AoS Making Oracles Work

You’re in the wrong bi-pedal Dino thread! Begone!

 

Yeah. It’s kind of a bummer. But, silver linings, at least we now have some pretty significant ways to drop a unit from the sky and burninate (salamanders, jacked up poison skinks off the top of my head), in addition to some fairly hefty casting (range and efficiency) bonuses.

Before, we had Shadowstrike ripperdactyls. Yes they were pretty good, but it was a one trick pony. Now we can send waves upon waves of stuff from the backline with impunity, and when the enemy comes forward to meet us, we can actually hold a line and hit back.

 

Fire o forgot about that

so maybe just a priest with feather cloak?

 

...or an Oracle on Troglodon, perhaps??!

 

He said the T-word!

 

trog still has a 4+ and regenerates. unless the opponent turns a combat hero or max horde unit to the trog it should be ok. and if they do, thast 1 04 two turns the enemy ISNT using those units to secure objectives or fight your main force.

 

If only this wan't true for any other our monster... (well, no one regenerates, but other stats are be better)

 

Well, to be fair, no other monster is also a literal conduit for a Slann's magic.

Cost aside, he may not be a combat monster, but he's definitely useful for that. Boardwide casting is a big deal, especially when you can be 30" away from an enemy caster who will want to dispel against you.
If he goes down the 180 or 200, I think one, maybe two, could create some fun issues for our does.
I still wish he had at least -1 on the bite though.....

 

Honestly the whole rend part of our battletome seems so random. Why does our giant dinos have less/same rend on jaws/horns as a Skink Priest with his little pointy stick?

 

rend in general is a weird stat (and saves for that matter too) when compared to what it should realisticly represent the lack of a strength vs. thoughness mechanic simply creates some issues here so you get weird gamey situations where a tiny skink with a pointy stick is just as good at penetrating armour as a giant dinosaur.

 

I agree it can be a weird stat, but I think it serves the purpose of helping even stereotypically "weak" heroes have decent attacks; like the classic weak wizard with a powerful magic staff. Just as many players would probably raise eyebrows if their collegiate wizard had the same strength as their knight champion.

 

I think it makes sense in most cases - a wizard should still be able to wound weaker hordes. I feel rend should be given more freely to heroes, but the difference between a wizard and a melee champ should be damage per successful attack (and possibly to wound).

The problem is how a Razordons spikes have more rend (in melee) than a carnasaurs jaws, or an Oldbloods spear, or many other things.

 

Reading through the FAQ just released, I found another possibility for Skink Oracle. The edit GW made with the Bound Balewind Vortex. RAW previously, the Skink Oracle could have cast the Bound Balewind Vortext and placed themselves on it. Now THAT would be funny, if you did not risk the trog falling off the BWV platform. Whatta NERF!!!! lol

 

It is an odd nerf. Unless GW is worried that the actual Trog model will fall off of the BV model, I don't see why the Oracle can't cast this? I said in another thread that this is yet another knock (albeit a smaller knock) against including the Oracle.

 

I'm sad to see the Trog can't go on the Balewind. I was hoping it might survive this. It would have been a unique and funny interaction.

Hopefully we see another FAQ soon to answer more questions.

 

Oracles are for summoning lists. The new way to get your summoning points every turn is to take a slann as your general, kroak, an astrolith bearer, and an oracle for 5d3 summoning points a turn. A second slann will do but you really want kroak's mortal wound output to make up the ground you lose by starting the game as a summoning army. They cost as much as a slann because they are valued like a slann for summoning. Yes thats how heavily weighted our ability to summon was valued. In a summoning list you will take the artifact that gives them the chance to resurrect, because they are a high priority target and easy to snipe out. You want to keep it around to keep making d3 summoning points.

 

But why wouldnt you just take a Slann over an Oracle? Almost same points, much more potent caster. Trog does zero damage. With the new Slann you can cast an Endless spell + His spell lore, the Trog will do nothing.

In either case I think you wont be getting either. Kroak + Slann + Astrolith is likely the best investment you can do. Anything more and your list is gonna start to suffer.

 

Am I missing something or does the Oracle have potential in certain builds? In a coalesced Thunder Lizard list it has 14 Wounds, 4+ save, -1 Damage scaly skin, 2+ Regen save, -1 Hit (if you give it cloak of feathers) and potential to cast life swarm. It's also reasonably fast, 14" fly at full wounds (again with cloak of feathers) with the chance of 6 Jaw attacks (great drake, predatory fighters, prime warbeast) hitting on 3's and wounding on 2's (if undamaged and buffed by a priest), mortals on 6's. Plus some ranged damage and spell support.

I wonder whether it can fill a role as a tanky wizard like the arachnarok, providing support and/or as a legitimate threat to your opponent's backfield/distraction while your other dinos shoot/advance. Still a bit of jack of all trades so not sure it's a better/or equal pick than a slann, especially given how command point hungry we can be. Look forward to testing

 

It's probably also why they all share the same spell. It's so that you feel less bad about the "wasted" spellcasts as you can't use em anyway. Though imho, it's still far too big an investment. Especially as none of them feature in any battalion and it means you have a significant chunk of your hero slots taken by them. Which means that if you want to summon you need to deal with a lot of randomness, using our most expensive models, who don't fit in nicely with the rest of our army due to the lack of battalions & inherent synergies....

to be honest, I don't get why they didn't just allow every skink wizard, as opposed to just the oracle, help with conjuration. At that point it'd reasonably work since the other skink wizards are far cheaper & actually bring multiple supportive abilities. Plus, they fit into battalions, and are generally easier to fit into an army.

Because it's the weakest monster people massivly underestimate it. It can function independently with ease, even without kitting it out with fancy artifacts. Give it fiery convocation to make up for its lack of rend so it can actually deal with high armour targets and then just have it run amock in your opponents backline. It'd force your opponent to go and deal with him, and a fast healing spellslinging behemoth is not something you can deal with all that easily. It should be an excellent distraction.

Only issue of course is that if it has to run amock in your opponents backline it's probably not going to be generating much summoning points as it needs its spellcast and is liable to die quickly as the whole point is to draw fire to it....