New Stormcast... sweet baby jesus this is powerful stuff.

[Kramer]

32 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Just take BOBO as an example.  Top three was Stormcast, then Khorne (wait what I thought they were garbage /s), then a list with four dragons...

It's pretty obvious that these are armies that each of the players had considerable experience with rather than being "power lists." 

Even at the height of Tzeentch "dominance" the guys who were winning with them played them religiously.  Certainly they were strong, but knowing your army is worth far more than the list itself.  

Excactly my point indeed. When at that highest level people seem so fond of comparing with it’s just not good enough to have the ‘go to’ lists if you don’t have the skills to back it up. Looking at the cancon top 10 (100+ player tournament in Australia*) there where just as many dispossessed and fyreslayer lists as maggot kin lists. If we call dispossessed ‘lower tier’ shouldn’t maggotkin be the same.? Also if we put too much value on the strength of the Faction it kind of takes away from the player  

* selected because it was first  to find a top 10 by factions n

[Richelieu]

11 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Excactly my point indeed. When at that highest level people seem so fond of comparing with it’s just not good enough to have the ‘go to’ lists if you don’t have the skills to back it up. Looking at the cancon top 10 (100+ player tournament in Australia*) there where just as many dispossessed and fyreslayer lists as maggot kin lists. If we call dispossessed ‘lower tier’ shouldn’t maggotkin be the same.? Also if we put too much value on the strength of the Faction it kind of takes away from the player  

* selected because it was first  to find a top 10 by factions n

Further proof: I think that tournament was the one where the winner used an 8 Dracothian guard list, i.e. the opposite of a netlist.  

[Kramer]

21 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

Further proof: I think that tournament was the one where the winner used an 8 Dracothian guard list, i.e. the opposite of a netlist.  

Indeed!

[ledha]

It was an australian tournament, where the Meta is quite... soft. And the stormcast player didn't faced a single tzeentch or fyreslayer list, but two aetherstrike force that his list hard countered to oblivion.
And it's funny to pick this tournament where it's the only one where dispossessed made a good result and the only one where a non vanguard wing stormcast won a tournament. It's more the exception than the rule

[Richelieu]

6 minutes ago, ledha said:

It was an australian tournament, where the Meta is quite... soft. And the stormcast player didn't faced a single tzeentch or fyreslayer list, but two aetherstrike force that his list hard countered to oblivion.
And it's funny to pick this tournament where it's the only one where dispossessed made a good result and the only one where a non vanguard wing stormcast won a tournament. It's more the exception than the rule

There is an element of luck in any tournament.  Tzeentch lists in 1.0 had to make it through the entire tournament without facing a KO clown car.  As far as dispossessed go, don't forget that many of the successful mixed order Phoenix lists used dispossessed for battle line, so there's obviously potential.  

I would have to check, but I'm pretty sure the Les Martin™ stardrake list won a major tournament or two.  

[Matador]

Hey Richy, Noz, etc..  This wasn't an attack on SCE players or even SCE, just an acknowledgment that the new book has a great deal of power creep and amazing synergies and enormous selection available in it that suggests that the direction GW is going after the 2.0 reset is different and that until the other new books come out for each faction that the number of competitive options for each army will be more limited as we will have to stick close to the meta options for them if we want to compete. None of that is your fault as SCE players and none of it is an attack on you or suggest that your victories will be undercut. Just that the game is changing and the power levels are jumping.

So please refrain from being so defensive guys, there's no need for you to feel that you have to, because it's not an attack, and I can't wait to see how jacked-up with power all of our armies will be by this time next year. 

 

Cheers!   

[Luke1705]

On 7/30/2018 at 12:51 AM, Freejack02 said:

What did you find that was so much more powerful than other battletomes/factions? Curious to know what you think is OP compared to what the SCE players do. Sequitors and Evocators are very strong - I don't think anyone will argue otherwise - but nothing else in terms of new units really jumped out at me. Gavriel should have had his CA limited to 1/turn, being able to stack guaranteed charges is a little ridiculous and a lot of the theorycrafted lists around here are focused on that. The Stormhost options are cool, but now that they limited their abuse with the latest FAQ - combined with the fact that you are forced to take (usually) sub-optimal artefacts and command traits balances them fairly well. The change to Scions was welcome, and while I do think that Shock and Awe was a little unnecessary given how versatile and useful Scions already was - I don't find it overpowered. 

I mean yeah the Evocators, Sequitors, and Gavriel basically just won a GT...with no other help. Definitely the cult of new at work here

[Luke1705]

Also Cancon was a LONG time ago.  Feels like an eternity

[Gotrek]

9 hours ago, Bradipo322 said:

He is a "standard" Stormcast hero, they all have 7 wounds if they have are riding a beast, they all have a save of 3+, all griph-chargers have a move of 12", he DOES NOT resurrect models, the grenade is situational and will likely kill the model, arcane bolt is good and the healing is useless except on other heroes and he can cast only one of these at a time.

He isn't bad but depending on the points that you're playing on he can be limiting.

1) "Instead of removing the slain model, heal 1 wound allocated to it". Technically not resurrection but close enough. Yes its limited in that it cant replenish units like deathly invocation, but its better in that it can affect any unit thats not himself.

2) depends on if you use the grenade as a "well hes gonna die anyway" or as a final blow. I had a vampire lord on zombie dragon get killed by this guy and an incantor popping their grenades while he was damaged from a fight with evocators. 

3) like all wizards you have to make choices for what spell to cast. Yes hes a single caster. Most wizards are.

4) "depending on the points you are playing at" this applies to literally EVERY hero. For general purposes i am assuming a 2k game. And in that 2k game you are paying a whole 20 points more than a celestant on dracoth and getting a lot more out of him than the celestant. 

Again, hes just good. Not a tax.

[DanielFM]

18 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

1) "Instead of removing the slain model, heal 1 wound allocated to it". Technically not resurrection but close enough. Yes its limited in that it cant replenish units like deathly invocation, but its better in that it can affect any unit thats not himself.

Any turn in which no model dies with the exact number of wounds, it's useless. Because excess wounds are suffered after the "resurrection".

Not a great ability at all. Situational, at most.

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, DanielFM said:

Any turn in which no model dies with the exact number of wounds, it's useless. Because excess wounds are suffered after the "resurrection".

Not a great ability at all. Situational, at most.

You can still use it as a buffer. For example: i deal 3 damage to a squad of sequitors. 1 dies, you use the ability to bring him back and he dies again, but no one else in the unit takes damage.

[Bradipo322]

1 hour ago, Gotrek said:

You can still use it as a buffer. For example: i deal 3 damage to a squad of sequitors. 1 dies, you use the ability to bring him back and he dies again, but no one else in the unit takes damage.

But still this is not that good, you can do it only once each turn, it is just a trash ability and it's there more for "flavour" than anything else.

[Richelieu]

6 minutes ago, Bradipo322 said:

But still this is not that good, you can do it only once each turn, it is just a trash ability and it's there more for "flavour" than anything else.

It's not spectacular, but it's pretty solid for keeping elite units fighting at strength for longer, which can turn the tide of a fight.  

[Richelieu]

4 hours ago, Luke1705 said:

I mean yeah the Evocators, Sequitors, and Gavriel basically just won a GT...with no other help. Definitely the cult of new at work here

Ummmm, no, Jack Armstrong won the GT and he won it because he's played stormcast forever.  Of course it's a good list, but if it was just the list, then why weren't stormcast 2 and 3 as well?  Tired of these comments always blaming lists.  The people at the top are all dedicated players and that's why they won.  Go to a GT yourself and you'll see the same lists at the bottom tables as are at the top.  

[Killamike]

Yep, total truth @Richelieu. People seem to think that a list or army is the end of competitive discussion. 

The same people are at the top. They are the common denominator. 

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, Bradipo322 said:

But still this is not that good, you can do it only once each turn, it is just a trash ability and it's there more for "flavour" than anything else.

You're delusional if you think the Lord arcanum is a bad buy. He's got the offense and defense to mix it up in melee with almost anything that's not a behemoth and is an incredibly versatile caster on top. All for a mere 240pts. I'm done trying to explain to you that the sky is blue, you can be as wrong as you want. 

[Luke1705]

1 hour ago, Richelieu said:

Ummmm, no, Jack Armstrong won the GT and he won it because he's played stormcast forever.  Of course it's a good list, but if it was just the list, then why weren't stormcast 2 and 3 as well?  Tired of these comments always blaming lists.  The people at the top are all dedicated players and that's why they won.  Go to a GT yourself and you'll see the same lists at the bottom tables as are at the top.  

No disrespect to Jack; I’m sure he’s an excellent player. My point is that he took the new units because they’re better than the old ones. If they weren’t, he would have taken those

[Mark Williams]

Where is this GT list? Can we see the specific break down of what he took?

Edit: Nevermind, found it. https://aosshorts.com/bravery-one-british-open-bobo-2018/

I was particularly interested in the wound counts. 148 wounds. He seems to be using skinks to zone out the board and deal with SCE's flaw of not having board protection.

[Richelieu]

10 minutes ago, Mark Williams said:

Where is this GT list? Can we see the specific break down of what he took?

I gave @Luke1705 a hard time, but he's not terribly wrong.  Sequitors are better than liberators and Evocators are better than Paladins.  Coming back to the original thread topic, however, I don't think these two units make the entire tome ultra powerful (though I've said before I think they're top tier). 

You can find Jack's list here: https://aosshorts.com/bravery-one-british-open-bobo-2018/

It's pretty on par with lists that have been discussed in the SCE thread.  

[DanielFM]

4 hours ago, Gotrek said:

You're delusional if you think the Lord arcanum is a bad buy. He's got the offense and defense to mix it up in melee with almost anything that's not a behemoth and is an incredibly versatile caster on top. All for a mere 240pts. I'm done trying to explain to you that the sky is blue, you can be as wrong as you want. 

You are quoting him wrong here. He wrote that the ability is bad. Which it is.

"Buffering" one wound? That's abysmal compared to the "heal 1d3 wounds" Death has in spades. Extremely weak to be even accounted for in his price. Only when you are able to save a whole model from death it's respectable, and then in the unlikely case it was a powerful model, it's strong. Not like the opponent can't finish off the model with a single MW left in his toolbox, anyway.

[Gotrek]

11 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

You are quoting him wrong here. He wrote that the ability is bad. Which it is.

"Buffering" one wound? That's abysmal compared to the "heal 1d3 wounds" Death has in spades. Extremely weak to be even accounted for in his price. Only when you are able to save a whole model from death it's respectable, and then in the unlikely case it was a powerful model, it's strong. Not like the opponent can't finish off the model with a single MW left in his toolbox, anyway.

And deaths said healing only applies to summonable units. Whereas the Lord arcanum's ability applies to ANY stormcast model. This argument started over someone (apparently not the person I last responded to. At some point I stopped paying attention to that bit and I apologize for that) stating that the arcanum was a "tax " and that's why the sequiturs are so much better than liberators. I've been maintaining that the Lord arcanum is straight up value regardless of the circumstances. My position stands and I'll be honest with you. Give that ****** the vampire keyword and I'll take 2 for my legions army.

[Bradipo322]

7 hours ago, Gotrek said:

You're delusional if you think the Lord arcanum is a bad buy. He's got the offense and defense to mix it up in melee with almost anything that's not a behemoth and is an incredibly versatile caster on top. All for a mere 240pts. I'm done trying to explain to you that the sky is blue, you can be as wrong as you want. 

But I never stated that the Lord-Arcanum on Griph Charger is a bad in any way. All I said is that he is perfectly in line with other Stormast heroes and then I stated that the abilities that makes him "crazy strong" and not just a tax that you have to pay to field Sequitors aren't that exceptional.

I suggest to you to play him and other Stormcast Heroes, then you will see what I mean.

Is a Lord-Arcanum (any of them) bad? No.

Is a Lord-Arcanum a tax to have to pay to get a crazy good battleline? Yes (tecnically anything that you "have to play to play something else" is a tax, even if he is good).

[Gotrek]

58 minutes ago, Bradipo322 said:

But I never stated that the Lord-Arcanum on Griph Charger is a bad in any way. All I said is that he is perfectly in line with other Stormast heroes and then I stated that the abilities that makes him "crazy strong" and not just a tax that you have to pay to field Sequitors aren't that exceptional.

I suggest to you to play him and other Stormcast Heroes, then you will see what I mean.

Is a Lord-Arcanum (any of them) bad? No.

Is a Lord-Arcanum a tax to have to pay to get a crazy good battleline? Yes (tecnically anything that you "have to play to play something else" is a tax, even if he is good).

Ive been on the receiving end of him. Several times.  And yes, he is comparable to other stormcast heroes, I've compared him in one of my posts to the celestant on dracoth. They're very similar, except the arcanum is 20pts more and is a wizard.

My pushback on the idea that he is a tax is that "tax" is generally a negative term. A penalty, a suboptimal choice (hence why good battleline units arent usually considered a tax while bad ones are. The stats on the good ones make them attractive enough to bring regardless). The arcanum is none of those. Hes a tax in the same way that the khorne lord on juggernaut is a tax to get skullcrushers. Juggerlord isnt a bad buy either and unlocks a pretty decent battleline (especially with brass stampede), as such i dont consider the juggerlord to be a tax.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, Gotrek said:

My pushback on the idea that he is a tax is that "tax" is generally a negative term. A penalty, a suboptimal choice (hence why good battleline units arent usually considered a tax while bad ones are. The stats on the good ones make them attractive enough to bring regardless). 

Thank you.

I really wish certain terms that seem to have caught on over the years had not. Tax, meta, and others are at best lazy short cuts for better terms that already exist, and at worst factually inaccurate usages that serve to confuse or to bring in connotations that should not be present.

 

On the subject at hand -

I don't know Jack or his reasons for using the units he did, but I would suggest that maybe the reason a veteran Stormcast/tournament player such as he would use the new units might not necessarily be because they are straight up better. Perhaps the joy of using new toys is a factor as well.

[blueshirtman]

On 7/31/2018 at 4:34 PM, Kramer said:

Also if we put too much value on the strength of the Faction it kind of takes away from the player

Well some truths aren't nice. You don't see top players winning event after event with their ogor+BCR lists, because that is the army they like. Skill becomes a non factor at the highest level of play. what matters is first how tiered both players are, if any of the lists hardcounters the other in the given scenario for the round and the last most important thing is some dice luck skew.

 

8 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Tax, meta, and others are at best lazy short cuts for better terms that already exist, and at worst factually inaccurate usages that serve to confuse or to bring in connotations that should not be present.

Well, but stuff like being forced to take a sub part relic is a tax. The only thing some people don't seem to agree on, is if the new sequitor unlocker is good or bad. Because if he is good, the  with the phalanx buffs and the duality of sequitors potential use, the only tax is the cost of taking the phalanx.