AoS New to aos, Need advice

Hi I am new to Aos, my current playgroup all decided, that they were sick of 40k and wanted to give Aos a try.

So me being the lucky one I inherited a small lizardmen force a few years ago (back when they were still called that) had my army picked for me, but hey who doesn't love dinosaurs.

We decided to start Aos by doing path to glory, so we can expand our armies gradually. My problem is that 2 of our players are basically saying I shouldn't be allowed to play using my slaan, or at least use house rules, that specifically nerf summoning for seraphon and anything like it (looking at you chaos tzeentch & slanesh) but legions of nagash apparently is fine. They claim they have no chance against me because of summoning and teleporting. Because frankly they don't like that my slaan doesn't stick around and fight. Oh and we haven't started the campaign yet only had some practice games so far.

I don't really see a way to be viable without using the slaan as a general, because soo many things are tied to the slaan specifically. Am I wrong here, is using the slaan brutally unfair? Can they really do nothing. The armies they are playing are fyreslayers using a runefather and legion of nagash using a necromancer (sacrament allegiance thingy)
The other players that haven't said anything yet play ossiarch bonereapers, and khadron overlords I think.

Is there a way for me to be viable using other generals in path to glory? If so which and how do I utilize them.

Sincerely Seradus

 

when you get to 1000 point you can run shadow strike but otherwise no. just show them your war scrolls or our curent win rate our stuff is so poor that summoning is the only thing that keeps our army in the game. take them aside and have you units face their units if they still can't see then i don't know what to tell you, you might have to just lode a dosen games and then rub it in their faces

 

My problem is that since it's path to glory they argue that I'm effectively taking multiple warbands. Since we are all new to Aos knowledge is pretty thin. Even if I tell them and show them how our warscrolls are its disregarded, because they can't catch me since I can teleport. Also alot of the path to glory missions, are easily winnable when I can teleport past my opponents.
Also it seems like they don't care that we are outdated..

 

then igues your stuck it's a hard part of our army we have a lot tricky stuff that no one else can do that seem great but make us just not awfull i've had people call bastiladons, salamanders, riperdactals, razordons, and skinks broken . so all we can do is take the loss to sooth their pride sorry i wish their was another way

 

you could grab 15 ard boies and a war chanta and show them what is really broken. \
small combos we can pull off would be a sun blood with gryph feather charm and a skink priest casting starlight on him

 

oh oh oh! ask them to play without their aligience abilities it's only fair

 

That's my plan so far.

 

So, the smaller the game, the more OP the slaan is going to feel. Summoning 500 points in a 500 point game is ridiculously strong, but become significantly weaker in a 2000 pt game. Early in the campaign, you will likely be able to out summon and spam your way to victory, but as the warbands get bigger, they can cover more ground making it harder to play keep away and your summons will have less effect.

You may be able to house rule the slaan a little bit so that initially you can only bankroll 1 spell per turn for summoning purposes, by game 3 you are allowed to bank 2 spells per turn and by game 5 you can bankroll all 3 for summoning. This gives the other warbands a chance to fill out their ranks a little before you go summoning crazy, while still allowing you to run the general that makes your army tick.

As for arguing that you are taking extra "warbands" (I assume they mean followers) you are handicapped by taking only 2 to start out with, whereas other leader characters start out with 3 or 4, so it should be mildly balanced.

 

I like this response alot, and it could be a suitable solution if summoning was the only problem, sadly they complained about teleporting because they can't catch me. I also believe that the slann has 2 followers to try and balance summoning, though why the old one on carno is also 2 followers, when compared to some of the other factions I don't get.
Roughly by my calculations 12 summoning points is equal to 1 follower roll. And 18-24 points is equal to an elite follower so 2 rolls. And if I just have the slaan without the astrolith bearer, thats a a full follower (20 skinks or 10 warriors or a razordon+handlers) or a small elite follower (kroxigors or an engine of the gods) every 2 turns or on turn 3 get a large elite follower (stegadon or bastiladon) now small and large elites are named due to the point costs. Not size.

So frankly my estimates put the slaan to having 4 follower rolls extra dependant on game length 4 if the game goes for 5 turns. And that is assuming the slaan does nothing but produce summoning points.

Am I wrong to think that is fair? Giving up all my casting for summoning if I choose to do so, or am I just cheesing the game.
This is really messing with my sense of fairness.

 

So, my suggestions were aimed more at explaining why playing against Seraphon at small points feels bad. I don't think that Seraphon are particularly unbalanced, especially as units which are summoned later in the game are inherently less valuable (For example, a bastiladon on turn 3 has already missed 40% of it's shooting phases in a 5 turn game). My suggestions were more trying to provide a way to still play Seraphon while appeasing your friends.

Now, you are right that using all of your summoning points will essentially generate 4 extra followers BUT your followers are also worse than almost anyone elses, and will have lost some of their utility by the time they are summoned, which I feel like your play group isn't taking into account.

If any of your friends have an issue with your teleporting or summoning, ask them to trade you armies for a 500 point skirmish while forgoing Seraphon summoning and teleportation. That should quickly give them an eye opening game that our units, while summon-able, are also utter GARBAGE. It won't take many rounds for them to see that your 10 saurus warriors are NOT equivalent to 5 Hearthguard Berzerkers or even 10 buffed up skeletons.

Seraphon play in a unique way in that their units are subpar, so they have to rely on higher numbers of bodies and mobility to win. While your playgroup learns the game, this may feel OP as you can more easily exploit misplays or times when they over extend, but on the flipside, anything you leave out in the open will get absolutely decimated.

Edit:
If they want to force you to fight in a more conventional way and take away your summoning, then I say grab a sunblood leader, 1 retinue of 20 skinks to grab objectives, and 3 squads of 3 ripperdactyls to bury their other units under piles of dice. Put toads on any objectives, hold the rippers ~18" off those objectives, and if they ever try to take them, swoop in. Each squad of rippers, swooping down onto a unit affected by the toad, will deal, on average, 21 wounds. That should be enough to delete just about any hero or retinue. The skinks are simply there to clean up, screen, or take other objectives.

 

I just want to say thank you guys for all the great replies, it's given me alot to work with. I bought some more ripperdactyls so now I have a total of 6 so 2 squads I've also bought a start collecting box so I can build 10 warriors 5 knights and a carno scar vet, and ofc all the sweet conversions