Did someone really thought this was a good idea?!? it's basically the Core Grand Strategy "prized sorcery", that requires one of your wizards to survive. Except this one comes with TWO additional caveats. That's asinine.
Well, it can be said that those are some 3.0 rules for Seraphon. Honestly, I haven't played 3.0 yet, so these might be good? It is nice to finally get mount traits. I wish they weren't sub-faction specific, but I guess since Coalesced & Starborne play fairly differently GW decided to keep that split. The change to Primeval Domain seems good, but I was hoping for a feature not necessarily connected to terrain. I'm interested to see our Path to Glory features.
I get that they generally stick to generic shapes when you have options for battalions. But here they've inexplicably chosen to show 3 out of 5 options for thunderquake (stegadon and razordons are missing, but they do show both kroxigor and salamaners). Kinda messy and adds to how lazy this battalion feels. Also, didn't someone say the troglodon could still be in it? It seems to be missing.
The grand strategies and battle tactics are 100% in line with the garbage other factions have gotten. Its quite clear they are very deliberately not giving faction specific battalions, battle tactics and grand strategies a lot of power, and imo it's the right decision. Even the ones In the sce and warclans book are trash. Trog was never part of thunderquake and still isnt. Would be nice if the new battalion had a little bit of flexibility but /shrug.
If GW mantains this approach, i'm fine with it. But at a certain point i could ask why make them in the first place?
I could have sworn it was part of the 1.0 Thunderquake that was honestly very mix and match. I recall using it in there at one point and not liking it. Of course, that was long ago and I never bothered to pick up the physical book where it was from.. because why when the app was more than enough?
It's the one thing that the trog ever had really had going for it; as a cheaper leader option in thunderquake. But even back then it wasn't popular, so it's not entirely surprising it's been forgotten I mean, they can publish narrative articles without publishing extra rules that are neither good nor particularly interesting or fluffy. This just seems a tad pointless. Also, while they probably shouldn't release battalions like the changehost ever again, they seem to have overcorrected to the other extreme. Stuff like "Once per game use a command ability for free" isn't exactly an interesting thing to add to a battalion. There's got to be a more worthwhile middleground they can keep for battalions than these two extremes...
They removed powerful faction specific battalions for a reason. Adding them back in would be ridiculous. And a vast vast majority of the scrolls, command traits, and artefacts are neither good or particularly interesting so the grand strategies and battle tactics can fit right in. There's a lot of choices that are in this game just to kinda be there. I'm sure someone somewhere will use them and have a blast lol.
I think extra attacks on carno and mystical terrain is a big enough buff to coalesced. I dont know what tables you guys play on but on the tables we play there is easily 4-5 pieces of terrain on each side of the table. i could very easily have an entire army with 6+ wards the entire game. Based on the tables at the open, I feel this is the terrain setup GW wants for aos. I wish they would have done something more for lesser used units like rippers and razordons, but im happy with what we got.
I'm still pretty curious about the PtG side of things, since those have been a decent balance of flavorful and fun so far. I do hope we got to use the Stormcast mechanic of upgrading heroes with new mounts for points, since basically every hero we can field has a mounted version of some kind
I agree. I was hoping for a little love for Saurus Warriors, Rippers & Razors. But, I assume White Dwarf isn't quite the platform for GW to change Battletome rules or specific warscrolls? I'm starting to think the only thing that would narrow the gap between Warriors & Skinks is flat out similar points. Even then, speed & range would likely still win. I know it's a bit unimaginative, but with the prevalence of Rend, I wonder if having Saurus shields reduce Rend might be helpful again?
From a balance perspective, the warscroll for warriors is fine as is, even though I know most people hate it. The issue Ive had is the is no reason for me to ever take them. They arent the worst, its just all the buffs and synergies we have are skinks and knights focused. I would have liked a buff to them like the old bloodclaw battalion. Take only saurus get to use all your command abilities for free. Or take all saurus you can use the same command abilities multiple times on different units. Something to make me want to be taking them.
I agree that it's important to avoid the reintroduction of too powerful faction options for armies. However, our update contains stupid things. Let's consider the battle tactic Stampede of Scales. It's similar to Ferocious Advance, but it's still different and certainly it's not unbalanced. You can effectively choose between the 2 tactics, you can even complete both of them in different rounds. It's a balanced additional tool. But the Grand Strategy Astromatrix? you pick 1 strategy in a battle, and Astromatrix requires a wizard alive, placed in a certain position, without a enemy wizard in another position. The core Grand Strategy "prized sorcery" requires just a wizard alive. There's no comparison, there's no choice. No one will ever take Astromatrix over Prized Sorcery.