Having started off by buying and painting a "Start Collecting: Seraphon"-box, I have started to wonder how I want to build my army. My first goal will be to complete 15 pts worth of units by the poolsystem below (http://www.scrollbuilder.com/) Seraphon, Independent AoS Pool Choices (Clash Comp). Having looked through what my options are I am not sure I want to use all of the models that was included in the SC-box. Things I would prefer to include in my armor: Slann Starmaster, Stegadon. I've looked at other options like lord kroak/bastiladon but for a 15pt army it feels a bit expensive and I really like the look of those models (slann/stegadon). Other units that I think are really cool are skinks and saurus temple guards, I am not quite sure how all of these would work together. If I could somehow fit in my warriors and cavalary that'd be cool. The formations seem to be hard to fit in, in such a small army. Any input would be really helpful!
With a starter kit as your beginning, you'll want to build your army around offense. This means you want warriors over temple guard, and a Starmaster rather than Kroak because Kroak and Guard are defensive units best suited to setting up a defensive line and camping there. Your focus should be on psuedo-horde tactics, summoning as many Warriors as you can and overpowering the enemy with sheer numbers. Movement speed and magic support for your Slann's casting rolls should be your primary concern.
With the starter box, it should give you a Battalion Warscroll that's exclusive to the box set (hold on to it! they don't have an electronic version, not yet at least) If you like skinks at all, Chameleons would do you a great service. I agree with @Bainbow too, this box set is very offensively built (I'm curious to know what the battalion effect is), and a Stegadon is great in the charge, which would enhance your offense, put some sunfire throwers on it and you can counter more situations. Slann is always a great choice, but to supplement, both Skink Priest and Starpriest do great jobs at support. I think these suggestions leave you with a little bit of wiggle room within your 15pt limit to give your army what ever flavor you want, or stack more bodies into each unit of saurus!
I will add though that some level of adaptability should be your primary focus, even if you specialise in offense. Though in small games, such adaptability will be hard to come by so you only need a little bit.
"Gul'Rok's Starhost - 1 Saurus Scar-Veteran on Carnousaur, 1 unit of Saurus Warriors, 1 unit of Saurus Knights. Abilties: Reforum Ranks: In Each of your hero phases, a Starhost unit within 10" of their Scar-Veteran can reform. To do so, choose one model in the unit to be the lyncpin. Remove all other models in the unit from the battlefield and then set them up again within 5" of the lynchpin. The unit can move normally in the same turn." Normal skinks not that great? I feel like if I packed a 40 pack and kept it close to my Stegadon they would be really powerful but the community concencus seems to prefer the chameleon skinks. They seems expensive compared to normal skinks, seeing as I can get 30x skinks for the same pts as 5x chameleon skinks. This is another reason why im not using the carnousaur model, I had already decided beforehand that I wanted a Slann, I just love the model. Another clarification, I do have the starter box but im not necessarily planning on using these models in my army. There was just lots of stuff to paint for a fair price. The reason, since im not planning to use the carnousaur model, this pack is 1.5 pts out of my 15 total so im definitely not "locked" to use those units, I don't want to limit my playstyle just because I happen to be sitting of a small part of an offensive army. I think I might be more of a defensive player.
Oh no, normal skinks can be extremely vicious and make for much better infantry than chameleons. But they're heavily reliant on both synergy and numbers, so really they should only be fielded in a skink army that's absent saurus. Chameleons are more specialist, you take them to be harriers and assassins rather than core troops, giving them a place in practically any Seraph army. You take them to assassinate heroes or bring down war machines while your infantry, your saurus in this case, go toe to toe with the bulk of the enemy army. The chameleons are good at this job even in small numbers, often better in small numbers as smaller numbers allows them to all fit on terrain pieces for that sweet 3+ Save while larger units cannot fit all their members on smaller terrain, losing their bonus Save and becoming much more fragile. Comparing skinks to chameleons is like comparing soldiers to snipers. The snipers are brilliant tactically, but you wouldn't have them make up the bulk of your army.
Okey so I've read up on the rules for "Clash Comp" and found some, in my opinion, pretty gamechanging stuff. *Any additional attacks generated from an attack may not generate additional attacks themselves. This pretty much destroys the purpose of Ripperdactyls. *Summoning - An army that does not deploy the whole 20 Pool Choices during deployment may bring on any remaining Pool Choices as Summoned Units. Any abilities that bring on new units such as Karanak, Engine of the Gods count as summoning. So for example if an army deploys only 17 Pool Choices during deployment, then during the game a total of 3 Pool Choices worth of models may be summoned from your remaining 13 Pool Side Board. Once 3 Pools have been summoned throughout the game then no more units may be summoned even if the summoned units have died. If the Engine of the Gods rolls a 14-17 on its table and you cannot summon any unit, then you must instead choose any of the lower results on that table. TL: DR - No summoning - EoTG 14-17 > Choose another LOWER result on that table. They also updated the costs for units which now look like this: With the nerfs to the "Shadow strike SH", I am starting to lean more towards either a "Fire lance SH" or a "Sunclaw SH" (even though the costs on Saurus Warriors were increased to 0.75 from 0.5). So, what are the pro's and con's of bringing these formations? Fire Lance: Pro's: Powerful knights (easier charge rolls & chance to inflict 2 mortal wounds with blazing lance + fire lance) Con's: Must bring Scar-Veteran, can't bring the Kroq-Gar instead? I feel like the knight's are still quite slow compared to other cavalry, atleast on paper, maybe someone with more experience can add some positives that I missed. Sunclaw: Pro's: Warrior gain +1 jaw attack, synergizes well with the Starpriest's serpent staff (6's on hits causes twice the normal damage), adds -1 rend to the warriors celestite weapons. Con's: Slow - Susceptible to getting charged down by faster units and getting picked off by ranged units. For a sunclaw formation I was thinking I could bring something like: 1 Slann Starmaster 1 Skink Starpriest, mainly to empower and support the Saurus Warriors. 1 Saurus Sunblood - required for the formation, durable, strong command ability. 3 units of Saurus Warriors (30-40 models) - Core 1-2 units of Chameleon Skinks (5-10 models) - Flank, not only to assassinate heros, warmachines but to draw attention away from the rest of the army. 0-1 units of Saurus Knights (5 models) - Faster then warriors, flanking, objectives etc. 1 Monster, EoTG, Stegadon, Bastiladon - Threat, ranged firepower, damage soaker.
I should have clarified my feeling about skinks: love them! I just think chameleon skinks get more bang for the buck. Skinks get the great slippery rule, but like Bainbow said, they rely on synergy and would require a lot of your point limit being spent on "making my skinks put a wound through". Chameleons are just so much more reliable at doing what you ask of them. I like your plan here, I want to point out though that the oldblood is great support for a Saurus army, the best part is that he doesn't need to be your general to buff the Saurus. Even more food for thought, a Scar-Vet on Cold One gives the knights mounts another attack! Starpriest is great with them too. I agree that Cold Ones are slow cavalry, it's kind of frustrating when you NEED the charge for lances to do their work. Never heard of clash comp before, but I'm glad my group plays RAW.
A question on that, how does "the great slippery rule" actually work? What would a smaller skink army have to include to work? That's interesting! May I ask you if you have an opinion regarding what formation would work well vs tougher units, like black orcs & stormcast units? My opponents will be playing those Yeah me neither, they just said they usually run 15 pts in clash comp sooo.. Im OK with it though, there's alot of good rules they added, they seem to try and tune down alot of the overpowered stuff by different limitations.
This Clash Comp sounds godawful, handicapping the Rippers like that? Seriously, do none of these comp writers understand that the point of AoS is that everything is hilariously overpowered? By handicapping certain units you're not balancing them, you've rendering them obsolete!
Which is bull. I mean come on, removing the OP from AoS is like removing the alcohol from beer. You're left with a glass of nothing but hollowness and sadness.
I have to admit that this seems lame to me. We already have this move with the command ability from the Oldblood, and I can't figure out how to use it properly; it just doesn't seem to be worth it to me. I was looking for a reason to buy this, as I have all of these figures, but I also didn't want to pass up this great deal! Now it's easier for me to say no to it given this weak formation bonus. Also, the slippery rule is great because it allows for a full movement in the combat phase, BOTH combat phases. Wary fighter lets them move 8" back instead of piling in, this is NOT considered a retreat and you can move shoot charge in the next turn. For breaking elite troops, warriors might be your best bet. I haven't played too many games with a focus on my warriors so I don't know their true strength yet, but I run knights all the time and they're fun! if you charged, otherwise they are just stuck in combat swinging with normal results, nothing great. Mortal wounds are always the best way to break elite troops.
Okay, so I think I have narrowed down my starter army: I really like the command ability of the Sunblood and he greatly empowers all my Saurus Warriors, Cavalary and even the Oldblood on carnousaur. I decided I was going to stick with all the units in the starter pack, atleast to begin with. I really like the abilties of the Chameleon Skinks, they seem usefull when it comes to taking out ranged threats like war machines and put pressure on heros/generals. This leaves me with 5 more points available, there are a couple of ways I can use these. I decided to use the Saurus Oldblood as my monstersubstitue, I am planning on swapping him out later for EoTG/Stegadon/Bastilodon Slann Starmaster for 2.5 pts, powerful caster, but since summoning is not as effective because of the rules I will be playing by, I am not quite sure of him. He is still a really powerful caster who can support my units really well with his spells and the constellations. I also think I want to include either Salamanders or Razordons, if im not bringing a Slann im defintely going for Razordons (rerolling 1's really helps the salamanders out). I also feel the handler's are really needed for the Salamanders, is one set of handlers(three) enough to support, say, 2-3 sally's? Both Sallys and Razordons are 1 pts/model, Skink handlers are 0.5 pts/unit.
Damn it, literally everything in this sentence annoys me. It's like the rule writers don't want impressive games and are content to just wallow in mediocrity. I'd still go for the Slann because even if the rules were written by the mediocre, the Slann is still a huge support piece and is very worth an investment with his constellations. And one note about the handlers, you only need to take one. Yeah, they can have any number in their units so you just need one to buff any number of sallies.
I agree completely with Bainbow, so I won't repeat, hahaha. So Stegadon is 3 pts, and Engine of the Gods is 3.5... I would personally go with the regular Stegadon. They are great in the charge so it would help the offensive direction you're sticking to. Slann can summon once, mystic shield, and arcane bolt (if you get your rolls) in one turn. Usually I leave out that arcane bolt, so that seems like it would lend itself even more offensively than normal. Looking at the points, I could never justify spending .5 on 3 Handlers, and then another 1 point on 1 Razordon. I think a better use of points would be with an Astrolith Bearer or Oldblood on foot, or both! Whether their worth it or not, Priest and Starpriest are both great at support for any build.
"But isn't the Stegadon much more powerful on the front line or flank due to the Engine's particularly pathetic melee capabilities and its relative squishiness?" Psh, nah. The Engine is more obviously powerful so it has to be more expensive despite the Stegadon being much more powerful in a large number of scenarios once you start getting creative. Pfft. Sorry, I'll stop with my raving.
God no, you don't take an Engine to summon. The Engine should be treated like the wizard of the monster world, squishier and weaker in combat than its physical-oriented counterpart (the regular Stegadon) but capable of some serious casting. I take my Engine for its time stop ability and its D6 Mortal Wounds ability, if I roll any other effect then I consider the roll to be a failure. Base your decision on what role you're looking to fill. If you want some support from the back line, take the Engine. If you want something to run in and smash, take the Stegadon. Feel me?