AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[jhamslam]

2 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

Incator x2
Arcanum on foot
Castellant (would have been heraldor, but our realm feature was no running)
Liberators
Seq x10, x2
Evocators x10
Ballistae x3, Ordinator

Yeah this is where ballistas fail sorta. You need to kill min 2 heroes a turn, the named keeper and other keepers. For every 2 1/2 heroes you kill he will summon one, and with the new costs for the ballista....just do longstrikes.

How were the matchups, was the ballista reliable at all?

Youre already 90 points over wit the new GHB. Evocators are pretty slow and bad if you cant give em mobility thru Gavriel or Knight Heraldor. Sequitors imo simply arent worth it in meta of fight first and mortal wound spam. Unless youre running em in a distraction mode in blocks of 20 while shooting and/or casting endless spells.

[crkhobbit]

I really need to get this list proxied up for testing because it works really well in my head.  But I don't know if it will actually translate to the tabletop.

Gavriel
WarriorBrotherhood
Knight-Azyros
Knight-Vexillor
Decimators x10
Retributors x10
Judicatorsx5, x2
Liberatorsx5, x2
Prosecutors

Two drops; probably going first. Gavriel goes on the table, everything else in the sky.

Run Gav. Drop in Decimators and Retributors within Gav's CA range.  Azyros and Vexillor drop in next to them for the re-rolls.  Libs drop on to objectives, and Judis shoot something.

Gav once or twice as needed.  Decimators charge into a horde unit, preferrably.  And Retributors into whatever you can get them into.  Attack with whichever unit is more important, and rely on Shock and Awe for the other unit.

Hopefully you kill enough with the alpha to cripple them.

I count 151 wounds.  Obviously weak to spells, and very little range component.

And actually, if I read Scions and Lightning Strike correctly, you could deploy your battalion first; putting a unit of Liberators on an objective and the rest in the celestial realm using Lightning Strike.  Then you can use Scions to put Gavriel in the celestial realm because you'll meet the requirement of having at least one unit on the board for every unit DS'd with Scions.

[CommissarRotke]

8 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

Incator x2
Arcanum on foot
Castellant (would have been heraldor, but our realm feature was no running)
Liberators
Seq x10, x2
Evocators x10
Ballistae x3, Ordinator

this is 2090pts, were you playing with the old values?

you could drop 5 seq and an incantor for 6 castigators, especially vs daemons. since you gotta reformat the list anyway

[CommissarRotke]

12 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

Youre already 90 points over wit the new GHB. Evocators are pretty slow and bad if you cant give em mobility thru Gavriel or Knight Heraldor. Sequitors imo simply arent worth it in meta of fight first and mortal wound spam. Unless youre running em in a distraction mode in blocks of 20 while shooting and/or casting endless spells.

I know I don't *have* to play matched, but these new rules and points changes really make Soul Wars less of a useful first buy, especially finding out I need the older Chambers' units anyway......

[jhamslam]

4 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

I know I don't *have* to play matched, but these new rules and points changes really make Soul Wars less of a useful first buy, especially finding out I need the older Chambers' units anyway......

Soul wars was always a bad set to buy. Other than getting a lord arcanum on gryph charger and a knight incantor (both on ebay now) or a Sequitor Prime with greatmace, its useless. 8 Sequitors ,2 primes, 3 evocators 1 prime, like the numbers on the SCE side make 0 sense, you cant fill out any units for matched play.

I just bought the incantors off of ebay and then only bought the separate boxes for sequitors, ballista and evocators.

[crkhobbit]

3 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

Yeah this is where ballistas fail sorta. You need to kill min 2 heroes a turn, the named keeper and other keepers. For every 2 1/2 heroes you kill he will summon one, and with the new costs for the ballista....just do longstrikes.

How were the matchups, was the ballista reliable at all?

Youre already 90 points over wit the new GHB. Evocators are pretty slow and bad if you cant give em mobility thru Gavriel or Knight Heraldor. Sequitors imo simply arent worth it in meta of fight first and mortal wound spam. Unless youre running em in a distraction mode in blocks of 20 while shooting and/or casting endless spells.

I did kill two heroes.  Almost killed a third.  Killing things isn't the problem.

The problem is getting out-dropped and out-threat ranged by large monsters that fight first.  Also part of the problem is they get depravity for attacking anything in our army since everything is multi-wound.  So he alphas me, kills a bunch of stuff and gets a ton of depravity.  Then, even if I kill at least two keepers (which I did), he can summon both of them back.  The net result is that I'm down everything he killed - regardless of whether it's liberators or sequitors or ballistae or longstrikes - and he's down nothing.

I can't out-drop him, so he gets to go first.  I can't get far enough back on the board to not get alpha-charged without giving up the scenario.  All three of his keepers can charge me, and all three can fight first.  And he had a CA to fight twice with one of them.  And then he summons back whatever I kill.

This isn't a list issue.  This is a balance issue where a 2.0 army gets to go first, alpha strike, fight first, and summon back anything that dies.  Against a faction that feeds them depravity points.

The only way I could have won, would be to get the double turn going into round 2, and finish off the third keeper and kill his epitome to leave him with no heroes and cutting off his summoning.  I didn't get the double turn.

I'm aware of new points, but this game was scheduled before the points became official.  I ordered Longstrikes and more liberators when we found out the points, but they were still being assembled.

[frostfire]

1 hour ago, luthhero said:

One thing I would like is trying with the Prime and another scary unit. I don't know what that is yet maybe going down to mins on the battle line and adding in evocators or something else. For me I'm limited to Sacrosanct and the prime (though randomly I have the vanguard guys to do soulstrike brotherhood). So I'm interested to hear your results. The pallisade should be fun since it can help protect your army some. 

The reason that I am taking Sequitors is the new battleplans where only battleline units get to capture the objects.

If you want evocators, go for it, they are still worthy for the points.

I do want to take our magic lists to a competitive level. I've tried Stardrake, Stardrake with Grand Convocation, only Convocation and stacking CW's CA.

They are all good most of the time, but not in a competitive level like skaven big rats and gloomspite gitz.

I think the issue about our spell is that they are all purely damage spells, while the skaven and GG have a bunch of debuff spells.

 

[CommissarRotke]

I bought it as a way to get back into the hobby after leaving WHFB and 40k, so the extra stuff was welcome, and filling out the units from traders/ebay was easy as well. But the set is now 30pts above what I'm assuming it was designed for...which means it's more awkward to build off of

[jhamslam]

4 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

I did kill two heroes.  Almost killed a third.  Killing things isn't the problem.

The problem is getting out-dropped and out-threat ranged by large monsters that fight first.  Also part of the problem is they get depravity for attacking anything in our army since everything is multi-wound.  So he alphas me, kills a bunch of stuff and gets a ton of depravity.  Then, even if I kill at least two keepers (which I did), he can summon both of them back.  The net result is that I'm down everything he killed - regardless of whether it's liberators or sequitors or ballistae or longstrikes - and he's down nothing.

I can't out-drop him, so he gets to go first.  I can't get far enough back on the board to not get alpha-charged without giving up the scenario.  All three of his keepers can charge me, and all three can fight first.  And he had a CA to fight twice with one of them.  And then he summons back whatever I kill.

This isn't a list issue.  This is a balance issue where a 2.0 army gets to go first, alpha strike, fight first, and summon back anything that dies.  Against a faction that feeds them depravity points.

The only way I could have won, would be to get the double turn going into round 2, and finish off the third keeper and kill his epitome to leave him with no heroes and cutting off his summoning.  I didn't get the double turn.

I'm aware of new points, but this game was scheduled before the points became official.  I ordered Longstrikes and more liberators when we found out the points, but they were still being assembled.

I know thats bull but firstly he doesnt always fight first, its on a 4 up so its fairer than Gristlegore.

two. This is why sequitors are bad. You cant be feeding him two wounds models in blocks of 20 wounds when 3 wound aetherwings will do while you kill em. 

three, hows he alpha striking, if you cant run , he shouldnt be able to not even with a 14 inch movement

[luthhero]

6 minutes ago, frostfire said:

The reason that I am taking Sequitors is the new battleplans where only battleline units get to capture the objects.

If you want evocators, go for it, they are still worthy for the points.

I do want to take our magic lists to a competitive level. I've tried Stardrake, Stardrake with Grand Convocation, only Convocation and stacking CW's CA.

They are all good most of the time, but not in a competitive level like skaven big rats and gloomspite gitz.

I think the issue about our spell is that they are all purely damage spells, while the skaven and GG have a bunch of debuff spells.

 

Sadly I haven't read the new book just yet for the Battleplans as our shipment was delayed...did not know that about battleline.  I wonder if going generic Stormhost for Staunch Defender is worth it then to buff those Sequitors?  It would be kind of funny to just go some big Sequitor blobs to get objectives and then nuke things?  

I love the idea of magic SCE since everyone poo poos our magic ability.  Would be cool to make them kind of scary and competitive

[crkhobbit]

9 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

I know thats bull but firstly he doesnt always fight first, its on a 4 up so its fairer than Gristlegore.

two. This is why sequitors are bad. You cant be feeding him two wounds models in blocks of 20 wounds when 3 wound aetherwings will do while you kill em. 

three, hows he alpha striking, if you cant run , he shouldnt be able to not even with a 14 inch movement

Fight first is a 4+, but greater demons (ie keepers) get +2 to the roll.

Deploy 18" apart.  Walk 14".  Charge 4".

Birds would totally block one of the keepers.  Maybe two.

Edited June 24, 2019 by crkhobbit

[jhamslam]

5 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

Fight first is a 4+, but greater demons (ie keepers) get +2 to the roll.

Deploy 18" apart.  Walk 14".  Charge 4".

Birds would totally block one of the keepers.  Maybe two.

The idea should be to feed them as little as possible. Kill his keepers and summoners first. Feed them only 5 libs or aetherwings. With the 26 move you should be able to get a couple into combat. while you kill them.

 

I agree tho that summoning is dumb as hell, GW keeps making these "narrative" rules with 0 balance to em

[crkhobbit]

I feel like you're trying to explain something to me that I already know.

I did feed as little as possible.  I did get into combat.  I did kill his stuff.

None of that mattered.

Evocators killed a keeper.  Ballistas killed a keeper.  Sequitors almost killed a third.  He killed the libs, and 15 Sequitors.  Birds would have delayed a turn at best.  Replacing the Sequitors with min units of Libs would have meant 5 fewer depravity points.  He had 7 left over after summoning 2 keepers; so this literally did not matter.

[PrimeElectrid]

I’ve been wondering about this as well. Is the key to kill one keeper a turn (and no more)? Unless you can kill all hero’s in one go.

When does Slaanesh summoning happen? End of their movement phase?

[firtahl]

38 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

I feel like you're trying to explain something to me that I already know.

I did feed as little as possible.  I did get into combat.  I did kill his stuff.

None of that mattered.

Evocators killed a keeper.  Ballistas killed a keeper.  Sequitors almost killed a third.  He killed the libs, and 15 Sequitors.  Birds would have delayed a turn at best.  Replacing the Sequitors with min units of Libs would have meant 5 fewer depravity points.  He had 7 left over after summoning 2 keepers; so this literally did not matter.

Did he kill those 15 sequitors with a single bracketed keeper? Just trying to understand the order of how it went down. Or did other units wipe out your guys after they killed the two keepers? 

[crkhobbit]

7 minutes ago, firtahl said:

Did he kill those 15 sequitors with a single bracketed keeper? Just trying to understand the order of how it went down. Or did other units wipe out your guys after they killed the two keepers? 

Named keeper used the realm spell to teleport up and kill an Incantor.  His general (also a keeper), charged and killed 5 Liberators.  Third keeper charged and killed 9 Sequitors, fighting first and twice.  With his charge roll, he could have gotten to the Evocators - but this was either a mistake on his part, or he didn't want to be in combat with two units in case his fight first roll was a 1.

Bottom of 1...  Ballistas dropped in and killed his general.  A ballista charged a unit of daemonettes to tie them up in his deployment, engaging as few as possible.  They did 6 wounds to the ballista, successfully tying them up and preventing them from getting to my objective on their next turn.    The full unit of Sequitors charged the named keeper.  He fought first and killed 6.  They did 14 damage back from the remaining 4 with greatmaces, but he made enough FNP rolls to live with 4 wounds.  Evocators charged the keeper in the middle - fight first failed, and the Evos wiped it pretty easily.

So he killed an Incantor, 9 Sequitors, and 5 Liberators with the alpha strike.  On my turn, he killed 6 more Sequitors, and I killed 2 keepers and got the named one down to 4 wounds.

He won the roll to go first round 2.  He had 67 depravity points.  Summoned two keepers.  Game over.

[jhamslam]

14 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

Named keeper used the realm spell to teleport up and kill an Incantor.  His general (also a keeper), charged and killed 5 Liberators.  Third keeper charged and killed 9 Sequitors, fighting first and twice.  With his charge roll, he could have gotten to the Evocators - but this was either a mistake on his part, or he didn't want to be in combat with two units in case his fight first roll was a 1.

Bottom of 1...  Ballistas dropped in and killed his general.  A ballista charged a unit of daemonettes to tie them up in his deployment, engaging as few as possible.  They did 6 wounds to the ballista, successfully tying them up and preventing them from getting to my objective on their next turn.    The full unit of Sequitors charged the named keeper.  He fought first and killed 6.  They did 14 damage back from the remaining 4 with greatmaces, but he made enough FNP rolls to live with 4 wounds.  Evocators charged the keeper in the middle - fight first failed, and the Evos wiped it pretty easily.

So he killed an Incantor, 9 Sequitors, and 5 Liberators with the alpha strike.  On my turn, he killed 6 more Sequitors, and I killed 2 keepers and got the named one down to 4 wounds.

He won the roll to go first round 2.  He had 67 depravity points.  Summoned two keepers.  Game over.

Idk what to tell you, Stormcast arent that good in melee. We no longer have access to "the broken". Our time will come again, but just hope for Slaanesh points increase i guess. 

[grimm]

I'm quite surprised i hadn't found this board before. I would like to ask for a bit of help, I have an Engagements event in a little while, and I want to bring the cheesiest list possible, knowing that at 1000 SC can be pretty lackluster. So i have a phalanx list, but really want to play stardrake. Is there any configuration at 1000 that makes sense? Thanks in advance

[CommissarRotke]

5 hours ago, jhamslam said:

Idk what to tell you, Stormcast arent that good in melee.

Does this also apply to Paladins? I've been eyeing some since they dropped in points and I love the Protector models... are these good or are they finicky and need to be dropped in? are we better off taking Palladors for the 180pts?

[firtahl]

6 hours ago, crkhobbit said:

Named keeper used the realm spell to teleport up and kill an Incantor.  His general (also a keeper), charged and killed 5 Liberators.  Third keeper charged and killed 9 Sequitors, fighting first and twice.  With his charge roll, he could have gotten to the Evocators - but this was either a mistake on his part, or he didn't want to be in combat with two units in case his fight first roll was a 1.

Bottom of 1...  Ballistas dropped in and killed his general.  A ballista charged a unit of daemonettes to tie them up in his deployment, engaging as few as possible.  They did 6 wounds to the ballista, successfully tying them up and preventing them from getting to my objective on their next turn.    The full unit of Sequitors charged the named keeper.  He fought first and killed 6.  They did 14 damage back from the remaining 4 with greatmaces, but he made enough FNP rolls to live with 4 wounds.  Evocators charged the keeper in the middle - fight first failed, and the Evos wiped it pretty easily.

So he killed an Incantor, 9 Sequitors, and 5 Liberators with the alpha strike.  On my turn, he killed 6 more Sequitors, and I killed 2 keepers and got the named one down to 4 wounds.

He won the roll to go first round 2.  He had 67 depravity points.  Summoned two keepers.  Game over.

Sounds like the only option is to do some serious screening with either the birds or something cheap like skinks...anything with single wounds will work really. Closer ranks/screens will help prevent teleportation assassinations given the large footprint of the keeper base. Might be a chance to check out the mercenaries, could be something there that can be an interesting speed bump. If you play him a lot you'll probably have to build toward ranged solutions since 3 keepers against an entire army of melee focused multi would units is always going to be a hard match up, if not specifically listed against STE.

Judicators might shine a bit here given the free re-roll 1's vs chaos, which is what I used against an opponent that brought 2 (and it was a rough game). You could even (god forgive me for suggesting it) bring a 6 man or two of castigators over judicators to burn down hp since they ALL get exploding 6's on hits vs daemons on the same +3/+3 profile with the additional benefit of -2 rend. Don't forget we got a points decrease on hunters, who can also provide ranged damage while your main ranged units do work. Combine all this range with a azyros and its going to get dicey for the keepers inside of 18".

Debuffs are always powerful, so your caster can bring thundershock with its -1 to hit component in addition to the MW. There's also the relector who can debuff them with prayers for which they have no dispel answer in addition to the cheesy teleports on a +3. 

Making the keepers stop in front of the chaff for a turn is key, though after the first 2 go down to your choice of the above suggestions you'll still have another summoned up to give you grief. Fortunately by that point his summon mechanics will start loosing steam, and the over investment in large single models will start to show. Assuming an alpha strike like your last game, you can deep strike some of STE's good multi wound melee units in his back lines while the keepers are tied up in low value chaff/distraction. If there's no Alpha, when you can creep up laying down the hate fire.

Is it always going to be a tough match-up for STE? Absolutely. I also think there are a lot of armies out there it would perform very poorly against, so its not like the meta is going to be bring 3 keepers for gg. Hopefully there's some ideas in here you find useful.

Good luck!

Edited June 25, 2019 by firtahl

[Mark Williams]

15 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Does this also apply to Paladins? I've been eyeing some since they dropped in points and I love the Protector models... are these good or are they finicky and need to be dropped in? are we better off taking Palladors for the 180pts?

Anvilstrike is just about the only thing working atm, which relies on a heavy shooting element. If you try to do anything in melee, you can make a strong-ish army to a point, but there's a handful of armies that will just blow you out of the water.

 

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, Mark Williams said:

Anvilstrike is just about the only thing working atm, which relies on a heavy shooting element. If you try to do anything in melee, you can make a strong-ish army to a point, but there's a handful of armies that will just blow you out of the water.

 

so basically I should get another 3 longstrikes, a Knight Venator, and make castigators work?

Edited June 25, 2019 by CommissarRotke
wrong Knight hero

[Mark Williams]

18 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

so basically I should get another 3 longstrikes, a Knight Azyros, and make castigators work?

At this point, I'd probably just copy whatever PJetski is doing. He's got a better win ratio than anyone else I know playing SCE. I've tried a lot of different builds over the past year, but I've not found any traction against "take all comers". I can create an army to deal with one opponent, given enough time, but it ends up having major flaws against some other army.

As I found out recently in my last tournament, not being Anvils and just going generic shooting doesn't cut it. Without Longstrikes and the Anvils ability, even shooting doesn't really work in today's meta. It's the combination of both that's doing it. The ability to attack twice in a single turn is incredible with the right units.

 

[CommissarRotke]

I will have to find his builds then LOL  ahh well, glad I am mainly interested in the narrative play portion of AOS. Still sucks hearing we need to be shooty but are pushed into a very narrow shooty

[Hagbean]

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (220)
- General
- Trait: Staunch Defender 
- Scrolls of Power (Artefact): Scroll of Condemnation
- Spell: Celestial Blades
- Mount Trait: Indefatigable
Lord-Ordinator (140)
Knight-Incantor (140)
- Spell: Stormcaller

Battleline
5 x Sequitors (130)
- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields
5 x Sequitors (130)
- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields
5 x Sequitors (130)
- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields

Units
5 x Evocators (220)
5 x Evocators (220)
6 x Castigators (160)

War Machines
Celestar Ballista (110)
Celestar Ballista (110)
Celestar Ballista (110)
Celestar Ballista (110)

Endless Spells / Terrain
Purple Sun of Shyish (50)
Suffocating Gravetide (20)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 117

Thoughts/suggestions?