AoS Seraphon got a buff in the new warhammer community update

update landed today on warhammer community page. we got some cool new heroic traits, some new monster traits and the old blood on carno got a much needed dmg buff. pretty great stuff.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com...j/scourge-of-ghyran-its-written-in-the-stars/

 

Its a good time for it. New GHB is expected to go on pre-order in the next week or so

 

The forum could certainly use some more Age of Sigmar content.

 

Been looking into the new ghb leaks. Bad news, Seraphon got some small nerfs to the kroak play style:

- Leaked points suggest seraphon will have to spend 20 pts for the lore of celestial manipulation spell lore and 20 pts for our faction terrain.
- Morbid will cost 20pts to take now as well. So the normal Kroak builds just went up 60 pts. It could have been a lot worse, and still maybe when the real points come out. We will see.
- Lots of Obscuring in the new scenarios meaning Kroak wont always have LOS to use his spells and magic needing los is less reliable in general.

But there is a lot of good news!:
-The new Carnosaur is a great monster. Ive been playtesting him and its nice that he can reliably kill what he goes into now.
-The buff to Aggradons was fun in playtesting. I can definitely see them sitting on 2 rage tokens for most of a game now.
-Lots of obscuring will help us immensely. Most of our big units dont fly and aren't monsters so we should be able to utilize it well. Just be careful with your flying heroes.
-Lots of the battle tactics play into seraphon strengths. Especially the scouting one and the hunting treasures one.

I feel like seraphon might start leaning back into the aggressive heavy cav lists we were using at the beginning of the edition before kroak was buffed.

 

I'm kind of whelmed by the Ghyran changes to Seraphon. GW has only given us 1.5 good spell lores, 1.5 good artifacts, only 1 good heroic trait, and a decent faction terrain piece. Now we have to pay for all of the better ones, where other armies got off without that hit (I'm looking at you, Skaven). Our point drops were inconsequential.

I do like that we got some mount traits.

I'm glad the Carno feels a bit improved. It still doesn't look that survivable. I know "Terror" is only a small part of it's features, but have you missed it?

 

I have not really missed terror. its just not how i play seraphon. i prefer to kill than contest. unless its a thunderquake spam list or a saurus warrior heavy list, i think we are too fragile to play the grind game like that, especially in the new ghb where monsters don't benefit from obscuring.

If you are taking the old blood i think you are still taking the combo of being of the stars to make it unrendable, and probably retrices to heal d3 every turn. as long as you dont get crazy, its relatively survivable then.

Im going back to raptodons, aggrodons, carnos and basic slanns for now. i think the kroak lists will be significantly hurt by the obscuring changes in this ghb, so im pivoting away from slow castles. my initial thoughts to this ghb is hit hard and hit fast.

 

Man the battle tactic mechanics for this new GHB hard tough.

 

I've been sitting out 4e so far, the army rules are just so "meh" it doesn't seem worth relearning the game every three years to keep up. But I'm glad they *finally* seem to have gotten the idea that people want the Carnosaur to actually be good at fighting! I'm very glad it focuses more on killing stuff than the stupid objective control score shenanigans. Unfortunately these rules seem temporary and locked to the current GHB, so hopefully we don't lose them in the next update or whenever the Seraphon battletome comes out...

 

Unfortunately, those sort of objectives are considered narrative in nature these days.

 

I really wish there was a bit more focus on terrain, especially with some verticality, in AoS. I'd love if there were actually objectives on top of hills or fortification, or objectives/terrain pieces that gave buffs to the army for controlling them rather than just buffs for the unit touching them.

 

My personal experience from (mis)using the Ghyran Carno in combat is that it is good, but it's not necessarily an "ultimate killing machine." Bear in mind, I've only used it in one battle as a test. I put it into a reinforced unit of Barrow Knights. It did well and took out 5 Knights. Of course, due to the way Barrow Knights work, they had 7 or 8 back by the time the next combat rolled around. Those Knights, plus a mounted Wight Lord, took down the Carno in the next combat.

 

That is a bit more like playing Warcry. At least it can be depending on the mission. Which is a fun and shorter game.