AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[JackStreicher]

My bad 12“ circle around a 40mm base would encompass  be 47 bases in total

looks like this but -1 since one has to be in the center

[schwabbele]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

An abusive auto win with no counter play whatsoever isn‘t nice, it‘s cheap, unfair and should not exist. 
„I deployed, you can give up now!“

Tell me how that auto win looks

[JackStreicher]

10 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

Tell me how that auto win looks

You shove 80+ wounds with at least a 3+ save and rerollable 1s straight Into the enemy formation, you bubble wrap almost an entire army while clubbing them with 3+, 3+,-,1 attacks. Meanwhile your second battalion controls the entire board and scores points. Combine that with Gabriel sureheart that increases your charge range by +3 for every CP spent and or The +6 inch pregame move of a Stormhost and you‘re DEEP inside the enemy‘s formation. Luckily there‘s no battalion that makes you swim in CP.

By the time the enemy has managed to break free of your Liberators the game is already lost.

Most armies can‘t handle that at all and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop it except trying to get the first turn, which is hard since the SCE Army will have 2-3 Drops.

 

Comparison:

an average AoS Army has about 120-125 wounds.

Edited November 20, 2020 by JackStreicher

[schwabbele]

 

Fly, terrain, retreating, teleport, deeptstrike and gargants as Options against it. So i get your point but wouldn’t wet my pants just yet. 
 

edit: and 40 libs is also something most players don’t have. Especially the newer ones.

edit2: and you need to be in 12“ from veritant. So just Split your army problem solved. 

Edited November 20, 2020 by schwabbele

[JackStreicher]

7 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

 

Fly, terrain, retreating, teleport, deeptstrike and gargants as Options against it. So i get your point but wouldn’t wet my pants just yet. 
 

edit: and 40 libs is also something most players don’t have. Especially the newer ones.

Fly? Where? Terrain actually helps the liberators by blocking you.

Just try to win against it and we‘ll talk again. 
 

also I said „most armies „ can‘t deal with it.

anyways if anybody would pull off that tactic I‘d order an extra large truck-load full of elephant‘s dung right onto their doorstep.

Edited November 20, 2020 by JackStreicher

[schwabbele]

Then better save same money, if it’s really that good tournament scene will be full of it  and you gonna need a lot of sh*t 

I still believe it won’t be an issue. /remindme in 8 months  

 

[Juicy]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

No tournament I ever went to had an issue with „all my liberators with swords actually have hammers“.

for real?  thats nice to hear. I had some trouble in the past with tournaments dont allow weapon swaps. Like judicators and paladins. But i can understand that with liberators it isnt as bad as its just the roll thats a bit differant.  

[JackStreicher]

Just now, Juicy said:

for real?  thats nice to hear. I had some trouble in the past with tournaments dont allow weapon swaps. Like judicators and paladins. But i can understand that with liberators it isnt as bad as its just the roll thats a bit differant.  

In my experience it is important that your opponent does not get confused. So saying: all Libs on the table have hammers, that also goes for the great weapons. Should be clear and fine

[Juicy]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

You shove 80+ wounds with at least a 3+ save and rerollable 1s straight Into the enemy formation, you bubble wrap almost an entire army while clubbing them with 3+, 3+,-,1 attacks. Meanwhile your second battalion controls the entire board and scores points. Combine that with Gabriel sureheart that increases your charge range by +3 for every CP spent and or The +6 inch pregame move of a Stormhost and you‘re DEEP inside the enemy‘s formation. Luckily there‘s no battalion that makes you swim in CP.

By the time the enemy has managed to break free of your Liberators the game is already lost.

Most armies can‘t handle that at all and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop it except trying to get the first turn, which is hard since the SCE Army will have 2-3 Drops.

 

Comparison:

an average AoS Army has about 120-125 wounds.

U now confuse 2 stormhosts together.  Gav is from hammers and the +6 inch pregame move is from astral templars. I agree it sounds good on paper but with mortal wounds al over the place i feel there are a lot of armies that destroy this list pretty easy and score all your points back from turn 3+.  Immagine the field day khorne thirster players have if you shove al those liberators in there face.. My regular  buddy would have a smile for years.

 

edit: im playing a list like this on saterday against a khorne list so i can see how it goes.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Juicy

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

19 hours ago, Marcvs said:

So I am seeing a lot of kneejerk reactions to the new rules for SCE, and the idea of blocks of liberators blocking people in their deployment through the patrol battalion. This seems... excessive? While I don't deny that the new rules are good (I am painting some dusty liberators right now), the only difference with what you could *already* do is the shield of civilisation. What I mean is: you could already drop 2x30 liberators 5" from the opponent with Slayers or Gav Bomb 30 of them, which is in fact more flexible than the patrol battalion. Does the +1 to save (cause even with +1 to hit the damage is lackluster for the investment) justify these reactions? Am I missing something?

EDIT: Ok I just finished the Wahammer Weekly show and they even called for a FAQ to rein the patrol battalion in 🤷‍♀️

Increasing a save is provides more benefits the higher your base save is, so +1 to save for a  save '-' is not a big bonus, but for a save 3+ unit is insanely good.

Going from a 4+ save to 3+ like Liberators do is huge. It increases your effective wounds by a third against no rend. You go from a 2x effective wound multiplier to 3x. Also, rerolling 1s to save gets better if your save is better, because the reroll will be more likely to be successful.

Thirty Liberators at 3+ rerolling have 270 effective wounds against no rend. They are point for point more tanky than Mortek Guard, except they are also in your face turn 0.  Way too many wounds to just mortal wound your way through. And you can buff their save even more if I'm not mistaken. This is an insane battalion.

The +1 to hit is just adding insult to injury at this point.

[JackStreicher]

8 minutes ago, Juicy said:

  Immagine the field day khorne thirster players have if you shove al those liberators in there face..

That is 8 Mortal wounds, isn't it? Only 72 to go then

Can't you add Gavriel to any Stormhost, yet he does not benefit from the Stormhost rule?

[Marcvs]

3 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

An abusive auto win with no counter play whatsoever isn‘t nice, it‘s cheap, unfair and should not exist. 
„I deployed, you can give up now!“

So how come NO ONE has been doing this and/or having good tournament results with this *pre covid*, considering you could *already* shove 120 wounds on a 4+, -1 to hit on their first turn and (importantly) immune to battleshock 5" away from the enemy in a o1-drop list (Skyborne Slayers)? Does the +1 to save to an otherwise mediocre unit really warrant this discussion?

In preparation for these changes I have been playing exactly this list (30 liberators, 20 protectors: 120 wounds, 185 wounds in the whole army) and while it does work against some specific armies (no fly, no teleport, low to medium damage) it is by no means an auto-win.

-The output of many armies in AoS is crazy these days, especially if you have a list, like the one we are discussing, which does not have any way to break their combos. Oh and if you had to spend all your CPs for that Gavriel charge, and you will becuase that's you whole mobility, good luck with battleshock (in my experience, I have routinely lost 10 liberators in one turn)

-There's plenty of flying, teleport, deepstrike and if you think you can both screen the whole board and kettle your enemy in their deployment zone with a 12" bubble + a charge, you should try it on the table

-All armies with the possibility of killing a specific model do not allow you to string your liberators. Once you have to put them in a double rank, all the strategy fails

-All battleplans where you can win "later" in the game (Starstrike, Knife to the Heart) are extremely difficult for this list

So, IMHO, it is a new trick which can be frustrating to some opponents and fall apart against others. In this sense it is similar to many other tricks out there. I can't see this going 5-0 because of the points I just outlined, but there's surely much better players than me so I wait to see what they will do with these new rules.

Coming from this perspective, and as a SCE player who started in 2019, I am kind of surprised by this discussion. We are talking of a melee stormcast army based on the warrior chamber, one of the most lackluster builds in the present meta. I have had the pleasure of playing a few times against a Tzeentch 1-drop list that can charge me in t1 with a freely teleported unit of 20 pink horrors (440 pts) which literally can pick their charge result and stop me from retreating, while then competely encircling my army as they start losing models. And this, somehow, is a positive playing experience, but hey, 3+ save liberators (under strict conditions) that's where we draw the line.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Marcvs

[firtahl]

31 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

You shove 80+ wounds with at least a 3+ save and rerollable 1s straight Into the enemy formation, you bubble wrap almost an entire army while clubbing them with 3+, 3+,-,1 attacks. Meanwhile your second battalion controls the entire board and scores points. Combine that with Gabriel sureheart that increases your charge range by +3 for every CP spent and or The +6 inch pregame move of a Stormhost and you‘re DEEP inside the enemy‘s formation. Luckily there‘s no battalion that makes you swim in CP.

By the time the enemy has managed to break free of your Liberators the game is already lost.

Most armies can‘t handle that at all and there is nothing your opponent can do to stop it except trying to get the first turn, which is hard since the SCE Army will have 2-3 Drops.

 

Comparison:

an average AoS Army has about 120-125 wounds.

So lets look at this OP damage from the big scary Liberator 40 block using the 3,3,-,1 stats you call out vs a number of saves RR nothing:

2+ 0.99

3+ 3.95

4+ 8.89

5+ 15.8

6+ 24.69

So its not impressive AVG damage for the points, no shocker there. +1 on libs makes their plush pillow fists into firm pillow fists. Another +1 to hit isn't going to blow this up. But lets be fair to the crux of the complaint which revolves around the idea that 40 libs on 3+ RR1 is beyond the limits of "most" armies when it can get you in your deployment top of T1. Why don't we list all the armies and see which ones might not have an answer to this style.

*NOTE every list can win and that includes the front line liberators, but we are just asking if there are tools in the other armies to deal with a bunch of trash in their front yard. If the argument is "what if their teleport doesn't go off", that means you're admitting they have a way out and maybe its not as bleak as you say. Every plan and counter can fail, so if they cant get out 100% of the time that doesn't make the STE list OP. it just means the STE list is viable (which I think most people agree that it is very viable.)

 

1. Beasts of Chaos (Chaos) Almost anything can give BoC a hard time, lets be real here, but hey reliable board edge summoning so they aren't trapped. 
2. Blades of Khorne (Chaos) Blood thirstier counter charge can break out, lost of cheap MSU deaths allows summoning elsewhere on the board. Tyrant's of blood are going to wreck your life.
3. Disciples of Tzeentch (Chaos) Changehost teleporting, you're doing them a favor by allowing their flamers to blow you up T1 at close range. Pinks laugh in Rorschach while yelling "I'm not trapped with you, you're trapped in here with me."
4. Hedonites of Slaanesh (Chaos) Just just charged 40 depravity into the keepers. Don't deploy near them? Great, they have countered your play by dictating no-go zones.
5. Maggotkin of Nurgle (Chaos) I'm not as familiar with the MoN lists, but pinning them in would limit their contagion points. Might be rough if they just run a ton of blight kings like I've seen. Ill give STE the benefit of the doubt here.
6. Skaven (Chaos) WLC those heroes and the battle shock off the troops who cant get a CP to stay. High saves? Welcome to mortal wound town. Skryre is popular, so I don't think this is a stretch, not like it requires moulder or eshin which is not usually run.
7. Slaves to Darkness (Chaos) Gonna just yeet some marauder/Chaos warrior blocks behind you with veil of darkness which I don't think I've ever seen anyone NOT take.
8. Flesh-Eater Courts (Death) Terrorgheists lol
9. Legions of Nagash (Death) Old book, and nagash cant catch a break. Ill give STE this one since I cant remember the last time I saw LoN have a strong play in general.
10. Nighthaunt (Death) Put half the army in deepstrike. Not pinned in now. Sadly you're still nighthaunt but that's not what we are looking at here.
11. Ossiarch Bonereapers (Death) Please charge my mortek guard so you can mitigate the slowness that is one of my army's flaws. Then get mowed over.
12. Gloomspite Gitz (Destruction) They are going to screen and Hand of Gork into the backfield, because like who isn't running HoG.
13. Mawtribes (Destruction, Beastclaw Raiders merged with Gutbusters) They spread out their deployment and then you maybe get 2 stonehorns, but then...you're in combat with the stonehorns. Cry as they play the dancing coffin meme while your units experience melee with multiple stonehorns. The rest of the army goes monster truck rally in the backfield.
14. Orruk Warclans (Destruction, Ironjawz merged with Bonesplitterz) Same as Gloomspite with Hand of Gork, but they can also add a counter charge with the rest of the army for double jeopardy. 
15. Sons of Behemat (Destruction) They will literally walk over your front lines with longshanks and kite you around the map with their 20-30 model count bodies controlling objectives ignoring scenario control rules to their advantage.
16. Cities of Sigmar (Order) Couple be a problem, they don't have a teleport that I'm aware of and I'm not remembering a bunch of mortal wounds. Not super familiar with the army though, so giving this to STE as a binifit of the doubt.
17. Daughters of Khaine (Order) Fast deepstrike flyers and you charge their deathstar that screens with some chaff. Why would you charge the DoK deathstar with libs? Because loosing is fun maybe.
18. Fyreslayers (Order) Deepstrike that fat unit of hearth guard, its not like Lib trash will kill anything anyway.
19. Idoneth Deepkin (Order) Deepstrike those eels ftw
20. Kharadron Overlords (Order) Fly high, pew hard
21. Lumineth Realm-lords (Order) Gonna mortal wound your heroes off and then bravery shenanigans your blocks off the board with even more mortal wounds.
22. Seraphon (Order) 100% reliable teleports, summoning, board wide mortal wound spam, OH MY
23. Stormcast Eternals (Order) If they aren't a mirror match then they are half in the sky and not stuck in their deployment.
24. Sylvaneth (Order) Going to get around with the wild woods, though you can try and screen them out, i still think this counts as having the mobility to get around if they screen correctly.

I dont think 3/24 counts as "most armies"

[Juicy]

9 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

That is 8 Mortal wounds, isn't it? Only 72 to go then

Can't you add Gavriel to any Stormhost, yet he does not benefit from the Stormhost rule?

this thirster did 43 mortals the last time i faced him.. double pile in with some lucky sixes.  is not even that hard to just demolish units., as i have no ranged treat with 70 libs to kill it.

gav nope he can only be taking in hammers

[JackStreicher]

28 minutes ago, Juicy said:

this thirster did 43 mortals the last time i faced him.. double pile in with some lucky sixes.  is not even that hard to just demolish units., as i have no ranged treat with 70 libs to kill it.

gav nope he can only be taking in hammers

You can take him, no matter the host.

To assume that you go lucky should not be the base of any discussion  I could also assume you don‘t go lucky and you only deal like 2 wounds.

@firtahl you don‘t get the point: They block you, the attacks are a nice Bonus. This is an objective game. You don‘t win by killing the liberators, you re-enter the game after killing them. They can also be put to a 2+ rr 1s.

 

 

[Marcvs]

3 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

You can take him, no matter the host.

To assume that you go lucky should not be the base of any discussion  I could also assume you don‘t go lucky and you only deal like 2 wounds.

@firtahl you don‘t get the point: They block you, the attacks are a nice Bonus. This is an objective game. You don‘t win by killing the liberators, you re-enter the game after killing them. They can also be put to a 2+ rr 1s.

 

 

You can TAKE him but his command ability will not work on units which are not hammers of sigmar (so you whole army if you choose another Stormhost)

How do you plan to keep liberators wholly within 18" of the lord Castellant and at the same time encircle your opponent in their deployment zone? or screen the board against teleport/deepstriking/flying?

Edited November 20, 2020 by Marcvs

[JackStreicher]

15 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

You can TAKE him but his command ability will not work on units which are not hammers of sigmar (so you whole army if you choose another Stormhost)

Thx for pointing it out =}

 

they only need to be wholly within 18 in the first herophase.

Edited November 20, 2020 by JackStreicher

[firtahl]

42 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

you don‘t get the point: They block you, the attacks are a nice Bonus. This is an objective game. You don‘t win by killing the liberators, you re-enter the game after killing them. They can also be put to a 2+ rr 1s.

If you read the post the youd know the point is they dont have to attack the liberators, nearly everyone has tools to mitigate getting charged by a bunch of weak units. 

[JackStreicher]

13 minutes ago, firtahl said:

If you read the post the youd know the point is they dont have to attack the liberators, nearly everyone has tools to mitigate getting charged by a bunch of weak units. 

Except you put forth almost no valid point. You mostly make assumptions about how you could counter, too bad you won't build your army to counter only  this build in a tournament. Even your "counters" are pretty weak tbh. You assume taht you will get a spell cast or that you will do this and that which is mostly based on chance. The charging libs are not based on chance, they just will do what they do which is super-opressive.

Even if you mitigate the initial charge that is meant to hold you up the SCE player has still another 1000 points waiting to react to your so calle counters.

[Juicy]

38 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Except you put forth almost no valid point. You mostly make assumptions about how you could counter, too bad you won't build your army to counter only  this build in a tournament. Even your "counters" are pretty weak tbh. You assume taht you will get a spell cast or that you will do this and that which is mostly based on chance. The charging libs are not based on chance, they just will do what they do which is super-opressive.

Even if you mitigate the initial charge that is meant to hold you up the SCE player has still another 1000 points waiting to react to your so calle counters.

i feel its mechanics are oppressive but its no where near vanguard wing where liberators could be buffed to intens hights. Like come on we talking about liberators who are one of the worst units in game. They get no killing done and cannot do even 20 wounds in the full game these days. By just tanking and sitting on objectives with 40mm base its a pretty hard thing to pull of. 

Most of our heroes are probly dead turn 2/3 in competative game. And liberators holding up the midfield like a screen. But they are still on a 3+ save cause the lord castellant cannot reach them to buff them. Yes its a lot of wounds but there is a lot of stuff out there doing crazy damage. And its 2 units holding 2/3 objectives max. The rest of the board is empty. 

this sounds better on paper im 100% sure of it. But ill ques ill see it tomorrow when i play it.

[PainfullyMediocre]

On 11/13/2020 at 1:21 PM, PrimeElectrid said:

Hmm... there’s something here with the Stormkeep patrol teleport and Celestial Warbringers Fearless Foresight, I think. Due to sequencing you can teleport forwards, then if enemy takes the first turn, Foresight away to safety.

You could stack it with the Vanguard Raptors with the multi shot attacks as they reduce enemy charge ranges too.

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

Even if you mitigate the initial charge that is meant to hold you up the SCE player has still another 1000 points waiting to react to your so calle counters.

If you go the 2x30 liberators way and you add the battalions (patrol and something else, cause the whole thing only works if you can go first) you won't have much wating to react. Just two examples of list being discussed right now on fb/twitter:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Astral Templars
Lord-Veritant (110)
- General
- Command Trait: Dauntless Hunters
- Artefact: Godbeast Plate
- Prayer: Bless Weapons
Lord-Veritant (110)
- Mystic Light (Artefact): Lantern of the Tempest
- Prayer: Divine Light
30 x Liberators (480)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 6x Grandhammers
30 x Liberators (480)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 6x Grandhammers
5 x Judicators (140)
- Skybolt Bows
- 1x Thunderbolt Crossbows
5 x Judicators (140)
- Skybolt Bows
- 1x Shockbolt Bows
6 x Gryph-Hounds (120)
6 x Gryph-Hounds (120)
Stormkeep Patrol (130)
Stormkeep Patrol (130)

Total: 1960 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 188
 

Spoiler

Gavriel Sureheart (120)

Lord-Veritant (110)

Knight-Vexillor (110)

- Meteoric Standard

Lord-Castellant (120)

Knight-Azyros (100)

30 x Liberators (480)

- Warhammer & Shield

5 x Liberators (90)

- Warhammer & Shield

30 x Liberators (480)

- Warhammer & Shield

6 x Gryph-Hounds (120)

Wardens of the Stormkeep (140)

Stormkeep Patrol (130)

Total: 2000 / 2000

Extra Command Points: 2

Allies: 0 / 400

Wounds: 175

As you can see, you don't have much behind the liberators, at best some gryph hounds and judicators, at worst a bunch of support heroes.

Of course you could go with one single unit of 30 liberators, which would free up... 390 points (and virtually all armies in a competitive environment will get through 30 liberators in 1 turn and 2 combat phases)

Edited November 20, 2020 by Marcvs

[JackStreicher]

Jeez, to use 44 Liberators is the TAME version. You can pick any Redeemer or Justicar units. Do the math yourself...

Well whatever if you are all still in full blown denial mode: Just play a game against such a list and have "fun". Opressive isn't even the right word for it, it's dirt if you max it out.

[Marcvs]

3 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Jeez, to use 44 Liberators is the TAME version. You can pick any Redeemer or Justicar units. Do the math yourself...

Well whatever if you are all still in full blown denial mode: Just play a game against such a list and have "fun". Opressive isn't even the right word for it, it's dirt if you max it out.

If you call "denial" trying to push back a little bit (note that I acknowledged that the list *is* good, in some matchups) against some super early hot takes which, without any kind of testing on the tabletop let alone tournament results, call something "oppressive" or even "dirt"* then yes, that's what I am doing. It is by no means directed at you, if you check the comments under the youtube video of warhammer weekly, I am doing the same there

*btw, I don't think it's nice to preemptively shame SCE players who can use their models somehwat decently after years of being a joke. I wonder if you reserve the same adjectives to Changehost, 120 skinks, 70 sentinels, warp lightning in a bottle, 2+ save unrendable eels, and so on and so forth

[Mattrulesok]

The more I think about the use of this battalion the more I think it's bad because IMO it's not going to be able to compete in a competitive setting, having so many points invested in a couple of units that can so easily be taken off the board in 1-2 rounds of combat by most good competitive lists doesn't compensate for the 1 round of board dominance you get. However in a casual setting I can't see this being anything but oppressive, like how aggrivated would you be if you turned up with a fun list just to have 30 liberators jammed in your first before the game starts completely ruining your chance to actually play out your armies rules and play out a normal game?