I think GW has been trying to consolidate outdated and convoluted rules like the Ripper rules. There have been a lot of examples of this lately, especially in BoKs. Look at the old Skullreapers compared to the new ones. As an owner of Rippers I just hope they still kick ass
SO I just read through the new Fyreslayers book, if that is in any way an indication of how our new book will go, we will be looking at mount traits, id be a fan of every time it flies over a unit, starting at least 3 inches away and ending at least 3 inches away from its target unit (to avoid mortals on a unit you are falling back from) roll for every Terradon model roll a die, on 6+ mortal wound, +1 to roll if there are 4-6 terradons, +2 for more than 6.
Anyone get a hold of May's White Dwarf and read that Summoning article? It'd be interesting to glean info from what was said, as that WILL play a large role int he direction Seraphon go from here. Seraphon is a unique army, as it is the most WHFB army out there in AoS. Lots of models, lots of rules, lots of fiddling in some cases, comparatively. I think the train has left the station with respect to major model pruning, but I bet there is a lot of work being on right now, to bring it more in line.
What's wrong with Rippers? They doesn't even have any gimmicky mechanics to fix. Multiple wounds? Many units has it. More attacks near toad? There are many factions that can chose units to have bonus against at the start of the battle. Dropping within 3" with Shadowstike? Probably, they'll remove ability to move after it, but if they make to drop within 9", battalion will become mostly useless. But they won't necessary change it because there are lots of turn 1 auto-charge possibilities for various armies in AoS. What definitely be fixed is Oldbloods ability to give additional attacks to mounts. It is certainly unintended, I have no clue why didn't they change it in FAQs.
It's just a guess, i'm not saying they will. IMO they are trying to remove things like the Bloat Toad moving d6 inches and models that arent models. Again, just my guess. I love my rippers, but it would also be nice if they more streamlined and didn't rely on the Toad.
I'm not saying your resources are bad (or at least I wasn't, I'l come back to that in a moment ), I'm saying winrate itself is a fairly meaningless statistic as winrate does not correspond to stuff being overpowered/underpowered/balanced in the slightest. Far too many things factor into winrate beyond the question of balance. Something as stupid as "the counter-strategy just isn't popular cuz it's boring" can already result in massivly inflated winrates. And similarly 1 faction being overrepresented can lower it's winrates to roughly a "balanced" 50% as it'l end up fighting itself more often (thus gaining both a loss and a win for the statistics). Just look at some of the weird winrates in the list from thehonestwargamer, there's several currently completly unsupported armies in there that apparently achieved a "balanced" 50% winrate, and the 2nd highest winrate is for Phoenix temple only 1% behind the number 1 faction (DoK). So a faction with 4 models, no allegiance rules, no artifacts etc., no battletome, containing only melee troops and having no wizards is somehow the 2nd best when judged according to the winrate according to thehonestwargamer. Either the few things they do have are increadibly overpowered, or it just so happens that the 3 players playing Phoenix temple (out of a total of 1399 different players) happenend to be good and/or Lucky.... Also, coming back to the resources being good, the actual source is flawed, it's only looking a the relativly high level tournaments. Which 1) introduces a massive selection-bias as you have a relativly skilled playerbase that abuses every advantage they can get their hands on and 2) introduces statistical problems as the sample size is far too small for quite a lot of armies (see aformentioned 3 Phoenix temple armies..)
So I think the general chatter is Sylvaneth gets a book next, but Wrath and Rapture did not have Slaanesh released with it. Plus the latest post of Warhammer Community gives sample list which to me would be weird if the following week they give a codex which could change list building. I would assume if a Sylvaneth book was next they would instead be pushing the idea of building new or bolstering Sylvaneth forces instead of sample builds. Maybe the set is to give Sylvaneth players something to keep them busy untill their book? Maybe Seraphon will follow Slaanesh? I know I'm always pulling for our lizards to be next!
also the Sample list was just: "Buy THREE Loon-curse boxes!" as it was literally just 3x what you get plus the beetle-lady.
I mean the box is good value if you have a grot friend Value for money seems like a good place to start with a new army if you're getting your feet wet in the game.
meh, given the sample list I'm guessing the biggest change is that revenants are getting to become a hell of a lot better. But beyond that it's mostly just smaller tweaks that shouldn't completly overhaul the meta.
You are right with the Phoenix temple but i dont only see the winrates i see the top 3, how many games win seraphon, how many players play with seraphon (and other armies) and you could see that we are bad. Against new factions or more and less updated battletomes we aren't good, you cant say we are a competitive or top army. Our only good strategy is spamming skinks and stealing points...so sad
It's sad bacause the actual evolution of the game is pushing us toward that, as it's our most useful tactic in tournament enviroment. Outside competitive games, we can easily play in a different way.
The problem is that most people get their army lists from the internet. So in order to compete with a generic list that someone is running, you’re going to have to start spamming skinks and taking objectives. Otherwise you can serve as a fun punching bag for your opponent. I would love a new Dino that actually hits hard and lets me play as a ferocious lizard army. I feel like Seraphon currently plays like I would imagine Skaven playing - popping up, hard to pin down, and annoying. I want to rampage with dinosaurs through enemy lines!
Many armies have a defining central piece - usualy the strongest and most powerful figure in thier lore. Alarielle, Nagash, Morathi, Archaon, all but Sigmar Himself. I almost wonder if we have an Avatar of Sotek int he works....
Sotek isn't very present currently, right now it's either Kroak or dracothion? the big space dragon thing that healed sigmar, if I remember correctly we're the only race to have any real connection with him by hanging out with him among the stars.
To follow -on, and note that this is nothing more than the fevered wanderings of a sick man's mind, but: If i were to make a really strong effort of bringing Seraphon in line with feel of the rest of AOS armies, I would need to do a lot of pruning, mind you this isn't "what i want" per se, but rather what I see might do the job. Delete: Saurus warriors Saurus on Cold ones Chameleon Skinks Footslogging Oldblood and Scar Vet. Scarvet on cold one Skin Priest with cloak. Skink Starseer Keep: Infantry: Skinks as low-level horde infantry Saurus Guard as elite infantry Kroxigors as Heavy-Elite Terradons and Rippers as Cavalry sally/razor as artillery Behemoths: basti: both loadouts Stegadon: EotG only (or maybe both) Trogs Casters and Support: Skink Starpriests Astrolith Bearer Heroes and Leaders: Slaan Starmaster - and Kroak Scar vet and Old blood on Carno (may be keep the footsloggers as well, Fyreslayers do that) Sunblood on foot (Maybe delete - we have enough heroes, BUT THIS GUY IS SO COOL) Eternity Warden Add: Skink leader/hero Seems harsh at first, but it clears out redundant heroes and infantry types, clears out a lot of the finecast, keeps a lot of the newer models. It hurts the "I want a Skink Army" and "I want a Saurus army" players, but very few other factions have such variety in the lists. Usually it is layered tiers from the grunts to the elite with only a few models in each function . Seraphon has a lot of overlap and as such one unit will always be better than another, when yo math-hammer the crap out of it and go for total efficiency - so you might as well cut down on the options, but make each remaining option better and more viable. Think FEC: Gouls->Crypt horrors-> Flayers, with supporting units and a kill-pig on top Fyreslayers: Vulkite Berzerkers -> Hearthguard B -> Magmadroths and quite a few heroes and some ranged support int here as well Sylvaneth: Dryads -> Two different tree spirits -> Kurnoth hunters -> supporting heroes and some big trees at the top. I could go on.
The issue is, none of those models are actually redundant. At least if they did what they're supposed to do both fluff-wise and according to the various special rules we have. Taking those away would be a significant lose, especially to our summoning game and further push us towards cookie-cutter builds. Let's start with our infantry we have: Skinks: skirmishers/fodder/ranged troops Chameleon skinks: assasins/ranged elite troops Saurus warriors: medium-heavy infantry Saurus guard: super-heavy elite infantry Kroxigor: Monstrous infantry with anti-horde mechanics Our cavalry: Knights: medium-heavy melee cavalry Terradon: Light cavalry/skirmishers Rippers: light? shock cavalry (imho they are a bit of a weird one rolewise being a glass cannon) Behemoths: Basti with solar: tank EoTG: support/buffshrine Stegadon: heavy shock behemoth Carnosaur: Monster hunter Trog: Light shock behemoth with supporting abilities Heroes: Skink priest: minor skink supporting hero (I'l be damned as to why it's as expensive as the starpriest though) Skink starpriest: minor supporting wizard Scar vet on cold one: leads heavy cav. Scar vet on carno/oldblood on carno: monster hunter with the oldblood being the fancier elite option. Oldblood on foot: Main saurus support hero Sunblood: Our champions or melee powerhouse hero Eternity warden: bodyguard Astrolith bearer: Minor saurus supporting hero Starseer: Major supporting wizard hero, only the slann overpowers them when it comes to casting Slann: The main general/leaders/wizards As you can see there's actually relativly little overlap. However, there are 2 issues. 1) The game does a relativly poor job actually representing the differences between each role. 2) The few aspect of the roles that are represented aren't necesarly relevant to winning the game. It's great that saurus guard in an eternal starhost are though as nails, effectivly taking something like 6 wounds per guard before dying. But who cares if we can bring 6-7 times as many skinks as guards in that battalion for the same cost, making the holding of objectives much easier cuz you know, everything's covered in freaking skinks as opposed to a small group of guards struggling to cover the entire battlefield.