AoS 2 - Stormcast Eternals Discussion

[XReN]

On 8/22/2018 at 10:19 AM, Thor said:

Sooo the stardrake is amazing. I recently played in Warhammerfest throne of skulls with a stardrake list and I gotta say.. that thing is an absolute monster in the new edition. 

I used him with Ignax scales and staunch defender and slapped a warding lantern on top of it.. the thing would not die. Here are a few examples. 

Singlehandled it tanked 20 sequistors. 10 evocators and 4 fulminators. Before my opponent realized that it’s futile and teleported away his fulminators. At that point it had already decimated the sequistors and was on its way to cleaning up the evocators. 

New edition it’s been buffed in slight ways that makes a huge impact. 

Carnaverous jaws can eat a units cohesion. Breaking it forcing a lot of damage. The tail attack hits everything within 3 inches every time it attacks. And command ability no longer has a range.

i just slapped onwards to glory on it and used a command ability to run 18 inches. With fly and that movement you can tie up a lot of things first turn. ( I played legion of azghor and tied up 5 units first turn ) 

its just amazing, but a large investment ! 

I guess you used LSoSD?
Have you tried Templat with axe to mess up opponents coherensy?
Also from my experience stardrake sure is great for tanking, but damage is... mediocre. I played with my friend a game of 2.5k points in AoS 1 and it took about 3 turns for his Drakesworn Temple to grind my VW down to only judicators remaining. And because of that I ended up winning by mission 

[Thor]

17 minutes ago, XReN said:

I guess you used LSoSD?
Have you tried Templat with axe to mess up opponents coherensy?
Also from my experience stardrake sure is great for tanking, but damage is... mediocre. I played with my friend a game of 2.5k points in AoS 1 and it took about 3 turns for his Drakesworn Temple to grind my VW down to only judicators remaining. And because of that I ended up winning by mission 

Damage is mediocre. For 560 points. It’s not a monster killer. But  facing anything other then the big monsters it’s overperforming. It has a great presence, with the random rain of stars snipe and tail / jaws taking out units.  -1 / +1 to spell casting 

templar axe should be pretty decent at that. Usually however you just attack last with your drake to prevent pile into cohesion. I like the fact that you can always elect to go last with it, since it won’t take damage. Allowing your fulminators or w/e to fight first without much backlash. 

What’s a VW ? 

[XReN]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

templar axe should be pretty decent at that. Usually however you just attack last with your drake to prevent pile into cohesion. I like the fact that you can always elect to go last with it, since it won’t take damage. Allowing your fulminators or w/e to fight first without much backlash. 

What’s a VW ? 

 

Vanguard Wing

Edited August 23, 2018 by XReN

[Thor]

17 minutes ago, XReN said:

 

Vanguard Wing

What size ? I’m lacking a point of reference. Was it max size with 30 libs ? If so it’s quite respectable . 

[XReN]

5 minutes ago, Thor said:

What size ? I’m lacking a point of reference. Was it max size with 30 libs ? If so it’s quite respectable . 

Yeah, 30 libs, 3x3 Pros, thrown into the jaws to delay 3 stardrakes

[Thor]

2 hours ago, XReN said:

Yeah, 30 libs, 3x3 Pros, thrown into the jaws to delay 3 stardrakes

Oh wow! Depends on the dice i suppose! Mine    Ate through 20 sequistors and 10 evocators in 3-4  turns singelhandledy. 

[PJetski]

Any competent Stardrake player will bring a Heraldor so they can retreat & charge

Stardrake backed by Ballistas, Longstrikes, and spells is a really scary list

[amysrevenge]

14 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

Edit: I see what you are saying now. I was under the impression that attacks were resolved one at a time, and that damage was allocated before moving on to the next attack.

So basically what you are saying is that the only way the heal triggers is if a unit or model starts with a wound existing at the time saves are made for one group of attacks against it.

Example, a unit of liberators with 1 wound remaining.

Attacks are made, save rules are made. 3 6s are rolled for but 3 wounds are allocated. The initial wound is healed, then 3 wounds are allocated - 1 lib dies, 1 remains with 1 wound.

Yeah you got it.  Still super great (+1 save is hard to come by in AoS2), and still awesome-amazing for things like Dracoths and Heroes and Stormdrakes that might have a few Wounds on them.

 

And it's a major issue with language in the core rules - there used to be two, movement and damage.  They fixed movement (hello "normal move"), but the problem is still there with damage.  They held on to the "To Wound" stat from editions past, but strictly within AoS rules, the stat should be called "To Damage".  Because you are rolling it to see if you do damage, not to see if you wound.  It causes exactly this confusion.

[GeneralZero]

I used my beloved fulminators against 40 skellis and they did pretty great. At the end of the turn, the battleshock finished the job.

then the blob has to be respawn somewhere far away and the skellies are slow....

[Black Blade]

7 hours ago, schwabbele said:

How would SCE  tackle a death army with Nagash , 2 other heros which can revive models and 2 40er unit skeletons and 30 from those reapers? 

Killing the blobs should not be an issue for evos or sequitors, however that CA which allows them to 100% re-spawn a whole unit is kinda meh. Deep-striking Nagash works only in theory now, killing the other 2 heros could work via an deep-strike but will only hinder their unit restocking .

Another thing which really annoys me, is that we basically have to field blobs too, charging those 40er skeleton units with our "elite" mini units is suicide and will also not work for model count objectives.

What are your thoughts / experiences with on this topic? 

Death is a hard matchup for just about everyone no matter what. In my experience Stormcast (of which I'm a player) are an intro army but not really top tier and death is definitely at the top of that list currently and you feel it. They kinda do everything you do but better and that's before you count Nagash. Imho I dont think God characters should be in the game expect as Avatars/Shards where they can be more appropriately balanced and you not have either an unkillable God or a God that can somehow be brought down in a round of shooting from 4 units. 

[GeneralZero]

Nagash is far from unkillable.

Killing heros is the key against death. Kill necros, no more spawn.

But, playing both (death and sce) I can admit that Storm has some issues facing death.  Ranged weapons are important to us. A necro has hard time facing  judicators, venator, ballistas.

[Mark Williams]

The key to facing death as an sce player is to go almost completely over to shooting. You must eliminate heroes and nagash before you even attempt to start killing summonable units. My army is composed of crossbow judicators, crossbow raptors, and ballistas. You have to start killing the non-summonable units immediately on turn 1, and honestly it takes a bit of luck sometimes too. You start the game out losing basically, and with heavy shooting you basically at least have a chance to turn it around. That’s the only advice I’ve got.

[XReN]

10 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

 My army is composed of crossbow judicators, crossbow raptors, and ballistas. 

How crossbow juds perform in the new edition? I loved to use them with Vanguard Wing in small games and they shredded infantry to bits, and in 2000pts games I usually used them to push on far, not too guarded objectives quite well

[Mark Williams]

9 minutes ago, XReN said:

How crossbow juds perform in the new edition? I loved to use them with Vanguard Wing in small games and they shredded infantry to bits, and in 2000pts games I usually used them to push on far, not too guarded objectives quite well

It’s basically just volume of dice. At a certain point you get past good or bad luck and averages take over. Also it’s about being able to focus attacks into a small area with very little actual movement. You can only get so many guys in base to base, especially with the size of sce bases. My army is about half and half shooting and assault. The shooting arrives via scions. Ground units defend.

[XReN]

34 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

It’s basically just volume of dice. At a certain point you get past good or bad luck and averages take over. Also it’s about being able to focus attacks into a small area with very little actual movement. You can only get so many guys in base to base, especially with the size of sce bases. My army is about half and half shooting and assault. The shooting arrives via scions. Ground units defend.

What is your experience with Hurricane Raptors? I might convert some from castigators with leftover bits from longstrikes and try them with justicar conclave to get a small bucket of dice.

[Mark Williams]

13 minutes ago, XReN said:

What is your experience with Hurricane Raptors? I might convert some from castigators with leftover bits from longstrikes and try them with justicar conclave to get a small bucket of dice.

Honestly they feel almost overpowered, and I silently wonder if an entire army of them would be broken.

[PJetski]

18 shots at 4+/4+ and 9 shots at 3+/4+ does about 7-8 wounds with no rend. With only 6 wounds for 140 points... They're good, but not "almost overpowered". If they were Vanguard Battleline I would like them a lot more.

[Mark Williams]

There’s an advantage in being small, relatively low point squads, in that you can spread out a little and avoid losing everything in a single round. You say 6-7 wounds like it’s something to scoff at. 4 squads focusing into a single area 1-shots almost everything in the game...

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar
Knight-Azyros (100)
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 95
 

Spread your back units out a bit so that your opponent can’t get to them all in one assault. Drop a Knight Azyros and 6 units of raptors in front of something and see what happens. You’d probably table most opponents with this army by round 2... if your opponent doesn’t die of boredom watching you roll dice first...

Edit: I’m not saying take this exact, literal list. I’m just saying if this dumb list I threw together in 5 minutes has a greater than 75% win rate out of the gate, think about what you could do if you actually put some thought into it. Your opponent might claim an objective bases victory, and maybe you need to think about how to defend against that, but damage-wise it will automatically kill most every army out there before the game ends. Anyone who gets within range and doesn’t kill you in a single turn will lose everything in the following one.

Edit 2: I just did a practice roll against nagash and 2 morghasts, which is basically my benchmark for how much damage an army can put out these days. The morghasts die end of turn 1, if you get a double turn Nagash dies around the 5th set of raptors in the beginning of turn 2. If you lose priority then it depends on what he attacks or whether he chooses to flee (smarter choice). But either way you basically put him in a situation where he lost board control in a single turn.

People would learn to counter it eventually but it forces your opponent to play cat and mouse with you. If they bulldoze forward expecting resilience to save them, they’ll lose by default.

Edited August 24, 2018 by Mark Williams

[AdamR]

Looks good until you face something 2+ rerolling, like buffed sequitors or liberators. Or a stardrake. Then all of those shots together are doing 2 and a bit wounds!

[brimmstorm]

You're better off taking 4 Ballistas, and a Ordinator than all those Raptors I would think?

[PJetski]

1 hour ago, brimmstorm said:

You're better off taking 4 Ballistas, and a Ordinator than all those Raptors I would think?

Depends on what you're fighting. Ballistas are great against Stonehorns and Saurus, but rubbish against Nighthaunt.

Hurricanes are really good against units that ignore Rend like Nighthaunt, or have low saves.

4 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

There’s an advantage in being small, relatively low point squads, in that you can spread out a little and avoid losing everything in a single round. You say 6-7 wounds like it’s something to scoff at. 4 squads focusing into a single area 1-shots almost everything in the game...

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
- Stormhost: Hammers of Sigmar
Knight-Azyros (100)
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
5 x Judicators (160)
- Skybolt Bows
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)
3 x Vanguard-Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows (140)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 95

That is seriously a terrible list for so many reasons, and using hyperbolic examples like this is not a good way to prove your point.

[Mark Williams]

2 hours ago, AdamR said:

Looks good until you face something 2+ rerolling, like buffed sequitors or liberators. Or a stardrake. Then all of those shots together are doing 2 and a bit wounds!

6 times “2 and a bit” is enough to kill the star drake before it kills much of anything in return. As for the liberators, just shoot something else first then hit them later. Prioritize other targets or just land and shoot over their heads at whatever things are buffing them, then finish them a turn later.

[Mark Williams]

2 hours ago, brimmstorm said:

You're better off taking 4 Ballistas, and a Ordinator than all those Raptors I would think?

You have the power to modify the list and make it better.

[Mark Williams]

25 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Depends on what you're fighting. Ballistas are great against Stonehorns and Saurus, but rubbish against Nighthaunt.

Hurricanes are really good against units that ignore Rend like Nighthaunt, or have low saves.

That is seriously a terrible list for so many reasons, and using hyperbolic examples like this is not a good way to prove your point.

If you took it literally, then yes you’ve missed the point, and I’m sorry I didn’t make a better case. I have played with a similar list for a few months now and my win ratio is near 8:1, and even when losing I’ve tabled my opponents before game end. It’s not a perfect list, no, but that was never my point to begin with. My point it that the unit feels a bit too powerful for its points cost to me, and I stand by that opinion. It’s strong enough that you can sort of bumble around with it and still wipe people off the board.

[Black Blade]

10 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

If you took it literally, then yes you’ve missed the point, and I’m sorry I didn’t make a better case. I have played with a similar list for a few months now and my win ratio is near 8:1, and even when losing I’ve tabled my opponents before game end. It’s not a perfect list, no, but that was never my point to begin with. My point it that the unit feels a bit too powerful for its points cost to me, and I stand by that opinion. It’s strong enough that you can sort of bumble around with it and still wipe people off the board.

Sorry but which unit are you claiming is overpowered for its cost? The Stormcast schtick is one of many choices but most either clearly overpowered or underpowered for their cost and they end up falling into viable or unviable so I tend to lose track. I do hope once all chambers are opened they can get this internal balance thing figured out.