Stormcast Battletome Revamp Project

[PJetski]

The Stormcast battletome released in 2018 is woefully out of date. It does not have the same kind of interesting abilities or army rules found in battletomes released immediately afterwards.  None of the Stormhosts really match the narrative of the army, all of the battalions are total trash, most of the traits/artefacts are rubbish, and many units are just downright useless.

With that in mind I have started a project to rewrite some of the rules in the battletome. The goal is to update the rules to better match the narrative and make more interesting choices when making lists. In some cases that means some units/Stormhosts will become more powerful, but in those cases I believe it is justified since they are currently weak to the point of being unplayable.

I will use this thread to post my progress, thought process, and hopefully gather feedback from other AOS players.

Here is what I have so far: https://imgur.com/a/HAuEMWl

I don't believe this will be 100% balanced, but let me know what you think either way!

Update Nov 14 2019: https://imgur.com/a/dHAJdvI

Update Jan 3 2020: https://imgur.com/a/zdDQQ8J

Update March 18 2020: https://imgur.com/a/tCyMsVJ

Edited March 19, 2020 by PJetski

[PJetski]

Full list of Warscroll and point changes, patch notes style 

• Celestant Prime
  • +2 Wounds
  • Points cost reduced from 320 to 300
• Aventis Firestrike
  • +2 Wounds
• Lord-Arcanum on Tauralon
  • +2 Wounds
  • Command Ability now effects all STORMCAST ETERNAL units, rather than just SACROSANCT
• Lord-Celestant on Dracoth
  • Lord of the Host: Now grants +1 save instead of Battleshock immunity
  • Notes: Only usable if he is your general, once per turn, Staunch Defender is gone, Warding Lantern has been changed
  • Points cost increased from 220 to 280
• Lord-Celestant
  • +1 Wound
• Lord-Castellant
  • +1 Wound
  • Warding Lantern now grants a friendly unit a 6+ ignore instead of +1 save and healing
• Lord-Exorcist
  • +1 Wound
  • Now has the PRIEST keyword
• Lord-Ordinator
  • +1 Wound
  • Command Ability changed to boost a units shooting hit rolls
• Lord-Relictor
  • +1 Wound
• Drakesworn Templar
  • Points cost reduced from 460 to 400
• Lord-Celestant on Stardrake
  • Points cost reduced from 560 to 480
• Castigators
  • Thunderhead Greatbow does D3 damage instead of 1
  • Prime now has +1 attack instead of +1 to hit rolls
  • Burst of Celestial Energy reworked
    • Now deals bonus hits against units with 10+ models
    • Can re-roll damage against DAEMON or DEATH
  • Points cost increased from 80 to 120
• Liberators
  • Paired Weapons now grants +1 attack all the time instead of adding an extra hit on hit rolls of 6
  • Maximum unit sized reduced to 20
  • Points changed from 100/520 to 100/360
• Decimators
  • Points cost reduced from 180 to 160
• Protectors
  • Points cost reduced from 180 to 160
• Retributors
  • Lightning Hammers are now Rend-2 instead of Rend-1
  • Points cost reduced from 200 to 180
  • Battleline in a KNIGHTS EXCELSIOR army
• Sequitors
  • Stormsmite Greatmaces now deal bonus hits to DEATH units instead of just NIGHTHAUNT
  • Points cost reduced from 130/440 to 120/400
• Gryph-Hounds
  • Battleline in an ASTRAL TEMPLARS army
• Vanguard Raptors with Longstrike Crossbows
  • Maximum unit size reduced to 6, down from 12
• Vanguard Raptors with Hurricane Crossbows
  • Maximum unit size reduced to 9, down from 12
• Dais Arcanum
  • Wound restriction increased to 7 (now heroes with 6 or less wounds can ride it)
  • Points cost reduced from 30 to 20

[LordPrometheus]

Dude, amazing work. These look FANTASTIC!

Some feedback:

Why only a 6+ to ignore wounds from the Castellant? That's not really that good. A 5+ would make it very good.

Liberators should be 80 points for what they do (which isn't much)

Vandus Hammerhand should get a spike in power, or a large points reduction. He's not even close to worth his points at 280

Edited November 7, 2019 by LordPrometheus

[PJetski]

38 minutes ago, LordPrometheus said:

Why only a 6+ to ignore wounds from the Castellant? That's not really that good. A 5+ would make it very good.

Liberators should be 80 points for what they do (which isn't much)

Vandus Hammerhand should get a spike in power, or a large points reduction. He's not even close to worth his points at 280

I think a 5+ ignore would be too strong. I went back and forth about whether to make it a -1 hit debuff for enemy attacks or a 6+ ignore, and settled on the 6+ ignore. If a 6+ ignore is too weak I can consider making it also heal 1 wound when it ignores an allocated wound.

Not all units are supposed to be exactly worth their points cost. FEC Ghouls are also 100 points but also a terrible unit for their cost, but they serve a niche as being useful in a large horde unit and as a cheap battleline. I would rather make Liberators more useful rather than reducing their point cost, like through improving the battalions they are in, or making their rules a little better (like I did with Paired Weapons).

I agree! I have plans to update all the Hammers of Sigmar heroes, and add at least 1 named hero for each Stormhost. I was thinking that Vandus could get 10 Liberators instead of 5 when using the Soul of the Stormhost command ability. I'm not a fan of Gavriels stackable charge bonus, I think deep strike charges should always have a chance to fail.

[Memnoch]

This is very impressive! I really hope you will bring this to GWs attention when you're done. This is definitely a big step up from our current battletome. I especially like how these changes make the rules much more thematic for the various stormhosts and units.

Some feedback:

For the Hallowed Knights artifact you state "The first HALLOWED KNIGHTS PRIEST". Does that mean that other non-priest heroes could get other artifacts than this one first thereby circumventing the artifact rule of the stormhosts?

I don't necessarily think it is needed to reduce the maximum size of Liberators and Raptors, I think having the options of bigger units is fine as is.

I would suggest having Paladins with 3+ save, after all they are wearing much heavier armor, or alternatively some MW save option. This might mean their points would need adjusting.

As the Extremis Chamber is the only one that is not possible to play legally as a "pure" chamber I would add Dracothian Guards as conditional battleline if the general is a Lord-Celestant on Stardrake.

It would be cool to have separate command traits for Lord-Aquilor as well as Lord-Celestant and Lord-Arcanum.

39 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I would rather make Liberators more useful rather than reducing their point cost

I like this approach a lot more than point reductions. For Liberators with shields I would like to see some kind of tanking shieldwall ability in order to hold objectives longer. Something like forgoing attacks gives +2 on saves and a +5 MW save and also counting wounds rather than models if on an objective.

40 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I have plans to update all the Hammers of Sigmar heroes, and add at least 1 named hero for each Stormhost.

This sounds really good as well. I would also be interested in seeing general warscrolls for the current named heros that do not have one like Gavriel for example (maybe he's the only one?). That would then be a Lord-Celestant with a Sigmarite Runeblade and a Sigmarite Thundershield as an example.

 

Really great work!

[XReN]

Really disagree with LCoD and Lord Castellant

If LCoD gets something that powerfull as CA - other Lords Celestant, Lords Arcanum and Lord Aquilor have to get equally AMAZING CAs

Even if Lord Castellant would drop to 80 points (which doesn't seem you feel like) he won't be usefull, he will just be gone forever. 

[XReN]

Also, Lords of the Storm probably should include mandatory knights and should be able to include Gryph Hounds

And Devastation Brotherhood should include Judicators because of the lore

[Nizrah]

I think good idea would be new AA rule: When unit with this rule charged or is being charged this turn get +1 attack. Obv. worded better. Similar to new space marine rule from 40k. Lord-Exorcist could cast 2 spells in turn to be diffrent from Knight-Incantor.

[chord]

Looks good for the most part but the Celestant Prime should be 280 even with the wound bonus, as he just never sees the table for a few rounds

[Gecktron]

I really like the changes to the Castigators. They didnt really had a purpose before. I could see myself taking some with these rules.

I also like the Stormhost changes. I only really looked at the Hammers of Sigmar, Hallowed Knights and Anvils of the Heldenhammer (since these are the only ones im familiar with) but I liked what I saw. Not 100% sure about the Hammers of Sigmar summoning tho...

[Sleepa]

I think Prosecutors need a change as well. They currently serve the same purpose as Pallidors, except one would rarely want to take advantage of their 3d6" charge. I propose giving them a charge-based ability along the lines of:

"After this unit completes a charge move, roll a number of dice equal to the result of this unit's charge roll. For each result of a 5+, add 1 to the attacks profile of this unit's melee weapons for the following combat phase." 

Obviously that might be a little too pushed, but as it stands, there's really no reason to ever take hammers over tridents (aside from the models that don't come with the choice of being built with tridents). Beyond the choice of weapons for Prosecutors, they really need either an offensive or defensive push to make them a generally desirable unit at all. Their mobility is in a good place, but the units come in such low model counts and neither survive or deal damage effectively, that I fail to see any reason to seriously consider using them over the alternatives. Given the aesthetic of the models, it makes sense to me to give them an offensive boost, to encourage their use as a fast moving, flanking hammer unit.

Edited November 8, 2019 by Sleepa

[Sleepa]

I love most of these changes though, PJetski. Very well thought out.

I had another idea for a re-work of the Celestant Prime's gimmick: 

Have the Prime's attacks profile changed to a flat 5 attacks, and keep the rule where he can remain in Azyr; but change the bonus he receives for remaining out of play to collecting one "Divine retribution" token for every turn he remains off the board. 

Then give him the ability to spend those tokens to either "Always strike first", or get a second pile in and attack. Could even let him use them for multiple consecutive pile-ins, since staying up in the sky(and out of the fight) is a legitimate cost.

[The World Tree]

One of the things I would really like is Libertors to have Staunch Defender for units wholly within 1" of them(so they can be bodyguards for bubblewrapped characters). Or near an objectives

.

The other thing I like the idea of is that deploying in the sky doesn't count as a drop. This gives more chance of winning deployment but at a cost. IMO stormcast should be a strike force that reacts fast and yet they are constantly on the backfoot in this regard.

This would be accompanied by the restriction that you cannot deep strike turn 1 (vanguard would be able).

[armisael]

Here’s my suggestion.

1. Change Prosecutor to be a battleline.

2. For Stardrakes, I think their damage output in combat are too low. maybe sacrifice some of their abilities (Cavernous Jaw and Sweeping Tale, etc) and buff their combat damage. (Change their great claw to rend -2 and D6 damage). So, they can fight one on one with other monster.

3. Change all “re-roll failed to hit/to wound/save” to “re-roll to hit/to wound/save”

 

Edited November 10, 2019 by armisael

[Roark]

These are great. Love the expanded Battleline options and clever ways of making units a bit more useful without going nuts with points changes. Thematically, I reckon Protectors fit Hallowed Knights perfectly (in fact there's already book art!).

Our command abilities are dire and few, and I came specifically to check this out. I have to say, I think the LO and LCOD changes are perfect!

[chord]

17 hours ago, armisael said:

Here’s my suggestion.

1. Change Prosecutor to be a battleline.

Agreed 100%

[schwabbele]

On 11/7/2019 at 3:56 PM, PJetski said:

Lord-Castellant

• +1 Wound
• Warding Lantern now grants a friendly unit a 6+ ignore instead of +1 save and healing

 

What's your reasoning behind this? A 6+ shrug feels kinda underwhelming compared to his current ability...

[kenshin620]

How about Knight Questors going to 90pts and, much like Grimwarth Beserkers/Doomseerkers, do not count as a Leader? I think then it might be worthwhile to have 1 or 2 running around your army. I just like the idea of having a wandering knight on a quest doing stuff in the army.

[PJetski]

On 11/7/2019 at 12:08 PM, Memnoch said:

For the Hallowed Knights artifact you state "The first HALLOWED KNIGHTS PRIEST". Does that mean that other non-priest heroes could get other artifacts than this one first thereby circumventing the artifact rule of the stormhosts?

I don't necessarily think it is needed to reduce the maximum size of Liberators and Raptors, I think having the options of bigger units is fine as is.

I would suggest having Paladins with 3+ save, after all they are wearing much heavier armor, or alternatively some MW save option. This might mean their points would need adjusting.

As the Extremis Chamber is the only one that is not possible to play legally as a "pure" chamber I would add Dracothian Guards as conditional battleline if the general is a Lord-Celestant on Stardrake.

It would be cool to have separate command traits for Lord-Aquilor as well as Lord-Celestant and Lord-Arcanum.

I like this approach a lot more than point reductions. For Liberators with shields I would like to see some kind of tanking shieldwall ability in order to hold objectives longer. Something like forgoing attacks gives +2 on saves and a +5 MW save and also counting wounds rather than models if on an objective.

This sounds really good as well. I would also be interested in seeing general warscrolls for the current named heros that do not have one like Gavriel for example (maybe he's the only one?). That would then be a Lord-Celestant with a Sigmarite Runeblade and a Sigmarite Thundershield as an example.

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, as per the recent FAQs if you do not give any artefacts to a PRIEST then you could skip the artefact from that Stormhost. A similar thing can be seen in the Fyreslayers (Lofnir lodge) and Orruk Warclans battletomes.

I reduced the size of Liberators because I don't like the idea of an army with large infantry like Stormcast running units of 30+ models. It's a strange aesthetic that doesn't fit the vibe of Stormcast being an 'elite' army. That's just my opinion, of course. In terms of gameplay, I think it makes it difficult to design interesting battalion/stormhost abilities while also considering how they would scale out of control if applied to a unit of 30+ models. For example, the old Vanguard Wing battalion was really weird thing to play against when you could teleport a unit of 30 Liberators, but maybe with only 20 models it could have been fine.

In the case of Raptors, I limited their size to fix the current situation of their synergy with the Anvils of the Heldenhammer command ability. On their own Raptors are a fairly inefficient and fragile unit, but when they can double their shooting output they become absurdly powerful. If Longstrikes are limited to 6 in a unit then it becomes less effective to buff them (you need double the command points), which means maybe they don't need to cost 170 points per 3 models, and then maybe the could be usable in lists other than Anvils.

I thought about making Paladins a 3+ save. I went with a point cost reduction instead, since a 3+ save would make it harder to add any kind of save bonuses to the army. I may still consider making them a 3+ save and raising their points back up.

I'm not sure how to balance battleline Dracothian Guard. If they are battleline then they become spammable, and if that's the case you need to raise their point cost. They are already barely playable at their current costs so I thought it might be better to indirectly boost them through improved Stormhosts. A big unit of Desolators in Knights-Excelsior is going to do some really nasty things in the combat phase!

My next pass will have Command Traits for the Aquilor! I was thinking one would let nearby gryph hounds strike first, and another one would allow him to charge after using Ride the Winds. Still working on it.

I think the reason we have a Knight-Zephyros is because the model comes with two different head options. You can run Neave and a Knight-Zephyros side by side with two slightly different models. Gavriel is a very distinct model with no opitions, with Hammers of Sigmar iconography all over him, so I'm not sure it would work to make a generic Lord-Celestant out of his model.

On 11/7/2019 at 12:22 PM, XReN said:

Really disagree with LCoD and Lord Castellant

If LCoD gets something that powerfull as CA - other Lords Celestant, Lords Arcanum and Lord Aquilor have to get equally AMAZING CAs

Even if Lord Castellant would drop to 80 points (which doesn't seem you feel like) he won't be usefull, he will just be gone forever. 

Also, Lords of the Storm probably should include mandatory knights and should be able to include Gryph Hounds

And Devastation Brotherhood should include Judicators because of the lore

I knew that the LCOD and Castellant changes would be controversial!

My goal is to make the LCOD a staple choice in Stormcast armies again. He was the original Stormcast hero model but his warscroll has not been updated in a way that makes any sense to the modern version of the game. I effectively moved Staunch Defender from a passive Command Trait into an active Command Ability. In addition to costing a command point, it can only be used once per turn, and it requires that the LCOD is your general - that's a lot of opportunity costs.

Is a +1 save boost to units wholly within 12" too powerful? I'm not sure it is. In the first edition it certainly would have been an extremely powerful ability... but the game has changed a lot since then. There is a lot more mortal wounds in the game now, and the game isn't defined by two army bricks smashing into each other in the middle of the battlefield so the range is a big restriction.

The Lord-Castellant granting +1 save bonus has been a big problem for the design of the faction as a whole. If the Castellant is too weak, there are other ways to boost him without bringing back a save bonus. For example, what if instead of just 1 unit it affected all units near him? 

My version of Lords of the Storm does still include a gryph-hound, because it would be spawned from the required Castellant and/or Veritant. I think the reason the current battalion has them is because the Lord-Castellant comes with one, and it's a vestigial remnant from the first AOS battletome that brought Gryph-Hounds as single models. The reason I removed them as a unit choice is that it doesn't really make sense for this battalion to have a big pack of 6+ gryph hounds running around it. That seems more like a Vanguard Chamber thing.

I took the Knight requirement out because I feel like the battalion is nearly impossible to ever play when it requires 6 heroes/leaders. I want to open up more options for list building, and having a relatively inexpensive battalion for the underused Warrior Chamber heroes goes a long way towards that goal.

The original lore of the Devastation Brotherhood did not include any Judicators. I wanted to make the battalion easier to put into lists, so removing the requirement to bring 160 points of Judicators helps open that battalion as an option. I would consider changing it to a 0-1 Judicator requirement.

12 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

How about Knight Questors going to 90pts and, much like Grimwarth Beserkers/Doomseerkers, do not count as a Leader? I think then it might be worthwhile to have 1 or 2 running around your army. I just like the idea of having a wandering knight on a quest doing stuff in the army.

Definitely! I love what they did with Grimwrath Berzerkers in the Fyreslayers battletome. I'm not sure that would be enough to push the Questor into being a viable choice in competitive games, but at least he have a niche as a cheap HERO that can be used for command abilities and whatnot.

[XReN]

12 minutes ago, PJetski said:

My goal is to make the LCOD a staple choice in Stormcast armies again. He was the original Stormcast hero model but his warscroll has not been updated in a way that makes any sense to the modern version of the game. I effectively moved Staunch Defender from a passive Command Trait into an active Command Ability. In addition to costing a command point, it can only be used once per turn, and it requires that the LCOD is your general - that's a lot of opportunity costs.

Is a +1 save boost to units wholly within 12" too powerful? I'm not sure it is. In the first edition it certainly would have been an extremely powerful ability... but the game has changed a lot since then. There is a lot more mortal wounds in the game now, and the game isn't defined by two army bricks smashing into each other in the middle of the battlefield so the range is a big restriction.

I totally support your intetion here, I've meant to suggest making all such commanders equally powerfull as army's generals.

17 minutes ago, PJetski said:

The Lord-Castellant granting +1 save bonus has been a big problem for the design of the faction as a whole. If the Castellant is too weak, there are other ways to boost him without bringing back a save bonus. For example, what if instead of just 1 unit it affected all units near him? 

Even like that, I can't see a point in having a 6+ prevention roll in elite army, it just won't cut it in my opinion, especially comparing to our other heroes, some might be underused, but that is influnced by current meta, you don't really need Heraldor in shootcast, or Lords Celestants in any form. Pretty much all of our buffing heroes have really good abilities and this change would make Castellant from our most desirable character to fit into list to least.

22 minutes ago, PJetski said:

My version of Lords of the Storm does still include a gryph-hound, because it would be spawned from the required Castellant and/or Veritant. I think the reason the current battalion has them is because the Lord-Castellant comes with one, and it's a vestigial remnant from the first AOS battletome that brought Gryph-Hounds as single models. The reason I removed them as a unit choice is that it doesn't really make sense for this battalion to have a big pack of 6+ gryph hounds running around it. That seems more like a Vanguard Chamber thing.

Yeah, that makes sense

23 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I took the Knight requirement out because I feel like the battalion is nearly impossible to ever play when it requires 6 heroes/leaders. I want to open up more options for list building, and having a relatively inexpensive battalion for the underused Warrior Chamber heroes goes a long way towards that goal.

As someone who likes the lore-driven rules and structure I'd suggest making it 1 lord Celestant, 1 Lord Relictor, 0-4 (or 1-4) Lord's Castellant/Veritant and 1-15 Knights, since the only under represented character here is Lord Celestant, it doesn't make sense to me to throw out knights

27 minutes ago, PJetski said:

The original lore of the Devastation Brotherhood did not include any Judicators. I wanted to make the battalion easier to put into lists, so removing the requirement to bring 160 points of Judicators helps open that battalion as an option. I would consider changing it to a 0-1 Judicator requirement.

I remeber that, but since we moved on from it long ago - we need judicators. 0-1 reqirement is fine by me.

[Memnoch]

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

Yes, as per the recent FAQs if you do not give any artefacts to a PRIEST then you could skip the artefact from that Stormhost. A similar thing can be seen in the Fyreslayers (Lofnir lodge) and Orruk Warclans battletomes.

Aha, I missed that in the FAQ. Sounds good!

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

I reduced the size of Liberators because I don't like the idea of an army with large infantry like Stormcast running units of 30+ models. It's a strange aesthetic that doesn't fit the vibe of Stormcast being an 'elite' army. That's just my opinion, of course. In terms of gameplay, I think it makes it difficult to design interesting battalion/stormhost abilities while also considering how they would scale out of control if applied to a unit of 30+ models. For example, the old Vanguard Wing battalion was really weird thing to play against when you could teleport a unit of 30 Liberators, but maybe with only 20 models it could have been fine.

This is a fair point that admittedly I hadn't considered.

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

In the case of Raptors, I limited their size to fix the current situation of their synergy with the Anvils of the Heldenhammer command ability. On their own Raptors are a fairly inefficient and fragile unit, but when they can double their shooting output they become absurdly powerful. If Longstrikes are limited to 6 in a unit then it becomes less effective to buff them (you need double the command points), which means maybe they don't need to cost 170 points per 3 models, and then maybe the could be usable in lists other than Anvils.

Perhaps here it would be possible to boost the Raptors a bit as it seems that the Anvils of the Heldenhammer CA is the main problem. What if you give the Longstrikes a Headshot on 5+ and the Hurricanes -1 Rend for example and put some limit on the Anvils' CA instead? The would give the Raptors more value for their points and makes them more useful in other lists as well.

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

I thought about making Paladins a 3+ save. I went with a point cost reduction instead, since a 3+ save would make it harder to add any kind of save bonuses to the army. I may still consider making them a 3+ save and raising their points back up.

I see where you are coming from here. I was more thinking from a more thematic point as the models themselves are much bulkier than most of the other Stormcast. I'm still in favor of making them more durable somehow.

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

I'm not sure how to balance battleline Dracothian Guard. If they are battleline then they become spammable, and if that's the case you need to raise their point cost. They are already barely playable at their current costs so I thought it might be better to indirectly boost them through improved Stormhosts. A big unit of Desolators in Knights-Excelsior is going to do some really nasty things in the combat phase!

Again, I'm coming from a more thematic point here. I see the problem though, perhaps it would be possible to put some size limits on them if they are battleline units? Perhaps that is just making it unnecessarily complex though.

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

My next pass will have Command Traits for the Aquilor! I was thinking one would let nearby gryph hounds strike first, and another one would allow him to charge after using Ride the Winds. Still working on it.

Those sound really good!

3 hours ago, PJetski said:

I think the reason we have a Knight-Zephyros is because the model comes with two different head options. You can run Neave and a Knight-Zephyros side by side with two slightly different models. Gavriel is a very distinct model with no opitions, with Hammers of Sigmar iconography all over him, so I'm not sure it would work to make a generic Lord-Celestant out of his model.

Maybe this stems from the fact that I put a helmet on my Gavriel and in fairness most of the early Stormcast do have quite a bit of Hammers of Sigmar iconography on them. I would see this as pretty much the same as using Vandus as a generic Lord-Celestant on Dracoth or Astreia as generic Lord-Arcanum on Dracoline which I believe is not uncommon.

On 11/10/2019 at 2:03 AM, armisael said:

1. Change Prosecutor to be a battleline.

2. For Stardrakes, I think their damage output in combat are too low. maybe sacrifice some of their abilities (Cavernous Jaw and Sweeping Tale, etc) and buff their combat damage. (Change their great claw to rend -2 and D6 damage). So, they can fight one on one with other monster.

3. Change all “re-roll failed to hit/to wound/save” to “re-roll to hit/to wound/save”

Agree fully on 1 and 3. Not sure we'd need to sacrifice any abilities from the Stardrakes, I think it's fair to simply up their combat damage to get them on the "new" monster level.

[kenshin620]

2 minutes ago, Memnoch said:

Again, I'm coming from a more thematic point here. I see the problem though, perhaps it would be possible to put some size limits on them if they are battleline units? Perhaps that is just making it unnecessarily complex though.

 

That actually already exists in other armies so it could work.

Orruk Ardboyz are only Battleline in A Big Waaagh army when there are 10+ models and Ogor Leadbealchers are only Battleline if you have a Gutbuster General and they have 4+ models.  So Dracoths could have a 4+ Model limit.

 

Another option would be maybe a rule where only 1 Unit of Dracoths (or insert other unit here) may be taken as Battleline. Kind of like some old 40k/fantasy rules. While that currently doesn't exist in AoS, Cities of Sigmar has a somewhat similar Retinue rule that only affects 1 unit in your army.

[PJetski]

I was actually thinking that Tempestors could be battleline if your general is a STARDRAKE.

Re: Raptors

It's not just the Anvils CA that I am concerned about. Any unit that can shoot 30" with low volume, high power attacks, is really tricky to balance if you can bring them in multiples of 4. Buffs on super long range attacks need to be carefully managed - if every buff in the battletome has to consider how it will interact with a unit of 9+ Longstrikes then you can't make them universally apply to other similar units like Hurricanes, Castigators, and Judicators.

Longstrikes are basically an Artillery unit, and there's a good reason that no other artillery unit in the game can be brought in more than a squad size of 1... wiping your opponent off the board in 2 rounds with mega long range attacks isn't fun for anyone.

[Memnoch]

32 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Re: Raptors

It's not just the Anvils CA that I am concerned about. Any unit that can shoot 30" with low volume, high power attacks, is really tricky to balance if you can bring them in multiples of 4. Buffs on super long range attacks need to be carefully managed - if every buff in the battletome has to consider how it will interact with a unit of 9+ Longstrikes then you can't make them universally apply to other similar units like Hurricanes, Castigators, and Judicators.

Longstrikes are basically an Artillery unit, and there's a good reason that no other artillery unit in the game can be brought in more than a squad size of 1... wiping your opponent off the board in 2 rounds with mega long range attacks isn't fun for anyone.

That is a good point. Probably would be less of an issue if it was not possible to increase the range from 24" to 30". But then again, you're probably right that the size limit is the easiest limitation overall.

[kenshin620]

37 minutes ago, PJetski said:

 

Longstrikes are basically an Artillery unit, and there's a good reason that no other artillery unit in the game can be brought in more than a squad size of 1... wiping your opponent off the board in 2 rounds with mega long range attacks isn't fun for anyone.

Technically Skaven Warplock Jezzails are Artillery.