I just played a game yesterday with practically all Saurus. My unit of 30 Warriors were charged on round 1 by Prince Vhordrai and a Coven Throne. They lasted about a round and were magicked off the board at the top of Round 3. It could have possibly been longer, but foolishly I didn't keep a command point to save them in round 2 and lost most of them to battleshock. I couldn't generate any extra CP, I couldn't return any CP with my command trait, and I failed to rally a single Saurus on 19 dice. I was a little frustrated that the Saurus couldn't do more damage with spears (no rend), but with a hero nearby, they held on against a VERY fighty monster. That's not really praise or a condemnation, just what happened. One feature of 3.0 that I'm not sure I like is save stacking. I threw a unit of 6 Kroxigor at 5 Blood Knights. The Blood Knights went first b/c I chose another fight first, so I was down to just 4 Krox. Anyway, the Knights had Mystic Shield AND a command ability that gave them a 2++ save. Basically, my Rend was totally negated and Seraphon doesn't have a lot of Rend. I think I did 2 wounds total.
Save stacking is something that a lot of people don't like. It's why the new rulebooks are either giving everything rend and high damage (Stormcast), or the ability to dump mortal wounds like there's no tomorrow (Kruleboyz and Nurgle). Because anything valuable you want to kill is going to be on a 3+ or 2+ save, and ignoring rend -1 most of the time. It's also the reason that our "bag of dice" strategy doesn't work as well. It doesn't matter if you're throwing out 30+ attacks if half of them miss and then half of them fail to wound, and then your opponent can only take damage by rolling 1s.
I haven't changed my argument at all. You even quoted me before as saying that 2 wounds isn't what Warriors need but it's what they deserve. This isn't the hill I'm going to die on, but I also don't think giving Warriors 2W would just make them completely unviable immediately. You raise fair enough points about a 2W unit of Warriors being difficult to point but I'm sure it could be done. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the Warriors vs Guard argument. As @Kilvakar pointed out, there will always be room for Guard in our lists provided they can protect our Slann.
I remember doing the math on this a long while back, and insofar as I can tell Saurus Warriors need something to put them at least on par with Skink Skirmishers in terms of wound output density and durability per unit area in order to be viable. As it currently stands, while Saurus Warriors can regularly deliver upwards of about twice the wound output of an equivalent number of skinks on a good day (especially as a horde in Coalesced) and roughly 3 times more likely to shrug off a hit, they trade poorly in board control by comparison, with only Skink Skirmishers with blowpipes and clubs faring worse per unit area before Rend is applied (Incidentally, the latter set-up in a horde is the only Skirmisher loadout that has a higher potential wound output density than any Saurus set-up, even in Coalesced). To put it bluntly, while Skink Skirmishers only take up 40% less space than Saurus Warriors on a wound per wound basis (10 saurus take up about as much space as 16 skinks), at the cost of one or two bodies more, Skinks with shields can retain around 20% better board coverage than Saurus warriors can against any given number of incoming wounds despite the latter having a better armour save. The closest you can get to rough parity between Saurus Warriors and shielded Skinks in this field is either by increasing the Saurus save to a 3+, or simultaneously increasing the wound count to 2 while reducing the save to a 5+, assuming you're looking to make both worth roughly the same amount of points. Conversely, if Saurus are indeed more expensive than Skinks, then merely giving Saurus the second wound should suffice.
So mathematically Saurus with their current attack profile would be better than Skinks if they were just to receive 2 wounds or a 3+ save?
See this is kind of the issue with the whole "do saurus need 2 wounds" discussion, we don't just have to take into account the other saurus but there's also skinks messing things up by simply being amazingly efficient bodies. Essentially we have a situation where on the one hand giving them two wounds steps on the toes of saurus guard & knights & will make them needlessly expensive as @Erta Wanderer keeps saying. On the other hand, keeping them at one wound condemns them to being a generally bad pick because skinks are just vastly more efficient, and fullfill largely the same roles, and the slight advantages that warriors currently have over skinks, like the "superior" damage in melee, aren't actually all that usefull in practise as both units fullfill the exact same roles but the skinks are just more efficient in every meaningfull way... And this issue is going to remain as long as warriors don't have something that distinguishes them in a meaningfull manner from the skinks and skinks remain as efficient as they currently are.;
Pretty much. This was the big reason why I chose to factor in the base sizes for each when it came to determining this sort of thing. This also plays into the other Saurus units as well, especially where traits add up to justify why they cost twice as much as regular Warriors on a per-model basis. Saurus Guard in particular always pay for better weapons, a better armour save, a bodyguard special ability, and the benefit of not needing a horde bonus to do any of that, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise if they get bumped up to a 3+ armour save if regular Warriors get 2 wounds. On the flip-side, despite delivering at least twice the wound output of Warriors on a per model basis, Knights simultaneously have higher wound output density than MSU Warriors and lower wound output density than Warrior hordes, just by virtue of their 35x60 cavalry bases. On top of that, they are even worse at board control for what they're worth, even if they were bumped up to 3 wounds each. Of course, one could argue that that's not what Knights are for - they're meant to be a hammer, not an anvil, and their movement and lance-based special rule is indicative of that - so we'd be remiss not to consider that as well.
guys it's not hard to fix warriors. make the horde bonus innate(since 3rd murdered large units) and give them +1 to hit with clubs/spears, slap a 110 price on ten and let them rip people a new one. they now work in MSU and they don't even need rend to do so. they hold objectives better then knights but aren't as mobile, they hit WAY harder then skinks but don't have their board presence. guard get 3+ save and reach 2"(good lord i don't know why that isn't the case already) making them the anvil that warriors need major investment to match and they still protect slann just like always so it allows counter play if people can't crack a 2+ save. all of the foot troops have a roll all of them work well at their job. guard as... guards, knights as skirmishers/light shock cav, warriors as a non glass melee hammer, skinks as board control and screens.
Imho, guard should get a minor wardsave instead of a 3+ save, similar end-result but it'd help stem the flow of mortal wounds a bit, plus it seems more interesting. (and astrolith should give a different bonus, to avoid the potential conflict there) As for warriors, I'm sceptical it'l turn out well if we'd focus (solely) on offensive capabilities. My main concern would be that the offensive capabilities of the minor MSU units we use to grab objectives simply isn't all that relevant to begin with. Skinks have managed to play that role for 3 editions without doing any damage to speak of. So I'd worry that buffing it would simply not be enough to give a reason to bring warriors, not unless the buff is absurdly large. To put this into perspective with your buffs we'd end up in a scenario where: Knights have the speed and offensive power to steal objectives, but are relatively "expensive". Skinks have speed & cheap efficient bodies but lack offensive power to defeat a foe. Warriors are slow, relativly "expensive" but have the firepower with your suggested buff. Essentially out of the 3 important aspects for MSU's who grab objectives & provide screens knights & skinks both have 2. Warriors have 1. That does not look great for the warriors, given that all 3 of these units are focused on the same broad roles. Imho, warriors need a special rule like guard to give them a specific niche in the army that raw stats can't easily force them out of. That way they don't have to constantly compete with knights & skinks.
but they don't have to be run in MSU they just aren't useless in them any more. warriors have always and will always be best in blocks they are line troops not skirmishers. with the above buff clubs aren't god awful in MSU(40 attacks is amazing) but they truly shine in 20 man or above. 60 attacks let alone with SP MWs on them shreds almost anything and unlike knights they scale up. knights don't work in anything bigger then 5, warriors do and have twice the bodies \. it would essentially make them into old witch elves and they slaped
remember i don't need warriors to be the best thing in the book, i need them to be good enough. i need them to be good enough that a new player who finds our army and likes saurus can pick them up and do well enough that he can play what he loves. that was me 20 years ago and im still waiting for it to happen. i am a much better player then i was 20 years ago i can take a alright unit and make it work. if i had the above warriors i would carve my way threw anyone. but i don't need a game breaker. all im asking for is for warriors to be fun to play... just once
Yeah, the MSU warriors isn't complete garbage anymore with your suggested buffs, but they're still obviously inferiour to knights & skinks, to the point even beginners will quickly realize this, because pure offense simply doesn't matter much on a MSU objective grabber. So unless you want to run 1 centerpiece horde, you're still probably going to drop them. And imho, that is not "good enough". As for them being better in hordes. Sure, we can go that way. But then why not just lean into that, and make that their dedicated niche instead of trying to make them "good enough" as a MSU fodder unit when they have to compete with both skinks & knights (and guards if they ever become more than a glorified upgrade for the slann) for that niche and we'll probably always end up with an obvious loser in this scenario? For example give them your buffs and set the base-size to 20 so they circumvent the reinforcement point limit in a fairly efficient manner. That way they actually carve out their own little niche instead of competing for the same spot.
What's interesting is that I think being able to ignore -1 Rend, like we did in AoS 2, would be useful in 3.0. That coupled with All Out Defense would give Saurus a 3+ save that ignores -1 Rend attacks. I know the general consensus is that Saurus don't need more defense, but it's just an observation. Going forward, I wonder if Saurus and Skink versions should to be split up for GW to fine tune them. Saurus with clubs and Saurus with spears. Skinks with javelins and Skinks with blowpipes. For example, Saurus w/clubs might be able to have 2 clubs, club & shield or one great weapon? That would start to make Seraphon more like some other armies, even if that is a bit derivative.
then don't use them as Ob grabbers i have never implied that's their roll. or 2 hordes or even 3 for that matter 2 20 man units and a 30 would still leave you over half your army to play with. it most definitely is. are carnasuars the best monster we have? no in no way are they the best they come in 4th-5th no matter how you slice it. and yet people still use them all the time. because they are good enough and people like carnasuars. i did, that's literally what i just said. because that's just what happens when you make a big block unit strong. they just get better as a MSU automatically. your focusing on the wrong part of what i said. them being good in MSU has always been a side effect and a welcome one since now they can still function in their primary roll after they have been punched in the face because that would be awful and pointless. that would make them 220 at base make them shoot up to 60 man units when maxed which is pointless no one will ever take them in 60s in fact i would argue one would take them in 40s. since you wouldn't even be getting half of them in and 20 excess models is far to much. they work best in 20 and 30 man units.
I think that save-stacking is basically there to ignore rend already. Not that it would be a bad thing to have it, of course. Just that it doesn't seem to fit into the AoS 3 style of rules writing. Seeing as they already did this with the Bastiladon, I wouldn't be surprised if they did this with our troops as well, especially since most new kits coming out don't have different weapon options. I'd hope that there wouldn't be a huge point difference between, say, different Skink loadouts. I could see the pure melee Skinks being cheaper, but the weapon profiles on the javelins vs. boltspitters seems to balance out similarly. I think that's how most people would like to play Saurus. In groups of 20-30, not in MSU. Unless you're running EotG and rolling some summons I really don't see a reason to bring them in MSU, especially since even if they were buffed Skinks or Knights would still be better screens. Also, poor Koatl's Claw would finally start looking like a fun option instead of a "hard mode" way of playing because you either just stubbornly love Saurus or you want to style on your opponents Yeah, let's not become Skaven+Gitz. As much as I dislike the arbitrary smaller unit sizes in 3e, the 60-man units should stay unique for those armies. I know this is what I've wanted basically since I started playing. Guards as elite and tanky units, Skinks as fast skirmishers and screens, Knights as shock cavalry and Warriors as a mainline infantry that can actually deal some damage in combat. I definitely favor focusing on increasing the damage output of Warriors over increasing defense. However, I still think they could use 2 wounds. If you were worried about this making Guard somehow unviable I'd give them an extra wound as well in addition to the other buffs you (and I) have talked about to their save and reach. Yes, they'd be more expensive but still worth bringing. Kroxigors are 4 wounds on a 4+ save with much better damage output and they're only 150 points, so I think Guard would probably be around 120-130? Although admittedly I have no idea what the basis for a fair point cost is, I've never gotten that deep into the math. Yes please! They were at least viable in 2e for a short while after our book came out, but that didn't last long. We know that GW is capable of writing books where the majority of the army is at least fun to play even if not overpowered (Soulblight Gravelords). So I think they could definitely bring Saurus (and Carnosaurs!) up to par with the rest of the army without making them unfun to play against. On that note, I wish they'd do the same for our flyers! Seriously, why do Ripperdactyls and Terradons have to suck so much? Is it like how people still hate Tau in 40k for the whole "fish of fury" thing that happened several editions ago? My dream is to be able to take a truly mixed force that has Saurus, Skinks, dinosaurs and flyers all in the same list and not completely suck. The "spam unit x" lists are just boring. Even in Thunder Lizards I wish it was at least viable to run Carnosaurs and Troglodons and not just Stegadons and your one token Bastiladon. Just let me play my Total War army, lol!
Spending 600+ points on saurus warriors (and then a bunch more on the necesary support heroes) doesn't exactly leave you a great deal of room if you also want to include some other fancy stuff. Either your warriors will have to double as objective grabbers, or you're going to need to stock up on a bunch of random skinks for this purpose in which case you'll have even less room left for other nice stuff. Carnosaurs aren't in direct competition with 3 other units though as our monsters don't all focus on the same basic role. Only the stegadon and carnosaur are blunt beatsticks, the others have special abilities that push them into (somewhat) seperate niches. And even between the stegadon and carnosaur we have the difference of saurus v.s. skink, allowing the carnosaur to be at least a decent pick in certain lists, even if the stegadon is generally speaking the better beatstick. Warriors on the other hand are in constant direct competition with multiple other units that fullfill the same niche. No you didn't you just gave it a general purpose buff that works regardless of them being MSU or horde. It doesn't encourage players to play them in a horde. I was not clear, sorry for that; I meant that the minimum size should go to 20. The maximum size should not change. Going to units of 60 would be stupid. So the suggestion was that you can only take them in units of 20 & 30. The idea here being that they become a horde unit by default, and that they circumvent the reinforcement point nonsense (to some extend). This accentuates their horde nature and encourages a player to use them as such. Plus, 20 seems to the size most players seem to naturally gravitate towards when they try to use them anyway, probably cuz at this point there's enough bodies for them to stay somewhat relevant after they suffer a few losses, whereas those MSU's of 10 basicly become irrelevant after one round of combat. So why not just allow them to naturally come in sizes where they can actually stay relevant for a turn or two? Plus this puts them in a clear different niche where they're not in an eternal competition with all of our other battleline options.