I've got into AOS recently and I built the Old Blood on Carno from the start collecting. Love Kroq Gar's lore so I just had to, but in the 3 games that I've played it usually takes out a squad, then gets merced. Any advice to help it's survivability? Have been using it mainly for flanking and pushing through battle lines.
With current state of AoS, it is almost no point to try increasing Oldblood's survivability. The best thing I can think of is Malign Sorcery book artefacts. Doppelganger cloak from Ulgu allows once per game to make it impossible to target bearer with melee attacks until he attacks himself. This is the best defensive artefact, IMO, becaue it ensures that Oldblood will attack first before being taken out. Other good defescive artefact is Miasmatic Blade, which gives bearer -1 to-hit on him. With summon starlight it could be -2 to-hit. But, tbh, most stuff will still butcher the carno. I prefere to use him as suicidal hero. His command ability is very strong and he can take down units which are way more expensive. You can still use malign sorcery artefacts to boost his attack (Dimensional blade makes his spear Rend -3 which will negate most saves), but you I find Doppelganger cloack still better, since it ensures that Oldblood stikes before beign removed. Use Lords of Space and Time to bring Oldblood in position and than use his command ability multiple times. He can 10-11 attacks with his jaw or spear will devastate most stuff. He is best to be used in Dracothion's tail battalion, since he could be put in reserves and placed anywhere on battlefield turn 1 or 2. Dracothion's tail also gives a lot of command points, so Oldblood's command ability can be used 5-6 times, giving him 10-12 bonus attacks.
not a lot of options but lets see what we can do first skink priest and star priest the first can let him reroll saves and the second has starlight our best spell it gives him -1 to be hit. next 2 artifacts the mismatic blade or the gryph feather charm both give -1 to be hit you can only use 1 thou. with the abouve he is -2 to be hit and rerolls saves not great but it's the best we can do at the moment.
Shame he's not as usable as I thought. Also I didn't know that you could use more than one of the same command ability in the same Hero Phase.
badly carnosaurs just don't do enough damage to work well they are comparatively slow for monsters and can't fly on top of that even when buffed they just fall apart a 4+ save is just no good in the current meta. they work ok in friendly games but they will die a lot
I've so far only done friendly, my shop doesn't hold many serious events for AOS so it'll mostly stay that way. Not forever I hope though. I'll try out both methods, thanks for the help
You can apply the same command ability as much times as you wish, unless the wording of an ability specially forbids it. Carnosaurs are great for friendly games and a lot more specific in competitive ones. Just don't expect them to be as great as zombie dragons or durthus or other big stuff. I liked to use mine with Thermalrider cloak artefact (+4" for movement and fly). They can easily clear objectives from weak units and are very fast, because can run and charge in the same turn after killing a model.
that's prolly an excellent friendly artefact for it. if anyone wants to look at competitive its basically only the Ulgu cloak that prevents it from being attacked until after it has attacked.