I’m glad I haven’t bought mine yet. By the looks of it I won’t be in any rush to either, at least while I’ve got plenty of things on my hobby to do list! It looks lovely though, looking forward to painting it up.
I sent an email to the AoS rules team, explaining the situation and pleading for either a designer commentary on why they decided to purposely make it suck (I put it much more diplomatically) or, if they have no reason, to reconsider the ruling on one or both of the placement and garrisoning issues if we all do the same, perhaps they will listen????
I wouldn't hold you're breath for a response, but it would be interesting to hear how they see it being used.
People should have sent e-mails before the FAQ, not after. Unfortunately I bet very few people bothered to inform them about the issues with the terrain feature. It is too late now.
Sorry, but I don't get all the sadness. Placing it after set up makes it very overpowered. And if it only could be garrisoned by seraphon it would be a no brainer, but still very powerfull. Or you would mess up your opponents deployment zone, or you get it. Now it serves more of a tactical placement and you can do lovely mindtricks with it. I feel it’s a bit like doubleturn. Competative players will make it work. And im sure we will see some great (mind)plays with it at big tournaments! So if anyone has some good use for it, please post! However I do feel bummed that the rules saddens most of you. So here have a picture of my almost finish RSE (I’m not the best painter and with small kids around Im just happy I got it painted )
I will certainly talk about RE tactics in the Seraphon tutorial, picking ideas from here; I'll let you know when I'll do it.
will do! Even if it’s not yet fully finished! That would be great! Cant wait to actually play again and test this thing!
Been sleeping on the FAQ (or lack of changes in it) and I have come to terms that the cool terrain zapping MW effect wont ever be relevant at all and it wont be included in any of my plans. As explained a page or two back, if you place it in the middle of the board or to the sides and map out your turns, you will realistically not garrison it until turn 3. This means you wont be able to zap terrain until your hero phase in turn 4 and turn 5. The effect is by then largely insignificant. The RSE's ability will instead work as an anchor for where a battle is gonna take place. You place it on the table, and your opponent will no doubt want to fight around it simply to deny you access, even if your endgame goal isnt actually to garrison it. My plan with the piece is to have it serve as a way to block LOS for my support heroes near an objective, but it can also be used to restrict movement combined with a couple of Bound Endless Spells - Effectively creating a wall that the enemy cant pass across. This means you can really reduce the surface area around your dudes, which is especially good if you are largely a shooting/magic focused army. A Bastiladon might not be the tankiest thing in the world, but if you restrict how many models can surround it, it will take A LOT of damage, especially if you can prevent MWs being thrown at it/heal it to to the top bracket. Keep in mind models cant climb onto or across the terrain - Flying models can ignore it when moving, but must end their move outside of the piece. So if your support heroes is on the opposite side of a RSE, and there is no space for the flying model's base, you have effectively created a much safer spot than inside the RSE. I think I will effectively ignore the fact that you can garrision it, and instead aim to use it as a terrain blocking LOS for my support heroes + restrict movement on the table.
A small trick you cold use with it, but it's VERY specific, as it requires terradons and possibly Fangs of Sotek Place the terrain within a territory, at its outer limit. If it ends in your territory, garrison it and use its ability since turn 1. if it ends in the enemy's, set up your terradons at the minimum distance from it (usually 24"). if the enemy garrisons the RE and if that unit is a nice target, buff the terradons with something as priest and starpriest: in turn 1 you'll be able to deliver the deadly cargo on the garrisoned unit (you just need to fly over a small corner of the terrain)
Yeah that's pretty neat! To be honest, the more I think about it - If the enemy decides to deploy units inside - Lets say 2 Mortek Crawlers, you suddenly have a much bigger surface area to attack. Even if the garrisoned unit will receive cover (or not if a monster etc) and the -1 to be hit, it will be much more difficult to screen the entire pyramid. And as you said, Terradons wont even care about the cover or -1 to be hit since they just deliver a fat load of MW with their ability.
Okay, my thought, if you play coalesced. If you use random terrain rules, place a RSE in the center of one deployment zone and all other possible terrain that you pick in the another one. Out of 3 terrain features, you will have decent chances to get Arcane or Mystic terrain and if you got bad terrain, you just don't care because of coalesced. Basically, the Arcane Ruins idea, but random. Another one - if your opponent has an important terrain feature, that is placed in the depoyment zone, try to place as much terrain as possible near RSE. Try to keep exactly 12" between terrain features. You have decent chance to make it completely impossible for him to place his faction terrain in one of the deployment zones. And, as it was said, if your opponent steals RSE and place something important into it, it will have huge base, so you will have easy time reaching it with spells. Kroak + Guard unit looks like the best option for garrisoning them into RSE.
Very overpowered? Please look at the benefits afforded to other armies with faction terrain. Sure, not all of them are amazing but at least 3-4 are really strong, and belong to armies who are more competitive than we are with our new book. All of these so called benefits are available to any other faction with specific terrain, the difference is absolutely none of them have ANY negative aspect to bringing it. Literally none. Imagine if an army had a unit that, 50% of the time, could be moved by our enemiesin our movement phase without any downsides. I can guarantee 0% of Seraphon players would bring it to the table. This is no different. The Realmshaper is not faction specific terrain. It is a generic terrain model that is Seraphon themed. Which is fine, I was going to buy another piece of terrain to flesh out my board, now I have it.
I do believe players play a unit that can in 50% be moved by the opponent, in the form of endless spells. We now got the bound version which is very, very good! I know some terrain of other armies is ridiculously good. But im not talking about the MW’s. The garrison with +1 cover, -1 to hit is a bit to much to be gauranteed. Take kroak for example. With an AB and a BW and 5 saurus guard, you have an almost unkillable hero with super range. If we had that possibility, or other stuff would be nerfed to balance it out
I did think about that as I was typing, haha. At least you get to place them where you want them and 100% get one use out of it. They are also able to be removed in your turn if you dislike where they’ve gone. You can also, to some extent, “plan” for them since you know on subsequent turns who holds the power. But yes, It is a risk-reward also. I’m fine letting Xenos fools garrison my lizard hut, but then either make the benefit I’m independent of garrisoning, or allow me to place it in my deployment zone. I think having two downsides is what kills it.