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**auticus**

So as I said above, a slaan with astrolith is going to be getting 11-13 summoning points a turn.

A player with a working pulse and capability to draw breath will keep a wall between his slaan and anything that can hurt it.

Getting 22-26 points by turn 2, I am betting my house bastilladon are on there for 18-24 points. If I'm minmaxing summoning you bet that I'm going to try to pump out as many bastilladon as I can (or engines of the gods) so feasible to do 2-3 a game extra.

EDIT: yeah turns 2,3, and 4 I can pump out a bastilladon if they are 18 points to summon (my guess that they will be 18).

At least this is what the three seraphon players here did before they capped summoning with reinforcement points. Each one had 4-5 in their collection purely to summon because they are that good and this system is... well... makes the choice for you in my opinion. Yeah slaan stop getting their other spells but getting two free bastilladon in the game will be worth 3-4 turns of no casting anything else with them, particularly when they can still get skink wizards to cast other things. And stopping this will not be trivial.

Nurgle contagion points are a lot more difficult to pull off and it takes 28 points to summon a greater demon which in my games takes about 4 turns to get. I put a bastilladon as in the same realm as a greater demon.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The natural counter to this is... spamming mortal wounds.

**Valander**

First glance at the Seraphon summoning feels "fluffy and kinda neat," but I'm sure it will be open to abuse. I do hope that Ripperdactyls are appropriately pointed and cost a lot to summon, and hope Bastilodons are really expensive because that's a lot of (currently very efficient) points to deal with.

Interesting, too, that they seem to have limited it to Slaan, not Skink Starpriests, etc.

**Hulksmash**

Yeah, I'm a lizard player and I'm a bit worried about it. I currently keep about 240+ points already to summon in my list. So even if the slaan goes up significantly (because I haz one of those too) I'm still going to be way ahead. Add in that like Auticus said I can easily add 80-120pts per turn if I take the little stuff or probably 240+ pts in 2 turns is kinda nuts. Yes, it's "only" 400-600pts extra per game and a bump of 100pts on the slaan will eat into that but that's still significant. I'm really hope we see a drop in non summoning armies units kinda across the board. My Ironjawz are going to need it

**Lemondish**

Hulksmash wrote:
Yeah, I'm a lizard player and I'm a bit worried about it. I currently keep about 240+ points already to summon in my list. So even if the slaan goes up significantly (because I haz one of those too) I'm still going to be way ahead. Add in that like Auticus said I can easily add 80-120pts per turn if I take the little stuff or probably 240+ pts in 2 turns is kinda nuts. Yes, it's "only" 400-600pts extra per game and a bump of 100pts on the slaan will eat into that but that's still significant. I'm really hope we see a drop in non summoning armies units kinda across the board. My Ironjawz are going to need it

Is it really worth spending over 400 points on a Slann and an Astrolith Bearer to act as summon batteries just to summon 400 points worth of other units? Seems like a minor benefit with a major list building limitation.

**auticus**

What are three bastilladons worth? Because my answer would always be "yes yes and yes" to your question is it really worth taking to be able to get 3 extra bastilladon in a game on top of whatever else I pay for. Particularly if your opponent is casual and didn't spam out on mortal wounds. Those bastilladon are almost impossible to move without mortal wound spam.

**EnTyme**

If you let the enemy's slann live long enough to summon 3 bastilladons (which I would imagine will take at least 4 turns), you deserve to lose that game.

**auticus**

Most of the seraphon players I know keep their slaan tucked nicely in the back.

You can kill the slaan if you take a lot of high quality ranged shots or have access to ranged mortal wounds. If you don't have much of either of those two things, you are likely going to have a very "fun" afternoon.

**Lemondish**

auticus wrote:
What are three bastilladons worth? Because my answer would always be "yes yes and yes" to your question is it really worth taking to be able to get 3 extra bastilladon in a game on top of whatever else I pay for. Particularly if your opponent is casual and didn't spam out on mortal wounds. Those bastilladon are almost impossible to move without mortal wound spam.

I think expecting 3 is pretty exaggerated, no? I really doubt you'll be able to summon 3 in a game. We don't even know if it's an available option on the summon list yet lol

Though I imagine it will be.

auticus wrote:
Most of the seraphon players I know keep their slaan tucked nicely in the back.

You can kill the slaan if you take a lot of high quality ranged shots or have access to ranged mortal wounds. If you don't have much of either of those two things, you are likely going to have a very "fun" afternoon.

Then the summoned units come in nicely in the back, far away from the fighting.

**Valander**

Combined with the (current) Seraphon allegiance ability to teleport things anywhere on the battlefield, doesn't mean much for Bastilodons being summoned in the back.

Edit: yes, you'd summon at the end of the movement phase now according to what they've previewed, but still not as big a "problem"

**auticus**

Three bastilladon are what you get with what we know and with bastilladon being 18 points to summon.

They revealed up to 12 points. Its not a huge stretch to put bastilladon at 18 points as the next tier up from what they revealed.

At 18 points you can get one in turn 2, turn 3, and turn 5.
Slaan gets 11-13 points a turn or 12 on average. Kroak gets 13-15 points a turn or 14 on average.

Turn 1 - 12 pts
Turn 2 - 24 pts (then 18 on bastilladon #1) leaves 6
Turn 3 - 18 pts (bastilladon #2)
Turn 4 - 12 pts
Turn 5 - 30 pts (bastilladon #3)

Considering that a bastilladon has its 2+ save that really can't be modified and 12 wounds, they hold up quite a bit (I have yet to see a seraphon player not buy 2 of them in their army not even counting summoning). You use them to tie up whatever nasty melee units they can and push the saurus line to hold lighter units.

Now cast mystic shield on your bastilladon as well so they are re-rolling ones (new mystic shield) and you have the 2++ bastilladon that ignores rend, and you want as many as you can get on the table because they are the ultimate tanking unit.

The counter to this is you have to have a lot of ranged attacks to hit the slaan and you need ranged mortal wounds en masse.

A teleporting stormcast army won't really sweat much of this.

I had to fight this army last year in our patth to glory finals (narrative, so no matched play limitation on summoning) and it was a beast. Lord Kroak was summoned in turn 5 on doubles and won him the game single handedly but I ended up killing 3 bastilladons and had a 4th down to half its wounds.

Those by themselves held most of my army up (nurgle).

**Lemondish**

Valander wrote:
Combined with the (current) Seraphon allegiance ability to teleport things anywhere on the battlefield, doesn't mean much for Bastilodons being summoned in the back.

Edit: yes, you'd summon at the end of the movement phase now according to what they've previewed, but still not as big a "problem"

No, of course not. Still a benefit. But now all these points you spent, spells you sacrificed, command abilities you let rot in the back corner, all to try to ensure you could summon a Bastilidon or two probably could have gone towards fielding a Bastilidon or two right away instead. I think the summoning is strong because it's flexible and you can get what you need when you need it, but the way some folks are carrying on it looks an awful lot like they see this as a legitimate strategy. Rush to summon, and keep doing it throughout the game. Building an army so you can summon what you need when you need it seems flexible and valuable. Building an army around a Slann and a couple Bearers just so they always summon two or more Bastilidons is kinda silly to me since it costs more in points than just bringing the two dinos in the first place.

**auticus**

Building an army around a Slann and a couple Bearers just so they always summon two Bastilidons is kinda silly to me since it costs more in points than just bringing the dinos in the first place.

It enables you to keep a points advantage over your opponent unless he is also summoning, which can be a significant advantage.

Its a rare game that I've ever seen in GW universe where the army that summons the most points loses the game.

**Hulksmash**

To answer your question Lemondish I'm already generally spending 400pts on the ability to reroll all hits on my warriors (I run 2 packs of 40), dispell 3 spells, summon units that cost points, and to fling 2 units around the board willy nilly. Now I get to get my approximately 80 extra points back (i normally summoned the astrolith) and I get to summon between 400-600pts per game? Yes please.

Also I will admit I tend to play in an area that will have some line of sight blocking and unless you're running 30"shooting my Slaan is normally pretty good.

Additionally I can sling my astrolith up the table, plant his staff and summon from him. That's pretty amazing turn 1 or 2 pressure. Especially if I've already flung 80 Saurus at you.

**Valander**

Hm. Just thought of another thing that could be nasty with summoning in general, and Bastilodons in particular.

Normally you're limited to X number of Behemoths, etc. I'm betting summoned units do not apply to those limits (they don't now), so could be a semi-cheesy way to get far more than you can normally take.

**EnTyme**

auticus wrote:
Three bastilladon are what you get with what we know and with bastilladon being 18 points to summon.

They revealed up to 12 points. Its not a huge stretch to put bastilladon at 18 points as the next tier up from what they revealed.

At 18 points you can get one in turn 2, turn 3, and turn 5.
Slaan gets 11-13 points a turn or 12 on average. Kroak gets 13-15 points a turn or 14 on average.

Turn 1 - 12 pts
Turn 2 - 24 pts (then 18 on bastilladon #1) leaves 6
Turn 3 - 18 pts (bastilladon #2)
Turn 4 - 12 pts
Turn 5 - 30 pts (bastilladon #3)

Considering that a bastilladon has its 2+ save that really can't be modified and 12 wounds, they hold up quite a bit (I have yet to see a seraphon player not buy 2 of them in their army not even counting summoning). You use them to tie up whatever nasty melee units they can and push the saurus line to hold lighter units.

Now cast mystic shield on your bastilladon as well so they are re-rolling ones (new mystic shield) and you have the 2++ bastilladon that ignores rend, and you want as many as you can get on the table because they are the ultimate tanking unit.

The counter to this is you have to have a lot of ranged attacks to hit the slaan and you need ranged mortal wounds en masse.

A teleporting stormcast army won't really sweat much of this.

I had to fight this army last year in our patth to glory finals (narrative, so no matched play limitation on summoning) and it was a beast. Lord Kroak was summoned in turn 5 on doubles and won him the game single handedly but I ended up killing 3 bastilladons and had a 4th down to half its wounds.

Those by themselves held most of my army up (nurgle).

That would be strong, assuming Bastiladons are indeed 18 pts to summon. We don't know that's the case. From what we can see can be summoned for 12 pts, that seems kind of low to me. It's a big leap from Skinks to a Bastiladon. I would assume they would be 24 pts, and if an EotG can be summoned, I'd expect it to cost 30+.

**auticus**

If bastilladons are 24 points it won't be as big a deal yeah.

**Hulksmash**

Going by the points we're seeing I'd bet on them being 24pts. We're seeing units in increments of 40-60pts (currently) per 6pts. So somewhere between 24 and 30pt would be what I'd expect.

**NinthMusketeer**

ERJAK wrote:
auticus wrote:
The -1 to hit charcters coming up in 2.0 is a positive change that I liked, though not far enough, I viewed it as a compromise.

There are pretty much a solid two house rules that I currently insist on to do AOS. Resolve those two issues and have iit so I don't have to houserule anymore and that'd be great:

* shooting through terrain gives a -1 penalty to hit

* shooting into a melee also gives a -1 penalty to hit. I used to have it where you randomized hits into your buddies but then to make it just easier and not need a second roll, the penalty to hit was acceptable. (that was a compromise on my part to at least make it more difficult to hit into combat)

These stack to a max of -3. These have worked for the most part quite well. Most (80% or so) shots are not penalized at all since they are not in cover fully or not in combat. It makes terrain and cover matter a bit, and also influenced lists to not just be static gunlines. Both things I viewed as positive and the campaign guys (not the powergamers that hate houserules) were all for it because it made the game "make more sense" to everyone (there's a reason I've been able to do this for over 20 years, there are a lot of people that like those type of rules, the problem has always been the minmax guys hate houserules but want to do public campaigns for some reason even though they aren't tournaments)

The other issues I have with AOS are their point system and those being broken, with things like focusing on spamming mortal wounds and the like making casual games not fun, but that issue is in every game (powergaming vs casual) so I just accept that as part of needing to screen powergamers out of casual campaigns if they can't reign it in.

I guess if you're not playing competitively(and especially if you're not using points) these would work, but honestly shooting is pretty underwhelming these days. There are only 4 armies that can have shooting as a strategy and 2 of those armies(mixed order and Tzeentch) have stronger builds focusing on combat/magic and the other 2(kharadron and to a MUCH lesser extent Kunnin Ruck) have fallen off massively. Things like Judicators and Kurnoths still see success, but they're not particularly powerful, just consistently useful. In a competitive environment, these changes, especially if they were combined with the other changes this edition, would limit shooting to basically just 1-2 units of skyfires. They also combo with other things oddly. You could make an entire DoK Army -2 up to -4 to shooting from turn 2 on(assuming good terrain, competitively built armies tend to hit combat bottom of 1 top of 2 or sooner depending on the list.) with their characters being -4 or -5 and Morathi topping out at -6. You could get a stardrake to -5 as well.

If it works for your group, more power to ya though.

Auticus' house rules don't cause a problem for shooting in general, they just make it harder to shoot stuff if it is in combat or behind cover. Shooting players have perfectly valid options to shoot without a -3 penalty by not shooting at the thing in combat behind two forests, which was dumb they could do in the first place. If something is not behind terrain and not in combat, no penalty, which is going to be most units most of the time. You are assuming worst case scenario for everything all of the time coupled with stacking explicitly beyond the limit he set, which completely fictional situation that you only invented to make the argument work. Once you clear away the lies it isn't nearly as bad a penalty to shooting.

And again, I raise the question of how well mono-melee armies are performing. It isn't good.

**Kanluwen**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
Auticus' house rules don't cause a problem for shooting in general, they just make it harder to shoot stuff if it is in combat or behind cover. Shooting players have perfectly valid options to shoot without a -3 penalty by not shooting at the thing in combat behind two forests, which was dumb they could do in the first place. If something is not behind terrain and not in combat, no penalty, which is going to be most units most of the time. You are assuming worst case scenario for everything all of the time, which is a completely fictional situation that you only invented to make the argument work. Once you clear away the lies it isn't nearly as strong

Auticus' house rule plus the fact that shooting units trend towards being a 4+ mean that units designed and priced for shooting are seeing a penalty they didn't really need--especially now that characters get an autoderp of a -1 just for being near their own units.

And again, I raise the question of how well mono-melee armies are performing. It isn't good.

It's about to be a hell of a lot better than you think given that shooting units can only target units in 3" of them when they have a unit in 3" of them.

**auticus**

I'll point out once again that these rules are only for narrative campaigns to reflect a narrative environment and are not used for min/max powergaming competitions (tournaments or tournament pick up games or random pick up games using tournament standard rules)

The -1 shooting through terrain actually came from a Warhammer World scenario that I really liked. I used to use a flat you can't shoot through area terrain in my campaigns until I ran across that one.

**NinthMusketeer**

Kanluwen wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:
Auticus' house rules don't cause a problem for shooting in general, they just make it harder to shoot stuff if it is in combat or behind cover. Shooting players have perfectly valid options to shoot without a -3 penalty by not shooting at the thing in combat behind two forests, which was dumb they could do in the first place. If something is not behind terrain and not in combat, no penalty, which is going to be most units most of the time. You are assuming worst case scenario for everything all of the time, which is a completely fictional situation that you only invented to make the argument work. Once you clear away the lies it isn't nearly as strong

Auticus' house rule plus the fact that shooting units trend towards being a 4+ mean that units designed and priced for shooting are seeing a penalty they didn't really need--especially now that characters get an autoderp of a -1 just for being near their own units.

And again, I raise the question of how well mono-melee armies are performing. It isn't good.

It's about to be a hell of a lot better than you think given that shooting units can only target units in 3" of them when they have a unit in 3" of them.

Now you are retroactively applying rules that aren't even current now to house rules he used in the past.

**Marmatag**

dosiere wrote:
There is something terribly immersion/narrative/last string of realism breaking (however you want to describe it) about the shooting and terrain rules in AoS. They’re not generally something that can be explained narratively, it’s just how the rules work. A solid shot cannon ball would potentially be even more indiscrimate in whom it kills than an explosive aimed at the periphery of an engagement.

The terrain and shooting rules are not even pretending to represent what’s happening, they’re simply attacks that happen to be made at range or pretty scenery that has little or no effect on the game. Shooting into an ongoing melee with nearly any weapon is dangerous, Even with modern high velocity and accurate firearms. A bow, from an entire unit of soldiers? There is no hand waiving that except again, it’s just how the rules work.

Which is fine, but let’s stop trying to argue that even a significant minority of shooting weapons in this game makes any kind of narrative sense shooting into a melee at full effect.

Yeah, essentially this. This isn't even an argument.

**auticus**

I got slagged pretty hard on bols the last couple days because of that topic.

**Davor**

auticus wrote:
I got slagged pretty hard on bols the last couple days because of that topic.

BOLS? They still got a forum? Not a joke serious question. Been ages since I have been in the forums since I just read the comment sections. Need to see if I can remember my name and password.

**MalfunctBot**

auticus wrote:
Considering that a bastilladon has its 2+ save that really can't be modified and 12 wounds, they hold up quite a bit (I have yet to see a seraphon player not buy 2 of them in their army not even counting summoning). You use them to tie up whatever nasty melee units they can and push the saurus line to hold lighter units.

Now cast mystic shield on your bastilladon as well so they are re-rolling ones (new mystic shield) and you have the 2++ bastilladon that ignores rend, and you want as many as you can get on the table because they are the ultimate tanking unit.

Arn't Bastiladons 3+ Save with 8 Wounds?

**Glane**

auticus wrote:

Considering that a bastilladon has its 2+ save that really can't be modified and 12 wounds, they hold up quite a bit (I have yet to see a seraphon player not buy 2 of them in their army not even counting summoning). You use them to tie up whatever nasty melee units they can and push the saurus line to hold lighter units.

Bastiladons are 3+ save and 8 wounds. With a 4+ save against any mortal wounds. You can't give them a 2+ save anymore since Mystic Shield has changed.

Yes they are tough. They're also just about the most expensive thing in the book, at 280 points, equal to an Old One on Carnosaur. Their cost in ritual points is therefore likely to be very high.

Plus getting them out requires giving up spells. A Slaan sitting there doing nothing but summoning is a threat to be sure, but so is a Slaan slinging spells around, especially some of the new endless spells. Yes, you can cast and summon, but it's a trade-off; if you give up spells for summoning, you have fewer spells, and if you want to cast spells, you'll have slower summoning.

**Kanluwen**

At this point, I'm just excited to start hucking this at people:

Spoiler:

**Ghaz**

Kanluwen wrote:
At this point, I'm just excited to start hucking this at people:

Spoiler:

I'm assuming that's the 'Suffocating Gravetide' mentioned in the Legions of Nagash article. If I start Nighthaunts it will probably be a go to spell for me as well, even if it doesn't look as impressive as the Purple Sun of Shyish...

Spoiler:

**Kanluwen**

That is indeed the Suffocating Gravetide.

Good news though, it looks like you can have both as hailing from Shyish!

They said there's 13 Endless Spells, which would give you 1 for each of the 8 Realms(Ghyran, Azyr, Hysh, Ulgu, Ghur, Aqshy, Shyish, and Chamon) and space for another 5 to plug in there.
We know the following so far:
Suffocating Gravetide(assuming Shyish)

Spoiler:

Purple Sun(Shyish)
Emerald Lifeswarm(Ghyran--no details beyond that and it restores wounds somehow)
Chronomantic Cogs(probably going to be Hysh, since we've had some timey wimeyness in Hysh before)

Spoiler:

Ravening Jaws(Ghur)
Umbral Spellportal(Ulgu)
Burning Skull(Aqshy)
Crystal Wall-thingy(Probably going to be Hysh as well).

Remains to see how things finally pan out.

**ERJAK**

auticus wrote:
So as I said above, a slaan with astrolith is going to be getting 11-13 summoning points a turn.

A player with a working pulse and capability to draw breath will keep a wall between his slaan and anything that can hurt it.

Getting 22-26 points by turn 2, I am betting my house bastilladon are on there for 18-24 points. If I'm minmaxing summoning you bet that I'm going to try to pump out as many bastilladon as I can (or engines of the gods) so feasible to do 2-3 a game extra.

EDIT: yeah turns 2,3, and 4 I can pump out a bastilladon if they are 18 points to summon (my guess that they will be 18).

At least this is what the three seraphon players here did before they capped summoning with reinforcement points. Each one had 4-5 in their collection purely to summon because they are that good and this system is... well... makes the choice for you in my opinion. Yeah slaan stop getting their other spells but getting two free bastilladon in the game will be worth 3-4 turns of no casting anything else with them, particularly when they can still get skink wizards to cast other things. And stopping this will not be trivial.

Nurgle contagion points are a lot more difficult to pull off and it takes 28 points to summon a greater demon which in my games takes about 4 turns to get. I put a bastilladon as in the same realm as a greater demon.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
The natural counter to this is... spamming mortal wounds.

Based on the value of the other units shown, bastiladons will almost certainly be at least 24pts, if not in the 30 bracket, which is two turns with a non-zero chance it takes three. You can get 2 bastiladons per game assuming there are no further ways to gain points. You could get 3 with Kroak, but Kroak's spells are fairly impactful and not an easy thing to pass up on.

And honestly, your better option is just to kill all his stuff before the second bastiladon comes in. Not terribly hard all said and done.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Marmatag wrote:
dosiere wrote:
There is something terribly immersion/narrative/last string of realism breaking (however you want to describe it) about the shooting and terrain rules in AoS. They’re not generally something that can be explained narratively, it’s just how the rules work. A solid shot cannon ball would potentially be even more indiscrimate in whom it kills than an explosive aimed at the periphery of an engagement.

The terrain and shooting rules are not even pretending to represent what’s happening, they’re simply attacks that happen to be made at range or pretty scenery that has little or no effect on the game. Shooting into an ongoing melee with nearly any weapon is dangerous, Even with modern high velocity and accurate firearms. A bow, from an entire unit of soldiers? There is no hand waiving that except again, it’s just how the rules work.

Which is fine, but let’s stop trying to argue that even a significant minority of shooting weapons in this game makes any kind of narrative sense shooting into a melee at full effect.

Yeah, essentially this. This isn't even an argument.

Yeah, the better argument is 'realism doesn't matter, we have dragons, flying fish monsters, literal daemons, and blimps made out of metal that fly on magic farts.' The idea that you can get past all of that and still be worried about 'muh immersion' is the craziest part. Want an explanation? It's magic. Canonball missed all my guys? Magic. Trees make my armor better? Magic. Plague monk somehow in range to stab an airship? Magic. Not one of those things is any more ridiculous than an 8 breasted ant-eater horse, or a giant wizard vulture, or transforming snake lady or whatever the hell drycha is.

And no, fantasy wasn't any better. In fact, I would argue fantasy was worse thanks to the disconnect between the more grounded setting and the totally fantastical nonsense like Morghasts and Chimera.