Umm .. the Stonehorn ...

[WoollyMammoth]

I played a 1000 point list against the BCR and, well I got to take one turn before I was tabled. My friend has played 6 games with the new BCR list and is 5/6 so far. So far his only fear is facing down the 100 -3 rend wounds from a wood elf gun line and forest dragon which always attacks first and re-rolls failed saves.

You can do certain things, like cower at the back of the board and hope you get one turn before it charges you.

Note that the Stonehorn has been FAQd to halve all the wounds caused (has nothing to do with the damage of the attackers weapons).

So, are the BCR rampaging all throughout the AoS, or is it just me?

[scrubyandwells]

It's early days but they appear to be one of the most powerful factions at the three points scales, at least at the moment.

For those of us interested in Matched/Organized Play, I'm hopeful we'll see a faster update cycle than we've seen historically. Personally I'd vote for at least a new free pdf every six months (and ideally four months) with refined points values based on what was learned the prior months, and then a new hardcopy GH every year with new content including the latest points values.

In terms of the Stonehorns, there's quite a bit of scattered discussion going on about their cost. As one view, FWIW, they do seem distinctly underpriced for the equivalent of a 24-wound model (or 26-wound for Frostlord) that kicks out tremendous damage (™@Mc1gamer) with a large charge-threat range. 

At least two competitive UK players, @ChippyRick and Paul Whitehead (is Paul on here?), have been doing extremely well with them. Paul finished second to @Rufio at #Alliance the other weekend, but if they had played, it'd be hard to bet against Paul's list, even though Rob's seemed as well designed to take on 4 Stonehorns (3 being Frostlords) as one could hope. 

It'd be interesting to hear from @ChippyRick and other BR players. 

[Sleboda]

Can't you just take more stuff to counter them if they are that powerful?   Keep popping down units until it feels fair. 

[Nico]

I faced Paul Whitehead's 6 monster version of this (thankful for the Behemoth cap now). I should have won. I played Settra plus Tomb Kings - one unit of 6 Necropolis Knights killed 3 of the monsters and half killed a fourth in my first turn. I still lost! That's telling.

I was extremely unlucky with Settra and a Necrosphinx failing easy charges and initiative going badly against me, but the Thundertusks were just horrendous. They have of course been repriced, significantly, which is good. However, on the other hand they now have 3+ save versions with magic items. It makes me feel that my Rogue Idol (no longer tougher than the Lord on Stonehorn) is overcosted at 480 points.

It's very hard to make comparisons when 75% of the factions don't have specific allegiance packs yet. Death with a magic lore are going to be completely different to Death now for example.

There are hard counters to Stonehorns at least, e.g. fanatics, Wrathmongers, Teclis. 

 

[Tanka]

I played a multi-player game on Friday night with a couple of mates.

3x 1500 point lists

 

multi-player scenario from the GHB with the relic on the middle of the table.

I took Destruction- Beastclaw raiders and gutbusters

List was:

Frostlord on Stonehorn

12 Ogor Bulls with Iron Fists

6 Ogor Bulls with 2 h/weapons

Butcher

2 Gorgers

1 Gorger

The Stonehorn charged a zombie dragon with vampire lord on it- even with the death player making a number of 6+ special saves on the D3 damage horns the frost lord did 20 wounds total (he rolled the command ability that gave him and his mount +1 to wound) and he drank his potion that gave him an additional +1 to hit and wound before charging in.

Two turns later, he moved 4 inches in the hero phase, 12 inches in the movement phase and ran another 3 inches, then he charged 9 inches and did 6 mortal wounds on the charge to a Orc Big Boss on a Wyvern that had the relic. The Orc only had 3 wounds left so he pretty much evaporated on the spot. At the end of the game the Frostlord on Stonehorn had the relic and was surrounded by 7 ogres and 2 Gorgers and there was not a large amount left on the table from the other two players.

For 460 points, I think its a bit broken to take one in a 1000 point game, but after that they are ok... but that is taking 1... 

 

The issue with Beastclaw raiders comes in winning some of the scenarios in the GHB as you need 5 models within x inches of the objective, or the most amount of models within x of the objectives and Mono Beastclaw Raiders may struggle with these scenarios.

[scrubyandwells]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Can't you just take more stuff to counter them if they are that powerful?   Keep popping down units until it feels fair. 

Yeah that works in Open Play and Narrative Play, but I imagine many here are focused on Matched Play, where that doesn't really work.

[roberto]

1 hour ago, Tanka said:

Two turns later, he moved 4 inches in the hero phase, 12 inches in the movement phase and ran another 3 inches, then he charged 9 inches

Is this a battalion ability?

[daedalus81]

29 minutes ago, roberto said:

Is this a battalion ability?

Stonehorn can move, run, and charge.  Not sure about the hero phase move or why he was fighting an army that was Death and Destruction.

[daedalus81]

They have no magic and defense is in the form of an artefact
They have no mortal wound defense (other than halving).
They have no flying units or summons.

 They also bring a remarkably low number of wounds to the table. Tournament lists are clocking in around 73 wounds.  Other lists are easily double that. 

Block with a trash unit with inspiring presence.  

[KhaosZand3r]

2 hours ago, daedalus81 said:

Stonehorn can move, run, and charge.  Not sure about the hero phase move or why he was fighting an army that was Death and Destruction.

Didn't you read that he said 3 player game? Those are separate armies.

[MOMUS]

10 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Can't you just take more stuff to counter them if they are that powerful?   Keep popping down units until it feels fair. 

So is this a legit AoS strategy or tactic?

[Justinian]

For how hard they hit I don't think they should be halving wounds too. 

[HunterB]

I have had one encounter with them, ended up wiping them out to an ogre but it was tough going.

Managed to get the charge in on the Stonehorn with my Magmadroth and was quite lucky in the first round with all my attacks hitting, wounding and no saves passed, the halving damage is a nasty ability though!

If it was not for that first turn I do not think I would have faired quite as well and probably gone on to lose.

It is going to be interesting working out the counters!

[Nico]

Quote

The Stonehorn charged a zombie dragon with vampire lord on it- even with the death player making a number of 6+ special saves on the D3 damage horns the frost lord did 20 wounds total (he rolled the command ability that gave him and his mount +1 to wound) and he drank his potion that gave him an additional +1 to hit and wound before charging in.

This seems absurdly lucky. Did the Vampire Player not take the Deathless Minions buff trait for a 5+ ward save (in which case that's an error)? Surprised it did so much to a 3+ save model.

Monsters do become stronger the smaller the points level. I think this is because it's difficult to spread out to capture objectives while still having sufficient concentration of damage to kill monsters. I played a 1,300 point game where I had 3 monsters against Sylvaneth and it was horrific.

[Tanka]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

This seems absurdly lucky. Did the Vampire Player not take the Deathless Minions buff trait for a 5+ ward save (in which case that's an error)? Surprised it did so much to a 3+ save model.

Not absurdly lucky at all. 

At the start of the battle we rolled for command traits and artifacts. He didn't have the 5+ ward. 

As I said, I popped the potion for +1 to hit and wound and had the command trait of +1 to wound. 

Read the details within the post. 

[daedalus81]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

This seems absurdly lucky. Did the Vampire Player not take the Deathless Minions buff trait for a 5+ ward save (in which case that's an error)? Surprised it did so much to a 3+ save model.

Monsters do become stronger the smaller the points level. I think this is because it's difficult to spread out to capture objectives while still having sufficient concentration of damage to kill monsters. I played a 1,300 point game where I had 3 monsters against Sylvaneth and it was horrific.

He stacked all his items onto the Frostlord.  +1 to hit and +2 to wound, which is sort of overkill since most everything he has is 3+ anyway.

The average for that setup is 14 wounds vs 3+.  After the FNP save it should be about 9 wounds, so likely some high rolls.  With a 6+ only it would have been a little less than 12.

[Nico]

Plus the impact hits, which is another 3.5 before the ward save.

Rolling for traits is a good way to introduce imbalance/lose the game before it starts (woo I rolled an anti-Order ability against Death). Really hope this doesn't become a thing at events.

[Chris Tomlin]

16 hours ago, scrubyandwells said:

For those of us interested in Matched/Organized Play, I'm hopeful we'll see a faster update cycle than we've seen historically. Personally I'd vote for at least a new free pdf every six months (and ideally four months) with refined points values based on what was learned the prior months, and then a new hardcopy GH every year with new content including the latest points values.  

At least two competitive UK players, @ChippyRick and Paul Whitehead (is Paul on here?),

Unfortunately I don't see that happening...and this was my major fear with the GH. At the start of the Matched Play Profiles in the GH it advises that anything not listed will appear in the relevant Battletome - so whatever comes next, I think will have points listed. Once they are printed in Battletomes they are unlikely to change IMO. Big shame, the dynamic system we had as a community was such a positive.

Paul is on here - @Soup Dragon

[Carnelian]

Hoping that tournament organisers follow the spirit of the Age of Sigmar and feel free to amend the points values for their tournaments

[Nico]

Yeah - it meant the community could rapidly fix errors like Saurus-gate.

On the plus side, I've not spotted anything wildly undercosted so far (and at the two or so tournaments since the GH, the winners didn't seem to be flooding the table with one type of model), maybe they've leaned towards overcosting stuff (which is less damaging to balance).

[daedalus81]

I think people need to work on their strategy before we start amending points.  I mean one game has a rough result and that's it?  We're done?  Is Archaon too many points, because he only did one wound that time?

[MOMUS]

1 hour ago, daedalus81 said:

I think people need to work on their strategy before we start amending points.  I mean one game has a rough result and that's it?  We're done?  Is Archaon too many points, because he only did one wound that time?

No, thats a straw man.

People are saying the once fluid system we had is being replaced by a inflexible one, that can't predict or adapt to the changing meta.

Tomb King syndrome.

They could've easily avoided this by utilising the AoS app as a continually updated points list.

[Chris Tomlin]

8 minutes ago, MOMUS said:

No, thats a straw man.

Noooooooooooooo!!!

We'd be doing so well avoiding TWF's favourite phrase  

But yeh, he's right @daedalus81 - no one is saying "ZOMG fix costs now!!" (well, some might be!). Just in general though, I think a fixed points system isn't as good as a dynamic/fluid one that adapts and reacts to the meta (without instantly whipping out the nerf bat mind!).

However...that said, the GH costs haven't seen an influx of one army/unit dominating or anything, yet.

Back to the original point; yeh the Stonehorn is hard!  

[BrAiKo]

Was tough going but took down the Frostlorded Stonehorn (or is it Stonehorned Frostlord?) with the Khorne half of my Khorne-Tzeentch alliance.  Blood reavers were wiped out to a man on the charge and it then took (admittedly small) units of Blood Warriors, Bloodletters and most importantly Skulltaker, to take it down (all within range of the Bloodsecrator of course).  The dice gods did desert my opponent towards the end though.

[Soup Dragon]

46 minutes ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Back to the original point; yeh the Stonehorn is hard!  

Yes it is, but as people have pointed out above it is perfectly killable with the right tactics, and low model count armies struggle with some scenarios. I played in the Crucible tournament at Windermere this weekend. 3 games and had an excellent demonstration of this: 

2nd game was against Steve's Death army, and when he went first and moved his 10 Blood knights and 15 Black knights forward on turn 1, they were all gone by end of turn 2 with most of his army..... So that was a perfect illustration of the strength of running 2 Frostlords on Stonehorns. I just ran over him and he never stood a chance. 

Game 3 was against Seraphon - 'Escalation' scenario. Joe used great tactics to restrict my reinforcements and outnumbered me on the objectives, so I lost even though I killed 1200 points of his army. Remember - it's ALL about the scenario. Damn those Chameleon Skinks!

But it was the first game that was the real wake-up call. Daz had full Bonesplitterz army. 40 archers in a Kunnin Ruk - Buffed to be hitting on 4's rerolling, and 6's generating extra attacks, and wounding on 4's rerolling. He then Hand of Gorks them 20" forward and shot off a Frostlord on Stonehorn and a Frostlord on Thundertusk in 1 round of shooting . 2 units of 4 Mork Toof in a Teef Ruk finished off the other Frostlord on Stonehorn. I won on points (Heroes capture scenario) but was TABLED (shades of our game eh @Nico? 

It was Daz's 2nd game ever with Bonesplitterz and so he forgot half of the abilities/ buffs/tricks in his army, and he still went on to table his other 3 opponents. So I think people will be whining about them next. But not me, I was glad to see an army take me apart so easily. I have spent the last 12 hours puzzling and puzzling how to beat him next time, and I have a few ideas now. That's what I love about AoS. There is always something out there to knock the spots off your 'broken' army.

And yes, I have started painting Savage Orruks