AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[Raffonerd]

New full paint tournament ready. 

I was thinking about this:

Hammers
Gryph- Arcanum	220
Vexilor	120
Gavriel	120
Frost Phoenix	320
Evo	440
Prosecutors	90
Liberators	100
Liberators	100
Sequitors	440
Cp	50
Total	2000

 

Any opinion?

[Turragor]

2 hours ago, XReN said:

We could discuss lists, hobbying, lore, transporting armies, there won't be an agreement and everything there is to say was already said. Move on.

Thanks for the feedback, I reckon I can go 3 for 5 with a variation of what I'm thinking of. 

The main goal is to remove support heroes with impunity and then test out the smashiness of 6 desolators. 

Previously I had  a drake, prime and Heraldor together. 

Playing anvilstrike just isn't in my blood. Even though it probably does what needs doing better. 

[l1censetochill]

3 hours ago, Coolwood said:

I have tried and failed to make any decent lists with the drake - it’s quite frustrating. One idea I had was to run a ballista core alongside it but then that leaves you with barely any units to take objectives. 

Yeah, I figured as much when making the lists - the Stardrake is an absolutely amazing model, and I'll definitely be getting one to paint it, but it's sadly nowhere near worth the points it costs. Which is pretty silly when you compare it to what other armies can get: Ghoul King on Terrorgheist that activates first for 420, or Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon for 440, both of which are so much better it's comical. Or now you've got 20-wound, 2+ save, 36" buff bubble Katakros for 500. Insane.

Maybe if we had access to cheap, worthwhile bodies it could actually be competitive some day, but oh well.

[Maturin]

2 hours ago, l1censetochill said:

Yeah, I figured as much when making the lists - the Stardrake is an absolutely amazing model, and I'll definitely be getting one to paint it, but it's sadly nowhere near worth the points it costs. Which is pretty silly when you compare it to what other armies can get: Ghoul King on Terrorgheist that activates first for 420, or Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon for 440, both of which are so much better it's comical. Or now you've got 20-wound, 2+ save, 36" buff bubble Katakros for 500. Insane.

Maybe if we had access to cheap, worthwhile bodies it could actually be competitive some day, but oh well.

A Stardrake is valuable on the field, if you field alongside a Celestant Prime for ex. It might not be the best competitive army out there, but every turn, you do MW: Lucky D6 for the number of units you can choose ? Have fun doign mw everywhere on a 4+. Then, you've got your celestant who's going to add up mW on an area, so if you did manage to MW heroes, then you're going to end them with the celestant. You could potentially turn 1 kill several heroes if your opponent castled them all. I did it twice

Edited October 30, 2019 by Maturin

[l1censetochill]

2 hours ago, Maturin said:

A Stardrake is valuable on the field, if you field alongside a Celestant for ex. It might not be the best competitive army out there, but every turn, you do MW: Lucky D6 for the number of units you can choose ? Have fun doign mw everywhere on a 4+. Then, you've got your celestant who's going to add up mW on an area, so if you did manage to MW heroes, then you're going to end them with the celestant. You could potentially turn 1 kill several heroes if your opponent castled them all. I did it twice

Don't get me wrong, the Stardrake is certainly a strong model in a vacuum. The question is, as part of a Stormcast army, is it 560 points good? Is it going to win more games for you than 20 Sequitors and a Lord-Castellant, or 9 Longstrikes and a unit of Aetherwings? In an army that's already so low model count, it's hard to justify taking it when it's mostly a utility piece that, despite being a 560 point model, still needs support (Lord-Castellant, for example) to do its job.

And really, one of the big issues the Stardrake has is nothing to do with the unit's warscroll. The problem is that the Stormcast allegiance rules, synergies, and general way you're forced to build the army doesn't complement the Stardrake. The Terrorgheist is a great counter-example there - it's not just the warscroll that makes the Terrorgheist strong, it's that the Gristlegore allegiance abilities let it fight first and attack twice each turn, making an already-good model straight up ridiculous. Combine that with the availability of cheap battleline and double caster wizards that can also summon units and you've got a cohesive army. But the Stardrake... outside of just being a big, tanky model with decent shooting, we don't really have tools to build around it. Staunch Defender gets it to a 2+, sure, but it's also a a model that ideally wants to be moving and charging, and consistently keeping other units wholly within 9" is going to be tough. The Command Ability is okay, but Dracoths are so expensive that if you take a Stardrake and 6 Desolators you've spent 1160 points on 7 bodies. +1 to cast for friendly wizards within 18 sounds nice, but we have no access to double-casting wizards, the ones we do have are all too expensive, and our spell lores suck.

So it's not necessarily a problem with the Stardrake. It's a problem with Stormcast as a whole not really being able to make good use of the things the Stardrake offers.

Funnily enough, I do think Stardrakes might have a route to being reasonably competitive... in Cities lists. Tempest's Eye has an artifact that can give a Stardrake run & charge and always fights first, which combined with +3" move on turn 1 makes it an actual alpha strike threat. Living Cities can just give the Templar the Iron Oak Artisan command trait to make it always have a 2+ save and +1 to wound,  deepstrike it, then use the bow attack to give it a full move with the command ability to almost guarantee charges. Combine that with the availability of actual good, cheap bodies in Cities lists, and you might have something that can keep pace with the stronger armies. I think the model just fits in better with those armies than it goes in Stormcast, which is sad.

Edited October 30, 2019 by l1censetochill

[Maturin]

18 minutes ago, l1censetochill said:

So it's not necessarily a problem with the Stardrake. It's a problem with Stormcast as a whole not really being able to make good use of the things the Stardrake offers.

Our whole army is overcosted. Look at the Celestant Prime I was talking about. 340 points. He's really useful, a swiss army knife but way too expensive, like the SD.

[Nizrah]

What would be fait cost for our units? Stormcast should get treatment like SM in wh40k (global +1 attack) or should get global +1 W or +1 sv. Its nonsens thats freepeople guard get the same sv as stormcast (4+)...
If warscrolls not changed
Lib - 80 ?
LCoSD - 460 ?
Drake Templar - 400 ?
Vandus - 200 ?

[Raffonerd]

1 hour ago, l1censetochill said:

Don't get me wrong, the Stardrake is certainly a strong model in a vacuum. The question is, as part of a Stormcast army, is it 560 points good? Is it going to win more games for you than 20 Sequitors and a Lord-Castellant, or 9 Longstrikes and a unit of Aetherwings? In an army that's already so low model count, it's hard to justify taking it when it's mostly a utility piece that, despite being a 560 point model, still needs support (Lord-Castellant, for example) to do its job.

And really, one of the big issues the Stardrake has is nothing to do with the unit's warscroll. The problem is that the Stormcast allegiance rules, synergies, and general way you're forced to build the army doesn't complement the Stardrake. The Terrorgheist is a great counter-example there - it's not just the warscroll that makes the Terrorgheist strong, it's that the Gristlegore allegiance abilities let it fight first and attack twice each turn, making an already-good model straight up ridiculous. Combine that with the availability of cheap battleline and double caster wizards that can also summon units and you've got a cohesive army. But the Stardrake... outside of just being a big, tanky model with decent shooting, we don't really have tools to build around it. Staunch Defender gets it to a 2+, sure, but it's also a a model that ideally wants to be moving and charging, and consistently keeping other units wholly within 9" is going to be tough. The Command Ability is okay, but Dracoths are so expensive that if you take a Stardrake and 6 Desolators you've spent 1160 points on 7 bodies. +1 to cast for friendly wizards within 18 sounds nice, but we have no access to double-casting wizards, the ones we do have are all too expensive, and our spell lores suck.

So it's not necessarily a problem with the Stardrake. It's a problem with Stormcast as a whole not really being able to make good use of the things the Stardrake offers.

Funnily enough, I do think Stardrakes might have a route to being reasonably competitive... in Cities lists. Tempest's Eye has an artifact that can give a Stardrake run & charge and always fights first, which combined with +3" move on turn 1 makes it an actual alpha strike threat. Living Cities can just give the Templar the Iron Oak Artisan command trait to make it always have a 2+ save and +1 to wound,  deepstrike it, then use the bow attack to give it a full move with the command ability to almost guarantee charges. Combine that with the availability of actual good, cheap bodies in Cities lists, and you might have something that can keep pace with the stronger armies. I think the model just fits in better with those armies than it goes in Stormcast, which is sad.

As long as the Bull counts 1 in objective scoring he is useless.

[Raffonerd]

38 minutes ago, Nizrah said:

What would be fait cost for our units? Stormcast should get treatment like SM in wh40k (global +1 attack) or should get global +1 W or +1 sv. Its nonsens thats freepeople guard get the same sv as stormcast (4+)...
If warscrolls not changed
Lib - 80 ?
LCoSD - 460 ?
Drake Templar - 400 ?
Vandus - 200 ?

Lib at 100 are great man! 

10 Wounds ts 4, RR 1, 2 aa with a Great mace. Stormcast units are overefficient for their cost. They just lack in number.

The problem here is: how do you quantify mass, which is an unosservable dimension? Hard to cope with so. So, you will get always unbalances: SCE overpowered or SCE average/low average strong. Maybe they should change the "quantity discount", but i think that would increase SCE power to much.

Edited October 30, 2019 by Raffonerd

[Maturin]

On 10/30/2019 at 3:19 PM, Raffonerd said:

Lib at 100 are great man! 

10 Wounds ts 4, RR 1, 2 aa with a Great mace. Stormcast units are overefficient for their cost. They just lack in number.

The problem here is: how do you quantify mass, which is an unosservable dimension? Hard to cope with so. So, you will get always unbalances: SCE overpowered or SCE average/low average strong. Maybe they should change the "quantity discount", but i think that would increase SCE power to much.

Libs are fine price wise, they're not that effective though, they fight poorly. Judicators are too expensive for battleline.
Heroes are too expensive Celestant Prime and LCoSD in particular. Some heroes are useless for their cost.

mod edit - profanity removed.

[Raffonerd]

On 10/30/2019 at 3:25 PM, Maturin said:

Libs are fine price wise, they're not that effective though, they fight poorly. Judicators are too expensive for battleline.
Heroes are too expensive Celestant Prime and LCoSD in particular. Some heroes are useless for their cost.

Like every tome. The good and the bad. Yes, but for 100 they are a "good" bline. At least using stormcast rules. 

[l1censetochill]

1 hour ago, Nizrah said:

What would be fait cost for our units? Stormcast should get treatment like SM in wh40k (global +1 attack) or should get global +1 W or +1 sv. Its nonsens thats freepeople guard get the same sv as stormcast (4+)...
If warscrolls not changed
Lib - 80 ?
LCoSD - 460 ?
Drake Templar - 400 ?
Vandus - 200 ?

Given the low model counts in our units (huge disadvantage in taking objectives) and gigantic base sizes, I think realistically we would need a universal +1 Attack and improved profiles (either 3+/3+ or 1 rend on Liberators, for example) on all models to have even decent offensive output. An allegiance ability that's in the same stratosphere as what the Bonereapers get, like +1 blanket save and +1 rend, would actually make our units formidable enough to be scary without needing to rely on activation tricks and Gavriel.

If we're not changing profiles, Liberators at 80, plus a max unit of 20/280, might actually be pretty good. A max size of 30 for models on 40mm bases is comically stupid.

LCoSD at 460 would be far more palatable and might actually see play in some lists. Drakesworn should probably be 380 or 400. Lord-Celestant on Dracoth should be like 180 at most.

While we're making wishlists, basically every hero we've got other than the Relictor and Azyros should have 20 points taken off their cost at a minimum, while some of the named characters are so over-costed I can't even comprehend what the designers were thinking. Vandus should be 200. Tauralons are like 80 points too expensive. Sequitors should never have gone up from 120, and Evocators and Ballistas were completely fine at 200 and 100. Judicators should be 130 maximum. Every single Paladin unit is complete garbage, and should have their points reduced by 40 across the board. Dracolines should be 240. Those costs would actually be aggressive enough that you might actually see non-shooting Stormcast lists competing for top tables sometimes.

Edit: another thought that occurred to me below, is that one option to improve our warscrolls would be to increase the reach of most of our melee weapons to 2", and make the long-reach ones like Grandstaves 3". As it stands, we pretty much can't take big units because we can never get enough guys into combat.

Edited October 30, 2019 by l1censetochill

[Raffonerd]

11 minutes ago, l1censetochill said:

Given the low model counts in our units (huge disadvantage in taking objectives) and gigantic base sizes, I think realistically we would need a universal +1 Attack and improved profiles (either 3+/3+ or 1 rend on Liberators, for example) on all models to have even decent offensive output. An allegiance ability that's in the same stratosphere as what the Bonereapers get, like +1 blanket save and +1 rend, would actually make our units formidable enough to do be scary without needing to rely on activation tricks and Gavriel.

If we're not changing profiles, Liberators at 80, plus a max unit of 20/280, might actually be pretty good. A max size of 30 for models on 40mm bases is comically stupid.

LCoSD at 460 would be far more palatable and might actually see play in some lists. Drakesworn should probably be 380 or 400. Lord-Celestant on Dracoth should be like 180 at most.

While we're making wishlists, basically every hero we've got other than the Relictor and Azyros should have 20 points taken off their cost at a minimum, while some of the named characters are so over-costed I can't even comprehend what the designers were thinking. Vandus should be 200. Tauralons are like 80 points too expensive. Sequitors should never have gone up from 120, and Evocators and Ballistas were completely fine at 200 and 100. Judicators should be 130 maximum. Every single Paladin unit is complete garbage, and should have their points reduced by 40 across the board. Dracolines should be 240. Those costs would actually be aggressive enough that you might actually see non-shooting Stormcast lists competing for top tables sometimes.

Or basically count as 2 models for objectives scoring.

[l1censetochill]

1 hour ago, Raffonerd said:

As long as the Bull counts 1 in objective scoring he is useless.

Single models that actually do things can be viable - see Terrorgheists, Warpseers, Zombie Dragons and Keepers. The problem is the Stardrake doesn't do anything.

59 minutes ago, Raffonerd said:

Lib at 100 are great man! 

10 Wounds ts 4, RR 1, 2 aa with a Great mace. Stormcast units are overefficient for their cost. They just lack in number.

The problem here is: how do you quantify mass, which is an unosservable dimension? Hard to cope with so. So, you will get always unbalances: SCE overpowered or SCE average/low average strong. Maybe they should change the "quantity discount", but i think that would increase SCE power to much.

I disagree - Liberators are mediocre at best, and would basically never be taken if they weren't the absolute minimum battleline tax we're forced to take in a legal list. Offensively, they're trash. They have the same number and quality of attacks as an 80 point Freeguild Guard unit, except the Guard get Rend 1 (outside of the special weapon, which brings up their offensive output from "nothing" to "a bit better than nothing"). Defensively they're reasonably durable thanks to the 4+ and re-roll, but a unit of 5 still dies to basically anything other armies can bring on the charge. And you're never taking a unit of more than 5, because their damage sucks and 40mm bases are gigantic, so you always struggle to get more than half your models within reach to attack. On that note, another thing I should have put in my post above was that Stormcast could be changed to have 2" reach across the board, which at least would offset the disadvantage of our stupid huge bases.

And I think you can absolutely quantify mass in AOS. Basically, more mass = bad. Bigger bases are always a disadvantage for infantry units because it hampers movement and positioning, you can't get as many bodies on objectives, you can't get enough enemy models within reach to maximize your attacks, and inversely it's much easier for enemy units to maximize against you and get more attacks. The only positive larger bases offer is that you can try to body block objectives, but that's basically only helpful when you're already on an objective and in position to shut down the opponent on the charge (so, maybe on turn 1). I suppose you could also argue bigger bases mean you can screen/daisy chain more effectively with them, but we're already way too low model count to employ that effectively the way a Gitz or LoN player can.

So yeah, Liberators should either get an extra attack, or go down to 80. And whoever at GW decided to make the max unit discount apply at THIRTY models for Liberators should be fired. Like, out of a cannon. Into the Thames.

Edited October 30, 2019 by l1censetochill

[schwabbele]

49 minutes ago, l1censetochill said:

Like, out of a cannon. Into the Thames.

Don’t forget to set the person on fire first just to be sure  

[Turragor]

The way you guys are trashing drakes (as in no 5 for 5 winning lists can have them - which is probably right) makes me want to take 2. I'll still win at least 3 of 5 at the next 100 person tournament.

How does one account for that?

Some lists you will meet just cannot handle stardrakes. I think that's where part of the cost comes from. 

If they lower the price I'll paint my 3rd. I kinda land on the other side of the fence.

/Edit - I've ran through a few edits trying to word my opinions on this and I can't really do it justice.

On the one hand, this is something that you see in all discussions about competitive AoS  lists(which is a result of balance issues, lets be honest) - ppl accelerate feedback towards the best list they have heard gets good results for each faction. Like propaganda of a kind.

/Edit x 2 - better discussion without rambling additions.

Carry on folks!

 

 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Turragor

[l1censetochill]

57 minutes ago, Turragor said:

The way you guys are trashing drakes (as in no 5 for 5 winning lists can have them - which is probably right) makes me want to take 2. I'll still win 3 of 5 at the next 100 person tournament.

How does one account for that?

Some lists you will meet just cannot handle stardrakes. I think that's where part of the cost comes from. 

If they lower the price I'll paint my 3rd. I kinda land on the other side of the fence. In a vaccuum the drakes are overcosted but in AoS as a whole they aren't (by much). 

This is something that you see in all discussions about competitive AoS (which is a result of balance issues, lets be honest) - ppl accelerate feedback towards the best list they have heard gets good results for each faction. Like propaganda of a kind.

X is the list to have.  A -W and Y + Z are trash.

 

Most people, myself included, can only really comment on the quality of a list (or lack thereof) through theorycrafting and extrapolation. I even mentioned, that I think the Drake as a unit is actually pretty okay, it just doesn't work well in a Stormcast army because our allegiance abilities, artifacts, and other units don't compliment it well... and that in a Cities list, it might actually be really good. Your experiences having success with Stardrakes gives you a different perspective - if you're inclined to take 2, go for it! Hell, take the Drakesworn Temple battalion and use 3, if you think you can make it work - I'll be thrilled for you, and will hope for a tournament report when you get back.

But it has to be said, there are some statements people can make that are factual, not "propaganda" - for example, to say that lists with them usually top out at 3-2, isn't an opinion, it's factual, based on the data available in dozens of tournament reports over the past several months.

Now, I do think there's an interesting discussion to be had there about the nature of feedback loops and echo chambers within the competitive communities of niche games. As in, some Stormcast players do well with Shootcast, while other lists struggle for a while. Then the better SCE players, seeing the results, swap to Shootcast, and the numbers for Shootcast go up while the numbers for other lists drop even further. Then eventually, Shootcast is "the only good Stormcast list, and everything else sucks," which is obviously hyperbolic.

The numbers do suggest that Shootcast is our current top dog, but plenty of off-meta SCE lists, with good piloting and a bit of luck, could absolutely go 3-2 or even 4-1. I mean hell, someone (maybe you?) just went 3-2 with a Drakesworn Templar + Celestant-Prime list and finished 8th at the Justice League GT. Another person went 3-2 at Bloodshed in the Shire with an Anvils list with 20 Judicators (!?!?!?). There's absolutely still room for innovation and experimentation. So weirdly, while I still have a hard time envisioning a Stardrake + Dracoth list I'd take to a tournament over an Anvils list, I guess at the same time I kind of... agree with you? Go try it. Throw knuckleballs and catch people off-guard. Prove everyone wrong. I'd love to play a list with a Stardrake and not feel like I'm handicapping myself by doing it.

Edited October 30, 2019 by l1censetochill

[Turragor]

57 minutes ago, l1censetochill said:

Now, I do think there's an interesting discussion to be had there about the nature of feedback loops and echo chambers within the competitive communities of niche games. As in, some Stormcast players do well with Shootcast, while other lists struggle for a while. Then the better SCE players, seeing the results, swap to Shootcast, and the numbers for Shootcast go up while the numbers for other lists drop even further. Then eventually, Shootcast is "the only good Stormcast list, and everything else sucks," which is obviously hyperbolic.

You have written what I intended to write without my bias towards large lizards and this is a much better discussion point as a result

[Turragor]

1 hour ago, l1censetochill said:

I mean hell, someone (maybe you?) just went 3-2 with a Drakesworn Templar + Celestant-Prime list and finished 8th at the Justice League GT

Looking at the list (not me btw :P) they've elements in there that I imagine are played the same as I play when I take the drake and prime. They also have a few other bits that I now think "hey thats a good idea!" about so that's cool!

I'm 9/0/4 last 3 (smaller) tournaments with the LCoSD and Prime list so I'd say over the longer run, designating it a 3/0/2 list looks about right.

I want to shake it up a bit with 6 Desolators and a Templar, but I may take a Prime/LCoSD variant to my next tourney as it's my first 100 player tourney.  I like the idea of seeing what the list can do at a bigger event. I'm not sure, statistically, it makes more difference.

Maybe more games at a tournament is more indicative of the list more than more potential opponents at a regular 5 game event.

[Mark Williams]

The main thing that kept me from adding drakes to my army over the last couple Ye was the cost combined with people saying they don’t perform well. It’s on my list of models to paint and add to my force at some point. I’d personally aim for something like a les Martin type list.

[l1censetochill]

41 minutes ago, Turragor said:

You have written what I intended to write without my bias towards large lizards and this is a much better discussion point as a result

So I was the only one who actually replied to your proposed lists with any concrete suggestions, which makes me feel like a lot of what you're saying is directed at my response. I'm not offended or anything by it, but I do think it's a chance to have a dialogue about it.

I read the edit to your above post (before you re-edited, when it was longer), and felt like I should point out - while I did post one list alteration that swapped in Concussors and Longstrikes for the Desolators and other stuff and made it basically a Shootcast list, the other one was pretty much the same exact core with a couple of changes: dropping the endless spells, Longstrikes and Aetherwings for two units of Hurricane Crossbows, which is decidedly off-meta and pretty true to the original list. And I felt I explained my rationale behind the choices pretty well, focusing mostly on overall army synergy and gameplanning, not focusing on what other people/lists are doing.

So at no point did I mean for my reply to say, "your lists suck, take PJetski's Shootcast list," but rather, "in giving it some thought, have you tried this?" with a fairly detailed explanation of how I felt the changes would benefit the list. Ending with the statement, "hope these list ideas help, or at least inspire some thought/discussion," along with a pretty straightforward admission that I wasn't totally confident that the lists I came up with were particularly good. I'm always totally open to the possibility that my changes were wrong and would make the list worse, but I think it's much more productive to talk about why/why not than to accuse people of (to paraphrase) only chasing meta lists and not being smart/experienced enough to understand your ideas.

I was honestly just hoping to provide constructive feedback, not to trash Stardrakes or hate on you for liking them. Indeed, I really want Stardrakes to be great so I can run one. But the alternative to offering a critique would be to simply reply,  "hell yeah, praise Sigmar, take the Stardrake and the Celestant-Prime, so awesome!!1!😆" Which is just as blithe and unhelpful as saying "u shud just take Shootcast instead LOL." Neither of those outcomes are productive or desirable, in my opinion.

So apologies if my evaluation felt overly blunt or judgmental - it wasn't meant to be. But at the same time, I think your response is a bit of a mischaracterization of my post, as well. And if your response has been colored by past posts in the thread where you got dismissive feedback, I get that, and I'm sorry for it. But I just felt the need to point out that that isn't what I was doing at all, and I genuinely hope your list does well in your upcoming tournament!

[Maturin]

2 hours ago, l1censetochill said:

Drakesworn Templar + Celestant-Prime list and finished 8th at the Justice League GT. Another person went 3-2 at Bloodshed in the Shire with an Anvils list with 20 Judicators

Where can I get those lists and read those reports please ? When I google Justice League GT all I get is a mercredes Amg + batman

[l1censetochill]

1 hour ago, Maturin said:

Where can I get those lists and read those reports please ? When I google Justice League GT all I get is a mercredes Amg + batman

Bah, sorry, it was the Justice Series GT (Autumn). The list is on tabletop.to, here. That's the easiest place to see finishes and lists from tournaments these days, though not every event uses them.

[Maturin]

30 minutes ago, l1censetochill said:

Bah, sorry, it was the Justice Series GT (Autumn). The list is on tabletop.to, here. That's the easiest place to see finishes and lists from tournaments these days, though not every event uses them.

No problem mate. Thanks for the link, that's an unusual list there! How do you think he plays that ?

[OIF4IDVET]

Hey guys, assembling my paladins tonight, I know they aren’t that great a choice but I’d like to equip them with the best loadout, I already have 10 with hammers from the various starter boxes. Thanks so much!