Hey y'all! I've been thinking about this for a while and I think I have to talk about it now. Reading here and over at the TGA community forums I often read things like "You won't see many Seraphon threads because you hardly see any Seraphon players on tournaments" "I wanted to pick an underrated army so I got Seraphon" "Seraphon are one of the weakest armies right now" I do agree to a certain degree, because - our best heroes being wizards (nerfed to the ground by rules of one) - summoning being kinda important for Seraphon (nerfed by matched play rules with reinforcement points) - some other armies doing loads of mortal wounds and we have very few units that can stand those - our battleline units being either quite squishy (S.Warriors, S.Knights, Skinks) or quite expensive (Guards) - no artillery (except Razordons who have the keyword for some reasons but otherwise don't look like artillery) - a few too squishy hard-hitters (Ripperdactyls, nerfed even more by the rules of one) - not many units that can reliably cause mortal wounds, which is important in the meta it seems. - no allegiance abilities/traits, we have to pick order and those suck for us. On the plus side people say we have - Bastiladon, a very good unit. - Oldblood on Carnosaur. Expensive but potentially strong - lots of shooting (shooting is kinda strong in AoS people say) - one or two nice bataillons (Shadowstrike, Firelance if it works, Thunderquake because our monsters are strong) - we have very good bravery, much better than most armies So what do y'all think? Where are we? Which armies do we regularly beat? Which armies or tactics are our cryptonite? If you had an ordered list of "strongest armies", where would our best builds be? in the lower third? In the middle somewhere? Another question is: Are there types of maps or battleplanes that play in our favour or against us? Is our movement good? Or are we maybe good in holding ground? My friend playing mixed Destruction (mostly all kinds of Orruks) says he thinks Seraphon are strong, even cheesy in some combinations. But frankly, I think it is mostly luck that I won more of our games than he did. I don't see any way how my army could win against a Bonesplitterz Kunnin'Rukk with archers or even his army if he puts more thought into his Ironjawz. That Maw-Krusha? Brutal. Either I shoot him with everything I have and kill him, then I can win. If I don't, he kills almost every unit I have in one round. Damn squishy stuff. I expect that this will decide most of our future battles. Keep in mind I am not a very competitive player, so I don't mind if I don't have the strongest armies, I just wondered since I don't have a good feeling for it yet. Looking forward to your thoughts on this.
Everyone who is just beginning will say things like that, they will see the power creep of newer armies and doesn't have an answet for it yet. Seraphon is one of the most diverse armies, but it does need help. If someone is having troubles with pure Seraphon, they should branch out and make an order army.
But that's the problem what if we want a pure Seraphon army, not me I'm an Order boy. I know we have more synergy and getting combinations going is key.
Pure Seraphon can still be effective, but it requires you to play smarter. An opponent with say stormcast can have a "lazy victory" by having better power. It comes down to the player, knowing what they want to accomplish and how to do so effectively. @Matthijs Mentink has a great blog to help out with this: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/61804985
we have lots of shooting? We don't have particularly impressive shooters. - Skinks: short ranged & squishy & needs to be a horde to be effective which further screws with the short ranged - Razordons/Salamanders: powerfull, but again fairly shortranged. - Bastillidon with a solar engine: powerfull, but not necesarly dependable since it's 2D6. - Stegadon with a skystreakbow: fairly powerfull, but the bow isn't why you're fielding a stegadon. - various monsters with skinks on top of them carying javalins: short ranged. - Wizards: rule of one kinda negates this. - chamo: good, but you bring them to assasinate a priority target, not cuz they're such amazing ranged troops. We have a reasonable amount of stuff that shoots, but none of them are exceptionally good at it. We have no equivalent of say the stormforged judicators to field. The only one that might actually win a shooting contest with opposing forces would be the bastiladon and that's largely cuz it's sturdy enough to make up for the randomness of its solar engine. As for seraphon being weak; the rule of 1, the general lack of magic & the summoning rules completly screw with what should be core mechanics of our army. - We're supposed to field the best wizards in the entire universe, the general lack of a significant magic system makes it so that a skink starpriest isn't more powerfull than any given battlemage. The only ones that stand out as wizards are units like nagash with extensive special abilities. Which results in our wizards being average instead of exeptional. - We're supposed to field multiple wizards, especially when fielding a slann with the arcane vassal ability, rule of one basicly ruins this. - We're the only army that can literally summon our entire list. We're clearly intended to summon considerable amounts of reinforcements. Summoning rules basicly ruin this. All in all this causes a pure seraphon army to be a bit of a let down. We have some powerfull units and great synergy, but some of our core mechanics aren't really working. Which means that we end up with an army that has some glaring weaknesses (e.g. not having much mortal wounds), but nothing that gives us a significant advantage over others as what should make us stand out doesn't actually work. Which results in mono-seraphon being rare, though mixed order armies can make up for it to certain degrees and result in things like a jade battlemage making a bastiladon even more impossible to kill.. Anyway tl;dr: we're not bad, our "advantage" that should make us stand out is basicly just non existant..
It like you say using Order gives access to some powerful units, I love the idea of mixing armies but I also love the idea of a whole skink army, I'm not playing competitive and doubt I ever will so not really a problem.
I do think the rule of one was a rushed idea implemented to stop spell spam, hopefully GHB2 will have a more extensive magic structure, fingers and toes crossed.
I think it is important to branch out into the order, there are some amazing units and support factions that add so much to basically any army.
Ok I see the horde thing and also agree with squishy. But 16" of range for the Boltspitters isn't that short is it? I'd also prefer 18 or more but IMO that range isn't too bad. What's the average range for mass shooting units like archers in AoS? Otherwise I pretty much agree with you post I think. EDIT: About the many shooting: Perhaps my impression is wrong because I haven't seen so many units from other factions except Destruction (Orruks lack shooting except that one Bonesplitterz unit it seems) and Death (the units I saw either didn'T have shooting at all or rather short-ranged). Deamons as well. Of course Aelves and Stormcast have very good shooting. But Stormcast are good in everything so that doesn't count. That's why I thought we have comparatively many shooting units.
Both the rule of one & the summoning rules seem to be very rushed and only intended to curb the abuse without taking into account what it would do with "genuine" strategies relying on them. Anyone should've been able to tell that those two rules would basicly completly invalidate wizard-based and summoning-based armies. Maybe they intended it. Summoning I imagine will Always be a disaster to balance. And magic in general will rapidly become very complex, which AoS was trying to avoid... but yeah I hope they come up with something improved. At least the exta spells in the tzeentch tome and such are steps in the right direction. @Bowser branching out into order is fine and all, but mono-armies should be "viable" on their own. Especially when the mono-army is a seperate race. We have our line infantry, we have our cavalry, we have our specialists. That should be sufficient. It's not like we're trying to build an army out of collegiate arcane units and are surprised that just fielding a 100 battlewizards doesn't work @Aginor 16" seems to be on the short side. Judicators have 24" on their longbows, wizards are 18" those new vanguard stormforged have 18-24" depending on what you take, orruk arrowboys are also 18" . And more importantly the skinks only get their horde bonusses at 30, which means you really want 40 models to have a bit of a buffer for losses. And to get 40 models in range you probably need say 3-4 ranks deep in range, which would mean the closest one is going to be about at charging distance from the target in a lot of cases. Or you need to encircle them I suppose. Most others seem to prefer smaller groups, even if they have horde bonusses. Edit: essentially we have relativly many units that shoot, but few that are "good" at it they're all a bit sub-par in terms of shooting
@Aginor, I think we have relativly many shooting units, but I think my girlfriend would kill me if I tried another game right now. Already need to figure out how to store what we currently have
The only thing extra to buy would be the rule book for KOW. (OK, you might need some rectangular move trays to put your troops in for KOW but those take hardly any space.) All your lizardmen map to some unit or other in the Salamanders army.
Please don't derail this thread. I am sure KOW is pretty cool but I have enough trouble already getting into AoS. Good to know there are well balanced alternatives though.
Virtually all my stuff is on round bases though since I only started buying things with AoS. So that'd be a bit awkward. Plus, I'm not sure I could get a second army to actually fight I doubt the stormforged I have map to anything in KOW. But I might look into it.
Ok about that range: It seems you are really right, 16" is pretty much one turn of moving and a halfway decent charge to get into melee. And you are right, I play my 40 Skinks in three lines, so for the last line to be in range I have to move 2" closer than I'd like to, putting me at 14" if everyone is supposed to shoot.
Power creep is a real thing. It exists in most games. The new models have to sell We are on the wrong end of the creep right now. Take for example all the rules the new Stormcast Mounted units come with. Ranged mortal wounds that don't have to wound, reroll saves, d6 dmg on 6's, and 5 at 5 wounds at +3. The new Tzeentch are very powerful as well. Parts of our army has aged, but that does not stop you from winning with Seraphon. We have flexibility and also the ability to create some great synergies. Like Bowser said, it is more about the general than the army. Also, understand that you may not be able to handle every army. Sometimes the best you can do is to play the mission and objectives. You may only have a few models left on the battlefield, but you can still find a way to win. Personally I enjoy playing a less powerful army. It usually means it's less popular and I like bringing something different. I try to embrace the challenge, while at the same time realizing some games you just can't win. Also, we have some beautiful models, so that's already a win.
Same here. It kinda elevates you when you can say "well, I did lose, but I am playing one of the weakest armies there is right now while you are playing a faceroll-build of one of the strongest armies."
It is fun to challenge yourself, but we aren't so weak that we get streamrolled by every top tier army. Take @LordRibbit battle report for example. He faced some top tier armies and did really well. If you play in a tournament, you will always need a little luck too. If you're a more casual player, there are a couple Seraphon lists that can stomp. In a more competitive field, we can't really stomp most armies, but when you play with 2++ guard, bastiladon's with hurricanum, Dread Saurian, etc we can compete. I have trouble with god damn beastclaw with big blocks of grots with fanatics... Also, a good Death, Slyvaneth or Stormcast player is hard to beat with any army. I love the style of the Stormcast army. MSU. But it is so popular and over done, so I stay away from it. Last thing, sorry for posting so much haha. Tabletop gaming is all about managing your expectations and also finding the right playing environment. If you're a casual player who loves the Seraphon models and wants to play with 2 Stegadons and Terradons, don't sit down and play against super competitive, tournament streamlined armies. My biggest pet peeve is when people do exactly that and then complain. The game is for the players to have fun. If you can, find people who share the same goals. I enjoy both. Sometimes i love playing a 3 player brawl with goofy armies and other times I want to try and beat the best armies out there by bringing my own "competitive" army. I found a lot more joy in the game when I think about these things and manage my expectations.