AoS What am I missing about Engine of the Gods?

[Seraphage]

Agree with everything
@Canas except the weaker part. If he had bigger and thicker horns, they 'd be using him for Stega
Also, -1 rend 2 damage is nothing close to weak. 2 damage is way better than D3 overall and except 2+rerolling, it is pretty threatening.

The main problems are the ones you described above. Especially the combination of total randomness + 25'' in the HERO phase.

 

[Slanntastic]

Sylvaneth are a fairly heavy on the healing I suppose. Most others tends to not have as much healing so 2.5 mortal wounds per turn actually sticks. However, such a low number of stable mortal wounds is unlikely to ever win you the match on its own, or even to kill the intended target. If you could bring say 4 EoTG then it might get somewhere, but seeing as you're unlikely to ever bring more than 1 it's unlikely to be more effecient than bringing say a starpriest and having him spam arcane bolt if all you really care about is the mortal wounds.

In comparison look at Kroak. He has 3 attacks that deal mortal wounds, as opposed to 1, has better range, is more reliable, is more difficult to kill, 2 of his 3 attacks affect multiple targets and can be put on a balewind to increase every single one of these aspects even further. That's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than anything the EoTG really has to offer offensivly.

Minor sidenote, why isn't the EoTG mounted by a starpriest or starseer or some other magical skink wizard? It feels like that thing should be a wizard.If nothing else, why isn't it mounted by a skink oracle or skink alpha like the troglodon or stegadon? Why do the skinks that ride it not do anything other than throw very ineffective javalins at people. Also, why is the stegadon carrying an EoTG weaker than a normal stegadon? the EoTG makes ver little sense the more you look at it..

I agree that Kroak is way better than the engine, probably like 230 points better haha I haven't played with him personally.

Get a bastillidon with ark of sotek. More reliable than an EoTG, less likely to die, and unlike the EoTG it actually fullfills a clear role allowing you to build your army around it being reliable.

Also, terradons are vastly underrated, and again way more reliable. Only issue would be when they face range-heavy armies they might get blown up before being able to drop their payload.

Apart from that mortal wounds are limited to kroak and our wizards (god we need some extra spells...) and Knights, and with teleports Knights might actually be a threat as you can cycle charge each turn now.

Which leaves rend which we have on:
Every saurus hero.
Slanns
Saurus guard
Salamanders
Everything that's bigger than a cold one

To be honest, we have a surprising amount of rend now that I look at it. And that's without battalions (e.g. sunclaw or a firelance) that could help. To be honest, outside of re-rollable 2+ saves with healing nonsense we probably shouldn't be as screwed as we appear at first glance...

Used the ark last night and it did really well, having the snakes go off in every combat is great. So thanks for the recommendation. I ran the thunderquake with EotG and two bastiladons (one with ark and one with solar engine), which was really fun to play and seemed pretty flexible.

Now I want to look at getting some terradons!

 

[Canas]

Agree with everything
@Canas except the weaker part. If he had bigger and thicker horns, they 'd be using him for Stega
Also, -1 rend 2 damage is nothing close to weak. 2 damage is way better than D3 overall and except 2+rerolling, it is pretty threatening.

The main problems are the ones you described above. Especially the combination of total randomness + 25'' in the HERO phase.

A stegadon has better rend on his horns until he's mortally wounded & has better stomps (*/4+/3+/-/1 vs */4+/4+/-/1) There's no clear reason for it. And yea an EoTG isn't a "weak" behemoth, but it's weird that a normal stegadon is more powerfull than the magical one given that the only difference is that one carries a magical artifact and the other carries a "normal" physical weapon on its howdah.

 

[Killer Angel]

A stegadon has better rend on his horns until he's mortally wounded & has better stomps (*/4+/3+/-/1 vs */4+/4+/-/1) There's no clear reason for it.

The engine (back in 8th) was carried only by ancient stegadons. Think to ancient as "old", a dinosaur that may be a revered veteran, with a calm temper (perfect to carry the sacred and precious relic in battle) but now without the powerful energy of the young ones.

 

[Canas]

The engine (back in 8th) was carried only by ancient stegadons. Think to ancient as "old", a dinosaur that may be a revered veteran, with a calm temper (perfect to carry the sacred and precious relic in battle) but now without the powerful energy of the young ones.

Did they have any advantage over the "young" ones? Or was the actual engine just far more reliable/usefull to make up for it? It's a nice bit of fluff, but really kind of pointless in terms of the game (and weird for balancing... the difference isn't big enough to allow for the artifact to be massivly more powerfull than say the skystreak bow)

 

[Killer Angel]

First of all, things are not always similar if you look at the oldhammer versions and compare them to AoS.
Anyway.
Stegadons were less strong and less armored than ancient stegadons, however they were faster and delivered more attacks.
Stegadons carry the great bow, ancient can be equipped with the engine at a much greater cost increase (gaining spells and a magical ward)

Basically (looking at points value), ancient steggies can be more costly than young ones, but a fully upgraded young stegadon was more costly than a basic ancient one.

 

[Canas]

First of all, things are not always similar if you look at the oldhammer versions and compare them to AoS.
Anyway.
Stegadons were less strong and less armored than ancient stegadons, however they were faster and delivered more attacks.
Stegadons carry the great bow, ancient can be equipped with the engine at a much greater cost increase (gaining spells and a magical ward)

Basically (looking at points value), ancient steggies can be more costly than young ones, but a fully upgraded young stegadon was more costly than a basic ancient one.

Right, sounds like the ancient ones had some extra natural defenses as a trade-off for being slightly weaker offensivly and the engine was far more usefull. Then it makes more sense. It's weird as in AoS that trade-off appears to have dissapeared.

 

[IggyStarhost]

The way I figure it, most of the time, there are 2 useful results: 6-9 and 18.

If you've got No Slann, and no Curse of Fates, your odds are:
6-9: 32.87% MW: 1.15
18: 0.46%
Either: 33.33%

If you've got Curse of Fates, but no Slann:
6-9: 48.15% MW: 1.81
18: 1.85%
Either: 50%

Slann, but no Curse of Fates:
6-9: 60.49% MW: 2.11
18: 1.62%
Either: 62.11%

Slann, and Curse of Fates:
6-9: 72.69% MW: 2.65
18: 5.79%
Either: 78.47%

So even in the best of scenarios, you EotG's is going to be worthless 1 in 5 turns. In an optimum scenario, the Mortal Wounds you can expect it to generate per turn are 2.65. That feels pretty underwhelming for how many points you've committed to it, though that might be understating it somewhat, because the 10-13 result can occasionally contribute, and it is hard to gauge the value of the 18 result.

Could you elaborate on the average of 2.65. My statistics might be off, but for 1d6+1 (cures of fates, each phase) that seems a bit low.

 

[IggyStarhost]

And doesnt the EOTG gets better/more reliable for the d6 mortal wounds when it gets wounded?

Im still waking up so bear with me but with dice have a normal distribution the odds would increase with two dice rather then three right?
The preferd outcome is 6-9, with cures of fates it is 5-10. With three dice the average/peek of normal distrubutions lies outside of the prefered outcome with 10.5. Where with 2 dice it lies within, with 7 as average. Now with the slann being able to switch a dice. That would b much better. In public transport so cant do the correct math.

If this is correct it would have been very lovely if it said up to 3 dice, when not badly wounded.
Will you gamble for the 18+ or take more certainty for the deathbeam?

While now thinking of it, wouldnt it be better if the deathbeam and AoE Whirpool get switched? With 9-14 for the beam with 3 die.
That way you can beam at good health, and when you would get badly wounded, probably in CC, you could spread the starfire.

Just my 2 cent. Ill have a busy day, so If someone could do the math for me, thats welcome