Hi everyone! For a long time my focus has been on 40k. However, now me and some friends are coming back to AoS. With that said, i need your experience and knowledge to direct me in the right direction. I have been looking around the forum for a few days and 3 Battalions are mentioned alot! I am curious if someone/anyone can help explain the strenghts and weaknesses of the top Batalions? Note: I own an army already. So i can tailor my army to your advice regardless! - which one is best for a beginner? - What playstyle favours what Batalion? - how do the Lizards fair competitively in AoS 2.0? - If you have time...a good 1k list to start with for your favourite Batalion? Then i would love to hear your thoughts on how to expand to 2k. I am new to the lizards when it comes to AoS 2.0.. so please do not assume i know anything! Any tip or trick that a player should know about the army please share! I know i am asking alot! All help is greatly appriciated!
Shadow Strike Starhost: Strong Alpha Strike. Glass Cannon. Weak to concerted counter attacks. Weak to effective screens and tarpits. Thunderquake Starhost: Ideal for gunline. Able to provide a strong fortress for Slann to enable summoning. Weaker at the objective game in the early rounds. Fangs of Sotek: Allows your army to be deployed in a single drop. Plays to max aggression and tempo control. Has phenomenal focused combat damage and target elimination. Very weak to armies with strong Saves and Save after Saves. Weak against armies with effect hero snipping. All three armies are pretty equally effective at the moment in my experience. Shadowstrike Starhost is potentially the most competetive of the armies. Its only shortfall is being screened. However, even when screened it is still potent. All that really happens is you instead target the enemy tarpits & screens instead of heroes and backbone/glasscannons. Normally you will be able to either out summon your oppenent or tie them up long enough to win through the objective even when the rippers are placed into less than ideal game environments. Thunderquake Starhost is just an all around good army. Fill your battleline tax with MinSU Skinks, take one or two maxed units of Razzordons, load your Bastiladons with Solar Engines and your fortress gunline becomes scarier than T'au in 5-7th ed. However, you might have issues with the objective game. Your skinks are really the only expendable units you can LoSaT around for the point game. This means you will need to summon early and often to maintain objective. Normally you will be a 6 drop list at minimum, so don't expect to dictate the paces in the first two rounds. FoS is probably the most fickle of the three. In order for it to really shine you need several things to line up. If the table is too dense on terrain you will have problems getting bottle necked. If the enemy has few large surface area units you will have a hard time getting damage out of your warriors. And lastly, it is a bad match up against Death and Nurgle, both or which are pretty common. FoS is the most dicey of the list. If your dice love you then you will love this battalion. Here is my all time favorite 1k List: Allegiance: Seraphon LEADERS: Skink Starpriest (80) - General - Command Trait : Master of Star Rituals - Artefact : Incandescent Rectrices UNITS: 6 x Ripperdactyl Riders (280) 40 x Skinks (240) -Boltspitters & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) -Boltspitters & Star Bucklers 4 x Razordons (160) BATTALIONS: Shadowstrike Starhost (180) TOTAL: 1000/1000 EXTRA COMMAND POINTS: 1 WOUNDS: 84 I hope this was helpful. I tried to keep it as brief and informative as possible.
Thank you LizardWizard! Appriciate the reply! Thunderquake for 1k, not possible to play effectively? Lizardmen able to fair good on the table against most armies? Thank you!
Possible, just less effective because the base of the battalion is so expensive. I have success at 1k points playing a Battalion-less army and just building an army around a specific strategy. A lot of Lizardmen battalions are pretty points intensive, so they don't scale super well for smaller point games.
Thunderquake is not possible at 1k. Assuming you are using mandatory 2 battleline units, your minimum is 1100 points. Allegiance: Seraphon Engine of the Gods (220) 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins & Star Bucklers 1 x Razordons (40) 3 x Skink Handlers (40) Bastiladon (280) Bastiladon (280) Thunderquake Starhost (120) Total: 1100 / 2000 Most 1000 point lists dont use battalions, they are generally too points intensive. The minimum point level I would include a battalion in is 1500 points. You can toy around with list ideas with warscroll builder: https://www.warhammer-community.com/warscroll-builder/
Actually I lied, it is possible, just with less optimal selections. You would need to replace the Bastis with cheaper Stegadons. As above though, I would probably avoid Thunderquake at less than 1500 points. You really want to have a Slann Starmaster in there as your general. Allegiance: Seraphon Engine of the Gods (220) 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins & Star Bucklers 3 x Skink Handlers (40) 1 x Razordons (40) Stegadon (220) Stegadon (220) Thunderquake Starhost (120) Total: 980 / 2000
Also note that in Pitched Battle games you will not be able to field Thunderquake because of 2 Behemoths restriction. Generally, at 1000 points you want a large blob of skinks to take objectives and shoot (40 shots 3+/5+ should not be underestimated). Slann and Astrolith Bearer are viable at 1000 pts if you want to go summoning. 4 razordons can be very powerful too because of volume of fire and mobility thanks to LoSaT. Battalions rarely pay off at 1000 pts, only Shadowstrike worth taking, IMO.
At 1k the only viable Seraphon battalion is the Shadowstrike Starhost. All other battalions and analysis is based on 2k Matched play for tournaments.
Ok i get it! How would you guys play 1k without a Batalion? .. And how can a good thunderquake look like at 2k? I understand its subjective and all but please share your opinion
This is a pretty standard 2k Thunderquake list: Allegiance: Seraphon LEADERS: Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Command Trait : Great Rememberer Saurus Astrolith Bearer (160) Skink Starpriest (80) Engine of the Gods (220) UNITS: 4 x Razordons (160) 3 x Skink Handlers (40) 30 x Skinks (180) -Boltspitters & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) -Boltspitters & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) -Boltspitters & Star Bucklers BEHEMOTHS: Bastiladon (280) Bastiladon (280) BATTALIONS: Thunderquake Starhost (120) ENDLESS SPELLS: Balewind Vortex (40) Chronomantic Cogs (60) TOTAL: 2000/2000 EXTRA COMMAND POINTS: 1 WOUNDS: 108 Most of the variations you will see in this list are in the battlelines. Often times you will see less Skinks in favor of addition Razordons or Salamanders. The Endless Spells and Skinks are sometimes left out in order to bring another MinReq Battalion like Firelance.
Looks good! ...thank you! I see people on here arguing that you either take 40 skinks or 10...so how do people justify using 30 here? Just curious I think i will start with the thunderquake for 2k. I like big dinos and it seems easier to start of with!
Thing is that both those Endless Spells are really useful. They both give you an extra spell and the Vortex buffs your Slann's defences and range.If you don't cast anything then you have 5 spell slots a turn to power summoning, meaning 16+D3 points per turn. On average, that's 18 points per turn being summoned, which can be an Engine of the Gods each turn. That's more powerful than an extra 10 Skinks. The caveat is that a Slann on a Balewind Vortex is very difficult to hide, so watch out for him being sniped.
Feel free to remove Cogs if you're not going for heavy summoning. 60 pts for a single cast is a bit too much, IMO, and you won't likely need second effect on cogs (which buffs your opponent too). Slann on Vortex is difficult to hide, indeed, but with certain setup he may be very durable with vortex. If you play with Realm Spells, it is too good to be ignored. Otherwise, bonus cast is worth only for summoning.
@Galen said it well. It is worth the loss of the 10 Skinks to increase your summoning. The spells are not guaranteed. You could always fail to cast them or they could be unbound, but they are still worth the inclusion.
OH i see! Thank you!... As a noob...is There a thread/post were someone Lines out the basics of playing Seraphon? The importent relics/spells and so on...it is rather overwhelming as a beginner to understand all the aspects and tricks of this army..I am a quick learner that does not know were to start Again...thank you all for baring with me!