Hola Skinks! I’m making this thread so we can have a place to talk about what new models, rules changes/additions, and lore we want when the Seraphon are finally updated. Here are some things to keep in mind when giving your answer: What you personally want them to add, even if it’s not realistic or likely to happen, isn’t a priority for other people, or something that no one else has thought of yet. What you think they should add (things that everyone would agree should be added), like things that fix balancing rules and would be fun for everyone. What you think they will add. Knowing good ol’ Geedubs, what do you think they will do? Will they actually give us what we want? So, with that out of the way, I’m going to give you my answer. First, the models: Saurus need new models. Ones like the blood bowl team and Total Warhammer. Right now, Saurus Warriors (and many of the models I’m going to talk about) look like the old sluggish, tail-dragging dinosaur depictions from the early 1900s. Sure, King Kong was good for it’s time, but when compared to the T. rex from Jurassic Park it’s, well...like comparing our current Saurus models to the TW or Blood Bowl ones. This is getting pretty long, so I’ll continue in the next comment.
I want three major things out of a new Seraphon Battletome. 1) Plastic Slann, Kroxigor, Astrolith Bearer, Razordons, Salamanders, and Skink Priest. 2) I want our allegiance abilities as they stand left intact. This includes summoning, LoSaT, ect. 3) I want the book to get the standard split treatment of adding army bonuses on if my General is a Slann (use the currently summoning). Saurus (make Saurus good), and Skink (give me more board control tools). Bonus) I lied. I also want the various Skink Priest to get a list of prayers/celestial rites that they can preform in addition to any currently on their warscrolls. What I think should change: 1) Shadowstrike Starhost probably shouldn't deploy out of 3". This would mean reworking the Terradon MWs as it is the reason the battalion works at that distance and at anytime during the movement phase as it currently does. 2) Saurus need a stateline update similiar to what we saw Ogor Gluttons and Warriors of Chaos receive. Nothing major, just a healthy bump to damage or durability.
There is already an extensive thread on this http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/thoughts-on-potential-new-codex-for-seraphon-2020.23891/
1. What I personally want them to add: New faction spells, and possibly letting Slann pick spells from other lores like they could in Fantasy. This includes new endless spells. New monsters and heroes. This would be a great time to go back and look at some of the other units the old Lizardmen used to have and bring them to life. Coatl specifically, but things like the Arcanodon and even the Thunder Lizard would be fun. And either bring back some of the original heroes who survived or come up with new unique heroes with their own special abilities. A large boost to the power level of our leader units. Blessed Spawnings return. Make Kroak truly god-like in his stats. Even if this meant a point increase, I would still prefer to see him able to take on whole armies by himself like some of the other powerhouse leaders and generals. He's one of the oldest and most powerful beings in the universe right now, even older than the new gods! Unique terrain options like the Idoneth's shiwreck. 2. What I think they should add: Update models that haven't been released in plastic yet. Give the ones that look the most outdated a face lift. Buffs to almost every unit. True, some of our dinos are still good, but all our battleline is sub-par and our heroes are basically there to throw buffs out rather than actually fight. They don't have to be major buffs, I don't expect to see carnosaurs with 2+ to hit and wound with 3+ saves, but all of our units except maybe the wizards need to not be so paper-thin when it comes to both offense and defense. Some specifics would be: Give rend to more of our units, especially Saurus, Kroxigors, and Ripperdactyls. This is probably one of the most important ones. Mount traits. Give Temple Guard 2 wounds. More speed to Saurus knights. More durability to Saurus warriors. Make Skinks a little better at shooting. Make Terradons better at shooting. Make carnosaurs more survivable. They do good damage, but with so many things that fight first they often get killed before they can deal damage, or just shot off the table. 3. What do I think they will do: This is hard. The optimist in me knows that we won't get everything we want, but hopes that we will get a lot of good stuff. On the off chance that the GW staff just aren't as excited about Seraphon as the other factions, we could theoretically end up in even worse shape than we are now in some areas. So I think I will give hopeful thoughts and less than hopeful musings. Good Outcome: GW likes Seraphon and we get a major upgrade to our warscrolls, new and updated models, spells, command traits, mount traits, unique terrain features, and we become a top-tier army once again! Mediocre Outcome (most likely): We get a few minor warscroll buffs, possibly one or two major buffs, but other units get nerfed. Summoning is changed to be harder to use in exchange for the few buffs we get. LoSaT is nerfed, but we may still get faction-unique endless spells and a couple other goodies. Bad Outcome (not likely, but still...): GW declares they are re-working the whole faction, presenting it as an amazing update, when in reality is nerfs us hard, putting us at the bottom tier. Our warscrolls stay mostly the same, but key abilities like summoning become harder to use. Skinks and Razordons get nerfed to prevent spamming them, but the other units get little or no buffs to make up for it. They focus on LoSaT, thinking that it should be the core mechanic for our entire army. So we maybe get more teleports, but anticipating shenanigans they feel like they can't give us any strong buffs for the sake of balance. Or alternatively, the new battletome does almost nothing and is little more than an eratta pamphlet Obviously, I hope for the best!
I would actually like them to remove the summoning or atleast tone it down. And make the Slann a more powerfull caster. Its so annoying to be forced to bring so many extra models everytime you want to play.
Man, that guy really hates saurus LOL! But all in all, I agree with a lot of what they're saying. Upgrade to saurus and Temple guard, make our dinosaurs better at dealing damage, and fix kroxigor. I did also kind of like the idea of the terrain piece.
Hi again, thanks for all of your replies! Continuing on the models, I agree with @LizardWizard. I think the Slann looks fine (except for the skink sitting next to it) but should be updated to plastic. Kroxigors, razodons, sallies and skink priests, and cold ones need new plastic models that look like the ones from total war. We should also get plastic eternity wardens and sunbloods. Speaking of cold ones, who here thinks it would be a good idea to have a horned ones and Saurus knights kit? You could either build Saurus knights and red-crested skinks on foot, or have the red-crested skinks riding horned ones and have Saurus Warriors on foot. The red-crested skinks would be a more melee focused version of the regular skinks (which could be renamed as skink skirmishers). Other than our resin models, I think our other models are pretty good. Skinks are still adorable and full of rage, and the bastiladons, stegadons, and large theropods still look awesome. Now for rules. Saurus Warriors on par with chaos warriors, with 2 wounds and maybe a 4+ save, and the same with Saurus guard but with chosen. Basically make them less of a horde unit and more of an elite unit, like in total war. The Saurus’ shield ability should DECREASE their attackers’ rend by 1 (instead of only ignoring it if it’s -1) and add 1 to their save if they don’t have rend. Actually, with this rule, Warriors could probably stay at rend 5+ save. Saurus knights should have an extra wound and 4+ save. Slann should be more powerful casters, and would give defensive buffs to guards and eternity wardens. The Slann could also have an ability like the skaven or genestealer cults where roll a dice when it’s wounded and if it’s successful you allocate that wound to one of the guards or the eternity warden nearby. Anyway, that’s all I can think of for now. Have a nice day!
ya i'm not a fan of droping saurus but i see what he is getting at a lot of our line is currently redundant
My personal wishlist: Throw models and fluff to the trashbin. Make them ancient aliens style with so advanced technology its called magic by other races in Mortal Realms. Drop the stupid "slann just conjures them from memory" background. More spaceships/worldships with spawning pools. Make endless spells something to do with teleportation and leave just powerful magics to slann. Rules wise I would add couple wounds to Bastiladon and either nerf the laser gun variant or make the snake variant more competitive. While at it make big dino rules so people will actually start to fear charge of carnosaur/stegadon again. Universally just update the wording on the rules and design to reflect other aos 2.0 battletomes. Model wise mix alien/xenomorph with t-rex and you're good to go. Four nostril stegadons with broken ankles just does not do it for me, who grew up with fantasy battle fifth edition models. What I think Geedubs will actually do: Release nothing but book, with same old fluff with one paragraph about spawning pools instead of slann memories. They probably will dropout oldest finecast/metal models from the battletome and either drop whole faction out of the game next cycle or complete revamp. This tome will be just so everyone will have aos 2.0 book.
hold on there the sun cannon is already very week for the points you pay no need to make it worse the bastiladon dose need to be hardier or just cheeper he is just way to expencive
From what I can tell, GW is already moving away from the non Slann lizardmen being purely memory summons. I actually think most of our models look fine. It would be nice if the cold ones were updated to look more like the dark elf mounts, and even though some of the metal and finecast models look decent, like the Slann and Lord Kroak, it would still be nice to see plastic versions of everything that hasn't been upgraded to plastic yet. But remember that they are not truly aliens from space, they are survivors of the old world. While I definitely would like to see them go more into the magic and ancient technology side of their lore, I don't really think I would want to see them running around with laser guns and power armor. Stuff like the bastiladon's laser and the Oldblood's gauntlet is enough. But I think we can all agree that it would be nice to see improved Magic, a buff for the Saurus, and for our dinosaur units to become truly powerful once again.
The bastiladon could use a drop in points. And the snakes really need a buff or rather a redesign off its rules to make it more viable. I'm fine with the lasers as is but i wouldn't be surprised to se it get a set attack characteristic like 6 as gw has a tendency to do that.
1.) What I want is better looking Knights baseline. Sauras sculpts all around would be nice, but I want those damn Barney dinosaurs banished to the depths of history. But if I had to be creative, I'd want a Thunderlizard, something that was both a massive monster, mobile war machine, arcane apparatus, and able to transport/replinish units. Much like a rejuvenation crystal from the TW game. I'd also like then to keep our Battalions as close to they are now as possible. While most might see the 3" Shadowstrike as an issue, I don't see it being any worse than some other armies shenanigans. 2.) Better Traits for Sauras and Skinks, and don't force the Slann to be a general for summoning. Just restrict it to one Slann being the conduit for the summoning points, while if you have another they cannot contribute to the total. Blessed Spawnings, or even just the Old Ones return in a fashion as army faction's. I also think they should update some of the older models to fit in with the line, such as the Skink Prophet. On that, Kroak needs a power boost, or they need to give us another named character or two to make up for losing all but him. 3.) Look at Ogor Mawtribes and Slaves. I think we will be somewhere along those lines. Maybe Endless spells, maybe not. Maybe a terrain piece, maybe not. What we will likely get is a Battletome, dice, and cards. A lot of our wording will also be updated, no doubt, as the AoS rules team is leagues better at proofreading and future-proofing their system compared to 40k. Ripperdactyls and Terradons will probably see the biggest rework, considering their warscroll was originally designed with measuring from model to model in mind. Oh, and we will probably see a Made to Order release.
1. A lot of warscroll updates. More rend on Carnosaurs (Rend -2 jaws and rend -1 claws) baseline + mount traits. Better Saurus (pretty much all of them could use some kind of buff - Oldblood on foot has atrocious combat stats for a 120pt character, and I'm surprised he wasn't dropped to ~80 points in the last GHB). Better Salamanders - maybe make them work like warpfire throwers, or at least make the 4+ for mortal wounds apply per model. A better Kroxigor Warscroll - rend -1 baseline and the jaw attack doing a mortal wound on nat 6s in addition to normal damage, rather than the rule they have now that reduces their damage... I'd actually like to see Thunderquake/shadowstrike nerfed and the baseline monsters and terradon/ripper warscrolls buffed. Outside of a Thunderquake, Carnosaurs are our best monster by far (aside from maybe engines), even if that's largely a just result of them having decent command abilities that can be stacked. 2. Summoning changes. Our summoning mechanic is just... not fun. Trading spells for summoning points means not casting or using endless spells, and there's no way for the opponent to interact with it. Additionally, one will always be better than the other, which removes the decision making from it. If we're going to have summoning (which I have very little doubt of), I'd like to see a different method of generating points.
All other summon mechanics (i might be missing one?) don't require the player to invest points up front simply to be able to use the mechanic (or lose the ability to use it when said model dies) aside from maybe Beast of Chaos, and even them it ain't that bad. None of them require your GENERAL to be reduced to a terrain piece that has 7 wounds I'd rather we lose summoning altogether and get useable warscrolls that are not toned down to oblivion to account for the fact that we have a summoning mechanic. Then again slaanesh and Khorne were not toned down for the summoning mechanic that's for sure.
I like that Seraphon is a summoning army. We are the only "true" summoning army in the game I respect wanting something different though. I chose Seraphon knowing that it would be a summoning focused faction. Many others chose it without knowledge or before the GHB2018.
I really like that we are a summoning army, it's part of what makes this faction great. Summoning snacks for our opponents to fill their bellies with, because our units can't compete, that ain't great. Unless they want to go all in on summoning and keep our units as is, but drop our points costs across the board and reduce the amount of summoning points needed. I don't mind seeing my units get trampled over without being able to fight back if i have a 3 - 1 ratio on the board. Pretty much the same thing as skaven in total war, greater numbers that can't fight back.
I refuse to be reduced to skaven. blasphemy for you to even utter the comparables. they are nothing more than chaos infused morsals to be enjoyed by the dozens!
1) - remove some of the focus on summoning - rebalancing of basicly everything, a complete rework of some but that's far too much to list here - Skinks to becoming usefull for something besides dying - Spell lores, one for skinks, one for slann - Prayers - Viable general traits, artifacts etc. for all our generals (skink, saurus, slann) - Our slann to gain be vastly more active, instead of just being summon points generators - Skink heroes to be more active, instead of casting 1 ability from the backline. At minimum give them a halfway decent ranged attack. They don't need to be snipers, but right now they're less usefull than regular skinks in combat. At least a unit of regular skinks can get lucky and theoreticlly hit an opponent 10 times, the skink heroes don't really get passed 2 or 3 even if they're supremely lucky.... - Introduction of subfactions to allow for some specialisation. This could also be used to move the focus away from summoning while still allowing it to be part of our identity. Give us 1 subfaction that's super good at summoning, and 1 subfaction that has vastly more powerfull stats base-line but lacks summoning. - The ability to field more big dinosaurs. 2) See above 3) - Introduction of subfactions - Spell lores, but probably only like 2 viable spells.. - Prayers, but again probably like 2 usefull once.. - Viable general traits etc. but probably only 1 decent one per subrace. - Summoning being reduced slightly to ensure other generals are actually viable. But slann summoning batteries remain 50% of our lists... - Rebalancing of quite a lot. - Possibly some big dinosaur love in a subfaction Imho, the biggest issue is the summoning. Right now it creates too many problems. It enforces the slann to be the only truly viable general (at least in bigger games). It keeps our units weak, cuz they can be spammed too easily. And it's just an overall boring mechanic due to how generating points works. So if nothing else I at least expect them to alter summoning.