Balancing the Stormcast

[Black Blade]

1 hour ago, Superninja said:

my 2 cents, the Celestar Ballistas are definitely OP for the cost. 

36" range for the comet seems crazy.  6" out of unbind?

I haven't used either of those yet but I've heard conflicting reports on the ballistas. 

The comet, which I plan on running soon is fine though. Its costs as much as most of our heroes and you are probably only gonna get to use that once in the whole game, so getting it off as a one shot by having a huge range isn't bad.   

[The World Tree]

1 hour ago, Black Blade said:

I haven't used either of those yet but I've heard conflicting reports on the ballistas. 

The comet, which I plan on running soon is fine though. Its costs as much as most of our heroes and you are probably only gonna get to use that once in the whole game, so getting it off as a one shot by having a huge range isn't bad.   

Ballistas aren't too bad. They are incredibly unreliable. The one thing I'd change is they are slightly too durable.

The Comet should be 30" range, just because it seems an odd design to be able to camp outside the dispel range. The biggest thing the comet has going for it is the threat. Its ability to shape the opponent's decision making is vital. Its actual damage is easily mitigated by most forces and splash damage is worse than focused fire imo. For 100 points it is well priced, because there are so many variables for its use - you need to roll 7, not be dispelled and it takes up a cast.

[JackStreicher]

9 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

I would argue rather, that some of the new units are correctly costed, rather than being too good, while many of the old units are bad, and have been incorrectly costed for a while. The issue to me is that, honestly, the SCE battle tome has historically had a lot of red herrings and a very small handful of really good units. People playing against them get this weird opinion that the entire tome is good, but if you cut out all the bad stuff, the tome would be like a quarter of the size that it is.

I disagree, Sequitors are also too cheap compared to elite units of other races (Darklings, Idoneth etc) the Rerolls combined with the many heavy weapons make them too strong for their points.

[Mark Williams]

A single ballista isn’t a big deal. 4 ballistas, a lord ordinator, and a knight azyros dropping from scions kills almost everything it hits, often with overkill. And leaves a lot of points left over for a still sizeable army...

[GeneralZero]

1 hour ago, Mark Williams said:

4 ballistas, a lord ordinator, and a knight azyros

this is more than 600 points and static once on board. I see some counterpart, like magic, hordes, or even some fast charges... or just ignore that part of the board 

[Yoshiya]

11 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

this is more than 600 points and static once on board. I see some counterpart, like magic, hordes, or even some fast charges... or just ignore that part of the board 

I'll never understand the "don't enter that part of the board" argument. For a start the Ballista has an effective range of 21" with the rapid fire profile and a 39" range on the single shot. That's a huge bubble to just not enter, especially in an objective based game where you may not even have a choice of where you need to go to win.

Of course line blocking terrain can cut down that effective range and allow counter plays but to simple say "don't go in this entire board section or die" isn't a sign that something is balanced...

[GeneralZero]

1 hour ago, Yoshiya said:

Of course line blocking terrain can cut down that effective range and allow counter plays but to simple say "don't go in this entire board section or die" isn't a sign that something is balanced...

what I said is a tactic, not a strategy. It all depend on scenario : some battleplan made it not worth attacking or being in some areas while scoring on some objectives ;-)

[ClockworkGeo91]

@Black Blade as a non-stormcast eternal player, this thread has been very illuminating in what issues SCE players have.

My misconception, was that it was the 'golden' all rounder side - but seeing the recent tournament results and reading this, clear to see there some issues and a lot of redundant units.

Thanks for this interesting read and hope you SCE guys get some of the changes you want, would be good to see nice varied Stormhosts!

[LLV]

There seems to be a lot of ‘gut’ feelings on his stormcast are broken/tier1/under pointed etc. I’ll concede I think Gavriels ability should be a once per unit as things like that shouldn’t exist- but even  WITH sureheart bombs Stormcast are actually doing decidedly mediocre at the major tournaments so far.

The only 5-0 finish they’ve had since the new battletome was BOBO, but that was Jack Armstrong, and I’m pretty convinced he could pick up anything and do well with it as he’s a warhammer savant. Stormcast mostly 3-2 at major events which means they’re reasonable.

so for the SC ‘good’ units I would leave as is. Maybe some decreases in the lesser seen stuff. The fact is Stormcast just can’t bring the bodies to the table to be able to effectively compete with things like LoN, DoK and Deepkin Eel strikes.

 

[LLV]

5 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

A single ballista isn’t a big deal. 4 ballistas, a lord ordinator, and a knight azyros dropping from scions kills almost everything it hits, often with overkill. And leaves a lot of points left over for a still sizeable army...

This exact army went 2-3 at EGGS 50 player event a couple weeks back. Looks  good on paper but not in practice it seems

[JetBlackSVW]

On 9/3/2018 at 11:13 AM, JackStreicher said:

I honestly don‘t mind not having access to named characters - they‘re just abused for their powerlevel and we banned all of them in our tournaments anyway (suddenly listbuilding has way more variation)??‍♂️

Is such a ban not too general? I play Blades of Khorne and in this army the named characters like Scyla, Skarr, Valkia and Skarbrand are actually the underpowered and rarely used ones. With such a ban you would rather prevent "fun" lists for Khorne and promote the tourney lists.

[JackStreicher]

5 minutes ago, JetBlackSVW said:

Is such a ban not too general? I play Blades of Khorne and in this army the named characters like Scyla, Skarr, Valkia and Skarbrand are actually the underpowered and rarely used ones. With such a ban you would rather prevent "fun" lists for Khorne and promote the tourney lists.

Not at all. Khorne is rather strong without named chars (build your own?). LoN, SCE, DoK, Nurgle and ID would be affected the most concerning tournaments, since they always cramp in their named chars (take a look at they Nova lists, Nagash, NAGASH, nagash, vultournos, Morathi, glottkin). Removing named chars forces people to think outside of the box, forget about netlists and to get creative. So far it resulted in a vast variance in list composition (except for DoK, they kept spamming Snake Ladies xD)

[Mikester1487]

As far as ballistas being overpowered I would respectfully disagree. By the time you make them a hard hitter like others have said you've spent quite a bit to do so.

After reading through all of the battalions I can't find a use for any of them. They seem more narrative focused to me. 

Castigators feel like a last minute throw in for the sacrosanct chamber, and to improve their performance maybe they should do d3 hits instead of just the one? 

Paladins seem to be fully outclassed by evocators by costing more, unable to move as far, and unable to unbind. Reducing all paladins by 20 points and increasing evocators the same amount would be nice changes imo. 

[XReN]

Just a little thing that made me pretty upset with GW's rulewriters - Prosecutor Prime no longer gets +1 attack with melee spec weapon, according to new RAW its only melee Celestial Hammers, missile Javelin and missile Trident
Such things should not be happening

 

[chord]

Too many of our units are too high a point cost.   Granted I get that a lot of players hate stormcast so GW doesn't want them to be good but merely average

 

[Black Blade]

Took this from the DoK discussion thread. According to this even our most powerful units dont seem to take us out of the "average" range of factions when compared to the other updated factions. Consider the quantity of Stormcast players as well as certain factions like Tzeentch coming up against magic phase deleting Nagash armies frequently. Taking all this into account I'm even more certain most of our units that don't see play need points cost lowered and our strong units mostly should be balanced in faction as nothing really seems to be rolling over other people on the tabletop.

 

[Freejack02]

29 minutes ago, Black Blade said:

Took this from the DoK discussion thread. According to this even our most powerful units dont seem to take us out of the "average" range of factions when compared to the other updated factions. Consider the quantity of Stormcast players as well as certain factions like Tzeentch coming up against magic phase deleting Nagash armies frequently. Taking all this into account I'm even more certain most of our units that don't see play need points cost lowered and our strong units mostly should be balanced in faction as nothing really seems to be rolling over other people on the tabletop.

 

I'd like to see the sources for this information as I'm skeptical of a random chart someone posted.

[LLV]

It's part of a larger workbook that I compiled on behalf of The Honest Wargamer show.

Its the last 7 major tournaments in the UK and US and logs every win and loss at those events

[Freejack02]

11 minutes ago, LLV said:

It's part of a larger workbook that I compiled on behalf of The Honest Wargamer show.

Its the last 7 major tournaments in the UK and US and logs every win and loss at those events

Much appreciated.

So I think there are about ~415 total games here to draw on, which isn't a terribly large sample size - but where would people like to see these winrates? I personally would prefer everything be between 45% and 55% (I know that's not going to happen). I think once we have a larger sample size, everything under the 45% line could be seen as needing help, and anything over 55% needs to be addressed to bring down the power levels. SCE is right about where I figured they would be around 50%, but I'm surprised that Nurgle and Nighthaunt aren't a tad higher.

Would it be possible to account for a win% that takes away mirror matches? Like if the finals are DoK vs DoK, that's going to automatically be 50% winrate and will artificially drive down their number. I know it won't make much of a difference currently, but as the numbers increase it will start to have an effect. 

[PJetski]

Stormcast will never be balanced as long as Staunch Defender is being used as a crutch for the whole army. The Stormhosts would be great alternatives if they didn't force you to take crappy artifacts.

Sacrosanct units are (roughly) well-costed but everything in the Strike, Extremis, and Vanguard Chambers feels overcosted in AOS2.0. Almost all the battalions are hot garbage and need their costs cut in half.

[generalchaos34]

6 hours ago, Mikester1487 said:

As far as ballistas being overpowered I would respectfully disagree. By the time you make them a hard hitter like others have said you've spent quite a bit to do so.

After reading through all of the battalions I can't find a use for any of them. They seem more narrative focused to me. 

Castigators feel like a last minute throw in for the sacrosanct chamber, and to improve their performance maybe they should do d3 hits instead of just the one? 

Paladins seem to be fully outclassed by evocators by costing more, unable to move as far, and unable to unbind. Reducing all paladins by 20 points and increasing evocators the same amount would be nice changes imo. 

Im going to second the Castigators. Look wise and lore wise they sound really cool but are completely outclassed by crossbow judicators and raptors.  Their lore describes them lobbing jars of celestial energy over their foes and causing all kinds of explosions, but on the table we have an OK statline of 3+ 3+ -1, which can be modified to hit better or get better rend. Both of which are not all that impressive when combined with their short range and price.  It feels like the whole thing was cobbled together at the last minute (i bet the rules were insane before the release, considering the odd numbers they are fielded in the Soul Wars box).  I'd second the D3 hits per hit, that way it mirrors the ballista and the current concept of the "blast weapon" by GW and gives them a nice albeit random punch that would be very appreciated.  As it stands now the Ballista outclasses them in every way for only 10 points more (it even has 1 more wound!) Id also like to see something where maybe they do not need line of sight to fire, since its pretty clearly stated thats how they function in the fluff. 

[The World Tree]

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

Stormcast will never be balanced as long as Staunch Defender is being used as a crutch for the whole army. The Stormhosts would be great alternatives if they didn't force you to take crappy artifacts.

Sacrosanct units are (roughly) well-costed but everything in the Strike, Extremis, and Vanguard Chambers feels overcosted in AOS2.0. Almost all the battalions are hot garbage and need their costs cut in half.

I don't really agree with you - I think Evocators and Sequitors are too cheap (I'd prefer a redesign buy hey ho) and a few other units too pricey. Also I'd just delete Castigators, the Veritant, Solbright and Sureheart because they are redundant design-wise/Sureheart's ability is bad for the game.

However, I think you do flag up a really important thing that holds back SCE - the battalions. It is clear how little effort went into them and that is incredibly disappointing. A few decent battalions could really pump up the army.

[LLV]

6 hours ago, Freejack02 said:

Much appreciated.

So I think there are about ~415 total games here to draw on, which isn't a terribly large sample size - but where would people like to see these winrates? I personally would prefer everything be between 45% and 55% (I know that's not going to happen). I think once we have a larger sample size, everything under the 45% line could be seen as needing help, and anything over 55% needs to be addressed to bring down the power levels. SCE is right about where I figured they would be around 50%, but I'm surprised that Nurgle and Nighthaunt aren't a tad higher.

Would it be possible to account for a win% that takes away mirror matches? Like if the finals are DoK vs DoK, that's going to automatically be 50% winrate and will artificially drive down their number. I know it won't make much of a difference currently, but as the numbers increase it will start to have an effect. 

I'd love to be able to discount mirrors but that would involve getting TO's to keep full logs and provide round by round info. I struggled just getting factions, wins and placings lol. If the concept of an AoS data log catches wind and follows the MtG community (who have acess to the % of a single card played at any time in any tournament worldwide) then maybe TO's will standardise their results and book keeping to aide in this. I'm just happy they are being helpful providing results right now 

 

[Black Blade]

4 hours ago, PJetski said:

Stormcast will never be balanced as long as Staunch Defender is being used as a crutch for the whole army. The Stormhosts would be great alternatives if they didn't force you to take crappy artifacts.

Sacrosanct units are (roughly) well-costed but everything in the Strike, Extremis, and Vanguard Chambers feels overcosted in AOS2.0. Almost all the battalions are hot garbage and need their costs cut in half.

 

57 minutes ago, The World Tree said:

I don't really agree with you - I think Evocators and Sequitors are too cheap (I'd prefer a redesign buy hey ho) and a few other units too pricey. Also I'd just delete Castigators, the Veritant, Solbright and Sureheart because they are redundant design-wise/Sureheart's ability is bad for the game.

However, I think you do flag up a really important thing that holds back SCE - the battalions. It is clear how little effort went into them and that is incredibly disappointing. A few decent battalions could really pump up the army.

@PJetskiI think you're tapping into the real issue here with Staunch Defender and the Stormhosts. Staunch defender is a crutch because if you can't guard against mortal wounds you can jack up your normal saves to the sky and play the odds. This plays into @The World Tree point about redesigning the Seqs and Evos. Personally they both are on the cheap side but I'd only support a redesign of the Seqs channeling effects, I love Evos too much as is. The Stormhosts being another issue, they hamstrung us for taking them by forcing bad artifacts and traits and a step further by locking our special characters behind a single stormhost. No other faction has to deal with this and their special rules and characters. Other armies have 4 or 5 faction abilities standard, we get ours after commiting to a stormhost that locks down our other options. Finally our battalions other than Cleansing Phalanx are terrible, they don't make much tactical sense, are way too expensive and/or serve a narrative that doesnt reflect actual rules.

TL;DR Its a few key crutches that keeps us competitive rather than being a balanced army and we are taxed for getting what other factions have access to standard. We aren't suffering the most out of all factions but if we are supposed to be the flagship this is an issue. 

[schwabbele]

6 hours ago, Black Blade said:

. Finally our battalions other than Cleansing Phalanx are terrible,

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