when have seraphon been bad? Oh? I hope you aren't talking about anyone on this forum, because that wouldn't be super nice.
not bad in terms of results... but back to our old battletome, at a certain point one of our best strategy was to flood the battlefield with skinks and lots of summons, then exploit move shenanigans with losat to win the games on objectives while gaining time by feeding the opponent with killable bodies. It was a successful tactic, but not exactly fun to play in the long run.
You could argue that if your only way to win is to rely on borderline exploits your army is bad Not in particular, the whole ego-trip-thing seems to be much more common in videogames than in wargaming. Though there's definitly overlap in the crowd playing both genres, so it's not hard to find if you try searching for it on the internet But at least on this forum I haven't seen anyone use that line of arguing yet. Usually it's just people stating they happen to like the end-result, design-flaws included. Which is fair enough.
Eh, i could say that in the last months of our old battletome, Seraphon was an army with a lot of mediocre warscrolls, kept competitive by a couple of exceptional army's abilities.
Why you are most certainly correct. Though ngl I miss the old rule that the dread had that made skinks unbreakable.
Why aren't we discussing the incoming new season? The efficiency of armies that rely on small support heroes will surely be improved
Definitely potential for it to buff what we have going on. I am curious to see what goes into sharpshooter battalions before I assume we are getting a full on glow up. We were definitely able to capitalize on expert conquerors and bounty hunter battlions, so the loss of those stings. That said, getting better protection to our support heroes (yes you too Mr Slann Sir), while being able to bypass the protection of Gally Champs with strong spells seem like a good thing on paper to me. We will have to see if we keep bonds of battle though
I doubt Bonds of Battle will stay. As I've commented on the nature of Seasons of War before, never anticipate that whatever special rules introduced in the previous Season will automatically transfer into the next. On top of that, people ogled the whole "My battleline unit can fight in 2 ranks now" shtick without really thinking about how effective Bonds of Battle actually was in the grander context of the game. Long story short, a rule that overrides melee weapon range just to be able to fight in two ranks is generally crippling for anything other than 1" attacks off of 32mm+ bases.
That actually raises an interesting point. Right now guard are already only usefull as ablative wounds for the slann, but the bodyguard rule becomes a lot less relevant with this. Which means there's very little reason left to take them. Basicly, the only scenario in which they're relevant now is against an enemy with strong damage via magic/weird abilities. As a ranged enemy is covered by this new rule, and a melee focused enemy already shouldn't get close to your slann.
Meh, keeping a slightly altered version would be good. Alternativly, update the melee range on certain weapons/units. E.g. Saurus warriors kinda need it, but ogers probably don't.
Not exactly sure I feel confident that we could theoretically screen a slann with skinks or other chaff. Saurus Guard are still an exceptional unit for this role due to durability alone, since now you have to get through the bodyguard to get to the hero rather than just target the hero at -1 to hit or rely on automatic mortal wounds during shooting.
I disagree that Saurus need a Bonds of Battle rule at all, with maybe the sole exception being with regards to jaw attacks since those were laughably bad anyway. The problem however rests in the fact that 2" attacks - such is the case with Celestite Spears - is the bare minimum required to get two ranks fighting in a unit that uses 32mm bases under normal circumstances. What Bonds of Battle does in the instance of 32mm bases therefore is intrude on and invalidate what little utility having that 2" melee range permits.
Compared to skinks their durability (and combat potential) is probably worth the extra point cost. But compared to warriors? Or Knights? Or potentially even next to a bastiladon? The site only mentions the friendly unit needs to be battleline, it doesn't mention any other requirements, which means you can be a lot more flexible with those points you used to dump into the guard. Personally I'd say that 32mm models should just be able to fight in two ranks, regardless of load-out. Basicly the 2" range should be the baseline. It fits with their larger unit-sizes and weaker individual profiles. It also avoids some awkward situations where you can never get enough units in range to be effective (e.g. surrounding a skink priest with 32mm doesn't work well cuz you're only going to get 5-6 models in range) Plus, in general, I'm not a particularly great fan of different ranges on melee weapons.
I think that you are right in that bomds of battle will disappear, but only because it is specifically tied to the Galletian Veterans keyword. It was nice to have around because it halped a lot of outdated warscrolls become somewhat relevant to tournament play again, and I do think that it is a decent concept to reimplement to the game with some tweaks (effectively ignores 2" weapon ranges right now and you are right, that would need to change). Just keep in mind that until we see what parameters are involved with the sharpshooter battalions, how protected our small heros are is still very much in the air. Guard will probably still be a relevant pick to tag along with a Slann between that and other damage sources besides missile weapons. Someone is going to have to babysit the slann, and even with a stegadon, I want to charge that baby into melee if I can help it (no dice on the bastiladon being battleline and protecting galletian champions, I am guessing that was an oops post?)
My point is mostly that if every battleline can do it, specificly taking the guard may no longer be as worthwhile. The slann can hop from battleline to battleline. Turn 1 it's next to a stegadon, turn 2 it's next to some warriors, etc. Also, if the sharpshooter battalion cancels out the bodyguards then that'd be extremely dissapointing. So I'd hope they wouldn't do that. But it is GW, so who knows what kinda nonsense they have Yeah, meant the stegadons.
I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Knights and Warriors are about the only competition that Guard have for that spot purely on the number of wounds and armour save within a fairly efficient points range, with nothing to say of Guard getting a ward save. That is also before acknowledging that we have no real idea how the Seraphon battletome will turn out for its 3rd Edition update outside of the Hunters of Huanchi. I'd argue differently. Increasing melee range means far more than just allowing another "rank" to fight (as far as I'm concerned, ranks in AoS exist in name only due to it being a skirmish game); it also means being able to reach deeper into an enemy formation with the unit's front line to prod at the one behind it. That doesn't sound like something a club should be able to do outside of one that is monstrously large.
Anyone think this season MIGHT open up some potential for Ripperdactyl Chiefs with Ripper units? Or Terradon Chiefs in Terradon units? I know they can't benefit from ranged combat protection (since their units aren't battleline), but they could attack in the hero phase with their Sworn Bodyguard unit.
Possibly, I don't know how much it is going to open up Ripperdactyl strats as they are now. I think our new battletome is going to be more impactful on that front. A lot of warscrolls became ineffective at their intended job with 2.0 shifting to 3.0 (regardless of their competitiveness at the time) and with a battletome coming out as early as March (still looking for a confirmed source on this, though some youtubers have been hinting that we will get ours before KO) I would love to see those units shift into the new age. Side note, Ripperdactyl/Terradon Chiefs can't be Champions at any time because they are mounted heroes, and I have a hunch the new sworn bodyguard battalion will be locked to Champions.