AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[XReN]

3 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

where is this from 😮

White Dwarf

[schwabbele]

Am I getting old or are the images really that bad ? I can't decipher anything

[Siorra]

1 hour ago, schwabbele said:

Am I getting old or are the images really that bad ? I can't decipher anything

Not just you, the images are too small.

Also being from White Dwarf means these won't be usable beyond narrative or casual games so I wouldn't worry too much about it!

[Nizrah]

11 minutes ago, Siorra said:

Not just you, the images are too small.

Also being from White Dwarf means these won't be usable beyond narrative or casual games so I wouldn't worry too much about it!

1. I can see everything
2. Fyreslayers Battalion also from WD were added to Warscroll builder so they can be used in Matched Play

[FattBooM666]

2 hours ago, Siorra said:

Not just you, the images are too small.

Also being from White Dwarf means these won't be usable beyond narrative or casual games so I wouldn't worry too much about it!

Points are out so i dont see a problem  for matched.

[FattBooM666]

20 hours ago, Nizrah said:

What do you think about this? Anvils are our strongest stormhost and this Lynus guy and phalanx seems very intresting.

Phalanx is interesting, getting battleline that strong.

Lets hope GHB20 lower point to get this valid. 

[PJetski]

21 hours ago, Nizrah said:

1. I can see everything
2. Fyreslayers Battalion also from WD were added to Warscroll builder so they can be used in Matched Play

You can use them in Matched Play but not in pitched battles. If it's not in GHB2019 it's not legal for pitched battles.

[Roark]

11 hours ago, PJetski said:

You can use them in Matched Play but not in pitched battles. If it's not in GHB2019 it's not legal for pitched battles.

Yeah, it would be helpful if this included battalions too...

Edited August 15, 2019 by Roark

[Mark Williams]

1 hour ago, xking said:

Why did you like stormcast ?

Who are you asking?

[Mark Williams]

35 minutes ago, xking said:

 Anyone who wants to answer. It's a general question for this thread.

People ask me this at tournaments some times, but I don't have a profound answer to the question. I picked stormcast and the hammers of sigmar color scheme because it was economical for me. At the time I got into Age of Sigmar, I didn't have a job, and I was trying to figure a way to start the hobby for as cheap as I possibly could. The starter set had a lot of models for a relatively good price, and I was able to get a starter paint set with all of the colors needed to paint Hammers of Sigmar colors for a lot less than buying the paints individually, and it came with a brush and a set of clippers too. I painted almost the entire box of starter models with just one set of starter paints.

Two years down the road, and I'm up to about 3500 points of stormcast and constantly climbing. I've started 3 other armies, but none of them are to a point where I can play a full game with them yet.

I have a lot of issues with the army. I think the army is deceptively complex, and I do not actually think it's a good army for new people to play. I spent a year losing with the army constantly before I started to get a few wins under my belt. My win record is quite low with it, and when I do win, I generally feel like it was pretty nail-biting and I couldn't make any mistakes, and I had to think several turns ahead in the game. My army at least, is extremely unforgiving, and I can be doing quite well, but then lose in a heartbeat with just a few bad combats on the board. I think the army has some serious flaws, and I'd hoped the new books would address some of it, but they really don't seem to have done that.

My army is a good solid 3/5 win tournament army, and I have no room left to optimize it. It's playing about as well as it can at this point. I have a few ideas to try to make it do better, but it's all just sorta give and take at this point. I suspect I could do better with an Anvils army, but I'm a stickler for paint schemes and  sticking with chambers over just using certain rules just because they are better. I really like the rule that brings a unit of redeemers back, and I'd like to work towards a list that might take advantage of or even abuse that in the future. I think this might end up taking the form of "sequitor spam" in the near future. I was thinking about using a cleansing phalanx, but meh.... like I said, it's all just give and take at this point.

I'm sort of holding  out hope that we get a new book soon and maybe the'll rebalance some things and make the book more cohesive, but bottom line is I don't expect to win any tournaments any time soon with my army. I can put up a good mid-table competition though, and that's fine.

 

[schwabbele]

3 hours ago, xking said:

Why did you like stormcast ?

Roided up people in shiny armor  

At first i was hmm they look nice and simple to paint, now it is the challenge to win a game here and there. I need 2 more Dracothian guard then I am finished with them. 

[Lucur]

Funnily enough i started SC for the same reasons as Mark. I was undecided between Idoneth, Sylvaneth and Stormcast, when i started just as AoS 2 hit. The starter boxes  were so cheap to get going compared to even SC boxes, i'm a general sucker for knights in shining armor and you can ally SC to any other order army (or vice versa). At that point it was the rational thing to get golden boys. Because it is ever so rational to start another warhammer army. Right? RIGHT?

[Naem]

The aesthetics. Dont like any of the AoS lore, its too high fantasy/other Dimensions/Hyperspace all over the place for me. Can't really imagine any of the stuff with all the realms and magic everywhere. My fluffy fluff place is 40k.

But I like the models, I like the masks, I like dragons and hammers and epicly large shoulderpads and knighty dudes. So it was my army for sure

[Maturin]

14 hours ago, Roark said:

Yeah, it would be helpful if this included battalions too...

So the WD battalions are not usable for tournaments, whether local GW ones or others ?

[CommissarRotke]

14 hours ago, xking said:

Why did you like stormcast ?

7 hours ago, xking said:

I think you all are misunderstanding the question. I asked why do you "LIKE" stormcast. Not necessarily why you initially got into the army.

Meaning do you like the aesthetic? The lore? Or just the way the Army plays? And why did you like these things?

I've always played paladins, clerics, guardians, etc. Soft spot for the Lawful Good and Neutral Good tropes; the duty to defend others from harm through service and sacrifice.

I love the aesthetic of the Vanguard and Sacrosanct Chambers, and I like the Strike(?) Chamber aesthetic as well. The lightning theme as well is so cool to me, both as a mythology nerd and as a WoW Shaman main.

Lorewise I haven't read enough material (especially full books) to really comment, but I enjoy the high fantasy of AOS. The Anvil of Apotheosis is an interesting take on immortal/undying warrior trope. I like that the Stormcast retain past memories and/or human personalities. I like the options of where their story (reforging, chambers, humanity) can go, even if I may not like how GW chooses to advance it...

I get that they're posterkids, and I do see some similarities between Space Marines and Stormcast. But honestly at this point I don't think I care? Unless GW pulls the same bs that Marines have with looking down on regular humans, I don't think my issues with them can hurt my overall enjoyment.

Edited August 15, 2019 by CommissarRotke

[schwabbele]

Ha, after having played 2 games with anvil strike list today (first time ) , I have to say I am motivated again.  Still have no idea what I am doing but I love the way it plays.

Went 1:1 against Khorne, super fun games. My biggest issues currently is kinda placing the longstrikes correctly (tips anyone ? ) and I finally overcame my fear of loosing evocators and started playing them aggressively - which went funny. Game 1 I lost them all to 2+ save buffed skullcrushers and game2 they were okayish. But it is super hard ( at least for me ) to place them in a way that they get into the action effectively. 

Liberators suck hard time,but kinda do their job.

The birds are the sh*t . mvp's in both games , crazy how you can completely lock down  charges  - especially in crowded areas.

I might stick to the list for Prague GT 2020 and keep practicing.

[GlanceOnASix]

19 hours ago, xking said:

Why did you like stormcast ?

I came from playing KO, and what I liked the most was playing in every phase.

I wanted some magic, some fighting, some cav, some monsters, check, check, check, check.

What I like is now that I have a few thousand points of SC's painted, I paint 1-2 boxes, shuffle the boys in purple around, and I have a totally different 'style' of army than before.  I wanna shoot cast, shuffle things into my 'core' of stuff, thundercats, the same.

When I play armies like KO, or others, you end up with some awesome stuff you can do, and there is something you can do better than anyone else.  But its never been as enjoyable as being able to have some 'army list whimsy' and totally switch archetypes as easy as its been since I got into SCE.

I also really enjoy painting the models, in particular the big monster-y ones.  There is always a deceptive amount of detail, and I think bits swapping and head swapping makes easy conversions that look so natural its hard to tell you even did anything.  But makes it personal, and that's enough for me

 

Oh and Hamilcar... hes the best

Edited August 15, 2019 by GlanceOnASix

[Mark Williams]

12 hours ago, xking said:

I think you all are misunderstanding the question. I asked why do you "LIKE" stormcast. Not necessarily why you initially got into the army.

Meaning do you like the aesthetic? The lore? Or just the way the Army plays? And why did you like these things?

 

I do like the lore of the stormcast, but I think almost every AoS army has cool lore, so I feel like that's a cop-out. 

I like armies that deep strike. It's a key part of my army's tactics, and I try to use it as much as I can. So in a nutshell it's that - dropping from the heavens and getting in people's faces quickly is a lot of fun to me.

 

[HammerOfSigmar]

First impression， golden warrior！

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

I would like to ask opinion on using maximum number of ballistas at 2,000 points game. 

I heard about lists using Astral Templars rules to maximise damage output against monsters, but I chose to run other stormhost since I do not always encounter monsters often.

Below is the draft I have written so far.

 

Stormhost: Celestial Vindicators

-Leader

Lord-Castellant(General, Command Trait: Single-minded Fury)

Lord-Ordinator

Knight-Heraldor(Artefact: Stormrage Blade)

Knight-Incantor(Lore of the Storm: Azyrite Halo)

 

-Battleline

5 Liberators(Grandhammer, Warhammers & Shields)

5 Liberators(Grandhammer, Warhammers & Shields)

5 Liberators(Grandblade, Warblades & Shields)

 

-Artillery

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

 

-Others

10 Evocators(Lore of Invigouration: Speed of Lightning, 5xGrandstave, 5xTempest Blade & Stormstave)

2 Fulminators

 

-Allies

5 Tree-Revenants(Scion, Glade Banner Bearer, Waypipes, Protector Glaive)

 

Total: 2,000 points

 

The idea of the list is to inflict heavy casualties at range with ballistas while liberators, evocators and fulminators stall enemy advance. I chose to run Celestial Vindicators to maximise damage output of close combat elements, so that they can destroy enemy close combat units more effectively.

The odd five tree-revenants exist solely to gain more board control, especially when playing Total Commitment mission. As most of you are aware, Total Commitment totally negates Stormcast Eternals' hallmark allegiance ability: Scions of the Storm.  In order to hold objectives in enemy territory, or at the least force the opponent to deploy conservatively in order to retain their objectives, I wanted to include at least one unit with "teleportation" ability. 

For  Stormcasts, there are several means of "teleportation" which allows me to remove a friendly unit and set it up anywhere on the board more than 9" away from enemy units.  Knight-Vexillor's Hurricane Standard and Stormhost Prayer Translocation are popular options. However I did not have enough points to bring the former, while the latter is too unreliable as it only activates on 3+ with no ways to boost it with re-roll.

5 tree-revenants however are cheap enough to barely include in my list, and they can use "teleportation" ability every turn. Their ability Martial Memories means I can re-roll one of the dice for the charge roll, increasing the chance of making successful charge after teleportation even without support.

I have yet to collect tree-revenants and the  fourth ballista, although buying these will take less than a month. Meanwhile, I would like to ask suggestions on my list. Thank you.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Sagittarii Orientalis

[tom_gore]

Azyrite Halo is pretty situational and rarely useful in my opinion, especially as the Liberators don't have an option to reroll all failed saves.. I would replace with Chain Lightning, Lightning Blast or another direct damage spell to capitalize on your ranged damage. 

 

 

[Mark Williams]

20 minutes ago, tom_gore said:

Azyrite Halo is pretty situational and rarely useful in my opinion, especially as the Liberators don't have an option to reroll all failed saves.. I would replace with Chain Lightning, Lightning Blast or another direct damage spell to capitalize on your ranged damage. 

 

I think it depends on how many casters you have. The problem I’ve had is taking endless spells and only having one caster. You spend the first half of the game trying to get your endless spells out and by late game it just doesn’t really matter anymore. Either the unit died or they are never going to get attacked anyway.

 I think once I get some more casters it will be more valuable.

[Naem]

4 hours ago, Sagittarii Orientalis said:

I would like to ask opinion on using maximum number of ballistas at 2,000 points game. 

I heard about lists using Astral Templars rules to maximise damage output against monsters, but I chose to run other stormhost since I do not always encounter monsters often.

Below is the draft I have written so far.

 

Stormhost: Celestial Vindicators

-Leader

Lord-Castellant(General, Command Trait: Single-minded Fury)

Lord-Ordinator

Knight-Heraldor(Artefact: Stormrage Blade)

Knight-Incantor(Lore of the Storm: Azyrite Halo)

 

-Battleline

5 Liberators(Grandhammer, Warhammers & Shields)

5 Liberators(Grandhammer, Warhammers & Shields)

5 Liberators(Grandblade, Warblades & Shields)

 

-Artillery

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

Celestar Ballista

 

-Others

10 Evocators(Lore of Invigouration: Speed of Lightning, 5xGrandstave, 5xTempest Blade & Stormstave)

2 Fulminators

 

-Allies

5 Tree-Revenants(Scion, Glade Banner Bearer, Waypipes, Protector Glaive)

 

Total: 2,000 points

 

The idea of the list is to inflict heavy casualties at range with ballistas while liberators, evocators and fulminators stall enemy advance. I chose to run Celestial Vindicators to maximise damage output of close combat elements, so that they can destroy enemy close combat units more effectively.

The odd five tree-revenants exist solely to gain more board control, especially when playing Total Commitment mission. As most of you are aware, Total Commitment totally negates Stormcast Eternals' hallmark allegiance ability: Scions of the Storm.  In order to hold objectives in enemy territory, or at the least force the opponent to deploy conservatively in order to retain their objectives, I wanted to include at least one unit with "teleportation" ability. 

For  Stormcasts, there are several means of "teleportation" which allows me to remove a friendly unit and set it up anywhere on the board more than 9" away from enemy units.  Knight-Vexillor's Hurricane Standard and Stormhost Prayer Translocation are popular options. However I did not have enough points to bring the former, while the latter is too unreliable as it only activates on 3+ with no ways to boost it with re-roll.

5 tree-revenants however are cheap enough to barely include in my list, and they can use "teleportation" ability every turn. Their ability Martial Memories means I can re-roll one of the dice for the charge roll, increasing the chance of making successful charge after teleportation even without support.

I have yet to collect tree-revenants and the  fourth ballista, although buying these will take less than a month. Meanwhile, I would like to ask suggestions on my list. Thank you.

I like the list and play a similar one sometimes, but without the allies. In this context I wonder if you have enough meele dmg output, as the only hard hitting units you have are the evocators and fulminators. Of course if the Ballistas do enough dmg you might be fine. But they will be subject to a lot of pressure and as you want them to be buffed by the Ordinator, they will much likely be located close to each other. So I see a risk of them being shut down early by enemy shocktroops/fliers/teleported units. 

[GlanceOnASix]

6 hours ago, Sagittarii Orientalis said:

I would like to ask opinion on using maximum number of ballistas at 2,000 points game. 

I heard about lists using Astral Templars rules to maximise damage output against monsters, but I chose to run other stormhost since I do not always encounter monsters often.

Below is the draft I have written so far.

...

The biggest issue I find with running lots of listas (which I've been doing quite well with recently, got 8th at a 120 person tourny!) was the large footprint of reletivly immobile listas, and not not having good bodies for taking objectives.

 

I'm playing my test games going down to 3 from 4 as 'enough shooting' so I can fit in more boys/tools to reach across the table/take objectives.  When I play the anvilhammer snipers, I have no issues killing characters, but the ballistas with their hitting on 5's, just dont cut the mustard.  So I've been looking at answers like the Comet (same cost as 1 lista) to be a tool to help cut down those 5 wounder heros so the listas can shoot things they are more effective at.  

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

4 hours ago, Naem said:

I like the list and play a similar one sometimes, but without the allies. In this context I wonder if you have enough meele dmg output, as the only hard hitting units you have are the evocators and fulminators. Of course if the Ballistas do enough dmg you might be fine. But they will be subject to a lot of pressure and as you want them to be buffed by the Ordinator, they will much likely be located close to each other. So I see a risk of them being shut down early by enemy shocktroops/fliers/teleported units. 

The best I can do would be hampering enemy movement with gryph-hounds and tree-revenant.

The latter can be parked in my backfield to prevent enemy units from set up in my deployment zone for a while.

Your remarks on ballistas being forced to cluster remains valid however.

 

2 hours ago, GlanceOnASix said:

The biggest issue I find with running lots of listas (which I've been doing quite well with recently, got 8th at a 120 person tourny!) was the large footprint of reletivly immobile listas, and not not having good bodies for taking objectives.

 

I'm playing my test games going down to 3 from 4 as 'enough shooting' so I can fit in more boys/tools to reach across the table/take objectives.  When I play the anvilhammer snipers, I have no issues killing characters, but the ballistas with their hitting on 5's, just dont cut the mustard.  So I've been looking at answers like the Comet (same cost as 1 lista) to be a tool to help cut down those 5 wounder heros so the listas can shoot things they are more effective at.  

Your tournament record is very impressive. 

Do you mind if I ask the list you took, and whether or not the 2019 Handbook was used?

I personally find three ballistas underwhelming for inflicting truly devastating damage, even with support from Lord-Ordinator.

Hence the inclusion of fourth ballista in my list.

 

I rarely rely on the Comet as spell with casting value of 6 is far from reliable.

This is even more so since stormcasts do not tend to have many casting bonuses.

Celestial Warbringers' command ability and Staff of Focus come to my mind.

Unfortunately, both options force me to pick rather underwhelming stormhost or entirely forgo stormhost bonus.

 

Come to think of it, if I wanted to take shooting units with reliable yet devastating damage output Anvils raptors might be a better option.

But as of now I plan to make quad-ballistas work due to lower points per wound,  i.e. better durability.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Sagittarii Orientalis