AoS Hopes for New Battletome

[A_Reptile_Dysfunction]

Being a 1st Ed Battletome I’ve seen some discussion such as the blot toad mechanic being outdated and not really in the direction GW are taking the game so that could mean our Rippers get a rework? If in the event we get a new Battletome this year/early next what do you expect to see and/or what would you like to see?

Here is what I would like to see:

New Warriors and Knight Models
Guard look fine as do skinks but the saurus knights are just plain ugly and the warriors are a little dated.

Skink Hero
I think a skink hero riding a Quetzalcoatl like lizard would be awesome. I know we have quite the number of centre piece models already but where’s the harm in expanding further into the meso-american theme?

Flying Behemoth
Large single flier, not sure how this hasn’t been done yet but a giant Terradon/Ripper is a no brainer to me. Maybe it could strike from the skies like the Shadowstrike fliers. On same size base.

Heavy Cavalry
Some kind of heavy cavalry ridden by Kroxigors or saurus alphas. They could ride pachycephhlosaurus or a smaller ceratopsian like mini Stegadons but with a different look.

New Battalions
Maybe Firelance could be improved but overall the ones we have are pretty good, they’re just few in number. Most of them are based around our battleline troops and it would be nice to see something other than Thunderquake that gives some of our other units some love. Maybe one based around Kroxigors and skinks like the old days.

Rules Changes
In addition to anything new I’d like to see saurus warriors/knights and guard see some changes as well as Kroxigors. Personally I think guard could do with an extra wound to help mitigate MW or even just ignore MW on a 4/5+. Saurus bite attacks seem pitifully weak.

Instead of Stardrake Shields I would like to see the return of Scaly Skin. This could reduce the rend of any attacks by 1 so it’s always relevant and would extend to our Kroxigors and Stegadon which both can be fragile.

Skink Starseer also needs some love.

Changes to the Lore
Personally I think our lore needs tidying up, even if some of it has to be retconned. I hate that we are counted as daemons and half our army doesn’t exist.

So what is it you would like to see or expect to see in a new Battletome?

EDIT: Also kits for plastic Slaan and a Razor/Sally kit similar to the one we have for fliers. Maybe new Kroxigors but I like my 7 Ed metal ones!

 

[Putzfrau]

I doubt we get any new models at all. We just need a general scrub of our abilities, and be brought up to speed with some of the current dexes in terms of combat power on our monsters. even though carnosaurs are half the points of FEC terrorgheists they dont even come close to half the damage capability.

All our power is tied up in summoning, ridiculously strong battalion buffs, and spammable command abilities that you're stuck using in the hero phase.

Some of that strength needs to be shifted to actual unit warscrolls. And combat armies basically need a way to fight first or fight again if they're going to be effective in the current meta at actually fighting.

 

[A_Reptile_Dysfunction]

Maybe not but it’s fun to speculate, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility. They need to do something with our hunting packs as they really are too pricey for a 40/50 point model.

Agreed. Just having everything in one book rather than split between tome, handbook and several FAQ/errata will be nice.

 

[Xuil]

Honestly, I’d love for us to become a non-summoning army again, allowing our individual scrolls to be less ‘meh’.
It would be doable, with a lore shift to living, material lizardmen again.

It won’t happen, just like new models likely won’t happen, but that would be my ideal!

 

[A_Reptile_Dysfunction]

One can hope! I definitely agree with you on the lore, I mean why couldn’t they have just brought the spawning pools with them? Or created new ones in AoS? The sacred spawnings were really cool and I think they could be worked into the current saurus.

But I can’t see us moving away from summoning at this stage, although it could maybe be toned down or at least give us enough spell casting options that summoning isn’t our Slaan’s default mode.

 

[PabloTho]

Sub-factions:

Four to six sub-allegiances Seraphon can be played as, with accompanying rules, fluff, spell lore and artifacts. For example, would be cool to see one that enables Kroxigors as battleline, one that removes the Behemoth cap, one that boosts Saurus but prevents the use of Skinks, one that is based around fliers like Rippers and Terradons...

There really is a lot that could be done with these alone to breathe some new life into the army.

Warscroll changes:

Better Knights:

• Two attacks with celestite weapons instead of one.
• Kick movement up to 10 inches.
• Give rend to the mount attacks.
• Blazing Lances should activate on hit rolls rather than wound rolls.

Better Warriors:

• Two base attacks with celestite weapons. This could probably be the only change needed to give Warriors a bit more utility.

Better Guard:

• 5+ FNP Save.

Better Kroxigors:

• Rend on all weapon variants, not just the Moon Hammer.
• Vice-like Jaws now deals D6 mortal wounds on a wound roll of 6, or D3 if the target is a Monster.

Better Skinks:

• Celestite clubs should hit on fours and wound on fours to possibly give the melee variant some usage. Combine this with some kind of skink-focused allegiance ability to make them even more deadly.

Better Carnosaurs:

• It's about time the Oldblood's mount hit on a 3+: both Carnosaurs should share the same stat lines.
• -1 Rend on the Massive Claws.
• -2 Rend on the Massive Jaws. Wound rolls of 6 deal mortal wounds instead.
• For the love of God, give me some mount traits: add one to run and charge rolls, increase the rend of the claws by one; again, there are endless possibilities.

I could do this all day, but these are basically the main things I want out of a new tome.

 

[Canas]

- general rebalancing and stuff being updated to deal with the powercreep (e.g. more wounds for our supposedly sturdy stuff, acces to some form of mortal wound protection, acces to rend, acces to mortal wounds outside of our spells)

- Prayers for our priests, mount traits, better artifacts (preferably different ones for skinks, saurus & slann), a seperate spell lore for skinks & slann, endless spells, terrain. Just the basic things that have been introduced in new armies over in the newest battletomes.

- less focus on synergy, or at least more base-power in a lot units. Right now we have too many units like saurus warriors that just don't function unless you go all out in supporting them with various synergies. It'd be nice if minimum sized, unsupported, units could actually achieve something. They don't need to be amazing, but it'd be nice if say a 5 man liberator squad would actually be treatened by 10 saurus.

- Slann that do something besides sitting in a corner generating summon points. Preferably by making the summoning mechanic more interesting (we're literally the only one that summon by not doing things, everyone else gets points by doing the things their army is supposed to be good at, e.g. tzeentch by casting spells, khorne by murdering things)

- The option to reinforce existing units with summoning

- Something to make charges easier after summoning/teleporting. It's not nice to have summoned/teleported stuff not really achieve much cuz of the stupid distance requirement. Alternativly, change that 9" requirement into another disadvantage to balance out the power of teleporting/summoning/deepstriking, idunno, say -1 to hit rolls untill your next hero phase. I really don't like that requirement as depending on the faction (and unit) it's either completly irrelevant (e.g. when deepstriking ranged troops or troops with modifiers to charging) or a pain in the ass that almost guarantees the unit doesn't actually get to do anything for a turn. I'd rather have a different disadvantage to teleporting/summoning/deepstriking.

- Skink heroes that do more than 1 spellcast or ritual per turn. Give them something to do outside of the hero phase.

- Skink heroes to not need bodyguards whereever they go. I'm not saying they should be amazing combatants capable of felling a bloodthirster singlehandedly, but it'd be nice if the various skink heroes wouldn't have to run in fear from a handfull of clanrats.

- Starpriest's starvenom to work on more types of attacks. It's very thematic to work only on bites. But it does mean that like half our roster can't be buffed by it. Most support abilities like this either have no requirements, (can) affect the caster as well, or have multiple different variants for different situations. So make that happen here too.

- Saurus heroes to actually be decent combatants. An oldblood on foot shouldn't be a worse fighter than a lord castellant..

- Our various buffs/synergies to affect something other than saurus. We also have skinks, kroxigor, slann, rippers, terradons, salamanders, razordons & various behemoths. But nearly all our buffs focus on saurus.

- Either no (or a higher) behemoth limith or mini-behemoth-cavalry in the vein of dracoths. Half the appeal of our faction is being able to field giant dinosaurs, so why can't we field more giant dinosaurs.

There you go, a short summary

 

[Erta Wanderer]

- Either no (or a higher) behemoth limith or mini-behemoth-cavalry in the vein of dracoths. Half the appeal of our faction is being able to field giant dinosaurs, so why can't we field more giant dinosaurs.

this but make them battle line in spasific lists flesh eaters can do it and we are much more monster focused then them

 

[A_Reptile_Dysfunction]

@PabloTho - The sub alliances would be a great idea but could this not more simply be solved by more battalion options? You could have a battalion that gives the normal requirements of units but also gives restrictions in exchange for the extra abilities. Removing the behemoth cap is a great idea!

Agreed, knights and warriors feel like they need a second attack. What’s worse is that Sunclaw gives the extra attack to the bite which really feels underwhelming. FNP would be great on guard!

I don’t know if skinks need a buff but your right in that it’s almost pointless giving them clubs against most opponents so it’s almost a worthless option.
The Kroxigors could definitely do with some help and our flagship gribbly killing machines could be a bit more gribbly and killy!

Are mount traits something that other factions have?

@Canas - Agree with pretty much everything you said. Having a separate spell lore for the skinks and Slaan is brilliant! It would really allow the Slaan to have more powerful spells without the problem of being able to spam skink priests taking all the strong spells. This could also give us an alternative to summoning spam. Maybe our spell casting could work in conjunction with summoning? Each successful spell cast gets us (X) summoning points dependant on how difficult the spell is to cast? Or would that be too similar to Tzeentch?

Saurus in all forms being weak is a running theme funnily enough, who’d have thought!

I think the 9” is fine. But it needs something else to synergies with it to more reliably get the charge. Things such as the Trog/Steggy abilities are examples of ways we can mitigate the 9” distance, and even cogs. Maybe we can get some more spell/trait/abilities that will allow us to close that gap.

I think skink heroes are fine to be honest. They’ve always been squishy and a starpriest with Master of Star rituals can use serpents staff, celestial rites and cast a spell each turn! For 80pts that’s awesome and giving them a second spell slit would be pushing them too much I think. Giving options to serpents staff is a good idea though.

Great summary, thanks for your input guys!

 

[A_Reptile_Dysfunction]

this but make them battle line in spasific lists flesh eaters can do it and we are much more monster focused then them

I don’t think it would break our army. The points costs of our better behemoths restrict us anyway but it would be cool to take an underpowered Thunderquake in say a 1000pts.

 

[Canas]

@PabloTho - The sub alliances would be a great idea but could this not more simply be solved by more battalion options? You could have a battalion that gives the normal requirements of units but also gives restrictions in exchange for the extra abilities. Removing the behemoth cap is a great idea!

Sub-factions have the advantage of not costing points and not limiting your options in any way unlike battalions while affecting your enire army.

For example say we want to give +1 to casting rolls for all seraphon wizards.
If this bonus is given by picking a specific subfaction we can still build whatever army we want. Want to use your skink starpriest in a shadowstrike host? Go for it. Want to use the one battalion with a starseer? Good luck. Want it to benefit your Slann general & kroak, great.

If however you get the bonus via a battalion you get the following downsides:
- The battalion costs point
- It willl only affect units in the battalion, so if Kroak is not part of this battalion, though luck he'l never get that bonus. Similarly that starpriest leading the shadowstrike, well he's in a different battalion so he doesn't get the bonus either.
- Battalions have tax-units.

This makes subfactions far nicer for these kind of general subspecialisations.

Are mount traits something that other factions have?

Yup. Subfactions are also fairly common in the newer battletomes. They basicly respresent different tribes/kingdoms/cities/whatever that specialise slightly differently.

I think the 9” is fine. But it needs something else to synergies with it to more reliably get the charge. Things such as the Trog/Steggy abilities are examples of ways we can mitigate the 9” distance, and even cogs. Maybe we can get some more spell/trait/abilities that will allow us to close that gap.

Issue is if you just give things to reliably close the 9" distance it becomes a pointless disadvantage to deepstriking. Also, it's a very game-y rule that doesn't make a whole lot of sense thematicly. Hence why I don't like it. It's either trivial to ignore, or prevents the unit from doing much at all. I'd rather see a temporary debuff or something like. "the troops are disoriented after deepstriking, they need a moment to organise and find their bearings, -1 to all hitrolls until the end of your turn". It feels more thematic, and it should be easy to come up with one that isn't trivial to negate.

I think skink heroes are fine to be honest. They’ve always been squishy and a starpriest with Master of Star rituals can use serpents staff, celestial rites and cast a spell each turn! For 80pts that’s awesome and giving them a second spell slit would be pushing them too much I think. Giving options to serpents staff is a good idea though.

That does require your starpriest to be your general though, which is quite an investment.

And I'm not saying they should cast two spells. During the hero phase they're mostly fine. I'd just like them to do something outside of the hero phase. They suffer from much the same issue that the slann have where they just stand in a corner and only do their 1 thing during the hero phase hiding the rest of the time. Give them a decent ranged attack, make them halfway capable in melee. Something to remind you they're actually there. Make them capable of contesting an objective against a unit of 10 skinks/clanrats/grots/etc. Give them buffs/debuffs that trigger during the combat phase, or when someone finishes a charge near them. Just give them something that makes me care about them outside of the hero phase.

 

[Xuil]

Oh, I’m surprised we all also forgot to mention the obvious:

Poor Tetto’eko (Starseer) not being a comical waste of points. Now that the Slann can also get his spell, I can’t thing of a single justification for his scroll/cost.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Oh, I’m surprised we all also forgot to mention the obvious:

Poor Tetto’eko (Starseer) not being a comical waste of points. Now that the Slann can also get his spell, I can’t thing of a single justification for his scroll/cost.

agreed he is one of many models that i relay like the look of but can't justify using on the table

 

[Canas]

Oh, I’m surprised we all also forgot to mention the obvious:

Poor Tetto’eko (Starseer) not being a comical waste of points. Now that the Slann can also get his spell, I can’t thing of a single justification for his scroll/cost.

I think that falls under "general rebalancing and stuff being updated to deal with the powercreep (e.g. more wounds for our supposedly sturdy stuff, acces to some form of mortal wound protection, acces to rend, acces to mortal wounds outside of our spells)"

but yeah, the starseer is completly redundant as it stands. Also why in gods name does it have 1! attack. Seriously, why? Are they afraid 2 attacks might make it too reliable a combatant? Even by wizard standards that's an incredibly poor statline.

 

[valentine009]

I would love to see the addition of Red-Crested Skinks (as they are in Total War) as another unit option.

We really need some anti-armor, and they fill that niche.

Something like M8', 6+ Armor, 6+++ FNP, 2 attacks at 4+, 4+, -2 AP 1D.
Banner of Sotek: Immune to Morale
Musician: +1 to wound on the Charge

60pts for 5, squad 5-20

They would be a nice little glass cannon against things like Stormcast.

 

[Scurvydog]

Considering how GW has been doing tomes lately, I expect some different constallations/spawnings/lodges/clans (whatever the name) to focus the army themes.

We have so far seen many battalions beeing weeded out and/or watered down and some of that power transfered to the additional allegiance abilities from specific subfactions.

I'd expect and maybe even hope to see something like subfactions being:

Fangs of Sotek - All saurus get 1 additional bite attack, Old Bloods can use X command ability for free once per turn (hope for a new command ability, like attack again or first, as that is needed for any melee army to thrive these days). Must have x command trait and x artifact (as is the norm now).

Red Crested Legion(?) - Skink keyword units have exploding melee attacks on 6's (range might be too much, but maybe?). CP ability - Target friendly skink unit can immediately shoot or attack? I know unoriginal.

Dino Riders! - All behemoths can get a mount trait instead of 1 (yes if anyone needs mount traits it is seraphon!). 1 additional Behemoth allowed in list building. Add the usual forced trait and relic.

Anyway I hope to see some power shifted there along with the warscroll updates others have already talked about.

1 Warscroll I would really like to see a change to is the Troglodon and I hope it becomes a more unique hero, that would be obvious to do (next to buffing the actual troglodon). Make him a wizard or a commander of sorts, that could be pretty cool and interesting.