Bloodied and glorified.

[Andreas]

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

if I am interpreting the scores right, Stormcast actually won on the battlefield. Followed by a DIFFERENT fyrslayers player, and then the KO. The list seems to be sorted on aggregate scores

I think you are looking at killpoints (Total VP)? 

The sorting order are scenario points + soft scores, Total Score is scenario points e.i. the fyreslayer player won every game 6 * 30pt, Total VP is how many points you killed in total.

The best SCE killed alot (11080pt in total) and won 5 games (4 major 4*30pt and one minor 1*15pt) and lost one game.

 

[Erdemo86]

Someone knows that sce list?

[Ar-Pharazôn]

1 hour ago, Greyshadow said:

Great to see a diverse set of top armies, especially Fyreslayers on top. Well done to the Andrew Hughes. Also goes to show what a great job was done by the Generals Handbook 2017 team. Well done also to the Bad Dice team for organising such an awesome looking event too!

When I read GHB2017, I thought the Fyreslayers were one of the standouts for new allegiances. Nice to see an internal prediction happen.

[WoollyMammoth]

In the top 5 there are 2 Tzeentch and 2 Fyreslayers. Not seeing the whole lot of exciting variety going on here.

Fyreslayers got triple-buffed. Massive point decreases, incredibly powerful allegiance abilities and heavily boosted in the FAQ. The pendulum swung waaaaay too far on this one. With proper conga lining you got an army of 90 models that is 5+/5+/4+++, charges an average of 12", piles in an average of 5", has two shooting attacks (180) and two close combat attacks, re-rolling all hits & wounds + everyone is immune to battleshock. Any unit also has the ability to pop out of the ground at 9" so their short movement and shooting range is rarely an issue. Their movement is doubled one turn, their shooting is doubled the next, then they are hitting you with a lot of 2 damage attacks, then they are hitting you with -1/-2 rend. The only 'weakness' in this broken list we will be seeing at the top of every tournament list for the next year is that it starts around $700 (that's including the new discount boxes) and is a total nightmare to paint. I feel bad for the Fyreslayer fans, because their army swung hard from 'sadly weak' to 'overpowered netlist' overnight, which is really not fair to those people who just genuinely like the army.

Tzeentch still has a massive mortal wound output, some of the strongest horde killing abilities and the strongest ability to just erase anything that needs erasing asap (Skyfires). They also can use their destiny dice to avoid the need for luck that everyone else relies upon. The FAQ nerfs for them were nice but they were left extremely strong while the entire meta shifted down around them. (other than Seraphon and Fyreslayers)

Meanwhile, despite the incredibly heavy nerfs on Kharadron and Kunnin' Rukk, they are both still in the top 10 in the new meta. When you look at the top armies you can see a consistent theme here; armies which have incredible mass or incredibly efficient shooting continue to dominate the top tables. The one thing the GH did not do was anything to shooting, other than make a few models more expensive which helped a little but overall didn't have much of an impact.

The Death list in the top 10 seems like a fluke. Even if you play death extremely well (which I'm sure he did) there is just certain aspects of the meta you will never be able to beat when you are a grand alliance devoid of shooting in a game where shooting is completely unrestricted and dominates the game. Therefore, until death lists get more balanced out they rely on good match-ups (or poor opponents) to do well. Death by theme always relied upon heavy magic damage to make up for their lack of shooting, so they are desperate for a Tzeentch-style update to bring them back into the meta, because right now Mystic Bolt & Curse of Years is just not doing the trick. I have faith that someday this will happen, but right now hoping to win with Death is a bit of a pipe dream which is why they are incredibly under-represented in this tournament.  

I'm very surprised at how poorly sylvaneth placed. They are not terribly under represented with over 10% of the meta, but they could not break the top 20. I'd love to see some of these games and where they struggled, because they have always been a strong army and 90% of their points dropped in the GH. I expected them to be making the top tables again. I'm also suprised to see Stormcast struggling, they are also around 10% of the meta. They did decent with 2 in the top 20 but surprising that none made it to the top 10 since they have been preforming well lately. Maybe, like Sylvaneth, people are just figuring out how to deal with them now.

It's interesting that Ironjaws didn't do a little better but there were only 7 players so had very little representation. With only a handful of players things can happen. I don't think this means much for them, and we will continue to see them pop up in high placements from time to time.

Overall though, there is this continuous theme of mass shooting (Kharadron, Tzeentch, Fyreslayers, Bonesplittaz) dominating the top tables, overwhelming elite armies (Stormcast, Ironjaws, Sylvaneth) with just too many saves to take or mortal wounds to deal with. 
 

[TheNotebookGM]

1 hour ago, WoollyMammoth said:

I feel bad for the Fyreslayer fans, because their army swung hard from 'sadly weak' to 'overpowered netlist' overnight

I've been kind of stressing about this- I wanted to mix Fyreslayers into my Aelfs to add some wholesome nudity to my Aelf force but now that they've been so dominant I'm feeling like I don't want to be bandwagoning.

[stratigo]

feel free. Fyreslayers aren't just "Oh I bought one unit and NOW I ALWAYS WIN". The fyreslayers winning ability heavily involves their combos, especially on the runesmiter and battlesmith. They're good units in isolation that become amazing units with support.

[heywoah_twitch]

6 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

It's interesting that Ironjaws didn't do a little better but there were only 7 players so had very little representation. With only a handful of players things can happen. I don't think this means much for them, and we will continue to see them pop up in high placements from time to time.

Overall though, there is this continuous theme of mass shooting (Kharadron, Tzeentch, Fyreslayers, Bonesplittaz) dominating the top tables, overwhelming elite armies (Stormcast, Ironjaws, Sylvaneth) with just too many saves to take or mortal wounds to deal with. 
 

I posit that Ironjaws largely have not done great in gh17. Each tournament where one did very well the rest were typically all very far from the top. i.e. not the even, healthy spread of a strong army, but the spikes of powerful abilities all tied to 5s and 6s and some polarizing matchups to dodge. When a bunch of them show up, one would get lucky and face FEC three times and get some 6s when it mattered, but on average the army performs unsatisfactorily. Obviously they played very well too, but I'm simplifying to point out the importance of matchups and spiky abilities vs the endless and powerful consistency of say, Tzeentch, who has a spread all over the top in every tourney.

As for bcr, It's disheartening to hear people describe the many themes required for a strong competitive army being literally the opposite of just about everything my army is supposed to do / is able to do, but you don't get a hair shy of dead last in every big event for no reason.

I'd like to hear from Ian Mckinstosh if he posts on tga, as I just want to hear about the experience of a player on my army in a competitive setting regardless of placement. 

[WoollyMammoth]

@TheNotebookGM
I agree with @stratigo, its the netlist combo of 90 berserkers that is broke as hell, taking one unit of fyreslayer allies is not OP and no one will fault you for trying to break the game with cheese for it.

@heywoah_twitch 
My point was not to get too down about Ironjaws, they had some good placements in GH2016 and continue to have some good placements in 2017. While they are not shooting heavy, they can puke & Gork-foot the hell out of armies to make up for it. There's some really cool combos in the new GH and I can see them getting high placements from time to time over the next year.

[Jamopower]

7 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Overall though, there is this continuous theme of mass shooting (Kharadron, Tzeentch, Fyreslayers, Bonesplittaz) dominating the top tables, overwhelming elite armies (Stormcast, Ironjaws, Sylvaneth) with just too many saves to take or mortal wounds to deal with. 
 

Haven't Stormcast generally done very well in tournaments, and with many different kind of army compositions as well? Also I seem to remember that there were a lot of Sylvaneth at the top tables in the GT final. I would also assume that the saves and mortal wound saves would help them most against the shooting armies, especially Tzeentch?

 

Concerning Tzeentch, my understanding looking at the lists that do well, is that the Horrors' splitting ability seems to be one of the strong points for them, which is understandable in a game about objectives.

[Andreas]

7 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

In the top 5 there are 2 Tzeentch and 2 Fyreslayers. Not seeing the whole lot of exciting variety going on here.

Fyreslayers got triple-buffed. Massive point decreases, incredibly powerful allegiance abilities and heavily boosted in the FAQ. The pendulum swung waaaaay too far on this one. With proper conga lining you got an army of 90 models that is 5+/5+/4+++, charges an average of 12", piles in an average of 5", has two shooting attacks (180) and two close combat attacks, re-rolling all hits & wounds + everyone is immune to battleshock. 

You know you are not describing the winning fyreslayer army. He did not run the kinband nor the runeson om magmadroth. ?

Fyreslayers are good, really good, but I am pretty sure that you are not going to see 2 lists in the top 5 at the next large UK tournament. If you have played them or against them you know that they are a heavy synergy army where most synergies sits in weak support heroes, they will be figured out.... but still be a very strong tier 2 army together with sylvaneth, ironjaws, KO etc.. but not really as good as for example SCE and tzeentch. IMO

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Andreas said:

You know you are not describing the winning fyreslayer army. He did not run the kinband nor the runeson om magmadroth. ?

Fyreslayers are good, really good, but I am pretty sure that you are not going to see 2 lists in the top 5 at the next large UK tournament. If you have played them or against them you know that they are a heavy synergy army where most synergies sits in weak support heroes, they will be figured out.... but still be a very strong tier 2 army together with sylvaneth, ironjaws, KO etc.. but not really as good as for example SCE and tzeentch. IMO

I thik we'll see a smiter based list regularly honestly. The mobility is super good. Ypu can, first turn, dump a bunch of very tough to kill units on objectives while also dumping a powerful alpha strike on a portion of the opponent's army.

[Andreas]

10 minutes ago, stratigo said:

I thik we'll see a smiter based list regularly honestly. The mobility is super good. Ypu can, first turn, dump a bunch of very tough to kill units on objectives while also dumping a powerful alpha strike on a portion of the opponent's army.

That I think is as true now as it have been for the last 2 years.... (but I have seen good results with fyreslayer lists without any smiters  so who knows).

[Killax]

What I like, despite the competitive top being very compairable still is that Fyreslayers and Seraphon have been added to 'top tier' and the more top tier armies we have the better. No matter how such builds cost army diversity is just better as it was with GH2016.

Having said that, indeed the FAQ and Errata on certain armies in certain cases feels somewhat misplaced. Because there are quire some new rulings and Warscrolls that have set back other (not even top tier) armies back for no extremely clear reason. In most cases something was added but indeed @WoollyMammoth has a fair point in certain armies dodging that bullet.

I also want to note that I agree 100% with @stratigo that Fyreslayers are NOT an easy win button. In many aspects the creation of 30 block units is not difficult to understand but to use them well is. Their speed and threat ranges still hinder them to a point where they indeed profit when an opponent makes the mistake of simply going for them and assume they are as weak as they where with GH2016. The Fyreslayers NOW punish such strategies extremely well. 
What certainly helps is that Fyreslayers are at least armed for battle and low shooting means they are extremely strong aswell. However as the results also show us, if you do have enough ranged attacks it can and will crumble.

What is the most fair conclusion here is that the talk about teleporting armies being extremely relevant has so far indeed resulted in that. The other fair thing is that the competitive top remains extremely mixed and that's a really good thing. With GH2016 the tournament results became very predictable. Not in player but in army.
 

[WoollyMammoth]

9 hours ago, Jamopower said:

Haven't Stormcast generally done very well in tournaments, and with many different kind of army compositions as well? Also I seem to remember that there were a lot of Sylvaneth at the top tables in the GT final. I would also assume that the saves and mortal wound saves would help them most against the shooting armies, especially Tzeentch?

Stormcast can fill their battleline with 3 units of elite-shooting judicators, bring Raptors for more powerful shooting. The stardrake, dracoth celestant, Knight-Vexillor and Knight Heraldor all have special mass mortal wound shots.  The Lord Celestant can cause up to 6 mortals from 16".  The Knight-Venator shoots and has the star-fated arrow. Some dracoth calvary have potent ranged breath attacks. Any Relictor can now teleport 24" then cause D3 mortal wounds within 12. Hunters, palladors, tempestors and prosecutors are also shooting units. It is very difficult to build a Stormcast list without mass elite shooting.

Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters are probably the second best unit in the game (after skyfyres) and can absolutely destroy in the shooting phase. Sylvaneth were at their high point with the "21 Kurnoth w/ bows" lists were being played. Now that Kurnoth are more expensive you will not see as many. 
 

9 hours ago, Andreas said:

You know you are not describing the winning fyreslayer army. He did not run the kinband nor the runeson om magmadroth. ?

Fyreslayers are good, really good, but I am pretty sure that you are not going to see 2 lists in the top 5 at the next large UK tournament. If you have played them or against them you know that they are a heavy synergy army where most synergies sits in weak support heroes, they will be figured out.... but still be a very strong tier 2 army together with sylvaneth, ironjaws, KO etc.. but not really as good as for example SCE and tzeentch. IMO

 No, the list has not been posted. What is the list?

In order to beat them you have to be able to kill their heroes from range very quickly. They can easily have over 100 models on 32" bases so they have total board dominance. You cannot rely on any kind of ambush or summon in most cases. Typically the heroes are 4+ re-rolling when you have to kill them. Only certain armies are going to be equipped to deal with this, and those armies are the powerful shooting-heavy armies which are already at the top of the meta.  

[Andreas]

1 hour ago, WoollyMammoth said:

No, the list has not been posted. What is the list?

Runefather

Battlesmith

2xRunesmiter

3x30 Vulkites

30 Aurics

6 Skywardens

Edit: Very similar to the list I run. I like better than the kinband which I have also tried. But they are both good.

[WoollyMammoth]

@Andreas
Thank you. This list has the core of everything I was talking about

With proper conga lining you got an army of 90 models that is 5+/5+/4+++, charges an average of 12", piles in ..5", has two shooting attacks (180) and two close combat attacks, re-rolling all hits & wounds + everyone is immune to battleshock. Any unit also has the ability to pop out of the ground at 9" so their short movement and shooting range is rarely an issue.

So in this case they are popping two units out of the ground, with +3 charge rune on turn one this negates the need for the 12" charges, and instead of two shooting attacks each, they opt for 30 rending shooting from the vulkites and some additional elite shooting from 6 skywardens. With the Runefather they don't have to worry about 4-6" pile in, they just pile in 5". The core of the list, 90 models which have nearly every boost in the game and negate 5/6 of all damage directed at them remains the same. This list is going to be dominating the meta for the next year, alongside Tzeentch, which has the best chance to beat this list. 

Welcome to the Fyrezeentch meta.

[Andreas]

2 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Andreas
Thank you. This list has the core of everything I was talking about

With proper conga lining you got an army of 90 models that is 5+/5+/4+++, charges an average of 12", piles in ..5", has two shooting attacks (180) and two close combat attacks, re-rolling all hits & wounds + everyone is immune to battleshock. Any unit also has the ability to pop out of the ground at 9" so their short movement and shooting range is rarely an issue.

So in this case they are popping two units out of the ground, with +3 charge rune on turn one this negates the need for the 12" charges, and instead of two shooting attacks each, they opt for 30 rending shooting from the vulkites and some additional elite shooting from 6 skywardens. With the Runefather they don't have to worry about 4-6" pile in, they just pile in 5". The core of the list, 90 models which have nearly every boost in the game and negate 5/6 of all damage directed at them remains the same. This list is going to be dominating the meta for the next year, alongside Tzeentch, which has the best chance to beat this list. 

Welcome to the Fyrezeentch meta.

Well this is not exactly how they work. There is not any rune that gives you +3 charge range. You can get +4 if you roll a 6, but it is not a given. And there is absolute no rune gives you rend on you shooting for your vulkites. Reroll hits on the vulkites is usually not the common weapon options that you give them in tournament play. And I think there are better common tournament lists to take on the fyreslayers than Tzeentch, for example a stardrake list. And for me, I believe that 60 Vulkites is the optimal build (I have 90), but I think there are several good builds.

My point is play them and see what you think. They are good, really good, but not unbeatable. A lot you people that write and talk about them now have never seen them and don't really know their rules or how they play. This will of course change in 2018.

[stratigo]

Again, it’s the runesmiters that make fureslayers in my opinion

 

i think the real secret to aos is not in how many shots you can shoot or how tough your battle line is, but how fast you can get your army where you need it to be, and runesmiters are how the fyreslayers do that

[WoollyMammoth]

@Andreas
Thank you, I took a closer look at the allegiance. I thought the 4" move was automatically 4" charge as well. 

I lost a tournament last week to Fyreslayers. I made it to the top table and got obliterated by them, 0-2000. FEC v Fyreslayers. He made me go first and won the first two initiative rolls, so it felt like 3-1 turns. I was holing out pretty well but just nothing was going for me and he kept like saving my maw attacks on a 6 and rolling his 6s for runes. I'd be interested to see what happens If i got a bit more luck my way. Regardless I had no way to attack his general w/o any shooting.  Without him taking any battleshock its a steep uphill battle for any death list. 

I would agree that Stormcast could do well against this list, however not specifically because of the Stardrake. Stardrake is cool but whats it going to do? Eat a few of them? the shooting attacks might do a few mortals over time but its a big point investment. Its the combination of all the factors of Stormcast that is going to help take out the key chars and and do their best to clean up.

@stratigo
Many armies have the ability to ambush within 9" or get within charge range first turn. That is not a big deal. You can simply force them into a screen unit. Its the fact they are shooting over your screen and negating most of your damage.

[stratigo]

3 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Andreas
Thank you, I took a closer look at the allegiance. I thought the 4" move was automatically 4" charge as well. 

I lost a tournament last week to Fyreslayers. I made it to the top table and got obliterated by them, 0-2000. FEC v Fyreslayers. He made me go first and won the first two initiative rolls, so it felt like 3-1 turns. I was holing out pretty well but just nothing was going for me and he kept like saving my maw attacks on a 6 and rolling his 6s for runes. I'd be interested to see what happens If i got a bit more luck my way. Regardless I had no way to attack his general w/o any shooting.  Without him taking any battleshock its a steep uphill battle for any death list. 

I would agree that Stormcast could do well against this list, however not specifically because of the Stardrake. Stardrake is cool but whats it going to do? Eat a few of them? the shooting attacks might do a few mortals over time but its a big point investment. Its the combination of all the factors of Stormcast that is going to help take out the key chars and and do their best to clean up.

@stratigo
Many armies have the ability to ambush within 9" or get within charge range first turn. That is not a big deal. You can simply force them into a screen unit. Its the fact they are shooting over your screen and negating most of your damage.

when you're dropping 30 vulkites on a far objective instead of waiting for their slow regular movement, that will win a game. The Auric hearthguard bomb is insane too.

[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎07‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 2:53 AM, WoollyMammoth said:

@heywoah_twitch 
My point was not to get too down about Ironjaws, they had some good placements in GH2016 and continue to have some good placements in 2017. While they are not shooting heavy, they can puke & Gork-foot the hell out of armies to make up for it. There's some really cool combos in the new GH and I can see them getting high placements from time to time over the next year.

No one doing well with Ironjawz is reliant on the Weirdnob Shaman's spells!  

@heywoah_twitch is totally right. In other GH2017 events, Ironjawz overall have typically performed "ok" at best. However there have been some solid individual results which have maybe come as a result of favourable draws, a bit of a luck, soft scores and of course, let's not discount a cheeky bit of good play!

It's also worth noting that neither myself nor @Sangfroid, the two most experienced Ironjawz players, were in attendance at B&G unfortunately. James who did incredibly well at the GT Finals was also notably absent (I'm not sure how much of an independent tournament goer he is though tbh).

But yeh, overall we definitely haven't been swarming the top tables of events towards the business end. In fact, we've often seen that anyone rising high day one is smacked back down day two. The submarine is where it is at!

[Aginor]

A few remarks:

Whoever brought a Brayherd army to a tournament deserves a special notion because he has to carry his balls on a cart. Same for the Warherd guy. Good job.

I am sad about Death but I hope they will get something soon so they can be great again as well.

One thing that makes me sad about my own favourite army (Seraphon) is that - no offense @Darren Watson you are a great guy - the only real competitive Seraphon lists evolve around a borderline broken cheese tactic that my friends would slap me for playing if I ever did I want army lists to be more varied.

Tzeentch are very strong. Skyfire is still real.

I feel so sorry for BCR. They were too strong before, granted. But now it seems they were nerfed to the ground.

 

Edit: I am also quite surprised SCE seem to be not that overwhelming anymore. That's a good thing. For some time it looked as though they would be to me.

[Bagrar]

The remark on warherds (as well as on brayherds) actually is very interesting: While only placing in the midfield, warherds performed second best (after soulblight) amongst armies without a proper battletome and best amongst armies without specific allegiance abilities (mixed armies not couted, ofc). This actually excited me pretty much, since I just started to pick warherds up as a second army next to my KO.. Seems like there is some solid fanbase for beastmen even in the tournament scene.

 

My question would be: Does anyone have the lists of the warherds armies (and maybe as well of brayherds)? The basic options are rather limited of course, but I’d especially be interested in the allies that were used..

[Kramer]

30 minutes ago, Bagrar said:

While only placing in the midfield, warherds performed second best (after soulblight) amongst armies without a proper battletome and best amongst armies without specific allegiance abilities (mixed armies not couted, ofc)

Good remark. 

I personally am surprised that Slaanesh didn't score higher. The combination of the slaves to darkness with Host of Slaanesh with 3! command abilities could be huge. (unless I got it wrong, but I always read the rules as: if everything shares the SLAANESH keyword they can acces the abilities and traits)

Together with a mage, it should be quite possible to triple buff a big squad of knights to re-roll 1's, double pile in, and with run& charge or extra attacks on 6's. They have magic, speed, horde units (daemonic and marauder), and the before mentioned command abilities. They might be lacking some big beasties or hard as nails heroes. But still...

[Chris Tomlin]

The Warherd player was none other than @Paul Buckler! So perhaps he can share some insights there.

Paul has made a name for himself on the Tournament scene by producing a seemingly never ending supply of obscure armies to bring to pretty much every tournament held in the UK! This is attested to by the fact he currently holds both The Changeling (most different armies played) and Marco Columbo (most tournaments played) icons on the UK rankings.

What's scarier is he usually ends up doing pretty well...I often wonder what would happen if he took a super strong build!