Balancing the Stormcast

[XReN]

5 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

What makes Cleansing Phalanx not terrible? Rather steep cost for what we might get if we don't fail a cast.

For me it seems really cheap and features units you are getting anyway to be competetive

[Black Blade]

7 hours ago, schwabbele said:

What makes Cleansing Phalanx not terrible? Rather steep cost for what we might get if we don't fail a cast.

I see it as 50 for a command point 50 for an artifact and another 20 for a maybe effect as you say depending on the casting. Factor in the two units required are a bit undercosted/overpowered (Sequitors mostly) and it evens out in my book. 

[kenshin620]

To be a little fair, it is not just SCE that suffer from internal balance. LoN has a lot too, though that also could be caused by lack of shooting so all their units are a different flavor of "hit in melee".

For example zombies, fell bats, bat swarms basically see no play. Grave Guard were barely playable, even if Battleline in Grand Host, and then Grimghast Reapers kind of took their job. Blood Knights really need that +1 attack buff from LoB, otherwise are usually a pass. Wight Kings are probably more useful as paper weights. And then theres their Battalions which are very limited (usually involving bringing a Mortarch so very few of them can be used in generic leader lists).

 

Anyways maybe Stormcast 2019 book will fix things. I'd actually be very surprised if there wasn't a book next year. ?

 

 

[3Xhume]

I have been telling this on facebook group and going to tell it here too.

Games Workshop is a ******** for doing so. I mean to sell models by ultimately create imbalance to the rules just because they are the owner of the game and that makes them the game master.

Power creep is fine but do not clearly invalidate older models. Pricehike is also fine as price is previledge of the product owner. Nobody is forcing people to buy GW products.

What is not fine is that completely nerf older models just because it was already selling well! This hobby was not just about the money to purchase the models, but the commitment and passion to finish modeling and painting the army. How many hours of work and compassion has been poured to an army only to know that i) your minis sucks now, ii) please purchase more to catch up again, iii) rinse and repeat!

 

I think many people (like me) is having love and hate relationship with games workshop due to their business policy.

[Black Blade]

2 minutes ago, 3Xhume said:

I have been telling this on facebook group and going to tell it here too.

Games Workshop is a ******** for doing so. I mean to sell models by ultimately create imbalance to the rules just because they are the owner of the game and that makes them the game master.

Power creep is fine but do not clearly invalidate older models. Pricehike is also fine as price is previledge of the product owner. Nobody is forcing people to buy GW products.

What is not fine is that completely nerf older models just because it was already selling well! This hobby was not just about the money to purchase the models, but the commitment and passion to finish modeling and painting the army. How many hours of work and compassion has been poured to an army only to know that i) your minis sucks now, ii) please purchase more to catch up again, iii) rinse and repeat!

 

I think many people (like me) is having love and hate relationship with games workshop due to their business policy.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic but I actually don't think they do this. I think there are people there who care about making a quality product. Great models, great story and rules to support those two things come in third in their mind and to be honest 3rd in mine as well. I want balance I think they want balance and I think the play testers want balance. It what youre saying is tue Castigators would be amazing, the Lord Exorcist would be a must take and so on. New things always have a chance to throw a wrench into things, sometimes you get overpowered things but its not because you tried to sabotage your own game.

[AwareTheLegend]

9 hours ago, schwabbele said:

What makes Cleansing Phalanx not terrible? Rather steep cost for what we might get if we don't fail a cast.

I use it on my Tempest Lords list. Lord Arc on Grph uses his command ability to guarantee Empower from the Evocators onto the Sequitors plus you can get back all the CP. I grab the relic from Hysh for CP spending so technically for every CP spent I can get back 2 CP on a 5+.

[PJetski]

Just now, AwareTheLegend said:

I use it on my Tempest Lords list. Lord Arc on Grph uses his command ability to guarantee Empower from the Evocators onto the Sequitors plus you can get back all the CP. I grab the relic from Hysh for CP spending so technically for every CP spent I can get back 2 CP on a 5+.

And what do you do with all those command points...?

Command Points are only as useful as what you spend them on.

[kenshin620]

6 minutes ago, Black Blade said:

Maybe I'm just being optimistic but I actually don't think they do this. I think there are people there who care about making a quality product. Great models, great story and rules to support those two things come in third in their mind and to be honest 3rd in mine as well. I want balance I think they want balance and I think the play testers want balance. It what youre saying is tue Castigators would be amazing, the Lord Exorcist would be a must take and so on. New things always have a chance to throw a wrench into things, sometimes you get overpowered things but its not because you tried to sabotage your own game.

I think the problem is that you either get 2 extremes with new releases.

1. The new release is good game wise, prompting "they want our money!"

2. The new release is bad, and people complain that GW are a bunch of typewriter primates trying to make Shakespeare.

 

For example I remember when the Centurion Space Marines were released and they were.....not good gaming wise. Having a space marine product (literally the majority of warhammer sales, at least back then) not be good at launch kind of flies in the face of "everything new is designed to sell like hot cakes".

And then there was the Beastmen 7th edition book which was....really not good! Some of the most overpriced Rare slots in the entire game, especially since 2k was the norm so you couldn't fit two 275pt monsters in. It was so bad I think one tournament actually house ruled a 100pt drop for all 3 of the monsters, and that still didn't help them all that much!

[AwareTheLegend]

3 minutes ago, PJetski said:

And what do you do with all those command points...?

Command Points are only as useful as what you spend them on.

I use them to run the full 6" and I usually have Cogs on the board so 8" run. I have a Heraldor to run and charge. The Lord Arc command ability on the Sequitors to let them channel both so they have reroll hits, wounds, and saves. My problem is usually I don't have enough CP for what I want to do.

[3Xhume]

21 minutes ago, Black Blade said:

Maybe I'm just being optimistic but I actually don't think they do this. I think there are people there who care about making a quality product. Great models, great story and rules to support those two things come in third in their mind and to be honest 3rd in mine as well. I want balance I think they want balance and I think the play testers want balance. It what youre saying is tue Castigators would be amazing, the Lord Exorcist would be a must take and so on. New things always have a chance to throw a wrench into things, sometimes you get overpowered things but its not because you tried to sabotage your own game.

Cant you tell that evocators and retributors is too huge of power gap? Compare the warscrolls side by side, then tell me again that the playtesters dont realize this. Seriously a company this huge and has a lot of resources cant realize this? This is intentional.

as for liberators and sequitors, i can somehow try to believe that the playtesters missed this. Because sequitors is 20% more expensive + has to take arcanum tax (but proved to be not a tax).  But personally i still think its still intentional because of the greatmace cap is absurd! 3 greatmace in a unit of 5? Find me another unit in the game that is able to do so while being priced for 120.

Back to retributors and evocators, evoc is faster, same durability, a wizard, killier, longer ranged (grandstave) AND cheaper.

GW is not sabotaging their game, they are simply playing with us in their business game.

Im sorry if i offended someone or any parties, just expressing my thoughts on how GW running their business.

[PJetski]

This has been a great discussion so far, and it has inspired me to write up some proposed changes (attached document)

Goals:
Remove the Staunch Defender crutch by adding it to the Battle Trait as an aura while wholly within 6" of a hero
Reduce point costs of weak/underused units like Celestant Prime, Retributors, Prosecutors, Desolators
Add new unit niches to units lacking purpose like Castigators, Exorcist, Liberators
Improve functionality or significantly reduce the cost of the truly awful battalions
Improve Stormhosts - including a redesign to the Hammers of Sigmar command ability so it is less abusive
Increase list diversity

Let me know what you think!

Stormcast Battletome Changes.pdf

[ledha]

In the end, it remind me of my old topic "rant bout stormcast", except people are now more civil

[Black Blade]

2 hours ago, PJetski said:

This has been a great discussion so far, and it has inspired me to write up some proposed changes (attached document)

Goals:
Remove the Staunch Defender crutch by adding it to the Battle Trait as an aura while wholly within 6" of a hero
Reduce point costs of weak/underused units like Celestant Prime, Retributors, Prosecutors, Desolators
Add new unit niches to units lacking purpose like Castigators, Exorcist, Liberators
Improve functionality or significantly reduce the cost of the truly awful battalions
Improve Stormhosts - including a redesign to the Hammers of Sigmar command ability so it is less abusive
Increase list diversity

Let me know what you think!

Stormcast Battletome Changes.pdf

Right off the bat I want to say I’m not 100 percent with most of your solutions but I want to praise your identification of issues. We see the same problems I just don’t think these are the best methods so let me break it down.

Staunch Defender- I like this one! Not only does address the current abuse it addresses a second issue I have with the faction- lack of battle traits for the faction. I think it’s crazy we are supposed to be the flagship force and we have just two when most other updated factions have 4,5 and 6 in addition to a wheel of some sort making them different in each round. That and one of ours is incredibly situation/useless unless you use a few exploits.

Reduce points cost- Makes sense in most of these cases listed but some units I’d like a redesign/buff as well. Two I want to focus on- the Prime. I’m kind of biased because I don’t like the model or the character as he has been developed but he is our Eidolon, Nagash, Morathi, etc. but he has 8 wounds, isn’t worth his points to start on the board and pretty one note. I saw in the card game he is classified as a warrior wizard and I’d like to see him become a 2 cast wizard and his spell be a “charging power” effect that replaces his current “sit out of the game until I’m worth it” ability and give him at least 10 wounds maybe even 12. Retributors need a point reduction as well as an attacks buff should be 3 standard and maybe a bonus save ability to make them more durable.

Add new unit niches- Not sure exactly what you meant but Castigators are a good example for what I’m thinking. Right now they are supposed to be ghostbuster grenadiers (I stole that one) instead they are short range bow judicators. They should have multiple hit ability to reflect the grenade deal and maybe another channeling option that does mortal wounds but less overall possible wounds than grenades.

Battalions are trash, start from scratch and make them fun to play.

Stormhosts- they need to just give an extra trait and command ability with special but optional command traits and artefact that supports the play style rather than limit it. We shouldn’t be punished for running stormhosts locking us out of the rest of our book for traits and artefacts.

Increase list diversity- this should follow naturally given the other changes. 

Now I'd like to know what you think.
 

Edit: I'm seeing now your pdf was more in depth, please consider my responses but I'm going to dig into this pdf and respond more completely. 

[Sedraxis]

Kudos for trying to improve the faction and of course there is always room for improvements, but there is a lot of "the grass is greener" going on around here.

People are comparing all sorts of other faction bonuses and traits to their own without taking into account the flaws and lack of options of said factions.

Stormcast are in a pretty good place right now. There is room for improvement but trying to bring everything to top-tier level isn't going to make any non-tournament setting any fun. The whole faction is still way above the median as far as factions go.

Please keep that in mind when thinking of improvements. Not everything should be Nagash-level madness.

[XReN]

1 hour ago, Sedraxis said:

Kudos for trying to improve the faction and of course there is always room for improvements, but there is a lot of "the grass is greener" going on around here.

People are comparing all sorts of other faction bonuses and traits to their own without taking into account the flaws and lack of options of said factions.

Stormcast are in a pretty good place right now. There is room for improvement but trying to bring everything to top-tier level isn't going to make any non-tournament setting any fun. The whole faction is still way above the median as far as factions go.

Please keep that in mind when thinking of improvements. Not everything should be Nagash-level madness.

Here we go again
There was a thread on the same topic previously and everybody participating in the discussion are (at least I hope so) aware that other factions have their issues, but that does not mean SCE players should not discuss ours.

[Black Blade]

13 hours ago, Sedraxis said:

Kudos for trying to improve the faction and of course there is always room for improvements, but there is a lot of "the grass is greener" going on around here.

People are comparing all sorts of other faction bonuses and traits to their own without taking into account the flaws and lack of options of said factions.

Stormcast are in a pretty good place right now. There is room for improvement but trying to bring everything to top-tier level isn't going to make any non-tournament setting any fun. The whole faction is still way above the median as far as factions go.

Please keep that in mind when thinking of improvements. Not everything should be Nagash-level madness.

I think if you look at the changes suggested here  and there in this thread you will see its not about becoming the next Legions of Nagash but making our wide range of models viable instead of just the few top tier ones we have. Its about internal balance and options, not dominating the entire scene. I understand your concern though.

[Sedraxis]

12 hours ago, XReN said:

Here we go again
There was a thread on the same topic previously and everybody participating in the discussion are (at least I hope so) aware that other factions have their issues, but that does not mean SCE players should not discuss ours.

Not here to tell you to shut up, just to keep in mind that factions are supposed to have issues a.k.a. flaws and weaknesses. Don't forget the benefits you already have built in others might not have. I want SC to be more flexible and fun just as much as the next guy.

 

15 minutes ago, Black Blade said:

I think if you look at the changes suggested here  and there in this thread you will see its not about becoming the next Legions of Nagash but making our wide range of models viable instead of just the few top tier ones we have. Its about internal balance and options, not dominating the entire scene. I understand your concern though.

I agree, especially when it comes to balancing out the old chambers with the new one.

Seeing suggestions like a basically army-wide +1 save as an extra Battle Trait kinda blows it for me tho, as it is a straight up power-boost instead of an actually interesting mechanic. Same for adding more +'s or rerolls to hit/wound/saves etc.

Battle traits should affect your gameplay and plan to make your faction unique, not just more powerful. Otherwise we'll just end up back in mathhammer country where buying the best stats wins the game.

[generalchaos34]

23 minutes ago, Sedraxis said:

Not here to tell you to shut up, just to keep in mind that factions are supposed to have issues a.k.a. flaws and weaknesses. Don't forget the benefits you already have built in others might not have. I want SC to be more flexible and fun just as much as the next guy.

 

I agree, especially when it comes to balancing out the old chambers with the new one.

Seeing suggestions like a basically army-wide +1 save as an extra Battle Trait kinda blows it for me tho, as it is a straight up power-boost instead of an actually interesting mechanic. Same for adding more +'s or rerolls to hit/wound/saves etc.

Battle traits should affect your gameplay and plan to make your faction unique, not just more powerful. Otherwise we'll just end up back in mathhammer country where buying the best stats wins the game.

Im going to agree with the whole +1 as a battle trait, it is waaaaay too good. I can see it maybe being localized to the general only as a freebie trait, but even then its a bit much. I would like to see the SCE get something that synergizes more around their heroes. Maybe helping with the atrocious leadership (like a +1 if wholly withing 6" of a hero).

 

Scions is a very cool trait and it is very powerful, especially with a slow army. I would like to see something thats a bit of an alternative however if they DO NOT deep strike in.  This actually could be a cool way to work in something like a +1 armor save in the form of a stormcast unit counting as being in cover for the first turn if they do not use scions (possibly if they do not move), which would represent them being bolstered in and using their famed shield walls, and of course would do well to counter devastating alpha strikes.  I've noticed that more often than not I always want to use scions, so there really should be a benefit to NOT using scions. This by extension would give more value to fast units like the Vanguard and Angelos who can actually use their speed to an advantage. 

[Black Blade]

4 hours ago, Sedraxis said:

Not here to tell you to shut up, just to keep in mind that factions are supposed to have issues a.k.a. flaws and weaknesses. Don't forget the benefits you already have built in others might not have. I want SC to be more flexible and fun just as much as the next guy.

 

I agree, especially when it comes to balancing out the old chambers with the new one.

Seeing suggestions like a basically army-wide +1 save as an extra Battle Trait kinda blows it for me tho, as it is a straight up power-boost instead of an actually interesting mechanic. Same for adding more +'s or rerolls to hit/wound/saves etc.

Battle traits should affect your gameplay and plan to make your faction unique, not just more powerful. Otherwise we'll just end up back in mathhammer country where buying the best stats wins the game.

 

3 hours ago, generalchaos34 said:

Im going to agree with the whole +1 as a battle trait, it is waaaaay too good. I can see it maybe being localized to the general only as a freebie trait, but even then its a bit much. I would like to see the SCE get something that synergizes more around their heroes. Maybe helping with the atrocious leadership (like a +1 if wholly withing 6" of a hero).

 

Scions is a very cool trait and it is very powerful, especially with a slow army. I would like to see something thats a bit of an alternative however if they DO NOT deep strike in.  This actually could be a cool way to work in something like a +1 armor save in the form of a stormcast unit counting as being in cover for the first turn if they do not use scions (possibly if they do not move), which would represent them being bolstered in and using their famed shield walls, and of course would do well to counter devastating alpha strikes.  I've noticed that more often than not I always want to use scions, so there really should be a benefit to NOT using scions. This by extension would give more value to fast units like the Vanguard and Angelos who can actually use their speed to an advantage. 

well I dont see how it's any different now, its taken almost exclusively as the go to command trait. Just make it only apply to the generl and shorten the range if you feel like it. Our guys arent super fighty they are more combat multipliers and I think this fits. I see it as a lateral move if it only applies to the general.

[Sedraxis]

I think Staunch Defender is a crutch that keeps the faction from actually improving. It's the best trait by far (for any faction pretty much) but kinda forces you to focus around that small 6" bubble and it heavily skews your playstyle. Still, since it's so powerful we can't really add more power to that playstyle because then it would go from borderline broken to bonkerstown.

Instead if we remove it, there is suddenly a whole lot of design-space to work with. I like the idea of adding an alternative to Scions, but I also feel SC could do with something like a "charge-up the longer you wait with deepstrike" trait kinda like the newer factions tend to have.

Deepstriking round 1 is same as now. Round 2 could give a small + to bravery to friendlies nearby and a small - to enemies. Round 3 and 4 more small benefit comes in (like shortening the range restricion to 6" or even less maybe?) up to round 5 where deepstriking a unit will make a world of difference when all those benefits stack together.  This way you will want to plan around those benefits and picking flexible or multiple different units will be rewarded. The Vanguard chamber has no problem coming down turn 1 or 2, but your heavy hitters wouldn't mind waiting another turn especially if it can give them a guaranteed charge.

It'll make the army much more versatile and fun instead of relying on a boring stat-buff.

[AaronWilson]

Suggesting that SCE are in such a bad place the whole army (who already have the best saves in the game) should get a flat +1 across the board really makes this discussion look silly. 

[GeneralZero]

For me a few points adjustment may solve most of our issues. No need to ask for more.

The best example is Prosecuotrs which could open some really new horizons. So in short:

prosecutors, paladins , vanguards: serious points decrease

evo , sequitors : sligthy point increase

evo on dracoline, liberators: slighty point decrease

most of our bataillons: from slighty to heavy point decrease.

The army is ok right now, with those adjustments, we'll get tier 2 to tier 1 and more important: some new interesting builds.

[XReN]

2 hours ago, Sedraxis said:

Deepstriking round 1 is same as now. Round 2 could give a small + to bravery to friendlies nearby and a small - to enemies. Round 3 and 4 more small benefit comes in (like shortening the range restricion to 6" or even less maybe?) up to round 5 where deepstriking a unit will make a world of difference when all those benefits stack together.  This way you will want to plan around those benefits and picking flexible or multiple different units will be rewarded. The Vanguard chamber has no problem coming down turn 1 or 2, but your heavy hitters wouldn't mind waiting another turn especially if it can give them a guaranteed charge.

It'll make the army much more versatile and fun instead of relying on a boring stat-buff.

Sadly, that would be barely ever used to full potential since turn 4-5 deepstrikes aren't likely do decide anything and we already have a bunch of impractical flavorfull stuff in the book.

[XReN]

There is no way around bringing Staunch/Gav/Anvils until we get some solid sinergy in our units, at least from battalions so we can work as elite combined arms force we should be. It's a shame that I can barely think of any list, that would represent my Knights Excelsior fighting style, regiment over individual on sub competetive level 

[PJetski]

7 hours ago, AaronWIlson said:

Suggesting that SCE are in such a bad place the whole army (who already have the best saves in the game) should get a flat +1 across the board really makes this discussion look silly. 

They already have it though?