Seraph Impressions

[Hellfury]

Well, its certainly is different now, thats for sure.

Will this proposed change drastically affect how you use them? As in, not bringing more than a single seraph, or forgoing it all together for an angelius instead?

[W0lf]

Impression?

DOOOOOM!

But tbh i havnt playetested it yet so ill reserve further comment.

My main gripe is serpentine (it has legs) and fury 3 on a heavy.

[freekittens03]

yeah seraphs got hit harder than i expected. there point cost is far to much for adding +1mat and +1arm. for one more point id rather just take an angeli. Also is there any other heavy out there that only has 3 fury? i think that should be changed

[Defenstrator]

I look at it and wonder how this thing is a heavy warbeast. It has 3 fury, the only power attack it can do is head butt, mediocre MAT and RAT, and of course the new gimped version of Strafe. Even with the ARM and life buffs my inital impression is 6 points.

I hope to pleasantly surprised.

[blitzmonkey]

With the increase in strength, I think they are trying to make it more of a shoot a round, then hit a round type of beast. It seems like its a support flanker. My INITIAL thoughts are that it needs to drop a little strength and gain a lil RAT. Maybe drop 2 points of strength for 1 point of RAT. Trying to turn this thing into another hybrid just doesn't make sense. Since it is a heavy now, it would make sense to have a more shooty heavy. I know people are like OMGZZZ NERFS IT!!!!11!!!1!! but it really seems like they are cramming too much into it. Drop some strength, gain some rat, and I think it becomes more viable.

[W0lf]

Im with defens on the 6 pts cost as is...

Maybe +1 Rat and fury and itd be fine.

[Defenstrator]

Drop some strength, gain some rat, and I think it becomes more viable.

Really? I feel that it shouold have a higher POW melee weapon and a longer range shooting weapon. It's 8 points. That's Defender territory. So give it what other heavies in that range have which is at least a POW 16 melee attack and real range.

[blitzmonkey]

Really? I feel that it shouold have a higher POW melee weapon and a longer range shooting weapon. It's 9 points. That's Defender territory. So give it what other heavies in that range have which is at least a POW 16 melee attack and real range.

I forgot to add that I think it is overpriced at 9. My apologies. But at 9 points, your suggestions are much better. So I will go with your opinion.

[W0lf]

They over-compensated for Fury vs Focus imo.

[alchahest]

it feels like the seraph is overpriced right now, but let's give it a few games. and remember to try playing the current stat card without comparing it to the old - just look at this as a fresh beast. a flying heavy that shoots alot, and has a pretty rad animus. neat!

if it turns out that it's really not worth the points, then I just won't use it. if it surprises me, then I will use it.

right now everything is just speculation. we'll see how it plays and (if it ever lets me log in) I'll post my findings, comments, criticisms, and suggestions

[Killionaire]

Gain RAT? That'd be insane. What kind of crazy monster has all the benefits of Eyeless Sight, great RAT, and up to 6 shots at POW12 that are boostable after the fact? That's already Warcaster killing territory, but buffing it further?

Quite frankly, Mk1 Seraph was absurdly overpowered. Making a Mk2 Seraph better at shooting is not happening. PP instead went another route and made it cost a bit, but increased it's other stats (non-shooting) to compensate.

[Arkady]

RAT 5 is crap even with eyeless sight. Why didn't warbeasts get the same MAT/RAT as jacks? Weird. Anyway, being the most hated MK1 Legion model, I expected a big nerd bat but I'm sure it will get cheaper and/or better by January.

[W0lf]

Compare the Seraph to the Vanquisher...

Nuff said.

[jonconcarne]

Gain RAT? That'd be insane. What kind of crazy monster has all the benefits of Eyeless Sight, great RAT, and up to 6 shots at POW12 that are boostable after the fact? That's already Warcaster killing territory, but buffing it further?

Umm, first of all, rat 5? What can you reliably hit with that without boosting? Oh yah, Def 11. Meaning a heavy warjack. Okay, crappy. With boosting though? You can still only reliably hit def 14. Which isn't that many warcasters or warlocks. 6 shots is the only thing making it even remotely dangerous. But how often will you roll a 6 for strafe? seriously. And how do you boost after the fact? Only thing I know of for this is eSkarre's Seas of Fate.

edit: apparently some Skorne models can boost after the fact too. So that puts it at skorne cyclops, Molik Karn, and the savages.

[Necra-Chi]

I'm trying not to.

When trying to figure out whether you're getting a good deal with a warbeast, try to imagine it as a warjack that uses focus instead, and ask yourself if you would want that warjack in your warmachine faction at that price? The issue of fury vs focus really clouds the comparison though.

The seraph got nerfed in so many ways its hard to quantify them.
High relative price
Heavy with no benefit from being one
Can't slam (huge)
The new strafe
Still very fragile for a heavy in teh same price range as reckoner and vanquisher
Slightly more powerful tail does not make it a heavy. Lights hit that hard.
Takes free strikes. But can move over obstructions.


Only testing will tell whether it is just normal now or too weak. So that's what I'll do.

I suspect our warbeasts and thereby our other warlocks are paying a tax for Vayl and Thagrosh having warbeast damage buffing control area effects. Seraphs are still going to pwn stuff with Vayl and E-Thag but you'll have fewer of them, and the other warlocks will be at a loss.

[GaspysInhaler]

Compare the Seraph to the Vanquisher...

Nuff said.

Compare any ranged beast/jack to the Vanquisher, and they will look underpowered/overcosted.

And how do you boost after the fact? Only thing I know of for this is eSkarre's Seas of Fate.

I believe he was referring to the fury mechanic being more flexible than the focus mechanic when it comes to beasts/jacks firing ranged weapons. War Machine players have to dump focus onto their jacks "just in case", where as beasts do it on the fly. I don't want to start a debate on that though as this isn't the thread.

The Seraph looks solid to me still. There are very few jacks/beasts with higher than RAT 5. Sure, the Sentinel is RAT 6 with strafe, but it is only POW 10. The loss of Slam isn't nearly as powerful now with shake-off abilities coming into fruition. In fact, I can count on one hand how many times slamming has even mattered much since MK2.

[W0lf]

Im with necra... we have to pay a premium becos of what Vayl+eThags bring... but with any other caster they simply arnt worth 8 pts.

[Top]

Heck I think the Seraph came out pretty good!

+4 damage circles, +2 POW on its Stinger (now a P+S 14 with Critical Poison) , +1 on ARM. This thing hasn't lost anything, it just got better. Who cares if you call it a Heavy or a Light? The Base Size is still the same. And now Slipstream is cleanly and clearly worded. Thank God.

If PP wants to drop it 1 point to 7 that'd be great. If they don't I will deal with it and make do.

-Top

[Necra-Chi]

The problem isn't the damage output on the gun, although it has become less reliable. Its that you're paying the cost of a heavy for something that dies to a stiff breeze and which does not have the melee weapon of a heavy either.

From the perspective of a Protectorate player I' looking at legion and thinking "Yup they're still going to hurt me if I let them, but there's less of them, I can engage them and they're sooooo squishy".

[Defenstrator]

The Seraph looks solid to me still. There are very few jacks/beasts with higher than RAT 5. Sure, the Sentinel is RAT 6 with strafe, but it is only POW 10 and it has the clumsy focus mechanic to work with while beasts can decide to boost during their turn.

The Sentinel is also acknowledged to be Cygnar's single worst warjack and not really worth taking with nearly any caster. Not a good thing to compare to.

[Golgothas]

RAT 5 is crap even with eyeless sight. Why didn't warbeasts get the same MAT/RAT as jacks? Weird. Anyway, being the most hated MK1 Legion model, I expected a big nerd bat but I'm sure it will get cheaper and/or better by January.

Uhm.

Warlocks NEED to force their warbeasts in order to get fury points to power their spells and Warbeast animi.

Warcasters have to decide how they're going to allocate their focus points between warjacks and spells.

Are you still wondering why Warjacks got the +1 Mat and RAT? Seriously? It should have been obvious from the start.

[W0lf]

Heck I think the Seraph came out pretty good!

+4 damage circles, +2 POW on its Stinger (now a P+S 14 with Critical Poison) , +1 on ARM. This thing hasn't lost anything, it just got better. Who cares if you call it a Heavy or a Light? The Base Size is still the same. And now Slipstream is cleanly and clearly worded. Thank God.

-Top

Yer ignore the fact it cant slam, got nerfed strafe and lost immunity to freestrikes...

[Top]

Yer ignore the fact it cant slam, got nerfed strafe and lost immunity to freestrikes...

I don't think I ever slammed with it anyway.

Wings was changed to Flight that's how it lost immunity to free strikes, so that's across the board isn't it, not just picking on the Seraph?

Same for Strafe. Effects all models with this rule. *shrug*

-Top

[Arkady]

There was certainly an imbalance before between beasts and jacks, but now it seems it's swinging the opposite way. If it's going to be a heavy beast, it should have more than 3 Fury.

[Defenstrator]

Let's not focus on what it lost. Focus on what it has. Would you pay 8 points for a heavy that can only headbutt and only has 3 fury? Probably not, unless it could do something really amazing in return.

And the really amazing thing the Seraph can do is.....

And that's why I don't think it's worth 8 points.

[Arkady]

I don't think I ever slammed with it anyway.

Wings was changed to Flight that's how it lost immunity to free strikes, so that's across the board isn't it, not just picking on the Seraph?

Same for Strafe. Effects all models with this rule. *shrug*

-Top

You win the award for the most disingenuous argument made on these boards since the reset. Yes, flight was universaly nerfed, but considering it was the essentially exclusive domain of both the Seraph and Angelius, you can't simply dismiss it as a general rules change. As for strafe, yes, that is a general rules change, but remember the only other models with strafe are on the very bottom rung of their respective factions.

It will take some playing, but current impression is that it either needs a point of fury or a discount.

[chrsjxn]

I suspect our warbeasts and thereby our other warlocks are paying a tax for Vayl and Thagrosh having warbeast damage buffing control area effects. Seraphs are still going to pwn stuff with Vayl and E-Thag but you'll have fewer of them, and the other warlocks will be at a loss.

I'm having a hard time getting around this myself while trying to come up with a good range of beast heavy lists to test. It feels like I'm giving up too much by not going with one of these two.

Speaking more toward Seraphs, though. I'm tempted to try an eLylyth winged gunboat style list. Getting an extra guaranteed attack with the Strafe should help the Seraphs do their stuff. Though it may turn out that just paying the extra points for Angels would be worth it, given how much more potent they would be on the following turn if the ranged caster kill failed.

[UltimateLegion]

Have you guys noticed the changed to slipstream? It now moves Model's base+2+6+Large Base+2 inches. Unless I am reading it wrong thats a HUGE slipstream...

[GaspysInhaler]

The Sentinel is also acknowledged to be Cygnar's single worst warjack and not really worth taking with nearly any caster. Not a good thing to compare to.

The main criticism of the Sentinel is that it is only POW 10 and is a focus hog. The Seraph is POW 12 and has the benefit of being part of the Fury system, which is much more forgiving and flexible for ranged beasts.

A Warcaster can screw up his entire turn by putting too much focus into a ranged jack (like giving the Sentinel 3 focus and then rolling a 1 for the Strafe), whereas the Seraph does it all more or less ex post facto.

[Atrix]

Think nothing. This guy is not worth 8 pts anyway you cut it. The only exception is with Vayl. Other than that, totally overcosted. Its gun is no better than a spray. A bit more range, but probably less targets hit and no shooting into melee. Don't forget coherence is no longer 2", so units will no longer be bunched up -> less targets. Overcosted doesn't scratch the surface. Honestly, I wouldn't pay 7 for it. Not when a Teraph is 5. Sadly flawed concept they got here. Thank goodness for the fieldtest.

[King Markov]

Have you guys noticed the changed to slipstream? It now moves Model's base+2+6+Large Base+2 inches. Unless I am reading it wrong thats a HUGE slipstream...

You are reading it wrong.

when you finish moving the seraph(or warlock)who used Slipstream then you can Place 1 model that you moved within 2" of COMPLETELY within 2 " of where it was. So it works just like it did in MKI

[Ravnak]

and of course the new gimped version of Strafe.

Can someone please explain to me why strafe is "gimped"?


To my understanding it used to be:


Make a hit roll. If that one hits, roll a D6 and attempt that many more hits.



And it is now:


Make D6 attempts at hits.


Am I correct on that? (Its something I dont actually own - I hate the figure)

You lose one shot per turn, but also lose the reliance on your initial shot hitting to generate the additional hits.

Thats an increase in reliability, right?

[UltimateLegion]

Ok I just reread slipstream, and here I thought the Seraph was worth it for that alone.

I will take the Seraph in it's current form with Vayl, eThags or pLylyth, other than that the multiple POW 12s do nothing for me in a more jack/beast oriented game...

[King Markov]

What it comes down to is before you got a minimum of 2 shots if the first hitnow if you roll a 1 you only get that so you lose 1 shot its not as big a deal in my opinion as its being made out to be especially in light of other things they did to the Seraph (8 pts no slams etc.)

[jonconcarne]

Can someone please explain to me why strafe is "gimped"?
...
You lose one shot per turn, but also lose the reliance on your initial shot hitting to generate the additional hits.

Thats an increase in reliability, right?

The reason is you could boost your initial attack to make sure that you hit, then you got d6 extra attacks. So you always had 2-7 because you made sure you hit. Now you'll have 1-6. That's the biggest difference as I understand it.

[Top]

You win the award for the most disingenuous argument made on these boards since the reset. Yes, flight was universaly nerfed, but considering it was the essentially exclusive domain of both the Seraph and Angelius, you can't simply dismiss it as a general rules change. As for strafe, yes, that is a general rules change, but remember the only other models with strafe are on the very bottom rung of their respective factions.

It will take some playing, but current impression is that it either needs a point of fury or a discount.

You are aware that Flight provides more manueverability than Wings? And that the Seraph now has Flight instead of Wings which is what I thought we were talking about. If the Legion stands still it dies. Movement is Life to the Legion and the more I can get the better off I am. We have four very different models with Flight (I think I'm counting that right) to bring the pain from directions which our enemies cannot approach. These units do not exist in a vacuum. You can be like the Old General or the New General. The Old one wanted to keep fighting the same way he always had regardless of changes to tactics, equipment or training, and so was defeated. The New one changed his methods and was successful.

If you want to be unhappy about a nerf to a flying model how about the poor Harrier? It lost Flyby Attack, a DEF and an ARM. But it gained Sprint. Anther trade off and I think I can find some good use for that.

At least I'd better.

-Top

[chrsjxn]

You are aware that Flight provides more manueverability than Wings?

I don't think "more" is correct here. "Different" would be appropriate, though.

More I object to because flying over models is now incredibly risky. Even moderately competent melee models can do a hefty amount of damage to an Angelius with free strikes. And I don't even want to think about what happens if I decide to fly over a non-support jack or beast.

But we can basically fly over anything that isn't a model, which is different from before.

[Lazlo]

We can't see through obstructions, so moving over them is of limited use. Immune to free strikes offered MUCH more maneuverablility, in my opinion.

But it's not like it wasn't expected since we saw the Terminus rules so long ago.

[Defenstrator]

As someone who has been all over Strafe in the Cygnar forums I'll give you the rundown.

Inconsistent- First of all you only get 1d6 attacks. I don't know why but in play this really is a big difference. Moving up your 8 point beast and rolling a 1 for a single POW 12 is terrible. You almost certainly didn't hurt or even cripple what you were shooting at and are now going to die to retaliation. And 2-7 shots is much more likely to finish the deal than 1-6. The bottom line is that it just is not dependable anymore.

Short Range- The second problem is that strafe is now range 10. Now it always was officially, but before you could target and models within 2" of the target, even if they were beyond the 10". In this way the Strafe attack could have up to a 12" effective range keeping the attacking model that much further away and able to threaten that many more models. But now the range has been ruled to be firm and you can't attack people beyond it even if they are within the 2".

Cohesion Metagame- Before trooper models had to always be at least 3" away from each other, and often less if they wanted to do things like CRA. With the new unit cohesion rules it is easier than ever before to spread your models out but still remain relatively effective. This hasn't just affected Strafe. The typical 3" AOE is now just icing unless you get the drop on a group that has been clumped up due to terrain or battle. The point is that often an experianced opponent will spread his models out effectively nerfing Strafe. A 4 point jack being able to shoot one trooper is pretty freaking lame. Now imagine an 8 point beast being screwed that way.

In conclusion, Strafe only worked with the Seraph in the last edition, and now just doesn't work at all.

[HeartBreaker99]

We can't see through obstructions, so moving over them is of limited use. Immune to free strikes offered MUCH more maneuverablility, in my opinion.

But it's not like it wasn't expected since we saw the Terminus rules so long ago.

Agreed. Being immune to free strikes offered MUCH more maneuverability.

Losing wings AND gaining Serpentine plus the 8pt cost is a little much. Personally I would like to see serpentine models gain immunity to free strikes.