AoS The new Battletome: A Discussion

I hate to break it to you, but the artefact absolutely is. The first artefact in a thunder lizard army HAS to be the fusil of conflagration. To get the feather cloak on your stegadon alpha, there has to be a batallion giving you a second artefact.

 

oh ok I was thinking the ixti grubs and the ixi grubs were two different things, like maybe the artifact was named after something and they had very close names, I didn't realize it was a typo

 

hey its even simpler than that, they are NOT the same. one (cold ferocity) only affects celestite weapons, the other (saurian savagery) affects all melee weapons.

 

I am not concerned about our artefacts and WT locked in Constellation. The fact is, basic ones are not outstanding. You really want to maximize CP to pull off critical synergies. 2 out of 4 constellations give you a good trait for that purprose. Only single trait tied to a constellation (and that is a good trait) - 3 other can be avoided by different general. Relics - yes, they are not THAT good, but not complete trash either.

Trust me, most of the basic relics are trap and impact the game less than you can think. For example - grubs. Reroll a cast is good, but you already can freely stack up to +2 to casts and another one from Astrolith easily. Do you really need it more, than CP regeneration?

I think, the best Slann relic is one, that forces enemy HERO to fight last. It is worse than most other similar effects, because limited to hero and hero phase, but will work unil your next hero phase, which is great. Anything to protect slann - a waste. If you need to protect him - take 5 guards. This will be the best protection. Dracotion's Light is really limited and prism is a joke.

Saurus - two artefacts are trash and one is kind of Okay, but you want to fight hordes with carnos, not heroes anyway.

Skinks - they are nice. One is too random to take, but both other ones are very good on stegadons. You'll want one of them, probably, as the second one.

 

yeah it seems that skinks got ALL the love this time around. like Saurus got some I wont lie... but damn are we skinks or Seraphon? im having trouble telling any more lol

 

it's possible to run almost CP neutral with saurus lists so don't count them out yet

 

I don't think they are "out" just overall got only a little love. one unit and hero are literally worthless at this point, where as before they were only suffering due to a meta of heavy MW

 

Reroll casting, unbinding or dispelling is always good. Especially unbinding with Slann being able to unbind table-wide. There are factions that rely on setting up a Soulscream Bridge turn 1 to alpha you with shooting or whatever. +2 unbinding is good, but you can still roll bad and having a reroll massively improves your odds.

Rerolling casting is also great. Gone are the days where your Slann is AFK in a far corner behind LOS. Bound Endless spells are big, especially stuff like Geminids. Im tempted to say you are doing something wrong if you arent putting them in as the first thing in your list.

You arent forced into Seraphon specific artefacts anyways, you can take Malign Sorcery ones. Sword of Judgement on a Scar-Vet isnt bad at all. He doesnt really have any rend, so take the Warspear and buff him with +1 hit = 5s to hit are D6 MW against heroes.

 

We had this trait for two years, but I haven't seen it once in anyones list. Great Rememberer or rarely Vast Intellect. And we could get only +2 to casts max. Yes, the ability is great, but we need other ones more. Especially, the CP generation, since it is a huge power multiplier.

I reckon, the Aetherquartz Brooch will be the most popular artifact now.

 

Ugh, you're right, it was in a different spot. I guess no sub faction for me

 

I've spend this week looking for different BT reviews.

This is the longest one I've found so far:

Grab sodas, popcorn, snacks, and enjoy if you have +3 hours to spare:

 

Was a good listen, realised some stuff I didn't see, disagree with a few things, a lot of "this unit is great... When you also have 3cp and 500 points of support backup", which I argue 800 points and 3cp can make almost anything amazing.

Im still not sold on the Starpriest, I don't think it's 120 points powerful and if only run one of I was running 40 skink blocks, which I already think is a bad choice

 

How does everyone here feel about the realmshaper engine? I am not even buying i , too much of a liability to put on the board.

Changes I'd like to see - get rid of the priest /wizard requirement. I think this would make it absolutely playable.

Going one step further, give it a rule that if it targets itself, because of the power running through it, it deals d6 to garrisoned units.

These two make it less likely it will be unusable all game and also less likely for our opponents to take it, so we can actually use our terrain piece

 

I think mass Skinks is very viable. 40 wounds for 240 pts is amazing. They deal the most damage of all the ranged options bar Sallies (I believe), but they have fewer wounds and arent as mobile. In Fangs of Sotek you basically get to shoot twice which makes them even stronger, and whats left of the charging unit is likely not gonna wipe them, so the buffs you gave them for your turn shooting and end of opponents charge shooting will also apply to their melee attacks, likely wiping the unit. 40 wounds also makes grabbing objectives much easier. Their range is quite far so they can project power over a much larger area.

 

I dont see how you can compare the old book to the new one at all. The game now for Seraphon is much different. Everyone took double teleport trait and usually the artefact to have the Slann come back on a 4+, since the entire gameplay revolved around keeping him alive for as long as possible.

Now you cant just sit passive in a corner. You also dont have the two same traits and artefacts that almost everyone defaulted to anyways.

Aetherquartz will likely be the most used for Saurus or Ripper spam builds. The batallions hardly include any units though, so I can see lists running 2 batallions to get lowish drops.

I think the Priest/Wizard requirement is fine. I was really looking forward to picking off support heroes with stuff like bound Geminids + Comets Call + Terrain snipe.

I feel like the current rules really cuts into what a cool and awesome terrain piece it is. A faction terrain piece shouldnt really have any “feels bad”-moments attached to them. Currently I dont feel like even placing it on the table, and if I have to, far away from the middle. I mean look at Skaven Gnawholes and how powerful they are. They even have 3, get to place them after sides are picked and can tailor their gameplan around them.

 

I did not know how you guys feel about the Kroxigors now. Weapons got -1 rend. The aura has changed to 6” and +1 to hit (old 3” reroll wounds of 1). I believe they got a bit cheaper in points too. Can’t confirm.

 

they are cheeper now yes they used to be 160 and over all i like them they make great body guards and counter punchers if you hide them behind a screen or something else that you expect to die they can kill what ever killed it.

 

Concerning the Summoning, in my opinion, i haven't seen the correct use being metioned yet.

Ok, they reduced 3 CCP to D3 CCP per spell, but they buffed the rest.

Old book you used your Slann spells ( 3 ) for 9 CCP

New book it says - as one of you already pointed - EACH SLANN of ORACLE.
So if I have a Slann, Kroak and an oracle, the 3 of them can use this ability.

What I haven't seen yet being mentioned is the following:

RAW: ...before attempting to cast the first spell ... carry out cellestial conjuration ... if so, D3 CCP and reduce spells by 1

Which in my opinion means: As long as neither of your spellcasters has started to cast a spell they can keep on trading spells for CCP

so, slann can trade his 3 spells for 3D3 CCP, kroak can trade his spells for 4D3 CCP, etc.

So in a game with slann, kroak, astrolith and oracle i could end up with :

D3 ( general ) + D3 astrolith + 3D3 ( slann ) + 4D3 ( kroak ) + D3 ( oracle )
Which means at least 10 CCP and potentially 30 CCP ( if reaaaally lucky )

30CCP aka first turn 50 skinks or an engine summoned

( which would also make the Dread Saurian cost more logical, why bother setting him to 50CCP if it was impossible to reach that in any given game )

Do correct me if i'm wrong