Idoneth is a good counter to all of the top armies at the moment and has always been strong in the right players hand. This is a weird chart and I'm not sure if I agree with all of it (especially the quality of design) but I think that top 7 or so on the righthand side are relatively accurate in terms of what makes up that "a tier" or whatever you want to call it. But of course it always depends! That's why these things are so fun to discuss
I think in the video that this chart came from, he was basing quality of design more along the lines of how well-written the book was and how well the pieces fit together, and how easy it was to build good lists from those pieces. That's heavily paraphrasing, of course. That said, I do agree that, with the exception of Lumineth, most of the top-tier armies are positioned more or less in the right place. I still think that with all the new armies and updates coming out Seraphon isn't going to be rated at the top for much longer, except by Vince who really has a personal vendetta against us, lol!
Lol he certainly does! The new lumineth stuff looks to add a lot to an army that's already pretty good so I won't be surprised to see them start to be more of a problem. And yeah, there's some weird choices in the "quality of design" but to each their own!
Lol this list is funny. So his idea of a sweet spot is a bunch of armies that do not have the ability to control the magic phase and that have no teleport capabilities.
And here I am asking the same question I always do. Why the fuck does anyone give a shit what Vince and his biased ass uninformed community thinks?
I don't, really. I just stumbled upon the channel recently because it kept showing up in my Youtube recommendations and apparently they're reasonably popular as far as the online Warhammer community goes. Watched a couple of videos and of course he's always loudly calling for "nerf this, nerf that" and I know that the squeaky wheel usually gets the grease, as they say. I think it's because his is one of the few channels that does meta discussions. Most AoS Youtube channels are either just dedicated to battle reports or painting, so his gets a lot of attention due to being meta-focused. I think that this forum specifically doesn't care too much either, but since he specifically singles out Seraphon for his biggest complaints and basically says "nerf them to death!" in every video, it tends to ruffle a few scales over here. And of course we were in an annoying position in the game for so long it really stings to think that people are calling for us to be nerfed hard after we just got updated, and our update wasn't shown even a fourth of the love and effort that's been put into the more recent big updates like DoK, Slaanesh and Lumineth. I also frequent the Seraphon and AoS Reddit pages, and Warhammer Weekly gets mentioned on the AoS Reddit quite a lot. And since that chart was just posted there, I figured I might as well post it in this thread since it's already related to the topic. While I totally understand that lots of shooting and teleporting is definitely frustrating to play against, I really do think armies like KO and Lumineth are going to be much higher in terms of NPE when we start seeing more data from more recent games coming in. Heck, they may not be game-breakingly OP but literally *everything* in the Lumineth army is specifically designed with at least some sort of rule that has little to no counterplay. They may not be unstoppable, but their entire army and playstyle is the equivalent of a schoolyard playground fantasy bragging battle. "Oh, my guy doesn't have to cast spells, he just says they happen, and they happen! You can't stop him because he's the best! And if you try to hit him with magic, he bounces it back at you! And this other wizard can make you so scared that you can't do anything! Also, my other guys are all wizards and can cast spells too, because we're the best at magic! And, uh, oh yeah! All my archers are like Legolas, they can hit anything from anywhere and they can shoot as far as a catapult! And my soldiers are so strong they make earthquakes that throw you away from them! And my guys are smarter, so they get to fight before you do! And you can't hit them because they're so shiny it hurts your eyes! And this guy is so fast he gets to move before *and* after he shoots! And these guys are the best at sword fighting, so they always hit you no matter what! And they are so much better than your puny soldiers that they can just spin around and chop them all down!" And so on and so forth...
I get that. I understand it. It is reaching for air in its relevance and is ignoring important info that makes his complaints null and void especially about kroak. So I get that the most annoying gets what they want. But from how I was raised unless it's a valid concern (which if yall haven't figured it out it isnt) its not a problem and you need to reevaluate
Eh, Vince does pretty good content. Let's not get all rabble rabble just cause his opinion on seraphon can get a little hyperbolic. It provided the backdrop for a couple really nice discussions and there's nothing wrong with that
Lumineth are the top contender for being most NPE faction out there. Seraphon have pure strength, but we rely on buffing our troops mostly, only having a couple of debuffs (and most notable of them are geminids, which are available to any faction). Lumineth are all about "you can't do this" and "we do this for free". IDK and CoS are close second. IDK simply shut down all shooting and very straightforward to play and CoS are super annoying with hallowhart casting+teleporting irondrakes+undying phoenix guard which also deletes any units. And here come fyreslayers which literally refuse to die. Only after them I'd place seraphon and DoT. Model-wise - I agree, but rule wise we've got a BT, where we can build a playable tier-B army from any combination of units bar couple exceptions, like Warden/Rippers.
I wouldn't exactly call it a battletome that has a lot of love poured into it. I mean, we got nonsense like our faction terrain, several useless Coalesced faction abilities, we're missing fluffy abilities like prayers & mount traits, our spell lores are mostly underwhelming, no faction endless spells. Saurus don't exactly live up to their fluff of being 6' tall murder machines. It's functional, and there's some decent lists in there so it's perfectly fine from a competitive point of view. But it's not exactly the most inspired battletome with nice fluffy & fun rules. In contrast the lumineth stuff is filled with fluffy rules that represent what the model is supposed to be. Including several cases where they get fluffy stuff which is just a flat out better version of the unit of a different faction (e.g. swordmasters are literally just better saurus guard that fix all of their downsides...), or that should really belong to a different faction (e.g. frail aelves being able to push back opponents after a combat cuz they're just so amazingly strong instead of that ability being given to a destruction faction, you know the grand allegiance known for its brute force...)
I don't really care how much we've been given in the first place, but I like the results. You can play any archetype you want at least at the level of old seraphon book and we don't have any useless units (expcpetions are some saurus heroes and ripperdactyls, I cannot think about other things). We can buil all around good dracothion list, FoS skinks, FoS air cavalry, FoS monsters, Coalesced Saurus Infantry, Coalesced Saurus Cavalry, Starborne Variants of both, Monster-heavy lists in TL, etc.etc. and all of them are fun to play. As for lack of spells - yes, they are underwhelimng, especially skink ones, but we don't really need any more. I only miss old convocation from ghb2019. Same for prayers. We have one single prayer 3-in-1. And our monster good enough even without mount traits. Imagine, if we had to choose between Unstopable Stampede and Armored Crest on Stegadon? And with all of the above we are super-competitive. Adding new stuff would makes us NPE even further. I agree, that our tome was a bit lazy, yes, but it gave me all I wanted from a new tome. So taking lots of saurus, saurus heroes as a support and still have a mid-tier list is not fun or fluffy? Or thunder lizard with 5+ monsters? Oh, yes, Idoneth, a.k.a. "take as many eels as possible if you want to win". Very fun. Very fluffy.
It doesn't necesarly need to be new stuff. It's mostly a matter of spinning existing stuff in an appropriatly fluffy way. Our tome is filled with stuff that's good from a competitive point of view, but very little is done to make those competitive rules fit with the fluff of the unit it's supposed to represent. Given that the saurus play like a horde army filled with cannonfodder, instead of the fairly elite army filled with giant bipedal lizards with scales thougher than steel and the ability to bite through plate armour with ease. Yeah, it's not particularly fluffy. Especially when using saurus warriors or guard. Thunderlizards does better fluff-wise, though its focus on ranged weapons is a bit odd. And obviously it's mostly limited to bastiladons & stegadons, carnosaurs & troglodons are kind of left out of our monster-mash. Made a typo, meant the lumineth, fixed it.
Once again, I don't see how our powers are not represented. Kroak is one of the best mages in lore? Same in game. Yes, maybe, we'd like to see a 700 pts beast like teclis and nagash, but I still feel dominating magic phase even when not supported by astrolith. Skinks and chameleons are mobile skirmishers. As for saurus, I always thought they are closer to ork than to and elite infantry - tougher than a human, but still main battleline unit. Our elites are templeguard and they are truly elites. Yes, they could see some more love, but if you want a block of 20, you still can break faces. Saurus/Knights are better, but Guard is still a decent combat unit. Making eternal starhost a meta-battalion is one of my biggest complains, actually. But even so, guards are not a bad unit. And, more importantly, they fill their main role - protecting Slann, just as they should. Bastiladons are super-tough to kill, Stegadons are living battering rams, Carnosaurs are apex predators. Our air cavalry is another miss. They made them light cavalry and huge ripperdactyl is just a bit better than a cold one, which I don't like. Same with terradons. Whenever I play coalesced, I feel that I play savage saurian force, as it should be - fast, tough and devastating. Of course, in age of shoothammer any top-tier army will devastate such build, but when we agree to play a fluffy list with my opponent, I never miss a chance to field saurus and never regret. I don't get, why people hate carnosaurs. Yes, they are no stonehorns, but they are still do good what they are supposed to do, especially for their cost. I love overbuffing them in coatl's claw and they shred through units. Trogs are still underwhelming, yes. Well, compared to lumineth even stormcasts now are like unloved little brother. Looks like there's a great elf fan(s) in GW's design team.
I mean it should win against tzeentch and can still beat KO and IDK depending on battleplan and player. As more evidence stacks up, I think it's going to be on the people that think seraphon isn't the strongest to prove why they believe that to be the case. I can't say I necessarily agree or disagree with where it stands on the "quality" of the book (or whatever the y axis is) but it's placement on the x axis is pretty accurate from my experience. I will always prefer to place books in general tiers of goodness rather than a list of descending competitiveness, but if I was forced to pick a singular book as the most powerful I'd pick seraphon and I think most would agree with that. Altho, I think a lot of these tier lists minimize the impact of player skill on the discussion. I think when you start talking about the top 6 or 7 armies in the game, the better player is probably going to win more times than not. The armies in aos are a lot closer together than most people give them credit for IMO.
I agree that we're a really good army, but I somewhat disagree with Saurus Guard being good *in combat*. They serve an excellent purpose as ablative wounds for your Slann, but that's about it. Their lack of reach means that you don't get nearly enough attacks off to do much damage, unless you decided to bring 20 of them because you wanted to run a melee Kroaknado. After seeing the new Swordmasters of Hoeth, I mean, erm, Vanari Blademasters, this is what Saurus Guard should be, an elite guard unit that can actually kill stuff that comes for the Slann. But instead of the whirlwind chopping attack or the auto-hit, they should just have 3+/3+ -2 rend and a 2" range. Knights are very good, but I just wish that their melee weapons and Cold One jaws had -1 rend on them. In theory the massive amount of attacks is great, but in practice a lot of armies have bonuses to save, ward saves, re-rollable saves, etc. And that kills their damage output. They also require at minimum the Starpriest buff and a +1 to hit to do well. Saurus Warriors are, in my experience, a tarpit and nothing more. They have a decent save and -1 damage in Coalesced going for them, but little else. Once again, they rely on getting a large number of inaccurate, low or no-rend attacks off that you will most likely whiff on the majority and then your enemy will make most of their saves. While I think that they are meant to be a "standard" infantry unit and not an elite, they still don't feel all that impressive when you're playing them. I think that a minor buff is still in order for these guys, something like additional rend, better hit/wound profiles, or going to 2 wounds each. I really like our dinosaurs, except for how easy they are to kill, with the exception of the Bastiladon. And the reason people don't like Carnosaurs that much is because they're the easiest dinosaurs to kill, and unlike Stegadons they require multiple buffs thrown on them to do well in melee. I love Carnosaurs, the models are awesome and I use them frequently. But most of the time all my opponent has to do is toss a couple of ranged attacks or mortal wounds from spells/abilities on them and they're neutered enough that they're no longer a real threat. But yes, a fully-buffed Carnosaur hitting at full health is going to hit very, very hard. Troglodons still need a little something extra going for them, because with only 1 spell cast and no Command Ability they still don't fit into most lists very well. I also agree that our flyers got the short end of the stick, and this includes Terradons. Ripperdactyls do basically nothing atm, and while Terradons can drop a once-per-battle mortal wound bomb, they're far to fragile to be reliable. In today's AoS, a 6+ save is almost equivalent to no save at all, given how much rend and save penalties there are. And they also require a hero to spend a CP to reliably deal damage with their rock drop, and just like them that hero will die to whatever looks in his direction. Salamanders are great, even after the massive points nerf, and Kroxigors are actually really good too. While it makes sense fluff-wise, their +1 to hit bonus coming from being near Skinks is a pretty restrictive drawback, as they need that bonus to do decent damage. But they're tough and they hit hard, and they really only need that one buff to do their job. I definitely agree on this. When you look at a chart that shows Seraphon *far* ahead of armies like, for example, Orruks, Lumineth and Cities, it makes it seem like they are a vastly better army and there's no point in trying to play against them with the armies I mentioned. But in reality a good Orruk, Cities or Lumineth play really won't have a hard time beating Seraphon at all, unless their opponent is also very skilled. And armies placed in the lower end of the chart like Ogors, Stormcast and Khorne can still compete at a high level with the right lists and someone who knows how to play those armies. Since this is a thread about NPE, I'd be curious to see what personal experiences you all have had with other armies, and which ones are the most annoying or difficult to combat. For me personally, I haven't played against a *lot* of armies yet, but the most annoying have been Orruks and Idoneth. Both because they have insane speed, are melee armies, and are all but guaranteed to crash into your army turn 1 unless you deployed along the back edge of your zone, lol! And once they get there, they do a lot more damage in melee than we do, so getting a full charge by them early game is practically a guaranteed loss unless they just roll really badly.
Last tournament results table I saw at TGA showed that we have the most winrate out of all the factions in AoS, toping tzeentch and and IDK. And, unlike other factions, our top-tier lists are quite diverse (DT, FoS, TL in several variations). Lumineth, for example, is often just Auralan Legion, Tzeentch is Changehost, etc. If this doesn't indicate the best army in game, I don't know what does. Since when 2 attacks 3+/3+ -1 1 is bad? And they have jaws above that. The only real weakness of guard is lack of battalion. Saurus/Knights are better overall, but if you want guard to be effective, you can buff them exactly the same way. You have less models in unit, so you can honeycomb to take as many units into combat as possible. 2 wounds instead of 1 means they will lose effectiveness slower and will be less affected to battleshock. 3+ to-hit means that they demand less CP, so you can bring more other buffs. Next time I have a fun game in tts, I am fielding 60 guard or similar roster with saurus hero support and see how it goes. I agree on 2" reach, but they don't really need additional rend. Remember, that these guys are similar in cost to liberators. And look how bad liberators are compared to them. I don't like Blademasters at all, btw. The only good ability is bodyguard for Scinari. I guess, it will be the only reason to take them. If 2" all around attack would be that good, kroxigors would dominate the meta. And auto-hit profile statistically won't be killing a starpriest. They have tons of attacks. If you have problems with high saves, bring in a starseer and starpriest or support them with couple of salamanders. Why should they be universally effective? They are absolutely devastating against anything with 4+ or worse save and still pretty good against 3+. You are talking like a unit requiring support to be better is something bad. Once again, suprisingly, this unit needs support to to damage. You can make them hit on 2's rerolling 1's and wound on 2's as long as you have enough CP. Most of tier B and worse factions would kill for such battleline unit. Of course, they are not phoenix guard, but they are still 4 attack per model in Koatl's claw. If you want rend, there's battalions, if you want +to-wound, there's a sunblood. Most of behemoths in AoS are easy to kill, that's why we don't see much of them, only a chosen few. The key is to chose engagements carefully and don't rush to where it will die. I almost always manage to strike carnosaur in full health or with a couple of wounds lost. The thing is, Carnosaurs are good second/third wave of attack, not the frontline. When I play saurus lists, my main lines are often wiped out by turn 3, but my opponent is also weared out and they cannot do a thing to carnosaurs, who easily chew through their remains. In the last game, I lost all my knights, while my opponent had chaos lord on new beastie, sorc on manticore and 20 knights. I wiped all the above with just two carnosaurs left. Chaos Lord charged and brought Scarvet to 4 wounds, than carno activated and killed full-health sorc on manticore. For just 210-230 carnosaurs are at least good monster choice. We just have better. Trog has fine abilities. It just have bad combat profile I'd say, it is fine, if it still had 6 jaw attacks. I'd be taking him more often if he was about 160 pts, but not for current price. Rippers are indeed in a poor place. They should've had at least +1 attack or additional claw profile or more tricks. Once per game full reroll to-hit it just poor. They could at least chose an enemy units to which toad would stick to and any ripper units will have rerolls against these units. As for terradons, they are not just good, they are one of our best units. They don't need to have better save, they are not about survivability. They are literally bombers. Once again, you are complaining that a unit needs a support to be good. But this is natural in aos. I think, NPE is born exactly when there are a lot of units which don't need support at all. Salamanders don't need +1 to-hit to remove units. 3+ to-hit is often more than enough. You can add +1 when you need badly to remove something, but they don't need it to be good. Sorry, but you sound like you don't want our units to be good or okay-ish. You want them to be broken and just play point-and-click game, where our units just go and delete stuff without need of heroes/battalions. Seraphon always have been around synergies and that's why I love them. You literally say, that good lumineth/orruk/cos player will easily beat bad seraphon player, which is kind of natural. Seraphon are better than Lumineth and Orruks and CoS standard build is a counter. If we are talking about skilled players, it will go down to battleplan, dice and micro-mistakes. Mid-tier seraphon player with a competitive list will crush mid-tier player which pilots any aforementioned army.
I like Saurus Guard. I actually did a TTS game with 20-30 (forget how much exactly) and a Sunblood in Koatl's Claw vs Skaven. a 5 man squad is 21 attacks , 2+2+ -1, 1dmg clubs and bites. They held out quite well, even against a full melee Boneripper (my opponent did roll horribley though. IN terms of weaknesses, I would say it's the following: Lack of 2" range Eternity Warden doesn't synergize well with Saurus Guard. (It's CA is literally a worse version of the Old Bloods CA and you can get the +1 to hit from the CA from KC) No battalion. That being said, still a good unit. Saurus Warriors sure are a point of contention here. I honestly like them. As previously mentioned, they tarpit, which is fine. With the proper buffs, you can make a 20 lizard cohort do 23 damage on average to a 4+ save. I think part of the issue with Saurus is just how melee in AoS works. Maybe you could redesign them with 2 wounds and change the price a bit, but as mentioned I think they do quite OK. Yup! Big scary monster for 210-230 is a solid deal. Trog does have a poor combat profile, but imo what it really needs is a CA. It does not synergize very well with much in our armies. It's just a strange bit of design since it's a really unique hero but is the only hero in our army that doesn't have a CA. Honestly, I just don't like the design philosophy of making Rippers cheap flyers. I really wish they were much more devastating, but at a higher point cost, like our old ones. They have the highest point to real $$ value of all of our units, it's a bit silly. 100% agreed.