Troglodon can take a spell, no different than any other Wizard. He isnt super tanky with 12 wounds and 4+ save, but it is still something. Your opponent has to commit to killing him, and knowing he might come back at full health on a 50/50 makes the commitment kinda stink. Either way he soaks up alot of damage that could have gone into your other stuff. I think Bastiladon is so-so - Not every army has access to MWs in buckets. Few units deal MWs in combat, with screens you can prevent impact hits and decide the charge and we pretty much dominate the magic phase to deny spells. You trade some damage for more survivability. I think theres value in not very unit dying to a sneeze. Also he is insane if you pin some huge unit at the corner or end if they are strung out. I think its really interesting to look at our Skink heroes and consider exactly how much they bring to the army. Hand of Glory etc is great if you are pushing deep, but the question is if you are doing it correctly. You are probably better off castling up at the front of your deployment line and project power outwards to the closest objectives for the most part, so stuff should be within reach to spend CPs on. Especially if you congaline the Skink Handlers a bit back.
Yeah thats totally fair if you dont want to play with loads of Skinks. I just kind of hijacked this thread to talk Dracothion’s Tail because your list looks very awesome and almost identical to what I would run. Your list is very good imo, I just find enjoynent in trying to tune things up to 11, but that doesnt mean a 10 is bad at all!
I have gotten a couple practice games in with the list and it has been crushing people. Feels like it still has room for more fine tuning though. Anything that sticks out? I know people suggested taking out the skink wizards. Anything else?
I feel like you might have to tech in at least 5 Saurus Guards against certain matchups. His survivability is good, but it isnt good enough if someone with good ranged output really wants him dead.
Do you feel like that is something I have time to summon, or is that a must have right at the beginning of the game? New list in case its decided to take some guard for extra wounds. Allegiance: Seraphon - Constellation: Dracothion's Tail Lord Kroak (320) - Spell: Stellar Tempest Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Command Trait: Ancient Knowledge - Spell: Celestial Equilibrium - Ancient Knowledge Spell: Mystical Unforging Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140) Skink Oracle on Troglodon (260) - Artefact: Godbeast Pendant 5 x Saurus Guard (100) 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) 5 x Chameleon Skinks (90) Balewind Vortex (40) Bound Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (70) Bound Purple Sun of Shyish (60) Total: 2000 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 111
I mean it really depends on what armies you are gonna face and what they field. There are some shooty lists out there that can take him off the board in one turn if they really want to and you roll badly. You might also face something that moves really far and maybe gets through screens with multiple pile-ins or if they get the double turn. The Guards also allow you to place Kroak a little more aggressive rather than sitting in a far back corner. I think the 100 pts is a rather good investment, but maybe you wont need it.
Hey, thanks for the comments. I really like the list in this thread and it is fairly similar to mine which is cool to see Rob and I actually did roll for sides at the very beginning (I think it’s captured on the stream). I was fortunate to get the side with the RSE- it made for a fun game I did go left field with non constellation- you are right. But I really like the Cloak of Feathers on the Trog as it makes him a mobile, hard to hit summoning base. I am going to keep experimenting though!
Just sounded like Rob didnt want to bother with picking sides. Cloak of Feathers is certainly nice. I just dont think it is gamebreaking enough compared to the Slann trait, which imo is really good on its own. The deepstrike threat of multiple Salamanders at any given time is also rather big. I love when you can mess with your opponents head/plans.
This is how I would run it: Allegiance: Seraphon - Constellation: Dracothion's Tail Leaders: Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Command Trait: Ancient Knowledge - Spell: Celestial Equilibrium - Ancient Knowledge Spell: Celestial Apotheosis Lord Kroak (320) - Ancient Knowledge Spell: Stellar Tempest Skink Oracle on Troglodon (260) - Artefact: Godbeast Pendant - Spell: Tide of Serpents Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140) Battleline: 10 x Saurus Guard (200) 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers Units: 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs: Balewind Vortex (40) Bound Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (70) Bound Purple Sun of Shyish (60) Aethervoid Pendulum (50) Total: 2000 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 106
Well that was the question. I dont see the use in 1x10 Guards at all unless it is to go from 10 to 9 drops. Having 2x5 is a lot more versatile in regards to screening. If you opt to keep the 2x3 Salamanders in the sky, it would make sense to keep 1 unit of 5 Guards in the sky too for when you teleport the Slann. Having 2x3 Salamanders + 2x9 Handlers screen the Slann with 5 Guards ontop ensures you can be rather cheeky and offensive with the teleport + call down. I dont think having 9 drops is too terrible though, considering Cities of Sigmar, mirror matches (which will be frequent now), Chaos Ascendant etc.
Nothing stops their ability from being used twice. You attempt to apply damage to them until they are dead. Having two units of 5x only lets you split their location. Not increase the damage they soak. I guess you would also gain 1 more attack from the second Alpha. If you split them you could drop 10x Skinks for additional endless spells, but I would rather three units of 10x battleline for objectives more than two 5x and a 10x. And 9 drops is still better than 10 drops.
Yes you right but you got more chance for guard taking dmg. All ones which are missed in first roll you get second roll. Thats all. You get 2 x 2+
True. It will make it much more likely that you will get to soak all 20 wounds with Saurus Guard before applying any to either Slann. It doesn't do too much to the base damage required to remove them though.1/6th the damage will be applied to the Slann instead of the Guard. So It would take 42 Damage to get 7 onto the Slann. At which point the Guard would already have been dead and the Slann with them.
I played a game yesterday with a slight variation to this list. I switched 5 Guards to 10 Skinks and Bound Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws. I played an IDK player with a turtle, 2 sharks, 2 units of defensive eels, Volturnos, 2x 6 offensive eels and a couple of foot heroes. The IDK player wasnt super experienced with his list and I think he is too used to sitting back and waiting for turn 3 to go all in for the attack when he gets to fight first with the entire army. In hindsight it didnt really make sense to try and wait for turn 3 since none of my stuff is really dangerous in combat. It is hard to judge too much since it was clear we werent on same level, and there is obviously the "new book syndrome" where almost everything he faces is new (I explained all the units, my list, abilities and spells etc). Kroak was an absolute beast though, once stuff gets inside the 22" range Celestial Deliverance just melts things. My 4 endless spells (not counting Balewind, I think it is a must-take for Kroak) were a little lackluster - I never got Jaws off (prioritized other spells), and Pendulum went off just before the dice roll for turn 3 happened where I won and got the double turn = He surrendered. At this point he only had Volturnos, Turtle, 6 offensive eels in the sky and the deepstrike foot hero dude left. All he had killed by now was a couple of Skink screens and he was staring down being shot by 6 Salamanders and magic at this point. The feeling of lackluster endless spells was partly due to all of his units having absurd movement, so my Purple Sun or Geminids couldnt really catch anything. It was really just cat and mouse where the mouse was on speed. I decided to just leave the Sun on an objective to "guard" it. In hindsight I should probably have casted them and left them just outside my own army and waited for him to come into combat. Summoning felt awesome too. First turn I decided to keep the Trog's spell to throw out an extra endless spell (he was +3 to cast with Astrolith + Celestial Equilibrium, so quite great), so it was "only" 4D3 CCP. Second turn I didnt need his spell cast, so decided to forego 1 spell on each caster giving me 5D3 CCP. I had 18 CCP by turn 2 which was enough for 10 Skinks and 1 Salamander or 3x 10 Skinks screens. This feels really good, either for grabbing objectives, build more screens to buy yourself more time or extra firepower. Due to the nature of fighting IDK with mass eels, I kind of had to castle up and prevent him from getting into my casters, so I felt like I didnt really get to explore the true potential of having a Troglodon on the board. Against any other army I would likely send him a little off to the side, so my opponent has to choose between going for him, objectives or my "main base". If he ignores the Trog, Kroak can cover a much bigger part of the board. Really hard to judge if the Trog is worth it or not but Im gonna keep him in my list for some more games. Dracothian's Tail ability is so good and gives us a lot of mobility but also threatens the entire board big time. I kept 2x3 Salamanders in the sky and in turn 2 he left an opening, so I teleported the Slann near a board edge near his units, threw down the 6 Salamanders outside of 9" of him, with Skink Handlers congalining back onto either side of the Slann. This ensured both units were within 6" for Volley Fire CA and the Skink Handlers also acted as screens for the Slann. Felt like the Slann had multiple purposes - Give CCP, buff Kroak and Trog with +1, help get the endless spells out, if need be cast Comet's Call if you need to prioritize something else on Kroak with his +4 and lastly you can teleport him for Dracothian's Tail ability and risk losing him while keeping your Kroak out of harm's way. All in all Im a really big fan of the list. I didnt have it all painted up, otherwise I would go for LizardWizard's list but just make the Guards into 2x5, so I can keep 1 unit in the sky for when I teleport the Slann and call down the Salamanders. It would create a rather fortified castle on either side of the map and really pincer the enemy. Sorry for the wall of text. Just really excited about finally getting games in again!
So I played the list once again, this time against Mawtribes (4 Stonehorn + 2 Mournfang + 4 Mournfang + Slaughterdude) - We had time so we did 2 games. Both games went to turn 5 and was decided on VPs. He barely won the first game, where as I won the second game. He pretty much got wiped in my turn 5 both games. It is really difficult to shift Stonehorns off objectives or outbody them! They hit like a truck, super tanky and the impact hits clear the most of a screen on it's own. I have a tournament coming up in start august, so Im trying to finetune my Starboy list (might swap Slann or Trog later, dont know) as much as I possibly can and Im looking for feedback from other people, especially those who have played it @Diabo . My first game with the list was IDK with mass eels - Super fast army with few models, which makes Stellar Tempest and Purple Sun quite terrible. There is also the annoying always-shoot-closest-IDK-model rule. My second 2 games were as mentioned Mawtribes, which is once again a super fast army with few but super durable models and a splash of healing mixed in, which really nuffilies much of the chip damage we are able to do. Again, Stellar Tempest is worthless and Purple Sun as well. I'll see if I can arrange some games against more horde armies, especially those sturdy semi-horde armies where especially Purple Sun would shine. Being able to have the Trog in the middle of the our deployment and be a bit aggressive with his positioning behind Skinks, meanwhile keeping Kroak tucked away in a far corner - Preferably on terrain with Balewind, creates a super near immortal Kroal (2+ save is juicy) - Seems rather valuable. He also gives another D3 CCP and considering Celestial Equilibrium (+1) is board wide, the Trog will be +2 to cast Endless Spells etc. despite being far away. Yet he's still 260 points. That's 3 Salamanders or 4x10 Skinks etc. The Slann is really just there to give D3 CCP and give the Trog (rarely matters, but sometimes I might want him to cast an Endless Spell) and Kroak +1 to cast/unbind/dispell. He might cast Geminids or Pendulum. I like the fact I can teleport my Slann behind my opponent and not needing to put Kroak in such a vulnerable position, drop down 2x3 Salamander units and blast away without fear of losing Kroak. I dont know how many local tournaments where you guys play include Realm Spells, but where I live Im starting to see them being disabled more and more, and whenever we "casually" play in the club nobody roll for realms anyways - They will also be disabled in my tournament in august too. This certainly makes the Trog and Slann less valuable. Im really on the fence right now - I might be a little biased due to the type of armies I have played against, but I do feel too many points are tied into the Slann and Trog. None of them have any immediate impact on the table, yet take up over 1/4 of the army. This is not really uncommon or a problem if you are just playing and having a laugh, but if the aim is to finetune the list, it feels somewhat bad. I feel a bit that the Trog and the Slann synergies with each other - Without the Slann the Trog loses value (Trog no longer +2 to cast, might be more pressured to do Endless Spells from Trog, meaning fewer CCP), but without the Trog the Slann also loses some value (the +1 is really just for Kroak now). If I remove either of them my CCP will take a major hit, and if I remove both I might not even be able to sacrifice a spell on Kroak since he will be the one slinging a couple of Endless Spells throughout the game, resulting in only 2D3 CCP. Removing either (or both) would kind of change the entire point of the list in my eyes - Right now I play the "nutrition game" (not sure of the right term) where I basically wait to see what my opponent does and play accordingly, while trying to chip away and grind my opponent down with spells, and also summoning new Skinks/Salamanders to replace dead ones etc. to slowly gain a major advantage and then go for the victory. The Salamanders are there to be dropped and delete a unit (or two, depending on how tough they are) whenever I want if my opponent makes a mistake with positioning etc. If I removed the Trog and Slann it wouldn't really be a "nutrition" playstyle, but instead a list with a lot of direct firepower with immediate impact. I sometimes feel a bit of lack of presence on the board - The list certainly doesnt feel like a list where you grab the objectives early and hold them, where as more units with immediate impact could change this up so you can challenge them early on. The question becomes though, what is there really to replace the Trog and Slann with? It is 520 points combined. If I replaced those I would certainly also take out Jaws and Purple Sun (too many Endless Spells tbh., I might already do it as-is), which makes it 620 points. When I look through our list of models at the back of the book, there is really nothing that stands out to me beside more Skinks and more Salamanders (surprise). Engine is kind of whatever - The direct damage is like 50% of the results (260 pts. to deal D3 MWs to likely just a single target? Hell no!), where as healing is 25% (useless for this list tbh) and the summoning part, which is the only interesting thing for this list, is only 25% of the time. Overwhelmingly bad odds to get something good for 260 points? That's a no for me. Stegadon has no melee synergy and the ranged output is terrible for 240 pts. Bastiladon outside of Thunderlizard is also terrible damage output and I dont need the tankiness - Would rather take 3-4x 10 Skinks for his cost. All the Saurus stuff has no place in the list due to lack of synergy imo., both due to lack of heroes but also batallion. Im not a fan of Rippers personally, seem lackluster. I feel Terradons are good, but they are just clunky to use and are too risky to compared to just more Salamanders. Kroxigors dont seem super good without synergy and in general my army wants to sit back. Razordons are flat out worse Salamanders. I have considered Chameleon Skinks a great deal - A unit of 20 guys sitting in reserve and waiting to deepstrike a hero/grab an objective. 20 guys unbuffed is on average 11,5 damage vs 4+ save target. It is almost the same as 3 Salamanders so kinda bad damage/points ratio comparably, but the ability to deepstrike the unit without needing to use our single precious teleport or DT call-down limited to 18" from a Slann is big in my eyes. Alternatively we have 3 ally options as I see it; Gotrek (520 pts) - Feels kind of memey, Celestant-Prime (340 pts) - Feels like a real good contender, I know Matt used him in the first TTS and did really well, or a SCE caster - Maybe Knight-Incantor and the Everblaze Comet (250 pts) to really take the MW chip damage to the next level. The final alternative is really just to spend those ~620 points on more Skinks and more Salamanders, but it feels a bit cheesy/boring to me. Would love to hear some thoughts from you guys. Spoiler: 2.000 pts Dracothian's Tail Allegiance: Seraphon - Constellation: Dracothion's Tail Leaders Lord Kroak (320) - Ancient Knowledge Spell: Stellar Tempest Slann Starmaster (260) - General - Command Trait: Ancient Knowledge - Spell: Celestial Apotheosis - Ancient Knowledge Spell: Celestial Equilibrium Skink Oracle on Troglodon (260) - Artefact: Godbeast Pendant Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140) Battleline 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (60) - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 5 x Saurus Guard (100) Units 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) 12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Balewind Vortex (40) Aethervoid Pendulum (50) Bound Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (70) Bound Purple Sun of Shyish (60) Bound Ravenak's Gnashing Jaws (40) Total: 2000 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 106
I think, this illustrates the problem of seraphon. Compared to salamanders, other stuff is meh/bad. I consider Skinks/Chama skinks/salamanders as a best alternative. Or Celestant-Prime as an ally.