lol, the terrawings are only barely worse than rippers in melee. Poor rippers, having even less of a spot in our roster. I don't quite get what to do with the bola load-out though. With only 5 models that -1 to hit isn't going to be terribly reliable. And while that javelin looks like fun (Rend? on one of our weapons? A miracle!), again with only 1 per 5 that's not going to get very far. Plus, they're still atrociously squishy, and unlike the blowpipe variant they can't use their invisibility very well. The invisibility does look like a nice upgrade for chameleons, the only complaint I have is that maybe it should've been slightly more effective. With a 12" minimum on the invisibility and 16" on their blowpipes they still don't trade very well, every ranged opponent can just walk 4" to get within range to counterfire. And only the slowest of melee opponents will really struggle with it. Maybe it should've been a 8" minimum (or 18-20" on their blowpipes), so only cavalry (and certain buffed up running units) can easily find em? Still wish they got 2 wounds though, "elite" units with 1 wound just feels weird.
We might with the new codex, but at a price hike. I don't really think most of our saurus have a durability issue with scaly skin active, it was always lacking dps. Being able to fight 2 ranks deep with gali vets is probably the only reason we are seeing any list with saurus warriors. I still mostly see knights or a single 5-man guard unit for battleline if any saurus are used.
Yeah, Terrawings have the same attacks and save as the Terradons, the speed of the Rippers, and 1 less wound. But they're also the cheapest flying unit in our army, and tied as the cheapest unit in our army in general. One thing to note is that their attack is a snapping BEAK and not a JAW attack, so you don't get an extra one in Coalesced. Plus, they lack the SKINK keyword so have less synergy. Seeing these warscrolls makes me wonder if they will split up our units more, whenever our new book comes out. For example, Skinks with blowpipes are 80 pts, Skinks with javelins are 75 pts, and Skinks with clubs are 70 pts. Same with Saurus Warriors hand weapons vs. spears. I just hope they don't take away our 2" reach on spears.
Did you see the ripper list that went 4-1 this last weekend! It was completely a skew list, but it was fun to see. 2 Ripperdactyl Chiefs, 3 3-man Riperdactyl Riders, and 3 6-man Ripperdactyl Riders for a total of 29 Riperdactyls and 6 bloat toads to keep the buffs active in a Fangs list. https://tournaments.discountgamesinc.com/list/5026
Saurus I would expect to just become "obsidian weapons" they've been doing that for quite a lot of units that used to have spears & sword type options Splitting up points for skinks won't really do much, you'll just take the cheapest once for screens, as their damage output is non-existant anyway. Those 10 extra points are going to be worth waaaaaaaaay more than that 0.01 point of damage per game boltspitters would give over clubs. Niche things will always win on occasion by sheer virtue of being novel & weird It'd be interesting to see if people can manage to consistently reproduce it though.
Cool! I've wondered if a "flyer list" could do well. I'm sure it's a blast to play. However, I thought you could only have one Warlord battalion?
Wait, it's slightly better than that. The 12" rule works if they are not in cover. If they are in cover (they should) they are just invisible, no matter if they are nearer than 12". Of course they could still be charged.
Ah, that's slightly better, but still a tad limited, considering it's their only form of defense. Can they be charged while invisible? Cuz that'd be lame as hell. I interpreted it as "can't be targeted by anything while invisible". Of course, you'll still see people doing kind of lame stuff, like dropping an endless spell on top of them, but that can't really prevented in a physical game. Anyways, just wish it was slightly more generous
Just double-checked the Core Rules. Charging doesn't "target" a unit, so it would work around that, and melee attacks do not require visibilty for attacks, they only require that the models are in range with one another. This does hold true for all missle attacks, making bolas slightly better while in cover. Your opponent will have to make a 9 inch charge to avoid being shot at with the bolas.
Sigh, guess that's also part of the the reason behind the 12" range then. That way they can prevent the argument about "can I charge an invisible unit" as when you're in range to charge, they are visible (excluding terrain). Dissapointing though. Still wish they'd have longer ranges on their blowpipes at least though, with only 4" between visibility & attack range they're not all that safe.
I think youre underestimating the MASSIVE utility not being able to be shot gives them. Yes they will likely die the first one of your opponents turns they are on the board. But against a lot of elite armies that means that the Chaos Knights / Gluttons / Stormdrake / whatever other 250+ point unit had to turn around and go kill them, taking that whole turn to do so, and the next whole turn just to run back into the fight. The meta currently doesn't have many armies with many units standing around in the backfield. On occasion there will be a small unit of bodyguards/ Skeletons / Cultists or whatever that can deal with the skinks, but you dont have to come on the board near that 1 unit. If they ignore you, free desecrate next turn. If they dont, you just took 250 points out for two turns + did some mortals for 135. Heck the current "best" lumineth list, chameleon skinks can be shot by several units in the list, but for the hunters either TECLIS has to turn around to kill them, or they have to teleport Stoneguard in the back and make a 9" charge, so theyd probably just ignore them
O it has massive utility which will win games, especially on high levels, and I'm definitly not saying the ability is bad. It's purely a matter of powerfantasy & fun in which they (slightly) dissapoint me. Right now if you use your chameleons to shoot at say a big unit of Sentinels there isn't anything stopping them from returning fire. They can easily move close enough to spot the chameleons. And sure, forcing those sentinels to shoot at the chameleons instead of at something valuable might be worth it. But it sure as hell would be a lot more fun if they'd have to run to catch your chameleons, and thus can't just immediately shoot them in retaliation. Or well, it'd be more fun for the Seraphon player. The victim would probably hate it, since stealth mechanics are some of the absolute worst things to be the victim of in any game. Which honestly, makes it surprising that even a watered down version like this was introduced.
Yes, GW has done that with other hand weapon/spear units. I just hope they don't do "generic weapon" for Saurus, because 2" range is nice. Again, my concern if GW does split up Skinks is that the cheapest version will be just melee. You will have to spend more points for any of the ranged versions. Despite all of my concerns, most of the units to which they've done this are still decent/usable.
I had a silly thought. I can't remember if someone else has already proposed this. I wonder if GW is just "testing" various ideas with the seasonal changes to AoS and some of the unique rules will gradually build into the game. What I mean is that GW already brought Monstrous Actions in with 3.0 and I wonder if they might keep some portion of the Galletian Veterans rules. Maybe the melee "reach" rules? Or the Expert Conquerors & Bounty Hunter battalions? Just a thought. I will be interested to see if certain features carry over.
They didn't do it with Clanrats despite it making more sense to do so given the Skaven faction special rule Strength in Numbers (units add 1" to melee range for every 10 models in the unit up to a max range of 3"). Alas, GW has made it such that spears are garbage and that you really shouldn't take them outside of Lumineth, which is why in my most recent games with my Skaven I've insisted that my clanrat mobs are armed with blades instead (which just happen to be on sticks). Not the worst thing in the world, though I'd imagine that the ranged skinks will lose Battleline outside of sub-factions, or that they have Vanari-like restrictions where you're limited in how many ranged skinks you can take as Battleline by how many melee Skinks or Saurus you take as Battleline.
I don't think that expert conquerors will carry over, but I do think that the melee reach rules will get phased into the game in some form. It helps out a lot of "dead" units in multiple armies. Some tweaking would probably need to happen with some warscrolls if it is included as is; spears comes to mind... I have a hunch that bounty hunters would phase back out with conquerors as well.
If the Hunters are in cover they can't be shot period, they can be charged, but they cant be shot at from even 4" away. So those sentinels can't return fire unless you have poor terrain or are zoned out of placing them in cover.