My stormcast rant : the good, the bad and the ugly, where they are now, and what should be done

[AdamR]

Killing the Castellant is key in that situation (which I didn't do as I'm an idiot) otherwise the drake will generally end up less wounded than it started with 0 rend weapons.

I'm struggling to think of any armies with a battletome that couldn't make a list with enough rend -2 or MW to deal with it though. Any examples?

[Kaleun]

You Model collection is the thing here. I take myself as a example. Regularly I only field one unit of Executioners as Darkling Covens have very low to no rend at all. If I play against a competitive Stormcast List I should now have the triple amount of Executioners to deal with the 2+ rerollable Heroes (Stardrake, Dracoth, on foot).

I need to field around 2300 Spearmen to kill a Stardrake with a 2+ rerollable (without the heal!), statistically. This is the reason why I say "invincible". 2300 Spearmen is the aequivalent to 23 000 points. Gues we should adjust the point cost of the Stardrake ;-)

[AdamR]

Doesn't Darkling Covens have access to Dragons! They're pretty rendy on the old bite front, right? -2 rend d6 damage? And that's without allies!

[ledha]

47 minutes ago, AdamR said:

Killing the Castellant is key in that situation (which I didn't do as I'm an idiot) otherwise the drake will generally end up less wounded than it started with 0 rend weapons.

I'm struggling to think of any armies with a battletome that couldn't make a list with enough rend -2 or MW to deal with it though. Any examples?

Stormcast can (obviously)

Khorne as well (both demons and mortal, with bloodletters or slaughterpriest)

Nurgle have enough mortal wound sniping with the wheel (so no castellant), or with blade of putrefaction

Legion of Nagash have acess to spell with mortal wounds and hard hitting units (morghast, terrorgheist, vampire on zombie dragon) who WILL kill a stadrake (while a stardrake will never been able to kill a terrorgheist who is 50% less expensive). Even if they don't have a unit, they can tarpit the stardrake until the end of the game with 40 skeletons who are half of price. 

Tzeentch too, obviously

Beastclaw raiders will say "lol" and three shot him with thunderstucks

The Skryre player will laugh very very strongly then remove the stardrake, as well as all the other stardrake in a 200 km area

A single unit of hearthguard berserker in the battalion for double pile-in will wreck a stardrake. And the whole army have acess to rend -2 = not a problem for them

DOK have easy acess to mortal wound as well as high rend and TON of attacks with ease. 15 blood sister (420 pts, and only 480 pts for 20) with mind rasor and a double pile -in from a slaughter queen (100 pts) will do 30 attacks doing a mortal wound on a 4+ to hit, and 90 attacks with 3+/3+/-2/1 (or dmg 2 with bravery sheaningan)

Kharadron will have huge issues if the stardrake have a mirrorshield. But they have enough high rend and multi dmg to maybe one-round it. rend -2 or rend -3 across the board is no joke

Sylvaneths have global mortal wound with trees, and a spirit of durthu can one-round a stardrake as well before the stardrake act

I don't know the bonesplitterz well enough but they usually wreck every single monster they come across.

Seraphon can tarpit it until the end of time and snipe the castellant without issue

 

Of course, every list will not have the units to take a stardrake fast, but those armies have the tools to deal with it.

The stardrake is only good as that : being a formidable avil. Damage wise, it's more than 25% of a army, with 7 attacks rend-1/D3, and some special abilities who doesn't work against a lone monster or a hero. It's very different from a vampire lord on zombie dragon that will wreck everything that come across.

 

[AdamR]

There you go then - no problem!

[chord]

Staunch Defender is fine, it's just when it's on a couple of models ppl complain

[TheDayman]

So after reading through this I think I'm going to throw in my two cents so to speak:

First of all, I'm mostly a play for fun type of guy, I love the fluff and I don't play in tournaments (as of yet) so I do apologise if any of my take comes across as wishlisting!

Now to get on to the meaty stuff. On a whole I think SCE are mostly fine as a faction though the cost of some battalions make my head hurt, I would however love to see a day where you don't have to take Vanguard Wing to be competitive. One thing that I'm really hoping to see is Liberators being a bit more effective like they are in the fluff, perhaps and ability giving them a +1 to their save if they are base to base (provided they have shields) or dare I say it, making the shields a +1 to save whilst staunch defender gets changed to re roll save rolls of 1? (Please don't kill me) whilst paired weapon liberators get an extra attack (either in addition to or instead of re-rolls, wouldn't mind either). Of course points should be changed to balance this.

The MAJOR thing for me is the Stormhost debacle, as a fluffy player I hate the fact that I have to pay 280 points to run hallowed knights when KO, DOK and a few other factions get to do that for free, so a system like that would be amazing! On a side note I think this system should cover ALL armies in AOS, not just order ones. It would help expand the fluff a bit and give players more choice on how they would like to play the game if done so correctly  
 

Now I'm a bit 50/50 on the allegiance ability, I personally don't use it because of the list I tend to run, but after some thinking different stormhosts have different methods of fighting other than teleporting in all over the place. So if they were to do the stormhost system perhaps change the allegiance ability for each one or something? 

Again, hope nothing I've said here comes across as wishlisting or the sort, these are just changes I'd like to see to the army to make them more fun in my eyes  

Edit: Just realised I forgot to mention bravery, SCE seem to have fairly low bravery compared to most new units in AOS so probably should be brought up by a point or maybe even 2 to be brought in line with the new stuff!

[DanielFM]

22 minutes ago, TheDayman said:

The MAJOR thing for me is the Stormhost debacle, as a fluffy player I hate the fact that I have to pay 280 points to run hallowed knights when KO, DOK and a few other factions get to do that for free, so a system like that would be amazing! On a side note I think this system should cover ALL armies in AOS, not just order ones. It would help expand the fluff a bit and give players more choice on how they would like to play the game if done so correctly  
 

Now I'm a bit 50/50 on the allegiance ability, I personally don't use it because of the list I tend to run, but after some thinking different stormhosts have different methods of fighting other than teleporting in all over the place. So if they were to do the stormhost system perhaps change the allegiance ability for each one or something? 

Again, hope nothing I've said here comes across as wishlisting or the sort, these are just changes I'd like to see to the army to make them more fun in my eyes  

Edit: Just realised I forgot to mention bravery, SCE seem to have fairly low bravery compared to most new units in AOS so probably should be brought up by a point or maybe even 2 to be brought in line with the new stuff!

The rest, I don't agree with. But all this, I do!

[Bradipo322]

So, after 7 pages of discussion there are some points that are shared among most of us:

• "Scions of the storm" is too unreliable, it has to be changed in a way that's still useful without being too strong
• "Staunch defender" is too strong compared to the others command traits, so nerf it (please no!) or bring the others to his level
• "Stormhosts" should not cost points, like how Daughters of Kaine temples works
• The "Bravery" of most non-hero units is really low compared to other factions, this is probably due to power creep but that's not a valid excuse, just 1 or 2 points can make a big difference  (this may bother only me, but still...)

So now what can we do? I keep seeing people suggesting to write directly to GW facebook page, what if we all to this? Can we change something?

Should we arrange together a message to GW?

[Kaleun]

3 hours ago, Bradipo322 said:

So, after 7 pages of discussion there are some points that are shared among most of us:

• "Scions of the storm" is too unreliable, it has to be changed in a way that's still useful without being too strong
• "Staunch defender" is too strong compared to the others command traits, so nerf it (please no!) or bring the others to his level
• "Stormhosts" should not cost points, like how Daughters of Kaine temples works
• The "Bravery" of most non-hero units is really low compared to other factions, this is probably due to power creep but that's not a valid excuse, just 1 or 2 points can make a big difference  (this may bother only me, but still...)

So now what can we do? I keep seeing people suggesting to write directly to GW facebook page, what if we all to this? Can we change something?

Should we arrange together a message to GW?

nah. Please let GW out of this.

[Somanlius]

I read and kind of agree with much of this but....

I dont know about the tournament scene too much. In my local area though Stormcast are still seen as incredibly powerful. Granted, most players here are casual and still have transitional armies from WFB, but thats kind of my point. There seems to be 3 or 4 armies that can routinely defeat Stormcast if the list building is correct, but against Ironjawz, Darkling Covens, Free People, High Elves, Gutbusters, Beastclaws, Slaves to Darkness, Skaven, Basic Death, FEC, Greenskinz, Grots, Beastmen, Dispossessed, Wanderers, Sylvaneth, Order Serpentis/Draconis, and some Bloodbound armies no one really stands much of a chance against Stormcast unless the list building and tactics are incredibly good.  That just seems to be the way things are in my area at least.

[ledha]

1 hour ago, Somanlius said:

I read and kind of agree with much of this but....

I dont know about the tournament scene too much. In my local area though Stormcast are still seen as incredibly powerful. Granted, most players here are casual and still have transitional armies from WFB, but thats kind of my point. There seems to be 3 or 4 armies that can routinely defeat Stormcast if the list building is correct, but against Ironjawz, Darkling Covens, Free People, High Elves, Gutbusters, Beastclaws, Slaves to Darkness, Skaven, Basic Death, FEC, Greenskinz, Grots, Beastmen, Dispossessed, Wanderers, Sylvaneth, Order Serpentis/Draconis, and some Bloodbound armies no one really stands much of a chance against Stormcast unless the list building and tactics are incredibly good.  That just seems to be the way things are in my area at least.

Sylvaneth and Bloodbound, against anything else than lolvanguardwing, are in a equal footing with the stormcast. Skaven Skryre are litterally the stormcast hardcounter with tzeentch.

The other armies are compendium (high elves, beastmen,darkling covens, wanderers, order serpentis/draconis) or very weak/mediocre armies (ironjaws, beastclaw, flesh-eater, slaves to darkness). that don't hold a candle to the other recent armies (nagash, tzeentch, khorne, nurgle, stormcast, sylvaneth, seraphon, fyreslayer, daughter of khaine, etc)

Grots need to be very well played, but i saw a moonclan army bitchslapping a skyborne slayers and a kharadron clown car, so it seems feasible

[DantePQ]

SCE are fine, still very strong competitve army - there are other armies that need "refresh" more then SCE (for example Sylvaneth or BCR) or Alliances that need more new armies then SCE need new things (Destruction mostly, but also Death). 

[ledha]

36 minutes ago, DantePQ said:

SCE are fine, still very strong competitve army - there are other armies that need "refresh" more then SCE (for example Sylvaneth or BCR) or Alliances that need more new armies then SCE need new things (Destruction mostly, but also Death). 

Yep, it's exactly what i said in the fourth sentence of my first post.  My point was about the non existent internal balance of the SCE, not their power (even if in very competitive setting, they are as now much more limited than before). Even tzeentch and fyreslayers have big issues like this

 

[DanielFM]

10 hours ago, ledha said:

Yep, it's exactly what i said in the fourth sentence of my first post.  My point was about the non existent internal balance of the SCE, not their power (even if in very competitive setting, they are as now much more limited than before). Even tzeentch and fyreslayers have big issues like this

 

Yeah, and the key point is that it doesn't eliminate the need for an update. The global competitiveness of an army doesn't remove the desirability of internal balance, and the more units a faction gets, the most likely it won't have internal balance (cue SCE).

GW wants to sell all kits, not just a few. SCE players want to field varied units and not feel gimped by it. Other players want to play against SCE and not find Vanguard Wing/Skyborne Slayers clones every time.

If GW gave SCE better internal balance, everyone would win. But nooooo, people see a SCE overhaul as a menace. "They are plenty powerful already!""We need it more than them!" etc.

[Bradipo322]

On 18/3/2018 at 12:02 PM, Bradipo322 said:

So, after 7 pages of discussion there are some points that are shared among most of us:

• "Scions of the storm" is too unreliable, it has to be changed in a way that's still useful without being too strong
• "Staunch defender" is too strong compared to the others command traits, so nerf it (please no!) or bring the others to his level
• "Stormhosts" should not cost points, like how Daughters of Kaine temples works
• The "Bravery" of most non-hero units is really low compared to other factions, this is probably due to power creep but that's not a valid excuse, just 1 or 2 points can make a big difference  (this may bother only me, but still...)

So now what can we do? I keep seeing people suggesting to write directly to GW facebook page, what if we all to this? Can we change something?

Should we arrange together a message to GW?

Just quoting myself but I would love if everyone did something like this for every faction/army, old and new, to get the ultimate balance between everything.

I've seen too many games where the company just didn't listened its players or even cared about the game itself and leading the game to die, and while that is not the case (warhammer won't die easly), and the community helping the producers seems like a win-win situation to me. After all we want to buy miniatures and GW wants to sell them, so why not?

Hell, maybe I'm terribly wrong, but what if I'm right? What if we can make this game better? Wouldn't that be awesome?

[chord]

I agree the Bravery is way too low.  I think this is a holdover from the StarterSet ,  without having the bravery where it is, new players would not have really had to pay much attention to battleshock.  Now it's the time to raise it to become more in line with the fluff.

[DantePQ]

3 hours ago, DanielFM said:

Yeah, and the key point is that it doesn't eliminate the need for an update. The global competitiveness of an army doesn't remove the desirability of internal balance, and the more units a faction gets, the most likely it won't have internal balance (cue SCE).

GW wants to sell all kits, not just a few. SCE players want to field varied units and not feel gimped by it. Other players want to play against SCE and not find Vanguard Wing/Skyborne Slayers clones every time.

If GW gave SCE better internal balance, everyone would win. But nooooo, people see a SCE overhaul as a menace. "They are plenty powerful already!""We need it more than them!" etc.

Not really, it's more about another armies needing update much more then SCE and should get it before another SCE update. 

[Pitloze]

So is it really true that SCE is the most versatile army in the game at the moment? That would make me much happier about my choice to go with them.

[chord]

2 hours ago, Pitloze said:

So is it really true that SCE is the most versatile army in the game at the moment? That would make me much happier about my choice to go with them.

Like most things in life it depends...

If you're playing narrative/open absolutely.  If playing matched play, then no. You're basically stuck with 1-2 battalions, and certain units to be competitive.

[AdamR]

You still have 4-5 different builds even if you want to play super competitively - I'd say that's pretty good!

*Vanguard wing

*Aetherstrike Force

*Skyborne Slayers

*Stardrake plus friends

*Hammerstrike Force

[PJetski]

On 3/20/2018 at 6:29 AM, Pitloze said:

So is it really true that SCE is the most versatile army in the game at the moment? That would make me much happier about my choice to go with them.

Unequivocally the Seraphon are the most diverse and versatile army in the game.

[Freejack02]

4 hours ago, PJetski said:

Unequivocally the Seraphon are the most diverse and versatile army in the game.

In Matched Play? Don't they have 1 competetive battalion? I'm completely in the dark when it comes to Seraphon - no one in my play group runs them. 

[rokapoke]

2 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

In Matched Play? Don't they have 1 competetive battalion? I'm completely in the dark when it comes to Seraphon - no one in my play group runs them. 

Note that he said “diverse and versatile” rather than “best to smash face.” Matched Play isn’t exclusively for tournament gaming. 

[PJetski]

30 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

In Matched Play? Don't they have 1 competetive battalion? I'm completely in the dark when it comes to Seraphon - no one in my play group runs them. 

They have several viable competitive lists.

Kroak + Vortex
Thunderquake Starhost
Sunclaw Starhost
Shadowstrike Starhost
Dracothions Tail

There's a lot of variation in these lists, like the Thunderquake that summons vs the Thunderquake that runs 9 Kroxigors. Dracothions Tail can be played in a huge number of ways, including a mortal wound bomb with Kroak + Celestant Prime

And that's just scratching the surface because summoning is a massive variable.