Help me build a 2000 point stormcast list

[NauticalSoup]

Been lurking for a bit. Picked up that SCE are struggling due to their aging book so I'm looking for some guidance on assembling a force (or forces) that can do the most work with the figures that I already own.

I won a Soul Wars box at a local 40k tournament a couple weeks ago and then traded for a second one, so I have two sets of Soul Wars guys which I expanded by grabbing a christmas battlebox & an ETB celestar ballista. This means I have a stable of:

• Lord Arcanum on Gryph-charger (two but can't imagine using both)
• Knight-Incantor (two but can't imagine using both)
• Lord Exorcist
• 25 Sequitors
• 10 Evocators
• 6 Evocators on Cats
• 10 Castigators
• 3 Celestar Ballistas
• Gotrek (friend bought me this a while back before I had any sigmar stuff)

I'm seeing a lot of 'shootcast' lists that use vanguard-raptors and aetherwings - trouble is I don't really want to buy a bunch of the kits they're from, although I could always proxy the castigators in casual games to see if I like it. I am willing to add some stuff, especially characters, but SCE has such an enormous number I'm not really sure which ones are most critical. Some are obvious (Lord Ordinator for ballista blob, Gavriel for Gav-bomb) but after that things start feeling murky.

SCE units are so expensive it seems like I probably need to lean lists into one or two things at a time ie Evocators on Cats OR on foot. I'm also sorta stuck on how to build a list around Gotrek, which is something I definitely want to at least try.

[Evantas]

You could try a core built around 3 Ballistas + Lord Ordinator, and the 6 Dracolines. 

I'd also go with a block of 20 sequitors as those still work well with Staunch Defender. 

That would mean that you need to buy a box of liberators to fill out the remaining battleline. 

[readercolin]

There are several ways that you can build out this force.

Option 1 is to build my army:

Celestial Vindicators
Lord-Arcanum (I use dracoline mounted, you don't lose much by going gryph charger though)
Knight-Incantor
Lord-Ordinator
Knight-Heraldor
3x 5 Sequitors
6 Evokitties
4 Ballista's
1 Command point

From what you have, you would be missing the Ordinator, Heraldor, and a ballista.  General gameplan is that you have 3 units of sequitors for screening and objective grabbing, and then 2 strike forces, with the first being the Arcanum + Heraldor + Kitties, and the second being the Ordinator + ballista's.  I'm a big fan of the celestial vindicators, because giving the Evokitties +1 attacks to all of their attacks per command point is just brutal, but if your regular opponents like monsters than Astral Templars is a decent option as well.  I've been building into and playing this list for a bit over a year, and can say that it has the chops to compete with most of the big names.  Is it going to win you a tournament?  No.  But it is probably good enough to let you go 3-2.

Option 2 is to build around your foot evocators and a Sequitor blob, with the gav-bomb

Lord-Arcanum
Gavriel Sureheart
20 Sequitors
5 Sequitors
10 Evocators

This list gives you 1350 points and 2/3 of your battleline units.  How you want to fill out the rest of your list is up to you, but the idea would be to drop Gavriel and use him to either get all 10 evocators into combat to blend whatever they hit, or to get the blob of 20 sequitors into combat.  This list used to be decent, but it has fallen out of favor recently with all the fight-first/last shenanagins.

Option 3 is to go all out with the evocators:

Lord-Arcanum
Knight-Incantor
2x 5 Sequitors
1x 10 Sequitors
6 Evokitties
10 Evocators
Clensing Phalanx

This list has the advantage of you not needing to buy anything.  It is also a 4 drop list.  The idea here would be to try to maximize the power of your evocators and get as many of them into combat as possible.  Additionally, we could drop the 10 block of sequitors down to another 5 block to open up room for something like Gavriel, or another Knight-Incantor, or a Knight-Heraldor.  Alternatively, the Knight-Incantor can be dropped for a different hero as well.  Going the other way, dropping either the evocators or evokitties to a minimum sized unit allows you to max out that squad of sequitors to a 20 squad, which if it is in the phalanx can get buffed by the Evocators to be re-rolling hits, wounds, and saves.  This list is a little more all in, but provided that you learn how to get your evocators into combat, you'll be able to blend many armies without much issue.

As for running Gotrek, I wouldn't advise running him with Stormcast.  The problem is that he is so expensive, and so are the stormcast units as well.  Additionally, none of the stormcast units can really buff him in any way, leaving him to plod slowly towards a target and hope that he can eventually get to and maul an important target.  However, if you insist on running him, I would look to run him with the option 1 army, and just bring him in in exchange for the Heraldor and evokitties, and possibly either fill out a squad of sequitors to 10 or add the 2nd Knight-Incantor.  This will leave the army much slower, but the ballista's will at least be able to force people to get closer to Gotrek so he can slaughter them.

[NauticalSoup]

Thanks for all the guidance!

I will probably run Gotrek occasionally because, to be honest, I like him more than I like the Stormcast and a major motivation to not just sell the SCEs I won was that they could work as an Order shell to run him in. But for games where I want a coherent functional force not hobbled by my favourite dwarf it is good to have some direction, and those list options all seem very manageable to reach with only a handful of added miniatures.

Now I've just got to get painting!