Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog, I hope you're all safe and sound in these rather uncertain times. I'm sure like myself you're desperate to be out there at events rolling dice again! Today I'm going to take a look at the Seraphon battletome, I'm lucky enough to have played just over 30 games with the new tome now, a whole 1 game on the physical tabletop and the rest on Tabletop Simulator.
My goal for this article is to give a overview of my thoughts and feelings towards the tome. What I think has been done well, what I think has fallen short (which isn't a lot) and a few of the unfortunate things to come from the tome. With all that said, let's just jump right into it.
Lets kick off with the numerous positive things I have to say about the battletome. The first I'd like to discuss is how they have split the book into the two ways to play the army. The split allows one battletome to take two completely different paths when constructing your lists. The starbourne split very much keeps your old style of play, which keeps those who liked the current play style content. The coalesced brings in a much more Saurus/Behemoth style of play and list building. I think the split between the two was ingenious, essentially giving you two very different ways of playing one battletome. The further divisions in the two different choice of "chapter tactics" only goes to further diversify how you can play the one battletome. A single warscroll takes on different properties depending on what you have chosen, which means for so many different combinations. When you come to list building there is so many different things to try, I have tried both major splits as well as the minor splits and it allows you to have some very different styles of army all from the one battletome which is awesome.
Another very good thing about the book is how deep I think it is, I think bar potentially 2 warscrolls everything in the book has a place where it can shine. This is certainly helped by how many different styles of army you can choose to play. The warscrolls in the Seraphon tome are very average (bar 2 I'd say) and what makes the army cohesive and effective is those "chapter tactics" you add to the army. By having a few choices of how you want to add those warscrolls rules, I'd say you could happily see nearly all of the warscrolls appearing at future events as lists evolve and we see different compositions coming out of the tome. I certainly think the book is a list writers dream, with so much potential for different and exciting lists.
The last major point I'll put out here is I think by nature of how deep the book is with so many different avenues to take your list down it can play at any level. It's very capable of competing for 5-0 at events (I believe) and it's very easy take a honest list, that will just play the game and roll some dice. I suppose you could say any army can do this but I think it's worth that the tome does it very well. It's versatily in how it can perform and play on the table I think will be a boon for it's longevity for players.
One small thing that is something I also really appreciate from the book is the lack of tying you to a specific command trait. You still have to take artefact of power if you decide to take one of the subdivisons of either starbourne or coalasced but the command trait is only if you have a Slann General, for example. That little bit of freedom I find goes a long way in not making you feel less restricted when building lists.
All in all I think the book has been executed extremely well, it gives Seraphon players a extraordinary amount of options to choose from. It retains the core of what the old used to be, builds on it and leaves the player with a ton of good player choice.
Now what do I think is strictly "bad" about the battletome? Well in regards to purely what you want from a battletome, very very little. For all the reasons above I think anyone who prior to the new battletome already played Seraphon and is updating there battletome or any new Seraphon players should be incredibly happy with the new battletome.
For my self I have to bring up the realmshaper engine, which I don't see my self taking to events. I can't believe it was the intent of GW to make faction terrain that is a 50/50 to either help you, or your opponent. The OBR terrain is placed before sides but has no upside to the opponent so it makes sense. If you lose the deployment roll after placing your realm shaper in a deployment you offer a building for your opponent to garrison in. Sadly for me going to events I just won't be bringing it, which is a real shame.
Lastly there is a is a couple of warscrolls, for myself both Saurus Warriors & Skink Oracle on Trogglodon both serem very weak for their points. Saurus Warriors are completely outclassed by Saurus Knights in simply everyway. The trogglodon for it's points remains very lackluster and I have not found a place for him in any of my lists I've wrote. There are certainly some other warscrolls I think will be niche and not seen often, such as the Engine of the Gods, Kroxigor or Ripperdactyls but I can see where I could potentially have some fun or some viability in them. For me the Saurus Warriors & Skink Oracle on Trogglodon sadly won't see any tabletime.
It's a very minor grumble and in reality GW have done very well to keep give so many warscrolls in the tome a place, but sadly I don't see a place for the above two.
I'll kick off with a couple of warscrolls, those being Lord Kroak & Salamander hunting pack. Both of these warscrolls really stand out as being incredibly good for their points. It might be that as the rest of the warscrolls in the book tend to feel fairly average they stand out more but without a doubt these two stand above the rest. Kroak is a absolute monster for his point cost and could probably do with losing a rule or two, I'd had games where he is casting 5 spells a turn at +4 to cast with + 12" range and +3 to unbind 4 spells a turn. He's incredibly resilent, he has a amazing warscroll spell, he gives you command points, he probably does too much. Salamanders raw output damage is just, very very high in both shooting and melee and point for point easily the highest damage output.
More than those warscrolls being very good I think the unfortunate thing is that every hard Seraphon list will contain Kroak and 2 x 3 Salamanders. I'm not sure how hard it would hit the book if both warscrolls took a change but it would potentially help list diversity at future events.
This is my own thoughts and when we get to events I could be totally wrong but I think we will be seeing a lot of the same foundation to the hard Seraphon lists, Kroak, Sallies, Skink Screens and bound endless spells. It would be great to see Kroak & Salamnders potentially given a small change to not be a auto include.
Moving on from that I'd like to talk about bound endless spells, when Malign Sorcery was introduced and we learned how we would interact with endless spells I was really excited. The more I have played with and against endless spells the more I love the interaction between players it brings in regards to the initiative roll. It can make a player think twice about taking a double turn, it can punish a player for positioning his own spell poorly, it can force a player to not take a double with one of your own well placed spells. Bound endless spells are completely non interactive and double down on the problem of endless spells blocking movement. I have played a few lists with multiple bound endlesss spells and have some feel bads for my opponents come form it. For an example in one I placed the Purple Sun, Geminids, Gnashing Jaws and Palisade in front of my opponent. The turn roll came about and no longer was there interesting discussion about the movement of the endless spells, I could take the turn with no penalty if I win the roll. On top of that I could simply leave my wall of spells in place and my opponent couldn't move them, regardless of who won the roll. I quite like the idea of the Slann being such masters of magic they can control them but sadly on the table it really can lead to some stinky "ermm well okay, I can't do anything about that" situations.
The only other thing I'd like to talk about is how some of the Seraphon armies can play. As I said above I think the harder armies will consist of skinks screens, bound endless spells, kroak, slanns and salamanders. I have played a lot with a mix of shooting and magic in my lists and I think armies taken from the starbourne split, which will focus around the hero and shooting phase may not be the most engaging armies to play against. Comets Call, the warscroll spell for Slann & Kroak allows you to pick models anywhere on the table, on a very reliable spell casting platform. It's very good at simply picking off heroes in a turn or two, with a lot of the time very little counter play from the opponent. Stellar Tempest a spell from the lore allows you to pick a unit within 24" (which can easily be 36") and roll a dice for each model in the unit, on a 5+ it causes a mortal wound. When paired with comets call, a Slann can easily put out 20 mortal wounds in a hero phase. Bound endless spells certainly don't help the issue, with you being able to block movement of your opponent when they get close. This is all paired with the shooting of Salamnders, which is incredibly reliable (2+ re-rolling 1s / 3s). I have had some games with my current "hard" list where opponents have felt pretty helpless. The list is as follows -
Allegiance: Seraphon
- Constellation: Dracothion's Tail
LEADERS
Lord Kroak (320)
- Spell : Stellar Tempest
Slann Starmaster (260)
- General
- Command Trait : Ancient Knowledge
- Artefact : Godbeast Pendant
- Spell : Celestial Apotheosis
- Ancient Knowledge Spell : Stellar Tempest
Skink Starseer (140)
- Spell : Hand of Glory
Skink Priest (70)
Saurus Astrolith Bearer (140)
UNITS
10 x Skinks (60)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (60)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (60)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
10 x Skinks (60)
- Meteoric Javelins Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers
5 x Saurus Guard (100)
12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240)
12 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240)
ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Bound Balewind Vortex (50)
Bound Geminids of Uhl-Gysh (70)
Bound The Burning Head (40)
Bound Purple Sun of Shyish (60)
Prismatic Palisade (30)
The list has multiple screens, it has protection for the incredible casting base via saurus guard, it has endless spells to block movement and it has a very very high damage output. The list can completely dominate the hero phase and it can manipulate the opponents movement phase via endlesss spells or simply being pushed out of zones by skinks (which can be replenished by summoning).
It can feel very opressive and I have certainly had opponents that have said they have very little to do with the actual game. It's worth noting that this issue is probably limited to the harder lists and the battletome is very capable of making honest lists that just want to run at you and charge.
Well that's my rundown complete, overall I want to end on a very positive feeling towards the battletome. GW have produced a excellent book which will give new and old Seraphon players a absolute ton of different choices to make when it comes to lists. There is just so many different ways to play the battletome you can absolutely find something for your self regardless of your own playstyle.
The battletome has managed to keeps it's old identity while evolving as a battletome to explore different ways to play. I think GW have smashed it out the park and I'm extremely happy with it! I still have so many different things I want to try and I can't wait to see all the dinos when we head out to events again.
Thank you so much for reading, until next time.
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