Tutorial Seraphon Overview (updated to AoS 3.0)

The new F.A.Q. is up

changes:
- parting shot command ability: can only be done after an enemy charges you.
- Ripperdactyl chief's command ability no longer stacks, so he's now basicly useless given that this was about the only attractive thing about him
- Chief on stegadon: the stegadon is now a proper mount, chief is the hero
- EOTG: it now has a priest, he's the hero. The stegadon is a mount. The skinks are a crew.
- Balewind: wound limit of 9 for the caster, so no floating troglodons.

The new designer's commentary as well

- Summoning: only 1 conjuration per slann/oracle, so unless you're bringing 5+ slann/troglodons summoning is dead as an actual strategy. If we want summoning we're better off bringing a branchwraith and a treelord...
- Endless spells: you can still take "normal" endless spells. But not both variants at the same time (so you can take a bound purple sun, or a normal one, not both).
- scaly skin doesn't apply to mortal wounds, so now that this apparently only works on "attacks" and doesn't work against mortal wounds it's kind of bad unless you're fighting against specific armies.
- Casting a balewind while in our realmshaper causes you to move out of the realmshaper
- Bastiladon save: natural 1's fail, everything else passes regardless of rend.

so this is all rather dissapointing. Rippers are kind of ruined, our allies can summon more effectivly than we can and it's cheaper to bring these allies than it is to bring enough slann to get our summoning going, scaly skin seems far too limited and niche to be of real value aside from against specific lists.

 

Im extremely sad about their lack of comments in regards to the Realmshaper Engine. Zero mention, nothing. Imo it would have been somewhat OK if they went ahead and said "We like the idea of the minigame with your opponent, it gives the Seraphon player an extra challenge/objective on the table" or whatever. At least we knew their intentions of the faction terrain. As it is, they might not even be aware of the issues with the current rules.

Pretty much all the changes made sense and were quite predictable.

I feel bad about people planning to bring a bunch of Rippers and expecting to do like 250 attacks a round, but they should probably have seen it coming. It was obvious the ability needed some kind of cap imo.

Im super happy about them clarifying the summoning rules. Im still looking forward to playing Starborne with Kroak + Slann + Astrolith and summoning in stuff while spellsplinging like a mad man.

 

RIPerdactyls.

Well, what should I do with my boys now? They are forced to be coalesced and you have to bring both ripper and stegadon chief to try and do some damage, but it is completely not worth it. Terradons are plain better now.

Nothing changed for RSE and you cannot stay on Vortex while garrisoned. Not a big deal since you will struggle to use it anyway.

On the bright side, Stegadons are fixed and it seems, that prime warbeast still affects crew (or not, they really should've clarify it). Bastiladon is indeed 2++ rerollable. If only this wouldn't be negated by 3 mortal wounds... And razordons still can shoot after thier charge.

Other things were expected, IMO.

 

remarks:

summoning:
- Put in the caveat that bringing anything less than at least 3 sources to generate points from is a waste of time and effort. 3D3 per turn still has a worst case of needing 2 turns to summon even a unit of skinks, but 2D3 has a worst case of needing 3! turns at which point you basicly get 1 whole unit of skinks over the course of a game which is just pointless. To really get it going you need at least 5 sources, and even then you're mostly going to be summoning skinks. And this is of course assuming you can keep everything alive, just like in our previous battletome if your slann general dies the entire mechanic falls apart.

Scaly skin:
- Add the caveat depending on the army you're facing this is now either borderline useless or super powerfull going to a near 50% damage reduction against armies like ogers. It'l heavily depend on the meta you're playing in if you'l get any use out of it or not.

fangs of sotek:
- you forgot to put in the requirement that it can only be used on units that have been charged during that phase. So this also means it can only be used during the enemy's phase.

 

I missed something - how did they change the fangs rule? Couldn’t you always only use it in the enemy’s charge phase when the unit was charged?

 

no any skink unit could use it even if they hadn't been charged

 

oh, well that’s patently broken. Haha. I am fine with this, I always assumed it worked the way it has been faq’d to work.

(N.B. That’s not to say that other battletomes don’t have patently broken rules... lots do. But I prefer winning by guile vs cheap mechanics)

 

not really they still did less damage then most shooting lists and took a lot more to set up

 

Good point. The CP expenditure would be astronomical for 3 units of skinks (3 cp to make em shoot, 3 cp for +1 hit, 3 cp for reroll 1s...). It takes away a bit of flexibility and removes some uncertainty for your opponent (which unit will shoot me).

That being said, most of your buffs would be applied in your phase so it’s not like you could have played too many mind games.

It’s a wash for me. I would still consider FoS with at least 1 40 skink blob.

My FoS battleline would probably always be 40 blowpipe skinks, 20 spear skinks, and 5 saurus guard for my Slann/Kroak.

 

did you change summoning to "effing worthless" lol

 

The FAQ confirming that the Skink Chief is the bearer of an artefact and the Stegadon is the mount makes the Sacred Stegadon Helm not as useful though a +1 to save isn't bad. I don't think the crew even have any melee weapons so I have no idea who the +1 damage on a charge is for. Maybe if you're suiciding a priest in.

The Stegadon is still the crew for a regular Stegadon but they can't take warlord traits or artefacts so that's kind of a moot rule. Curious what the intent of that sentence in the Battletome.

 

The stegadon with chief has a chief, who's wielding a warspear, so he'd benefit from the +1 damage.
The EoTG has a priest, who's wielding nothing, so for the EoTG the +1 damage is wasted.

 

The Helm is still taken for +1 save - it is huge.

 

imo -1 to be hit is better.take the feather cloak.