AoS Saurus Guards

[Putzfrau]

If we'd buff them to actually be able to function on their own, as a decent unit, and most importantly with a clear advantage over warriors (who provide more bodies) or knights (who are faster), they'd still be held back by reasonable limits.

This seems to be our fundamental disagreement. They have a distinct, useful battlefield role. You want them to be like every other unit.

And they aren't just ablative slann wounds. They are extra bodies on back objectives. They are a final screen. And they are a decent punch to make sure Kroak isn't going to go down without a fight.

And about the skink point EVERYONE would pay an extra 100 points to give a skink priest 10 more wounds. Everyone. And again, that's not even mentioning that they aren't just ablative wounds.

You keep referencing your castle being stuck uselessly in a corner somewhere. Why? Who plays like that? Having unkillable heroes means you can you know, not hide them all game? it gives you the flexibility to be more aggressive. Also, by the nature of their wholly within abillities, Starpriests and Priests already werent' stuck in a corner all game. This just makes it so while they apply their crazy powerful buffs, you actually dont have to worry about them dying. And even if you did have to ball up in a corner for whatever reason, most seraphon lists have enough damage to literally ignore objectives for the first turns.

And just so you know, seraphon are 100% broken enough to pay for ablative wounds because those wounds makes the most important pieces of our army function. There are tons of lists out there running minimum battleline (5-10 guard/10 skinks/10 skinks). You don't think those lists that rely primarily on salamanders (that need priests) and Kroak for damage wouldn't want to ensure those vital pieces live longer?

I don't mean to jump all over you, i'm just honestly baffled. You seem to argue that guard don't have a role, while ignoring the obvious role they have in favor of giving them more damage? We have TONS of units in our book that deal damage. We don't need anymore.

 

[ILKAIN]

This seems to be our fundamental disagreement. They have a distinct, useful battlefield role. You want them to be like every other unit.

And they aren't just ablative slann wounds. They are extra bodies on back objectives. They are a final screen. And they are a decent punch to make sure Kroak isn't going to go down without a fight.

And about the skink point EVERYONE would pay an extra 100 points to give a skink priest 10 more wounds. Everyone. And again, that's not even mentioning that they aren't just ablative wounds.

You keep referencing your castle being stuck uselessly in a corner somewhere. Why? Who plays like that? Having unkillable heroes means you can you know, not hide them all game? it gives you the flexibility to be more aggressive. Also, by the nature of their wholly within abillities, Starpriests and Priests already werent' stuck in a corner all game. This just makes it so while they apply their crazy powerful buffs, you actually dont have to worry about them dying. And even if you did have to ball up in a corner for whatever reason, most seraphon lists have enough damage to literally ignore objectives for the first turns.

And just so you know, seraphon are 100% broken enough to pay for ablative wounds because those wounds makes the most important pieces of our army function. There are tons of lists out there running minimum battleline (5-10 guard/10 skinks/10 skinks). You don't think those lists that rely primarily on salamanders (that need priests) and Kroak for damage wouldn't want to ensure those vital pieces live longer?

I don't mean to jump all over you, i'm just honestly baffled. You seem to argue that guard don't have a role, while ignoring the obvious role they have in favor of giving them more damage? We have TONS of units in our book that deal damage. We don't need anymore.

he's arguing that under current circumstances they are pigeon holed into only one role, and that it isn't taken for anything other than 10 wounds. which limits the lists you would see them in and makes them a less overall value to the army.

@Canas guard literally guarded Mazdamundi on his stegadon so I have to disagree, not only is the guard ability working on mounted heroes not absurd, its in the lore.

 

[Putzfrau]

he's arguing that under current circumstances they are pigeon holed into only one role, and that it isn't taken for anything other than 10 wounds. which limits the lists you would see them in and makes them a less overall value to the army.

@Canas guard literally guarded Mazdamundi on his stegadon so I have to disagree, not only is the guard ability working on mounted heroes not absurd, its in the lore.

I guess i just am coming from the perspective of, every unit doesnt need to do everything. I'm fine with Guard having one role, and fulfilling that role well.

 

[Dread Saurian]

Is this a serious arguement to give the same tactic the guard have for kroak and give it to all heroes? So far that only makes sense. And I dont see how it could break the game. In fact guard sales would probably spike too. And realistically it would only make other heroes better correct? Or am i thinking what the hive tyrant guard does for the tyrant/swarmlord isnt the same damn thing as what the guard does for kroak?

 

[Putzfrau]

Is this a serious arguement to give the same tactic the guard have for kroak and give it to all heroes? So far that only makes sense. And I dont see how it could break the game. In fact guard sales would probably spike too. And realistically it would only make other heroes better correct? Or am i thinking what the hive tyrant guard does for the tyrant/swarmlord isnt the same damn thing as what the guard does for kroak?

The problem is when you make other heroes better the army becomes more oppressive than it already is.

One of our only weaknesses is that our powerful buffing characters are on fragile bodies. You remove that weakness, the army becomes wildly stronger.

 

[ILKAIN]

The problem is when you make other heroes better the army becomes more oppressive than it already is.

One of our only weaknesses is that our powerful buffing characters are on fragile bodies. You remove that weakness, the army becomes wildly stronger.

you mentioned your perceived fundamental difference with @Canas being that guard has no role.... I think the real fundamental difference is that you think the army is oppressive. there is no way in hell this army is anything close to earning that adjective. at least in my own opinion based on armies that actually are oppressive... like zeentch...

 

[Putzfrau]

you mentioned your perceived fundamental difference with @Canas being that guard has no role.... I think the real fundamental difference is that you think the army is oppressive. there is no way in hell this army is anything close to earning that adjective. at least in my own opinion based on armies that actually are oppressive... like zeentch...

Seraphon and tzeentch are surprisingly close in playstyle. Outside of horrors... Seraphon dont really have anything quite like horrors haha.

Powerful magic, powerful shooting, teleporting, easy access to mortal wounds. I mean oppressive more in playstyle than anything. Seraphon aren't (and really have never been) a super fun army to play against. Just a lot of noninteractive stuff. Tons of casts with +3 or 4 so you never have to worry about unbinds, global unbinds which is still just so good, bound endless spells, infinite range mortal wounds.

And then there's the shooting. Salamanders, skinks, bastiladons, stegadons, razordons... it's all strong and it all gets really good really fast (some obviously more than others) with a few easy to apply buffs.

Combine that with an infinite range, no limitation teleport and it can be a pretty non-interactive experience for your opponent.

 

[Nart]

Flamers are also worse than salamanders. They have way higher threat range and can go to 2+/2+ rerollable with all the buffs applied. LoC also has several tricks. I doubt that he is worse than kroak in terms of character sniping and survivability, but it also has some annoying tricks. And, unlike seraphon, tzeentch can easily dictate first turn with 2-3 drops army.

And horrors make a huge difference. They are unkillable and they are deadly and the more you kill them, the more deadly they become and they can be easily returned.

Tzeentch also can easily gain access to Darkfire Demonrift - an absolutely busted spell in tzeentch armies.

I think, tzeentch is much higher in terms of oppresion compared to seraphon.

 

[Krissey]

Flamers are also worse than salamanders. They have way higher threat range and can go to 2+/2+ rerollable with all the buffs applied. LoC also has several tricks. I doubt that he is worse than kroak in terms of character sniping and survivability, but it also has some annoying tricks. And, unlike seraphon, tzeentch can easily dictate first turn with 2-3 drops army.

And horrors make a huge difference. They are unkillable and they are deadly and the more you kill them, the more deadly they become and they can be easily returned.

Tzeentch also can easily gain access to Darkfire Demonrift - an absolutely busted spell in tzeentch armies.

I think, tzeentch is much higher in terms of oppresion compared to seraphon.

limited experience as I’m still in the planning stages of my Seraphon army: but having had experience playing vs Changehost yeah. Its rough.

infernal gateway is a lot stronger than stellar Tempest imo. Also every Tzeentch daemon hero has an aura iirc that makes themselves and units -1 to hit at the very least in melee. Being that I used Ironjawz versus them all my games idk about shooting.

the thing is they allegedly have these bad saves.... but they’re somehow still really tanky with the -1 to be hit and 5+ or 6+ FNP etc. in my experience they do not feel as fragile as they purportedly are and I will tell you: having 2 phases of taking wounds without anyway to counteract it is really tough.

Ironjawz live and die by the combat phase and having your best units or characters sniped or with proper screening just having your ArdBoyz whittled down to 2 by magic, then by shooting leaves you with not much punch when it comes to the combat phase even though it’s not Tzeentchs strong suit. Nonetheless it’s not like they DONT get a combat phase - whereas as Ironjawz I basically didn’t have a magic or shooting phase. (Weirdknob Shaman sucks and if I brought him he has 1 Spell and no bonuses and can easily be shut down by TZEENTCH and Maw-Krusha has a scream attack for ranged and that’s it for my entire army.) so honestly it’s super appealing to me to play Seraphon who have a say in all 3 phases. Maybe against other live or die by melee armies my Seraphon might be able to weaken them so much when it comes time for melee there’s not a lot of force left behind that fiat.... cuz I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of game...

 

[LordBaconBane]

Guards should have a 2" range. Have you seen the size of their halberds?

 

[Dread Saurian]

The problem is when you make other heroes better the army becomes more oppressive than it already is.

One of our only weaknesses is that our powerful buffing characters are on fragile bodies. You remove that weakness, the army becomes wildly stronger.

Boy do i have some news for you. We are not oppressive. I myself am oppressive because my triple dread army is oppressive. Otherwise against a metric load of armies out there we normally fit somewhere in the upper middle bracket. SCE. BOK. And slaanesh for starters really mess up my memestack for starters

 

[Grotpunter]

I think it depends on what you understand by something being oppressive. In my book an army is oppressive if it is uninteractive to play against, not necessarily broken OP/stupidly strong, although those things often correlate. Something being uninteractive but super weak isnt really a big deal.

The playstyle Starborne is currently used for on TTS is certainly somewhat uninteractive to play against for all the reasons @Putzfrau mentioned. All the reports I have heard of suggest the same, especially bound Endless spells.

The power level is imo abit hard to judge. Seraphon did incredible the first TTS tournament. Seraphon still got a couple of good results in the second TTS tournament, but less than the first. Could be bad matchups, bad luck, people doing silly things (meme lists, not taking it too serious) or teching to beat Seraphon specifically etc.

I still dont think it is a proper showcase of how Seraphon will perform on the real tables. There were zero Destruction armies in the recent TTS tournament as an example. There is also the “new book syndrome” with likely many “gotcha” moments during plays. People complained endlessly about OBR the first couple of months, but people somewhat figured out how to beat them now.

 

[Canas]

The way to beat armies like Seraphon is typically to kill the heroes. If you make them semi immortal, you kinda remove one of our few weaknesses.

Our army in general is still squishy, and it's not like a skink priest with his 5+ save is going to become immortal even if you give him 10 extra wounds. It just means he doesn't need to hide from literally everything because at only 4 wounds it's realistic even MSU units of fairly mediocre archers or wizard throwing a stray spell can kill him in a lucky round..

They are battleline and "only" 40 points more than a unit of Skinks. If I could ensure none of my Skink heroes would ever die, I would likely replace my Skinks screens with Saurus Guards and just summon the Skinks in later on.

If you do that you'l have less screens, you have less mobile screens, your screens won't be able to provide fire support, and most importantly your screens will be glued to your heroes forcing you to either send your priests far further forward than you'd really want them to or forcing your army to hang back making it rather difficult to control objectives. Simply put, if you use your guard + priest as your frontline you might survive the initial charge, but you're probably losing your priest turn 2 at the latest alongside what's left of your screen.

Also, a hero + bodyguards is suspectible to AoE attacks like a dracoths breath & endless spells.

imho, all perfectly valid drawbacks to keep things balanced.

I actually like the current design of how you can invest more and more into Kroak depending on how big of a role you want him to be in the army. You can put him in naked at 320 for CPs, throw a couple of odd spells etc. Then if you want more, you can "upgrade" him with a Balewind, Astrolith, maybe an ordinary Slann for +1 to cast, a unit or two of Saurus Guards. The investment is now between 320 and 960 points depending on if you want a Nagash-like character in your army.

From the perspective of Kroak/Slann it's fine, from the perspective of the guards it's not.

This seems to be our fundamental disagreement. They have a distinct, useful battlefield role. You want them to be like every other unit.

No, i don't want them to be like every other unit, I just want them to be more than a glorified upgrade for Slann.

And about the skink point EVERYONE would pay an extra 100 points to give a skink priest 10 more wounds. Everyone. And again, that's not even mentioning that they aren't just ablative wounds.

For one skink, sure. For 4-5 heroes, way too much of a tax.

You keep referencing your castle being stuck uselessly in a corner somewhere. Why? Who plays like that? Having unkillable heroes means you can you know, not hide them all game? it gives you the flexibility to be more aggressive. Also, by the nature of their wholly within abillities, Starpriests and Priests already werent' stuck in a corner all game. This just makes it so while they apply their crazy powerful buffs, you actually dont have to worry about them dying. And even if you did have to ball up in a corner for whatever reason, most seraphon lists have enough damage to literally ignore objectives for the first turns.

Good luck sending your skink & guard to go and fight a doomstar, or even just your average ~200 point frontline unit/hero, at 170-240 points you'd want them to be trading blows with things like a carnosaur, or more elite units like 5 retributors. All of which will easily chew through your little group of guards.
The only extent to which this allows you to be more aggresive is that you no longer have to worry about a stray spell or MSU of halfway decent archers accidently killing your priest, so you can go within 10" of your target instead of hovering at max range or desperatly trying to hide behind a stegadon/piece of terrain. And when an assasin deepstrikes you're not guaranteed to die. But it's still nowhere near a combo that you'd want to send into the frontline.

And again, 14-15 wounds with a 5+ save is nowhere near immortal.

And just so you know, seraphon are 100% broken enough to pay for ablative wounds because those wounds makes the most important pieces of our army function. There are tons of lists out there running minimum battleline (5-10 guard/10 skinks/10 skinks). You don't think those lists that rely primarily on salamanders (that need priests) and Kroak for damage wouldn't want to ensure those vital pieces live longer?

Teleporting salamanders are essentially broken and need a look at, which is an independent issue from this.

I don't mean to jump all over you, i'm just honestly baffled. You seem to argue that guard don't have a role, while ignoring the obvious role they have in favor of giving them more damage? We have TONS of units in our book that deal damage. We don't need anymore.

They have a role as a glorified upgrade, not as an actual unit. Also, i'm not necesarly saying they need more damage, I'm saying I want a reason to bring them over knights & warriors other than to upgrade my slann.

he's arguing that under current circumstances they are pigeon holed into only one role, and that it isn't taken for anything other than 10 wounds. which limits the lists you would see them in and makes them a less overall value to the army.

This. I want them to be more than just a slann upgrade.

@Canas guard literally guarded Mazdamundi on his stegadon so I have to disagree, not only is the guard ability working on mounted heroes not absurd, its in the lore.

I was mostly thinking about a carnosaur (or troglodon), a stegadon or bastiladon works a bit better as its shorter and there's actually a point to guarding its back and flanks. Whereas with a carnosaur you'd mostly just be getting in the way.

The playstyle Starborne is currently used for on TTS is certainly somewhat uninteractive to play against for all the reasons @Putzfrau mentioned. All the reports I have heard of suggest the same, especially bound Endless spells.

Imho LoSaT, summoning & unfeeling should not have been subfaction abilities. Teleporting, 10 bravery & summoning are simply far too impactfull and it's far too easy to turn a reasonable unit into something ridiculous by giving them acces to these tools (without giving any significant drawbacks). Salamanders are probably the most obvious examples of this, in coalesced they're fine, in starborne they're basicly broken to the point you get pure salamander lists as LoSaT and 10 bravery solves the only drawbacks salamanders had (relativly short range, and easy to kill as the handlers are basicly useless in coalesced due to their low bravery).

imho either those mechanics shouldn't have been subfaction mechanics, but faction mechanics, or the two subfactions need to get seperate pointcosts and basicly be treated as seperate armies. But currently it seems like a lot of things that'd be reasonable in one subfaction would be OP/UP in the other subfaction mostly due to these 3 tools.​

 

[ILKAIN]

Seraphon and tzeentch are surprisingly close in playstyle. Outside of horrors... Seraphon dont really have anything quite like horrors haha.

Powerful magic, powerful shooting, teleporting, easy access to mortal wounds. I mean oppressive more in playstyle than anything. Seraphon aren't (and really have never been) a super fun army to play against. Just a lot of noninteractive stuff. Tons of casts with +3 or 4 so you never have to worry about unbinds, global unbinds which is still just so good, bound endless spells, infinite range mortal wounds.

And then there's the shooting. Salamanders, skinks, bastiladons, stegadons, razordons... it's all strong and it all gets really good really fast (some obviously more than others) with a few easy to apply buffs.

Combine that with an infinite range, no limitation teleport and it can be a pretty non-interactive experience for your opponent.

are you kidding me right now? we had a whopping +1 to cast before the book, and we are THE MOST POWERFUL MAGES IN THE LORE and we were out-cast by rejects from the old world that had to band together to draw breath another day.

where the heck are you getting no limit teleporting from? one unit once a turn. 9" away. those are pretty significant limits.

 

[Grotpunter]

Most other teleports have a wholly within range limitation on cast and cant teleport a unit if within a certain distance of an enemy unit. We can take any unit anywhere on the board to anywhere else 9” away (standard deepstrike limit that applies everywhere), thats almost as “no limit”as it gets.

 

[ILKAIN]

Most other teleports have a wholly within range limitation on cast and cant teleport a unit if within a certain distance of an enemy unit. We can take any unit anywhere on the board to anywhere else 9” away (standard deepstrike limit that applies everywhere), thats almost as “no limit”as it gets.

and point for point our units suffer in ability to make up for it. balance is across the tome, not one ability. and those rules are still very solid limitations. Old C-skinks had a limitless teleport. literally into base to base if they wanted.

 

[Putzfrau]

are you kidding me right now? we had a whopping +1 to cast before the book, and we are THE MOST POWERFUL MAGES IN THE LORE and we were out-cast by rejects from the old world that had to band together to draw breath another day.

where the heck are you getting no limit teleporting from? one unit once a turn. 9" away. those are pretty significant limits.

I dont know why you're talking about the old book. I only mentioned that really every competitive iteration of seraphon has been a non-interactive experience for your opponent. Whether it was skink clouds of WHFB, kroaknado version 1, 2 or the current one, thunderquake rerolling all hits, wounds, and saves on bastis, or shadowstrike dropping 3 inches away with rippers or terradons. The plastic of all of those lists is irritating to play against (generally) because its avoidance, shooting, and magic based.

Very few armies can instantly teleport any unit on the table, to anywhere else (assuming outside of 9).

Didn't know I had to specify you couldn't drop within 9. Almost nothing can, so not being able to do it just feels... normal?

Not really sure what else can be said on this topic. I think guard are fine and buffing them would mean their unique battlefield role would have to suffer because they'd be too strong otherwise.

No one thinks a skink priest and 5 guard are going to charge into anything, but that was never really the point.

But seraphon are an incredibly strong army who have one very clear weakness. Weak supporting characters. Make that weakness less of a weakness and a strong army just gets better. Id love guard to protect skink units but i think there would need to be a trade off. They only apply a 5+++ instead of eating the wound. Only works on a 4+ all of the time. I dunno.

 

[Canas]

Not really sure what else can be said on this topic. I think guard are fine and buffing them would mean their unique battlefield role would have to suffer because they'd be too strong otherwise.

Id love guard to protect skink units but i think there would need to be a trade off. They only apply a 5+++ instead of eating the wound. Only works on a 4+ all of the time. I dunno.

Reasonable tradeoffs are of course always an option, and providing a 5+++ would already be great. I just want them to be an independent unit instead of a glorified upgrade for the slann.

Imho I'd try something like the following:

Guard:
- 5+ ward save (to solidify them as our heavy troops and distinguish them from warriors/knights)
- Selfless protectors is never affected by ward save, if they jump in front of a friendly hero to protect him they take the wound (to preven the ward save from resulting in immortal slann)
- Selfless protectors works for all unmounted seraphon heroes on a 4+ (to protect our squishy support stuffs to some extent while not immeadiatly making them super sturdy either)

Warden:
- Same changes as the guard
- When within 6" of a warden Selfless protectors triggers on a 2+
- Command ability to be something more usefull specificly for guard to distinguish it from the oldblood's command

It makes them distinct from warriors & knights. It helps keep our support heroes from dying to everyone that looks at them funny. It gives the warden a purpose (seriously what is his current purpose? He's worse than a msu of guards). And it has enough drawbacks with all the positional requirements that it shouldn't be overpowering.

 

[KingCheops]

Guards should have a 2" range. Have you seen the size of their halberds?

This is the most sensible change. Moving from 1" bases to 32mm bases ruined Guard with their 1" range. Polearms are 2". Make this change and suddenly 10+ units of guard become viable and gain a new role.

 

[Grotpunter]

and point for point our units suffer in ability to make up for it. balance is across the tome, not one ability. and those rules are still very solid limitations. Old C-skinks had a limitless teleport. literally into base to base if they wanted.

I think you would be hardpressed to find another teleport ability with fewer restrictions.