AoS List Challenge! - Can you make the best TAC 2k Seraphon army?

Anyone that is bored this weekend or someone who is relaxing on a Saturday/Sunday morning looking for something to do, I challenge you to make a the best TAC Seraphon army. I think this is rather difficult to do in AoS, but I'd love to see you try! I have a list in mind and will reveal it after a few entries. When we get some entries we can vote on it. Please list your armies by number. Ex, the first person to post a list will be List 1. Good luck!

***Take all Comers lists are usually diversified in their construction. They can take on different enemy lists with unique strengths and also play to win most missions.

 

Will give this a shot this weekend. Seraphon only? Won't be easy!

 

Good point! How about majority Seraphon, but you can use other Order units to support the main Seraphon force.

 

Well, here is my all Seraphon TAC list:

Leaders:
Celestial Hurricanum With Celestial Battlemage (320)
Battlemage/Starpriest (100)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (260)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur (260)
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One (100) - General
Skink Starseer (160)

Battleline
20 x Skinks (160)
10 x Skinks (80)
10 x Skinks (80)

Units
5 x Chameleon Skinks (120)
5 x Chameleon Skinks (120)
3 x Skink Handlers (40)
1 x Salamanders (60)
1 x Salamanders (60)
1 x Salamanders (60)

Total:1980/2000

Here is a quick breakdown of why I consider this a TAC list.

- Big monster killing: Between the two Carnosaurs and the mortal wounds of the Salamanders this list can take down most enemy monsters.
- Movement Shenanigans: Chameleon skinks are the king of movement shenanigans. Pop in and out of the battlefield, making it tricky for your opponent.
-Infantry killing: This may be the weakest part of this army. If you go with a Stegadon with the Sunfire Thrower (3d6 stomps inc CC) it can put a good hurting on infantry blocks. This guy is pretty underrated imo. His point range is often times overshadow'd by Carnosaurs and Bastiladons. That being said, I have been seeing a lot more armies with 30 man blocks of Bloodletters, Bloodreavers etc. This Beast is there to back up the Skinks and to charge into a block of dudes and deal some decent wounds. I really enjoy the versatility of this creature. His horns hurt too. He isn't the end all be all of big monsters but to have both good shooting and decent melee is a huge bonus in AoS. I encourage others to use this guy, especially if you are also seeing clan rats, Grots, Greenskins.
-Objective control: Will 40 Skinks scare anyone away from an objective? No. But they are quite fast and you can have a decent mid board presence early in the game. Not to mention you can make a long late game run with the Stegadon's ability. You can surprise people with their speed.
-Physic phase: 3 magic users. The big 2 spells are always useful. Summon Starlight is actually a very powerful spell and should not be overlooked.
-Cheese: Seraphon's don't have a ton of cheese in their army. We are a bit older and are on the lower end of the power curve. That being said, the Starseer is cheese and is mighty powerful. The first time you force your opponent to reroll their turn initiative and then reroll yours, you understand how this guy can decide games. His reroll's can be usefully in so many situations.

That's my version of a TAC Seraphon list. It's probably not the most powerful Seraphon list in the Universe, but it would most likely give you an opportunity to win against most opponents. I would consider it a great balance between Competitive and Casual. It also has the added bonus of fielding a lot of different models! I have all the models for this list and I'm slowly painting them. Can't wait to get them all painted up! Cheers!

 

Heavily inspired by other people's list here but:
Leaders
Celestial Hurricanum With Celestial Battlemage (320)
- Artefact: Phoenix Stone
Jade Battlemage (100)
Battlemage
Skink Starseer (160)
- Artefact: Phoenix Stone
Engine of the Gods (240)
Skink Chief (60)
- General
- Trait: Master of Defense
- Golden Sickle

Battleline
10 x Skinks (80)
- Boltspitters & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (80)
- Boltspitters & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (80)
- Boltspitters & Star Bucklers

Units
2 x Razordons (120)
3 x Skink Handlers (40)

Behemoths
Bastiladon (300)
Bastiladon (300)

Battalions
Thunderquake Starhost (120)
2000/2000

Basically your two bastis and hurricanum or center and back a bit providing cover for the heroes. The razordons in front of them. The skinks are the meatshield in front of everything. Keep your bastiladons and hurricanum healed up. And move up in this formation taking a unit at a time. Keeping savage for better saves.

 

@InfamousBeany do you reckon ypu could take a cracking at this? Would love to hear your input? Maybe the fast list you mentioned on the thread 'make me a list that will lose me friends'

 

Hey Bowser,

Cool list. I have never fielded a pure shooting army in AoS, but this looks fun. Do you think you would be able to handle heavy melee armies? Something fast and hard hitting may get to your back-line and cause some issues. Our Basties are pretty lame in CC...

 

What are you talking about ? They will come after they got shooted, Basti will negate 95% of the attacks, some melee dmg from basti might happen but alright and then you will shoot them again and so on
Tanked an Orc Maw with a Basti - had skink priest rerolls save and mystic shield - and not a single would passed. I am awaiting my 2nd Basti to arrive to be concluded so hard !

 

True. I was only thinking about their melee attacks when i said that... haha. Brain-fart.

I don't know why but I've stayed away from Bastiladons with my army lists and games. I should probably give them a chance.

 

You DEFINITELY should ! They are second to none to my experience as far as stability and "get the job done" are concerned in our army

 

I like the Stegadon's ability to deal with infantry blocks, but the Bastiladon's tanking ability is so much better. Especially for mortal wounds... Damnit. I thought I had my collection pretty set now i have to buy a Basti! So much to paint, so little time.

 

That's what I was saying myself too until I bought one and put him to use.. ordered a second one already and can't wait for him to come !

 

Yeah the bastiladons should be able to keep your rear safe, as well if you are worried about deep strikers you can move the razordons for the instinctive defense to get a few wounds in. If you didn't need the handlers for the batallion I would say take a Gryph-Hound, and get a ton of shooting in. But something is better than nothing.

 

*cracks knuckles*

Let's do this. You want TAC? Let's do TAC. I am also writing this up at like 2am so it may be a tad rambling.

I wrestled with a lot of ideas before I came up with this list. I will absolutely have to revive my old list emporium soon because this has given me some seriously dumb ideas (Extremis Chamber play very nicely with a Bloodclaw Starhost). For this thread however, I have simply refined an older idea so as to keep largely within the rules of being focussed on Seraphon.

Brace yourselves- there is no Bastiladon in this list.

The List

Bloodclaw Starhost 100
Old Blood on Carnosaur 320
Scar Veteran on Cold One 100
Scar Veteran on Cold One 100
Scar Veteran on Cold One 100
Warriors (10) 100
Celestite Clubs
Warriors (10) 100
Celestite Clubs
Warriors (10) 100
Celestite Clubs

Shadowstrike Starhost 120
Skink Starpriest 100
Chameleon Skinks (5) 120
Chameleon Skinks (5) 120
Terradons (3) 140
Sunleech Bolas

Celestial Hurricanum 320

Gryph Hound 40
Total: 1980

The Reasoning and the Theory

Whilst attempting to build a balanced list, I try and ensure that I tick as many of the list building rules as possible:

- Can I deal mortal wounds?
- Am I prepared to take mortal wounds?
- Am I mobile enough?
- Do I have sources of magic or unbinding?
- Do I have means of dealing with artillery?
- Can I deal with tarpits?
- Can I deal with aggressive deployment?
- Do I have either a balance of both combat and ranged damage, or an overwhelming amount of one of them?
- Can I take objectives?

When thinking of what makes a good TAC list, I thought that the best way of being ready for anyone is to simply not let them play how they want to play. The aim of this list is to disrupt the enemy gameplan and alpha strike their weak points. On recent review, Terradons are far better than I gave them credit for when used in a Shadowstrike starhost- they can potentially weaken/kill 3 key targets the turn they drop in (Drop rocks, shoot, combat) which is integral to what we want to achieve. This will be the lynchpin for our plan of attack. The Bloodclaw with 3 Scar Vets on Cold Ones is a cost effective way of creating our Alpha Strike contingency- they gain a lot of attacks and cut through heroes or chaff units alike. The Hurricanum is a Hurricanum. The Gryph hound is there to bulk points, and can give me protection from enemy units that want to outmanoeuvre my Alpha Strike.

The Game Plan

It is no coincidence that all the heroes in the Bloodclaw and the Hurricanum have a movement of 10- this will form our Alpha Strike. Their goal is to intercept the enemy army and kill as many things as possible. Scoring units, Monsters and Heroes are our priority with this group. What is so nice about this is that the Hurricanum synergises so well with the Bloodclaw heroes- it provides with a to hit buff, it can ping off enemy heroes or monster killers with its mortal wounds, and (most excitingly for me), it means that I can actually try and unbind enemy spells for once due to being so far up the field. In return, the Bloodclaw can keep the Hurricanum safe from combat and provide too many high value targets for the opponent to focus on.

The Starpriest and the Gryph will also be running to keep up with our Alpha Strike, as the Starpriests spell and staff buff on our Carnosaur can be absolutely brutal, whilst he Gryph hound is excellent at stopping armies like Sylvaneth or Clan Skryre from getting round our attackers.

The Terradons and the Cham Skinks are both there to dismantle the opponent on turn one. Drop your Terras so that you can move them over a key target such as Wizards, Priests and War Machine crew, then drop rocks on them. You can then choose to either use your shooting to finish off your initial target or pick a new one. You can then repeat the process with your combat phase. If all goes according to plan you've traded your Terradons up in terms of points, and also ruined your opponent's initial plans. The Cham skinks are excellent at taking out similar targets, but don't be so eager to dispose of them- late game they can snag you objectives.

The Warriors exist solely to use their 10" march to get to objectives. They're not awful in a fight which is nice, but don't go throwing them to the wolves.

Conclusions/Thoughts
As a few members on here know, I really like cheesy, silly lists. This, unfortunately, is not overly cheesy. It is however pretty balanced, and will give most armies a damn good fight.

Keeping it mostly focussed on Seraphon hurt quite a bit. Spending 220 points on battalions hurts my min/max brain, but it provides so much flexibility that we otherwise would miss out on. I really wish that I could find a way of getting healing in here as well, but damnable hero limits got in the way.

Could this list crack something super defensive like Bowsers? Hard to say. Could it beat other balanced lists? I would put money on it. It brings just enough of each of the core rules of list building to create something that is strong, but fair.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of playing fair.

To the list emporium, awaaaaaaaaaaay

 

Fantastic write up! @InfamousBeany I kind of want to play our two lists against each other! Looking forward to more from the emporium!

 

Man.. Times like these I 'm happier than ever before for finding this site. Thanks for the awesome write up

 

Quick question : in the turn we use terradon riders we cannot take advantage of their ability so we need to place them in a way so that they will survive next round to throw the rocks right ?