with our impecable magic second only to tzeench. Make sure you keep summoning with a slann getting in a fresh monster late game or having a tide of skinks can really tip the balance of power into your favour.

bravery is not somthing you can count on any more inspired preasence makes it hard to take advantage of and 1/3 of the armies are imune in the first place.
slann where once powerful casters they are not any more. they are outcast by zeench, nagash, the entire legion of sacrament, gloomspite gits, hollow heart wizards, and slaanesh. they are still great for summoning but even if our spells where worth casting it would be hard.

 

[Accurate_Noib]

no it isn't they have the weirdest damage curve i have ever seen and our warriors do more damage then they do you can summon them in but don't start with one.
if you do bring salamanders a astrolith is mandatory they will not perform well otherwise

bravery is not somthing you can count on any more inspired preasence makes it hard to take advantage of and 1/3 of the armies are imune in the first place.
slann where once powerful casters they are not any more. they are outcast by zeench, nagash, the entire legion of sacrament, gloomspite gits, hollow heart wizards, and slaanesh. they are still great for summoning but even if our spells where worth casting it would be hard.

The troglodon can destroy chaff and the oposing player might get scared of it due to its large models. ive had a lot of less experienced players focus the troglodon down with a lot of shots and big models. Im not saying the troglodon is a good choise in general but in the aspect of a 500pts list you can make it work. although it will underperform against tough enemies. the astrolith is a very good pick in general but only if he has enought points for it. id rather summon him and get a battalion instead


In the case of fighting stormcast bravery can be pretty effective. seraphon have a lot of abilities which reduce bravery. troglodon roar -1 bravery sarus warriors and knights -1 per unit. this means that with these 3 units you can bring a bravery of 6 down to 3. this will cause more losses especially with their small expensive units. stormcast isnt a ideal opponent for the list he brought so this is just me trying to find ways to make it work. Im not suggesting that using bravery or a troglodon is 100% effective its just making the most from a difficult situation.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

The troglodon can destroy chaff and the oposing player might get scared of it due to its large models. ive had a lot of less experienced players focus the troglodon down with a lot of shots and big models. Im not saying the troglodon is a good choise in general but in the aspect of a 500pts list you can make it work. although it will underperform against tough enemies. the astrolith is a very good pick in general but only if he has enought points for it. id rather summon him and get a battalion instead


In the case of fighting stormcast bravery can be pretty effective. seraphon have a lot of abilities which reduce bravery. troglodon roar -1 bravery sarus warriors and knights -1 per unit. this means that with these 3 units you can bring a bravery of 6 down to 3. this will cause more losses especially with their small expensive units. stormcast isnt a ideal opponent for the list he brought so this is just me trying to find ways to make it work. Im not suggesting that using bravery or a troglodon is 100% effective its just making the most from a difficult situation.

fair but storm cast don't have chaff and from what ive seen of the stormcast he is up against its a block of sequitors so even less. if we where a army that could threaten more then 1 unit at a time bravery would help but we arnt not with immunity being just 1 point away.

 

[samheim]

alright lets take a look at that The lord executioners are a 80 point model that dose between 0-6 damage with a 28% chance of doing nothing. chain rasps are 80 for 3 and they deal 1-4 unbuffed and 2-6 buffed or you can go blade ghiests at 90 for 5 that on the charge do 6-12 unbuffed and 10-16 buffed. all avrages are bassed on a 4+ save. the unfortunate truth is that most foot heroes are rubish in combat and are taken mostly as suport.

dice happen it's part of the game at higher points you can take a battalion that lets you bring back about 18 models a turn[/QUOTE]

Well I am playing again today!

I know this sounds really stupid, I am more of someone who likes to paint and read lore. But it only occur to me that the the hero's buff other hero's as well.

So if I have a cloud of Lord executioner, Ethereal steed, Spirit Torment and Guardian of souls. It means the Knight on Useless horse will hit on 3 re rolling one's. And wound on 2. Lord exectioner will hit on 3 re rolling ones and wound on 2's.

My question is this. Does the spirit torment buff itself? so it gets to re roll hit rolls of one?


Some other questions. A shooting unit engaged in combat, can only shoot who they are engaged with? but its ok to shoot units engaged in combat?

Also pile in always happens before attack. I can move my models round the enemy ones, even if they are already engaged?

Yes you are right about the blade gheists. I was thinking about adding some of them and some Dreadscythe Harridans.

But I just find it really hard to get motivated to paint another 20 Nighthaunt models at the moment, after their lack lustre performance so far.

Specially when my brand new Khorne army is calling me. Once I have finished painting my Seraphons of course. Dayum Age of Sigmar addiction syndrome.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

alright lets take a look at that The lord executioners are a 80 point model that dose between 0-6 damage with a 28% chance of doing nothing. chain rasps are 80 for 3 and they deal 1-4 unbuffed and 2-6 buffed or you can go blade ghiests at 90 for 5 that on the charge do 6-12 unbuffed and 10-16 buffed. all avrages are bassed on a 4+ save. the unfortunate truth is that most foot heroes are rubish in combat and are taken mostly as suport.

dice happen it's part of the game at higher points you can take a battalion that lets you bring back about 18 models a turn[

Well I am playing again today!

I know this sounds really stupid, I am more of someone who likes to paint and read lore. But it only occur to me that the the hero's buff other hero's as well.

So if I have a cloud of Lord executioner, Ethereal steed, Spirit Torment and Guardian of souls. It means the Knight on Useless horse will hit on 3 re rolling one's. And wound on 2. Lord exectioner will hit on 3 re rolling ones and wound on 2's.

always play the models you love don't let downers like me tell you not to if that is what you want

My question is this. Does the spirit torment buff itself? so it gets to re roll hit rolls of one?

heros always benifit from their own aura buffs and can target themselves if it's targeted so yes

Some other questions. A shooting unit engaged in combat, can only shoot who they are engaged with? but its ok to shoot units engaged in combat?

yes and yes

Also pile in always happens before attack. I can move my models round the enemy ones, even if they are already engaged?

if they end up closer to the closest model yes so if they are base to base with 1 model they can pivot if they are base to base with 2 models they are stuck there as they cant end up closer to both.

Yes you are right about the blade gheists. I was thinking about adding some of them and some Dreadscythe Harridans.

But I just find it really hard to get motivated to paint another 20 Nighthaunt models at the moment, after their lack lustre performance so far.

Specially when my brand new Khorne army is calling me. Once I have finished painting my Seraphons of course. Dayum Age of Sigmar addiction syndrome.

ooooh good luck with that khorne is a very hard army to play if you need advice just ask.

 

[samheim]

always play the models you love don't let downers like me tell you not to if that is what you want

heros always benifit from their own aura buffs and can target themselves if it's targeted so yes


yes and yes

if they end up closer to the closest model yes so if they are base to base with 1 model they can pivot if they are base to base with 2 models they are stuck there as they cant end up closer to both.

ooooh good luck with that khorne is a very hard army to play if you need advice just ask.

Brilliant thanks for help so far.


My Khorne army so far looks like this.

13 blood warriors (will add 2 more eventually to make 15).

24 blood reavers.

2 x Khograghs

2 x blood stokers

1 blood secrator

1 Mighty lord of Khorne.

To this I plan to add a demon prince of Khorne

10 blood letters

3 blood crushers

1 Skull cannon

1 Herald of Khorne


Will this be competitive against my other AoS armies?

My Seraphon list is this

1 old blood
1 Skink Star Priest
1 Trogladon
1 Scar veteran on cold one
1 Scar veteran on Carnosaur
1 sun blood

15 Cold one knights

20 Saurus warriors.

I may add 20 skinks to this as well. But not sure the people I know have the stamina to play a game with so many models. I would like to add the big monsters like steggadon, but I feel they need skink infantry as well, or they look odd appearing in an all saurus list.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

sorry for taking so long i had to look up what the heck a Khogragh was ok you are going to need to get wrathmongers and 2-3 blood prists the priests are the back bone of good khorne armies the buffes they give are just dumb. run your Mighty lord of Khorne. as korghos khul he has a fun ability he can fight and pile in up to 8" away. don't run scull cannons they are very bad if you want to paint them fine but you came to me for rules advice. arm your reavers with meatrippers.

this list will rampage thrue your other armies if you play them right the hardest will be stormcast you just have so many attacks. if you play them wrong it will fall apart like wet paper your buffes are finiky and your units are bad without them