Swords or Hammers

[Shankzalot]

Hey Ya'll,

 

I am just getting into Stormcast and was wondering, swords or hammers for liberators?  I have been playing AoS for a while, and have seen more "- to hit" debuffs than "- to wound."  What is everyone's opinions and experiences with this?

 

Thanks

 

 

T

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

Without any buffs, pick whichever weapon you like. Be it for aesthetic reasons or else.

However if you use Lord-Celestant on Foot to enhance your units, than the hammer-wielding liberators benefit slightly more than the sword liberators do.

[Nico]

I took swords due to the proliferation of -1 to hit. 

[BunkhouseBuster]

Whenever I do get into Stormcast Eternals, I'm planning on swords, mostly for aesthetic reasons.  I'm a big Roman history buff, I'll be planning on painting in some Roman and other Classical themes into my Stormcast once I get going on them.  A bunch of heavy infantry wielding short swords and shields?  Sounds good to me!

[ShadowSwordmaster]

You can choose either from what I could tell.

[Twitch of Izalith]

I was going to put a mix of both. Like 5 with hammers and shields 3 with dual swords and 2 grandswords. Mostly i think swords look better. The Prosecutor prime with a grandsword is the model that convinced me Stormcast could look awesome! I was a bit suspicious about them at first.

Say no to gold armour though. Just no.

[rokapoke]

17 minutes ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

I was going to put a mix of both. Like 5 with hammers and shields 3 with dual swords and 2 grandswords. Mostly i think swords look better. The Prosecutor prime with a grandsword is the model that convinced me Stormcast could look awesome! I was a bit suspicious about them at first.

Say no to gold armour though. Just no.

Just note that each individual unit needs a consistent weapon choice. So you could run a unit of 5 hammer/shield dudes and a unit of 5 swords, but each unit can only have a single special weapon. Of course, if you really like the swords you could have a 5-man unit with 4 hammer/shield dudes and a grandsword if you like.

[GammaMage]

Someone tell Sevarin Steelheart that his unit doesn't follow the rules.

[Draviticus]

Quote

Someone tell Sevarin Steelheart that his unit doesn't follow the rules. 

Well actually, if he was in charge of a unit that had at least 10 Liberators to start he'd be legal. 1 in every 5 can wield either a Grandhammer or Grandblade. It does not require them to wield Grandhammers only or Grandblades only. That restriction only applies to those that are not wielding the special weapons. His unit essentially boils down to this in AoS Terms:

10 x Liberators (200)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandblades
- 1x Grandhammers

[BURF1]

2 hours ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

I was going to put a mix of both. Like 5 with hammers and shields 3 with dual swords and 2 grandswords. Mostly i think swords look better. The Prosecutor prime with a grandsword is the model that convinced me Stormcast could look awesome! I was a bit suspicious about them at first.

Say no to gold armour though. Just no.

That is not a legal unit of 10. 

[Draviticus]

On the actual topic, in my opinion it's pretty much just a flavor choice. 

It is true you will find more modifiers for toHit rolls, on both ends of the spectrum. Liberators have one built in, "Lay Low the Tyrants". This makes paired hammers the best for attacking anything with 5+ wounds, absent any other modifiers. Otherwise they come out to about equal, with paired weapons averaging better on offense then weapon and shield.

If you really want to build out one over the other you can do that, with Hammers being easier, as +toHit is easier to come by. For swords there is a battalion that buffs swords exclusively, The Celestial Vindicators. 

Personally I don't rely on my Liberators to provide offense, so I always run weapon and shield. Since I acquired most of my liberators from the starter boxes I split with my friend, they are all hammer and shield.  I have often found them to be fighting things of 5+ hitpoints, and have never felt the 4 toHit to be a problem.

 
 

[Turragor]

Question related to this as I'm awful at probability:

Is it better or worse (or the same) to roll 100 dice at: 3+ then 4+

versus: 4+ then 3+

?

Part of me wants to say "duh, they're the same" but I am not sure.

It also feels like the harder roll to start with means there are fewer chance to roll the easier roll. Whereas the easy roll to start with gives more chances at the harder roll. Buuuuut... I'm a maths idiot so

 

[BURF1]

40 minutes ago, Turragor said:

Question related to this as I'm awful at probability:

Is it better or worse (or the same) to roll 100 dice at: 3+ then 4+

versus: 4+ then 3+

?

Part of me wants to say "duh, they're the same" but I am not sure.

It also feels like the harder roll to start with means there are fewer chance to roll the easier roll. Whereas the easy roll to start with gives more chances at the harder roll. Buuuuut... I'm a maths idiot so

 

It's the same for those two. The difference comes in when you add modifiers. At +1 to hit 2+4+ is 3%ish WORSE than 3+3+, At -1 to hit 4+4+ is 2.5%ish BETTER, At +2 to hit the Hammers super win out because +2 to hit is wasted on the swords.

[BunkhouseBuster]

50 minutes ago, Turragor said:

Question related to this as I'm awful at probability:

Is it better or worse (or the same) to roll 100 dice at: 3+ then 4+

versus: 4+ then 3+

?

Part of me wants to say "duh, they're the same" but I am not sure.

It also feels like the harder roll to start with means there are fewer chance to roll the easier roll. Whereas the easy roll to start with gives more chances at the harder roll. Buuuuut... I'm a maths idiot so

Statistically, they are identical, as far as the math is concerned.  Where one starts to get better is where the buffs start coming in.  And going by the averages, 3+/3+ is better than 2+/4+.  Meaning that if you get a +1 To Hit, you will want the hammers, while a +1 To Wound would be preferable for the swords.  Same goes for the Grand-versions.

If you were to put maximum buffs on them, then things get tricky.  An Amber Battlemage casting Wildform is the only way (that I know of) for Order models to get +1 To Wound on a unit, while there are three different ways for Liberators to get +1 To Hit: their own ability (Lay Low the Tyrants), a Lord-Celestant (Furious Retribution), and a Celestial Hurricanum (Portents of Battle).  If you plan on stacking two +1 To Hits on the Liberators, then the Hammers work better since they get to 2+ with their To Hit, while already at 3+ To Wound.

Does that help?

EDIT: Ninja'd by @BURF1

[Twitch of Izalith]

1 hour ago, BURF1 said:

That is not a legal unit of 10. 

Bummer. It's a good job I didn't build them yet then!

I will probably just do 10 hammer and shield with a couple of grand hammers in one unit and dual warblades with a couple of grandblades in the other 10 then.

That kind of sucks because if you go for the more interesting modeling options it stops you combining them into bigger units. I hate it when the rules work to get in the way of variety!

[BunkhouseBuster]

20 minutes ago, Twitch of Izalith said:

Bummer. It's a good job I didn't build them yet then!

I will probably just do 10 hammer and shield with a couple of grand hammers in one unit and dual warblades with a couple of grandblades in the other 10 then.

That kind of sucks because if you go for the more interesting modeling options it stops you combining them into bigger units. I hate it when the rules work to get in the way of variety!

Just imagine what it would look like to have a squad with a sword in one hand and a hammer in the other!  That would be cool!