Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

I'm a long time 40k player but haven't touched the warhammer fantasy side of things since I had a collection of WHFB models as a kid. Recently I inherited a small amount of Seraphon models from a friend who is getting out of tabletop gaming and I always wanted a WHFB lizardmen army and so I was thinking of fixing up the models and turning it into an AOS force. So I guess my questions are these: How many additional models would I need for a competent force focusing on Saurus? What's a good starting size? What books do I need to get to play AOS and Seraphon?

The models I have now:

-The old metal Kroq-Gar on carnosaur model (he's a bit small compared to the new carnosaur model, can I still use this as something? I really love this sculpt)
-1 hero on cold one
-1 old metal kroxigor
-10 Saurus warriors with spears
-8 saurus warriors with clubs/swords
-8 saurus temple guard (full command included)
--12-20 or so skinks

Any help would be much appreciated. I've admired AOS from afar for a while now and I've heard good things but never knew where to start.

Feel free to use　him as carnosaurus. Official model. If you are worried about size put him on base that has some elevation.

Obviously going to need more saurus warriorsand start collecting box could be good for that. Cavalry seems to be tricky to use　so might not be that beginner friendly.

For　skinks i would try to get at least 20 or 30. Small cheap chaff/screen/objective holder i find very valuable.　in fang of sotek subfaction they can also nuke things away quickly but that might take force more to skinks.

Slanns are pretty awesome. Bastiladon's can be fun with effective 2++ until degraded. Slap in mystic shield and nothing short of mw will scare it.

For units try to get units to multiples of 10 or 5(temple guard, cavalry)

Salamanders are atm current hotness.

That's great news! Even though I'm going to have to pin that heavy pewter model, there's a lot of nostalgia in that model for me and I really want to paint it up, I'll just do more elaborate basing to give him a similar profile and give my opponent the benefit of the doubt on LOS.

Ok so just going off battlescribe here would something like this work for a 1500pt army to start? Not sure how people approach list building in AOS

-Scar Veteran on Carnosaur (Kroq-Gar)
-Slann Starmaster

-Bastiladon with solar engine

-30 Saurus warriors with spears
-10 Saurus Temple Guard
-10 Skinks with boltspitters/clubs
-10 Skinks with boltspitters/clubs

-3 Terradons

Overall that's 1470pts and I would just need to buy the start collecting skinks box, a box of saurus warriors, and a slann.

Seems decent enough start to me. Solid saurus block, some skirmish screen or objective grabber and while terradons look bit off value of quick small unit cannot be dismissed. I just saw 6 gryph-hounds being used neatly by using their　special rule to do surprising fast move and steal objective that seemed safe. Unit that punches like wet tissue paper baslcally clinched the game.

In game remember it's about objectives rather than killing. If you can get more objectives by sacrificing your army do it

Ok that's good to know! Also, I only included the terradons because they come in the start collecting skinks box and I would want to use every model I get if possible. Are they not considered a good unit in general or just better at higher points in larger units? Or are the Ripperdactyls just better? It would be more models to buy but if I dropped the terradons I could add in a unit of three kroxigors. Would that be worth doing instead at 1500pts or should I just use the Terradons?

Bare in mind that's going to be the competitive opinion, if you are just playing casual games they'll be fine.

I don't think they are bad. Reiterating　small fast units have value of their own. Just keep in mind 3 aren't going to be killiest stuff out there and throwing them into enemy at first opportunity will dissapoint you quick.

Use them to take distant objectives or force enemy to react to threat of that.

Btw if you take starborn　variants you'll need unit or two extra's for summoning. Other is Coalesce which isn't that bad idea with saurus heavy to begin with. -1 damage per attack　vs them is pretty strong and extra bite attack works very well with saurus. So odds are you want coalesced

tneva82 wrote:
I don't think they are bad. Reiterating　small fast units have value of their own. Just keep in mind 3 aren't going to be killiest stuff out there and throwing them into enemy at first opportunity will dissapoint you quick.

Use them to take distant objectives or force enemy to react to threat of that.

Btw if you take starborn　variants you'll need unit or two extra's for summoning. Other is Coalesce which isn't that bad idea with saurus heavy to begin with. -1 damage per attack　vs them is pretty strong and extra bite attack works very well with saurus. So odds are you want coalesced

Plus, no matter what pts you play at, it's never a bad idea to have several extra units. That way you can mix things up & not play the exact same list game after game after game....
And sometimes? Regardless of anyone elses opinion on a unit? Sometimes you'll just find that one unit you simply enjoy having on the table. Maybe that's Terradons/Ripperdactyls for you....

So get both the kroxigors & Terra/Rippers.

ccs wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
I don't think they are bad. Reiterating　small fast units have value of their own. Just keep in mind 3 aren't going to be killiest stuff out there and throwing them into enemy at first opportunity will dissapoint you quick.

Use them to take distant objectives or force enemy to react to threat of that.

Btw if you take starborn　variants you'll need unit or two extra's for summoning. Other is Coalesce which isn't that bad idea with saurus heavy to begin with. -1 damage per attack　vs them is pretty strong and extra bite attack works very well with saurus. So odds are you want coalesced

Plus, no matter what pts you play at, it's never a bad idea to have several extra units. That way you can mix things up & not play the exact same list game after game after game....
And sometimes? Regardless of anyone elses opinion on a unit? Sometimes you'll just find that one unit you simply enjoy having on the table. Maybe that's Terradons/Ripperdactyls for you....

So get both the kroxigors & Terra/Rippers.

Oh yeah that too Though he seems to want to start slowly for now which is understandable.

But no need to tell me about variety ;-) I rarely play same army and for ogors for example once the christmast bundle comes I can play 3 or 4 different types of list or mix of those...For stormcasts I'm going to have about 7k stuff so can be switching things around My most restrained army is lumineth and that's because GW hasn't given much variety to begin with...

But in game cheap fast units you can sacrifice have value of their own. Biggest issue those would have is deployment drops but if you deem you are going to lose that anyway you can actually go full out and swarm the board with small units. Small units won't generally KILL much(though for shooty units less criticical than melee units on how big you are) but they are great for grabbing objectives, blocking enemy movement etc. That's why 10 strong skink units are also pretty useful to have around.

Also that deadly cargo CAN be used to hunt down support characters...Another threat you force enemy to take account into. If you face lumineth for example getting rid of calthallar would be tremendously valuable(doubly so if she's opponent's general and he's using syar subfaction as that calthallar will basically render your carnosaurus hero impotent).

Thank you all for the helpful advice! It's definitely going to be a while until I can actually play AOS with anyone but this gives me a new hobby project to plan out so when that day finally comes I can be fully painted and ready to go!

Also I'm glad the terradons are usable because I really enjoy those models.

Looking at what I already have again I've realized that I have 28 skinks, so with the skinks start collecting box I would have an even 40 skinks, so maybe it would be worth leaning into the skink side of things? Are they worth running as coalesced or is it better to be running skinks as starborn? Or would it be simpler to just do a saurus heavy coalesced force with 3-4 units of skinks to take objectives and such?

 TheArchmagos wrote:
Thank you all for the helpful advice! It's definitely going to be a while until I can actually play AOS with anyone but this gives me a new hobby project to plan out so when that day finally comes I can be fully painted and ready to go!

Also I'm glad the terradons are usable because I really enjoy those models.

Looking at what I already have again I've realized that I have 28 skinks, so with the skinks start collecting box I would have an even 40 skinks, so maybe it would be worth leaning into the skink side of things? Are they worth running as coalesced or is it better to be running skinks as starborn? Or would it be simpler to just do a saurus heavy coalesced force with 3-4 units of skinks to take objectives and such?

Nice thing is if you have models you can use either as you feel. For skink heavy fangs of sotek subfaction is pretty sweet though and that's starborn. However skinks can be used both as huge shooting threat as fangs of sotek or as small chaff unit so either way won't go waste.

Ooh nice, both sound fun, although I went ahead and got the battletome to scope stuff out, and it seems like Starborne requires you to have a larger collection to really make the most of summoning? I think it's cool but perhaps I will lean more into the Saurus side of things and start with coalesced then, using the skinks as flanking chaff.

If I get the skink start collecting box and a box of saurus then I would have:

-Kroq-Gar
-skink priest
-40 skinks
-30 saurus warriors with spears
-bastilodon
-3 terradons or ripperdactyls
-5 temple guard

From there I could get the saurus start collecting, and since I have another 4 spare saurus to go with the 16 it gives you I could make another unit of 20. My ,main questions would be, is it best to build another saurus hero on carnosaur or a skink oracle on troglodon, and since you have to run the knights in multiples of 5, what do people do with the awkward 8 it gives you?

 TheArchmagos wrote:
and since you have to run the knights in multiples of 5, what do people do with the awkward 8 it gives you?

Buy two more off EBay.

No, really, I'm serious.

Wait they really give you 8? What was the thinking behind that?

hobojebus wrote:
Wait they really give you 8? What was the thinking behind that?

Old box, old sprues that were designed for fb where 8 was fine and no need to be in groups of 5. Now i don't know how sprues are designed but if they are in 4 per sprue only dividable by 5 would be 20.

Also standard marketing practice for GW which started in WHFB days. Units were fielded in multiples of 5, but they'd sell 20mm based infantry in sets of 16, and 25mm x 50mm cavalry in sets of 8. IIRC, large cav was a set of 3, as were Trolls, Kroxigors and other large infantry models.

tneva82 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Wait they really give you 8? What was the thinking behind that?

Old box, old sprues that were designed for fb where 8 was fine and no need to be in groups of 5. Now i don't know how sprues are designed but if they are in 4 per sprue only dividable by 5 would be 20.

I thought they'd stopped that for aos though, if that's the case you'd of thought they'd go with groups of four given its unlikely they will get new models in the next few years.

 Ancestral Hamster wrote:
Also standard marketing practice for GW which started in WHFB days. Units were fielded in multiples of 5, but they'd sell 20mm based infantry in sets of 16, and 25mm x 50mm cavalry in sets of 8. IIRC, large cav was a set of 3, as were Trolls, Kroxigors and other large infantry models.

tneva82 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Wait they really give you 8? What was the thinking behind that?

Old box, old sprues that were designed for fb where 8 was fine and no need to be in groups of 5. Now i don't know how sprues are designed but if they are in 4 per sprue only dividable by 5 would be 20.

In fb you didn't field units in multiples of x.you　had minimum size but then could field how many you wished adding　by model. Ergo　16 was fine. You could field and pay 16. Not like　in aos where you do buy them in multiples of　5.

Fb 8 cavalry you were able to use　8. Or 6 or 7 and convert yourself character or 2. You didn't waste the 3

Yikes, that's annoying they don't just let you run units in increments of 4 to account for the box. I guess I won't really be able to take advantage of the extra one I have lying around, but apart from that 2 boxes of knights seems like the sweet spot then so I can make 3 units of 5 and 1 hero if I go for cavalry.

Also, what are people's thoughts on endless spells in Seraphon? Should I steer clear of them to start or is it worth looking into them for larger games when I add in a slaann and stuff?

People tend to like Geminids, Balewind Vortex (specifically with Kroak), and (I think) Burning Head. We don't get any special ones, but we are allowed to bring "bound" versions that are pricier but harder to get rid of.

Definitely go for having Slann first, and I would highly recommend Kroak as he's one of the most powerful spellcasters in the game.

 TheArchmagos wrote:
Yikes, that's annoying they don't just let you run units in increments of 4 to account for the box. I guess I won't really be able to take advantage of the extra one I have lying around, but apart from that 2 boxes of knights seems like the sweet spot then so I can make 3 units of 5 and 1 hero if I go for cavalry.

Also, what are people's thoughts on endless spells in Seraphon? Should I steer clear of them to start or is it worth looking into them for larger games when I add in a slaann and stuff?

Endless Spells? Definitely worth looking into.

16 was fine

In theory. minimum rank to get rank bonus was 4 models, so "practical" minimum was 5 per rank to avoid losing rank bonus right away with just one dead. It made more sense to field 15 than full 16 you got in the box. GW always liked to give you barely enough

Cronch wrote:

16 was fine

In theory. minimum rank to get rank bonus was 4 models, so "practical" minimum was 5 per rank to avoid losing rank bonus right away with just one dead. It made more sense to field 15 than full 16 you got in the box. GW always liked to give you barely enough

Well, no, until the rank bonus was changed from 4 per rank to 5 per rank, people still ranked in 4s. It wasn't until the rules required 5 to be a rank that people started ranking up by 5s. Before that, the only time width became an oddity is when you could fit 5 men in the space your opponent could only fit 4, as only the first rank (and Ranked Weapons) could do any actual fighting. Then it got interesting when ranks of 10 gained a bonus for those Slaves and Zombies users.

Cronch wrote:

16 was fine

In theory. minimum rank to get rank bonus was 4 models, so "practical" minimum was 5 per rank to avoid losing rank bonus right away with just one dead. It made more sense to field 15 than full 16 you got in the box. GW always liked to give you barely enough

If you lost 1 you had +2. In 5x3 you had +2 until you lost 2 at which point it was +1 while 4x4 start after 2 casualties was still +2 ;-)

And yes it was that issue but expecting you to get full unit with spares was always optimistic. Don't think there was single box where 1 box was all you needed. But at least you could always use it.

Of course then they made rank bonus 5 big and 16 boxes lost appeal...But at least since you could always adjust by model you could do some weirdo numbers. During 5th ed 17 strong night goblin units for example were a thing. I used 21 high elf spears regularly, 33 strong units existed...Much more flexible and box sizes were less of issue.

I recall some frequency of 6-wide units who wanted a wider frontage for offensive purposes. 18 and 24-man being common as they tended not to be low point cost.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I recall some frequency of 6-wide units who wanted a wider frontage for offensive purposes. 18 and 24-man being common as they tended not to be low point cost.

Yep. That was time when corner diagonically gave you attack. So when opponent was 4 model wide offensive units that rely more on kills than ranks wanted to be 6. When you needed actually touch front to front rather than corners touching you went for 5 vs 4 and slide partially.

Or 7 vs 5 in 8e with same principle.

Call me a thread necromancer (the choice was between Seraphon and a death army for me anyway), but all this talk of ranks brings up another question for me. I'm probably going to go for a coalesced force to begin with using Koatl's Claw so my army will most likely be a backbone of Saurus supported by some mages, beasties, and flanking/screening skinks. What's the best way to run saurus warriors? I gather spears are better than clubs because you can get more models to attack that way (and I like the spear models better anyway), but are they best run as 2-3 blobs of 20, 2 blobs of 30, a single blob of 40? I'm sure each of those have a place in specific lists, but for a novice like myself who wants to make a generally well rounded list, what should I go for?

 TheArchmagos wrote:
Call me a thread necromancer (the choice was between Seraphon and a death army for me anyway), but all this talk of ranks brings up another question for me. I'm probably going to go for a coalesced force to begin with using Koatl's Claw so my army will most likely be a backbone of Saurus supported by some mages, beasties, and flanking/screening skinks. What's the best way to run saurus warriors? I gather spears are better than clubs because you can get more models to attack that way (and I like the spear models better anyway), but are they best run as 2-3 blobs of 20, 2 blobs of 30, a single blob of 40? I'm sure each of those have a place in specific lists, but for a novice like myself who wants to make a generally well rounded list, what should I go for?

2 20man units should work.
It gives you the flexibility of doing multiple things vs just 1 unit/1 task.
Flexibility of deployment
Might work/be necessary to qualify for some battalion (don't know, as I don't own the book)
Easier to move about the table.

But if you have all the models anyways? Try out both combos. See what works best for you.

With a spears unit there is good incentive to max out on size and get the most out of the size-scaling buffs. But on the other hand their jaws are only 1" and there will be a not-insignificant amount of offense coming from that which encourages MSU more.

Interesting points, I do like the idea of aiming for two units of 20 to start with at smaller point games like 1250-1500 (I will probably be starting with one 30 man blob at 1000pts first due to model limitations), and I do like the idea of buffing larger units of spears to make the most of the command abilities, but would it be worth maybe assembling a couple minimum units of 10 with clubs? It seems that with the coalesced battalion for saurus giving extra rend to their jaws small units would get the most out of it. If I'm really leaning heavy into the saurus at 2000pts I could have two big blobs of spears to get buffs and two minimum units of 10 with clubs to be more independent distraction troops.