No it's not, provided both units serve a similar function in both armies (e.g. both are heavy infantry) they can easily be compared and they should get similar performance with a similar amount of effort (this includes potential support). Maybe that one unit is more dependent on support and the other has a better base statline, or there's other trade-offs between the two (e.g. a bit faster but squishier, slightly worse statlines but cheaper etc.). And of course there can be minor difference that are balanced out by army balance which can excuse small differences in overall power (e.g. A can be more powerfull than B but A is core in their army while B serves a specific niche in their). But it shouldn't be the case that one of the two is just flat out better in basicly every concievable way. Which is what you have when you compare ardboyz with guard.
If your arguement is that unit X in tome X is bad because unit Y in tome Y is stronger, that is a meaningless comparison. Not only do you have batallions, alligiances, subfactions etc. that play a huge role (some armies have bad warscrolls but is relying significantly on buffs, where as other armies have insane warscrolls, but no real synergies), but armies are also vastly different. Comparing 2 Weirdnobs to Kroak holds zero value.
I was using the comparison mostly for myself. As an Ironjawz player when looking over Seraphon Warscrolls I had thought the Saurus Guard were very good because they looked nearly identical on first pass to ArdBoyz. Upon further reading and research I found out they’re actually not very good and are sort of in a purposeless limbo, especially if (god forbid I guess) you make a list with no Kroak.
I have to agree with Grotpunter on this point. Guard may be overcosted by 10 points or so, but they have unique abilities, that Ardboyz don't. They can protect the slann, they can be teleported and have leadership 10 in coalesced, while they reduce damage by 1 in coalesced. Their save can be increased by starseer and astrolith gives them 6+ FnP, etc. etc. The unit is always a part of army and has a distinct role. The problem of guard is that they don't have such a role, which wouldn't be performed better by other units, or, probably, we don't need their advantages. I am glad, that we take them from the shelves at least to guard slann now.
they have A unique ability that is the only thing you take them for as every thing else they have is laughably sub par. no that was not my argument at all it is not a 1 to 1 comparison but i didn't say it was just that there is value to comparing units and even with all the buffs in the world saurus guard come up short
What I was trying to do was illustrate how the Saurus Guard lack a purpose. For Ironjawz the Ardboyz stat-line makes them a great anvil, and they can pack a punch when they fight back as well. They're a pretty good tarpit. However Ironjawz don't get much choice. Having a similar, but possibly even worse Warscroll in a book with 20+ Warscrolls (as opposed to like 8 lol), means you'd need to have exceptionally strong stats and a very clear and powerful purposes to make yourself seen and useful. As has been mentioned they're squeezed out by Warriors and Knights and really have no place aside from ablative wounds for the Slann. OTOH maybe that's truly all they need to be (guardians for Slann). Apparently it's enough to get people to take them so they appear to have a solid niche, role and function.
Obviously you don't compare them just in a complete vacuum, you also take into account ease of support etc.... Take those things into account and for comparable units you should draw conclusions like "this unit has worse base-stats, but this faction relies on buffs" or "this unit base speed is far slower, but with battalion/support unit X/allegiance ability Y they can still be where they need to be" and so on when you have two comparable units. Also, the reason you can't really comparea weirdnob to kroak is because you're comparing a 1 cast wizard with a 4 cast wizard... They're not comparable units to begin with. If you'd want to compare them to one of our wizards you'd have to compare them to a starpriest or starseer...
Suarus guard are fine and they are seeing more play than a lot of units in out book. Their role is very clear, to protect your slann or kroak. They do not need to do anything more than that and that alone makes them unique. Ramping up their damage is not something you want to do because it takes away from their role. If they had as much damage as a Saurus warrior why would you ever take a Saurus warrior other than wanting numbers? If it was reasonable to play with say 3 blocks of 10, kroak would be unkillable unless you chewed through 60 wounds. You can not buff guard without also indirectly buffing slanns/kroak and slanns are already A + units. If you wanted to make them better, which you don't really need to do, you would increase their defense more and set them farther apart from warriors.
Their role is clear, but it makes for a rather boring unit. They're basicly just an upgrade for the slann making them a poor imitation of katakros. Possible buffs/changes that shouldn't be inherently problematic but would put them in a much nicer spot than just "ablative slann wounds". - Guard can guard more than slann (let's say all heroes on foot). - A FnP, but selfless protector can't benefit from FnP saves (better guards, more distinct from other saurus, but not a buff to Slanns) - Make them part of a decent and actually useable battalion (gives a clear reason to bring more than the 1 group attached to your slann, but noone's going to be spamming them) - Eternity warden actually being usefull (his command ability is basicly just a more limited version of the oldblood..) - Reasonable buffs to their stats to distinguish them from warriors & knights (Without immeadiatly making them 1000 times more efficient obviously ) As for your question why would you take warriors if guard do more damage: - warriors are cheaper - bodycount - The greater efficiency of buffs on hordes. - Warriors don't lose effeciency when leaving their slann and can go roam on their own
I feel like Saurus Guard are mostly fine. What they're missing is a good buff from the Eternity Warden and a proper battalion. Yeah the Eternity Warden gives the +1 to hit, but you can get that easily from Coalesced charge bonus (or spend a cp to get that). I think the Eternity Warden should give the +1 to nearby Saurus Guard. Also, I would prefer if the Saurus Guard had 2" on their weapon range instead of 1".
They just seem outpaced by knights alone in every aspect except taking wounds for slann. They really need a battalion and the eternity warden to actually not be useless. His ability just being a poorman version of the oldblood is silly. He should of given them an aftersave or more damage. Making it +1 to hit when they already hit on 3s and we have much better ways of getting a +1 was just lazy.
if only they were more than that or at least worked for skink heroes on foot, they'd be far more interesting then
I want to be able to run then next to my carnasaurs to keep them from losing wounds to shooting and magic before they get into combat.
If guard were any better, Kroak would be more busted than he already is. Guard are a good unit. Not every unit needs to do everything all the time. If their bodyguard ability applied to skink and saurus heroes it would just be the most obnoxious mechanic of all time.
I sincerely disagree. guard getting better in only their ability to protect all SERAPHON heroes would have zero effect on Kroak. you could even break it down so that their guard ability only triggers on a 2+ for slann and 4+ for other heroes.
There's plenty of ways to improve guards without indirectly buffing Kroak... And even if it would (indirectly) buff Kroak it wouldn't necesarly be problematic. There's already some nice limitations keeping the combo in check to some extend anyway. The combo is reasonably expensive, the bodycount is low, they're slow, they can't leave eachothers side... The only buff that might be problematic is giving them more wounds or a wardsave (though an obvious solution would be "ward saves don't count for selfless protectors"). But something like an extra attack, a better save, the ability to do something besides being ablative wounds for a slann all shouldn't really impact the Slann + guard combo... As for protecting skink & saurus heroes on foot. All that this achieves is that especially the skinks can no longer be sniped by anyone who looks at them funny by essentially doubling the prize of your skink. That doesn't exactly sound like an ridiculous trade-off... It's not like 5 guards + a skink priest are going to make an unstoppable force, nearly everything of (roughly) equal value will win in a straight up fight...
Any kind of buff to kroak would be flagrantly offensive to the people that play this game. Literally anything you add to guard is just a straight buff to an already good unit. An extra attack or better save? Cool, now that battleline you were taking anyways to save Kroak can also go toe to toe against some of the tougher stuff in the game. So not only is it giving extra wounds to your godly spellcaster, it's also doing decent damage on its own. That sounds fair. Bodyguard for skink and saurus heroes? Basically our only weakness on those heroes is their relatively fragility. Carnosaurs do disgusting damage for their points. A carnosaur with 15 guard around it (the necessary battleline you were taking anyways) suddenly has 30 EXTRA WOUNDS. That's so strong it's insane. Those weak skink heroes that so much of our army relies on? Suddenly unkillable. Making guard better literally makes the only weakness the book has irrelevant. Put 5 guard in your little castle and it essentially makes all your heroes immune to everything but getting straight up charged and if thats happening you've probably lost anyways. Think about it this way. Would you spend 310 points for a carnosaur with 10 extra wounds? Yeah. And that doesnt even take into account the guard can hold objectives on their own, also catch wounds for your slann/kroak and have 10 attacks of their own. Strong doesn't even begin to do that justice. Even if you say its only foot heroes, that astrolith is now unkillable, and you still have the skink problem. The skink heroes (priests and starpriests especially) buffs are simply too strong to have such a strong safety net. They don't need a buff. They have a role. They do it well. If you make them a stronger fighter, you'd have to nerf their bodyguard save. If you make their already incredible bodyguard role better, you'd need to nerf their individual strength.
If we'd buff them to actually be able to function on their own, as a decent unit, and most importantly with a clear advantage over warriors (who provide more bodies) or knights (who are faster), they'd still be held back by reasonable limits. The trade-off alone of "do I keep em next to my slann or have them actually go do something" is probably already enough. It's not like +1 attack or +1 to their save is going to turn a slann + 5 guards into an unstoppable force. They're still mostly just going to be sitting in a corner far away from all the fighting. But by giving them something, anything, of value besides selfless protector you might actually see them do something different than that once in a while. I don't think they should be able to guard mounted heroes, especially those on bigger mounts. Balancing issues aside it'd just be rather ridiculous to be guarding a creature 3-4 times their size... Which comes at the cost of a 100 additional points per hero, which is an increase of 71-142%`additional cost depending on the skink hero. Not to mention how quickly this adds up if you want to protect 2-3 skinks and a slann. That's a fairly steep investment. And we do not have such a overpowered battletome that we can just spend 20-30% of our entire army on ablative wounds.... And before you try to be clever and stick all your skinks near 1 guard unit, 1) you're going to run out of ablative wounds rather fast & 2) your entire support core is now stuck in one corner of the battlefield and your opponent can dominate everywhere else where your unbuffed units are struggling... Currently they're not an independent unit. They're a glorified upgrade for Slann, a great upgrade, but still nothing more than that. If this is all they're going to be then just delete guard from the game entirely and give us a new unit "Slann with his guard" following the same logic as Katakros or one of those Underworld warbands that gets a +1 to saves as long as the model with a shield is alive... At least then we're open about them just being a slann upgrade instead of having to pretend they might be usefull as an independent unit on their own that competes with warriors and knights....
The way to beat armies like Seraphon is typically to kill the heroes. If you make them semi immortal, you kinda remove one of our few weaknesses. They are battleline and "only" 40 points more than a unit of Skinks. If I could ensure none of my Skink heroes would ever die, I would likely replace my Skinks screens with Saurus Guards and just summon the Skinks in later on. I actually like the current design of how you can invest more and more into Kroak depending on how big of a role you want him to be in the army. You can put him in naked at 320 for CPs, throw a couple of odd spells etc. Then if you want more, you can "upgrade" him with a Balewind, Astrolith, maybe an ordinary Slann for +1 to cast, a unit or two of Saurus Guards. The investment is now between 320 and 960 points depending on if you want a Nagash-like character in your army.