AoS The new Battletome: A Discussion

Dead models dont modify the Bravery of a unit, it modifies the dice roll?

 

wait what immunity to battle shock?

 

hmm going over the rules looks like your right ill have to ask lizardwizard about it he was the one to come up with it. might be a ruling i don't know about

 

Err...

 

Yeah it modifies the dice roll, not the Bravery characteristic of the unit.

 

hence why i said id ask

 

It's the same thing as the Bastilidon essentially. Doesn't modify the characteristic, just the roll.

 

But also note we forgo the +1 to bravery for every 10 models...because that is modifying Bv and not the die

 

Yes, but how is that relevant?

 

The earlier poster was misunderstanding the cold-blooded rule...

If something affects bravery, such as -1 for terror or +1 per every 10 models....we ignore it.
If something affects the die roll, such as casualties, then it still applies


Example: a unit of 30 Saurus with cold-blooded...is struck by the Purple Sun and it kills 6 models...

so saurus would be Brave 8 (ignoring -1 for PS rules and ignoring the +1 for every 10 models (+2 since 24 are left))
roll d6 + 6 and subtract 8(bravery).. this is how many additional models flee.

 

I think our new Battletome is good overall. I don’t feel we’ve dropped in power, and in some ways, I think we can be more consistent in our showings.

That said, after digesting it a bit, reading a lot, and seeing some battle reports, it is apparent they were lots of missed opportunities. I feel we are much too reliant on our 4 constellations, and on CPs in general. They did make it quite easy for us to spam CPs, but these are still dice rolls which can fail you).

While I do theoretically like the idea that our battleline units can now be effective, it’s usually at a cost of at least 1-2 CPs and/or a spell, and this is not tenable to maintain the whole game. Once we get in the weeds with combat and have 2+ units fighting, we cannot hope to buff all of them, and without these buffs they are often woefully underpowered.

Our casting is pretty good now, and MW production can be significant vs some armies.

There are some good stock units in the game, namely slann/Kroak is now really good, salamanders are amazing, and terradons with a chief as well.

Im just rambling now, but I feel rating our battletome is always going to be an existential problem - who do we compare it to? OBR, DoK, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, IJ, aka some of the current top tier battletomes? I don’t want our book to be the next broken book, and by all accounts it’s not. But it would be nice if they did a better job of rebalancing the books and play testing.

 

The main strategy imho should be to achieve local superiority somewhere with a big scary buffed up block while you stall your opponent with msu (who get in a hit or two, and hopefully survie a round or two) in other places, and then move along slowly sweeping up the enemy. It works reasonably well as a grand strategy, but you should be expecting to sacrifice some fodder on the other flank.

 

This makes sense. Once I get some games in it will probably fall into place. I am just used to pretty much everything being dispensable...

 

Quick question: Where does it actually say in the book that you can get Stegadons as battleline? And it is possible to get Bastiladons as battleline as well?

 

In the back of the book where the points are.

 

I think the issue is that most people are used to just max moving everything forward and engaging with every single unit instead of being selective about their charges/combat. You are likely not gonna sustain maximum buffs on multiple units. But that is where a “wave” tactic comes into play. We also have no way of fighting first etc.

 

I do wish our tome had an artifact for recovering command points, instead of us having to use Hysh. But based on how they split artifacts, I don't know where they would have put it. Slann I guess?

 

I see what's "Good" now - but the things I had and liked are all shit now, an astrolith used to let us reroll ALL failed hitrolls, INCREDIBLE! now it gives a shit deathless save.
Slanns can only use their first spellslot to get summon points, so you might aswell run 6 slanns, 3 blocks of minimum skinks, and the rest of the 2k list with bound endless spells if you liked summoning.

My new list uses an EOTG - one of the models I like the least but need for the batallion that makes the army viable for combat situations.

Skink priests lost their protectionbubble, now they have a command ability to give +1 to hits (hey, at least if my bastiladon rolls a lucky 10 attacks, I have something to spend a CP on)

the whole 2+ save saurus guard doesn't exist anymore, nope that's gone...

carnosaurs lost their stackable attacks buff - now they're just dinos...

best thing I saw so far is that an EOTG is a "SKINK" and a "HERO" (and the crew are a mount for rules purposes) meaning a priest can give it +1 to hits and the serpent god dagger can be strapped to the EOTG's sumpy legs, causing you to trample heroes with ease.
HOWEVER I doubt that enormous grumpy grandma dino can sneak around the frontlines and herosnipe - so I guess it's better to give it the sacred stegadon hat and leave the dagger for my only other hero, the slann - who's azure lightning is melee (don't ask how I duct-tape the dagger onto lightning, it's magic)

And then kroxies are slightly better, eh, not a fan

Salamanders are... surprisingly good...
especially in large numbers with a skink priest and a commandpoint and behind a line of guard or a bastiladon

and then there's the flying things and chiefs, cool but not my style at all.

I managed to get a decent list out, now just hope it can cap points aswell as dealing big damagios.

 

Can I just say though - Bound Emerald Lifeswarm and several TL EOTGs... is probably your best bet for summoning and not dying miserably - get a slann for spells and CP (or two, one of em can be kroak, fling all the spells while generating decent CP AND CCP)Astrolith for bonus summoning and that crap deathless if an EOTG gets attacked, that's 3 heroes and 3 EOTGs that are gonna be able to roll 3 dice because slann and do it twice if you have the CP to pay for TL's "gamble-again"

that lifeswarm (and celestial apothesis) will probably keep you alive easily (especially with the astrolith casting buff making the apothesis easier to reach CV10 and heal D3)
if you're really paranoid or just not a fan of any of the artifacts, you can always pick the healing stick from Ghyran to do that little bit of extra healing on your engines - or the aetherquartz-recycle-CP-brooch so you can financially sustain your gambling addiction a little easier.

(battleline not included)
and then RNG your way to victory, the chances of you failing are very small - spend some CP, spin the wheel, blame it on bad luck if you lose because obviously 3 grumpy dinos are the best build you ever made, right?
Also, someone make a conversion of a stegadon with a slot machine on its' back, please.

 

Just a thing tho - if a spell has a warscroll, but a BOUND spell has its' own, that means I can add both to an army right?
they're technically different since GW decided to make 2 warscrolls instead of making basic bound rules to apply to all spells.