Skyborne Slayers - The Thread

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

Wait, there are units in this game which liberators can actually cut through?

[Thanos-se]

Actually not cutting cause I have them with hammers.

[Evantas]

(Note: Assuming Lord-Celestant requirements can be fulfilled with Gardus Steelsoul)

Aura of Purity: Roll a dice each time you allocate a mortal wound to this model. On a 5+, that mortal wound is negated. In addition, roll a dice each time you allocate a mortal wound to a model from another friendly Hallowed Knights unit wholly within 12" of this model. On a 6, that mortal wound is negated.

Saintly Assault: Once per battle, at the start of your charge phase, you can declare that this model and other friendly Hallowed Knights Heroes within 12" of this model will launch a saintly assault. You can re-roll charge rolls for those models in that phase. In addition, add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of melee weapons used by those models until the end of the turn.

 

I'm looking at the above, and I'm wondering how we can potentially use Gardus for a different take (not necessarily stronger, similar power is good enough) on Skyborne Slayers, assuming TO allows for it?

What's the best 'melee monster' that we can use to potentially drop together with Gardus and Skyborne?

[Marcvs]

9 minutes ago, Evantas said:

(Note: Assuming Lord-Celestant requirements can be fulfilled with Gardus Steelsoul)

Aura of Purity: Roll a dice each time you allocate a mortal wound to this model. On a 5+, that mortal wound is negated. In addition, roll a dice each time you allocate a mortal wound to a model from another friendly Hallowed Knights unit wholly within 12" of this model. On a 6, that mortal wound is negated.

Saintly Assault: Once per battle, at the start of your charge phase, you can declare that this model and other friendly Hallowed Knights Heroes within 12" of this model will launch a saintly assault. You can re-roll charge rolls for those models in that phase. In addition, add 1 to the Attacks characteristic of melee weapons used by those models until the end of the turn.

 

I'm looking at the above, and I'm wondering how we can potentially use Gardus for a different take (not necessarily stronger, similar power is good enough) on Skyborne Slayers, assuming TO allows for it?

What's the best 'melee monster' that we can use to potentially drop together with Gardus and Skyborne?

unfortunately, there's a few problems, the biggest of which is that I am pretty sure you cannot use Gardus in Skyborne Slayers (the battalion doesn't use the KEYWORD for LORD CELESTANT, so while we can argue about the version with mounts, named ones are out pretty clearly).

Other than that, the bonus attack is only for HEROES, so these woulnd't be in the battalion, hence at best 9" away from the enemy. Sure, you get the reroll, but that's just a 50% chance of getting in.

After you jump through all these hoops what does this get you? +1 attack for heroes who are notoriously not very killy (for instance, the +1 attacks on the two profiles of of a Celestant on Stardrakes nets you around +1.5 damage vs a 4+ save...). Probably the best target would be the Celestant Prime, who can also guarantee the charge.

The save against mortal wounds is... nice? (as long as your 5 wounds, 4+ save character is alive that is), but for the rest I would always value Celestial Vindicators + a Vexillor (+1 attacks on a unit for a CP and reroll charges, plus the great once per game teleport) over Hallowed Knights + Gardus (+1 attacks on heroes and reroll charges)

[Juicy]

6 hours ago, Marcvs said:

unfortunately, there's a few problems, the biggest of which is that I am pretty sure you cannot use Gardus in Skyborne Slayers (the battalion doesn't use the KEYWORD for LORD CELESTANT, so while we can argue about the version with mounts, named ones are out pretty clearly).

Other than that, the bonus attack is only for HEROES, so these woulnd't be in the battalion, hence at best 9" away from the enemy. Sure, you get the reroll, but that's just a 50% chance of getting in.

After you jump through all these hoops what does this get you? +1 attack for heroes who are notoriously not very killy (for instance, the +1 attacks on the two profiles of of a Celestant on Stardrakes nets you around +1.5 damage vs a 4+ save...). Probably the best target would be the Celestant Prime, who can also guarantee the charge.

The save against mortal wounds is... nice? (as long as your 5 wounds, 4+ save character is alive that is), but for the rest I would always value Celestial Vindicators + a Vexillor (+1 attacks on a unit for a CP and reroll charges, plus the great once per game teleport) over Hallowed Knights + Gardus (+1 attacks on heroes and reroll charges)

this 100 %,

model would fit super well for a skyborne slayers army tho. That heroic landing.... Love that model.. 

[Marcvs]

If you haven't seen this, a Skyborne Slayers list went 4-1 and came in second (losing only to the winner of the tournament) in a small (20 players) NZ tournament

 

[Mark Williams]

17 hours ago, Marcvs said:

If you haven't seen this, a Skyborne Slayers list went 4-1 and came in second (losing only to the winner of the tournament) in a small (20 players) NZ tournament

 

I played against this person in the 3rd round and lost by a very wide margin. The following is my takeaway from playing against it.

1) This person had a very low amount of drops, and could force me to take the first turn. I was forced into a choice of trying to create some sort of castle or grabbing the objectives early and then dealing with the fallout of having my army spread out around the board. At the time, I felt it was better to get a foothold into the board space, and to get some points. My plan was to wait to see where he dropped and try to respond to that as best I could. However, being put into a position where you are always going to get hit by a double turn first, puts you on the back foot before the game begins. I was always going to take some very heavy losses before I got a chance to try to punch back.

2) Unfamiliarity with the list. I've never played against a Skyborne Slayers list before. I knew in theory what it did, and I had familiarity with the individual units, but until I saw it behaving on the board, I didn't have a full understanding of how much freedom the army had to move into the board, and how easily it would be able to successfully choose targets and make charges. He was able to knock out about 50% of my army in a single turn when he dropped, due to being able to perfectly match fights and guarantee charges against them.

3) The battalion breaks several rules of the game, and is startlingly good value compared to a lot of other battalions in the game. Rules it breaks are (1) breaks the 9" deep strike rule, (2) breaks the stormcast equal units on the board rule (3) breaks the battleshock rules (immunity). Compared to most other battalions in the game, it confers a lot of abilities for very few points, and even if the battlion just gave one of the above advantages, it would still be a pretty good bargain. Getting three extremely strong advantages for a single battalion in addition to all of the other advantages, goes a long way to making up for the fact that you're restricted to what units can be included in it.

4) The army puts out a lot of mortal wounds at range. This caught me off guard, mostly because I haven't played against dracoths in a pretty long time. In hindsight, I underestimated how big of a threat these were, and I didn't put enough emphasis on killing them early. If I had it to do over again, I would have focused on the dracoths first and gotten rid of them as soon as possible in order to limit the amount of ranged damage that I was taking. This goes hand in #2 above, which is that I (and I suspect many others at the tournament) had never faced a list like this and basically got blindsided by it. Rather than play a true game against each other, what I ended up playing instead was a learning/teaching game.

5) Dumb mistakes. Because I got caught off guard by all of the above, I ended up losing my wits during the game, and I made several dumb mistakes. I prioritized the wrong targets. Forgot my plan. Did things out of order and didn't retreat out of combats that I couldn't win. I basically just lost my composure and became my own enemy during the fight. This didn't do me any favors.

I can't speak for the other players at the tournament, but I feel that most of the other players lost for much the same reasons that I did. Also, this person went up against a very tough Fyreslayers opponent in the 4th round that they probably should have lost to, but instead won because (from what I could see) the Fyreslayers basically just deployed really badly and allowed him to deep strike right on top of the objective. It should have been a difficult if almost impossible fight to win, and they were literally one of, if not the first people to win that round and only played for about 20-30 minutes. However, I beat the same opponent in the 2nd round, for almost the exact same reasons, so... what can you say?

Hope that provides a bit of clarity.

Personally I have a newfound respect for the list, my only issues with Skyborne Slayers as a potential army going forward is that I don't believe it will exist in AoS 3.0 and the new SCE book. I feel that this battalion is some sort of weird anomaly that GW forgot about, and is seen so infrequently that they just haven't bothered to deal with it. But what do I know, maybe they will carry it forward.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Mark Williams

[Maturin]

On 5/19/2021 at 1:10 AM, Mark Williams said:

I played against this person in the 3rd round and lost by a very wide margin. The following is my takeaway from playing against it.

1) This person had a very low amount of drops, and could force me to take the first turn.

He had 5 drops right ? That's not very low nor a lot.
What amazes me is taht he was able to play a LCoD. I've never been allowed to play anything but an unmounted Lord Celestant.

[Mark Williams]

4 hours ago, Maturin said:

He had 5 drops right ? That's not very low nor a lot.
What amazes me is taht he was able to play a LCoD. I've never been allowed to play anything but an unmounted Lord Celestant.

As far as I am aware, he out dropped at least 4 opponents if not all 5. He was able to take a lord celestant on dracoth because of the ghb 2020 faq which says that “on dracoth” is a subtitle instead of a title. The TO agreed with the ruling. I agree it’s a bit shady and probably not intended, but the rules now allow it if you’re RAW-oriented. I did mention it to him after our game as I know that prior to the FAQ it was illegal to do that due to the fact that the battalion uses a title instead of a keyword. As I said above - old battalion that probably should’ve been taken out of matched play and have no idea why gw carried it forward  after the battletome came out. Grand alliance stuff was removed from every other battletome except SCE…

Also, after watching my game and some of his others, the lcod did a tremendous amount of work, and made a massive difference in his performance. So the foot version would have definitely hamstrung him in a few games. 
 

As I said, I don’t think it will make it into the new book in a couple of months so it’s really a non issue. I’m inclined to think he just got super lucky via a “surprise factor”. Not many people play Stormcast in out area, and for almost everyone it was the first time they saw anything like that. Element of surprise counts for a lot.

[Lord Krungharr]

I was about to start assembling a Skyborne Slayers army but I agree, it will probably not make it into a new Stormcast tome.  And who knows what other changes v3.0 will bring.  I'm just hoping my Stardrake and Dracoths get a battalion all their own, and Dracoths become battleline if the general is on a Stardrake, cuz Kragnos needs something to really hate.

[Maturin]

2 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

He was able to take a lord celestant on dracoth because of the ghb 2020 faq which says that “on dracoth” is a subtitle instead of a title.

I can't find that in the 2020 FAQs. Would you be so kind as to tell me exactly where to look ?

[Mark Williams]

2 hours ago, Maturin said:

I can't find that in the 2020 FAQs. Would you be so kind as to tell me exactly where to look ?

Hmmm… I found it just a couple weeks ago. I’ll look again in a bit.

[Mark Williams]

3 hours ago, Mark Williams said:

Hmmm… I found it just a couple weeks ago. I’ll look again in a bit.

Sorry that took me a while. The section that they were referencing is in the core rules on the page titled "Warscroll Battalions". It would be either on page 13 or page 15 depending on which version of the rules you're looking at.

The words specifically say:

"The organisation section of a battalion lists the titles or keywords for the units it can or must include. If an entry i sthe title of a unit, any unit with that title can be used (you can ignore sub-headers under the title unless they are included in the entry for the unit)."

The reasoning given for allowing a Lord Celestant on Dracoth is that in the Battltome, the "on Dracoth" part is a sub-header rather than a title.

The counter argument to this is the part of the text that says "unless they are included in the entry for the unit". The entry being the entry in the back of the book where you see the points costs for the units.

Depending on how you look at it, it could be legal or illegal.

Summary:

Pro Argument: I can do because this is clearly a subtitle.

Con Argument; Yes, but it's a subtitle that's included in the entry for the unit.

Basically, it boilds down to your interpretation of what the "entry" they are referring to is. If it's the entry in the warscroll, it's a sub-header that doesn't matter. If it's the entry on the pitched battle profile list, it's a sub-header that does matter. Due to the lack of a proper FAQ one way or another, TOs can allow it....

 

 

 

[Joseph Mackay]

On 6/1/2021 at 4:23 PM, Mark Williams said:

Sorry that took me a while. The section that they were referencing is in the core rules on the page titled "Warscroll Battalions". It would be either on page 13 or page 15 depending on which version of the rules you're looking at.

The words specifically say:

"The organisation section of a battalion lists the titles or keywords for the units it can or must include. If an entry i sthe title of a unit, any unit with that title can be used (you can ignore sub-headers under the title unless they are included in the entry for the unit)."

The reasoning given for allowing a Lord Celestant on Dracoth is that in the Battltome, the "on Dracoth" part is a sub-header rather than a title.

The counter argument to this is the part of the text that says "unless they are included in the entry for the unit". The entry being the entry in the back of the book where you see the points costs for the units.

Depending on how you look at it, it could be legal or illegal.

Summary:

Pro Argument: I can do because this is clearly a subtitle.

Con Argument; Yes, but it's a subtitle that's included in the entry for the unit.

Basically, it boilds down to your interpretation of what the "entry" they are referring to is. If it's the entry in the warscroll, it's a sub-header that doesn't matter. If it's the entry on the pitched battle profile list, it's a sub-header that does matter. Due to the lack of a proper FAQ one way or another, TOs can allow it....

 

 

 

To further add confusion to this nonsense (I’m of the belief that you CANT take a mount) the Flesh-Eater Courts Royal Family battalion which started the whole debate received an errata that specifically says no mounts but no other battalions got this

[Evantas]

On 6/27/2021 at 11:23 AM, Joseph Mackay said:

To further add confusion to this nonsense (I’m of the belief that you CANT take a mount) the Flesh-Eater Courts Royal Family battalion which started the whole debate received an errata that specifically says no mounts but no other battalions got this

It's not actually going to matter for competitive now. Sad.

Skyborne Slayers was the coolest SCE battalion. 

For narrative I think it's pretty much what the relevant organiser decides I guess? Though if I'm playing narrative, I'd be more keen on allowing than banning things. 

[Evantas]

Hi people,

Managed to make a list that is a homage to the original battalion. I think it's still reasonably effective. 

New Skyborne Slayers

Subfaction: Scions of the Storm / Knights Excelsior

Core Battalions
    Warlord
         Lord-Imperatant
         Lord-Relictor (General)
         Knight-Incantor
         Judicators with Skybolt Bows x10
            
    Redemption Brotherhood
        Protectors x10
        Annihilators x3
        Annihilators with Meteoric Grandhammers x3
        Decimators x5

Endless Spells/Invocations
      Chronomantic Cogs

Total Points: 1995 pts

 

General Tactics

The judicators and heroes start on the board, cogs to improve the reliability of the deepstrike charges and post-translocation. Pretty much that's it. 

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Evantas