Kindling the Flames: Seraphon Preview

In the latest entry of Kindling the Flames, we take a look at the new Seraphon Path to Glory rules. There are substantial changes from what you may be used to from their appearance in White Dwarf 469. Here we’ll cover their new mechanic as well as new options for quests, territories, veteran abilities, and anything else featured in their narrative play section.

So, grab a seat by the fire as we kindle the flames for your future stories.

Arise from the Spawn Pools

The legends of the Seraphon are split because the Seraphon themselves can appear to mortals in different ways. Seraphon armies can fall into one of two categories. The Starborne Seraphon live high in Azyr and are infused with celestial magic. Meanwhile, the Coalesced are the Seraphon that live within the Mortal Realms and transform them with the use of realm-shaper engines.

The new Path to Glory rules help ensure that no matter what form your army takes, your Seraphon will be roaring and ready for battle.

When the chaos marauders heard they’d be fighting “warriors from the heavens,” they probably expected something else.

Defining Mechanic: Sacred Spawnings

The Seraphon believe they follow the will of the Old Ones, ancient deities that are no longer with us, but influence the Great Plan. Their defining mechanic, the Sacred Spawnings, plays off this idea and allows you to raise warriors blessed by one of these beings.

At the start of your Path to Glory campaign, you can choose one unit to be a Sacred Spawning and receive this blessing. If you take the Sacred Spawning of Quatzl, the chosen unit gains a defensive bonus against attacks--if the attack has a Rend characteristic of ‘-1’ it changes to ‘-’ instead.

You can add more Sacred Spawnings as your warlord gains renown. You can only have one spawning of each type, however, so you will need to be strategic in how you choose to upgrade your units. It takes a lot of effort to unlock these spawnings, as you don’t unlock your second upgrade until your warlord has 30 renown and you only receive all six of them when your warlord has 100 renown.

In Memoriam: Starborne Army rules

In White Dwarf 469, the Seraphon Path to Glory section had special rules for dealing with Starborne armies. These rules focused on the summoning rules for Starborne armies and made it so that you did not need to keep track of non-Hero units on your Order of Battle. That rule is gone and you have to track your units normally.
This change surprised me at first, but when I read the lore sections of the battletome it made sense. Games Workshop has moved away from the old idea that Starborne Seraphon were essentially ‘Order Daemons.’ Now, they are merely the Seraphon that live in Azyr and can teleport into the realms when the need arises. This change helps solidify the narrative for the Seraphon and allows Starborne players to craft lasting stories based on their units and heroes.

You no longer have ‘generic Saurus Warriors #2’ but have your specific units of Saurus Warriors that can gain and keep renown.

New Quests

The Seraphon have four brand new quests available to them. The Starborne and Coalesced each have a quest specific to their army type that provides a special territory upon completion. But we’re going to focus on one that will provide a benefit to all of the armies: War Against the Eternal Enemy

It is fairly easy to complete this quest, as all you need to do is score a Major Victory against a Chaos army. If you are able to fight an opponent with a Chaos army and defeat them, your warlord receives five renown and all other units in your army that are not destroyed receive an additional renown.

While this is a good boon for your units, the extra renown for your warlord will allow you to more quickly unlock your Sacred Spawnings. If you have regular access to Chaos opponents, this quest will allow you to build a powerful army of blessed Seraphon.

New Veteran Abilities

The two veteran abilities from White Dwarf 469 return but with changes to how they work. The Trap is Sprung ability for Skink units has now changed to allow them to shoot at the end of the movement phase. You can use this ability when your enemy gets too close and start to take models off the board before the charging begins.

Meanwhile, the Ferocity Unbound ability for Saurus and Kroxigor units now gives them a +1 bonus to their bite rolls. Instead of their bites being a typical attack, these units make special bite rolls to deal Mortal Wounds to their enemies on a 6+. Coalesced units also get an additional bonus as part of their battle traits. With the two combined, your Seraphon become a hungry swarm of gnashing jaws.

The Seraphon also gain four brand-new abilities for your units to unlock. One that stands out to me is Marked for Greatness. Once per battle, this unit can use this ability when targeted by an attack. They get a +5 ward until the end of the phase. Smart usage of this ability can keep a unit alive longer than your opponent would like and ensure that unit can continue to fight the eternal fight.

Seraphon versus Skaven. Lizards versus Rats. The battle over who makes the best unconventional pet is never ending.

Territories

The Seraphon have six new territories to choose from and each grants powerful boons to your army. One that stands out is the Ancient Realmgate. At its base level, this territory allows you to reroll one of your dice on an exploration roll. This gives you more control over the territories you bring into your armies instead of relying purely on luck. But the real magic happens when you upgrade the territory.

It’s an expensive upgrade, clocking in at 45 glory points, but it’s well worth it. It gives your army the benefits of the Dracothion’s Tail sub-faction. This allows you to set up one unit in reserve for each unit you deploy normally. These units can deploy within 12” of a cosmic node--wizards, astrolith bearers, and realmshaper engines--and more than 9” away from enemy units.

Very cool for all of the non-Dracothion’s Tail armies! But what about those players who play as the soldiers of the god beast? They still get a benefit from this territory. Starborne armies can generate Cosmic Power points that allow them to summon more units or use powerful abilities. With this territory, Dracothion’s Tail armies can now gain these points simply by deploying their units from reserve!

Regardless of the army you take, this territory will serve you well, as long as you can afford the price.

Narrative Battleplans

The Seraphon get a new battleplan tied to their Search for the Lost City quest. As part of that quest, you can find the aforementioned city and take on the Fallen City battleplan. Here, you rush to capture an ancient Seraphon temple-city and must scare off enemy treasure hunters.

This mission can be considered a ‘kill mission’ because you gain victory points for destroying enemy units. But the fastest way to gain victory points is by completing a secret mission. Each player rolls two secret missions from a table and attempts to complete them before their opponent. These missions revolve around either themed objectives--such as a mummified slann--or by taking out the enemy general. You get 5 victory points for each of these missions and if the person with the most victory points has completed both of their secret missions, they score a Major Victory.

At the end of the battle, each player gains 5 glory for each of the secret missions that they’ve completed. Even if you lose, you still get the benefits of the bonus glory! And if the Seraphon player wins this battleplan, they can add a new territory representing the lost city. You pick a territory from one of the special Seraphon territories. Unfortunately, you cannot pick the Ancient Realmgate territory as your reward.

Warscroll Battalions

Because there are two different types of armies, the warscroll battalions are similarly split between Starborne and Coalesced. Each group has five possible warscroll battalions that mirror those found in the other group. For example, a Starborne Sunclaw Starhost and a Coalesced Sunclaw Temple-Host both consist of a Saurus Oldblood and three units of Saurus Warriors.

However, the type of army you have gives you a different benefit for your warscroll battalions. All Starborne warscroll battalions grant the Star-Charged Weapons ability. Once per battle in your hero phase., you can activate this ability. All units in these battalions within 12” of a cosmic node gain a +1 bonus to their rend characteristics until the end of your turn.

Coalesced warscroll battalions instead gain the Predatory Ferocity ability, which gives them a +1 to their run and charge rolls.

A warrior of Quatzl’s Hide order his warriors to charge.

FINAL THOUGHTS

While I personally liked the ‘Order Daemons’ concept for the Seraphon, it is nice to see that they are adapting the rules to match the updated lore they are creating for the army. With the Sacred Spawnings, it’s nice to see your Warlord’s renown have a larger effect on your Path to Glory campaigns. It will be interesting to see how players adapt to this and begin to emphasize their warlord in games more.

The new territories, veteran abilities, etc. are all really cool. They offer powerful boons to your armies while building upon the lore of the army. It’s hard to balance these upgrades considering that Coalesced and Starborne armies have entirely different battle traits from each other. They did a good job in giving each army type their own benefits without feeling too limiting for either one.

Thanks for sitting alongside the fire with us and we hope to see you along the path.