Starcast - The Thread

[Turragor]

On 10/11/2020 at 9:52 PM, Marcvs said:

Still, I have the feeling that I have extracted as much "value" as possible from this list and, barring some new elements, I think the meta keeps getting worse for a) an elite build and b) a build based on limited bu targeted output.

Yes, I think starcast is nearly perfected - as good as it can be.

On 10/12/2020 at 11:43 AM, Ymh said:

Hi @Marcvs , thanks for your feedback very interresting. French guy here too, I will try a Starcast too for another tournament, I think less competitive than yours.

What is your point of view about Castellant ? I removed him from my list. For my point of view each time I played him, Stardrakes were very strong sure but if my opponent has lot of MW that was not efficient. Staunch defender + perfect plate do the job enough and Castellant is not essential I think.

 

Small pics for my Starcast army

What is this ultra sexy army? Fantastic

Edited November 9, 2020 by Turragor

[schwabbele]

2 hours ago, Ymh said:

Small pics for my Starcast army

Jesus fu**ing christ. Can you please show more of this beautiful army?

[Maturin]

Just now, schwabbele said:

Jesus fu**ing christ. Can you please show more of this beautiful army?

 

39 minutes ago, Turragor said:

What is this ultra sexy army? Fantastic

You can have a look here guys on the french warhammer forum :
https://www.warhammer-forum.com/index.php?/topic/253966-aos-ordre-seternal-bretcast-haut-en-couleur/

Edited October 12, 2020 by Maturin

[Turragor]

13 minutes ago, Maturin said:

 

You can have a look here guys on the french warhammer forum :
https://www.warhammer-forum.com/index.php?/topic/253966-aos-ordre-seternal-bretcast-haut-en-couleur/

zut! (I'm so french)

[Maturin]

Just now, Turragor said:

zut! (I'm so french)

You have to be unhappy and "blasé" about everything to be really french

[Ymh]

1 hour ago, schwabbele said:

Jesus fu**ing christ. Can you please show more of this beautiful army?

Yeah thanks all

Maturin has give the link for my subject on french warhammer forum. I didn't update it since long time, I will do soon. 

@Marcvs, I have a good feeling, I will try without castellant. But thanks for your explications.

My philosophy :  I think we don't need to have Stardrake until turn 3. Each good party when all is ok, I counted until 60-80 MW done at this turn by my army. Normarly my opponent is in so bad position than Celestant prime come to finish all and my Liberators start to come from the sky to take objectifs. 

 

After I didn't met all armies, and all party are differents

Edited October 12, 2020 by Ymh

[schwabbele]

Hands down the best overall looking SCE if not AoS army I have ever seen.

edit: wts gf and 2 kids, need time to make a cool army

Edited October 12, 2020 by schwabbele

[Marcvs]

35 minutes ago, Ymh said:

@Marcvs, I have a good feeling, I will try without castellant. But thanks for your explications.

My philosophy :  I think we don't need to have Stardrake until turn 3. Each good party when all is ok, I counted until 60-80 MW done at this turn by my army. Normarly my opponent is in so bad position than Celestant prime come to finish all and my Liberators start to come from the sky to take objectifs. 

 

After I didn't met all armies, and all party are differents

If you are playing with "low magic" then yes, the second Stardrake has a lesser impact. If you need the comet to go off (and not be unbound) or kroak's spells, then the second +1 to cast has a big impact on the amount of MW you'll do. Of course, if your opponent has little or no magic (that is, no bonuses to unbind, or tablewide unbinding) you might not even need that bonus. In my experience the second Stardrake is great vs Idoneth to kill Volturnos, since he doesn't get his 3+ to deny spells vs rain of stars and as I said in my post, there's a lot of Idoneth around here

[jeanfluflu]

Very interesting discussion, for those interested i'm currently sculpting my own stardrake and hope to 3D print it later so i've read all this with intense interest.
Go have a look here if you're curious:

 

Someone here told about the fact that the drakesworn templar can give +1 to hit to dracothian allies if he lands his 3+ bow attack.

I did my math and with that ability combined to the celestial vindicator sub-allegiance our dracothian guards becomes really impactfull in close combat (a unit of 4 will deal on average 28 wounds when they charge against a 4+ save, 22 wounds with 4+ reroll).
the mortal wound from dracothian breath also benefit from it, making it really interesting if you have some focus fire to do on something you want to destroy (etherial dangers or big monsters that needs to calm down a bit before you engage them).

Quite a powerfull line breaker, but there's several problems:

- Dracothain guards are quite expensive units, making the rest of the build less effective if you have to remove Kroak for example to fit your wonderfull dragons.
- The stardrake is a much higher risk in that build: removing the staunch defender as well as not having the articaft to ignore -1 rend is making him much more fragile. On it's own that miniature is not killy enough for it's cost with just a 3+ naked save and celestial vindicator artifact does not makes it any better at killing something to get him on a big unit or else.
- It's shifting away from the starcast build that revolves arround dealing regular MW imputs on key targets, and without that optic in minds i'm not sure that the build is coherent or even useful.
- We don't have much projection either, let's say we have a knight heraldor, you can burn a CP and run 6 making your dracothian go 16inches and then charge but it's still not enough to reliably charge turn one.

That said do you have alternatives to play dracothian guard with decent results? Can you go starcast using something else than staunch defender? Will Sigmar grant us batallions that can actually be usefull for them?

What are your thoughts on this guys?

Edited October 16, 2020 by jeanfluflu

[Marcvs]

On 10/12/2020 at 11:43 AM, Ymh said:

Hi @Marcvs , thanks for your feedback very interresting. French guy here too, I will try a Starcast too for another tournament, I think less competitive than yours.

What is your point of view about Castellant ? I removed him from my list. For my point of view each time I played him, Stardrakes were very strong sure but if my opponent has lot of MW that was not efficient. Staunch defender + perfect plate do the job enough and Castellant is not essential I think.

 

Congrats for the good result @Ymh, bravo!

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Marcvs

[rosa]

Big Congratz!

So how did your list looked like with double drake and without Castelant?

[Ymh]

1 hour ago, Marcvs said:

Congrats for the good result @Ymh, bravo!

Thanks @Marcvs, I'm very proud with this result. It was my first tournament and I'm third with the best painting.

 

I will try to give you my feedback. Sorry for my bad english in advance  .

 

My list :

LEADERS

Celestant-Prime (300)

Drakesworn Templar (420)
- Tempest Axe

Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500)
- General
- Stormbound Blade
- Artefact:  Plate of Perfect Protection 
- Mount Trait: Storm-winged

Lord-Exorcist (90)
- Spell: Lightning Blast

Lord Kroak (320)
- Allies

UNITS

3 x 5 x Liberators (90)
- Warblade & Shield
- 1 x  Grandblades

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS

Everblaze Comet (100)

 

FIRST GAME : 

It was against a young player with Lumineth army. His list was quite simple :

2x Cathallar

1x Stonemage

2x20 Vanari sentinels

2x10 Vanari wardens

2x10 Dawnriders

The scenario was : "Forcing the hand" 

I was confident with this scenario , my aim was to be out of range with his vanari sentinels, let him take advantage with the objectifs during first round and keep my  3x5 liberators in the sky. He knew the starcast list because it was your fourth opponent @Marcvs during your tournament (sylvaneth player). My plan was good because he succeed  to take advantage with the points, but my damage in 2 rounds was too high for him, approximatly 40-50 MW. After the end of the second round the game was win for me. 

SECOND GAME :

I will continue this evening ...

[Turragor]

Love it!

If anyone new is reading this in desperation for something to do with SCE that isn't shootcast, Starcast still works - its just a few more lists are a pain in the ass than was the case end of 2019.

[Ymh]

I thought than I can edit my post but no...

 

SECOND GAME :

Ironjawz player :

1x Maw Crusha

2x Warchanter

6x Gruntas

3x Gruntas

20x Orruks Ardboys

5x Orruk brutes

Scenario was : "The better part of valour"

I was very afraid of this scenario, with my only 3x5 Liberators... But I think I was lucky to have an Ironjawz army as opponent. my plan was to place a liberator unit in a corner of the table alone with the auxiliary objective "bait", destroyed as soon as possible this objectif and move them to the objectif in the middle . In the opposite corner an other liberator unit with my 2 stardrake and wizards to keep this objectif all the game like and win 8 points. The last liberator unit stayed in the sky to have a constant threat for my opponent.

It was the plan... But my opponent played Ironjawz and played like an Ironjawz too. So he rushed all my army and he didn't care all objectifs. Lucky for me, because with no MW, my army is too tanky for him. The Maw crusha charge was brave, but he did nothing on my stardrake...

So same as the first battle, in the end of the round 2 he had lost too much to continue the game and decided to give up. Major victory for me, it was unexpected on this scenario.

 

 

THIRD GAME :

Tzeentch player :

Lord of change

blue scribes

changecaster

changeling

Magister

3x10 Pink horrors

2x Flamers

Scenario : "Battle for the pass"

Honestly, I don't know how I could have won against him, the player was Goul a very good AoS player. So I decided to focus on the auxiliary objectifs to have a good place for the tournament. I started the game with a defensive positioning and I started to kill all his leaders. He placed his pink horrors on objectif very fast and for me it was a nightmare to move them after... At the  end of tird round I couldn't get back to the score. But I succed my auxiliary objectifs and I killed all his leaders.

Maybe I could have try to focus pink horrors after discussion with my opponent, but I'm not sure to have enough damage for these.

 

CONCLUSION :

Very happy for my first tournament. I think I was little bit lucky with my opponents, but my list was very strong and very regular. Each battle I do soo much damage than my opponents can do nothing to stop it, but if he take too much advantage on objectifs I can do nothing to change the result...

3 hours ago, rosa said:

Big Congratz!

So how did your list looked like with double drake and without Castelant?

Thanks, I think I will insist to don't take the Castelant. My feeling is than this list is too much tanky and only MW are a threat. During my games I lost :

1st game : 2 liberators

2nd game : 7 liberators

3rd game : 5 liberators and the Prime

 

Hope you'll appreciate my feedback  

 

[Marcvs]

22 minutes ago, Ymh said:

[...]

 

thanks for the summary (et encore félicitations!). I don't think the pairings were that "lucky" (apart from the lack of experience of the first player*), so it's surely cause you piloted your list well. And I agree that focusing on the pinks wouldn't have changed much: even with 50MW over two turns you would only have killed one unit, so I would have focused on the heroes too. Against mid-table / top table players I only ever won one game vs changehost, and that was a minor victory in Knife to the Heart lol

Also: that painting prize was surely well deserved 🤩

*imagine getting crushed by a Starcast list in two tournaments in a row, he will be thinking that it's an OP list by now: the two Stadrakes meta

[Killamike]

Grats YMH.  And your army looks amazing.  

I took a double drake list to a 1 dayer 2 weeks ago and went 3-0. 

The list definetly has legs.  You just have to work for it. 

[Turragor]

While I'm kind of pissed and kind of amused that their solution to what's wrong with SCE is "just give them CoS units" ...

I'm also thinking this opens up a lot of options! CoS units fit in really well.

There are 2 main styles that I see -

1. Focusing on more of what Starcast does and doubling down on weaknesses
2. Shoring up those weaknesses (and trimming some mw scatter damage from list)

If I can find any games in the current "lockdown 2: the re-lockdownening" period, I might try out some unpainted, proxy stuff.

For reference (and we may get more rules previews):

Edited November 4, 2020 by Turragor

[Turragor]

^Modern starcast core at the moment leaves 420 points over right (skipping castellant). For those points I feel like the following are interesting choices:

40 x Flagellants (plus 140 pts over) - I like the idea of these. Maybe a list with 2 x 40. Chaff that the opponent has to be careful about killing.

30 x Phoenix Guard - very solid choice

20 x Sisters of the Watch (plus 100 pts over)- Before Lumineth these were highly regarded, how are they now? How would you reach a foe with them without (see next suggestion): 

20 x Sisters of the Watch with a Soulscream bridge (this combo is however, stronger in a CoS Hallowheart build)

...

Tbh there are a lot of units that are really interesting but, practically, what do you do with them? What is more than interesting, what's good. Lists can be improved in two ways - 'make more strong' vs. 'make less weak'.

Make less weak

Lack of bodies is a starcast weakness because why? Because bodies are for capping objectives and screening. Obj capping I truly believe, is still best left to Libs. There is always more than 1 objective so one big unit (a restriction that 1 CoS in 4 units imposes) isn't always fantastic. Ofc, having one solidly held obj is pretty good.

Screening is a starcast weakness. Why? Because the meta (even more so now than when I was very active) is a mobile, shooty, alpha striking hell

Screening is something I'm personally interested in - that's what I've always felt I needed help with when setting up starcast. When I have to choose to sacrifice the models I want to cap objs with and earn points with versus the models that the enemy is threatened by then I'm in a bad spot for the matchup. Expendable units are good.

Make more strong

If you take any of the shooty options you start to feel like maybe you should just go for another SC list instead of painting 20-30 strong CoS shooting models. It's also a meta where if you give up first turn you are in trouble (see screening) and a big shooty unit is probably an easier target than your stardrake to a multitude of ranged threats.

More magic is cool. Kroak, Drakes, Comet and, say, the Celestial Hurricanum with Mage - now that's some hot stuff there. You will definitely make more strong but I think you will simply win the matchups you'd win harder and still lose the matchups you would lose.

My preferred test

Ok, not that I've got my finger on the pulse or anything, but with my analysis, the best unit I think is 40 Flagellants. Maybe 40 + 20. 2 x 40 seems a stretch points wise...

You'd stretch them out - midfield or back. Block areas for enemies to deploy. You'd want them to be in combat to die (so their mws do somethin) but in reality you probably won't meet many combat armies so you're really looking for the cheapest unit that you can max out in numbers so you can block board space.

Ideally for that you'd want small units of 10 but the 1 in 4 limitation hinders that for Starcast (when you, I think, can take max 2 CoS units). And you lose the max unit pts reduction.

I'd have the runner up unit (in Starcast - probably not for other SC lists) as Phoenix guard.

What do folks think?

[Turragor]

aw man, I got my hopes up for a Flagellant battleline for a moment there (Human general required - LCoSD is Human keyword) but its strictly in a Cities of Sigmar army.

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Turragor said:

What do folks think?

Thinking about it, for the moment nothing strikes the eye (I would still take 2x10 sentinels over the SoW), but also:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
Mortal Realm: Chamon
Drakesworn Templar (420)
- General
- Arc Hammer
- Command Trait: Staunch Defender
- Artefact: Plate of Perfect Protection
- Mount Trait: Storm-winged
Drakesworn Templar (420)
- Tempest Axe
- Mount Trait: Storm-winged
Drakesworn Templar (420)
- Storm Lance
- Artefact: Mirrorshield
Lord Kroak (320)
- Allies
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
3 x Aetherwings (40)
10 x Freeguild Guard (80)
- Halberds and Shields
- Allies
10 x Freeguild Guard (80)
- Halberds and Shields
- Allies
Drakesworn Temple (130)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 480 / 400
Wounds: 91
 

 

[Nizrah]

What if the use new gimmick, take some cheap hero from CoS to give it SD then take AoH to double tap mortals from prime and drake? 

[Nozdormu]

2 hours ago, Nizrah said:

What if the use new gimmick, take some cheap hero from CoS to give it SD then take AoH to double tap mortals from prime and drake? 

It doesn't have sense because Lord of the Heavens and Cometstrike Sceptre are abilities activated only in shooting phase not normal attacks. Anvils CA doesn't affect it.

[Turragor]

That said, there's a lot going for double activation of the drakes once in combat. You trigger stormwinged with pile in and then eat and attack (the attacking part is meh). Eating 4 times in your round is absolutely brutal though.

I have tried that approach once - without Staunch which I sorely missed and without Kroak so I was gasping for command points.

Im not sure what hero you'd try to keep staunch as long as possible (and keep the general in range of those that want the buff).

[xking]

On 10/27/2020 at 5:45 AM, Ymh said:

Thanks @Marcvs, I'm very proud with this result. It was my first tournament and I'm third with the best painting.

 

I will try to give you my feedback. Sorry for my bad english in advance  .

 

My list :

LEADERS

Celestant-Prime (300)

Drakesworn Templar (420)
- Tempest Axe

Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500)
- General
- Stormbound Blade
- Artefact:  Plate of Perfect Protection 
- Mount Trait: Storm-winged

Lord-Exorcist (90)
- Spell: Lightning Blast

Lord Kroak (320)
- Allies

UNITS

3 x 5 x Liberators (90)
- Warblade & Shield
- 1 x  Grandblades

ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS

Everblaze Comet (100)

 

FIRST GAME : 

It was against a young player with Lumineth army. His list was quite simple :

2x Cathallar

1x Stonemage

2x20 Vanari sentinels

2x10 Vanari wardens

2x10 Dawnriders

The scenario was : "Forcing the hand" 

I was confident with this scenario , my aim was to be out of range with his vanari sentinels, let him take advantage with the objectifs during first round and keep my  3x5 liberators in the sky. He knew the starcast list because it was your fourth opponent @Marcvs during your tournament (sylvaneth player). My plan was good because he succeed  to take advantage with the points, but my damage in 2 rounds was too high for him, approximatly 40-50 MW. After the end of the second round the game was win for me. 

SECOND GAME :

I will continue this evening ...

I like the colors

[Marcvs]

A Starcast-ish list went 3-1 in the French TTS Winter League Finals (I was playing with skyborne slayers and went 2-2), after going 3-0 in the pool phase. Don't know if the player is on these forums but here's the list:

Spoiler

Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals
LEADERS
Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500)
- General
- Command Trait : Staunch Defender
- Celestine Hammer
- Artefact : Drakescale Armour
- Mount Trait : Storm-winged
Lord-Castellant (120)
Lord-Exorcist (90)
- Spell : Azyrite Halo
Knight-Heraldor (100)
Slann Starmaster (260)
- Allies
UNITS
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1 x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1 x Grandhammers
5 x Liberators (90)
- Warhammer & Shield
- 1 x Grandhammers
2 x Concussors (220)
2 x Concussors (220)
10 x Skinks (60)
- Boltspitters & Moonstone Clubs
- Allies
10 x Skinks (60)
- Boltspitters & Moonstone Clubs
- Allies
ENDLESS SPELLS / TERRAIN / COMMAND POINTS
Everblaze Comet (100)