lol I guess I should have clarified that I wasn't just suggesting flooding the battlefield with the Warscroll "skinks" as much as the keyword "skinks". Of course that includes "skinks" the unit, but also Raptadon Chargers, Ripperdactyls, Salamanders, etc. Fangs of Sotek with their 3 deploys are great at these mobility tricks and Dracothion's Tail can drop in cheap screens or glass cannons as needed. And with a free teleport each turn, Starborne are extremely mobile. They can easily play as a control army, but one with powerful and flexible magic. You just have to be careful with the magic against Khorne.
I do have to say, it's dissapointing Saurus don't seem to get their chance to shine. You'd think it'd be easier to keep both subspecifies relevant within our army.
I think Saurus are more relevant than ever. The context here was how to defeat Khorne with a Magic Dom army. But Saurus Warriors are a solid anvil and can absorb a lot of attacks; and reinforced Aggradons have become a solid hammer that can bring down most enemy units with a little easy buffing. In Koatl's Claw, their -1 to wounds They take, +1 to wound on charge and +1 to bite (for Warriors) so attack up to make them quite strong. They are stronger and more efficient in Coalesced, but they still serve thier niches in Starborne, which otherwise would lack those roles. And yes, there are units in other armies that do those things better. But Seraphon are very mobile and have excellent support magic, so they have a lot of other tricks to balance out the army.
I think Saurus are really good, it's Khorne specifically and Chaos melee armies in general that seem to be rough for them. I think overall Saurus are just as good if not a bit better than their comparable units, but Chaos has way more special abilities and buffs to put on their units plus they all get summoning which puts them ahead of Coalesced late game.
O they''re definitly better than they've been for a long while. But Saurus still struggle with things like guard simply being ablative wounds and nothing beyond that, and the dominant lists still tend to be skink focused. Which is a bit of a shame. Would've loved to see 50:50 saurus:skinks lists become prevelant. Especially since they're supposed to fullfill complimentary roles.
I do wish mixed lists were more encouraged. GW really seems to love "spam this one unit type" lists for some reason.
I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that we're going to find that mixed lists outperform all skink or all saurus lists. Starborne lists will still lean skink and Coalesced lists will still lean saurus, but the more effective lists will include both, for heroes and battleline. Of course skink wizards will be in Coalesced lists, but Raptadon Chargers and Ripperdactyls have a place in Coalesced, as do the battleline skink unit. Saurus Warriors, Saurus Guard and Aggradons will have a place in Starborne. The Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur's double command point ability makes him good in Starborne. The Troglodon works well in Coalesced. While we do sacrifice some efficiency "crossing the aisle", we are able to build more balanced lists with all the different army roles by doing so. My prediction is that top competitive players and tournament-winning lists will not use the notion that our warscrolls are either Starborne warscrolls or Coalesced warscrolls. I'm already seeing that trend. I guess only time will tell.
I don't know that mixed armies will outperform, per se, but I guess it depends on if we're talking Skinks (the unit) versus SKINK (the keyword). It's easier to have mixed SAURUS/SKINK (keyword) armies. In KC lists with Kroxigor you are encouraged to bring a unit or two of Skinks just to help them. So, it's possible to have a reinforced unit of Warriors, 2 MSU of Krox, and 2 MSU of Skinks. My observation with the previous and current Seraphon book is that our "good stuff" can be expensive, leaving less expensive Skinks or MSU (units of choice) to fill in the gaps. Either you field fewer "good/tough" units with more troops, and hope for the best, or you take more powerful heroes/units and fill in with the cheapest stuff you can, and hope for the best. I imagine this is obvious and that it's this way in many battletomes (possibly AoS as a whole?), but I have less experience with most other armies. I do play against SBGL a lot. My experience with them is that their structure is very much the same as what's being discussed; field tough heroes/units and fill in the gaps with cheap battleline. Their battleline is just better than ours, based on unit and army synergies. Random Seraphon thoughts: -I wonder if all Saurus/Kroxigor bites should be base 5+? That would probably mean re-writing abilities for either the Coalesced Realmshaper or KC. That said, imagine how terrifying it would be to face either of those units near a Realmshaper. Weapon attacks plus X number of bites on a 3+! At least as scary as Starborne magic/summoning. -Guard should have either one more Attack or one more Damage. -I'm unimpressed with the Aggradon ability in general. Maybe now that units of 6 are a thing, it will bear more fruit? I would have been happy with impact hits, or extra bite on a charge, or charge at 18"/3D6 inches. These are just basic suggestions. -Raptadon Chargers are what Ripperdactyls could/should have been. They're very similar in basic stats and I can see a change in the names of abilities to make Chargers into Rippers. Then Raptadon Hunters could have been made more proper outriders. But it's understandable that GW needed to create and sell new models to profit on such a longstanding army. -The Troglodon shined for about a month. Good or bad, now that Arcane Vassal has been changed I feel like it's "back on the shelf." Maybe a point drop? 260 like Carnos or 250? -I'm a MEGA fan (Make Engine Great Again)... or at least playable.
The Aggradon Primal Rage ability was pretty lackluster when the battletome came out. But the change to coherency rules changed Aggradons from a blah unit to a great one. It changed the Scar-Vet on Aggradon from pretty useless to very useful in the right list. A reinforced unit of Aggradons can be very impactful in either faction. I think Primal Rage will be somewhat better now. I don't know how often it will get activated without the Scar-Vet, but its potency when active is undeniable. Let's look at some average numbers. I'm going to use Lancers with Clubs for this. They tend to be slightly better than spears against all but the highest save values (3+ save is the break-even for unbuffed Aggradons). (Sorry for the long, yet not exhaustive list that follows.) A unit of 6 Aggradons with Clubs will deal a base damage, without any buffs, of 19.0 wounds against a 4+ save. That's not a bad start. With Rage 1 from staying in combat or a Scar-Vet on Aggradon: 23.4 wounds Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge: 23.7 wounds. Starborne Aggradons with All Out Attack: 23.7 wounds. Maybe from a 7" teleport with +1 to charge. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Rage 1: 29.3 wounds. Even against a 3+ save, they still deal 23.0 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Empowered Celestite: 25.5 wounds. Starborne Aggradons with Rage 1 and Serpent Staff: 28.2 wounds. Starborne Aggradons with Serpents Staff and All Out Attack: 28.8 wounds. Starborne Aggradons with Rage 1 and All Out Attack: 29.3 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with All Out Attack: 29.6 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Empowered Celestite and All Out Attack: 31.8 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with All Out Attack and Serpent Staff: 34.8 wounds. Starborne Aggradons with Rage 1, All Out Attack and Serpent Staff: 35.2 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Rage 1 and All Out Attack: 36.57 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Empowered Celestite, Serpent Staff and All Out Attack: 37.0 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Empowered Celestite, All Out Attack and Rage 1: 38.8 wounds. Koatl's Claw Aggradons on the charge with Empowered Celestite, All Out Attack, Serpent Staff and Rage 1: 44.8 wounds. This one is extreme, I know, but it's still dealing an average of 29.2 wounds against a 2+ save! Not much can survive that. Note that I never bothered to add in Rage 2 or 3, as they are probably quite improbable. But if you get them, yikes! The last one on the list, but with Rage 3 yields 60.3 wounds against a 4+ save, or 39.2 wounds against a 2+ save. And I didn't include Hoarfrost (because the Seraphon calculator I made doesn't support it yet), but theirs a lot of bugging potential there, even for Starborne.
Ripperdactyls in Units of 6 (for 220 points) can now outperform Raptadon Chargers (EDIT: in terms of raw damage output and survivability). The Chargers have a slight edge on objectives and are cheaper, but Ripperdactyls fly, are tougher, harder to shoot, and are great at assassinating targets with Blot Toads. Rippers deal more damage against Blot Toad targets than Chargers deal on objectives.
Yes and no. Per point chargers on an objective still out preform rippers with a toad, but not by nearly as much. Chargers off an objective also do more damage per point than rippers do against a non-bloat toad target. Where rippers are better is when they have a bloat toad and chargers are not on the objective, such as first turn when your opponent hasn't moved yet. If you want a turn 1 alpha against one target rippers are the way to go. Chargers are better every other turn when you are fighting random units for objectives. It's all about what your list needs. Rippers with bloat toad are 15 points per wound Rippers without toad are 23 points per wound Chargers on objective are 13.6 points per wound Chargers off objective are 19 points per wound.
Yes, Chargers are still the most efficient unit in our army in terms of damage per point. I was referring to damage output (I'll clarify that above). For units that are similarly costed and fill a similar niche, the 6 Rippers average more damage than the 5 Chargers unless the Chargers are on an objective and the Rippers don't have a Blot Toad. Damage efficiency is important, but so is wound efficiency (the unit's wounds characteristic, not damage) and utility/impact. Ripperdactyls are less efficient than Chargers in terms of damage per point, but have ⅓ more wounds per point and survivability abilities against missile weapons. 6 Ripperdactyls cost over ⅓ more, or 70 points more, but they generally have more raw damage output and have more wounds. Chargers are optimized for taking objectives; Ripperdactyls for striking key targets. That role is one that is tricky for our Bastiladon with Solar Engine now, thanks to the new Look Out Sir rule. My point is only that, with the coherency rule change, Ripperdactyls are useful and good, and have a place on Seraphon lists.
I agree completely. I think rippers are really good for alpha strikes. Many armies will try to place screens far out to stop our spell casting but that can leave holes for rippers to fly into in ways that chargers just can't do. One issue we have with units like rippers and chargers is that we can only cast speed of haunchi once a turn, so if you run 2 units you fight over who can use it. Rippers are probably the better target turn 1 and chargers are better every other turn. Might be worth it to take one unit of rippers and one of chargers rather than two of either. But if I could only pick one I probably would go with chargers as they are better all around, though not by much. Chargers are also better for summoning. 7" summoning with 1+ to charge makes the charge very reliable and summoned chargers don't get their toad.
If attacking with two glass cannon melee units in the same turn, one issue we have — whether two units of rippers, two units of chargers or one of each — is that whichever one attacks second will probably be attacked before it attacks, meaning it will probably just get killed. Especially the chargers with their 10 wounds. It's not clear to me that chargers are better all around. They are cheaper, which is important. But in terms of ability, chargers deal more damage on objectives, and have +1 to charge and +1 bravery. Six Rippers deal more damage in most situations, fly, have 80% more wounds, have -1 to be shot and have unleashed hell resistance. I don't think one can say either is all around better. The +1 to charge is great for summoned Chargers, and summoned Rippers don't get a blot toad. But they can make use of any blot toads on the battlefield that you got from Rippers in your starting army. Of course, if those starting army Rippers did their job(s) and killed the unit(s) with the blot toad(s), those blot toads will have been removed from play.
Just here to say that, even with the change to Arcane Vassal, Troglodons are still an amazing support piece. They are less hardy in melee than the carnosaurs, but that 9" (and usually 12" in Coalesced!) bubble of -1 to attack rolls is amazing.
I second that. They are still great. I agree on the -1 to hit aura, but would also draw attention to Primordial Mire, which is a superb spell. All enemies near a terrain piece can't run or retreat, and their charge result is halved. That can cripple the enemy's movement and melee attacking. If the enemy moves into charge range, you can redeploy away. If there's just 6" between the enemy and your unit, they need to roll a twelve to make the charge. If they take a double turn while the spell is in effect, it cripples them for two turns. And vassal casting at unlimited range, even if it's just once per Slann, is still quite good. It's a great monster in Starborne or Coalesced. It is hard to fit in at its cost because there's so much we want to bring, but it's great to have when we bring it.