AoS Metawatch Warhammer Age of Sigmar – 1 (GHB 2020 results)

I thought about something like this:

Spoiler: TL

Allegiance: Seraphon
- Constellation: Thunder Lizard

Leaders
Lord Kroak (320)
Skink Priest (70)
Skink Starpriest (120)
Terradon Chief (70)

Battleline
40 x Skinks (240)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
40 x Skinks (240)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (60)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers

Units
6 x Terradon Riders (180)
- Starstrike Javelins

Behemoths
Bastiladon (220)
Bastiladon (220)

Battalions
Shadowstrike Temple-host (150)

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Bound Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (70)

Total: 1960 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 148

Pretty much what you would expect from a Fangs of Sotek list, just in Thunder Lizard. The +1 hit on the Skinks seems kinda hot and I would probably opt to go for clubs to get them stuck into combat. Hitting on 3s with their boltspitters and then hitting on 2s with their clubs in combat. That is a lot of damage. A lot of threats on the board and alot of consistent damage. Im not sure how LRL is supposed to lock down everything. 7 drops though - Wish I could shave off more but it is kinda difficult with that batallion.

 

A major problem with this list though is that the skinks only have 5 bravery and LRL will increase the cost of your command abilities too. I feel like even with the extra command point and kroak you’re either going to burn all your command points on battleshock or lose a lot of skinks to it.

 

our bravery null spell helps with that but it is something you need to look out for

 

Yeah I dont think it is a hard counter by any stretch, but considering the current "meta" I think it is overall a very strong list and arguably stronger than Fangs of Sotek.

 

try it out and tell us how it goes. results always speak louder then speculation

 

Unfortunatenly I have gone a bit to the dark side and am experimenting with Tzeentch lately. Really enjoying the "control deck" ish playstyle that it offers with Be'lakor, Kairos etc. So Im not getting that many games in as Seraphon lately. A guy in my club runs something very similar to that list - He opt'd for the Thunderquake batallion and with a Steggy chief to buff the Skinks etc. but he has great success with Thunder Lizard in general. He is also an exceptional player and is steadily one of the top placers in tournaments around here.

Summoning and teleporting is strong, but quite a few of the battleplans ask you to move up and hold your ground while you remove key pieces or destroy large parts of the enemy army early on in the game. As talked about in one of the other threads, the games these days (imo) dont go as often to turn 5, so teleporting with summoning has a smaller impact on the outcome of the game these days. Stuff like Blade's Edge really puts a big focus on turn 1/2.

 

that just makes teleporting more useful getting into position turn 1. i use it to great effect with saurus warriors to make sure i get my 30 spears to hit where i need them to.
it also forces your opponent to play cagy and that can hurt a lot of players especially on the 6-8 OB battle plans.
over all i just don't find any of coalesced abilities very useful and i like my bravery higher then 5 or 8(11 to 14 are much more my speed).

 

I think teleporting and summoning gets stronger/more value as the game drags out into turn 4/5, as thats typically where the enemy will have fewer models scattered across objectives and it allows you to snatch them with fresh reinforcements. I think it has less value now, and there are few battleplans (imo) where you cant just march onto the objectives turn 1. It might be different with Saurus, but Skinks moving 8 with the potential of run and shoot typically gets them where they need to.

 

it's nice but doesn't help me when im fighting 2-3 ranks deep. that and 1 nice ability does not make up for the detrimental one or the 2 that are useless more then half the time. the terrain one only arcane matters and that one only matters if your opponent takes it from you so at best a 50% chance. and with scaly skin 8 out of 24 armies regularly run 2+ damage units. tzeench flamers, IDK,KO sort of,shootcast balistas but not their bows, HoS keepers but they aren't a thing any more,Bone reapers, orks, and ogres. 3 run a secondary list our thunder lizards, CoS cav, and STD cav. but non of those are really all that dangerous.
so over all my options are teleport, summoning better battalions and good bravery or bad bravery and 1 extra bight per model im going star born

 

it's much different with saurus. they only move 5 and all their buffs happen in the combat phase so it's great for shuffling around heroes to where they need to be. even with skinks it's well worth it as if your opponent gives you first turn to try to get the double you can take 30 skinks and pin the enemy army wasting their first turn and sometimes second.

 

What else do you have in your list outside of the saurus + heroes? I've been talking through a saurus starborne list with a buddy of mine, I think there's something super interesting around reliably charging 40 dudes out of deepstrike.

 

dracothions tail
slann
2x starpriests
oldblood
sunblood
2x3 krox
2x10 skinks
2x30 warriors
1x10 warriors
sunclaw
Geminids

a alternate is to switch out 3 krox for a star seer

 

Love it. I imagine you run the 30's with spears? Makes sense to, that rend 2 is just so tasty.

 

yep although spears only get rend 1 the 10 with clubs get rend 2

 

haha yeah sorry, my sentence needed a "but" in the middle there. How many are you finding you can regularly get into combat?

 

with a teleport almost all of them. with out one i always assume 20ish

 

The problem with coalesced is the same problem Seraphon had before our book came out. Namely it's outdated. Someone at GW has it in their head that the game is still fantasy with big blocks of warriors smashing into each other, and age of sigmar just isn't that game. It's all about movement, and mortals wounds. And abilities that give extra attacks to slow, average stated models are just not good

 

well big blocks work fine a lot of the time IJ does great with ard boiz, DoK is still in the top ranks running sisters of slaughter, skaven still smash with plague monks and even storm vermin now that they are cheaper, phoenix guard in cities work well to, Hearth guard are still powerful, and blightkings are well within the realm of dangerous. blocks of warriors are fine GW just has to wright them well.... and there lies the rub GW isn't always good at that part. at the moment melee is in decline as every one rushes to compete in the shooting meta.(even if they aren't all that good at it) mainly because buff heroes have been such a big thing. give it time for people to learn how to play well against shooting and it will be back, i honestly think that seraphon melee is one of the best counters to KO at the moment so.
coalesceds problem is not a focus on melee hordes it's problem is that it was written badly. no core faction should punish you for running it and coalesced does

 

None of the guys you mentioned are slow and average stated. IJ is fast. Daughters are fast with high attack stats. Plague monks have special abilities to let them do damage when they die. Storm vermin have Cheap costs that allow you to spam them. Heathguard, Phoenix guard And blight Kong's are all amazing units with Resilience abilities that allow them to play in the current mortal wound world.

None of them are outdated warriors or knights with average to middling armor saves, relatively slow movement, and no abilities to survive in a mortal wound and shooting world. That's what I'm getting at.