AoS 2 - Wanderers Discussion

[DionTheWanderer]

Just had a chastening experience against a SCE list. 3 objectives, 1 in each zone 1 in the middle. Opponent was very nice and sporting, and if anything was unlucky in his dice rolls compared to me. 

What was frustrating was that from early on it was clear I wasn’t even going to be able to defend one objective, let alone take another. I had 20 EG in cover on my objective, with SOT (about half the time). Got off full unit of 30 GG bodkins plus Hail of Doom on his sequitors, with nomad prince buffing almost all my units. Killed 5/10.

Got my WWR into charge and wiped out his Vanguard Palladors, but they were wiped out on a counter charge. Nomad prince and waystrider didn’t cause a wound before getting wiped. 

Basically, it felt like even though I was getting all the buffs I could be, I just had nothing that could go toe-to-toe with any of his units, in either shooting or combat phases. It was mad. 

Any thoughts? Maybe I could have gone after his heroes to reduce the buffs on his armour etc, but then my alpha strikes would be gone, and their regular armour makes most shooting pretty useless. 

I’m also struggling to use maneouverability at all well - when you can only realm wander 1 unit per turn it’s not like you can suddenly flank with a viable group of units, and no one unit in the army is strong enough to threaten even one unit of their battle line troops. 

Any thoughts? Army lists below for reference:

Mine:

Nomad Prince (Starcaster, Hidden Paths)

Waystrider

Wayfinder

Waywatcher

2x spellweaver (endless spells: shackles + pendulum)

30GG

20EG 

5SoT

10WWR

SCE:

++ **Pitched Battle** 2,000 (Order - Stormcast Eternals) [1500pts] ++

+ Leader +

Knight-Zephyros [100pts]: 1. Blade of Symmetry

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-charger [240pts]: 2. Aethereal Stalker, 4. Azyrite Halo, 5. Staunch Defender, General

Lord-Castellant [100pts]

+ Artillery +

Celestar Ballista [100pts]

+ Battleline +

Judicators [160pts]: 5 Judicators, Skybolt Bow

Judicators [160pts]: 5 Judicators, Skybolt Bow

Sequitors [240pts]: 2x 5 Sequitors, 4x Stormsmite Greatmace, Stormsmite Greatmace (Sequitor-Prime), Tempest Blade and Soulshield

+ Other +

Evocators [200pts]: 2. Celestial Blades, 5 Evocators, Grandstave, 4x Tempest Blade and Stormstave

Vanguard-Palladors [200pts]: 3 Vanguard-Palladors, Starstrike Javelin

+ Allegiance +

Allegiance: Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals

+ Game Options +

Game Type: 2000 Points - Battlehost

+ Realm of Origin +

Realm of Origin: Origin: Hysh

++ Total: [1500pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

[adreal]

Hidden paths is pretty average now, waystrider and finder are not waywatchers, who are awesome.

As nice as bodkins is, sisters of the watch put out more consistant damage over a game.

Outside of the battalion you have no way of choosing your alpha strike

[DionTheWanderer]

Yeah - I don’t have a huge flexibility on what units I pick for my list, as I’m limited to what I own! I bought my army based on having a wide range of units to paint, naievely assuming that the points values would mean they were vaguely balanced. I’m not trying to be tournament competitive, or even to win that much - would just like games at my local club where the outcome isn’t obvious from turn 1. 

I’m thinking about SOTW to make me up to 2k with the battalion, but it annoys me that I’ll have to nominate my WW as general. Does that actually matter, tactcially? Also they cost a fortune. 

I guess it was just a bit dispiriting to see an army of the same points values be better in every department - shooting, combat, armour. They even held their own in terms of speed and magic!

I’ve had close games against some death armies - but ones that are mainly old WHFB armies rather than AoS ones. Every time I’ve played an actual AoS army the outcome has been clear  by the end of turn 1. 

Anyway, bad workman blames his tools and all that, and I’m hoping I get better with practice - but my memories of playing 40k and WHFB are of much more balanced games.

Edited September 27, 2018 by DionTheWanderer

[adreal]

It's not that we are hugely below the power curve, it's that we cannot hold up in the strait up fight.

 

In 2.0 the waywatcher being your general means little, as with enough command points any hero can use thier command ability. That being said the waywatchers -1 to hit for all wanderer units within 18" is very good.

I understand about only being able to field what you own,  it sucks if you buy, paint and enjoy a model, and it's just not great (wayfinder, I'm looking at you) but there are options available to us.

The battalion is a great option for picking your alpha strikes.

Being able to fall back and still shoot is a huge boon for units of glade guard, granted they will most likly die in combat but it's a nice option

[GM_Monkey]

This is the reality of the AoS, the older non battletome forces sometimes struggle against the battletome forces. Especially the Stormcast who can now do everything better (Tanker, fighter, shooter, magicer etc).

The one thing I would say is you army list while good in it's varity lacks a solid punch. This usually comes from the SotW, Waywatchers and Wildwood Rangers. You have a lot of points in magic (420) so 33%ish of your army is non fighty magic which will put you at a disadvantage, especially without the Viridescent Shawl.

Personnaly I would think about dropping the Sister of the Thorn and 1 spell weaver and then investing in either more Wildwood rangers for a faster striking melee army or more Sister of the Watch to get the fire power you need to shoot off opponents units. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by GM_Monkey

[GM_Monkey]

5 minutes ago, adreal said:

....

Being able to fall back and still shoot is a huge boon for units of glade guard, granted they will most likly die in combat but it's a nice option

I find that even at units of 30, I'm losing so many in combat that the rest battleshock off the field leaving me with no chance to retreat as everyone has died or ran away. I've been trying to use the Sister of the Watch as a mobile striking unit and then take the charge to see if they'll survive longer with they're better save and overwatch volley.

[adreal]

It depends on what charges really, but we also get reroll battleshock tests, which is nice

[DionTheWanderer]

31 minutes ago, GM_Monkey said:

I find that even at units of 30, I'm losing so many in combat that the rest battleshock off the field leaving me with no chance to retreat as everyone has died or ran away. I've been trying to use the Sister of the Watch as a mobile striking unit and then take the charge to see if they'll survive longer with they're better save and overwatch volley.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that the twist card for our game meant no battleshock tests - favouring me. That basically meant that 6/30 GG survived getting charged, ran away and spent the rest of the game watching their arrows bounce uselessly off armour...

[DionTheWanderer]

1 hour ago, GM_Monkey said:

 

The one thing I would say is you army list while good in it's varity lacks a solid punch. This usually comes from the SotW, Waywatchers and Wildwood Rangers. You have a lot of points in magic (420) so 33%ish of your army is non fighty magic which will put you at a disadvantage, especially without the Viridescent Shawl.

Personnaly I would think about dropping the Sister of the Thorn and 1 spell weaver and then investing in either more Wildwood rangers for a faster striking melee army or more Sister of the Watch to get the fire power you need to shoot off opponents units. 

Yeah - I’m loath to drop units because that’s £50 and countless hours of painting that’s gone into them! I feel it should be possible to have a casual, points balanced game where I can defend 1/3 objectives for 5 turns without having to carefully list optimise! If you can’t do that, the points balancing is broken. 

I agree it’s a bit magic heavy - I went that way deliberately because I hoped that endless spells would have the same “new shiny toy” overpowering that the stormcast seem to have. Hopefully I can use them better in future. I’ll add the shawl when I put in a battalion. 

Edited September 27, 2018 by DionTheWanderer

[GM_Monkey]

Don't drop them yet, but maybe consider what you want to fill out your next 500 points to get it up to 2000. I think you need some killy units, so maybe 20 Sisters of the Watch to take you to 1860. Then you could proxy the Wayfinder as a Waywatcher so 1880 points. Then you could add 10 more Glade Guard split your GG into 2 units of 20 and meet the battle line or you could take a unit of 5 wild riders to back up the Wildwood rangers. That makes you a clean 2000 with you style of Killy magic. Could work well.

End of the day just go with want you enjoy to paint and play with.

[DionTheWanderer]

6 minutes ago, GM_Monkey said:

Don't drop them yet, but maybe consider what you want to fill out your next 500 points to get it up to 2000. I think you need some killy units, so maybe 20 Sisters of the Watch to take you to 1860. Then you could proxy the Wayfinder as a Waywatcher so 1880 points. Then you could add 10 more Glade Guard split your GG into 2 units of 20 and meet the battle line or you could take a unit of 5 wild riders to back up the Wildwood rangers. That makes you a clean 2000 with you style of Killy magic. Could work well.

End of the day just go with want you enjoy to paint and play with.

Thanks for the advice - that’s very helpful. It means missing out on the battalion though. 

What I might do is try a few games with battalion (+shawl), 5 wild riders (which are half painted) and 10 more glade guard.

Then can add models to make 2000 without the battalion once I know the army a bit better.

I need to make/paint a lord on dragon for a narrative tournament, which might give me some fun options too. Soporific breath + WWR + Nomad Prince sounds like a neat combination.

Good shout proxying WF as WW if needed. 

I’m sure there are options. I’m also thinking things like movement trays to make my GG less of an ****** to move around. 2x units of 20 might even be easier to get into range. I’m pretty sure clever movement, even with the nerf to realm wandering, is the key to beating most armies, many of which rely on getting into combat ASAP or a gun line approach where chaff shields vulnerable units.

Stormcast are one of the most internally balanced armies, by design I guess, so hardest to try and exploit weaknesses. 

 

[adreal]

There is also the option of going general order (glade guard are battleline) and taking a hurricanium,  which adds a +1 to hit for order units

[DionTheWanderer]

10 hours ago, adreal said:

There is also the option of going general order (glade guard are battleline) and taking a hurricanium,  which adds a +1 to hit for order units

Ah, the old 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' approach. 

[adreal]

It's an option, not one that I run with myself, as I like the battalion  drop mechanism, but its there

[Aloth_Corfiser]

Regarding Tactics:
Currently I am on the way to complete my List by using the Pathfinder Battalion.

However Dion as you said: A Gunline approach could also be viable and if I had to build one it would be in allying in Dryads.  Sisters of the Watch and / or Glade Guard behind them shielded by an Archmage and Sisters of the Thorn. 
I kinda want to try it out since Dryads have bigger bases^^
The Archmage actually saved a handful of lives preventing all the Damage coming from a trio of Plaguedrones  and saved my SotW - then the next game he always failed to cast anything.  I just like him.
Do you think an Archmage in general is worth his Points?

[GM_Monkey]

On 9/29/2018 at 8:38 AM, Aloth_Corfiser said:

Regarding Tactics:
....
Do you think an Archmage in general is worth his Points?

100 points for a 6+ ward save, I don't see it myself. He is fairly bad at everything else. Also with the new realm rules I'm finding myself using more and more realm spells that usually include a few buff spells.

Personnally I would stick with the spell weaver and 1 auto dis-spell a game.

[DionTheWanderer]

Has anyone else noticed that a few of the Hidden Agendas are pretty straightforward if one can realm-wander? Particularly with Stalker of the Hidden Paths?

 

[Origin]

Tourney Report!

I recently attended the Sydney GT with my Wanderers.  70 players, 5 rounds over 2 days.  Had a blast, I'll go into each game in a bit of detail below but my bite sized take home summary is:

- 10+ drops sucks. Never had the chance for first turn
- Having 1 CP is a pain in the ******.
- Teleporting a single unit a turn completely redefines our army
- Waywatchers are better than sliced bread
- Shooting doesn't score objectives
- I never remember to take photos

Sydney GT was held in Sylvannia (Southern Sydney) during the MOAB Convention. The venue was great, food was efficient and filling in not tasty and the people were awesome. I had 5 good games with almost no issues. I managed to finish in 25th place with 1 Major and 2 Minor wins with 2 Major losses. I'm pretty happy with the result, I know Wanderers are well behind the curve so a lot would have had to go right for them to do well.

My List

Prince - Shawl
Spellweaver
3 x Waywatchers (1 was general with Eagle Eye)
Frostheart Pheonix
30 GG
20 SotW
20 EG
10 EG
5 SotT
1970 points

Game 1 - Bloody and Glory vs Chaos Dwarves

Played against Richard from Lords of Liverpool. He was rocking trip Magma cannons with a Daemon Smith, 40 warriors and a whole stack of Bull-ogor-centaurs in a battalion. I was ithcing to get some 2+ to wound here with my SotW and they didn't disappoint. Richard castled his Cannons in one corner, holding an objective with his dwarfs screening looking to drive down to my objective, held opposite by 20 EG. He then set his centaurs up to charge me off the board. I answered with as much of my army out of range of those cannons aiming to roll his flank and shoot him back to his cannon held objective and win 3-1 for the minor. And that is exactly what happened. The GG had an epic alpha with teleport up the flank, the Frosty played roadblock/wound sponge and the SotW and WW just ground everything off the board from else off the board from there. I felt the pinch here in not having anything capable of clearing an objective in the combat phase.

Minor win to the Wanderers, a good start.

Game 2 - Places of Arcane Power vs Stormcast

Faced Jordan, the only player to buy me a beer, legend, little did i know it was a pity beer. Jordan was rocking 2 Fulminators, 10 Sequitors, warding lantern, Knight-incantor, Lord-Arcanum, 2 units of Judicators and some Protectors and Decimators in a hammer strike battalion.  I knew this scenario was rough for me, only having 20 wounds with a poor save worth of wizards and relic wielding Prince, making scoring difficult.  It didn't help that I played like a total spud. I deployed my SotT and Frosty too aggressively which left them open too a 1st turn charge from the Protectors, and from there the two units just ground each other to dust. But frosty was not where needed to be, EG cannot hold up against Fulminators and Decimators for long and I very quickly had my shooting elements in combat. I was promptly tabled... Sad panda

Major loss for the Wanderers

Game 3 - Starstrike vs Kunnin' Ruk

Played against Jett, a nice young dude with a love for rolling a lot of dice.  I had never played against kunning ruk before, I never knew orcs could shoot better than we do. Jett had a stack of characters, a unit of bows, a unit of clubs, 10 orcs on pigs and some chaff cav of some sort. He got first turn, buffed the orcs on  pigs and 1st turn charged. For some daft reason I decided to screen with my SotW here, delusions of overwatch and the EG charging up the field to hold objectives I think. The SotW got their overwatch and then died. Luckily I was not so much of a spud to deploy in a way to allow the pigs to do more damage than the 20 wounds worth of Sisters. They had the dice to do it. The Frosty flew up and locked down the archers. From there it elementary, could I kill enough to get him off his and the middle objective. I killed a lot of green dudes but not quite enough. The Waywatchers were epic here, regularly achieving 8 wounds with 6 shots. Legends. But not enough for a win

Major loss for the Wanderers 

Game 4 - Relocation Orb, aka, Capture Bob vs Tomb Kings

I faced Ranjith and his chariot heavy Tomb Kings lead by Settra. I just going to say this once, Settra with the ethereal amulet is a ******.  That being said this was a great game, probably my best for the event. So much fun. Ranjith had Settra, a necrotech, a priest, a herald, 2 small blocks of skeles some ushabti and a unit of 9 Chariots! 9! Such a champion, long live the glorious charge of bone chariots. They didn't live long. He got first turn charge the front unit of 10 EG, clipped the 20 man unit of EG and then didn't kill the 10. Pile ins lost some of his charge attacks and the EG were in cover. They held with half the unit remaining. Mental.  I then shoot the unit off the board in a turn. He could not believe it 45 wounds of chariots gone in a turn. Anyway, this was a super close game with lots of orb bouncing and screen unit screening. It went to his side and then mine and in the end he managed to FLY a unit of skeles over my lines to cap the orb where I then needed to half shoot the unit dead and charge onto the objective with GG, they needed 6", they had 5"... No CP to re-roll. That cost me the major win. 

Minor Win to the Wanderers

Game 5 - Focal Points vs Bretonnians

Yep, first Tomb Kings and now Bretonnians. What was going on? Nostalgia Sunday. This was all decided on turn 1. Paul was rocking 4 units of knights, King on Hippogryph, Duke on Pegasus with sword of judgement, Enchantress and a damsel with some unwashed peasants on horses. Paul got first turn, Cast cogs put all his buffs up unopposed and prepared to charge into the thin line of EG protecting my archers. He had +2 to move and charge, rolling 3D6 pick the highest with re-rolls to charge. One unit made it... They were 9-10" charges but still, poor ******. I then shot half his knights off the board. The Frosty made use of cogs moving 18" turn one, rolling box cars for his charge (14" baby!) and then ending up behind his grail knights chewing through his enchantress. EG held the line and locked down the remaining knights while the archers made pin cushions of the poor old knights. I was free from turn 3 to cap objectives unopposed.

Major win for the Wanderers

I'm happy with how I went overall. Outside of some serious spud moves Game 2 and a few questionable antics from a certain Kunnin' Ruk the event was pretty solid.  Had a blast.

I really felt the pain with never having the option for 1st turn. I really could have used an extra CP so I spent a bit of time during my games thinking about our Battalion, and despite the above issues there was no game where I felt the first turn deployment would have been helpful, in fact it would have been a hindrance. I would have lost board control and most likely pulled myself out of position to maximise that alpha strike. One unit teleporting a turn sucks. And it does not suck a little bit, it sucks a lot.

Prior to AoS2 I was confident that with solid play and lucky match ups I could finish top 10 in a major event. There is zero chance of that now. We have become a static gun-line army and there are better gun-lines out there. Shooting does not cap objectives, if a wanderers army cannot shoot the opponent off the board in 2 turns you lose. Really, you could run 3 waywatchers, 30 GG and SotT in a mixed order list and you'd have all the strength of a Wanderers army with a bunch of other stuff that can do everything else better than we can. So it is with regret that I will put them up on the shelf for a while, hoping that a sneaky battletome drops to breathe new life into my beloved Wanderers.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Origin

[adreal]

Wait wait wait, there is another wanderers player in Australia, wow.

While I agree that wanderers are not top tier, I have had success in local environments (skyre mortal wound spam, legion of sacrament with a unit of 4 morghast and Arkhan, nuln aterilary with a hurricanium, stupid seraphon with massive rerolls on all monsters and a min of 11 summon points a turn) using the battalion where I feel I lost due to being newer to the game and not deploying to take objectives.

 

Just food for thought but the battalion and 2 units of eternal guard can fit into 2k as a 3 drop list, might be worth considering

[fued]

4 hours ago, Origin said:

Tourney Report!

I recently attended the Sydney GT with my Wanderers.  70 players, 5 rounds over 2 days.  Had a blast, I'll go into each game in a bit of detail below but my bite sized take home summary is:

Played against Richard from Lords of Liverpool. He was rocking trip Magma cannons with a Daemon Smith, 40 warriors and a whole stack of Bull-ogor-centaurs in a battalion.

was an awesome game, i deployed incredably poorly and you took full advantage of it, i learnt a lot

you are the only player i didn't table, so you were doing something right haha

Edited October 3, 2018 by fued

[Origin]

8 hours ago, fued said:

was an awesome game, i deployed incredably poorly and you took full advantage of it, i learnt a lot

you are the only player i didn't table, so you were doing something right haha

Hey buddy! Yeah the castle up hurt you a bit.

You still finished above me overall however, must have been doing something right... 

[GM_Monkey]

Played Tzeentch last night, and although I didn't win I tabled him on turn 4 and was only 2 victory points behind 17 to 15 so felt pretty good about the match, and my pure Wanderers army actually held their own.

The battleplan was shifting objectives, so I deployed most of my army as a gun line with a screen of 20 Eternal Guard out in front. This was 12" from the object line. I then deployed the Wild riders, 10 Eternal Guard and my Waystrider off the table. I could then make him go first and he was forced to move up the table to take the objectives and surprising I was out of range of most of his skyfires so only lost 1 SotT. So on my turn 1 I could move up and was within reach of main force of Tzaangors, which I wiped off the table. I also brought the realm wanders force on behind his Skyfires and had  3 chances (with the 3 units) to charge his skyfires and tie them up in combat.

Overall I felt really good about the army and how it played (if I wasn't drinking so much beer I might have been able to contest the objectives a bit more earlier). The protective volley worked really well and cleared out his Lord of Change leaving me to finish up his Curseling in the shooting phase. The screenign Eternal Guard did their job but I had to use a command point to keep 5 of them on from battle shock. The Sister of the Watch did most of the heaving lifting with their 2+ to wound is just amazing.

One thing was however, we had rolled to play in the realm of fire so all missile weapons had +1 rend which as you can imagine really helped me out. Plus some of the spells where just nasty.

[DionTheWanderer]

Question: is there ever a circumstance under which you’d use precise shots rather than fast shots for a waywatcher?

Also - where in the books are the rules of 1? My understanding is that they prevent the waywatchers fast shots from cascading (ie new attacks can’t themselves spawn new attacks) but I can’t check that. 

[Origin]

@DionTheWanderer

Page 239 of the core book, second paragraph. Buried in the warscroll discription regarding unit abilities. 

And I have only used fast shots the extra dice equates to extra damage in my mind. 

[adreal]

Yeah I could never see a reason for anything other then fast shots