AoS Army list review

[Gorgerak]

Hi guys, looking for feedback on a possible tournament list:

Slann
Engine of the gods
Engine of the gods
Saurus host inc:
Oldblood
20x saurus w/ clubs
20x Saurus w/ clubs
20x Saurus w/ spears
5x saurus cav

You'll have to take my word for it that this list hits the maximum "points" allowance for the tournament. But the general idea is the slann sets up at the back of the board flanked by the Engines and works on summoning skinks and salamanders.

Whilst the saurus fan out infront as a protective screen. bolstered by the immunity to battleshock, supported by the oldblood and using the Engines to help regain a few wounds here and there, they should be able to last for a decent amount of time.

The saurus cav have been taken because i dont have the "points" available to get a decent sized unit of temple guard which is a shame.

After the saurus have been able to tie up the majority of the opposing force the stegadons then shock charge in to tip the balance.

Do you guys think this tactic could work - the Engine is ridiculous. So doubled up with a slann should allow me to create a pretty hardcore battleline. Plus the Slann's extra die should allow me to manipulate the engines to get the result i want.

 

[MunkenDronkey]

I like the list in general (I'm a big fan of the Saurus Warriors as solid core-troops), but I'm curious how you guys are handling your summoning. Unless we've been tanking the rules and using them completely incorrectly, don't you need to have at least one unit of the type you want to summon already in your army (ie, have the warscroll available) in order to summon more of them?

 

[Kultak]

don't you need to have at least one unit of the type you want to summon already in your army (ie, have the warscroll available) in order to summon more of them?

Depends on who you decide to listen. There are lots of people on each side of this argument.

Gorgerak, just curious why two engines? Could you take a Stegadon for some reliable long range shooting? If you leave the engines in the back with the slann some of the rolls will be useless to you. Are you planning on not moving your army? Unless within 3" of the engine you will not get the heals you want.

 

[Gorgerak]

I like the list in general (I'm a big fan of the Saurus Warriors as solid core-troops), but I'm curious how you guys are handling your summoning. Unless we've been tanking the rules and using them completely incorrectly, don't you need to have at least one unit of the type you want to summon already in your army (ie, have the warscroll available) in order to summon more of them?

Depends on who you decide to listen. There are lots of people on each side of this argument.

That was not something I had realised - and it was brought up in my game last night. I'm still in two minds - on one side the summon spell is a part of the unit's warscroll so if you don't have that warscroll then you don't get that spell.

On the other side, if (in the comp you are using) you have specified what you have available to summon, which we do have in my club's comp (up to 4 warscrolls) then I would argue that you should have access to the summon when the unit isn't on the table as the warscroll is a defined, and paid for, part of the army list.

I think its going to be different and mostly just a house rule, worth checking with your opponent before deployment.

Gorgerak, just curious why two engines? Could you take a Stegadon for some reliable long range shooting? If you leave the engines in the back with the slann some of the rolls will be useless to you. Are you planning on not moving your army? Unless within 3" of the engine you will not get the heals you want.

The army is designed to stay together, saurus in front, Engines and oldblood behind, slann behind that. Not fall proof I grant you, and in my game last night I took some serious damage from goblin bolt throwers (which are horrible!). In essence, within 3 " of each Engine I have, itself, the oldblood, the other engine and 2 saurus units. The slann sits within 10" of all saurus, oldblood and both engines so they all benefit from the command ability of +1 save from shooting (which helped me out a lot). The cav are chaff really and i use them for hunting out small skirmishing units and war machine hunting.

If one of the engines gets taken down, as it did in my game last night, I can re-summon it, I believe, which should be enough to make any grown man cry. Early game - the Engines are not the greatest bonus , but having two should allow me to get the result i want early game and allow them to benefit off each other mid game. The Slann's bonus die is a massive help!

The real bonus to this force though is this saurus host, i'm expecting most people to focus on the engines (and rightly so) but the immunity to battleshock and additional Jaws+Shield attack, combined with the ignoring -1 rend makes the core of the army so hard to chew through. My saurus cavalry held up a unit of 10 boar boyz and a named character for 3 combat rounds just because they wouldn't run away.

It will take some more play testing, but the only change I'm considering now is possibly changing one of the saurus blocks from clubs to spears as that 2" range really helps with "weight-of-attack" philosophy.

 

[Kultak]

On the other side, if (in the comp you are using) you have specified what you have available to summon, which we do have in my club's comp (up to 4 warscrolls) then I would argue that you should have access to the summon when the unit isn't on the table as the warscroll is a defined, and paid for, part of the army list.

I would say that there is no argument there. If you guys house ruled it so you could have up to four warscrolls then that is that. The question is what four scrolls? Salamanders are awesome, but I would prefer Chameleons over Skinks. (Five Chameleons have done way more for me than 10 Skinks have.) Are the other two Saurus Warriors and Engine of the Gods? Something to think about is that is way easier to summon Cav or even an Oldblood that it is to summon an Engine of the Gods.

 

[Gorgerak]

I would say that there is no argument there. If you guys house ruled it so you could have up to four warscrolls then that is that.

I agree, that is a question for my club and its comp, not for here. Just using it as an example as it was fresh in my mind, and we didn't resolve it, we just decided to roll a die - 4+ I could summon a warscroll I didn't have on the table and 1-3 I couldn't. which we were all happy with.

I rolled a 4 and then proceeded to fail EVERY SINGLE summon attempt after that lol >.<

 

[Bainbow]

Personally, I think that Saurus with clubs are much weaker than the ones with spears, the extra attacks can really help, and the Olblood's passive can help with the harder to wound rolls thanks to his rerolling 1's.

Speaking of, what are the limitations for this army? How high can you get?

 

[Kultak]

proceeded to fail EVERY SINGLE summon attempt after that lol >.<

Oh, I feel you. I've been there so many times it's not even funny!

 

[Gorgerak]

I like the list in general (I'm a big fan of the Saurus Warriors as solid core-troops), but I'm curious how you guys are handling your summoning. Unless we've been tanking the rules and using them completely incorrectly, don't you need to have at least one unit of the type you want to summon already in your army (ie, have the warscroll available) in order to summon more of them?

I have just been having this discussion with some of the guys at my club and I have been shown the below exert from another forum about this topic:

Q : How does summoning work? Do I need to have models on the table or can I summon anything in my faction?
A : Some debate about this and many players are in either camp. Best way to be sure is check with your opponent or gaming group how they want to play it.

It is the same for all summoning armies as far as I know - and it confused me too to begin with...

I have seen it argued (by gaming minds greater than my own) across multiple forms of social media and various forums and the consenus (from what I have seen) is that you do not need to have a warscroll on the table to be able to summon another warscroll of the same type.

Supporting evidence (from various sources):

Rulebook: In your hero phase you can use the wizards in your army to cast spells (see the rules for wizards on the last page of these rules). In addition, other units in your army may have abilities on their warscrolls that can be used in the hero phase.

Ruleboom: "You can delpoy warscrolls in reserve. Units in reserve play no further part in the battle unless fate intervenes."

It involves something to do with the wording above - you have all of the warscrolls at your disposal even if they are not deployed on the table (they are in reserve). If you have the warscroll in reserve then you still techniclly have the warscroll in your army thus your wizard will know the spell

The traditional "army list" no longer exists (and is a hang over in mentality from previous editions which needs to be forgotten).

The bold bit above is the strongest evidence I could find in the rules...

The Wood Elves can "summon / heal" Treekin but are specifically told that they can only do so whilst Treekin are already on the board "Sylvaneth Wizards know the Regrowth spell in addition to any other spell they know whilst there are any Tree Kin on the battlefield."

The absence of this statement on other casters warscrolls suggest that the summoned unit does not need to be on the board to be summoned.

There's no similar restriction on other summoning armies - it tells you the caster knows how to summon x. We have assumed (and GW staff have eluded to) the rules are on the individual warscrolls scroll because a) it's more efficient instead of the casters wascroll having a huge list of spells included b) it gives GW flexabilty to add new warscrolls to an army that can be summoned without having to update multiple other warscrolls and c) you'll need that to have the stats for the summoned unit anyway

(The bold bit above was what my local GW manager told me as well...)

It seems pretty clear that it unless it says they HAVE to be on the board then assume the DON'T HAVE to be on the board.