9th Age Saurian characters!

Hey guys!

Rumour has it that our Cowboys dont see much use in 9th do to the price increase, so I was wondering:

How are you running yours?

I for am a fan of the

Saurian veteran
- Armour of Destiny
- Hardened shield
- Carnosaur

build in a Path of Nature list, which is a tough tough combat unit!
Havnt tried cowboys yet, and was wondering if any of you guys have some interesting builds (or, if you find them a totaly bad choice as it is)

lend me your thoughts and I will pass the info on

 

I don't have a build (as I don't have enough miniatures for an army and no Sauruss) but I througt the oldaladin from the 8ed was intresting and I wanted to convert one so I wonder if it is a possible build, it would be cool to have. Sorry if this is a trend higjack

//Essmir

 

I am currently building a list with a flying old blood so I can get back at you on how it worked for me !

 

Scar Veteran
Shield
Great Weapon
Taurosaur Helm

I usually put him in an unit of Saurian Warriors. It's not a very powerful build but I like the heavy hitting aspect since I don't have Caimans in my army yet and he usually tips combat resolution in my favour with kills against most infantry units.

 

its rally nice that the Taurosaur helmet has been taken down to its current point value! makes it possible for potions

 

Since I have a lot of people who play Warriors in my gaming group, our Saurus characters are just not worth the points. Our Lord costs the same as theirs and was free points in challenges. Weapon skill 8, with 5 attacks and super high initiative also, They do not even need to give them a mark or items. I also tried the a saurus vet on a baby carnosaur and they would take the manticore, (which is the same as a baby carno but can fly) so I kind of lost out there because of positioning. It was very easy for him to get flank charges and other tricks.

That being said, our skink characters are awesome now. Skink cowboys are crazy good.

It might be bias but I think our Saurus characters got the short end of the stick. The only thing that made them even viable in 8th were them being cowboys. I know SA are supposed to be rule the magic phase, but I hate taking a Slaan. Using a skink high priest now is nice, but then our Saurus characters are meh.

 

I agree that our characters got the fuzzy end of the lollipop, especially against Warriors which should be an easy measuring stick, we lose out in stats, special rules, options, etc all for the same cost. I don't bring a saurus lord anymore because of that, and rarely bring saurus heroes either which is frustrating since I loved using them before.

Also more of a vent, but Warriors chosen are totally broke, what rules team in their right mind decided to give them super marks for 3pts? so a 18pt model has 3 WS6 S6 I5 attacks, that is ludicrous.

 

My scarnosaur havnt been used for much more than a sheperd hound forcing enemy units around the table...but boy is he good at it!

He hasnt let me down in combat yet, except when he got into a bunch of 3++ sword dancers... Rubberjaws!

 

I only play Dual Carno lists, and while they have been improved generally speaking they are still nothing compared to the Lord/Hero choices in the Warriors book. The lord on alpha carno is nice, but you really need to invest in support for it to make it worth your while. You basically have to use the -1 to hit aura talisman, you basically have to include a Stegadon with Godly Engine for the 6+ in combat/5++ against ranged. And still, a 3+/5++ at best is not that very good for a 480+- points Lord. The nerfed Stubborn helm is also really meh for its points (1 CC turn really?) and you have to pick targets even more carefully than in 8th. Used to be able to charge it into combat, let the Carno die but stay stubborn and basically tarpit that unit for ever with that 2/3+ 4++ save and a minimum of attacks.

The Saurus Veteran on Carno is also very nice with a 2+ 4++. I do feel that 4 wounds is a tad low, because mass shooting will either kill it quickly or render it nearly unuseable with 1 wound left.

I do like the addition of Staff of Mending enchanted item (or has it name changed already?). Gives you a way to heal up big monsters without having to invest even more points into a life mage.

 

Looks like it's problem of LM (SA) concept.

We can't win movement phase - our unit are too slow.
We can't win shooting phase - no artillery at all and below average shooting units.

Our only hope - magic and close combat.
And since lizard army have a lot of monster in it - it's the way it should be played. But artillery and shooting negates them, and yap - I compared our heroes with elven and chaos (armies that have no problems with any phase), and yes - math showed me that we are below average in combat.
Sad but true.

...btw, why we still can't use heavy non-magic armour for our units? Even elves can do it, so it negates our scale skin. And can't take totems for our heroes.

 

Totems on the Saurus Characters would be nice tbh. Personally I don't see why we shouldnt be able to. Plenty of armies have options to further customize their characters/units. Dwarves, High Elves and ofcourse the Warriors.

 

But that does not make our heroes better in fact. Disciplines are just a balancing tool, that can be changed with points or stats of any unit.
As I said - we need to be compatible in 2 stages. And since our movement and shooting are one of the worst in warhammer - I thought, that we will be much better in combat. But... Looks like not in this edition, lol =)

 

our movement isn't one of the worst - if we use skinks.
We have lots of M6+ mate

Also our shooting isn't one of the worst, it's just different talking about BS shooting. If we're talking about warmachines then i agree

 

Our main infantry - Sauruses of all kind. Ofc we have skinks, and dwarfs also have copters. But still we and dwarfs - have worst movement in the game.

About shooting - still under average. Do we really need to create a table "set from 1 to 5 every stage of all races"?

 

regarding infantry Pink provided you the answer. I'd like to point out that with all the fast chaff we have we're able to dominate the movement phase even against faster armies, and even after all the nerfs they're giving us (more difficult now, but still possible). Also notice that LM only win thanks to the movement phase since years when playing at high levels (and this is a thing that T9A guys don't seem to understand - another is that if you nerf an army because there are three players in the top 10 in ONE tournament and none of them is the winner, they're doing something very stupid)

about ballistic skill shooting: we cannot tell it's under or above average, because it's just different. We have short range and poison, it's very, very different. Normal bs shooting is bad vs monsters and warmachines, ours is golden. Obviously ours is bad vs other targets against which the "traditional" bs shooting is better. The problem are the warmachines: we don't really have heavy shooting (even if the steggy ballista used by a chief can be interesting) while many other armies have, and warmachines are still too powerful and accurate: i was hoping, in T9A, to see my monsters finally become viable and competitive, but they aren't. We have ways to counter warmachines, but still they can shoot our beasts down with ease before we destroy them.
I'm not telling we need warmachines: we don't. It's just that warmachines need to be toned down in a heavy way. These guys are doing their best to kill the cloud: they did the same with gunlines, but WMs are still too good.
Anyway, even if we don't really need black powder or rock lobbers, a laser cannon on the solar basti would be epic. Yay.