The earth trembles from the crush of titanic feet as streaks of magic bolt through the air. The ‘Great Plan’ must be protected at all costs, and you’re standing in its way. Tough luck, as that means you’re now the enemy of The Seraphon, a race of lizard-men imbued with ancient magic and a single-minded fury against all things Chaos. This week, Games Workshop sent us the miniatures and battletome included in their upcoming Warhammer Seraphon Army Set (available for preorder now), and we’ve got our thoughts on everything included in our Seraphon Army Set Review!
Here at TechRaptor, we’ve got our clawed fingers on the pulse of all-things Warhammer, so if you’d like to learn more about other recent Warhammer Age of Sigmar releases, check out our coverage of new battletomes for the Ossiarch Bonereapers and Soulblight Gravelords, our Slaves to Darkness army review, and our coverage of the latest battletome for those floating dwarfs, the Kharadron Overlords. Now, onto the Seraphon!
What’s Included In The Seraphon Army Set?
The Seraphon Army Set contains everything needed to begin building a robust Seraphon army. Models include: a Slann Starmaster on a floating palanquin, 10 Raptadon cavalry, which you can build either as the ranged Raptadon hunters or the melee focused Raptadon chargers, 10 Saurus Warriors kitted out with clubs or spears.
The Army Set box also includes the new battletome for the Seraphon army, as well as 35 warscroll cards, 53 enhancement cards, and a set of 60 tokens. With all of these added cards and tokens, it’ll be easy to keep track of all the various effects you’ll be blasting around the battlefield.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Who Are The Seraphon
The term Seraphon encompasses a large swath of various lizard-like and amphibian creatures, all bent toward the purpose of their ‘Great Plan.’ Created in times long forgotten to history (and even largely misunderstood in myth), the Seraphon were originally created by “The Great Ones” to enact this plan, which is nearly incomprehensibly complex.
To quote the Seraphon Battletome, the Great Plan, “deals with the very base elements of reality and involves reordering them and purging them of any corrupting influence.” The details of the Plan have been lost to time, but one thing’s for certain – when the goal is to purge reality of corrupting influence, the Seraphon will brook no passage for Chaos. Dubbed their eternal enemy, the forces of Chaos are the bane of the Seraphon’s existence.
Guided by the Slann, a race of toad-like wizards who help guide and shape the forces of Seraphon, this army is the perfect mix of arcane magic and power-by-numbers. Bred fully formed and of adult size in spawning pools, the Seraphon emerge to exterminate any who would stand in the way of their Great Plan.
I’ve always loved the look of the Seraphon army, the mix of Aztec-inspired design overlaid on a traditional fantasy “lizard-man” is something I find extremely inventive, and the Seraphon Army Set really highlights those features – both in the models and throughout the Battletome included. There’s a whole world of lore in this Battletome book, and so much to explore, but I’ll leave that for you to dive into deeper. For now, I’d like to focus on the models included in this Army Set.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Slann Starmaster
The first model we’ll take a look at in the Warhammer Seraphon Army Set is the Slann Starmaster, who has the following keywords: Order, Seraphon, Slann, Hero, Wizard, and Starmaster. I built this model over the course of a few hours, and while there were several steps to the build (including building his floating chair as well as the model itself), overall this was a very approachable build. It took minimal configuring and coercing to get all the pieces to fit together properly, and though the figure looks like it would be daunting to assemble at first glance, it was really a breeze.
Rules wise, the Slann Starmaster is your go-to wizard of this Army Set, with the ability to cast and unbind three spells per turn. While he has a 5” move with Flying, he’s really all about that magic. For one, before attempting to cast a spell, you can use a nearby Skink Wizard, or an Oracle in your army anywhere on the battlefield, to act as an arcane conduit for your spell.
His special ability “Foresight,” could see you potentially gaining up to two extra command points in your hero phase, and he can spend that command point to (among other abilities) allow one friendly unit to fly for the rest of the turn. He can attempt to unbind spells anywhere on the battlefield, can cast a spell to gain a ward save of 4+ on mortal wounds (very rare to get protection from mortal wounds), and you can cast a spell to boost the spell rolls of other nearby units.
Taking into account all of these abilities, I consider the Slann Starmaster to really be a force multiplier in your army. I really like how his ability to cast spells from other units means I can keep him backfield a bit (and hopefully safe from enemy fire) while buffing everyone else. If you’re not going in with a very heavy spell casting Seraphon list, he may not have quite the juice you’re looking for in your Hero spot.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Raptadon Hunters or Chargers
Also included in the Warhammer Seraphon Army Set are Raptadon cavalry riders, who can be built either as Raptadon Hunters or Raptadon Chargers. These models really fulfill my childhood dream of seeing a dinosaur man riding atop a raptor, and I really can’t express enough how cool these models look on the table. But what’s the big difference between these two builds?
The thing I like most about these two different kit builds is that they actually have abilities that key off of each other, as I’ll explain below. They both have the same base stats, including that swift 12” movement speed, but the Raptadon Hunters have a ranged attack on their weapon profile, while the Raptadon Chargers only have melee options. The special ability of the Hunters says that if it ends a charge within 12” of a Raptadon Chargers unit that also charged this turn, it can shoot (normally, you can’t charge and shoot in the same game turn.)
The Raptadon Chargers’ special ability says that if they melee attack a unit that’s been targeted by the Hunters’ ranged attack, they add 1 to their melee hit role. I really appreciate when the synergy between units is clearly laid out like this, as it doesn’t take a ton of imagination to see how these two different builds are meant to be played together.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Saurus Warriors
The Saurus Warriors are bred only for war (sounds like they belong in another game set in the far future, right?). These muscle-bound dinosaur-men can be built with either a spear or a club, but otherwise each build shares the same stats (including a beefy 2 wounds each and a 4+ save).
If built with a spear, these units have a melee range of 2”, but hit on a 4+ hit roll. If built with a club, these units only have a melee range of 1”, but hit on a 3+, so it’s kind of dealer’s choice here on whether you want that extended range or reliability of hitting more often. For my money – and this is really just how I like to play my armies – I would take the club over the spear any day, and rely on actually ranged units (like the Raptadon Hunters mentioned above) to deal damage from afar. If I’m getting into melee combat, I want to be right there in the middle of things, smashing with a powerful weapon.
For special abilities, the Saurus Warriors get to add 1 to save rolls if they’re contesting objectives or wholly within their starting territory, and after combat they roll a special “bite” roll where they can inflict mortal wounds (on a roll of 6+) as they chomp away at their foes.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Final Thoughts
I really like this set because I really like the Seraphon army, but you should really consider this set a starting point for building out forces vs. having most everything you’ll need for your army. At its core, this Seraphon Army Set is trying to do two different things with your army, and as such doesn’t work as a perfectly coherent set.
As I mentioned above, the Slann Starmaster in this set isn’t really going to do much to buff the other units included in this set, as the other units aren’t spellcasters.
Sure, you can make these units fly (which is just kind of cool to imagine), but beyond that you’ll really want to pick up more spell casting models to get the most out of the Starmaster. And because the big Hero included in this set isn’t melee focused, your melee units in this set won’t have that big buff (or big protection) they’d normally be looking for in a melee-focused army build.
That being said, I can’t deny just how nice these models look, and how satisfying it is to paint up a colorful army that doesn’t really look like any other army on the table.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set – Should I Buy This?
If you’ve already got the beginnings of a Seraphon army and want to flesh it out, this set could definitely hit the mark for you with the models included and the new Battletome. But if you were hoping to be able to open up the box and have most of what you need to jump into this army, this Set might not be the best fit for you.
The miniatures and rulebook for the Warhammer Seraphon Army Set were provided by Games Workshop. The author reviewed all related materials and built models over the course of eight hours before forming opinions on the viability of the set.
Warhammer Seraphon Army Set Review
Source: Pinay Guide Blog
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