There's several bits of fluff indicating that the seraphon are normal creatures once summoned. They stick around until someone finally kills em. And in that sense, an olblood who's been around for aeons will indeed be a loss. It's why there's no clear limitations on the slann's summoning besides "it can only summon so much in a given period of time". Because once they are summoned they're just living beings (albeit magical that bleed starlight). But they don't need to be sustained by the slann in the same way say chaos daemons need to be sustained by their mortal followers or a tear in reality and can be banished back to the warp/realms of chaos. Also, there's some bits of fluff floating around indicating that not all saurus are summoned. Sunbloods for example are implied to be survivors from the world that was. Also more ossiarch things ironically they have horses. And again, a super busy model.
Hmmmmmm..... So, what could an "Astrolithic Skyshrine" be? (The name appears on some customs record, dug up here: https://panjiva.com/Wargames-Factory-Ltd/33258484 ) I don't dare to hope for anything because it is prefaced with "Dominion of Sigmar". Probably just a part of the generic azyr style terrain piece.
Oh and btw I am pretty sure the new Ossiarch models solve at least one, maybe two rumor engine pictures.
I'm really hoping that we get a few actual named heroes back when our book arrives. We have a lot of hero models, but none of them really FEEL heroic. They're mostly elements of a larger mechanic like the slann, banner, priest, etc, things you NEED to take in order for our combos and abilities to actually function. Seeing things like the Nighthaunt have like 10 named heroes that all do more with a single unit than half our army is RAD. I want some of that. The only problem as was already mentioned, how do we get some of that while maintaining what makes Seraphon feel like Seraphon (Summoning / Teleporting)? I just can't see us getting a lot of those big powerhouse heroes and keeping it balanced if we can pop shit around the board whenever we want. Hell, I still lose games at this point but my opponents always go "Man that is so OP" when I move units behind their lines. Imagine if our units individually were more powerful?
I think you have a point there. They just cannot make our units more powerful while still keeping the game mechanics the way they are. The exception being Saurus I guess. A wound or save more here and there, and maybe a bit of rend wouldn't make them OP I think.
Could be coded. like a false name for shipping, because the phrase "SKYSHRINE" is a TM of SONY under EVERQUEST. or it could be that they got around it with the "astrolithic" addition
Saurus were never on a similar power lvl as chaos warriors. Chaos Warriors were actually viable. Saurus never were and were never even as close to as strong. Stats meant very little in WHFB, it was all about equipment and Saurus had iniative1 and no great weapon. Saurus sucked in fantasy, arguably more than they do now. They were not elite infantry, and were not pointed or intended to be used as such. The notion that saurus are cold blooded killing machines comes from the lore and nothing else. I dont necessarily disagree with that assumption, but Saurus have always been cannon fodder in both fantasy and Age of Sigmar.
that's a side affect of no updates and as such just generally being bad. skinks are good because of 1 ability they have the worst combat stats in the game.
Yeah, but that's what is so great about them. The how they function on the tabletop is exactly what you would expect based on how they are described in the lore and the look of their models. The Carnosaur's grappling ability is also cool because it makes it easy to visualize the way it fights. Unfortunately, the same can't really be said for the Saurus
no it isn't skinks are clever courageous ambush fighters capable of hitting you from the side and taking a chunk out of you. the are not weak pathetic cowards good for nothing beyond running away. remember these are the spunky little guys that are as tall as a man train fire and death spiting monsters and drove the entire clan pestilence into the sea with out saurus aid. they should not be comparable to grots in melee the 3 foot tall runts that get punted over fences by human civilians. balance they are fine fluff they are a massive disappointment.
yeah, their tails are one of the rumor engines. meh, having the light infantry of a faction be little more than cannonfodder is common enough though. If you'd make skinks as capable as they are in fluff then a basic saurus would nearly need a hero-statline & something like guard would be utter monsters (let alone stuff like the sunblood who'd become gods of war...) to distinguish them from their "lesser" kin.
yes my point wasn't that they need to be better, not at all, they do there job fine. my point was that they don't fit with there fluff which was what i was responding to as seen here
meh, in old fluff skinks were not exceptional fighters... but neither they were designed to die if someone looked agrily at them. They were depicted as incredible effective ambushers / harassers... and for melee there was a reason why from the spawning pool, were used to emerge at the same time skinks and Kroxigors. And this was reflected by the game mechanics (cohort joined by 1 kroxigors for each 8 skinks, and skinks alone with the skirmisher rule) In tabletop WHFB, skinks' performance was fitting perfectly their fluff.
I would debate that hotly. Saurus were on an elite level in terms of Core choices because most enemy Core choices still required 5+ to wound them due to having T4, so against most Core choices Saurus could simply weather their S3 attacks and strike back with their mass of S4 attacks that would generally wound on 3+ or 4+, and against enemy Core troops with Great Weapons Saurus would be able to strike first and take out a lot of their number before they struck back. Sure, Initiative 1 is their main drawback, but if you’re T4 as opposed to T3 and equipped with a 4+ Save as Saurus are, you can weather the attacks of most enemy Core. Indeed I see their Initiative 1 as not being so much of a flaw, but more one of the things that keep them balanced. Chaos Warriors in 7th and 8th on the other hand are ridiculously powerful for a Core unit, they are so overpowered that they render one of their elite units, Chosen, completely obsolete because the two units have the same profile yet Chaos Warriors are cheaper and can be taken in Core. It doesn’t even make sense that they are that powerful, they’re principally just mutated humans so at the very least should have 1 attack rather than 2. Chaos Warriors were pretty balanced in 6th, they still had their high Initiative and Weapon Skill, which makes sense with their lore, but also had one attack rather than two and had Heavy Armour rather than Chaos Armour, which not only keeps them balanced as a Core Unit but also made Chosen, who had 2 attacks and Chaos Armour, more viable (and it made more sense for them to have that extra attack and armour save bonus because they were elite lorewise compared to the rest of the army). True, in terms of being elite compared with every other unit in Warhammer Fantasy, basic Saurus rank pretty low down, but they are elite compared to most other Core troops specifically - in a straight fight between 2 Core units with no buffs from heroes or anything, I would say the only Core units capable of beating Saurus would be Chaos Warriors (who are OP as mentioned earlier) and any knight unit (who are riding Barded steeds which gives them a 2+ save, so there's not much most Core choices can do against those). In Age of Sigmar, on the other hand, if we compare Saurus with all the other Battleline units, they rank very low down. Vulkite Berzerkers, Blood Warriors, Witch Elves e.t.c are all so much more powerful 1-1, and the horde army Battleline choices like Night Goblins and Crypt Ghouls can be spammed more easily than Saurus can.
I hope they remake saurus warriors to the same size as ardboyz and liberators so they look more like old blood on foot. We already have skinks as hordes.
I guess my point is that Saurus didn't exactly fight well in fantasy. You didn't bring a block of Saurus warriors and think to yourself "i'm gonna push this into something and it'll mess them up." They didn't outfight literally any unit that was actually intended to kill something, so they were functionally cannon fodder, just like they are now. In a 1 to 1 fight against other core choices, sure. But "they stack up well against other core choices" was never really the argument. It was that "saurus are elite infantry," which they distinctly are not. They had so much more in common with the men at arms and skeletons of the world than the chaos warriors. IMO for a unit to be an "elite infantry like chaos warriors" they need to even be somewhere in the same league as Chaos Warriors, and saurus just are not. And it's not because Chaos Warriors were OP, its because Saurus warriors were trash. They are arguably better now than they have ever been.