AoS NEW *rumor*

Imo not every single monster needs mount traits and I dont think we need prayers considering how strong our magic game is. We already have so many synergies and buffs that you can pile onto a single unit. Im pretty sure they would need to strip a lot of that stuff if you also wanted prayers and mount traits ontop of it. I really dont see this as some feature that is missing and Im not by any stretch eagerly awaiting an update.

There is always something they could have done just a little bit better in any book, but if you take our book and compare it to almost anything else, our book is amazing imo. Loads of options depending on how the state of the game is. Strong magic meta? Check! Strong shooting meta? Check! Strong combat armies? Check! (at least I would consider Knights quite reasonable).

We have incredible strong mechanics that arent being outdated anytime soon - Piling +to cast/unbind and having board unbinds/damage from Comet's Call is insane. Stellar Tempest vs a horde meta is insane. Scaly Skin can be incredible depending on what damage profile is hot in the current meta - Halving incoming damage (depending on damage profile) is a lot. FoS retreat and shoot mechanic is incredible powerful for both damage but also objective play. Thunder Lizards with double Bastiladons shooting twice ensures we have an answer against a meta where either Chaos is super strong or semi weak buff heroes sitting in the back is the general playstyle. Summoning is always powerful and we dont have to give up a lot to reliably and steadily summon 10 Skinks to threaten objectives late game.

I mean you are obviously entitled to your opinion just as I am to mine, but I honestly think any complain about our "new" book is just nitpicking and 99% of factions are MUCH worse off than we are.

 

O at this point it's less that its something we desperatly need to be balanced and more that I'm just annoyed at lacking the mechanic and potential for customization as well as the roleplaying aspect these things have in making an army truly "your dudes". Plus, prayers would be usefull to distinguish our skink from our slann. Right now if we want a powerfull wizard we take a slann. If we want a minor wizard we get a starpriest, leaving the Troglodon and starseer in awkward limbo. Giving them prayers could help give them a more defined spot.

But yeah, it'd come at a cost. It just annoys me we never got them despite them being such an obvious thing to add to our faction filled with priests & dinosaurs riding dinosaurs (seriously if there's one faction I would've assumed would get prayers and mount traits it's the faction led by aztec priest dinosaurs who ride on dinosaurs...)

O yeah, the current book is fine for the most part. I meant more that if GW starts introducing impactfull new mechanics again it'l quickly get outdated simply because you end up losing out on big impactfull tools. Even if you can keep up thanks to raw numbers it just kinda sucks when everyone gets shiny new tools to flesh out their army while you wait for your turn.

It really makes me wish new battletomes, and new mechanics like endless spells, would be introduced all at once at the start of a new version while throughout the new version you only get minor updates with maybe a new unit here and there for established factions. Instead of entirely new game mechanics like endless spells, faction terrain, faction specific spells/prayers/mount traits etc. gradually getting introduced throughout the lifespan of a version of AoS.

 

Every book doesn't get every mechanic. We have mechanics other books don't. Other books have mechanics we don't. Some books get unique endless spells. Some get really impactful terrain. Some get both but they both suck. Some get neither. Some get access to tons of units with a ton of depth and army building variability. Some are left with eels for almost 3 years.

If armies end up getting new mechanics in the broken realms books, awesome. I'll start worrying about seraphon getting left behind when we aren't one of the top 5 armies in the game with a super deep book that's less than a year old.

Frankly, i'm super excited to see what happens. If this morathi book is any indication, there will be awesome flavorful evolutions to both the fluff and some armies that desperately need a little love without requiring an entirely new book.

 

true but im hard presed to find a book that doesn't have mount traits or prayers. the ones that don't are from before mount traits where a thing and they are getting them. see IDK

 

I don't think KO or lumineth have prayers and slaves or cities don't have mount traits. Gargants obviously have neither, but they are clearly a bit of a weird one in terms of army design. Those are just the last 4 books (including us) and I'm sure there are others. Gitz maybe? They've been pretty inconsistent for whatever reason. I don't think prayers or mount traits are really all that universal.

 

neither KO or lumaneth have priests so prayers wouldn't work. and cities does have mount traits it's just city specific .... and bad . STD is a odd man out.

 

Cities don't have mount traits. And if we want to be technical, our one priest does have a prayer.

Definitely hear you on KO and lumineth not having priests, but my only point was ever that all armies don't get everything. These are examples of armies not getting everything. I'd argue it sometimes makes sense, but it also sometimes doesn't.

 

don't they?

• Drakeblood Curses: One Dragon/Kharibdyss/War Hydra, plus one per Battalion, can have a Drakeblood Curse. No model may have more than one curse, and no curse may be taken more than once.

1. Acidic Blood: Roll a dice each time the unit is allocated a wound in melee that wasn't negated. On a 4+, the damaging unit takes 1 mortal wound. Annoy your enemies who try to take down your War Hydra!
2. Jutting Bones: After the model makes a charge, pick an enemy unit within 1". On a 2+, target takes D3 mortal wounds.
3. Felgaze: 12" -2 bravery bubble. When stacked with the Kharibdyss’ already existing aura, you got the perfect anti-horde monster that can chew through Grots and Skaven like Thanksgiving dinner.

those look very much like mount traits

Definitely hear you on KO and lumineth not having priests, but my only point was ever that all armies don't get everything. These are examples of armies not getting everything. I'd argue it sometimes makes sense, but it also sometimes doesn't.[/QUOTE]
and mount traits doesn't seem to be one of them im less concerned about prayers since you are right our staffs are basically prayers

 

I mean, i think that would fall into "seraphon don't have prayers" territory, don't you? One city gets one "mount trait" for 3 units that are total trash (and also not all mounts)? I don't know how we can realistically say seraphon don't have prayers when we have one priest unit with one prayer and at the same time say cities have mount traits when its 3 units in one city. Feels pretty like for like to me.

edit: sorry looks like i missed your last statement. Do i think seraphon should have mount traits? Absolutely. It seems appropriately thematic. I'd argue it feels appropriately thematic for all cities armies, and slaves as well but GW seems to give them out based on a different criteria. Not exactly sure what that criteria is, but It's not exactly as if seraphon are some battered army book that just had a bunch of stuff arbitrarily kept from it and only it. Every book has weird examples of that.

final edit: in my head, they probably use mount traits as an easy "on/off" balancing switch. If the book feels like it needs a little extra oomph and it relies on this big monsters, flip the mount trait switch. If it looks like the book is already a little overloaded from a power standpoint, maybe they switch it off. I'd be super interested in knowing if the seraphon book started with mount traits or if it was just never thought about.

 

Neither CoS nor STD are exactly known as armies with particular fancy mounts; it's not like the seraphon which is literally sold on the basis of it being dinosaurs riding on dinosaurs or BCR which can make full behemoth armies. That might be why they're so lacking in this department.

God I hope they don't do that. It might be convenient from a balance point of view, but it's such a game-y approach & really undercuts the theme of an army. An army that has fancy mounts should have mount-traits just from a thematic point of view. And yeah that might mean the base-warscroll needs to be toned down (slightly), but that's better than cutting out fluffy rules and making an army that somehow doesn't have all the core mechanics belonging to it's core themes. (and the same of course holds for priests needing prayers, wizards needing endless spells etc.)

 

Prayers should be going to armies that have a strong priest-class (lore-wise); not just to armies that don't have wizards. Imho it's mostly a fluffy distinction. Ultimatly we have abilities that achieve similar things spread out over prayers, regular abilities, command abilities, magic & the occasional special attack (e.g. the various breath attacks some monsters have).

How this is spread out for any specific faction should depend largely on what makes sense thematicly. But ultimatly it doesn't really matter if you do say D3 mortal wounds at range via a prayer, a command ability, a spell, a regular ability or a special attack (and the same of course holds for more utility focussed stuff, like buffs/debuffs) Especially if all of them have a roughly 50% succesrate, with roughly the same range and area of effect and can be shot exactly once per turn...

 

Is it? If they stripped out the +1 hit, -1 bravery, and 6's explode from the carnosaur warscroll and just made them mount traits, is that really a better option? I'm not super convinced. Also, it's a game man. If they gotta make some sacrifices here or there to create a better game, i think the balance they have at the moment between player freedom and game balance is pretty fine. I'd rather have the depth of unit options, or the flexibility of having a combat, magic, OR shooting army more-so than forcing prayer, endless spell or mount trait options into the book. Or any book for that matter, I don't think the game designers should feel forced to add something just because other armies happen to have it.

But maybe that's just me.

Also, i'd argue that COS (maybe more-so than slaves) is definitely an army that deserves mount traits as much as lizardmen do. The empire general on a gryphon is basically THE iconic warhammer fantasy model. And to be totally honest, until the most recent book seraphon had literally 1 monster mount. A Carnosaur (which actually came rather late in the warhammer fantasy cycle). The steg has traditionally not been a mount in the same context as your dragons/wyverns/carnosaurs/etc. If i had to twist my brain into it making sense, i could... at least as much sense as COS dragons and gryphons not having them

 

I'm not good at cropping stuff out. But in times of war units in a howdah were usually considered to be mounted warbeasts so I guess on a technical straw grasping gotcha moment. But I'd say if they have howdahs or riders whatever faction they should have mount traits not just ours.

 

Totally, i'd completely consider them mounts and don't necessarily disagree with anything you said on principle. I was just speaking from the standpoint of seraphon being known as a "mount" based army, because for most of their existence in WHFB they were more of a monster army. Stegs and bastis and such were (and still largely are) treated in the game like single units, not necessarily mounted creatures in the same manner that an orc wyvern or elf dragon was. It's definitely splitting hairs, but i'd consider most of this conversation to be an exercise in hair splitting

I think seraphon should have mount traits. i'd prefer to have a good book and we got that, so it doesn't really bother me that much that we didn't, that's all. It was more of a response against the argument that we "deserve" them because of our lore/history but slaves and cities don't, based on their lore and history. It all comes back to this idea that seraphon missed out on core mechanics when really, every army misses out on some core mechanics, sometimes for good, thematic reasons and sometimes for arbitrary ones.

Hopefully its something they add if we happen to feature in any of the broken realms books. Wouldn't thay be something. I think it would push carnosaurs into the spotlight, they already do some much efficient damage. Giving them an extra jaw attack or an extra rend on that jaw attack... oo baby.

 

Well not literally those examples, but essentially yes, it helps accentuate the theme of big giant dinosaur mounts, but ultimatly the balance is (roughly) the same.

O not every army needs to have every thing. However, every army should have everything that thematicly belongs to it. Instead of arbitrarly leaving stuff out. Themes are important in a game like warhammer and not something that should be sacrificed as it has a fairly strong roleplaying/storydriven aspect where you make your army "your dudes". It isn't just an abstract game where the only difference between your dudes and the opponents dudes is that one is red and the other blue.

Also, ultimatly; nothing needs to change for the actual game. We could call the CP generating abilities on our skinks & slann "prayers" and that'd already accentuate their status as a a class of priests without changing any actual rules.

The general on Gryphon is iconic, however it's only the general who rides it. This reduces the need to make them unique as you'l rarely see multiple gryphons in one army. The same holds for the other generals on big beasts in CoS. It's usually just the one. In contrast seraphon/lizardmen have always been fielded multiple carnosaurs, stegadons and bastiladons, and that's one of our major draws. As such a way to distinguish between our various big beasties would be good.

As for the stegadon, it's always been the mount for the EoTG & Mazdamundi, so imho both carnosaur and stegadon more than qualify as mount. Also, even the regular stegadon is clearly used as a mount. It might not be a heroes mount, but there's still a howdah on it with several skinks riding it. It's not just a random beast we send into battle.

 

I'm not really trying to argue that seraphon shouldn't have mount traits and never was. I can understand why they might not have them, and their lack of inclusion doesn't really bother me because the book has enough flavor in other places to make up for it. To me at least.

Historically, lizardmen weren't an army known for their mounted heroes but their monsters. And again, that was only in argument to how "lizardmen deserve it but slaves and cities dont." They all deserve mount traits and none of them have it. Maybe we are more similar to cities and slaves than BCR or FEC when it comes to mounts, who knows.

Regardless, the argument was never around that lizardmen shouldnt have mount traits. It was that there's no need to worry about seraphon getting left behind. There still isn't a need, as the broken realms book has only helped armies that suffer from problems lizardmen dont have, suffer from those problems a little less. Thats a good thing. Maybe it means mount traits are in our future, or something even cooler.

Its an opportunity to be excited about what's coming and excited about new army building options. Try to be excited lol. We can all worry about the seraphon book getting left behind if or when it even does. At the moment it's a great book, with some great expansion style books in the horizon. Whats not to like?

 

The Troglodon not having a CA haha

 

haha fair enough. Personally, i'd rather a second cast but the ol' trog has always been a bit of an outcast. Not too sure what it wants to do. Maybe some rend on those big claws of his haha.

Maybe it'll be a mount trait in our broken realms book

 

I REALLY wish they would do something like this. Or at the very least, start working on new battletomes (or Codices in 40k) before you roll out the new edition. New editions usually mean new mechanics and a change to the focus of how the game is played. For a great example of this, just look at 40k 9e and how that's changed the focus of the game from shooting to melee, and factions like the Tau basically can't even play the game right now, and could be waiting a year or more for their new codex to come out.

Here everyone was saying how Seraphon were playing AoS 1e while 2e had been out for a long time. I agree with everyone saying our new book is very good. Not perfect, and definitely not as blatantly overtuned as things like Lumineth and new KO (Yes, I still think Lumineth sound pretty OP in general, they have no weaknesses other than a somewhat low model count. And if our teleporting was so OP why do KO have it but even better? I agree with @Erta Wanderer that GW really seems to like taking things away from one faction to give to others). But it's definitely solid although it still requires you to be a very good player to do well with it.

But like Canas says, entirely new mechanics get introduced over the course of an edition, rather than being brought in at the beginning, and while not every new battletome update is amazing the power creep factor is definitely real. Plus, with their habit of releasing 2-3 entirely new factions per year, things get even more crazy. So yeah, they should definitely come up with new battletomes for the existing factions and just release updates as needed. Also, please cut down to maybe 1 new faction a year? We already have 24 separate armies, and the older armies always languish when the focus is on constantly releasing new ones.