AoS NEW *rumor*

Then demons had it as well. Same exact mechanic, and was on them from the very first aos warscrolls before any books had even come out. They then got more robust summoning mechanics in their subsequent books (while seraphon did not) and then seraphon had it's celestial conjuration points mechanic added much later, during a GHB update.

I realize i said death earlier, sorry i meant demons.

 

that makes more sence i was confused there for a minute

 

Yeah I think some death armies could summon skeletons with a spell but it wasn't universal like with seraphon and demons.

Regardless, when armies started getting more robust summoning mechanics, seraphon was not one of the first to get them.

 

You'd assume wrong, as it's still a summoning mechanic, and for a brief moment it actually worked as such. Until they started supporting point-based play in AoS and realized summoning your entire army based on spells was insanely broken & turned all summoning mechanics into glorified deep-strikes that required reinforcement points. Which lasted until the GHB that immeadiatly followed the Nurgle tome. That GHB removed the need for reinforcement points, and updated all summoning mechanics to now have some summoning point type mechanic, or some other limitation, with the exception of Nurgle, whose tome was written with this GHB in mind so that tome only needed the update of "summoning no longer takes reinforcement points".

The Nurgle tome sparked some discussion if summoning was finally going to become an actual mechanic again. But it wasn't until the GHB that reinforcement points were removed and summoning returned as a proper mechanic (you can still find some threads about it on here). And that GHB fixed it for everyone at once.

Anyway, out of the original summoning mechanics we were the first, and most dedicated. As our faction was clearly designed around the notion of the Slann being a summoning battery with the universal spells, and consequently we were kind of the main reason it got nerfed into a glorified deep-strike as we could easily summon 4 units per turn, and even the rule of one didn't really change our summoning potential as we could just summon 4 different units. The other factions had much more minor summoning mechanics, such as a specific hero being able to summon a specific unit once per game. The other dedicated summoning factions, such as Tzeentch, only really started appearing after the reinforcement point limit was already introduced (and Slaanesh & Nurgle appeared even later).

As for the bodyguard rule. I didn't count the necromancers as technically it's not a "bodyguard rule", it's a "necromancer sapping the life out of his minions rule". The main difference being that the gimmick belongs to the necromancer, not to his minions. Essentially, it's a bodyguard rule in reverse. Which allowed them to avoid the pitfall of turning the undead minions into glorified necromancer upgrades as the rule didn't belong to the minions, and thus the minions needed to have other gimmicks to be valuable units in their own right.

The end-result of this rule allowing wound-sharing is of course the same though. But the way it was achieved is very different.

Saurus guard were the first unit were the unit's gimmick is that they are bodyguards. It's their sole purpose. Which causes them to fall into the pitfall of being glorified slann upgrades. And since they've been released there's been a slow but steady stream of bodyguard units that try to avoid that pitfall by being more broadly useable and/or having additional gimmicks.

 

Like I said, if you wanna count the spell summoning demons had it as well, and death also could raise dead but it wasnt as universal as with demons or seraphon. Regardless seraphon wasn't unique.

Fyreslayers also had a bodyguard rule before the latest seraphon book.

Only point was these aren't mechanics being given to seraphon first to test since obviously it shared these mechanics with lots of other armies. As pointed out, was a joke anyways so that's my bad for probably taking it too seriously.

I'm not really gonna split hairs any further than that.

 

Khornes blood tithe mechanic summoned shit. Slaanash has summoning. I didn't know tzeentch had summoning

 

all deamon armies do.

 

Honestly, our summoning is terrible and not really even worth considering when it comes to actually playing the game. I hope they either revamp it so that we get it passively like other armies do, or just remove it altogether and make our units stronger to compensate. Starborne could still have a reinforcement mechanic where they have a chance of calling in a new unit when one is slain, or could get summoning points for successfully casting spells like Tzeentch, or even just have a revive rule where units can return 1d3 units after battleshock or in the hero phase if they succeed on a roll.

Anything but our current system where you have to have certain units and have those units not cast their spells and then maybe if you roll well on the points you might be able to summon something other than 10 Skinks every other turn. If you try to build a list that racks up summoning points you're basically asking to get steamrolled before you can actually summon anything good. If you don't build around it, it's often not even worth trying to remember summoning because the amount of points you get and the units you can summon are almost negligible in how they impact the game.

 

i would just remove it entirely. summoning is not a good mechanic in general. either it's really good and every one hates it or it's underwhelming and every one ignores it.

 

It's a type of mechanic that's very easy to screw up in a PvP game because it's very easy to make it anti-fun for at least one player. It's too easy for players feel like it's too strong/weak without this actually being the case.
It's not impossible to get right. But it's a hell of a lot easier in a PvE game.

However, what's a bigger issue is that they have given it to only half our faction. It's never going to work as long as starborne & coalesced have the same point-values & stats while one can summon and the other can't. And that's ignoring the various other issues already mentioned.

At bare minimum they need to finally make the decision if we're a summoning based faction or not. Cuz this weird middle-ground just doesn't work designwise.

 

I think this is one of the main contributing factors to why Seraphon hasn't been a very well internally balanced army so far. You have two armies in the same book. The only other book that has truly separate armies rather than just different subfactions is Orruk Warclans. And that book suffers from the same problem. Ironjawz are extremely strong, Kruleboyz are good, and Bonesplitterz are bad. Other "multiple armies" battletomes just treat the different parts of the army like subfactions. The biggest different between us and Orruks is that the three Orruk armies actually use different units, while Starborne and Coalesced share the same ones with the same cost.

So in trying to use the same costs for everything, some units get unfairly shafted because of how strong they are in one army, but this makes them massively weaker in the other. Salamanders are the main example of this. Teleporting or deepstriking a unit of two directly into guaranteed shooting range at bravery 10 is a lot more powerful than moving up the board normally at bravery 5. And likewise, a Bastiladon that can shoot twice for a CP, has -1 to damage and +2 wounds on top of a 1+ save in Thunder Lizards is just way better than any other subfaction. So the units that get spammed in the list where they're the strongest also get nerfed the hardest. But while those nerfs may be reasonably in the strongest subfaction for that unit, it makes them nearly unusable in the other.

And like you said, the biggest thing holding the army back is that GW can't decide if we are a summoning faction or not. They already retconned the "summoned memories of the Slann" thing, so even the Starborne are still living, flesh and blood creatures. Ideally, they would truly split the two different armies into actual different armies and treat them like Orruks. Starborne get their teleporting and summoning, but the mechanic is improved and points increased over Coalesced for summonable units. Coalesced gets better combat abilities like a ward save instead of -1 damage and mortal wounds on hits.

Or, they could remove summoning and teleporting entirely and combine the two factions into one cohesive army. No more summoning, a Slann spell that teleports instead of it being an allegiance ability, and make most of the Coalesced allegiance abilities apply to the new united army. I'm thinking allegiance abilities would be the Asterisms, Scaly Skin as a ward save, and a new reinforcement rule that lets you summon back slain units at half strength from the Realmshaper Engine.

Then for subfactions, which now only give one special bonus, you could have:

Fangs of Sotek: All Skink units get a 6" pregame move.

Dracothion's Tail: Half your units in reserve, but can drop down without a Slann.

Koatl's Claw: All Saurus get +1 rend on all attacks, including mounts.

Thunder Lizards: Stegadons and Bastiladons are battleline. Unique Monstrous Rampage or remove rule of one on monstrous rampages.

And then since most singular factions have at least six subfactions you could add two more Constellatons. I personally think it would be cool to have one that makes Kroxigors battleline and gives them +1 to wound or saves from being near Skinks in addition to +1 to hit. Another one I think would be fun would be one that focuses on flyers. Makes Terradons and Ripperdactyls battleline and increases the range at which the Chief command abilities can be used. (Yes, I know Rippers and Terradons are bad right now, I'm assuming that we're getting major warscroll updates that make most of our army at least useable).

 

welp buff stacking is back guys.
the new DoK hero adjusts the stat it buffs it doesn't give a +1
she adjusts the wound and rend characteristic by 1 in a always on aura and she costs 90.... dang.

 

Say what now?

at least they're giving footheroes auras again, that's something.

 

the ability gives witch elves and sisters of slaughter a 3+ wound characteristic and a -1 rend characteristic so you can add +1 to wound from blood rights or the natural +1 witch elves get on top of that

 

I would love to see kroxigor love. shower thoughts: just giving kroxigor skink AND saurus keywords? mess with the lore or whatever, but sounded like a compromise for a small, elite unit

 

Wow, that's really strong. Score another one for GW's "watertight rules." If they're so good and balanced, why do they keep needing to make exceptions to them?

Yeah, Kroxigors are our only elite infantry unit, so I think they need a boost to put them on par with other big, tough 3-man units like Annihilators or those new Ogroid Theridons STD is getting. I honestly think we need a lot more buffs that just go off the Seraphon keyword, not Skink or Saurus. But yeah, making Kroxigors able to take more buffs would be great. Or just make most of the Skink buffs applicable to the Kroxigor keyword as well.

 

I disagree. Kroxigors have more in common with Bullgors or Troggoths as a monstrous brute squad than they do with Sigmarine Annihilators as elite infantry. If any units in the Seraphon roster could (and should) be considered elite, it'd have to be Saurus Guard and Chameleon Skinks, and we unfortunately know how middling they can be at the best of times on the tabletop.

 

Good point. I guess I was thinking about "elite" meaning "not horde infantry," but I like that comparison better. Kind of like how they're classified as "monstrous infantry" in Total War.

Saurus Guard are weird. Lore-wise, all they do is protect the Slann so it makes sense that that's they're main role. But I agree, I'd love it if they had another role they could play. It'd be really cool if they could have a warscroll rule where you assign them a role when putting them in your army. Defend the Slann, they get their bodyguard rule. Or inspire their allies, they give +1 to save as an aura buff.

Chameleons absolutely need to be better assassins. Keep them as fragile but mobile units, but make a unit of 5 an actual threat to a 4-6 wound foot hero and a poison ability that messes with the target's movement somehow.

Kroxigors are actually pretty decent just as they are, they just need more stuff that can support them.

 

Another big problem with Saurus Guard at the moment is that you're effectively paying more than double the points equivalent of the same number of Saurus Warriors for all of an extra wound, +1 to hit with their weapons, and an extra 1"/3+/3+/-1/1 attack per model, and swapping the extra celestite weapon attack horde bonus for a very situational bodyguard special rule. They're also impacted by the same shortcomings that regular Saurus Warriors face as a consequence of 32mm bases taking up 60% more tabletop space than the same number of 25mm (not a terrible loss with small units with 1" melee weapons, but worth keeping in mind).

Agreed.

It would be worth looking at making their synergy with skinks not only be stronger but also mutual.

 

meh, a rule like this does naturally prevent stacking too much (2 auras like this will never stack). So I guess that's going to be the new standard.

However, combined with the fact that it's going to take ages for other factions to get similar rules to be able to keep up it's definitely going to result in powercreep.... Stupid staggered releases...