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AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion


Chris Tomlin

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7 hours ago, ledha said:

Lord veritant with spellshield is two unbind with +3 per turn. I think he will see more playtime now

No. That'd be a waste of a relic anyway, but he DOESN'T get an extra unbind with spellshield(only wizards get an extra one) and he'll probably never be at +3 to dispel. Getting a specific gryph hound that close to an enemy wizard and having it survive both the combat phase AND wizards not within 6" of the gryph hound killing it is unrealistically difficult. In fact, the Veritant is actually worse than he was for the most part. The Incantor is a better spell stopper while also being a strong caster, the army isn't hurting for unbinds anymore, the Relictor is still better at being a priest. He, along with the Lord Exorcist, seem totally lost in this book.

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7 hours ago, Richelieu said:

I would consider running those with the wizard battalion and staff artifact and stardrake.  Otherwise I'm not investing heavily.  Incantor I love simply for the auto unbind.  Cogs I would only run if I was running a storm host other than Hammers of Sigmar, and even then I'm not sure it's worth it without a wizard who has a good chance of casting it.  7+ is only 58% success rate.

Grand Convocation is 130pts and requires 140pts of the incredibly poor lord exorcist for a mediocre bonus. He should just take the stardrake. He's  already at a 72% chance with just that. 

 

1 hour ago, Galamund said:

I should add, I run them as Anvils of Heldenhammer. I hate losing Staunch Defender and Mirrorshield, but I find the Castellant mitigates the loss of the Command Trait somewhat and being able to attack twice with the buffed-up 20-man of Sequitors is bonkers. They utterly massacre units of light and medium infantry and with full re-rolls the 9 Greatmaces can threaten even the biggest of monsters. It's a CP-hungry list though, obviously.

How are you dealing with being hit first? With how incredibly slow sequitors are, you're almost never going to be getting charge initiative, and even with 3+ rerollable saves, most armies will still be able to shred a unit of 20 down a good amount. A unit of Witch aelves with Mindrazor, for example, will absolutely kill a unit of 20 sequitors through their reroll and castellant buff, in a single combat phase.

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Yikes I haven't faced Witch Elves like that yet! The Sequitors take it in the chin for sure. They seldom hit the foe intact and almost always die to a man late in the game, but I haven't had them alpha-struck off the table too quickly. I find Refractor Lens helps a lot. You're sure right about them being slow though.

Do you think having them at a 2+ save through SD would help more than being able to swing twice per turn?

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25 minutes ago, Galamund said:

Yikes I haven't faced Witch Elves like that yet! The Sequitors take it in the chin for sure. They seldom hit the foe intact and almost always die to a man late in the game, but I haven't had them alpha-struck off the table too quickly. I find Refractor Lens helps a lot. You're sure right about them being slow though.

Do you think having them at a 2+ save through SD would help more than being able to swing twice per turn?

Ew, refractor lens(it's powerful but it's so stupid, all of the realm rules are stupid)...anyway, I don't think doubling down on tankiness is the correct answer. Personally I'm working on an idea around using one foot based group of 20 and one sky based group of 20 to kind of 'hammer and anvil' the enemy, though for that I prefer Celestial Vindicators as that allows me to buff the skydrop unit as it lands.

If you can figure out a way to mitigate the slow speed of the sequitors you're going to have a very, very powerful list on your hands.

(Oh and just for funsies, a unit of 30 bravery 8 witch aelves(they get+1 for their cauldron) with mindrazor and witchbrew will do 30 wounds to a 3+ rerollable save.)

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I really like the idea of dual 20-blocks of Sequitors! It's a tight fit taking them as part of a Cleansing Phalanx though (1320 if you're taking 2x20 Sequitors and 2x5 Evocators). That's the only Battalion I've found that's remotely worth it since I want to take Evocators and Sequitors anyways. What do you think you'd compliment the 'hammer and anvil' style of dual 20 man units with?

Also that witch unit sounds terrifying! Do you have any experience countering it?

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2 hours ago, InvalidUsername said:

How are you dealing with being hit first? With how incredibly slow sequitors are, you're almost never going to be getting charge initiative, and even with 3+ rerollable saves, most armies will still be able to shred a unit of 20 down a good amount. A unit of Witch aelves with Mindrazor, for example, will absolutely kill a unit of 20 sequitors through their reroll and castellant buff, in a single combat phase.

Your example is the most incredibly offensive unit in the game - nothing realistically survives fully buffed block of witch aelves. 40 wounds of 3+ rerollable should be plenty tanky enough to serve it's purpose, especially as it can lose ~11 models before the killing power starts really starts dipping down. I think the easiest way to mitigate the slow speed of Sequitors is to either use Gavriel/Cogs or just park a Heraldor behind them for run+charge. 

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How fast are the crazy aelves? Can they get a t1 charge? Assuming half your army is in reserve and you let your opponent go first they wouldnt have many choices or targets for an effective first strike. Let them come and smash against the anvil then on your turn you bring the pain down

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4 hours ago, InvalidUsername said:

No. That'd be a waste of a relic anyway, but he DOESN'T get an extra unbind with spellshield(only wizards get an extra one) and he'll probably never be at +3 to dispel. Getting a specific gryph hound that close to an enemy wizard and having it survive both the combat phase AND wizards not within 6" of the gryph hound killing it is unrealistically difficult. In fact, the Veritant is actually worse than he was for the most part. The Incantor is a better spell stopper while also being a strong caster, the army isn't hurting for unbinds anymore, the Relictor is still better at being a priest. He, along with the Lord Exorcist, seem totally lost in this book.

Why is he worse than he was?

He gets the gryph-hound for free, and he can get a guaranteed drop at 9 from your enemy (screens and all, I know) then the Gryph-hound is only a charge away from the Wizard. Charge, attack, retreat less than 6 (it's debatable if you must move the whole distance) and the Gryph-hound is in unbind range next turn. If the opponent spend a spell on killing It, congratulations on wasting his precious resources on a free model.

Yeah, he gets one less prayer than the Relictor, but for the good ones he is exactly the same. Plus, the extra wound and nice CC profile make it less feeble when droping in the enemy's face. For 20 points you get the hound, a wound, a no-trash combat weapon, the unbind and the (very situational) damage prayer. I can't see how he is a bad deal.

As It was worded, spellshield won't work with him. But Lantern of Tempest could be nice to offer a protection bubble when Scion-dropping with friends.

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1 hour ago, Freejack02 said:

Your example is the most incredibly offensive unit in the game - nothing realistically survives fully buffed block of witch aelves. 40 wounds of 3+ rerollable should be plenty tanky enough to serve it's purpose, especially as it can lose ~11 models before the killing power starts really starts dipping down. I think the easiest way to mitigate the slow speed of Sequitors is to either use Gavriel/Cogs or just park a Heraldor behind them for run+charge. 

It IS the most incredibly offensive unit in the game, it is also a very commonly played unit.  It's not impossible to play DoK several times per event and each time is likely to have 2 units of buffed witch aelves. Having a strategy ready for it is just good business. Besides, other commonly used units like bloodletters or even some of the new nighthaunt stuff can do similar things to witch aelves, and sequitors damage being focused on its grandhammers, combined with the new rules for coherency, mean that if your opponent can use their speed to get around you they can lay their offense into where your counter attack will be weakest and can force you to pull away models that would have been able to fight if you want to keep the greatmaces around. Remember, it's SUPER risky now to take a model away from the center of a unit, one bad measurement and whoop! half the unit's gone.

Gavriel or Cogs are almost mandatory just to function, using a heraldor is a good solution, but it still leaves you between a rock and a hard place if you need to get somewhere where there isn't a unit to charge, like covering an objective. 

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2 minutes ago, InvalidUsername said:

It IS the most incredibly offensive unit in the game, it is also a very commonly played unit.  It's not impossible to play DoK several times per event and each time is likely to have 2 units of buffed witch aelves. Having a strategy ready for it is just good business. Besides, other commonly used units like bloodletters or even some of the new nighthaunt stuff can do similar things to witch aelves, and sequitors damage being focused on its grandhammers, combined with the new rules for coherency, mean that if your opponent can use their speed to get around you they can lay their offense into where your counter attack will be weakest and can force you to pull away models that would have been able to fight if you want to keep the greatmaces around. Remember, it's SUPER risky now to take a model away from the center of a unit, one bad measurement and whoop! half the unit's gone.

Gavriel or Cogs are almost mandatory just to function, using a heraldor is a good solution, but it still leaves you between a rock and a hard place if you need to get somewhere where there isn't a unit to charge, like covering an objective. 

What is the common save for those Witch Aelves (6+6+ reroll?)? Bravery protection? I think Hurricane Raptors+Aetherwings could work (theoretically) against them.

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3 hours ago, InvalidUsername said:

 

(Oh and just for funsies, a unit of 30 bravery 8 witch aelves(they get+1 for their cauldron) with mindrazor and witchbrew will do 30 wounds to a 3+ rerollable save.)

You can, just put your general (Anvils of heldenhammer) behind the line of sequitor since he's force to take the -1 Bravery command trait. Then the witches only do 15 dmg. :D

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22 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

Why is he worse than he was?

He gets the gryph-hound for free, and he can get a guaranteed drop at 9 from your enemy (screens and all, I know) then the Gryph-hound is only a charge away from the Wizard. Charge, attack, retreat less than 6 (it's debatable if you must move the whole distance) and the Gryph-hound is in unbind range next turn. If the opponent spend a spell on killing It, congratulations on wasting his precious resources on a free model.

Yeah, he gets one less prayer than the Relictor, but for the good ones he is exactly the same. Plus, the extra wound and nice CC profile make it less feeble when droping in the enemy's face. For 20 points you get the hound, a wound, a no-trash combat weapon, the unbind and the (very situational) damage prayer. I can't see how he is a bad deal.

As It was worded, spellshield won't work with him. But Lantern of Tempest could be nice to offer a protection bubble when Scion-dropping with friends.

Because before, he was the only thing in the army that could unbind, now he isn't. His only role is performed better by MULTIPLE other units in the book. I guess I should have added 'relative to the rest of the army'.

The gryph hound is irrelevant. Everything can get a 9" drop. If the gryph hound charges a necromancer it's still probably going to die in combat or have to retreat out, if it even has somewhere to retreat to. Also that's a 28% chance of succeeding the charge, if you even can charge, but that's never going to happen because, like you said, screens. If the gryph hound dies,  that's 120pts on a single unboosted unbind every turn.

The relictors warscroll prayer is amazingly powerful, it's at least as powerful the table prayers, where the veritant has just his unboosted unbind.

The extra wound and CC profile aren't very helpful, they add nothing significant to him being able to perform his actual function. If you're in a position where how well he fights CQC is important to the state of the game, there's a pretty high chance you're already on your way. He does biff all damage and dies pretty much whenever your opponent feels like it.

For 20pts you get unhelpful bonuses to combat, an unhelpful gryph hound, an unbind that would be much better from an Incantor, and a prayer. He's a 120pt hail mary suicide bomb you're using to stop 1 spell...maybe. 

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5 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

What is the common save for those Witch Aelves (6+6+ reroll?)? Bravery protection? I think Hurricane Raptors+Aetherwings could work (theoretically) against them.

Usually they'll be at  either 5+ 5++ 5+++ or 5+6++6+++ -1 to hit and they are 100% immune to morale at all times until all of their hag queens are dead., clearing off units that would be dangerous to the sequitor squad is good option, as even with their surprising amount of resilience, units like these can lose effectiveness relatively quickly and can become more manageable at smaller numbers.

Having an additional, faster threat unit would help take attention off the sequitors and let them get to where they need to be going unmolested. Maybe shuffling some points around to pump up a unit of evocators to 10 and have them dive bomb something on the flanks would give them the breathing room they need to be able to really dish out the damage.

A unit of sequitors that gets charge initiative is in a position to sweep the entire board with smart CP use. It's about facilitating them hitting combat when YOU want them too, rather than your opponent.

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2 minutes ago, InvalidUsername said:

The gryph hound is irrelevant. Everything can get a 9" drop. If the gryph hound charges a necromancer it's still probably going to die in combat or have to retreat out, if it even has somewhere to retreat to. Also that's a 28% chance of succeeding the charge, if you even can charge, but that's never going to happen because, like you said, screens. If the gryph hound dies, congratulations on wasting your precious 120pts on a single unboosted unbind every turn.

The relictors warscroll prayer is amazingly powerful, it's at least as powerful the table prayers, where the veritant has nothing.

The extra wound and CC profile are totally irrelevant, they add nothing significant when that close to the enemy. He's still doing biff all damage and dies whenever your opponent feels like it.

For 20pts you get irrelevant bonuses to combat, an even more irrelevant gryph hound, an unbind that would be much better from an Incantor, and a prayer. You're also forcing yourself to keep an extra unit on the board for him just to be able to be worse at the thing he's supposed to be doing than an incantor.

The Gryph-hound will have room to retreat: the same path he went through! It's your turn, pile in with him first so you can attack without retaliation. Ok, the charge is difficult, but if you have a spare CP you can reroll.

Ok, let's think outside of the box, what can a Veritant do well? Contribute to a Bravery bomb. Aspect of Sigmar plus Lantern plus Anvils Command Trait (yeah, let's go there and make him general) is -3(-4 VS Chaos) by himself. Then, the unbind, Gryph-hound and anti-wizard prayers are a bonus. Is that combo optimal, tournament-competitive? Maybe not, but it's a fun tool to try new things outside of Incantors out of the wazoo.

Just for the record, you always come up as dismissive and agressive towards other people's ideas. Maybe you could try to be a bit more positive?

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13 minutes ago, InvalidUsername said:

Usually they'll be at  either 5+ 5++ 5+++ or 5+6++6+++ -1 to hit and they are 100% immune to morale at all times until all of their hag queens are dead., clearing off units that would be dangerous to the sequitor squad is good option, as even with their surprising amount of resilience, units like these can lose effectiveness relatively quickly and can become more manageable at smaller numbers.

Having an additional, faster threat unit would help take attention off the sequitors and let them get to where they need to be going unmolested. Maybe shuffling some points around to pump up a unit of evocators to 10 and have them dive bomb something on the flanks would give them the breathing room they need to be able to really dish out the damage.

A unit of sequitors that gets charge initiative is in a position to sweep the entire board with smart CP use. It's about facilitating them hitting combat when YOU want them too, rather than your opponent.

I see, so some of these must depend on external buffs (5+ save through Blood Shield or Bladed shields and losing an attack, for example) and -1 to hit is already the single elegible Temple. I guess it's never a bad idea to try to kill some of this support if it doesn't require disproportionate resources.

I mentioned Hurricanes with Aetherwings as the old "block a charge with their special move" can give an extra turn of close range fire. For 190 points it doesn't feel as a super-hefty tax.

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40 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

I see, so some of these must depend on external buffs (5+ save through Blood Shield or Bladed shields and losing an attack, for example) and -1 to hit is already the single elegible Temple. I guess it's never a bad idea to try to kill some of this support if it doesn't require disproportionate resources.

He forgot to mention that only one unit has 5+/5++/5+++ and the -1 to hit is for shooting only. 

But unfortunately, killing the Hag usually require rather disproportionate resource and there's usually more than 1. (They are only 60 pts afterall)

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1 minute ago, Qaz said:

He forgot to mention that only one unit has 5+/5++/5+++ and the -1 to hit is for shooting only. 

But unfortunately, killing the Hag usually require rather disproportionate resource and there's usually more than 1. (They are only 60 pts afterall)

Interesting, I expected that. I gotta go back to the old habit of reading every battletome to know the enemy ?

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1 hour ago, DanielFM said:

The Gryph-hound will have room to retreat: the same path he went through! It's your turn, pile in with him first so you can attack without retaliation. Ok, the charge is difficult, but if you have a spare CP you can reroll.

Ok, let's think outside of the box, what can a Veritant do well? Contribute to a Bravery bomb. Aspect of Sigmar plus Lantern plus Anvils Command Trait (yeah, let's go there and make him general) is -3(-4 VS Chaos) by himself. Then, the unbind, Gryph-hound and anti-wizard prayers are a bonus. Is that combo optimal, tournament-competitive? Maybe not, but it's a fun tool to try new things outside of Incantors out of the wazoo.

Just for the record, you always come up as dismissive and agressive towards other people's ideas. Maybe you could try to be a bit more positive?

You have an optimistic view of  things, that's nice, but it makes me nervous.  Being positive about things that are negative is how problems go unnoticed and unfixed.  There are bad units, not everything has a place, some things are obsolete. That said, now that I actually have the book and some tournament data, I'm more interested in what's good than what's bad anyway. (Veritant's still bad)

58 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

I see, so some of these must depend on external buffs (5+ save through Blood Shield or Bladed shields and losing an attack, for example) and -1 to hit is already the single elegible Temple. I guess it's never a bad idea to try to kill some of this support if it doesn't require disproportionate resources.

I mentioned Hurricanes with Aetherwings as the old "block a charge with their special move" can give an extra turn of close range fire. For 190 points it doesn't feel as a super-hefty tax.

The 5+ comes from bloodshield, the +++s comes from a prayer, the 5++ comes from proximity to the general, there's nothing you can really do about the -1. Targeting down the Cauldron is the most immediate counter tactic, but they'll be expecting that, Considering Longstrikes do their mortal wounds on unmodified 6s now(I believe) and HagQueens are made of paper, picking out the hags is a possibilty, even through a -2. If you can get the hags, Witch aelves are only bravery 7 or 8 AND they lose their rerolls to wound. Also, because the +++ reroll can only be cast once per turn, anything that can make the decision of who gets it complicated will be very helpful.

Against an army like Murderhost and their impossibly fast bloodletters, I'd suggest an 'end around' . Put the other battleline out front, essentially as sacrifices, and put the evocators in the sky. Most murderhosts will bumrush you first turn and crash into your line of sacrifices. If they take the bait, then you drop your big units behind them targeting out their buff characters and battleshock protections while your sequitors obliterate them on the counter charge. Dealing with their big monsters after will be a bit touch and go, but if you can shred through their bloodletter core you can essentially ignore them and just play objectives.

Nurgle is all about stopping mortal wounds and applying pressure . Your sequitors will be more resilient AND more damaging than their plague bearers, which they will absolutely not expect. You're still going to lose a grind-y match against 90 plaguebearers unsupported, but it will take long enough that you should be able to deal with THEIR support and then lend an assist. Plague-drones are an issue, as are any consistent sources of non-spell mortal wounds. Spell mortal wounds can be almost entirely negated between an incantor, the Lord Arcanum, and Refractor lens. 

With Seraphon...who even knows with Seraphon. With all the wackadoo stuff going on with them they could be a completely different army in a few weeks.

I think the proposed list (like 2 pages ago now?) could be tailored to do well in just about any meta. Sequitors make an excellent foundation to build off of. They have excellent offense and defense and a clear weakness(lack of speed) that can be planned for both in how you're going to mitigate that weakness and how to take advantage of it making your opponent more predictable as he tries(and hopefully fails) to exploit something you're already more than aware of.

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36 minutes ago, Qaz said:

He forgot to mention that only one unit has 5+/5++/5+++ and the -1 to hit is for shooting only. 

But unfortunately, killing the Hag usually require rather disproportionate resource and there's usually more than 1. (They are only 60 pts afterall)

No, only one unit has the 5+++ or 6+++. Every unit that is in proximity to the general, which will be every unit that isn't currently killing you or camping an objective will be 5+ 5++ or 5+ 6++. The -1 to hit being shooting only is correct. Typically, the unit most dangerous to your sequitors, and most likely to target them is going to be the one with all the buffs. on it. This does leave the other units vulnerable(they'll still have hag buffs and the cauldron shield and either the -1 to hit in shooting or the 5++) but you're still staring down the barrel of a unit that can guarantee a 12" move with reroll charges and absolutely CANNOT be allowed to charge your sequitors.

If you get your sequitors into THEM, even their absolute most heavily buffed state will be hurtin for certain.

It's all about charge priority  between these two, unless you can get the hags for cheap. If you can get the hags for cheap, you still don't want them charging you but it's nowhere near as bad.

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7 hours ago, InvalidUsername said:

How are you dealing with being hit first? With how incredibly slow sequitors are, you're almost never going to be getting charge initiative, and even with 3+ rerollable saves, most armies will still be able to shred a unit of 20 down a good amount. A unit of Witch aelves with Mindrazor, for example, will absolutely kill a unit of 20 sequitors through their reroll and castellant buff, in a single combat phase.

Witch aelves are the most broken units in one of the most broken army of the game. Using those as a comparison meter is nonsense.

It's like saying a footballer is ****** if he can't be better than Zidane. If people must take in their list only units able to stand against with aelves with Mindrazor or a competitive DOK armies, i think 95% of us can just pack up our bags and leave, or take the same tournament list

Edited by ledha
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Personnaly, not that much

I have close to 4000 pts of stormcast, most of which were nerfed (part of because of the new rules with wholly within and so on, i know) and i feel like making a half-competitive list without sacrosanct units is just shooting myself in the foot.

Why take liberators when sequitors exist ? Why taking paladins when evocators are better than them in every way ? Why taking any battalion while cleansing phalanx is way better ?

When i look at my old list (with 20 paladins), my mind scream "just dump them and take evocators man!" 

Sure, some "old units" became better (like the azyros), but the celestant on foot for example is a shadow of what he was, and the growing importance of spellcaster mean that we can't do like before, having close to zero dispell, but being able to go trough anyway.

 

 

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Hey guys, a quick observation here:

  Out of the 20 endless spells released so far (14 in MS, 3 ours , 3 Nighthaunt) , Celestian Vortex is the only one that in it's ability description reads ''pick 1 ENEMY unit'' . All others refer to ''units''  /  ''unit'' . That means that it can't backfire back to us ..?  Even if endless spells treated as friendly models by both players, and even if the opposing player gets to move Celestian Vortex in some point during the game, the Celestian Vortex is a model that a purchased in my army/list-thus being part of my list, and the opposing player's units are still enemy units for my models/army.

 

  I want to believe that wording was intentional. Its not huge , but it's still something.

 

P.S. The other ability (passive aura in 6'') of course, affect ALL units, it's clear. 

 

Thoughts..?

 

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11 minutes ago, Aydwen said:

Thoughts..?

 

Umm. Technically Endless model count "as a friendly model by all armies for any other rules purposes" (pg 53 Malign Sorcery). 

So if anything, the Celestian Vortex does no damage at all since it is everyone's friend and has no enemies. :D

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