Stormcast Vanguard Chamber

[WoollyMammoth]

Let me start by saying I absolutely love all the Vanguard Chamber models. Hunters are badass axe wielding sharpshooters with fur cloaks, Palladors are some of the most beautiful models I've ever made, armored super warriors on the backs of crazy charging gryphon horses, with the most weird & wonderful being the Lord-Aquilor. Raptors are sweet snipers with giant crossbows guarded by a flock of angry birds. The Vanguard chamber brought an interesting variety to stormcast, and also started the maskless faces, bringing humanity to the models and making them feel more like heroes and less like statue automatons. 

That being said, I feel like the whole thing was kind of rushed. They came out with the new Battletome, which made all stormcast capable of teleporting anywhere on the battlefield. Meanwhile the entire Vanguard chamber is about teleporting across the battlefield. These two concepts mostly overlap and cancel each other out, leaving a lot of the Vanguards rather lackluster.

Even though I bought them on release, my Aquilor, Palladors and Raptors remain unpainted. That is because every time I have used them, they have been the least useful models on the table. Its to the point where my opponents ask me if I'm just rolling really bad for them - no, they just never seem to do anything. I don't have hunters because every time an opponent has used them against me, they were a huge nothingburger. They shot and charged and caused like 3 wounds then I blew them out. Liberators don't do a ton but they can make important saves and sometimes - for example buffed by a Celestant+Lay low the tyrants are 2+/3+ and can do a lot of killing. Hunters in contrast cost 40% more points than Libs. I've tried teleporting into combat with the Aquilor and Paladors, only to have then cause a couple wounds then get bogged down in a bad combat for several turns. The Raptors are 180 points for 3 shots that honestly never seem to do more than a unit of 5 judicators which are 20pt cheaper, battleline & have 4 more wounds to get through. 

For the points I spend on these units, I always regret not using the points for another Relictor, a Celetstant on Dracoth or Dracoth cavalry, more libs, more Judicators, another unit of Retributors, another key char, etc.

Maybe I'm just using them wrong but for me, on both ends of the table the entire Vanguard Chamber has been a complete disappointment and I can't bring myself to paint them up beautiful since I never enjoy them on the table. 

 

[azmar]

try 2 paint and play some game in small format: paladors and hunters not bad in 1000

[Trayanee]

Are they really that bad in normal 2k point games? I have just started painting palladors and hunters as my first AOS models and while I certainly dont need to win to have fun with a game, getting stomped while my units do nothing wouldnt be an enjoyable experience.

[CoOpRich]

26 minutes ago, Trayanee said:

Are they really that bad in normal 2k point games? I have just started painting palladors and hunters as my first AOS models and while I certainly dont need to win to have fun with a game, getting stomped while my units do nothing wouldnt be an enjoyable experience.

No, they're not bad at all! They have upsides and downsides vs regular stormcast units (which others will be more qualified than me to explain in detail - I haven't got any so can't comment too much on how they play, but I do plan on getting some, probably the xmas battleforce).

Played a 1k game recently - their Aquilor, Azyros and 3 Palladors gave my Celestant, 2 Fulminators, 5 Liberators and a War Hydra a good 2 or 3 rounds of combat, and that's with Relictor in the background (admittedly failing all his prayers) and me also shooting at them occasionally with Knight Venator and Judicators.

It's advisable to get a Lord Aquilor to use as your general if you're going down the vanguard route.