AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[Kugane]

If you look at the numbers in terms of damage and defence vs older units and how the product was distributed as a whole, it really feels like it was a  path to make the most money and to make sure most people yet again starts over collecting an almost entirely new army.

People who already owned stormcast eternals and want the best units likely bought soul wars boxes since stuff was superior, only to discover units are incomplete which means you need more soul wars boxes. Only to discover that 2 weeks later the new sequitors and evocators in multipart kits have better weapons and a new updated warscroll, so either you stick with your slightly lesser units, convert them or... buy even more of the same stuff reboxed. Which will likely end up being nerfed seeing how OP some of the stuff is right now.

I bought 8 soul wars boxes total for myself and people around me, but I had 3 boxes with defects. Broken miniatures in 1, missing sprues in another and 1 had 3 duplicate sprues and everything else of stormcast missing, Gw was kind enough to replace it, which is a plus shopping with them, but it does show they really had to rush products out the door to keep up with the demand if such errors keep slipping through.

I felt quite embarassed having to contact them over and over that more stuff was broken or missing yet again though. I wanted to buy more soul wars stuff to split and trade online, but I dont dare to contact them a 4th time if stuff is broken again. Kind of what is stopping me from buying any new stuff right now actually.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Kugane

[AverageBoss]

Honestly, Liberators and Paladins are their own problems. Neither have exactly been considered competitive choices for a long while (outside certain builds like Vanguard Wing). The new units just make their shortcoming far more apparent. The new units might very well be slightly too good. But that does not change that the older ones are not good enough.

 

[chord]

Honestly I truly believe it was to make money.   Otherwise if they were not better so many existing stormcast players would have less incentive to purchase the new units

[Richelieu]

6 minutes ago, AverageBoss said:

Honestly, Liberators and Paladins are their own problems. Neither have exactly been considered competitive choices for a long while (outside certain builds like Vanguard Wing). The new units just make their shortcoming far more apparent. The new units might very well be slightly too good. But that does not change that the older ones are not good enough.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself.  Sequitors didn't invalidate liberators and Evocators didn't invalidate Paladins competitively.  Liberators are so bad that most stormcast players choose to take two 160 point units for battleline.  What other army does this?  

Liberators are more expensive than Tzaangors.  TZAANGORS!  Which are also battle line and also part of an army that has loads of options and thus have no reason to be discounted (as opposed to say, Ardboys, which need a discount since they fill multiple roles due to limited IJ unit choice).

And paladins... They have a laundry list of problems.  I have no idea why there seems to be an  argument that "because existing units are bad, new ones should be bad too." 

Evocative and Sequitors are very much in line with recent battle line and elite infantry releases.  Grimghasts are amazingly strong, Thralls are strong battle line.  Blood Sisters put out the same level of damage as Evocators with an 8" move and frequently having the same armor save, a FNP save and more wounds per point.  I could go on, but it would be a long list. 

[Richelieu]

6 minutes ago, chord said:

Honestly I truly believe it was to make money.   Otherwise if they were not better so many existing stormcast players would have less incentive to purchase the new units

This is not why most people buy new miniatures.  I am a medium competitive player and easily 1/2 of my purchases are based on hobby.  I just bought Asteria.  She will rarely, if ever, grace my competitive lists.  I could have bought more Evocators, but I didn't, I bought the badass dragon cat riding mage.  

Edited August 2, 2018 by Richelieu

[Requizen]

35 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Couldn't have put it better myself.  Sequitors didn't invalidate liberators and Evocators didn't invalidate Paladins competitively.  Liberators are so bad that most stormcast players choose to take two 160 point units for battleline.  What other army does this?  

Liberators are more expensive than Tzaangors.  TZAANGORS!  Which are also battle line and also part of an army that has loads of options and thus have no reason to be discounted (as opposed to say, Ardboys, which need a discount since they fill multiple roles due to limited IJ unit choice).

And paladins... They have a laundry list of problems.  I have no idea why there seems to be an  argument that "because existing units are bad, new ones should be bad too." 

Evocative and Sequitors are very much in line with recent battle line and elite infantry releases.  Grimghasts are amazingly strong, Thralls are strong battle line.  Blood Sisters put out the same level of damage as Evocators with an 8" move and frequently having the same armor save, a FNP save and more wounds per point.  I could go on, but it would be a long list. 

I get what you're saying, but I'm not so much asking for Evos and Seqs to be bad, so much as not just better options. How boring is that? "Well Libs and Paladins aren't good, should we make them better?" "Nah, just nerf the Battalions they're in and add new models that are better versions."

You know when would have been a great time to fix the issues with Liberators and Paladins? When a new Battletome came out. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Requizen

[DanielFM]

2 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I get what you're saying, but I'm not so much asking for Evos and Seqs to be bad, so much as not just better options. How boring is that? "Well Libs and Paladins aren't good, should we make them better?" "Nah, just nerf the Battalions they're in and add new models that are better versions."

You know when would have been a great time to fix the issues Liberators and Paladins? When a new Battletome came out. 

Of course. But we must stress the fact that Liberators and Paladins (with Retributors as worst ofenders) problem is not new units being better, but them being as bad as they were. Because some people won't aknowledge it. And it's key to send the right message to GW and sort them out by making them good (cheaper, as the battletome train passed) and not making the new units worse.

[Richelieu]

7 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I get what you're saying, but I'm not so much asking for Evos and Seqs to be bad, so much as not just better options. How boring is that? "Well Libs and Paladins aren't good, should we make them better?" "Nah, just nerf the Battalions they're in and add new models that are better versions."

You know when would have been a great time to fix the issues with Liberators and Paladins? When a new Battletome came out. 

I'm in your camp as well, it just seems to me that most of the discourse revolves around how OP seqs and evos are rather than the failure to address the fundamental problems with libs and pals.

[Lord Ein]

Am I the only one thinking protectors are good?

[amysrevenge]

When list building is so one or the other/binary, it is still a problem.

Here's an exercise.  Consider Retributors.  Drop their cost by one point, and optimize your list.  Repeat.  Somewhere in this process, you'll flip from every list having Evos and zero lists having Rets over to every list having Rets and zero lists having Evos (barring confounding influences like battalions). 

There won't really ever be a middle ground where you could take either one.  It might take a week of debating for a given point level, but we'd all settle on which was better, and every list would have only those.

Although I'm 100% with y'all that it would be nice if the choice was at least a little bit closer, so that I won't feel like quite as much of a chump for using my 10 Rets again...

[Requizen]

Though, to be fair, the one Paladin unit I'm currently considering is 10 Decimators. There are going to be a loooot of hordes at top tables coming up - Death will have lots of Chainrasps/Skeletons/Zombies, Bonesplittaz are still a thing, Daughters of Khaine may run lots of Wytches, Deepkin with lots of Thralls will be real (although not as popular as Eels), Plaguebearer blobs are there (though even mass Decimator attacks won't do too much to them). Evocators are likely the better choice, of course, since you need 5 models near each Decimator to outdamage them, and that's before comparing Jazz Hands vs Starsouls, and also Evos are better against most things.

So... yeah forget I said anything ?

[PJetski]

2 hours ago, Requizen said:

Very. If you roll hot, you generally remove a unit. You won't pop hard targets like big heroes (Nagash, Stardrake, etc) or hordes, but you will generally remove regular sized units - I popped 10 Reivers and then 10 Thralls in subsequent playing against Idoneth, each just needed one hot volley. 

2+ Ballistas with an Ordinator dropping in is actually quite scary. They threaten to kill almost anything and if they drop in cover, they're quite hard to remove. 4 will table many armies without trying, with exceptions (Nurgle has lots of -hits for shooting, for instance, and Nighthaunt laugh at Rend -2). I feel like you can't go wrong with 2-3 standing behind a blob of Sequitors and/or Evocators.

 

Speaking of which, does it really bother anyone else that Libs (other than min Battleline options) and Paladins are basically shelved? I like the new stuff as much as the next guy... but man, I really don't like that they invalidate a bunch of my models.

Yes, it really bothers me that Sacrosanct are almost strictly better.

There are still situational uses for Decimators and Protectors, like dropping Protectors in front of Ballistas to give them cover, or a Warrior Brotherhood deep strike using Gavriel, but the only battalions with useful abilities are all Sacrosanct and it feels like every tournament list I build just ends up back to the Sacrosanct chamber.

[PJetski]

19 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

When list building is so one or the other/binary, it is still a problem.

Here's an exercise.  Consider Retributors.  Drop their cost by one point, and optimize your list.  Repeat.  Somewhere in this process, you'll flip from every list having Evos and zero lists having Rets over to every list having Rets and zero lists having Evos (barring confounding influences like battalions). 

There won't really ever be a middle ground where you could take either one.  It might take a week of debating for a given point level, but we'd all settle on which was better, and every list would have only those.

Although I'm 100% with y'all that it would be nice if the choice was at least a little bit closer, so that I won't feel like quite as much of a chump for using my 10 Rets again...

In theory battalions could be used to differentiate these units, but the Strike Chamber battalions are all flaming garbage.

[Requizen]

19 minutes ago, PJetski said:

In theory battalions could be used to differentiate these units, but the Strike Chamber battalions are all flaming garbage.

Strike Chamber units may find a use in Skyborne Slayers, since it's still viable. But that's about it.

[DanielFM]

44 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

When list building is so one or the other/binary, it is still a problem.

Here's an exercise.  Consider Retributors.  Drop their cost by one point, and optimize your list.  Repeat.  Somewhere in this process, you'll flip from every list having Evos and zero lists having Rets over to every list having Rets and zero lists having Evos (barring confounding influences like battalions). 

There won't really ever be a middle ground where you could take either one.  It might take a week of debating for a given point level, but we'd all settle on which was better, and every list would have only those.

Although I'm 100% with y'all that it would be nice if the choice was at least a little bit closer, so that I won't feel like quite as much of a chump for using my 10 Rets again...

Well, some problems can't be solved just by points. Protectors offer something Evocators don't, and regardless of them being worth their points or not, they bring a meaningful choice. Decimators could also offer something different, but they fall short. The real problem is Retributors. They should be the heaviest hitters, while Evocators are the most versatile. Sadly, that's not the case.

[PJetski]

23 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Strike Chamber units may find a use in Skyborne Slayers, since it's still viable. But that's about it.

I have never considered Skyborne Slayers to be a worthwhile tournament list in 1.0 because it doesn't pack enough punch, but maybe it's worth a second glance now.

It seems like Warrior Brotherhood does the same thing but better since it can bring better units.

[The World Tree]

2 hours ago, chord said:

Honestly I truly believe it was to make money.   Otherwise if they were not better so many existing stormcast players would have less incentive to purchase the new units

By that logic everyone would be after Dracoline Evocators, the Tauralon and the Lord Exorcist... but they aren't. Evocators and Sequitors are internally imbalanced perhaps, but the idea that all the new units are immense to incentivise purchase doesn't hold up.

[Requizen]

1 hour ago, The World Tree said:

By that logic everyone would be after Dracoline Evocators, the Tauralon and the Lord Exorcist... but they aren't. Evocators and Sequitors are internally imbalanced perhaps, but the idea that all the new units are immense to incentivise purchase doesn't hold up.

Well, I would wager it's not a mistake that at least one unit in most releases is very strong. For Vanguard that was arguably Longstrikes. Recently, Nighthaunt have a lot of very strong models (Chainrasps and Banshees stand out). DoK have the Blood Sisters, who are quite powerful. Deepkin Eels. Et cetera.

I won't accuse GW of purposefully imbalancing the game for profit, but it also wouldn't make sense to release a bunch of stuff that people only buy for looks, it behooves them to release at least one or two units in a release that are a competitive choice. If I was in charge, each release would have a couple cool Hero units that have strong Narrative ties, a couple units/monsters that are great for hobbyists (and perhaps a conversion fodder unit), and a couple units that competitive players will buy a few boxes of to stay on top of the meta. Something for everyone means profits on everything.

[Mark Williams]

I agree libs and rets were bad before the tome, and the new units are probably just “normal.”

as for the cats, I do have a friend who is doing an army of them purely based on looks.

[Richelieu]

20 minutes ago, Requizen said:

If I was in charge, each release would have a couple cool Hero units that have strong Narrative ties, a couple units/monsters that are great for hobbyists (and perhaps a conversion fodder unit), and a couple units that competitive players will buy a few boxes of to stay on top of the meta. Something for everyone means profits on everything.

Isn't that what they did with the Sacrosanct chamber though?  Astreia and Aventis (and their generic counterparts) are fairly average rules wise, but I already bought Astreia for her looks and will do the same with Aventis down the road.  Then there are Evocalines, which I'll buy because wow are they cool.  And then Evocators and Sequitors because they're going to win me games.

[Richelieu]

3 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

I agree libs and rets were bad before the tome, and the new units are probably just “normal.”

as for the cats, I do have a friend who is doing an army of them purely based on looks.

I've been thinking of doing a triple cavalry list for funsies. 

Fulminators + LCoD

Evos on Dracs + LAoD

Palladors + LAoGC (I'd use Aquilor but I don't own one)

Those three cavalry groups comes in at 1440 points, so you've got 560 left for battle line and whatever else suits your fancy.

[Requizen]

6 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Isn't that what they did with the Sacrosanct chamber though?  Astreia and Aventis (and their generic counterparts) are fairly average rules wise, but I already bought Astreia for her looks and will do the same with Aventis down the road.  Then there are Evocalines, which I'll buy because wow are they cool.  And then Evocators and Sequitors because they're going to win me games.

Exactly, I think this release had something for everyone. It's proper business sense on their part.

[Black Blade]

On 7/31/2018 at 8:47 AM, Kugane said:

Dracolines about 2.9 damage per 100 points and on foot about 6 damage per 100 points. Quite underwhelming.

That's insane, what's cause this huge gulf? I thought the dracoline profiles would make up for the missing evocators and their additional wounds/speed/abilities would explain a little bit of a hike but that's way worse than I expected.

[Black Blade]

6 hours ago, Richelieu said:

I'm in your camp as well, it just seems to me that most of the discourse revolves around how OP seqs and evos are rather than the failure to address the fundamental problems with libs and pals.

I may not have enough games under my belt to justify this claim but I have been playing against a lot of nighthaunt lately with my largely old school stormcast list, mostly libs, pals, fulminators etc. And found it very hard to keep up with even the low tier units in my opponents army. My libs were either gummed up or being dismantled and my retributors were tied up by one unit the whole match and they rolled fine. The original stuff is just lackluster. They were effectively designed for an almost completely different game system and I think either their points or their warscrolls need some serious adjustments to not just fade into obscurity behind the superior sacrosanct chamber. 

[RantingBob]

I need to confirm this but it looks like the Sequitor sprues don't let you build a Prime with a Great Mace.  So the 10man box has only 4 Great Maces.