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9th Age New Army Book / Magic / Rules

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Razordon

Gary_M

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Printed these off and will be reading over the next few nights (don't get much 'me' time!).

Would like to hear everyone's thoughts on changes.

One thing I think I saw was the addition of Sharpened Horns to the Taurosaur(?) as a fixed benefit, not an option.
 
Honestly I'm tired of being disapointed with saurian ancients, I still love and will play 9th age all the time but I will probably move on to sylvan elves or some other army as my primary one. I hate being shoe-horned into using skinks as combat troops, I hate the deplorable lack of character synergy, and I hate always comparing and losing out against other armies.

9th age is awesome and they are doing things better than I would have hoped, most of the armies (I own 10k points or more in every army) are vastly superior in play style and fun to 8th in my opinion. But saurian ancients just sucks, caiman character still sucks hard, warlord still has no synergy and can't be put into +1M warrior units, a crap ton of options have been removed or forced into unit entries, and nothing has been done for a very broken and boring core (and now I can only choose 1 army wide totem for my warriors, what the heck!). I'm sure that I am the minority though, there must be a lot of other players that like what has been done, for me though I just keep being disappointed in the changes and it keeps moving away from what I want to play as.
 
The latest update was a bit.. rough..
We're working on it and discussing what should be done. I think our army got through well compared to some other armies, but it's still rough.

With that said I'm super excited to see the new WDG book coming together. The new background driven rework coupled with focused attention really gives us something else than what we've been used to. I can't wait for the SA book to receive similar threatment.
 
I agree about of the totem made above. Doesn't make any sense to me and would love to see a rationale explanation for it.
 
I do want to reiterate that 9th age has been a far superior gaming system in terms of balance, options, and fun. the changes made to magic and army list creation I think are brilliant and will work well in the future. Both dwarves and all elf armies have made huge strides in fun and play styles, and I hope that saurians get to the same place but at this point I think the ones in charge have a very different concept than I want to play with for them.

also I have to note that the quality of product and artwork for 9th age has far exceeded even my optimistic expectations for a fan made game system, very excited to see it grow and I am a long term gamer and supporter of it.
 
This year I believe we'll release both an army compendium with full art and background for each army (nothing major, but soemthing for people to build upon) and the full BRB which will also contain background and art material.

Q1 next year should be about WDG and DL if I'm not mistaken. so once we hit Autumn we should have 4 full army books and 3 additional books (magic, army compendium and BRB).

We aim to have a stable 2.0 BRB next year which will last for some years. This should mark a time where companies can start selling our books if they want. At this time we should also have around 5-6 full army books. So a total of 8-9 books for people to print.

Oh.. I almost forgot - we should release the beginner's rules later this year. which will also include fill art and baggrund if I'm not mistaken.
 
You're not the only one, @protector . While I'm enjoying T9A overall, I am consistently losing, and always come to the same conclusion: "If I brought more Skinks, I could have been more competitive." I just don't get why Saurian Warriors haven't been fixed, characters haven't been fixed (the synergy issues you mentioned), and why I, too, am always comparing what we can do with what other armies can do and thinking, "we lose." I lost my last game 19-1, and what was most telling was my opponent's reaction. He pointed out several major mistakes he made that should have been game-breaking, and then said that there wasn't anything in my army he was afraid of. We both agreed that the combined-arms list I created should be exactly the kind of list that should work for SA, but it just didn't have answers to what he could field.
 
I keep trying to get onto the 9th Age sit to get the new rules and it just says 502 bad Gateway (or something like that). Any help would be appreciated. But yah, the 1 totem thing is BS, that destroys any flexibility the Saurus had. I had hoped that Sauri character would get access to totems so that is disappointing.
 
I had a similar problem, but tried again later and it was fine.
 
@Lawot
Yah I tried like a day or 2 later and got on. I'm not sure how I feel about the new magic lores, they seem a bit eclectic.
 
Papalugy said:
I had hoped that Sauri character would get access to totems so that is disappointing.
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+1
It's the one thing I'd love to see added. Nothing on par with Ogre Khans or Vampires, but just small, relatively cheap upgrades that does some minor things, like +1 Movement, -1 to armour penetration, etc. Just small flavourful options that can provide that additional edge to your character customization.

Other than that, I feel great about my new Saurus army. Skinks don't feel necessary in 9th as much as they did in 8th. My Saurus army is a lot more effective now than it ever has been.

My main issue is the weird magic nerf we got. Not sure I can quite understand why that was deemed necessary, considering how reliant we used to be on magic. It doesn't quite feel like we got the buff necessary to warant the outright removal of the former magic superiority we had.

Had bout 10+ games already with the new 1.2 update with undeads and high elves, and I gotta say, I feel like I am struggling more than I used to, but my army *feels* better, somehow. The options feel better balanced internally, so while I struggle now, I have also left out a lot of the powerful options I used to have, namely skink spam, which prior to 9th, would have been almost an auto-lose list for me.

M6 Saurus is just super fun to run though, really caught my opponents off-guard the first few times :P
 
@SilverFaith
So your saying that now we have more options but all of them are bad? It sounds like the 9th Age really hates Saurians as we've received far more nerfs then buffs, lame.
 
Papalugy said:
@SilverFaith
So your saying that now we have more options but all of them are bad? It sounds like the 9th Age really hates Saurians as we've received far more nerfs then buffs, lame.
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Not at all!

Also, do people really feel like Saurus got nerfed with 9th age? Might just be a generally lower power level then, because my Saurus feel like they have a lot more impact than they used to.

Running 3 units of 15 all with FC feels exceedingly strong, and getting just 2 good charges means anything but super elite units (which they shouldn't be fighting anyway) will crumble under the pressure of the large amounts of attacks and rather durable bodies. I always tend to win combat, and with any chance of steadfast because of the flank, the unit just crumbles.

And with all the movement buffs we can give our slow lizards, they are surprisingly fast as well, so getting the double charge is a lot easier than you'd think.

9th age has been a boon to our Saurus. They might not be as great as they have been during the development of 9th age, but they are still better than they used to be.
 
Where can a newbie find those updates to read ?
 
It's true, Saurus are better than they were...in the early days of 8th Edition, I think Saurus had their heyday - most successful lists (on this forum, anyways) generally revolved around a big block of Saurus that you'd throw into whatever the enemy's nastiest unit was, to tank the hits and hold them down. By the end of 8th, changes in both rules and meta had rendered Saurus useless, and the Skink Cloud or Cold One Bus were the only viable lists. We're way beyond that, now.

However, Saurus really only compete in the Close Combat Phase (ok, the Movement Phase, too, if you kit them out accordingly). And I appreciate your success in combat against Undead and Elves, but my results against Vermin Swarm and Orcs are very different. Saurian Warriors get slaughtered far too easily, and need serious buffs just to equal other combat units that are significantly cheaper.

So to make my position clear:
Saurian Warriors are an option, and aren't totally useless. There are multiple builds that are viable(ish). However, Saurian Warriors don't perform their job in a way that is appropriate for their points, and every time I bring a serious unit of Saurian Warriors, it feels like I do so out of dedication to fielding those models, rather than fielding them because they are actually a *sound* strategic option.
 
Lawot said:
However, Saurus really only compete in the Close Combat Phase (ok, the Movement Phase, too, if you kit them out accordingly).
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That's two phases, and compared to Ogre Khan, that's pretty similar, except we pay a lot less for more wounds and attacks and armour - Ogres rely entirely on the charge, which we don't, and getting a few stomps, which doesn't work against everything.

Lawot said:
Saurian Warriors get slaughtered far too easily, and need serious buffs just to equal other combat units that are significantly cheaper.
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As has always been the case, they are balanced around magic support, same as undead, which is not a benefit. I'll admit that is a huge problem, and considering the love and attention zero - magic lists are getting (banner and cheaper dispel scroll) it would be nice getting a few benefits for our Saurus if we decided to make a non-magical list.

Lawot said:
every time I bring a serious unit of Saurian Warriors.
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I think this is your problem. Saurus don't work as a 30 man combat unit. Split that unit up in 3x10. That is a lot more map coverage, advantage in the deployment phase, and a lot easier getting the fights you want, and breaking those steadfast units.

Saurus are good enough as a core unit. They can soundly pummel the snot out of some of the other races' core, but in turn gets beaten by others. However, the "serious" combat blocks of Saurus will never fare well, because any similarly "serious" unit will never be core, it will be an actual elite close combat unit.

The main problem we have, is that we CAN'T field an actual elite combat unit. Temple Guards just doesn't cut it, being just a minor variant of Saurus warriors. For an army with very limited range, we are very bad in the Close Combat Phase for some reason. This is really the one thing I hoped 9th age would have fixed.
 
I just had a look on the army list and point cost. I found them quite expansive, but it seems ok compared to the other list.
I don't insertsand the bow number limitation or the Sally cost (around 150pts).
What is the small army size ?

It réminds me 5th édition...
But as a Skink fan. This édition looks quite inappropriate for a south list as in 6th ed.
 
SilverFaith said:
The main problem we have, is that we CAN'T field an actual elite combat unit. Temple Guards just doesn't cut it, being just a minor variant of Saurus warriors. For an army with very limited range, we are very bad in the Close Combat Phase for some reason. This is really the one thing I hoped 9th age would have fixed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, maybe you've hit it there. I want us to be able to fight!

@Iblitz yeah, I think some people suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of a Skink Cloud, and it had become the only competitive option for the Lizardmen. So throughout much of the development of the Ninth Age, there's been a focus on toning down the Skink Cloud. Though some say it's still the most competitive list, despite being much more limited than it once was. You can still field some medium-sized units of Skink in Core, along with bigger SCaiman units, plus 4 skirmishing units on foot and some Pteradons. So we can still field a pretty mobile, shooty list.
 
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I was not aware that skink cloud was such a problem. In 6th, skavens were the real thing for us (too much F4 magical shots...).
I like balance game, but it should not guide the way to build armies. Restriction are bad in game design.
I hope it will not became something for the future update, unless it's tournament oriented.
For me it kills the game but i know how hard it is to balance something that big.

I also see that their are variation between the 9th army builder and the 9th age army book (around twice the cost in the army book). Which one is the correct one ?
 
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