Reading this, it seem to be operating under the assumption that our army has suffered, when its actually quite the opposite. The seraphon book is currently one of strongest book in the game right now. Our best buffs are guaranteed (3d6 charge, mortal wounds on 6's to wound, command abilities) we have high movement, incredible damage across all three phases, incredible mages, and one of the single most powerful base abilities in the game in scaly skin. The book is incredibly deep and has competitive builds that lean into just about whatever you want.
I know i'm on this forum a lot tooting the books horn, but describing the book as "fairly average" couldn't be farther from the truth.
I actually agree, I should have been a bit more concise with my original statement. I don't think that Seraphon suffered with the new book, we definitely got better. There were quite a few things that made no sense that I really wish would have been done differently, though. I do think our book is good, just not amazing. They are somewhat above average in terms of tabletop play quality. I would contend that it's definitely average in terms of how it's written, though, for reasons I stated.
ok rant over now im being (more) serious. i do think GW doesn't want to bother with us but not due to hatred. i think that they have a tendency to just want to crank out new armies i think their creative board is just itching to work on new stuff.and due to that they resent having to support legacy armies....so they don't
That's how it feels to me as well. I was never worried that we were going to get squatted, but I can definitely see the team being much more excited about new projects than updates. Our release was a perfect example of this. No hype, no exciting previews, just a meme list blatantly presented as a joke that wasn't expected to win games. While I love our dinosaurs, the fact that they straight up announced our new book by promoting a list that they stated wasn't expected to win doesn't show much enthusiasm on their part. While some updates have certainly fared better than others *cough*Tzeentch*cough*, ours in particular just had so many missed opportunities that it's hard to think that they went into writing the book with any actual enthusiasm for the faction, despite it being decent in terms of gameplay.
And yeah, the fact that our faction essentially has no place in the lore of the setting speaks volumes. We might as well be a Destruction faction, because all we do is pop up randomly here and there to fight stuff. I'm happy with the semi-retcon where the Seraphon were actually real the whole time and not Slann daydreams, but the fact that the only lore progression we got is that apparently there are now settlements in each of the mortal realms is quite disappointing. And of course, we still have no named characters other than Lord Kroak. If they really wanted to give the Seraphon some love in the setting without new models (since they clearly aren't planning on updating the model range any time soon), I think one of the best things they could do would be to bring back as many of our named heroes as could feasibly have survived the End Times. If all of a sudden legendary characters like Kroq-Gar, Gor-Rok, Tehenahuin, Oxyotl, etc. were to return and start leading the Seraphon as a unified faction once again that would be an amazing and realm-shaking event!
I'd really like to see some named Slann appear as well, someone to take up the mantle of Mazdamundi perhaps and guide the Seraphon with a purpose. Right now all we do is... exist.
I would be happy to discuss my speculations of GW's process for updating battletomes. I think the idea that GW does anything with a degree of laziness or disregard is inaccurate. Pretty much any battletome is roughly 18 months of planning from my understanding. I certainly have some gripes with our new book, but overall it is rather solid. One thing to keep in mind as well is just how close the actual meta of the game is. The difference between S-Tier and A tier is pretty small. The difference between A and B is even smaller. I know GW has been listening to their play testers more and more through the 2nd edition of AoS. And I think sometimes there might be over corrections on their part.
From a marketing perspective, I think GW is very aware that the tournament scene is their most public-facing market, but not their largest. A lot of the decisions that don't make sense to me as a tournament player are things that the more casual players I know really like. For instance, a lot of AoS players who use match play and don't play at tournaments are much more flexible in their list. They will build a list on the spot with the app at the time of their game. And both players will tailor a bit to each other. Suddenly all those niche artefacts, command traits, spells, ect are a lot more usable. The game as a whole has a lot of room for user end balancing. When the goal is an interesting game and not 5 wins then a lot more options feel natural.
Part of me wishes organized play was more open to some aspects of this. I would love to pick my spells, artefacts, traits, ect at the start of the match's round instead of before the event.
Very good points. I just wish that with that much planning and time to work on a book they would have put a little more effort and just, well, *love* into ours. We were the last army to get an update for 2nd edition. It *is* rather solid, as you put it, but in my personal opinion also reeks of them being overly cautious rather than wanting things to be both fun and powerful on the table. Maybe the playtesters they were listening too kept complaining that old Seraphon were just too annoying due to "flood their deployment zone with Skinks" being just about our only viable tactic, lol!
Totally agree that it would be nice to be able to tweak some of the setup of a list each round in a tournament rather than having to play the same exact list in every battle. That would make things more interesting and fair for everyone, not just our faction.
