AoS Missing items from the Battletome that should've been there

[Joshua]

My thoughts on the new Battletome are positive for most of the buffs that were given to units and i really enjoy playing Seraphon with this new battle tome.

However, my thoughts are that there should have been things included in the battle tome, that nearly all other factions got and we didn't. For example, why didn't we get any prayers to add to our priests? A totem/banner option to give to our Astrolith bearer? And lastely, why no mount traits?

I feel like there is a lot of potential that was missed by these not being in the battle tome. I feel that it would have added alot more flavour and playstyle if these were included. Thoughts?

 

[Erta Wanderer]

one can hope but we came out to late for the GHB to fix anything. same thing as HoS last year

 

[LizardWizard]

Welcome to lustria.

Well summed up. I was really hoping for Prayers and totems. Mount traits would have been nice, but I have been more of Skink player than behemoths.

 

[Xuil]

* Mount traits.
* More flavourful artefacts? Cube of Darkness for example. I get that we’re strong enough in the unbinding space, but there was something very special about Lizardmen being able to wipe away buffs.
* A Saurus guard battalion and a magic user battalion (Slann, Starseer and Starpriest).

 

[Nart]

However, my thoughts are that there should have been things included in the battle tome, that nearly all other factions got and we didn't. For example, why didn't we get any prayers to add to our priests? A totem/banner option to give to our Astrolith bearer? And lastely, why no mount traits?

I have a thought, that our prayers are combined in single ability. Like they could give us chose the prayer - run+charge, run+shoot or +1 to saves. We have all effects combined instead. Same with totems and mount traits. But I would like to see all of these, of course. Maybe, we'll have something in white dwarf someday.

 

[LordBaconBane]

Command ability for the Troglodon please.

 

[ILKAIN]

Command ability for the Troglodon please.

this! and it makes sense lore wise. not every battle requires one of the limited slann to attend. making the trog an "oracle" and set forth as the rep for the slann seems like the perfect set up to make it the leader of skirmishes and minor battles. it would make them great long range reconnaissance (in lore) and if they got into trouble they could teleport away, or mentally contact the slann for back up. and of course they could be accompanied by skinks on small/medium dino mounts. totally a missed opportunity to both flesh out the mechanical game and lore... especially given that they were reskinning our lore anyway.

 

[Canas]

- prayers
- Mount traits
- Totems
- Better command traits for saurus/an actual decent reason to make em the general. Even coalesced armies don't really benefit from making them the general.
- More than 1, max 2, decent artifacts per hero-group (though this is a general issue with artifacts, nearly every book only has a handfull of good ones and is mostly reliant on malign sorcery)
- A dedicated flyer battalion
- A guard battalion
- Some flexible mixed battalions
- A hero battalion
- Something to off-set comet-call being shared by oracles & slann in Coalesced. Clearly the idea of sharing those casts is that you sacrifice those for summoning. But in coalesced you can't do that.
- Something that encourages the use of our saurus heroes on foot, they're weak fighters & they bring the exact same utility as our mounted heroes. Unless you're scrambling for points there's no real reason to ever take them over their fancier mounted variants.

 

[Tav]

- prayers
- Mount traits
- Totems
- Better command traits for saurus/an actual decent reason to make em the general. Even coalesced armies don't really benefit from making them the general.
- More than 1, max 2, decent artifacts per hero-group (though this is a general issue with artifacts, nearly every book only has a handfull of good ones and is mostly reliant on malign sorcery)
- A dedicated flyer battalion
- A guard battalion
- Some flexible mixed battalions
- A hero battalion
- Something to off-set comet-call being shared by oracles & slann in Coalesced. Clearly the idea of sharing those casts is that you sacrifice those for summoning. But in coalesced you can't do that.
- Something that encourages the use of our saurus heroes on foot, they're weak fighters & they bring the exact same utility as our mounted heroes. Unless you're scrambling for points there's no real reason to ever take them over their fancier mounted variants.

i would also really like some different battalions, i really don't like the shadow strike starhost, shadow strike temple host is great but it means you run a skink army in coalesced which isn't what you want. the only one with flexibility really is the thunder quake

 

[Canas]

i would also really like some different battalions, i really don't like the shadow strike starhost, shadow strike temple host is great but it means you run a skink army in coalesced which isn't what you want. the only one with flexibility really is the thunder quake

To be honest battalions are weird in AoS, certain factions have increadibly flexible ones which allow a tailormade list, allowing mixing of unit types (e.g. infantry + cavalry) and don't have a fixed number of units in them. And then you have factions like ours that are super strict, with fixed numbers, no mixed unit types, no real choices etc. And that's without looking at the difference in bonuses battalions can bring, varying from virtually useless to so good it's basicly mandatory if you want to field unit X. There doesn't seem to be a coherent design philosophy behind them.

 

[ILKAIN]

To be honest battalions are weird in AoS, certain factions have increadibly flexible ones which allow a tailormade list, allowing mixing of unit types (e.g. infantry + cavalry) and don't have a fixed number of units in them. And then you have factions like ours that are super strict, with fixed numbers, no mixed unit types, no real choices etc. And that's without looking at the difference in bonuses battalions can bring, varying from virtually useless to so good it's basicly mandatory if you want to field unit X. There doesn't seem to be a coherent design philosophy behind them.

i thought our old battalions were good. to me the problem really only is that they cut the abilities in half to split them between coalesced and SB, which was super lazy.

 

[Tav]

i thought our old battalions were good. to me the problem really only is that they cut the abilities in half to split them between coalesced and SB, which was super lazy.

i mainly don't like how ineffective a lot of them are. the star borne knight battalion isn't useful, the star borne skink battalion isn't useful, the coalesced skink battalion isn't useful.
either of the thunder quakes are okay i guess, i quite like the idea of having your monsters healing loads from slann spell, engine and battalion.
the only one i use is sometimes freelance templehost

 

[Putzfrau]

To be honest battalions are weird in AoS, certain factions have increadibly flexible ones which allow a tailormade list, allowing mixing of unit types (e.g. infantry + cavalry) and don't have a fixed number of units in them. And then you have factions like ours that are super strict, with fixed numbers, no mixed unit types, no real choices etc. And that's without looking at the difference in bonuses battalions can bring, varying from virtually useless to so good it's basicly mandatory if you want to field unit X. There doesn't seem to be a coherent design philosophy behind them.

I think that is by design. Battalions are very strong, and every book having a flexible one drop would just amplify the changehost problem. I think it also helps armies feel differently than one another, as certain armies "belong" in battalions and others do not. It's a balancing lever they can pull, but like most things in this game i think it could use some fine tuning.

Coalesced probably could have used a way to get drops down, I think it's something most melee armies need that aren't super resilient.

 

[ILKAIN]

i mainly don't like how ineffective a lot of them are. the star borne knight battalion isn't useful, the star borne skink battalion isn't useful, the coalesced skink battalion isn't useful.
either of the thunder quakes are okay i guess, i quite like the idea of having your monsters healing loads from slann spell, engine and battalion.
the only one i use is sometimes freelance templehost

that's exactly what I was saying... when one battalion had both or all of the abilities they worked. now they have the same-ish cost and provide half the utility, some of which don't even fit the theme of the subfaction (C/SB) they are assigned to.

 

[Canas]

I think that is by design. Battalions are very strong, and every book having a flexible one drop would just amplify the changehost problem.

I don't like the way that drops matter much anyway, so if that's the main design reason honestly they imho should change that. Hell I'm not a terrible fan of battalions costing points for that matter, to me they should be a reward that encourages thematic & "logical" listbuilding (and by extention discourages "illogical" cheese lists like say spamming Salamanders). Though I doubt the game will shift in that direction any time soon

I think it also helps armies feel differently than one another, as certain armies "belong" in battalions and others do not. It's a balancing lever they can pull, but like most things in this game i think it could use some fine tuning.

They don't do it very consistently though, and there's also no visible rhyme or reason behind it. Neither fluff nor crunch really explain why faction X has amazing flexible battalions while faction Y has very strict mediocre battalions. Similarly there's factions for whom 1 battalion builds an entire army and there's faction who really want 3 or even 4 battalions to build a sensible army, which is far too costly so they end up with at most 2 battalions and half an army that's battalion-less.. Then there's the flexibility which differs from completly inflexible, mandating exactly X of this unit, to a free choice of units as well as the ability to bring 1-9 of that choice. It's kind of all over the place.

Maybe it'd feel less weird if they explained their design philosophies behind battalions, but as it currently is it basicly just seems random.