AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[Mark Williams]

I don't think they should require anything. They aren't monsters or cavalry or something. For that matter I don't think hunters should require something special either, but maybe that's just me.

[Lucur]

3 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

I don't think they should require anything. They aren't monsters or cavalry or something. For that matter I don't think hunters should require something special either, but maybe that's just me.

Making a certain Hero mandatory to unlock battleline is a very dated mechanic in the age of battleline monsters and elite units.

[NauticalSoup]

Stormcast desperately need more unconditional battleline (and just better battleline in general).

Sequitors without an Arcanum is a start, Castigators should probably be unconditional battleline as well since they're hardly a sterling example of an elite unit.

[AdamR]

Celestar ballista seems to have disappeared from Warscroll Builder!

They've got rid of the War Machines section, and it looks like most armies war machines  have just been folded back into the UNITS section with an Artillery tag, but the poor old Ballista is no where to be found.

[Turragor]

4 hours ago, AdamR said:

Celestar ballista seems to have disappeared from Warscroll Builder!

They've got rid of the War Machines section, and it looks like most armies war machines  have just been folded back into the UNITS section with an Artillery tag, but the poor old Ballista is no where to be found.

Nah dude, it's totally fine:

[Turragor]

Alas they don't give command points

[AdamR]

18 hours ago, Turragor said:

Nah dude, it's totally fine:

Ahhh that well known battalion! 😋

Edited February 14, 2020 by AdamR

[LordPrometheus]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:43 AM, NauticalSoup said:

Stormcast desperately need more unconditional battleline (and just better battleline in general).

Sequitors without an Arcanum is a start, Castigators should probably be unconditional battleline as well since they're hardly a sterling example of an elite unit.

Our battleline just sucks so bad compared to just about everybody else. We bring half the bodies or less for the same amount of points, with fewer attacks and much lower damage. It's bad design. And then people whine about Shootcast when we use it because it's our only chance to win/contest objectives, because our objective grabbers suck. It's just ridiculous all around.

Edited February 14, 2020 by LordPrometheus

[Kramer]

On 2/13/2020 at 6:59 AM, Mark Williams said:

I don't think they should require anything. They aren't monsters or cavalry or something. For that matter I don't think hunters should require something special either, but maybe that's just me.

I think that way you would see a lot more list variations. 

[Zamik]

Speaking of Castigators, here's the Warcry card for the Prime. 255 points!

[Desolater]

Hey guys, I have my first 1000 pts tournament coming up (it’s more of a beginners thing). I just want to learn more about how to utilise our strengths etc. Here’s my list of what I have painted and therefor my 1000pts list. Looking for recommends on stormhost or traits etc please. 

LAoGC, 5 Seq, 10 Seq, Lord Ordinator, 2x Ballistas =970 

Cheers

[Mark Williams]

2 hours ago, Desolater said:

Hey guys, I have my first 1000 pts tournament coming up (it’s more of a beginners thing). I just want to learn more about how to utilise our strengths etc. Here’s my list of what I have painted and therefor my 1000pts list. Looking for recommends on stormhost or traits etc please. 

LAoGC, 5 Seq, 10 Seq, Lord Ordinator, 2x Ballistas =970 

Cheers

Paint 3 castigators and take the battalion  in trade for one of the ballista. Put it in the sky. Take 5 sequitors out. Give the LA the Staff of Focus artefact and the LO a melee artefact . Buy an extra CP if you have points left. Otherwise buy the endless spells if you can afford it and take the vortex. Put chain lightning on the LA and combo it with staff of focus 1 turn. Use one of the extra CPs to give castigators rr1s and -2 tend on the drop. GL

Edited February 15, 2020 by Mark Williams

[Desolater]

1 hour ago, Mark Williams said:

Paint 3 castigators and take the battalion  in trade for one of the ballista. Put it in the sky. Take 5 sequitors out. Give the LA the Staff of Focus artefact and the LO a melee artefact . Buy an extra CP if you have points left. Otherwise buy the endless spells if you can afford it and take the vortex. Put chain lightning on the LA and combo it with staff of focus 1 turn. Use one of the extra CPs to give castigators rr1s and -2 tend on the drop. GL

Okay so what stormhost? Or no stormhost? I have 3 Castigators so can do that. Can minus 5 seq and split the 10 to two 5s to fulfil battleline. Don’t have any endless spells so not an option.  

[Mark Williams]

Maybe Astral Templars. Something like this.

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Astral Templars
Mortal Realm: Ghur
Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger (220)
- General
- Command Trait: Dauntless Hunters  
- Celestial Staves (Artefact): Staff of Focus
- Spell: Chain Lightning
- Mount Trait: Wind Runner
Lord-Ordinator (140)
- Artefact: Godbeast Plate  
5 x Sequitors (130)
- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields
- 3x Stormsmite Greatmaces
5 x Sequitors (130)
- Stormsmite Mauls and Soulshields
- 3x Stormsmite Greatmaces
3 x Castigators (80)
Celestar Ballista (110)
Hailstorm Battery (120)
Extra Command Point (50)

Total: 980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 38
 

Basic idea is you set up the LA and sequitors close to each other and put the battalion in the sky. 4 drops should give you a decent chance to determine who goes first.

If you see a good opportunity to alpha strike your opponent, use the before game move to move your sequitors and LA forward 6". otherwise move them back 6" and give your opponent first turn.

Use Chain Lightning with Staff of Focus and try to snipe a pack of units (hero) if you can.

The ballista should try to aim for any monsters. If you want to go all in, spend 3 CP before shooting to RR 1s on both the castigators and ballista, and a CP on your ballista to add + 1 to wound against monsters. With good luck you'll overkill just about any monster you should face at 1k.

Try to drop at the bottom half of a turn so that you can get a chance for a double turn.

Also, use your range. The castigators and ballista have an 18" range, so drop at your max distance.

Also, if going extremely competitive, don't forget to roll yourself a triumph if you're less points than your opponent.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Mark Williams

[Desolater]

13 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

Maybe Astral Templars. Something like this.

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Astral Templars

Cheers for you in-depth answer and if am playing against monsters then will definitely give this a try. What if my opponent has 0 monsters?

[Mark Williams]

20 minutes ago, Desolater said:

Cheers for you in-depth answer and if am playing against monsters then will definitely give this a try. What if my opponent has 0 monsters?

Same strategy. Just try to drop and kill something really big or valuable .

[Boobashamaka]

Hello,

Question: I have 2 units of Idoneths in my army as allies. I set them on the table iny deployment. Does it mean that I can put 2 units in the sky for these 2 ally units?

The wording of the rule says "for each unit on the table" so I would say yes but as they are allies I have a doubt.

Thank you for helping clarifying!!

[Mark Williams]

1 hour ago, Boobashamaka said:

Hello,

Question: I have 2 units of Idoneths in my army as allies. I set them on the table iny deployment. Does it mean that I can put 2 units in the sky for these 2 ally units?

The wording of the rule says "for each unit on the table" so I would say yes but as they are allies I have a doubt.

Thank you for helping clarifying!!

It is only for stormcast units on the table. There IS something in either the wording of the Scions rule, or the allegiance page just before that, that makes it clear, but I don't have my book with me at the moment.

[Marcvs]

7 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

It is only for stormcast units on the table. There IS something in either the wording of the Scions rule, or the allegiance page just before that, that makes it clear, but I don't have my book with me at the moment.

I don't see anything in the FAQs or Commentary, so the rule in the book itself would lead me to conclude for the contrary:

"Instead of setting up a STORMCAST ETERNAL unit
on the battlefield, you can place it to one side and say
that it is set up in the Celestial Realm as a reserve unit.
You can set up one reserve unit in the Celestial Realm
for each unit you have set up on the battlefield"
 

[Maturin]

7 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

It is only for stormcast units on the table. There IS something in either the wording of the Scions rule, or the allegiance page just before that, that makes it clear, but I don't have my book with me at the moment.

Isn't it about the fact that allies can never take artifacts, because they're not part of the army's allegiance. Byt the following logic, shouldn't they not be able to count for the number of units required for a scion deployment ?

[Mark Williams]

4 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

I don't see anything in the FAQs or Commentary, so the rule in the book itself would lead me to conclude for the contrary:

"Instead of setting up a STORMCAST ETERNAL unit
on the battlefield, you can place it to one side and say
that it is set up in the Celestial Realm as a reserve unit.
You can set up one reserve unit in the Celestial Realm
for each unit you have set up on the battlefield"
 

It’s the part that clarifies that only stormcast eternals have this rule, and that it doesn’t apply to allies. I’ll look it up in 30-45 mins.

[Marcvs]

14 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

It’s the part that clarifies that only stormcast eternals have this rule, and that it doesn’t apply to allies. I’ll look it up in 30-45 mins.

ok, let us know!

Looking around I also found this short discussion reaching my same conclusion:

Also, on the page before in the battletome it says:

"BATTLE TRAITS
Abilities available to every unit in a
Stormcast Eternals army (pg 117)"

Scions is a battle trait, then of course it specifies the keyword in the ability, but only when it comes to setting up in reserve.
 

 

[Maturin]

2 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Also, on the page before in the battletome it says:

"BATTLE TRAITS
Abilities available to every unit in a
Stormcast Eternals army (pg 117)"

Scions is a battle trait, then of course it specifies the keyword in the ability, but only when it comes to setting up in reserve.
 

 

The allies aren't part of the army, they're allies, that's why they can't have artifacts hence, they shouldn't count for the scions ?

[rogue_michael]

13 minutes ago, Maturin said:

The allies aren't part of the army, they're allies, that's why they can't have artifacts hence, they shouldn't count for the scions ?

From the core rules:

Quote

Allied units are treated as part of your army, except that they are not included when working out your army’s allegiance, and can therefore be part of a different Grand Alliance or faction. In addition, an allied model cannot be the army’s general, and cannot use or benefit from your army’s allegiance abilities.

So they're definitely part of the army.

I think them not getting artefacts etc is from them not being able to "use or benefit from" the allegiance abilities.

But I would say that for being taken into account during Scions they're not using or benefiting. They just exist. I think for them not to be counted it would need to be something more like "are ignored for the purposes of allegiance abilities".

Further, I think the Scions rule specifying STORMCAST ETERNALS for the units that can use it but not for the units on the board is pretty telling.

[The World Tree]

Speaking of Scions, did we ever land on whether a Gryph Hound and its owner (Castellant/Veritant) count as two separate units for Scions? I never did so but played others who did. i can see the logic it just felt wrong to me.