AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[JaffaBones]

34 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

I have not seen these results.  I've been looking for good Stormcast results for months.  How long ago was it?

Las Vegas Open 2019

https://aosshorts.com/lvo-2019-results-top-lists/

 

I only covered this event and saw some games per live stream. The commentators mentioned that the Stormcast player is two time defending champion of said event. Which means LVO 17 & 18 I guess? Potentially just just as big? Come to think of it, what am I trying to argue here, I'm making a weak argument! Here it goes, ... Bear with me ... we're at the very start of competitive play I come to think. We see arguing win rates and competitiveness and there are major events as is LVO and whatever playstyles being practiced we don't all know, because this isn't covered as is chess or poker or where you might think it should rank.

My feel is, and you might interpret this as elitist but it's not, my feel is that any player in my region would smoke a majority of of games I've seen broadcast anywhere. And that's a lot. I also bet everything, that a lot of players here feel the same way about their own beasts of buddies. But it takes much out, to go consistently to two day tournaments in our dedicated stage of life to so many other things. As again, a lot of you might feel similar.

What is left is you, you finding ways to win! 

Edited July 1, 2019 by JaffaBones

[Talunus]

This is just what chaos and FEC want, us to argue amongst our golden boy brethren! Sigmar would be disappointed in us....

 

[crkhobbit]

If I remember correctly, LVO this year was a few days before the FEC tome released.

In other words, before the fights-first meta started.  SCE was fine when they didn't get eaten before they could act.

[JaffaBones]

2 minutes ago, crkhobbit said:

If I remember correctly, LVO this year was a few days before the FEC tome released.

In other words, before the fights-first meta started.  SCE was fine when they didn't get eaten before they could act.

Yes, it was. Btw stats. All win rates before that are obsolete? Of course not. But at least somehow this fact/rule changer/modifier should be represented in the calculation? How about a few cycles in? Let's think about a model to represent all that, who the  has time for that

[AngryPomeranian]

Dunno what to take to my local 1250 tournament...any suggestions on this list?
++ *Old* *Pitched Battle (1,000)* (Order - Stormcast Eternals) [1,250pts] ++

+ Leader +

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-charger [220pts]: 4. Azyrite Halo, 5. Staunch Defender, General

Lord-Castellant [120pts]: 3. Lantern of the Tempest

+ Artillery +

Celestar Ballista [110pts]

Celestar Ballista [110pts]

+ Battleline +

Judicators [160pts]: 5 Judicators, Skybolt Bow

Sequitors [440pts]: 4x 5 Sequitors, 8x Stormsmite Greatmace, Stormsmite Greatmace (Sequitor-Prime), Stormsmite Maul and Soulshield

+ Other +

Prosecutors [90pts]: 3 Prosecutors

+ Allegiance +

Allegiance: Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

++ Total: [1,250pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

Also, is there any way to take stardrake at 1250?

[Coolwood]

Leodis%20stormcast%20%35%20%2D%20Drakesworn%20.

So based on our earlier discussion I have pulled together a list I think I might take to a tournament at the end of the month:

It’s based on using the lord arcanum as a potential buffet and mini beatstick. Plenty of shooting power with the Templar’s ability combined with desolators and ballista. Should allow me to deal with FeC and slaanesh more than my other ideas I have come up with so far.   

Thank you to everyone on here for providing some great ideas and thought provoking content.

Feedback welcome

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Coolwood
Picture shown

[crkhobbit]

10 minutes ago, JaffaBones said:

Yes, it was. Btw stats. All win rates before that are obsolete? Of course not. But at least somehow this fact/rule changer/modifier should be represented in the calculation? How about a few cycles in? Let's think about a model to represent all that, who the  has time for that

Yeah, they are obsolete.  The statement was that Stormcast are not competitive.  Not that they never were.

[crkhobbit]

10 minutes ago, AngryPomeranian said:

Also, is there any way to take stardrake at 1250?

List looks good to me.

Stardrake fits at 1250.  Add a castellant and some battleline, and you'll have 350ish points to play with.

[crkhobbit]

8 minutes ago, Coolwood said:

So based on our earlier discussion I have pulled together a list I think I might take to a tournament at the end of the month:

It’s based on using the lord arcanum as a potential buffet and mini beatstick. Plenty of shooting power with the Templar’s ability combined with desolators and ballista. Should allow me to deal with FeC and slaanesh more than my other ideas I have come up with so far.   

Thank you to everyone on here for providing some great ideas and thought provoking content.

Feedback welcome

Leodis%20stormcast%20%35%20%2D%20Drakesworn%20.pdf 814.53 kB · 2 downloads

Looks potentially very good.  I'd like to see a heraldor and maybe a vexillor with that much invested in cav, but you don't really have the points for it.

[Mark Williams]

@JaffaBones

None if your statements directly refutes my assertion that Stormcast in a “common” setting is a poor army, with a very few notable exceptional lists.

It’s true that people can always play better or bring a better list, and do something internally to get better results. However, if I must play a “perfect” game, with a “perfect” list in order to get better results, while others are not held to the same standard in order to get better results, I’m sorry but to me that is the very definition of a base-weak army.

I just played a game against Slaanesh last night against a person who played their first game with them and watched my army crumple like paper. I had to explain to them how basic game rules worked, and remind them to use their abilities. I wasn’t fighting Napoleon. Yeah, there’s things I could have done better, but I basically got tabled before the game was over and he ended the game with more models than he started with. I’m sorry but this isn’t just a player issue, and I don’t agree with your point of view. Some armies just have a better base set of rules to work with, and I shouldn’t have my competence questioned in order to make such an obvious statement.

[Dayman85]

19 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

Even an admission of how vast of a difference between the handful of "good builds" and "normal builds" is farther than I usually get with this conversation. So thanks for that.

I think one thing that plays to our advantage and little seem to talk about is the command point changes. And to add onto the Desolators conversation, we can now reroll 1s to hit for a whole unit of dracothian guard. If you take 4 units you can reroll 1s for 8 models shooting a d3 mortal wound attack, not to mention we can do that on 1s in melee as well. A lot of armies have baked in scrolls that allow for rerolls but Sce eally don't, I think it's a small change along with the point changes that is really going to benefit us. That being said I totally agree.... I hate playing gimmicky Lists and I hate being forced to play one to be competitive. That being said I was playing a list prior to these updates that had a stardrake shooting and spells and it was by far my most successful of 2018 and that's playing 2-3 nights a week and tournaments. Play around with different things and don't always pay attention to what everyone else takes. This army is a lot of turn based decisions and awaiting the perfect opportunities to make your moves and not playing hyper aggressive; which I like. Wins come harder, but feel satisfying when you win games you feel like were difficult on paper 

[crkhobbit]

The Slaanesh match-up is pretty futile right now for SCE.

[Requizen]

20 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

@JaffaBones

None if your statements directly refutes my assertion that Stormcast in a “common” setting is a poor army, with a very few notable exceptional lists.

It’s true that people can always play better or bring a better list, and do something internally to get better results. However, if I must play a “perfect” game, with a “perfect” list in order to get better results, while others are not held to the same standard in order to get better results, I’m sorry but to me that is the very definition of a base-weak army.

I just played a game against Slaanesh last night against a person who played their first game with them and watched my army crumple like paper. I had to explain to them how basic game rules worked, and remind them to use their abilities. I wasn’t fighting Napoleon. Yeah, there’s things I could have done better, but I basically got tabled before the game was over and he ended the game with more models than he started with. I’m sorry but this isn’t just a player issue, and I don’t agree with your point of view. Some armies just have a better base set of rules to work with, and I shouldn’t have my competence questioned in order to make such an obvious statement.

Very disagree with this. I could easily make a Slaanesh army from their book that a beginner might make and lose 9/10 games with it.

Are the overall Allegiance Abilities for some armies just stronger? Perhaps, though I believe it would be more correct to think that certain Allegiance Abilities are more conducive to the obvious or popular playstyle. More streamlined, for lack of a better word, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "better". I don't think it's bad for some armies to be easier to pick up and play than others, though of course it would be preferable if all armies had Allegiance Abilities that were designed to work together as nicely.

Every army in the game is going to have "good builds" and "bad builds". That's why list building (or for many, netlisting) is an important part of the game that separates players as much as in game decision making. For some armies, this is very straightforward - it's easy to look at Gristlegore's command ability, then look at the AGoTG, and then look at Feeding Frenzy, and put two and two together. For something like Anvilstrike or Astral Templars, the idea of mixing and matching chambers with Heroes that aren't necessarily "intuitive" to put together might require a few more steps of logic. 

27 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

It’s true that people can always play better or bring a better list, and do something internally to get better results. However, if I must play a “perfect” game, with a “perfect” list in order to get better results, while others are not held to the same standard in order to get better results, I’m sorry but to me that is the very definition of a base-weak army.

This statement in particular I'm not fond of. While it can be frustrating to see someone who is not thinking their game through as much as you perform better, due to an army that is easier to pilot or perhaps one that they just intuit a bit easier, that does not to me indicate a weak army. As I said above, I don't think there's anything wrong with certain armies being easier to pick up and play, and by the same logic there's nothing wrong with armies being more difficult to achieve victory with.

It's a bit crude to say "git gud" when talking about this point, but it's not far off base. The thing with these conversations is that it's very easy to conflate "regular AoS" with "competitive AoS". If you're Timmy, buying Stormcast because they're cool and you don't pilot them well and lose, that's one thing. But that's not a good argument when it comes to someone who buys the army with the intent to compete - if one is playing with that mindset, they should do some research and playtesting to see if they like the army or mesh well enough with the playstyle, rather than wanting it to change to suit their own desires. Though that is mostly my opinion, as I've seen people buy and sell many armies for that very reason, and have done so myself more than once.

An army needing to play well to achieve similar results doesn't mean that army is bad. That's simply the way some armies are. I know there's some shaky ground when comparing to video games, but there are plenty of instances in games like LoL, DOTA, Starcraft, etc, where things that are more difficult to play are still utilized because people enjoy the playstyle or challenge, even if the results are similar to less mechanically difficult alternatives. I don't think we should have to hold Warhammer to a different standard. 

[JaffaBones]

45 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

@JaffaBones

None if your statements directly refutes my assertion that Stormcast in a “common” setting is a poor army, with a very few notable exceptional lists.

It’s true that people can always play better or bring a better list, and do something internally to get better results. However, if I must play a “perfect” game, with a “perfect” list in order to get better results, while others are not held to the same standard in order to get better results, I’m sorry but to me that is the very definition of a base-weak army.

I just played a game against Slaanesh last night against a person who played their first game with them and watched my army crumple like paper. I had to explain to them how basic game rules worked, and remind them to use their abilities. I wasn’t fighting Napoleon. Yeah, there’s things I could have done better, but I basically got tabled before the game was over and he ended the game with more models than he started with. I’m sorry but this isn’t just a player issue, and I don’t agree with your point of view. Some armies just have a better base set of rules to work with, and I shouldn’t have my competence questioned in order to make such an obvious statement.

I'm sorry for your experiences, I wish you could've had some of mine. I just happen to find Stormcast very useful in a lot of different lists and I have yet to be proven wrong. Tzeentch Changehost and Skaven did lately, but not on "the road", with Skaven I have made so many improvements, I paid my dues. It's not a threat as it was and I'm sure I can beat it consistently at some point, guessing few weeks out. Which only means I've beaten the player behind it.

 

On Tzeentch I need more opponents and takes on it, I'm very confused about the unit swap thing into 3" and how to position myself against that mechanic. I come to fall in love with the celestial vortex.seems to be made against Tzeentch. I never ever ever did think I would ever ever use that stupid to transport goofy looking badly painted spell.

Edited July 1, 2019 by JaffaBones

[JaffaBones]

Oh apologies not mention that of course you're right. You have to work more to make it work with Stormcast, as to say fec, who demolish almost anybody. I'd call fec a break-check, when thinking  it. That's a new term I like and learned today.

[crkhobbit]

All this to say that you can do well with Stormcast.  You just might have to work harder to get there.  Which is more rewarding in the end.

<says the guitarist with short fingers>

Edit: And the faceroll armies like Gristlegore are going to have to work hard to keep up when the next round of balance comes around.

Edited July 1, 2019 by crkhobbit

[Coolwood]

This argument resurfaces every few pages and it seems pretty futile. Surely we would be better to focus our efforts on coming up with new ideas for stormcast lists and bouncing ideas around generally. Negativity will get us no where I feel. 

There are plenty of other armies to play if you don’t think stormcast are any good 😂

[Mark Williams]

Being realistic about where the army is at, and enjoying playing it, are two separate things to me. I don't view it as negativity if it's true - I just view it as being pragmatic.

[Dayman85]

28 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

Being realistic about where the army is at, and enjoying playing it, are two separate things to me. I don't view it as negativity if it's true - I just view it as being pragmatic.

SCE are actually really good at most things, we just don't do particularly well at any one thing, (except shooting I would say) but we're pretty decent at everything so it's hard to say this army is bad on paper. This statement took me a long time to figure out; and I felt the same way you do now for a very long time. We have units that are mobile, we have units that are tanky, we have shooting units, we have magic units that are okay. The problem is the current meta is very mortal wound heavy, and we fold like paper to mortal wounds.....which can make us feel weak (looking at you gristlegore). The thing I've noticed though; is that we can dish out some serious mortal ourselves to combat other army's mortals. Between the comet, stardrake and vanguard raptors you can snipe most heroes while they're far enough away to not have them be an immediate threat to your army. Then in later turns when those threats are gone we make are move and take board control. The guard units coming down as well as vanguard just upped our mobility and mortal output even more imo.

I don't think there's much that GW could do to make us even stronger  than we already are; the variety we have already is pretty crazy.... Look at lord relictor, he's 100 points, he can heal d3, or he can deal d3 and -1 to hit. You can have him bless weapons to give 2 hits on 6s or translocate to teleport somebody 24"; he costs 100 pts and can legit do soo much for his price tag.

I went months thinking that using bless weapons was the way to go and have since used translocate. I've probably won over a dozen games off that small change alone. You can really pigeonhole yourself into one specific type of play; if you havent yet, just make sure you try everything out. Our army is not straight forward unfortunately and that type of playstyle doesn't suit everyone.

My point is, with the amount of variety these units have; it's hard to balance one specific type of play. You can make an SCE list to pretty much counter anything you want it to, fighting gristlegore? Go full shooting. Fighting Dok? Roll with a higher block of sequitors, staunch defender, azerite Halo and castellant and you'll reflect more mortal wounds then wounds you take. The problem for us  is "all comers list" tend to be more of a dime a dozen because we are going to fall short in one facet of the game. Other armies can't make a list to combat whatever they would like; they face hard counters and that's that. We can adapt pretty easily list wise to what we're fighting against most in the meta and imo that's what makes me happy when I think of my army of golden Bois. We're versatile. Adaptable. And obviously..... Badass. 😎

[schwabbele]

7 hours ago, crkhobbit said:

<says the guitarist with short fingers>

Now I can’t get a picture of T-Rex “playing” the guitar out of my head 🙃👍

[Coolwood]

8 hours ago, Dayman85 said:

SCE are actually really good at most things, we just don't do particularly well at any one thing, (except shooting I would say) but we're pretty decent at everything so it's hard to say this army is bad on paper. This statement took me a long time to figure out; and I felt the same way you do now for a very long time. We have units that are mobile, we have units that are tanky, we have shooting units, we have magic units that are okay. The problem is the current meta is very mortal wound heavy, and we fold like paper to mortal wounds.....which can make us feel weak (looking at you gristlegore). The thing I've noticed though; is that we can dish out some serious mortal ourselves to combat other army's mortals. Between the comet, stardrake and vanguard raptors you can snipe most heroes while they're far enough away to not have them be an immediate threat to your army. Then in later turns when those threats are gone we make are move and take board control. The guard units coming down as well as vanguard just upped our mobility and mortal output even more imo.

I don't think there's much that GW could do to make us even stronger  than we already are; the variety we have already is pretty crazy.... Look at lord relictor, he's 100 points, he can heal d3, or he can deal d3 and -1 to hit. You can have him bless weapons to give 2 hits on 6s or translocate to teleport somebody 24"; he costs 100 pts and can legit do soo much for his price tag.

I went months thinking that using bless weapons was the way to go and have since used translocate. I've probably won over a dozen games off that small change alone. You can really pigeonhole yourself into one specific type of play; if you havent yet, just make sure you try everything out. Our army is not straight forward unfortunately and that type of playstyle doesn't suit everyone.

My point is, with the amount of variety these units have; it's hard to balance one specific type of play. You can make an SCE list to pretty much counter anything you want it to, fighting gristlegore? Go full shooting. Fighting Dok? Roll with a higher block of sequitors, staunch defender, azerite Halo and castellant and you'll reflect more mortal wounds then wounds you take. The problem for us  is "all comers list" tend to be more of a dime a dozen because we are going to fall short in one facet of the game. Other armies can't make a list to combat whatever they would like; they face hard counters and that's that. We can adapt pretty easily list wise to what we're fighting against most in the meta and imo that's what makes me happy when I think of my army of golden Bois. We're versatile. Adaptable. And obviously..... Badass. 😎

Completely on board with this!

Yes tournament statistics on the whole may look like we are struggling but it’s going to be skewed by how many people play stormcast and, assuming they might be newer tournament gamers, won’t be winning all their games.  

Im no tournament player and would not class myself as a good player but I see a lot of tournament lists are still taking the same stuff and tactics that haven’t  been working for a while now in the current meta, and it’s only the ones who have innovated (Pjetski for example) who seem to be able to pick up consistent wins against the current “big bois” of the scene. There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere for a lot of us 🤔. 

[PrimeElectrid]

So 6 Desolators vs 6 Dracoline Evocators. Which is best now?

[Coolwood]

13 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

So 6 Desolators vs 6 Dracoline Evocators. Which is best now?

If you go back a few pages there’s a good debate on that very subject. Basically it depends on which Stormhost and play style you prefer. 

Feels like both are viable choices depending on how you support them - personally I’m in the desolators camp due to better defence and chip damage potential 

[Lucur]

Damage is close, 24,7 for the Dracolines vs 22, 7 for the Desolators, assuming charge and MW by shooting and jazzhands against 4+ sv. Desolators get a better save and apply MW by shooting (which can be good against strike first or bad via LOS). Desolators degrade faster to losses. Evocators can cast and unbind. Imo Evocators are easier and/or more effective to buff, on their own Desolators are easier to manage.

Overall it's a close call and probably a question of taste more than one of efficiency.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Lucur
maths

[stato]

I played a small 2 day tournament a few weeks ago and went 0-5 with my Stormcast and it wasnt because Stormcast are terrible, so shove that in your stats 🤣

Im loving building, painting and playing  my stormcast.  Ive played 3 1-day events, 1 2-day event, and a doubles event this year (plus more entered for this month) with a whole variety of lists and models and done well and done badly, but very rarely has a game been over before that last turn.  I love how many options we have, and thats even with my 'handicap' of only playing Tempest Lords (or no host) because mine are painted as Tempest Lords and im proud of that.

The game is so full of extremes with missions and match ups statistics only work if you take the whole of them, trying to look at why we cant beat Slanesh or certain other builds is not what the stats (that we have) will tell us.

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2019 by stato