I might disagree a bit: Your first half of the post doesn't really go into roles, at least not roles in Age of Sigmar. WHFB? Maybe, i don't know. Seraphon will suffer a lot from the "Good old days" syndrome. But all you really did was show that each unit has a different war-scroll, NOT that they fill different, well-delineated roles within a given AOS game. Indeed, you make that very point in the last section, directly comparing Saurus Guards to Skinks, and correctly ascertaining that one performs that role better than the other for the points. Even still, you can endlessly break roles down into finer and finer nuances, but that doesn't mean that the ruleset of the game really supports that fine of granularity, or that it is needed in a single army. Options are good, and i know Seraphon has more than most: I'd never suggest we turn into FEC or Fyreslayers. but i feel like with soo many options, we lose a lot of meaningful distinction between our troop choices. Battalions have forced us to take one or another, or are required for a few to be good. but im not so sure we need quite so many different war-scrolls. I guess look at SCE - they have like 45+ war scrolls, so may be I don't have a point.
From a different perspective, as a non gamer, the more varients of seraphon to build and paint, the better.
And that is a very compelling argument. My "suggestions" where not based in anything other than what may make Seraphon "look" more like other armies in AoS, unit choice wise.
Really seraphon have issues, but we still are undeniably powerful with the options a select few combinations. Our biggest thing we need is rend, just adding some rend to say carnosaurs, with a rend 1 claw attack and rend 2 bite or adding rend to any of the troglodons attacks. Kroxigors for example are another good example, add some rend and they become so much better. It is really one thing we need the most, and simply it is rend. In reality I can only think of one model that needs a serious rework, and it is really only to give it a 10 inch move, and mortal wounds on a 6 to wound.
I'm not sure what you guys are talking about at this point but I think we all agree, we just want all the units to be good so we can use all our awesome miniatures and not feel like we cant win. Simple as that. A good battletome is full of variety and different playstyles. Let's just all hope for that. In the meantime we can all just board the hype train and wish for cool things
First of all, let me be clear that reducing the number of units isn't what i want, nor do i necessarily think it's the best option if being competitive is the goal. Merely it is me thinking out loud, attempting to address the discrepancy i see between the unit composition of seraphon (and to a lesser degree, Skaven and Lon) and the New AoS armies. The new armies can be said to have been created for their environment and the aspects of the aos game versus the old world carry over armies. Let me put my kids to bed and then I'll attempt to dig into the ontology if the aos roles as i see them (for transparency sake, a total noob).
So once again, I am a complete noob when it comes to AoS. But I am also a chronic over-thinker, and my profession involves A LOT of dissecting things and building models, tiers and groups and analyzing systems in parts and wholes. To start, I like to solve for the extreme ends of the problem. So at the highest possible level there are two basic roles: (1) Units that are designed to score victory points (2) Units designed to help Units in number (1) score victory points. Now obviously that is too high of a level at this point to be meaningful, and there is a lot of units that would conceivably fall into either category. But it serves as the highest possible delineation. Also this changes with what the objectives actually are and could vary from something very killy to wizard heroes. For now lets proceed with the assumption that this is an objective based scenario where troop numbers hold the objective. The lowest possible role delineation is as far down as the individual war-scroll. Actually it is even lower than that, it is the load-out of a given war-scroll. In some very low-level way, Saurus with Spears serve a slightly different role than Saurus with Clubs. I was wrong replying to Canus earlier; it is possible to break down the battlefield roles basically as far options on the war-scroll. But is it meaningful to? Having solved for the limits, and bracketed the solution, it can be seen that the remaining space in between in quite large and covers a lot of ground. So the better question is, what set of roles can be created as to be more or less universally compatible, meaningful and yet provide enough detail to serve as a guide for when two units are not distinct enough? This will ultimately be a process of where you work from one end or another until you develop a model that works well in the abstract and see how it fits with real data. So lets break up (1) above: scoring units. I feel like we could break this group into a few sub sets: (1a) Units that get to the objective first, and hold it with numbers. Includes fast base speed or teleporting. Survivable only from a mass-wounds perspective (1b) Units that are able to take on an already held objective, clear the enemy numbers, and hold it with their own numbers. Usually glass cannons, but can easily clear an objective and hold it in their own right for at least a turn. (1c) Units that whether or not they get there first or not are really hard to dislodge (tanks). survivability can come from mortal would protection, good armor saves, good abilities, high wounds, or just DIRT CHEAP so that you pack in 40 models onto an objective. But still need to have enough models that they just can't be out-numbered too easily on the objective. (2) can be broken up a few times. You have: (2a) Direct support, which further breaks into -(2a1) Buff-spell wizards -(2a2) Passive Aura models -(2a3) Command Ability Models -(2a4) Summoners/Resurrects (2b) Pure dmg dealers to remove key enemy forces, which break into -(2b1) Ranged dmg Dealers (including ranged behemoths) -(2b2) Behemoths (more melee focused, siege breaker types) -(2b3) Monster troops -(2b4) Mortal Wound Wizards Each of the (2b) ones could conceivably be mirrored into Horde-killing vs Elite-killing, though that distinction is a little more fuzzy in AoS vs WK40k. But things like high rend vs high attacks is a good distinction still. So like (2b1H) through (2b4E). But even then i feel like we are breaking it down a bit too much. Screens: all of the cheap scoring units make good screens by definition, and screens are more of a matter of necessity, and few brings units for the sole purpose of screens that would not fill one of the major roles above also (like 1c). Even Stabbas are more of a (1a) or (1c). Cavalry isn't really a separate role, in a lot of ways, but just a different way of executing the above roles. Being fast allows for tactical flexibility in how their role is achieved, be it hard hitting melee, getting buff coverage extended to a critical flank, or even screening off valuable units. Cav doesn't usually come in high enough numbers to be super effective scoring units for contested objectives, but make great (1a) scorers for uncontested objectives or early points before the enemy arrives. So does every army need one of every role above? I don't think so per se, that adds to the flavor. Does any army need more than one unit that adequately suffices each of the roles above? I don't feel like we do. Consolidation of buffs into fewer models is a good thing for power and balance. I dunno - that is my analysis for what it is.
The main issue is that the roles I mentioned before are the roles the various units are intended to fullfill. There is then still some slight specialisation with load-outs (e.g. a bastiladon with solar engine vs. ark of sotek). But the roles I mentioned are their basic battlefieldroles. However, as I said before, the game does a poor job of distinguishing these roles. There are a couple of reasons for that: 1) We're balanced around points. Which leads to the "odd" situation where equal sized forces where one should have a distinct advantage over the other frequently don't. As an example; a 1000 points of heavy infantry should absolutly decimate a 1000 points of light infantry without much effort in a straight up brawl as heavy infantry is just flat out better (with a few exceptions like light infantry armed with specialized anti armour weaponry or some such). However, not only doesn't this necesarly happen, there's examples of light infantry trouncing heavy infantry. 2) The differences between the various roles are rather minor in AoS. We lack things like a strength/thoughness mechanic, to distinguish between heavily and lightly armoured troops. Wounds carrying over means fodder can't absorb strong attacks. And the differences in stats, especially defensivly usually aren't particularly major, which combined with the approach to balance then results in the situation where a squad of 5 heavier infantry costs a 100 points with 2 wounds each and a 5+ save, but 10 light fodder costs 90 points with 1 wound each and a 6+ save, making them relativly comperable in terms of effective wounds per point (difference is about 1.66 effective wound per 100 points). So unless you bring say 2000 points worth of each the difference can be negated by a (un)lucky roll or two. In fact right now the only mechanic that properly differentiates between lighter and heavier troops is battleshock as cannonfodder is much more likely to suffer from battleshock and to lose more models at once and often has worse bravery as well, however command abilities that prevent battleshock are stupidly common, effecitvly neutering this mechanic as well. 3) GW doesn't necesarly give models rules (and stats) that fit with their intended role. Which leads to weird stuff like judicators having an anti-horde weapon that works consistently as long as the "horde" consists of 5+ models and only really becomes unreliable once you drop below 3 models. Or a melee champion-style hero like the lord celestant having powerfull ranged attacks for some reason. Which further muddies the waters, as well as ends up breaking what should be the counter to this particular unit (a lord celestant shouldn't be winning a ranged firefight, even if it is against the worst archers in the world, and judicators shouldn't be decimating a small elite heavy infantry with rend immunity unit like saurus guard) As for your remark about not needing multiple units of the same role. You do, at least in a few instances, obviously with some differences like a focus on anti-horde vs. some extra survivability or some such. It adds flavor and variety to armies. Otherwise you'l end up seeing more or less the same stuff constantly. Simply sticking with different loadouts will probably not be enough as then people will probably end up sticking to whatever is most effective in the current meta (just look at all these skinks with clubs that don't exist cuz skinks with clubs are terrible) Anyways, long story short, the solution shouldn't be to just dump half of the unit roster but instead to actually make meaningfull distinctions between the various roles. As for the roles you mentioned, those are what you get when you look at it from an extremely game-focused point of view and ignore that the game ultimatly is a wargame and is supposed have some kind of basis in the reality of war. In itself that is of course a valid way of looking at it. But it does mean you largely lose the war aspect and that indeed with 5-6 units you have a functional "army". However it will mean that every army from a given faction will play basicly the same, as well as losing the war and the collectors aspect of the game. It'l probably also limit the amount of variety between armies to a significant degree as well (after all, if you're the only faction with cavalry we can't just make it twice as fast as infantry as you'l just be running circles around your opponents)
Yeah, it's a valid approach, but not so simple do analyze, especially in AoS, where the rules for objectives control depend on the scenario, and sometime they can be held only by heroes, or behemoths.
yeah, that further complicates things. Though at least it's one of the few things still encouraging a balanced build instead of spamming a certain unit bringing the requirement to at least 2 different units (I think with only a wizard and a Multi-model unit you've covered every single possible scenario for controlling objectives, I'm not sure the behemoth variant exists)
https://www.warhammer-community.com...FIgzz3_jnWr_KivuJ6lmDgNFjpYfce1veKN1jYWfXlFrY So Sylvaneth tome confirmed ( new endless ) Also we might have that famous Dinosaur endless spell.
What is it with sylvaneth sprites and being wood-eating insects. It feels weird given that half the sylvaneth are trees..
What i did in that post is referred to a "top-down analysis" wherein you start with the highest level, most macro view of a system and start breaking it down. What you are doing is a "bottoms -up analysis" where you start with the smallest quanta of organization and start piecing it together to get to larger structures. Both are valid and indeed any good system analysis WILL do both. Some of the most valuable information gleaned is comparing the top-down and bottoms-up looks and seeing where and how they diverge. A well organized system might end up with both approaches arriving at very similar results. Furthermore, it was my intention to look at this system as a game, and I even prefaced my text with that intent (not to sound too defensive, FYI only). Looking at the game from a Seraphon PoV and loving every unit, their fluff and the "war-game" aspects of that army is a 100% valid and great way of looking at it. Thing is, that's been done, over and over. I wanted to think out loud and try to look at it from another perspective, and unsurprisingly it ended up producing some unpopular views. Looking at it from a game-focused POV, solely, was the goal in this thought experiment. Bottom line is: right now Seraphon have a very different organization from any other AoS army. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe that is intentional. Maybe it is a hold-over from a game system that no longer exists. I want to exercise our thought processes beyond what we are used to and try to apply a generalized AoS game model to our army, instead of applying a Seraphon model to AoS. Top-down can cause systems engineers to miss important tidbits, aspects that have been orphaned in higher-level architectures, but bottoms-up can cause the whole boat to go off course and miss the forest for the trees (or the lizards for the dinos?). I wanted to see what would happen if i socialized these thoughts with the community and hoped, if just for a moment, we'd be able to look at it with open minds, even if it ends up being the complete wrong answer. Not necessarily, If you have combat roles as generalized and unspecified as the ones i provided; then there are MANY ways to accomplish each role. Take a look at the differences between Grimghast Reapers and Wych Aelves. Both fulfill role (1b) and (2b5) {which isn't in my original list but would include clouds of murderous troops that kill via weight of dice, like the shootums in Blonesplitterz} but do so in very different ways. Or take LoN Skeletons with necro support and compare that to Ard'boyz. Those at first seem to be VERY different, but in the end (once again an objective grabbing game scenario) operate in very similar ways and the generals of each would want each to get stuck in and positioned very similarly. They are weak to different attacks by the enemy of course, but that's the extra bit of individualism that is allowed to shine though in a more unspecified combat role model. But get a 3-attack, rend:-3, dmg:3 big boy swinging at either group, and they'll both take their licks. in the end this may all be moot and irrelevant as we are going to get what we are going to get and we'll make use of it. But i like to try and apply models and systems thinking to problems if find in the world and just let it show me different things, even if those insights end up being useless.
I think they are "Spites" which are comprised of the lower-levels of life magic. Sylvaneth follow the life-death-rebirth system and as such deadwood eating insects are an important part of that system as they are in real life forests.