Jump to content

Lez's Storm casts


Lez

Recommended Posts

Hey guys, 

 

Having been inspired by Chris Tomlin and Mitzy on the latest blacksun episode, I thought seems I've got a little bit of time I'd start to write up a post/blog on my Stormcast eternal experiences. 

 

I'm planning on keeping this going as a way to document what lists I've taken in games, as well as my experiences with the list at the up coming tournaments I am attending. 

I'm also going to try and post Wip pictures of what I need to do painting wise as I add to the army. 

My thoughts are this will be a great for me to look back on and see how my thought process changes regarding lists and tactics over the coming months.

also how my army expands and painting improves over time.

 

First up a little bit about me...

I'm 1/4 of the Facehammer podcast  if you haven't listened to us yet you can find us in the podcast section of this forum and on iTunes. As well as our website www.facehammer.co.uk  and on Twitter @FaceHammer_

 

I'm up to 81 games with the Stormcast eternals now since xmas, and most of these have been played as tournament practice or at a tournament. 

I'm not saying I'm the best player out there, far from it! 

I have lots to learn and take away elements from every game I play, but I think because of the number of games I've played, it has given me a solid insight on what I think is the most important thing. 

How I want a storm cast army to work for me.

 

I've tried out a lot of options in the battle tome and a couple of options in extremis, I haven't tried all I would like in extremis yet, this is mostly down to the pools cost and more recently the points costing. And to be perfectly honest painting the dracothian guard. on the run up to Scgt this year painting 4 nearly broke my love for the hobby. The kits are amazing but they take forever to paint!

 

 

Now the intro is out of the way I'll start by showing the list I'm planning on taking to Chris Tomlins Rain of stars event on the 6th of August 

I'll be doing a break down of what role I have for each unit on he table and how I expect it to perform.

 

There isn't going to be any surprise on what I plan on taking and the main reason is if it's not broke why fix it.

 

Celestant prime 360

Lord Celestant 100

Relictor 80

Liberators 100

Liberators 100

Judicators 160

Judicators 160

Judicators 160

Judicators 160

Decimators 200

Protectors 200 

Prosecutors 80

Skyborne slayers 140

Total 2000

 

This looks a lot like the standard list I've been taking to most events give or take a few choices the reason for that is I feel it's still pretty Strong. 

 

So as a general rule most of my lists are based around the requirements of what formation I am taking. Then what I think is a solid core of troops, I include these for a two reasons. 

 

Aos is primarily an objective scoring game, in previous tournament packs units needed to be scoring, which as a rule would be 5 wounds worth of models within the unit. With that in mind I try and include as many scoring units as I can.

Things are slightly different under the GH with models counting for scoring not units in the majority of the missions.

 

Another reason I take the core to the army Is I normally play with a formation and most formations that I find useful require you to include liberators and judicators. With the battle line restrictions in place this also allows me to tick boxes while not really effecting the composition of my army.

 

 

So the list above and my thoughts...

 

The first issue I have with the list is its at 6 drops in an ideal world I would like to be at 5. For no reason other than I feel with 5 drops I would be out dropping most balanced armies. 

The big boy/gal lists will out drop me but that can't be avoided.

 

Prime:

We all know what he does and I think is a must include in SCE armies the way I like to play them.

In this list he can come down early and punish people as a gun platform. With a 36" +d6 threat range on his sceptre you can keep him safe 90% of the time with some smart movement.

Or keep him off the table to do some heavy lifting in the later game and kill a unit that is on a scoring objective. 

Also under GH he can capture the turn he arrives which could be amazing in the right situation.

 

Lord Celestant:

He has to be included when running the SBS formation but I find myself including him in most of my lists anyway.

Great command ability when combined with any unit in the army.

Combos nicely with liberators with hammers and lay low the tyrants, Paladins hitting on 2's and the prime doing 2's to hit 2's to wound is great.

The Swishy cloak attack. ( a phrase I've nicked from Pete Foley after playing him at the masters)

It'****** and miss has the ability to go mental and 1 shot a 5 wound character! it can also fail to chip the vital 1 wound off a scoring unit and lose you the game. I never count on it but it's a nice bonus!

As a combat character I've always found him a bit meh. He never seemed  to quite kill enough but with a 3+ could survive a few rounds when stuck on a unit.

This has changed a little bit with the GH allowing access to artefacts and traits. My standard load out is giving him the reckless trait.

This works nicely with SBS as when they drop they need to be 5" away from the enemy the re roll makes it very likely you will get in.

I then give him the relic blade and make his sword damage 2 this gives him 5 attacks on the charge doing rend 1damage 2. again its not game breaking but when fighting battle line troops it can cause some damage.

 

Relictor:

I've been really enjoying playing the relictor recently I think at 80pts he is a steal! 

I've included him just incase we play the three places of power mission. Which is a problem mission for me with only 3 Hero’s…

In missions when he doesn't score I play him as a support piece that can heal my prime or Paladins or try and chip away at characters in range. 

Because of the formation I can take another artefact And I've been giving him the Phoenix stone if I want him to be a tank. Or the -2 rend sword if he is in an aggressive support role.

 

Liberators:

In the list above their obvious role is scoring on objectives I've been using them to either support the Paladins when they fight or as blockers to slow down units I'm not ready to deal with yet.

I think with liberators you need to take lots of them or at least big units of them to make them a viable combat unit. 

 

Judicators:

My favourite unit in the game! 

Ive taken 4 units in this list which to be honest is what I try to take in every list I write. They do everything liberators do in the game… by that I mean they don’t really fight well have 2 wounds and a 4 up save. They miss out on not having the extra attacks in combat or the re roll 1’s on the shield but I’ve found you don’t need the extra attacks or the re roll 1’s as you are always 24” away in your turn. 

Even when they perform below average they are still amazing and when they roll above average watch out!

 

Paladins:

Ive dumped both Protectors and Decimators in here as in my head they both perform the same role in my list. They are the hammer.

in an ideal world I would also like to have the opportunity to include Retributor’s as they can be amazing. but the advantages the SBS provides is great even without the Retrbutor’s.

Both units have 2 mace’s and I aways try and match them against the most suited enemy units. 

Both units normally die to a man in every game due to the 4+ and low body count in each unit. But they nearly always do what I have needed them to do regarding the unit they are fighting.

Decimators also have the bravery bomb rule which works great in tandem with my long range shooting and combat punch I always try to make sure that when they are fighting they are also 6” away from a unit they aren’t engaged with. This allows me to pepper them with judicators and come the battle shock phase the enemy is going to be adding 2 to their role. This works even better on the turn you bring the prime down if i play aggressive with him adding 2 to battle shock and -2 bravery when 12’ away from the prime the turn he lands can be amazing.

 

Prosecutors:

These are a relatively new addition to my army and are here because they provide some more of my much needed shooting I would have loved to include a unit of 6 instead of 3 as I find the 4 shots including the champions trident doesn’t really seem to do enough. 

I have found them great for sneaking in for that extra body count and capturing objectives in later part of the game though.

 

Sky borne Slayers:

I have been taking this formation on and off since January and have included the option to field it in most of my lists when there has been a side board mechanic.

lets ignore the obvious power in teleporting your army and ignore the fact that you will probably be taking 70% of whats in the formation in lists that you build. 

And just focus on this. would I pay 140pts to make 90% of my army immune to battle shock? I ask myself that question every time i write a list and always come back with yes I would.

 

Unfortunately for Stormcast we pay a premium for our units due to good armour saves reasonable bravery and great combat/shooting abilities. 

Because of this we don’t have many bodies on the table and i don’t want to lose them to battle shock.

 

 

I guess that is it for my first post. 

Like I said way back at the start Im not saying this is gosspel or the only way to play SCE its jus the way I like to play them and from my experience with them. 

I am sure that alot of people will disagree or have different opinions on stuff.

Thats though cool everyone is entitled to have an opinion :) 

 

Feel free to comment or ask questions and ill look forward to putting my rain of stars write up in here. 

 

Les

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey,

  Great review.  I am just getting into AOS now that the GH is out and I love the stormcasts.  Like space marines they are good at everything, but not all out ridiculous.  So I am moving up from two of the starter boxes and picked up the standard bearer.  I think that puts me at a little bit over 1500 points.  Any list suggestions.  Also, I have the Extremis, Stormcast Eternal, and Order book.  Just picked them up the other day.  What book is the SNS formation in?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A great discussion.

Given (1) that the Lord Celestant's Command ability doesn't really synergise with the Paladins (because he doesn't come down until the movement phase, so it's too late to use it; and even the next turn if/when you do use it, while +1 to hit is nice, it's not 2 mortal wounds on a 5+ to hit); and (2) if you don't get the double turn, then your opponent ought to be able to kill the LC; what do you think of making Primetime your general - it could be worthwhile - purely so you can give him legendary fighter (3 attacks with Ghal Maraz even on turn one) and relic blade (damage 4 on Ghal Maraz).

Have you considered the Hammerstrike Force as an alternative to get some Retributors in?

How a Relictor is 80 and a Liche Priest is 120 is beyond me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi khornedog,

The skyborne slayers formation is found in the order battletome.

list wise it depends what you want your army to do? also by starter boxes do you mean the new get started boxes that have just been released or the box with the castellant Paladins and judicators in?

 

seems you have the knight vexillor id be looking towards 10 retributors and the pennant of the stormbringer on the vex.

then have some support units.

cheers

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Nico,

in response.

1) I agree that the LC ability works wonders with retributors but due to the range of the ability it's very rare you can get it too work in combination. Being 9" away in the combat phase after you have dropped retributors on the other side of the table is difficult to engineer.

With regards to the LC getting killed, it happens sometimes. However I don't see him or his ability as a lynch pin within the list. On the turn they drop i normally keep the LC out of combat ready to use his command ability on the following turn.  

2) I was under the impression and from what I've read due to the prime being unique in the army he doesn't have the option for command traits or artefacts.

I've never played the hammer strike force I've always preferred the warrior brotherhood for getting retributors in the list.

at call to war I took a prime, the warrior brother hood with 10 retributors and a knight azyros.it felt really strong unfortunately you can't get the prime in and the 10 retributors under GH

As for the relictor the more I use him the more I love him! I wasn't the biggest fan initially but for his cost in the GH I can almost always see myself taking him. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That makes sense.

Quote

I was under the impression and from what I've read due to the prime being unique in the army he doesn't have the option for command traits or artefacts.

Good point - it says "named characters". Without spoiling the fluff, I thought he didn't have a name (yet)? This should be on the FAQ.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, Nico said:

That makes sense.

Good point - it says "named characters". Without spoiling the fluff, I thought he didn't have a name (yet)? This should be on the FAQ.

I think 'named' and 'unique' are probably the same for this rule.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey @Lez,

Great thread man. Really enjoyed the read and I'm please to have inspired you in part to get this thing going.

Be sure to get some proper photos up here (or point people towards the relevant GW publication!) as some people may not be aware that as well as being an alright player, you also know which end of the brush to use! ;) 

Looking forward to seeing you (and of course your army) tomorrow mate!

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...