9th Age My 2 cents on our new army book

We know we're all going to spam our thoughts on the forum regarding our 9th armybook, so I'll start this plague hahaha.

First of all, I have to tell I'm overall quite amused by the book: I don't like EVERYTHING, but i like it more than I used to like our last army book when I read it at first (i remember that I only liked rippers in the whole book LOL). I mean, i like this book WAY MORE than our last book. Here are my judgements on our new units (please note that I still have to read deeply the main rules):

Army rules: nothing to say here, I like them. Cold blooded is unchanged as it should be, born predator is better than PF, palanquin is great to avoid challanges on the Sla...nurid High Priest (I was hoping for a fluffier "All Tem...rine Guards can acept challanges" but it's fine) and it's nice to see that we kept our long range castings throug skinks. 10/10

Shooting weapons: blowpipes with +1 to hit against large targets? Am I wrong or it means that we'll have poison on 5+ against monsters?! Well, I'll be pessimist: assuming that I'm wrong it's still a nice boost. Javelins are still great, no more double Wyssan for str5 javs but hey, personally I've just done that once in a funny game vs a friend of mine: funny, but quite horrible if you think about it haha, so they're fine aswell. Great profiles regarding the Ste...ceratops guns! 10/10, 11/10 If i'm correct about blowpipes!

Disciplines: Funnel the Winds is very nice, Cognitive Reassurance is nice but a bit overpriced in my opinion, Master of the Winds is great (but still a overpriced IMO), Protected Soul is useful and rightly priced, Telepatic Control is HUGE, ethereal can be interesting (even if i'd drop it for something different and more lizardy), two additional spells is great obviously, i'm not extremely sold on the all-signatures (i've never been actually) and again an additional spell, which is nice (and yes, it costs like the 2-more-spellz but here you can choose the lore, so i think the price is ok or maybe SLIGHTLY high, but nothing heavy). I'd say 8/10

Magic items: i like the standard, and i like it very much. The plaque is obviously a great add, i'm happy for the return of the lance (even if I think it should be allowed to use it on flying mounts) and i think that the bow will be useful for our skinks. The other items seem a bit... boring, even if they ARE useful. 6/10

Aurid High Priest: i like what the team made here, so even if i still have to study the magic paths thanks to the disciplines I'm sure it will be a 10/10

Saurian Ancient: quite unchanged except for the price increase, but I'm sure it's (or will be) balanced with other armies choices, so I'm fine. It gains Ld9 and it's actually more playable because our big fat frogs will rest more often thanks even to the new skink wizard - but this is a plus for the skink, not for the saurian. The armour price is probably right but it's still high, we'll have to judge if it's worth, but overall this guy seems to be a solid choice and deserves a 8/10

Skink High Priest: good job, good good job. This piece alone will give our army much more flessibility (even if I'll keep fielding my big fat frog more often then not) and has nice options. He suffers the BFF's (hey, "big fat frog" and "best friend forever" share the same initial letters) challenge, but since he's there to let us leave our BFF at home and play with more than one lv3+ wizard this "problem" cannot restrain me from giving him a 10/10

Skink priest: he can take a flying mount, woohoo! And we'll almost always field him I guess, so it's still a 10/10

Skink Captain: well, i think sca...urian vets and skink priest will stay our favourite hero option, but with the magic bow and lance this guy just became more interesting and worth a try. 8/10

Saurian Veteran: always a solid choice, but here i'd drop the armor price to 10pts. Good options and together with the skink priest he's our best hero, i really can't decide between 9 and 10 but since our cowboys are forever I'll give him a 10/10 even if i think he's a bit overpriced (IMO)

Croxisaurus Ancient: errr... this is a flop. Really, if we already had too many fighter heroes give us a buffer, an assassin, a terrain element, something, i don't know... but you can't even think about a HERO k(c)roxy with 2 attacks! This guy is not a fighter: ok, it was the team's goal, but then don't make him a towering brute! Make a chamo hero, a swarm hero, a monster hero, Marco Colombo gone lustrian, I don't know. A monstrous infantry hero who cannot fight isn't a great idea IMO, and if he has to be a buffer then things are even worse: why pay 130pts to morph WS3 into WS4 for a single unit? If he has to be a buffer he has to give a major buff IMO. I'm trying to think about it again and again, but i can't come to a reason why I should field him. Sad to tell it, but for me at least this guy deserves a 1/10. It's not unplayable, but gives you no reson to field him, which is worse (unplayable units could be funny at least!)

Saurian Totem Warriors: magic banner option and MARKS: yay! But le's talk about these marks: first of all, i'm sorry that RT discarded some of them, really, but i think we can live with it: 4 marks are enough, after all. Regarding the effects:

• strider is always handy and +1 initiative when this guys have just gained I2 is interesting;
• +1 armor is great, but the second part of the effect is a huge drawback IMO and because of this i'm not entirely convinced about the price. That being said, knowing myself i have to say that I'll often take this mark ;
• fight in extra rank is a nice add to give a spin to the combat, nothing to tell here;
• i don't understand why vanguard only costs 1 point per model, but nice add indeed!

Even if these guys benefit from the marks and the new army rule, tho, i'm doubtful regarding their utility if compared ot the other core choices. Anyway they're indeed solid, playable and more interesting! 8/10

Skink Braves: ok, wait a minute: I was hoping to see ws3 t3 skinks (i still have to understand these stats) but i can live with them stil being 2/2, no problem here. Nice add with the free swap for the additional hw even if with ws2/t2 i'm not sure I'd pay 2pts a model for the poison, i have to think about it.
I have some questions tho:

• in close combat, do javelins count as HWs for parry purposes?
• do croxisaurs count for the 45 models limit?
• in the description i read "5 or more croxisaurus", but if i can field a crox for 9 skinks and i can field max 45 skinks, i cannot field more than 5 croxes. Is it a mistake?
• isn't 9 skinks for a crox a bit too much?

I cannot judge until I have an answer to these questions, but i have to say that i'll probably use mixed units because thanks to randomized hits they're actually useful again (and i've always liked the concept behind them). NO SCORE

Skink hunters: a bit more expensive since we'll often just take 10 of them in a unit, but they got a bow. Well, the bow isn't poisoned tho. Don't misunderstand me, I think it's a good add but these bows could be useful against infantry and our skirmishers are made to hunt down monsters and war machines. Maybe on the ranked version bows would have been better, but this way they don't feel good. That being said, even if they suddenly have rivals again in the core section, skinks still deserve a 10/10 IMO, because of the same reasons as always.

Snake Swarm: well, it's a swarm. Actually I've never played a swarm, so I feel I'm not able to give a good vote. NO SCORE

Saurian Shrine Guard: price reduction, yeah. I'd never pay that extra point for the weapon master ability, tho! I think that the guys should have access to the marks, after all they're Saurians (elite ones!). They're our elite infantry and great with a BFF, can i rant them 10/10?

Croxisaurus: i like these guys, with and without upgrade. Solid choice, probably not always optimal but deserve a 8/10 IMO

Skink Sky-Riders: urg... they merged them, i'm not sure about ny feelings about it. I do know, tho, that i don't like fly (9) and expecially fly (8), otherwise they seem fine. 7/10

Maceosaurus: good support unit, i like it but i think that sun engine should give +1 Initiative. 8/10

Spike Lizard: well, i like it. I'm sorry that these guys lost the handlers because of fluff reasons, but they look efficient expecially with razor sharp spikes. Not sure about the price, I'll have to playtest! 8/10

Salamander: i like it, a bit sad regarding the cap at max 2 per unit and definetly not extremely powerful, but i like the way(s) it works! 8/10

Triceratops: there's a thing i do not like regarding this dino: it's rare and thus he competes with sallys, spikeys and spinos. I like the EotG aswell even if the D3 metalshifting thing is bit too weak IMO. 9/10

Spinosaurus: i like it as a cheap monster and additional wizard, not so much as a support unit. 9/10

I'm sure there's a reason why Tyrannosaurus doesn't have a save, but please someone tells me hahaha

So, the final vote for the book ignoring the units without a score is 8/10. Now I have to playtest it over and over again!

 

I like what they named everything. Except "Aurid". Otherwise thumbs up on the genetic names.

 

urgh sorry, didn't notice the feedback threads

 

Shrine guard cant Parry with halberd right :s

 

Aah all right, that could be pretty strong inderdaad!

 

All models in the game are assumed to have hand weapons at all times.

 

Regarding the skrox i was just telling that since you can't have more than 5 croxies that "5 or more croxisaurus" part should be corrected