Of course, that is the rule. But, we have no invocations so that is not relevant to our book. And, since dispelling happens in both hero phases, the opponent can select his priest and roll a flat 2d6 to remove an Endless Spell at no cost in our hero phase. If he selected a wizard for the dispel, he'd have one less unbind. All of this is in 19.3.2 on page 23. Not only does it come without any cost, all Endless Spells have a rule that they cannot be summoned in the turn they have been removed, so that is actually the best way to do it. Wait for Tzeentch's turn to start, and then dispel the Cogs in his turn to prevent him from just putting it down again. Same goes for his Spell Portal range to extend his reach. It is a tiny detail overall, but feels bad to have Endless Spells that we are presumably great at controlling be so little impact, reduced to various ways of d3 damage. Cogs are interesting, Spell Portal potentially, the two movement ones between the boat and the bridge, or maybe the Palisade to block LoS, or even the Lifeswarm.
You can attempt to dispel a endless spell only at the start of the hero phase. In the turn the endless spell is cast, you can only try to unbind it. That trick works only in the following turn(s) after it has been successfully cast.
Also true, in the following turn that is probably the best option if you have priests and no wizards. Even if you have wizards, it is potentially better to wait for the turn to come back to him to a new hero phase instead to attempt and unbind versus a potent caster rolling a high CV. Eating the spell, waiting for the new Phase, then rolling a flat 2d6 is a gamble that might be worth it. Even with a normal Slann and an AB, I usually have +3 CV or a mighty +5 with Kroak if I am feeling frisky. It is much more realistic for an opponent to wait for even his turn to dispel the ES. Yeah he loses a spell for that turn, but he'd have it unbound by the Frog most likely anyway. This way he has much higher chance of having impact with his spell slot by removing something that both costed us points, and deals mortals. And if he has priests, it is simply a free thing at zero cost for him. Again, us Lizards being potent casters don't suffer much from this since we can handle most hero phases versus many armies, especially since we also got priests. All I am saying is that I'd like the feeling of Endless Spells to be more shock and awe. Let them cost more, let them be dangerous, but for us a little bit less with a new bound spell rework. Or so I hope. And even worse, I have no idea what to recommend for the rework, or how to make it a fair and fun rule. So when it comes down to it, this is just a rant overall, and for that I do apologize.
Yes, ATM many endless spells are not worth their price and some of them are just situational at best. Chronomantic cogs set for bonuses to charge are used in the exact turn you cast them, to increase the chance for successful deep strikes (so they are OK) damage spells often do what they need in the moment you cast them. but soulsnare shackles? 65 pts that very rarely will work
True. It's a bit ironic that when everyone saw the effect of the new Soulsnare Shackles it was assumed it would be a game-changer. But with so many ways to easily dispel endless spells it's not been used. In fact, I don't recall hearing about endless spells getting used at all in 3e, at least in tournament lists.
life swarm gets a lot of attention. healing 2d3-2d6 is very good and you normally want to dispel it yourself so you don't care if your opponent gets it.
So the more I think about the Stormcast dragons dominating right now, the more I realize how much our dinosaurs need buffs. When you look at the stats, a single Stormdrake Guard has only 3 less wounds than an Oldblood on Carnosaur. It has more attacks if you go with the sword (even after Coalesced extra jaw attack), a free hero phase move with a chance for a free charge after that, an ability to delete a model, a better save, a spell ignore save, better movement, flying, a shooting attack that actually does damage, better hit/wound profiles, better rend, and is 100 points cheaper! The only thing the Carnosaur has in it's favor is that it's jaw attack does 5 damage. So it's possible to spike higher damage with the damage if you roll really well. But the Stormdrake is just more consistent overall, is easier to use, and is much cheaper. I know that the Oldblood is over-costed for no apparent reason and the Scar-Veteran is the objectively better choice right now, but I just wanted to use that as an example of how what supposedly should be one of our hardest-hitting monsters have a hard time outpacing what amounts to a monstrous cavalry unit that can be batteline. (I continue to hold to the idea that Carnosaurs should be our heavy-hitters, they're supposed to eat Stegadons for breakfast.) Now, given the trends we've seen with the recent 3rd edition books of fewer but stronger faction and subfaction abilities combined with major warscroll powercreep, but also knowing that GW will nearly always nerf what gets played the most, what do you think they'll do with our book if the rumors of it coming out next year or soon after are true? I personally think they'll make Salamanders unplayable. Multiple point increases later and people still hate playing against them. So unfortunately just like Ripperdactyls and Razordons from 1e I think Salamanders will get relegated to the shelf in our 3e tome. However, after seeing the impressive buffs given to the Idoneth infantry, I kind of have hope for Saurus. Even if they re-worked our foot heroes to give aura buffs like the new Idoneth and Fyreslayer heroes do that would be a big step in the right direction. Skinks will probably get a nerf through losing subfaction abilities and the removal of a lot of our unique hero buffs that get thrown on them. I also anticipate some buffs for Carnosaurs and *maybe* Stegadons, but we'll probably lose the double-firing Bastiladon so he'll be nerfed pretty hard just by that. I'm also guessing they'll change the save rule for him to a 2+ that ignores rend -1 or something similar. I'm guessing Kroak will remain unchanged, or even get slightly nerfed again. Mostly because people still have PTSD from Kroaknado and also because I can't see GW wanting a caster than can compete with Teclis and the new Elves they'll be releasing at some point. I think that GW basically forgot about our flyers, so I'm not sure what to expect. They'll probably be weak to mediocre like they are now. I can see Kroxigors and Chameleon Skinks still being niche but useful units. However, if by some miracle the rumors about a Seraphon/Skaven range refresh are true, then all bets are off because you know GW will want to sell those new models at all cost, so we could see some stupidly OP warscrolls if that happens. I would rather they not do that, as I'd rather have a strong but balanced army and not a power-crept army that will sell models like hotcakes for six months and then get nerfed to the ground in an FAQ or the next GHB.
well yeah. our monsters warscrolls are BAD, only saved by 3rd editions monster focus and how dirt cheep they are(some of them.) i can't see us keeping scaly skin and without that a lot of our stuff goes back in the bin. the only way they will make salamanders unplayable is if they drop their range back down to 8". they do a job that every one in this game needs but nothing in our book out side of them does, with out a very big chenge we will still use them. i do not hope for warriors, i have been doing that for to long. if they are good great but i will believe it when i see it. i do hope they put the synergy back in our synergy army. or made the base warscrolls less crap so that we are more resilient to such things in the future. skinks don't benefit from subfactions much so as long as they are cheep and move 8" we will see them played and played often. we will loose serpents staff so their damage will be back to being awful but thats how our first ed tome worked and i don't see it changing carnasuars have always been meh GWs idea for how they should work (primitive high damage low hit/save monster) just isn't and never will be good. stegadons will be untouched bastiladon will get another rework for ark and it will still suck, the cannon will get better but we will loose double shooting no idea. they won't make kroak the 500-600 point monster he is so he will always compete with slann and thats tuff slann are great. my only hope for him is that we finally get good spells to work with. see above comment about carnasuars same problem hear except GW will never give them the damage nessisery to make it work. we have been getting rumors about a refresh for 6 years take from that what you will.
Do they tho? Stormcast dragons are universally criticized for being an overly bloated warscroll. Why are they the baseline for comparison? And why compare it to a monster we all know is overpriced when theres the better version sitting right there in the scar vet. Especially when there is quite literally a dragon hero to compare him too. Scar vets are 85 points cheaper, have more wounds, and higher melee damage potential altho its with less rend. Worse save and no breath but it's hardly a one sided comparison. The only monsters in our army that haven't been in a 5-0 army are a troglodon, ark of sotek and old blood. I could see changes to all those monsters. The rest of our monsters are definitely helped by the monster focus of the 2021 ghb. I don't know if shifting battle tactics will be enough to put them in the bin. I think our dinosaurs only need buffs when you want them to be something they clearly aren't. We have cheap, plentiful monsters. Are there any mawkrusha equivalents? Nope. But there also doesn't need to be. Simple, overly powerful scrolls like stormcast has are boring and the army has little depth because of it.
The drakes are overpowered to the point of brokenness. GW knew it but they are fine, as they are selling a crapton of them. When the market will show signs of saturation, they will be nerfed to death. Good job GW.
Gw fucks up new releases far too often for me to attribute any of this stuff to true malice when incompetence addresses everything so well.
@Putzfrau Very good points. I know that the Scar-Vet is definitely the better unit right now because of the costs. I used the comparison I did to show how the Oldblood, which is supposed to be one of our best monsters, compares to a standard, non-hero, non-behemoth battleline unit in another army. I've said in other threads that I agree with you that our army is good. But we have enough 3e books out now as examples to know with a fair degree of certainty that when our 3e book comes out we'll lose most subfaction abilities and probably some allegiance abilities as well. However, given what we've seen so far I would bet that those allegiance abilities we do keep or new ones we get will be fairly powerful. This is just the way 3rd Edition seems to want to go. GW also seems to hint that the special bonuses and battle tactic points we can get from monsters will be going away in the next GHB. (This "seasons of war" idea I think warrants an entirely different discussion, tbh. It's clearly set up to change the meta each year in hopes of making people go out and buy the new top army or new favored unit type rather than keep using what they currently have. I know companies need to make money, but this is a pretty blatantly scummy thing. Rather than balance the game as as whole, they'll just purposely make certain units and armies more or less powerful each year to chase the whales) This thread is about theorycrafting balance changes, and we know that things are changing for 3rd edition. So while yes, our army is good right now, by the time we get our book we'll have lost the Ghur rules that are really benefitting us, and we'll have several other armies with 3e books. So just by the nature of GW and they way they powercreep things, we *will* need some changes when our turn comes around. I for one am optimistic that whatever the changes we'll still end up with a good army. I just hope that it will be internally balanced so that the majority of our unit types are useful, rather than half the units being very good and the other half being mediocre to bad. Seraphon were a cheap horde army in 1e. We were a cheap horde army in 2e. Now that 3e is blatantly made to discourage horde gameplay and focus on elite units and big monsters, I think that we'll finally have to let go of the cheap horde army mentality. Right now Salamanders are used a lot because they're the only unit with high rend in a game where most units you want to kill are sitting at a 3+ or 2+ save. Thunder Lizards is good because an army of monsters in a game that loves monsters has a built-in advantage. But since we know they're going to change things around when our 3e book comes out, why not theorize about how they could make our army better for the 3e rules? Rather than just say "GW hates Lizardmen our army will be lame" or "Everything is perfect, even if they take away half our buffs and faction abilities we'll still be OP," I think it's better to try and think outside either box and try to imagine new ways our army could work within the 3e rules. And for me, that means warscroll buffs to make up for the presumed loss of a lot of our currently very strong allegiance abilities. It may sound boring to people who love a more technical, board-control playstyle, and I don't want us to just become a "run up and stomp the enemy's face" army, but some units just need to be better. We also have so many different unit types that I think multiple playstyles should be available. We know that we'll probably keep the Starborne and Coalesced allegiances, and we also know that the Constellations will probably lose the unique artifacts (no big loss), command traits and command abilities (very big loss) and instead get a single bonus like we see in all the 3e books so far. So for example Thunder Lizards will probably just make Stegadons battleline, Dracothion's Tail will just allow the reserve deployment, and Koatl's Claw will just give a +1 to hit for a unit that's charged. What I think they should do, other than improving weak warscrolls, is to make those small buffs we do get apply to *everything* rather than just a single unit type. Make the heroes able to buff any unit, not just Skinks or Saurus. Make the +1 to hit from KC apply to all units, not just Saurus. Make Fangs of Sotek give a pre-game move to all units, not just Skinks. There are a lot of units in our army that aren't used simply because they can't take buffs as well as other units. Knowing that we will lose some of our biggest buffs and have less buff-stacking, I think the least GW could do is to make the buffs we do still have available to all the units in our army, not just one or two specific types. There's no reason that a Saurus hero shouldn't be able to give commands to Skinks, and vice-versa. And I'm actually optimistic about the potential for changes to our foot heroes and the buffs they give. Especially since a lot of their buffs currently compete with the basic command abilities. We'll probably also get our own prayer lore, and changes to our spell lore, so that's something to look forward too
Could be, but i struggle to label certain decisions as "incompetence", when we're talking about things that bring millions of profit to the company.
I think it's both, to be perfectly honest. GW messes things up through sheer incompetence quite a bit, but it's also pretty obvious that they want to encourage people to constantly buy more product. See my quote about about the "Seasons of War" thing being designed to change the meta to constantly push more sales rather than to balance it. I personally think that a lot of the 3rd edition rules were made to do just that. Everyone had their horde units because of how good hordes were in 2e. Everything GW said about making the game more beginner-friendly and cheaper to get into just isn't true. Yes, you have a smaller board size and slightly smaller army. But instead of buying a lot of their cheaper units, you're buying their extremely overpriced elite units and big monsters, especially things like Stormdrakes and Gargants, the latter of which will cost you around $1,000 just in models to get a 2k list. By comparison, you can easily get a 2k Seraphon list for under $500. The core rules are actually *more* complex than 2e, not less. New editions are designed to bring up sales again after the playerbase has gotten the armies they want and stopped buying new ones, plain and simple. That said, GW does sometimes just mess things up just by accident. I'm pretty sure they didn't plan for Archaeon to dominate the tournament scene when 3e came out, hence why they nerfed him so quickly. I also don't think they realized just how many buffs Seraphon could stack when our 2e book came out, but they didn't nerf us too hard because they were already getting ready to release a new edition so they kind of gave up balancing 2e by that point. It's generally when they release new armies or new units that they intentionally make them OP. They want everyone to buy them, and no one will buy them if they aren't strong. Which is why I fully expect the Umbraneth and Chaos Dwarfs to be pretty OP when they first come out. But as has been said, they'll get nerfed later or just out-power-crept by newer books after that.
Definitely hear what you're saying, I'm just not sure what the future looks like. The first few books of 1.0 and 2.0 aos are way different then books that released in the middle or end so I'm not sure if the new books of 3.0 can be used to judge our future book. All I know is seraphon has always been a strong book built off the back of synergies, shooting and magic. I imagine that'll stay similar. I don't think the philosophy taken with sce, warclans and nurgle can be consistent across every book without armies bleeding into each other. I imagine rerolls will be gone and any kind of second activation will be gated behind a once per game type limitation. I could see command traits and artefacts being lifted, but I don't see us losing a ton of battle traits. Sce, warclans and nurgle still have all their iconic battle traits, they just stripped a lot of the force fit stuff out of the sub allegiances. Our sub allegiance command traits and artefacts are pretty irrelevant. The biggest difference is the new books have very few command abilities and seraphon obviously has a lot. I could see us maintaining that as our unique wrinkle or I could see a lot of that stuff moving to just passive buffs on warscrolls.
Most likely. I think the Slann will still be awesome, and between Skinks, Salamanders and dinosaurs we should still have good shooting and magic. I'd just like to see our melee game improved as well, since Saurus deserve to not be the weak part of our army. All their allegiance abilities are very different, but the way all three of those books have been written in terms of subfactions seems to show what GW's philosophy is for subfaction abilities. Our base allegiance abilities will probably be very good, but subfaction abilities will probably switch to a single bonus or once-per-battle ability. Agreed. Losing subfaction command traits and artifacts really doesn't matter. But losing stuff like double-firing Bastiladons or extra EotG rolls will hurt really bad. Hopefully those units get something in return. I'd actually prefer to see those as warscroll buffs. I've always wondered why we don't have any aura buffs except for the Astrolith Bearer, and things like the Idoneth stances prove that GW is at least attempting to work on giving infantry that are currently lacking something to help improve them. But with so many of our command abilities either being the same as the new core ones, or conflicting with them, I could definitely see them giving us more passive buffs, and that's a really good thing. There's no indication that they will do this, but if for some reason they remove the Starpriest's staff buff I think they will either have to give us an allegiance ability for mortal wound output, or give our infantry some serious stat improvements. Our infantry does not do well without it. If GW wants us to do something other than spam Salamanders for the rend and MWs, we're going to need access rend and/or mortals somewhere else.
I don't have the books at hand but I don't remember SCE, Orruks and Nurgle heroes having lots of CA in their warscrolls. Let's see and compare FYS ans IDK books before jumping conclusions.
What about combining Cold-blooded with Unfeeling and moving it to the general Seraphon Battle Traits? Maybe turn it into something like, "All Seraphon are unaffected by Bravery mods (positive or negative), and reduce the number of models lost to failed battleshock by 1[or 2?] (to a minimum of 1)." Someone else mentioned this earlier, but it could be interesting to make Rippers or Terradons battleline with a Ripper Chief or Terradon Chief respectively as the general. Or maybe that could be a feature of FoS, making all of our Skink "troops" battleline? Of course, they might need to get better. Lol.
Another 3 tournament wins for seraphon this weekend (Bloodshed in the Shire, London GT and the Lone Star GT) Gavin went 5-0 with squigs and kragnos which is also insane. edit: looks like zach's Lone star GT winning list had an ark of sotek in it!
Our flyers need a lot more to become viable than just be battleline. They need actually decent stats, or some extraordinary broken special rules. So I'd prefer the decent stats The chiefs have no offensive stats, die to a stiff breeze. Their support is decent-ish relativly speaking, but only because rippers/terradons are kind of terrible base-line. The units themselfs are again, super squishy, and offensivly they have 1 turn during which they can do something, as both the rippers & terradons special abilities are one-time-uses. They're not even particularly powerfull during that one turn, it's just the only turn during which they will achieve anything whatsoever. To fix them they need some defenses, doesn't need to be major a +1 to save could be enough. Just something to ensure they don't just get annihilated turn one. The chiefs will need more of a buff defensivly than the units though. They need to be close to the frontline, and 5 wounds with a 5+/6+ save is simply not good enough for a hero that will be exposed to danger. They will all need a significant boost to their baseline offense. The chiefs will need different CA's, because if the units are actually decent base-line then the current CA's are no longer all that good. O, and we need something for coherency and possibly something for grabbing objectives depending on what role exactly you want them to fullfill.