I recently started a Seraphon army, getting quite a large force, including all saurus hero variants, a lot of guards, warriors and knights. I have not used any of them yet though, except for summoning an old blood on carnosaur, as it seems there is always a better choice than a saurus when making a list. This obviously shows on all the lists thrown around here and at tournaments. I would like to present my perception of the saurus units and would thne be very interested in hearing others opinion and experiences with using those units, perhaps I completely missed something, or perhaps someone has tips to make for fun games at least. Scar vet./old blood on carnosaur: Obvious quilities here, although I feel this behemoth a bit lacking, but at the points value, you can't expect someone to take on Durthu or a VloZD, although looking at the rules, that seems to be what he wants to hunt. Especially the scar vet carno with only d3 damage on the jaw attacks seem feeble. Only -1 rend at best makes it unlikely to get any damage through on tough monsters as well. I have summoned the old blood from time to time, he usually does a bit of damage or whifs, then gets murdered promptly. Vet on cold one: Not much to say, his only worth is his command ability in a specific battalion in a specific situation, which is also a once per game kind of deal (stack bite attacks on knights). His random chance for extra attacks I don't care for either. If he had flat 6 attacks like the scar vet on carno can have, then at least on hit effect relics would be good on him. Old Blood on foot: Very nice command ability, might be ok near huge units of saurus warriors, but then again, he is not the must include hero for the sunclaw battalion that fits this. His damage output is probably the worst per point I can think of, even a grot boss is a fighting beast compared to this old guy. I can't see it worth ever having relics or making him a general. Sun Blood: I love the model, but even with perhaps his best relic Ghyrstrike, his damage output is only "ok" for his point cost, as seems to be a theme for saurus heroes. He is needed for the sunclaw battalion which can make saurus warriors somewhat decent, so in that regard he is not a terrible tax. His command ability is ok in a vacuum, but if they are anywhere near an astrolith bearer, then it becomes pointless. Astrolith Bearer: The best saurus hero by so many miles, doubt I need to explain more here. Eternity Warden: Funny enough the highest damaging saurus hero, meaning he has a bit less than half the output of an ironjawz megaboss and a bit less than a freeguild general. His primary worth is providing wounds redundancy to the way better hero Slann, but as you dont want the slann anywhere near trouble, he is just very expensive extra wounds against crafty opponents. He improves saurus guards quite a bit though. Saurus guards: Pretty hard hitting especially near the eternity warden, although an expensive combo.The guards seem expensive and slow and require expensive hero support to perform. Their battalion just dials all these factors up to 11, where they have potential to be incredible durable and output high damage. The major downfall is the steep price per wound, as they are just a delicious target for mortal wounds and a few well placed spells, can cripple the backbone of your army if invested in the battalion. I'd like to either see them a bit cheaper, or a bit more expensive but with 2 wounds. Saurus warriors: Nothing is outright bad with these guys, they are just "meh" all around. The warscroll is alright in itself, they just fall behind other similar priced battlelines, such as witch aelves, bestigors, fyreslayers, skeleton hordes, chainrasps etc. All these other battlelines either have better stats or army synergies to cover weaknesses etc. Warriors have average at best mobility, poor if wanting to charge. They have somewhat poor surviveability to as well, so these big dinosaur men go down way easier than one might expect, compared to many others who got 6+ or better saves to ignore wounds as well as equal or better armor saves. They only really pay of in large units, but 30-40 man units on 32mm bases are cumbersome to move around, decreasing their mobility even further. Their battalion is decent, and makes them fairly lethal, but it is also an extremely easy battalion to lock down by feeding it chaff and capitalizing on the poor mobility. Saurus Knights: These guys are kind of odd, at the same price of a saurus guard, they are cheap battleline cavalry, with 2 wounds. I like to compare them to saurus warriors as the riders have similar stats, so for 8 points more you get 1 wound, 2" move, 2 bite attacks and potential mortal wound on charge. This is a vast improvement over the basic saurus warrior, as they work better in smaller units, are faster and more wound efficient, it is also easier to get more of them hitting in smaller units. Their battalion is not that good, but useful because of dracothions tail and relatively cheap, while not optimized there is no real tax either. Sad bonus info, I mostly use mine as razordon proxies. So that about wraps up my thoughts on these units. Overall they seem to have a hard time standing up to many other armies and commonly used units, like a knight of shrouds with reapers will pretty handily defeat a sun blood and warriors of equal points value. In fact just about every other fighty hero of other armies will win a duel with a saurus hero, while often providing more useful command abilities, even a freeguild general fights as well as the best saurus and also has vastly better abilties. Did I miss something? Does anyone have example scenarios where Saurus really shines, and find the heroes better than I have judged them?
First of all: Welcome to the forums! In my opinion you are spot on, with the possible exception of the Carnosaur. Compared to other behemoths it might be kind of a glass cannon, but at least it synergizes well, and it can hit really hard if buffed properly. Stuff like Serpent Staff, a good weapon artefact and so on help them immensely. Generally speaking: Seraphon are a synergy army. Most of our units by themselves are mediocre for their points cost. I have overheard some people (no Seraphon players btw, other guys) saying that "Seraphon are probably the most overcosted army in the game. They only manage to do fairly well by the fact that their synergies actually work". That was during AoS1, and it got a bit better, but I think there's still some truth to that. But nonetheless: Unfortunately Saurus aren't _that_ good right now. Skinks units are just more cost-efficient and mobile, and they synergize better with all our big dinosaurs that aren't Carnosaurs. In an objective-based game that's worth a lot.
I know i've said it here before, but i've been having a lot of success in my local meta with the Fangs of Sotek battalion. My list: Slann w/ Vast Intellect and Miasmatic Blade Oldblood on Carno w/ Doppleganger Cloak Sunblood w/ Blade of the Thirteen Dominions EoTG 40 Saurus 10 Saurus 10 Saurus 10 Skinks 1 Bastiladon I've also dropped the basti for ballistas + cogs, and ran a list with 40, 40, 10 saurus. Any way, I've still been having a lot of luck against my local meta of Demons (nurgle, khorne, and tzeentch) and SCE. I think it would struggle against death and DoK, but I can't verify (and really, what doesnt?). Basically you use the FoS first turn move to get yourself in position for complete board control and then you just hold objectives and summon skinks to continue to hold objectives. I'm going to try to write up some battle reports to give a more nuanced description of the games, but I actually think Saurus horde lists are a lot better in the current meta than people give them credit for. They combine really well with summoning to provide just enough of a buffer in the first couple turns to really start stacking victory points. By turn 3 your saurus are mostly dead, but you should have a good deal of skinks summoned up to carry you into turn 5.
Oh, they can totally work, no question. But I think they are harder to play and probably have more hard counters.