Saurus Warriors are the foot soldiers of the Seraphon. They are tough as rocks, especially when defending their home territory or contesting an objective. Warriors are extremely good in any army, acting as hard screens or nearly indestructible blocks. They are excellent for holding the enemy off your heroes, capturing and holding objectives, or acting as an anvil block that the enemy just can't chew through. It is not uncommon for lists to include 20 to 40 Saurus Warriors!
They are battleline in all sub-factions.
See the Saurus Warriors warscroll on Wahapedia.
Saurus Warriors are are very resilient, affordable battleline units with great armor and a lot of wounds for the cost. In units of 10, they make survivable screens; in units of 20 or 30, they are solid anvils that can pin the enemy and keep them locked in battle for many rounds. The -1 to damage afforded by Coalesced magnifies their staying power, but even in Starborne they are tough to break through, making them a much appreciated defensive line to protect the wizard heroes. As Saurus Warriors' main purpose is to hold up to attack, enhancing their defense with Mystic Shield, All-out Defense or other defensive abilities can really be very effective at keeping them in the fight.
Their bite attacks deal mortal wounds, which is great because they ignore armor. In Starborne, the bites tend not to add much damage, but in Coalesced, with +1 to bite rolls (or +2 to bite rolls near the Realmshaper Engine), they can have a significant impact.
In Coalesced, Saurus Warriors benefit from Scaly Skin (-1 to enemy damage) and stronger bites, as well as +1 to wound rolls when charging in Koatl's Claw. And Coalesced armies have many synergies with SAURUS units as well. Saurus Warriors in Starborne don't get these benefits, but they are still very good!
Even without the -1 damage, Starborne Saurus Warriors are tough. Unlike skink screens, Saurus Warriors can hold up against attack, making them excellent screens, keeping the enemy off your wizards while they dish out mortal wound magic. And while they don't hold up quite as well in Starborne, the fallen warriors in a unit can be revived with Azure Light.
Saurus Warriors are most commonly taken in units of 10 or 20. As multiple small units (MSU) of 10, they can cover more territory and can act as solid screens. In units of 20, they are true anvils. With 40 wounds and great saves, they are capable of tying up enemy units for many rounds. With different roles depending on the unit size, it's common to see armies with both 10-model and 20-model units.
As battleline units, Saurus Warriors can be double-reinforced. Units of 30 aren't commonly used, but with 60 wounds on top of great armor (and -1 to Damage in Coalesced), they're practically indestructible.
The general consensus is that Saurus Warriors should be equipped with clubs in units of 10, spears in units of 30, and units of 20 could go either way (though clubs seem more popular).
Because club warriors hit on 3+ and spear warriors hit on 4+, three club warriors will do the same average damage as four spear warriors. But spears have a 2" range so it's easier to get more of them into attack range.
And you can extend that 3:4 ratio:
The smaller the unit, the easier it is to get Your Saurus Warriors — especially clubs and bites — into range. But remember that big units get smaller as models are slain, so over the course of a battle, clubs' advantage over spears tends to grow.
There is a useful unit formation, the Sawtooth, that can allow you to get more Saurus Warriors into range, whether using clubs or spears, or attempting to bite. See Formations below!
The Ordered Cohort ability on the Saurus Warrior warscroll gives them +1 to save rolls whenever they are wholly in your territory or when contesting an objective. Try to keep the Saurus Warriors in places where they get this buff to maximize their resilience. When contesting objectives, by mindful when removing slain Saurus Warriors; make sure to keep at least one within 6" of the objective marker.
A Saw-tooth is a great formation for Saurus Warriors. It increases the width of the unit's screening while maintaining coherency, and allows Saurus Warriors in the back row to strike past the front row with clubs or bites.
The Sawtooth formation can be extended into a Checkerboard by adding more rows to it. Here, the 20 smaller Saurus Warriors are engaged with a unit of nine large opponents. Only five of the Warriors, marked with green dots, are out of range to attack with clubs are bites, but they can still attack with spears from the third row!
Extended to a block of 30, the Checkerboard formation is even great at getting more spear warriors into range. Here, all the green-dot Warriors are in range of spears only, and those without dots are in range of clubs and bites. The
red-dot models are out of range, even with spears.
Bite rolls happen after the Saurus Warriors have finished their melee attacks, but before any slain enemy models are removed as a result of those attacks. This timing was clarified in the Official FAQ for Battletome: Seraphon.
Yes! Always take a Champion and as many Standard Bearers and Musicians as you're allowed.
One model in the entire unit can be a champion. Not only does the Champion get an extra attack, it also is able to issue commands to its own unit, which is an important ability for your unit to have. Both these abilities remain as long as the Champion survives.
Standard Bearers and Musicians give your unit their respective abilities as long as at least one of that type survives in the unit, so having duplicates gives you some redundancy to help make sure you don't lose the abilities. You can have one of each in a unit of 10, two of each in a unit of 20 and three of each in a unit of 30. These special models can still attack as normal with their celestite weapon, so there's no downside to taking as many of each as possible.
The Saurus Warrior musicians give +1 to Run and Charge. The official AOS App from Games Workshop had an error in the Saurus Warriors warscroll. Instead of listing the current musician ability that came out in the new battletome (+1 to run and charge rolls), the app listed the previous battletome's musician ability (reroll charge rolls). This was corrected in the app in December, 2023. Hopefully this confusion will soon fade away.
Saurus Warriors get +1 to the save rolls when they're wholly within your territory or contesting an objective. You can use use abilities like the command ability All-out Defense and/or the spell Mystic Shield to increase the modifier even further, but you can never add more than +1 to your save roll (see Core Rule 13.3, Step 3). But it can still be extremely valuable to stack these save bonuses, because they can cancel out big negatives to your save roll from rend.
So if the Saurus Warriors are on an objective and are being attacked by an enemy with Rend -2, stacking All-out Defense and Mystic Shield will cancel out the rend and still allow a net +1 to their save roll.
The +1 to save is always in effect when the Saurus Warrior unit is contesting an objective (or wholly within your territory). To be contesting an objective, the unit needs at least one model to be within 6" of at least one objective marker (which is just a point on the battlefield). This takes effect immediately whenever the unit is within 6" of the objective marker, and lasts as long as the unit remains in range.
Control of an objective — which only changes at the end of the battleshock phase — has nothing to do with this ability. You just need the unit to be contesting the objective; it doesn't matter who controls the objective.
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