This month is bringing a massive host of updates to Age of Sigmar as the setting transitions to Ghyran, the realm of life. Each army is getting two whole pages of additional rules and optional alternative warscrolls for you to use in your games and we are very excited about all of it! Before we get stuck in, a thank you to Games Workshop for providing us with these rules as an early release to review.
Everyone’s favourite Mesoamerican dream space lizards that are real now, I think; Seraphon have settled into a best-of-the-rest position in competitive AoS. Fourth edition took some big swings at the way the army plays and gutted some of the previous playstyles; here in Scourge of Ghyran there’s a bit of the pendulum swinging back – particularly in an attempt to boost up the monsters.
Heroic Traits
Whilst the rest of the update focuses on monsters, the default Seraphon heroic traits were more Saurus focused anyway, so the options here are better choices for your support heroes.
Keeper of the Old Ways
When you use Further the Great Plan to pick a second Asterism ability in the third battle round, you can pick two Asterisms for a total of 3 active at the same time. You obviously have to meet the conditions of the extra Asterism as well. All of the Asterism bonuses are very good, so this is straightforwardly powerful. I’d argue that battleround 3 is a bit late to be hitting your powerspike in the current game, so there’s an element on doubling down on a win-more mechanic. If the game meaningfully slows down in the next GHB, this gets better.
Child of the Stars
The unit gets a 3+ to not die and get a d3 heal when it would be destroyed for the first time. An option for if nothing else appeals, really. As always whenever this ability rears its head, it’s nice to keep an important model on the table but if you can’t rapidly heal it back up then the d3 wounds back will see your hero destroyed again quite rapidly.
Chosen of Quetzl
A combat phase ability to pick a non-monster Skink unit that’s in combat wholly within 12″ and on a 3+ it gets to make an 8″ move that can take it through enemy combat ranges, but it must end the move out of combat. An appropriately sneaky ability with two major uses: it can get you out of a combat you don’t want to be in, or you can try to use it aggressively to shunt your unit further up the board to potentially contest or snipe objectives. A really nice ability, but the 3+ means your unit might just get smoked, and the range means the hero handing this ability out is getting perilously close to the front lines.
Monstrous Traits
It’s free real estate.
Titan of the Land
The unit counts as a terrain piece for the purpose of the Realmshaper Engine using Power Unleashed, but doesn’t get hurt by that ability itself. A really unique mechanic, which is neat. You can stick it on a Bastiladon with Ark of Sotek and turn it into a proper mortal wound bomb, with a potential of 2d3 mortal damage on up to 3 targets a turn. Usually I wouldn’t be a fan of chip mortals like this taking up an enhancement, but that’s actually quite a lot of damage.
Ancient Defender
+1 to hit for companion weapons. The new Ghyran Carnosaur gets the most value out of this as it has the best companion attacks and two profiles to buff up. Otherwise if you are rocking a Casual Steg then this upgrade is nifty on them too.
Armour Cruncher
Pick an enemy unit in combat, roll a dice and if it equals or exceeds the target’s save characteristic you give them -1 to save rolls for the rest of the turn. Punishing high-save units is nice, rend is something Seraphon monsters do really struggle with. The downside is that into everything bar a native 2+ save you’ll get more damage out of Ancient Defender and there isn’t a dice roll needed to activate that. Obviously the max damage possible is this and an all-out attack, but for my money I’d stick with Ancient Defender most of the time.
Saurus Oldblood on Carnosaur
The poor old Carnosaur hasn’t had a good warscroll in the history of AoS so fifth time’s the charm, hopefully.
As with most of the Ghyran scrolls there’s been some tinkering with the weapon profiles, and the Carnosaur is now much tastier. The ranged attack profile has gone, but the Sunstone Spear picks up an extra attack in melee. On top of this the Jaws have gone up to damage 4, and the Clawed Forelimbs are up to 5 attacks. With the mount traits, this finally gives Seraphon a monster that can melee in its own weight class.
All three abilities have seen a change as well. Frenzied By Blood is a +1 damage to companion weapon boost when it’s within 6″ of a unit that’s damaged or has lost models in the same turn. Seraphon are quite good at chipping off some damage in the hero phase, so I can’t see this buff being too difficult to activate and it pushes the damage output of this unit to really spicy levels – 53 potential damage on the charge.
Alpha Predator causes friendly Aggradon Lancers wholly within 12″ to keep their rage tokens at the end of the turn. Getting to just solve the rage token economy for your fast-ish melee hammer unit by taking a fast-ish melee hammer hero is pretty perfect for the way AoS games want to play out right now.
Finally, Thunderous Roar is a dream memory of a roar from another time. It’s a combat phase rampage that stops enemy units from using commands on a 3+. If you do give this thing Armour Cruncher and make both rolls into a 3+ save unit, then they will be saving on 6s vs your Jaw attacks with nothing they can do about it. This is actually better than ye olde roar, as it turns off commands for the rest of the turn, not just the phase.
Final Thoughts
I was cool on this update on first read but the more I’ve sat with it, the more I think these are decent boosts. The heroic traits I can take or leave but the Monstrous Traits are not only ‘free’ but also really good – I can happily see all three getting play. Topping it off, I think the new Oldblood on Carno is a success, it feels like a properly scary monster in its own right and it gets to buff one of the better units in the army.
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