AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[Thanos-se]

5 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

The single shot profile is really bad unfortunately.

4 ballistas + ordinator (580 points) shooting with the single shot will do on average 6.3 damage to a 4+ save which is equal to what 6 longstrike raptors would do (340 points).

shouldn't we take into account the distance or the fact of the wounds each unit has? 

[Thanos-se]

3 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Ballistae are not cost effective if you only use their single shot, especially when you add in the cost of the Ordinator. You still only average 3.5 shots for 1 damage each per ballistae with no chance at mortal wounds - there's no doubt that Raptors are vastly superior at sniping support heroes.

You are looking at the game as a spreadsheet on an empty battlefield and ignoring too many other factors.

Ballistae are effectively immobile so you won't be changing their line of fire significantly after deployment. Unless you are playing on an open battlefield with little terrain this is a huge weakness that your enemy can exploit. Since Ballistae are max unit size 1 it is not very useful to teleport them.

Raptors also enable Aetherwings, which are arguably the most important unit in the Stormcast book.

Ballistae are good at exactly one thing: dropping into play behind a fast melee list. They combo very well with cavalry that can push ahead to tie down the enemy (Dracolines, Dracoths) or deep strike charge units. You will commonly see ballistae used in Gavriel turn 1 charge lists to clear out screens or in Astral Templars lists along with the aforementioned cavalry. If Tauralons weren't a waste of points you would probably see Ballistae used more often because they combo very well together, but it's an inefficient combo compared to Longstrikes or Judicators double tapping in Anvils.

Ok... I see...actually you spoke the truth about looking the spreadsheet instead of having tested them on actual playing...someone threw his money (that was me buying 3 ballistas)

[Marcvs]

6 minutes ago, Thanos-se said:

shouldn't we take into account the distance or the fact of the wounds each unit has? 

sure, but then you shuoldn't cherry pick your factors: raptors have more movements over a game and more bodies in case you have them on an objective, plus they are easier to buff and you can put them in the sky without needing a 10-units list. More wounds is relative: if you kill the ordinator (and ballistas don't provide look out sir ) it's the same impact as killing two raptors and so on.

3 minutes ago, Thanos-se said:

Ok... I see...actually you spoke the truth about looking the spreadsheet instead of having tested them on actual playing...someone threw his money (that was me buying 3 ballistas)

Money is rarely thrown in building a good base for an army: ballistas can work perfectly well in more casual games (you might play more of these than in a competitive setting!), can fit some lists and might just become incredibly powerful with the next battletome, who knows!

Edited March 3, 2021 by Marcvs

[Juicy]

17 hours ago, PJetski said:

They are not the best at sniping heroes because of Look Out Sir reducing their hit rolls

If you use Ballistae you might as well use 4 + Ordinator... I've never understood why people use 3.

Agree 4 of them are ace

Funny thing is. When this SCE book dropped i felt super impressed by the damage output of the ballista+ ordinator. So much that at times i had to roll eyes every time i saw people bring 4 of them and blast my stardrake of the table. After that initial hype i dont see ballista+ ordinator being played that much. its still not a bad pick and in casual play its super strong. 

The thing i hated most about our latest book is the fact that every single oldschool battalion got hit with a truck and became useless. I feel today with a decent vanguard wing style or overlapping buffs it didnt feel so out of place because most armies are stronger now and 30 buffed libbies arent as good as they used to be. If you ask me. I would love for our new book to bring back a decent not OP version of our old vanguard wing so we want to go prosecutors again and return the hammerstrike battalion back to how it used to be. We already got these alpha strike tricks with gav so wouldnt change the meta but makes older units more playeble. 
 

Right now we got a TON of units with a TON of battalions but most of our units and battalions dont work really well on the table. It would be a blessing if every battalion had a purpose how it could be played. 

Small example is stormkeep patrol. Its could be an alpha strike battalion but if you want to make that work you have to gamble the amount of drops. Because going second while dropping half your armie withing magic/shooting range and then get double turned is really harsh. I played this battalion at smaller points and it feels much stronger and more how you would imagine it being played then when i play this at 2000. 

with stormkeep patrol you could also drop on a frontline objective. Thats all sweet and all but then again if you dont take the first turn your liberators/sequitors/justicar units are not buffed and probly shot/run/magiced  of the table right away. 

So this battalion only works half decent. That makes me wonder what the purpose of this battalion was by the writers.  And this is just an example. We got lots and lots of these battalions.. Stormkeep garrison is cool and all but it plays so wonky. Most of the time you just playing your own keep libbies near your judicators/paladins game instead of the actual game. 

Then we got 10 more battalion in our SCE book that are all complete useless and see no play.. Mega battalions that just take up a whole page and not 1 single person ever uses them besides the vanguard auxillary chamber. I cannot help but see a lot of missed potential. 

Bit of rambling. Had to get this out of my head;)

[Thanos-se]

Gw trolls SCE players I think. Is it sacrosanct chamber which gives you 1 more spell fir Arcanum, LOL. I am not aware of the old book but regarding the battalions, cleansing phalanx may be a viable solution but still the only benefit is that u get the buff of rerollin hits until next hero phase instead of choosing in every combat phase.

I would play any stormkeep battalion with staunch to give libs a 2+ save, but I don't know what to have as a hammer unit.

[Fihtimi]

Hi!

I need some help with my stormcast list. I haven't played in some time and I've completely forgotten how hard it is to make stormcast armylists, even more after the release of Daughters of khaine 2nd tome!
I'd like to have more casters in the force, but I'm not sure how I'd fit an incantor to the fray, maybe I should try to add an allied sorcerer?
Idea is to use dracolines to get the key locations with charge rerolls while sequitors and evocators take the middle table. Liberators are kept in reserve and are dropped later where needed. I'm still unsure how to spend the last 60pts left

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline (210)
- General
- Command Trait: Staunch Defender
- Artefact: Armor of Silvered Sigmarite
- Spell: Azyrite Halo
- Mount Trait: Pride Leader
Lord-Castellant (120)
Lord-Relictor (100)

Battleline
10 x Sequitors (240)
- Tempest blades and Soulshields
- 5x Stormsmite Greatmaces
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 2x Grandhammers

Units
3 x Evocators on Dracolines (260)
- Lore of Invigoration: Celestial Blades
10 x Evocators (420)
- 5x Grandstaves
- Lore of Invigoration: Speed of Lightning

Total: 1440 / 1500
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 93
 

[baiardo]

Take out evo, upgrade cat to 6, you need 3rd battleline so another 1x5 lib and you have enough points to play an incantor. Tot. 1490.

[Juicy]

11 hours ago, Fihtimi said:

Hi!

I need some help with my stormcast list. I haven't played in some time and I've completely forgotten how hard it is to make stormcast armylists, even more after the release of Daughters of khaine 2nd tome!
I'd like to have more casters in the force, but I'm not sure how I'd fit an incantor to the fray, maybe I should try to add an allied sorcerer?
Idea is to use dracolines to get the key locations with charge rerolls while sequitors and evocators take the middle table. Liberators are kept in reserve and are dropped later where needed. I'm still unsure how to spend the last 60pts left

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline (210)
- General
- Command Trait: Staunch Defender
- Artefact: Armor of Silvered Sigmarite
- Spell: Azyrite Halo
- Mount Trait: Pride Leader
Lord-Castellant (120)
Lord-Relictor (100)

Battleline
10 x Sequitors (240)
- Tempest blades and Soulshields
- 5x Stormsmite Greatmaces
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 2x Grandhammers

Units
3 x Evocators on Dracolines (260)
- Lore of Invigoration: Celestial Blades
10 x Evocators (420)
- 5x Grandstaves
- Lore of Invigoration: Speed of Lightning

Total: 1440 / 1500
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 93
 

10 evocators on foot work best with a gavriel surecharge. Without it they just getting charged/shot/magiced of the table by a decent opponent. If you get gavriel then you can deploy the evocators of the board. Drop them from the sky and auto charge in. Could keep them on the table and then charge them across the field if you feel like buffing them up first. Without gav i never felt 10 evocators are played to there best. Same goes for every other paladin unit. To slow and not tanky enough to get out of trouble.

Lord relictor.. I love this model and it can win games by his teleport alone.. But in this list he gets left behind very fast. His teleport prayer is only 9 inch and other prayers arent as usefull on the units you play in this list. This being sad divine light is a life saver in my local meta on a big block of seqs/libbies.

lord arcanum and evocats are really solid. I would advice giving them the lantern buff and grab a knight heraldor to make them run and charge. If you feel like it try to bump this unit up to 6 and devestate that battlefield. They are a really strong glass cannon.

your battle line is decent. 10 sequitors are decent.. Ive seen them doing great and seen them underperform. I still feel a unit of 10 is solid enough for most games.
 

edit: staunch defender.. Super good but with this army you got its not that great. If you go gav you insta go hammers of sigmar. if you drop the evo's and focus on the cats you could go for celestial vindicators

Edited March 5, 2021 by Juicy

[jhamslam]

Whats really interesting ( / bad) about our book is - our main allegiance ability - Scions of the storm is a complete and utter non-bo with any of the abilities in our book.

Where the other factions allegiance abilities, tie in to their buffs, spells, prayers and auras. Ours doesnt. We barely have any auras other than staunch defender.

Almost all our buffs (offensive or defensive) are applied in the hero phase or during the movement phase, so other than maybe re roll ones (with a CP or Azyros) , deepstriking melee units does nothing for us, except give us a blank warscroll to fight with. So if youre not using Gav sureheart, your opponent is fighting nothing more than a warscroll, without the benefits of the battletome, if something deepstrikes in front of them

So our main allegiance ability is actively bad for us in the game given how its played. This is something i hope they fix

Edited March 5, 2021 by jhamslam

[The World Tree]

I mean let's not be hasty. Our allegiance ability is excellent. It doesn't need to explicitly synergise with other rules to be valuable. It has so much use, defensively and offensively. It is unbelievably good.

The issue is that many of our warscrolls are barely updated since AOS1 and that Scions is our only allegiance ability. 

[Nizrah]

4 hours ago, The World Tree said:

 

The issue is that many of our warscrolls are barely updated since AOS1 and that Scions is our only allegiance ability. 

This

[Lucur]

5 hours ago, The World Tree said:

I mean let's not be hasty. Our allegiance ability is excellent. It doesn't need to explicitly synergise with other rules to be valuable. It has so much use, defensively and offensively. It is unbelievably good.

The issue is that many of our warscrolls are barely updated since AOS1 and that Scions is our only allegiance ability. 

While i generally consent, i want to add a) total comitment duh and b) the defensive part of -1 to hit should last the round and not the turn imo. But what drags the book down far more is the choice of stormhosts with their clunky restrictions and sub par traits/ artifacts.

BUT i'm pretty certain our book was the prototype of new tomes and we were the guinea pigs of the new system. Hopefully this will change in the future.

[The World Tree]

Absolutely agree on the -1 part and total commitment being a terrible mission!

I'd be ok with us having mediocre allegiance abilities, if the warscrolls were high quality. I think that would be a suitable way for Stormcast to operate.

[jhamslam]

6 hours ago, The World Tree said:

I mean let's not be hasty. Our allegiance ability is excellent. It doesn't need to explicitly synergise with other rules to be valuable. It has so much use, defensively and offensively. It is unbelievably good.

The issue is that many of our warscrolls are barely updated since AOS1 and that Scions is our only allegiance ability. 

i agree its good, but teleportation is a thing theyre handing out like candy right now. KO does it every turn, so does Seraphon. So in the wider context, with a larher number of bodies or damage what have you, our ability isnt really all that good. Or should i say, unique

We absolutely need it with our slow movement too, KO or Seraphon dont

KO and Seraphon also carry their buffs with teleportation. or for a better example Khinerai. A unit of Khinerai coming down Has Rites of War, possible Blood Shield, Possible Aura from Morathi, possible Hag Narr 5+ defense. So teleporting it in isnt an issue.

But youre right, this could be fixed with warscroll adjustment

Edited March 6, 2021 by jhamslam

[Fihtimi]

21 hours ago, Juicy said:

...your battle line is decent. 10 sequitors are decent.. Ive seen them doing great and seen them underperform. I still feel a unit of 10 is solid enough for most games.
 

edit: staunch defender.. Super good but with this army you got its not that great. If you go gav you insta go hammers of sigmar. if you drop the evo's and focus on the cats you could go for celestial vindicators

 

On 3/5/2021 at 10:27 AM, baiardo said:

Take out evo, upgrade cat to 6, you need 3rd battleline so another 1x5 lib and you have enough points to play an incantor. Tot. 1490.

Took some ideas from both of you guys. Dropped the Lord-relictor and instead focused on allies. I took shadowstalkers and heartrenders for some easy extra mobility which isn't dependable on rolling 3+ with relictor. BTW it's quite funny how these two units almost feel better than anything in stormcast tome! I'm still not sure why staunch defender isn't so good with this list. It allows my army to survive 1st turn better and after that it helps to keep my dracolines alive until they get the charge. If I decide to go for Celestial vindicators should I just go for the Stormkeep version since it allows liberators to sit even better at home obj. Here's the list I deviced:

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

Leaders
Lord-Arcanum on Celestial Dracoline (210)
- General
- Command Trait: Staunch Defender
- Artefact: Armor of Silvered Sigmarite
- Spell: Azyrite Halo
- Mount Trait: Pride Leader
Lord-Castellant (120)

Battleline
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 2x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 2x Grandhammers
10 x Sequitors (240)
- Tempest Blades and Soulshields
- 5x Stormsmite Greatmaces

Units
6 x Evocators on Dracolines (520)
- 3x Grandstaves
- Lore of Invigoration: Celestial Blades
9 x Khainite Shadowstalkers (100)
- Allies
5 x Khinerai Heartrenders (80)
- Allies

Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs
Extra Command Point (50)

Total: 1500 / 1500
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 180 / 400
Wounds: 97

[Juicy]

The thing is. Staunch defender works for units that get charged or stay in combat over a few rounds. Evocats are u its that you want to combine with a knight heraldor to get them in combat fast and punch trough in 1 round of combat. Because they cannot take a hit that well. With the list you put down now you really miss that knight heraldor. Run and charge is soooo good with fast units like evocats its game changing vs most enemys. 
with celestial vindicators you push that  punch even farther with rr 1 to hit and cp for an extra attack. But go with that knight heraldor aswell for that extra range.

stormkeep patrol is only nice for big blocks of liberators. Wouldnt advice it for 5 men units. 

if you keep 5 liberator in the sky that treath or idea alone is worth more then that plus 1 save because anything that goes for those 5 libs kills them anyway. Better to force your opponent to keep units in his backfield to protect against that drop from the sky. For example i won games with keeping the celestant prime in the sky for 5 turns just because it forced the opponent to protect his backfield. With small units you force him/her to check his backfield for the first 3 turns.

[Archibald]

On 2/23/2021 at 10:54 AM, Juicy said:

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Anvils of the Heldenhammer (Stormkeep)

Leaders
Lord-Celestant (100)
- General
- Command Trait: Deathly Aura
- Artefact: Soulthief
Lord-Castellant (120)
Lord-Veritant (110)
- Mystic Light (Artefact): Lantern of the Tempest
- Prayer: Translocation
Knight-Vexillor (110)
- Pennant of the Stormbringer
- Treasured Standard (Artefact): Pennant of Sigmaron

Battleline
30 x Liberators (480)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 6x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1x Grandhammers
20 x Judicators (560)
- Boltstorm Crossbows
- 4x Thunderbolt Crossbows

Units
6 x Gryph-Hounds (120)

Battalions
Stormkeep Patrol (130)
Wardens of the Stormkeep (140)

Total: 1960 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 2
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 150

im having some fun with this Shotgun list. Played a few games. Most where close

 

How do you work this list? Seems like only the Juds do some damage and even that looks not like much.

The list looks super interessing to me. Would love to try it out and i am only one Van Brecht box away from it.:D

My main enemy are Ironjaws (2x Mawcrusher, 2x3 Pigs, 2x Warchanters, Brutes and Ardboyz). How would you play the list against him? We play on 4x4 and he ist just obliterading anything with his two Mawcrushers.:/

Edited March 6, 2021 by Archibald

[Juicy]

7 minutes ago, Archibald said:

How do you work this list? Seems like only the Juds do some damage and even that looks not like much.

The list looks super interessing to me. Would love to try it out and i am only one Van Brecht box away from it.:D

My main enemy are Ironjaws (2x Mawcrusher, 2x3 Pigs, 2x Warchanters, Brutes and Ardboyz). How would you play the list against him? We play on 4x4 and he ist just obliterading anything with his two Mawcrushers.:/

The list works like this.

drop stormkeep patrol battalion

frontline 20 judicators behind that the liberators. Spend cp for the judicators to shoot 16 xbows and 4 big guns. Then either translocate/knight vexillor to another spot and shoot again in shooting fase. Or shoot again in the shooting fase without teleporting. But then i have to grab the gryphounds and run them before the judicators to protect them from melee. 
judicators do around 16 damage vs 4 plus armour save and around 16 mortals to units with 6plus units. 
 

vs that ironjaw list you shoot the xbows into the mawcrusha and the special guns into the ardboys/brutes. If they have a screen you nuke that in the hero fase and teleport the unit in range after you wipe that screen. Deploy all dogs in a way so he cannot deploy his mawcrushas in a good way. Mawcrushas got a big base so you could really prevent atleast 1 but if you play with enougj terrein you can prevent 2 from getting to you. Remember your 2 solo dogs. Els sacrifice your small units or small heroes( not lord castellant).  Keep your big block of liberators in a way so his units charge in a point where your big hammers are. 
 

pigs are anoying but if he goes with that 5 flat damage mawcrusha you want to truck him first. Keep a cp around for battleshock. Gryphounds are super strong against the mawcrusha because he has to attack them first els they dart around him

[PJetski]

Trying to finish more of the Stormcast backlog before the 3.0 book drops... only 2000pt left to paint

[OkayestDM]

1 hour ago, PJetski said:

Trying to finish more of the Stormcast backlog before the 3.0 book drops... only 2000pt left to paint

They look stunning! Well done!

[baiardo]

Nobody would be much displeased to see his unit destroyed by those evo cats!

[baiardo]

These battalions are still available?some of you are thinking or know something that synergies well with the hollow knight storm host?
 

Edited March 10, 2021 by baiardo

[PJetski]

On 3/9/2021 at 10:53 AM, OkayestDM said:

They look stunning! Well done!

Thank you 

If anyone wants to see more of my Stormcast I post them on my instagram account

[CommissarRotke]

9 hours ago, baiardo said:

These battalions are still available?some of you are thinking or know something that synergies well with the hollow knight storm host?
 

didnt even know non-Hammers battalions existed, where is this from??

[baiardo]

On 3/10/2021 at 8:35 PM, CommissarRotke said:

didnt even know non-Hammers battalions existed, where is this from??

White Dwarf April 2019

 

Lords of the storm seems promising.🤣

Edited March 12, 2021 by baiardo