AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[jhamslam]

42 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

This is mentioned every so often but I'll plug it again: to prevent GW hearing too much negativity about SCE, comment on facebook (and I guess twitter if they're active there too). Not sure if store managers can relay feedback but that might be an option?

Stormcast have the unfortunate effect of collecting the "posterchild" hate, which from what I can tell means that outside of competitive circles, they catch the most complaints

Its also the fact that mano y mano, or rather warscroll on warscroll, SCE wrecks butt. Giving people the impression that theyre really good specially when youre starting out

Think about it, no battletomes, youre starting the game from Soul Wars or a similar box set and without the allegiance abilities, subfaction rules what have you. Even A unit of 5 liberators seems insanely strong to a lot of options. Unfortunately, most of SCE is only as good as their warscroll

[Juicy]

Would love to make liberators get a shield wall bonus when they are with more then 5 so people have a reason to take bigger units of them.  Something like. When a unit of liberators consist of more then 5 models they get +1 armour save if they didnt make a charge move this turn.  Staunch defender on bigger units.

right now people just play 3x5 liberators and take this 300 point tax. 
 

while were at it. Make paladins atleast 3+ armour save cause those warscrolls hurt my eyes

[Turragor]

18 hours ago, jhamslam said:

Its also the fact that mano y mano, or rather warscroll on warscroll, SCE wrecks butt.

If you take out the - usually unreachable - sources of buffs (enemy support heroes), even liberators become hard for opponents to shift.

When you can't play the "combo-breaker" role, you end up losing.

It's why Shootcast and Starcast are our strongest choices. If we go melee we've 0 ways* of removing those targets that pull all enemy warscrolls above ours (we have no offensive internal buffing to speak of really - not on the same level as OBR or Ironjawz for example).

*Ofc that was the reason for the strength of our older lists, notably Hammerstrike when you could setup the prosecutors 9" away then the paladins closer - even into combat. Or the Azyros's old scroll period. Or the daisy-chain setup shenanigans of Vanguard Wing.

[Nizrah]

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Celestial Vindicators

Leaders
Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500)
- General
- Stormbound Blade
- Trait: Single-minded Fury
- Artefact: Stormrage Blade
- Mount Trait: Storm-winged
Lord-Castellant (120)
Lord-Ordinator (140)
Knight-Incantor (140)
- Spell: Celestial Blades

Battleline
5 x Liberators (100)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (100)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (100)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandhammers

Units
3 x Evocators on Dracolines (260)
- Lore of Invigoration: Celestial Blades

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

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Everblaze Comet (100)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 105

 

What do you think? SD should have some dmg output here and with ballistas and comet i should be able to kill every support hero.
 

[feadair]

A Shootcast list is battling in top 8 of LVO 2020, it is the first list here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byw7UYxkGtjSTU9yZmd3bk5LOFpvUUNpNmM4N0VScURRNU9F/view 

[jhamslam]

12 hours ago, feadair said:

A Shootcast list is battling in top 8 of LVO 2020, it is the first list here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byw7UYxkGtjSTU9yZmd3bk5LOFpvUUNpNmM4N0VScURRNU9F/view 

Yeah that was me. Slaanesh got me tho, sorry guys couldnt the SCE dream there

[SleeperAgent]

7 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

Yeah that was me. Slaanesh got me tho, sorry guys couldnt the SCE dream there

Slaanesh is a 2.0 battletome. You did amazing especially considering the 1.5 battletome.

[jhamslam]

6 minutes ago, SleeperAgent said:

Slaanesh is a 2.0 battletome. You did amazing especially considering the 1.5 battletome.

thanks man, it was my first gt , and i guess playing all pros in the finals tilted me a bit, i made some bad calls

[Marzillius]

Here's a small write-up of an RTT I attended this saturday. Maybe it isn't fun reading about a Stormcast player getting stomped, but could be interesting anyway. I ran a fun cavalry list with 6 Desolators and 6 Dracolines, LAoCD, Heraldor, Castellant, Cogs, CP and the compulsory 15 Liberators.

Game 1 vs Seraphon, Focal Points: I played against this guy on Krigsluntan too, really good guy! Our last game came down to the last priority roll, and this was no different. He had a Shadowstrike Cohort, Kroak, Cogs and Gotrek basically. I castled up to prevent the Ripperdactyls from ripping the Dracolines a new one and moved the castle up. Failed to cast Cogs. In his turn Kroak did some mortal wounds. I got priority. Failed to cast Cogs. The Dracolines ran up and charged his Skink screen while the Desolators went the other way to secure one of my own points. The Skinks are teleporting everywhere as usual and just taking all the objectives. I hate it. In his turn he did a bunch of mortals again and killed my general. Then Gotrek failed his charge and I won priority which ment the Dracolines were free to charge and kill Kroak. Then it goes downhill as Gotrek one-shots the Dracoline unit and eventually kills the Desolators. Then if he wins priority for turn 5 he will win a major, if I win he will win a minor. I roll a 1 and get a major loss. Whelp.

Game 2 vs Khorne, Starstrike: He had Skarbrand, a BT who gives 6" pile-ins, Gore Pilgrims, a Skull Cannon and a Soul Grinder. He places Skarbrand in a very exposed position so I decide to turn 1 charge the Dracolines into him, because I know from experience that if he gets to hit first I will die. So I fail to cast Cogs, but go through with the plan anyway. Then I fail the 6" re-roll charge. So now my Dracolines are just standing there. Great. Skarbrand if course makes mincemeat out of them. I win priority and move the Desolators and Arcanum in. Between the two of them they manage to kill Skarbrand, the BT and 10 Blood Warriors, basically securing the flank. In his turn he does essentially nothing, the Soul Grinder even takes more wounds than it deals in combat with 5 Liberators. I win priority again and the Desolators prepare to assault his altar with all the characters around it. Unfortunately, I fail the 6" re-roll charge AGAIN. This leaves the Altar open and allows him to summon another Blood Thirster which proceeds to mop the floor with the Desolators as I fail almost every single save for three straight combat rounds. It's looking dire, but it's all about round 5 in Starstrike, and the Gryph Hound from the Castellant delivers. He charged it with 10 Blood Warriors but hit with the BT first in the phase, which let me retreat with the Hound and steal his objective, netting me a major win.

Game 3 vs Stormcast, Total Commitment: Here I played against @Turragor and his Starcast list. He opened up with his mortal wound bombardment which was underwhelming, apart from that it killed my general. In my turn I managed to charge my Desolators against his Gryph Hound which he had placed ahead of his army and then pile in into the Celestant Prime, essentially slingshotting my unit using the Hound. The Desolators fail to kill the Prime, which hits and wounds all his attacks and I fail my saves, killing 2 Desolators. I get a double turn and charge my Dracolines into a Drakeswon Templar. The Dracolines whiff hard, dealing only 2 MW with their lightning attack leaving the Templar on 3 wounds left. He only gets 1 bite attack, aims it at the middle Dracoline and rolls a 6, killing half the unit so only 2 remain. At this point I just concede, there is no way I will win with only 6 hard hitting models left against two Stardrakes, one of which will attack me in his hero phase since it's Anvils. If only the general hadn't died, then both the Desolators and Dracolines would have been fully buffed, and then the Prime and Templar would have died with no casualties from me. But good game none the less!

Me and @Turragor talked a bit about the nature of Stormcast being prone than other armies to whiffing. That was really true for me this tournament. We're just not reliable at all. I also didn't manage to cast Cogs a single time the entire tournament. I have been keeping track. Out of the 14 attempts across 2 tournaments I have ever made to cast Cogs I have succeeded 1 time. Once. On a spell that goes off on a 7+. That's about a 0,0003 chance of happening. Nice. I'm not bitter at all.

[schwabbele]

20 minutes ago, Marzillius said:

Nice. I'm not bitter at all.

Maybe a small sacrifice for the dice gods would be appropriate

Thanks for the write up

[feadair]

1 hour ago, jhamslam said:

Yeah that was me. Slaanesh got me tho, sorry guys couldnt the SCE dream there

Congrats! Well done, especially given the level of the tourney. Did the list work well, or are you planning changes after the experience?

[jhamslam]

10 minutes ago, feadair said:

Congrats! Well done, especially given the level of the tourney. Did the list work well, or are you planning changes after the experience?

I like it, but as @PJetskiput it, it needs extremely tight and thoughtful play or  youll be punished. Hard. 

Patience is key, let em come to you, win the game in all 5 rounds.

ist is very vulnerable to counter shooting, and im scared of OBR catapults and the new tzeentch. idk what to change for those, but the list as it stands is pretty nice

[feadair]

4 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

I like it, but as @PJetskiput it, it needs extremely tight and thoughtful play or  youll be punished. Hard. 

Patience is key, let em come to you, win the game in all 5 rounds.

ist is very vulnerable to counter shooting, and im scared of OBR catapults and the new tzeentch. idk what to change for those, but the list as it stands is pretty nice

I have the same list as you, except for spells, and am planning to try the newly point reduced Evocators on DLs in it for more mobility. Essentially you replace Evocators on foot with 6 on Dracolines, a Knight Incantor with LAoCD, and drop the Azyros (and downgrade Geminids to a Malevolent Maelstrom.)  May turn out to be a downgrade, but you never know. 

[jhamslam]

11 minutes ago, feadair said:

I have the same list as you, except for spells, and am planning to try the newly point reduced Evocators on DLs in it for more mobility. Essentially you replace Evocators on foot with 6 on Dracolines, a Knight Incantor with LAoCD, and drop the Azyros (and downgrade Geminids to a Malevolent Maelstrom.)  May turn out to be a downgrade, but you never know. 

i like the foot ones, mainkly cus of petrifex, the re rollable 4 up save is pretty resistant to damage. too resistant

[feadair]

23 hours ago, jhamslam said:

i like the foot ones, mainkly cus of petrifex, the re rollable 4 up save is pretty resistant to damage. too resistant

Yes, you lose 4 MWs on average for the Celestial Lighting Arcs. The damage from the Dracolines is pretty good especially on charges, though. However, the main reason for me to try it is the mobility. Move 12 with rerollable charges provides options if the army’s main plan is not working. Still all theory - need to finish painting. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by feadair

[Turragor]

1 hour ago, Marzillius said:

Here's a small write-up of an RTT I attended this saturday. Maybe it isn't fun reading about a Stormcast player getting stomped, but could be interesting anyway. I ran a fun cavalry list with 6 Desolators and 6 Dracolines, LAoCD, Heraldor, Castellant, Cogs, CP and the compulsory 15 Liberators.

Game 1 vs Seraphon, Focal Points: I played against this guy on Krigsluntan too, really good guy! Our last game came down to the last priority roll, and this was no different. He had a Shadowstrike Cohort, Kroak, Cogs and Gotrek basically. I castled up to prevent the Ripperdactyls from ripping the Dracolines a new one and moved the castle up. Failed to cast Cogs. In his turn Kroak did some mortal wounds. I got priority. Failed to cast Cogs. The Dracolines ran up and charged his Skink screen while the Desolators went the other way to secure one of my own points. The Skinks are teleporting everywhere as usual and just taking all the objectives. I hate it. In his turn he did a bunch of mortals again and killed my general. Then Gotrek failed his charge and I won priority which ment the Dracolines were free to charge and kill Kroak. Then it goes downhill as Gotrek one-shots the Dracoline unit and eventually kills the Desolators. Then if he wins priority for turn 5 he will win a major, if I win he will win a minor. I roll a 1 and get a major loss. Whelp.

Game 2 vs Khorne, Starstrike: He had Skarbrand, a BT who gives 6" pile-ins, Gore Pilgrims, a Skull Cannon and a Soul Grinder. He places Skarbrand in a very exposed position so I decide to turn 1 charge the Dracolines into him, because I know from experience that if he gets to hit first I will die. So I fail to cast Cogs, but go through with the plan anyway. Then I fail the 6" re-roll charge. So now my Dracolines are just standing there. Great. Skarbrand if course makes mincemeat out of them. I win priority and move the Desolators and Arcanum in. Between the two of them they manage to kill Skarbrand, the BT and 10 Blood Warriors, basically securing the flank. In his turn he does essentially nothing, the Soul Grinder even takes more wounds than it deals in combat with 5 Liberators. I win priority again and the Desolators prepare to assault his altar with all the characters around it. Unfortunately, I fail the 6" re-roll charge AGAIN. This leaves the Altar open and allows him to summon another Blood Thirster which proceeds to mop the floor with the Desolators as I fail almost every single save for three straight combat rounds. It's looking dire, but it's all about round 5 in Starstrike, and the Gryph Hound from the Castellant delivers. He charged it with 10 Blood Warriors but hit with the BT first in the phase, which let me retreat with the Hound and steal his objective, netting me a major win.

Game 3 vs Stormcast, Total Commitment: Here I played against @Turragor and his Starcast list. He opened up with his mortal wound bombardment which was underwhelming, apart from that it killed my general. In my turn I managed to charge my Desolators against his Gryph Hound which he had placed ahead of his army and then pile in into the Celestant Prime, essentially slingshotting my unit using the Hound. The Desolators fail to kill the Prime, which hits and wounds all his attacks and I fail my saves, killing 2 Desolators. I get a double turn and charge my Dracolines into a Drakeswon Templar. The Dracolines whiff hard, dealing only 2 MW with their lightning attack leaving the Templar on 3 wounds left. He only gets 1 bite attack, aims it at the middle Dracoline and rolls a 6, killing half the unit so only 2 remain. At this point I just concede, there is no way I will win with only 6 hard hitting models left against two Stardrakes, one of which will attack me in his hero phase since it's Anvils. If only the general hadn't died, then both the Desolators and Dracolines would have been fully buffed, and then the Prime and Templar would have died with no casualties from me. But good game none the less!

Me and @Turragor talked a bit about the nature of Stormcast being prone than other armies to whiffing. That was really true for me this tournament. We're just not reliable at all. I also didn't manage to cast Cogs a single time the entire tournament. I have been keeping track. Out of the 14 attempts across 2 tournaments I have ever made to cast Cogs I have succeeded 1 time. Once. On a spell that goes off on a 7+. That's about a 0,0003 chance of happening. Nice. I'm not bitter at all.

It was great meeting on total commitment, equally punished

I like that we had a great chat during and after the match. Two old stormcast veterans, few warscroll card checks needed. 

It's like we said we are all practising a faction in a relatively average to poor state and an update will catapult us up the tables with our existing models (unless they just release a new better chamber with battleline elite and sundry again). 

I love playing starcast but it's got a few hard counters you're almost guaranteed to meet at a big tournament, without lucky match ups.

And in a similar vein to anvilstrike, as @jhamslamsays, you don't have the leeway to make mistakes that other factions might do.

Until the update (summer this year feels right for the flagship faction) I'll keep fiddling with lists and just learning how to play the elusive perfect tournament game with my list. 

 

[feadair]

55 minutes ago, feadair said:

ist is very vulnerable to counter shooting, and im scared of OBR catapults and the new tzeentch. idk what to change for those, but the list as it stands is pretty nice

What WAS your tactic against the  OBR catapults? They look terrifying. 

Edited January 27, 2020 by feadair

[jhamslam]

4 hours ago, feadair said:

What WAS your tactic against the  OBR catapults? They look terrifying. 

you cant compete with that ******, 12 wounds each, 36 inch range, best hope is to kill mortek guard and play objectives, luckily 3 catapilt lists get destroyed elshwere

[Scurvydog]

1 hour ago, jhamslam said:

you cant compete with that ******, 12 wounds each, 36 inch range, best hope is to kill mortek guard and play objectives, luckily 3 catapilt lists get destroyed elshwere

Well catapults got 0 rend, stormcast got plenty of saves. Be happy to see a catapult over 3 stalkers for the same points. Consider a catapult deals an average of 4,5 damage against a 4+ save, I don't get all the fuss, 2 ballistas are better.

[jhamslam]

15 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

Well catapults got 0 rend, stormcast got plenty of saves. Be happy to see a catapult over 3 stalkers for the same points. Consider a catapult deals an average of 4,5 damage against a 4+ save, I don't get all the fuss, 2 ballistas are better.

a failed save or two , is like 2 - 5 raptors dead, significantly reducing our output. 4+ save isnt as reliable as you think , catapults hit on 2 wound on 3s, with 3 shots base, 4 shots with katakros

[Turragor]

4 minutes ago, jhamslam said:

a failed save or two , is like 2 - 5 raptors dead, significantly reducing our output. 4+ save isnt as reliable as you think , catapults hit on 2 wound on 3s, with 3 shots base, 4 shots with katakros

Yep they are psychological weapons for us but when they make an impact its a 5 wound hero or half a hammer unit 

[jhamslam]

1 minute ago, Turragor said:

Yep they are psychological weapons for us but when they make an impact its a 5 wound hero or half a hammer unit 

one isnt so scary, 2 or 3 are, but generally, nobody takes that list since its vulnerable to a lot 

[feadair]

1 hour ago, jhamslam said:

Consider a catapult deals an average of 4,5 damage against a 4+ save

This means that three catapults take out most of your Longstrikes with one volley.

[jhamslam]

31 minutes ago, feadair said:

This means that three catapults take out most of your Longstrikes with one volley.

Happened in round 5 , he only had one, i failed to kill it he killed 4 longstrikes with one volley. I then knew i had to play objectives, so suicide charged some knight incantors into the 20 mortek holding two objectives, shot the remaining vanguard at the mortek, evocators added to the mix, and i won on points

[feadair]

23 hours ago, jhamslam said:

i like the foot ones, mainkly cus of petrifex, the re rollable 4 up save is pretty resistant to damage. too resistant

I did some maths comparing 10 Evocators on foot with 6 Evocators on Celestial Dracolines specifically against Petrifex Mortek Guard (Save 3+, reroll saves), using https://aos-statshammer.herokuapp.com/. Turns out that Evocators on Dracolines are not too far behind if they get to charge, but Evocators on foot beat them squarely if no charging is involved. For simplicity, I ignored the extra attacks from Primes.

Specifically, Evocators on foot do on average 13.7 damage (assuming half use blades and stormstaves, half grandstaves). If all are on grandstaves, this falls to 12.96.
Evocators on CDLs (again assuming 50/50 weapon split) do 10.22 damage if not charging. On a charge, this increases to 12.22. (If they get to benefit from Pride Leader, it is 11.28, and 13.78 on a charge).

This suggests that even against PE Mortek Guard Evocators on Dracolines are somewhat competitive on damage, assuming you have a good chance of getting the charges in.  Knight-Heraldor will be an important asset here, as it allows retreat and charge. 

All of the above is subject to me not ****** up the maths somewhere, a non-zero possibility. (Edited already for this reason)

Edited January 28, 2020 by feadair
Edited for accuracy