Why SCE is doing even worse in tournaments compared with previous version?

[schwabbele]

15 minutes ago, Requizen said:

The Gavriel list will continue to do well at events once people learn to pilot it correctly. Jack Armstrong is an exceedingly good player (one of the best AoS players currently imo) and thinks Stormcast can reliably go undefeated at events. But I'm sure being pessimistic on a forum is the same as having a bunch of experience and trophies.

Time will tell  I hope you/he is right. 

[Requizen]

23 minutes ago, XReN said:

What about graveguard? Or grimgast reapers? There are a lot of great units that can perform on the same level as Libs or Seqs. Also I never said that it should not be balanced, but making it random is not balance, it's poor rule writing, on the other hand making it once per game - is balance.

This still is far from a direct comparison. None of those units can be buffed to a 2+rr save and Grimgast aren't Battleline (or are in Nighthaunt but then can't rez). It's just wishlisting.

One guaranteed rez per game wouldn't even make Hammers any better. As it is, that's not why you go Hammers anyways.

[Sangfroid]

Plenty of great Stormcast lists in the new book and 4 of the 6 stormhosts are worth using with the right army over staunch defender. I think Stormcasts have been refined further into a balanced force which will mean you have to try harder to win but should at least feel you are “in” with a chance in most games with very few if any traditional “auto-lose” match ups. 

As for formations at least 5 are playable and could build a decent army around with the right stormhost and strategy. 

at a 5 game event I’d expect a 4-1 as very achievable a 5-0 or 3-2 will come down solely to match ups (and potentially luck)

[PJetski]

8 minutes ago, Sangfroid said:

As for formations at least 5 are playable and could build a decent army around with the right stormhost and strategy. 

Which 5 do you think are playable? There are maybe 3 good ones in the whole book, and none of them are as good as just bringing a Stardrake or Gavriel list.

Stormhosts are terrible. If you need any proof just look at how the Hallowed Knights make you ignore your own buff spells.

[Sangfroid]

Grand convocation

cleansing phalanx

vanguard wing

lords of the storm 

soulstrike brotherhood 

(could also include skybourne slayers and warrior brotherhood in as well but they aren’t in the book)

as for stormhosts you need to tailor your list to the stormhost I.e any list that has a big shooting unit of 10-15 models and a fighting unit of similar size using the anvils of Heldenhammer stormhost is going to do well if played properly. Match this to a formation such as VW, or Lords of the storm and you will have a better combined force. Staunch defender is great but effectively 30 judicators shooting per turn doing damage 2 on wound rolls of a 6 is arguably a lot stronger add in bless weapons and have 2 wound rolls per 6 to hit as well, rerolling 1s to hit (azyros) and if played properly will outshine staunch every time 

and that’s the real kicker “played properly” a lot of Stormcast players I face lack that abilty because they have spent 2 or 3 years using exploits to win (knight azyros WBH or vanguard wing) the Les TM stardrake build was strong not because of the drake being so overpowered (that helped) it was because it was the most balanced list in the meta at the time and had limited auto-lose match ups and even in those it could pull off a win with solid play and a little luck. 

The sce chat has gone the same way a lot of people are looking for that auto charge (Gavriel) or janky exploit (hammers bringing back 20 sequitors) rather than actually looking at the combos and thinking about what they can do with them. 

 

 

[Requizen]

13 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Which 5 do you think are playable? There are maybe 3 good ones in the whole book, and none of them are as good as just bringing a Stardrake or Gavriel list.

Stormhosts are terrible. If you need any proof just look at how the Hallowed Knights make you ignore your own buff spells.

I would say Phalanx is very good and Skyborne Slayers is right up there. Grand Convocation, Vanguard Justicar, Soulstrike, and Hailstorm all seem viable (though not overpowering). Vanguard Auxiliary is actually insane in 2500 point level if you play that large. I would also wager you could make Lightning Echelon and Drakesworn work (perhaps not 5-0 territory but I bet you could run those to 4-1 if you know the list well).

Anvils and Hammers are the only viable Stormhosts imo. Anvils is iffy (sometimes overpowered, sometimes garbage) and Hammers is really only good for the Heroes. You could probably use Vindicators and not be too bad off but they are not A-Tier by any means.

[ledha]

4 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I would say Phalanx is very good and Skyborne Slayers is right up there. Grand Convocation, Vanguard Justicar, Soulstrike, and Hailstorm all seem viable (though not overpowering). Vanguard Auxiliary is actually insane in 2500 point level if you play that large. I would also wager you could make Lightning Echelon and Drakesworn work (perhaps not 5-0 territory but I bet you could run those to 4-1 if you know the list well).

Anvils and Hammers are the only viable Stormhosts imo. Anvils is iffy (sometimes overpowered, sometimes garbage) and Hammers is really only good for the Heroes. You could probably use Vindicators and not be too bad off but they are not A-Tier by any means.

i have trouble to find the Vanguard Justicar viable. It was not seens as good before when it was better and cheaper after all. Same thing for lightning Echelon and Drakesworn, who were heavily nerfed. But i agree on the others.

[Requizen]

Just now, ledha said:

i have trouble to find the Vanguard Justicar viable. It was not seens as good before when it was better and cheaper after all. Same thing for lightning Echelon and Drakesworn, who were heavily nerfed. But i agree on the others.

I haven't fiddled with it too much but I'm feeling there's a way to make Justicar work with 3x3 Hurricanes. It's a very solid rate of fire blob that also gives you an Artifact (excellent for certain missions) and CP, which can act fairly independently. Ballistas are generally better, but they basically require them to be around an Ordinator which can be problematic for positioning.

As for the Extremis ones... I dunno they're probably bad, but they can probably take people by surprise. Might not work more than once, though.

[Black Blade]

2 hours ago, Requizen said:

SCE were 6th at NOVA based on pure battle points. Paint skewed the Overall top 10 very heavily. They were 6-2, which is pretty good.

What was that list that went 6-2? Is it listed anywhere?

Also I know you listed them 3rd but I get a lot of mileage out of my Vindicators, the command ability can effectively erase casualties sustained for strike back purposes.

[Requizen]

2 minutes ago, Black Blade said:

What was that list that went 6-2? Is it listed anywhere?

Sorry, 4-2, thought it was 8 rounds (40k was 8 rounds, got it confused). You can see it on the BCP app if you have it.

Hammers

LAoGC - General
Gavriel
Vexillor
Castellant - Godforged Blade

20 Sequitors
5 Sequitors
5 Sequitors

10 Evocators
10 Evocators
 

Lost to a stranged Mixed Order list and Changehost, beat Nighthaunt, Sylvaneth, Free Peoples, and Khorne.

[DanielFM]

48 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I would say Phalanx is very good and Skyborne Slayers is right up there. Grand Convocation, Vanguard Justicar, Soulstrike, and Hailstorm all seem viable (though not overpowering). Vanguard Auxiliary is actually insane in 2500 point level if you play that large. I would also wager you could make Lightning Echelon and Drakesworn work (perhaps not 5-0 territory but I bet you could run those to 4-1 if you know the list well).

Anvils and Hammers are the only viable Stormhosts imo. Anvils is iffy (sometimes overpowered, sometimes garbage) and Hammers is really only good for the Heroes. You could probably use Vindicators and not be too bad off but they are not A-Tier by any means.

Tempest Lords can work really well with a list relying on CAs.

My Palladors + Dracolines Alpha-strike list can do frightening things thanks to the up to 6 CPs (with a battalion) it can handle first turn.

[ledha]

1 hour ago, Requizen said:

I haven't fiddled with it too much but I'm feeling there's a way to make Justicar work with 3x3 Hurricanes. It's a very solid rate of fire blob that also gives you an Artifact (excellent for certain missions) and CP, which can act fairly independently. Ballistas are generally better, but they basically require them to be around an Ordinator which can be problematic for positioning.

As for the Extremis ones... I dunno they're probably bad, but they can probably take people by surprise. Might not work more than once, though.

The lightning echelon do now between 1D3 and 4D3 mortal wound one per game... damn, i sad writing it, when before it gave a second charge going trough the opponent + mortal wounds + giving +1 save to tempestors..

As for the justicar conclave, i'm not fan of paying 270 pts (aetherwing are pur tax) for giving reroll 1 to hit to the vanguard raptors. One azyros (or two) will do the job way better. It's basically paying for another artifact and CP here, and we can already have CP for 50 unfielded points.

[Requizen]

30 minutes ago, ledha said:

The lightning echelon do now between 1D3 and 4D3 mortal wound one per game... damn, i sad writing it, when before it gave a second charge going trough the opponent + mortal wounds + giving +1 save to tempestors..

As for the justicar conclave, i'm not fan of paying 270 pts (aetherwing are pur tax) for giving reroll 1 to hit to the vanguard raptors. One azyros (or two) will do the job way better. It's basically paying for another artifact and CP here, and we can already have CP for 50 unfielded points.

Echelon is eh, it's mostly to create a low drop army for heavy Cavalry that is already fairly good. Fulmis and Tempestors are both still worth the points, imo.

I think you're way sleeping on Aetherwings, though. They still stop charges, on top of Hurricanes also reducing charge distance, you can really mess up any number of good charging units with a simple 50 point unit. Especially now that it's a 18" range that they can Watchful Guardians in, you can stop multiple charges dead in their tracks if the opponent doesn't play around it (and even if they do, they might now be zoned out of charging anything useful). The points are a bit restrictive, but I'd be interested in trying to find the build that works.

[Skreech Verminking]

If I haven’t mistaken than Sc have been almost in every (or many) tournaments at least in the top 10.

so I’m not sure why people think they are bad.

would be great if somebody could give me a clarification ?

[Mark Williams]

6 hours ago, Marc Wilson said:

Yeah it’s 100% coming because you can just keep stabbing away at it with command points until you roll a 5.

No. You get one attempt. It passes or fails. If it fails, the unit is gone. I’ve played a dozen games since 2.0 hit with Hammers host. I’ve seen one unit come back so far.

[Mikosan]

8 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Echelon is eh, it's mostly to create a low drop army for heavy Cavalry that is already fairly good. Fulmis and Tempestors are both still worth the points, imo.

 

I love tempestors, ran 2x2 for a long while and have to say they are pretty bad now.  No real reason to take them over the fulmis without the targeted -1 to hit debuff.   The nerf was unnecessary imo.  Breath attack? Sure. The debuff is just one nerf too many.  

I attended Nova with this list:

Lord Celestant on Star-Drake

-General, Staunch, Ignax Scales

Azyros

2x Incantors with azyrite halo and stormcaller

Relictor with Translocation

2x5 Libbys

2x5 Judis

10 Evocators with 5 sword and staves, 5 grandstaves, and reroll charge spell

Quicksilver Swords

This was my first big event and have to say I had an amazing time, played some awesome armies, and met some great people.  I am not that good at playing but managed to get into the final round of 10 armies for paint judging so I consider that a win.  Finished 48 with soft scores added. I plan on doing better each year  (at least i hope too)

 

[heywoah_twitch]

6 hours ago, Requizen said:

The top running lists at NOVA were extremely elite. The Khorne list had like, what, 25 models?

That's because every battleplan they were using in the pack had no more than 3 objectives so everyone tailor-made army lists to capitalize. 

You mentioned how great their alpha-deepstrikes are and that's true, it's just easily stopped by chaff and once down they're slow enough to get outmaneuvered more often than not. You mentioned how stardrake and stuff is still good, they are! 

I'm not saying stormcast are bad, I'm explaining why they aren't top tier. They're easily the best elite troops army, next to a Nurgle list that powers down on purpose because they don't want to run a horde or two.

[schwabbele]

5 hours ago, Requizen said:

SCE were 6th at NOVA based on pure battle points. Paint skewed the Overall top 10 very heavily. They were 6-2, which is pretty good

Wat? There is a paint score calculated in the ranking? That is horrible from a pure performance point of view actually. Need to ask in the other thread if that list is also based on paint score.

[heywoah_twitch]

9 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

Wat? There is a paint score calculated in the ranking? That is horrible from a pure performance point of view actually. Need to ask in the other thread if that list is also based on paint score.

The nagash list was the only undefeated and it got 5th, and there were lots of sportsmanship/rules grumbling, plus the pack led people to skewy lists. nova was wack.

[Requizen]

8 minutes ago, heywoah_twitch said:

That's because every battleplan they were using in the pack had no more than 3 objectives so everyone tailor-made army lists to capitalize. 

You mentioned how great their alpha-deepstrikes are and that's true, it's just easily stopped by chaff and once down they're slow enough to get outmaneuvered more often than not. You mentioned how stardrake and stuff is still good, they are! 

I'm not saying stormcast are bad, I'm explaining why they aren't top tier.

If winning BOBO and 6th out of 85 at NOVA don't at least make them arguably top tier than idk what to say haha. Stormcast have all the tools required to go undefeated or at least 4-1 at any GT they attend as long as they are piloted correctly, there are no "insta-lose" counter armies in the current meta imo unless you pull a bad matchup in a bad mission. Stardrake, Gavriel, Ballistas, and Phalanx lists are all considered to be competitive by people who have won more events than I've attended, and I've had roaring success with Sacrosanct builds against all matter of opponents (10+ Evocators is busted). I mean yeah, time will tell, but I don't think there's much to be pessimistic about at the moment.

6 minutes ago, schwabbele said:

Wat? There is a paint score calculated in the ranking? That is horrible from a pure performance point of view actually. Need to ask in the other thread if that list is also based on paint score.

You can view both in various places. Some events prefer Overall to be what they show, others prefer Battle Points and Overall to be separate. 

[heywoah_twitch]

10 minutes ago, Requizen said:

If winning BOBO and 6th out of 85 at NOVA don't at least make them arguably top tier than idk what to say haha.

BOBO had tons of house-rules that nerfed stormcast's main bad matchups, allowing it to do well. Literally the only 2 events stormcast did well in were ones that had special limitations on their rough matchups/battleplans. Basically that's my point. They are good but not top tier, and have the tools to get there as long as they have some help - but on average they tend to go 3-2, and the new data strongly supports this.

The thread was asking why they weren't doing very well, because that's the case. The exceptions had special circumstances, and they are just that - exceptions. 

You have the ability to do well, it's just so do a lot of armies, and there are many better off. And let's not forget, many are far worse off.

[Requizen]

13 minutes ago, heywoah_twitch said:

BOBO had tons of house-rules that nerfed stormcast's main bad matchups, allowing it to do well. Literally the only 2 events stormcast did well in were ones that had special limitations on their rough matchups/battleplans. Basically that's my point. They are good but not top tier, and have the tools to get there as long as they have some help - but on average they tend to go 3-2, and the new data strongly supports this.

The thread was asking why they weren't doing very well, because that's the case. The exceptions had special circumstances, and they are just that - exceptions. 

You have the ability to do well, it's just so do a lot of armies, and there are many better off. And let's not forget, many are far worse off.

This is such a narrow, pessimistic viewpoint. SCE have a huge amount of tools available, any Ally they want, and no unwinnable matchups. There are builds that are proven to win at top tables consistently. Literally what more could you want? 

Besides, there have been, what, 4 or 5 large AoS2 events? Midwest Meltdown was screwed over by pre-nerf Nagash + hordes, which is about as bad a matchup as you could ask, and Stormcast still came in 8th out of 50. It's a bit early to be crying about not being good enough by a looong shot. If they go even 5 events in a row without being top 10, then maybe you have a leg to stand on. 

Edit: and "On Average" is silly when they're the most played army in the game. 

[heywoah_twitch]

LoN is the most played army in the game right now, and with a much higher win%. (62% vs 52%) This thread explains some of the reasons why.

[Requizen]

1 hour ago, heywoah_twitch said:

LoN is the most played army in the game right now, and with a much higher win%. (62% vs 52%) This thread explains some of the reasons why.

Yeah man we all saw the THW data. Using data without context will always be bad, though. LoN was really skewed by Nagash before the nerf. Stormcast have more new/inexperienced/narrative players than most other armies. Etc. And even given that data, SCE are still in the top 5 armies for Top 10 placements. 

 

I think your description of what "top tier" means is really screwy. Stormcast can fight any of those other top armies without it being an uphill struggle outside of specific mission/build mismatches.

If you don't autolose to any top-tier army, and have a positive winrate, and have multiple top place finishes... you're a top tier army. Anything else is completely subjective. 

[Mark Williams]

My current army, when facing Nagash, is basically a binary game, that hinges on getting a double turn. If Nagash is exposed, and I pull my big "move" on the back-half of a turn, I basically have a roughly 50% chance to kill him at that point, based on whether or not I win priority roll. If I don't win priority, I basically auto-lose the game. If I win priority, I will almost definitely kill Nagash, and at that point it's my army against what's left of his - still not an auto win, but at least I can create an opening and possibly win.

This is a gamble match, and does not require much strategy on my part. On the contrary, the Nagash player merely needs to protect Nagash with some chaff, and my entire strategy crumbles, and there's almost nothing I can do besides kill things that can come back, which again basically ends in an auto-loss.

I'm not saying Stormcast are in a bad place, I'm merely saying that LoN is most definitely in a better place. And by proxy I'm basically saying that I feel the chart that was posted is actually fairly accurate, as it represents my experiences playing in tournaments against those armies. DoK, Nurgle, Deepkin, LoN - these are all the opponents that give me a ton of trouble in tournaments, and every matchup is nail-biting, and requires some luck on my part. I feel like I have to play a near-perfect game, while for my opponent, they basically have to sort of make several critical mistakes, and possibly also get unlucky, in order to lose the win.

My estimation of SCE is that they do have the tools to be competitive, and they can win tournaments, if you are a GREAT player and know your army and your opponents extremely well. But they do not afford many mistakes or even bad luck, while there are some other armies who start the game with more graces and can cover for poor decisions or bad luck.