AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[l1censetochill]

6 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

The problem is we literally have only one list/stormhost that is truly top tier. Everything else just gets dumpstered by the newer armies. We pay more points for far less utility. It's just a sad fact. 

The part that makes it worse, in my opinion, is that while Anvilstrike is a fairly strong list (but far from 'amazing' - I mean, I check out GT reports and lists regularly and you rarely see more than one Stormcast player in the top 15-20 in major events), it's also very un-fun to play against. And yeah, you can play other lists that are somewhat decent (Sacrosanct-heavy, Dracolines, etc.) and have fun, but if your local stores have a lot of players who are competitive, or who field top tier armies (Slaanesh, Fyreslayers, DoK, FEC, Skaven) on the regular, you basically need to go shooting heavy just to avoid getting blown out.

And that primes a negative feedback loop about Stormcast: people are already conditioned to hate Stormcast (whether because they're the punching bag for Fantasy players who hated the AOS transition, or because they're space marines, or because they get too many models/releases, or because people assume they're OP, or whatever other reason), then they play against them and the game isn't fun, which reinforces their hatred of Stormcast. That leads to more complaining about them, which conditions more new players to hate Stormcast... and you get the idea. It sucks. I'd like to have a viable list that isn't also a huge negative play experience for my opponent, but right now the vast majority of our units just aren't up to snuff against the armies with newer books.

[LordPrometheus]

1 minute ago, l1censetochill said:

The part that makes it worse, in my opinion, is that while Anvilstrike is a fairly strong list (but far from 'amazing' - I mean, I check out GT reports and lists regularly and you rarely see more than one Stormcast player in the top 15-20 in major events), it's also very un-fun to play against. And yeah, you can play other lists that are somewhat decent (Sacrosanct-heavy, Dracolines, etc.) and have fun, but if your local stores have a lot of players who are competitive, or who field top tier armies (Slaanesh, Fyreslayers, DoK, FEC, Skaven) on the regular, you basically need to go shooting heavy just to avoid getting blown out.

And that primes a negative feedback loop about Stormcast: people are already conditioned to hate Stormcast (whether because they're the punching bag for Fantasy players who hated the AOS transition, or because they're space marines, or because they get too many models/releases, or because people assume they're OP, or whatever other reason), then they play against them and the game isn't fun, which reinforces their hatred of Stormcast. That leads to more complaining about them, which conditions more new players to hate Stormcast... and you get the idea. It sucks. I'd like to have a viable list that isn't also a huge negative play experience for my opponent, but right now the vast majority of our units just aren't up to snuff against the armies with newer books.

I couldn't have summed it up better myself. It's a vicious cycle. I'm a pretty new player, and I picked Stormcast as my first army because I thought they looked sweet. Come to find out, I get flak for taking Shootcast at tourneys because it's "unfun", all while they're running Slaanesh and FEC shenannigans. 

Give me a break. Shootcast is literally the only viable tool our army has to fight against these newer degenerate armies in a tournament setting, and it sucks. I wish more of our book was viable for competitive play. I would LOVE to play something other than Shootcast, because honestly, it's pretty boring. 

[jhamslam]

8 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

I couldn't have summed it up better myself. It's a vicious cycle. I'm a pretty new player, and I picked Stormcast as my first army because I thought they looked sweet. Come to find out, I get flak for taking Shootcast at tourneys because it's "unfun", all while they're running Slaanesh and FEC shenannigans. 

Give me a break. Shootcast is literally the only viable tool our army has to fight against these newer degenerate armies in a tournament setting, and it sucks. I wish more of our book was viable for competitive play. I would LOVE to play something other than Shootcast, because honestly, it's pretty boring. 

I won a 1500 point tournmanet this past weekend. Played Ironjawz, Slaanesh and FEC. Literally everyone bitched about my 9 longstrikes and how it wasnt fair. 

Like yeah , do you want me to just run a wall of sequitors so you can do your activation shenanigans on a -2 rend flat 5 damage weapon on them and win, like what did you expect?

[Maturin]

18 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

I won a 1500 point tournmanet this past weekend. Played Ironjawz, Slaanesh and FEC. Literally everyone bitched about my 9 longstrikes and how it wasnt fair. 

Like yeah , do you want me to just run a wall of sequitors so you can do your activation shenanigans on a -2 rend flat 5 damage weapon on them and win, like what did you expect?

Well they re playing an ubber imba army and thet expect to win againt Shitcast. Joke aside what was your list bruh

[jhamslam]

12 minutes ago, Maturin said:

Well they re playing an ubber imba army and thet expect to win againt Shitcast. Joke aside what was your list bruh

Anvils

Knight Incantor - General - 140 - lightning blast

Knight Azyros - 100  - Soulthief

Lord relictor - 100 - translocation

3 liberator battleline - 300

9 longstrikes - 510

2 x 3 Aetherwings - 100

5 evocators - 220

Quicksilver swords - 30

 

Your standard anvilstrile, not too heavy on the evocators but does the same thing as the 2k version more or less.

Edited October 22, 2019 by jhamslam

[jhamslam]

Wrecked Slaanesh and FEC, but Ironjawz had the Mawkrusha with a 2+ save, so it took some time. I love how all these dudes run their big bad monsters right up front like 14 + d6 inches, hoping to get the double turn and wreck face. Like nobody wants the game to be about calculated choices, run your big thing up the board and roll some dice is some peoples version of fun and they dont like it when you counter that 

 

[Maturin]

Thanks for your reply.  Yeah well sometimes they get lucky and win the roll then stomp all over you . 

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

Slaanesh, and to some extent even post-nerf FEC, has been wrecking the tournaments scenes and those who play them complain about stormcast?

I think this is one of the few cases where saying "Git Gud" is justified. 

Edited October 22, 2019 by Sagittarii Orientalis

[Mark Williams]

For what it's worth, it's been my experience that whenever I win a game at a tournament with Stormcast, there's about a 30-40% chance my opponent will get angry at some point that they lost to "a Stormcast army." It's a fairly common thought that Stormcast match-ups are more or less auto-wins. Whenever I do win against people, they seem genuinely surprised and angry, like I sort of robbed them or something. So... yes not surprised at your experience in the least.

Congrats on the win though.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Mark Williams

[chord]

What can we as stormcast players do to convince GW to stop listening to the Stormcast hate crowds and actually gives us more than one list?  (and fix some of our internal imbalances as well)??  

A petition?  Letter campaign?  etc?

[Mark Williams]

1 hour ago, chord said:

What can we as stormcast players do to convince GW to stop listening to the Stormcast hate crowds and actually gives us more than one list?  (and fix some of our internal imbalances as well)??  

A petition?  Letter campaign?  etc?

I'm semi-friends with a store owner in our local area, and from what he says, Stormcast tend to dominate in the local small, friendly store games. Basically the 500 pts range or so, aimed at people who are playing with starter boxes or just starting out the army with a hero and a couple battle line units. He says a lot of people at the store play stormcast early on and get stomped by them, and they develop a very bad opinion of the army, and feel that the people who play them are mean/bullies, or just trashy players etc... they basically get a bit of anger and bias built up about the army early on, and as they get better and learn to beat them, it's like they "put them in their place" and they are meant to stay there.

Apparently, for a lot of people, Stormcast are actually the first "villain" army that they meet in AoS.

[l1censetochill]

1 hour ago, Mark Williams said:

For what it's worth, it's been my experience that whenever I win a game at a tournament with Stormcast, there's about a 30-40% chance my opponent will get angry at some point that they lost to "a Stormcast army." It's a fairly common thought that Stormcast match-ups are more or less auto-wins. Whenever I do win against people, they seem genuinely surprised and angry, like I sort of robbed them or something. So... yes not surprised at your experience in the least.

Congrats on the win though.

I think it probably speaks to people's opinions on Stormcast as an army and the people who play them - in their minds, "Stormcast" = starter army that people only play because they're new to the game and Stormcast are available, cheap, and easy to play, and therefore "Stormcast player" = newbie who doesn't know what they're doing. Thus, they view a loss to a Stormcast player as an indictment of their own abilities. Because surely, no competent general would lose a game to a Stormcast player of all people, would they?

1 hour ago, chord said:

What can we as stormcast players do to convince GW to stop listening to the Stormcast hate crowds and actually gives us more than one list?  (and fix some of our internal imbalances as well)??  

A petition?  Letter campaign?  etc?

I wouldn't worry too much about it, honestly - we're still in an okay place competitively, and on the whole we get more updates than just about any other army. There's probably a decent chance that once Mawtribes, KO and Seraphon get their new books (along with Bonereapers and 1-2 more new factions), we'll get another re-release or a new Chamber or something next year.

The Stormcast power level is always in flux. We suck for a while, then Vanguard Wing comes out and Stormcast is broken. Then GW nerfs it, and we're bad again. Then we get the Sacrosanct units, and we're suddenly too good. Then a bunch of other factions get new books that are way better, and we're middle of the road.  A year from now, who knows? We might be on top of the world, or completely in the dumpster. Might as well just ride the wave.

Edited October 23, 2019 by l1censetochill

[PJetski]

99% of the playerbase thinks Stormcast are a mid tier  army at best. The rest have seen Anvilstrike in action and know that Stormcast are actually ridiculously strong.

I just wish we had more viable units

[jhamslam]

6 minutes ago, PJetski said:

99% of the playerbase thinks Stormcast are a mid tier  army at best. The rest have seen Anvilstrike in action and know that Stormcast are actually ridiculously strong.

I just wish we had more viable units

With the December/Jan revision coming up, i have a funny feeling we will get further nerfed, much like this last GHB because of casual player whining.

People wanna run big monsters and scary units, not actually play the game.  

[schwabbele]

Did you realize how they fuc*** up the evocator warscroll in aos App? I guess we can use any number of dice now

[schwabbele]

Oh @PJetski check the waywatcher hero warscroll, solitary marksman ability - see how it is worded? Based on this I would play longstrikes 30“ in hero phase now. 

[XReN]

Oh man, the rage is real, I've seen and heard people complain and trash talk about Stormcast since I started playing AoS over 2 years ago and it's still going on, this is incredibly annoying. Even with new and strong armies it's always stormcast who get the worst sort of complains because of all the things @l1censetochill mentioned

[Raffonerd]

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

rbase thinks Stormcast are a mid tier  army at best. The res

Anvils is strong  only against top tier lists (mainly monsters list). If you fight 90 witches you will see that if you dont win double turn early you have lost automatically. You have to bring in desolators which are a huge cost to tank the front line.

By the way, it's not that bad but it's far from top tier. You  counter barely those FEC/Slanesh and get stomped by deepkin, Dok. On the other side, slanesh has no authomatic loss againt anyone. It only has authomatic win against some lists, which is far better. 

In the end, Anvils relays on turns to much in my opinion.  If you have double turn at the second, you have won authomatically. If you don't get it in a game or if you opponent has it, you have more or less lost.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by Raffonerd

[Lucur]

What i would really like to see is some incentive to play our battleline options beyond 3x5 Liberators. Anyone else gets 10+ model bonus, too and Liberators are supposed to be that tanky shieldwall, just give them the rules already! 

I'm also really curious if GW are willing to cut back on the Sequitors points increase, i really don't see it justified.

[chord]

7 hours ago, jhamslam said:

With the December/Jan revision coming up, i have a funny feeling we will get further nerfed, much like this last GHB because of casual player whining.

People wanna run big monsters and scary units, not actually play the game.  

I have the same feeling.  I think Anvilestrike will be nerfed hard.  

9 hours ago, l1censetochill said:

The Stormcast power level is always in flux. We suck for a while, then Vanguard Wing comes out and Stormcast is broken. Then GW nerfs it, and we're bad again. Then we get the Sacrosanct units, and we're suddenly too good. Then a bunch of other factions get new books that are way better, and we're middle of the road.  A year from now, who knows? We might be on top of the world, or completely in the dumpster. Might as well just ride the wave.

In the past I would have agreed, but I think its different this time.  I think this is our battletome for awhile.  Unless the narrative has a huge change pivoting away from Death as the big bad.  But with their new army release I dont see it happening soon.

[PJetski]

5 hours ago, Raffonerd said:

Anvils is strong  only against top tier lists (mainly monsters list). If you fight 90 witches you will see that if you dont win double turn early you have lost automatically. You have to bring in desolators which are a huge cost to tank the front line.

By the way, it's not that bad but it's far from top tier. You  counter barely those FEC/Slanesh and get stomped by deepkin, Dok. On the other side, slanesh has no authomatic loss againt anyone. It only has authomatic win against some lists, which is far better. 

In the end, Anvils relays on turns to much in my opinion.  If you have double turn at the second, you have won authomatically. If you don't get it in a game or if you opponent has it, you have more or less lost.

 

I havent had any problems with the 90 Witches lists, or even the 160 Plague Monk lists. Once you kill their key support heroes the infantry bricks start to run away in droves.

I wouldn't say it "barely" counters FEC/Slaanesh - Anvilstrike is the hard counter to any melee army. 

I'm not sure why you would consider Deepkin a counter? They get tied down by birds and Evocators cut through their whole army like butter.

If you think Anvilstrike relies on turn order rolls then you are not building it properly or not playing it properly 🤷‍♂️

[Maturin]

Just now, PJetski said:

If you think Anvilstrike relies on turn order rolls then you are not building it properly or not playing it properly 🤷‍♂️

About that, would you care to make a "guide" to how it needs to be played ? I played Anvilstrike at 1250 points, brung 2 5man libs, Celestant Prime, Spellweaver, 9 lognstrikes, 2 units of birds, against IJ. At the end all I had lefts were birds, longstrikes, and I decimated his whole army. Won at objectives too, but did a stupid mistake so I gave the victory to my opponent : I didn't have my Longstrike unit wholly in the range of a hero or general.

How do you use translocation ? Do you keep Longstrikes in the sky ? if so, against what list (shooting list I assume) ? Etc

[Raffonerd]

11 minutes ago, Maturin said:

About that, would you care to make a "guide" to how it needs to be played ? I played Anvilstrike at 1250 points, brung 2 5man libs, Celestant Prime, Spellweaver, 9 lognstrikes, 2 units of birds, against IJ. At the end all I had lefts were birds, longstrikes, and I decimated his whole army. Won at objectives too, but did a stupid mistake so I gave the victory to my opponent : I didn't have my Longstrike unit wholly in the range of a hero or general.

How do you use translocation ? Do you keep Longstrikes in the sky ? if so, against what list (shooting list I assume) ? Etc

Forgot sky.

Heroes needs to be on focal point dislocated. You shot, pray, move to another hero, shot again. Or, pray shot, shot. Btw pray is not a must in this list, as long as you have a tanky front.

17 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I havent had any problems with the 90 Witches lists, or even the 160 Plague Monk lists. Once you kill their key support heroes the infantry bricks start to run away in droves.

I wouldn't say it "barely" counters FEC/Slaanesh - Anvilstrike is the hard counter to any melee army. 

I'm not sure why you would consider Deepkin a counter? They get tied down by birds and Evocators cut through their whole army like butter.

If you think Anvilstrike relies on turn order rolls then you are not building it properly or not playing it properly 🤷‍♂️

I play regular 2k points as GT are done guys: 2k points minimum 7 scenery x table (should be 10 but depends on how many tables we have. With 30+ table is not so easy to have 10 sceneries). Deepkin with scryers enters the 2nd/3rd turn and erases you. Witches same. He starts, run first turn. You kill 30 witches or heroes (depend on mission), then e grab objectves. (still 60 witches plus stuff on field). Then, if you lose initiative with run and charge you can mostly stop them without desolators. More or less the same against korne. Btw, if you win the roll you win the game. Ok, but: it's not "sunday everyday".

[PJetski]

26 minutes ago, Raffonerd said:

I play regular 2k points as GT are done guys: 2k points minimum 7 scenery x table (should be 10 but depends on how many tables we have. With 30+ table is not so easy to have 10 sceneries). Deepkin with scryers enters the 2nd/3rd turn and erases you. Witches same. He starts, run first turn. You kill 30 witches or heroes (depend on mission), then e grab objectves. (still 60 witches plus stuff on field). Then, if you lose initiative with run and charge you can mostly stop them without desolators. More or less the same against korne. Btw, if you win the roll you win the game. Ok, but: it's not "sunday everyday".

How is deepkin "erasing" anything? Why do you not have Liberators and Aetherwings in place on your flanks to guard against the deep strike charges? If you dont know how to block deep strike charges then youre really going to struggle to make this list work.

Witches can take the objectives on turn 1 but if theyre sitting in the middle of the board then you have a shooting gallery in front of you. Focused fire from Longstrikes and Evocators can wipe out a block of 30 witches easily. You can easily take one objective back on turn 1 taking almost no casualties, use Aetherwings to block their counterattack and do it again on each turn.

Anvilstrike has zero problems against Deepkin and DOK. Are you playing without Aetherwings?

[Raffonerd]

9 minutes ago, PJetski said:

How is deepkin "erasing" anything? Why do you not have Liberators and Aetherwings in place on your flanks to guard against the deep strike charges? If you dont know how to block deep strike charges then youre really going to struggle to make this list work.

Witches can take the objectives on turn 1 but if theyre sitting in the middle of the board then you have a shooting gallery in front of you. Focused fire from Longstrikes and Evocators can wipe out a block of 30 witches easily. You can easily take one objective back on turn 1 taking almost no casualties, use Aetherwings to block their counterattack and do it again on each turn.

Anvilstrike has zero problems against Deepkin and DOK. Are you playing without Aetherwings?

One unit. But against flying they su... bro. You are counting to much on 2d6. Which usually is a losing game incoming. 

Btw the thing is that in some missions you cannot rely on massacre points. In those you are going to lose in the end. (i.e. Places of power).

Edited October 23, 2019 by Raffonerd