AoS The new Battletome: A Discussion

[Nart]

Also, one more thing I forgot to mention. We want to have a triumph now. Really, I rolled for ferocious and used it on skink volley in my first game and went fishing for mortal wounds. All other triumphs are handy too, except for rerolling run rolls. So, I think, it is better to fill 20-50 remaining points free, if you don't have anything paticular to fill them with.

And do you have any ideas how to deal with deployment choices? I have a fleeing that I have zero chance to chose who goes first, even with battalion.

 

[Carnikang]

I think we just have to adapt to being defensive or aggressive with our deployments. It's honestly better to be defensive if you're told to go first, and prepare to get doubled.

Triumphs seem like something I'll have to see if local events implement more readily. I think most of us forget them.

 

[Canas]

That would make a lot of sense. But there a lot of people (including every reviewer making videos) who all seem to think that the Slann/Oracle are only able to give up one spell per round.

there does seem to be a whole lot of bandwagoning going on though. As well as several people bending over backwards to defend it (or discredit the "you can use multiple spells"-viewpoint). Hell I've seen someone claim that the way it now works would be:

- I choose to cast arcane bolt
- Before casting I generate CCP
- Reduce # of casts by 1.
- Do I still have enough casts?
- Yes, cast arcane bolt
- Not, my previous choice of casting arcane bolt gets canceled.

And all of this is 1 action.

Which is honestly the weirdest way of interpreting this rule I've ever seen as it somehow makes the CCP generation part of the cast of that 1st spell. And also somehow means that that first cast somehow consumes 2 spellcasts. Which is just weird...

That's only if you take one slaan/Oracle. Remember you can sacrifice spells with any amount of models now, rather than just your general. In the case of only sacrificing one spell the slaan is equal to an astrolith if you only take one.

yes, if you bring a full army of slann it works, but we all know that'd be stupid. Any realistic army requires an excessive amount of heroes to generate CCP and even then it requires a good chunk of luck.

The fact is that you shouldn't be tied to that stupid "d3 CCPs".
I get that we gain less points than before, that you need to invest more resources to gain them, and that summoning cost is now higher. But i cannot stand the random part.

If it was at least 3 (or even 2) points fixed it'd at least reliably get somewhere, even with only 1 spell sacrificed per slann. But now a single bad turn can mean the entire army falls apart even if you did bring 5 slann...

Talking about bravery.
There is quite a number of _different_ (thus stacking) bravery debuffing abilities in our army. I wonder if we can build a list that forces the enemy to run (or spend their CP for gaining immunity).

Saurus Knights + Carnosaur + Purple Sun + Gnashing Jaws is a -4 already, and if both spells are bound and our army is Coalesced (so not affected by the debuff of the Purple Sun) then it can just accompany the Firelance Templehost, so some damage and cause some fun in the battleshock phase.

But now that I have read through the rules a few times I think my first two list attempts will be
- shooting army, Skink based.
- magic army, using bound endless spells.
Probably not competitive but I mostly play for fun anyway.

There's also the slann healing spell that adds a bravery debuff as well. Unfortunatly battleshock protection is far too common for this to be truly good...

 

[Grotpunter]

I think we just have to adapt to being defensive or aggressive with our deployments. It's honestly better to be defensive if you're told to go first, and prepare to get doubled.

Triumphs seem like something I'll have to see if local events implement more readily. I think most of us forget them.

Yeah I think very few specific lists will have lowish drops. Any lists that focus on Skinks are gonna be hard pressed to have below 5 drops (3x Skink battleline, Slann/Kroak + 1 batallion, and that is without any Priest/Starpriest/Starseer) in which case you might as well go fuck it and not care how many drops you got and instead optimize your list.

Bound Endless Spells will certainly help with the double turn. My issue with it is that there is really no incentive for the opponent to give up the double turn vs us. If they take it, we move the Endless spells. If they give us the turn.. We get to move the Endless spells AND shoot/rain magic on them. Normally people might think twice if Geminids/Purple Sun is about to tear into their army, but now they have no choice.

 

[Grotpunter]

yes, if you bring a full army of slann it works, but we all know that'd be stupid. Any realistic army requires an excessive amount of heroes to generate CCP and even then it requires a good chunk of luck.


If it was at least 3 (or even 2) points fixed it'd at least reliably get somewhere, even with only 1 spell sacrificed per slann. But now a single bad turn can mean the entire army falls apart even if you did bring 5 slann...

I think many still see summoning in Starborne as a tactic on its own/main way of playing, instead of seeing it as a tool to assist your army. You can totally make a Starborne army with teeth/gas on its own, and summoning will just be a tool in your toolbox on the side.

Many lists will have a Slann/Kroak and maybe an Astrolith. Thats already 6 pts on average which is enough for 10 Skinks. Some lists will be very viable with a Kroak AND Slann in their list, which is an average of 8 pts.

 

[PJetski]

Can the Engine of the Gods take Thunder Lizard Prime War-Beast?

"A THUNDER LIZARD general with a MONSTER mount must have this command trait"

The Engine of the Gods does not have a mount (since the beast itself IS the mount) instead it has a crew. Although the crew is treated as a mount for rule purposes, it still isn't a mount.

RAW I think you cant take this Command Trait. What do you think?

 

[Shocksem]

Can the Engine of the Gods take Thunder Lizard Prime War-Beast?

"A THUNDER LIZARD general with a MONSTER mount must have this command trait"

The Engine of the Gods does not have a mount (since the beast itself IS the mount) instead it has a crew. Although the crew is treated as a mount for rule purposes, it still isn't a mount.

RAW I think you cant take this Command Trait. What do you think?

You are correct, it cannot take the trait.

 

[Nart]

But doesn't "treated in the same manner as mount" mean being affected by artefact, which affects mount?

 

[PJetski]

But doesn't "treated in the same manner as mount" mean being affected by artefact, which affects mount?

I don't think so. Why bother writing a distinction for CREW? Why not just call it MOUNT like all the rest?

Also, the way GW writes rules is that "acting like X" isnt the same as "being X".

For example, if you had an ability (lets call it "A") that activated from attacks in the shooting phase, and another ability that allowed you to shoot in the hero phase "as if it were the shooting phase". "A" would not trigger if you shoot in the hero phase, since it is not actually the shooting phase, even though you are acting like it is. (See below for the entry from the FAQ)



Although its not a 1:1 comparison, I think this same logic carries over into a discussion MOUNT vs CREW. Although a CREW is treated as a mount for rule purposes, it is not actually a MOUNT.

The Engine of the Gods does not have a mount, so it would not get to benefit from an ability requires having a mount.
I'm not totally convinced either way... should probably request an errata/FAQ.

 

[Canas]

You are correct, it cannot take the trait.

Well that's just stupid...

I think many still see summoning in Starborne as a tactic on its own/main way of playing, instead of seeing it as a tool to assist your army. You can totally make a Starborne army with teeth/gas on its own, and summoning will just be a tool in your toolbox on the side.

Many lists will have a Slann/Kroak and maybe an Astrolith. Thats already 6 pts on average which is enough for 10 Skinks. Some lists will be very viable with a Kroak AND Slann in their list, which is an average of 8 pts.

There's several issues with the way summoning appears to work now.

First of it shouldn't be "just" a tool. It is one of our major faction/allegiance abilities, and arguably the "big" faction ability for starborne alongside the teleport. The "big" faction ability should not be a mere tool amongst many.

Second, it doesn't help that a minor support hero like a branchwraith can already put out more powerfull & reliable summoning than a slann + astrolith combined (on average). Making our mega-awesome faction ability rather dissapointing.

Third, there's obviously the fact that we go from flooding the board to barely summoning anything, which is just rather a large contrast.

Fourth, with everything being D3's it's just too unreliable and you will get games where you fail to summon more than a single unit of skinks if you're unlucky (And that's just bad rolls, I'm ignoring opponents who just murder your slann..) Alternativly, during lucky games you'l suddenly flood the board out of nowhere. Which is going to result in a very distorted view of how powerfull it is depending on luck, both amongst us as well as our opponents (that one guy who faced someone with 6 slanns that summoned 3 stegadons is going to be crying OP....)

As a minor sidenote, if you can actually use multiple casts per slann to generate CCP you end up on the other side where bringing 2-3 slann would be wildly overpowered, though the D3 does help a lot to keep that in check at least to some extend. But minor detail.

Anyway you look at it, on the whole this variant of summoning seems to be rather poorly thought out.

 

[Killer Angel]

Can the Engine of the Gods take Thunder Lizard Prime War-Beast?

"A THUNDER LIZARD general with a MONSTER mount must have this command trait"

The Engine of the Gods does not have a mount (since the beast itself IS the mount) instead it has a crew. Although the crew is treated as a mount for rule purposes, it still isn't a mount.

RAW I think you cant take this Command Trait. What do you think?

But it has the hero & monster keyword. It's eligible as general, and can take the trait.

 

[Nart]

Why bother writing a distinction for CREW? Why not just call it MOUNT like all the rest?

Probably, calling a bunch of skinks on the back of the big dinosaur felt wrong for GW. And what is the point of writing "treated as a mount" if there are literally no rules applied to it? The only stuff tied to mounts are command traits and artefacts. There is literally no reason to mention, that it is treated like a mount, if it is not affected by artefacts.

If crew is not affected by prime warbeast, because it is not actually a mount, then it should be affected by other command traits and artefacts for the same reason.

I think this same logic carries over into a discussion MOUNT vs CREW

Sorry, but this is completely different case. The example is a completely different dimension of the game. The question about the phases and it has absolutely different impact on the game and its own logic behind it. And there's no point in trying to guess GW logic. Autoreply from rules team states that we should try to apply rules RAW if we are uncertain about them. And I cannot see how "For rules purposes, the crew are treated in the same manner as a mount." doesn't specifically apply to a command trait that affect mount attacks.

And, to be honest, there is no point in discussing this now, because it is going to be 100% FAQed. This is a huge annoying rule hole and I cannot imagine how GW didn't notice it when they've written the description. For once, I'm going stick to RAI here and wait for the FAQ.

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

Don't remember reading it anywhere on the forum, but I could have missed/forgotten it; I just noticed that the arcane vassal rule has infinite range for Troglodons, maybe that's why it is so expensive.

What exactly is the point of the Thunderlizards giving monsters 2 additional wounds? I mean it's cool and all, but the only thing you are getting is another two wounds when the monster is weakest, at which point it really won't do much, making the extra wounds seem really mediocre or is it just me who thinks that?

 

[Dread Saurian]

Don't remember reading it anywhere on the forum, but I could have missed/forgotten it; I just noticed that the arcane vassal rule has infinite range for Troglodons, maybe that's why it is so expensive.

What exactly is the point of the Thunderlizards giving monsters 2 additional wounds? I mean it's cool and all, but the only thing you are getting is another two wounds when the monster is weakest, at which point it really won't do much, making the extra wounds seem really mediocre or is it just me who thinks that?

Its to make the upper bracket of monsters have a better chance of staying in it so you can get the most out of your beastie. Thunder lizard coalesed to make sure you can mitigate damage being done is a viable strategy. I have been raving about how good it is to run that build vs d3 damage units

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

Its to make the upper bracket of monsters have a better chance of staying in it so you can get the most out of your beastie. Thunder lizard coalesed to make sure you can mitigate damage being done is a viable strategy. I have been raving about how good it is to run that build vs d3 damage units

But it doesn't actually make monsters stay in the upper bracket for longer?
To bracket say a Carnosaur, you need to deal it 3 wounds regardless of how many it has right? So giving it any number of additional wounds wouldn't change anything about that as far as I see it.

 

[PJetski]

We have a lot of ways to heal, between the EOTG and spells and endless spells.

 

[Nart]

I mean it's cool and all, but the only thing you are getting is another two wounds when the monster is weakest

Weak monster is still a monster and it can do lots of stuff. But more importantly, you can heal it back.

 

[Cuetzpal Pilli]

I'm with @Nart, pretty sure the "treated as mount for rules purposes" is exactly for this type of situation: the crew is affected as if they were the mount. No restrictions caused by this.

Giving Prime Warbeast to the Stegadon w/ Skink Chief is better as it gives the "crew-mount" an additional attack to any of its weapon options: skystreak bow/sunfire throwers & javelins. This trait wouldn't really benefit the EoTG "crew" much as they only have javelins. I believe the EoTG can take skink artifacts tho since it is a Skink hero, but they will affect the actual stegadon's attacks since the normal stegadon w/ chief has wording strictly restricting command traits & artifacts to affecting only the Chief's attacks. The EoTG doesn't have this restriction.

...oh man...modeling a Sacred Stegadon Helm, on an actual Stegadon would be so frikkin' cool, haha!!!

(This is my interpretation btw, so please, take it with a heap of salt lol)

 

[Dread Saurian]

But it doesn't actually make monsters stay in the upper bracket for longer?
To bracket say a Carnosaur, you need to deal it 3 wounds regardless of how many it has right? So giving it any number of additional wounds wouldn't change anything about that as far as I see it.

Huh thought it would with it being coalesed and having the -1 damage on everything but the dice gods are the dice gods. But I'm just a capital war beast with a fuckload of wounds

 

[Jason839]

I’m excited that sylvaneth are our allies now. I’m looking forward to seeing the crazy things people can do with their ability to summon dryads and heal lots of wounds.