It definitely is. We also got a lot of point decreases, some helpful, some not. There was really no reason for the point increases we got other than GW's typical "always nerf whatever gets used the most" policy. I doubt it changes a lot, we're still a very "mid" army right now. I haven't looked to see what GW did to top armies like Nighthaunt, Lumineth, and Gitz but I think getting the blatantly OP armies knocked down a peg or two will do more to boost Seraphon's performance than a few units going up or down 10-20 points.
Here are the pts changes. Rules wise not much changed for us. Just being able to move if you fail teleport role and the astrolith bearer got a clarified rule. Bigger picture priority target changed and some endless spells got changed.
Unfortunately the carnos and kroak are still too pricey. For what they do carnos should be in the 225-250 range and kroak should be 300-350 pts. I feel like he is still being punished for 2nd edition. He is so easy to kill thanks to his dumb rule.
It's still not super reliable, but it does feel better. Honestly, I don't think the update moves the needle THAT much for Seraphon. -The potential biggest hit seems to be to the Sunclaw Starhost. Saurus Guard, Aggros, Aggro Scar-vet and the Starseer all went up. Most of these are big parts of the Sunclaw. -A little bummed about the change to the AB, although it is probably how they always intended it. AB still will not see much play. -I don't think our monsters came down enough in points (or at all) to see play any more than they did before. -VERY happy that the Raptadon Chargers and HoH dodged a points increase. -The decrease in Raptadon Hunters has let me field a couple units. I think they add enough to the Chargers' effectiveness to see some play.
the spawn of chotec decreasing in points is tempting me. It may still be too expensive at 150, but Debuffing saves on the opponents important things is so good if you can get it off.
I hear you. It's a cool model and it's a good debuff, but it just doesn't seem like it will happen very often. It's a single attack at 4+/2+ (or 3+/2+ if you spend a command for AoA). Based on trying to roll the Slann's darned 4+ "bring back a half-strength unit" ability, I will never hit with that attack. For the same 150pts you could take a unit of Raptor Chargers, a unit of Raptor Hunters, 2 units of HoH with Dartpipes (if you had 10pts to spare), a unit of Guard. Each of those have a more understandable role, and possibly more effective use, on the table. But that's kind of a boring response because, it's worth it to try out each of our units. I think 100-130 would be more reasonable. My personal conspiracy theory is that there's still bad feelings for the Salamander from how broken GW made their stats and rules previously.
Honestly, I think the issue is simply that GW seems to really like single-shot rules with a 30-50% success rate. The spawn isn't unique in having this kind of a frustrating profile. They're simple to work with, have a pretty trivial probability distribution & since it'll fail at least half the time it gives them an excuse to make it relativly powerful. Abilities with multiple shots, and a smoother curve with a higher succesrate, would take a bit more effort to design. Especially if you want to get a "high" for good rolls and a "low" for underwhelming rolls.
Salamanders were traditionally a Lizardmen "flame thrower team." Shorter range, but very dangerous. Now, the Salamander seems like a flame thrower team also carrying a mortar, depending on your choice of attack. That's not bad, but, in my mind, it's still just a 10" range model. The single 16" shot is a gimmick that you try if you're over 10" away. It's not reliable ranged combat, nor a reliable tactic around which you build a plan. That said, all of its attacks are Companion attacks. If you choose the Asterism which gives all Companion attacks the Crit: 2 Hits feature, that should give it a bit more punch. On average, a Salamander would hit with most of their 10" ranged shots every round (dropping a hit to a "1", but gaining an extra hit from a "6") and wound with half. Let's say 3 wounds at 1 rend/1 damage (2 rend vs. infantry). Its melee would spike an extra hit 3-4 times a game, if it somehow manages to fight every round. Does that make a Salamander/Spawn (5" move, 8 wounds, 1+3 control) better than a MSU of Raptors (12" move, 15 wounds, and 5 control) or a MSU of Rippers (14" move, 9 wounds, and 3 control)? If you're camping home objectives, then it's probably better than the Rippers. But many tactics/strategies seem to favor movement. As a "Skink" unit, it would get an extra move option in a Shadowstrike list. Additionally, it might make a decent partner with a unit of reinforced Kroxigor Warspawned.
It feels to me like a utility tool for shooting focused armies really. Take eternal starhost. Teleport the spawn behind the enemy lines somewhere annoying. Shoot the target for the debuff. Light it up with shooting from bow stegs and solar engine bastiladons. Unfortunately, I wouldnt take bastiladons at 3 shots or stegs at their current price point. Hope for a buff to these units when our codex comes out.
I could see that. I still maintain that getting off the Glob of Acid attack will be rare. So, I think the Spawn could be more useful to teleport outside of 9" of an infantry unit/hero, burn them down with its Stream of Fire shot, and then attempt a charge. Or run them along side some Warspawned. I have to agree with you about our Stegadons and Solar Bastiladons. However, I'm pretty sure @LordBaconBane has had success with a Thunderlizard army. Carno, Stegs and Ark Basti.
Really miss running a Thunder Lizard list, I just want my big dinosaurs to be viable in semi-competitive play and for carnosaurs to actually be a good beatstick monster. 4e really feels bad right now to be honest. I didn't like the crazy amount of cheese we had to use in 1e, 2e had flaws but was fun. 3e actually seemed like they found a good balance point and 4e honestly feels like we've been thrown in the trash again. 4e's base rules are solid, but I really feel that they could have kept the solid core rules without removing everything good about the army. And 4e's definitely not better balanced, as evidenced by armies like Nighthaunt, Lumineth and Gitz sweeping everything before them. Maybe not quite as bad as the 40k 10e Eldar situation or the introduction of the Votann, but all the talk from GW about things being better balanced is clearly not true. The core rules are simplified, yes. But armies are still very clearly divided into the haves, the have-nots, and the "just average."
2nd felt the most complete. 3rd without blizzard and korak mortal wound spam would have felt like this edition i think. mortal wounds were really a big bandaid for a lot of armies. now that they arent around as much the bad balance is really apparent.
I think that we are actually decent in 4.0. Around upper-middle of the pack, probably. But, we're definitely not one of the broken armies, so far. I'm not totally sold on everything in 4.0 either, though. I find the regiment system to be a little too limiting. Free manifestations are cool, but make it hard to take a more melee-focused army, as you're missing out on a powerful part of the game. I don't think any army's monsters are super great in this edition. Since we have several monsters, it's a bit more apparent. 4+ to hit on "Companion" attacks doesn't feel great, especially when it's only 3-5 attacks total. Using AoA on a monster hero will give the mount 3+ to hit, at least. That said, I can appreciate where you're coming from. I don't think GW has ever allowed our monsters, specifically the Carno, to really shine as savage damage dealer.
I think you could be right. But, I agree with @Kilvakar that we felt pretty good in later 3.0 (Blizzard aside). Just ruling a Stegadon to count as 10 people on an objective was a fun change. It helped us to bring heavy monsters and still compete in the objective game.
Yeah, the mortal wound spam was crazy. I kept wishing and wishing through 2e that our Saurus and dino side of the army would be more survivable, which we never got. But at least we had good shooting and mortal wound output. The amount of save-stacking was crazy and they kept adding MW spam to counter it. It's nice that they've toned that down, but as you said it's more apparent which armies are the haves and which are the have-nots now that raw stats matter so much more. Regiments are WAY too restrictive and make no sense. The old Battalion system was better, you got bonuses for taking a thematic group of units. Regiments feel like they're there to keep you from bringing what you want, not the other way around. I feel like we finally had decent stats in 3e when we still had buffs we could throw on things. Now the fact that nearly everything is on a 4+ save and hits or wounds on a 4+ just feels bad, especially when a lot of other armies have better attack profiles on top of better buffs to put on those units.
It is such a shame that the old battalions are just gone. The initial idea was great, but they never utilized it properly. And now it's just a weird list building mini-game to minimize drops & maybe get some generic bonusses... I think 4th might be better if you approach balance purely statistically. There's just the major issue that a statistical approach isn't necessarily all that fun....A great example is the spawn of sotek. Purely statistically speaking I think it's probably fine. The issue is that with only 1 attack, and an underwhelming succesrate it just isn't very fun.
I don't know if 4e's that well-balanced statistically tbh, especially when GW still can't resist giving some armies crazy good tools, abilities, profiles, etc. and not others. The Spawn of Chotec isn't really worth taking for most people specifically because it has such a low success rate, which to me sounds like it's statistically bad rather than being balanced. If you just do zero damage 50% of the time, it's not really a good or balanced unit.
A spawn has 1/4+/2+/2/D3+3. Against a 4+ save that averages 1.7 damage per turn. A solar engine has 3/3+/3+/2/3. Against a 4+ save that averages 3.3 damage per turn. Spawn costs 150 points, putting it at 1.13 damage/100 points Solar engine costs 270, putting it at 1.2 damage/100 points They're pretty close in terms of damage output. And that's without taking into account the debuff the spawn gets. Purely looking at the statistical average over a 100 games the spawn performs reasonable-ish. But due to it's poor hitrate you only get that average by being useless half the time, and pretty amazing the other half. (As an aside; why is the debuff attached to such a high damage ability? It's such an odd attack) AnywaysI think that's a broader thing within 4th. There's a bunch of stuff that looks like statistically it should all perform fairly similarl, and in that sense it's "balanced". But while the average performance is the same, the distrutions look wildly different and certain units just don't feel great due to their wonky successrates. Even if on average, they perform reasonably.