AoS So.... are Seraphon really that bad?

[Joshua Horchler]

Yes we do have them in others as well,


Yes we have other sources, But a couple of remarks.

1) Imagine how much more potent our buffs would be if we could actually field 2 starpriests.
2) Half of the units in that list aren't there for the buffs. The buffs take them from monstrous fighter to capable general/captain. But their main value doesn't lie in their buffs. Unlike the starpriest and priest who are pretty much solely there for the buffs.

Our other buffs are by no means weak, but they're never the focus of that particular unit.

I agree with you in some respects but my only issue is the extra bonus from Seraphon being able to cast the same spell twice or more would be well negated by the ability of other armies to cast the same spell more than once. It keeps the game a bit more balanced the way it its. In my opinion they should give more options for spells/more spells known. That way you can bring more mages but it prevents people from stacking spells to create broken combos.

Also I would argue that almost all those things on that list are better for their buffs, not their individual model. Most of the things on that list are the backbones of a lot of good lists. Even Oldblood on a Carnosaur, a powerful model by itself can create so much value in a Bloodclaw.

I would love to cast 2 Summon Starlight on my 40 man warrior block, but at the same time I don't want to face something like that, so I, personally, am I okay with the spells and I don't mind relying on our "ability based" buffs.

 

[Canas]

I agree with you in some respects but my only issue is the extra bonus from Seraphon being able to cast the same spell twice or more would be well negated by the ability of other armies to cast the same spell more than once. It keeps the game a bit more balanced the way it its. In my opinion they should give more options for spells/more spells known. That way you can bring more mages but it prevents people from stacking spells to create broken combos.

Also I would argue that almost all those things on that list are better for their buffs, not their individual model. Most of the things on that list are the backbones of a lot of good lists. Even Oldblood on a Carnosaur, a powerful model by itself can create so much value in a Bloodclaw.

I would love to cast 2 Summon Starlight on my 40 man warrior block, but at the same time I don't want to face something like that, so I, personally, am I okay with the spells and I don't mind relying on our "ability based" buffs.

O for clarity, stacking 2 starlights on a 40 man block is stupid and I agree that that should be impossible. However casting a starlight on block 1 and a starlight on block 2 should be more than possible. It also doesn't help that spells are the only thing affected by that rule, while abilities aren't. This leaves armies like the stormforged that have no wizards but plenty of abilities somehow weirdly powerfull in the hero/magicy phase while a magic-based faction like the seraphon is weirdly weak. Hence why I say that instead of the current rule of one I'd prefer it to be "a unit can only benefit/suffer from 1 copy of a spell at a time" alongside damage spells not being mortal wounds so spamming those doesn't end up being oppresive. And yes, we desperatly need a larger lists of spells for variation...

A for taking a carnosaur, I mean you don't pay the 360 points for its supporting ability. Let's say a 20% of the points are the supporting ability , the rest is the unit itself. However if you take the starpriest for comparision the division would be more 80% for its supporting ability and 20% for the unit itself. That's not to say the carnosaur's supporting abilities aren't very good, just that they're not the main value of the unit (in most situations).

 

[ljwylde]

I have to agree that the hero-hammer Bloodclaw meta is the way to go. The stacked buffs that are a given so long as ypu have smart positioning and your heroes do not die is fantastic for a fragile, hard-hitting army like ours. Here's a list I have been throwing around recently:

Oldblood on Carnosaur 320
Master of defence
Quicksilver potion
Scar-Vet on Carnosaur 260
Quicksilver potion
Sunblood 120
Sunblood 120
Eternity Warden 140
Scar Vet On Cold One 100
Relic Blade
Skink Starpriest 100

5x Guard 100
5x Guard 100
5x Guard 100
40x Warriors 400
5x Knights 120
10x Knights 240
5x Knights 120

Bloodclaw Starhost 100
Firelance Starhost 60

2500 points





The Saurus advance with a Sunblood up the middle and the guard take on flank with the warden to deny the flank. The other Sunblood roams around behind the carnosaurs who are hero-sniping in a pack with rerolls against there victim each turn. The carnosaurs have th e potions so they always get the activation. The Scar Veteran On Cold One and Knights dash up the other flank and start tearing chunks in the squishy backline come turn 2/3. The Oldblood provides buffs for those heroes around him and let's the others use their command ability. The eternity warden is not in the battalion because he has no command ability so he does not benefit. This is a rather fragile list, and the hope is that the starseer can give some mystic shield /summon starlight and serpent staff buffs to the Saurus block. This gives them even more attacks on a 6+, so they can engage quite a few units with a lot of attacks (+1 attack with jaws and shield because of Bloodclaw) when spread out 20-wide.

 

[Joshua Horchler]

O for clarity, stacking 2 starlights on a 40 man block is stupid and I agree that that should be impossible. However casting a starlight on block 1 and a starlight on block 2 should be more than possible. It also doesn't help that spells are the only thing affected by that rule, while abilities aren't. This leaves armies like the stormforged that have no wizards but plenty of abilities somehow weirdly powerfull in the hero/magicy phase while a magic-based faction like the seraphon is weirdly weak. Hence why I say that instead of the current rule of one I'd prefer it to be "a unit can only benefit/suffer from 1 copy of a spell at a time" alongside damage spells not being mortal wounds so spamming those doesn't end up being oppresive. And yes, we desperatly need a larger lists of spells for variation...

A for taking a carnosaur, I mean you don't pay the 360 points for its supporting ability. Let's say a 20% of the points are the supporting ability , the rest is the unit itself. However if you take the starpriest for comparision the division would be more 80% for its supporting ability and 20% for the unit itself. That's not to say the carnosaur's supporting abilities aren't very good, just that they're not the main value of the unit (in most situations).

"a unit can only benefit/suffer from 1 copy of a spell at a time"" I like that idea too.

Also I wasn't arguing that you take an Oldblood Carnosaur (320) only for his command ability. I was pointing out that being a good unit in terms of its dmg output and abilities are not mutually exclusive. The Oldblood is good at killing things and also good at buffing. You wouldn't pay 320 for only its dmg output or only its buff, but you would for both. I was also commenting on how our army works. An Oldblood next to some skink priests/star priest isn't worth anything. But if you run Bloodclaw, maybe even add a 2nd Oldblood as your warlord then a Carnosaur and 2 Scar vets, it's super powerful. You have to build around our reliable buffs to maximize their usefulness. When you do that, the abilities become more valuable. That was my point and I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to point out.

 

[Canas]

"a unit can only benefit/suffer from 1 copy of a spell at a time"" I like that idea too.

Also I wasn't arguing that you take an Oldblood Carnosaur (320) only for his command ability. I was pointing out that being a good unit in terms of its dmg output and abilities are not mutually exclusive. The Oldblood is good at killing things and also good at buffing. You wouldn't pay 320 for only its dmg output or only its buff, but you would for both. I was also commenting on how our army works. An Oldblood next to some skink priests/star priest isn't worth anything. But if you run Bloodclaw, maybe even add a 2nd Oldblood as your warlord then a Carnosaur and 2 Scar vets, it's super powerful. You have to build around our reliable buffs to maximize their usefulness. When you do that, the abilities become more valuable. That was my point and I think you may have misunderstood what I was trying to point out.

Ah as such. Yes you're right.

The point I was trying to make is that in that case you're not making a list with potent buffs working together to create a powerhouse out of a normally weak unit (the skink going off to slay the dragon). You're just using the synergies in our army.

Essentially our army has 3 major mechanics,

1) Magic, especially supporting magic as opposed to damaging magic
2) Summoning
3) Synergy between specific combinations of units when fielded near eachother

1 & 2 are in no way impressive, or even significantly different from other races under the current rules. Which leaves us with only 1 major mechanic and a relativly "weak" or "average" list. It's not impossible to make a "viable" list, but most good lists are probably going to not be mono simply because we need the other factions to give our "average" list an edge.

And for clarification, the list being average doesn't mean some of our units aren't great. Our monsters are fairly good. Just that our lists as a whole isn't "great" in the same way that say all stormforged are above average units but have no wizards as a tradeoff.

 

[Jason839]

You can't take two starpriest and cast 2 summon starlights but you can cast arcane shield on one target, summon starlight on another. And then you have 2 serpent staff abilities to use. Plus 2 dispels. So it's not as useless as you'd think. It's important not to get caught up on the 1 spell a turn clause. Plenty you can do with multiple wizards.

 

[Canas]

You can't take two starpriest and cast 2 summon starlights but you can cast arcane shield on one target, summon starlight on another. And then you have 2 serpent staff abilities to use. Plus 2 dispels. So it's not as useless as you'd think. It's important not to get caught up on the 1 spell a turn clause. Plenty you can do with multiple wizards.

Well take 3 starpriests, or 2 starpriests and a slann then, you get the point.. Plus you're probably still going to prefer a starpriest and a battlewizard (or some other combination) to get two special spells. Taking multiple of the same wizards is severly weaker with this rule than it would otherwise be. It's not useless they're just far weaker than it should be. And it kinda ruins wizard-based armies.

Also it's a rule that just rubs me the wrong way cuz it doesn't make any real sense. balancingwise its overkill to tone down spamming of spells (and doesn't solve the issue of spamming abilities, or stacking spells with the same practical effect but different names) and fluffwise it's just kinda stupid that your wizard can't cast his spell cuz his friend just did it..

 

[Joshua Horchler]

Every game has its flaws. It can be improved upon and I understand that you're not happy you can't play that exact army, but I would rather create a more strict rule set for competitive play so that the game doesn't turn into 40k. Also, this was the first version, so give them time. GW actually seems involved with the player base, which is new and a positive thing. The good thing about this game is that if you and your friends want to play with a summoning army you can. Just do it

 

[Canas]

Every game has its flaws. It can be improved upon and I understand that you're not happy you can't play that exact army, but I would rather create a more strict rule set for competitive play so that the game doesn't turn into 40k. Also, this was the first version, so give them time. GW actually seems involved with the player base, which is new and a positive thing. The good thing about this game is that if you and your friends want to play with a summoning army you can. Just do it

Meh I generally don't care for competitive play, and in my experience most games that balance with a focus on competitive play tend to not be very balanced. Issue being that that often means it needs to look flashy and because the competitive players will abuse every single advantage you can get certain common things get nerfed because in some specific combination and situation, which only the pro's use/can use, they become vastly overpowered while certain other things remain waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too powerfull on their own because in competitive play their counters are increadibly common but in "normal" play their counters are never used (usually things that get "countered" by being a better player). Admittadly a tabletop game might not have that as much, but I still think it's better to balance for normal play which in turn will make competitive play balanced.

Anyway yeah, for a first version it's quite good & they do seem considerably more involved than I expected given all the stories I've heared about GW. Let's just hope they improve it further ^^

And as for playing a summoning army with my friends. With the current rules summoning is either vastly overpowered, or far too weak. I have yet to find homebrew rules that I know work. Ones I have those, or better rules from GW then we could
A similar issue goes for magic, though at least that I can stop from being overpowered relativly simply. But the limited magic system will Always plague a wizard-based army as it is now.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Meh I generally don't care for competitive play, and in my experience most games that balance with a focus on competitive play tend to not be very balanced. Issue being that that often means it needs to look flashy and because the competitive players will abuse every single advantage you can get certain common things get nerfed because in some specific combination and situation, which only the pro's use/can use, they become vastly overpowered while certain other things remain waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too powerfull on their own because in competitive play their counters are increadibly common but in "normal" play their counters are never used (usually things that get "countered" by being a better player). Admittadly a tabletop game might not have that as much, but I still think it's better to balance for normal play which in turn will make competitive play balanced.

Anyway yeah, for a first version it's quite good & they do seem considerably more involved than I expected given all the stories I've heared about GW. Let's just hope they improve it further ^^

And as for playing a summoning army with my friends. With the current rules summoning is either vastly overpowered, or far too weak. I have yet to find homebrew rules that I know work. Ones I have those, or better rules from GW then we could
A similar issue goes for magic, though at least that I can stop from being overpowered relativly simply. But the limited magic system will Always plague a wizard-based army as it is now.

This is my take on AOS and touching on the points you raise.

When GW launched AOS I think it was the aim to get new people into tabletop gaming, competitive play has evolved due to pressure from players rushed rules to meet the demand of players, summoning has never been balanced and as soon as competitive play was play tested summoning could be abused as could spell spam hence the "rule of one" etc which stops our army in it's tracks.

AOS is designed for freedom and slapping restrictions back on goes against the game design, if we are not playing competitive why are we conforming to the pitched battle rules? we don't have to we can house rule anything we want, so as a community I think we should come up with some house rules we can implement in our friendly games, from the discussions I've read over the past weeks I think you all have some good ideas and could easily balance summoning and magic.

So get those "homebrew rules" tweaked, and let's hope GHB2 sorts out magic and summoning because if it does not new players will not pick up Seraphon they will look at stronger armies.

Example of one of our rules: When we played AOS last year we still played with movement trays and did not "pile in" we just put the full try into combat, a house rule we use to make it easier for Archie to move models around.

I know my son (who is 10 btw) if he went into a GW shop and looked at the models he would go for big dinosaurs but if he talked to players and staff and they told him "great looking army but not top tier" he would come out with shiny Stormcast.

 

[Aginor]

I agree with most of your points, except one:

You talk about houseruling stuff, but that's not necessary. The GHB allows playing without points, a whole game mode called Open Play is designed for that. The basic rules don't even know anything else. So yes, it is absolutely allowed without any house rules to play that way. In that mode Seraphon are probably one of the strongest armies.

 

[Crowsfoot]

I agree with most of your points, except one:

You talk about houseruling stuff, but that's not necessary. The GHB allows playing without points, a whole game mode called Open Play is designed for that. The basic rules don't even know anything else. So yes, it is absolutely allowed without any house rules to play that way. In that mode Seraphon are probably one of the strongest armies.

Exactly so why play pitched when you can play open, I still think you need house rules regarding some aspects, 4 wizards all casting arcane bolt at the same target for example, would that happen in friendly play?

 

[Aginor]

Pitched battles balance stuff by numbers. Open Play "balances" by counting units and gut feelings of the players.
I prefer the pitched battle rules even though they make our army weaker. They are not perfect, but they are closer. Even among friends there can be rivalry and a desire to balance stuff.

As for your question:
Yes, I think that might happen in Open Play. It might be harmful or it might not be. I wasn't playing before the GHB release so I don't know: Did people bring a s***load of wizard and spam Arcane Bolts? Were people having fun before the GHB? Was everything grossly unbalanced?

 

[Canas]

I agree with most of your points, except one:

You talk about houseruling stuff, but that's not necessary. The GHB allows playing without points, a whole game mode called Open Play is designed for that. The basic rules don't even know anything else. So yes, it is absolutely allowed without any house rules to play that way. In that mode Seraphon are probably one of the strongest armies.

Cuz I enjoy playing vaguely balanced games, I can go and stomp my girlfriends stormforged by just summoning my entire collection over and over again... but it's not going to be much fun

The open play rules do virtually nothing to balance, the pitched battles at least provide a measurestick for the power of armies with their points. Unfortunatly pitched battles do then break magic & summoning which we have kind of a lot of. Most other armies seem more or less fine for the most part with pitched battle rules.

As for a crapton of wizards spamming arcane bolts, the ~1100 points worth of stormforged that we have have 3 seperate reliable sources of ranged mortal wounds, one even being an AoE of with a 2" radius, and another melee source of mortal wounds. They're not subject to the rule of one, you can't unbind them like spells, which means there's no real counter to them (or well, summon starlight helps against the melee one, but that's it..). Frankly those abilities seem better in a lot of aspects than arcane bolt. And when I played my girlfriend the other day they slaughtered my forces. Those mortal wounds alone killed about 60-70% of my forces, if not more. So I wouldn't say stopping people from stacking wizards did much to solve that issue. And it's not even like most wizards are amazing units in themselfs if you take away their magic, whereas those 4 units are still good even without the mortal wounds abilities. Essentially the rule of one doesn't seem to have fixed anything with respect to mortal wounds spam...

 

[InfamousBeany]

I can't help but feel that this thread is just shouting into the void a bit now, but I'd like to give my opinion.

A lot of the issues we are bringing up here are fixed in newer armies' latest rule books- coincidentally starting with Sylvaneth that launched alongside the General's handbook.

We are in the unfortunate position of having had our new shiny book way before the GH was even mentioned, so our army was designed exclusively to play in Open Play as it were. How I feel GW could fix this is that with the Generals Handbook 2.0 they include spells/command traits/artifacts for all currently released factions. This would instantly level the playing field across the board, and retroactively buff us.

If you look at the work they have put into the Tzeentch book (would recommend, very nice)- they now have an identity of their own, with people incentivised to run them as a pure standalone army (for their cool fluffy and powerful abilities) but without sacrificing their ability to play nice with other Chaos factions (being able to splash in other factions is one of the big draws of the game to me, it adds so many options to creative list building). If we had our own unique army traits, I feel like it would go a long way to fixing the weaknesses we have in regards to other armies, as well as really help to define what our identity is. Imagine something like an artifact exclusive to us that lets the bearer use a spell already cast this turn? Or an army exclusive spell that lets Slann replenish nearby units of battleline like Death units? The possibilities are endless.

The only thing we can do now though is wait- we are at the mercy of GW's R&D department.

Either that, or check out some of the excellent fan based points systems that were used before GW released their own- provides a semblance of balance without being too restrictive.

But seriously GW give me some new cool dinosaurs pls

 

[Crowsfoot]

I can't help but feel that this thread is just shouting into the void a bit now, but I'd like to give my opinion.

A lot of the issues we are bringing up here are fixed in newer armies' latest rule books- coincidentally starting with Sylvaneth that launched alongside the General's handbook.

We are in the unfortunate position of having had our new shiny book way before the GH was even mentioned, so our army was designed exclusively to play in Open Play as it were. How I feel GW could fix this is that with the Generals Handbook 2.0 they include spells/command traits/artifacts for all currently released factions. This would instantly level the playing field across the board, and retroactively buff us.

If you look at the work they have put into the Tzeentch book (would recommend, very nice)- they now have an identity of their own, with people incentivised to run them as a pure standalone army (for their cool fluffy and powerful abilities) but without sacrificing their ability to play nice with other Chaos factions (being able to splash in other factions is one of the big draws of the game to me, it adds so many options to creative list building). If we had our own unique army traits, I feel like it would go a long way to fixing the weaknesses we have in regards to other armies, as well as really help to define what our identity is. Imagine something like an artifact exclusive to us that lets the bearer use a spell already cast this turn? Or an army exclusive spell that lets Slann replenish nearby units of battleline like Death units? The possibilities are endless.

The only thing we can do now though is wait- we are at the mercy of GW's R&D department.

Either that, or check out some of the excellent fan based points systems that were used before GW released their own- provides a semblance of balance without being too restrictive.

But seriously GW give me some new cool dinosaurs pls

As usual very well said.

 

[Canas]

So get those "homebrew rules" tweaked, and let's hope GHB2 sorts out magic and summoning because if it does not new players will not pick up Seraphon they will look at stronger armies.

Well I got bored and made up some stuff to fix at least some of the core issues, go have a look: http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/magic-ideas.19140/

 

[Joshua Horchler]

You're probably right and this conversation has devolved a little. I would just point out that word competitive is not synonymous with being a gaming jerk. I feel that people sometimes have a negative view towards the competitive scene and tournaments. I have never been to a tournament, where every player only brought super cheesey and "Op" lists. Ever. Look at LVO. Look at the top 8 and the armies played. This game has done a good job in its short lifespan of creating a fairly balanced game. I feel like the conclusion of this thread should be this:

AoS can be played in many different ways. Pick the way you want to play and don't judge others for wanting to play a different way. And if you're playing just for fun and don't like a rule, change it! It's "our" game, I don't think we have to argue about how we like to play it

Final conclusion (more on point of the thread) Seraphon can win tournaments. It's an older army with some aging parts, but the fun of playing Seraphon comes from its diversity of units and the synergies among them. Learn to maximize those synergies and play the missions and you will have a lot of success.

 

[Canas]

Yea, associating competitive with gaming jerk is something that I picked up from videogames..they seem to suffer from balancing around the "hardcore/pro"-level and the "pro's" then proceed to abuse the hell out of every single advantage thus resulting in frequent balancing issues on other levels of play... Not sure how common that is for games like AOS.

And yeah, fortunatly we're not a completly broken army, we are viable, just certain builds/tactics aren't and sadly our army favors those inherently. As I said earlier, basicly 2 out of 3 core advantages don't "work", the third still does and is enough to pull through. But if you want to use the other 2, though luck...

 

[Qupakoco]

Looks like we've got this sorted. Good job, lizards.