AoS Faction Focus is Up!

it'd be interesting if you can summon a decent amount of em. Might make for some interesting zone control. Summoning just 1 at a time is probably not going to be too impressive though. One of em simply isn't going to dissuade much.

 

One of the things I've just noticed about our army's summoning - and, listening to the podcast on how Death will be affected by the new edition, theirs too - is that it doesn't scale much with points cost. One Slann general and one Astrolith is the maximum effective summoning system, aside from means to get more spells. If you can fit both of those into a 1000pt army, you're going to drown your enemy with summons. If you're playing a 3000pt, you might be better off just casting spells. It's similar with Death and using command points; in higher point games they can take more battalions, but they're still only gaining one per turn.
By contrast, Khorne get theres based on unit deaths and Tzeentch get theirs based on successful spell casts. That first one, per turn, is going to go up the more points you have, and I feel like more points = more wizards to a lot of armies, especially with Malign Sorceries incoming. Their summoning effectively scales with the points value of the game, ours mostly doesn't and Death's barely does at all.

 

ah, I didn't read the ability, saw the others posting about how it got them closer. whoops my bad lol

 

death has part of it put into its heal-mechanics. that scales with points as well.

But yeah, our summoning seems to be the one with by far the most downsides. Has a hard limit on point generation, doesn't scale with game-size, linked to only 1 specific hero, the only one to make an actual sacrifice to generate points as opposed to just getting points for free for doing what we're supposed to be doing. I'm curious how it'l match up in practise, but on paper it looks quite a lot worse.

 

From the other hand, only general can do this, and in matched play you cannot change generals. This is where 6 ripperdactyls will shine. Another way is to block their gravesites with infinite skinks, diminish skeleton hordes and leave several models - it will take way longer to revive them with "return d3 models" ability than to set up again.

Very annoying but managable at least for Seraphon. I have no idea how armies without summoning can fight this.

 

I guess by the wording you of Celestial Conjuration you don't get to consume the first extra spell from the Cogs, but it allows you to cast something the first turn. Honestly summoning 20 skinks a turn seems ridiculous to me. Obviously they will have to kill your Slann but that won't always be easy. I really think if you play a longer game and keep the Slann alive we can grind out most missions. That is making me believe that the Eternity Warden may be worth it. In your list, turn 2, you could summon an eternity warden and 10 skinks. That gives the Slann roughly 7 extra wounds.

What's great about the Slann is that not only does it summon but it can double TP. Think about if you want to reposition some units. You can TP one beastie or larger unit, then tp your Astorlith Bearer and then summon 20 skinks 12 inches away.... That is so freaking good. I understand you might lose your Astrolith bearer, but the range is insane. I'm sure other armies have gained a lot of poewrful things but Seraphon will surely be frustrating to play. We will have to find the best way to protect our Slanns. It will be the key to most games.

 

Also, everyone, buy and paint more Skinks. Some long games you could summon 100+ if you EOTGs as well......

 

The fact that you can summon 20 Skinks a turn seems just ridiculous to me, even if you are not casting magic summoning a new unit so often seems way too powerful. I really hope GW have tested these properly for matched play. Only comfort I imagine is it can be countered if your opponent knows what they are doing and requires your Slann not making use of all their magic.

Some of my local gaming group refused to play against Seraphon because of the teleportation ability in the 2017 General's Handbook, heaven forbid they have to go against one who can summon a fresh unit a turn and teleport on top of that.

 

You can tell them, "hey, I had to build and paint 150 skinks!!" In all serious is seems powerful on paper, I'm super excited to see how it plays out on the board. I imagine a lot of new powerful things happening for most armies, so maybe the overall landscape changes. We will have to wait and see!

 

Fingers crossed, while I realise that Seraphon are not the only army that can summon I wonder how they have balanced the armies that cannot summon and/or lack magical power to take advantage of the Malign Sorcery without resorting to taking allies like the Kharadron Overlords.

I am more a Saurus guy than a Skink guy so I am going to see how I can work a summoning army based around Saurus.

 

I had the same problem a few weeks ago trying to get a game. And reading all the reviews on the net it seems that Seraphon are considered top tier for 2.0... if not the top army. gonna have to find a way to play less competitive for the LGS casual games lol

 

The one way I am thinking of it right now is this. The Seraphon player will have to summon over 260pts of models to make it worth while because you are not using it to cast magic if you are going hard on summoning. That's the devil's advocate going in my head right now.

 

My club mate who playes death already refused to play against me until warscroll updates. And he is the best active player outhere. But I think, Legions of Nagash with free reviving and new artefacts on VoZD are stronger. We'll see...

As for points tradeoff - Slann, Astrolith and Engine of Gods have powerfull abilities besides summoning. With Chromatic Cogs and Balewind Vortex you still can cast and constantly summon skinks.

 

Also, we have no idea really how the new game will play out, so we are all speculating. Plus GW has been doing a much much much better job of using FAQs to hotfix and balance things.

 

I believe this will be an evolving game (AoS 2.0). The endless spells we have seen are all general non army/faction specific. There are 3 extra ones in the generals handbook (point values only) that are for death only. Tells me order, chaos and destruction will get specific ones as well.

On top of that as they bring out new battletomes I would not be surprised to see faction specific normal/non endless spells.

 

Can you use the same command ability multiple times in one turn given you have command points? I wonder if you go crazy how many times, in a Bloodclaw starhost, you can use Old Blood on Carnosaur's ability or Scar vet on a cold one. I think you could do 5 Scar Vet on a cold one's abilities and 4 Old blood's abiltiies.

Seems silly, but maybe useful, and maybe something we could abuse??

 

I'd assume the same ability doesn't stack multiple times on the same target. Otherwise the command abilities saying "add 1 to attack characteristics" would be utterly broken. Just imagine what'd happen if you stack 5 or 6 of those on a carnosaur, or on a horde glass canon like saurus warriors…. it'd be ridiculous.

 

Those abilities in the previous edition did stack. You could take 3 Scar vets on Cold ones in your bloodclaw and add 3 additional bites to your knights. The Old Blood ability also stacked. Maybe the new edition addresses it though. Another, we will wait and see moment.