Honestly, expect to be dissapointed. They're competing with Rippers, Terradons, Knights & Kroxigor for a spot as cavalry (or in the case of kroxigor, cavalry adjacent). At least one of them is going to be dissappointing and underperforming compared to the others.
Will have to count on the battletome to make them as unique as possible. They will not natively have fly, and that is a big deal on the boards I play on (lots of blocking terrain, at least for a AoS table). I imagine that they will not be battleline, but will otherwise be a stronger damage-wise in a skink-forward Starborn list. I imagine that the shieldless chargers will be considerably less durable compared to knights as well. Ripper are just not great as an average atm. There is room for ripper spamheavy lists, but otherwise, they just need changes to their base warscroll. If they are playing true to what an Atlatl is (irl) on the hunters, they will hit further, and harder than blowpipes and wound better than bolas, but if that is the case, they will probably be pretty elite shooting and have a high point cost. I am curious if they will have any wierd mechanics alongside it.
The basic issue is that there's just a lot of overlap between them, makes it very difficult to give them all a distinct role and not just end up in a situation where unit A is basicly unit B, but better/cheaper/with easier synergies. It's not impossible to get right, but I expect that either some of our cavalry units will just be considered bad, or they all end up being only useable in very specific lists, with very little flexibility
Internal balance is something GW has always struggled with, and the new Beasts Battletome isnt giving me much hope there For reference, similar to our now 5 cavalry units, beasts has 5 Elite Infantry (Tzaangor, Bestigor, Bullgor, Dragon Ogres, Enlightened) in their new Battletome, 3 of those are viable with tradeoffs, and then the other two are a solid 30% over-costed by comparison I dont mind if one of the new ones is a little rough, as they have time to get them right. Im worried that our Iconic Saurus Knights are the ones that will get the short end, as they are my favorite unit
I absolutely agree that they are competing for a role that we already have multiple units performing in some capacity, and some that are just generally better than others (personally I think Terradons and Kroxigor are our best value units in this role currently). And whilst I would love to see our knights getting a buff, whether that's a boost to movement (10" would be nice to keep pace with Carnosaurs) or a boost to durability or damage. I'd just like them to perform a bit more capably as a semi-elite battleline unit.
...unless they are going to modify some stats, making the skink riders similar to light cavalry and the saurus as heavy cavalry... kinda like the difference between black and blood knights. Kroxigors can easily stand in their own spot. There's certainly the issue with rippers and terradons.
The issue with light v.s. heavy cavalry is that one of the two tends to be more cost-efficient, especially when the units are the same size. So it often ends up being a fake choice. But it is at least theoreticly possible, and they could at least give them specific lists (e.g. Knights + carnosaur v.s. skinks + stegadon or something) As for Kroxigor; they need something to make them special. It's a bit easier as at least being a 3-man elite squad does put them in a slightly different position compared to the others.
I could see the new Raptadon cavalry being around 100-120 pts. M: 10"-12" (faster than current Cold Ones, slower than flyers) S: 5+ (+1 with shield) W: 2 B: 5-6 Atlatl Javelin: 10"-12"/5+/4+/ – /1 (maybe 4+/4+ and 10"-12" falls in between our current Skink ranges) Clubs: 1"/4+/4+/ – /1 (possibly Damage 2 or Rend -1 on a charge) Raptadons: 1"/4+/4+/ – /1 (maybe 3+/4+ and/or Rend -1 to help them do something in combat) They will have some tricky "feathered dino" rules. Maybe bonus Redeploy move or free flee from combat (limited flight)? Maybe run/retreat and still shoot or charge? Maybe move as a flying unit like the LRL Windchargers (again, limited flight)?
I think Terradons are still useful for their rock bombs. Maybe our Rippers will go up to D3 damage normally? Or at least when the Toad is used?
Terradons are absolutely useful against any army with infantry squads of 10+ models. The damage they can put out on top of the range of movement they have (especially with a +3" in Fangs of Sotek) means their alpha strike can be particularly potent against an opponents infantry. Rippers unfortunately lost a lot of what made them good when the scroll was updated and the Blot Toad is removed after use. They have potential in Koatl's Claw with a Chief, but when it costs 10 points more to take a 30 man Skink squad that can put out 60 shots at 16" range, I just feel like the maths favours the Skink blob a little better.
I think you are using Terradons wrong. They roll for each model in the Terradon unit, not in the target unit
Upon review, you are correct, I and the guys I play with misinterpreted it as roll for each model that was flown over in the target unit. It did feel like a very wishy washy way of determining number of dice, but I've seen stranger GW rules.
I think the two things I’d like to see get a facelift in the new book (that aren’t literally getting one in a new model, at least) are the starblood stalkers and Hunters of Huanchi. I have a soft spot for underworlds warbands, but lately new tomes have been buffing them in fun ways that I hope we get to indulge in, like removing subfaction restrictions (ideally also coalesced/starborne for us too) while also just generally being made better value, which I think they could use. The Hunters of Huanchi aren’t likely to get warscroll changes or point changes (as much as I’d love terrawings to be a little better) but if they can get back all the keyword synergy that chameleon skinks had then I’m happy, they’re basically elite skinks so being treated that way by subfactions and keyword bingo would be nice, unlike now where they functionally replace chameleon skinks but are excluded from everything that makes chameleons useable
Chiming in late, but really I just have a couple main desires for the new battletome. 1. Better internal balance. Ever since AoS 1e came out, Saurus have been weak and Skinks have been the meta. Hopefully with the new Saurus models coming out we'll see the *actual main fighting force* of the Seraphon become viable. I'd also like to see the ability to play multiple unit types and not just spamming one or two unit types. 2. Better base warscrolls with simplified but more useful allegiance abilities. Our units desperately need more rend overall. Saurus need to be 2 wounds and actually hit harder. Carnosaurs need a massive buff. It looks like Saurus Guard are possibly being removed, so the Slann and Kroak need better survivability to avoid getting sniped turn 1. Our flyers need expanded coherency rules and better stats/abilities to make them useful. And as for allegiance abilities, I'm sure they'll still keep the Starborne/Coalesced divide, so Starborne needs a better summoning mechanic or it needs to be removed entirely. Coalesced could keep the extra jaw attacks, but it would be nice if they did something like extra rend instead. Scaly Skin should be a 5+ ward save for Saurus, Kroxigor and dinos rather than -1 damage. It would be more useful against the mortal wound spam that every other army has while also not completely negating armies with 2 damage attacks. We also absolutely need more and better mount traits and monstrous actions for our dinos. So far I think GW's been pretty good at balancing the battletomes for 3e, so hopefully they'll be able to do the same for ours.
Honestly, as long as we keep these two subfactions, and the allegiance abilities will stay similar, your other wishes probably aren't going to happen. The two subfactions, and their conflicting playstyles, simply don't mesh well into one coherent battletome.
Yeah, this is what I'm worried about. Here's hoping that they advance the lore a bit and combine the two subfactions and make the teleporting a special ability the Slann can do through a spell or something similar...
1) don't lose the way our army is split. Starborne and Coalesced provide such different paths forward its like having 2 armies in one 2) more rend! Rend is fun! 3) mixed arms! Boo all shooting all the time! I want magic pew and melee punch and maybe some shooting support if I'm being greedy. 4) sweet spell lores! 5) and most importantly of all... GOOD BATTLE TACTICS