Yes it is. Sadly.- Priestly trappings (is its equipment mutually exclusive?)
It is only a wild guess but I think 1:1 my money would be on the Vampire on his dragon. His blood boil spell can be pretty strong on multi-wound models, and he has 14 wounds, an unbuffed 3+ save , he profits from the ward save as well, and can heal himself once.The biggest question here would be just how devestating that vampire is going to end up being when compared to our carnosaur.
sigh...Yes it is. Sadly..
It is only a wild guess but I think 1:1 my money would be on the Vampire on his dragon. His blood boil spell can be pretty strong on multi-wound models, and he has 14 wounds, an unbuffed 3+ save , he profits from the ward save as well, and can heal himself once.
I'd say he will probably win. He is also more mobile. If the Seraphon player is unlucky that guy will use its attacks to kill a few guards before the carno can reach the dragon to do damage, thus tipping the balance a bit towards the Skellies.
And yes I think at 1000 points Seraphon are a bit limited.
Just looking at the PDF's at the GW site they basicly have the following pro's and con's:
Pro's:
Con's:
- Very very shooty
- Spellweavers can ressurect slain models
- Fast
- Bonusses from being in cover
Based on this I'd field bastillidon's and stegadons. The solar engine and skystreakbow have rend which will mean virtually guaranteed wounds if you hit. On top of that dealing multiple points of damage per attack will mean they'l rapidly destroy entire units. And they can survive the return fire reasonably easily. They're probably not going to outright win a ranged fight, but they should be devastating while they advance. If at any point you roll well you're liable to annihilate entire units at once, especially with their mediocre bravery.
- Fairly squishy, most models have 1 wound and a save of 5+ or worse.
- Mediocre bravery
Furthermore, a shadowstrike host will be effective. They'l solve the issue of needing to catch the stupid aelves by just dropping on top of them. However, a shadowstrike is probably only going to be good to take out some priority target. If you use them be prepared to basicly lose the entire host to your opponents retaliation afterwards.
A skink priest with priestly trappings for re-rollable saves will help our melee troops survive being pelted while they advance.
Combine all of these and you have a shadowstrike let by a priest and a thunderquake host. Hide the priest amoung our big dinosaurs and I'd say we'd probably outlast their shooting thanks to our big dinosaurs. The remainder of the shadowstrike can go on a suicide mission to pick off their general or something similar.
Apart from that the main question will be if you're allowed to catch up and engage. None of their troops are really going to survive a melee engagement for long. Provided you can catch them virtually anything we have will kill them. Unfortunatly we're not particularly fast and there's nothing really stopping from running around us in circles while shooting.
That's pretty close to my own assessment of the situation based on what I read until now. But perhaps I am missing some sort of synergy there... With the Wayfinder and Waywatcher's abilities buffing bravery and lowering opponents' hit rolls I wonder if they can actually become more sturdy than they look. Not quite sure perhaps I missed even more. But a Shadowstrike and either Eternal or Thunderquake sound pretty good and should help us to survive the first two round. After that they might be in trouble since on first glance it seems they don't have much except good shooting.
*dusts off thread*
back to SCE as an example, but it applies to others as well: deep striking units.
Example: SCE have a bataillon called Hammerstrike Force consisting of two groups of Retributors (for example. Could be other Paladins as well) and one unit of Prosecutors, and it basically allows them to deepstrike anywhere on the board and receive bonuses when doing so, similar to our flyers in the Shadowstrike.
Another ability is the (awesome) Celestant Prime's ability to wait in Azyr and deepstrike at some point.
I wonder how we deal with such situations. We cannot block the whole board, there will always be some point 9" away where they can land. We cannot alpha strike them because they are not on the board.
Same is Kharadron Overlords with their dropships. Or even other Seraphon.
I can imagine using Gryph Hounds as allies and hope we can shoot the crap out of them using Skinks if they teleport in. I dislike that we cannot use Seraphon units but I see no chance to survive such strikes otherwise. A squad of Retris popping in next to almost anything of our army will be extremely deadly.
Of course we can try and snipe the Prosecutors, but with the move they have it is pretty likely they run toward our lines in the first turn and put down their friends before we can even act.
As for the Celestant Prime: That one is even worse. If he pops in after the second turn he has the ability to insta-snipe almost everything we have if he makes the charge. Fortunately he cannot be buffed before he strikes, but with his ability to change one dice to a result of his choice he is pretty likely to make that charge, and six attacks 3/2/-3/3 are VERY deadly. Plus the (maybe multiple) D3 mortal wounds on one or more units within 24" without a hit roll or anything we can do against it.
Strangely though not _THAT_ many SCE players seem to use him. Am I missing something?
Deathrattle actually has it surprisingly well against SCE, because of the ward save and LOADS of wounds in their tarpit units.
But Seraphon are a synergy army. They surely won't target our Skinks but our more valuable assets.
I disagree about the Eternal Starhost I think. Celestant Prime or Retributors will just melt an Eternal Starhost in one round by using mortal wounds. Retris become a lot worse against Guards if you can debuff them using Starlight but you cannot do anything against the Starsoul Maces.
....hmm I guess I will be able to see how it goes soon. I heard there is a Celestant Prime in the works by a friend.
The starhost works, provided there's not a load of (reliable) mortal wounds so depends on what they're facing. The celestant prime is probably too reliable. The retributors it depends if they're being buffed somehow and how many there are. 5 retributors without buffs will only roll 1.6 6's on average, That's doable-ish. A shadowstrike the eternalstarhost will only care if it contains terradons and they get to fly over them at full strength.
I think the 6es are not what I fear, but that two in each group of five Retris can have Starsoul Maces, which basically means 2D3 mortal wounds per turn that you cannot prevent at all. When they get a double turn they can kill a whole unit of Guards without rolling a single dice.
Ah, I keep forgetting that thing, too used to the AoS starterbox which only has 3 retributors and no special stuff. Yea that makes em more problematic.
Anyway, the guard was more a general "if you're facing deepstrike stuff they might be able to take the brunt". Depending on what actually is showing up in the deepstrike they may or may not be good.
Meh what annoys me more is that there's 3 other retributors standing in the way and there's no way to target the specific one (bar some exceptional abilities). At least stuff like a skaven warpfirethrower is just the one weapons team. I can shoot it and ignore the other skaven. You can't do that here....Man I am SO glad my opponent doesn't play maces either. IMO they are really OP. Especially since you can take two in five. In all other armies such weapons are one in five and/or require a roll at least. Damn poster boys.
Has it been discussed how we do against Goblins? Specifically Moonclan Grots.
I believe my first game will be against an opponent with:
x2 Monstrous Squigs
x3 Grot Fanatics
at least 1 unit of cave squigs
a giant massive crapton of grots. Just lots of them. Over 100 easily. I'm not sure about anything in this game as I've never played before, so IDK what the leaders are. I just was only able to recognize lots of pointy hat goblins with spears, he showed me the giant squigs and I know he has 3 guys with ball and chains.
He also runs Cunning Ruk? He said he can put out 900 shots in a turn but said since I am new he would not use that list on me.
My army if I am allowed full points is 1500
Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnosaur
Saurus Scar-Veteran on Cold One
Skink Starpriest
x15 Saurus Knights, Alpha, Wardrums, Icon, Lances
x15 Saurus Guards, Alpha, Wardrums, Icon
x20 Saurus Warriors, Alpha, Wardrums, Icon
Since I know 0 tactics or anything I imagine I'll get trashed since I don't even know what grots do.