AoS Warhammer Weekly: Seraphon OP?

[chefofwar]

from a realistic game design approach what can actually be done in the next 1-2 faqs?

from what I have seen, the only thing GW could or would do is point adjustments. We just got a new book and warscrolls so they wont be putting out a new book adjusting profiles etc. unfortunately that means the only possible buffs for saurus could be a points drop? that doesnt seem like enough to make them combat friendly, just would turn into the new skinks.

I would like to see kroak get a small points bump just to make a little bit of extra thought in list creation. from a lore perspective, seeing lists all with the same unique god-hero at an event is just boring. that can be applied to any army. some extra points will force folks to weigh a couple options for what they are going for. but what about instead of bumping kroak, reducing the slann price? I have no evidence to back that idea up, but it would let folks weigh the option of being able to include even more stuff in a generic slann list than kroak list.

From what I can see, GW was very successful with the seraphon book. they took a less popular army, rebranded it, buffed it up, and sold a bunch of stuff.

overall AoS seems great to me. I have rethought the whole "balance" debate many times through many game systems and you see the intangible factors shine through. matchup, opponent, your level of skill, dice (to a lesser extent) all swing outcomes away from the paper analysis. A bad player isnt going to auto win with a certain list, and a good player can win with less than optimal units. (see terradon thread elsewhere)

If a wargame somehow achieved perfect balance, I dont think it would be enjoyable for anyone because it wouldnt have the chance to be interesting or exciting. like the perfect utopia, future world you see in sci-fi movies. (also, what would we all talk about before, during, and after our games...) players wouldnt be out there crafting new lists to try and beat a certain combo, or trying out wonky units to discover a new combo.

"end of soap box"

 

[Jason839]

There's a lot they can do with a FAQ, they just choose not to. Easiest thing in the world would be to say coalesced scaley skin also affects mortal wounds. That's a big change that wouldn't be game breaking and would make a lot of units more appealing.

I personally believe GW doesn't like to make old units better. Their entire marketing strategy is base on power creep and chasing the new hotness. Making old stuff good would take away from the demand to buy new stuff.

 

[Canas]

from a realistic game design approach what can actually be done in the next 1-2 faqs?

Based on the previous GHB's and other supplements in white dwarf and what not the following has been introduced without a new tome:

- new subfactions
- new spell lores/prayers/artifacts/mount traits (basicly, anything that's a list of additional options)
- new battalions
- entirely new mechanics, or complete reworks of mechanics (e.g. see summoning, or endless spells that were introduced in a supplement)

Some of these could have quite an impact on us. Just imagine what simply getting a decent battalion option would do for say Kroxigor.

I would like to see kroak get a small points bump just to make a little bit of extra thought in list creation. from a lore perspective, seeing lists all with the same unique god-hero at an event is just boring. that can be applied to any army.

It makes perfect sense from a lore perspective. Tournaments are supposed to be the battles with the highest stakes, of course the most powerfull heroes will show up there

In all seriousness though, nerfing cuz the competitive scene doesn't obey the lore won't work. Tournament players will always bring the most broken stuff regardless of if that makes sense in the lore. Or even logically make sense. If today someone discovers that the best Ogor army to field consists of just gnoblars you'l see that at a tournament tomorow. Don't even try to keep that nonsense in check

 

[chefofwar]

Based on the previous GHB's and other supplements in white dwarf and what not the following has been introduced without a new tome:

- new subfactions
- new spell lores/prayers/artifacts/mount traits (basicly, anything that's a list of additional options)
- new battalions
- entirely new mechanics, or complete reworks of mechanics (e.g. see summoning, or endless spells that were introduced in a supplement)

Some of these could have quite an impact on us. Just imagine what simply getting a decent battalion option would do for say Kroxigor.

really? I did not know they went to that extent. that is cool and now I would love to see that! kroxigor are great.

from a being fair place, is that realistic in the near future? to me that would be a place GW would take some of the "lower tier" armies and throw them a bone first. seraphon are end of the line given the time line of the newest book.

from GW's space marine model: they will just release new infantry. a cross breed saurus and kroxigor species. charge $75 for 6 of them.

 

[Putzfrau]

I think the main issue is that we might be bringing a lot of different stuff, but it's also relativly easy to pick apart any individual threat. It's not too difficult to hamstring one of our threats by simply killing 1 or 2 key support models. So while we might start out with 4-5 significant threats we very quickly go down to 2-3. If you make our stuff more expensive, and thus force us to start with 2-3 threats you might end up creating a situation where we lose those threats too quickly because most of our units die to a stiff breeze.

In short; if they want to reduce the amount of threats we bring they're going to have to make up for that by making each individual threat more powerfull, especially defensivly, and a little less reliant on stacking buffs. Because otherwise we'l just be too easy to pick apart. And I'm sceptical GW will do that correctly on the first try, they have the nasty tendency to nerf things far too heavily.

Relying on heroes for power is not something unique to seraphon, nor is killing them particularly easy if you're not lumineth (or seraphon).

Obviously there's always the risk of too heavy handed of a nerf. The fact that it could be done poorly isn't a reason to not do it, however I largely do think a kroak readjustment is all the army needs. Taking Kroak should be more of a consideration than it is now, and IMO his impact on the battlefield is just far too oppressive to be "reasonably" coasted. Teclis is arguably a worse caster (unarguably a worse damage caster), is less flexible, is easier to kill, and is still more expensive than the kroak package. Low wound high impact characters need a risk associated with bringing them, and right now taking Kroak simply isn't a risk.

I don't think seraphon need or deserve drastic nerfs across the board, but I think if the army had a small handful of 10 or 20 point increases we would be totally, totally fine. I've always thought if you adjust Kroak to 410 and Priests to 90 you would see far less of the arguments like vince is making.

I'll also mention, and seraphon has suffered from this problem before, the things seraphon is good at (magic, shooting, movement) are generally the most annoying areas to deal with from a pure gameplay standpoint. So I do think seraphon gets some undeserved hate, just because they excel at tactics that are a little less interactive than combat.

 

[Canas]

Relying on heroes for power is not something unique to seraphon, nor is killing them particularly easy if you're not lumineth (or seraphon).

It isn't just our heroes that are the problem here though. It's that nearly everything we got is 1) fairly easy to kill (or at least maim). and 2) nearly always quite bad on its own. It doesn't really matter if you kill the starpriest or the knights (or skinks, or big dinosaur or whatever he's buffing), either way the combo is now broken and whatever survived is now much weaker if not almost useless and none of them are particularly difficult to kill. A broad blanket point increase in that situation will 1) make each individual part even more useless and 2) have a cascading effect on the combo as a whole since it quickly adds up as we still need every part of the combo.

In short; while we might be undercosted as long as we're reliant on combo's with loads of easily destroyed moving parts we kind of need to be in order to have enough fallbacks for when inevitably one of our combo's gets broken. And yeah, that can be frustrating to fight against; as you can get into a situation where there's simply too many threats to deal with. Which is probably what frustrates a lot of people; they wipe out 1 or 2 threats and then get wiped out in turn by a backup threat, which they feel is unfair because they just killed those two other threats so where the hell is that third one coming from.

 

[chefofwar]

lizard threats be like

 

[Putzfrau]

It isn't just our heroes that are the problem here though. It's that nearly everything we got is 1) fairly easy to kill (or at least maim). and 2) nearly always quite bad on its own. It doesn't really matter if you kill the starpriest or the knights (or skinks, or big dinosaur or whatever he's buffing), either way the combo is now broken and whatever survived is now much weaker if not almost useless and none of them are particularly difficult to kill. A broad blanket point increase in that situation will 1) make each individual part even more useless and 2) have a cascading effect on the combo as a whole since it quickly adds up as we still need every part of the combo.

In short; while we might be undercosted as long as we're reliant on combo's with loads of easily destroyed moving parts we kind of need to be in order to have enough fallbacks for when inevitably one of our combo's gets broken. And yeah, that can be frustrating to fight against; as you can get into a situation where there's simply too many threats to deal with. Which is probably what frustrates a lot of people; they wipe out 1 or 2 threats and then get wiped out in turn by a backup threat, which they feel is unfair because they just killed those two other threats so where the hell is that third one coming from.

Everything that relies on support heroes is worse without the support heroes (or the thing they are supporting). Articulating that doesnt actually make it a bad thing, or inherently problematic. It's literally the nature of that specific interaction, an interaction a lot of armies rely on. And as i mentioned, "just kill the heroes" is a lot easier said than done for a vast, vast majority of the armies in the game. Especially when the army with those heroes has access to summoning, teleporting, cheap bodies, along with some of the best magic and shooting in the game. Our "general squishyness" is massively mitigated by the fact that we can hit harder, at range, with mortal wounds, and never really need to be "out of position" given the massive movement advantages the army has access too.

Also, that's all even assuming our army "falls apart" or is "increasingly useless" if we start to lose those pieces. Which i don't, but that's a separate argument.

You'll also note i didn't advocate for "broad blanket point increases" and specifically said "I don't think seraphon need or deserve drastic nerfs across the board, but I think if the army had a small handful of 10 or 20 point increases we would be totally, totally fine." before explaining which units i thought deserved those point increases (kroak and skink priests.)

Regardless, i think there's something to be said about the fact that even modest criticisms of our book (2 units could use a point increase) are generally met with a significant level of dismissiveness on this forum and only this forum. Just seems like there's a fundamental disconnect between the community playing against seraphon and some of the community playing seraphon. Why do you think that is?

 

[Canas]

Everything that relies on support heroes is worse without the support heroes (or the thing they are supporting). Articulating that doesnt actually make it a bad thing, or inherently problematic. It's literally the nature of that specific interaction, an interaction a lot of armies rely on.

Yes it's a completly valid playstyle, but for that playstyle to be viable you need to be able to reliable keep your support heroes (and what they support) alive.
Which means that either A) stuff needs to be plentifull enough that you have plenty of fallbacks should one combo be ripped apart B) The army needs to have a powerfull support core that can defend themselves should the troops that they support die. Or C) supports are crucial to reach maximum potential, but the base-power of units is decent enough that even unsupported they're a credible threat if your opponent isn't carefull.

We're an example of A, and that playstyle has the downside that an opponent can be frustrated because he can be faced with an "endless" horde of threats if he can't cut us down quickly enough to break all our various fallbacks before one of our threats gets to wreck havoc on his army.

If you want us to bring less threats while remaining a viable army then you need to change our playstyle to go more in the direction of either B or C.

And as i mentioned, "just kill the heroes" is a lot easier said than done for a vast, vast majority of the armies in the game.

Especially when the army with those heroes has access to summoning, teleporting, cheap bodies, along with some of the best magic and shooting in the game. Our "general squishyness" is massively mitigated by the fact that we can hit harder, at range, with mortal wounds, and never really need to be "out of position" given the massive movement advantages the army has access too.

Also, that's all even assuming our army "falls apart" or is "increasingly useless" if we start to lose those pieces. Which i don't, but that's a separate argument.

The point I'm trying to make isn't that we're weak. The point I'm trying to make is that this is inherent to an army that is designed like this.
An army focused on combo's with multiple moving parts, with weak base-stats & underwhelming defenses is going to have to bring multiple threats because those combo's will inevitably be broken down as the moving parts get removed one by one. And this is, by it's nature relativly frustrating to deal with for opponents as it can feel like playing wake-a-mole, where when you destroy one threat another immeadiatly pops up. Add in summoning & movement shenanigans with skirmishing skinks and this gets even worse. Especially if the opponent fails to notice how much damage he is doing and how much effort it takes to keep your remaining threats viable.

You'll also note i didn't advocate for "broad blanket point increases" and specifically said "I don't think seraphon need or deserve drastic nerfs across the board, but I think if the army had a small handful of 10 or 20 point increases we would be totally, totally fine." before explaining which units i thought deserved those point increases (kroak and skink priests.)

I was under the impression those were simply examples of a broader list of units you'd give 10-20 point increases to.

Regardless, i think there's something to be said about the fact that even modest criticisms of our book (2 units could use a point increase) are generally met with a significant level of dismissiveness on this forum and only this forum. Just seems like there's a fundamental disconnect between the community playing against seraphon and some of the louder voices on this forum. Why do you think that is?

Honestly, increasing Kroak by 10-20 points probably doesn't change much.

Increasing starpriests by 10-20 points imho would be quite bad though, you're already paying quite a lot for a hero who's super squishy and who can't do anything on his own. And with a 10-20 point increase you'l be closing in on 150 for a pure support hero that dies to a stiff breeze.

As for the disconnect; people on other forums simply want the frustrating bits removed. People on here might agree with removing the frustrating bits but realize that some of those frustrating bits are currently cornerstones of our power, so removing them without giving something in return would simply end up making is rather weak which isn't much fun for us. And simply increasing point cost doesn't actually fix anything in our case.

 

[Putzfrau]

The point I'm trying to make isn't that we're weak. The point I'm trying to make is that this is inherent to an army that is designed like this.
An army focused on combo's with multiple moving parts, with weak base-stats & underwhelming defenses is going to have to bring multiple threats because those combo's will inevitably be broken down as the moving parts get removed one by one. And this is, by it's nature relativly frustrating to deal with for opponents as it can feel like playing wake-a-mole, where when you destroy one threat another immeadiatly pops up. Add in summoning & movement shenanigans with skirmishing skinks and this gets even worse. Especially if the opponent fails to notice how much damage he is doing and how much effort it takes to keep your remaining threats viable.

Totally see what you are saying. I think all of what you've said is totally fair.

I agree that changing kroak 10-20 points wouldn't change much, which is why i'd rather see a substantial increase to him than a more shotgun approach. I think starpriests could probably get a 10 point increase and no one would bat an eye, but i'd like to see what a fangs list looks like with a 410 point kroak before i start messing around with the more subtle differences.

Hopefully crucial units aren't nerfed into the ground without other, appropriate measures being taken (nerfing plague monks, but buffing stormvermin) BUT I do think at the moment we could definitely thrive with a handful of small, targeted point increases at the most egregious examples. Priests, Starpriests, and skinks are all probably too cheap, but if you increase the price of priests and starpriests i think it makes the cost of skinks more fair.

If you forced me to make a call on points adjustments it would probably look something like this:

Kroak - 380ish (410 really to get him out of other armies, but you'd have to do something to compensate for that IMO)
Priest - 90
Starpriest - 130

And then i'd honestly consider reducing the cost by 10ish on the Saurus foot heroes, Warriors (80/290 or 300) and even stegs. I'd totally prefer to give the foot saurus heros unique abilities like their skink counterparts, but i know warscroll changes happen so infrequently a point drop is probably all we can realistically hope for.

I think that makes warriors more attractive as basic battleline options (instead of all skinks all the time), helps saurus lists offset the increase to the starpriest, and forces your typical Kroaknado/skink spam list to make harder choices.

 

[Just A Skink]

Regardless, i think there's something to be said about the fact that even modest criticisms of our book (2 units could use a point increase) are generally met with a significant level of dismissiveness on this forum and only this forum. Just seems like there's a fundamental disconnect between the community playing against seraphon and some of the community playing seraphon. Why do you think that is?

I think this might be because people tend to react emotionally to things they like. Why do many Americans (English, French, etc.) love America (UK, France, etc.), and don't want to hear any criticisms of it? Why do Star Wars fans love it so much that they dismiss criticisms (or sequels/prequels)? Why is it that when some players have a tough time playing against, or defeating, a certain army they dismiss them as OP, such as Warhammer Weekly?

Personally, I have yet to see the "power" or OP of Seraphon. Part of that is likely my play, and part of that could just be because I lack some of the models that supposedly make us so game breaking.

 

[Putzfrau]

I think this might be because people tend to react emotionally to things they like. Why do many Americans (English, French, etc.) love America (UK, France, etc.), and don't want to hear any criticisms of it? Why do Star Wars fans love it so much that they dismiss criticisms (or sequels/prequels)? Why is it that when some players have a tough time playing against, or defeating, a certain army they dismiss them as OP, such as Warhammer Weekly?

Personally, I have yet to see the "power" or OP of Seraphon. Part of that is likely my play, and part of that could just be because I lack some of the models that supposedly make us so game breaking.

I think that makes a lot of sense. I will say, while a powerful book with a lot of options, its really only kroak that starts to creep up into that "game hanging territory" and the rest of the army (as canas mentioned) isn't super resilient or forgiving.

I play a lot of saurus stuff and wouldn't say it comes across as needing of nerfs.

 

[Kilvakar]

I think a lot of it does come down to player skill. I still haven't learned deployment well enough to beat Orruks reliably, and they're supposed to be an army that we're really good against. However, I've also beaten Skaven and Khorne players who were really good with those armies, and even beaten Idoneth a couple of times. I do agree with @Putzfrau that Kroak would be the most logical thing to increase points on, although I'd rather not see him go up so drastically as to remove him from all but Fangs of Sotek Kroaknado lists. I actually really like that he's not an "all or nothing" choice. You can fit him into other lists quite well without all his entourage and still get a lot of value from him through CP generation, Comet's Call, and still being able to reliably unbind a lot of enemy spells. I know it's not a huge increase, but I'd start with 360 and go up again if he was still found to be super oppressive to play against. I think 80-point Skink Priests would be fine, but Starpriests actually already feel a bit expensive for how easy they are to kill, despite their usefulness. And no Saurus and dino units need nerfs. If anything, they still need buffs. The reason everyone uses Skink spam competitively is because it's objectively the best, despite how fun Saurus and dinosaurs are to run. If they actually buffed the other stuff enough to make it better competitively while increasing Skink points a bit, I think you'd see a lot more variety in tournament lists and people might not complain as much. But then again, most armies always have a single "best" list that 90% of tournament players will run, so it's not like that's anything specific to our faction.

Honestly, my perfect world solution would be that we get a new, big plastic Kroak model on a big base like Nagash and Teclis, with a warscroll and points cost at or above their level. But then he wouldn't be able to take Balewind Vortex or get buffed by the Astrolith Bearer, making him a more comparable "big boss" model. Maybe also make him unaffected by normal Saurus Guard, but just as Teclis has his magic sun kitty to protect him Kroak could have the reawakened or reborn Chakax or a bunch of spectral Temple Guard on his base to protect him. So essentially combine most of the bonuses he gets now from all his support models onto his warscroll, and make him a big, expensive centerpiece model.

Then, I'd buff the normal Slann slightly damage-wise to make them a more appealing choice to take in most normal lists. So now you could still throw all the usual buffs (Astrolith, Guard, Balewind) on a normal Slann, but take Kroak if you wanted to go the route of a single, super-powered caster. Plus, it would give GW a chance to make Kroak's portrayal in-game lore-friendly again

They could even still keep the old Lord Kroak model in production, just make it a relic-priest like in the old lore. Instead of being a super high damage caster, a relic-priest could be a more supportive wizard, being able to throw out a lot of defensive buffs and warding effects on the army.

 

[Just A Skink]

I know that taking away may be a bad way to make changes, but what if GW took away Kroak's "Comet Call" spell, making it regular Slann/Trog only? Additionally, what if the Starpriest's ability happened on a 3+ instead of guaranteed? Would that too negatively affect the power dynamic and efficiency of Seraphon?

 

[Just A Skink]

I think a lot of it does come down to player skill. I still haven't learned deployment well enough to beat Orruks reliably, and they're supposed to be an army that we're really good against. However, I've also beaten Skaven and Khorne players who were really good with those armies, and even beaten Idoneth a couple of times. I do agree with @Putzfrau that Kroak would be the most logical thing to increase points on, although I'd rather not see him go up so drastically as to remove him from all but Fangs of Sotek Kroaknado lists. I actually really like that he's not an "all or nothing" choice. You can fit him into other lists quite well without all his entourage and still get a lot of value from him through CP generation, Comet's Call, and still being able to reliably unbind a lot of enemy spells. I know it's not a huge increase, but I'd start with 360 and go up again if he was still found to be super oppressive to play against. I think 80-point Skink Priests would be fine, but Starpriests actually already feel a bit expensive for how easy they are to kill, despite their usefulness. And no Saurus and dino units need nerfs. If anything, they still need buffs. The reason everyone uses Skink spam competitively is because it's objectively the best, despite how fun Saurus and dinosaurs are to run. If they actually buffed the other stuff enough to make it better competitively while increasing Skink points a bit, I think you'd see a lot more variety in tournament lists and people might not complain as much. But then again, most armies always have a single "best" list that 90% of tournament players will run, so it's not like that's anything specific to our faction.

Honestly, my perfect world solution would be that we get a new, big plastic Kroak model on a big base like Nagash and Teclis, with a warscroll and points cost at or above their level. But then he wouldn't be able to take Balewind Vortex or get buffed by the Astrolith Bearer, making him a more comparable "big boss" model. Maybe also make him unaffected by normal Saurus Guard, but just as Teclis has his magic sun kitty to protect him Kroak could have the reawakened or reborn Chakax or a bunch of spectral Temple Guard on his base to protect him. So essentially combine most of the bonuses he gets now from all his support models onto his warscroll, and make him a big, expensive centerpiece model.

Then, I'd buff the normal Slann slightly damage-wise to make them a more appealing choice to take in most normal lists. So now you could still throw all the usual buffs (Astrolith, Guard, Balewind) on a normal Slann, but take Kroak if you wanted to go the route of a single, super-powered caster. Plus, it would give GW a chance to make Kroak's portrayal in-game lore-friendly again

They could even still keep the old Lord Kroak model in production, just make it a relic-priest like in the old lore. Instead of being a super high damage caster, a relic-priest could be a more supportive wizard, being able to throw out a lot of defensive buffs and warding effects on the army.

@Kilvakar, I like that you still have a hope for new models. I wouldn't mind seeing something similar for Kroak on a diorama base (ala Katakros or Teclis). But, I just don't think GW wants to go that route with our older army. Or (regardless of the lore) maybe GW just doesn't see Seraphon/Kroak that way? I guess we have several "big" models in our Carnosaurs, Stegadons, Bastiladons and Dread Saurian, so maybe that's enough for GW?

 

[Kilvakar]

I know that taking away may be a bad way to make changes, but what if GW took away Kroak's "Comet Call" spell, making it regular Slann/Trog only? Additionally, what if the Starpriest's ability happened on a 3+ instead of guaranteed? Would that too negatively affect the power dynamic and efficiency of Seraphon?

Personally I think that Kroak would be just fine without Comet's Call, although I'd rather he keep it for sure. If the Starpriest were to have to roll for his staff buff, our army's damage output would plummet. Skinks, Saurus Warriors and Knights all rely almost entirely on that guy's buff to be considered actual threats rather than just cannon fodder. So I'd rather him go up in points than lose the reliability on that buff, especially since against any shooting you're going to have at most 1-2 turns before he goes down.

Also, I can't say I really have hope for new models, but I sure think it would be nice, lol! I was just throwing out my personal thoughts on what I'd consider the ideal solution to Kroak needing to be powerful but also not relying on stacking 2-3 support units onto him. I'd rather see him as a super-strong boss model, give the regular Slann a slightly better damage output (or just improve our pretty bad spell lore), and keep the old Kroak model as a relic priest for a more defensive caster.

But you're correct, GW would much rather pump out new armies than update existing ones. I'm pretty sure most holdover factions from Fantasy haven't gotten any new models, unless you happen to be a worshipper of Chaos...

But hey, they've got to stop making new factions at some point, right? We know they've got the Umbraneth in the works, but that's really all in the rumor pipe right now, unless you think that Vampirates are going to be a thing.

 

[Tyranitar]

I have my fingers crossed that we will get updated models with our third edition battletome. Honestly there's only a few things that need it, saurus, knights, kroxigor, a dual salamander/razordon kit, and a new plastic slann/kroak hybrid kit and we'd be good to go. I imagine it would all sell well too, not only from new comers to the army but most of the exisiting lizardmen players too

 

[MackiMac]

Do we know when the winter faq will drop? Cant wait to se what will change.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

I have my fingers crossed that we will get updated models with our third edition battletome. Honestly there's only a few things that need it, saurus, knights, kroxigor, a dual salamander/razordon kit, and a new plastic slann/kroak hybrid kit and we'd be good to go. I imagine it would all sell well too, not only from new comers to the army but most of the exisiting lizardmen players too

thats a good 3rd of our kits and don't forget all our heroes they are all still resin.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Do we know when the winter faq will drop? Cant wait to se what will change.

usually late december